FLORENCE-THE ARNO.

91

ideas of comparison, which have so often put the sublimity of admiration to flight on this classic soil. The Cathedral and its belfry suggested the grotesque similitude of a huge architectural ZEBRA and its KEEPER-the former with a coating or skin, consisting of alternate stripes of black and white marble-the latter exhibiting, on its exterior, all the colours of the rainbow -all the chequers of a gigantic harlequin! Is there no mitigation of the penalty due to this gothic and tasteless idea? What could have suggested these horrible stripes of black and white marble? If a linen-draper or calicoprinter embellished his villa on Blackheath or Hampstead-hill with such decorations, he would convulse the metropolis of old England with laughter at the shop from which the idea originated.

But if I have ventured to criticise the exterior of this venerable pile, I should be sorry to make free with the interior, where the relics of so many holy saints repose. "Here (says Lady Morgan) are the whole bodies of the Saints Zanobi and Podio, a thumb of St. John the Baptist, an elbow of St. Andrew the Apostle, a nail of the cross, and a thorn of the crown." Although I cannot admire the tartan plaid of marble with which the Campanile is dressed, the view from its summit is calculated to afford exquisite delight. It is superior to that from the Boboli Gardens, as it commands an excellent coup d'œil of the city itself, besides an enchanting panorama of the VAL D'ARNO and surrounding Apennines. I advise every traveller to ascend the Campanile on a clear day, and he will be well rewarded for his pains.

But we have not yet reached the renowned Arno, "which, (says Mr. Eustace) forms one of the greatest ornaments of Florence, and contributes not a little to its fame." I wish Mr. Eustace had stated the nature of these beauties or ornamental qualities of the Arno-for I could not see them. It is a yellow muddy stream, or rather stagnant pool, so slow in its motion, that it requires a fixed attention to ascertain any current at all—and so shallow, that men are seen wading across it in every direction. Nine-tenths of its bottom would, indeed, be bare, except after heavy falls of rain in the mountains, were there not a dam thrown across it, just below the city, to keep the bed of the river out of sight, and to prevent the beautiful marble arches of PONTE TRINITA from vaulting over rugged gravel and arid sand.* Such is the far-famed Arno, along the banks of which the public promenades are constructed, and

* Like all Italian rivers, the Arno is liable to great and sudden inundations. A very memorable one occurred just 500 years ago, and demolished three out of its four bridges. In this awful catastrophe one of the heathen divinities was forced to swim for his life; but whether his martial and marble Godship reached the bottom or the banks of the Arno, is left undecided by history. "In the destruction of the old bridge, (says the Gibbon of Tuscany) the sup posed statue of MARS fell down and was carried away by the flood." This

take, on both sides of the river, as well here as at Pisa, the name of LUNG' ARNO-signifying, on the right bank, LUNG-WARMER-on the left, LungHARMER. The span of the Trinita or Carraja Bridge makes all the difference between Summer and Winter in Florence. The LUNG' ARNO, on the North side of the river, being sheltered by the city from the tramontane winds, and open to the sun, is warm, or even hot-while, at the same moment, Schneider's side being exposed to the Apennine blast, and excluded from the solar beams, is chilling cold. And yet the warm side of the Arno is the more dangerous of the two for the sensitive invalid. Thus, while pacing the promenade between the two bridges above-mentioned, the wind being northerly, the temperature will be felt very high, so as readily to bring out perspiration; but the instant we come abreast of any of the streets at right angles, such as the Piazza St. Trinita, or the Vigna Nuova, we are stricken by an icy current of air, the more injurious, from the open state of the pores and the sudden transition of the temperature. On the other side of the Arno it is permanently more cold, and, when the Sirocco prevails, we are exposed to currents of that debilitating and suffocating wind at the crossings of streets-but these are not dangerous. From whatever point of the compass, however, the breezes blow along whatever street they sweep, even in this pride of Italian cities they carry on their wings, not "airs from Heaven," but "blasts from Hell,” saturated with reeking vapours from all UNUTTERABLE THINGS.. Mr. Eustace tells us, indeed, that Florence is “ airy, clean, and sometimes rising towards grandeur." I deny the second assertion, and I appeal to ocular demonstration, not merely in obscure streets, but throughout every piazza and square in that great capital. Let the traveller walk, for instance, through the Piazza St. Maria NOVELLA (the largest in Florence) in the middle of day, and let him halt before the obelisk in its centre. . He will there see what I shall not describe. If not satisfied, let him repair to the PIAZZA DEL DUOMO itself, and there contemplate the pagan sacrifices that are offered up along its sacred walls in broad noon-day ! . Nay, I assert that the

circumstance may convey some idea of the rapidity of an Italian river after rains.

There is an anecdote connected with the Trinita Bridge which deserves record. A poor maniac leaped from its central arch into the swollen stream, with the intent of self-destruction, and was drowning. The cook of a neighbouring hotel, who was crossing the bridge, instantly threw off his jacket, plunged into the river, and saved the life of a fellow-creature, amidst the plaudits of admiring spectators-one of whom took care to rifle the jacket of five pauls, (the only money which the poor cook possessed) before he got up again to claim his clothes! The Prince, however, was more generous than his people, and conferred an order of merit on the cook.

FLORENCE-THE STREETS.

93

"gates of Paradise," as Michael Angelo styled the portals of the Baptistery, are unsafe to enter, unless we afterwards have recourse to the "holy water" in the FONT, to purify our bodies as well as sanctify our souls. Look at the PALAZZO PITTI, the residence of royalty. It is very gloomy and very grand. The bayonet keeps its walls undefiled. But turn down into any one of the streets that lead from that splendid palace towards the banks of the Arno, and the unaccustomed eye will revolt from the accumulations of filth and corruption that every where present themselves! Such are the scenes wherein the young gentry and nobility of England are to form their taste, polish their manners, refine their senses, cultivate their understandings—and finish their education!

One word to the Grand Duke. It will reach his royal ear circuitously, if not directly. He may easily purge his proud capital of these foul and disgraceful blots by a single order to the police, and by very practicable arrangements with the municipal authorities. While breakfasting at MENTONE, a town in the territory of the Prince of Monacho, I was attracted by a "CODE NAPOLEONE," hung up in the Salle a Manger, which prohibited FILTH in the streets. I immediately walked out through the town, and, to my astonishment, found that the orders were complied with. Now, if the Grand Duke of Tuscany cannot accomplish what a petty sycophant of Bonaparte has done, the epithet "Grand" should be dropped at once.

And yet, with all the disadvantages of her rigorous climate-her chilling tramontanes from the North-her Siroccos from the South-and the malodorous gales within her walls-Florence, for people in health, is one of the most pleasant residences in Italy. I have alluded to the filth of her streets and houses; but every thing is comparative in this world. What must be the case in the rest of Italy, when a fair traveller (authoress of Rome in the Nineteenth Century) congratulates herself, on entering Tuscany, in the following terms?

"From the constant irritation of mind produced by the frequent sight of wretchedness which is far beyond the reach of casual relief-from incessant altercations with cheating individuals of every description, whose brutal manners teach one to become almost as brutal as themselves-from the continual fear which assails one, that the filth of the streets and houses will infect the air and breed a pestilence—and from dreading to get out of one's carriage, lest one should encounter a touch carrying pollution with it—how delightful to find one's self surrounded with happy smiling faces-to see people decently attired-to be treated with civility-to live in comfortable habitations-and to have no need to recoil from one's fellow-creatures."

Such were the feelings of a talented English lady on entering TUSCANY, where a better government, greater industry, and a more bracing air, have rendered the inhabitants a contrast to most of their neighbours. But Flo

rence has great attractions of another kind. It would be difficult to select an individual from any class of society, whose sentient principle is capable of receiving impressions from without, or generating reflexions from within, who might not find, in this city and its vicinity, most interesting objects of study and admiration for weeks, months, or even years. Exercise of the intellectual faculties contributes to pleasure, in the same way that exercise of the corporeal functions contributes to health. But the former exertion requires, in general, stimulation; whereas the latter is under the command of the will. The short tour from the Apennines to the Promontory of Sorentum presents more food for intellectual excitement-more objects of varied and profound contemplation, than a journey over land from the Thames to the Ganges or a circumnavigation of the globe. Greece has been a CORPSE* for centuries; and the monuments of her arts are dispersed on the four winds. She lives only in memory! Egypt is a MUMMY, whose features can scarcely be recognized. Her pyramids are empty, and her catacombs will soon be tenantless. India is a huge prison, where the human mind has been frozen, though beneath a vertical sun-spell-bound in the adamantine chains of a gloomy superstition-paralyzed, as to all progression, by a senseless policy, for forty centuries. The intermediate countries are little better than hordes of semi-barbarians, presenting few excitements so strong as the desire to get out of them. Italy is different. Her mountains, her vallies, and her plains are still romantic, beautiful, fertile. She is peopled almost as numerously by the dead as by the living-the former in shapes and colours more animated than the latter! The results of ancient genius and of modern art-of natural talent and of acquired science-the efforts of the human mind and body, in past and present times, are here accumulated to a greater extent than in any other country on the face of the globe.

It is at Florence that the intellectual banquet is first spread profusely before the traveller. The painter and the poet may here copy from nature and art. The philosopher and the historian are here presented, at every step, with wrecks and records of the past, that cannot fail to excite the most intense exercise of their intellectual faculties

Est copia nobis,

Res gestæ, regumque, ducumque, et tristia bella—

The devotees of literature and science are here surrounded with ample materials for contemplation and study-while the great mass of visitors and temporary sojourners are overwhelmed, overpowered, by the endless succession of SIGHTS, one half of which they cannot see, and one hundredth part of which

*See Lord Byron's simile.

RISE AND FALL OF ITALY.

95

they cannot comprehend! Italy, in truth, is not more prolific of those causes that kindle up fever in the body, than of those which generate fervor of the mind. It is the land of excitement, mental and corporeal ;-and, if so, why are her sons sunk in apathy and sloth? The problem is not very difficult of solution. Vivid excitement and "plenary indulgence" of the senses are as certainly succeeded by exhaustion and innervation, as prodigality is followed by poverty, fatigue by labour, and sleep by exercise. This is not less an historical fact than a physiological maxim. Of the innumerable, the nameless hordes that have rushed over the Alps from the borders of the Rhine, the Elbe, the Vistula, and the Danube, impelled by the accumulated energies of their rigorous climes, or the thirst of plunder, each has regularly melted down beneath the influence of Italian skies and Italian pleasures, to furnish effeminate subjects for successive conquests. Or, to use the more expressive language of the Tuscan historian, (Pignotti) "The sturdy valour of the warriors of the North became gradually softened and unnerved by the mildness of the climate and the delights of the South."* But it may appear enigmatical, or contradictory, that the Italians should have previously conquered the world. The solution of this problem is not difficult. In the first place, the Romans had a world to conquer-no unimportant part of the Postulatum. In the second place, a constant state of warfare kept the energies of a poor, brave, and uncorrupted people in perpetual operation, the widening circle of conquest being regularly converted into an extending sphere of amalgamation and strength, till the burning sands of Lybia, and the frozen shores of Thulé -the pillars of Hercules and the wilds of Scythia, acknowledged the Roman sway. So far, steady discipline had prevailed over barbarous courage-and steel over gold. The Roman empire became one dreary and monotonous prison. But now the scene changed. The influx of wealth from other countries, and the relaxing skies of their own, prepared the way for luxury, effeminacy, vice, depravity. The heart of this vast body politic became rotten, and streams of corruption permeated every vein. The extremities of this colossal empire were paralyzed—and re-action at length ensued. Then it was that Goth and Vandal-that "fiery Frank and furious Hun" scaled the mighty Alps-gazed on the fertile plains of Italy-inhaled, with wild rapture, the balmy gales of that terrestrial paradise-shook their glittering falchions in the beams of her setting sun-and rushed down, in resistless torrents, upon her beautiful vales, overturning the monuments of her former greatness, scattering on the winds the literature of her sages, and subjugating the degenerate sons of her heroes and demigods! Wave after wave of these barbarian invaders perished by the sword, or drank the cup of Circé, and

* Pignotti's History of Tuscany, translated by Browning, Vol. I. p.

148.