No such thing, however, could be found or heard of. Indeed a search after truth requires such patience, such penetration, and such learning, that it is no wonder she is so seldom got a glimpse of; whoever is diligently desirous to find her, is so perplexed by ignorance, so retarded by caution, so confounded by different explications of the same thing recurring at every turn, so sickened with silly credulity on the one hand, and so offended with pertness and pyrrhonism on the other, that it is fairly rendered impossible for one to keep clear of prejudices, while the steady resolution to do so becomes itself a prejudice.—But with regard to little follies, it is better to laugh at than lament them.
We were shewn one morning lately the spot where it is supposed St. Paul suffered decapitation; and our Cicerone pointed out to us three fountains, about the warmth of Buxton, Matlock, or Bristol water, which were said to have burst from the ground at the moment of his martyrization. A Dutch gentleman in company, and a steady Calvinist, loudly ridiculed the tradition, called it an idle tale, and triumphantly expressed his certain conviction, that such an event could not possibly have ever taken place. To this assertion no reply was made; and as we drove home all together, the conversation having taken a wide range and a different turn, he related in the course of it a long Rousseau-like tale of a lady he once knew, who having the strongest possible attachment to one lover, married another upon principles of filial obedience, still retaining inviolate her passion for the object of her choice, who, adorned with every excellence and every grace, continued a correspondence with her across the Atlantic ocean; having instantly changed his hemisphere, not to give the husband disturbance; who on his part admired their letters, many of which were written in his praise, who had so cruelly interrupted their felicity. Seeing some marks of disbelief in my countenance, he begun observing, in an altered tone of voice, that common and vulgar minds might hold such events to be out of possibility, and such sentiments to be out of nature, but it was only because they were above the comprehension and beyond the reach of people educated in large and corrupt capitals, Paris, Rome, or London, to think true. Now was not some share of good breeding (best learned in great capitals perhaps) necessary to prevent one from retorting upon such an orator—that it was more likely nature should have been permitted to deviate in favour of Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ, than of a fat inhabitant of North Zealand, no way distinguished from the mass of mankind?
But we have been called to pass some moments on the Cælian hill; and see the Chiesa di San Gregorio, interesting above all others to travellers who delight in the vestiges of Pagan Rome: as, having been built upon a Patrician’s house, it still to a great degree retains the form of one; while to the scholar who is pleased with anecdotes of ecclesiastical history, the days recur when the stone chair they shew us, contented the meek and venerable bishop of Rome who sate in it, while his gentle spirit sought the welfare of every Christian, and refused to persecute even the benighted and unbelieving Jews; opposing only the arms of piety and prayer, to the few enemies his transcendent excellence had raised him. His picture here is considered as a master-piece of Annibale Caracci; and it is strange to think that the trial-pieces, as they are called, should be erroneously treated of in the Carpenteriana: when speaking of the contention between the two scholars, to decide which the master sent for an old woman, Monsieur de Carpentier tells us the dispute lay between Domenichino and Albano—a gross mistake; as it was Guido, not Albano, who ventured to paint something in rivalry with Domenichino, relative to St. Andrew and his martyrdom; and these trial-pieces produced from her the same preference given by every spectator who has seen them since; for when Caracci (unwilling to offend either of his scholars, as both were men of the highest rank and talents) enquired of her what she thought of Guido’s performance?—“Indeed,” replied the old woman, “I have never yet looked at it, so fully has my mind been occupied by the powers shewn in that of Domenichino.”
The vecchia is here at Rome the common phrase when speaking of your only female servant, a person not unlike an Oxford or Cambridge bed-maker in appearance; and much amazed was I two days ago at the answer of our vecchia, when curiosity prompted me to ask her age:—“O, Madam, I am a very aged woman,” was the reply, “and have two grandchildren married; I am forty-two years old, poveretta me!” I told an Italian gentleman who dined with us what Caterina had said, and begged him to ask the laquais de place, who waited on us at table, a similar question. He appeared a large, well-looking, sturdy fellow, about thirty-eight years old; but said he was scarce twenty-two; that he had been married six years, and had five children. How old was your wife when you met?—“Thirteen, Sir,” answered Carlo: so all is kept even at least; for if they end life sooner than in colder climates, they begin it earlier it is plain.
Yet such things seem strange to us; so do a thousand which occur in these warm countries in the commonest life. Brick floors, for example, with hangings of a dirty printed cotton, affording no bad shelter for spiders, bugs, &c.; a table in the same room, encrusted with verd antique, very fine and worthy of Wilton house; with some exceeding good copies of the finest pictures here at Rome; form the furniture of our present lodging: and now we have got the little casement windows clean to look at it, I pass whole hours admiring, even in the copy, our glorious descent from the cross, by Daniel de Volterra; which to say truth loses less than many a great performance of the same kind, because its merits consist in composition and design; and as sentiment, not style, is translatable, so grouping and putting figures finely together can be easier transmitted by a copy, than the meaner excellencies of colouring and finishing. Homer and Cervantes may be enjoyed by those who never learned their language, at least to a great degree; while a true taste of Gray’s Odes or Martial’s Epigrams has been hitherto found exceedingly difficult to communicate. It would, however, be cruel to deny the merit of colouring to Daniel de Volterra’s descent from the cross, only because being painted in fresco it has suffered so terribly by time and want of care, but it is now kept covered, and they remove the curtain when any body desires to contemplate its various beauties.
The church of Santa Maria Maggiore has been too long unspoken of, rich as it is with the first gold torn from the unfortunate aborigines of America; a present from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to the Pope, in return for that permission he had given them to exert and establish their sanguinary sway over those luckless nations. One pillar from the temple of Peace is an ill-adapted ornament to this edifice, built nearly in the form of an ancient basilica; and with so expensive a quantity of gilding, that it is said two hundred and fifty thousand pounds were expended on one chapel only, which is at last inferior in fame and beauty to cappella Corsini; in riches and magnificence to cappella Borghese, where an amethyst frame of immense value surrounds the names, in gold cypher, of our blessed Saviour and his Mother, the ground of which is of transparent jasper, and cannot be matched for elegance or perfection, being at least four feet high (the tablets I mean), and three feet wide. But to this Borghese family, I am well persuaded, it would be a real fatigue to count the wealth which they enjoy.
Villa Pamphili is a lovely place, or might be made so; but laying out pleasure grounds is not the forte of Italian taste. I never saw one of them, except Lomellino of Genoa, who had higher notions of a garden than what an opera scene affords; and that is merely a range of trees in great pots with gilded handles, and rows of tall cypresses planted one between every two pots, all straight over against each other in long lines; with an octangular marble bason to hold water in the middle, covered for the most part with a thick green scum.
At Villa Pamphili is a picture of Sanctorius, who made the weighing balance spoken of by Addison in the Spectator; it was originally contrived for the Pamphili Pope. And here is an old statue of Clodius profaning the mysteries of the Bona Dea, as we read in the Roman history. And here are camels working in the park like horses: we found them playing about at their leisure when we were at Pisa, and at Milan they were shewed for a show; so little does one state of Italy connect with another. These three cities cannot possibly be much further from each other than London, York, and Exeter; yet the manners differ entirely, and what is done in one place is not known at all in the other. It must be remembered that they are all separate states.