The question seems further from being solved as we wander through the streets and squares of the poetical city. Every step brings us in the presence of some wondrous recollection of the past, and there is nothing to fasten down our ideas to the present time. Fresh dreams arise in every street. What is this vast oval structure, with its countless arches, reminding one of the great Colosseum at Rome? Ruinous, it is true; but as we enter it, strange to say, it seems to have suddenly awakened from its dream of sixteen centuries. Alas! it awakens us also, for what do we see but in the centre of this great arena the hanky-panky tricks of modern horsemanship and hear the stale jokes of a modern English clown! Let us, however, leave this singular scene of anachronism and again wander and dream.
This time there rises before us a series of lofty sculptured tombs, each crowned by a spire, surmounted by the figure of a man on horseback, separated from the roadway by some delicate metal work, wrought by the hand of a thirteenth-century blacksmith into a bewildering combination of quatrefoils, and supported by graceful marble columns, each bearing the image of a saint or angel. To complete the picture, the whole is backed up by a venerable-looking church, with a low, tile-covered steeple and roof, plain enough but for a beautiful marble monument placed above the doorway. It is difficult to imagine anything more enchanting in the way of architecture than this extraordinary cemetery, filling up the centre of one of the small squares of the city.
We wander on again, and find ourselves in front of a noble Gothic church, with a façade shaded by two mighty arches, one over the other, and beneath the lowermost a richly-carved doorway. We enter, and a superb picture is presented to our view. A Gothic church of exquisite proportion and rich detail, gleaming with coloured decoration, to which the softening touch of time has lent harmony and mellow tints. A pavement of variegated marble is beneath our feet. Two queer little statues, supporting holy water basins, attract our attention, and a voice seems to whisper in our ear, “I Gobbi.” Need we say that this is the Church of St. Anastasia in Verona.
It would be impossible to give our girls anything like a description of the very interesting objects in this beautiful city, or adequately to express the feelings with which one wanders about its streets. It is said that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” and the man must indeed be a savage who would not feel the same soothing influence in looking at Verona.
Everything, from its sweet-sounding name, seems to breathe poetry and music into the mind.
One seems to exist in a realm of fancy, and little imagination is required to people it again with Montagues and Capulets.
How strange it is that our great poet should have managed to have so thoroughly embodied the ideas which Verona impresses upon the mind in Romeo and Juliet, without having seen the place! When one reads the play who has seen Verona, it seems almost impossible to believe that Shakespeare did not draw his picture from the place itself.
(To be continued.)
