ADVERTISEMENT
The following Notes of a Journey through France and Italy are reprinted from the columns of the Morning Chronicle. The favourable reception they met with there suggested the idea of the present work. My object has been to describe what I saw or remarked myself; or to give the reader some notion of what he might expect to find in travelling the same road. There is little of history or antiquities or statistics; nor do I regret the want of them, as it may be abundantly supplied from other sources. The only thing I could have wished to expatiate upon more at large is the manners of the country: but to do justice to this, a greater length of time and a more intimate acquaintance with society and the language would be necessary. Perhaps, at some future opportunity, this defect may be remedied.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Chapter I.—Rules for travelling abroad. Brighton. Crossing the Channel. Dieppe. Remarks on the French common People | [89] |
| Chapter II.—Normandy. Appearance of the Country. Rouen. The Cathedral there. The sense of Smell | [94] |
| Chapter III.—The Road from Rouen to Paris. A Mistake. Evreux. A young Frenchman. A trait of national Politeness. Louviers. The Diligence, and the Company in it. Lord Byron and Mr. Moore | [100] |
| Chapter IV.—The Louvre | [106] |
| Chapter V.—Gravity of the French. Their Behaviour at the Theatre. Account of going to a Play. Minute attention paid to the Arts and Sciences in France. Sir T. Lawrence. Horace Vernet | [113] |
| Chapter VI.—Dialogue on the Exhibition of Modern French Pictures | [122] |
| Chapter VII.—The Luxembourg Gallery | [129] |
| Chapter VIII.—National Antipathies. Cemetery of Père la Chaise | [138] |
| Chapter IX.—Mademoiselle Mars. The Théatre Français. Molière’s Misanthrope and Tartuffe. Admirable manner of casting a Play in Paris. French Actors, Le Peintre, Odry, and Potier. Talma and Mademoiselle Georges | [147] |
| Chapter X.—Description of Paris. The Garden of the Tuileries. The Champ de Mars. The Jardin des Plantes. Reflections | [155] |
| Chapter XI.—French Sculpture. Note on the Elgin Marbles | [162] |
| Chapter XII.—The French Opera. Dido and Æneas. Madame Le Gallois in the Ballet. Italian Opera or Salle Louvois. Mombelli and Pellegrini in the Gazza Ladra. Allusion to Brunet | [169] |
| Chapter XIII.—Leave Paris for Lyons. Adventures on the Road. Fontainbleau. Montargis. Girl at the Inn there. A French Diligence. Moulins. Palisseau. The Bourbonnois. Descent into Tarare. Meeting with a young Englishman there. Arrival at Lyons. Manners of French Servants. French Translation of Tom Jones. M. Martine’s Death of Socrates | [175] |
| Chapter XIV.—Set out for Turin by Way of Mont Cenis. The Cheats of Scapin. The Diligence. Pont Beau Voisin, the frontier Town of the King of Sardinia’s Dominions. Have to pass the Custom House. My Box of Books leaded. A Note which is little to the Purpose. First View of the Alps. The Grand Chartreuse. Cavern of La Grotte. Chambery. St. Michelle. Lans-le-Bourg. Our Spanish fellow-traveller. Passage of Mount Cenis. Arrival at Susa | [183] |
| Chapter XV.—Turin. Its magnificent Situation. The Effect of first feeling one’s-self in Italy. Theatre. Capital Pantomime-acting. Passports. Get seats in a Voiture to Florence, with two English Ladies. Mode of travelling. Italian Peasants. Parma. Windows lined with Faces. Maria-Louisa. Character of Correggio. Frescoes by the same in the Cupola of St. Paul’s. The Farnese Theatre. Bologna. Academy of Painting. Towns in Italy | [195] |
| Chapter XVI.—Road to Florence. The Apennines. Covigliaijo. La Maschere. Approach to and Description of Florence. Carnival. Lent. The Popish Calendar. Fesole. Cold in Italy | [207] |
| Chapter XVII.—The public Gallery. Antique Busts. The Venus. Raphael’s Fornarina. The Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini. John of Bologna’s Rape of the Sabines. The Palace Pitti | [219] |
| Chapter XVIII.—Sienna. Radicofani. Aquapendente. Description of the Inn there. San Lorenzo. Monte-Fiascone. Lake of Bolsena. Desolate Appearance of the Country near Rome. First View of St. Peter’s from Baccano | [227] |
| Chapter XIX.—Rome. The Vatican. The Capella Sistina. Holy Week. The Coliseum. The Temple of Vesta. Picture Galleries—the Ruspigliosi, Doria, Borghese, Corsini, and Little Farnese. Guido | [232] |
| Chapter XX.—Character of the English | [241] |
| Chapter XXI.—Return to Florence. Italian Banditti. Terni. Tivoli. Spoleto. Church and Pictures at Assizi. Perugia. An Irish Priest. Cortona. Arrezo. Incisa | [253] |
| Chapter XXII.—Journey to Venice. Plain of Lombardy. A country Inn. Ferrara. Rovigo. Padua. Description of Venice | [263] |
| Chapter XXIII.—Palaces at Venice—the Grimani, Barberigo, and Manfrini Collections. Paul Veronese. Titian’s St. Peter Martyr. The Assumption and Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. St. Mark’s Place | [268] |
| Chapter XXIV.—Journey to Milan. Verona. The Tomb of Juliet. The Amphitheatre. The Fortress of Peschiera. Lake of Garda. Milan. The Inhabitants. The Duomo. Theatre of the Gran Scala. Isola Bella. Lago Maggiore. Baveno | [275] |
| Chapter XXV.—The passage over the Simplon. Inn at Brigg. Valley of the Simplon. Sion. Bex. Vevey | [281] |
| Chapter XXVI.—Excursion to Chamouni. Mont-Blanc. Geneva. Lausanne | [288] |
| Chapter XXVII.—Return down the Rhine through Holland. Concluding remarks | [295] |
NOTES OF A JOURNEY
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
CHAPTER I
The rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand (in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience,) and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it. Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge nothing. The English, in particular, carry out their own defects as a standard for general imitation; and think the virtues of others (that are not their vices) good for nothing. Thus they find fault with the gaiety of the French as impertinence, with their politeness as grimace. This repulsive system of carping and contradiction can extract neither use nor meaning from any thing, and only tends to make those who give way to it uncomfortable and ridiculous. On the contrary, we should be as seldom shocked or annoyed as possible, (it is our vanity or ignorance that is mortified much oftener than our reason!) and contrive to see the favourable side of things. This will turn both to profit and pleasure. The intellectual, like the physical, is best kept up by an exchange of commodities, instead of an ill-natured and idle search after grievances. The first thing an Englishman does on going abroad is to find fault with what is French, because it is not English. If he is determined to confine all excellence to his own country, he had better stay at home.
On arriving at Brighton (in the full season,) a lad offered to conduct us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he belong to the inn?’ No, he was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-Horse Hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land of Cockayne, happy in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!
There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and forever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops—Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange, ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb,—what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can question thine! But a truce with reflections.