It is supposed that this marriage proved unhappy. Boccaccio, like a pathetic lover rather than biographer, exclaims, Oh menti cicche! Oh tenebrosi intelletti! Oh argomenti vani di molti mortali, quante sono le ruiscite in assai cose contrarie a’ nostri avvisi! &c. “Oh blind men! Oh dark minds! Oh vain arguments of most mortals, how often are the results contrary to our advice! Frequently it is like leading one who breathes the soft air of Italy to refresh himself in the eternal shades of the Rhodopean mountains. What physician would expel a burning fever with fire, or put in the shivering marrow of the bones snow and ice? So certainly shall it fare with him who, with a new love, thinks to mitigate the old. Those who believe this know not the nature of love, nor how much a second passion adds to the first. In vain would we assist or advise this forceful passion, if it has struck its root near the heart of him who long has loved.”
Boccaccio has beguiled my pen for half-an-hour with all the loves and fancies which sprung out of his own affectionate and romantic heart. What airy stuff has he woven into the “Vita” of Dante! this sentimental biography! Whether he knew but little of the personal history of the great man whom he idolised, or whether the dream of the mother—the May-day interview with the little Bricè, and the rest of the children—and the effusion on Dante’s marriage, were grounded on tradition, one would not harshly reject such tender incidents.[265] But let it not be imagined that the heart of Boccaccio was only susceptible to amorous impressions—bursts of enthusiasm and eloquence, which only a man of genius is worthy of receiving, and only a man of genius is capable of bestowing—kindle the masculine patriotism of his bold, indignant spirit!
Half a century had elapsed since the death of Dante, and still the Florentines showed no sign of repentance for their ancient hatred of their persecuted patriot, nor any sense of the memory of the creator of their language, whose immortality had become a portion of their own glory. Boccaccio, impassioned by all his generous nature, though he regrets he could not raise a statue to Dante, has sent down to posterity more than marble, in the “Life.” I venture to give the lofty and bold apostrophe to his fellow-citizens; but I feel that even the genius of our language is tame by the side of the harmonised eloquence of the great votary of Dante!
“Ungrateful country! what madness urged thee, when thy dearest citizen, thy chief benefactor, thy only poet, with unaccustomed cruelty was driven to flight! If this had happened in the general terror of that time, coming from evil counsels, thou mightest stand excused; but when the passion ceased, didst thou repent? didst thou recall him? Bear with me, nor deem it irksome from me, who am thy son, that thus I collect what just indignation prompts me to speak, as a man more desirous of witnessing your amendment, than of beholding you punished! Seems it to you glorious, proud of so many titles and of such men, that the one whose like no neighbouring city can show, you have chosen to chase from among you? With what triumphs, with what valorous citizens, are you splendid? Your wealth is a removable and uncertain thing; your fragile beauty will grow old; your delicacy is shameful and feminine; but these make you noticed by the false judgments of the populace! Do you glory in your merchants and your artists? I speak imprudently; but the one are tenaciously avaricious in their servile trade; and Art, which once was so noble, and became a second nature, struck by the same avarice, is now as corrupted, and nothing worth! Do you glory in the baseness and the listlessness of those idlers, who, because their ancestors are remembered, attempt to raise up among you a nobility to govern you, ever by robbery, by treachery, by falsehood! Ah! miserable mother! open thine eyes; cast them with some remorse on what thou hast done, and blush, at least, reputed wise as thou art, to have had in your errors so fatal a choice! Why not rather imitate the acts of those cities who so keenly disputed merely for the honour of the birth-place of the divine Homer? Mantua, our neighbour, counts as the greatest fame which remains for her, that Virgil was a Mantuan! and holds his very name in such reverence, that not only in public places, but in the most private, we see his sculptured image! You only, while you were made famous by illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you unjustly, envious of his greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son! Now cease to be unjust! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living he never did do to you! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him again, but on that day, when all your citizens shall view him, and the great Remunerator shall examine, and shall punish! If anger, hatred, and enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to yourself; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son; yield your maternal piety to him whom once you repulsed, and, living, cast away from you! At least think of possessing him dead, and restore your citizenship, your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in reverence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would be called a Florentine! He held you ever above all others; ever he loved you! What will you then do? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity? Will you practise less humanity than the barbarians? You wish that the world should believe that you are the sister of famous Troy, and the daughter of Rome; assuredly the children should resemble their fathers and their ancestors. Priam, in his misery, bought the corpse of Hector with gold; and Rome would possess the bones of the first Scipio, and removed them from Linternum, those bones, which, dying, so justly he had denied her. Seek then to be the true guardian of your Dante, claim him! show this humane feeling, claim him! you may securely do this: I am certain he will not be returned to you; but thus at once you may betray some mark of compassion, and, not having him again, still enjoy your ancient cruelty! Alas! what comfort am I bringing you! I almost believe, that if the dead could feel, the body of Dante would not rise to return to you, for he is lying in Ravenna, whose hallowed soil is everywhere covered with the ashes of saints. Would Dante quit this blessed company to mingle with the remains of those hatreds and iniquities which gave him no rest in life? The relics of Dante, even among the bodies of emperors and of martyrs, and of their illustrious ancestors, is prized as a treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration; those works of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His birthplace, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude! and this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has snatched from you through ages yet to come!”
Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio’s heart in this sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the minds of the Florentines; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the memory of their great bard. By order of the city, the Divina Commedia was publicly read and explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities of age, roused his departing genius: still was there marrow in the bones of the aged lion, and he engaged in the task of composing his celebrated Commentaries on the Divina Commedia.
In this class of sentimental biography I would place a species which the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the Continent, in pursuit of his historical design. He found, preserved among several ancient families of France, their domestic annals. “With a warm, patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors.” This delight and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their folly or their vanity; yet in that folly there may be so much wisdom, and in that vanity there may be so much greatness, that the one will amply redeem the other.
This custom has been rarely adopted among ourselves; we have, however, a few separate histories of some ancient families, as those of Mordaunt, and of Warren. One of the most remarkable is “A Genealogical History of the House of Yvery, in its different branches of Yvery, Luvel, Perceval, and Gournay.” Two large volumes, closely printed,[266] expatiating on the characters and events of a single family with the grave pomp of a herald, but more particularly the idolatry of the writer for ancient nobility, and his contempt for that growing rank in society whom he designates as “New Men,” provoked the ridicule at least of the aspersed.[267] This extraordinary work, notwithstanding its absurdities in its general result, has left behind a deep impression. Drawn from the authentic family records, it is not without interest that we toil through its copious pages; we trace with a romantic sympathy the fortunes of the descendants of the House of Yvery, from that not-forgotten hero le vaillant Perceval chevalier de la Table Ronde, to the Norman Baron Asselin, surnamed the Wolf, for his bravery or his ferocity; thence to the Cavalier of Charles the First, Sir Philip Perceval, who, having gloriously defended his castle, was at length deprived of his lordly possessions, but never of his loyalty, and died obscurely in the metropolis of a broken heart, till we reach the polished nobleman, the Lord Egmont of the Georges.
The nation has lost many a noble example of men and women acting a great part on great occasions, and then retreating to the shade of privacy; and we may be confident that many a name has not been inscribed on the roll of national glory only from wanting a few drops of ink! Such domestic annals may yet be viewed in the family records at Appleby Castle! Anne, Countess of Pembroke, was a glorious woman, the descendant of two potent northern families, the Veteriponts and the Cliffords.—She lived in a state of regal magnificence and independence, inhabiting five or seven castles; yet though her magnificent spirit poured itself out in her extended charities, and though her independence mated that of monarchs, yet she herself, in her domestic habits, lived as a hermit in her own castles; and though only acquainted with her native language, she had cultivated her mind in many parts of learning; and as Donne, in his way, observes, “she knew how to converse of everything, from predestination to slea-silk.” Her favourite design was to have materials collected for the history of those two potent northern families to whom she was allied; and at a considerable expense she employed learned persons to make collections for this purpose from the records in the Tower, the Rolls, and other depositories of manuscripts: Gilpin had seen three large volumes fairly transcribed. Anecdotes of a great variety of characters, who had exerted themselves on very important occasions, compose these family records—and induce one to wish that the public were in possession of such annals of the domestic life of heroes and of sages, who have only failed in obtaining an historian![268]
A biographical monument of this nature, which has passed through the press, will sufficiently prove the utility of this class of sentimental biography. It is the Life of Robert Price, a Welsh lawyer, and an ancestor of the gentleman whose ingenuity, in our days, has refined the principles of the Picturesque in Art. This Life is announced as “printed by the appointment of the family;” but it must not be considered merely as a tribute of private affection; and how we are at this day interested in the actions of a Welsh lawyer in the reign of William the Third, whose name has probably never been consigned to the page of history, remains to be told.
Robert Price, after having served Charles the Second, lived latterly in the eventful times of William the Third—he was probably of Tory principles, for on the arrival of the Dutch prince he was removed from the attorney-generalship of Glamorgan. The new monarch has been accused of favouritism, and of an eagerness in showering exorbitant grants on some of his foreigners, which soon raised a formidable opposition in the jealous spirit of Englishmen. The grand favourite, William Bentinck, after being raised to the Earldom of Portland, had a grant bestowed on him of three lordships in the county of Denbigh. The patriot of his native country—a title which the Welsh had already conferred on Robert Price—then rose to assert the rights of his fatherland, and his speeches are as admirable for their knowledge as their spirit. “The submitting of 1500 freeholders to the will of a Dutch lord was,” as he sarcastically declared, “putting them in a worse posture than their former estate, when under William the Conqueror and his Norman lords. England must not be tributary to strangers—we must, like patriots, stand by our country—otherwise, when God shall send us a Prince of Wales, he may have such a present of a crown made him as a Pope did to King John, who was surnamed Sans-terre, and was by his father made Lord of Ireland, which grant was confirmed by the Pope, who sent him a crown of peacocks’ feathers, in derogation of his power, and the poverty of his country.” Robert Price asserted that the king could not, by the Bill of Rights, alien or give away the inheritance of a Prince of Wales without the consent of parliament. He concluded a copious and patriotic speech, by proposing that an address be presented to the king, to put an immediate stop to the grant now passing to the Earl of Portland for the lordships, &c.