We ran about the Specola again, and received a thousand polite attentions from the gentleman who shewed it. The piece of native gold here is much finer than that we saw among the treasures of Loretto, which being du nouveau continent is always inferior. “But every thing does,” as Mons. de Buffon observes, “degenerate in the West except birds;” and the Brazilian plumage seems to surpass all possibility of further glow. The continent however shews us no specimens preserved half as well as those of Sir Ashton Lever. The marine rarities here at Bologna are very capital; but I saw them to advantage now, in company of Mr. Chappelow. We find this city at once hot, and loud, and pious; less empty of occupation though than last time; for here is a new Gonfaloniere chosen in to-day, and the drums beat, and the trumpets sound, and some donations are distributed about, much in the proportions Tom Davis describes Garrick’s to have been; small pieces of money, and large pieces of cake, with quantities of meat, bread, and birds, borne about the town in procession, to make display of his bounty, who gives all this away at the time he is elected into office. Kids dressed with ribbon therefore, alive and carried on men’s shoulders showily adorned, lambs washed white as snow, and pretty red and white calves hanging their simple faces out of fine gilt baskets, paraded the streets all day. What struck us most however was an ox, handsomer and of a more silvery coat than I thought an ox’s hide capable of being brought to; his horns gold, and a garland of roses between them. This was beautiful; reminded one of all one had ever read and heard of victims going to sacrifice; and put in our heads again the old stories of Hercules, Eurystheus, &c.
At Bologna though, every thing puts people in mind of their prayers; so a few good women nothing doubting but when shows were going forward, religious meanings must be near at hand, dropt down on their knees in the street, and recommended themselves, or their dead friends perhaps, to heaven, with fervent and innocent earnestness, while the cattle passed along. An English clergyman in our company, hurt and grieved, yet half-disposed to laugh, cried, What are these dear creatures muttering about now for, as if their salvation depended upon it?—It was absurd enough to be sure; but in order to check our tittering disposition, I recollected to him, that I had once heard an ignorant woman in Hertfordshire repeat the absolution herself after the priest, with equally ill-placed fervour: for which he reprimanded her, and afterwards explained to her the grossness of the impropriety. When we have added to our stock of connoisseurship the graceful Sampson, drinking after his victory, by Guido, in this town, we shall quit it, and proceed through empty and deserted Ferrara to
PADUA.
We set out then for Ferrara, in our kind friend’s post-chaise; that is, my maid and I did: our good-natured gentlemen creeping slowly after in the broken coach; and how ended this project for insuring safety? Why in the chaise losing its hind wheel, and in our return to the carriage we had quitted. But it is for ever so, I think;—the sick folks live always, and the well ones die.
We took turn therefore and left our friends; but could not forbear a visit to Cento, where I wished much to see what Guercino had done for the ornament of his native place, and was amply repaid my pains by the sight of one picture, which, for its immediate power over the mind, at least over mine, has no equal even in Palazzo Zampieri. It is a scene highly touching. The appearance of our Saviour to his Mother after his resurrection. The dignity, the divinity of the Christ! the terror-checked transport visible in the parent Saint, whose expressive countenance and pathetic attitude display fervent adoration, maternal tenderness, and meek humility at once! How often have I said, this is the finest picture we have seen yet! when looking on the Caraccis and their school. I will say no more, the painter’s art can go no further than this. My partial preference of Guercino to any thing and to every thing, shall not however bribe me to suppress my grief and indignation at his strange method of commemorating his own name over the altar where he was baptised, which shocks every protestant traveller by its profaneness, while the Romanists admire his invention, and applaud his piety. Guercino then, so called because he was the little one-eyed man, had a fancy to represent his real appellation of John Francis Barbieri in the church; and took this mode as an ingenious one, painting St. John upon the right hand, St. Francis on the left, as two large full-length figures, and God the Father in the middle with a long beard for Barbieri.
This is a mixture of Abel Drugger’s contrivance in the Alchymist, and the infantine folly of three babies I once knew in England, children of a nobleman, who were severely whipt by their governess for playing at Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, sitting upon three chairs, with solemn countenances, in order to impress their tender fancies with a representation of what the good governess innocently and laudably had told them about the mysterious and incomprehensible Trinity. Let me add, that the eldest of these babies was not six years old, and the youngest but four, when they were caught in the blasphemous folly. Our Italians seem to be got very little further at forty.
Padua appears cleaner and prettier than it did last year; but so many things contribute to make me love it better, that it is no wonder one is prejudiced in its favour. It was so difficult to get safe hither, the roads being very bad, the people were so kind when we were here last, and the very inn-keeper and his assistants seemed so obligingly rejoiced to see us again, that I felt my heart quite expand at entering the Aquila d’oro, where we were soon rejoined by Mr. and Mrs. Greatheed, with whom we had parted in the Romagna, when they took the Perugia road, instead of returning by Bologna, a place they had seen before. Had we come three days sooner we might have seen the transit of Mercury from Abate Toaldo’s observatory; but our own transit took up all our thoughts, and it is a very great mercy that we are come safe at last. I think it was as much as four bulls and six horses could do to drag us into Rovigo.