Letters from Abroad. NO. III—Italy
LETTERS FROM ABROAD.(1)
________
LETTER III.—ITALY.
I WRITE you, as you request, a very long letter, “on the
largest sized paper, and in the smallest hand-writing.” You
call the request a modest one, and I cannot but allow it has
some pretensions to bashfulness, not only inasmuch as it
comes in the corner of another, but because it is—let me
see—just twenty lines long. However, you see what I
think your twenty lines worth: and you are so accustomed,
in matters of intercourse, to have the part of obliger to your-
self, that it would be indecent to haggle with you about the
tare and tret of an epistle. If you send me forty lines, I
suppose I must write you a quarto.
You ask me to tell you a world of things about Italian
composers, singers, &c. Alas! my dear N., I may truly
say to you, that for music you must “look at home;” at
least as far as my own experience goes. Even the biogra-
phies which you speak of, are, I fear, not to be found in any
great quantity; but I will do my best to get them together.
Both Pisa and Genoa have little pretensions either to music
or books. We ought to be at Rome for one, and Milan for
the other. Florence perhaps has a reasonable quantity of
one thing, which, albeit you are of Italian origin, will mor-
tify you to hear; viz. that Mozart(4) is nothing in Italy, and
Rossini(5) every thing. Nobody even says any thing of Mozart,
His name appears to be suppressed by agreement; while Ros-
sini is talked of, written of, copied, sung, hummed, whistled,
and demi-semi-quavered from morning to night. If there is
a portrait in a shop-window, it is Rossini’s. If you hear a
song in the street, it is Rossini’s. If you go to a music-
shop to have something copied,—“An air of Rossini’s?”
Mayer,(8) I believe, is the only German who takes the turn
with him at the Opera here; but Mozart, be assured, never.
I believe they would shut their ears at a burst of his har-
mony, as your friends the Chinese did at Lord Macartney’s
band.(9)
I suspect, however, that there are more reasons than one
for this extraordinary piece of intolerance, and not altogether
so unhandsome as they appear at first sight. As to theatres,
I need not tell you the dislike which singers have to compo-
sitions that afford them no excuse for running riot in their
own quavers and cadences. They hate to be
They prefer a good, flimsy, dying sort of a “do-me-no-harm,
good-man,” whom they can twist about and desert as they
please. This is common to theatres every where. But in
Italy, besides a natural prejudice in favour of their own
composers, there has always been another, you know, against
that richness of accompaniment, with which the Germans
follow up their vocal music, turning every air, as it were,
into a triumphal procession. They think that if a melody is
full of nature and passion, it should be oftener suffered to
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make out its own merit, and triumph by its own sufficing
beauty: like Adam in the poem, when he walked forth to
meet the angel,—
Without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfections:
or Eve afterwards, when she received him,—
Undeck’d, save with herself; more lovely fair
Than wood-nymph, or the fairest goddess feign’d
Ofthree that in Mount Ida naked strove.
— — — — — No veil
She needed, virtue-proof: no thought infirm
Alter’d her cheek.(11)
(What poetry is there! what sentiment! what delicacy! what
words full of meaning!) You know what I think on this sub-
ject, when the composer is a truly great one like Paesiello:(12)
and I know what you think too, when the air is one of his
divinest, like Il Mio Ben in the opera of Nina.(13) But Rossini
is not Paesiello? True. He gives us a delightful air now and
then; but in the hurry of his industry and his animal spirits,
pours forth a torrent of common-places. His is not a flow
of music,—
It is, for the most part, common water, brisk in its course,
and bringing down only grains of gold, however worth sift-
ing. Nevertheless, he has animal spirits, he runs merrily;
his stream is for the most part native; and the Italians are
as willing to be made merry with “thin potations”(15) as with
old hock.(16) I meant to shew you how it was that they were
prepared to undervalue Mozart; and I think I can now ex-
plain to you, in one word, how it is that they contrive to
render themselves deaf to the rest of his merits, and to the
VOL. II. E
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inspiration which he himself drank at an Italian source.
Mozart was a German. I do not mean simply that he was a
German in music; but he was a German by birth. The
Germans in Italy, the lorders over Italian freedom and the
Italian soil, trumpet his superiority over Italian composers;
and however right they may be, at all events with regard to
modern ones, this is enough to make the Italians hate him.
It mortifies them the more, because they know that he is an
exception to the general dulness of their conquerors; and
not even the non-chalance of his own conduct towards kings
and composers (which was truly edifying*) could reconcile
*Even when this great musician was a child, he felt the superiority of
genius over rank. If his flatterers, however high their station, exhibited no
real feeling for the art, he played nothing but trifling pieces for their amuse-
ment, and was insensible even to their flattery. When called upon to dis-
play the astonishing prematurity of his powers before the Emperor Francis
the First, he said to his Majesty, with a simplicity that must have been
somewhat frightful at court, “Is not Mr. Wagenseil(17) here? We must send for
him; he understands the thing.” The Emperor sent for Wagenseil, who took
his Majesty’s place by the side of the performer. “Sir,” said Mozart, “I
am going to play one of your concertos; you must turn over the leaves for
me.” The Emperor Joseph the Second(18) said to him once, speaking of his
opera the Enlèvement du Serail,(19) “My dear Mozart, this is too fine for my
ears: there are too many notes.” “I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” replied
Mozart, “there are just as many as are necessary.”—See the “Lives of
Haydn and Mozart.”(20) The genius of Haydn was not of this self-sufficing and
jacobinical turn. He was eminently loyal and orthodox,—the reason, no
doubt, why the Quarterly Review(21) mentions his parting with his wife, and
“attaching himself to the society of Signora Borelli,”(22) with so much indif-
ference, or rather a tone of approbation. “Flesh and blood,” they say,
“could no longer bear it.”(23) We have no sort of objection, for our parts, if
this was the case; especially as his wife was “a prude and a devotee,” who
made him write masses for the monks;(24) whereas Signora Borelli was a
“lovely” woman, who sympathized in his pursuits till she died. But how
the Quarterly Reviewers settle all this with their conventional consciences,
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them to the misery of preferring any thing German to the
least thing Italian.
The Genoese are not a musical specimen of the Italians;
but the national talent seems lurking wherever you go. The
most beggarly minstrel gets another to make out a harmony
with him, on some sort of an instrument, if only a gourd
with a string or two. Such at least appeared to me a strange-
looking “wild-fowl” of a fiddle, which a man was strum-
ming the other day,—or rather a gourd stuck upon a long
fiddle of deal. Perhaps you know of such an instrument.
I think I have seen something like it in pictures. They all
sing out their words distinctly, some accompanying them-
selves all the while in the guitar style, others putting in a
symphony now and then, even if it be nothing better than
two notes always the same. There is one blind beggar who
seems an enthusiast for Rossini. Imagine a sturdy-looking
fellow in rags, laying his hot face against his fiddle, rolling
his blind eyeballs against the sunshine, and vociferating with
all the true open-mouth and syllabical particularity of the
we leave it to themselves to explain, and shall be glad to hear. As the
singers say, we shall be “all attention.” They are bound to cant in their most
choral style, to make amends for this incautious and profane ebullition,—
this extra-cathedram chaunt,(25)—this whistle in church-time; as strange as if a
Bishop, instead of the Athanasian creed,(26) or rather the Seventh Command-
ment, were to strike up “In the merry month of May.”(27) (See an article on
the Lives abovementioned, in the Review for October, 1817.)
The example of Mozart might be instructive to certain German men of ta-
lent, who do not blush to fall in with all the nonsense of the Allied Sovereigns.(28)
How delightful would it be, for instance, if M. Gentz,(29) when about to write
some legislation under his master’s eye, were to say, “Is Mr. Bentham(30) here?
we must send for him: he understands the thing.” Or if the Emperor should
say to him, “My dear Gentz, this is too free for my notions: there are too
many popular provisions,” for M. Gentz to answer, “I beg your Majesty’s
pardon: there are just as many as are necessary.”
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Italians, a part of one of the duets of that lively master.
IIis(31) companion having his eye-sight and being therefore not
so vivacious, sings his part with a sedater vigour; though even
when the former is singing a solo, I have heard him throw
in some unisons at intervals, as if his help were equally
wanting to the blind man, vocal as well as corporal.
Among the novelties that impress a stranger in Italy, I
have not before noticed the vivacity prevalent among all
classes of people. The gesticulation is not French. It has
an air of greater simplicity and sincerity, and has more to do
with the eyes, and expression of countenance. But after
being used to it, the English must look like a nation of
scorners and prudes. When serious, the women will walk
with a certain piquant stateliness, evidently the same which
impressed the ancient as well as modern poets of Italy, Vir-
gil in particular; but it has no haughtiness. You might
imagine them walking up to a dance, or priestesses of Venus(32)
approaching a temple. When lively, their manner out of
doors is that of our liveliest women within. If they make a
quicker movement than usual, if they recognise a friend, for
instance, or call out to somebody, or dispatch somebody
with a message, they have all the life, simplicity, and uncon-
sciousness of the happiest of our young women, who are at
ease in their gardens or parks. I must add, that since I
have known more of Genoa, I have found out that it pos-
sesses multitudes of handsome women; and what surprised
me, many of them with beautiful northern complexions. But
an English lady tells me, that for this latter discovery I am
indebted to my short sight. This is probable. You know
that I have often been in raptures at faces that have passed
me in London, whose only faults were being very coarse and
considerably bilious. But never mind. It is not desirable to
sweet and the eyes intelligent, there is always the look of
beauty with me. Now I have seen heaps of such faces in
Genoa. The superiority of the women over the men is in-
deed remarkable, and is to be accounted for perhaps by the
latter being wrapt and screwed up in money-getting. Yet
it is just the reverse, I understand, at Naples; and the Nea-
politans are accused of being as sharp at a bargain as any
body. What is certain, however, from the testimonies of all
I have met with, is, that in almost all parts of Italy, gentility
of appearance is on the side of the females. The rarity of a
gentlemanly look in the men is remarkable. The common-
ness of it among women of all classes, is equally so. Now
the former was certainly not the case in old times, if we are
to trust the portraits handed down to us; nor indeed could
it easily have been believed, if left upon record. What is
the cause then of this extraordinary degeneracy? Is it, after
all, an honourable one to the Italians? Is it that the men,
thinking of the moral and political situation of their country,
and so long habituated to feel themselves degraded, acquire
a certain instinctive carelessness and contempt of appear-
ance; while the women, on the other hand, more taken up
with their own affairs, with the consciousness of beauty, and
the flattery which is more or less always paid them, have
retained a greater portion of their self-possession and
esteem? The alteration, whatever it is owing to, is of the
worst kind. The want of gentility is not supplied, as it so
often is with us, by a certain homely simplicity and manli-
ness, quite as good in its way, and better, where the former’
does not include the better part of it. The appearance, to
use a modern cant phrase, has a certain raffishness in it, like
that of a suspicious-looking fellow in England, who lounges
about with his hat on one side, and a flower in his mouth.
Nor is it at all confined to men in trade, whether high or
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low; though at the same time I must observe, that all men,
high or low (with the exceptions, of course, that take place
in every case) are notoriously given to pinching and saving,
keeping their servants upon the lowest possible allowance,
and eating as little as may be themselves, with the excep-
tion of their favourite minestra,(34) of which I will speak pre-
sently, and which being a cheap as well as favourite dish,
they gobble in a sufficient quantity to hinder their absti-
nence in other things from being regarded as the effect of
temperance. In Pisa, the great good of life is a hot supper;
but at Pisa and Genoa both, as in “the city” with us, if
you overhear any thing said in the streets, it is generally
about money. Quatrini, soldi, and lire,(35) are discussing at
every step. I do not know how the case may have been in
Spain of late years. It is certainly better now. But a
stranger, full of the Italian poets and romances, is surprised
to find the southern sunshine overgrown with this vile scurf.
One thinks sometimes that men would not know what to do
with their time, if it were not for that succession of petty
hopes and excitements, which constitutes the essence of
trade. It looks like a good-humoured invention of nature to
save the foolish part of mankind from getting tired to death
with themselves. But we know, from a comparison of dif-
ferent times and nations, that this is not the case. The
dancing African and the dozing Asiatic are equally sufficed
with a hundredth part of it; and the greater activity of the
European has, in times quite as active and a great deal more
healthy and pleasurable, dispensed with at least half of it,
devoting the rest of his hours to sports and society. Mam-
mon(36) has undoubtedly been the god of these later times; and
philosophy will have a harder task in displacing him, than
it has had in shaking the strong holds of his colleague, Su-
perstition: for though men cannot serve “God and Mammon”
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together (a truth which the Mammonites(37) are always practi-
cally disputing, in the very teeth of their own alleged doc-
trines) they can serve Superstition fast enough. Selfishness
is the soul of both, as money formed the inside of Dagon.(38) I
believe, for my part, that both the causes above-mentioned
have had great effect in forming the character of the modern
Italians; but I believe also that the greatest of all (and I
need not hesitate to mention it to a man of Catholic stock,
out of the pale of the Pope’s dominion)(39) is the extraordi-
nary blight that has been thrown in the course of time over
all the manlier part of the Italian character, by the notorious
ill example, chicanery, worldliness, and petty feeling of all
sorts, exhibited by the Court of Rome. I do not allude to
the present Pope;(40) and a Pope here and there is of course
to be excepted. I believe the reigning Pontiff is a well-
meaning, obstinate old gentleman enough, whom events have
rendered a little romantic; a character which is nobleness
itself compared with that of the majority of his brethren,
or indeed with most characters. But the Italians, for cen-
turies, have been accustomed to see the most respected per-
sons among them, and a sacred Court, full of the pettiest and
most selfish vices; and if they have instinctively lost their
respect for the persons, they have still seen these persons
the most flourishing among them, and have been taught by
their example to make a distinction between belief and prac-
tice, that would startle the saving grace of the most impu-
dent of Calvinists. From what I have seen myself (and I
would not mention it if it had not been corroborated by others
who have resided in Italy several years) there is a prevailing
contempt of truth in this country, that would astonish even
an oppressed Irishman. It forms an awful comment upon
those dangers of catechising people into insincerity, which
We are far enough, God knows, from this universality of evil
yet. May such writers always be found to preserve us from
it! See Mr. Shelley’s admirable preface to the tragedy of
the Cenci, where the religious nature of this profanation of
truth is pointed out with equal acuteness and eloquence.(42) I
have heard instances of falsehood, not only among money-
getters, but among “ladies and gentlemen” in ordinary, so
extreme, so childish, and apparently so unconscious of wrong,
[t]hat(43) the very excess of it, however shocking in one respect,
relieved one’s feelings in another, and shewed how much
might be done by proper institutions to exalt the character
of a people naturally so ingenuous and so ductile. The great
Italian virtues, under their present governments, are being
catholic, not being “taken in” by others, and taking in every
body else. Persons employed to do the least or the great-
est jobs, will alike endeavour to cheat you through thick and
thin. It is a perpetual warfare, in which you are at last
obliged to fight in self-defence. If you pay any body what
he asks you, it never enters into his imagination that you do
it from any thing but folly. You are pronounced a minchione
(a ninny) one of their greatest terms of reproach. On the
other hand, if you battle well through your bargain, a per-
version of the natural principle of self-defence leads to a
feeling of real respect for you. A dispute may arise; the
man may grin, stare, threaten, and pour out torrents of rea-
sons and injured innocence, as they always do; but be firm,
and he goes away equally angry and admiring. If you take
them in, doubtless the admiration as well as the anger is still
in proportion, like that of the gallant knights of old when
they were beaten in single combat. An English lady
told me an amusing story the other day, which will shew you
the spirit of this matter at once. A friend of hers at Pisa
was in the habit of dealing with a man, whose knaveries, as
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usual, compelled her to keep a reasonable eye to her side of
the bargain. She said to this man one day, “Ah, so-and-so,
no doubt you think me a great minchione.” The man, at this
speech, put on a look of the sincerest deference and respect;
and in a tone of deprecation, not at all intended, as you might
suppose, for a grave joke, but for the most serious thing in
the world, replied, “Minchione! No! E gran furba lei.”—
(“You a ninny! Oh no, Ma’am: you are a great thief!”) This
man was a Jew: but then what dealer in Italy is not? They
say, that Jews cannot find a living in Genoa. I know of
one, however, who both lives and gets fat. I asked him one
day to direct me to some one who dealt in a particular article.
He did so; adding, in an under tone, and clapping his finger
at the same time against his nose, “He’ll ask you such and
such a sum for it; but take care you don’t pay it though.” The
love of getting and saving pervades all classes of the communi-
ty, the female part, however, I have no doubt, much less than
the male. The love of ornament, as well as a more generous
passion, interferes. The men seem to believe in nothing but
the existence of power, and as they cannot attain to it in its
grander shapes, do all they can to accumulate a bit of it in
its meanest. The women retain a better and more redeem-
ing faith; and yet every thing is done to spoil them. Cicis-
beism(44) (of which I will tell you more at another opportunity)
is the consequence of a state of society, more nonsensical in
fact than itself, though less startling to the present habits of
the world; but it is managed in the worst possible manner;
and, singularly enough, is almost as gross, more formal, and
quite as hypocritical as what it displaces. It is a stupid
system. The poorer the people, the less of course it takes
place among them: but as the husband, in all cases, has the
most to do for his family, and is the person least cared for,
he is resolved to get what he can before marriage; and a
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vile custom prevails among the poorest, by which no girl can
get married, unless she brings a certain dowry. Unmarried
females are also watched with exceeding strictness; and in
order to obtain at once a husband and freedom, every nerve
is strained to get this important dowry. Daughters scrape
up and servants pilfer for it. If they were not obliged to
ornament themselves, as a help towards their object, I do
not know whether even the natural vanity of youth would
not be sacrificed, and girls hang out rags as a proof of their
hoard, instead of the “outward and visible sign”(45) of crosses
and ear-rings. Dress, however, disputes the palm with sav-
ing; and as a certain consciousness of their fine eyes and
their natural graces survives every thing else among southern
womankind, you have no conception of the high hand with
which the humblest females carry it at a dance or an even-
ing party. Hair dressed up, white gowns, satins, flowers,
fans, and gold ornaments, all form a part of the glitter of the
evening, amidst (I have no doubt) as great, and perhaps as
graceful a profusion of compliments and love-making, as takes
place in the most privileged ball-rooms. Yet it is twenty to
one, that nine out of ten persons in the room have dirty
stockings on, and shoes out at heel. Nobody thinks of sav-
ing up articles of that description; and they are too useful,
and not shewy enough, to be cared for en passant. Therefore
Italian girls may often enough be well compared to flowers;
—with head and bodies all ornament, their feet are very
likely in the earth; and thus they go nodding forth for sale,
“growing, blowing, and all alive.” A foolish English servant
whom we brought out with us, fell into an absolute rage of
jealousy at seeing my wife give a crown of flowers to a young
Italian one, who was going to a dance. The latter, who is of
the most respectable sort, and looks as lady-like as you
please when dressed, received the flowers with gratitude,
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though without surprise; but both of them were struck
speechless, when, in addition to the crown, my wife gave
her a pair of her own shoes and stockings. They were
doubtless the triumph of the evening. Next day we heard
accounts of the beautiful dancing,—of Signor F. the
English valet(46) opening the ball with the handsome chandler’s-
shop woman, &c. and our poor countrywoman was ready to
expire.
As the miscellaneous poetry of Alfieri(47) is little known in
England, I will take this occasion of sending you the com-
mencement of a satire of his on money-getting. I was going
to translate the whole of it, but it turned off into allusions
of too local a nature. He does not spare the English; though
he would have found some distinction, I trust, between us and
the Dutch, in this matter, could he have heard the shouts
sent up the other day upon Change(48) in honour of the Spanish
patriots,(49) and seen the willingness which nine tenths of us
evince to open our purses in behalf of that glorious cause.
May God speed it, and contrive to make all our rich men as
much poorer, and our poor as much richer, as they ought to
be! But I am forgetting my satire. The close of the ex
tract, I think, presents a very ludicrous image.
E in te pur, d’ogni lucro Idolo ingordo
Nume di questo secolo borsale,
Un pocolin la penna mia qui lordo:
Ch’ove oggi tanto, oltre il dover, prevale
Quest’acciecato culto, onde ti bei,
Dritt’è, che ti saetti alcun mio strale.
Figlio di mezza libertade, il sei;
Nè il niego io già; ma in un mostrarti padre
Vo’ di servaggio doppio e d’usi rei.
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Ecco, ingombri ha di prepotenti squadre
La magra Europa i mari tutti, e mille
Terre farà di pianto e di sangue adre.
Sian belligere genti, o sian tranquille,
Abbiano o no metalli, indaco, o pepe,
Di selve sieno o abitator di ville,
Stuzzicar tutti densi, ovumque repe
Quest’insetto tirannico Européo,
Per impinguar le sua famelich’epe.
Che compra e vende, e vende e compra, e vende;
Ma siam ben noi popol più vile e reo:
Che, non contenti a quanto il suol ci rende,
Dell’altrui ladris(51) ove il furar sia lieve,
Facciam pel globo tutto a chi più prende.
Taccio del sangue American, cui bene
L’atroce Ispano; e il vitto agl’Indi tolto
Dall’Anglo, che il suo vitto agl’Indi deve.
Se in fasce orrende al nascer suo ravvolto
Mostrar volessi il rio commercio, or fora
Il mio sermone (e invan) prolisso molto.
Basta ben sol, che la sua infamia d’ora
Per me si illustri, appalesando il come
L’iniqua Europa sue laidezze indora.
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Annichillate, impoverite, o dome
Par lei le genti di remote spiagge,
Di alloro no, di Baccalà le chiome,
YES, glutton of the land and sea,
This pursy age’s deity,
I’ll dirt my pen awhile with thee.
For since this gloating in a purse,
Which blinds mankind, grows worse and worse,
’Tis fit I smite thee with a verse.
Half-freedom’s child, I know thou art:
I’ll prove thee father, ere we part,
Of two-fold slavery and no heart.
Lo, dry-drawn Europe sends her brood
Of traders out, like a new flood,
To sow the earth with tears and blood.
Whether a land’s at war or peace,
Produces metals, tops, or teas,
Or lives in towns, or villages,
This vermin, mightiest thing alive,
Makes them all herd, and crowd, and drive,
To fatten up it’s(53) hungry hive.
Unjust and stupid, we despise
The Jew that buys, and sells, and buys,
As if we acted otherwise!
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Nay, we are worse; for not content,
Like other thieves, with a home rent,
We rob on every continent.
I pass the Americans that bled
For Spain’s fierce thirst, and English bread,
Torn from the Indians it should feed:
Were I to track through all his woes
The monster to his swaddling clothes,
Where I should end, God only knows.
Enough for me, if I can tear
The mask off now, and show the care
Hag Europe takes to be thought fair.
How should we crown her, having trod
Whole nations down for this her god?
With laurel? No,—with salted cod.
This species of dried fish being greatly in request in Ca-
tholic countries, the image becomes very ludicrous to an
Italian. There is a propriety, and yet a beautiful want of
propriety in it. Were Satirists to strike coins as well as
verses, a head of Italy some centuries hence, with a crown
of dried fish on it, would puzzle the antiquaries.
If Italy is famous at present for any two things, it is for cicis-
beism and minestra. Wherever you find shops, you see baskets
full of a yellow stuff, made up in long stripes like tape, and
tied up in bundles. This is the main compound of minestra,
or to use the Neapolitan term, your old acquaintance maca-
roni.(54) I need not explain the nature of it to you; but some
of your fellow readers may chuse to be informed, that it is
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nothing but common paste, made up into interminable pipes.
Much of it is naturally of a yellowish colour, but the Ge-
noese die it deeper with saffron. When made into a soup it
is called minestra, and mixed sometimes with meat, some-
times with oil or butter, but always, if it is to be had, with
grated cheese, and that cheese Parmesan. An Italian has
no notion of eating any thing plain. If he cannot have his
minestra and his oil, he is thrown out of all his calculations,
physical and moral. He has a great abstract respect for
fasting; but fights hard for an indulgence. The Genoese
in particular, being but Canaanites or borderers(55) in Italy, and
accustomed to profane intercourse by their maritime situa-
tion, as well as to an heterodox appetite by their industry
and sea-air, appear to be extremely restive on the subject of
fasting. They make pathetic representations to the Arch-
bishop respecting beef and pudding, and allege their health
and their household economies. Fish is luckily dear. I
have now before me a Genoese Gazette of the 8th February
last,(56) in which there is an extract from the circular of the
Archbishop respecting the late Lent indulgences. He says,
that “the Holiness of Our Lord” (for so the Pope is styled)(57)
“has seen with the greatest displeasure, that the ardent
desire which he has always nourished” (an aukward word!)(58)
“of restoring the ancient rigour of Lent, is again rendered
of no effect, by representations which he finds it impossible
to resist.” He therefore permits the inhabitants of the Arch-
bishop’s diocese to make “one meal a-day of eggs and
white-meats (latticini) during Lent; and such of them as
have really need of it, the use of flesh:” but he says; that
this latter permission “leaves a heavy load on his con-
science,”(59) and that he positively forbids the promiscuous use
of flesh and fish. I must add, for my part, that I think the
Pope has reason in this roasting of eggs. In all countries
[Page 64]
[Page 64]
the devil (to speak after the received theory of good and ill)
seems to provide for a due diminution of health and happi-
ness by something in the shape of meat and drink. The
northern nations exasperate their bile with beer, the southern
with oil, and all with butter and meat. I would swear, that
Dante was a great eater of minestra. Poor Lord Castle-
reagh(60) (for you will readily believe, that in the abstract, and
setting aside his Six Acts(61) and other tyrannous doings, the
Liberal can pity even him) had had his buttered toast, I see,
served up for breakfast the day he killed himself; a very
mock-heroic help, I allow, towards a political catastrophe;
but not the less likely for that. If wars have been made,
and balances of power overturned, by a quarrel about a pair
little to expedite the death of a minister by teazing his hy-
pochondres(64) with fried butter.
God bless you and all friends. If I write another word,
my illegitimate signature will stare the postman in the face.
P.S. Nothing which has here been said upon the faults
of the Italians, can of course prejudice those finer characters
among them, who, by the very excess of the corruptions
and foreign oppression they see on all sides, are daily ex-
cited more and more to a patriotic wish to get rid of them.
You may rest satisfied, that the multitude of these characters
is daily increasing. I have just lit upon a sonnet of Alfieri’s,
by which it appears that the Genoese in his time were as fast
bound in the Styx of superstition as of money-getting. It is
not so now at any rate:—the folds are neither so strong nor
so numerous.(65)—The first quatrain is a fine and true picture
of the city.
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[Page 65]
TO GENOA.(66)
Nobil città, che delle Liguri onde
Liede a specchio, in sembiante altera tanto,
E, torregiando al ciel da curve sponde,
Fai scorno ai monti, onde hai da tergo ammanto;
A tue moli superbe, a cui seconde
Null’altre Italia d’innalzare ha il vanto,
Dei cittadini tuoi chè non risponde
L’aspetto, il cor, l’alma, o l’ingegno alquanto?
L’oro sudato, che adunasti e aduni,
Puoi seppellir con minor costo in grotte
Ove ascondon se stessi e i lor digiuni.
Tue richezze non spese, eppur corrotte,
Fan dignoranza un denso velo agli uni;
Superstizion tien gli altri; a tutti è notte.
Proud city, that by the Ligurian sea
Sittest as at a mirror, lofty and fair;
And towering from thy curving banks in air,
Scornest the mountains that attend on thee;
Why, with such structures, to which Italy
Has nothing else, though glorious, to compare,
Hast thou not souls, with something like a share,
Of look, heart, spirit, and ingenuity?
Better to bury at once (’twould cost thee less)
Thy golden-sweating heaps, where cramp’d from light,
They and their pinch’d fasts ply their old distress.
Thy rotting wealth, unspent, like a thick blight,
Clouds the close eyes of these:—dark hands oppress
With superstition those:—and all is night.
VOL. II. F
[BLANK PAGE]
EDITORIAL NOTES
[2] Vincent Novello (1781-1861), organist, composer and music publisher who lived in England, son of an Italian father, Giuseppe, of Piedmontese origins. Novello was Hunt’s correspondent and an admirer of his work in The Liberal.
[3] Hunt devotes several pages of his Autobiography (vol. 2, 1850, 202-8) to describing the structure and treasures of the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
[4] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91), Austrian composer, one [of] the most important in history. Among his better known works, the opera buffa Le nozze di Figaro (1786, mentioned below) and the dramma giocoso Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni (1787).
[5] Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868), Italian composer eminently famous for his many operas. Among the most famous, the opera buffa Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816) and the dramma giocoso La Cenerentola (1817).
[6] Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1786).
[7] Hunt’s reworking of the biblical expression “Tell it not in Gath” (2 Samuel 1:20), meaning not to mention something that your enemies might gloat over. Hunt’s “Gothland” probably refers not to the Swedish territory of Gothland, but to the territorial “equivalent” of the sixth-century Ostrogothic Kingdom and therefore, by metonymy and ironically, to the Austrian Empire and northern Italy. Hunt’s reworking of the proverbial expression also changes the meaning into “do not mention something to those who might resent it”: as Hunt writes below, “Germans in Italy, the lorders over Italian freedom and the Italian soil, trumpet [Mozart’s] superiority over Italian composers”.
[8] Johannes Simon Mayr (sometimes spelled Mayer, 1763-45), German composer, one of the most respected operatic composers in Italy at the time. His popularity peaked with the premiers of Tamerlano (1812, Milan) and La rosa bianca e la rosa rossa (1813, Geona).
[9] Hunt refers to the 1793 Macartney embassy in China, led by George Earl Macartney (1737-1806), that was said to have failed owing due to his inability or refusal to perform the kowtow (nine ceremonial bows), or to the absence of shared political and cultural language. Hunt’s ironic comparison must rely on accounts of the Chinese appreciation (or lack thereof) of the “band” of musicians that Macartney brought along on the embassy. One of these accounts reports how “the Chinese seemed wholly unmoved by the perfect execution of the best pieces, of the best composers in Europe” (Charles Burney, “Chinese music”, in The cyclopaedia; or, universal dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature, vol. vii, ed. Abraham Rees, London: 1819, sig. 4S3r).
[10] Quotation from John Milton’s pastoral poem L’Allegro (1645), 137.
[11] Quotations from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667, book V, 351-3, 380-5).
[12] Giovanni Paisiello (or Paesiello, 1740-1816), Italian operatic composer whose influence was decisive to Mozart and Rossini’s work. His masterpiece, Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782), is now only infrequently staged.
[13] “Il mio ben quando verrà” is an aria in the first act of Giovanni Paisiello’s Nina, o sia La pazza per amore (1789).
[14] Loose quotation from John Denham’s poem “Coopers-Hill”: “Whose foam is Amber, and their Gravel Gold”.
[15] Quotation from Falstaff in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part 2, IV.ii.129.
[16] “The wine called in German Hochheimer, produced at Hochheim on the Main; hence, commercially extended to other white German wines”, OED, “hock (n.4)”.
[17] Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-77), Austrian composer, worked at court from 1739 to his death.
[18] Joseph II (1741-90), Holy Roman Emperor (1765-90).
[19] L’Enlèvement au sérail (“Die Entführung aus dem Serail”, 1782), is a singspiel in three acts by Mozart.
[20] Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], The Lives of Haydn and Mozart, with observations on Metastasio, and on the present state of music in France and Italy. Translated from the French of L.A.C. Bombet, London: John Murray, 1818 (quotations from pp. 342-43, 389).
[21] The Quarterly Review (1809-1967), periodical launched and published by John Murray and William Gifford as tory counterblast to the successful, Whiggish Edinburgh Review.
[22] In The Quarterly Review, “Haydn attached himself to the society of Signora Boselli, a lovely singer in Prince Esterhazy’s orchestra” (October 1817, 79).
[23] The Quarterly Review, October 1817, 79.
[24] The Quarterly Review, October 1817, 79.
[25] Theological phrase meaning “outside the chair of Peter”, that is, not in one’s official capacity, as a private person. In this case, for Hunt, out of character for a conservative, traditionalist journal.
[26] A Christian statement of belief named after the theologian Athanasius of Alexandria (296/98-373).
[27] A canzonet by the 17th century composer Henry Youll (or Youell).
[28] The sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and a number of German states that defeated and exiled Napoleon.
[29] Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832), Prussian-Austrian diplomat, imperial councillor to the Emperor Francis, and advisor to Von Metternich. He took part in the Congress of Vienna in 1814, and in December 1822, shortly before Hunt wrote the present letter, [in] the congress of Verona.
[30] Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), philosopher, jurist, and reformer. His ambitions as codifier of laws resulted in an involvement with early liberalism, especially in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Latin America. This involvement began with the Trienio liberal (1820-23), the three-year period during which a liberal government ruled Spain under the reinstated 1812 Cádiz Constitution.
[31] In some copies, misprint for “His”.
[32] In Roman mythology, goddess of love, beauty, and desire.
[33] “Of huge dimensions; immense; gigantic”, OED, “Brobdingnagian (adj. & n.)”. Adjective deriving from Brobdingnag, the giants’ land in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 Gulliver’s Travels.
[34] Main course made with (Hunt’s) macaroni; similar to present-day pasta.
[35] Terms indicating currency.
[36] In the New Testament, money and greed personified, and in stark opposition to God.
[37] “A worshipper of Mammon; a person dedicated to the acquisition of wealth”, OED, “Mammonite (n.)”.
[38] Dagon was a major deity in the Philistine pantheon. A statue of Dagon is mentioned in 1 Samuel 5:1-7, where it falls to the ground and breaks when the Ark of the Covenant is placed in its temple. Although there is no trace of the inside of Dagon being “formed” by money, it is the Ark which is plated in gold, inside and out (Exodus 25:11). Hunt is arguably conflating the two.
[39] Vincent Novello’s father was Italian, from Piedmont. A pale is a district or territory within determined bounds, or subject to a particular jurisdiction, in this case the Pope’s.
[40] Pope Pius VII (1800-23).
[41] In Church of Englandism and its catechism examined […], London: Effingham Wilson, 1818, Jeremy Bentham claims that “a Church of England education” had as objective “the securing of an habit of insincerity throughout life” (xxi-xxii).
[42] Hunt might have been thinking of the following excerpt: “Religion coexists, as it were, in the mind of an Italian Catholic with a faith in that of which all men have the most certain knowledge. It is interwoven with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration; not a rule for moral conduct. It has no necessary connexion with any one virtue” (Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Preface”, in The Cenci, London, 1819, xi).
[43] In some copies, misprint for “that”.
[44] The practice of attending a married woman as cicisbeo, her recognized gallant or cavalier servente.
[45] Jeremy Bentham, The Church of England Catechism Examined, in Church-of-Englandism and its catechism examined […], 49.
[46] Unidentified reference.
[47] Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), Italian poet and dramatist, forerunner of the ideals of Italian Risorgimento. He was author of poem collections (Rime, 1804), an autobiography (Vita), and nineteen tragedies (1776-86), among which Saul (1788) and Mirra (1792). His treaties Della tirannide (1777) and Del principe e delle lettere (1778-86) are concerned with freedom and the struggle against tyranny.
[48] At the Royal Exchange, on the stock exchange. The Royal Exchange in Capel Court, modelled on the Antwerp Bourse, was built by Thomas Gresham in 1565-7 in the City of London.
[49] Reference to the Spanish liberales of the Trienio liberal (1820-23), the three-year period during which a liberal government ruled Spain under the reinstated 1812 Cádiz Constitution.
[50] Misprint for “ingiusti”.
[51] Misprint for “ladri”.
[52] Vittorio Alfieri, “Satira decimaseconda. Il commercio”, in Satire (1777-98).
[53] The possessive form of “it” without apostrophe (“its”) is only recent; until the 19th century the form “it’s” was very diffused.
[54] See n. 254 above.
[55] A native or original inhabitant of ancient Canaan prior to the Israelite conquest. Canaan was the forefather of the various nations who peopled the seacoast of Palestine. In Job 41:6 and Proverbs 31:24, the Hebrew word for Canaanite is used as a synonym for merchant.
[56] Gazzetta di Genova, 8th February 1823. The article is nevertheless dated 8th January.
[57] “N.S.”, i.e. “Nostro Signore”.
[58] The irony of using the Italian word “nutrito” in this context – correctly translated as “nourished” – is not lost on Hunt.
[59] I.e. The Archbishop’s conscience.
[60] Robert Stewart (1769-1822), Viscount Castlereagh, British statesman and politician. He committed suicide on 12th August 1822. See n. 27 above.
[61] In 1819, Castlereagh supported the infamous Six Acts, suppressing any form of meeting that would foster radical reforms, in response to the Peterloo Massacre (16th August 1819).
[62] Unidentified reference.
[63] Unidentified reference, possibly to an historical episode involving Madame de Pompadour and King Louis XV. The use of hand fans evolved into the elaborate, intimate language of “fanology” in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe.
[64] “Either of the two regions of the upper abdomen located beneath the ribs on either side of the epigastrium”, OED, “hypochondre (n.)”.
[65] In Greek and Roman mythology, the Styx is a river in the underworld. In Inferno by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), it forms a marshy lake, the “fifth round” where the wrathful are punished. Despite this, the fact that Hunt’s Styx binds the Genoese with “strong” and “numerous folds” – though not as strong and numerous as in Alfieri’s time – suggests a debt towards Dantesque imagery.
[66] Vittorio Alfieri, Rime Varie, LXXXV.
Ultimo aggiornamento
18.09.2025