Ancona is a town perfectly agreeable to strangers, from the good humour with which every nation is received, and every religion patiently endured: something of all this the scholars say may be found in the derivation of its name, which being Greek I have nothing to do with. Pliny tells us its original, and says;
A Siculis condita est colonia Ancona[24].
That Dalmatia should be opposite, yet to us at present inaccessible, we all regret; I drank sea water however, so did not leave untasted the waves which Lucan speaks of:
Illic Dalmaticis obnoxia fluctibus Ancon[25].
The fine turbots did not any of them fall to our share; but here are good fish, and, to say true, every thing eatable as much in perfection as possible: I could never since I arrived at Turin find real cause of complaint—serious complaint I mean except at that savage-looking place called Radicofani; and some other petty town in Tuscany, near Sienna, where I eat too many eggs and grapes, because there was nothing else.
Nice accommodations must not be looked for, and need not be regretted, where so much amusement during the day gives one good disposition to sleep sound at night: the worst is, men and women, servants and masters, must often mess together; but if one frets about such things, it is better stay at home. The Italians like travelling in England no better than the English do travelling in Italy; whilst an exorbitant expence is incurred by the journey, not well repaid to them by the waiters white chitterlins, tambour waistcoats, and independent “No, Sir,” echoed round a well-furnished inn or tavern; which puts them but in the place of Socrates at the fair, who cried out—“How many things have these people gathered together that I do not want!”—A noble Florentine complained exceedingly to me once of the English hotels, where he was made to help pay for those good gold watches the fellows who attended him drew from their pockets; so he set up his quarters comically enough at the waggoners full Moon upon the old bridge at Bath, to be quit of the schiavitù, as he called it, of living like a gentleman, “where,” says he, “I am not known to be one.” The truth is, a continental nobleman can have little heart of a country, where, to be treated as a man of fashion, he must absolutely behave as such: his rank is ascertained at home, and people’s deportment to him regulated by long-established customs; nor can it be supposed flattering to its prejudices, to feel himself jostled in the street, or driven against upon the road by a rich trader, while he is contriving the cheapest method of going to look over his manufactory. Wealth diffused makes all men comfortable, and leaves no man splendid; gives every body two dishes, but nobody two hundred. Objects of show are therefore unfrequent in England, and a foreigner who travels through our country in search of positive sights, will, after much money spent, go home but poorly entertained:—“There is neither quaresima,” will he say, “nor carnovale in any sense of the word, among those insipid islanders.”—For he who does not love our government, and taste our manners which result from it, can never be delighted in England; while the inhabitants of our nation may always be amused in theirs, without any esteem of it at all.
I know not how Ancona produced all these tedious reflexions: it is a trading place, and a sea-port town. Men working in chains upon the new mole did not please me though, and their insensibility shocks one:—“Give a poor thief something, master,” says one impudent fellow;—“Son stato ladro padrone[26];”—with a grin. That such people should be corrupt or coarse however is no wonder; what surprised me most was, that when one of our company spoke of his conduct to a man of the town—“Why, what would you have, Sir?”—replies the person applied to—“when the poor creature is castigato, it is enough sure, no need to make him be melancholy too:”—and added with true Italian good-nature,—“Siamo tutti peccatori[27].”
The mole is a prodigious work indeed; a warm friend to Venice can scarce wish its speedy conclusion, as the useful and necessary parts of the project are already nearly accomplished, and it would be pity to seduce more commerce away from Venice, which has already lost so much.
The triumphal arch of Trajan, described by every traveller, and justly admired by all; white as his virtue, shining as his character, and durable as his fame; fixed our eyes a long time in admiration, and made us, while we examined the beautiful structure, recollect his incomparable qualities to whom it was dedicated,—“Inter Cæsares optimus[28],”—says one of their old writers: nor could either column or arch be so sure a proof that he was thought so, as the wish breathed at the inauguration of succeeding emperors; Sis tu felicior Augusto, melior Trajano[29].
If these Ancona men were not proud of themselves, one should hate them; descended as they are from those Syracusans liberated by Timoleon, who freed them first from the tyranny of Dionysius; fostered afterwards by Trajan, as peculiarly worth his notice; and patronised in succeeding times by the good Corsini Pope, Clement XII., whose care for them appears by the useful lazaretto he built, “to save,” said he, “our best subjects, our subjects of Ancona.”