I entered Florence late in the afternoon, under cover of a fog that would have done credit to London in the depths of its November nebulosity. It was rather an unbecoming dress for the style of beauty of the Tuscan capital,that mantle of chill vapour,but it was worn but a few hours, and the sun rose the next morning in all his legitimate splendour, and darted his rays through as clear and frosty an atmosphere as ever fell to the lot of even that favoured country. I have once or twice heard the epithet "beautiful" applied to this city; indeed, I will not be sure that I have not met with it in some book or other. It is, in fact, the only word that can be used with any propriety concerning this charming place. It is not vast like Rome, nor is the soul of its beholder saddened by the sight of mighty ruins, or burdened with the weight of thousands of years of heroic history. It does not possess the broad Bay of Naples, nor is it watched over by a stupendous volcano, smoking leisurely for want of some better occupation. But it lies in the valley of the Arno, one of the most harmonious and impressive works of art that the world has ever seen, surrounded by natural beauties that realize the most ecstatic dreams of poesy.

_Firenze la bella!_ Who can look at her from any of the terraced hills that enclose her from the rude world, and deny her that t.i.tle? That fertile plain which stretches from her very walls to the edge of the horizonthose picturesque hills, dotted with lovely villasthose orchards and vineyards, in their glory of gold and purplethat river, stealing noiselessly to the seaand far away the h.o.a.ry peaks of the Apennines, changing their hue with every hour of sunlight, and displaying their most gorgeous robes, in honour of the departing day,I pity the man who can look upon them without a momentary feeling of inspiration. The view from Fiesole is consolation enough for a life of disappointment, and ought to make all future earthly trials seem as nothing to him who is permitted to enjoy it.

And then, those domes and towers, so eloquent of the genius of Giotto and Brunelleschi and of the public spirit and earnest devotion of ages which modern ignorance stigmatizes as "dark,"who can behold them without a thrill? The battlemented tower of the Palazzo Vecchiowhich seems as if it had been hewn out of solid rock, rather than built up by the patient labour of the masonlooks down upon the peaceful city with a composure that seems almost intelligent, and makes you wonder whether it appeared the same when the signiory of Florence held their councils under its ma.s.sive walls, and in those dark days when the tyrannous factions of Guelph and Ghibelline celebrated their b.l.o.o.d.y carnival. The graceful Campanile of the cathedral, with its coloured marbles, seems too much like a mantel ornament to be exposed to the changes of the weather. Amid the other domes and towers of the city rises the vast dome of the cathedral, the forerunner of that of St. Peters, and almost its equal. It appears to be conscious of its superiority to the neighbouring architectural monuments, and merits Hallams description"an emblem of the Catholic hierarchy under its supreme head; like Rome itself, imposing, unbroken, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion to every part of the earth, and directing its convergent curves to heaven."

There is no city in the world so full of memories of the middle ages as Florence. Its very palaces, with their heavily barred bas.e.m.e.nt windows, look as if they were built to stand a siege. Their sombre walls are in strong contrast with the bloom and sunshine which we naturally a.s.sociate with the valley of the Arno. Their magnificent proportions and the ma.s.siveness of their construction oppress you with recollections of the warlike days in which they were erected. You wonder, as you stand in their courtyards, or perambulate the streets darkened by their overhanging cornices, what has become of all the cavaliers; and if a gentleman in "complete steel" should lift his visor to accost you, it would not startle you so much as to hear two English tourists with the inevitable red guide-books under their arms, conversing about the "Grand Juke." Wherever one may turn his steps in Florence, he meets with some object of beauty or historical interest; yet among all these charms and wonders there is one building upon which my eyes and mind are never tired of feeding. The Palazzo Riccardi, the cradle of the great Medici family, is not less impressive in its architecture than in its historic a.s.sociations. Its black walls have a greater charm for me than the variegated marbles of the Duomo. It was built by the great Cosmo de Medici, and was the home of that family of merchant princes in the most glorious period of its history, when a grateful people delighted to render to its members that homage which is equally honourable to "him that gives and him that takes." The genius of Michel Angelo and Donatello is impressed upon it. It was within those lofty halls that Cosmo and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, welcomed pontiffs and princes, and the ill.u.s.trious but unt.i.tled n.o.bility of literature and art, which was the boast of their age. The ancient glories of the majestic pile are kept in mind by an inscription which greets him who enters it with an exhortation to "reverence with grat.i.tude the ancient mansion of the Medici, in which not merely so many ill.u.s.trious men, but Wisdom herself abodea house which was the nurse of revived learning."

I wonder whether any one ever was tired of strolling about these old streets and squares. At my time of life, walking is not particularly agreeable, even if it be not interfered with by either of those foes to active exercise and grace of movementrheumatism or gout; but I must acknowledge that I have found such pleasure in rambling through the familiar streets of this delightful city, that I have taken no note of bodily fatigue, and have forgotten the crutch or cane which is my inseparable companion. It is all the same to me whether I walk about the streets, or loiter in the Boboli Gardens, or listen to the delicious music of the full military band that plays daily for an hour before sunset under the shade of the Cascine. They all afford me a kind of vague pleasurevery much that sort of satisfaction which springs from hearing a cat purr, or from watching the fitful blaze of a wood fire. I have no fondness for jewelry, and the great Kohinoor diamond and all the crown jewels of Russia could not invest respectable uselessness or aristocratic vice with any beauty for me, nor add any charm to a bright, intelligent face, such as lights up many a home in this selfish world; yet I have spent hours in looking at the stalls on the Jewellers Bridge, and enjoying the covetous looks bestowed by so many pa.s.sers-by upon their glittering contents.

There are some excellent bookstalls here, and I have renewed the joys of past years and the memory of Paternoster Row, Fleet Street, Holborn, the Strand, and of the quays of Paris, in the inspection of their stock. I have a strong affection for bookstalls, and had much rather buy a book at one than in a shop. In the first place it would be cheaper; in the second place it would be a little worn, and I should become the possessor, not only of the volume, but of its a.s.sociations with other lovers of books who turned over its leaves, reading here and there, envying the future purchaser. For books, so long as they are well used, increase in value as they grow in age. Sir William Joness a.s.sertion, that "the best monument that can be erected to a man of literary talents is a good edition of his works," is not to be denied; but who would think of reading, for the enjoyment of the thing, a modern edition of Sir Thomas Browne, or Izaak Walton? Who would wish to read Hamlet in a volume redolent of printers ink and binders glue? Who would read a clean new copy of Robinson Crusoe when he might have one that had seen service in a circulating library, or had been well thumbed by several generations of adventure-loving boys? A book is to me like a hat or coata very uncomfortable thing until the newness has been worn off.

It is in the churches of Florence that my enthusiasm reaches its meridian. This solemn cathedral, with its richly dight windows,whose warm hues must have been stolen from the palette of t.i.tian or Tintoretto,makes me forget all earthly hopes and sorrows; and the majestic Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo, with their peaceful cloisters and treasures of literature and art, appeal strongly to my religious sensibilities, while they completely satisfy my taste. And then Santa Croce, solemn, not merely as a place of worship, but as the repository of the dust of many of those ill.u.s.trious men whose genius illumined the world during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries! I have enjoyed Santa Croce particularly, because I have seen more of the religious life of the Florentine people there. For more than a week I have been there every evening, just after sunset, when the only light that illuminated those ancient arches came from the high altar, which appeared like a vision of heaven in the midst of the thickest darkness of earth. The nave and aisles of that vast edifice were thronged: men, women, and children were kneeling upon that pavement which contains the records of so much goodness and greatness. I have heard great choirs; I have been thrilled by the wondrous power of voices that seemed too much like those of angels for poor humanity to listen to; but I have never before been so overwhelmed as by the hearty music of that vast mult.i.tude.

The galleries of art need another volume and an abler pen than mine.

Free to the people as the sunlight and the shade of the public gardens, they make an American blush to think of the n.i.g.g.ardly spirit that prevails in the country which he would fain persuade himself is the most favoured of all earthly abodes. The Academy, the Pitti, the Uffizi, make you think that life is too short, and that art is indeed long. You wish that you had more months to devote to them than you have days. Great as is the pleasure that I have found in them, I have found myself lingering more fondly in the cloisters and corridors of San Marco than amid the wonderful works that deck the walls of the palaces. The pencil of Beato Angelico has consecrated that dead plastering, and given to it a divine life. The rapt devotion and holy tranquillity of those faces reflect the glory of the eternal world. I ask no more convincing proof of the immortality of the soul, than the fact that those forms of beauty and holiness were conceived and executed by a mortal.

It is enough to excite the indignation of any reflective Englishman or American to visit Florence, and compareor perhaps I ought rather to say contrastthe facts which force themselves upon his attention, with the prejudices implanted in his mind by early education. Surely, he has a right to be astonished, and may be excused if he indulges in a little honest anger, when he looks for the first time at the masterpieces of art which had their origin in those ages which he has been taught to consider a period of ignorance and barbarism. He certainly obtains a new idea of the "barbarism" of the middle ages, when he visits the benevolent inst.i.tutions which they have bequeathed to our times, and when he sees the admirable working of the _Compagnia della Misericordia_, which unites all cla.s.ses of society, from the grand duke to his humblest subject, in the bonds of religion and philanthropy. He may be pardoned, too, if he comes to the conclusion that the liberal arts were not entirely neglected in the age that produced a Dante and a Petrarch, a Cimabue and a Giotto,not to mention a host of other names, which may not shine so brightly as these, but are alike superior to temporal accidents,and he cannot be considered unreasonable if he refuses to believe that the ages which witnessed the establishment of universities like those of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Bologna, Salamanca, Vienna, Ferrara, Ingolstadt, Louvain, Leipsic, &c., were quite so deeply sunk in darkness, or were held in an intellectual bondage so utterly hopeless, as the eulogists of the nineteenth century would persuade him. The monuments of learning, art, and benevolence, with which Florence is filled, will convince any thinking man that those who speak of the times I have alluded to as the "dark ages," mean thereby the ages concerning which they are in the dark; and admirably exemplify in their own shallow self-sufficiency the ignorance they would impute to the ages when learning and all good arts were the handmaids of religion.

ANCIENT ROME

The moment in which one takes his first look at Rome is an epoch in his life. Even if his education should have been a most illiberal one, and he himself should be as strenuous an opponent of pontifical prerogatives as John of Leyden or Dr. Dowling, he is sure to be, for the time, imbued in some measure with the feelings of a pilgrim. The sight of that city which has exercised such a mighty influence on the world, almost from its very foundation, fills his mind with "troublings of strange joy."

His vague notions of ancient history a.s.sume a more distinct form. The twelve Csars pa.s.s before his minds eye like the spectral kings before the Scotch usurper. The cla.s.sics which he used to neglect so shamefully at school, the historical lessons which he thought so dull, have been endowed with life and interest by that one glance of his astonished eye.

But if he loved the cla.s.sics in his youth,if the wanderings of neas and the woes of Dido charmed instead of tiring him,if "Livys pictured page," the polished periods of Sall.u.s.t and Tacitus, and the mighty eloquence of Cicero, were to him a mine of delight rather than a task,how does his eye glisten with renewed youth, and his heart swell as his old boyish enthusiasm is once more kindled within it! He feels that he has reached the goal to which his heart and mind were turned during his purest and most unselfish years; and if he were as unswayed by human respect as he was then, he would kneel down with the travel-worn pilgrims by the wayside to give utterance to his grat.i.tude, and to greet the queen city of the world: _Salve, magna parens!_

I shall not easily forget the cloudless afternoon when I first took that long, wearisome ride from Civita Vecchia to Rome. There was no railway in those days, as there is now, and the diligence was of so rude and uncomfortable a make that I half suspected it to be the one upon the top of which Hannibal is said to have crossed the Alps, (_summ diligenti_.) I shared the _coup_ with two other sufferers, and was, like them, so fatigued that it seemed as if a celestial vision would be powerless to make me forgetful of my aching joints, when (after a laborious pull up a hill which might be included among the "everlasting hills" spoken of in holy writ) our long-booted postilion turned his expressive face towards us, and banished all our weariness by exclaiming, as he pointed into the blue distance with his short whip-handle, "_Ecco! Roma! San Pietro!_"

A single glance of the eye served to overcome all our fatigue. There lay the worlds capital, crowned by the mighty dome of the Vatican basilica, and we were every moment drawing nearer to it. It was evening before we found ourselves staring at those dark walls which have withstood so many sieges, and heard the welcome demand for pa.s.sports, which informed us that we had reached the gate of the city.

I was really in Rome,I was in that city hallowed by so many cla.s.sical, historical, and sacred a.s.sociations,and it all seemed to me like a confused dream. Twice, before the diligence had gone a hundred yards inside the gate, I had pinched myself to ascertain whether I was really awake; and even after I pa.s.sed through the lofty colonnade of St.

Peters, and had gazed at the front of the church and the vast square which art has made familiar to every one, and had seen the fountains with the moonbeams flashing in their silvery spray, I feared lest something should interrupt my dream, and I should wake to find myself in my snug bedroom at home, wondering at the weakness which allowed me to be seduced into the eating of a bit of cheese the evening before. It was not so, however; no disorganizing cheese had interfered with my digestion; it was no dream; and I was really in Rome. I slept soundly when I reached my hotel, for I felt sure that no hostile Brennus lay in wait to disturb the citys peace, and the grateful hardness of my bed convinced me that all the geese of the capital had not been killed, if the enemy should effect an entrance.

There are few people who love Rome at first sight. The ruins, that bear witness to her grandeur in the days of her worldly supremacy, oppress you at first with an inexpressible sadness. The absence of any thing like the business enterprise and energy of this commercial age makes English and American people long at first for a little of the bustle and roar of Broadway and the Strand. The small paving stones, which make the feet of those who are unaccustomed to them ache severely, the brick and stone floors of the houses, and the lack of the little comforts of modern civilization, render Rome a wearisome place, until one has caught its spirit. Little does he think who for the first time gazes on those gray, mouldering walls, on which "dull time feeds like slow fire upon a h.o.a.ry brand," or walks those streets in which the past and present are so strangely commingled,little does he realize how dear those scenes will one day be to him. He cannot foresee the regret with which he will leave those things that seem too common and familiar to deserve attention, nor the glowing enthusiasm which their mention will inspire in after years; and he would smile incredulously if any one were to predict to him that his heart, in after times, will swell with homesick longings as he recalls the memory of that ancient city, and that he will one day salute it from afar as his second home.

I make no claims to antiquarian knowledge; for I do not love antiquity for itself alone. It is only by force of a.s.sociation that antiquity has any charms for me. The pyramids of Egypt would awaken my respect, not so much by their age or size, as by the remembrance of the momentous scenes which have been enacted in their useless and ungraceful presence. Show me a scroll so ancient that human science can obtain no key to the mysteries locked up in the strange figures inscribed upon it, and you would move me but little. But place before me one of those ma.n.u.scripts (filled with scholastic lore, instinct with cla.s.sic eloquence, or luminous with the word of eternal life) which have come down to us from those nurseries of learning and piety, the monasteries of the middle ages, and you fill me with the intensest enthusiasm. There is food for the imagination hidden under those worm-eaten covers and brazen clasps.

I see in those fair pages something more than the results of the patient toil which perpetuated those precious truths. From those carefully penned lines, and brilliant initial letters, the pale, thoughtful face of the transcriber looks upon mehis contempt of worldly ambition and sacrifice of human consolations are reflected thereand from the quiet of his austere cell, he seems to dart from his serene eyes a glance of patient reproach at the worldlier and more modern age which reaps the fruit of his labour, and repays him by slandering his character. Show me a building whose stupendous masonry seems the work of t.i.tan hands, but whose history is lost in the twilight of the ages, so that no record remains of a time when it was any thing but an antique enigma, and its ma.s.sive columns and Cyclopean proportions will not touch me so nearly as the stone in Florence where Dante used to stand and gaze upon that dome which Michel Angelo said he would not imitate, and could not excel.

Feeling thus about antiquities, I need not say that those of Rome, so crowned with the most thrilling historical and personal a.s.sociations, are not wanting in charms for me. Yet I do not claim to be an antiquarian. It is all one to me whether the column of Phocas be forty feet high or sixty,whether a ruin on the Palatine that fascinates me by its richness and grandeur, was once a Temple of Minerva or of Jupiter Stator; or whether its foundations are of travertine or tufa. I abhor details. My enjoyment of a landscape would be at an end if I were called upon to count the mild-eyed cattle that contribute so much to its picturesqueness; and I have no wish to disturb my appreciation of the spirit of a place consecrated by ages of heroic history, by entertaining any of the learned conjectures of professional antiquarians. It is enough for me to know that I am standing on the spot where Romulus built his straw-thatched palace, and his irreverent brother leaped over the walls of the future mistress of the nations. Standing in the midst of the relics of the grandeur of imperial Rome, the whole of her wonderful history is constantly acting over again in my mind. The stern simplicity of those who laid the foundations of her greatness, the patriotic daring of those who extended her power, the wisdom of those who terminated civil strife by compelling the divided citizens to unite against a foreign foe, are all present to me. In that august place where Cicero pleaded, gazing upon that mount where captive kings did homage to the masters of the world, your mere antiquarian, with his pestilent theories and measurements, seems to me little better than a profaner. When I see such a one scratching about the base of some majestic column in the Forum (although I cannot but be grateful to those whose researches have developed the greatness of the imperial city,) I do long to interrupt him, and remind him that his "tread is on an empires dust." I wish to recall him from the petty details in which he delights, and have him enjoy with me the grandeur and dignity of the whole scene.

The triumphal arches,the monuments of the cultivation of those remote ages, no less than of the power of the state which erected them,the memorials of the luxury that paved the way to the decline of that powerall these things impress me with the thought of the long years that intervened between that splendour and the times when the seat of universal empire was inhabited only by shepherds and their flocks. It wearies me to think of the long centuries of human effort that were required to bring Rome to its culminating point of glory; and it affords me a melancholy kind of amus.e.m.e.nt to contrast the spirit of those who laid the deep and strong foundations of that prosperity and power, with that of some modern sages, to whom a hundred years are a respectable antiquity, and who seem to think that commercial enterprise and the will of a fickle populace form as secure a basis for a state as private virtue, and the principle of obedience to law. I know a country, yet in the first century of its national existence, full of hope and ambition, and possessing advantages such as never before fell to the lot of a young empire, but lacking in those powers which made Rome what she was.

If that country, "the newest born of nations, the latest hope of mankind," which has so rapidly risen to a power surpa.s.sing in extent that of ancient Rome, and bears within itself the elements of the decay that ruined the old empire,wealth, vice, corruption,if she could overcome the vain notion that hers is an exceptional case, and that she is not subject to that great law of nature which makes personal virtue the corner-stone of national stability and the lack of that its bane, and could look calmly upon the remains of old Romes grandeur, she might learn a great lesson. Contemplating the patient formation of that far-reaching dominion until it found its perfect consummation in the age of Augustus, (_Tant molis erat Romanam condere gentem_,) she would see that true national greatness is not "the hasty product of a day"; that demagogues and adventurers, who have made politics their trade, are not the architects of that greatness; and that the parchment on which the const.i.tution and laws of a country are written, might as well be used for drum-heads when reverence and obedience have departed from the hearts of its people.

A gifted representative of a name which is cla.s.sical in the history of the drama, some years ago gave to the world a journal of her residence in Rome. She called her volume "A Year of Consolation"a t.i.tle as true as it is poetical. Indeed I know of nothing more soothing to the spirit than a walk through these ancient streets, or an hour of meditation amid these remains of fallen majesty. To stand in the arena of the Coliseum in the noonday glare, or when those ponderous arches cast their lengthened shadows on the spot where the first Roman Christians were sacrificed to make a holiday for a brutalized populace,to muse in the Pantheon, that changeless temple of a living, and monument of a dead, worship, and reflect on the many generations that have pa.s.sed beneath its majestic portico from the days of Agrippa to our own,to listen to the birds that sing amid the shrubbery which decks the stupendous arches of the Baths of Caracalla,to be overwhelmed by the stillness of the Campagna while the eye is filled with that rolling verdure which seems in the hazy distance like the waves of the unquiet seawhat are all these things but consolations in the truest sense of the word? What is the bitterest grief that ever pierced a human heart through a long life of sorrows, compared to the dumb woe of that mighty desolation? What are our brief sufferings, when they are brought into the august presence of a mourner who has seen her hopes one by one taken from her, through centuries of war and rapine, neglect and silent decay?

Among all of Romes monuments of antiquity, there are few that impress me so strangely as those old Egyptian obelisks, the trophies of the victorious emperors, which the pontiffs have made to contribute so greatly to the adornment of their capital. It is almost impossible to turn a corner of one of the princ.i.p.al streets of the city without seeing one of these peculiar shafts that give a fine finish to the perspective.

If their cold granite forms could speak, what a strange history they would reveal! They were witnesses of the achievements of a power which reached its noonday splendour centuries before the shepherd Faustulus took the foundling brothers into his cottage on the banks of the Tiber.

The civilization of which they are the relics had declined before the Roman kings inaugurated that which afterwards reclaimed all Europe from the barbarians. Yet there they stand as grim and silent as if they had but yesterday been rescued from the captivity of the native quarry, and had never seen a n.o.bler form than those of the dusty artisans who wrought themas dull and unimpressible as some of the stupid tourists whom I see daily gazing upon these glorious monuments, and seeing only so much brick and stone.

MODERN ROME

Acknowledging as I do the charms which the Rome of antiquity possesses for me, it must still be confessed that the Rome of the present time enchants me with attractions scarcely less potent. Religion has consecrated many of the spots which history had made venerable, and thus added a new l.u.s.tre to their a.s.sociations. I turn from the broken columns and gray mouldering walls of old Rome to those fanes, "so ancient, yet so new," in which the piety of centuries has found its enduring expression. Beneath their sounding arches, by the mild light of the lamps that burn unceasingly around their shrines, who would vex his brain with antiquarian lore? We may notice that the pavement is worn away by the mult.i.tudes which have been drawn thither by curiosity or devotion; but we feel that Heavens chronology is not an affair of months and years, and that Peter and Paul, Gregory and Leo, are not mere personages in a drama upon the first acts of which the curtain long since descended. Who thinks of antiquity while he inhabits that world of art which Rome encloses within her walls? Those are not the triumphs of a past age alone; they are the triumphs of to-day. The Apollos bearing is not less manly, its step not less elastic, than it was in that remote age when its unknown sculptor threw aside his chisel and gazed upon his finished work. To-days sunshine is not more clear and golden than that which glows in the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, though he who thus made the sunbeams his servants has been sleeping for nearly two centuries in the dusty vaults of _Trinita de Monti_. Were Raphaels deathless faces more real while he was living than they are now? Were Guidos and Domenichinos triumphs more worthy of admiration while the paint was wet upon them? or were the achievements of that giant of art, Michel Angelo, ever more wonderful than now? No; these great works take no note of time, and confer upon the city which contains them something of their own immortality.

I have heard people regret that so many of our artists should expatriate themselves, and spend their lives in Rome or Florence. To me, however, nothing seems more natural; and if I were a painter, or a sculptor, I feel certain that I should share the common weakness of the profession for a place of residence in harmony with my art. What sympathy can a true artist feel with a state of society in which he is regarded by nine people out of ten as a useless member, because he does not directly aid in the production of a given quant.i.ty of grain or of cloth? Every stroke of his brush, every movement of his hands in moulding the obedient clay, is a protest against the low, mean, materialistic views of life which prevail among us; and it is too much to ask of any man that he shall spend his days in trying to live peaceably in an enemys camp. When figs and dates become common articles of food in Lapland, and the bleak sides of the hills of New Hampshire are adorned with the graceful palm tree and the luxuriant foliage of the tropics, you may expect art to flourish in a community whose G.o.d is commerce, and whose chief religious duty is money-getting.

Truly the life of an artist in Rome is about as near the perfection of earthly happiness as is commonly vouchsafed to mortal man. The tone of society, and all the surroundings of the artist, are so congenial that no poverty nor privation can seriously interfere with them. The streets, with their architectural marvels, the trim gardens and picturesque cloisters of the old religious establishments, the magnificent villas of the neighbourhood of the city, and the vast, mysterious Campagna, with its gigantic aqueducts and its purple atmosphere, and those glorious galleries which at the same time gratify the taste of the artist and feed his ambition,these are things which are as free to him as the blessed sunlight or the water that sparkles in the countless fountains of the Holy City. I do not wonder that artists who have lived any considerable time in Rome are discontented with the feverish restlessness of our American way of life, and that, after "stifling the mighty hunger of the heart" through two or three wearisome years in our western world, they turn to Rome as to a fond mother, upon whose breast they may find that peace which they had elsewhere sought in vain.

The churches of Rome impress me in a way which I have never heard described by any other person. I do not speak of St. Peters, (that "n.o.blest temple that human skill ever raised to the honour of the Creator,") nor do I refer to those other magnificent basilicas in which the Christian glories of eighteen centuries sit enthroned. These have a dignity and majesty peculiarly their own, and the most thoughtless cannot tread their ancient pavement without being for the time subdued into awe and veneration. But the parish churches of Rome, the churches of the various religious orders and congregations, and those numerous little temples which are so thickly scattered through the city, attract me in manner especially fascinating. There is an air of cosiness and at-home-ativeness about them which cannot be found in the grander fanes.

Some of them seem by their architectural finish to have been built in some fine street or square, and to have wandered off in search of quiet to their present secluded positions. It is beneath their arches that the Roman people may be seen. Before those altars you may see men, women, and children kneeling, their lips scarcely moving with the pet.i.tions which are heard only in another world. No intruding tourists, eye-gla.s.sed and Murrayed, interfere with their devotions, and the silence of the sacred place is unbroken, save by the rattling of a rosary, or at stated times by the swell of voices from the choir chapel.

These are the places where the real power of the Catholic religion makes itself felt more unmistakably than in the grandest cathedrals, where every form and sound is eloquent of worship. I remember with pleasure that once in London, as I was pa.s.sing through that miserable quarter which lies between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, I was attracted by the appearance of a number of people who were entering a narrow doorway. One or two stylish carriages, with crests upon their panels, and drivers in livery, stood before the dingy building which seemed to wear a mysterious air of semi-cleanliness in the midst of the general squalour. I followed the strange collection of the representatives of opulence and the extremest poverty through a long pa.s.sage-way, and found myself in a large room which was tastefully fitted up for a Catholic chapel. The simplicity of the place, joined with its strictly ecclesiastical look, the excellent music, the crowded and devout congregation, and the almost breathless attention which was paid to the simple and persuasive eloquence of the preacher, who was formerly one of the chief ornaments of the established church, whose highest honours he had cast aside that he might minister more effectually to the poor and despised,all these things astonished and delighted me. To see that church preserving, even in its hiddenness and poverty, its regard for the comeliness of G.o.ds worship, and adorning that humble chapel in a manner which showed that the spirit which erected the shrines of Westminster, Salisbury and York, had not died out, carried me back in spirit to the catacombs of Rome, where the early Christians left the abiding evidences of their zeal for the beauty of the house of G.o.d. I was at that time fresh from the continent, and my mind was occupied with the remembrance of the gorgeous churches of Italy. Yet, despite my recollection of those "forests of porphyry and marble," those altars of _lapis lazuli_, those tabernacles glittering with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and those mosaics and frescoes whose beauty and variety almost fatigue the sense of the beholder,I must say that it gave me a new sense of the dignity and grandeur of the ancient Church, to see her in the midst of the poverty and obscurity to which she is now condemned in the land which once professed her faith, and was once thickly planted with those inst.i.tutions of learning and charity which are the proudest monuments of her progress. A large ship, under full sail, running off before a pleasant breeze, is a beautiful sight; but it is by no means so grandly impressive as that of the same ship, under close canvas, gallantly riding out the merciless gale that carried destruction to every unseaworthy craft which came within its reach.

I am not one of those who lament over the millions which have been expended upon the churches of Rome. I am _not_ inclined to follow the sordid principle of that apostle who is generally held up rather as a warning than an example, and say that it had been better if the sums which have been devoted to architectural ornament had been withheld and given to the poor. Religion has no need, it is true, of these visible splendours, any more than of set forms and modes of speech. For it is the heart that believes, and loves, and prays. But we, poor mortals, so enslaved by our senses, so susceptible to external appearances, need every thing that can inspire in us a respect for something higher than ourselves, or remind us of the glories of the invisible, eternal world.

And can we doubt that He who praised the action of that pious woman who poured the precious ointment upon His sacred head, looks with complacency upon the sacrifices which are made for the adornment of the temples devoted to His worship? Is it a right principle that people who are clad in expensive garments, who are not content unless they are surrounded by carved or enamelled furniture, and whose feet tread daily on costly tapestries, should find fault with the generous piety which has made the churches of Italy what they are, and should talk so impressively about the beauty of spiritual worship? I have no patience with these advocates for simplicity in every thing that does not relate to themselves and their own comforts.

"Shall we serve Heaven with less respect Than we do minister to our gross selves?"

I care not how simple our private houses may be, but I advocate liberality and splendour in our public buildings of all kinds, for the sake of preserving a due respect for the inst.i.tutions they enshrine. I remember, in reading one of the old cla.s.sical writers,Sall.u.s.t, I think,in my young days, being greatly impressed by his declaration that private luxury is a sure forerunner of a nations downfall, and that it is a fatal sign for the dwellings of the citizens to be s.p.a.cious and magnificent, while the public edifices are mean and unworthy. Purely intellectual as we may think ourselves, we are, nevertheless, somewhat deferential to the external proprieties of life, and I very much doubt whether the most reverential of us could long maintain his respect for the Supreme Court if its sessions were held in a tap-room, or for religion, if its ministers prayed and preached in pea-jackets and top-boots.

Displeasing as is the presence of most of the English-speaking tourists one meets in Rome, there are two places where they delight to congregate, which yet have charms for me that not even c.o.c.kney vulgarity or Yankee irreverence can destroy. The church of the convent of _Trinit de Monti_ wins me, in spite of the throng that fills its nave at the hour of evening every Sunday and festival day. Some years since, when I first visited Rome, the music which was heard there was of the highest order of merit. At present the nuns of the Sacred Heart have no such great artistes in their community as they had then, but the music of their choir is still one of those things which he who has once heard can never forget. It is the only church in Rome in which I have heard female voices; and, though I much prefer the great male choirs of the basilicas, there is a soothing simplicity in the music at _Trinit de Monti_ which goes home to almost every heart. I have seen giddy and unthinking girls, who laughed at the ceremonial they did not understand, subdued to reverence by those strains, and supercilious Englishmen reduced to the humiliating necessity of wiping their eyes. Indeed, the whole scene is so harmoniously impressive that its enchantment cannot be resisted. The solemn church, lighted only by the twilight rays, and the tapers upon the high altar,the veiled forms of the pious sisterhood and their young pupils in the grated sanctuary,the clouding of the fragrant incense,the tinkling of that silvery bell and of the chains of the swinging censer,those ancient and dignified rites,and over all, those clear, angelic voices praying and praising, in litany and hymnall combine to make up a worship, one moment of which would seem enough to wipe away the memory of a lifetime of folly, and disappointment, and sorrow.

The Sistine Chapel is another place to which I am bound by an almost supernatural fascination. My imperfect eyesight will not permit me to enjoy fully the frescoes that adorn its lofty walls; but I feel that I am in the presence of the great master and some of his mightiest conceptions. I do not know whether the chapel is most impressive in its empty state, or when thronged for some great religious function. In the former condition, its fine proportions and its simplicity satisfy me so completely, that I hardly wish for the pomp and splendour which belong to it on great occasions. I know of nothing more grand than the sight of that simple throne of the Sovereign Pontiff, when it is occupied by that benignant old man, to whom more than two hundred millions of people look with veneration as to a father and a teacher,and surrounded by those ill.u.s.trious prelates and princes who compose a senate of moral and intellectual worth, such as all the world beside cannot parallel. Those venerable figuresthose gray hairsthose ma.s.sive foreheads, and those resplendent robes of office, seem to be a part of some great historical picture, rather than a reality before my eyes. There is nothing more severe in actual experience, or more satisfactory in the recollection, than Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. The crowd, the fatigue, and the presence of so many sight-seers, who have come with the same feeling that they would attend an opera or a play, are not calculated to increase ones bodily comfort, or to awaken the sentiments proper to so sacred a season as that which is then commemorated. But after these have pa.s.sed away, there remains the recollection, which time does not diminish, but makes more precious, of that darkening chapel and the bowed-down heads of the Pope and cardinals, of the music, "yearning like a G.o.d in pain," of the melodious woe of the _Miserere_, the plaintive majesty of the Lamentations and the Reproaches, and the shrill dissonance of the shouts of the populace in the gospel narrative of the crucifixion. These are things which would outweigh a year of fatigue and pain. I know of no greater or more sincere tribute to the perfections of the Sistine choir, and the genius of Allegri and Palestrina, than the patience with which so many people submit to be packed, like herring in a box, into that small chapel. But old and gouty as I am, I would gladly undergo all the discomforts of that time to hear those sounds once more.

I hear some people complain of the beggars, and wonder why Rome, with her splendid system of charities for the relief of every form of suffering, permits mendicancy. For myself, I am not inclined to complain either of the beggars or of the merciful government, which refuses to look upon them as offenders against its laws. On the contrary, it appears to me rather creditable than otherwise to Rome, that she is so far behind the age, as not to cla.s.s poverty with crime among social evils. I have a sincere respect for this feature of the Catholic Church; this regard for the poor as her most precious inheritance, and this unwillingness that her children should think that, because she has organized a vast system of benevolence, they are absolved of the duty of private charity. In this wisdom, which thus provides for the exercise of kindly feelings in alms-giving, may be found one of the most attractive characteristics of the Roman Church. This, no less than the austere religious orders which she has founded, shows in what sense she receives the beat.i.tude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." And the same kind spirit of equality may be seen in her churches and cathedrals, where rich and poor kneel upon the same pavement, before their common G.o.d and Saviour, and in her cloisters, and universities, and schools, where social distinctions cannot enter.

When I walk through the cloisters of these venerable inst.i.tutions of learning, or gaze upon the ancient city from _Monte Mario_, or the Janiculum, it seems to me that never until now did I appreciate the worlds indebtedness to Rome. Dislike it as we may, we cannot disguise the fact, that to her every Christian nation owes, in a great measure, its civilization, its literature, and its religion. The endless empire which Virgils muse foretold, is still hers; and, as one of her ancient Christian poets said, those lands which were not conquered by her victorious arms are held in willing obedience by her religion. When I think how all our modern civilization, our art, letters, and jurisprudence, sprang originally from Rome, it appears to me that a narrow religious prejudice has prevented our forming a due estimate of her services to humanity. To some, the glories of the ancient empire, the memory of the days when her sovereignty extended from Britain to the Ganges, and her capital counted its inhabitants by millions, seem to render all her later history insignificant and dull; but to my mind the moral dignity and power of Christian Rome is as superior to her old military omnipotence as it is possible for the human intellect to conceive. The ancient emperors, with all their power, could not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For me, Romes most enduring glories are the memories of the times when her great missionary orders civilized and evangelized the countries which her arms had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined the world with their virtues; when her pontiffs, single-handed, turned back barbarian invasions, or mitigated the severities of the feudal age, or protected the people by laying their ban upon the tyrants who oppressed them, or defended the sanct.i.ty of marriage, and the rights of helpless women against divorce-seeking monarchs and conquerors. These things are the true fulfilment of the glowing prophecy of Romes greatness, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchises, when neas visits the Elysian Fields, and hears from his old father that the mission of the government he is about to found is to rule the world by moral power, to make peace between opposing nations, to spare the subject, and to subdue the proud:

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; H tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."

ROME TO Ma.r.s.eILLES

The weather was fearfully hot the day of my departure from Rome. The sun was staring down, without winking, upon that wonderful old city, as if he loved the sight. The yellow current of old Father Tiber seemed yellower than ever in the glare. Except from sheer necessity, no person moved abroad; for the atmosphere, which early in the morning had seemed like airs from heaven, before noon had become most uncomfortably like a blast from the opposite direction. The Piazza di Spagna was like Tadmor in the wilderness. Not a single English tourist, with his well-read Murray under his arm, was to be seen there; not a carriage driver broke the stillness of the place with his polyglot solicitations to ride. The great staircase of _Trinit de Monti_ seemed an impossibility; to have climbed up its weary ascent under that broiling sun would have been poor entertainment for man or beast. The squares of the city were like furnaces, and made one mentally curse architecture, and bless the narrow, shady streets. The soldiers on guard at the gates and in the public places looked as if they couldnt help it. Now and then a Capuchin monk, in his heavy, brown habit, girded with the knotted cord, toiled along on some errand of benevolence, and made one marvel at his endurance. Occasionally a cardinal rolled by in scarlet state, looking as if he gladly would have exchanged the bondage of his dignity and power for a single day of virtuous liberty in linen pantaloons.

Traffic seemed to have departed this life; there were no buyers, and the shopkeepers slumbered at their counters. The _cafs_ were shrouded in their long, striped awnings, and seemed to invite company by their well-wet pavement. A few old Romans found energy enough to call for an occasional ice or lemonade, and talked in the intervals about _Pammerstone_, and his agent, Mazzini. How the sun blazed down into the Coliseum! Not a breath of air stirred the foliage that clothes that mighty ruin. Even the birds were mute. To have crossed that broad arena would have perilled life as surely as in those old days when the first Roman Christians there confessed their faith. On such a day, ones parting visits must necessarily be brief; so I left the amphitheatre, and walked along the dusty _Via Sacra_, pausing a moment to ponder on the scene of Ciceros triumphs, and of so many centuries of thrilling history, and coming to the conclusion that, if it were such a day as that when Virginius in that place slew his dear little daughter, the blow was merciful indeed. The market-place in front of the Pantheon, usually so thronged and lively, was almost deserted. The fresh, bright vegetables had either all been sold, or had refused to grow in such a heat. But the Pantheon itself was unchanged. There it stood, in all its severe grandeur, majestic as in the days of the Csars, the embodiment of heathenism, the exponent of the worship of the old, inexorable G.o.ds,of justice without mercy, and power without love. Its interior seemed cool and refreshing, for no heat can penetrate that stupendous pile of masonry,and I gathered new strength from my short visit. It was a fine thought in the old Romans to adapt the temples of heathenism to the uses of Christianity. The contrasts suggested to our minds by this practice are very striking. When we see that the images of the old revengeful and impure divinities have given place to those of the humble and self-denying heroes of Christianity, that the Saviour of the world stretches out His arms upon the cross, in the place from which the haughty Jupiter once hurled his thunderbolts, we are borne at once to a conclusion more irresistible than any that the mere force of language could produce. One of our own poets felt this in Rome, and expressed this same idea in graceful verse:

"The G.o.ddess of the woods and fields, The healthful huntress undefiled, Now with her fabled brother yields To sinless Mary and her Child."

But I must hurry on towards St. Peters. There are three places in Rome which every one visits as soon as possible after he arrives, and as short a time as may be before his departurethe Coliseum, the Pantheon, and St. Peters. The narrow streets between the Pantheon and the Bridge of St. Angelo were endurable, because they were shady. It was necessary to be careful, however, and not trip over any of the numerous Roman legs whose proprietors were stretched out upon the pavement in various picturesque postures, sleeping away the long hours of that scorching day. At last the bridge is reached Berninis frightful statues, which deform its bal.u.s.trades, seem to be writhing under the influence of the sun. I am quite confident that St. Veronicas napkin was curling with the heat. The bronze archangel stood as usual upon the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo. I stopped a few moments, thinking that he might see the expediency of sheathing his sword and retreating, before he should be compelled, in the _confusion_ of such a blaze as that, to _run_ away; but it was useless. I moved on towards St. Peters, and he still kept guard there as brazen-faced as ever. The great square in front of the basilica seemed to have scooped up its fill of heat, and every body knows that it is capable of containing a great deal. The few persons whom devotion or love of art had tempted out in such a day, approached it under the shade of its beautiful colonnades. I was obliged to content myself with the music of one of those superb fountains only, for the workmen were making a new basin for the other. St. Peters never seemed to me so wonderful, never filled me up so completely, as it did then. The contrast of the heat I had been in with that atmosphere of unchangeable coolness, the quiet of the vast area, the fewness of people moving about, all conspired to impress me with a new sense of the majesty and holiness of the place. The quiet, unflickering blaze of the numerous lamps that burn unceasingly around the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles seemed a beacon of immortality. To one who could at that hour recall the bustle and turmoil of the Boulevards of Paris, or of the Strand, or of Broadway, the vast basilica itself seemed to be an island of peace in the tempestuous ocean of the world. I am not so blind a lover of Gothic architecture that I can find no beauty nor religious feeling in the Italian churches. I prefer, it is true, the "long-drawn aisle and fretted vault," and the "storied windows richly dight"; but I cannot for that reason sneer at the gracefully turned arches, the mosaic walls and domes rich in frescoes and precious marbles, that delight ones eyes in Italy. Both styles are good in their proper places. The Gothic and Norman, with their high-pitched roofs, are the natural growth of the snowy north, and to attempt to transplant them to a land where heat is to be guarded against, were as absurd as to expect the pine and fir to take the place of the fig tree and the palm. Talk as eloquently as we may about being superior to external impressions, I defy any man to breathe the quiet atmosphere of any of these old continental churches for a few moments, without feeling that he has gathered new strength therefrom to tread the thorns of life. Lamartine has spoken eloquently on this theme: "Ye columns who veil the sacred asylums where my eyes dare not penetrate, at the foot of your immovable trunks I come to sigh!

Cast over me your deep shades, render the darkness more obscure, and the silence more profound! Forests of porphyry and marble! the air which the soul breathes under your arches is full of mystery and of peace! Let love and anxious cares seek shade and solitude under the green shelter of groves, to soothe their secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary!

the eye of religion prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs!

Nothing changes thy foliage; thy still shade is the image of motionless eternity!"

There was not time to linger long. The pressure of worldly engagements was felt even at the shrine of the apostles. I walked about, and tried to recall the many splendid religious pageants I had there witnessed, and wondered sorrowfully whether I should ever again listen to that matchless choir, or have my heart stirred to its depths by the silver trumpets that recho under that sonorous vault in the most solemn moment of religions holiest rite. Once more out in the clear hot atmosphere which seemed hotter than before. The Supreme Pontiff was absent from his capital, and the Vatican was comparatively empty. The Swiss guards, in their fantastic but picturesque uniform, were loitering about the foot of the grand staircase, and sighing for a breath of the cool air of their Alpine home. I took a last long gaze at that grand old pile of buildings,the home of all that is most wonderful in art, the abode of that power which overthrew the old Roman empire, inaugurated the civilization of Europe, and planted Christianity in every quarter of the globe,and then turned my unwilling feet homewards. In my course I pa.s.sed the foot of the Janiculum Hill: it was too hot, however, to think of climbing up to the convent of Sant Onofriothough I would gladly have paid a final visit to that lovely spot where the munificence of Pius IX. has just completed a superb sepulchre for the repose of Ta.s.so.