Among the gay figures who passed and repassed before me, I remarked a benevolent but rather heavy-looking old gentleman, with a shawl hanging over his arm, and holding a parasol, with which he was gallantly shading a little plain old woman from the November sun. After them walked two young ladies, simply dressed; and then followed a tall and very handsome young man, with a plain but elegant girl hanging on his arm. This was the Grand Duke and his family; with the Prince of Carignano, who has lately married one of his daughters. Two servants in plain drab liveries, followed at a considerable distance. People politely drew on one side as they approached; but no other homage was paid to the sovereign, who thus takes his walk in public almost every day. Lady Morgan is merry at the expense of the Grand Duke's taste for brick and mortar: but monarchs, like other men, must have their amusements; some invent uniforms, some stitch embroidery;—and why should not this good-natured Grand Duke amuse himself with his trowel if he likes it? As to the Prince of Carignano, I give him up to her lash—le traître—but perhaps he thought he was doing right: and at all events there are not flatterers wanting, to call his perfidy patriotism.
I am told that Florence retains its reputation of being the most devout capital in Italy, and that here love, music, and devotion hold divided empire, or rather are tria juncta in uno. The liberal patronage and taste of Lord Burghersh, contribute perhaps to make music so much a passion as it is at present. Magnelli, the Grand Duke's Maestra di Cappella, and director of the Conservatorio, is the finest tenor in Italy. I have the pleasure of hearing him frequently, and think the purity of his taste at least equal to the perfection of his voice; rare praise for a singer in these "most brisk and giddy-paced times." He gave us last night the beautiful recitative which introduces Desdemona's song in Othello—
"Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria!"
and the words, the music, and the divine pathos of the man's voice combined, made me feel—as I thought I never could have felt again.
TO ——
As sounds of sweetest music, heard at eve,
When summer dews weep over languid flowers,
When the still air conveys each touch, each tone,
However faint—and breathes it on the ear
With a distinct and thrilling power, that leaves
Its memory long within the raptur'd soul.—
—Even such thou art to me!—and thus I sit
And feel the harmony that round thee lives,
And breathes from every feature. Thus I sit—
And when most quiet—cold—or silent—then
Even then, I feel each word, each look, each tone!
There's not an accent of that tender voice,
There's not a day-beam of those sunbright eyes,
Nor passing smile, nor melancholy grace,
Nor thought half utter'd, feeling half betray'd
Nor glance of kindness,—no, nor gentlest touch
Of that dear hand, in amity extended,
That e'er was lost to me;—that treasur'd well,
And oft recall'd, dwells not upon my soul
Like sweetest music heard at summer's eve!
Yesterday we visited the church of San Lorenzo, the Laurentian library, and the Pietra Dura manufactory, and afterwards spent an hour in the Tribune.
In a little chapel in the San Lorenzo are Michel Angelo's famous statues, the Morning, the Noon, the Evening, and the Night. I looked at them with admiration rather than with pleasure; for there is something in the severe and overpowering style of this master, which affects me disagreeably, as beyond my feeling, and above my comprehension. These statues are very ill disposed for effect: the confined cell (such it seemed) in which they are placed is so strangely disproportioned to the awful and massive grandeur of their forms.
There is a picture by Michel Angelo, considered a chef-d'œuvre, which hangs in the Tribune, to the right of the Venus: now if all the connaisseurs in the world, with Vasari at their head, were to harangue for an hour together on the merits of this picture, I might submit in silence, for I am no connoisseur; but that it is a disagreeable, a hateful picture, is an opinion which fire could not melt out of me. In spite of Messieurs les Connaisseurs, and Michel Angelo's fame, I would die in it at the stake: for instance, here is the Blessed Virgin, not the "Vergine Santa, d'ogni grazia piena," but a Virgin, whose brick-dust coloured face, harsh unfeminine features, and muscular, masculine arms, give me the idea of a washerwoman, (con rispetto parlando!) an infant Saviour with the proportions of a giant: and what shall we say of the nudity of the figures in the back-ground; profaning the subject and shocking at once good taste and good sense? A little farther on, the eye rests on the divine Madre di Dio of Correggio: what beauty, what sweetness, what maternal love, and humble adoration are blended in the look and attitude with which she bends over her infant! Beyond it hangs the Madonna del Cardellino of Raffaelle: what heavenly grace, what simplicity, what saint-like purity, in the expression of that face, and that exquisite mouth! And from these must I turn back, on pain of being thought an ignoramus, to admire the coarse perpetration of Michel Angelo—because it is Michel Angelo's? But I speak in ignorance.[F]