‘… The town is now in possession of a Suliote chief, who has taken the castle into his own hands, and has quartered himself and his followers in all the best houses of the town, which is now newly building, and promises to be regular, and even elegant. The streets are quite straight, and cut one another at right angles, and the houses all have piazzas before them; but everything is now at a standstill, and the streets themselves, unpaved, are more like the courses of rivulets than anything else. It was a night of rejoicing, this being the Day of St. Dionysius, and all the common people were assembled in the bazaar, a sort of shambles, and the gentlemen in a coffee-room, smoking and playing cards, in their best dresses: most of them were fine-looking fellows, very quiet and polite. We had coffee there, and very capital it was, but thick and almost like chocolate. I should like to know how they make it. The Greeks there were all dressed in their white linen petticoats, embroidered coats, and shaggy capotes, except one old fellow, who had on an English box-coat, and one other fellow, whom, from his vulgar impudent countenance, I conclude to have been an English blackguard. They all say the Morea is in a most wretched state, full of banditti and pirates, so that you cannot go anywhere without an escort. Next day we found ourselves just off Ithaca, at breakfast-time, and got breakfast over before we entered the strait between Ithaca and Cephalonia. This was the first day that I attempted what is called sketching, and I made a tolerable hand of it; at least, I found out how to make memoranda that did to work upon afterwards. I can make no hand of colour, and think I shall hardly attempt it, till I have time to make
some finished studies from nature. You and W[illy] care so little about classics, that I need not trouble you about Ulysses’ castle, Sappho’s leap, etc. We got here on Sunday night, and the rain came soon after us, and has persecuted us incessantly ever since. We got ashore yesterday and walked about the town, which is very picturesque, and exactly like the panorama….
‘We were at a ball at Corfu on the anniversary of the installation of the Ionian Government, at which all the native population were expected; but the day was so stormy that it made a poor show. I meant to have got you a real Albanian capote, but they were not to be had at Corfu, and the cherry-stick tobacco-pipes were too dear.’
To the Rev. Isaac Williams, Jan. 10, 1833.
‘We spent Christmas Day at Malta in an incessant row, taking in coals, while the bells of all the many Churches of Valetta told what was going on in that land of superstition;—watched one poor fellow in quarantine all day, saying prayers to himself, and looking towards the Church nearest on the shore, opposite to the Lazaretto.[101] The time is now drawing nigh when we shall spend fifteen long days in that abode of the unblessed. It is now the 10th of January, and we are just in sight of Malta, on our return from the Ionian Islands. We have not seen them under the most favourable circumstances, as the weather has been wintry, i.e., either very stormy or very cold. I have been often longing for the bright hot Spanish sun which conducted us from the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar…. Among other things, we spent half an hour in the coffee-house [at Zante] where the Greek merchants were assembled for the holiday evening: a little wretched dirty place, but the company were very
polite to us, and we were surprised at the cleanness of their dresses, and a certain refinement in their appearance and manner. We were under the guidance of Major L[ongley] brother of L[ongley] of H[arrow][102] who is Governor of Cythera, and knows something of the habits and language of the people. The company all rose to him, and sat down when he said κάθεστε; but they pronounce so queerly, that one can hardly ever make out a word, although their newspapers are quite intelligible, and differ but little from old Greek. I would give much to live among them for a bit, and get into their notions. As it is, we have seen nothing but the surface, and heard the notions of the resident English, which cannot be relied on…. In Corfu, the breed is very mongrel, mixed up with Venetian and Italian blood; so that, altogether, the sight was uninteresting, except that when one saw a splendid set of apartments, with magnificent English furniture, and brilliantly illuminated, with a band of music, etc., it contrasted itself oddly with the thought of old Thucydides and the Corcyrean sedition. The remains of the old town are very scanty, and one cannot make out anything satisfactory about τὸ Ἡραῖον, etc. There is a rock that they call Ulysses’ ship; but I suspect the name of a Venetian origin. In one place there is the remains of an Ionic temple, on a very small scale, lately discovered; but we had no time to go into antiquarian questions. We rode over most of the island, and saw several of the villages, all of which bear marks of having been tenanted by a rich population; but everything is of a Venetian character. I cannot make out whether the people are religious or not; yet they seem, on the whole, to be an innocent civil set. Every small knot of families have their priest and their chapel, but no parishes that we could hear of. Their Churches are very small, but great numbers of them: two or three to a small village. [Newman] and my father went into one in an out-of-the-way village, in which there [were] fine silver lamps, a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, well
executed, and several pictures of Saints, in the hard German style of the fifteenth century. I went twice into the Church which is the depository of the body of St. Spiridion;[103] and people were praying there both times, one person apparently from the higher classes. In the chapel where the body lies, lamps are always kept dimly burning, and the people go in and kiss the shrine. The feet are stained with tears, and there are many splendid offerings there of precious stones. They keep all the Saints’ days by going to Church, and playing cards afterwards; and on the fast days they fast fairly…. On our way back from Corfu, the curtain was drawn back which had before hung over the scenery, and the long ridges of the Acarnanian mountains appeared in full splendour; among these many points in the range of Pindus were visible in the distance; and from Zante we certainly saw the summit of Parnassus, though partially intercepted with clouds. To look at, Mount St. Meri, in the north of Morea, is the most magnificent, but I do not know its classical name.[104] And now I suppose I must bid farewell to these extraordinary places for the rest of my life; having only just seen enough of them to know how well worth seeing they are.’
The fifteen days of detention were not quite so annoying or so monotonous as the travellers had feared. ‘This Lazaret,’ says Newman in the course of a long letter to his sister Jemima, ‘was built by the Knights [of St. John at Malta] for the Turks…. We burn olive wood. I assure you we make ourselves very comfortable. We feed well from an hotel across the water. The Froudes draw and paint. I have hired a violin, and bad as it is, it sounds grand in such spacious halls. I write verses, and get up some Italian, and walk up and down the rooms about an hour and a half daily; and we have a boat, and are allowed to go about the harbour.’ An incident on the quarantine island is responsible, in Newman’s biography, for the
one and only tiff between himself and Froude.[105] In reality, it was no tiff at all, as Froude was wholly innocent of offence. (Newman, it may be remarked in passing, had just written his David and Jonathan.) It seems that during the January nights in the Lazaretto, all three of the English travellers used to hear unaccountable footsteps, in the rooms and galleries, their own doors having been locked from the outside. On one occasion Newman thought he heard the noises in Archdeacon Froude’s room. ‘The fourth time it occurred, I hallooed out: “Who’s there?” and sat up in my bed ready to spring out. A deep silence followed, and I sat waiting a considerable time: and thus I caught my cold.’ A week later, there is no clean bill of health to send Mrs. Newman. ‘The weather has been unusually severe here. My cold caught in the Lazaret ripened the day I came out of it into the most wretched cough I ever recollect having, as hard as the stone walls, and far more tight than the windows.’ In short, Newman was housebound, a close prisoner, and miserable enough, despite his successful completing of his ‘Patriarchal Sonnets.’ Archdeacon Froude forbade his going out to Church. The next day, Monday, he confides to the all-sympathetic bosom of his family: ‘I am properly taken at my word. I have been sighing for rest and quiet. This is the sixth day since I left the Lazaret, and I have hardly seen or spoken to anyone. The Froudes dine out every day; and are out all the morning, of course. Last night I put a blister on my chest; and never having had one on before, you may fancy my awkwardness in taking it off and dressing the place of it this morning. I ought to have had four hands. Our servant was with the Froudes…. Well, I am set upon a solitary life, and therefore ought to have experience what it is; nor do I repent…. I have sent to the library, and got Marriage[106] to read. Don’t smile—this juxtaposition is quite accidental! You are continually in my thoughts. I know what kindness I should have at home.’ He ends dismally, not without citing the Apostolic precedent
of going not alone but two and two: ‘I wonder how long I shall last without any friend about me!’ One can imagine the anxiety and indignation of the devoted hearts at Iffley. Early in April their unfriended John Henry received his sister Jemima’s answer, distinctly uncomplimentary to Hurrell Froude; whereupon Newman rushed into explanation: he could not have Froude blamed; he had begged to be left alone (‘you know I can be very earnest in entreating to be left alone’): he had refused his repeated solicitations even to let him sit by him and read to him; he had, in short, driven him away. Hurrell, indeed, was not cut out by Nature for a nurse. Be that as it may, would it be far wrong to surmise that it was influenza which had been playing its now-well-understood tricks on Newman? But he made up like a lover for his passing semi-accusation. Froude, as it happened, was singularly well at this time, though the reprieve from discomfort was to be but brief.