Chapter VI (5)

Pliny mentions the _Sagena_, under the name of Saracenic millet, as a thing which came from India, and was first brought into Italy in his own time. Herodotus speaks of its cultivation by the Babylonians. The Saracens used it in the fourteenth century for making bread, as do the Lucchese to this day; it is, however, lightly esteemed, and not used at all when other corn abounds, but thrown into the hencoop to fatten poultry. It is a beautiful thing to see the high jungle of this most elastic plant bending to the breeze, and displaying, as it moves, its beaded top, looking at a distance like so many flowers; but, when seen nearer, exhibiting _racemes_ (on highly polished stems) of small pedunculated berries, in mitre-looking capsules. When the seed has been shaken from the plant, the tops are brought together, and form those excellent besoms which, throughout southern Europe, supply the place of birch-broom, than which they are more elastic, not so brittle, and much cleaner. The ultimate fibrils of this plant are sometimes sold in little bundles for the purpose of being slit, and receiving the small Neapolitan firework called _gera foletti_, which scintillates like a fire-fly. Other kinds of millet and pannick are also grown here; care being taken to plant them far from the vine and mulberry, as they make considerable demands on the soil. Rice is said to have constituted the sole aliment of the republicans of early Rome, and it is still largely cultivated in many parts of Italy. In the low-land about Viareggio, it monopolizes the ground almost as much as the Grand Turk in the more interior parts of the country.

LUPINS

Lupins are largely cultivated, both for their own intrinsic value, and to induce the growth of other plants. "We are bitter," say the Lupins in an Italian work on agriculture; "but we enrich the earth which lacks other manure, and by our bitterness kill those insects which, if not destroyed, would destroy our successors in the soil. You owe much, O husbandmen! to us Lupins."

HEMP.

Invaluable plant--pride of intelligent agriculture--that tendest thine own fibre--and strength to him that rightly cultivates thee--and constitutest the greatest element of mechanical power! What does not England--the world itself--owe to that growth which we now contemplate! Armies are encamped within thy walls--thou towest forth the ship of discovery on her venturous way, and carriest man and his merchandise to the Equator and to the Pole! Vain were the auspicious breeze unless it blew upon thy opening sails; and what were the sheet-anchor, but for that cable of thine which connects it with the ship. Vegetable iron! incomparable hemp! Extemporaneous memory can scarcely follow thy services. Talk of the battering-ram--but what propelled it forward? The shot, whizzing in the teeth of adverse winds, carries thy _coil_ to snatch the sailor from the rock where he stands helpless and beyond aid from all the powers or productions of man and nature but thine! Thy ladder, and thine alone, can rescue from the house on fire! Look at the fisheries all over the world--the herrings of Scotland and the cod of the Baltic might defy us but for thee. What were wells and windlasses without thee? useless as corkscrews to empty bottles. Thou art the strong arm of the pulley and the crane. Gravitation itself, that universal tyrant, had bound all things to the earth but for thy opposition. The scaffolds were thine from which grew the _Colosseum_, and the Pyramids have arisen in thine arms. The kite of science, which went cruising among thunder-clouds to bring down to a modern Prometheus the spark which ignites the storm, was held by fibres of thine. The _diver_ and the _miner_ cling to thee for safety, and they that hunt the wild-bird's egg on the sea-shaken cliff, as they swing over the frightful abyss. With the lasso the bold Matador, like the _Retiarius_ of the ancient arena, makes the cast that is for life. Then the fine arts!--Carrara sends her block for the Laocoon by aid of thine; and what were all the galleries in Europe but a collection of gilt frames, but for thy backing and support. By thy subserviency alone (for what were _panel_ or _laminated copper_ for such gigantic works?) did Raffaelle bequeath so many legacies of his immortal genius. It is the strength of thy fibres that is the strength of the loaded supper-tables of Paul Veronese; and the velvets, the furs, the satins of Titian and Vandyke, are quilted upon thee. Nor disdainest thou to render to man, who bruises thee to try thy virtue, a thousand humbler services. Thou preservest our horses from flies, our fruit from birds; and who has not felt how thou cheerest the weary length of continental travelling, by the crack of thy whipcord at the approach of a new relay?

Here our friend _Anamnesis_ seemed fatigued, as if he thought he had spun a sufficiently _long yarn_ on the subject; so we prevailed on him to prosecute the walk, as evening was beginning to close in--not, indeed, without apprehension that he would make a stand at several other interesting plants on which it might suit him to prelect!

Hemp, when cut, is left to dry for a week; it is then immersed for an other week in water; after which it is flayed of its skin--a process which is conducted either by the hand, leaving the stem in this case entire; or by subjecting the whole plant to a bruising process, conducted by a machine.

Besides the above-mentioned grain, the ground produces plenty of vegetables, but of an inferior quality, as are all Italian fruits, and most of the leguminous productions also, from want of care. Even as to flowers, you would find it difficult to make up a bouquet, unless of ferns, which here abound. The only cultivated flower, except a few dahlias and sunflowers, are the yellow petals of the lucchini, a kind of vegetable marrow, which creeps and creeps till its twisted tendrils and broad leaves occupy, by continual encroachment, the whole field where they germinate. Besides the _fruit_ of this plant, which we begin to be supplied with about August, its young leaf and stalk are boiled like kail for common greens; and its yellow flower, a little later, makes a _frittura_, which is in request. Fruits are plentiful, and some of them good; but, for the greater part, of a very inferior quality. Strawberries, and particularly raspberries, (_lamponi_,) are found throughout the season; which, commencing with these, and a scanty supply of currants and gooseberries, (the latter very poor indeed, and the first quite inferior to our own,) brings us fine figs of many species and in vast quantities. Apples and pears have their kinds, and many distinctive names, but are without flavour. The great supply of the raspberry and small Alpine strawberry is about midsummer The next-door-hood of all the _Scotch_ families is now fragrant, "on all lawful days," with the odour of boiling down fruit for jams and marmalades for winter consumption. As autumn comes on, heaps of watermelons, piled like cannon-balls under the chestnut-trees, display their promising purple flesh, and look cooling and desirable, but are not to be attempted twice under penalty of gastric inconvenience. Plums and nuts abound, and are followed by a second course of hard, unripe, and tasteless nectarines and peaches. The season is closing fast, for the prickly pods of the ripening chestnut now begin to gape, and the indifferent grapes of the district attain their imperfect maturity, and are gathered for the wine-press. September is in its last week, and in less than another month we must all migrate somewhere for the winter. The baths, on the 15th of October, are quite empty.

TREES.

A good walnut-tree is as good to a poor man as a milk-cow. "I would not sell either of those walnut-trees in my garden for thirty scudi a-piece," said a peasant to us; and, observing that we looked as if we would not like to tempt him, asked us if we had seen the large walnut-tree of _Teraglia_, (we had, and had _pic-nicked_ very nearly under it,) "because," added he, "the proprietor of _that_ tree refused sixty _scudi_ for it last week, _e ha ragione_, for it is a nonpareil. A good tree like those in my garden yields me eight _sacks of shelled fruit_ on an average every year; and a sack of walnuts fetches from a scudo to ten pauls (four shillings and sixpence) in the market. So that my trees, between them, bring me in one hundred and sixty pauls (_i.e._ L4 English) every year." Indeed! and the chestnut-trees opposite? Oh! in this land of chestnut-trees we don't pay _prezzi d'affezione_ for them--a good tree standing in the _plain_ may cost about eight or ten scudi, and may yield about four sacks of shelled fruit in a good year; but it is a capricious tree even in the _plain_; while those on the _mountain_, the roots of which derive a precarious subsistence from the uncertain soil, are liable to be blown down, and are made pollards of at an early age to prevent this mishap; also, they are frequently burned down by bonfires kindled under them to destroy the furze. The chestnut shoot is only four years old before it begins to bear. Three pounds of fresh chestnuts fetch about one penny--_dried_, or in flour, about double that price. The peasants bake a little cake of the chestnut flour called "_netche_," about the thickness of a crimpet, and having much the flavour and appearance of potato scones. This paste they bake between two hot stones, with a couple of the leaves of the chestnut (dried for the purpose by the peasants) interposed. The baking takes scarcely a minute, and the cakes are then piled and packed, and sent far and wide. The arms and the tops of the chestnuts are made into charcoal, so that no part of this important tree is lost. We are here in the very midst of forests of chestnut only--far as the eye can reach in every direction, and as far as vegetation will go up every mountain side, its grateful green forms a pleasing contrast to those gloomy frequenters and favourites of the mountain, the sombre pine and dusky olive.

Several fine-sized olive-trees were shown to us for sale, and said to be good fruit-bearers, (no olive bears fruit under ten years,) for twenty-five scudi per tree. These trees were computed to yield about two and a quarter to three sacks of berries; whereof every sack yielded a profit of three scudi for one hundred to one hundred and ten pounds of oil, which represents about the quantity generally expressed. In retail, Lucca oil, at the present moment, is about one paul, and olives about three farthings per pound.

OAKS.

We observe three kinds of oaks which here both flourish and abound. The _Farnia_, the _Querci_, and the _Leccio_--the last evidently a corruption of Ilex. The first kind grows with amazing rapidity; in twenty years it is a head and shoulders above all the other trees which began life with it. It has very long acorns, which are less astringent than those of either of the other trees, and very much preferred by pigs. A common oak felled for ship timber costs, where it stands, from ten to fourteen scudi, and they are in great request for the Leghorn market.

INSECTS.

Insects do not greatly abound in the neighbourhood about Lucca. Even the mosquito winds his horn less frequently in our valley, than his universality elsewhere would lead you to expect. Our beds are free from bugs, and fleas are not very troublesome. Of the out-of-doors insects, those which live upon the vegetable kingdom are not very numerous, nor of much variety. The _Cassida_, who rejoices in lettuce, brings up his family in other districts where the lettuce abounds. Wanting the tamarisk, we miss our little _Curculio_, who thrives upon its leaves; and the _Bruchus pisi_, for want of peas, is frequently caught in the bean-tops. But the republican armies of ants are immense, and the realm of bees is uncircumscribed; as no birds of prey, neither the audacious robin, nor the woodpecker, tapping away on the hollow beech-tree, diminish their hordes. But if the fowls of the air be few, the nets of entomologists abound. _Slaters_ of an immense kind, and spotted, and small mahogany-coloured _Blattidae_, are found under stones, which also conceal hordes of predatory _beetles_ and _scorpions_, which bristle up at you as you expose them; and nests of tiny _snakes_, that coil and cuddle together, from the size of crowquills to the thickness of the little finger. During June and July, the monotonous _Cicadae_ spring their rattles in the trees around, and one comes at last even to like their note, in spite of its sameness. A little later, flies and wasps send their buzzing progeny into our dining-rooms, to tease us over our dessert, like troublesome children: at the same period, some of the larger families of _Longicorns_ abound, and one of them, _Hamaticherus moschatus_, musks your finger if you lay hold of him. In the July and August evenings, fire-flies scintillate on a thousand points around you, and swarm along the hedges, lighting each other to bed, till about midnight, which is their curfew; for you seldom meet one of these lantern-bearers later, though you may still, in returning from a late party, be stopped with momentary admiration at beholding a magnificent glow-worm burning her tail away at a great rate, and lighting up some dark recess unvisited by star or moon, herself a star, and giving sufficient light to enable you to read the small print of a newspaper a foot off! But who shall attempt to describe his first acquaintance with the fire-fly! We have seen birthday illuminations in London and in Paris; we have seen the cupola of St Peter's start into pale yellow light, as the deepening shadows of night shrouded all things around; we have seen the Corso, on _Moccoletti_ night, a long fluctuating line of ever renewed light, from the street to the fourth story--an illumination _sui generis_, and "beautiful exceedingly;" but noise and confusion are around all these as you approach them. But, oh! to plunge suddenly into an atmosphere filled with _Lucciole_ in the quiet gloaming of an Italian sky, amidst the olive groves and plantations of Indian corn, with no noise but the drowsy hum of the huge _stag beetle_, (the only patrole of the district,) or the yet fainter sounds of frogs complaining to each other of the sultriness of the night, or the monotonous hymn, at the peasant's door, addressed to the Virgin! Your first impression is unmixed delight--your next, a wish probably that you could introduce the fire-fly into England. Could one empty a few hatfuls along Pall-Mall or Bond Street, on opera nights, what an amazement would seize the people! We swept them up into the crown of our hat, and could not get enough of them; then we set them flying about our room, putting out the lights and shutting the shutters; and then we caught them, and began to look more closely at the sources of our delight, and to examine the acts and deeds of these wonderful little creatures. As to the light itself, we soon perceived that, in reality, the fire-fly emitted it from _two sources_; for, besides his _steady_ light, which never varied, there came, we saw, at intervals, flicks or sparks of far greater brilliancy, like the revolving light of the beacon on the sea-shore, only that the light here was never wholly eclipsed, but merely much abated. We soon perceived, too, that those sudden jets of light came and went at vastly IRREGULAR intervals; sometimes in very quick succession, sometimes less frequently--from which observation, we concluded that this dispensation of his rich endowment did not proceed from any motion of the _fluids_ in the animal economy, analogous to our own circulation--it being far too irregular and inconstant to depend on any such regulated movement. On removing the head of a _Lucciola_, this intermitting light _immediately_ ceased; but the other--the permanent, steady, and equable light--remained unchanged, and was not extinguished for from _sixty to seventy hours after the death of the insect_, unless the body was immersed in oil or alcohol, which extinguished it presently. We found, that though oil and alcohol quickly extinguished the light, it became suddenly much brighter when fading, by plunging the insect into hot water; but we did not find that it could be restored when it had once _entirely_ ceased, by this or any other means, as some French naturalists have affirmed; and as to its exploding a jar of hydrogen, as others have written, we disbelieve it, because the temperature of the insect is far too low. We think, then, for the present, that there are two distinct repositories, or two different sources, of light in the fire-fly; and that while _one_ depends on the _head_, and is a strictly _vital phenomenon_, the other is altogether independent of any physiological law of the nervous or circulating system.

* * * * *

We have a great respect for _ants_; but we do not go the length of some of their historians, or believe them to be, any more than ourselves, _infallible_. We have seen a laborious ant (_magni Formica laboris_) tugging a snail-shell (for some reason only known to himself) up a hill, stopping to take breath, and going cheerily to work again till he had nearly accomplished his ascent, and found himself on the very edge of its summit. Here he has been surrounded by friends, officious busy-bodies, who, _intending_ no doubt to help him, have got _into_ the shell, in place of lending him a hand, till their added load was too much, and the unfortunate ant has been obliged to loose its hold and let them go, shell and all! Then off they would send, very much frightened no doubt at the overturn; while he, having remained stationary a moment as if to watch its results, takes his resolution, and proceeds on his journey without his load. In brushing the grass for insects, we have constantly found that the ants, _with their mouths full_, fight with each other, or with their brother captives, and are quite unaware of their bondage. For while most other insects, on opening the net, are glad to escape by flying or leaping, these will remain as if to secure their booty, and turn even misfortunes to account. Often have we watched their battles, which are battles indeed!--battles, in which every man of them seems to think the day depends on his own courage and activity. We have never been able to make out which were the best battalions of these variously coloured troops; for all of them fight to the death, and _show no quarter_. We have seen on some large tree the ants running up and down, and picking off individual enemies from a horde of smaller kind and reddish colour below. We have occasionally knocked off one or two of the giants, who, falling alive into the midst of their enemies, were surrounded, spread-eagled, trampled upon, and either lacerated to death, or killed by their own _formic acid_, in a very short space of time indeed. We have seen all this and marvelled; but we were never sufficiently in the confidence of either the invaders or the invaded to know their motives for fighting. It could not be for territory, for they had all the world before them; it could not be for food, for they were full.

We never could make out why flies seem _fond of walking over dead spiders_; for we will not impute to them our unworthy feelings of enduring hatred and hostility. That insects had no brains in their heads to direct and guide their progressive movements, or form focuses for their passions, had long ago to us been plain. Besides all that we once committed ourselves by writing on the subject, we have done many other cruel things; such as dividing insects, (whether at the union of the head with corselet, or of the corselet with the abdomen,) and we have found that the segments to which the members were articulated carried on their functions _without the head_. The Elytra would open the wings, and the legs would move, as by association they had moved in the perfect insect. The guidance of the head was destroyed, yet the legs pushed the abdomen and corselet on; so that a disapproving friend had to _divide_ his sympathy, and to _feel for each of the pieces_. And what appeared to us worthy of remark was, that whereas, when a snake was decollated, it was only the tail that continued to wriggle--when a _worm_ was divided, _all_ the segments writhed in the same way, and manifested an equal irritability; showing the difference between creatures of annulated structure, according as they have or have not a _brain_. A new argument against the brain as the organ of sensation, was afforded to us by the conduct of many insects of voracious propensities. We took _locusts_ and _grilli_; we held them by their wings, and we presented them _with their own legs_ for dinner; and on our veracity we can affirm, that on no single occasion did the animal fail to seize his foot; and having demolished the toes and the tibia, with all the meat upon it, proceed to demolish up to the very end of the _trochanter_! Nor were they more tender of their own _antennae_, of which, when we had duly convinced a sceptical friend, he exclaimed--It _seems impossible_; but _there is no doubting the fact_!

Insects (who would have thought it?) lose a great deal by insensible transpiration; from one-tenth to one-quarter of their whole weight, as we have abundantly ascertained by series of experiments, for which we have the tables to show. A very interesting fact respecting the difference of irritability of insects from that of the higher animals, is this: the temperature of man and the mammalia is in health always the same, and varies very inconsiderably in disease. _External_ heat and _external_ cold do not produce a blood, in man, warmer at the equator than at the pole. This is not the case with insects, whose mean temperature may be about 80 deg.; but the thermometer inserted into their bodies may be made to _rise_ or _fall_ by bringing any cold or warm body in contact with their external surface. You may thus sink the temperature of an insect to 50 deg. or raise it to 100 deg., and the insect continue alive. This is a very curious fact, and shows the inaccuracy of Hunter's description or definition of _life_--"That it was _that_ which _resisted_ the physical agency of cold and heat." Insectorum duorum (e genere Cantharidum) in coitu deprehensorum, extincto a nobis uno, alterum per dies plures, nullo alio quam organorum sexus vinculo sibi adstrictum, amicae suae corpus sursum et deorsum trahentem, mirantes vidimus!--_Spanish_ flies, you exclaim!--as if he had not taken a dose of his own powder; but after the joke is over, we think this is another _poser_ for the advocates of insect intelligence. We found that if either of two insects was destroyed in coition, that state was not interrupted for two or three days. The insects on which are observed this remarkable circumstance, were the _Cantharis oclemero_, and some others. Spanish flies, you will say? That accounts for it; but at present we are not mystifying our indulgent readers.

SHOOTING FISH.

Long before the middle of September we are frequently startled, before we have proceeded a hundred yards, by the popping of guns amongst the vineyards and chestnut woods, but more frequently in the direction of the stream that winds along our valley--and the sight of one or two of the chasseurs on the road may well surprise any not accustomed to the sports of the Lucchese.--Here are two of them, each with a gun on his shoulder, coming up the stream. One has shot three four-ounce dace, which dangle by his side; the other has a bag full of _small fry_, shot as they frisked about in shoals near the water's edge! an ounce of _sand_ exploded to receive about the same amount of fish! The man who has shot the dace is proud of his exploit, and keeps turning them round and round to gauge their dimensions, as if they were partridges! Don't think, however, they have killed off all the fish of the stream. Besides that string of four-ounce dace, we have every now and then a sample of barbel and trout. One man has purchased the monopoly of the fishery within two miles, and for which he pays twelve crowns by the year. He sells his trout at two, and two and a half, pauls per pound, and we should have thought that he made a good thing of it; but they lose their fish: the torrents come and empty the holes, and they have nothing for it but to stock them again--an event which, he assured me, frequently took place. Besides, fly-rods and flies have been introduced by an English shopkeeper, and there is no legal provision against them.

OWLS.

There comes a man with an owl in a basket and another tied by the leg on a pole covered with red cloth; another accompanies him with a bundle of reeds, through which a rod runs, smeared all the way down with birdlime. This apparatus he disposes on a hedge or cover of any kind--the little owl (_Civetta_) sits opposite on his pole--the birds come to tease him, and fly on the birdlime twig, when, if it be a sparrow, he is effectually detained by the viscus only--if a blackbird, pop at him goes an old rusty gun. "We sometimes catch twenty tomtits before breakfast," said a modest-looking sportsman, modestly, but not shamefacedly, showing us one thrush and one linnet.

An image-man told me to-day, that after the trade for classical models--Apollos and Venuses--had gone out, and nobody would buy, _Tam o' Shanter_ and _Souter Johnny_ operated a good _revival_ of the fine arts for several months. How much, then, the models from the antique, do towards improving our taste! and how absurd to set up institutions with the expectation of making the populace other than the gross, unideal, matter-of-fact thing it is, and always was, no doubt, even in Athens itself!

THE IMPROVISATORE.

We heard one of these monsters last night. The arena for his exhibition might, but for the known liberality of society, be thought objectionable--being none other than the English place of worship. But _tout est sain aux sains_--or _aux saints_, if you please. Charity covereth many sins; and if there be a place upon earth where charity reigns, it is at what you call _watering-places_. Pindar was right, [Greek: ariston men hudoz]. If we were enquired of, and propitiated by a fee, as to the effects of the waters here, we should give it as our opinion that they act directly on the _picrochole_, or bitter principle of bile, and carry it, soft as milk, through the duodenal passages. Our Improvisatore has, we understand, been six times _painted_, (we know not what saloons are so fortunate as to possess his portrait,) but we believe he has not been described. When we saw him, his hair danced wildly over his shoulders, as if electrified: he had a quick eye, and wore enviably well-fitting ducks: his neck, besides supporting his head and all its contents, supported an inextricable labyrinth of gold chains; from every buttonhole of his waistcoat the chains they came in, and the chains they came out, like the peripatetic man on the Boulevards who sells them: his gloves, well-fitting, and buttoning at the wrist, were of the whitest kid, and grasped a yet whiter and highly-scented cambric: his boots shone bright with varnish, and his face with self-complacency. As the room filled, he went round, giving the girls permission to write _subjects_ on bits of waste (wasted!) paper, which set them _thinking_ at a great rate. Presently, a second circuit round the room, to collect the orders payable at sight--a title such as the _Lucciola_, _Italia_, _The Exile_, _Woman's Love_, _Man's Ingratitude_; after which he proceeds to fold up and puts them into a large glass vessel. Presently a small hand, properly incited, dives down for a second into the interior of the vase, and brings up, between two of its fair, round, turquoise-encircled fingers, the scrap of paper. Its pretty owner blushes, and timidly announces, "Bellini's Tomb;" _Bellini's Tomb_ is buzzed about the room. At this juncture the Duke, who has been _expected_, sends a messenger to announce that we are not to wait for him--a sly fellow the Duke! The bard now concentrates himself for inspiration, but begs us to talk on, and not mind him. While he waits for the _afflatus divinus_, and consults the muses--and in fact his eyes soon begin to betray _possession_--he passes his hand over his parturient forehead, while the _os magno sonaturum_ is getting ready; the labour-pains are evidently on him; he hurls back his hair, and fixes his eyes upon the moon, (who has been looking at _him_ for several minutes through the window opposite.) Full of her influence, and not knowing there is such a place as Bedlam in the world, he starts upon his legs, makes two or three rapid strides up and down the room, like a lion taking exercise, or a lord of council and session in Scotland preparing to pronounce sentence, and means to be delivered (mercy on us!) exactly opposite our chair! All are attentive to the godlike man; you might hear a pin drop: the subject is announced once and again in a very audible voice; the touch-paper is ignited, the magazine will blow up presently! Incontinently we are rapt off to _Pere la Chaise_, where the great composer lies buried, and a form of communication is made to us on this suitable spot, that Bellini is _dead_; then comes, in episode, a catalogue of all the operas he ever wrote, with allusions to each, and not a little vapouring and pathos, while a host of heroes and heroines we never before heard of, is let loose upon us; presently, a marked pause, and some by-play, makes it evident that he sees something, and cannot see what the thing is; he shortly, however, imparts to us in confidence, though in a very low tone, for fear of disturbing it--he sees, he assures us, a female form stealing to the young man's tomb--the form of a widowed lady--who is she? _e la sua madre!_ This was startling, no doubt; though we, or many of us, were like the cat in Florian, to whom the monkey was showing a magic lantern _without a light_, and describing what she ought to have seen. Believing her, however, to be there on such good authority, we were getting very sorry for Bellini's mother, when we were unexpectedly relieved, by finding it was only a bit of make-believe; for it was now divulged, _che questa madre che piangea il suo figlio_, was not in fact his personal mother, but "_Italy_" dressed up _like_ his mother, and gone to Paris on purpose to weep and put garlands on the composer's tomb, amaranth and crocus, and whatever else was in season. Thunders of applause--we hope the new chapel is insured!-for the _assiduo ruptae lectore columnae_ is as old as earthquake in Italy. He now mopped his forehead, and prepared for a new effort. The English girls are already in raptures, and their Italian masters, sitting by, "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm." The next subject which destiny assigned to him, and inflicted on us, was _The Exile_. A nicely manured field or common place to sow and reap on--and what a harvest it yielded accordingly!--the dear friends! the dear native hill! the honour of suffering for the truth! (political martyrdom!) the mother that bore him--(and a good deal besides)--his helpless children! (a proper number for the occasion,)--all these fascinating themes were dwelt on, one by one, till, moved apparently at our emotion, he dropt his menacing attitude, and, mitigating his voice, assumed a resigned demeanour, of which many of his audience had long since set him the example. He began to look down mournfully, whereas he had a minute ago looked up fiercely--a smile, to the relief of the young ladies, stole over his countenance, and having thrice shaken his head to dispel whatever gloomy thoughts might still be lingering there, he carried us to the Exile's return, which brought of course the natal soil and a second service of the mother, sire, and son, with the addition of a dog, a clump of trees, a church, and a steeple. He compresses between his hands the yielding cambric into a very small space, his body is fixed, his legs are slightly apart, his head wags, like a wooden mandarin's, with thoughts too big for utterance, till the moment arrives for the critical start, then, "_Duplices tendens ad sidera palmas_," he becomes quite Virgilian. The unfurled cambric flutters to the breeze of his own creation, and coruscations of white kid and other white materials pass and repass before our eyes. He gives vent to his emotions in tears, after a reasonable indulgence in which, as he cannot (as Tilburina's _confidante_ very properly observes) stay crying there all night, he gradually comes right again. Besides all which, it is eight o'clock, and he has still to _do_, and we to _suffer_, _Napoleon_--whose ashes were just then being carried to Paris, as we had read in all the papers of last week. Glad were we when they reached the _Octroi_, and when the indulgent _Barriere_ passed them with all the honours of the _Douane_. An old lady has twice yawned, and many would follow her example, but that the performer fascinates his audience by staring at them--like the boa at the poor bird in the wood--and frightens them to their seats for a few minutes longer. At length one _resolute_ chair moves; two others are out of the ranks; new centres of movement are establishing; several shawls are seen advancing to the door. The rout is complete, there will be no rally, and the efforts of the artist have been _crowned_ (one hundred and fifty scudi) with success. We meet him every where. He honours our table-d'hote daily, where he stays an hour and a half to bait--after which we see him lounging in the carriage of some fair _compatriote_ with herself and daughters. If we are paying a morning visit, in he comes, "glissarding it" into the drawing-room, and bowing like a dancing-master; nor does he disdain to produce a small book of testimonials, in which the subscribers have agreed to give him a poetic _character_, and compare him to a torrent, to a nightingale, to an eagle, to an avalanche. They who love flattery as a bee loves honey, are all captivated, and almost make love to him. Their albums are rich in the spoils of his poetry, and she is happy who, by her blandishment, can detain him in conversation for five minutes. Yet they own they understand less than half of what he says. Vexed with _one_ to whom we were talking, we thought rationally, for permitting herself to be "so pestered by a popinjay,"--"He _is_ so clever," was the reply; "such an odd creature, too. I wish you knew him. He is in such a strange humour to-night. Do you know he tells me he wishes to marry an English girl? See! he is gone into the balcony yonder to look at the moon." To be sure he was. He came back looking somewhat wild, and, walking in like a modern Prometheus, down he sits, and the new inspiration is presently bespoken for the fly page of virgin scrap-book. Smoothly flows the immortal verse, without care, correction, or halt, for the lines are the result of power that works unerringly, (Pope _blotted_ most disgracefully,) and goes right _ahead_. The precious _morceau_ is concluded, and the improvisatore's name appears in a constellation of zig-zags.

TABLES D'HOTES--MR SNAPLEY.

Did you never meet Mr Snapley?--Mr Snapley was the greatest of bores--he bored holes in your self-complacency, and riddled your patience through and through; to put up with him was hard, to put him down was impossible, (your long tolerated nuisance of fifty is always incorrigible.) His bore was surprising considering the smallness of his calibre; like a meagre gimlet, he would drill a small hole in some unimportant statement, and then gather up his _opima spolia_, and march off to the sound of his own trumpet. For instance, on convicting you of assigning a fine picture to a wrong church or gallery, he denied all your pretensions to judge of the picture itself. He had a reindeer's length of tongue, (how often did we wish it salted and dried!) and the splutter of words it sent forth, took off, as often happens, sufficient observation of the miserably small stock of ideas that he had to work upon. He enjoyed, as we all do, the blameless pleasure of dining out as often as he could; when, though he did not consume all the provisions, he would willingly have taken possession of the whole of the talk, (_that_ being his notion of a conversation.) When one had to dine at the same table with him, one contrived to take up a position as remote as possible from the interruption of his thin, wiry, ill-modulated voice--the _false_ suavity of which in saying impertinent things was really so disagreeable, that one would have renounced the society of wit or beauty on the right hand, rather than have been flanked by Mr Snapley on the _left_, and thankfully have accepted the companionship, _pro hac vice_, of the plainest woman or the dullest man of the party, to be only completely out of his reach. Your _soup_ you _might_ take in peace, for he was at this time studying the composition of the party, and the chances of endurance or resistance inscribed on the countenance of the guests; but the moment an opportunity occurred of correcting or cavilling with any of those unprecise and generally unchallenged observations, the interruption of which is at the cost of the quietness of the repast, Mr Snapley's voice was heard! You were too glad, of course, to give up the trifling point out of which he had raised a discussion; but the earliest concession never saved you, nor did you ever afterwards escape the consciousness that he was still hovering like a harpy over the tablecloth, and ready to fall foul of you again. Let the subject be what it might, you had only to make a remark in his presence, and without his permission, to _insure_ its contradiction. "What a needless annoyance in travelling it is for a family to be stopped by douaniers, only to extort money for _not_ doing a duty which would be absurd if _done_!" "Why, really I don't see that," &c. &c. "What a plague it is to send your servant (a whole morning's work) from one subaltern with a queer name, to another, for a lady's ticket to witness any of the functions at the Sistine!" Well, it did appear to him the simplest thing in the world; it was ten times more troublesome to see any thing in London! "What a nuisance it is on quitting an Italian city, to find the passport which has already given you so much trouble only available for _three_ days, leaving you liable to be stopped at the gate, if sickness or accident have made you transgress even _by an hour_!" "Why, it is _your own fault_, it is _so easy_ to get it _vised again_ overnight." All these impertinencies were only [Greek: pidakos ex hieres olige libas]. Besides all this, Mr Snapley was a miserable monopolizer of pompously advanced nothings. He would not willingly suffer any other man's goose to feed upon the common--he cared for nobody but himself, and every thing that was or he esteemed to be _his_--his very joints were worked unlike those of another man--he must have had a set of _adductors_ and _abductors_, of _flexors_ and _extensors_, on purpose. He was stiff, priggish, precise, when he addressed any gentleman with light hair and an _English complexion_; but let him approach any foreign buttonhole with a bit of riband in it, then worked he the muscles of his face into most grotesque expression of interest or pleasure--(_Tunc immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles!_)--and you had a famous display of grimace and deferential civility, in bad French or worse Italian. We have seen him sneering and leering as he made his way round a drawing-room at an evening party, and bowing like a French perruquier to some absurd fool of a foreigner; and we have seen him, a minute after, holding up his head and cocking his chin in defiance, if an English voice approached. When any of us ventured to criticise _any thing foreign_, he was up in arms, and cock-a-hoop for the climate, the customs, the constitution! He sneered awfully at a simple _gaucherie_, but, to make amends, had ever an approving wink for the meanest _irreverence_; any intellect, however feeble, being secure of his praise if it only tried to thwart the end for which it was given. When not _talking_ about himself, which was seldom, he was evidently _occupied_ about his _personel_, with which he was obviously satisfied. If you talked of books, he settled for you, in laconic sentences, works of acknowledged merit--put down men of uncontested superiority--but women of title and tainted reputation, if they would but ask him to their parties, became at once his favourites and his oracles. He cunningly contrives to get a good artist's opinion on works of art, and debits it as his own--a proceeding which makes Mr Snapley _sometimes_ formidable in sculpture and in painting. As to other topics, on which educated men and accomplished women converse, he would fain be as profound as _Locke_ with the one, and as gallant as _Fontenelle_ with the other. For ourselves, who meet him but too often, we would as soon approach without necessity a huxter's mongrel growling under his master's cart, as venture near enough to examine all the small-wares of one who "hates coxcombs," and is the very prince of fops; laughs at pedants, and only wants a _little more learning_ to attempt the character; with whom no repetition of familiar acts can reconcile you, and to whom no number of dinners can conquer your repugnance.----_Did_ you ever meet Mr Snapley? We are sure you must--the Snapleys are a very old family--you may generally know them by the _nez retrousse_, (which our acquaintance, however, had not.) We never knew but _one_ good-natured man with a _nez retrousse_, and he was, if ever man was--a philanthropist. Generally, however, _beware_ of the _nez retrousse_ except in women--you know its interpretation _chez elles_;--and if you do, (on second thoughts,) still beware.

HINTS FOR DOCTORS.

_Esquilias_, dictumque petunt a _Vimine_ collem--JUV.

* * * "I observed a gentleman in black," said our informant, "who seemed to fix me across the table-d'hote, at dinner, in a way which soon showed me I was an object of interest to him. It was very odd! We were not in Austria! I could not have offended the police--nor in Spain, the Inquisition. If I _took_ of a particular dish, his eye was on me again. They _did_ use to _poison_ people in Italy, but it was in the fifteenth century, and all the Borgias were gone! What could it mean? The very waiters seemed to watch the man in black, and signals of intelligence seemed to pass between them as they went their rounds with the dishes. After thus meeting the eye of the unknown at intervals for more than an hour, when the table was beginning to clear, I rose, and limped out of the room as well as my complaints would let me, and was sauntering a few steps from the door, when judge of my terror on turning round, to find him of the black coat at my elbow! "In pain, sir, I see." All my alarm ceased in a moment. It was pure philanthropy which had made me an object of so much interest. "Yes, sir, in great pain." "_You should take care of yourself, sir._ Rheumatic, are you not?" "Very rheumatic." "Well, sir, you have come to the best place in the world for rheumatism. The air, the water, and proper treatment, will soon set you up." "Your report is encouraging; but I have suffered too long to hope much." "Well, at any rate, sir, let us not talk over your interesting case in this heat. Come and put your feet up on a chair in my rooms, and we will drink a glass of soda-water to your better health." What a kind-hearted man I had met with, and how kind Providence is to us! I now ventured to ask him his name. "My name is Dr ----; and now, my dear friend, just tell me your whole case from the very beginning down to now, for I am really interested in you." I told my case. "Put out your tongue." "Brown," we thought we heard him say. "Wrist--pulse not amiss--but you _require care, sir! you require care!_ Clear case for the medicine I gave so successfully last week." Finding myself thus fallen into professional hands _without intending it_, I said something introductory to the mention of a fee. "True, I was _forgetting_ that; when one takes a proper interest in one's case, and hopes to do good, fees are the last thing one thinks of--two scudi if you please." So I found myself immediately booked in a small memorandum-book, and constituted his patient. Now came civil promises to introduce me, &c. &c. &c., and I took my leave delighted. It is almost needless to say, that in a very short time I found that my acquaintance had, like so many more, commenced physician on the soil of Italy. What will become of London if all her apothecaries desert her at this rate? For ourselves, reflecting on the accomplishments of many of these patriotic men, their learning, their modesty, their disinterestedness, we have often had a twinge of the philanthropic extorted by the loss inflicted on our native city--she may come to want a doze of julap, and have nobody to mix it!--and have said to ourselves, as we have looked more than one of these worthies in the face, [Greek: O alein Athenai, Pallados th'orismata, Oion steresesth andros]!

One day after dinner a little bit of gold rolled over the table to the doctor, from a bluff-looking gentleman opposite--it was well aimed--"There, doctor! _there's your fee_; but don't you begin again prating a parcel of stuff to my wife about her complaints--she is quite well--and if you frighten her into illness, take notice, you will get a different sort of fee next time!" All this, half joke, half earnestly, must have been very agreeable to the guests."

PRIVATE MUSIC PARTY.

Let us try to describe the last musical party at which we assisted. A scramble amid piles of unbound music; the right _cahier_ found, snatched up, and opened at the well-thumbed solo with which she has already contended for many a long hour, and now hopes to execute for our applause. Alas! the piano sounds as if it had the pip; the paralytic keys halt, and stammer, and tremble, or else run into each other like ink upon blotting paper, and the pedals are the only part of the instrument which do the work for which they were intended. We should be sorry that our favourite dog had his paw between them and the lady's slipper. The dust which succeeds the concerto proves satisfactorily that it is possible to be frisky without being lively; its vulgarity is so pronounced that it offends you like low conversation. Another concerto follows--ten folio pages! whew!!----Oh, ye ebony and ivory devils! oh, for an exorcist to put you to flight! Cramped fingers are crossing each other at a great rate; we really tremble for the glue, and the pegs, and the wires, and the whole economy of the instrument, at that critical juncture when the performers arrive at a piece of mysterious notation, where a great many tadpole-looking figures are huddled together under a black rainbow. At such a "passage" as this, it seems one would think the house were on fire, and no time to be lost; the black mittens and the white now _Rob-Royishly_ invade each other's territory; each snatches up something and carries it off, like the old marauders of the Border country; and reprisals are made, and lines of discord and dissonance are establishing, which require the police, the magistrate, and the riot act. Bravo! bravo! bravo! and the battle ceases, and the _babble_ commences. Place for the foreign train, the performers _par metier!_ Full of confidence are they; amidst all their smiles and obsequiousness, there is a business air about the thing. As soon as the pianist has asked the piano how it finds itself, and the piano has intimated that it is pretty well, but somewhat out of tune, a collateral fiddler and a violoncello brace up their respective nerves, compare notes, and when their drawlings and crookings are in unison, a third piece of music of indefinite duration, and as it seems to us all about nothing, begins. Our violinist is evidently not long come out, and has little to recommend him--he employs but a second-rate tailor, wears no collar, dirty mustaches, and a tight coat; he is ill at ease, poor man, wincing, pulling down his coat-sleeves, or pulling up his braces over their respective shoulders. His strings soon become moist with the finger dew of exertion and trepidation; his bow draws out nothing but groans or squeals; and so, in order to correct these visceral complaints, a piece of rosin is awkwardly produced from his trousers' pocket, and applied to the rheumatic member, with some half-dozen brisk rubs in a parenthesis of music. The effect is painfully ludicrous!----

I am _sleepy_, _sleepy_, begins the piano! Sleepy, sleepy, _mews_ Mr Violin--very, very, very sleepy, drones the drowsy four-stringed leviathan. Oh, do try if you can't say something, something, something to enliven one a bit! On this hint, the little violin first got excited upon one string, and then upon another, and then the bow rode a hand-gallop over two at once; then saw we four fingers flying as far up the finger-board as they could go, without falling overboard, near the _bridge_--a dangerous place at all times from the currents and eddies--and there provoking a series of sounds, as if the performer were pinching the tails of a dozen mice, that squeaked and squealed as he made the experiment. The bow (like the funambulist with the soles of his slippers fresh chalked) kept glancing on and off, till we hoped he would be off altogether and break his neck; and now the least harsh and grating of the cords snaps up in the fiddler's face, and a crude one is to be applied; and now--but what is the use of pursuing the description? Let us leave the old bass to snore away his lethargic accompaniment for ten minutes more, and the affair will end. The pianist, the Octavius of the triumvirs, thinks it necessary to excuse Signor ----, telling us, "He has bad violin, he play like one angel on good one"--but hisht, hisht! the evening-star is rising, and we are to be repaid, they say, for all we have gone through! Signor * * * is going to play. The _maestro_ advances with perfect consciousness of his own powers; his gait is lounging, he does not mean to hurry himself, not he--his power of abstraction (from the company) is perfect; he is going to play in solitude before fifty people, and only for his own amusement. He placed himself at least a foot from the piano, his knees touching the board, his body rises perpendicularly from the music-stool, his head turns for a moment to either shoulder as if he were glancing at epaulettes thereon, and then he looks right ahead; he neither has nor needs a book; with the wide-extended fingers of both hands, down he pounces, like a falcon, on the sleeping keys, which, caught by surprise, now speak out and exert all their energies. Those keys, which a few minutes ago vibrated so feebly, and spoke so inarticulately, now pour forth a continuous swell of the richest melody and distinctest utterance. The little wooden parallelograms at first seem to be keeping out of their ranks just to see what is going on, till, the affair becoming warm, they can no longer stand it, but grow excited and take part in the general action. Relying fully on the perfect obedience of his light troops, and relaxing a little from his erect attitude of command, he gently inclines his body to the left, leads his disposable force rapidly upwards in that direction, where, having surprised the post against which they were dispatched, he recovers his swerve, and they retrace with equal precision and rapidity their course from the wings to the centre.