THE
ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY.

THE CORNICHE ROAD.

THE
ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY.

IMPRESSIONS OF LIFE

IN THE

ROMAN STATES AND SARDINIA,

DURING A TEN YEARS' RESIDENCE.

BY
MRS. G. GRETTON.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

CONTENTS.

THE
ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY.

CHAPTER I.

Departure from Florence—The Vettura—Inn among the Apennines—General aspect of towns in Romagna—Causes of their decay—Austrian Officers at Forli—Dangers of the road—First impressions of Ancona.

Three or four years ago I enjoyed an opportunity, such as very rarely falls to the lot of strangers, of becoming acquainted with the inner life and customs of a part of the Italian peninsula comparatively little visited,—untrodden ground, in fact, to the majority of English tourists. An invitation from my uncle, an English merchant at Ancona, the principal seaport of the Roman States on the Adriatic, to spend a few months there with his family, was gladly accepted. My experiences of Italy as yet consisted only of a gay winter in Florence, and the Holy Week at Rome; and I was still young and enthusiastic enough to hail with delight any proposal which tended to increase my acquaintance with the country that had so much enchanted me. It was therefore with a light heart I found myself, one lovely autumnal morning, the fourth in a vettura, having been confided to the care of an English family who were going to Ancona, in order to embark from thence for the Levant.

I had never travelled in a vettura before, and I thought the lumbering, crazy old vehicle, with its high, narrow step, small windows, hard seats, and peculiar smell of mouldering straw, quite novel and refreshing; and the four lean horses, with their gay tufts of scarlet worsted and bells, the vetturino or driver himself, with his pipe and blouse and low-crowned hat, seemingly devoid of all human sympathy save for a mongrel quadruped, which alternately formed the apex of the pyramid of boxes and carpet-bags upon the roof, or limped dolorously in the rear—all promised me an inexhaustible store of amusement, even for the four days which the journey was to employ.

Soon after leaving Florence the road begins to ascend; and before twenty miles were over we found ourselves in the defiles of a magnificent mountain-pass, and in a temperature of exceeding coldness. That night we stopped at an inn amongst the Apennines, and it would be difficult to convey an idea of the contrast its rude inhabitants and miserable accommodation afforded to the luxury of Florence, which lay behind us. The people of the house spoke in some uncouth dialect it was impossible to understand—the Romagnolo patois, I was afterwards told—and looked so savage and repelling, that one involuntarily recalled all the stories of robbery and assassination with which the neighbouring country had been so rife a few months before. They all, old as well as young, stared at us as if we had been wild beasts; and from the time we arrived till supper could be got ready, and the rough hostess prevailed on to make our beds, there was an incessant coming and going of spectators. They gave us some soup, which, to our English palates, appeared nothing but warm water with a little coarse vermicelli in it, followed by the miserable fowl of which the broth had been made, with its head on, and inefficiently plucked; and then an omelet—the last being an invaluable accessory to such repasts. It was bitterly cold, and we asked for a fire; a large bundle of fagots was brought and lighted in a huge chimney, almost roomy enough to contain settles, like those of olden time. The flame soon kindled cheerily, and cast a bright glow over the squalid room, with its filthy, unwashed brick floor; an open cupboard, containing the available crockery of the establishment; six rush-bottomed chairs, so dirty that we were fain to cover them with our handkerchiefs; and placed upon the shelf, that served as a mantel-piece, two broken figures in coloured plaster of Paris, representing a valorous Greek leering rapturously at a rubicund Zuleika opposite.

We had time to notice all these details, to count the rafters of the cobwebbed ceiling, to become familiarized with the barefooted urchins who gazed curiously at us from the threshold, ere the requisite preparations for our sleeping apartments were completed, and the slipshod landlady informed us that we were at liberty to retire to rest. But fortunately, before allowing her to depart, we remembered a caution that had been given us, to be particular in inspecting the bed-linen; and thence ensued a dispute as to the perfectly-unsullied state of that which was first assigned to us. Seeing us determined on rejecting her sheets, she at last made a sullen gesture to her daughter, who soon reappeared with another supply, whose freshness compensated for the nutmeg-grater texture of the homespun hemp of which they were made.

We mounted upon chairs to climb up into our beds, and then had all sorts of laughing alarms at the strange noises that seemed to pervade the house: the gruff voice of the vetturino and stable-boys, the stamping and snorting of the horses which were located beneath us, and the screams of another unhappy fowl, immolated for the refection of a fresh party of travellers, whose arrival about midnight completely disturbed the short interval that remained to us for repose. At three o'clock we were called, and shivering, sleepy, and miserable, made a hasty toilet, and hurried to the carriage; it being one of the peculiar delights of this mode of travelling, that inasmuch as the entire journey is performed with the same horses, the day is divided into two stages, morning and afternoon, and the driver's object is to insure as long a rest, or rinfrescata, between these as possible. Thus, often long before noon, one stops for three or four hours of ennui and discomfort, such as the uninitiated in these matters can with difficulty conceive.

It was of course dark when we set off, and by the time day had fully dawned, we had emerged from the mountains, and were in a broad, fertile country, approaching the boundary-stone that separates Tuscany from the Roman States. A custom-house on each territory is of course encountered; the Tuscans first see that you carry nothing contraband out, and then the Romans ascertain that you take nothing forbidden in. With us, the examination of our luggage was merely nominal; offering the keys of our boxes, with the assurance that they contained nothing illegal, they were immediately and politely returned to us; and thus the magic of our English name, seconded by the donation of a few pauls, carried us in triumph through both ordeals. To the Italians themselves it is a very different sort of affair, as they are always subjected to a very rigorous search, chiefly with a view to discovering whether they are carrying arms or prohibited publications.

About ten, we reached Forli—the first of those large, deserted, decaying cities which are to be met with at every fifteen or twenty miles' distance in the Roman States, and which, in their grass-grown streets, their ruined palaces, and ragged, idle population, give a more striking testimony to the workings of the dominant system than the most heart-stirring eloquence could achieve. As we sauntered through the dreary town, to wile away the hours that must elapse before we could resume our journey, we saw no evidences of industry or employment beyond a few wretched shops, where tobacco, cigars, tape, needles, and such gear were promiscuously sold. The necessity for a trifling purchase led me into one of these negozj, the owner of which, a garrulous old man, upon discovering that I was English, and yet not indifferent to the state of things around me, speedily ventured on a few confidential lamentations. The miserable condition of the country he ascribed, not so much to the presence of the Austrians, who had been stationed in Romagna and the Marche[1] since 1849, disastrous as that occupation undoubtedly was, as to the injustice and venality of all the government officials, with whom, he observed, “a little of this,” rubbing his fore and middle finger significantly against his thumb, to denote money, “a little of this does everything. They are all alike, Signora mia, from the lowest impiegato to the high personage who rules the Pope as well as his subjects.” I was conversant enough with Italian politics to know that he alluded to Cardinal Antonelli, of whose widespread unpopularity amongst the commercial and industrial classes I thus early had a specimen. “All is falling to pieces, Signora,” he added, as he handed me my parcel, wrapped in the leaf of an old account book; “but who can wonder at it? We are governed by men who have no children.”

The only place where any of the natives seemed to congregate was one of the cafés, in and outside of which we observed numbers of fine, well-grown young men, indolently lounging and smoking, or staring at any stray passer-by with a vacant sort of interest; and all these were the rising generation—the gentry and nobility of Forli. I say one of the cafés advisedly, because another that was pointed out to us near the theatre was occupied solely by Austrian officers, and consequently unfrequented by any of the citizens. Priests, soldiers, and beggars straggled about the streets, the last besieging chiefly the cafés and church doors, and exhibiting their withered limbs and deformities as an incentive to the compassion of the charitably disposed. Near the chief square, and evidently the fashionable locality, we saw one or two ladies, followed by a dirty lackey, in a threadbare livery coat hanging down to his heels, with a faded gold band round his hat, and altogether with such an air of poverty and squalor as rendered this attempt at maintaining traditional dignity pitiably ridiculous. The only public building that looked flourishing, or in good repair, was the theatre, which subsequent observations have shown me to be the case in most, if not in all towns in the Papal States. At Cesena, for instance, which was our next halting-place, a new opera house, scarcely yet completed, was shown to us, on the erection of which the municipality—of course with the approbation of the government of Rome—had expended a very large sum; while the town bore the semblance of a vast lazar-house, its unsheltered poor in every variety of human wretchedness, lying huddled together by night beneath porticos and arcades, and by day shocking every sense by the display of their wounds, nakedness, and suffering.

But I am digressing, and must return to Forli, and to our hotel of La Posta, where we dined in a very large hall that must have been a banqueting-room centuries ago. Our places were laid at one end of a long table, the other extremity of which was soon occupied by several white-coated Austrian infantry officers, belonging to the Army of Occupation. They came in, clanking their swords and speaking in a loud, overbearing tone, evidently being in the habit of frequenting the house, to judge by the free-and-easy manner in which they comported themselves. They were fortunately too far off for us to be annoyed by overhearing their conversation, except when they raised their voices to abuse the waiters, which they did in execrable Italian, but with a surprising volubility of expletives. These remarks were generally prefaced with, “Voi pestia d'Italiano,” or something equally remarkable for good taste and feeling. But this was nothing to what occurred about the middle of the repast, when a party of Italians, two ladies and a gentleman, evidently of the upper class, our fellow-travellers at the mountain-inn, entered the hall, and sat down opposite to us, waiting till their dinner should be brought; for each party was separately served.

Though they spoke low, with an evident desire to avoid notice, the Austrians speedily discovered to what nation they belonged, as I perceived by their whispering and laughing amongst themselves, and frequent bold glances towards the new-comers. After a little time their mirth grew more offensive, and reached an unwarrantable height, when one of the party, loudly apostrophizing the unfortunate waiter on whom their wrath so frequently descended, asked him if he could tell him in what light he and all other Austrians regarded the Italians. The man's sallow cheek grew a shade paler, but he made no reply, as he busied himself in changing their plates and knives, making as much clatter as possible—so it seemed to me—to drown the voice of his interrogator. “Do you not know, pestia?” reiterated the officer, stamping as he spoke; “then I will tell you: we all of us look upon you Italians as the dust under our feet—as the little creeping beasts we crush every moment of our lives, at every step we take—ha! ha! ha!” And then they all roared in chorus, and swore, and twirled their moustaches, and called for coffee and cigars.

I cannot describe what I felt during this scene, for the cruel outrage on the feelings of the family who sat opposite to us. When the insult was too palpably proclaimed to admit of a doubt, the brow of the gentleman grew dark and lowering, and I saw by the strong heavings of his chest, and firmly-compressed lips, what bitter, unavailing struggles were at work. The ladies exchanged glances; and the younger of the two who sat beside him, and whom I afterwards discovered to be his wife, laid her hand upon his arm, and looked up imploringly into his face. I never shall forget the look—indignation, sorrow, entreaty, were all so blended there. He shrank from her touch, as if irritated at a movement that might call further attention to his position; but the moment afterwards, seeming to recollect himself, he whispered a few words into her ear, accompanying them with a slight movement of the shoulders, with which an Italian always indicates helplessness or despair.

We left Forli as early as half-past one, although Cesena, our halting-place for the night, was only thirteen miles off; but the vetturino told us he was anxious to reach it long before sunset, as the neighbourhood bore a very bad name, and carriages were often stopped and robbed at dusk or early morning. In the mountains, where we had been the night before, he told us there was no fear—nothing unpleasant, in fact, ever being known to take place till beyond the Tuscan frontier. These precautions made us rather uneasy, and it was some comfort to perceive that the Italian family set out at the same time as ourselves, and that the two carriages always kept within sight of each other; but no evil befell us—though, in less than a week afterwards, a carriage was stopped on the same road in open daylight—and we jingled gallantly into Cesena, in the mellow sunlight of the October afternoon.

As I am not going to give a journal of our route, but have merely attempted a sketch that might convey some idea of the state of the country which we traversed, I shall hasten over the two following days. We passed through Rimini, La Cattolica, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia—all names which once belonged to history, but now may be briefly classed in the same category of ruin and debasement—and found ourselves, at the close of the fourth day, in sight of the place of our destination—Ancona, the third city in the Roman States.

It is approached by a beautiful road which follows the curve of the bay from the opposite point of Capo Pesaro, and built upon a promontory that runs boldly into the sea, can be descried from a considerable distance. The first impression the aspect of Ancona produces upon the traveller is favourable in the extreme. It had been visible to us for the last twenty miles of our road, and looked exceedingly picturesque, rising from the very edge of the water in terrace-like succession, till it reached the summit of the mountain, crowned by an old cathedral, whose quaint semi-Byzantine architecture, gilded by the setting sun, stood out in admirable relief against the glorious sky.

The shipping in the harbour lay calmly at anchor, every detail of mast and cordage reflected as in a mirror in the azure sea, which, in the distance, verging on the horizon, appeared suffused with the same golden light as the illuminated heavens. It was a beautiful scene, one of which I thought I should never weary; and although, from what I had seen upon the way, I had schooled myself into a considerable abatement of the anticipations with which I had quitted Florence, I now permitted my hopes to revive, and drew good auguries from the prepossessing exterior of Ancona.

As we drew near, we saw more indications of employment than we had yet encountered: heavy wagons, laden with bales of merchandise, proceeding slowly in the direction from which we came; and carts of a most primitive construction, painted with rude figures of saints, and drawn by white oxen or cows, conveying the produce of the recent vintage into the town. Leading to the gates was an avenue of trees, planted on either hand of the post-road, and under whose shade the population were wont to disport themselves for their Sunday's promenade; but the finest had been all cut down a few years before, to make barricades against the Austrians when they were advancing to besiege the town, and their stumps alone remained. On the side nearest the sea appeared some little square patches of shrubs and flowers, interspersed with a few benches, and four terra-cotta urns on pedestals, dignified by the name of the Public Gardens; and on the opposite part of the road was a long row of very miserable houses, with arcades, beneath which venders of fruit, salt-fish, and coarse pottery held their stalls.

On we went through a handsome gate, where the usual formalities of passports had to be endured; and then along a sunny sort of esplanade, with the sea on one side and dirty houses on the other; and through a low narrow archway in a huge blank wall, and we were fairly in Ancona, the Doric city, as it is admiringly called by its inhabitants. The vetturino cracked his whip, the horses did their best to gallop, the dog barked, and we plunged and jolted through the steep, narrow streets in right good style, till we drew up in front of the hotel of La Pace, the Meurice's of Ancona.

CHAPTER II.

Description of the Palazzo—An English family, though Italian born—Complimentary visits of the Anconitan nobility—How they pass their time—Dislike to country walks—Modern Cavaliere Servente.

Our arrival apparently had been expected, for two or three half-naked, black-bearded porters or facchini, who had acted as our running-footmen from the gate, now shouted, as soon as they came within hearing, that the Nipote del Signor Carlo was come; and instantly there was a rush made by some boys who were lounging before the inn in the direction opposite. Meanwhile, a bevy of waiters flung open the door, and with many bows assisted us to alight, saying that Signor Carlo had apprized them we were coming, and that rooms were ready for the lady and her daughters. By this, I began to comprehend that Signor Carlo must mean my uncle, Mr Charles D——, whom I was not prepared to hear so unceremoniously designated; but before I had time to speculate further on this peculiarity, the person in question made his appearance, attended by a complete staff of small boys and porters, who at once broke out in furious altercation with those they found already enrolled in our service. My uncle seemed perfectly at his ease amidst this uproar, tucked my arm under his, saw my boxes transferred to the shoulders of three or four sturdy, strong-limbed facchini, stamped and raved at some of the most refractory, and then observing that we should be late for dinner, and that my cousins were impatient to see me, hurried me up an almost perpendicular ascent—an alley of steps, in fact, strewed with mouldy orange-peel and broken earthenware, which led to a street of scarcely wider dimensions, with lofty dingy houses on each side, that seemed nodding towards each other, and produced an unpleasant sense of suffocation. My uncle told me, with a smile, that this was quite the West-end of Ancona, where some of the first families resided. The Palazzo, of which he rented a large portion, was amongst the best; and the entrance, a large court with arcades, and a broad stone staircase, carried me back again to visions of Italian splendour. My cousins came running down to receive me, followed by the servants, who all, male as well as female, pressed forward to kiss my hand, and called me Eccellenza.

It was all very novel and amusing, and I was quite delighted with the appearance of the house, through the centre of which ran a spacious and lofty hall, upwards of fifty feet long; the walls were painted in fresco by Pellegrino Tibaldi, and the ceiling was richly gilt and emblazoned with the arms of the Farnese family, by one of whom the palace had been built nearly three centuries ago. Opening from this, and in strange contrast with its stately appearance, was a large drawing-room, fitted up in the English style with books, pictures, and other indications of female occupancy and accomplishments. It was like a fireside scene of home transplanted to this distant land, and as much a marvel to me as the thoroughly English accent, appearance, and manners of the family amongst whom I found myself for the first time.

My cousins had been born abroad, and nursed by Italian women, waited on by Italian servants, had blossomed into girlhood without ever visiting England, or knowing it but as the land of their pride, their aspirations, their religion, and their love. It was curious to witness, in this out-of-the-way old place, such genuine feeling and enthusiasm; and, stranger still, to understand by what spell so strong a veneration for the unseen fatherland had been infused into their very being, as to prevent their taking root or binding themselves by strong bonds of affection to the country in which their lot seemed cast. And yet they were not kept from intercourse with the natives; on the contrary, I found them here moving in an exclusively Italian circle, looked upon with sincere respect and esteem by all of whom it was composed, and treated with an unvarying kindness it is pleasant to recall.

On the next and following days, several ladies, acquaintances of the family, came to call upon me, and in the evenings most of the gentlemen came to pay their respects in form to the new-comer; so that, aided by a few hints from my cousins, I was soon quite au fait as to the leading tastes and characteristics of my present associates. What struck me most at first, was their excessive ceremoniousness and formality. I never had before seen such courtesies and bows exchanged, or could have deemed it possible that rational beings could endure to hear themselves addressed, or address each other so unceasingly by their titles, as did the principi, marchesi, and conti by whom I was surrounded. Then the observance of certain rules of etiquette was laughable in the extreme—it seemed to be an understood thing that the mistress of the house, on the departure of any lady-visitor, should offer to accompany her to the door. This politeness was to be refused, then insisted on, still remonstrated against; and so on, till the contested point being reached, the visitor should retreat with a gentle pressure of the hand, and a profound reverence. Amongst the ladies, I perceived I was surveyed with a good deal of interest on account of some fashionable novelties in my wardrobe. One lady took up my dress, and after looking attentively at its texture, asked me what it had cost, and whether I thought she could send for one like it from Florence. I found out afterwards this was meant to be a great compliment to my taste, and that the loan of a new pattern for a dress or mantle was looked upon as an inestimable benefit.

The conversation did not seem very brilliant—and yet, after all, what is ladies' morning-visit prattle at the best? I think it was as good as some it had been my lot to hear in a more brilliant sphere. They talked of the weather, and the opera there would be after Christmas—we were still in October!—and of their children. Yes, let us do them justice there. I do not think more maternal love and anxiety and tenderness can anywhere be found than in the hearts of Italian women. To say truth, however, this affection so extended itself to the minutest particulars, that I grew rather tired of hearing how such a baby was suffering with his first teeth, or of the apprehensions entertained for another with the measles, or the difficulty of providing a wet-nurse for a third, and his mamma's grief at being debarred from undertaking that office herself, particularly when I found these little incidents to be as much discussed by the gentlemen in their evening-visits as any other topic; in fact, the accuracy with which they spoke on such matters, and their extended medical details, were sufficiently singular and amusing.

The plan of society seemed thus constituted: during the day, the men lounged at the café, played a game at billiards, or read such newspapers as the severity of the police allowed them at the casino, and generally concluded by strolling a little way beyond the gate I have described on my entrance into Ancona. The ladies did not, in general, go out every day; but when they did so, it was to pay visits, or dawdle about the street where the principal shops were to be found. In some families of the very old régime, however, or in some of the strict ones of the middle class, it would not have been thought decorous for the female members to be often seen abroad, and an hour's airing at an open window towards the Ave Maria, or dusk, was considered as a substitute for daily out-door exercise. I do not know what an English sanitary commission would have said to this custom, could they but have tested the pestilential atmosphere which the Anconitan belles smilingly inhaled, as, leaning on some old damask drapery, consecrated from time immemorial to this purpose, their glossy hair wreathed in rich plaits around their classically-shaped heads, their dark eyes beaming with excitement, they watched every passer-by, and often from one glance or gesture laid the foundation of more passion and romance than it were fitting in these sober pages to record.

On Sundays and festas there was of course the mass in the morning, which furnished to the women a great opportunity for dress and display, particularly at one of the churches, where the best music was to be heard, and the fashionables usually congregated. But there was nothing comfortable in their way of going to church, if I may use the expression. You never saw husbands and wives, and their children, all walking in pleasantly together. The men would have been laughed at for such a conjugal display; and hence those who went at all, went by themselves; and of these, how many had any serious purpose in their hearts, save keeping well in the jealous eyes of the government and priests, or fulfilling some appointment, or whiling away half an hour by listening to the best airs of Ernani or the Lombardi adapted to the organ, I should be unwilling to hazard a conjecture. In the afternoon, the promenade outside the gates was crowded, and four or five very antiquated-looking equipages drove slowly up and down the dusty road, forming what an old count very complacently designated to us, “Il Corso delle Carrozze.”

Our acquaintances could not comprehend our taste for long country-walks, and used to wonder what inducement we could find every day for rambling over the hills and cliffs that rendered the neighbourhood really beautiful.

“Heavens!” said one little contessa, “I should die of the spleen”—this was a very favourite newly-introduced term with them—“if I saw nothing when I went out but the sky, and sea, and trees. What can you find to amuse you?... It is so melancholy! And then that Jews' burying-ground you are so fond of!”

This was a most singular spot, remote, undefended, spreading over the summit of a cliff that rose abruptly to a great height above the sea; but so grand in its situation, in the desolate sublimity which reigned around, in the reverential murmur of the waves that washed its base, that it was one of our favourite resorts.

It was in vain to explain to her our admiration; she shook her head, and went on: “That burying-ground—to be amongst so many dead Jews!”

“But we must all die like them,” urged one of my cousins; “and it is good for one to be reminded of these things sometimes”—

“Pardon me,” interrupted the lady, with a slight shudder; “but that is such an English idea! Oh, that terrible death! why talk or think about it?”

“How strange this terror is that so many people feel,” rejoined I; “it must come upon all of us sooner or later. Nay, if the prognostications of many thinking men in this age are to be relied upon, we are not far from the end of the world.”

The poor lady absolutely turned pale, as she cried out: “Oh, pray do not talk so—you make me miserable! Besides,” she said, recovering herself a little, “I have been told that in the Bible it is expressly said that for seven years before that dreadful day no children are to be born; and that gives me comfort; for, at every fresh birth I hear of, I say to myself—well, the seven years at least have not begun yet!”

So the ladies of Ancona, with not more than one or two exceptions, being all participators in this wholesome dread of retired walks, and the reflections likely to be induced thereby, idled away their time in the manner I have described, with the aid of a little crochet or fancy-work; or, amongst the most studious—they always call reading study—the translation of a French novel, until the evening, which brought with it its usual conversazione. Every lady received at her own house some half-dozen gentlemen or so, who were unvarying in waiting upon her, whether she held her levee at her own house, or in her box at the theatre; nay, so unfailing was their attendance, that if indisposition confined her to her bed, you were sure to find them assembled round it, making the società as pleasantly, and in as matter-a-fact a way as possible. As they all dined early, the evening commenced betimes, soon after six in winter, and went on till midnight, all dropping in at different hours, some early, some late, according to the number of their habitual engagements. In general, every one had at least two or three families where he was expected to show himself every evening; and from a long course of habit, each house had its own hour assigned to it. Many of these intimacies had subsisted for twenty, nay, even thirty years, without any perceptible variation in the usual tenor of intercourse; they always kept up the same ceremony, the same old-fashioned, laborious politeness; assembled in the same half-lighted, comfortless saloon, and sat and talked; lamented the good old times, and grew grey together.

It was an odd, disjointed sort of life for white-headed men to lead, particularly when they had houses and families of their own where they could have passed their evenings, instead of toiling up two or three sets of stairs, and making their bow to two or three sets of people, before they could think of returning to their own roofs to supper and to rest. When I write of Italians and their dwellings, I avoid using the word home, for it would be strangely misapplied. They do not know of the existence of such a blessing as that most beautiful term of ours implies; neither, to say truth, would they appreciate it in their present imperfect views of domestic life.

It may be asked whether, in these coteries, there was not usually one more distinguished by the lady's preference than the rest; and in many instances this was no doubt the case, although by no means so invariably as in former generations. Where such a partiality did exist, it was not apparently noticed or commented upon by the others, but accepted as a matter of course—as a proceeding whose harmony it would have been invidious to disturb. The cavaliere, in general, paid a visit every day—not, however, to chocolate and the toilet, as old-fashioned novels have it, but about one o'clock, to communicate the fashionable intelligence, offer his opinion on some new dress or piece of millinery, give bon-bons to the children, and perhaps accompany the husband to the stable, to discuss the merits of a new horse or set of harness.

I was told of one old lady who had entered her three-score-years-and-ten, still served with the same homage by her veteran cavaliere as she had imperiously exacted some forty winters before. All her contemporaries had died but himself, and he was the last that remained of her società, which had no attractions for younger visitors. And so they used to sit in the evening opposite each other, a lamp with a dark shade diffusing an uncertain light upon the time-worn room and faded hangings; both half-blind, deaf, and helpless, nodding drowsily at each other, holding little earthen baskets filled with fire, called scaldini, in their trembling hands; yet still, from force of habit, keeping up this semblance of conversation till eleven struck, when the old man's servant came to fetch him, and wrapping him in a large cloak, led him carefully to his own house.

Happily, we did not have regular conversazioni at my uncle's; as he was a widower, and my cousins unmarried, it would not have been thought correct. We used only to have occasional visitors in the evening, or else invited the good people regularly to tea—which, though never appearing at their own houses, yet they fully appreciated at ours; and played whist, and had a little music, and did our best to amuse them, our exertions being fully repaid by the good humour and sprightliness of our guests.

CHAPTER III.

A marriage in high life—Wedding outfit—The first interview—Condition of single women—The laws of courtship—Dependence of young married people—Anecdotes of mothers-in-law.

I did not tire of my life in Ancona, as my friends in Florence had predicted. There was something so quaint, so unlike anything I had ever before known, in the people among whom I found myself, and they formed such a contrast to the busy, practical sphere in which I had been brought up, that, for the sake of novelty alone, I should have been amused at the change. I hope, however, that some better motive was at work than mere curiosity to interest me. I had always felt a sympathy for the Italians, and resented the indiscriminate abuse with which it is the fashion to assail them; but until the opportunity for personal observation now afforded, I had not understood how many of their failings may be ascribed to their erroneous system of marriage, their defective method of education, and other domestic evils—evils so deeply rooted, that it will require a complete upheaving of the existing framework of society to destroy their baneful influence.

It was not long before I was enabled to see how matches were made up according to the most orthodox system; for the marriage of the niece of a lady whom we often saw—our little friend who disliked country walks so much—was being negotiated, and we were daily informed of the progress of affairs. The young lady was not residing in Ancona, but at Macerata, a town about forty miles distant; and being an orphan, and not largely dowered, her establishment had been a matter of considerable anxiety to her relations, particularly to her grandmother, with whom she lived.

“Congratulate me,” said the contessa, with a beaming face, one morning: “mamma writes me she has great hopes of a partito for our poor Isotta.”

“I am very glad, indeed,” said my cousin Lucy, who was always the chief spokes-woman, being the eldest daughter of the house, and of a sedate and prudent turn, which suited her mature age of one-and-twenty—“I am very glad, indeed, to hear this; and what does Isotta say?”

“Oh, she knows nothing about it yet; mamma is making the necessary inquiries, and will then settle everything with the young man's father, old Conte G——, the brother of our cardinal here. Up to the present moment, a mutual friend, who first originated the idea, has been the only channel of communication.”

“And if your niece should not chance to like him?” I suggested.

Our little friend lifted up her eyes in astonishment, as she replied, “Not like a person her grandmamma approves. Of course she will be pleased!” and then reverting to the great topic of interest on such occasions, she said, “If, as we hope, all will be soon arranged, mamma will have a great deal to do in ordering the corredo. It is to be a very handsome one, for the sposo's family are known to be very particular in such things; and, naturally, we, on our side, do not wish to cut a bad figure.”

I asked her some of the details respecting this same corredo, or wedding outfit, and she gave me a list of such supplies of linen and every description of wearing apparel, as appeared extravagant in proportion to the young lady's fortune, which was only 12,000 dollars[2] (about £2400), an average dowry in this part of Italy. If the sum ascends as high as 20,000 dollars, it is considered large; but in any case the corredo has likewise to be provided, at an expense often of 2000 dollars (£400), or even upwards. This outlay, however, is not felt, as a certain sum is always destined for each child from its infancy, and large stores of linen and damask table-services are gradually accumulated, in expectation of the great event. The greatest luxury is, perhaps, displayed in petticoats, night-dresses, and such gear, which are of the finest materials, often trimmed with rich lace and embroidered, and are to be counted by sixes of dozens of each kind. In fact, their number is so great, that it is one of the anxieties of an Italian woman's life to look after her hoards of linen, and see that all is kept properly assorted and in good order. Nor is this ambition for a handsome corredo confined to the upper classes, it is shared alike by all; descending even to the humblest peasant-girl, who is scarcely out of her leading-strings before she thinks of laying by for this long-coveted possession.

But to return to the young lady whose fate was being decided. Two or three days after, her aunt came to announce that all was settled; that both Isotta and the young count had expressed themselves perfectly satisfied, and their first meeting was to take place the following evening, in presence of all the members of the two families residing at Macerata.

“Poor girl! What a nervous affair it will be!” I said. “What is the ceremonial to be observed?”

“Why,” said the contessa, quite gravely, “I do not exactly know; mamma does not mention in her letter: it depends on circumstances. Generally the sposo merely comes forward, is presented to the young lady, and makes a low bow. Sometimes, if the families previously have been intimately acquainted, he is directed to kiss her hand; and lastly—but this is very rare”—and she lowered her voice—“it is only adopted where there is the oldest friendship or relationship subsisting—the gentleman salutes his bride upon the cheek.”

Amused as I was by this account, I could not help thinking it must be exaggerated, or at least that these courtships, whose programme was as accurately defined as a state ceremony, must be restricted to a few rare instances; but I found this was not the case, and that the contessa had merely stated what was usual in every family of the nobility of Ancona and the adjacent towns. In many instances, I afterwards learned, the preliminaries for the marriage of a young lady were all settled before she left the walls of a convent where she had been brought up, her wedding taking place within eight days of her return to her parents' house; but this, though esteemed highly desirable, cannot always be arranged, especially where no great recommendations exist, either as to beauty or fortune. As a general rule, girls are kept excessively retired, even in their own families, until some partito has been found; everything being done to foster the impression that their speedy settlement in life is to be the signal for their admission into all the pleasures of society, from which in the mean time they are sedulously excluded. Dressed with scrupulous plainness, seldom or never taken into company, rarely appearing out of doors, except for a drive in a close carriage, or to go to mass, or to call on some old female relation—without the advantages of a cultivated mind or literary resources—the condition of our Italian unmarried woman is as cheerless and insignificant as it is possible to conceive. Small marvel is it, then, that at the first mention of a suitor, a girl's thoughts should fly to all the fine dresses she will possess, to the becoming coiffures she will adopt, and—should her imagination have ever ranged so far—to the liberty of speech and action she will be entitled to enjoy. Not a thought is given to the disposition, tastes, or habits of the person to whom she is soon to be irrevocably united; he is accepted as the condition indispensable to the attainment of all that has been so earnestly desired.

The scene of the first introduction generally takes place with the formality the little contessa described, very rarely going beyond a stately bow and courtesy exchanged between the betrothed. After this interview, the gentleman is every evening expected to pay a visit of an hour or so at the house of his promessa, all the members of her family, and the old friends who compose the usual società, being present. He is not placed next to her, nor is he to address himself particularly to her. Should he feel inclined to venture on a remark, she will answer in monosyllables, with downcast eyes, never moving from the sofa on which she sits bolt upright by her mother's side. After a week or so has elapsed, it is an understood thing that he should ask for her portrait, and give her his own in return. At this stage of the proceedings, he is allowed to kiss her hand on presenting the miniature; and on succeeding evenings he brings her a nosegay, but without any repetition of this privilege; meanwhile the bride elect is very complacently occupied in knitting him a purse, or embroidering him a smoking-cap, or something of that sort—whatever she is told is customary, in fact—and finally goes to the altar without a thought upon the duties and responsibilities of her new condition.

Even their manner of celebrating a wedding is very different from ours. No bridesmaids are ever seen; for it would not be considered in good taste for any girls to be present at the religious ceremony; neither do they take part in the great dinner which closes the day. The newly-married pair do not go into the country, or set out upon a journey, but at once enter into possession of the apartments destined for them in the house of the bridegroom's family.

My uncle used laughingly to quote a remark made to him by a lady in reply to some observation on the contrast thus afforded to an English wedding-tour: “It may be all very well for your nation, who make marriages of sentiment, caro mio signore, but I confess that to any of us this prolonged tête-à-tête with a husband whom one knows nothing at all of, would be tedious in the extreme.” To avoid being thrown upon this terrible companionship, the first week or so of the young sposa's married life is fully taken up in receiving the congratulatory visits of her friends and acquaintances; after which, she and her husband make what is called the first sortita together, go to hear mass, call upon every one in due form, and are considered fairly started in their new position. The dingy Palazzo subsides into its wonted monotony; and the young couple, with no interest or authority in the house, treated like mere children, are expected to conform to the hours and habits of the old people, who, having yielded the same submission in their day, are by no means backward in exacting it themselves.

We knew a family, that of the Marchese G——, one of the most ancient and wealthy in Ancona, where the eldest son, though upwards of thirty-six, and married for more than ten years, was not at liberty to invite any friend of his own to the family-table without his father's permission; neither could he nor his wife, for any convenience of their own, anticipate or retard the fixed hour for dinner, or order that meal to be served in their apartments. All their expenditure was regulated for them, a pair of carriage-horses kept at their disposal, their servants' wages paid; even their subscription to the theatre provided for, and a sum assigned for their dress and pocket-money—being twenty dollars a month to the heir of this noble house, and to his wife fifteen. This was considered very liberal. All the disposal of the income of the family—very large in reference to the country; it was reported to be nearly 20,000 dollars (£4000) a year—all insight into the accounts and expenditure, was exclusively reserved for the old marchese, who would have resented any hint or advice from his son as unwarrantable interference.

Another strange species of coercion that seemed generally kept up in families of this stamp, was in the selection of Christian names for the younger branches. It is not an uncommon thing to hear a young mother lament the uncouth appellations bestowed upon her offspring, and saying, with a shrug of her shoulders, “But what is to be done? It is an old family name, and my suocera would have it.”

The vexatious tyranny exercised by the mother-in-law, the suocera, has almost passed into a proverb, as the source of innumerable evils; yet such is the force of custom amongst the Italians, that if a son were possessed of independent fortune, and established himself away from the paternal roof, he would be exclaimed against as undutiful in the extreme. I could tell of many sad instances of unhappiness produced by the suocera's influence. In the first place, she is almost invariably ignorant, prejudiced, and bigoted—such being the characteristics of the greater part of Italian women, born and educated some fifty or sixty years ago—and sets her face stubbornly against everything that is not precisely according to her code, whether it relates to politics, the management of her household, or the treatment of her grand-children. I heard a lady herself recount how she lost five children in succession, owing to their being sent out to be reared by rough peasant-women in the country. They were delicate infants, and could not stand the exposure and want of care to which they were subjected; and so they died off, one after the other, their poor mother vainly attempting to move the old contessa to allow her to have a wet-nurse in the house.

“In her day,” persisted the unrelenting woman, “children were brought up in the country; and why should it be otherwise now?” and she had authority enough over her son to compel him to resist his wife's piteous supplications. Often has she said, “My five children were sacrificed to a suocera's power. She yielded at last and I saved the sixth”.

Another lady, whom I saw much of, one of the handsomest women in Ancona, was in such subjection to her mother-in-law, that she dared not sit down in her presence unless invited to do so; and, although the mother of a grown-up son, was as much looked after and interfered with as if she had been still a child. Sometimes her spirit rose, and she attempted to remonstrate, or invoked her husband's assistance, which was invariably the signal for his ordering his horse to be saddled, and going out for a ride—saying, he would have nothing to do with her quarrels with his mother. And this, and worse than this, is the true picture of an Italian Interior, where distrust, variance, and the weakening of domestic ties are the fruits of the lamentable system I have attempted to describe; which is further perpetuated in the training of the rising generation in the same errors and intolerance.

CHAPTER IV.

System pursued towards children—Results of Jesuit training—Anecdotes of the Sacré Cœur—A Contessina just out of the convent—Difficulty of giving a liberal education to young nobles—No profession open to them but the church—Their ignorance and idleness.

Amongst those Italians whose minds have risen superior to the disadvantages that surround them, the subject of education is often anxiously discussed. One evening, at my uncle's, we were conversing on this topic with the Conte Enrico A——, a highly intellectual and cultivated young man. He was a native of Ancona, but so far in advance of his townspeople, that he stood almost isolated amongst them. Even as an Englishman, he would have ranked high for mental acquirements, though all perhaps of too dreamy a cast. His was a sort of passive genius, which exhaled itself in poetry and melancholy reflections on the misery of his country, looking upon any individual exertion as impracticable. This want of energy in striving to carry out the superior workings of their intellect was, until lately, peculiar to most Italians who united reflection and high principle with patriotism and talent. For Central and Northern Italy, however, this remark no longer holds good. The moving spirits of the revolutions in Tuscany, the Duchies, and Romagna, have been precisely the most cultivated and moderate amongst the upper and middle classes; but the course recent events have taken in the Marche, confirms the opinion that the political leaders there are still men of thought rather than of action.

On the evening in question, I remember he told us we were not half thankful enough, nor proud enough, of the privilege of being Englishwomen, nor sensible of the blessings which from our very cradles that name conferred.

“As soon as English children can distinguish one letter from another,” he said, “books are put into their hands which inculcate truth, honour, courage; and thus is laid the basis of that education which has made your nation what it is—the envy and wonder of Europe.”

“That reminds me of a plan we have often talked of,” said Lucy D——: “it is that of translating some of our nice children's story-books, and getting them circulated through these States.”

“Ah! you forget,” he replied, shaking his head, “that before teaching the children, you must educate the mothers of Italy; or else your efforts will be paralysed by the ignorance and folly that would be arrayed against you.”

“Besides you forget,” said my uncle, looking up from his paper, “that the mothers of Italy have very little to do with the education of their children: your convents and seminaries relieve them of that task.”

“Too true,” said the count. “As our fathers and grandfathers did before us, so also must we: and that is why, at seven or eight years old, our boys are sent to Jesuit colleges; while our girls, at even an earlier age, are placed in nunneries to learn from women perpetually secluded in the cloister, the duties that are to fit them for wives and mothers in the world.”

“Never even coming home for their holidays,” remarked my uncle. “Strange that there should be people in existence who can consent to this unnecessary separation from their children for ten or eleven years. How the character may be worked upon, and all its fresh impulses destroyed, by this long period of unbroken influence!”

“But do they, then, never see their children?” I inquired.

“Oh yes, they may go and visit them,” he replied; “but an interview of but an hour or so occasionally, is a very poor substitute for more unrestrained intercourse; besides, it often happens that the convent or college is at a considerable distance, and it does not suit people to be always travelling.”

“Talking of these visits,” said the count, “reminds me of one I lately paid to Loretto, to see the eldest son of the Principe L——, a handsome, animated, and promising little fellow of nine years old, who had been placed at the Jesuits' College there about six months before. I could scarcely recognize the child. Without ill-usage, without any compulsory discipline, but simply by the steady workings of their wonderful method of compression, the boy's spirit and originality appeared to be as completely extinguished as if they had never existed. He had become grave, thoughtful beyond his age, with a little demure, bland look, that seemed a reflection of the countenances of his priestly instructors. I horrified the ecclesiastic who was present during the interview, by rather maliciously asking the child if he still continued to take as much interest as ever in all scientific and mechanical pursuits, and in reading of the recent discoveries. As the sworn upholder of a government that opposes railways, and laments the invention of printing, the priest was bound to express his surprise at the suggestion, 'My child,' said he, mildly addressing his pupil, 'is it possible you ever thought thus? You have other tastes now. Tell the signor conte what you most wish to become.' The boy coloured, cast down his eyes, and murmured, 'Un Latinista'—a Latin scholar. Anything like a love of aught relating to progression was a crime.”

There was some bitterness, but no exaggeration, in what the young Anconitan related. The question of the Jesuits is purely a political one, they being supported by the party termed by the liberals Oscurantisti or Codini—the first name signifying literally obscurers, and the last derived from the queue worn by the gentlemen of the last century, and without which, to this day, upon the Italian stage, the portrait of a prejudiced obstinate old noble is incomplete. Families of these views esteem it, therefore, a point of conscience to intrust the education of their children to this order.

The Jesuit colleges nearest Ancona are at Loretto, a distance of twenty miles; and at Fano, about thirty miles off, in an opposite direction. At the former place also, the French Dames du Sacré Cœur have a convent for young ladies, embracing much the same line of principles. It cannot be denied that, as respects general accomplishments and ladylike deportment, their pupils infinitely surpass those of all other conventual establishments in the country; but the Jesuit leaven that pervades the whole course of tuition, deters all parents, not devoted to the tenets of Loyola, from placing their daughters under their care.

The House at Loretto was admirably conducted; simplicity, cleanliness, refinement, order, were its striking features. The pupils appeared to me perfectly happy. Most of them had entered at six or seven years of age, and cherished an enthusiastic affection for the nuns, or Ladies, as they are generally styled, who by their gentle and dignified deportment, their patient study of character, and the devotion of their whole faculties to the task, acquired over them an unlimited ascendancy. A girl in the Sacré Cœur never learned to reason;—what “La Mère Supérieure” once said, was to her an article of faith,—infallible, unimpeachable. The opinions thus formed—and they designedly embraced every relation of society—were seldom or never shaken off.

In politics, as may be conceived, the Sacré Cœur is unmitigatedly Austrian. In 1848, while all Italy was applauding the prowess or lamenting the misfortunes of Charles Albert, the pupils at Loretto knew of no hero but Radetsky; and celebrated his triumph over Italian independence by a grand march for the pianoforte, composed expressly for them by their music-master, maestro di cappella to the Church of the Santa Casa.

The acquaintance possessed by these ladies with all that is passing in the outer world, down to the minutest details of inner life, is a well-known attribute of the order. Imparted to their Jesuit confessors, this knowledge has often become a powerful political engine. The means by which it is acquired is through the confidence and affection of their pupils. I once happened to be staying in the same house with a young lady who had recently left the convent. The Contessina used to write every day to the Mère Supérieure long crossed letters, in a delicate French hand. “You carry on an active correspondence,” some one remarked. “Oh, yes!” was the unsuspecting reply; “the Mère is so good! She tells us always to remember, when we leave her care, that whatever is of interest to us interests her; and to tell her of our occupations, our acquaintances; of those who come to the house, and what they speak about.”

I had also an opportunity of observing the mastery the Sacred Heart obtains over family ties and instincts. Another young girl of our acquaintance—indeed, she was one of our most intimate friends—was on the eve of entering the novitiate, when she heard that the cholera was raging at Trieste. The alarm was great in Ancona, where a belief in contagion prevailed; and it was generally anticipated that, through the constant communication going on between the Austrian garrison and that port, the epidemic would be speedily transmitted. The parents of the future novice were somewhat advanced in years, delicate in health, and apprehensive of the impending danger. She therefore wrote to the Superior, proposing to adjourn her entrance into the order till after the cholera had visited Ancona, in order to be at hand to nurse her parents if attacked. “My child,” was the reply, “leave your parents to higher care. This is clearly a temptation of the Evil One.” And accordingly she went.

Notwithstanding the favour it enjoys with the Government, some members of the vieille roche are hostile to the Sacré Cœur; not, as it may be supposed, on account of its political bias, but because its teaching—which comprehends a thorough knowledge of French and music, with some insight into the other usual elements of female education—is unnecessarily erudite. A strong party still exists in favour of the old-fashioned nunneries; of the system pursued in which the following is no exaggerated report:—

One day a pretty, bashful-looking contessina, just emancipated from her convent, came with her mother to pay a morning visit. While the latter was engaged with poor Lucy, on whom doing the honours to the elderly ladies always devolved, I endeavoured to overcome the daughter's timidity, and draw her into conversation. Not knowing what else to speak of, I began about her recent studies, and inquired if she knew French.

“No, signora,”[3] with downcast eyes, “they did not teach that in the convent.”

“Did you learn history or geography?”

“No, signora.”

“But you can embroider?”

“Si, signora—the nuns taught us that, and we worked a beautiful set of vestments for the priest who said Mass in our church.”

“And what did you learn besides?”

“To read and write, and the Catechism.”

“And have you read many pretty books?”

“No, signora; only the 'Lives of the Saints.'”

“Where was this convent?—was it near Loretto, or Jesi, or Macerata?”

“I do not know, signora.”

“You do not know!—was it very far off, then?”

“Not very, signora; it took four hours to go there from Ancona in a carriage. I remained ten years; I never went out all the time, and I returned home the same way that I went.”

During this dialogue her voice never changed in its monotonous intonation, with the unvarying “signora” at every sentence, which Italian convent girls are so remarkable for bestowing; when my uncle walked into the drawing-room with a young Oxonian, the son of a very old friend, who had unexpectedly arrived to take the steamer for Greece on an eastern tour.

We jumped up in delight and shook hands so heartily, that I fear the Contessa was quite scandalized; but for a few minutes we were too much taken up with our countryman to think of her. When calmness was restored, and she rose to take leave, I perceived, to my great amusement, that although the daughter's eyelids were drooping as before, she was busy, beneath their long lashes, in taking a survey of the handsome young stranger, although not the movement of a muscle in the smooth expressionless face was perceptible; neither did she evince any apparent consciousness of all that was going on, as, meekly following her mother, she curtseyed herself out of the room.

It is certainly extraordinary how, after this penitential discipline, the instant they are married, these demure little damsels acquire the full use of their visual organs, and bring all their latent fire into play. Indeed, the sudden transition from an awkward, silent, ill-dressed girl, such as I have described, into an elegant, self-possessed, talkative woman, is so wonderful as only to be credited by those who daily witness the metamorphosis effected in Italy by the dignity and enfranchisement of matrimony.

Persons desirous of a more extended scale of instruction for their daughters, and who are, at the same time, hostile to the Sacré Cœur, find themselves in great perplexity. The experiment has been tried by one or two families of sending them into Tuscany, where there are several institutions for female education, conducted on comparatively liberal principles; but the distance, the danger and expense of the journey, were all such serious drawbacks, that the example found few imitators. The manners of the country, and, it must be added, the incapacity of the mothers for the task, render it inexpedient to bring up girls at home; so that, after much talking and deliberation, nine fathers out of ten resign themselves to do as their fathers did before them, and deposit their daughters in the old convents, out of harm's way, for half a score of years at least.

It must be confessed, they have enough to occupy them as to the means of educating their sons, when they have the bad taste not to confide them to the Jesuits. Sometimes they send them to Pisa or Sienna in Tuscany, at which last there used to be a college of some eminence, conducted on moderate principles by the Padri Scolopj; but of late years abuses have crept in, and it has greatly degenerated. Others, again, engage an abbé or tutor, for the first few years, and then place them to complete their studies at the once celebrated university of Bologna.

But this institution, like everything else in the Roman States, has fallen into such decay, and its professors are under such restrictions, that at the conclusion of his academical career, unless a youth has more than average abilities, particularly if he belongs to the higher classes, the general range of his attainments may be rated as beneath mediocrity. Debarred by the prejudices of caste from entering any profession but that of the Church, conscious that he will never have a field on which to display his abilities, without stimulus to exertion or prospects for the future, the young noble seems to resign himself to the conviction that his safest course is to vegetate unthinking, unquestioning, unknowing, and unknown.

Even the desire for distinction in arms, or the excitement of merely holiday soldiering, parades, reviews, and a gay garrison life, so common to most young men, cannot stir the dull waters of his patrician existence; for there is no military career open to the pontifical subjects, with the exception of the Guardia Nobile at Rome, which is limited to a small number of the sons of the old nobility. The few miserable regiments which compose the Pope's army are so low in the scale of social estimation, that to say a man is only fit to become a Papalino soldier is almost the grossest insult that can be passed upon him.

The ranks, wholly composed of volunteers, there being no conscription, are recruited from the dregs of the population, spies, quondam thieves, and so forth. As for the officers, I know not whence they are procured, never having been acquainted with a family owning to the discredit of relationship with an individual thus engaged, although one or two, who had scapegraces of sons, whose existence it was desirable to ignore, were supposed to have sent them, by way of punishment, into the service.

The ignorance of some of these young nobles on most subjects of general information was perfectly startling. Many of them were quite unacquainted with the nature of tenets which had rent Europe asunder, with the geographical position of neighbouring countries, or with the best-known historical facts. Not having access to any easy literature, such as our magazines and miscellanies afford, owing to the extraordinary limitations imposed upon the press, they had been left without an inducement to read, or an opportunity of discovering their own deficiency.

One or two anecdotes, the first of which I heard my cousins relate, will prove there is no exaggeration in these remarks.

During the wild excitement of the early part of 1849, a youthful count, glowing with new-born patriotism, confided to them one day that he and all the Gioventù—that is, Young Ancona—had determined upon turning Protestant, in order to get rid of the preti, and to conciliate England. Presently a shade of embarrassment came over his face, and he said, “Pardon me, but now I think of it, tell me, do the Protestants believe in God?”

On one occasion, I was present when some conversation took place before a youth fresh from Bologna, in which an allusion was made to Cleopatra and the asp. “How can I know anything about these matters?” he exclaimed; “I have never read the Bible!” Another time, I remember hearing my uncle gravely asked, in reference to a journey he was meditating, whether he meant to go by sea from Marseilles to Paris?

It was melancholy in the extreme to see the number of young men thus idling away their lives, filling the caffès and casino, and subsisting on a stipend that an English younger son would consider inadequate to purchase gloves for a London season. The plan pursued is, to give each son an apartment in the family residence, his dinner, and the allowance of from ten to twelve dollars a month, which is to provide for his dress, his breakfast, the theatre, and cigars.

How they contrived, with these limited means, to keep up the appearance they did is perfectly inexplicable. They even seemed able to gratify little harmless flights of fancy, such as coming out unexpectedly in singular suits of Brobdignagian checks or startling green cut-aways, which, with a pair of luxuriant whiskers, a hasty, determined walk, and a peculiar flourish of the stick, were supposed to constitute the faithful portraiture of an Englishman, than to resemble whom there could be no greater privilege, so great was the Anglomania that prevailed.

And now, I fancy, I hear the remark, “All this time you have been describing the manners of the Italian nobility. What are their gentry like—their middle classes?” Which inquiries shall be answered, as fully as circumstances admit, in my next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

The middle classes—Superior education of the men—Low standard of female intellect and manners—Total separation from the nobility—Cultivated physician—A peep into his household—Family economy—Conversazione at the chemist's—Passion for gambling—The caffè.

It is very difficult to convey any correct idea as to the state of the middle ranks of society in Italy, particularly if we do not divest ourselves of everything like comparison between them and what apparently are the corresponding classes in England.

In the first place, it must be borne in mind that no gentry exist among the Italians. If a man springs from the nobility, he has no resource in the Pope's States but the Church: any other profession is deemed incompatible with the dignity of his birth, as there is neither army nor navy, nor any other public service. If he belongs to the mezzo cetto, as it is termed, he must either be a physician, a merchant, a lawyer, a shopkeeper, or hold some meagre appointment, as an underling, in one of the government offices, the posts of distinction and emolument in these departments being almost invariably conferred upon ecclesiastics. It is rare to find this middle class, the best educated beyond a doubt, contributing to swell the ranks of the priesthood, which are principally recruited from the families of the decayed nobility, or from the peasantry and lower orders.

In years gone by, the mezzo cetto bowed unquestioningly to the supremacy of the nobles, who patronized them affably in return, invited the family lawyer and physician to dinner on the saint's-day of the head of the house, or for the christening of the junior branches. They stood pretty much in the light of client and patron, as in the days of their Roman ancestors; but of late everything has changed, and between the two orders there is now little good-will or assimilation. It used formerly to be a constant object of ambition to rise to the privileged rank; and when any one succeeded in amassing a fortune, part of it was often laid out in the purchase of some estate that conferred a title of nobility on its possessor; then gradually, through intermarriages with old but impoverished houses, the ci-devant roturier fairly established himself in his new position, and after one or two generations, the origin of the family was forgotten. Now, on the contrary, a disposition to ridicule what formerly was so much coveted seems to prevail, and men have discovered that there are other roads to distinction than through a patent of nobility; but, mingled with this spirit of independence, there may still be discerned a jealous feeling at the superior ease and polish of the nobles—a sort of innate refinement, which all their ignorance and prejudices cannot efface.

In the middle class, the absence of gentle breeding and of the amenities of society is mainly attributable to the inferior position held by the women belonging to it, or rather the low standard at which they are rated. The very tone in which an Italian of this grade passingly alludes to le donne di casa is sufficiently indicative of the universally prevalent feeling of their incapacity and helplessness. Scarcely any attempt is made at improvement; and the results can easily be imagined. Nothing can be found more vulgar and illiterate than the wives and connections of some of the most scientific men in the country, or more homely and inelegant than their domestic arrangements; nothing to our English ideas more repelling than the appearance of a professor's lady slipshod, screaming at her maid-of-all-work, or gossiping with the wife of a doctor-of-law from an opposite window.

In compliment to our English name and culture, our right to the best society the place afforded was unhesitatingly acknowledged; and it is for this reason I can say but little comparatively about the habits and interior of the mezzo cetto. Perhaps this of itself conveys a better idea of the complete separation that exists, than anything else I could bring forward. With two or three exceptions, no untitled person appeared in the circles in which we moved; and with these two or three I observed no allusion was ever made to their wives and families; their very existence seemed to be ignored. Among all our acquaintances, one of those we took the greatest pleasure in seeing was a physician, certainly a man of no ordinary attainments: gifted in intellect and conversational powers, he would have been an acquisition to any society; but except in his professional capacity, it was very difficult to induce him to accept any offers of attention. We used to be glad of some trifling ailment as a pretext for sending for him—an indulgence which the low price of his visits—three pauls, about fifteen pence—rendered very excusable; and we then would have long conversations on politics, poetry, and English customs and inventions. Like all Italians of a superior stamp, he took the most lively interest in our country's greatness and advancement, mingled with a constant fear of his credulity being imposed upon, that rendered him very amusing.

One day, after talking about railways, and lamenting the obstinacy of the Government in opposing their introduction into the Pontifical States, he said, hesitatingly, “I have to-day heard something about England that surpasses all belief. A person just arrived from London has been trying to persuade me that he has seen a railway there which runs over houses. Now, can this be true?”

“Oh, he must mean the railway to Blackwall!” exclaimed one of my cousins, who, although she had never been in England, with that marvellous interest in all connected with it I have described, joined to the diligent study of the “Illustrated London News,” and some of our most useful periodicals, was perfectly versed in every recent improvement. He listened to her animated description with an earnestness it is not easy to conceive, and at the conclusion said, with the florid diction peculiar to the south, “Glorious country, capable of such achievements! Happy country, to have such daughters to recount them!”

It must have been disheartening to a man of this character to return, after his day's labours were ended, to a home such as his was described to us: small, dark, scantily furnished—the little drawing-room, according to the manners of that class, unoccupied even in the evening, and exhibiting no traces of books or needlework—his wife utterly uncompanionable and uncultivated, issuing from the kitchen in a slatternly déshabille, to greet him with some shrill complaint against the children, who, pale, whimpering, and unwholesome, looked as if they were pining for fresh air and exercise. Such is the appearance of the household for six days of the week. On Sundays, the lady comes out richly dressed, with a dignified deportment that a duchess might envy, and slowly paces the promenade, accompanied by her children, elaborately attired, and the maid-servant, whose exterior has undergone the same magical transformation.

The manner in which Italians of this rank contrive to gratify their taste for dress would seem perfectly marvellous, considering their slender resources, if one had not some insight into the remarkable frugality of their household expenditure. No English economist could contrive to keep body and soul together in the way they do: our northern constitutions would sink from insufficiency of aliment if compelled to follow their regimen.

Let us take a peep at another family by way of illustration. It consists of father, mother, two children, and a maid-servant; and the income on which they depend for their maintenance may be estimated at from fifty to sixty pounds a year. The husband holds some responsible Government appointment in the Customs, or Provincial Treasury, or something of the kind. Before he gets up in the morning, he drinks a cup of café noir, or, if his circumstances permit, he partakes of it at the caffè, with the addition, perhaps, of a cake of the value of a half-penny: the same beverage, with milk and a little bread, forms the breakfast of the family at home. One o'clock is the general hour for dinner. There is soup, containing either slices of toasted bread, or rice, or vermicelli; then the lesso, the meat from which the broth has been made, never exceeding two pounds—of twelve ounces—in weight, half a pound being usually calculated as the allowance for a grown-up person; this is eaten with bread, which holds the place of potatoes in England, and is consumed in large quantities. A dish of vegetables, done up with lard or oil, completes the repast; but I must not omit that the poorest table is well furnished with excellent native wine, which, as well as the oil, is generally the production of some little piece of land in the country that the family possess. This routine of living is never departed from, except on maigre-days—when fish, either fresh or salted, Indian corn-meal, with a little tomata and cheese, dried haricot beans, lentils, and so forth, take the place of the usual fare—and Sundays and Festas, which are solemnized by an additional dish—such as a roasted pigeon or a few cutlets. In the evening they sup; but it is scarcely to be called a meal—consisting merely of a little salad, fennel-root eaten raw, or fruit, with those never-failing accompaniments of bread and the sparkling ruby wine, that really seem their principal support.

The head of the house does not trouble his family much with his presence; he spends his evenings abroad, either making conversazione at some neighbour's, or at the caffè; or if his means be so restricted as to deny him the occasional indulgence of a cigar or a glass of eau sucrée, which he might be led into there, he has the resource of going into the apothecary's shop, where, amidst a stifling atmosphere of drugs and nauseous compounds, a number of people congregate to lounge and gossip. The doctors resort here, and a choice circle of their intimate friends besides, and all the news—foreign, medical, and domestic—is fully discussed.

There are, of course, many amongst the mezzo cetto whose incomes are much beyond the instance I have just stated; some are in positive affluence, but their style of housekeeping does not vary in proportion; and the account here given may be taken as a very faithful specimen of the condition of the majority of this class, in which the elements of several gradations of rank in England are curiously blended.

The domestic manners here attempted to be traced are, it will be at once perceived, widely different from what are comprehended by us in the term “middle classes;” strangely opposed to all we are accustomed to include under that designation. Those evening conversazioni at the apothecary's, for instance; not mere students lounging about on the look-out for practice, but white-headed men, ranking high in their profession, lawyers, merchants, shopkeepers, all cronies and gossips of half a century's standing—what analogy is there in our own country to anything of this sort?

A physician of repute, in one of our large towns, would stare at finding himself in the centre of a group assembled in the dingy Farmacia; still greater would be his surprise could he understand the nature of the conversation so eagerly carried on. Contrary to English medical etiquette in matters which belong to their profession, these Esculapians are especially diffuse, each relating, for the benefit of the circle, the minutest particulars of any interesting case he has in hand, without the slightest reserve in mentioning the patient, who becomes public property, to be dissected and lectured upon at pleasure. Besides which laudable relaxation, a pastime of another kind is often carried on in some little den at the back of the shop, where a card-table is spread, and large sums, in reference to the means of the players, are nightly staked.

The passion for gambling is very general, extending to all ranks, and, not confined to cards, exhibits itself in a fondness for everything connected with hazard—such as raffles and lotteries, about which last I shall speak more in detail in another chapter.

Scarcely a day used to pass in which people did not come to the door to ask us to take tickets in some riffa; it was either a poor woman who wanted to dispose of her pearl ear-rings; or a girl che si voleva far sposa, and by way of earning a few pauls to buy a wedding dress, offered a pincushion for a prize. Fishermen made raffles of their finest turbots; ladies (though rather sub rosâ) of their old-fashioned shawls; distressed dandies of elaborate pipes; in fact, never was there a population in which the fickle goddess numbered more persevering votaries.

In the caffès, play was always going on, I believe, in a greater or less degree. These establishments, so indispensable to an Italian's existence, must not be identified with the fairy-like structures of mirrors, chandeliers, and arcades, that Paris and some of the principal cities of Italy exhibit. In all the inferior towns which I have visited, one description of a caffè may serve to convey a very correct idea of the totality. A middle-sized room, opening on the street—in summer with an awning, benches, and little round tables outside the door; within, similar benches and round tables, a very dirty brick floor, and a dark region at the back, from whence ices, lemonades, eau sucrée, coffee, chocolate, fruit syrups, and occasionally punch—denominated un ponch, and cautiously partaken of—are served out. Youths with cadaverous faces and mustachios, in white jackets striped with blue, answering to the appellation of bottega, fly about like ministering genii, and from four or five o'clock in the morning till past twelve at night, know repose only as a name.

The caffè likewise comprehends the office of confectioner and pastrycook, and no cakes or sweetmeats can be procured but what it furnishes; sorry compositions, it must be owned, their predominant flavour being that of tobacco, with which, from being kept on a counter in the general room, amid a thick cloud of smoke from a dozen or so of detestable cigars, they are naturally impregnated. They are inexpensive delicacies, however; for the value of a half-penny such gigantic puffs of pastry and preserve, such blocks of sponge-cake garnished with deleterious ornaments, such massive compounds of almond and white of egg are obtainable, as would make a schoolboy's eyes glisten with delight. Sold at half-price the next day—a farthing, be it remembered—they are purchased by poor people for their children's slight matutinal refection. We could never persuade one of my uncle's servants, the father of a family, that a piece of bread would have been a far more wholesome breakfast for children of five or six years old, than a little weak coffee, and one of these stale cakes. He would shake his head, and say it was more civile, i. e. refined, for the povere creature than bread; as for brown bread—soldiers' bread, as they contemptuously term it—being reduced to that, is considered the extremity of degradation.

The sweetmeats the caffè fabricates are still more primitive than its cakes, principally consisting of unbleached almonds, coarsely incased in flour and sugar, chocolate in various forms, and candied citron. Immense quantities of these are prepared at Christmas, partly disposed of to outdoor customers, and the remainder, piled up on large trays, are raffled for among the frequenters of the place, with a zest which shows that, however insignificant be the prize, or paltry the venture, the delight in all games of chance is still predominant.

Besides the caffè, properly so called, with its talkers and loungers and smokers, its players at dominoes and cards, its readers of the few newspapers permitted—so meagre of details, so garbled in their statements, that little information can be gathered from their columns—the premises generally contain a sala del bigliardo upstairs, and sometimes a private room for the accommodation of such systematic card-players as nightly resort there, and do not wish the magnitude of their stakes to attract public attention. Members of the oldest nobility, and the most questionable mezzo cetto, princes and brokers, merchants and marchesi, Jews and Christians, are known to pass every evening of their lives together in this manner; and, nevertheless, hold no intercourse at other times, never entering each other's houses, or acknowledging or seeking any further acquaintance beyond the mysterious precincts of the caffè.

CHAPTER VI.

Prejudice against fires—General dilapidation of dwelling-houses—A lady's valet de chambre—Kindness towards servants—Freedom of intercourse with their masters—Devotedness of Italians to the sick—Horror of death—Funerals—Mourning.

While thus curious about the middle ranks, it must not be forgotten that in the upper there was quite sufficient difference from all one's preconceived ideas of elegance or comfort to render their domestic habits interesting. One of the strangest things that struck me as the winter came on, was the prejudice prevailing against the use of fireplaces, or, indeed, against any appliances to mitigate the severity of the weather. Horace Walpole, in his letters, says, very justly, that the Italians never yet seem to have found out how cold their climate is; and this remark, made a hundred years ago, is still perfectly applicable—at least as regards the people of Ancona.

The dread of sitting near a fire, and the contempt for carpets expressed by the old inhabitants, are perfectly ludicrous: they mourn over the effeminacy of the rising generation, who, so far as they are permitted, gladly avail themselves of these pernicious indulgences. A gentleman one night came freezing into our drawing-room, and as he stood complacently before the fire, made us laugh at the account of a visit he had just been paying to the Count M——, the admiral of the port—a sinecure office, it is needless to remark. He found him in bed with a slight attack of gout, and his wife and daughter-in-law, with several visitors, were sitting round him, making la società: the gentlemen in their hats and cloaks, and the ladies in shawls, handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and the never-absent scaldino, filled with live embers, in their hands. Our friend was pressed by the admiral to follow the general example, and cloak and cover himself. He declined at first, being of a very ceremonious disposition; but soon, he admitted, his scruples gave way before the excessive coldness of the room, on a northern aspect, destitute of fire or carpet; and he resumed his out-door apparel like the rest.

It used often to happen, when paying a morning visit, that the drawing-room fire was ordered to be lighted out of compliment to us, in spite of our entreaties to the contrary; the result, as we too well anticipated, after many laborious efforts on the part of the unhappy servitor, with a vast expenditure of breath—a method of ignition seemingly preferred to bellows—being invariably a hopeless abandonment of the enterprise, a stifling amount of smoke, and an unlimited number of apologies.

In the daytime, the Anconitan ladies, even of the first rank, rarely occupy their drawing-rooms, which are merely entered to receive visitors; they mostly sit in their bed-chambers until evening; and hence the formal appearance, the absence of all comfort, that strikes an English eye so much on first entering their houses. From the street you proceed, by a large porte cochère, of which the gates are closed at night, into a court or vaulted passage, wide enough to admit a carriage. Of this, evidence is afforded by the appearance of that vehicle in dim perspective; while undoubted proofs arise, through the olfactory nerves, of the immediate vicinity of the stables. You ascend a handsome stone staircase, but rarely swept, and only traditionally whitewashed, on which groups of beggars are stationed in various attitudes, and pause at the first-floor, before a door that has not been painted for thirty years, when the present owner of the palace was married. Your first summons is unheeded; and it is not till after ringing a second time rather impatiently, you are admitted by a dirty manservant, who has evidently been cleaning lamps, and is uneasily settling himself into his tarnished livery-coat, which had been hanging on a clothes-horse in a corner of the hall, in strange contrast with a large genealogical tree in a massive gilt frame, and four carved benches painted with armorial bearings, but literally begrimed with dirt, forming its principal furniture. You next traverse a magnificent apartment—the hall of state in olden times—about fifty feet long and forty wide, still retaining traces of its former splendour. The lofty ceiling is richly painted in those fanciful arabesques which belong to a period between the school of Raphael and the decadence of art at the end of the seventeenth century. The walls are hung with family portraits of various epochs—knights in armour, children in starched ruffs and brocades, cardinals in their scarlet robes; and alternated with these are immense mirrors, dimly reflecting on their darkened surface the changes that have crept over the once gorgeous scene. The rich gilding above and around you, of the frames and candelabra, of the splendid cornices that surmount the inlaid doors, and of the ponderous chairs in their immovable array—all this does not more forcibly bear witness to the lavish profusion that must once have presided here, than do the torn and faded draperies, the broken and uneven pavement, the unwashed and uncurtained windows, to the present neglect and penury which make no effort to ward off the progress of decay.

Beyond this is the drawing-room, fitted up according to the fashion of thirty years ago, since which nothing has been added to its decorations. The walls are covered with crimson brocaded satin, as well as the two upright forbidding-looking sofas and the chairs which are stationed around; there is a carpet, but it is very thin and discoloured. Between the windows there is a marble console, on which is placed a time-piece; and on the opposite side of the room stands a corresponding one, embellished by a tea-service of very fine old china, and a silver lucerna, one of those classic-shaped lamps that have been used in Italy since the days of the Etruscans; there is no table in the centre, or before the sofa, no arm-chairs, and no books. Wood is laid in the fireplace ready for us; it has thus remained since our last visit, and we entreat that it may stay unmolested.

The marchesa comes in to see us; she has a tall figure, but rather bent, and though little more than fifty, looks in reality much older. She takes snuff, and carries a checked cotton pocket-handkerchief: she kisses us on both cheeks, and calls us her dear children. There is some difficulty about adjusting our seats, because she wishes to give up the sofa to my cousin Lucy and me, at which we of course remonstrate; and the difficulty is not removed until we propose a compromise, and sit upon it one on each side of her. The servant places footstools before us, and brings his lady her scaldino. She is an invalid, and we talk at first about her health; but though naturally not averse to such a topic, she has not the keen relish for medical disquisitions which Thackeray declares is the peculiar attribute of the British female; this perhaps is owing to her ideas of the healing art being very much circumscribed—not extending beyond ptisans and sudorifics, the Italian panacea for all the ills of life. Next we discourse about the Opera, the carnival season from Christmas to Lent having just commenced; and the marchesa inquires if we often go there, and how we like the prima donna: she says that her nuora (daughter-in-law) is passionately fond of everything connected with the theatre, but hints that she might oftener renounce the indulgence of that taste, and stay at home to make the partita at cards with her. Being, however, as she herself remarks, a very amiable specimen of the genus suocera, she does not attempt in this respect to coerce the marchesina's inclinations, remaining satisfied with the privilege of occasionally grumbling, and claiming sympathy for her forbearance. Then we are told of the progress of a lawsuit which has been pending more than twenty years between her brother and herself, and can never be concluded, because the Legislature admits of appeals from one tribunal to another, against the judgment last pronounced; so that these affairs are generally prolonged while the litigating parties have life or funds at their disposal. Disputes of this kind between near relations are of such common occurrence as to excite no surprise or animadversion. Of course, we sympathize with her anxiety as to its termination; and then a turn is given to the conversation by the entrance of one of her married daughters, residing in the same street, who now comes in to pay her mother her accustomed daily visit, and kisses her hand with a mixture of deference and affection that is novel, but not unpleasing.

After the usual inquiries concerning the children and her son-in-law, the old lady turns again to us, and, for the fiftieth time, reverts to a project she has much at heart—that of arranging a matrimonio for one of my cousins; and again, for the fiftieth time, she is gravely reminded that an insuperable barrier exists to anything of the kind. Any allusion to controversial subjects being, by long-established consent, interdicted between my uncle's family and their Anconitan acquaintances, the marchesa is fain to content herself with a sigh and expressive shrug of the shoulders; and tapping me on the cheek, inquires if I, too, have such an objection to change my religion and farmi Cattolica as my poor cousins are imbued with. “Ah, carina,” said she, confidentially, “I could get good matches for you all, if you had not these unhappy scruples!”

However, I laughingly assure her I am as obdurate as the rest, and we rise to take our leave. The same process of kissing is gone through as when we came in, and we are asked anxiously whether our cameriera is in waiting, as it invariably shocks her rigid ideas of propriety that we should cross the street unattended. On being answered in the negative, the marchesa insists on summoning a grey-headed old man, dressed in rusty black, denominated her valet de chambre, and confiding us to his care to see us safely to our home, she especially charges him not to leave us till the door is opened, as if some danger lurked upon the very confines of our threshold.

This is only one among the many instances of the extraordinary restraint exercised in Italy upon the freedom of unmarried women. A girl of fifteen, if married, is at liberty to walk about alone, while I have known a woman of forty—the only Italian old maid, by the by, it has been my lot to meet—who was not allowed to move a step without at least one trusty servant as her body-guard.

Our remonstrances and entreaties are unheeded, and we depart with our veteran escort: the marchesa is so pleased that she kisses us again, and notwithstanding her infirmities, insists on tottering across the great hall and accompanying us nearly to the door; while the dirty man-servant, after showing us out, with an anxious, perturbed expression, returns to his mistress, to replenish her scaldino, give her any fragment of news he has collected, and comment upon our extraordinary English infatuation.

The old man, who feebly hobbled after us in the steep, unevenly-paved street we had to traverse, was an excellent specimen of that race of servants such as we read of in Molière and Goldoni, but are now rarely seen in real life. He had lived upwards of forty years in the family, was identified with its cares and interests, and gradually, from being the personal attendant of the old marchese, had after his death assumed the same office towards his widow, who, as an invalid, required constant care. Hence his title of the marchesa's valet de chambre, which, strange to say, was a literal one, as he assisted her maid in her toilet, sat up at night in her room when her frequent illnesses required it, brought her her coffee every morning before she got up, and was servant, nurse, confidential adviser, as the occasion needed.

Another old man in the establishment, who held a post somewhat equivalent to the duties of house and land steward, had entered the service of the marchesa's father when a boy, and on her marriage had followed her to her new abode; he died not long after my arrival, and was mourned by the whole family with a degree of regret alike creditable to themselves and the departed. Indeed, the attachment mutually subsisting between masters and servants in the old families of the Italian nobility is one of the most amiable features of the national character. Almost every family we knew had at least one or two of these faithful old domestics in their employment, who, when no longer capable of even the moderate exertion demanded of them, were either retained as supernumeraries, or dismissed to their native villages with a pension sufficient to support them during the remainder of their days. It is very rare to hear of a servant being sent away; their slatternly and inefficient manner of discharging the duties allotted to them being overlooked, if compensated by honesty and attachment. A much larger number of servants are kept than the style of living would seem to require, or the amount of fortune in general to authorize; but it appears to be a point of dignity to have a numerous household, a remnant of the feeling of olden times, when the standing of the family was estimated by the number of its retainers. Many more men than women are employed; and to this it is owing that the former discharge duties we are brought up to consider exclusively devolving upon females. Besides the culinary department, which is invariably filled by them, they sweep the rooms, make the beds, and are very efficient as sick-nurses. We knew a lady whose man-servant sat up for eighty nights to tend her during a dangerous illness.

The wages paid are excessively low to our ideas, a very small sum being given in money to female servants, the amount not exceeding from a dollar to fifteen pauls a month (4s. 6d. to 6s. 9d.), and to men from two to three dollars; but then there is always a liberal allowance of wine and flour, the produce of the family estates, generally much more than they can consume, and the surplus of which they are permitted to dispose of. Their daily fare is of a description that would ill suit the taste of English domestics, even in the most limited establishment: the quantity of meat provided for each is at the rate of six ounces per day, which is boiled, and furnishes the never-failing soup and lesso. This constitutes their first, or mid-day meal; breakfast not being usual, or at most consisting of a draught of wine and a crust of bread. In the evening they sup; this repast being supplied by the resti di tavola—that is, remains of their master's table, which are carefully divided amongst them by the cook, who is usually a personage of great authority, having under him an assistant in his noble art, besides sundry barefooted little boys, who pluck poultry, run on errands, or idle about most satisfactorily.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the low scale of wages and living here mentioned is not applicable to English or other foreign families: it was always understood that forestieri paid more than natives; and yet, with these advantages, the servants seemed to think they were scarcely compensated for the absence of the freedom of intercourse which they had enjoyed under their former masters. We were considered proud, because we discouraged the system of gossiping carried on among the natives, who allowed their servants to mingle a remark in the conversation while they were waiting at table, or to relate anything of the news of the town they might have heard. The contrast presented by our English reserve must indeed have been striking; and it was difficult at first for our attendants to reconcile themselves to it, or to be persuaded it did not really arise from harshness or displeasure. I have often thought we might with advantage copy a little in this respect from our continental neighbours, and, by treating our servants less like machines, cultivate the kindly feeling which should subsist between them and their employers; although I am very far from admiring the familiarity here described, which arises from the inherent love of talking and horror of solitude or silence, common to all Italians.

I witnessed some traits of this invincible garrulity, which amused me very much. A noble lady, living next door, used every morning to hold conversations with the nursery-maid of a German officer's family, from opposite windows: the street not being more than ten feet across, it required scarcely more elevation of voice than is peculiar to Italian women, to possess herself of numerous interesting particulars respecting their mode of life, manner of feeding, dressing, and rearing their children, of the length of time this maid had been in their service, and so forth. My uncle's man-servant was detected in the gratification of a similar curiosity towards an opposite neighbour, the wife of a lawyer, to whom, from our hall-window, he was repeating the names of the signorine and the cugina forestiera, my unworthy self, with many little details of our tastes and pursuits, which apparently were received with avidity.

One of our acquaintances, with more than a usual share of inquisitiveness, used, whenever a message or note came from our house, to summon our envoy to her presence, and, while inditing an answer, would ply him with questions about our domestic arrangements, what we had for dinner, whether any of the signorine were going to be married, and other inquiries of the same nature; which would have been considered insufferably impertinent, were we not aware that every servant entering her house was subjected to a similar interrogatory, and that nothing unfair or unfriendly was intended by it. And yet it is wonderful to notice that the servants thus talked to, and let into all the prying weakness of their masters' dispositions, are never impertinent, nor outstep the boundary of the most obsequious respect and humility.

Strange, indescribable people! I lay down my pen, and laugh as recollections without number of similar instances rise up before me; and yet the moment afterwards, when I think of all the examples of their kindness of heart and good feeling which I could almost as easily recall, I despair of doing justice to them, or of conveying any idea of the never-ceasing contrast between the pathetic and grotesque that the Italian character presents. In all scenes of distress or affliction, their sympathy and charity are very remarkable; and it is beautiful to witness their untiring solicitude towards each other in sickness. Even young men, of apparently the most frivolous disposition, evince, under these circumstances, a tenderness and forbearance we are apt to consider the exclusive attribute of woman. No Italian, when ill, is ever left alone; his friends seem to think they are bound to devote themselves to him, and divide the hours of watching according to their numbers or the nature of their avocations.

The case of a young man at Bologna, related to me by one of his medical attendants, who lingered for eight months in excruciating agonies from an incurable injury to the spine, was an affecting illustration of this devotedness. He had been gay and frivolous himself, and his companions shared more or less in similar failings; but contrary to what is usually seen, after having partaken of his hours of pleasure, they did not fly from the scenes of pain his sick-room presented. They so arranged their attendance upon him, that, out of eight to ten who were his most intimate friends, two at a time were always, night and day, by his side, ever watchful to mitigate, to the utmost of their power, the tortures under which he laboured. It was said, no woman's gentleness could have surpassed the care with which they used to arrange his bed, so as to procure him some alleviation from change of posture, or the patience with which they strove to cheer the failing hope and spirits of the sufferer.

Precisely in the same manner are frequent examples afforded of their unwearying attendance upon female relations or old friends; yet though no indecorum is attached to this practice, it would be unfair to say it is universal. In every instance, however, as I have before mentioned, the lady's sick-room is as open to gentlemen as the saloon; and there they are always found, in the hours appointed for receiving, seated near the invalid, detailing every little anecdote that can be of interest, and assuming an air of cheerfulness to keep up her courage, and prevent her mind from becoming depressed.

It is singular, notwithstanding, that all this sympathy and kindness, which never fails throughout the longest illness, should shrink from witnessing the last struggles of expiring nature, and that the sufferer so long and carefully tended should be deserted in his last moments by those most dear to him. With that peculiar horror of death which characterizes them, as soon as it is evident the dying person's hours are numbered, that the agonia has commenced, and the passing bell has tolled, the nearest relations are not only removed from the chamber, but generally from the house, and often the priest alone remains to close the eyes, whose last gaze on earth had perhaps sought the faces of those most loved, and sought in vain.

The funeral is never attended by the relations, who are supposed to be too much overwhelmed by grief to appear in public; but the male friends of the deceased accompany the body on foot, carrying lighted torches to the church at which the funeral-service is performed. This ended, it is lowered into the ancestral vault where moulder the remains of many generations. No hearse, or carriages, or mutes, form part of the procession: one or more priests lead the way, bearing a massive crucifix, followed by the compagnia of the parish—an association of laymen who, for pious purposes, always give their presence on similar occasions. They are preceded by the banner of their confraternity, each parish having a different emblem—such as a Mater Dolorosa, the Annunciation, or the Descent from the Cross—and a peculiar dress, consisting of a loose robe of scarlet, blue, or yellow. With torches in their hands, and chanting the accustomed litania de' morti, they produce an impression not easily forgotten. These are followed by different brotherhoods of monks, of the orders most protected by the deceased; and according to their numbers may be estimated his rank and possessions. Then comes the coffin, borne upon the shoulders of men shrouded in those awe-inspiring peaked cowls, with slits for the eyes, so familiar to us in all pictures of religious ceremonies in Italy: the ends of the richly-embroidered pall are held by the most intimate friends, followed by the rest of the acquaintances; while the whole is closed by a motley crowd of all the beggars in the town—men, women, and children—who always flock to a funeral of distinction, to offer their prayers for the repose of the soul of the departed, and to receive the alms which are invariably accorded them.

Mourning is much less frequently worn than amongst us—in fact, only for the very nearest relations; but, when adopted, it is united to that retirement from the gaieties of society and subdued deportment which should certainly be its accompaniments; hence one never sees in Italy the indecent spectacle of a lady at a ball, resplendent in jet ornaments and black crape, which foreigners remark with astonishment is often witnessed in England. After the death of a parent, it would be considered very indecorous to be seen in any place of amusement until a year has elapsed. I remember hearing a young man censured for dancing at a small party ten months after he had lost his father.

Widows do not wear any peculiar costume, but are simply expected to dress in black and live in retirement for a year. In a country where the deepest affections are rarely connected with the marriage state, and where no conventional prejudices exist as to the width of a hem or the depth of a border, this is far more natural, and sometimes permits of the wearer's real feelings being discerned, by the appearance of the dress assumed on such occasions. Parents do not put on mourning for their children, which strikes one as more strange, considering the strong affection generally existing towards their offspring; and it also appears customary to endeavour to shake off the grief attendant on this loss by every expedient. I have seen an old man at the Opera not a month after the death of his grown-up son, and was told it was right and necessary he should have his mind diverted; and the same plea was brought forward to justify the similar appearance of a lady in her accustomed box, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, only a few days after the death of her sister's husband; the poor widow being plunged in all the first bitterness of grief, as genuine and profound as it has been my lot to witness. So far from perceiving any impropriety in this action, if asked how she could have the heart to visit any scene of amusement at such a moment, she would have replied, that her sufferings had been so great, she required some distrazione for the benefit of her health; and this reason, by her country-people at least, would have been considered perfectly satisfactory.

CHAPTER VII.

Decline of Carnival diversions—Dislike to being brought into contact with Austrians—The theatre—Public Tombole—Short-sighted policy of the Government.

It is Carnival-time, but only the name remains to mark the period intervening between Christmas and Lent; all the masquerades and revelries associated with the season are now suspended. Since the Revolution of 1848-49, masks have been prohibited, from the facility these disguises afforded for holding political meetings, and making plots against the Government; the zest with which all ranks used to join in this amusement renders its interdiction a serious deprivation, and does not augment the good-will with which the enactments of the papal authorities are now regarded.

The balls at the Casino, which formerly enlivened the Carnival, have likewise declined, from the unwillingness of the natives to mix in any degree with the Austrian garrison, the general and officers of which were of course invited to be present. Even those families of Codini, whose known retrograde principles rendered them well disposed towards the Barbari, were afraid of braving public opinion by appearing to be on good terms with the supporters of their pontiff; so that the Austrian officers, at the first public ball, to which they repaired with all their proverbial eagerness for the dance, found a large and handsome ball-room, brilliant lights and excellent music, but, alas, to their great chagrin, nought but empty benches to receive them!

The theatre is now the only neutral ground where all assemble; but even there the line of demarcation is very jealously observed, and it is only in one or two boxes of native families that the obnoxious white uniform is ever discerned. To an Italian, the theatre is home, senate, forum, academy—all and everything in life. He does not go there half so much for the sake of the performance, as to fill up four or five hours of his daily existence, to see his friends, to hear what is going forward, to look at any strange face that may attract his notice, to contemplate from his stall near the orchestra the different flirtations carried on in the boxes above and around him, and to take his own share, perchance, in the numerous little comedies of real life that are here nightly performed, while the mock-drama on the stage forms but a minor part of the interests so curiously concentrated in this building.

There was but one theatre in the town—a very pretty structure, much larger and handsomer than would be met with in any provincial town in England; and all its accompaniments of dress, scenery, and orchestra on the same scale of superiority. Either operas or prose pieces were given, according to the seasons of the year and established custom. In the autumn, comedies and dramas were performed from September till the beginning of Advent, when theatrical entertainments were suspended. From Christmas till the end of Carnival there was the Opera, succeeded during Lent by a dreary time of mortification. After Easter, the public spirits were sustained by the speedy prospect of a good spring campaign; and great excitement always prevailed as to the operas to be represented, the names of the singers engaged by the manager, whether the municipality, by assisting his funds, would enable him to give a ballet; and so forth.

Of course, none of the great vocalists, whom the north seems to have monopolized, were ever heard, although this theatre could often claim the distinction of having been the nursery in which they were trained, and their latent powers first called forth. The Government, impoverished as it is with gaunt distress assailing it in the shape of houseless poor, decaying buildings, and an exhausted treasury, never hesitates to support and promote theatrical entertainments. The theatre, to an Italian population, is like a sweet cake to a fretful child: it serves to stop its crying, and divert its attention for a moment, and the intelligent nurse is satisfied. It is a safe diversion: they cannot conspire or talk politics, for spies, as they well know, are largely mingled with the audience, and every movement or knot of whisperers would instantly be noted. The pieces performed are carefully selected, and none with any allusion to freedom, revolt, or anything of the sort permitted; for instance, a chorus containing the word libertà would be suppressed, or another word of different signification substituted for it. Auber's Muta di Portici is not allowed to be represented, because its hero, Masaniello, is the leader of a popular insurrection; nor Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, for similar reasons; besides many others that it would take too much space to enumerate. Verdi's Ernani is no longer given, although in the early days of Pius IX., when, after granting the amnesty to all political offenders, he was hailed as the regenerator of Italy, the scene in which Charles V. pardons the conspirators, and exclaims, “Perdono a tutti,” was received in every theatre of Italy with a frenzy of enthusiasm that must have been perfectly electrifying. It has often been described to me how in Ancona the whole audience used to sit hushed in reverential awe till the expected words had been pronounced, when, as with one voice and impulse, they would break forth into a wild clamour of applause, which had in it something inexpressibly thrilling and sublime.

But all this has passed away; the brief glory, the dream of independence, the unwonted exultation, with its lamentable reverse of ingratitude and folly, opportunities neglected, and powers misapplied. The daystar has risen again for their brethren, while the Anconitans are shrouded in even darker oppression than of yore, and heavier chains have been riveted upon them; yet stay, for I have wandered from my theme, which was of the garlands twined around their fetters, and of the gay strains and idle talk beneath which the patriot's sigh is often stifled. So let us go back to the interior of the theatre, if you please, and take a survey of its various occupants.

It is seven o'clock, and the house is beginning to fill: clerks, shopkeepers, spies, artisans and their wives, Austrian soldiers, are taking their places in the pit, and the orchestra are tuning their instruments. As the overture begins, the frequenters of the stalls saunter into their usual places. Of these, the majority are the officers of the garrison, who always make a great clanking of their long broadswords, and always twirl their moustaches. The boxes, too, are rapidly becoming tenanted. Every family has its own, and the scene grows more animated as one bright well-known face after another appears in her accustomed seat.

The husband, in all well-regulated establishments, accompanies his wife to the theatre, and remains in the box until some visitor appears, which is generally the case as soon as she has been seen to enter. He then takes his leave, and does not trouble her with his presence till the close of the evening, to escort her home; as it would be considered very insipid to be seen sitting long together, and infallibly be looked upon as the result of the lady's want of attraction, or the lack of resources on his side to fill up the time. Released from his attendance, therefore, as soon as the welcome sound is heard of the curtain at the door being drawn aside to give admission to a visitor, he hastens in his turn to commence a round of calls, to those ladies especially whose houses, when the theatre is not open, he is most in the habit of frequenting. Thus the leading belles gather round them their usual società, and they talk and laugh, as is their wont, without much regard to the performance, except at any favourite air or duet, when, as if by magic, the whole audience is silent and breathless with attention. The loquacity prevalent is sometimes annoying to the pit and gallery, particularly in a prose piece, when the actors are scarcely audible from the hum of patrician voices, and an angry “Zitto, zitto!” gives an indication of popular feeling. But even this departure from the usual orderly demeanour of the people is very rare. It would be difficult to find more decorum and correctness of deportment than they present: there is no bad language, no quarrelling, no drinking—not even any popping of ginger-beer, or fragrance of orange-peel.

The same operas are repeated night after night, without intermission, for weeks. In the course of a season lasting nearly two months, seldom more than two operas are given, the expense of getting up a greater variety being of course one reason; while the taste of the Italians themselves leads also to their preferring the frequent repetition of their favourite composers, rather than a constant change, which, in music, they declare is a drawback to enjoyment.

The price of admission during the Carnival appears ridiculously low, the ticket being only fifteen bajocchi—equal to 7-½d.; and a subscription for the season can be taken out for fifteen pauls—6s. 9d., which insures admission for every night, excepting benefits. In the spring, as there is a ballet besides the opera, the price is doubled; in the autumn, when the commedia—the national term for dramatic representations—is given, it is only a paul—5d.

The boxes, as I said before, are all private property; each is partitioned off from the other as at the Italian Opera in London. They are fitted up on either side with narrow sofas, on which the società lounge and gossip at their ease. Amongst their fair owners, the respective number of visitors is a great subject of heart-burning, it being an enviable distinction to have one's box constantly filled. As regards the toilet of the ladies, there is but little display: in winter, they are scarcely more dressed than for a walking out, many of them even retaining their bonnets; and on account of the extreme cold, it is often customary to send chauffepieds to keep their feet warm during the performance. The house is dimly lighted to English eyes, accustomed to the flaring gas of our own theatres, for there is only a large chandelier from the centre, and the foot-lights; but Italians are not fond of a strong glare, and resorting thither so constantly as they do, a greater degree of brilliancy would prove fatiguing to the sight. The existing arrangement permits them to see and to be seen, and with this they are perfectly satisfied; and thus they go on, every night of the week while the season lasts—excepting Mondays, when an inferior singer takes the prima donna's place, and Fridays, when the theatre is closed—gossiping, trifling, complaining, but still led there by an irresistible impulse, a void in domestic life which, so long as English hearths and homes maintain their proud supremacy, will happily remain an unsolved mystery to us.

Amongst the few remaining of the popular diversions that used to be permitted in Carnival are the public tombole or raffles, held on Sundays and Feste in the principal square of the town, to which the lowest of the people eagerly resort. No drunkenness or fighting is ever seen, although, amongst that vast crowd of priests, peasants, Jews, young caffè-loungers, shopkeepers and their wives, grisettes and gendarmes, at least one or two thousand of the very dregs of the population are assembled, all intent upon the game, which is nearly allied to one I remember as a child, called Lotto, which we used to play at for sugar-plums.

On the balcony of the government palace, in a conspicuous position, is placed a wheel containing the numbers, ranging from one to ninety, which are drawn from it by a child blindfolded, and proclaimed aloud as they successively appear. The players, on paying eleven bajocchi—5-½d.—are each furnished with a card containing three rows of figures variously transposed, so that no two cards are alike. Whoever has a corresponding number on his card to the one called out, marks it; and he who first can boast of an unbroken row of five numbers thus filled up, is the winner, and shouts out “Tombola fatta!” in a voice that makes the welkin ring, and flings his hat, if he be so fortunate as to possess one, into the air.

I do not believe the amount of the prize depends on the number of persons engaged in the game; the value of the tombola to be played for is always known beforehand; some are of fifty, a hundred, or even more dollars, and the fascination of this pastime for the populace may therefore easily be imagined. Those who are too poor to afford the outlay necessary for a card, go into partnership with others, and often four or five are jointly interested in the purchase.

The scene during the drawing of the numbers is very picturesque, and is well set off by the old piazza, with its quaint irregular buildings, leading at the upper end by a semicircular ascent to the church of the Dominicans, in front of which is stationed the colossal statue of one of the popes—Clement XII., I think—in his pontifical robes and triple crown, forming the centre of a group of market-women, seated beside the baskets of fruit and vegetables they daily bring hither for sale. A little further down the Austrian band is stationed: it has been playing before the commencement of the game as only Austrian military bands can play; and the intoxicating strains have wrought still higher the general expectation and ferment. Every balcony and window are tenanted by anxious players and lookers-on, for gentle and simple are equally ardent and absorbed; while the whole space beneath is filled up by the eager, clamorous crowd, watching their own or their neighbour's progress, as if life and death were staked on the result.

Handsome peasant-girls in gay holiday attire, saturnine, calculating priests, laughing milliners' apprentices, sturdy fishermen, tattered women, beggars in every stage of misery—here are groups that a painter would long to delineate, for, discernible upon all, stamped as if with nature's signet, is the impress of beauty and of race.

The clear wintry sun shines on those upturned heads, and the blue unclouded sky forms a brilliant background to features of so much fire and animation, such coal-black kindling eyes, and figures of so much artistic outline and perfection, that the very originals of some of Raphael's master-pieces seem again presented to our view, and we recognise faces whose lineaments are familiar to us in the Sacrifice at Lystra, or the Preaching at Athens.

As the game wears on, when nearly ninety numbers have been called out, and the result yet remains undecided, the thrill of agitation preceding each successive, announcement,—the sudden silence, as if every one held his breath to catch the first sound on which his fate might hang,—is very remarkable and suggestive.

It is a grand spectacle of gambling, openly countenanced, nay more, encouraged by the Government, which sees not that in thus feeding the love of hazard and thirst for excitement in its subjects, it is but arming them with weapons that sooner or later will be employed to its own destruction.

But in their short-sighted policy, the Roman rulers discern nought but the expediency of furnishing the people with amusement, and turning their thoughts from politics. And when the diversions of the afternoon are ended, when the crowd disperses, as only an Italian crowd can disperse, without shrieks, or jostling, or rough-usage, while a murmur of animated voices diffuses itself through the streets,—no watchful eye seems to penetrate through this fair surface, no warning voice denounces what poison lurks in the anodyne which has been administered that day.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Lottery—Its miserable results—Evening parties—Absence of all ostentation—Poverty no crime—Grand supper on Shrove Tuesday—Reception of a Cardinal.

The national taste for gambling—so strikingly illustrated to the most casual observer in the excitement produced by the tombola—is still more perniciously fostered by the system of the government lottery, the existence of which produces the most baneful influence upon the country. As in the tombola, the numbers range from one to ninety, of which five are drawn every week at Rome. What is termed playing in the lottery, consists in staking sums, varying in amount at the pleasure of the player, upon one or more numbers, which, if they come up, yield prizes proportionate to the sum hazarded and the manner of the venture. For instance, if a person decides upon three numbers—say 19, 27, 60—and plays upon what is called the terno secco, he receives no profit unless all three are drawn; but then, in case he is successful, his gain is infinitely more considerable than if he had stipulated for a prize should only two of his numbers appear. A quinterno—that is, for five numbers played on the same ticket to come up together—is very rare; yet there are not wanting instances of this extraordinary good-fortune, which are eagerly remembered, and have been fatal lures to many an infatuated player.

The botteghini, or lottery-shops, are constantly filled with the most idle and miserable of the population, who come to risk the few bajocchi they have stolen from the urgent wants of their families upon the numbers they may have dreamed of, or seen written upon a wall, or picked up on a slip of paper in the street, or that have been given them by some person supposed to be skilled in this species of divination. But this dangerous propensity is not confined to the lower classes—all seem to play with reckless infatuation: the rich prelate, with the aim of still further augmenting his hoarded wealth; the speculative trader, to gratify his love of hazard and excitement; and the poor working-man, with the more simple motive of relieving the sharp penury of the moment, or realizing some vision of prosperity. The young artist ventures his quarter of a dollar every week on the terno selected by his lady-love, in the hope of a prize sufficient to enable him to gratify his dream of foreign travel and excitement; the servant-girl has faith in the numbers given her by a white-bearded Capuchin, and plays them in the fond delusion of winning a dowry and a husband; and that worn and wretched-looking woman, with three or four tattered children at her heels, and a puling swaddled infant in her arms, gaunt famine stamped on every feature, comes to stake five or six copper coins on the numbers she has dreamed her dead husband brought her in the night, and goes back to the damp cellar she inhabits, to indulge in restless anticipations of plenty and success.

The prevalence of the lottery tends to keep up superstition of the most debasing kind: omens, dreams, lucky or unlucky days, are noted, and the corresponding numbers eagerly sought for in books published for the purpose, a tattered copy of which is sure to be possessed by any family who can boast of a member sufficiently a scholar to decipher it. If a bat flies in at a window, the number analogous to this portent is looked out and played; if a favourite dish is dreamed of, the cabalistic volume is again consulted. On occasion of a criminal being executed, half the town plays numbers corresponding to the event itself, the culprit's age, and the nature of his crime.

Another popular method of invoking fortune is to consult priests and friars; amongst the latter, the Capuchins enjoy the greatest reputation for the success of their predictions. The most singular feature in the proceeding is, that as the clergy are forbidden to give numbers, the letter of this prohibition is very skilfully eluded by no allusion being made to the subject, but the priest, for example, tells a story in which he brings in some striking circumstance, having, as he well knows, a direct reference to the dream-book, which is consulted accordingly.

It is altogether a grievous evil—a plague-spot extending far and wide. Many families, from comparative affluence, have been reduced to beggary by the indulgence of this passion. Even those who gain prizes appear to reap no lasting benefit from success; and amidst all the wonderful stories related of people being unexpectedly enriched by winning a prize, I cannot at this moment remember one instance in which any permanent good has resulted from the lottery. Unfortunately, as it is a government monopoly, and yielding a large revenue, in the existing order of things there is no ground to hope for its suppression.

I have digressed again from the Carnival; and perpetually find myself painting in sombre colours, when I would fain impart a little light and liveliness to my picture. The truth is that I have little of gaiety to record; for it must not be overlooked that I am writing about a country under the blight of an armed foreign intervention, and kept in control by the Austrian discipline of the stick. The only parties I remember during the so-called gay season were weekly evening reunions at the residence of one of the foreign consuls, where the lady of the house, a charming and gifted Parisian, drew together forty or fifty of the leading people of the place. It required the utmost effort of her amiability and liveliness, however, to accomplish this, for all spirit and wish for enjoyment seem to have forsaken the Italians, excepting their constancy to the theatre, which they cling to with the tenacity of old associations.

In these small parties, all the amiable features of the Italian nobility were brought to light—their freedom from affectation or ostentatious pride, their perfect good-breeding, and absence of invidious comparisons or vying with each other—points in which I fear the society of a provincial town in England, notwithstanding our boasted intellectual advantages, would be lamentably inferior. The ladies dressed simply, but almost invariably in good taste; and, what was much to their credit, they whose circumstances would have enabled them to outshine the rest, never attempted any display; those, on the other hand, who were known to have very limited resources, made no struggles to appear rich, and had no feeble attempts at splendour, no incongruous putting together of faded flowers and Roman pearls—which, by the by, are carefully eschewed in the land of their nativity—or tarnished feathers. A most graceful example of delicacy towards the feelings of such as were in restricted circumstances was set by the hostess, who, although belonging to one of the first and wealthiest families of France, and possessing a wardrobe stocked with all the novelties of Paris, always appeared in the same dress, without any ornaments of value; and amiable as she was to all her guests, she yet peculiarly devoted herself to those from whom she could receive no attention or hospitality in return.

Amongst the most regular in coming every week, were a young couple whose situation excited universal sympathy. The contessina was the daughter of the last representative of a very old but impoverished family, and was married to a native of Lombardy, but had been pursued by a series of misfortunes, which ended in the ruin and exile of her husband. Compelled to return with him to her own country in the utmost poverty, she was everywhere treated with as much consideration as if the wealth of Crœsus was at her disposal. No one looked down upon her, though it was known she kept but one servant girl, and always ironed her husband's shirts; and none of the ladies fancied it derogatory to dance with the poor refugee who gave lessons in drawing and mathematics, and was at his wits' end to provide a maintenance for his young wife and child. Evidently their poverty was no crime and no disgrace.

The style of these parties was perfectly simple and inexpensive. There was no supper, no constant eating and drinking, no incessant jingling of trays and glasses, or adjournment to the refreshment-room. A tea-table, presided over by the hostess herself, or one of the ladies present, formed the great centre of attraction: people gathered in groups round it, not formally arranged, but some sitting, others standing—les petits jeunes gens, the adolescent beaux, making themselves useful, and handing the tea, in lieu of the attendance of servants, which, as tending to formality, was as much as possible dispensed with. This, with ices handed round once or twice later in the evening, was considered ample for the refection of the company, who were quite delighted with the trattamento, as they termed it, and enjoyed their ices as children would do any particular treat. On ordinary occasions, the fashion of the natives was followed in this house; no refreshments at all being given but a little eau sucrée.

The amusements of the evening consisted of dancing, varied by one or two vocal pieces from some of the persons present, who, accompanied on the piano by a master, sang magnificently, as Italian amateurs always do—since, unless especially gifted both as to ear and voice, they never cultivate the art; and for this reason, though less pretty singing is heard than in England, one escapes the infliction of much that is bad. The dancing was much as it is everywhere else—quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, and the cotillon, but carried on with unaffected spirit and pleasure. The young men, I especially remarked, did not enjoy that happy immunity from terpsichorean labours which, amongst us, they so much covet; and if one of the gioventù would fain have indulged in a sentimental meditation on a sofa, instead of joining in the dance, he was presently rebuked by two or three elderly gentlemen of the old school, who, after inveighing against the degeneracy of the present age, sent him humbled to seek a partner. A young Tuscan marchese, fresh from Florence, where probably he had been perverted by intercourse with British youths, was looked upon quite as a dangerous reprobate, for declining to dance quadrilles on the plea that they were troppo papavero—that is, too poppy-like, too narcotic for his taste.

This, however, was the only exception to the general characteristics of good-humour and amiability which prevailed, and never flagged, till the end of the cotillon intimated that it was time to think of breaking up. When the night was fine, the most of the company walked; for the distances were not great enough, and the streets too steep, to render a carriage necessary or agreeable. Nobody ever seemed tired or cross; and as all went away in detachments, the sound of their talking and laughing could be heard at a considerable distance, and was the best tribute that could be paid to the elegant simplicity and kindness of their entertainers.

The only opportunity afforded me of seeing the society of Ancona displayed in all its ceremony and state, was on the evening of Shrove-Tuesday, the last day of Carnival, when one of the oldest and richest noble families gave a grand supper, according to established usage for many years. Then, indeed, all the pomp of by-gone times was revived, and it was like a scene out of an old play to be met on the stairs by servants in state liveries bearing huge waxen torches, and ushered into the great hall, where stood the daïs or raised canopy, denoting the former dignity of the house as feudal princes, with the arms and quarterings emblazoned on hangings of scarlet velvet. From thence one passed through successive rooms, all brilliantly lighted, into the saloon, at the door of which the two younger sons of the family, Don Carlo and Don Girolamo, in the absence of their eldest brother, the Principe, and supported by several of the amici di casa, with deep bows performed the first part of the duties of reception. At the further end of this apartment was their mother, the Principessa, in black velvet and diamonds, who, on hearing the names announced, would, if the new-comer was a lady, advance a few steps to meet her with a dignity that was peculiarly her own, and, taking her hand, conducted her to the divan which ran round three sides of the room, whereon a formidable row of silent figures, arrayed in brocaded silks and jewels, were deposited. Then, with a prolonged courtesy, which was in its turn acknowledged by a ceremoniousness of demeanour apparently looked upon as appropriate to the occasion, the stately old lady would return to her post. The men, on their entrance, advanced to where she stood, and bowed profoundly, followed by a circular reverence, to the fair automatons stationed around, after which they backed out of the circle, and took their places in the ranks that filled the anteroom and doorways.

It was amusing enough to watch for awhile, and to speculate whether it was their fine clothes and their diamonds, or traditional ideas of etiquette, which had benumbed the whole assemblage, who for the most part were the same accustomed to meet on such friendly terms at the simple parties already described; when a great sensation was excited on the approach of the Cardinal ——, a near relation of the Principessa, spending a few days in his native city, on his way to the legation to which he was appointed. The sons, with the intimate friends, hastened to the head of the stair-case, while the Principessa went as far as the first drawing-room to receive him. When he entered the saloon, she alone walked at his side; the rest, with two or three priests he had brought in his train, his secretary, chaplain, and so forth, flocked behind. All the ladies stood up at his coming, as if he had been a royal personage, nor did they resume their seats until he was placed in an arm-chair, beside which his cousin seated herself.

About ten o'clock, the doors opening into the supper-room were thrown open; and as the Cardinal led the way, the ladies next, arm in arm, the men following en masse, a really brilliant spectacle presented itself. The room was large and lofty; the walls covered with crimson brocade, as also the gilded high-backed chairs and sofas; chandeliers hung from the richly-painted ceiling; other lights were reflected from sconces at the sides, and three or four large tables glittered with massive candelabra. The supper was not laid out as in England—not even fruits and flowers appeared upon the tables, which were spread as if for dinner, with a profusion of plate, valuable old china, and exquisite damask linen.

When the guests were seated, the grey-headed servants brought in large dishes of macaroni, dressed with gravy and spices, which were placed on a sideboard, and served out—the young principi and the ever-faithful friends themselves handing the plates, which the servants stood by in readiness to change. Such an endless variety of dishes followed, all brought in and distributed in the same manner, that many have escaped my recollection: boiled fish, of a quality much prized; galantines of turkey and tongue; vol-au-vent; vegetables in forms and variously prepared; ornamented hams; turkeys stuffed with truffles; chickens en mayonnaise; salads of lobster—in fact, everything that is usual at suppers, and all in greater profusion, excepting sweets, of which there was only one kind. Towards the close, various kinds of ice were brought in, besides bonbons and cakes of different kinds; but no fruit, it not being considered indispensable to have gigantic apples and pears or hard pine-apples to grace a supper-table. Champagne, and every other sort of wine usual on such occasions, were repeatedly handed round, but, I remarked, scarcely tasted by the ladies; for, temperate as are the men of Italy, the women surpass them, rarely being prevailed upon to touch anything but their own country wine, mixed with water.

As soon as the repast commenced, the rigid gravity previously maintained was gradually laid aside; a genial influence evidently diffused itself over all. The good things so liberally provided were really enjoyed, and thoroughly done justice to: many people had not dined that day, on purpose to have a good appetite for the evening—they said so with a simplicity that was very pleasant. There was not much conversation, but a great deal of good-humour, and many pleasantries on the part of the serving-gentlemen, who, in the pauses, stood about with plates in their hands, eating, as happily as possible, their own share of what they had assisted in dispensing. They all said Lent was coming on too fast not to make the most of the present moment; and certainly they were as good as their word. The Cardinal gave his acquiescence to this opinion by a jovial laugh, and leaning back complacently in his chair, stretched out his legs, resplendent in their scarlet stockings, with an appearance of intense enjoyment.

As the hour drew on to twelve, an adjournment to the saloon was proposed, when coffee was brought in, and soon afterwards the eminentissimo gave the signal for departure. The same formalities were observed on his exit as attended his appearance, and he was accompanied down the stairs to his carriage by his young relatives and the other gentlemen who had received him, carrying silver candlesticks, in addition to the servants, who bore flambeaux. After he had gone, the guests rapidly dispersed, and went away cheerful and satisfied, to commence on the morrow the abstinence which, in all conscientious families, was rigidly practised during Lent.

On our way home, we passed many houses where suppers were still going on; for the custom of thus celebrating the last night of Carnival is universal; and, from the patrician banquet I have described, down to the humblest artisan or shopkeeper, all endeavour to make good cheer to the utmost of their power. It is considered seemly, however, to separate early, in order not to invade the respect due to Ash-Wednesday; so that the midnight chimes had not long ceased to reverberate, when silence and darkness enveloped the whole town so lately surrendered to feasting and enjoyment.

CHAPTER IX.

Picturesque environs of Ancona—Dwellings of the peasantry—Their simplicity and trust—Manner of life and amusements—A wedding feast.

By way of an agreeable contrast to the patrician associations which surrounded us, we used in our walks to take great interest in noticing the peasantry or contadini of the environs; and circumstances having protracted my stay beyond what was originally intended, I was enabled, when the lovely month of April invited us to longer excursions, to see a good deal of their primitive mode of life. The town being small, with scarcely any suburbs beyond the gates, a very few minutes were sufficient to transport one from the dark, narrow streets to the open country, rich in its cultivation and fertility, and beautiful in its undulating hills, its towering cliffs, and broad expanse of sea. Never have I known spring more lovely than amid these scenes: the glad blue sky, the fair blossoms and budding foliage, the fields of young corn gently waving in the breeze, the sweet scent of the violets with which the roadside banks were thickly strewn; the sense of beauty, the voiceless music, beneath whose spell each tiny leaf and blade of grass seemed sparkling and harmonious; and, above all, the sea, the silvery sea, so still, so majestic, so sublime—the whole rises to my memory in all its fascination of sunshine, and colouring, and perfume.

No stranger approaching by the high road from Florence, which follows the curve of the bay, with the promontory on which Ancona is built stretching forth like a gigantic arm to impede his onward course, and forming the boundary of the prospect, can have an idea of the nature of the scenery which lies behind this barrier, and is perhaps unique in its combination of all the softest features of a pastoral region, with the lofty cliffs and sea-views of a grander landscape.

From the very gates, the land was laid out in small allotments or possessioni, each of barely a few acres in extent, planted with long rows of vines, intersected with patches of wheat, maize, and vegetables, that were studded with apple, peach, almond, and other fruit-trees. No barrier more formidable than a luxuriant hedge, a perfect wilderness of May-flowers, honeysuckles, and dog-roses, divided the possessione from the road; the entrance was by a gate of very simple construction, surmounted by an arch with an image of the Virgin. Like Little Red Riding-hood, all one had to do was to pull up the latch and walk forward—not into the jaws of a perfidious wolf, but up a pretty avenue of mulberry-trees, with vines trained in festoons along their branches. A rude well—so picturesque in its shape that it never failed to bring to my mind the representations of Jacob's meeting with Rachel—always stood in the foreground, while a little in the rear appeared the cottage of the occupants of the farm; these dwellings of stone, blackened by time, were comfortless and primitive in the extreme, the windows unglazed, and the upper story accessible only by an uncovered staircase outside.

Two or three ragged little children were always at hand to carry news of a stranger's presence to their mother, who was perhaps tilling the ground at some little distance: the good woman soon made her appearance, barefooted, and carrying, admirably poised upon her head, a large pitcher of water, with another of equal size supported on her hip; in her other hand she bore the coarse broad-brimmed straw hat which was in general her protection from the sun. Her costume consisted of a petticoat of scarlet and blue-striped cotton, with a bodice or stay of a different colour, from beneath which appeared the white sleeves of the shift, reaching to the elbow, where they were fastened in and terminated with a frill, much as is seen in engravings of Raphael's Fornarina; around the throat and shoulders was a handkerchief, so scrupulously adjusted as barely to disclose the coral necklace, without which even the poorest contadina would think her everyday attire incomplete. There was often much beauty in the face set off by this picturesque equipment, for, however worn and sunburnt it might be, it could usually boast of jet-black tresses, dark vivacious eyes, well-cut features, and the whitest possible teeth. The welcome, too, was pleasing—no constraint, no bashfulness, but a straightforward, hospitable simplicity that won its way immediately to the heart. We were perfectly at liberty to come in and look about us, ask questions, and rest ourselves, and were secure of giving unbounded delight if, on coming away, we purchased fruit or eggs to the value of a few baiocchi.

After one or two visits of this nature, we were quite on a footing of intimacy, and the mother and children would seat themselves round us, to indulge in a little conversation. If we chanced to come on a festa, or when the daily toil was over, the circle would be increased by the father and his grown-up sons, who, in their rough but not unmusical peasant dialect, plied me with inquiries about the country I came from, and its peculiarities, such as whether we had a moon there, and what the people ate. In a fashion they had all heard of England, as a wonderfully rich and large city; but its inhabitants being heathens, was what had principally impressed itself upon their minds, and awakened their regrets. In all that regarded themselves, they were very communicative; and in one possessione especially, where the bond of union was cemented by their having supplied my uncle's household with milk for several years, they used to tell us of all their domestic concerns, from the courtship of Celestino, the eldest son, who was promesso to a neighbouring contadina, to the pearl earrings and necklace which Orsolina, a pretty laughing damsel, the only daughter of the family, had just received as a troth-plight from her affianced swain. I remember, as an instance of their perfect trust in us, that, after having displayed these valuables with a great deal of pride, the girl put the little pasteboard box containing them into my cousin Lucy's hand, and proposed she should take them home to show her sister, l'altra signorina, whom a trifling indisposition had confined to the house.

The frugality with which these peasants live is surprising, particularly when one sees what a fine, hard-working race they really are. Their food consists in great measure of bread, made of equal proportions of ground beans and the flour of Indian corn, of which, every morning, all the members of the family are furnished with a supply before setting out on their different avocations. At noon, they assemble for dinner, which is of polenta—Indian corn-meal stirred into boiling water till it becomes about the consistency of thick oatmeal porridge; it is then poured out on wooden platters, and eaten with no other condiment than salt. Bread and a moderate draught of wine—or, in summer, occasionally vinegar and water—complete the repast. In the evening, they sup on bread and salad, or an onion, or fennel-root, or raw beans. Meat they never taste, except on Sundays or the great feste; and then it is in so small a quantity, and so boiled down by having been made into soup, that it cannot convey much nourishment. Singularly enough, they have a prejudice against milk; and when a cow is kept for the purpose of supplying the consumption of the town, they make no use of it themselves: in those cases where any is left upon their hands, it is always given to the pig.

In summer, when the labours of the day are at an end, they assemble on the threshing-floor adjacent to the house, and dance to the music of a tambourine, which is played successively by the different members of the family; even children of six or seven years old often take their turn, and beat the rural instrument with great spirit and precision. Their national dance, called the saltarello, does not exhibit much variety of figure: the two performers stand facing each other, the woman holding her dress spread out, her partner with his hands in an easy attitude on his hips: thus prepared, they set off, advancing and retreating, doubling and pursuing, circling round and round each other, in a quick hopping sort of step, always keeping admirable time, and accompanying the music by a sort of hissing sound, which appears to have an exhilarating influence. As soon as one couple pause to take breath, another is ready to step forward; while the interest of the spectators and the animation of the dancers never seem to flag: sometimes the old people, the elders of the group, become so excited, that they start up, push aside the younger ones, and foot it away with a nimbleness and dexterity which call down general applause.

Their households are generally large, for, as the sons grow up, they invariably marry, always in succession, according to their birthright, and bring their wives home to the paternal roof, unless one has a religious vocation and becomes a priest, or a lay-brother in some order of friars. As soon, however, as they become too numerous, the padrone, the owner of the land, steps in to say he will not have so many useless mouths upon his property; so then one at least of the junior branches is obliged to look out for another possessione to cultivate.

The terms on which they hold these farms, and the system pursued between landlord and tenant, are very different from English usages. No rent is paid, but the produce is equally shared; the proprietor receives his half of everything in kind—so many measures of corn, so many jars of oil, and barrels of wine; nay, even to the vegetables and poultry daily brought into the market for sale, there is understood to be an exact division. It is looking after these petty details of their property, and regulating their multifarious accounts, which forms the occupation of the industrious nobles. Among the wealthiest of these proprietors, some own as many as 50, 60, or even 100 possessioni, varying in size and value from £30 or upwards yearly income to the possessor, down to those that do not yield him more than £12 or £14 clear profit; which last, however incredible it may seem, give support to a family of five or six in number on the premises. Of course, it cannot be supposed that the shares are very equitably divided; indeed, it is always considered that the fruit and vegetables daily consumed by the peasants are exclusive of this arrangement; but then, to counterbalance this, the padrone also has his perquisites, in a stipulated number of fat capons at Christmas, eggs and a lamb at Easter, and the choicest of the grapes, apples, pears, pomegranates, quinces, &c., to be stored for winter use.

On the whole, a great deal of harmony between the two classes seems to prevail; the landlord is always consulted as to the marriage of any of the contadino's family, and is expected to grace their wedding and christening festivities with his presence, and to stand godfather to the first child. In the times when it was customary even amongst persons of the highest rank to send their children out into the country to be nursed, a peasant woman from one of the possessioni was selected for the office of baglia, and the infant marchese or principe, as the case might be, duly swaddled and sparingly washed, passed the first year or two of his existence in perfect equality with his foster-parents and their children. Even now, when this practice among the nobility is obsolete, except in the case of some stony-hearted and prejudiced old suocera, similar to the one I have already given an account of, the wet-nurse is always chosen from among the family's rustic dependents; and, if careful and devoted to her charge, is so kindly and liberally treated during her stay at the palazzo, that a mutual feeling of affection and gratitude is invariably the result, manifesting itself throughout life by protection and assistance on the one hand, and little freewill-offerings upon the other.

The observances of the peasants in regard to their weddings and courtships are very curious, and date from time immemorial; indeed, neither in their mode of dress nor form of speech do they appear to be sensibly affected by the fashions of the day; and I have been told by good authorities, that in many respects they are as their forefathers were 300 years ago. After a young man has signified to a girl's parents his wish to marry her, and has satisfied them as to his circumstances, present or prospective, he is allowed to visit at the possessione on Sundays and holidays, though under considerable restrictions. The young people are not allowed to go together to fairs or merry-makings, or even to talk alone, except when separated by a hedge or paling; and here even their attitudes are prescribed by rigid custom. The promesso is not to look too earnest or taken up; while the girl is enjoined to keep her eyes cast down, and to busy herself in plaiting the strings of her apron into numberless small folds, of which they of course retain the impression; and to be able to display these evidences of having an admirer, whenever the rustic belles meet at church, is quite a point of rivalry amongst them.

In conformity with the system prevailing through all classes in Italy, the peasant-bride is expected to be furnished with a trousseau, and even in this humble sphere it is surprising what an amount of linen and clothes is considered indispensable. She would be thought poor indeed who could not number every useful article of wearing apparel by a dozen of each kind, besides providing a chest of drawers, sheets, mattresses, and pillows. The dresses are fewer in number—not exceeding perhaps the wedding-gown, which amongst the more affluent peasantry is silk, and a couple of cotton ones, reserved for feste—the usual costume being the corset, with a coloured petticoat. To accumulate this stock is the object of a contadina's life, almost from the time she can first speak or run alone, and every nerve has been strained towards its attainment; either in working in the possessione and carrying the produce to market, or as a washerwoman, or rustic sempstress, or in weaving cloth, the most patient self-denial and unremitting industry are displayed, and kept up for a long series of years. Comparatively with the population of the towns, the peasantry marry late, the sposa being often four or five and twenty before the corredo is completed on her side, or the bridegroom has saved enough to furnish the earrings and necklace of real, though of course small and irregular pearls, he is expected to present.

The day before the wedding, all the bride's friends and companions assemble, and carry her property with great pomp to the dwelling of her future husband's parents, with whom the young people are to take up their abode. The more things displayed, the greater the envy and congratulation. To enhance the effect, they form a sort of procession, every one bearing on her head some portion of the paraphernalia; each drawer is carried separate from the chest, the contents having been carefully arranged, and submitted to public inspection; then comes a damsel with the pillows; then another with a small looking-glass, and so forth; all talking and shrieking with delight, while a donkey laden with the mattress soberly brings up the rear.

The next morning, they all repair in their best clothes at an early hour to the sposa's house, and assist at the important business of her toilet. Her costume consists of the long-coveted silk dress, which is sometimes the gift of the padrone, the favourite colour being lilac. It has been made in town, and is very tight in the waist, evidently uncomfortable to the bride, who is furthermore inconvenienced by the unwonted restraints of shoes, open-worked stockings, and white cotton gloves. The head-gear is a white kerchief, or square veil, lightly placed upon the elaborately-plaited tresses, and the ends falling loosely upon the shoulders, which are, as usual, so studiously covered as to afford but a glimpse of the comely rounded throat, whose dark, clear skin sets off the rows of pearls by which it is encircled. At the church they are met by the bridegroom, with his friends and relatives; and after the religious ceremony and nuptial benediction, the whole party adjourn to the bride's new residence, where the wedding-feast is held. In some districts, however, where their quaint old usages are still strictly adhered to, they separate at the conclusion of the service, which is performed on a Thursday; and the sposa returns to the house of her parents, doffs her gay apparel, and resumes her wonted occupations. For the two following days, nothing is seen of the bridegroom; but on the Sunday morning the same joyous preparations as for the marriage-ceremony are renewed, and the same glad trains set forth, and meet at the village church, whence, after hearing mass, they all repair, arm in arm, the sposo leading the way to the possessione of his parents, where a great dinner celebrates the event.

The bill of fare on these occasions is more substantial than elegant; as if to indemnify themselves for so seldom partaking of animal food, their wedding-tables are furnished with little else. The repast begins with macaroni, dressed with coarse cheese, gravy, and spices; after which there come quantities of meat, boiled, stewed, and roasted; pigeons and fowls, all with most incongruous sauces of eggs and garlic, vinegar and sugar; upon the composition of which two or three cooks, friends of the family, who have condescendingly volunteered their services for the occasion, have been displaying their abilities. Sweet dishes they do not seem to care for, excepting sometimes Zuppa Inglese—sponge-cake, soaked in rum, and covered with custard, so named in compliment to our national taste for ardent spirits, supposed indispensable to a Briton's daily refection. The padrone is seated at the right hand of the sposa, and enters very unaffectedly into the jokes and hilarity of the company; sometimes, under the influence of excitement, one of the party breaks forth into an improvisazione, and chants a rude epithalamium in honour of the newly-wedded pair. The native wine circulates freely, and healths are drunk, and showers of sugar-plums discharged at the bride, amidst roars of laughter. These confetti, which are villanous compounds of almonds and plaster of Paris, hold the same place at weddings in Southern Italy that bridecake does in England; and are distributed as presents amongst the friends and relations of the families.

CHAPTER X.

A rural christening—The young count.

Rural christenings, particularly that of the first child, are celebrated much in the same manner. We received an invitation to one in the spring, at the house of some peasants, who were not personal friends, but who asked us out of compliment to a Polish lady, a patroness of theirs, who was to stand god-mother, and with whom we were very intimate. As the ceremony always takes place the day following the birth of the child, we were apprized of the event as soon as it occurred, and requested to hold ourselves in readiness at an early hour the following morning. We set out, a merry party—our friend and her two daughters, my cousins and myself, besides the two ladies-maids of the establishments, friends or connections of our host's, wild with delight, yet never throughout the day transgressing the bounds of the strictest respect towards us. Outside the gates of the town, we found the contadino, all smiles and importance, with his biroccio—a primitive cart, rudely painted with heads of saints, wreathed with flaming red and yellow roses, and drawn by two white oxen—waiting to convey us to the scene of festivity. Here we also met the Conte M——, the young owner of the possessione, a perfect stranger to all of us, but who was to be associated in the sponsorial duties with Madame V——, or la Consolessa—as she was generally termed, in allusion to the official rank of her husband, who was consul for one of the northern Powers. The introduction was soon effected by his tenant, in compliment to whom all superfluous etiquette seemed laid aside, and the count gallantly placed at our disposal his equipage—a very high, antiquated barouche, with a step like a ladder; to this vehicle was harnessed a cow, the hills we had to ascend being considered too steep for horses; and in it our friend, one of her daughters, myself, and the padrone were accommodated; while the rest of the party took their seats on two rough benches in the cart, which, by way of awning, had a sheet supported on four canes.

Our road lay through a lovely country, alternating from hill to vale, and at every ascent beautiful glimpses of sea varying the prospect. As we toiled slowly along, the contadino chiefly left his biroccio to the care of a little boy, and walking beside the carriage, devoted his attention to his landlord. Their conversation was very animated, and turned upon the state of the country, their prospects for the harvest, the hardship of being deprived of fire-arms by the Austrian general (the Pontifical States were then, as now, under martial law), the consequent boldness of the robbers who infested the neighbourhood, and their inability to resist them; besides many other matters connected with their mutual interests. In about two hours' time, we arrived at the place of our destination, and the assembled friends came out to the gate to welcome us: there were all the nearest of kin on both sides, the fathers, the mothers, the brothers and sisters, besides others more remotely connected, and affording in their contrasts of old age and childhood, decrepitude and vigour, an admirable study of grouping and physiognomy.

The first stage of proceedings was to conduct us to the house, which was as rude and comfortless as most of its description, the ground-floor being shared between the silkworms and cows, and the upper story, inhabited by the family, being attainable only by a steep outer staircase. At the threshold we found some more venerable dames, by whom we were ushered—the padrone amongst the rest—to pay our respects to the young mother, who lay smiling in her bed, the tiny stranger by her side, all swathed and swaddled, and her gossips talking and chattering around her, or bustling to and from the kitchen, which adjoined her room, in utter violation of every orthodox rule of quiet and good nursing. From thence, as soon as we were considered sufficiently rested, we were marshalled for the christening—a little girl of twelve years old, the contadino's sister, carrying the baby, and the rest all following in order. It was then, as we went along, that the terrible fact of our being heretics began to transpire, and I was amused at the pitying interest with which we were surveyed: on entering the village church, in particular, when it was remarked we took no holy water, nor crossed ourselves, we overheard one old woman whisper to her cronies, “Peccato, non sono Cristiane!” and the little children, clinging to their grandams' skirts, peered at us inquisitively with their glorious black eyes gleaming through the tangled golden hair which hung about them like a mane.

The church was built in the shape of a Latin cross, with no pretensions to architectural merit or high antiquity; the walls whitewashed, and with no ornaments beyond the crucifixes, candlesticks, and vases of artificial flowers upon the principal altar at the upper end, and in the two small chapels or recesses at either side, in which also mass could be celebrated. Two confessionals, a few benches, and a number of rush-bottomed chairs piled in a corner, completed the fittings-up, if we except three large pictures, of which one was suspended over each altar; they were in oils, evidently originals, and of no modern date, though from a very inferior hand—some unpromising follower, perhaps, of the Caracci or Domenichino; for it is from the school of Bologna that the paintings found in the environs of Ancona seem principally to have been supplied. The subjects were the Crucifixion, the Assumption of the Virgin, and the Virgin as a child tending some lilies, which grew up miraculously beneath her touch. In the same chapel as this last, and immediately beneath it, so placed that the frame, which was surmounted with a wreath of flowers, should incline considerably forward, was a very small discoloured head of the Madonna, as Mater Dolorosa, her hands clasped, holding a heart, from whence seemed to proceed flames of fire. A lamp was burning before this, and a number of votive hearts and crosses were fastened around; these, one of the old men, while we were waiting for the curato, informed me were all offerings which had been made in return for miracles that Madonna had performed. He had known of pilgrimages made here which were almost as efficacious as to the shrine of Loretto. He looked wistfully at me as he said this, and slipping away soon after, I saw him kneeling before the picture with an expression of such unmistakable fervour in his upturned face, that I felt persuaded he was praying heart and soul for our rescue from perdition.

As soon as the priest, who had been detained some little time in the sacristy, made his appearance, the ceremony was performed, and then the baby was handed round to receive the greetings of its sponsors and ourselves, on which occasion, be it said, a convenient opportunity was afforded for slipping a slight donation amongst the swathes with which the hapless infant was encumbered; after which all the relations pressed forward, and men as well as women kissed the little creatura, as they termed it, with great affection, and carried it back in triumph to the mother, who forthwith hung a bag of relics round its neck.

I should be guilty of insincerity if I concealed that the two hours which intervened between the banquet were somewhat wearying. It was too hot to walk out, nor was there any shade in the possessione; we had exhausted our little topics of conversation with our hostess, who was, besides, much occupied with her son; and no resource appeared but to sit in the apartment where the cloth was being laid with indescribable clatter both of plates and tongues—a very small room on the other side of the kitchen, furnished with a table and benches, from which the bed had been removed for the occasion—or walk into the kitchen itself, and contemplate the preparations for dinner.

Our party had been increased by the young curato, the son of a neighbouring contadino, who seemed rather agitated at the presence of so many ladies, and apparently looked for countenance and protection to the count, who having but recently returned from completing his education at an ecclesiastical seminary, had not yet learned to manifest that utter contempt for the priestly office which the youth of Italy generally display. Madame V——, who had a great respect for all spiritual authority, also hastened to the rescue, and engaged the poor priest in a conversation about his parishioners and the state of his church, on which he talked very fluently; but unfortunately, on her proceeding to tell him of various missions to Madagascar and China, in which she took great interest, he showed himself so completely at fault, apparently considering she alluded to some towns in the Turkish dominions, that she hastened to change the subject, to prevent our discovering any further deficiencies.

Meantime the count, who, by the by, was not a very brilliant specimen of the Anconitan gioventù, acquitted himself of his arduous duties with tolerable ease, notwithstanding that the trammels of his education still hung about him, and he looked rather too demure and artificial; above all, he was dazzled by the spectacle of four or five girls, who laughed, talked, ventured to express an opinion, and did not keep their eyes immovably cast down. He certainly did not get on so well with us as with his tenant; we had very few subjects of interest in common; his family was one of the most strict and old-fashioned in Ancona, and his mother and sisters were rarely seen in society, or even beyond their own walls. We remarked to him that we never met them out, and he said that his mother disliked walking, and did not approve of trusting her daughters with any one but herself; so they only went to mass on Sundays and feste; and then in the afternoon, by way of taking the air, as well as for recreation, they repaired to a terrace on the roof of their house, from whence they enjoyed a distant view of the public gardens outside the Porta Pia, with all their promenaders, and the Corso delle Carrozze. Remembering the scanty rows of trees and patches of brambles dignified by this appellation, as well as the half-dozen antediluvian equipages therein displayed, it was scarcely possible to refrain from smiling; but as he spoke in perfect seriousness, I was compelled to check all tendency to mirth, and prosecute my inquiries. Why did not he, then, sometimes escort his sisters? He looked astonished, and replied, that his mother did not think this proper—other young men, his friends, might join them—in fact, it was not according to their ideas. This was a trait of manners so unique as to surprise even my cousins, accustomed as they were to the code of Ancona propriety; but they listened with provoking equanimity, and seemed more diverted at my amazement than at anything else. “These poor people understand nothing of domestic life, or the happiness of domestic intercourse,” whispered Lucy, pityingly; “brothers and sisters are very different here from what they are in England.”

The two lively Polish girls, however, came to my assistance, though under certain reservations. “Ah, par exemple,” cried Natalie V——, who, with her sister, had not long returned from completing her education at a convent in France, “that is extraordinary! I remember at Les Oiseaux, that several of the girls had brothers, who were allowed to see them in the parloir alone; and I know, when they returned home, they used to walk out with them sometimes. Pour aller dans le monde, certainly not; but if our brother was here instead of in the Caucasus, poor fellow, you should see, Monsieur le Comte, that Olga and I would outrage les convenances a little!”

The youth thus apostrophized smiled dubiously, and attempted to express that had he such charming sisters to accompany, he should be glad to enjoy the privileges of other countries; but being a novice in such matters, he broke down suddenly, and again fell a prey to my inquisitorial propensities. Was he fond of reading, and did he ever read aloud in the evening to his sisters while they worked? At this he fairly laughed, and said that libri di devozione were all very well while one was in the seminary, but he had had enough of them there, and knew the Vita de' Santi by heart, and therefore always kept out of the way when any lettura was going on.

“Then they are never allowed to read stories, or history, or—or romances?” I proffered the latter suggestion very hesitatingly, it must be owned.

“Oh, no—of course not: his mother said girls must attend to the affairs of the house and to their religion; but as to books of entertainment, or travels, or anything of the sort, the less they read of them the better, as their heads would inevitably be turned, and they would be wanting to rove about the world, or be thinking about marriages of affection and lovers”—and at this last word he blushed.

Thus foiled at every effort, the conversation had almost come to a stand-still, when the noise, the stamping of feet, the clanging of casseroles, and hissing of frying-pans, reached their climax, a huge dish of macaroni was brought in, and we were told to restar serviti. No entreaties could induce any of our hospitable entertainers to seat themselves at table—they all insisted upon serving us; and between the intervals of carrying in the dishes and changing our plates, repaired to the kitchen, where our handmaids were also regaled, and made merry with right good-will. An amusing incident occurred just before we took our places, when Madame V—— and all of us stood up, and she motioned to the young curato to say grace: he grew very red, began in Latin, then stopped abruptly, and whispered to the count imploringly, “I have forgotten it: what am I to say?”

“Via, Via,” was the rejoinder: “say anything, say a benedicite;” which being hastily gone over, the poor priest, in much confusion, explained that he really did not remember any formula, being accustomed only to make the sign of the cross and say a paternoster.

The repast so closely resembled what I have described as usual at the marriage-feast, that any recapitulation would be tedious; neither vegetables nor fruit appeared, for they would have been considered too like every-day fare to do fitting honour to the occasion. As usual in such cases, one had to choose the alternative of eating and drinking to excess, or mortifying the good folks, whose hearts were set upon seeing us do justice to their good cheer. Wine, both red and white, abounded; and the young padrone took as much interest in its merits as the contadino himself, recommending the different qualities, and telling us of the various ways of preparing them. To the guests in the kitchen it was just as liberally dispensed, but no instance occurred of its abuse; there was not even any approach to uproarious hilarity.

No quarrel or dispute impaired the harmony of the day; all the best features of the peasants' character had been displayed—their hospitality, their courtesy, their simple piety; and as we wended homeward, walking through lanes and vineyards a portion of the way to the foot of a declivity, where the biroccio and carriage awaited us, we were enthusiastic in our praises. As a landed proprietor, the count was naturally pleased at these encomiums on his tenantry; but he somewhat damped our ardour by assuring us that we must look upon the contadini we had just quitted not as specimens of the whole race, but exceptions. “Through all the Pope's States,” he said, “the country people round Ancona are remarked as being generally good and well-conducted; but if you go only a short distance into the interior, a great difference is perceptible; and beginning at Loretto, which is only twenty miles from here, they are all noted for their implacability and revenge.” And then, by way of illustration, he related some startling stories of treachery and murder, with as much coolness as if they were everyday, straightforward occurrences. These narratives brought us to our equipages, in which we placed ourselves in the same order as when we came, but without much attempt at conversation; the young count, or hero of the day, as we had named him, fell into a reverie, which we attributed to fatigue, and Madame V——, in her excellent motherly way, recommended him to retire early, and take a lait de poule. But two days afterwards furnished an elucidation of this mystery, in a visit to the Consolessa from the priest of her parish, who had been requested by Count M—— to inquire if her daughter Mademoiselle Natalie's hand was at liberty, and the amount of her dowry. The first of these questions, however, not being answered in a manner favourable to his wishes, there was no necessity for entering into a specific reply to the second.

Disappointed, but not dismayed, the trusty envoy presented himself, very shortly after, to my uncle, with similar interrogatories relative to the cugina forestiera, to which the proviso of a change of religion was subjoined. It is needless to give the tenor of his answer, or to add, that this adventure often furnished us with many amusing recollections, and was a magnificent termination to our christening-party.

CHAPTER XI.

Lent observances—Compulsory confession—The sepulchres on Holy Thursday—Procession on Good Friday—Blessing the houses—Joyful celebration of Easter.

In my last chapter, I find I stepped somewhat abruptly from winter to spring, and talked of merry-makings in the country, while in the one immediately preceding it I left the good townspeople of Ancona enjoying their last night of Carnival, with the dreary prospect of a supperless, theatreless Lent before them. The amusements of the so-called gay season had not been sufficiently numerous to render the transition very remarkable to a superficial observer, yet in many little ways the regulations peculiar to this period were felt as a thorn in the flesh, and conveyed with them some mortification to those by whom they were conscientiously carried out. For instance, their dietetic rules were rather peculiar: it was not allowed to make more than one full meal a day, to eat any supper at night, or to take milk above once in the twenty-four hours; on Friday and Saturday of every week, milk was wholly forbidden; besides a number of similar enactments, which depended on the bishop of the diocese, who every Lent issued a fresh table of regulations, modified according to his ideas, or to the actual condition of the country.

In some of the churches, friars or Jesuit fathers, specially summoned for the purpose, delivered a course of sermons, inveighing against the prevailing irreligion and unbelief. But if the preacher's talents were only of an average description, his audience was limited to a few ladies and old women: when, on the contrary, he happened to be distinguished by a flowery and popular style of eloquence, all classes would flock to hear him, numbers of young men amongst the rest, who came in and out, lounged against the columns, talked together in the pauses, stared at their acquaintances, carried on a little flirtation—in fact, conducted themselves much as if they were in the pit of a theatre. In the same way any great funzione, where good music and singing were sure to be heard, never failed to attract the gioventù in crowds to the church in which it was celebrated; while the stimulus of a higher motive than mere curiosity, or the employment of an idle hour, never appeared to be felt or even dreamed of. This total absence of religion, or rather of all religious belief, is spreading fast, and, no longer confined to young men of fashion as their exclusive prerogative, is descending to the lower classes of the community, who, discontented and repining, and debarred from all means of enlightenment, look upon the blended temporal and spiritual system of their Government with the same hostility and mistrust.

Towards the close of the Holy Week however the whole population becomes compulsorily devout. The parochial clergy go round to every house in their jurisdiction, taking down the names and ages of the inhabitants, and delivering to all a ticket filled up with their name, requiring them to repair, within a given period, to the parish church, for confession and communion. Any freewill-offering, any spontaneous act of grace in these religious duties, is thus lost; and with the young men especially, prender Pasqua, as it is termed, becomes a most irksome task, which they endeavour to shuffle over, or resort to every expedient and deception to evade altogether. The Government however has always been very strict in enforcing this ordinance, with the political view of maintaining its fast-waning influence through the confessional, going even the length of refusing pontifical subjects their passports, if they require to travel, when it can be proved that they have neglected their Easter duties—an odious abuse of authority, tending to bring religion into contempt.

I remember hearing of the astonishment and indignation of some members of the V—— family, the first year they passed in Ancona, when the priest, having taken the statistics of the household, and ascertained that they professed the Roman Catholic faith, handed to each of them in succession a printed ticket requiring them to conform to this law. In France, they declared, they had never heard of such a measure; and they could not, even before us, forbear from expressing their disgust. It required all their mother's persuasions, and the example of her unquestioning submission to whatever emanated from priestly authority, to stifle the murmurs of the young ladies and enforce their obedience.

On Holy Thursday, after mid-day, an unwonted silence seemed to fall upon the town, unbroken till the same hour on Saturday. No bells were tolled, no matins or vespers rung, no mass celebrated in the churches; while the streets were filled with people hastening to the sepolcri, or sepulchres, of which seven must be visited by the faithful. Each church has its sepolcro, varying in the details, but agreeing as to the general characteristics of the representation. The high-altar is divested of its usual ornaments, in token of mourning; and on the platform immediately before it, surrounded by all the emblems of the Passion, is a figure in wax, of life-size, of the Saviour, as if just removed from the cross. All around and on the steps leading up are a profusion of natural flowers and tapers; and sentinels with arms reversed are stationed at intervals to keep back the crowd.

In some churches more figures are introduced—such as Joseph of Arimathea, the Beloved Apostle, the three Maries; others have a greater display of flowers and wax-lights, but the pervading effect in all is invariably the same. The complete stillness; the ceaseless, noiseless swaying of the crowd, as those who occupy the foremost places, after a few minutes' admiring inspection and a few muttered prayers, quietly give room in their turn to fresh comers; the indiscriminate blending of rich and poor, as the lady in her silken robes kneels on the pavement beside the tattered beggar; the motionless forms of the Austrian soldiers in all the glittering panoply of war, surrounding the marred and blood-stained effigy of the Prince of Peace; the saturnine, matter-of-fact faces of the attendant priests and sacristans, who hover about, re-lighting any taper that is accidentally extinguished, or adjusting any of the arrangements that may be displaced; the air heavy with the scent of flowers mingling with the exhalations of the vaults beneath, where moulder the remains of those who in their day have gazed upon this spectacle, for centuries repeated, for centuries unchanged: all this has struck each stranger in his turn, and is but a feeble transcript of the varied impressions it produces.

On Good Friday there is always a procession through the principal streets of the town, which, without any of the devotional accessories of the sepolcri—the time-worn churches, the subdued light, the hushed voices—cannot fail painfully to impress the English spectator who has not been inured to sights of this description.

By the people it was eagerly looked forward to as a pleasant variety in the monotony of their lives, an opportunity of sauntering about, of looking out of the windows, of nodding to their acquaintances, and furthering some flirtation or intrigue. Any idea of investing the pageant with a religious significance seemed foreign to the minds of the great majority of the assembled throng.

When the muffled drums were heard announcing that the procession was approaching, and a detachment of troops began to line the street under our windows, I remarked a thrill of excitement, but certainly not of awe, as every head was impatiently turned in the direction from whence the torches and banners of the confraternity of Passionisti first came in view. Men of all classes belonged to this campagnia, all similarly dressed in loose robes and cowls of grey linen, which concealed the features, a crown of thorns round the head, and a girdle of knotted cords; the difference of rank being discernible only by the whiter feet of some amongst them, and the evident pain with which they trod the sharp, uneven pavement. I must however pause to observe here, that a bent head and hoary hair would be the general accompaniments to these marks of gentle birth, were the drapery in which they are enshrouded to be suddenly thrown aside.

Next came friars and priests, all walking according to established rule and precedence—Capuchins, Franciscans, Carmelites, Dominicans, Augustinians, carrying lighted tapers and chanting litanies. Following these were more Capuchins, to whom was especially delegated the office of carrying all the objects belonging to the Crucifixion; and thus they passed on, white-bearded, tottering old men, bearing successively an emblem of this day's great sacrifice, profaned by being paraded, like some mummery of old, before the idle crowd, who gazed, and sneered, and talked, indifferent to the awful event thus commemorated. The crown of thorns, the purple robe, the scourge, the nails, the dice with which the soldiers had cast lots, the spear, were all carried slowly along; the sacred form itself, in the utter prostration of death, stretched upon a bier, coming next in view. A few knelt here, not one in twenty though; the rest all listless, unthinking, or unbelieving.

Some paces behind, upon a sort of platform, appeared a huge image of the Madonna, considerably above the size of life, dressed in violet robes, with long brown ringlets, and pierced through with seven daggers—all the spiritualized beauty with which the “blessed among women” should be invested, lost in the vulgarity of this most material representation. This, with the dignitaries and magistrates of the town walking two and two, closed the procession; after which marched more soldiers, those who had been stationed along the streets falling into the ranks, and the band performing a funeral-march—the same the Austrians always play after the interment of any of their comrades.

I have not exaggerated this description. To some enthusiastic poetic minds, to whom such things seem beautiful in the abstract, I know my account will prove distasteful. But thus it always is: a close insight into the countries where these time-honoured traditional ceremonies are still maintained, strips them of the mysterious charm with which, to a foreigner, they might seem to be invested, and accounts for the levity with which they are witnessed by those familiarized to them since their earliest childhood.

As another instance: there was the custom of blessing the houses on Easter Saturday, which I had heard of long before visiting Italy, and imagined must prove equally edifying and impressive. But when I saw a very dirty priest in his alb—I think that is the name—a sort of linen ephod worn over the black gown, attended by a still more dirty little boy carrying holy-water, walking hastily through the house, muttering a few unintelligible words on the threshold of each room, only pausing a little longer in the kitchen to crack a few jokes with the servants, without the least semblance of devotion on his side or of reverence on theirs—and gratefully accepting a few pauls sent out to him by the family—why, I fell from the clouds, and my cherished illusions were dispelled. It seemed almost as hollow as blessing the horses on the 17th of January, the festival of St. Anthony, the patron of animals, which had previously greatly astonished me.

All the post and vetturino horses, all those belonging to private families, were taken on that day, gaily decked out with ribbons, to a square in front of one of the principal churches, where priests, standing on the steps of the portico, sprinkled them with holy-water, and pronounced a formula of benediction. A small gratuity was given for each horse, and in return the donors were presented with a little wax-taper and a small loaf of bread, by which the grooms, rather than the poor quadrupeds, were the gainers. There was a favourite cat in my uncle's establishment—a cat of great size and beauty, and of doglike sagacity—which the servants were in vain desirous he would send to be blessed, though prompted by no other motive than the pleasure of dressing it up, and of joining in the crowd of idlers before the church.

Generally however it would appear as if some vague idea of averting ill-luck, of deprecating some sinister influence, must linger in the hearts of the coachmen and postilions who still adhere to this custom, which is practised by the priests—so Young Italy will tell you—solely to maintain their hold upon the superstitious fears of the lowest ranks of the populace.

But stay—I am wandering from my more immediate subject, although all the church-bells let loose, and ringing their merry peals, proclaim it is noon on Holy Saturday, and that Lent is over! There is something very heart-stirring in this rejoicing: I wish we had the same custom in England to usher in the triumphant glories of the Easter morn. Why it should be anticipated here by twelve hours, and the bells give forth their jubilee, and salvos of artillery be fired at mid-day, instead of midnight, I do not exactly know: I think I have somewhere read an explanation of this usage, of which I retain no clear remembrance, save that it is of very remote antiquity. Be this as it may, a few hours sooner or later are of little import; it is the pleasing impression on which I dwell, and it is one of the customs that, even with my hard matter-of-fact notions about the “good old times,” I should gladly see revived amongst us.

On Easter Sunday, every one who has scraped the wherewith together, puts on new clothes, and dines on roast lamb; baskets of stained eggs are sent about as presents, and children feast on cakes embellished with the figure of the Paschal Lamb. In the week following, many marriages take place, as, except under particular circumstances, weddings are never solemnized in Lent.

Dinner-parties are also frequently given at this season amongst intimate friends; more formal ones sometimes on Easter Monday or Tuesday, by the principal families, to some great personage, the delegate or the bishop, for instance. But throughout all, whether on a social or more ceremonious footing, the same kindly feeling, the same absence of ostentation, invariably prevail. Would that we resembled the Italians in this respect! They literally follow the evangelical precept of asking to their banquets those by whom they cannot be bidden in return. At every dinner-party there are always to be met three or four old gentlemen, friends of the family, neither useful nor ornamental accessories, not distinguished by sprightliness, riches, or good looks. They would be classed as insufferable bores by us, and if asked at all, only grudgingly, to fill up a vacant place; but here, on the contrary, their age and infirmities constitute their title to admission; and unfailingly, whenever a trattamento is given—as any gathering for the purpose of making good cheer is denominated—are these old friends, seen in their accustomed seats at the table, not the least tinge of patronage being mingled with the cordiality of their reception.

CHAPTER XII.

Festivals of the Madonna—The Duomo—Legend of San Ciriaco—Miraculous picture—Course of sermons by Padre G———General irreligion of the Anconitans—Ecclesiastical tribunal of 1856—The Sacconi.

The celebration of the festivals of the Madonna, to whom the month of May is especially consecrated, and of San Ciriaco, the patron saint of Ancona, followed quickly upon those I have been just now describing; and a concourse of peasants, daily flocking in, by their bright-looking costumes, and picturesque, handsome appearance, enlivened the town to a very unusual extent.

Indeed, the weather was so lovely, the air so balmy, the atmosphere so gauze-like and softening to the objects it surrounded, that an irresistible charm seemed resting upon the land; and it became easy to comprehend how a colony of Dorians, establishing themselves upon its shores, crowned its lofty promontory with a temple where Venus was invoked.

A cathedral, dedicated to San Ciriaco, one of the oldest in Europe, now occupies the site of the heathen shrine, nobly situated on the very summit of the hill, overlooking the town, which rises for some distance along its sides, but terminating about half-way, leaves the duomo undisturbed in its hoary majesty and impressive solitude. We used to delight in walking up here, and, sitting on the steps of the portico, of which the columns were supported on two colossal lions of red granite, gaze forth on the grand prospect which this position displays. At our feet, sloping downwards in a semicircle, lay the town, the mole with Trajan's celebrated arch, the harbour and shipping, commanded by the citadel, and background of mountains stretching far along the curve of the coast, with higher ranges more dimly seen, forming part of the great chain of the Apennines by which Italy is intersected. Turning away from this, you seem transported to a different region, for on three sides of this bold headland, a broad expanse of waters alone meets the view. The walls of the cathedral are not six paces removed from where the cliff abruptly ends, presenting a rugged face of rock, which towers some two or three hundred feet perpendicularly above the sea. The wild music of the waves, on a stormy day, as they surge against its base, is borne upward by the wind, and, distinguishable amid the strains of the organ and the voices of the choir, produces an effect not easily forgotten. Unfortunately, the existence of this venerable pile is threatened by the inroads of the sea, which slowly, but perceptibly, is undermining the cliff; and in a hundred years, it is calculated, the duomo will be in ruins. The votaries of San Ciriaco say, however, that he will not fail to protect his church, and defy the ravages of the elements.

The body of the saint, clad in his episcopal robes, for he was bishop of Ancona, is preserved in a subterranean chapel, and is annually exposed, for the first eight days of the month of May, to the veneration of the people.

The legend runs, that after undergoing in the east the martyrdom of boiling lead being poured down his throat, his remains floated in a stone coffin back to the scene of his former labours.

In the duomo is also kept the famous picture of the Madonna, attested to have opened her eyes in 1795, at a moment of great peril to the State, which was overrun by the armies of the French Republic. Fifty years after, in 1845, this miracle received the confirmation of the papal authority; and the petitions from the gonfaloniere (mayor) and magistrates, the clergy and the nobility, imploring that, “as an acknowledgment of being thus privileged, they might be permitted to place Ancona under the immediate protection of the Madonna, who, by opening the eyes of her venerated image, had signally shown her favour towards it”—received a gracious response. Fireworks, processions, a general illumination, and nine days of religious ceremonies at the duomo, inaugurated this event, which at every succeeding anniversary is still commemorated with great solemnity.

It was my good fortune to hear a course of sermons delivered in honour of the holy image by a Barnabite friar, Padre G—— of Bologna, one of the most celebrated preachers of the day; and the scene presented by the illuminated church, the enthroned picture—a meek and lowly face, shaded by a dark-blue mantle, but resplendent with a star and rose of brilliants, with which it had been adorned by Pius VII.—the eager upturned countenances of the crowd, as their kindling glances wandered from the impassioned orator to the half-closed eyes of the motionless effigy he was apostrophizing—the enthusiastic appeals, the fervent action of the priest as his lofty form towered in the pulpit, and his powerful voice swelled like an organ through the aisles—all rises vividly before me, resembling some dream of enchantment, with that strange fascination that such pageants in Italy possess.

Not less remarkable than his startling eloquence was the ingenuity with which the preacher diversified nine consecutive days of discourses upon the same topic. One day he surprised his auditors by a dissertation on the invention of gunpowder, the destructive missiles employed in modern warfare, the disastrous sieges and the fearful loss of life, all attributable to this discovery. Then depicting the horrors of two or three well-known bombardments and pillages with thrilling power, he asked triumphantly whence it was that Ancona, often surrounded by hostile armies, and invested by foes as watchful as relentless, had always been preserved from a similar fate? Whence, if not by the miraculous presence of that heavenly portrait, whose modest eyelids had been raised, in moments of the greatest peril to the church, to give courage to the dejected, and faith to the wavering!

On another occasion he commenced by a vivid description of the early youth, the education, the first exploits of Napoleon. He led you on step by step in his career; he successively brought him before you as the sullen, sensitive boy at Brienne, the aspiring lieutenant of artillery, the young general of twenty-six, making Italy ring with his fame. On he went, gathering fresh ardour, more striking similes, more startling vehemence, as he dwelt on the resistless might which hurled down thrones and swept away kingdoms in a breath, till he brought him, flushed with conquest, to Ancona. “And here,” he continued—“here, beneath this venerable dome, standing before the sacred picture, prepared to scoff and ridicule its divine powers—that man, with eagle eyes and folded arms, gives one hurried glance and trembles.... Yes! The haughty brow which the fabled thunders of Jove might have encircled, is bent before that benign though reproachful gaze. His sallow cheek grows ashy pale as those heavenly orbs unclose upon him! His limbs totter; the sacrilegious hand which was stretched forth to lay hold on the venerated image is withdrawn, and he hastens away, sternly forbidding its removal or inspection!”

As a last specimen of this attractive, but certainly peculiar style of pulpit oratory, I ought to quote from a magnificent delineation, with which he opened another of his discourses, of the terror that marks the progress of the Destroying Angel, scattering pestilence from his sable wings, with desolation and mourning in his wake. But my limits forbid anything beyond a mere sketch of the subjects on which he enlarged with a graphic power, a scenic effect—if I may use the term—of which it is impossible to convey any just conception. The dread judgment on the first-born of Egypt, the plagues sent on the murmuring Israelites—the dire records of the dark ages, when cities were made desolate, and whole populations swept away by similar awful visitations—all were detailed with harrowing power. Passing on from these to modern times, he addressed himself more particularly to the feelings of his auditors, by recalling the ravages which the cholera had made a few years previous in Ancona, when, out of its then population of 25,000, 1000 were swept away; and finally bade them ascribe their own preservation—the final disappearance of the scourge—to the wondrous picture having been borne, amid the tears and supplications of the inhabitants, in solemn procession through the streets. “Give me, O Maria!” he here cried with transport, striking himself upon the breast—“give me a spring-tide of roses and hyacinths to weave in garlands for thy shrine; give me the laurel-wreath of genius, the monarch's crown of gems; give me all that earth holds beautiful or rare, to cast in tribute at thy feet. Give me eloquence to inspire, fervour to excite, persuasion to reclaim—give all to me, who yet am nothing, to be consecrated to thy service. Let me gaze on those celestial eyes which so benignly opened upon Ancona, and gather there undying ardour and unconquerable love, our only hope, our only refuge!”

After an address of this description, an approving murmur used to be discernible among the crowd, while now and then an irrepressible “bravo,” or a patronizing “bene, bene,” would be heard. But, apart from the peasants—who, as I have said, flocked in large numbers to these ceremonies—and the poor old women, whose withered lips and palsied fingers were ever busy in saying their rosary and counting its beads, I should be sorry to have to estimate how much real devotion dwelt in the hearts of the multitude which daily congregated at the duomo.

On the last evening of the Novena, I remember well the utter failure of the Chevalier V——, the * * * Consul, to elicit a spark of devotional enthusiasm. We were all standing on the duomo steps, looking at the fireworks which concluded the solemnity, when a triumph of Anconitan pyrotechnic art disclosed a star, with the initial M. At this the good man, thoroughly honest in his convictions, waved his hat in the air, and shouted to the crowd, “Let us have an Evviva for Maria;” but not a man's voice responded. There was a feeble quaver of cracked trebles and then silence. He looked sad and mortified, but did not repeat the experiment. He never discussed the subject with us; but I know that he implicitly accepted the authenticity of the miracle. He would have considered it as a sin to permit his mind to wander into any questionings on that to which the Church had set her seal.

But there were few like him in Ancona. I could count on my fingers, without passing those of one hand even, such amongst the Codino nobles as entered with any earnestness into the Novena. The dominant feeling with persons who still held belief in their religion, yet whose judgment was not denied its exercise, was profound regret at the whole proceeding; they rightly estimated it as only calculated to spread irreverence and scepticism.

Upon the vast majority of the thinking classes,—the lawyers, the physicians, the young priests (many of whom are materialists), and the merchants,—precisely this result was produced. The official attestation of the miracle was set down as a clumsy device to rekindle the faith of the peasants and lower orders, and bind them more closely to the Papacy; and religion only reaped contempt and derision for lending herself to such practices.

Other attempts of the Roman See to stimulate decaying zeal in the Marche, have proved equally unsuccessful. As if the Inquisition was not sufficient for the defence of the Faith, with its independent jurisdiction, its dignitaries, familiars, secret lay-members and prisons, special episcopal tribunals were established in 1856 for enforcing the precepts of the Church, and inflicting summary punishment for their contravention. For the detection of swearing and blasphemy, “confraternities of pious persons were instituted” (I quote the words of the edict), “who, dressed in sackcloth and cowl, were authorized to present themselves, either singly or in couples, wherever bad language was most likely to be heard.” Ten to thirty days of prison, or of religious exercises in a convent, were to be awarded to the offender. Also in order to ascertain whether innkeepers and private families observed the canonical law with respect to the days of fasting and abstinence, these Sacconi, as they were termed, were directed to search the premises. Very inquisitorially indeed did they exercise this faculty. I have heard of these agreeable apparitions taking off the lids of saucepans on the fire to see if they contained meat. Depositions from other quarters were also received; and as it was specially provided that the names of informers and witnesses should be kept secret, and as they had the half of the mulct imposed, a boundless field was open to domestic spying and treachery of the basest description.

I once saw a man tied to a church door with a gag in his mouth. On his breast was an inscription, signifying that he was thus punished for having spoken sacrilegiously of the Madonna; but so little were the bystanders impressed, that it was not judged advisable to familiarize them with such spectacles.

CHAPTER XIII.

Political condition of Ancona—Arrogance of the Austrian General—Strictness of the martial law—A man shot on the denunciation of his wife—Application of the stick—Republican excesses—Proneness to assassination—Infernal Association in 1849.

Except passingly I have not yet touched upon the political condition of Ancona. This town, ever since June, 1849, had been occupied by a large Austrian force, holding it in the Pope's name, and ostensibly for the maintenance of his authority.

Never was a garrison more overbearing, or less popular. Even the most uncompromising among the Codini,—attached by their own interests as well as hereditary sympathies to the absolute party,—even they were sometimes startled by the measures pursued, and could not conceal their disapprobation. Although aware that they stood indebted to the Austrians for the maintenance of things in their accustomed train, they seemed, notwithstanding, to fret under their yoke; and held back from any intercourse beyond what absolute necessity demanded. As for the population in general, they kept determinedly aloof; its long continuance had evidently not reconciled them to military rule, and the line of separation continued unbroken. The caffè the officers frequented was still deserted by the natives, and any house, even of foreign residents, where Austrians were received, was sedulously avoided.

Thus repulsed alike by friend and foe, the feelings of the Austrians were naturally not of the most amicable description; but they were particularly bitter against the supporters of the Government, who, owing all to them, were so backward in displaying their adherence; and whenever brought into contact with the municipality, or other authorities, the General lost no opportunity of manifesting his profound disgust.

In all their dealings with this stern old potentate, the papal agents reminded me of Frankenstein and his monster; they cowered before the presence it had been their desire and effort to call forth, and the consciousness of the servile timidity with which he was regarded, served to render him doubly imperious and exacting. One day, having encountered some delay in complying with his demand for a large and immediate supply of fuel for his troops, he sent for two members of the town-council, and swore that if within two hours' time the wood was not forthcoming, he would have the whole municipio shot without mercy.

To hear this affront dolorously recounted by some of the worshipful corporation, accompanied by the pantomime and varied intonations with which an Italian dramatizes any recital, was inexpressibly amusing to those who, like us, had no personal interest in the question; while others again were not displeased at the humiliation inflicted on the Pope's functionaries by his trusty allies. But this was not the first instance of vehemence shown by General * * *. Some months previous, he had subjected one of the leading nobles to the indignity of being marched through the streets, surrounded by soldiers, on the charge of having forcibly opposed an officer's being quartered in his house. The real state of the case was simply that, on returning home from a journey, the principe found installed in his own private apartments a stranger, whose peremptory refusal to exchange them for another suite of rooms in the same palazzo caused high words to ensue, which ended in the young proprietor's summary arrest, and the uncontrollable indignation of the General. Twenty-four hours were given the prisoner to choose between immediate execution or a formal apology to the officer—unpleasant alternatives both, but of which it is needless to say the latter was accepted.