TO HIS MOTHER. Florence, Dec. 19, N. S. 1739. tions; if not, we must wait for the carnival, when all those things come of course. In the mear time, it is impossible to want entertainment; the We spent twelve days at Bologna, chiefly (as famous gallery, alone, is an amusement for months most travellers do) in seeing sights; for as we we commonly pass two or three hours every mornknew no mortal there, and as it is no easy matter ing in it, and one has perfect leisure to consider to get admission into any Italian house, without all its beauties. You know it contains many hunvery particular recommendations, we could see no dred antique statues, such as the whole world can company but in public places; and there are none not atch, beside the vast collection of paintings, in that city but the churches. We saw, there- medals, and precious stones, such as no other fore, churches, palaces, and pictures from morning prince was ever master of; in short, all that the to night; and the 15th of this month set out for rich and powerful house of Medicis has, in so Florence, and began to cross the Appenine moun- many years, got together. And besides this city tains: we travelled among and upon them all abounds with so many palaces and churches, that that day, and, as it was but indifferent weather, you can hardly place yourself any where without were commonly in the middle of thick clouds, having some fine one in view, or at least some statue that utterly deprived us of a sight of their beauties: or fountain, magnificently adorned; these unfor this vast chain of hills has its beauties, and all doubtedly are far more numerous than Genoa can the vallies are cultivated; even the mountains pretend to; yet, in its general appearance I can not themselves are many of them so within a little of think that Florence equals it in beauty. Mr. Waltheir very tops. They are not so horrid as the pole is just come from being presented to the elec Alps, though pretty near as high; and the whole tress palatine dowager; she is a sister of the late road is admirably well kept, and paved throughout, great duke's; a stately old lady, that never goes which is a length of fourscore miles, and more. out but to church, and then she has guards, and We left the Pope's donfinions, and lay that night eight horses to her coach. She received him with in those of the Grand Duke of Fiorenzuola, a pal- ceremony, standing under a huge black canopy, try little town, at the foot of mount Giogo, which and, after a few minutes' talking, she assured him is the highest of them all. Next morning we of her good will, and dismissed him; she never went up it; the post house is upon its very top, sees any body but thus in form; and so she passes and usually involved in clouds, or half buried in her life, *poor woman! * the snow. Indeed there was none of the last at the time we were there, but it was still a dismal habitation. The descent is most excessively steep, and the turnings very short and frequent: however we performed it without any danger, and in coming down could dimly discover Florence, and I THINK I have not yet told you how we left that the beautiful plain about it, through the mists; charming place Genoa; how we crossed a mounbut enough to convince us, it must be one of the tain all of green marble, called Buchetto; how we noblest prospects upon earth in summer. That came to Tortona, and waded through the mud to afternoon we got thither: and Mr. Mann, the come to Castel St. Giovanni, and there eat musresident, had sent his servant to meet us at the tard and sugar with a dish of crows gizzards: gates, and conduct us to his house. He is the secondly, how we passed the famous plains best and most obliging person in the world. The next night we were introduced at the Prince of Craon's assembly (he has the chief power here in the Grand Duke's absence).-The princess and he were extremely civil to the name of Walpole, so we were asked to stay supper, which is as much TO MR. WEST. Florence, Jan. 15, 1740. Qua trebie glaucas salices intersecat unda, as to say, you may come and sup here whenever Nor, thirdly, how we passed through Fiacenza, you please; for after the first invitation this is al- Parma, Modena, entered the territories of the ways understood. We have also been at the pope; stayed twelve days at Bologna; crossed the Countess Suarez's, a favourite of the late duke, Appenines, and afterwards arrived at Florence. and one that gives the first movement to every None of these things have I told you, nor do I inthing gay that is going forward here. The news is every day expected from Vienna of the great utchess's delivery; if it be a boy, here will be all orts of balls, masquerades, operas, and illumina Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. tend to tell you, till you ask me some questions concerning them. No, not even of Florence itself, except that it is at fine as possible, and has every ⚫ Persons of very high rank, and withal very good sense, will only feel the pathos of this exclamation. thing in it can bless the eyes. But, before I enter were to pass there; and the next morning we set into particulars, you must make your peace both forward on our journey through a country very with me and the Venus de Medicis, who, let me oddly composed; for some miles you have a con ter you, is highly and justly offended at you for tinual scene of little mountains cultivated from top hot inquiring, long before this, concerning her to bottom with rows of olive trees, or else elms, each symmetry and proportions. TO HIS MOTHER. of which has its vine twining about it, and mixing with the branches; and corn sown between all the ranks. This, diversified with numerous small houses and convents, makes the most agreeable prospect in the world: but, all of a sudden, it alters Florence, March 19, 1740. to black barren hills, as far as the eye can reach, THE pope is at last dead, and we are to set out that seem never to have been capable of culture, for Rome on Monday next. The conclave is still and are as ugly as useless. Such is the country sitting there, and likely to continue so some time for some time before one comes to Mount Radicolonger, as the two French cardinals are but just fani, a terrible black hill, on the top of which we arrived, and the German ones are still expected. were to lodge that night. It is very high, and difIt agrees mighty ill with those that remain en- ficult of ascent; and at the foot of it we were much closed: Ottoboni is already dead of an apoplexy, embarrassed by the fall of one of the poor horses Altieri and several others are said to be dying, or that drew us. This accident obliged another chaise, very bad: yet it is not expected to break up till which was coming down, to stop also; and out of after Easter. We shall be at Sienna the first night, it peeped a figure in a red cloak, with a handkerspend a day there, and in two more go to Rome. chief tied round its head, which, by its voice and One begins to see in this country the first promises mien, eemed a fat old woman; but upon its getof an Italian spring, clear unclouded skies, and ting out, appeared to be Senesino, who was returnwarm suns, such as are not often felt in England; ing from Naples to Sienna, the place of his birth yet, for your sake, I hope at present you have your and residence. On the highest part of the mounproportion of them, and that all your frosts, and tain is an old fortress, and near it a house built by snows, and short-breaths, are by this time utterly one of the grand dukes for a hunting-seat, but now vanished. I have nothing new or particular to in- converted into an inn: it is the shell of a large form you of; and, if you see things at home go on fabric; but such an inside, such chambers and acmuch in their old course, you must not imagine commodations that your cellar is a palace in comthem more various abroad. The diversions of a parison: and your cat sups and lies much better Florentine Lent are composed of a sermon in the than we did; for it being a saint's eve, there was morning, full of hell and the devil; a dinner at nothing but eggs, We devoured our meagre fare; noon, full of fish and meagre diet; and, in the and, after stopping up the windows with the evening what is called a conversazione, a sort of as- quilts, were obliged to lie upon the straw beds in our sembly at the principal people's houses, full of I clothes. Such are the conveniences in a road, that can not tell what; besides this, there is twice a is, as it were, the great thoroughfare of all the week a very grand concert. * world. Just on the other side of this mountain, at Ponte-Centino, one enters the patrimony of the church; a most delicious country, but thinly inhabited. That night brought us to Viterbo, a city of a more lively appearance than any we had lately Rome, April 2, N. S. 1740. met with; the houses have glass windows, which THIS is the third day since we came to Rome, is not very usual here; and most of the streets are but the first hour I have had to write to you in. terminated by a handsome fountain. Here we had The journey from Florence cost us four days, one the pleasure of breaking our fast on the leg of an of which was spent at Sienna, an agreeably clean, old hare and some broiled crows. Next morning, old city, of no great magnificence or extent; but in in descending Mount Viterbo, we first discovered a fine situation and good air. What it has most (though at near thirty miles distance) the cupola considerable is its cathedral, a huge pile of marble, of St. Peter's, and a little after began to enter on black and white laid alternately, and laboured with an old Roman pavement, with now and then a a Gothic niceness and delicacy in the old fashioned ruined tower, or a sepulchre on each hand. We way. Within too are some paintings and sculpture now had a clear view of the city, though not to the of considerable hands. The sight of this and some best advantage, as coming along a plain quite upod collections that were showed us in private houses, a level with it; however, it appeared very vast, and were a sufficient employment for the little time we surrounded with magnificent villas and gardens. We soon after crossed the Tiber, a river that ancient Rome made more considerable than any mern 'TO HIS MOTHER. ⚫Clement the Twelfth. of its own could have done: however, it is not con- see that vast church, and the most magnificent in temptibly small, but a good handsome stream; the world, undoubtedly, illuminated (for it was very deep, yet somewhat of a muddy complexion. night) by thousands of little crystal lamps, disposen The first entrance of Rome is prodigiously striking. in the figure of a huge cross at the high altar, and It is by a noble gate, designed by Michael Angelo, seeming to hang alone in the air. All the light and adorned with statues; this brings you into a proceeded from this, and had the most singular eflarge square, in the midst of which is a vast obelisk fect imaginable as one entered the great door. Soon of granite, and in front you have at one view two after came one after another, I believe, thirty prochurches of a handsome architecture, and so much cessions, all dressed in linen frocks, and girt with alike, that they are called the Twins; with three a cord, their heads covered with a cowl all over, streets, the middlemost of which is one of the long-only two holes to see through left. Some of them est in Rome. As high as my expectation was were all black, others red, others white, others parraised, I confess, the magnificence of this city in-ty-coloured; these were continually coming and finitely surpasses it. You can not pass along a going with their tapers and crucifixes before them; street, but you have views of some palace, or and to each company, as they arrived and knelt church, or square, or fountain, the most picturesque before the great altar, were shown from a balcony, and noble one can imagine. We have not yet set at a great height, the three wonders, which are, about considering its beauties, ancient and modern, you must know, the head of the spear that woundwith attention; but have already taken a slighted Christ; St. Veronica's handkerchief, with the transient view of some of the most remarkable. miraculous impression of his face upon it: and a St. Peter's I saw the day after we arrived, and piece of the true cross, on the sight of which the was struck dumb with wonder. I there saw the people thump their breasts, and kiss the pavement cardinal D'Auvergne, one of the French ones, with vast devotion. The tragical part of the cere who, upon coming off his journey, immediately re-mony is half a dozen wretched creatures, who, with paired hither to offer up his vows at the high altar, their faces covered, but naked to the waist, are in and went directly into the conclave; the doors a side-chapel disciplining themselves with scourges of which we saw opened to him, and all the other full of iron prickles; but really in earnest, as our immured cardinals came thither to receive him. eyes can testify, which saw their backs and arms Upon his entrance they were closed again directly. so raw, we should have taken it for a red satin It is supposed they will not come to an agreement doublet torn, and showing the skin through, had about a pope till after Easter, though the confine- we not been convinced of the contrary by the ment is very disagreeable. I have hardly philoso- blood which was plentifully sprinkled about them. phy enough to see the infinity of fine things, that It is late; I give you joy of Porto-Bello, and many are here daily in the power of any body that has other things, which I hope are all true. ✦ money, without regretting the want of it; but custom has the power of making things easy to one. I have not yet seen his majesty of Great Britain, &c. though I have the two boys in the gardens of the Villa Borgese, where they go a shooting almost every day; it was at a distance, indeed, for we did THIS day being in the palace of his highness the not choose to meet them, as you may imagine. duke of Modena, he laid his most serene commands This letter (like all those the English send, or re- upon me to write to Mr. West, and said he thought ceive) will pass through the hands of that family, it for his glory, that I should draw up an inventory before it comes to those it was intended for. They of all his most serene possessions for the said West's do it more honour than it deserves; and all they perusal.Imprimis, a house, being in circumwill learn from thence will be, that I desire you ference a quarter of a mile, two fect and an inch; to give my duty to my father, and wherever else is due, and that I am, &c. TO HIS MOTHER. TO MR. WEST. Tivoli, May 20, 1740. the said house containing the following particulars, to wit, a great room. Item, another great room; item, a bigger room; item, another room; item, a vast room; item, a sixth of the same; a seventh ditto; an eighth as before; a ninth as abovesaid; a tenth (see No. 1. ;) item, ten more such, besides Rome, April 15, 1740. Good-Friday. twenty besides, which not to be too particular, we TO-DAY I am just come from paying my adora- shall pass over. The said rooms contain nine tions at St. Peter's to three extraordinary relics, chair, two tables, five stools, and a cricket. From which are exposed to public view only on these whence we shall proceed to the garden, containing two days in the whole year, at which time all the two millions of superfine laurel hedges, a clump confraternities in the city come in procession to of cypress trees, and half the river Teverone, that we them. It was something extremely novel to pisses into two thousand several chamberpots Finis-Dame Nature desired me to put in a list to Mæcenas's; and they told us there was a bridge of her little goods and chattels, and, as they were of communication, by which "andava il detto Sig. small, to be very minute about them. She has nor per trastullarsi coll istesso Orazio." In combuilt here three or four little mountains, and laid ing hither we crossed the Aqua Albulæ, a vile them out in an irregular semicircle; from certain little brook that stinks like a fury, and they say it others behind, at a greater distance, she has drawn has stunk so these thousand years. I forget the a canal, into which she has put a little river of hers, Piscina of Quintilius Varus, where he used to called Anio; she has cut a huge cleft between the keep certain little fishes. This is very entire, and two innermost of her four hills, and there she has there is a piece of the aqueduct that supplied it left it to its own disposal; which she has no sooner too; in the garden below is okl Rome, built in litdone, but, like a heedless chit, it tumbles headlong tle, just as it was, they say. There are seven down a declivity fifty feet perpendicular, breaks temples in it, and no houses at all: they say there itself all to shatters, and is converted into a shower were none. May 21. We have had the pleasure of going twelve miles out of our way to Palestrina. It has rained all day as if heaven and us were coming together. See my honesty, I do not mention a syllable of the temple of Fortune, because I really did not see it; which, I think, is pretty well for an old traveller. So we returned along the Via Prænestina, saw the Lacus Gabinus and Regillus, where, you know, Castor and Pollux appeared upon a certain occasion. And many a good old tomb we left on each hand, and many an aqueduct, of rain, where the sun forms many a bow, red, green, blue, and yellow. To get out of our metaphors without any further trouble, it is the most noble sight in the world. The weight of that quantity of waters, and the force they fall with, have worn the rocks they throw themselves among into a thousand irregular crags, and to a vast depth. In this channel it goes boiling along with a mighty noise till it comes to another steep, where you see it a second time come roaring down (but first you must walk two miles farther) a greater height than before, but not with that quantity of waters; for by this time it has divided itself, being crossed and opposed by the rocks, in four several streams, each of which, in emulation of the great one, will tumble down too; and it does tumble down, but not There are, indeed, two whole modern ones, works from an equally elevated place; so that you have of popes, that run about thirty miles a-piece in at one view all these cascades intermixed with length; one of them convey still the famous Aqua groves of olive and little woods, the mountains ris- Virgo to Rome, and adds vast beauty to the prosing behind them, and on the top of one (that pect. So we came to Rome again, where waited which forms the extremity of one of the half-cir- for us a splendidissimo regalo of letters: in one of cle's horns) is seated the town itself. At the very which came You, with your huge characters and extremity of that extremity, on the brink of the wide intervals, staring. I would have you to know, precipice, stands the Sibyl's temple, the remains I expect you should take a handsome crow-quill of a little rotunda, surrounded with its portico, when you write to me, and not leave room for a above half of whose beautiful Corinthian pillars pin's point in four sides of a sheet royal. Do you are still standing and entire; all this on one hand. but find matter, I will find spectacles. Dumb are whose fountains, and their channels dry. On the other, the open campagna of Rome, here I have more time than I thought, and I will emand there a little castle on a hillock, and the city ploy it in telling you about a ball that we were at itself on the very brink of the horizon, indistinctly the other evening. Figure to yourself a Roman seen (being eighteen miles off') except the dome villa; all its little apartments thrown open, and of St. Peter's; which, if you look out of your win-lighted up to the best advantage. At the upper dow, wherever you are, I suppose, you can see. I end of the gallery, a fine concert, in which La Jid not tell you that a little below the first fall, on Diamantina, a famous virtuoso, played on the the side of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, violin divinely, and sung angellically; Giovannino are little ruins which they show you for Horace's and Pasqualini (great names in musical story) house, a curious situation to observe the "Præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda also performed miraculously. On each side were ranged all the secular grand monde of Rome, the ambassadors, princesses, and all that. Among the rest II Serenissimo Pretendente (as the Montova Mæcenas did not care for such a noise, it seems, gazette calls him) displayed his rueful length of and built him a house (which they also carry one person, with his two young ones, and all his mirto see) so situated that it sees nothing at all of the istry around him. "Poi nacque un grazioso matter, and for any thing he knew there might be ballo," where the world danced, and I sat in a no such river in the world. Horace had another corner regaling myself with iced fruits, and other house on the other side of the Teverone, opposite pleasant rinfrescatives. TO MR. WEST. Rome, May, 1740. tunity of displaying all my erudition, that I may appear considerable in your eyes. This is the prospect from one window of the palace. From I AM to-day just returned from Alba, a good deal another you have the whole campagna, the city, fatigued; for you know the Appian is somewhat Antium, and the Tyrrhene sea (twelve miles distiresome. We dined at Pompey's; he indeed tant) so distinguishable, that you may see the ves was gone for a few days to his Tusculan, but, by sels sailing upon it. All this is charming. Mr. the care of his villicus, we made an admirable Walpole says our memory sees more than our meal. We had the dugs of a pregnant sow, a eyes in this country, which is extremely true; peacock, a dish of thrushes, a noble scarus, just since, for realities, Windsor, or Richmond Hill is fresh from the Tyrrhene, and some conchylia of infinitely preferable to Albano or Frescati. I am the lake with garum sauce: for my part I never now at home, and going to the window to tell you eat better at Lucullus's table. We drank half a it is the most beautiful of Italian nights, which, in dozen cyathi a-piece of ancient Alban to Pholoë's truth, are but just begun, (so backward has the health: and, after bathing, and playing an hour spring been here, and every where else, they say). at ball, we mounted our essedum again, and pro- There is a moon! there are stars for you! Do not ceeded up the mount to the temple. The priests you hear the fountain? Do not you smell the there entertained us with an account of a wonder-orange ilowers? That building yonder is the conful shower of birds' eggs, that had fallen two days vent of St. Isidore; and that eminence, with the before, which had no sooner touched the ground, cypress trees and pines upon it, the top of M. but they were converted into gudgeons; as also Quirinal.-This is all true, and yet my prospect that the night past a dreadful voice had been heard is not two hundred yards in length. We send out of the adytum, which spoke Greek during a full half hour, but nobody understood it. But quitting my Romanities, to your great joy and mine, let me tell you, in plain English, that we come from Albano. The present town lies within the enclosure of Pompey's villa in ruins. The Appian way runs through it, by the side of which, a little farther, is a large old tomb, with five pyramids upon it, which the learned suppose to be the burying-place of the family, because they do not know whose it can be else. But the vulgar assure you it is the sepulchre of the Curiatii, and by that name (such is their power) it goes. One drives to Castel Gondolfo, a house of the Pope's, situated on the top of one of the Collinette, that forms a brim to the basin commonly called the Alban lake. It is seven miles round; and directly opposite to you, It is exactly transcribed from a sepulchral marble on the other side, rises the Mons Albanus, much at the villa Giustiniani. I put stops to it, when I taller than the rest, along whose side are still dis-understand it. coverable (not to common eyes) certain little ruins of the old Alba Longa. They had need be very little, as having been nothing but ruins ever since the days of Tullus Hostilius. On its top is a house of the constable Colonna's where stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis. At the foot of the hill Gondolfo, are the famous outlets of the lake, built with hewn stone, a mile and a half under ground. Livy, you know, amply informs us of the foolish ccasion of this expense, and gives me this oppor However whimsical this humour may appear to some readers, I chose to insert it, as it gives me an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Gray was extremely skilled in the customs of the ancient Romans; and has catalogued, in his comInon-place book, their various eatables, wines, perfumes, clothes, medicines, &c. with great precision, referring under every articles to passages in the poets and historians where there names are mentioned. you some Roman inscriptions to entertain you. The first two are modern, transcribed from the Vatican Library by Mr. Walpole. Pontifices olim quem fundavere priores, Præciqua Sixtus perficit arte tholum ;* Mine is ancient, and I think not less curious. |