direction, is rich in associations, and in natural beauties. There
is Albano, with its lovely lake and wooded shore, and with its
wine, that certainly has not improved since the days of Horace, and
in these times hardly justifies his panegyric. There is squalid
Tivoli, with the river Anio, diverted from its course, and plunging
down, headlong, some eighty feet in search of it. With its
picturesque Temple of the Sibyl, perched high on a crag; its minor
waterfalls glancing and sparkling in the sun; and one good cavern
yawning darkly, where the river takes a fearful plunge and shoots
on, low down under beetling rocks. There, too, is the Villa
d'Este, deserted and decaying among groves of melancholy pine and
cypress trees, where it seems to lie in state. Then, there is
Frascati, and, on the steep above it, the ruins of Tusculum, where
Cicero lived, and wrote, and adorned his favourite house (some
fragments of it may yet be seen there), and where Cato was born.
We saw its ruined amphitheatre on a grey, dull day, when a shrill
March wind was blowing, and when the scattered stones of the old
city lay strewn about the lonely eminence, as desolate and dead as
the ashes of a long extinguished fire.
One day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteen
miles distant; possessed by a great desire to go there by the
ancient Appian way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started at
half-past seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were out
upon the open Campagna. For twelve miles we went climbing on, over
an unbroken succession of mounds, and heaps, and hills, of ruin.
Tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate; small fragments of
columns, friezes, pediments; great blocks of granite and marble;
mouldering arches, grass-grown and decayed; ruin enough to build a
spacious city from; lay strewn about us. Sometimes, loose walls,
built up from these fragments by the shepherds, came across our
path; sometimes, a ditch between two mounds of broken stones,
obstructed our progress; sometimes, the fragments themselves,
rolling from beneath our feet, made it a toilsome matter to
advance; but it was always ruin. Now, we tracked a piece of the
old road, above the ground; now traced it, underneath a grassy
covering, as if that were its grave; but all the way was ruin. In
the distance, ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant course
along the plain; and every breath of wind that swept towards us,
stirred early flowers and grasses, springing up, spontaneously, on
miles of ruin. The unseen larks above us, who alone disturbed the
awful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen,
clad in sheepskins, who now and then scowled out upon us from their
sleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the desolate
Campagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me of
an American prairie; but what is the solitude of a region where men
have never dwelt, to that of a Desert, where a mighty race have
left their footprints in the earth from which they have vanished;
where the resting-places of their Dead, have fallen like their
Dead; and the broken hour-glass of Time is but a heap of idle dust!
Returning, by the road, at sunset! and looking, from the distance,
on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost feel (as I had
felt when I first saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would never
rise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world.
To come again on Rome, by moonlight, after such an expedition, is a
fitting close to such a day. The narrow streets, devoid of footways,
and choked, in every obscure corner, by heaps of dunghillrubbish,
contrast so strongly, in their cramped dimensions, and
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their filth, and darkness, with the broad square before some
haughty church: in the centre of which, a hieroglyphic-covered
obelisk, brought from Egypt in the days of the Emperors, looks
strangely on the foreign scene about it; or perhaps an ancient
pillar, with its honoured statue overthrown, supports a Christian
saint: Marcus Aurelius giving place to Paul, and Trajan to St.
Peter. Then, there are the ponderous buildings reared from the
spoliation of the Coliseum, shutting out the moon, like mountains:
while here and there, are broken arches and rent walls, through
which it gushes freely, as the life comes pouring from a wound.
The little town of miserable houses, walled, and shut in by barred
gates, is the quarter where the Jews are locked up nightly, when
the clock strikes eight - a miserable place, densely populated, and
reeking with bad odours, but where the people are industrious and
money-getting. In the day-time, as you make your way along the
narrow streets, you see them all at work: upon the pavement,
oftener than in their dark and frouzy shops: furbishing old
clothes, and driving bargains.
Crossing from these patches of thick darkness, out into the moon
once more, the fountain of Trevi, welling from a hundred jets, and
rolling over mimic rocks, is silvery to the eye and ear. In the
narrow little throat of street, beyond, a booth, dressed out with
flaring lamps, and boughs of trees, attracts a group of sulky
Romans round its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew;
its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattle
round the sharply-twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. The
coachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by,
preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer; and a
priest: the latter chaunting as he goes. It is the Dead Cart,
with the bodies of the poor, on their way to burial in the Sacred
Field outside the walls, where they will be thrown into the pit
that will be covered with a stone to-night, and sealed up for a
year.
But whether, in this ride, you pass by obelisks, or columns ancient
temples, theatres, houses, porticoes, or forums: it is strange to
see, how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blended
into some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose -
a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable - some use for which
it never was designed, and associated with which it cannot
otherwise than lamely assort. It is stranger still, to see how
many ruins of the old mythology: how many fragments of obsolete
legend and observance: have been incorporated into the worship of
Christian altars here; and how, in numberless respects, the false
faith and the true are fused into a monstrous union.
From one part of the city, looking out beyond the walls, a squat
and stunted pyramid (the burial-place of Caius Cestius) makes an
opaque triangle in the moonlight. But, to an English traveller, it
serves to mark the grave of Shelley too, whose ashes lie beneath a
little garden near it. Nearer still, almost within its shadow, lie
the bones of Keats, 'whose name is writ in water,' that shines
brightly in the landscape of a calm Ital
ian night.
The Holy Week in Rome is supposed to offer great attractions to all
visitors; but, saving for the sights of Easter Sunday, I would
counsel those who go to Rome for its own interest, to avoid it at
that time. The ceremonies, in general, are of the most tedious and
wearisome kind; the heat and crowd at every one of them, painfully
oppressive; the noise, hubbub, and confusion, quite distracting.
We abandoned the pursuit of these shows, very early in the
proceedings, and betook ourselves to the Ruins again. But, we
plunged into the crowd for a share of the best of the sights; and
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what we saw, I will describe to you.
At the Sistine chapel, on the Wednesday, we saw very little, for by
the time we reached it (though we were early) the besieging crowd
had filled it to the door, and overflowed into the adjoining hall,
where they were struggling, and squeezing, and mutually
expostulating, and making great rushes every time a lady was
brought out faint, as if at least fifty people could be
accommodated in her vacant standing-room. Hanging in the doorway
of the chapel, was a heavy curtain, and this curtain, some twenty
people nearest to it, in their anxiety to hear the chaunting of the
Miserere, were continually plucking at, in opposition to each
other, that it might not fall down and stifle the sound of the
voices. The consequence was, that it occasioned the most
extraordinary confusion, and seemed to wind itself about the
unwary, like a Serpent. Now, a lady was wrapped up in it, and
couldn't be unwound. Now, the voice of a stifling gentleman was
heard inside it, beseeching to be let out. Now, two muffled arms,
no man could say of which sex, struggled in it as in a sack. Now,
it was carried by a rush, bodily overhead into the chapel, like an
awning. Now, it came out the other way, and blinded one of the
Pope's Swiss Guard, who had arrived, that moment, to set things to
rights.
Being seated at a little distance, among two or three of the Pope's
gentlemen, who were very weary and counting the minutes - as
perhaps his Holiness was too - we had better opportunities of
observing this eccentric entertainment, than of hearing the
Miserere. Sometimes, there was a swell of mournful voices that
sounded very pathetic and sad, and died away, into a low strain
again; but that was all we heard.
At another time, there was the Exhibition of Relics in St. Peter's,
which took place at between six and seven o'clock in the evening,
and was striking from the cathedral being dark and gloomy, and
having a great many people in it. The place into which the relics
were brought, one by one, by a party of three priests, was a high
balcony near the chief altar. This was the only lighted part of
the church. There are always a hundred and twelve lamps burning
near the altar, and there were two tall tapers, besides, near the
black statue of St. Peter; but these were nothing in such an
immense edifice. The gloom, and the general upturning of faces to
the balcony, and the prostration of true believers on the pavement,
as shining objects, like pictures or looking-glasses, were brought
out and shown, had something effective in it, despite the very
preposterous manner in which they were held up for the general
edification, and the great elevation at which they were displayed;
which one would think rather calculated to diminish the comfort
derivable from a full conviction of their being genuine.
On the Thursday, we went to see the Pope convey the Sacrament from
the Sistine chapel, to deposit it in the Capella Paolina, another
chapel in the Vatican; - a ceremony emblematical of the entombment
of the Saviour before His Resurrection. We waited in a great
gallery with a great crowd of people (three-fourths of them
English) for an hour or so, while they were chaunting the Miserere,
in the Sistine chapel again. Both chapels opened out of the
gallery; and the general attention was concentrated on the
occasional opening and shutting of the door of the one for which
the Pope was ultimately bound. None of these openings disclosed
anything more tremendous than a man on a ladder, lighting a great
quantity of candles; but at each and every opening, there was a
terrific rush made at this ladder and this man, something like (I
should think) a charge of the heavy British cavalry at Waterloo.
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The man was never brought down, however, nor the ladder; for it
performed the strangest antics in the world among the crowd - where
it was carried by the man, when the candles were all lighted; and
finally it was stuck up against the gallery wall, in a very
disorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, and
the commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of his
Holiness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had been
poking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery:
and the procession came up, between the two lines they made.
There were a few choristers, and then a great many priests, walking
two and two, and carrying - the good-looking priests at least -
their lighted tapers, so as to throw the light with a good effect
upon their faces: for the room was darkened. Those who were not
and abandoned themselves to spiritual contemplation. Meanwhile,
the chaunting was very monotonous and dreary. The procession
passed on, slowly, into the chapel, and the drone of voices went
on, and came on, with it, until the Pope himself appeared, walking
under a white satin canopy, and bearing the covered Sacrament in
both hands; cardinals and canons clustered round him, making a
brilliant show. The soldiers of the guard knelt down as he passed;
all the bystanders bowed; and so he passed on into the chapel: the
white satin canopy being removed from over him at the door, and a
white satin parasol hoisted over his poor old head, in place of it.
A few more couples brought up the rear, and passed into the chapel
also. Then, the chapel door was shut; and it was all over; and
everybody hurried off headlong, as for life or death, to see
something else, and say it wasn't worth the trouble.
I think the most popular and most crowded sight (excepting those of
Easter Sunday and Monday, which are open to all classes of people)
was the Pope washing the feet of Thirteen men, representing the
twelve apostles, and Judas Iscariot. The place in which this pious
office is performed, is one of the chapels of St. Peter's, which is
gaily decorated for the occasion; the thirteen sitting, 'all of a
row,' on a very high bench, and looking particularly uncomfortable,
with the eyes of Heaven knows how many English, French, Americans,
Swiss, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, and other foreigners,
nailed to their faces all the time. They are robed in white; and
on their heads they wear a stiff white cap, like a large English
porter-pot, without a handle. Each carries in his hand, a nosegay,
of the size of a fine cauliflower; and two of them, on this
occasion, wore spectacles; which, remembering the characters they
sustained, I thought a droll appendage to the costume. There was a
great eye to character. St. John was represented by a good-looking
young man. St. Peter, by a grave-looking old gentleman, with a
flowing brown beard; and Judas Iscariot by such an enormous
hypocrite (I could not make out, though, whether the expression of
his face was real or assumed) that if he had acted the part to the
death and had gone away and hanged himself, he would have left
nothing to be desired.
As the two large boxes, appropriated to ladies at this sight, were
full to the throat, and getting near was hopeless, we posted off,
along with a great crowd, to be in time at the Table, where the
Pope, in person, waits on these Thirteen; and after a prodigious
struggle at the Vatican staircase, and several personal conflicts
with the Swiss guard, the whole crowd swept into the room. It was
a long gallery hung with drapery of white and red, with another
great box for ladies (who are obliged to dress in black at these
ceremonies, and to wear black veils), a royal box for the King of
Naples and his party; and the table itself, which, set out like a
ball supper, and ornamented with golden figures of the real
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apostles, was arranged on an elevated platform on one side of the
gallery. The counterfeit apostles' knives and forks were laid out
on that side of the table which was nearest to the wall, so that
they might be stared at again, without let or hindrance.
The body of the room was full of male strangers; the crowd immense;
the heat very great; and the pressure sometimes frightful. It was
at its height, when the stream came pouring in, from the feetwashing;
and then there were such shrieks and outcries, that a
party of Piedmontese dragoons went to the rescue of the Swiss
guard, and helped them to calm the tumult.
The ladies were particularly ferocious, in their struggles for
places. One lady of my acquaintance was seized round the waist, in
the ladies' box, by a strong matron, and hoisted out of her place;