(famous for its wine) and Viterbo (for its fountains): and after
climbing up a long hill of eight or ten miles' extent, came
suddenly upon the margin of a solitary lake: in one part very
beautiful, with a luxuriant wood; in another, very barren, and shut
in by bleak volcanic hills. Where this lake flows, there stood, of
old, a city. It was swallowed up one day; and in its stead, this
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water rose. There are ancient traditions (common to many parts of
the world) of the ruined city having been seen below, when the
water was clear; but however that may be, from this spot of earth
it vanished. The ground came bubbling up above it; and the water
too; and here they stand, like ghosts on whom the other world
closed suddenly, and who have no means of getting back again. They
seem to be waiting the course of ages, for the next earthquake in
that place; when they will plunge below the ground, at its first
yawning, and be seen no more. The unhappy city below, is not more
lost and dreary, than these fire-charred hills and the stagnant
water, above. The red sun looked strangely on them, as with the
knowledge that they were made for caverns and darkness; and the
melancholy water oozed and sucked the mud, and crept quietly among
the marshy grass and reeds, as if the overthrow of all the ancient
towers and house-tops, and the death of all the ancient people born
and bred there, were yet heavy on its conscience.
A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a little
town like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morning
at seven o'clock, we started for Rome.
As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the Campagna
Romana; an undulating flat (as you know), where few people can
live; and where, for miles and miles, there is nothing to relieve
the terrible monotony and gloom. Of all kinds of country that
could, by possibility, lie outside the gates of Rome, this is the
aptest and fittest burial-ground for the Dead City. So sad, so
quiet, so sullen; so secret in its covering up of great masses of
ruin, and hiding them; so like the waste places into which the men
possessed with devils used to go and howl, and rend themselves, in
the old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty miles of this
Campagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing nothing
but now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking shepherd:
with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the chin
in a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of that
distance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch,
in a common malaria-shaken, despondent little public-house, whose
every inch of wall and beam, inside, was (according to custom)
painted and decorated in a way so miserable that every room looked
like the wrong side of another room, and, with its wretched
imitation of drapery, and lop-sided little daubs of lyres, seemed
to have been plundered from behind the scenes of some travelling
circus.
When we were fairly going off again, we began, in a perfect fever,
to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two,
the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it looked
like - I am half afraid to write the word - like LONDON!!! There
it lay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples,
and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and high above them
all, one Dome. I swear, that keenly as I felt the seeming
absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that
distance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I should
have taken it for nothing else.
CHAPTER X - ROME
WE entered the Eternal City, at about four o'clock in the
afternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo,
and came immediately - it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been
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heavy rain - on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, know
that we were only looking at the fag end of the masks, who were
driving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find a
promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and
getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming
among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not
coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene.
We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three miles
before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurrying
on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of
desolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of the
Carnival, did great violence to this promise. There were no great
ruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to be seen; - they all lie on
the other side of the city. There seemed to be long streets of
commonplace shops and houses, such as are to be found in any
European town; there were busy people, equipages, ordinary walkers
to and fro; a multitude of chattering strangers. It was no more MY
Rome: the Rome of anybody's fancy, man or boy; degraded and fallen
and lying asleep in the sun among a heap of ruins: than the Place
de la Concorde in Paris is. A cloudy sky, a dull cold rain, and
muddy streets, I was prepared for, but not for this: and I confess
to having gone to bed, that night, in a very indifferent humour,
and with a very considerably quenched enthusiasm.
Immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter's.
It looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedly
small, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the
Piazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns,
and its gushing fountains - so fresh, so broad, and free, and
beautiful - nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the
interior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most of
all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to be
forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars
of stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of red
and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel:
which is before it: in the centre of the church: were like a
goldsmith's shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish
pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the
building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very
strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many
English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many
English country churches when the congregation have been singing.
I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedral
of San Mark at Venice.
When we came out of the church again (we stood nearly an hour
staring up into the dome: and would not have 'gone over' the
Cathedral then, for any money), we said to the coachman, 'Go to the
Coliseum.' In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped at the gate,
and
we went in.
It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: so
suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment -
actually in passing in - they who will, may have the whole great
pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces
staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood,
and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its
solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon
the stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in
his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight,
not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.
To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
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overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grass
growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on
its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the
seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its
chinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth,
and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to climb into its
upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the
triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; the
Roman Forum; the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the old
religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its
people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most
solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, in
its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full
and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one's heart, as
it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. GOD be thanked: a
ruin!
As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain among
graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of
the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the
fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the
visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there
is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people
in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated
Coliseum to-morrow.
Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine
in its full and awful grandeur! We wandered out upon the Appian
Way, and then went on, through miles of ruined tombs and broken
walls, with here and there a desolate and uninhabited house: past
the Circus of Romulus, where the course of the chariots, the
stations of the judges, competitors, and spectators, are yet as
plainly to be seen as in old time: past the tomb of Cecilia
Metella: past all inclosure, hedge, or stake, wall or fence: away
upon the open Campagna, where on that side of Rome, nothing is to
be beheld but Ruin. Except where the distant Apennines bound the
view upon the left, the whole wide prospect is one field of ruin.
Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautiful
clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of
decay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with a
history in every stone that strews the ground.
On Sunday, the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St.
Peter's. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second
visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after
many visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is
an immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon;
and it tires itself with wandering round and round. The very
purpose of the place, is not expressed in anything you see there,
unless you examine its details - and all examination of details is
incompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a
Senate House, or a great architectural trophy, having no other
object than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue of
St. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger than
life and which is constantly having its great toe kissed by good
Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominent
and popular. But it does not heighten the effect of the temple, as
a work of art; and it is not expressive - to me at least - of its
high purpose.
A large space behind the altar, was fitted up with boxes, shaped
like those at the Italian Opera in England, but in their decoration
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much more gaudy. In the centre of the kind of theatre thus railed
off, was a canopied dais with the Pope's chair upon it. The
pavement was covered with a carpet of the brightest green; and what
with this green, and the intolerable reds and crimsons, and gold
borders of the hangings, the whole concern looked like a stupendous
Bonbon. On either side of the altar, was a large box for lady
strangers. These were filled with ladies in black dresses and
black veils. The gentlemen of the Pope's guard, in red coats,
leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all this reserved space,
with drawn swords that were very flashy in every sense; and from
the altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept clear by the
Pope's Swiss guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and striped
shouldered by those theatrical supernumeraries, who never CAN get
off the stage fast enough, and who may be generally observed to
linger in the enemy's camp after the open country, held by the
opposite forces, has been split up the middle by a convulsion of
Nature.
I got upon the border of the green carpet, in company with a great
many other gentlemen, attired in black (no other passport is
necessary), and stood there at my ease, during the performance of
Mass. The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meatsafe
or bird-cage) in one corner; and sang most atrociously. All
about the green carpet, there was a slowly moving crowd of people:
talking to each other: staring at the Pope through eye-glasses;
defrauding one another, in moments of partial curiosity, out of
precarious seats on the bases of pillars: and grinning hideously
at the ladies. Dotted here and there, were little knots of friars
(Frances-cani, or Cappuccini, in their coarse brown dresses and
peaked hoods) making a strange contrast to the gaudy ecclesiastics
of higher degree, and having their humility gratified to the
utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on
all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and
stained garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces
of the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their
dogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour,
having something in it, half miserable, and half ridiculous.
Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, wa
s a
perfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple,
violet, white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these, went to and
fro among the crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and
receiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; other
functionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in courtdresses,
were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, and
stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness
of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some
few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their
faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became,
unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their own
devout legs, tripped up other people's by the dozen.
There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me,
which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-work
tippet, like a summer ornament for a fireplace in tissue-paper,
made himself very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: one
a-piece. They loitered about with these for some time, under their
arms like walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At a
certain period of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle up
to the Pope, laid it across his two knees to be blessed, took it
back again, and filed off. This was done in a very attenuated
procession, as you may suppose, and occupied a long time. Not
because it takes long to bless a candle through and through, but
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because there were so many candles to be blessed. At last they
were all blessed: and then they were all lighted; and then the
Pope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the church.
I must say, that I never saw anything, out of November, so like the
popular English commemoration of the fifth of that month. A bundle
of matches and a lantern, would have made it perfect. Nor did the
Pope, himself, at all mar the resemblance, though he has a pleasant
and venerable face; for, as this part of the ceremony makes him
giddy and sick, he shuts his eyes when it is performed: and having
his eyes shut and a great mitre on his head, and his head itself
wagging to and fro as they shook him in carrying, he looked as if
his mask were going to tumble off. The two immense fans which are
always borne, one on either side of him, accompanied him, of