Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

mon, found means to flourish in the midst of continual hostility, and filled the annals of two centuries with their impertinent battles."

These facts, taken in connexion with the history and condition of Italy since the sixteenth century, are to be deemed an important accession to the mass of inductive proof in favour of popular government as the most fruitful source of national prosperity. We, as American citizens, may contemplate such results with a double confidence in the future, since our institutions, besides combining all the beneficial principles and tendencies of the republican systems of Italy, provide the safe-guards for civil liberty which they wanted. The Italians were protected in their persons, property, honour and opinions, by no direct guarantees, no formal legislation-they were secure in these points only so far as such security was incidental to their fundamental maxim of the sovereignty of the people, and to the eligibility of numbers to the supreme power. Their political magistrates were elected by the citizens at short intervals, and responsible to them at the expiration of the prescribed term of authority: but this authority had no precise limitations; the freedom of the press and of public debate, and all regular representation were equally foreign to their ideas and practice. Hence the domestic oppression and disorders which proved fatal to their liberty and national independence.*

We are inclined to yield assent to the opinion of Eustace that these Italian Republics of the middle ages may sustain, in nearly all respects, an advantageous comparison with the states of Greece; and that the history of the former is quite as eventful and instructive. Florence has annals so brilliant; exhibits relics of her meridian, so imposing; can unfold such a list of titles to the gratitude and admiration of the world; is seen at the commencement of the 16th century in such a blaze of genius-with such a galaxy of magnanimous patriots, profound philosophers, and elegant scholars, that in surveying her under all aspects, we are as much dazzled, as by the glories of Athens.

The commonwealth in which the greatest number of citizens may hope to get into the administration of affairs, will ever be the most active and intelligent, and on the whole, the most ably administered. Florence exemplified this truth. Her councils were renewed by lot every two months, from a list consisting entirely of merchants and tradesmen--Of the eighty thousand inhabitants whom she numbered in the days of her freedom, two or three thousand were thus called in quick succession to the first offices of state. Notwithstanding the rapidity of the rotation, and the de

*The world may not have seen an essay by the author of the Italian Republicks, in which the distinction between the liberty of former states, and the signification attached to that word by the happier constitution of England, is ingeniously developed.' Notes to Canto iv. of Childe Harold.-We have in our hands the able essay here mentioned, and shall take an opportunity of dwelling upon the theory of the ancient, and Italian republicks, in reference to the "happier constitution' of the United States, which Sismondi has overlooked.

scription of the incumbents, they conducted affairs,' says Sismondi, with such wisdom, dignity, and firmness as to secure to their republic a rank among the powers of Europe out of all proportion to her share of population and wealth; they gave lessons of prudence and justice to the cabinets of kings and the senates of aristocracies.' Might not this example teach the folly of that contempt which is too commonly entertained or affected in Europe, for the government of this country, on the ground of its being composed of bourgeois?

Our American traveller makes a quick transition from Florence to Rome. The desert and mephitic campagna checked his enthusiasm as he drew near to the eternal city, but he soon caught, when arrived, the inspiration which the glorious shrine radiates, as it were, for every true pilgrim. He gives an interesting account of his particular situation and feelings, when he found himself, at twilight, alone and unknown, carried by the crowd down the Corso, a narrow, dark street, which is the fashionable promenade of the Romans. One is inclined to smile in thinking of the difficulty which tourists have in breaking the ice in their account of Rome. We have before us the travels of a Mr. Sass, whose exordium is as follows. Rome!-The subject is so overpowering that I know not how to begin; my mind is distracted by a thousand different thoughts.-But I have seen St. Peter's-St. Peter's! contemptible-St. Peter's cannot bear a comparison with the ruins of ancient Rome, &c.' Our countryman gets over the difficulty with but one exclamation, and soon sets out with a vasi in his hand and a cicerone at his elbow' to survey the hallowed ruins, and the wonders of a city which he represents truly to be the queen of all others, as respects the architectural beauty of her edifices, and particularly the magnificence of her churches. We can easily pardon him for being here absorbed by the remains of antiquity, and the chefs d'œuvre of the fine arts. There are few men of classical education, who, at Rome, can attend to her present con

cerns.

The city has a population of not more than 160,000, and is said to occupy about one third only of the scite of the mistress of the world. In the inhabited quarters,' says Forsyth, you will find palaces and churches, columns, obelisks, and fountains, but you must cross the capitol or strike off among the mounts, before the genius of ancient Rome meets you amid its ruins.' One of the first inconveniences of the modern city, which strikes travellers, is the absence of cleanliness, a virtue which would seem to prevail scarcely any where in Italy. Our countryman speaks of his having passed through a succession of narrow and dirty streets

* A journey to Rome and Naples performed in 1817-by Henry Sass, student of the Royal Academy of Arts. The book is puerile, and the author resembles Morris in Rob Roy, from his incessant horrors about being way-laid. His narra. tive proves, however, that the condition of the Papal aud Neapolitan States, the last year, was truly frightful as to the prevalence of high-way robbery and

murder.

[ocr errors]

on his way to the capitol. Forsyth tells us-" whatever road you take, your attention will be divided between magnificence and filth; and the objects which detain you longest are almost inaccessible from ordure." The Count de Stendhall makes the same complaints. Rome and its inhabitants,' says Mr. Sass, are worse, in respect to dirt than any Italian city, except Naples. The principal fault seems to be a want of care in their own persons, and a neglect in their houses of the use of water, which is seldom or never employed.-The consequence is, that no place is free from vermin. The rooms of the Farnese palace are in so foul a state as to make one shudder in passing through them.'

The most populous part of ancient Rome is now but a landscape. According to Forsyth, Mount Palatine, which originally contained all the Romans, is inhabited only by a few friars. How impressive and graphical is the same author's picture of Vespasian's amphitheatre, that mighty structure in which fifty thousand spectators could find seats. As it now stands, the Coliseum is a striking image of Rome itself:-decayed-vacant-serious-yet grand:half gray and half green-erect on one side, and fallen on the other, with consecrated ground in its bosom-inhabited by a beadsman; visited by every cast; for moralists, antiquaries, painters, architects, devotees, all meet here to meditate, to examine, to draw, to measure and to pray.'*

Our countryman remarks, as all strangers are disposed to do, upon the comparative dreariness, and solemnity of the 'lone mother of dead empires.' The superb mansions of the Italian nobility have a solitary and melancholy air.-The delicious villas that surround Rome exhibit the unsubstantial nature of human enjoyments; their possessors appear to have fled away in quest of more tumultuous pleasures. Rome, where every object invites to reverie and thought, would be insupportable to one who had only breathed the atmosphere of Paris.' This last observation is exemplified in the case of the Parisian dilettante-Count de Stendhall, who avows his feelings with characteristic naiveté.- Every thing here at Rome marks decline; all is recollection; all is dead; -for active life we must go to London or Paris. One of those days that I am altogether attuned for sympathy, I would be at Rome, but residing there plunges the soul into a sort of stupor. There is nothing like alacrity; nothing like energy to be seen, every thing drawls and languishes. The most important news at Rome is that Camoccini has just finished a picture. In truth, I prefer infinitely the active life of the north, and the bad taste of our humble dwellings.'

Yet the Count found many theatres in the stupifying city, with much good music in them, and Forsyth says that in no part of Italy are the conversazioni more elegant, more various, or more

* And Lord Byron

My voice sounds much—and fall the star's faint rays
On the arena void-seats crushed-walls bow'd-
A ruin-yet what ruin! &c. &c.

free from aristocratical stiffness. Whether general gayety, or literature, or the arts, gaming or music, or politics, or buffoonery be your object, in one house or other you may be gratified every evening. Whatever be your pretensions here they will be allowed. Rome is a market well stocked with the "commodity of good names." Praise you may command even to a surfeit, &c.' This statement is correct, although it does not correspond with the representation of Eustace. It might have served as a caution to our countryman against the general declaration-that the worship of the muses restrains in Rome all except pleasures of an intellectual nature; and that people of figure and fortune who seek there the distractions of a great city, have no other amusement than that of exhibiting themselves in the evening in their carriages upon the Corso. No doubt, however, but that the mere man of fashion or pleasure must find Rome in the end a shocking bore, if it were only on account of the classical mantle and antique rust which cover its exterior.

The best description of this exterior is, unquestionably, that of Eustace, and indeed he has left nothing to be gleaned in relation to any of the monuments of his adored deorum domicilium.' We read, nevertheless, with pleasure, what our countryman has brought together respecting them, and would have satisfaction in quoting somewhat largely from him, if we were not restrained within limits too narrow for the purpose. He has omitted to notice (and who could indicate every treasure in such an inexhaustible repository?) some objects to which we cling with especial reverenceTrajan's column, for instance, that " immense field of antiquities;" -the obelisk in the middle of the Piazza del populo, of red granite, first erected by Sesostris at Hieropolis, and brought to Rome by Augustus:-the sculptured wolf of which Forsyth says object in Rome appeared to me so venerable as this wolf. The Etruscan stiffness of the figure evinces a high antiquity; its scathed leg proves it to be the statue which was ancient at the death of Cæsar, and it still retains some streaks of the gilding which Cicero remarked on it.'*

no

But we must not plunge into the sea of antiquities, and can single out only a few of the prodigies of modern art. The greatest of these the church of St. Peter, has been depicted and celebrated by Eustace in a manner to throw into despair all who would make it a subject of particular description. Our countryman has not been deterred by the gorgeous, panoramic exhibition of his predecessor, from stating his own general impressions, and passing in review some portion of the 'rich marbles' and 'richer paintings' with which the stupendous pile is decorated. The effect of the coup d'œil upon him, is thus given:

* Lord Byron has made it the subject of a magnificent apostrophe in his 4th Canto.

And thou the thunder stricken nurse of Rome,

She wolf! &c. &c.

At the end of the street at the left of the bridge of St. Angelo, the church of St. Peter opened in all its magnificence.

The two great fountains, that murmur perpetually in the piazza, and from which the water is discharged in so gaseous a form, that it mixes with the atmosphere, were encircled with rainbows. Before it an obelisk rose an hundred and thirty feet in height, and the colonnade, on each hand which encloses the piazza, was an object as beautiful, as that to which it lead, was grand and imposing. I ascended the vast steps before the church, and entered its vestibule. The cicerone drew aside for me the curtain that covers the door, and I passed into the interior of the church. I cannot well describe the emotions of awe and delight I felt, at the entrance of this glorious temple. It expelled every ignoble pas sion from the breast, and like the starry expanse, or the boundless ocean, inspired the purest and highest sentiments of the sublime. It is sometime before these impressions are worn off the mind of the visitor, to leave it in a state sufficiently dispassionate, to examine its beauties in detail. After he has surveyed the majesty and proportions of the wonderful dome, suspended four hundred feet above his head, after he is satisfied with contemplating the matchless splendour of the great altar beneath it, he may then proceed to examine in succession, its paintings and tombs.'

Forsyth speaks of St. Peters in rather a more subdued tone of admiration than Eustace, and criticizes with his usual boldness; but it is evident that he can, with difficulty, refrain from overstepping the wariness of his nature, by breaking out into more loquacious raptures. We relish his manner so much, that we must make an extract. The general mass grows magnificently out, iņ spite of the hideous vestry which interrupts it on one side, and the palace which denies it a point of view on the other. The nave is infinitely grand, and sublime without the aid of obscurity; but the eye having only four pillars to rest on, runs along it too rapidly to comprehend its full extent. The cupola is glorious, viewed in its design, its altitude, or even its decoration; viewed either as a whole or a part, it enchants the eye, it satisfies the taste, it expands the soul. The very air seems to eat up all that is harsh or colossal, and leaves us nothing but the sublime to feast on. St. Peter's no where unfolds its dimensions so strikingly as on the roof, where cupolas form streets, which are elsewhere lost to every eye but the bird's, and the dome appears itself one immense temple, encircled with magnificent columns. No architecture ever surpassed, in effect, the interior of this pile when illuminated at Easter by a single cross of lamps. The immediate focus of glory-all the gradations of light and darkness-the fine or the fantastic accidents of this chiaro-scuro-the projection of fixed or moving shadows-the sombre of the deep perspectives-the multitude kneeling round the pope,-the groups in the distant aisles-what a world of pictures for men of art to copy or combine! What fancy was ever so dull, or so disciplined, or so worn, as to resist the enthusiasm of such a scene! I freely abandoned mine to its illu

[blocks in formation]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »