Left Dresden in September; went by Prague to Vienna. I was much pleased with my residence there; I was fêted enough to gratify the most unbounded vanity. I went to Court; a separate private introduction to the Emperor and Empress. Sir Robert Keith was the English Minister. The Countess Thuron was the lady who went about with me. Made an excursion to Presburg, the capital of Hungary. Ld. Henry was there. We parted on September the 25th or 26th, not later.
From Vienna we went to Venice by the road of Gratz, thro’ Styria and Carinthia. On our arrival at Venice Mr. Ellis was dangerously ill of a putrid fever. He recovered by the care of a Jew doctor. We stayed a short time after his recovery; went by way of Mantua to Parma. From thence to Bologna and Florence. Mr. Ellis left us at Florence to return to England. We went on by the road of Radicofani to Rome (where we staid only two nights), then to Naples, which we reached about the 2nd week in October.
As soon as I was a little rested after my journey I began to see the wonderful environs, both of natural and artificial curiosities. The English society was composed of many of my friends; the Palmerstons,[26] Miss Carter, Sr. Charles Blagden, Dss. of Ancaster, Ly. Plymouth with whom I became intimate. Soon came the Bessboroughs (the old Father died), Ly. Spencer, Dss. of Devonshire, Ly. E. Foster, Mr. Pelham. In January the French fleet came and menaced Naples with a bombardment.[27] They were moored in front of my house on the Chiaia. I was brought to bed of my son Henry, on ye 10th Feb., 1793. I made my grossesse a pretext for staying at home in the evening. I went out every morning to see the objects most worthy of notice, and the evening I always passed with friends who came to see me, Drew, Mr. Pelham, and Italinski,[28] a Russian who grew much attached to my society.
ROAD TO PAESTUM
March 22nd.—We set off for Paestum. Our party consisted of the Palmerstons, Miss Carter, a Mr. Poor (a very eccentric man), and Mr. Pelham. About two miles from Pompeia the country begins to be pretty, and we got more amongst the Apennines. The road is excellent, it being made by ye King to go to a chasse of his at Eboli. La Cava and Vietri are charmingly situated in their different styles; the first has all the beauties of social life, small neat cottages interspersed amongst vineyards, olives, and myrtles, upon the side of a hill inclining towards a small torrent. The whiteness of the houses contrasted with the verdure of spring vegetation in the foreground, and the boldness of the scraggy rocks behind make a lovely picture and fill the mind with pleasing sensations at the sight of comfort and tranquillity, a lot that rarely befalls the peasantry of France and England. There is an aqueduct traditionally called Abelard’s bridge; why, the learned must determine, for I never knew that victim to love left his native France. Vietri is situated upon a rock above the sea, into which it abruptly ends; it commands a noble view of the bay of Salerno. With a glass from hence one may discern the temples of Paestum on the opposite coast. Salerno is a pretty little town upon the edge of the sea; the detail of the country is charming. On the right side of the bay is Amalfi, remarkable for being the spot where the Justinian Code was discovered. The Cathedral at Salerno is curious; in it are many sarcophagi brought by Robert Guiscard from Paestum, and various columns of fine marble and granite, which are placed to form a corridor in the court of the Cathedral, but being of different sizes the whole has an awkward appearance. From Salerno ye country is less interesting; excepting a few Baronial castles perched upon the tops of scraggy, isolated rocks there is little worthy of notice.
At Eboli we were obliged to change our carriages for smaller ones on account of the roads, which to Paestum were called abominable. We crossed ye Sele in a ferry; it is a torrent frequently impassable. Here the wretched inhabitants by their emaciated and squalid looks indicated the beginning of the malaria. Their habitations were such that one could easier imagine oneself in Siberia than in delightful Italy! Delicious country! as their homes, if they deserve such an epithet, were an exact counterpart of a Tartar hut. Circular mud walls raised about three feet from the ground, thatched with reeds forming a conical summit; the only aperture a door, which answered ye double purpose of admitting the wretched owners and letting out the smoke, which was very abundant from a fire lighted in the centre of the hut. But even in this disconsolate dwelling there was an attempt to drive away the melancholy which disease and penury must naturally inspire, for on one of the poles which supported the roof and came across the interior of the dwelling there hung a guitar. I persuaded one of the peasants to strike it: I immediately perceived an illumination of joy upon the haggard countenances of his auditors. Happy instrument! to suspend for a moment the sensation of misery, and banish by its tones the anguish of want from the breasts of the forlorn inmates. As we approached Paestum the dreariness of the country quite oppressive; plains filled with buffaloes, the most hideous of animals, stagnant ditches, and stinted myrtles, were all the objects that met the eye.
PAESTUM
Paestum itself is situated in a plain about a mile from the sea, dedicated to Neptune and built by ye Phoenicians about 250 years after the foundation of Rome; 500 years before Christ. Near the amphitheatre (which is much ruined) is the remains of a building with fluted columns nearly as large as those of the temples, more upright marks still existing of their bases; the capitals much worked in extraordinary designs. Parts of the frieze lying about; figures of men from 24 to 30 inches high worked on the frieze between the triglyphs. The stone of this building is more of the colour of grey limestone, and appears less porous than that of which the temples are built, that is a stone formed by incrustation of water. Paestum formerly was famous for roses, the sweetness of which is celebrated by several of the Latin poets; now alas! brambles and malaria have extinguished the fragrance of ye rose.
Our accommodation was but indifferent: I slept upon a table, the repelling points of which rather annoyed my limbs and would have convinced Boscovitch,[29] had he been in my place, of the existence of hard matter. However, I tried to sleep, tho’ its ancient inhabitants, ye Sybarites, would not have rested, if the story is true that one of them complained that a curled rose leaf destroyed their rest. The first view I had of ye temples was in ye dusk of ye evening; their appearance was majestic, but precisely what I had conceived them to be from the drawings I had seen. They are the only remains in Italy of early Grecian architecture. The Doric, to my taste, is too uneven. The columns are squat and clumsy. The inhabitants are savage and ignorant.
Fix’d like a plant on his peculiar spot,