Lloyd;—as I was moving in the pit, found him, and never saw a person so glad in my life. He offered me half of the money he had at his banker's, as he thought I must be much embarrassed. Told me Brelaz and Bertolini seemed to be together, and that the man seemed worked off his legs.
My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up, went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied, dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between breakfast and study went to de Brême to help him in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach English, which I had intended to do.
I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of St. Borromeo—very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels. The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black dirt, and the skull etc. is black. There is here the gnometer of Cassini. They preserve here a nail of the cross of Christ.—St. Ambrose, the ancient Cathedral. It was at the gates of this that Theodosius was refused entrance.—The Brera library; and the Ambrosian, where I saw the Virgil with marginal notes of Petrarch; some of the pieces of MSS. of the Plautus and Terence, fragments edited by Mai.—Some of the paintings there are beautiful. The Milanese Raphael has some heads expressing such mild heavenly meekness as is scarcely imagined.
[This Raphael is, as many readers will know, the Sposalizio, or Espousal of the Virgin Mary and Joseph. Being an early work by the master, it exhibits, in its "mild heavenly meekness," more of the style of Perugino than of that which became distinctive of Raphael in his maturity.]
When at Milan, I spent almost all my money in books, buying nearly 300 volumes, not being able to resist that thirst for printed sheets, many of which I never shall read.
Swarrow, the Governor of Milan, when the Emperor was there, accompanying him to the theatre, saw that one poor man in the pit, leaning against a box, had dared to keep his hat on. Violently enraged, he enters the box, without leave or saying a word; and, leaning over the box with all his orders dangling at his breast, applies two hearty slaps to the poor man's cheeks, and then, rising majestically, leaves the box, and goes to receive the despot's smile. This making a great hubbub, and exciting a great deal of ridicule against the noble police-officer, he insisted with the police-director that not a word more should be allowed to be said.
When at Milan, there came Sgricci, a Tuscan, under the patronage of Monti, who puffed him most egregiously, especially his tragic improvisati. I accompanied de Brême to Casa Crivelli, where I saw Swarrow and a cardinal; a dried-up ganache[?] with a face of malice that had dried up with the features of the face, but still remained sketched there in pretty forcible lines. The improvisator entered; yellow boots with trousers, blue coat, and a Flemish collar to his shirt. He began The Loves of Psyche and Cupid; commonplace, unpoetic rhymes. Coriolanus, a tragedy; such an abominable opiate that, in spite of my pinching myself and Cavalier Brême rousing me every minute, I found myself, when ended, roused by the applause from a pleasant nap. Heard him again at the theatre; terza rima; The Grief of Mausolea.[[30]] The only bearable parts were those about Aurora, night, etc., which he had beforehand prepared, to clap-in at convenience, from the Gradus ad Parnassum. The tragedy being drawn out, first came The Death of Socrates. He came forward, saying that, this subject being undramatizable, he would, if the public insisted, attempt it, but that he had rather another might be drawn. Montezuma came out. "Oh," says he, "this will touch your passions too much, and offend many probably personally." The public here stoutly hissed, and insisted he should proceed; he as stoutly called on the boy to draw, which he did, and, there coming forth Eteocles and Polynices, he was satisfied, making olla podrida scenica of French ragouts, Italian minestras, and Greek black soup. It was reported that Monti's taking him up was by the persuasion of his daughter. An epigram was written upon Sgricci, as follows nearly—
"In questi tempi senza onore e merto
Lavora Sgricci in vano, ha un altro il serto."
[The translation of this couplet is—"In these times without honour and merit Sgricci labours in vain—another man wears the wreath." It will be seen that the epigram, if such it can be considered, runs in favour of Sgricci. He was a native of Arezzo, and, as our text shows, a renowned improvisatore. I happen to possess a printed tragedy of his, Ettore, which is notified as having been improvised in the Teatro Carignano, Turin, on June 13, 1823. Shelley in January 1821 attended one of Sgricci's improvisations, and was deeply impressed by it as a wonderful effort, and even, considered in itself, a fine poetic success. In 1869, being entrusted with some MS. books by Shelley through the courtesy of his son the late Baronet, I read a tribute of some length which the great English poet had paid to the Italian improvisatore: it has not yet been published, and is included, I suppose, among the Shelley MSS. bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. The subject on which Shelley heard Sgricci improvise was Hector (Ettore). One rather suspects that the Ettore improvised in 1823 may have been partly reminiscent of its predecessor in 1821. The portrait of Sgricci, a man of some thirty-five years of age, appears in the book which I possess: it shows a costume of the fancy-kind that Polidori speaks of. I have looked through the tragedy, and do not concur in the tone of ridicule in which Polidori indulges. An improvise can only be criticized as an improvise, and this appears to me a very fair specimen.—As I have had occasion here to re-mention Shelley, I may as well add that Medwin (Life of Shelley, vol. i, p. 250), says that the poet had no animosity against Polidori, consequent upon any past collisions: "Shelley I have often heard speak of Polidori, but without any feeling of ill-will.">[