Chapter XX: Royal Duties and Interests (3)

“Amongst the acquaintance who came to me with the New Year were the Dutch Minister and Madame de Westenberg, his American wife, from whom I have received much cordiality. Other people with whom I have been intimate are the admirable Swedish Count and Countess Barnekow, the latter especially charming, and full of life and intelligence. The Count has been taking the post of consul here this year, but they have been welcomed in all societies. There is something quite charming in their relation to their children--little girls--and their influence over them. Of these, the second, Elisabet, was compelled at six years old to have her finger amputated. The mother prepared her for it, and told her how terribly it would add to her distress if she did not bear the operation bravely. The child said she could bear it if only they did not tell her it was nothing: she knew it was dreadful, but if no one attempted to deceive her she could bear a dreadful thing. She sat on the surgeon’s knee while the finger was being taken off; she never uttered a sound, and when the operation was over, she kissed him to show she bore no malice!

[294]

“On the 16th of January I went, away with my Prince for a tour in Tuscany. I very soon found that for me the trial of the tour would be his hatred of fresh air. He never would have the carriage window opened, even on the hottest day and with steaming hot-water pans. Otherwise all was luxury, kindness, and comfort. We arrived at Perugia on the most glorious evening I ever remember: violet mists were rolling through the valleys, the snow mountains were rosy in the sunset. It was such a scene as can only be enjoyed in Italy, and in Italy can only be found in Umbria, perhaps only at Perugia. But the Prince was much more interested in an illuminated church where there was a function in honour of S. Mauro. Next day we drove to Assisi, where he was far more delighted at buying a little old silver box in a sidestreet than with all the old churches and monasteries. He travelled under the name of the Comte de Tullgarn, and at Perugia no one found out who he was, which made him very happy. At Florence, however, he was unfortunately discovered, and we found great preparations--two smart carriages waiting at the station, twenty-six candles and three lamps burning in our rooms, with prices in proportion, and a serenade of music outside the windows.

[295]

“Therefore, as soon as we arrived, I began to look up Florentine acquaintance, and called on the charming Marchesa Elisabetta Torrigiani, who lives with her four sons, three of them married, in the greatest harmony, in the fine old Torrigiani palace. We dined with them, and were greatly delighted with the three beautiful daughters-in-law, especially the Marchesa Cristina, wife of Don Filippo, a member of the once-sovereign house of Malaspina. The Marchese Pietro placed his carriage at our disposal. The family of Corsini were also most civil to us, and their head, the Marchesa Lajatico, gave a great ball in honour of the Prince. Other parties were given to us by the Marchesa Cavoni, Baron de Talleyrand, Sir Digby and Lady Murray, and the Fenzis. One evening we spent with the C. de Bunsens, who asked many interesting people, including Sir James Lacaita, Villari the historian, and the old Duc de Dino, to meet us. One beautiful day we drove out to Castagnuolo, where we were entertained in the ancient hill-set villa by the Marchese della Stufa and Mrs. Ross, and the Prince fed all the rare birds, and visited the farm and the wine-making.

“On leaving Florence, the Prince and I had a really happy day together at Pisa. M. de Printzsköld was then sickening with Arno fever, and when we were at Siena was unable to go out with us: with the others we drove to the mediaeval castle of Belcaro, whose owner, the Marchese Camajori, had long been slightly known to me, and wandered much about the old streets and into the shops of the antiquaries.”

* * * * *

We returned to Rome on the 25th. My regular lectures were over then, but as the Prince missed our little parties, I had some for him to the villas and galleries. At this time, as often afterwards, those who surrounded the Prince gave me the opportunity of testing the truth of Lord Chesterfield’s observation, that “courts are the best key to characters; there every passion is busy, every character analysed,” as well as the dictum of La Bruyère, that at court “les joies sont visibles mais fausses, et les chagrins cachés mais réels.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Rome, Feb. 3, 1879._--I feel as if it must be dull reading letters only about the Prince, but as I have not even the possibility of seeing much of any one else, what else can I say? I am obliged to give up everything to his lessons, his invitations, and to trying to help him to make the most of all he sees. He enjoyed Pisa, where I saw the Limosins,[296] and we drove through the forest of San Rossore to the Gombo, where the Prince and I sat long in the warm afternoon upon the little pier above the sea waves, which the dear Mother enjoyed so much there in 1857. I often wonder if she knows what I am doing now, but I feel sure she would be glad and satisfied that so much time should be given up to one who must one day influence tens of thousands. I have many struggles now and much to contend with in the _position_, but with the Prince himself have nothing but satisfaction. I tumbled downstairs on Saturday night, and was so much hurt as to be all yesterday without seeing him: so to-day at eleven the donna announced--‘Un signorino.’ I was sitting for my picture and was afraid of moving, so waited for the visitor to come round from behind my chair, when behold the Prince, who had escaped from his gentlemen, seized a little carriage in the street, and come off to me. I mention this as an example of the ever-pleasant terms I am on with him, and which make it impossible not to be fond of him.

“I am glad you like the Bunsen Memoirs on the whole. I knew you would not agree with details. She always wondered, as I have always done, _how_ those who really love their Saviour, and wish to follow His precepts, can reconcile themselves to setting up the great idol of Sabbatarianism, _the_ sin against which He was most eager and earnest in warning His disciples, and against which more of His teaching was directed than any other single offence. She also thought, as I have always done, that, next to churches (often misused), theatres (also often misused) were instruments which could be made most widely useful in leavening great numbers of people at once; and therefore she considered that an immaculate company and a play of high principles ought always to be encouraged.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 13._--I have had a series of lectures for the Prince in the Vatican galleries and St. Peter’s, and at the latter, by kindness of Monsignor Théodoli, had all the chapels of the crypt illuminated, and the precious plate and vestments (Charlemagne’s robes, &c.) exhibited. We climbed up to the cross, but the ladies of our little party succumbed on the different roofs, except Lady Dunraven, who went with us to the ball.

“On the 4th I was with the Prince at a ball at the Palazzo Caffarelli, the German embassy, which is much done up since Bunsen’s days and exceedingly magnificent. The great hall was entirely surrounded with palm-trees, under one of which I stood, with the Swedish Countess Barnekow, to watch the procession come in and the state quadrille--which Queen Marguerite danced with M. de Keudel, and my Prince with Mme. de Keudel--alone on the long sides of the room, with a perfect tourbillon of ambassadors and ambassadresses at the narrow ends. A much prettier ball was that at Palazzo Caëtani. This the Prince had to open with the Queen, so we had to be there by eleven, but _because_ the King and Queen were to be there, all the great nobles stayed away, so for once Palazzo Caëtani did not shine. The Queen looked lovely, but, ever since the attack on the King, has been more nervous than ever, perpetually picking at her gloves, twisting her fan, and shaking out the folds of her dress. Her beautiful hair was full of marguerites in diamonds. The King looked glaring and demoniacal, yet really is going on very well, and does all he can to sweep away the abuses and immoralities of his father’s court, unpopular as it makes him with his father’s sycophants. Yesterday I was with the Prince at a great ball at Prince Altieri’s--the blackest of the ‘black’ houses--where I had the great pleasure of seeing again my sister’s dear friend the Duchess Sora, who has lived in a sort of exile hitherto, ever since the Sardinian occupation of Rome.

“Yesterday morning I went with the Prince to the antiquity market in the Campo de’ Fiore. We left the carriage in the courtyard of the Cancelleria, and made a raid upon the old bookstalls, till our arms were quite full, and then we deposited our burthens and made another. The Prince is getting on wonderfully with his English, and will talk fluently by the time he reaches London. I see him ceaselessly. He has been twice to my lodgings to-day, and I have been out with him besides. He dances till 4 A.M. every night now (it is Carnival), but is never tired, and up at eight.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 24._--My present work is likely to end for a time on Thursday, when my dear Prince goes to Naples and Sorrento. On looking back, I have unmixed satisfaction that I came. He leaves Rome quite a different person from the Prince I found here--much strengthened, and I am sure much improved in character, as well as speaking and reading English and French (which he did not know before), and being able to take a lively animated part in a society in which he was previously a cypher. Of course, I personally have been able to do very little more than introduce him and constantly throw him with those who have influenced him, and I have been most ably seconded and helped in everything I wished for him by Lady Morton, the Sermonetas, Princess Teano, and--in her own way--by Lady Paget. To me he has been unfailingly pleasant. I have never had a difficulty with him.

“We have been together several times in the Vatican, with Monsignor Pericoli, at the sale of Pius IX.’s things--quantities of things, from valuable pictures and sculptures to empty jam-pots; but touching in many ways, especially the boxes of the well-worn Papal slippers. All is obliged to be sold, as the produce is divided into three parts--one to the family, one to the cardinals-in-waiting, and the third to the Church. The Prince bought some valuable amethysts, and I have the Papal despatch-box engraved with his arms, a picture which hung in his room, and a pair of the Papal slippers.

“For the last ten days we have been in all the dirt and squalor of the silly, filthy Carnival, which is more _mesquin_ and contemptible than ever; but the Prince is only twenty, and it has amused him. I have only been obliged to go with him to the Corso one day, when we went to one-o’clock luncheon with the Dutch Minister, and were astonished to find every shutter closed, chandeliers and candles lighted, ladies in white satin and diamonds, gentlemen in evening dress; in fact, midnight at midday! so that the Prince and I felt rather shy. However, Mrs. Bruce cheered us by appearing in a bonnet.”

* * * * *

I saw much at this time of Madame Minghetti, the wife of the senator, still wonderfully beautiful and captivating, though a grandmother. Her rooms were draped with every possible nuance of colour which can harmonise together, great palm-trees and bananas shaded the sofas and arm-chairs, and the heavy curtains only let in witching rays of half light upon a gorgeous gloom. Here, in her receptions in the early Sunday afternoon, she would sit upon the floor and sing, break off in the middle of a line to receive or embrace some one, and, in an instant, be again in her place, singing as before and taking up the line which was left unfinished.

Another new friend was the pretty lively Princess of Salm Reifferscheid, whom, with her husband, I invited to accompany us to Tivoli, when the Prince gave me a carriage and told me to ask whom I liked. At Tivoli our party had a charming day, riding on eleven donkeys, penetrating into the depths of the cascades, having luncheon in front of the temple, and sitting in the sun opposite the cascatelle. At sunset we were at the Villa d’Este, and went down into the hollow to look up at the grand old villa, golden through the dark cypresses.

I saw, however, comparatively little of those who usually make the pleasure of my Roman winter, and devoted myself to the Prince. There is no use--none--in trying to be, or to do, two things at once.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Here is a story which I have heard lately:--

“Lady Vernon[297] dreamt. She dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, crossing the entrance hall, and she woke with a great start. After a little she composed herself to sleep again, and she dreamt--she dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, on the middle of the staircase, and she woke with a great shock. She got up; she thought she could not be quite well, and she took a little sal-volatile. At last she fell asleep again, and she dreamt--she dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, standing at her bedroom door; and she awoke in a great terror, and she jumped out of bed, and she said: ‘I’ll have an end of this, I’ll have an end of these foolish imaginations,’ and she rushed to the door, and she threw the door wide open. And there at the door _stood_ the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other. And when he suddenly saw Lady Vernon in her white night-dress, with her hair streaming down her back, _he_ was so dreadfully frightened that he dropped the candle on the ground and rushed off down the staircase, and off to the stables where there was a horse ready saddled and bridled, on which he meant to have ridden away when he had murdered Lady Vernon; and he rode away without ever having murdered her at all, and he was never, never, _never_ heard of again.”

* * * * *

On the 3rd of March, a well-known partnership of upwards of sixty years was closed at Rome by the death, in his little apartment at 55 Via Sistina, of William Howitt the author leaving his sweet old Mary[298] alone with her unmarried daughter Margaret. Though never very remarkable, the many books of William and Mary Howitt were always excellent, and the writers were deeply respected. I attended Mr. Howitt’s funeral on the 5th, walking with Mrs. Terry, Baron Hoffmann, and Prince George of Solms, immediately after the daughter and son-in-law. The ceremony was a very touching one, and the coffin buried in wreaths of camellias, lilies, and violets. As William Howitt was a Quaker, the service was different from ours, but hymns were beautifully sung over his coffin in the chapel and at the grave, where the American clergyman, Dr. Nevin, gave a really touching and beautiful address, as the daughter was pouring basket after basket of flowers into the open grave.

I dined with the Prince on the day before that fixed for his departure to Naples. When our last moment together came, he took me into his room and parted from me there, with many most affectionate words, and gave me the Order of St. Olaf, which the King of Sweden and Norway had conferred upon me, begging me to wear it for his sake.[299] I left him with the truest affection, and with, I think, unbounded confidence and regard on both sides.

* * * * *

_From the_ COUNTESS ROSEN.

“_February 23._--As the Prince’s stay in Rome is now drawing to its close, their Majesties charge me once more to express to you their most heartfelt thanks for all your kindness to the Prince, all the good and useful influence you have had over him, and all your arrangements to combine the useful with the amusing in order to kindle his interest. Their Majesties have always been so happy to know that you were at his side and smoothed all his difficulties. In his own letters the Prince shows that he has learnt to love and appreciate you, and is thankful for all you have done for him.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Feb. 28, 1879._--You ask if I was alarmed over my lectures with the Prince, and found them difficult. No, not very. From the first I thought of what Johnson told Sir J. Reynolds, and I tried to do the same. He told him that he had ‘early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company: to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in, and that by constant practice and by never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it had become habitual to him.’ So you see that I have been fortifying myself by wise advice! And I am sure that it is the _way_ in which things are said that fixes them in the mind.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“Fabj. Altini, the sculptor, says Thorwaldsen declared clay to be the life of art, plaster its death, and marble its resurrection.

“Mrs. F. Walker told me how she went out one evening at Freshwater to meet her brother-in-law and niece as they were returning from an excursion along the cliffs. On her way she saw a lady in deep mourning, with a little boy, emerge apparently from a side path to the one on which she was, and walk on before her. She noticed the lady’s peculiarly light step. Mother and son stopped at a little railed-in enclosure at the top of the hill, and gazed over the railings; then they went on again in front of her. At length, beyond them, Mrs. Walker saw Mr. Palmes and his daughter coming to meet her. Between her and them she saw the lady and boy suddenly disappear--apparently go down some side path leading to the sands; but, when she came to the place, there was _no_ path, the cliff was perfectly precipitous. Miss Palmes equally saw the lady and boy coming towards her, and was greatly agitated by their sudden disappearance.

“Afterwards they found that the same sight was constantly seen there. It was the little boy’s grave into which the two had gazed. He had fallen over the cliff just there and been killed, and was buried by his mother’s wish inside that little circular railing.”

* * * * *

The Prince was in Rome for one night on his way from Naples to Munich, I went to him in the early morning, and was with him till 2 P.M., when he left, spending the time in driving about with him, chiefly to the antiquity shops, in which he always had the greatest delight. The very day after he left I fell in with other royalties, of whom at first I seemed likely to see a great deal. I was at the Princess Giustiniani Bandini’s, when the Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Weimar were announced--a very simple homely pair. The lady-in-waiting, hearing my name, most cleverly recollected all about me, and I was presented, and very cordially and kindly received. A few days after, Princess Teano asked me to meet them at dinner. Only the Keudells of the German Embassy and the Minghettis dined besides the family, but an immense party came in the evening. The Hereditary Grand Duke is a weak-looking little man with a very receding forehead. The Grand Duchess (who was his cousin) is a fine big woman--“bel pezzo di carne”--with intense enjoyment and good-humour in everything. “How can anybody be ill, how is it possible that anybody can be unhappy in Rome!” Both talked English perfectly. They arranged then that I should show them the Palatine. But a few days afterwards I heard from the Duchess Sermoneta that the Grand Duchess had said to her that, owing to the furious jealousy of the German archaeologists, she was unable to go with me.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_March 17, 1879._--At Mrs. Terry’s I have met again her sister, Mrs. Julia Ward-Howe, the American poetess. When she wanted me to talk to her and I did not, she said, ‘In your case, Mr. Hare, I must pervert a text of Scripture--“to do good and to _communicate_ forget not.”’

“I have seen much, almost daily, of Lord Hylton’s young son, George Jolliffe, for whom I have an affection ever increased by his confidence in me, which makes me feel more of responsibility as an instrument of possible good in his case than I have ever done in any other. He is a delightful companion in Rome, so full of interest and enthusiasm in all we see.... We went together yesterday to the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, where the old blackened portico was hung with bright tapestry, and the whole staircase and rooms strewn with box, because it was the day on which S. Filippo Neri raised the Massimo child from the dead. Most surprising were the masses of people--cobblers and contadini elbowing cardinals up the long staircase, washerwomen on their knees crowding princesses round the altar. Prince Massimo, in full evening dress, received in the anteroom of the chapel, and the Princess (daughter of the Duchesse de Berri) invited every one she knew to have ices and coffee.

“I went afterwards to Miss Howitt, who talked cheerfully about her father. ‘Rome might possibly not be the place to live in, but it certainly was the place to die and be buried in.’ She spoke of the extraordinary shots made at her father’s life by the English newspapers--how one of them described her mother’s daily walk on the Pincio by the side of a Bath-chair which ‘contained an ancient man,’ &c., the fact being that her mother never walked, that her father always walked, and moreover that there was no Bath-chair in Rome.

“Last night I was at the British Embassy till 1 A.M. I conquered shyness sufficiently to go and talk to the Grand Duchess, though she sat in a row of princesses. The younger Marchesa Lajatico was there--most graceful and charming.”

* * * * *

“_March 20._--A young American drove me to the meet at Centocelle. It was a lovely day of soft scirocco, fleecy clouds floating over the pale pink mountain distances and the Campagna bursting into its first green, across which the long chains of aqueduct arches threw their deep shadows. Crowds of people and carriages were out, but we followed Princess Teano, who knew all the ups and downs of the ground, and drove with young Lady Clarendon so cleverly, that we were in at the death in the great ruins of Sette Basse.”

* * * * *

“_March 21._--Tea with Countess Primoli (Princess Charlotte Bonaparte) in her little boudoir at the end of a long suite of quaint old-fashioned rooms. She talked very pleasantly, but with too constant reference to the Empress and Prince Imperial as ‘my family.’ I went afterwards to see the Favarts at Ville Lante. It is a beautiful place, and the noble face of Madame Favart is worthy of its setting. Consolo was there and played marvellously on the violin, every nerve seeming to vibrate, every hair to leap in unison with his chords.”

* * * * *

“_March 23._--Once more I am on the eve of leaving Rome, more sorry to part with my little winter rooms than I ever expected to be; even my ugly squinting donna, ‘Irene,’ having proved very good and faithful. The time here has been full of interests, independent of royal ones--one of them, the going out to India of Frank Marion Crawford, the son of my dear friend Mrs. Terry. He would probably have done no work in Europe, though he has evinced an ambitious perseverance by voluntarily pursuing the study of Sanscrit--‘because it was so difficult,’ and this has enabled him to accept a vacant professorship in the University at Bombay.”[300]

* * * * *

“_Florence, March 27._--I left Rome on Tuesday--a lovely morning, and I looked my last at the glorious view from the Medici Terrace with a heavy heart.

“Now I am in the old Palazzo Mozzi at Florence, as the guest of the Sermonetas. On the side towards the Via dei Bardi the palace rises up gaunt and grim like a fortress, but at the back it looks into a beautiful garden, with terraces climbing up the steep hillside to the old city wall. The rooms are large and dreadfully cold, but the Duchess has made them very picturesque with old hangings and furniture. The Duke talks incessantly and cleverly. I asked him why his Duchess signed ‘Harriet Caëtani,’ not ‘Sermoneta,’ and he explained how all the splendour of the family arose from the fact that they were Caëtani; that many of the greatest of the old families, such as the Frangipani, had no titles at all: that even the Orsini had no title of place, and that it was only modern families, like the Braschi, who cared to air a title. The oldest title in Italy was that of Marchese, which came in with the French: Duke came with the Imperialists; but the title of Prince, for which he had the utmost contempt, was merely the result of Papal nepotism: Borghese was the first Prince created.

“The Duke declared that the word ‘antimonial’ was really ‘antimonacal.’ The alchemists who lived in the old convents used to throw out of the windows the water which they had used in their search after the philosopher’s stone: pigs drank the poisoned water and died: monks (monaci) ate the pigs and died also: hence the expression.

“The Duke is very adverse to open windows: ‘If I want the air I can go out into the piazza,’ he says. To his relations, for the most part, he greatly objects--‘Questi sono i flagelli di questo mondo.’ A monk or nun, he says, is ‘Un insétto chi puo vivere senza aria a senza acqua.’

“We have been at a large party at the Palazzo Torrigiani, and it has been a great pleasure to see again the many members of the large, pleasant, amiable Florentine society.”

* * * * *

Having undertaken to devote myself exclusively to the Prince Royal had made me give up all my usual employments during this Roman winter of 1878-79. The chief event in my life disconnected with the Prince was my being asked to open the session of the British and American Archaeological Society. This I long refused, urging that many others were more worthy and competent, but it was insisted upon, and, to my great surprise, I found myself speaking to a crowded meeting words which I had written down before, but which I never found any need of referring to. Here they are (for I have preserved them nowhere else) from the notes I made:--

* * * * *

“The Secretary of this Society conferred upon me a most unexpected honour when he asked me to open this meeting. I could have wished that he had selected some one more worthy of that honour, for not only am I unaccustomed to public speaking, but I may truly say that I never made a speech in my life. I will therefore hope that my many deficiencies--my more than many deficiencies, may be either overlooked or pardoned.

“But, though the Secretary could have found many persons in Rome better able to address you, with more power of doing justice to their subject than myself, he could not have found one to whom Rome was dearer, about whose heart all its sympathies were more tenderly and closely entwined. Long and intimate family association, perhaps the very fact of having a birthplace in the once beautiful Villa Strozzi, have added to that sense which comes to so many, of looking upon Rome as a second home--a home as familiar almost, quite as tenderly beloved, as the home in far-away England. How truly Chateaubriand has said that those who have nothing left in life should turn their footsteps to Rome: there the very stones can waken into speech; there the very dust beneath our feet can kindle into memories of a past ever fresh and ever sacred. To those who come here first as strangers, the decay, the stagnation, the ruin of everything may be oppressive; they may see only the bareness of the stuccoed streets, they may grumble at the rough pavements, they may be wearied with the petty discomforts and difficulties of daily and practical life:--but no matter! If they only stay here long enough, the love of Rome will insidiously creep upon them; they will feel it difficult to tear themselves away from it; and, when they have left it, it will ever come back to them--in silent hours, in visions of the night--grand ruins lying in silent slumbrous solitude; desolate vineyards flower-carpeted; beautiful villas, where the ancient ilex avenues are peopled with marble statues, relics of a mythical past which in Rome seems almost as real as the present; and above all, the recollection of a mighty purple dome embossed upon a sky whose sunset glory recalls the splendours of the New Jerusalem--first a sapphire, then a chalcedony, then an emerald, then a chrysopraz, last an amethyst.

“In regard to how many Roman scenes do we echo such thoughts as Clough has expressed in his beautiful lines to the Alban Mount:--

‘Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,
Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s arch,
Here where the large grassy spaces stretch from the Lateran portal,
Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,
Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,
Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.
Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,
Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.’

“What Madame Swetchine says of life, that you find in it exactly what you put into it, is also true of Rome, and those who come to it with least mental preparation are those least fitted to enjoy it. That preparation, however, is not so easy as it used to be. In the old days, the happy old days of vetturíno travelling, there were so many quiet hours, when the country was not too beautiful, and the towns not too interesting, when Gibbon, and Merivale, and Milman were the pleasantest of travelling companions, and when books of art and poetry served to illustrate and illuminate the graver studies which were making Italy not only a beautiful panorama, but a country filled with forms which were daily growing into more familiar acquaintance. Perugia and Spoleto, Terni and Civita Castellana, led fitly up then to the greater interests of Rome, as courtiers to a king. But in the journeys of the present, the hurried traveller has not these opportunities of preparation, and must rest upon his home-knowledge, and such reading as he can find time for in Rome itself. To such travellers--to those, I mean, who wish to take away from Rome something more than a mere surface impression--I would give one piece of advice gathered from long experience: Never see too much; most of all, never see too much at once; never try to ‘do’ Rome. Better far to leave half the ruins and nine-tenths of the churches unseen, and to see well the rest, to see them not once, but again and often again, to watch them, to learn them, to live with them, to love them, till they become a part of your life and your life’s recollections.

“Thus, too, in the galleries. What can be carried away by those who wander over all the Vatican at once but a hopeless chaos of marble limbs, at best a nightmare of Venuses and Mercurys and Jupiters and Junos? But if the traveller would benefit by the Vatican, let him make friends with a few of the statues, and pay them visits, and grow into greater intimacy:--then will the purity of their outlines, the majestic serenity of their godlike grace, have power over him, raising his spirit to a perception of creations of beauty of which he had no idea before, and enabling him to discern the traces of that noblest gift of God which men call ‘genius’ in the humblest works of those who, while they have found the true and right path which leads to the great end, are still very far off.

“I would urge those who are sight-seeing at Rome to read twice about that which they see, before they see it, to prepare themselves for the sight, and after they have seen it, to fix the sight in their recollection. I would also urge all archaeologists to believe that it is not in one class of Roman interests alone that much is to be learnt; that those who devote themselves exclusively to the relics of the kings and the Republic, to the walls, or to the vexed questions concerning the Porta Capena, and who see no interest in the reminiscences of the Middle Ages, and the memorials of the saints and of the popes, take only half the blessing of Rome, and the half which has the least of human sympathy in it. They are blind of one eye, because they see with the other: they are like the foolish Athenians, who have lately pulled down the noble Venetian towers on the Acropolis because they were not Greek.

“Besides this, one should recollect that important relics of Pagan Rome are to be found elsewhere--at Nismes and Treves beyond the Alps, and at many places in Northern Italy; but the memorials of Christian Rome, and of its early bishops and martyrs, are to be found only in Rome and its neighbourhood.

1879]

“Those who wish to fix the scenes and events of Roman history securely in their minds will do best to take them in groups. Suppose, for instance, that people wish to study the story of St. Laurence. Let them first visit the beautiful little chapel in the Vatican, where the whole story of the saint’s life is portrayed in the lovely frescoes of Angelico da Fiesole. Let them stand on the green sward by the Navicella, where he distributed the treasures of the church in front of the house of St. Ciriaca. Let them walk through the crypto-porticus of the Palatine, up which he was dragged to his trial. Let them lean against the still existing bar of the basilica, where he knelt to receive his sentence. Let them visit S. Lorenzo in Fonte, where he was imprisoned, and baptized his fellow-prisoners in the fountain which gives the church its name. Let them go hence to S. Lorenzo Pane e Perna, built upon the scene of his terrific martyrdom, which is there portrayed in fresco. Let them see his traditional chains, and the supposed gridiron of his suffering at S. Lorenzo in Lucina; and, lastly, at the great basilica of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura let them admire the mighty church which for 1200 years has marked the site of that little chapel which Constantine built near the lowly catacomb grave in which the martyr was laid by his deacon Hippolytus.

“Let us turn to a very different character. Let us turn to Rienzi. How vivid will his story seem to those who go first to the old tower of the Crescenzi near the Bocca della Verità, which belonged to his ancestors, and then to the street behind S. Tommaso where he was born--the son of a publican and a washerwoman, for to such humble offices were the Crescenzi then reduced. They will find Rienzi again at the little church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, whither he summoned the citizens at midnight to hold a meeting for the re-establishment of ‘the Good Estate,’ and in which he kept the Vigil of the Holy Ghost--and at the Portico of Octavia, on whose ancient walls he painted his famous picture allegorical of the sufferings of the Romans under the oppression of the great patrician families, thus flaunting defiance in the eyes of the Savelli, who could look down upon the picture from the windows of their palace above the Theatre of Marcellus. At S. Giorgio in Velabro the pediment still remains under the old terra-cotta cornice where an inscription proclaimed that the reign of the Good Estate was begun. We must follow Rienzi thence, bareheaded, but in full armour, to the Capitol, and to the Lateran, where he took his mystic bath in the great vase of green basalt in which Constantine is falsely said to have been baptized. We must think of his flight, after his short-lived glories were over, by the light of the burning palace, down the steps of the Capitol, and of his wife looking out of the window to witness his murder at the foot of the great basaltic lioness, which looks scarcely older now than on the night on which it was sprinkled with his blood. Lastly, we may remember that his body was hung, a target for the stones of those by whom he was so lately adored, in the little piazza of S. Marcello in the Corso, and that, in strange contradiction, it was eventually burnt by the Jews in the desolate mausoleum of Augustus, surrounded by Roman emperors, in a fire of dried thistles, till not a fibre of it remained.

“Let us take one more character from a much later time. Let us take Beatrice Cenci. In the depths of the Ghetto, ghastly and grim, still stands the old palace of Francesco Cenci, whose colossal rooms and dark passages were the scene of her long misery. Hard by is the little church which one of that wretched family built in the hope of expiating its crimes. As we walk through the wearisome Tor di Nona on our way to S. Peter’s, we may think of the old tower which gave the street its name, in which the beautiful young girl is said to have undergone for forty hours the torture of the ‘vigilia,’ followed by the still more terrific agony called ‘tortura capillorum.’ At Sta. Maria Maggiore we may look upon the stern face of Clement VIII., the cruel judge who knew no mercy, and who, in answer to all pleadings in their behalf, bade that the whole Cenci family should be dragged by wild horses through the streets of Rome. The ancient Santa Croce palace still stands, in which the Marchesa Santa Croce was murdered by her two sons on the night in which a last effort was being made for the pardon of Beatrice--an event which sealed her fate. In the Corte Savelli we may think of her terrible execution. Before the high altar of S. Pietro in Montorio she reposes from her long agony. And finally, we must go to the Palazzo Barberini, where, in the picture which Guido Reni is said to have painted in her prison, we may gaze upon the pale composure of her transcendent loveliness.

“It is by thus entwining one sight with another, till they become the continuous links of a story, that they are best fixed in the mind. They should also be read about, not merely in guide-books, but in the works of those who, from long residence in Italy and the deep love which they bear to it, have become impressed with the true Italian spirit. Amongst such books none are more delightful than the many volumes of Gregorovius, from his ‘History of the City of Rome’ to his enchanting ‘Lateinische Sommer,’ and his graphic little sketches of the burial-places of the Popes. I have often been laughed at for constantly recommending and quoting novels in speaking of Rome and its interests; yet in few graver works are such glimpses of Rome, of Roman scenery, Roman character, Roman manners to be obtained as in Hawthorne’s ‘Marble Faun,’ which English publishers so foolishly call ‘Transformation;’ in ‘Mademoiselle Mori;’ in the ‘Improvisatore’ of Hans Christian Andersen; in the ‘Daniella’ of George Sand; and, will my audience be unutterably shocked if I add, in the Pagan-spirited ‘Ariadne’ of Ouida. The writers of these books have really known Rome and loved it, and yet several of them have only spent one or two winters here. The same knowledge, the same inspiration, is open to all of us, and the reason why English and American visitors so seldom carry away from Rome more than they bring to it is because they have never seen it at all; because the life in a hotel, with its English and French dinners, its English or French-speaking waiters, its newspapers and reading-rooms, is not a Roman life; because the shop-keepers in the Via Condotti, their washerwomen, or their masters of music and languages, are the only Italians these visitors have come in contact with; because their sights are doled out to them by conceited couriers or ignorant ciceroni; because they have no ideas of the peasants and their costumes beyond the models of the Via Felice and the Trinità de’ Monti.

“And all this might be so different! Can one look at the amethystine mountains which girdle in the Campagna around Rome without wishing to penetrate their recesses? In the mountain towns which hang like eagles’ nests to their rocks there are not only costumes, but every one wears a costume: there the true Italian life may be seen. By the railway which leads to Naples it is very easy now to reach many of these beautiful places and to have glimpses of a true Italy. The grand temples of Cori, the rock-perched Norba, and mysterious beautiful flower-peopled Ninfa may now be visited in one day from the station of Velletri, returning to Rome in the evening. At Sora near Arpino, the gloriously situated home of Cicero and of Marius, and at San Germano, close to Monte Cassino and to Aquino with its beautiful Roman arches of triumph, there are now very tolerable hotels; and oh! believe me, there is no enjoyment more intense than that of spring days on these lonely mountain heights carpeted with sweet basil and thyme, or in these old desolate cities where the women come up from the fountains with great brazen _conche_ poised upon their black locks, like animated caryatides.

“But I would also urge those who cannot make these excursions to do at least something which will give them an individual interest, a personal property in Rome itself. Let them collect marbles or plants, or even photographs, or let them make sketches, choosing perhaps some special line of interest, either the ancient Roman remains, or the memorials of the saints, or the mediaeval tombs, thus appropriating and having their own little personal share in the great field of archaeology. I remember that two English ladies,[301] long valued members of the society here, made a perfect collection of drawings of all the mediaeval towers in Rome, whether campanile of the churches, or old brick fortresses of the Anicii and Frangipani. I have known another lady, a much honoured American resident in this place,[302] who spent much of her time in making a perfect collection of drawings and photographs of all Italian subjects connected with Dante. And, depend upon it, that the very fact that these persons thus created for themselves a private centre around which all other interests should circle, gave them a wider grasp and an easier remembrance for all that came across them.

“Archaeology is generally regarded as a dead and dry study, though it need not be so. But its animating power is history, and to bring it into life it must be combined with history, not in its narrowest, but in its widest sense. To a life-long student of classical details, it may be a matter of vital importance whether a stone on the Palatine is of the time of the kings or the Republic; but to the casual visitor to Rome, to the ladies who form so great a portion of my present audience, this can scarcely be a question of thrilling excitement. To the unlearned, I believe it to be of more interest to reflect upon the gladiatorial combats and the Christian martyrdoms in the Coliseum than to discuss the exact manner in which its sheltering velarium was sustained.

“Let our Roman archaeology, then, be unlimited as to ages, let it grasp as much as it can of the myriad human sympathies which Rome has to offer or awaken; for thus, and only thus, can it do a great work, in arousing highest thoughts and aims, as it opens the ancient treasure-house and teaches the vast experience of more than two thousand years. Then, as John Addington Symonds says:--

‘Then from the very soil of ancient Rome
You shall grow wise, and walking, live again
The lives of buried peoples, and become
A child by right of that eternal home,
Cradle and grave of empires, on whose walls,
The sun himself subdued to reverence falls.’

“Let archaeology help the beauties of Rome in leaving their noblest impress--in arousing feelings which are worthy of the greatest of Pagan heroes, of the sweetest of Latin poets, of the most inspired of sculptors and painters, as well as of Paul of Tarsus, who passed into Rome under the arch of Drusus, upon whom the shadow of the pyramid of Caius Cestius fell as he passed out of Rome to his martyrdom, in that procession of which it is the sole surviving witness, and who here in Rome is sleeping now, with thousand other saints, till, as St. Ambrose reminds us, he shall awaken _here_, in Rome, at the great resurrection.

“Rome, as Winckelmann says, is the high-art school which is open to all the world. It can supply every mental requirement, if people will only apply at the right corner of the fountain. This is what an archaeological society ought to help us to find: this is what I trust the British and American Archaeological Society may help us to find.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_April 29, 1879, London._--I have heard again the curious story of Sir T. Watson from Mrs. T., to whom he told it himself, so will write it down.

“Sir Thomas Watson, better known as Dr. Watson, was a well-known physician. During the last years of his life he was in failing health, and only saw patients at his own house, but till then he went about in England wherever he was sent for. One day he was summoned to attend an urgent case at Oxenholme in Cumberland. There was only one carriage in the train which went through to Oxenholme, and in a compartment of that carriage he took his seat. He tipped the guard, and said he should be glad to be alone if he could.

“The train at Euston was already in motion, when a young lady came running down the platform, with a porter laden with her hand-bags and cloaks. The man just contrived to open the carriage door, push the young lady in, throw in her things after her, and the train was off. The young lady, a very pretty, pleasing young lady, took the seat opposite Dr. Watson. Being a polite, gallant old gentleman, very soon Dr. Watson began to make himself agreeable: ‘What beautiful effects of cloud there were. How picturesque Harrow church steeple looked through the morning haze,’ &c. &c., and the young lady responded pleasantly. At last, as their acquaintance advanced, Dr. Watson said, ‘And are you travelling far?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said the young lady, ‘very far, I am going to Oxenholme in Cumberland.’ ‘How singular,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘for that is just where I am going myself. I wonder if you happen to know Lady D. who lives near Oxenholme.’ ‘Yes,’ said the young lady, ‘I know Lady D. very well.’ ‘And Mrs. P. and her daughters?’ said Dr. W. ‘Oh yes, I know them too.’ ‘And Mr. Y.?’ There was a moment’s pause, and then the young lady very naïvely and ingenuously said, ‘Yes, I do know Mr. Y. very well; and perhaps I had better tell you something. I am going to be _married_ to him to-morrow. My own parents are in India, and I am going to be married from his father’s house. Since I have been engaged to him, I have made the acquaintance of many of his friends and neighbours, and that is how I know so many people near Oxenholme, though I have never been there before.’

“Dr. Watson was charmed with the simple candour of the young lady. They went on talking, and they became quite friends. The train arrived at Rugby, and they both got out and had their bun in the refreshment-room. They were in the carriage again, and the train was already moving, when, in great excitement, the young lady called out: ‘Oh stop, stop the train, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out. There! that young man in the brown ulster, that’s the young man I’m going to be married to.’ Of course it was impossible to get out, and the young lady was greatly distressed, and though Dr. Watson assured her most positively that there was no one standing where she described, she would not and could not believe him.

“Then Dr. Watson said, ‘Now, my dear young lady, you’re very young and I’m very old. I am a doctor. I am very well known, and from what you have been seeing I am quite sure, as a physician, that you are not at all well. Now, I have my medicine chest with me, and you had better let me give you a little dose.’ And he did give her a little dose.

“The train arrived at Stafford, and exactly the same thing occurred. ‘There, there! don’t you see him! _that_ young man with the light beard, in the brown ulster, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out.’ And again Dr. Watson assured her there was no one there, and said, ‘I think you had better let me give you another little dose;’ and he gave her another little dose.

“But Dr. Watson naturally felt that he could not go on giving her a dose at every station all the way to Oxenholme, so he decided within himself that if the same thing happened at Crewe, the young lady’s state indicated one of two things: either that there was some intentional vision from Providence, with which he ought not to interfere; or that the young lady was certainly not in a state of health or brain which should allow of her being married next day. So he determined to act accordingly.

“And at Crewe just the same thing happened. ‘There, there! don’t you see him! he’s urging me more than ever to get out,’ cried the young lady. ‘Very well,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘we will get out and go after him,’ and, with the young lady, he pursued the imaginary figure, and of course did not find him. But Dr. Watson had often been at Crewe station before, and he went to the hotel, which opens on the platform, and said to the matron, ‘Here is this young lady, who is not at all well, and should have a very quiet room; unfortunately I am not able to remain now to look after her, but I will leave her in your care, and to-morrow I shall be returning this way and will come to see how she is.’ And he slipped a five-pound note into the woman’s hand to guarantee expenses.

“Dr. Watson returned to the railway carriage. There was another young lady there, sitting in the place which the first young lady had occupied--a passenger who had arrived by one of the many lines which converge at Crewe. With the new young lady he did not make acquaintance, he moved his things to the other side of the carriage and devoted himself to his book.