shaven crowns; there were the sham peasantry, who dressed themselves out
in masquerade costumes, with bagpipe and goatskin, with crossed leggings
and scarlet petticoats, who let themselves out to artists at so many
pauls per sitting; but he never passed a Roman's door except to buy a
cigar or to purchase a handkerchief. Thither, as elsewhere, we carry our
insular habits with us. We have a little England at Paris, a little
England at Munich, Dresden, everywhere. Our friend is an Englishman, and
did at Rome as the English do.
There was the polite English society, the society that flocks to see the
Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the Vatican to behold
the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the churches on public
festivals in black veils and deputy-lieutenants' uniforms, and stares,
and talks, and uses opera-glasses while the pontiffs of the Roman Church
are performing its ancient rites, and the crowds of faithful are kneeling
round the altars; the society which gives its balls and dinners, has its
scandal and bickerings, its aristocrats, parvenus, toadies imported from
Belgravia; has its club, its hunt, and its Hyde Park on the Pincio: and
there is the other little English world, the broad-hatted, long-bearded,
velvet-jacketed, jovial colony of the artists, who have their own feasts,
haunts, and amusements by the side of their aristocratic compatriots,
with whom but few of them have the honour to mingle.
J. J. and Clive engaged pleasant lofty apartments in the Via Gregoriana.
Generations of painters had occupied these chambers and gone their way.
The windows of their painting-room looked into a quaint old garden, where
there were ancient statues of the Imperial time, a babbling fountain and
noble orange-trees with broad clustering leaves and golden balls of
fruit, glorious to look upon. Their walks abroad were endlessly pleasant
and delightful. In every street there were scores of pictures of the
graceful characteristic Italian life, which our painters seem one and all
to reject, preferring to depict their quack brigands, contadini,
pifferari, and the like, because Thompson painted them before Jones, and
Jones before Thompson, and so on, backwards into time. There were the
children at play, the women huddled round the steps of the open doorways,
in the kindly Roman winter; grim, portentous old hags, such as Michael
Angelo painted, draped in majestic raggery; mothers and swarming bambins;
slouching countrymen, dark of beard and noble of countenance, posed in
superb attitudes, lazy, tattered, and majestic. There came the red
troops, the black troops, the blue troops of the army of priests; the
snuffy regiments of Capuchins, grave and grotesque; the trim French
abbes; my lord the bishop, with his footman (those wonderful footmen); my
lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach and his two, nay three,
footmen behind him;--flunkeys, that look as if they had been dressed by
the costumier of a British pantomime; coach with prodigious emblazonments
of hats and coats-of-arms, that seems as if it came out of the pantomime
too, and was about to turn into something else. So it is, that what is
grand to some persons' eyes appears grotesque to others; and for certain
sceptical persons, that step, which we have heard of, between the sublime
and the ridiculous, is not visible.
"I wish it were not so," writes Clive, in one of the letters wherein he
used to pour his full heart out in those days. "I see these people at
their devotions, and envy them their rapture. A friend, who belongs to
the old religion, took me, last week, into a church where the Virgin
lately appeared in person to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him
from heaven in light and splendour celestial, and, of course, straightway
converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and, kneeling down
beside me, I know prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might
shine down upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven at all. I saw but
a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with tawdry
strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W---- went away, humbly
saying 'that such might have happened again if heaven so willed it.' I
could not but feel a kindness and admiration for the good man. I know his
works are made to square with his faith, that he dines on a crust, lives
as chaste as a hermit, and gives his all to the poor.
"Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many respects, so
superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They seem to
answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes away satisfied
as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. Of course our first
pilgrimage was to St. Peter's. What a walk! Under what noble shadows does
one pass; how great and liberal the houses are, with generous casements
and courts, and great grey portals which giants might get through and
keep their turbans on. Why, the houses are twice as tall as Lamb Court
itself; and over them hangs a noble dinge, a venerable mouldy splendour.
Over the solemn portals are ancient mystic escutcheons--vast shields of
princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto's knights might take down; and
every figure about them is a picture by himself. At every turn there is a
temple: in every court a brawling fountain. Besides the people of the
streets and houses, and the army of priests black and brown, there's a
great silent population of marble. There are battered gods tumbled out of
Olympus and broken in the fall, and set up under niches and over
fountains; there are senators namelessly, noselessly, noiselessly seated
under archways, or lurking in courts and gardens. And then, besides these
defunct ones, of whom these old figures may be said to be the corpses,
there is the reigning family, a countless carved hierarchy of angels,
saints, confessors of the latter dynasty which has conquered the court of
Jove. I say, Pen, I wish Warrington would write the history of the Last
of the Pagans. Did you never have a sympathy for them as the monks came
rushing into their temples, kicking down their poor altars, smashing the
fair calm faces of their gods, and sending their vestals a-flying? They
are always preaching here about the persecution of the Christians. Are
not the churches full of martyrs with choppers in their meek heads;
virgins on gridirons; riddled St. Sebastians, and the like? But have they
never persecuted in their turn? O me! You and I know better, who were
bred up near to the pens of Smithfield, where Protestants and Catholics
have taken their turn to be roasted.
"You pass through an avenue of angels and saints on the bridge across
Tiber, all in action; their great wings seem clanking, their marble
garments clapping; St. Michael, descending upon the Fiend, has been
caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the Castle of St. Angelo: his
enemy doubtless fell crushing through the roof and so downwards. He is as
natural as blank verse--that bronze angel-set, rhythmic, grandiose.
You'll see, some day or other, he's a great sonnet, sir, I'm sure of
th
at. Milton wrote in bronze; I am sure Virgil polished off his Georgics
in marble--sweet calm shapes! exquisite harmonies of line! As for the
Aeneid; that, sir, I consider to be so many bas-reliefs, mural ornaments
which affect me not much.
"I think I have lost sight of St. Peter's, haven't I? Yet it is big
enough. How it makes your heart beat when you first see it! Ours did as
we came in at night from Civita Vecchia, and saw a great ghostly darkling
dome rising solemnly up into the grey night, and keeping us company ever
so long as we drove, as if it had been an orb fallen out of heaven with
its light put out. As you look at it from the Pincio, and the sun sets
behind it, surely that aspect of earth and sky is one of the grandest in
the world. I don't like to say that the facade of the church is ugly and
obtrusive. As long as the dome overawes, that facade is supportable. You
advance towards it--through, oh, such a noble court! with fountains
flashing up to meet the sunbeams; and right and left of you two sweeping
half-crescents of great columns; but you pass by the courtiers and up to
the steps of the throne, and the dome seems to disappear behind it. It is
as if the throne was upset, and the king had toppled over.
"There must be moments, in Rome especially, when every man of friendly
heart, who writes himself English and Protestant, must feel a pang at
thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated from European
Christendom. An ocean separates us. From one shore or the other one can
see the neighbour cliffs on clear days: one must wish sometimes that
there were no stormy gulf between us; and from Canterbury to Rome a
pilgrim could pass, and not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts of
the great Mother Church I believe among us many people have no idea; we
think of lazy friars, of pining cloistered virgins, of ignorant peasants
worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences, absolutions,
and the like commonplaces of Protestant satire. Lo! yonder inscription,
which blazes round the dome of the temple, so great and glorious it looks
like heaven almost, and as if the words were written in stars, it
proclaims to all the world, this is that Peter, and on this rock the
Church shall be built, against which Hell shall not prevail. Under the
bronze canopy his throne is lit with lights that have been burning before
it for ages. Round this stupendous chamber are ranged the grandees of his
court. Faith seems to be realised in their marble figures. Some of them
were alive but yesterday; others, to be as blessed as they, walk the
world even now doubtless; and the commissioners of heaven, here holding
their court a hundred years hence, shall authoritatively announce their
beatification. The signs of their power shall not be wanting. They heal
the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cause the lame to walk to-day as
they did eighteen centuries ago. Are there not crowds ready to bear
witness to their wonders? Isn't there a tribunal appointed to try their
claims; advocates to plead for and against; prelates and clergy and
multitudes of faithful to back and believe them? Thus you shall kiss the
hand of a priest to-day, who has given his to a friar whose bones are
already beginning to work miracles, who has been the disciple of another
whom the Church has just proclaimed a saint,--hand in hand they hold by
one another till the line is lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us
acknowledge this, and go and kiss the toe of St. Peter. Alas! there's the
Channel always between us; and we no more believe in the miracles of St.
Thomas of Canterbury, than that the bones of His Grace John Bird, who
sits in St. Thomas's chair presently, will work wondrous cures in the
year 2000: that his statue will speak, or his portrait by Sir Thomas
Lawrence will wink.
"So, you see, at those grand ceremonies which the Roman Church exhibits
at Christmas, I looked on as a Protestant. Holy Father on his throne or
in his palanquin, cardinals with their tails and their train-bearers,
mitred bishops and abbots, regiments of friars and clergy, relics exposed
for adoration, columns draped, altars illuminated, incense smoking,
organs pealing, and boxes of piping soprani, Swiss guards with slashed
breeches and fringed halberts;--between us and all this splendour of
old-world ceremony, there's an ocean flowing: and yonder old statue of
Peter might have been Jupiter again, surrounded by a procession of
flamens and augurs, and Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, to inspect the
sacrifices,--and my feelings at the spectacle had been, doubtless, pretty
much the same.
"Shall I utter any more heresies? I am an unbeliever in Raphael's
'Transfiguration'--the scream of that devil-possessed boy, in the lower
part of the figure of eight (a stolen boy too), jars the whole music of
the composition. On Michael Angelo's great wall, the grotesque and
terrible are not out of place. What an awful achievement! Fancy the state
of mind of the man who worked it--as alone, day after day, he devised and
drew those dreadful figures! Suppose in the days of the Olympian dynasty,
the subdued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a palace for Jove, they
would have brought in some such tremendous work: or suppose that Michael
descended to the Shades, and brought up this picture out of the halls of
Limbo. I like a thousand and a thousand times better to think of
Raphael's loving spirit. As he looked at women and children, his
beautiful face must have shone like sunshine: his kind hand must have
caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. If I protest against the
'Transfiguration,' and refuse to worship at that altar before which so
many generations have knelt, there are hundreds of others which I salute
thankfully. It is not so much in the set harangues (to take another
metaphor), as in the daily tones and talk that his voice is so delicious.
Sweet poetry, and music, and tender hymns drop from him: he lifts his
pencil, and something gracious falls from it on the paper. How noble his
mind must have been! it seems but to receive, and his eye seems only to
rest on, what is great, and generous, and lovely. You walk through
crowded galleries, where are pictures ever so large and pretentious; and
come upon a grey paper, or a little fresco, bearing his mark-and over all
the brawl and the throng recognise his sweet presence. 'I would like to
have you been Giulio Romano,' J. J. says (who does not care for Giulio's
pictures), 'because then I would have been Raphael's favourite pupil.' We
agreed that we would rather have seen him and William Shakspeare, than
all the men we ever read of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy--as
Spagnoletto did! There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious
shape. There's a fellow in our mess at the Lepre, a clever enough fellow
too--and not a bad fellow to the poor. He was a Gandishite. He is a genre
and portrait painter, by the name of Haggard. He hates J. J. because Lord
Fareham, who is here, has given J. J. an order; and he hates me, because
I wear a clean shirt, and ride a cock-horse.
>
"I wish you could come to our mess at the Lepre. It's such a dinner: such
a tablecloth: such a waiter: such a company! Every man has a beard and a
sombrero: and you would fancy we were a band of brigands. We are regaled
with woodcocks, snipes, wild swans, ducks, robins, and owls and oionoisi
te pasi for dinner; and with three pauls' worth of wines and victuals the
hungriest has enough, even Claypole the sculptor. Did you ever know him?
He used to come to the Haunt. He looks like the Saracen's head with his
beard now. There is a French table still more hairy than ours, a German
table, an American table. After dinner we go and have coffee and
mezzo-caldo at the Cafe Greco over the way. Mezzo-caldo is not a bad
drink--a little rum--a slice of fresh citron--lots of pounded sugar, and
boiling water for the rest. Here in various parts of the cavern (it is a
vaulted low place) the various nations have their assigned quarters, and
we drink our coffee and strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or
Bernini selon les gouts, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would make
Warrington's lungs dilate with pleasure. We get very good cigars for a
bajoccho and half--that is very good for us, cheap tobaccanalians; and
capital when you have got no others. M'Collop is here: he made a great
figure at a cardinal's reception in the tartan of the M'Collop. He is
splendid at the tomb of the Stuarts, and wanted to cleave Haggard down to
the chine with his claymore for saying that Charles Edward was often
drunk.
"Some of us have our breakfasts at the Cafe Greco at dawn. The birds are
very early birds here; and you'll see the great sculptors--the old Dons,
you know, who look down on us young fellows--at their coffee here when it
is yet twilight. As I am a swell, and have a servant, J. J. and I
breakfast at our lodgings. I wish you could see Terribile our attendant,
and Ottavia our old woman! You will see both of them on the canvas one
day. When he hasn't blacked our boots and has got our breakfast,
Terribile the valet-de-chambre becomes Terribile the model. He has
figured on a hundred canvases ere this, and almost ever since he was
born. All his family were models. His mother having been a Venus, is now
a Witch of Endor. His father is in the patriarchal line: he has himself
done the cherubs, the shepherd-boys, and now is a grown man, and ready as
a warrior, a pifferaro, a capuchin, or what you will.
"After the coffee and the Cafe Greco we all go to the Life Academy. After
the Life Academy, those who belong to the world dress and go out to
tea-parties just as if we were in London. Those who are not in society
have plenty of fun of their own--and better fun than the tea-party fun
too. Jack Screwby has a night once a week, sardines and ham for supper,
and a cask of Marsala in the corner. Your humble servant entertains on
Thursdays: which is Lady Fitch's night too; and I flatter myself some of
the London dandies who are passing the winter here, prefer the cigars and
humble liquors which we dispense, to tea and Miss Fitch's performance on
the pianoforte.
"What is that I read in Galignani about Lord K-- and an affair of honour
at Baden? Is it my dear kind jolly Kew with whom some one has quarrelled?
I know those who will be even more grieved than I am, should anything
happen to the best of good fellows. A great friend of Lord Kew's, Jack
Belsize commonly called, came with us from Baden through Switzerland, and
we left him at Milan. I see by the paper that his elder brother is dead
and so poor Jack will be a great man some day. I wish the chance had
happened sooner if it was to befall at all. So my amiable cousin, Barnes
Newcome Newcome, Esq., has married my Lady Clara Pulleyn; I wish her joy
of her bridegroom. All I have heard of that family is from the newspaper.
If you meet them, tell me anything about them.--We had a very pleasant
The Newcomes Page 53
