(Him who at parting climb'd his knees and clung) Clay-cold and wan, and to the bearers cry, "Stand, I conjure ye!” Seen thus destitute, What are the greatest? They must speak beyond A thousand homilies. When Raphael went, His heavenly face the mirror of his mind, His mind a temple for all lovely things To flock to and inhabit-when He went, Wrapt in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore, To sleep beneath the venerable Dome,' By those attended, who in life had loved, Had worshipp'd, following in his steps to Fame, ('T was on an April-day, when Nature smiles) All Rome was there. But, ere the march began, Ere to receive their charge the bearers came, Who had not sought him? And when all beheld Him, where he lay, how changed from yesterday, Him in that hour cut off, and at his head at their excesses; remembering that nations are naturally patient and long-suffering, and seldom rise in rebellion till they are so degraded by a bad government as to be almost incapable of a good one. Hate them, perhaps," you may say, "we should not; but despise them we must, if enslaved, like the people of Rome, in mind as well as body; if their re ligion be a gross and barbarous superstition."-I respect knowledge; but I do not despise ignorance. They think only as their fathers thought, worship as they worshipped. They do no more; and, if ours had not burst their bondage, braving imprisonment and death, might not we at this very moment have been exhibiting, in our streets and our churches, the same processions, ceremonials, and mortifications? Nor should we require from those who are in an earlier stage of society, what belongs to a later? They are only where we once were; and why hold them in derision? It is their business to cultivate the His last great work; (140) when, entering in, they inferior arts before they think of the more refined; look'd Now on the dead, then on that master-piece, Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, V. NATIONAL PREJUDICES. "ANOTHER Assassination! This venerable City," I exclaimed," what is it, but as it began, a nest of robbers and murderers? We must away at sun-rise, Luigi." But before sun-rise I had reflected a little, and in the soberest prose. My indignation was gone; and, when Luigi undrew my curtain, crying, "Up, Signor, up! The horses are at the door."-". Luigi," replied, "if thou lovest me, draw the curtain." I It would lessen very much the severity with which men judge of each other, if they would but trace effects to their causes, and observe the progress of things in the moral as accurately as in the physical world. When we condemn millions in the mass as vindictive and sanguinary, we should remember that, wherever Justice is ill-administered, the injured will redress themselves. Robbery provokes to robbery; murder to assassination. Resentments become heredi tary; and what began in disorder, ends as if all Hell had broke loose. Laws create a habit of self-restraint, not only by the influence of fear, but by regulating in its exercise the passion of revenge. If they overawe the bad by the prospect of a punishment certain and well-defined, they console the injured by the infliction of that punishment; and, as the infliction is a public act, it excites and entails no enmity. The laws are offended; and the community, for its own sake, pursues and overtakes the offender; often without the concurrence of the sufferer, sometimes against his wishes. Now those who were not born, like ourselves, to such advantages, we should surely rather pity than hate; and, when at length they venture to turn against their rulers,' we should lament, not wonder 1 The Pantheon. 2 A dialogue, which is said to have passed many years ago at Lyons (Mem. de Grammont, I, 3.) and which may still be heard in almost every hôtellerie at day-break. 3 As the descendants of an illustrious people have lately done. I and in many of the last what are we as a nation, when compared to others that have passed away! Unfortunately, it is too much the practice of governments to nurse and keep alive in the governed their national prejudices. It withdraws their attention from what is passing at home, and makes them better tools in the hands of Ambition. Hence next-door neighhors are held up to us from our childhood as natural enemies; and we are urged on like curs to worry each other.' In like manner we should learn to be just to individuals. Who can say, "In such circumstances I should have done otherwise?" Who, did he but reflect by what slow gradations, often by how many strange concurrences, we are led astray; with how much reluctance, how much agony, how many efforts to escape, how many self-accusations, how many sighs, how many tears-Who, did he but reflect for a moment, would have the heart to cast a stone? Fortunately, these things are known to Him, from whom no secrets are hidden; and let us rest in the assurance that his judgments are not as ours are. VI. THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME. HAVE none appear'd as tillers of the ground, (141) None since They went-as though it still were theirs, And they might come and claim their own again? Was the last plow a Roman's? From this Seat, (142) Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings, The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky, Look'd down and saw the armies in array, Can it be believed that there are many among us, who, from a desire to be thought superior to commonplace sentiments and vulgar feelings, affect an indifference to their cause! "If the Greeks," they say, "had the probity of other nations-but they are false to a proverb!" And is not falsehood the characteristic of slaves? Man is the creature of circumstances. Free, he has the qualities of a freeman; enslaved, those of a slave. 1 Candor, generosity, how rare are they in the world; and how much is to be deplored the want of them! When a míoister in our parliament consents at last to a measure, which, for many reasons perhaps existing no longer, he had before refused to adopt, there should be no exultation as over the fallen, no taunt, no jeer. How often may the resistance be continued lest an enemy should triumph, and the result of conviction be received as a symptom of fear! 2 Eneid, xii, 134. Let us contemplate; and, where dreams from Jove And reaping-hook, among their household-things Descended on the sleeper, where perhaps The changes from that hour, when He from Troy Stream'd far and wide, and dashing oars were heard Then, and hence to be discern'd, Mingling, the sounds came up; and hence how oft But all ere-long are lost Arm'd; and, their wrongs redress'd, at once gave way, Helmet and shield, and sword and spear thrown down, And every hand uplifted, every heart Pour'd out in thanks to Heaven. Once again We look; and, lo, the sea is white with sails Innumerable, wafting to the shore Treasures untold; the vale, the promontories, A dream of glory; temples, palaces, Call'd up as by enchantment; aqueducts Among the groves and glades rolling along Rivers, on many an arch high over-head; And in the centre, like a burning-sun, The Imperial City! They have now subdued All nations. But where they who led them forth; Who, when at length released by victory, (Buckler and spear hung up-but not to rust) Held poverty no evil, no reproach, Living on little with a cheerful mind, The Decii, the Fabricii? Where the spade 1 Tivoli. 2 Palestrina. 3 La Riccia. 4 Mons Sacer. Duly transmitted? In the hands of men Their hours are number'd. But their days, Once more we look, and all is still as night, And on the road, where once we might have met VII. THE ROMAN PONTIFFS. THOSE ancient men, what were they, who achieved A sway beyond the greatest conquerors; Setting their feet upon the necks of kings, And, through the world, subduing, chaining down The free immortal spirit? Were they not Mighty magicians? Theirs a wondrous spell, Where true and false were with infernal art Close-interwoven; where together met Blessings and curses, threats and promises; And with the terrors of Futurity Mingled whate'er enchants and fascinates, Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric (147) And architectural pomp, such as none else; And dazzling light, and darkness visible! (148) What in his day the Syracusan sought, Another world to plant his engines on, They had; and, having it, like gods, not men, Moved this world at their pleasure. Ere they came, (149) Their shadows, stretching far and wide, were known And Two, that look'd beyond the visible sphere, Gave notice of their coming-he who saw The Apocalypse; and he of elder time, Saw the Four Kingdoms. Distant as they were, VIII. CAIUS CESTIUS. Yet was it sad as sweet, and, ere it closed, WHEN I am inclined to be serious, I love to wan- Thus I renounce the world!" when all was changed der up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt, The Protestant burial-ground is there; and most of Veil'd in her veil, crown'd with her silver crown, the little monuments are erected to the young; young Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ, men of promise, cut off when on their travels, full Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man, of their beauty, on their first journey; or children, borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave. He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth ('T was in her utmost need; nor, while she lives, (151) Will it go from her, fleeting as it was) That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love And pity! Like a dream the whole is fled; It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the And they, that came in idleness to gaze winter with violets; and the Pyramid, that over- Upon the victim dress'd for sacrifice, shadows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all, were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign None were so form'd to love and to be loved, land; and they are for the most part your country- None to delight, adorn; and on thee now men. They call upon you in your mother-tongue-A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropp'd in English-in words unknown to a native, known For ever! In thy gentle bosom sleep only to yourselves: and the tomb of Cestius, that old Feelings, affections, destined now to die, majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It To wither like the blossom in the bud, is itself a stranger, among strangers. It has stood Those of a wife, a mother; leaving there there till the language spoken round about it has A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave, changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read its inscription no longer. IX. THE NUN. "TIS over; and her lovely cheek is now "Tis over; and the rite, Her beauty and grace. A languor and a lethargy of soul, Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death But thou canst not yet reflect All in turn Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed X. THE FIRE-FLY. THERE is an Insect, that, when Evening comes, Small though he be and scarce distinguishable, Like Evening clad in soberest livery, When on her knees she fell, Unsheathes his wings, (153) and through the woods Entering the solemn place of consecration, and glades Scatters a marvellous splendor On he wheels, Soaring, descending. In the mother's lap Well may the child put forth his little hands, Oft have I met Yet cannot I forget Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve, XI. FOREIGN TRAVEL. earth. "It may serve me," said I, “as a remedy in some future fit of the spleen." Ours is a nation of travellers; and no wonder, when the elements, air, water, fire, attend at our bid ding, to transport us from shore to shore; when the ship rushes into the deep, her track the foam as of some mighty torrent; and, in three hours or less, we stand gazing and gazed at among a foreign people. None want an excuse. If rich, they go to enjoy, if poor, to retrench; if sick, to recover; if studious, to learn; if learned, to relax from their studies. But whatever they may say, whatever they may believe, they go for the most part on the same errand; nor will those who reflect, think that errand an idle one. Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world, than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures, so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood. Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly, restores to us in a great degree what we have lost. When the anchor is heaved, we double down the leaf; and for a while at least all effort is over. The old cares are left clustering round the old objects; and at every step, as we proceed, the slightest circumstance amuses and interests. All is new and strange. We surrender, ourselves, and feel once again as children. Like them, we enjoy eagerly; like them, when we fret, we fret only for the moment; and here indeed the resemblance is very remarkable, for if a journey has its pains as well as its pleasures (and there is nothing unmixed in this world) the pains are no sooner over than they are forgotten, while the pleasures live long in the memory. It was in a splenetic humor that I sate me down to my scanty fare at Terracina; and how long I should have contemplated the lean thrushes in array before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst from the green and leafy boughs on the hearth-stone. "Why," I exclaim- Nor is it surely without another advantage. If life ed, starting up from the table, "why did I leave my be short, not so to many of us are its days and its own chimney-corner?-But am I not on the road to hours. When the blood slumbers in the veins, how Brundusium? And are not these the very calamities often do we wish that the earth would turn faster on that befell Horace and Virgil, and Mæcenas, and Plo- its axis, that the sun would rise and set before it does, tins, and Varius? Horace laughed at them-then and, to escape from the weight of time, how many why should not I? Horace resolved to turn them to follies, how many crimes are committed! Men rush account; and Virgil-cannot we hear him observing, on danger, and even on death. Intrigue, play, foreign that to remember them will, by and by, be a pleasure?" and domestic broil, such are their resources; and, My soliloquy reconciled me at once to my fate; and when these things fail, they destroy themselves. when, for the twentieth time, I had looked through Now in travelling we multiply events, and innothe window on a sea sparkling with innumerable cently. We set out, as it were, on our adventures; brilliants, a sea on which the heroes of the Odyssey and many are those that occur to us, morning, noon, and the Eneid had sailed, I sat down as to a splendid and night. The day we come to a place which we banquet. My thrushes had the flavor of ortolans; and have long heard and read of, and in Italy we do so I ate with an appetite I had not known before. continually, it is an era in our lives; and from that "Who," I cried, as I poured out my last glass of moment the very name calls up a picture. How de Falernian, (for Falernian it was said to be, and in my lightfully too does the knowledge flow in upon us, eyes it ran bright and clear as a topaz-stone)" who and how fast! Would he who sat in a corner of would remain at home, could he do otherwise? Who would submit to tread that dull, but daily round; his hours forgotten as soon as spent?" and, opening my journal-book and dipping my pen into my ink-horn, I determined, as far as I could, to justify myself and my countrymen in wandering over the face of the 1 The glow-worm. 2 We were now within a few hours of the Campania Felix. On the color and flavor of Falernian, consult Galen and Dioscorides. 1 As indeed it always was, contributing those of every degree, from a milors with his suite to him whose only attendant is his returning, hung up his shoes in his village church as an ex-voto, shadow. Coryate in 1608 performed his journey on foot; and, Goldsmith, a century and a half afterwards, followed in nearly the same path; playing a tune on his flute to procure admittance, whenever he approached a cottage at night-fall. 2 To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the fields. If the markets are wellsupplied, the fields well-cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed. his library, poring over books and maps, learn more Greek sculpture-in some earlier day perhaps or so much in the time, as he who, with his eyes and A tomb, and honor'd with a hero's ashes. his heart open, is receiving impressions, all day long, The water from the rock fill'd, overflow'd it; from the things themselves?' How accurately do they Then dash'd away, playing the prodigal, arrange themselves in our memory, towns, rivers, And soon was lost-stealing unseen, unheard, mountains; and in what living colors do we recall Through the long grass, and round the twisted roots the dresses, manners, and customs of the people! Our Of aged trees; discovering where it ran sight is the noblest of all our senses. "It fills the By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat, mind with most ideas, converses with its objects at I threw me down; admiring, as I lay. the greatest distance, and continues longest in action That shady nook, a singing-place for birds, without being tired." Our sight is on the alert when That grove so intricate, so full of flowers, we travel; and its exercise is then so delightful, that More than enough to please a child a-Maying. we forget the profit in the pleasure. Like a river, that gathers, that refines as it runs, The sun was down, a distant convent-bell like a spring that takes its course through some rich Ringing the Angelus; and now approach'd vein of mineral, we improve and imperceptibly-nor The hour for stir and village-gossip there, in the head only, but in the heart. Our prejudices The hour Rebekah came, when from the well leave us, one by one. Seas and mountains are no She drew with such alacrity to serve longer our boundaries. We learn to love, and esteem, The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard and admire beyond them. Our benevolence extends Footsteps; and lo, descending by a path itself with our knowledge. And must we not return Trodden for ages, many a nymph appear'd, better citizens than we went! For the more we Appear'd and vanish'd, bearing on her head become acquainted with the institutions of other Her earthen pitcher. It call'd up the day countries, the more highly must we value our own. Ulysses landed there; and long I gazed, Like one awaking in a distant time. (159) I threw down my pen in triumph. "The question," said I, "is set to rest for ever. And yet-" "And yet-" I must still say. The wisest of men seldom went out of the walls of Athens; and for that worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to which we are most liable when most at our ease, is there not after all a surer and yet pleasanter remedy, a remedy for which we have only to cross the threshold? A Piedmontese nobleman, into whose company I fell at Turin, had not long before experienced its efficacy: and his story, which he told me without reserve, was as follows. "I was weary of life, and, after a day, such as few have known and none would wish to remember, was hurrying along the street to the river, when I felt a sudden check. I turned and beheld a little boy, who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice. His look and manner were irresistible. Not less so was the lesson he had learnt. "There are six of us; and we are dying for want of food.'-'Why should I not,' said I to myself, relieve this wretched family? I have the means; and it will not delay me many minutes. But what, if it does?' The scene of misery he conducted me to, I cannot describe. I threw them my purse; and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyesit went as a cordial to my heart. I will call again to-morrow,' I cried. Fool that I was, to think of leaving a world, where such pleasure was to be had and so cheaply!'" XII. THE FOUNTAIN. IT was a well Of whitest marble, white as from the quarry; And richly wrought with many a high relief, At length there came the loveliest of them all, Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, Canova, XIII. BANDITTI. "TIs a wild life, fearful and full of change, Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest; When along the shore, (161) 1 Assuredly not, if the last has laid a proper foundation. And by the path that, wandering on its way, Leads through the fatal grove where Tully fell Knowledge makes knowledge as money makes money, nor ever perhaps so fast as on a journey. |