Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

tants of the Sette Communi are Cimbri. Q. E. D.

Thus we are told by Busching, that" in this district is preserved the ancient Cimbric language, or (to speak more exactly) the modern Saxon idiom; but in such perfection, that Frederic 4th of Denmark, who satisfied himself, in his own person, of the truth, declared that it was not spoken in so polished a manner in his own court"--and this account, though in itself contradictory, we are (heaven help us!) expected to believe. But, not to let the cause be prejudiced by a bad advocate, and supposing his Danish majesty to have said, not that he had never heard Saxon, but that he had never heard Danish spoken in so genuine a manner in his court, and supposing the thousand oral traditions, yet preserved here, of this prince and members of the Sette Communi were true (though one must be a beast to believe them), what is to be deduced from them, other than that this people speak Danish?-which is, after all, a lie. But, not to waste words on this matter, I send you a specimen of Bossuet's Catechism, translated into their tongue, and which will probably convey some preciser notions than those with which we have been hitherto favoured. The learned who have heretofore written on the subject perhaps considered this as too simple and vulgar an expedient.

A subordinate point appeared to me to deserve investigation; to wit, whether y had any national denomination amongst themselves, which, like our highland name of Gaël, might be indicative of their origin. But

though I rummaged books and interrogated all who had made a study of this people, I could never find one, dead or living, who had ever made the inquiry. Being however persuaded that this was very essential to the investigation of the question, I sought out these savages in their huts and hired farms, and talked with such as could speak Italian, both in my own person and through an Italian servant. But, as to the point at issue, all assured me they had no name for themselves but that of the Sette Communi. At last, my servant asserted that he had found one who said they had another name in their own language, which this brighter barbarian informed me was Sieben perghe!

66

You will probably, as well as myself, sce nothing in this but the translation of the Italian name of the Sette Communi. But what changes might not be wrung upon it by one who was disposed to chime into the ordinary cant of the hunters of national monuments! Sieben perghe, it is true,” they would say, may signify seven burghs. But these words may also signify seven mountains, or seven shepherds." In the first case, they would therefore probably send us in search of the origin of these people to some city situated upon seven hills, as to Rome or Constantinople; in the second, we should have to hunt out seven leaders of pastoral tribes; and find them perhaps in the Tartarian tales!

One more circumstance appears to me to be interesting in the story of the Sette Communi.

It should seem, that the fidelity

with which they served the lords,
to whom they became subject,
had won from these petty tyrants
many privileges at an early period
of modern Italian story, and there
exist authentic monuments of
those accorded them by the Vis
contis and the Scaligers. They
did not experience less indulgence
from the Venetian republic on
falling under her dominion; for,
though they were subjected, as
to many points, to the provincial
of the circle in which
government
they lay, they in many other re-
spects legislated for themselves,
and may be said to have had a
parliament of their own, whose
place of sittings is still to be seen
in the town of Asiago. It will,
however, be scarcely necessary to
add, that the Sette Communi lost
their privileges on being subjected
to the yoke of Austria. They
are now entirely subjected to the
provincial government of Vi-

cenza.

I have now put together all that appeared to me worthy of notice, in what has been written, or reported of this people: but if I had extracted one half of what has actually been put in print, on this subject, I might have filled a quarto. Believing, however, that you have, as well as myself, little taste for hunting possibilities under the disguise of probabilities, I abstained from the task; considering that should you be given to this unsubstantial chase, we have sufficient home-brewed trash of the kind without resorting to foreign markets.

The weather, which has driven the inhabitants of the Sette Communi into the plains, seems to have pursued them; yet, nobody

here, except myself, has lighted
a fire, though the fleas are already
put down by the cold; a riddance
which I consider as counterba-
lancing the worst that winter can
do unto me. People here do not
usually light their fires till after
St. Martin's day, which falls, I
think, about the 10th of No-

vember.

*

VENETIAN FESTIVALS.

(From the same.)

The Christmas holidays, properly speaking, are just past. The first, beginning with Christmas eve, is a day of great festivity with the Venetians; one of those on which the head of a house usually entertains his family and friends; almost every such person having a day, as St. Martin's or Christmas eve, appropriated to such a purpose. On these occasions the rich and liberal feed many, and feast high, though in the present instance, as it is the vigil of a holiday, and one of those very few meager days which are (generally speaking) observed by the Italian laity, their fare is confined to loaves and fishes. Even I cannot refuse a tribute to the excellence of the table of Christmas eve, though, after feeding two or three months on Catholic and frugal cates in Tuscany, where

"il cane sen doleva e 'l gatto Che gli ossi rimanean troppo puliti,"

Pulci

[blocks in formation]

because more varied on these solemn days. On these the Italians usually dine late; and on this occasion the lower people of Venice seldom dine at all, working double tides at supper. The practice seems to originate in the notion that it is not right to make superfluous meals on this solemn day, the inconsistency of turning the single one, to which they confine themselves, into a feast, having nothing which is revolting to their ideas. It should, however, be observed, that this practice depends purely upon popular opinion, and on no injunction of the church.

Speaking of these feasts, I was invited, I recollect, once, on St. Martin's day, by a hospitable family of Vicenza, but declined the honour, on being informed by an annual guest that the table was laid on that occasion with forty covers. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive any thing more tedious than one of these solemn repasts, on whatever occasion it may be held, at which every dish is carved and circled at intervals. This is, no doubt, a most rational custom in the main, leaving host and guests at liberty; but the time, occupied by the practice, when the society is numerous, is surely more than a counterbalance to the convenience. I remember, for instance, being once present at a dinner, given by the cardinal pro-secretary of state at Rome, where the company consisted of twenty-five persons, and the dinner, in consequence, lasted for three hours. I don't know whether three or four other English, who were present, suffered as much as I did, but, for myself, I

[ocr errors]

never felt half so fatigued at any after-dinner-sitting in England or in Scotland. For, though both customs are bad enough, it is surely better to drink when one is not dry than to eat when one is not hungry.

For the Venetian holidays I have mentioned there are set dishes, as there are with us, and some of them of as strange composition: witness, one of fruits, preserved with sugar, spices, and mustard, which is the Venetian equivalent for a minced-pie. For the rest, the fare of Christmas eve, though meagre, is, as I have said, magnificent, always bating a sort of pye-pottage, called torta de lasagne, which might, I suppose, pair off with plum-porridge itself.

There is indeed one circum. stance very favorable to the meagre department of the kitchen. The Mediterranean and Adriatic, in addition to most of those of our own coasts, have various delicate fish which are not to be found in the British seas. Of the tunny, sword-fish, and many others of the larger classes, you have of course read. Some others, which are rare with us, as the red mullet, swarm in these latitudes; and some tribes which are known to us, here break into varieties which are infinitely better flavoured than the parent stock. Amongst such may be reckoned a sort of lobster, a crab of gentler kind, and various shell fish, entitled sea-fruit in Italy, all which might well merit the eloquence of an Athenæus.

But not to pass by the torta de lasagne, of which I had nearly lost sight, though its taste is fresh

in my recollection: it is composed of oil, onions, paste, parsley, pine-nuts, raisins, currants, and candied orange peel, a dish which, you will recollect, is to serve as a prologue to fish or flesh!

It ought, however, to be stated that the ordinary pottage of this country, and which is, generally speaking, that of all ranks in Venice, requires no prejudices of education or habit to make it go down, but may be considered as a dish to be eat at sight. It consists in rice boiled in beef broth, not sodden, and rari nantes, as in England and France, but firm, and in such quantity as to nearly, or quite, absorb the bouillon in which they are cooked: to this is added grated Parmesan cheese. And the mess admits other additions, as tomatas, onions, celery, parsley, &c. Rice thus dressed, which have drunk up the broth, are termed risi destirai, as capable of being spread, right or left, with the spoon. There is also a vulgar variety of the dish, termed risi a la bechèra, or rice dressed butcher fashion. In this the principal auxiliary is marrow, which, if it is entirely incorporated in the grain, makes a pottage that (speaking after a friend) would almost justify the sacrifice of an Esau.

The mode of cooking the rice to a just degree of consistency, seems taken from the Turks, who have a saying that rice, as a proof of being well drest, should be capable of being counted. You will recollect the importance attached to this grain by the Janis saries, whose rice-kettles serve as standards; and, in general, by

the Turkish militia, which is recruited by parading them, and calling for the services of such as eat the rice of the Grand Signior. An almost equal degree of respect is attached to this food by the Venetians, and it is a common thing, on hiring a Venetian maid-servant, for her to stipulate for a certain monthly salary, and her rice.

Another custom, derived from the long intercourse of Venice with Turkey, is the presenting coffee at visits. Neither do the Venetians yield to their masters in the manufacture of this beverage, the flavour of which depends much more on its mode of preparation than its quality; and it is curious enough that England, where the coffee-berry and the cacao-nut are to be had in perfection, should be the only country in Europe where the drink which is composed from them is unsufferable.

To return to a theme on which I have already touched, the strange fashions of food which have some how or other passed into use amongst different nations, whilst they are poison to their neighbours, from the torta de lasagne of Venice to the partridge and poultice of England; there seems to be but one general exception to this principle, which is the coupling bread, or some substitute for it, with meat-a practice which is, I believe, common to all nations that have grain, or farinaceous fruit or root, within their reach. this fact does not prove that there is any natural standard of taste: for this union of bread and meat is not dictated by instinct, though

But

in what it originates, except in the agreement of different countries in its wholesomeness, I know not. A strong proof of its not being dictated by instinct I have witnessed in Italian as well as English children, who are both trained with difficulty to the practice, and usually enticed into it by bonuses of beef and mutton. A whimsical confirmation, indeed, of my opinion was lately offered, by this place, in an old gentleman, who, not having been in infancy either beat or bribed into bread, never adopted it in afterlife, continuing to his death a curious specimen of unsophisticated carrion. If his example makes against the notion of this use originating in instinct, it might also (as far as a single instance can tell) suggest some doubt of its necessity; for the carnivorous person lived long and merrily.

The present anecdote, and some others which I have not given you, and more particularly the having once seen a man eat melon with Spanish snuff (a sight not singular, as I am told, in Italy), have almost forced the conviction upon me, that there is no such thing as a gamut for the palate. If you urge, in opposition, the general analogy of nature, I do not know what battle I can make; but if you attack me with the trite instance of the passion of young children for spirits, I shall observe that they soon grow out of it: and this, therefore, seems to prove nothing more than an early obtuseness of palate, which is gratified by any thing that is stimulating. And something analogous may be re

marked in the young of other animals, as in puppy-dogs, who eat filth till they come to dog's estate, &c.

Having related the domestic uses of Chrismas eve, there yet remain those of two other days to be described. The table of Christmas day is besieged by a much smaller circle than on the vigil of the feast, being, on the present occasion, only surrounded by the family, or those intimately connected with it. Here too there are dishes of prescription, though I never heard that any penalty was attached to the abstaining from them, as is the case in England. But as almost every superstition exists, in its whole or parts, all the world over, so this is also to be found here under the general head of Moon, who, as the arbitress of tides, is the great cause of all inexplicable effects. Hence a lower Venetian, who has no money in his pocket, at the appearance of this planet, expects to remain without it till she has repaired her horns.

St. Stephen's day brings with it, I believe, little that is remarkable, except the general rush from all parts of Venice to the theatres, which, having been closed for a short time, re-open on that day. There seems to be as much superstition, indeed, as to being seen at the Opera, at the theatre of the Fenice, on that occasion, as is attached to eating the torta de lasagne on Chrismas-eve. The only intelligible attraction is, that the Opera is always new; but as such, it must necessarily be deficient in the precision of its machinery. Notwithstanding such an objection, a box, on this

« AnteriorContinuar »