[37]. Why have they such quantities of looking-glasses in Italy, and none in Scotland? The dirt in each country is equal; the finery not. Neither in Scotland do they call in the aid of the Fine Arts, of the upholsterer and tapissier, to multiply the images of the former in squalid decorations, and thus shew that the debasement is moral as well as physical. They write up on certain parts of Rome ‘Immondizia.’ A Florentine asked why it was not written on the gates of Rome? An Englishman might be tempted to ask, why it is not written on the gates of Calais, to serve for the rest of the Continent? If the people and houses in Italy are as dirty or dirtier than in France, the streets and towns are kept in infinitely better order.
[38]. See Westminster Review.
[39]. They tell a story in Paris of a monkey at the Jardin des Plantes, that was noted for its mischievous tricks and desire to fly at every one. Dr. Gall observed the organ of philanthropy particularly strong in the beast, and desired the keeper to let him loose, when he sprung upon the Doctor, and hugged him round the neck with the greatest bon-hommie and cordiality, to the astonishment of the keeper and the triumph of craniology! Some men are as troublesome as some animals with their demonstrations of benevolence.
[40]. He was confined in the Inquisition about six weeks, where it is supposed he was put to the torture; for he had strange pains in his limbs, and bodily disabilities afterwards. In the Museum here is at present preserved, in a glass-case, a finger of Galileo, pointing to the skies! Such is the history of philosophy and superstition.
[41]. The jewellers’ shops on the bridge, in one of which he was brought up, still remain. The Rape of the Sabines, by John of Bologna, near Benvenuto’s Perseus, is an admirable group: nothing can exceed the fleshiness and softened contours of the female figure, seen in every direction.
[42]. See his Memoirs of himself, lately re-translated by Thomas Roscoe, Esq.
[43]. Excellent tea is to be had at Rome at an Italian shop at the corner of the Via Condotti, in the Piazza di Spagna.
[44]. We have five names unrivalled in modern times and in their different ways:—Newton, Locke, Bacon, Shakspeare, and Milton—and if to these we were to add a sixth that could not be questioned in his line, perhaps it would be Hogarth. Our wit is the effect not of gaiety, but spleen—the last result of a pertinacious reductio ad absurdum. Our greatest wits have been our gravest men. Fielding seems to have produced his History of a Foundling with the same deliberation and forethought that Arkwright did his spinning-jenny. The French have no poetry; that is, no combination of internal feeling with external imagery. Their dramatic dialogue is frothy verbiage or a mucilage of sentiment without natural bones or substance: ours constantly clings to the concrete, and has a purchase upon matter. Outward objects interfere with and extinguish the flame of their imagination: with us they are the fuel that kindle it into a brighter and stronger blaze.
[45]. A Mr. Law lately came over from America to horsewhip the writer of an article in the Quarterly, reflecting on his mother (Mrs. Law) as a woman of bad character, for the Tory reason that she was the wife of a Mr. Law, who differed with his brother (Lord Ellenborough) in politics. He called on Mr. Barrow, who knew nothing of the writer; he called on Mr. Gifford, who knew nothing of the writer; he called on Mr. Murray, who looked oddly, but he could get no redress except a public disavowal of the falsehood; and they took that opportunity to retract some other American calumny. Mr. L. called on one Secretary of the Admiralty, but there are two Secretaries of the Admiralty!
[46]. Chief Justice Holt used to say, ‘there were more robberies committed in England than in Scotland, because we had better hearts.’ The English are at all times disposed to interpret this literally.