always sell what he proposes. He recommends the Academy of Florence has the impudence to an original over comes milord, sees it finished, sign and seal against it! accepts in his condescension an inlaid table, and fills the newspapers with the fine contours, the aerial perspective, the topazes, rubies, and emeralds, of this precious oil-cloth. Biancheria. We poor Bolognese can not give such dinners as a Roman duke and banker can. We are hungry; yet we invite the stranger to partake with us. Legate. Of your hunger, most illustrious? Biancheria. With what we have we serve him. Corazza. An honest man would do his business regularly; a good citizen makes no disturbances, and is ashamed of troubling the courts of justice or intruding on his superiors. Peace, concord, faith, veneration, are inherent in the highest and in the lowest of the Bolognese. Scampa. And yet the Acadamy of Florence makes war against the Academy of Bologna! Would it not be wiser if those who preside over the Arts imitated the conduct of those who preside over the nations? Would it not be better if they agreed that the same system should govern all? Can not our Bologna and Florence come closer, like England and Turkey, France and Russia, Spain and Persia, Portugal and Congo? Are we never to follow our betters? We indeed do why will not they? Times are very much altered for the worse, Eminence, since we were children. Legate. Ah Marchese! You were a child long after I was one. Scampa. A year; or may-be thirteen months. I have seen forty some time. Legate. I approach eighty. Scampa. In dreams and visions; not otherwise. I am as near to Purgatory as your Eminence is to Paradise. Legate (aside). I believe it; on the wrong side Scampa. There now! convincing! convincing! The better part of them could not see the paper under them through their tears. Biancheria. Well might they weep. Such pictures then must leave Bologna? Our beloved country must lose them for ever! our dear children must not enjoy what their fathers and forefathers gloried in! Corazza. What could we do? The English are powerful at sea they have a fleet in the Adriatic no farther off than Corfu. Legate. The question is the authenticity of the pictures. Corazza. May not pictures have suffered on the road? may not malicious men, artists and dealers, jealous of the Bolognese school, jealous of an honest man's good fortune. Scampa... Carpers of titles, revilers of digni ties . Corazza. false touches ? ... Ay, ay.. have given them a few Biancheria. May not the air of Florence, moister and heavier than ours, have suffused with a duller tint and disturbed the transparency of the glazing? Scampa. People sign without reflection, Eminence! My uncle Matteo the Canonico, your Eminence's old worshipper, used to say well and truly, the day of judgment is the last day we can expect on earth, and that he saw no signs of it. Legate. We have no proof of malice in the decision. Biancheria. Even good men have some. Saint Cyprian said that the face of Saint Jerome, in Correggio's picture, would have done better for the lion, and the lion's for him. Legate. Whether Saint Cyprian said it may perhaps be questioned. Corazza. O the Magdalen! what a tint! what a touch! The hair! how it swells! how it falls! how it undulates! how it reposes! Music to the eye, to the heart, to the intellect, to the soul! the music of Paesiello! Then her.. ca! ca! ca! what tongue can reach it! Eminence ! look; behold her! She has kissed the Bambino with the endearing curl of her lip, where it loses itself in the paler roses of the cheek and she holds the kiss, one would think, between the lip and the child, afraid to drop it by moving. Tender, tender, tender! And such an ancle there! oh! oh! the heart can not contain it. Legate. Nevertheless, the holy child is a young satyr, and the Saint a wild beast, come rather to swallow than fondle him. Somebody seems to have driven him up into the corner, else his claws might alarm us. As to the lion, he has been in the menagery from his birth, where some other beast more leonine begot him. Scampa. If this picture has its faults, well may ours have them too. In regard to authenticity, we did not see the artist paint them. We may have been deceived: and because we have been deceived must we be called deceivers? Fine Florentine logic forsooth! turning everything the wrong side upward. Corazza. I have studied the art from my youth, and have made the pot boil with it, although there is not a cinder at present, hot or cold, under it. I do know a little of the matter, if a modest man may say it a little I do know. These Florentines. . my patience escapes me . . Legate. We must attempt to catch it again for you in this room, most prized and ornamented Scampa. And, after an attestation on the spot, Signor Corazza! Corazza. I but humbly follow Signor Marchese. | more they venerated the abilities of their master. Enter the Tribuna where the best pictures are sup- He had no pupil so great as Raffael, nor had posed to hang. The Magdalen's head is more Raffael any so great as he. like a boiled calf's. She was flesh and blood, the Magdalen was, I warrant her. She had fingers ft for anything and here are long sticks, no better than those which some blockhead has stuck upon the Medicean Venus, for Englishmen to admire upon tradition in this age, and Kamskatkadales in the next. We do not read that the fingers of the Magdalen were broken or dislocated at the cross or elsewhere, as these are. How Would you manage her heavy stupid head? Guido would have put it in its right position: Guido would have given it expression and grace, tenderness and emotion: it has verily no more of these than an ox's heart at the shambles. Another step, and we stand before the Holy Family of Michel-Angelo. Legate. Signor Corazza, my patron! do not pall down this picture: this is genuine it was painted for the Medici, and was never out of their sight. There is some (however slight) reason to believe that the other is a Guido: but Guido was a youth before he was a man, and a boy before he was a youth, and often painted a picture by lamp-light, or by none, to get out of a scrape. Sampa. Historical facts! recondite biography! Guido has got drunk upon a Magdalen, gone to a brothel with a Saint Catharine, and gamed upon Christ's coat. In Michel-Angelo's Holy Family, why does the Virgin (who looks neither like virgin nor mother) toss the poor Baby so carelessly across her shoulder? And why do those idle vagabonds sit naked on the wall behind her? Have they no reverence? no decency? God's blood! master Michel-Angelo ! I suspect thy hose was flattened by divine judgment for this flagrant impudicity. In the same Tribuna is another Holy Family; one among the few bad works of Giulio Romano. Beyond it are two Correggios by Vanni of Sienna, and then another Holy Family, also by Vanni, but undoubted for Correggio's. Carazza. Ah Signor Marchese! There is somewhat of his sweetness in the coloring of the landscape. Stampa. But that wench with her twisted face, her twisted hands, and her child sprawling before her, like what has dropped from one's head under the comb! yet our judges, our censurers, our incriminators, firmly believe in the transcendent excellence of those works. They know Bothing of any school but their own, and little of that. What a Perugino is there locked up in their Academy! while these inferior pictures ocepy the most conspicuous situation, the satelEtes of the Medicean Venus. They have heard, and they repeat to you, that Perugino is hard and dry. Certainly those who worked for him were and so was he himself in the beginning: but what at first was harshness became at last a pure severity. He learned from the great scholar he taught; and the wiser his followers were, the Legate. Titian ennobled men; Correggio raised children into angels; Raffael performed the more arduous work of restoring to woman her pristine purity. Perugino was worthy of leading him by the hand. I am not surprised that Rubens is the prime favorite of tulip-fanciers: but give me the clear warm mornings of Correggio, which his large-eyed angels, just in puberty, so enjoy. Give me the glowing afternoons of Titian; his majestic men, his gorgeous women, and (with a prayer to protect my virtue) his Bacchantes. Yet, Signors! we may descant on grace and majesty as we will; believe me, there is neither majesty so calm, concentrated, sublime, and self-possessed (true attributes of the divine), nor is there grace at one time so human, at another time so superhuman, as in Raffael. He leads us into heaven; but neither in satin robes nor with ruddy faces. He excludes the glare of light from the sanctuary; but there is an ever-burning lamp, an ever-ascending hymn; and the purified eye sees, as distinctly as is lawful, the divinity of the place. I delight in Titian, I love Correggio, I wonder at the vastness of Michel-Angelo; I admire, love, wonder, and then fall down before, Raffael. Scampa. Eminence! we have Titian, we have Raffael, in our Academy; we want only Correggio. At my decease perhaps. . And yet he, who was quite at home with angels, played but a sorry part among saints: he seems to have considered them as very indifferent company for him. How they stare and straddle and sprawl about his Cupola ! But what coloring on his canvas! Would your Eminence favor me with another ray of light on him and Raffael! Legate. Signor Marchese! I am afraid I can say nothing on the subject that has not been said twenty times before; and if I do, I may be wrong. All. Impossible. Legate. Even the coloring of Correggio, so transparent, so pure, so well considered and arranged, is perhaps too rich and luscious for the divine ideas of Raffael: it might have overshot the scope which his temperate suavity attained. The drapery of Correggio is less simple than becomes the modest maid of Bethlehem, chosen by the all-seeing eye for her simplicity. Biancheria. And yet, under favour, in the Madonna della Seggiola, there is almost a fantastic charm in the vivid colours of the tartan dress. parison, the greatest genius that ever glorified the Arts. He was not, like Michel-Angelo, a great architect, a scientific sculptor, an admirable poet: he attempted not universality; but he reached perfection. What other mortal has? All. Oracles! oracles! inquire how much the host asks for so many; and if they do not like the price, they drive off. Formerly if you skinned a milord you only tickled him. Who, in the name of the Holy Virgin! could have begotten the present race? They have shockingly ill-treated our worthy fellow-citi Biancheria. I myself possess a little bit of zen, the most esteemed Signor Flavio Perotti of Perugino honey, sugar, cinnamon. Corazza (aside). And a good deal of each; two dollars would not cover it. How he kisses the tips of his two fingers and thumb, all three in a cluster! I wish he would pay me my twelve livres for this honey and sugar and cinnamon, in which however he will never catch the wary old wasp. The thing is fairly worth a couple of zecchins, and he knows it. the Pelican. He offered them his house; he placed everything before them; all unreservedly at their disposal. He serves his country with consummate zeal and fidelity: much money flows into it through his hands: many pictures that might peradventure do great dishonour to the names of Domenichino and Guido, and the whole family of the Caracci, and sweet Albano my tears will flow at the name, it so much Legate. Signor Corazza, were you saying your resembles our illustrious protector's . . Yes, prayers behind me? yes, many and many slip quietly from the Pelican out of the country, by Signor Flavio's intervention. Hence there is scarcely an auction, I hear, in England, without a dozen of Domenichinos: while in Italy dukes and princes lie on their death-beds and gasp for one. The milords in Florence conspired against poor Signor Flavio, as an accomplice in what they were pleased to denominate a cheat and forgery. Figure it! your Eminence! figure it! an accomplice! Signor Flavio told me that, unless he had quitted Florence on the instant, the Police would have consigned him to the Bargello. This comes of accepting bills from foreigners! this comes from facilitating business! Corazza. Fervently. Alas! I have no Perugino: I had a Saint Peter: tears like pearls: an ear, you might have put your finger in it up to the elbow: hair, I was afraid of blowing a fly from it. Strangers, when they entered the room, cried, "Signor Corazza! do you keep poultry in your saloon?" Legate. What of that? Corrazza. Incidental. The cock in the distance, red, gold, emerald; six, seven, eight crowns' worth of lapis lazuli; wings displayed, neck outstretched, eyes that might have lighted up our theatre; comb. . I would never let a cook enter the room, lest he should have cut it off. Everybody fancied he heard him crow; for fancy it Biancheria. Eminence! we live in an ungrate must have been. And what became of this pic-ful world, a world full of snares, frauds, and perils. ture? Two Englishmen tore it from the wall: I Many saints have said it, and all honest men thought they would have carried the house, the have experienced it. I gave my pictures to this street itself, away with it. They stopped my Englishman, merely not to disgust or displease mouth no stirring, no breathing. England, monopolising England, possesses now Saint Peter! The milords threw down their paltry hundred zecchins, leaving me lifeless at the loss of my treasure, and sacking our Bologna in this inhuman way. O had your Eminence seen that cock; had your Eminence seen that hair, fine, fine, fine as an infant's; the crown of the head smooth as the cover of a soup-tureen; nothing to hide the veins on the temples: he would have been bald within the year, unless by miracle. I had also an Andromeda: Signor Conte knew her. Dignitaries of the Church have stood before her until their knees bent under them. Legate. Did Englishmen dispossess you likewise of your Andromeda ? Corazza. Half the nation fell upon her at once: all were after her what was to be done! I was widowed of her too: they had her. One would think, after this they might have been quiet: not they we must bleed and martyrise: no end or remission of our sufferings. The English are very unlike what they were formerly: surely the breed of milords is extinct. Legate. Quite the contrary, I believe. Corazza. Then they are turned into chapmen. No sooner do they come to an inn, than they him. He had them not at my price, but at his own. I abandoned them; I stood in desolation. Recovering my senses, I saw bare walls; Chiusi, Populonia. Legate. Signor Conte! most illustrious! had the purchaser ever any dealings with you before! Biancheria. He never was before in Bologna We see many Englishmen from time to time, but none come twice: the reason is, they take the other road. Beside, they are men of business, and carry off at once everything they like. Corazza. I never heard of one entering the same shop a second time. The French are called inconstant: but in inconstancy the English outfly them by leagues and latitudes. Him whom they call an honest man one day, they call a rogue the next: they are as mild as turnips in the morning and as hot as capsicums in the afternoon. Scampa. Whenever an Englishman of distinc tion was inclined to favor me, he always found my palace at his disposal. I began at last to give a preference to the Frenchman. Instead of such outrageous words as accomplice, eccetera, eccettera when a Frenchman has rung a few changes on the second and sixth letters of the alphabet, his temperament grows cooler: you may compromise with him: but the Got-dam of the Englishmen sounds like the bursting of the doors of Janus, and his fist is always ready to give it emphasis. I regret that I have encountered more than once such rudeness, after making him the master of my house and servants. Corazza (aside to the secretary). What servants! they are all the Pelican's. Old Baltazzare-Cincinnato never leaves off his cobbling under the palace-stairs for the best heretic in London. He has orders to the contrary, or the Pelican would tand still in the negotiation. He has other perquisites. Legate. Most prized and ornate Signor Corazza, my patron! I commend your modesty in taking a place behind my chair, while Signor Marchese and Signor Conte do me the honour of indulging me with their presence on the opposite side of the chamber; yet, if you are desirous of whispering any remarks of yours to my secretary, who appears to be an old acquaintance, pray, in courtesy, go as far from my chair as posssible; for whispers are apt to divert the attention more than a louder tone. Corazza. Signor Secretary! accept this small cameo. Secretary. Don't mention it; don't think of it; impossible! Not to be observed.. (pockets it.) I would render you service for service, my dear Signor Corazza! you are a man of parts, a man of business, my most worshipful patron! I have only my good fortune to boast of, partly in the satisfaction I give his Eminence, and partly in the precious acquisition of your friendship. His Eminence has taken under his protection a young person, a relative of mine, sage, good, gentle; they call her handsome. She embroiders; she can get up fine linen.. His Eminence wishes her well. There can be no scandal in it; there never was a suspicion; seventeen comes too far under eighty. He would not puff off the girl; but he has told me in confidence that five hundred crowns lie somewhere. And her friends are men of substance; they may come down with what is handsome. Corazza. Signor Secretary! the sooner we are in the midst of these things the better. Secretary. I may misunderstand you, since your impatience seems to have little of the rapturous in it. Why then the better the sooner in the midst of them? Corazza. Because the sooner out? Secretary. Ohibo! no better reason than this? Corazza. My most ornate and erudite Signor Secretary! I love women in canvas better than in linen: they change less speedily, do an honest man less harm, and are more readily off-hand. Secretary. Eh, eh! well, well! I would not build up a man's fortune against his will. Legate. Signor Corazza! upon it; meet half-way. There is nothing that may not be arranged by wisdom and concession. Scampa. Wisdom does much. Legate. Concession helps her materially, my dear Signor Marchese! Biancheria. The gifted persons, who enjoy the supreme felicity of frequent audiences with your Eminence, admire the prodigious ease with which she performs the greatest actions. Scampa. What a stupendous wisdom falls from the fountain of Her most eloquent lips! As the shallowness of some is rendered less apparent by an umbrageous impenetrability about them, so the profundity of others is little suspected in the placid and winning currency of their demeanour. Corazza. Ah Eminence! She has fairly won her red stockings. Legate. God put them on me only to try me. He has since visited me with many afflictions. In his inscrutable wisdom, he permitted the French to plunder me of my pictures. I have yet some; a few worthy friends have been ambitious to sew up the rents and rips of my fortune: one has offered me one fine piece, another another. They only showed the heart in the right place. I am sorry I rejected so many: I might have restored them by my last will and testament, with a slight remembrance, treating some according to what I conceive to be their necessities, and others in proportion to their rank and dignity. But why these reflections? Gentlemen! I am involved in a multiplicity of affairs, an account of which must instantly be laid before his Holiness. In obedience to his Edict, I must inquire into the women who wear silver* combs and show their shift sleeves: I must ascertain the number of equally grave offenders whose houses are open in the dusk, and the names of those who enter and go out. Corazza. Your Eminence turns round and looks at me. Upon the faith of a Catholic, I went out but. . that is to say.. Legate. It is indeed, my patron! it is to say.. quite enough. Respectable persons, substantial housekeepers, are allowed an honest liberty; but Vice must be tributary to Virtue. The Serpent may bite the Woman's heel, as was ordained; but, if he rises in his ambition, we must detach a golden scale or two from his pericranium. In plain language, gentlemen, the fisc is cracking into chinks with dryness and vacuity: we must contrive to oil it among us. Corazza. I am no defaulter; I am no frequenter... Secretary (aside). Why tremble, why hesitate, why excuse yourself, most worthy Signor Corazza? Nobody can suspect you, my patron! you stand erect, above suspicion: your Venuses are upon canvas. * There was issued an edict against them by Leo the wore them, and they were heirlooms for many geneTwelfth. Creditable women among the poor usually rations! It is reported that his holiness had received his last serious injury from a person who usurped this matronly decoration. Corazza (aside). Signor Secretary! no jeering! | ceeding love for the Virgin. Whether he or she You shall never cram girls down my throat. There are some that might be too large for it; do you understand me? Mind, look-ye! I do not say all are: I do not say one is no offence to any relative or friend of yours: I had not a thought of the kind in regard to the lady in question! God knows it! Secretary. You convince me, my dear patron! Legate. In this life, we must all make some small sacrifices, and the sooner we make them the more certain is our reward. I myself am an instance of it. The enemy had despoiled me of my gallery but the Virgin opened my eyes the wider the more I wept before her, the more promises I made her, and enabled me to foresee the fall of paper-money. I effected large purchases in it, very large indeed, engaging to repay it in the same kind after six months, with great interest. My blessed Patroness enabled me to perform it, at less expense than a plate of unpeppered cucumbers in August. Nor did her favour and inspiration end here. I went, I remember not on what business, to Massa di Carrara. After passing through all the bed-chambers, at the desire of the Duchess, in order to make my choice, I fixed upon one in which there was a Holy Family by Titian. A noble picture, Signor Marchese! I do assure you, Signor Conte! the picture is worth ten thousand crowns. Signor Corazza! if you had seen that picture, you would have cut off the head of the Bambino, for pure affection. Impossible to resist the idea. I prayed and prayed before it, and took out first my scissors, then my penknife; then I thought it would be a pity to lose the rest; for there are parts about the Virgin, too, most delicately touched. Ah what a carnation! what a carnation! the warmest local colors, the most subtile demitints, a glow that creeps on insensibily to lose itself in the shades, making the heart pant and the innermost soul sigh after it. All. I seize it! I seize it! I seize it! Legate. It was no easy matter to put up penknife and scissors; but it was easier than to sleep in such a presence. About midnight I rose and prayed to my Protectress, vowing that, if she would incline the heart of the Duchess to my wishes, I would place a crown of gold over her head, and another of silver over the Bambino's. Whenever, on the following day, any person entered the chamber, he or she found me on my knees before the picture. In the morning I looked pale; I sighed at breakfast; I abstained at dinner; I retired at supper. The Duchess told her chaplain to inform me that her surgeon might be depended on, being a man equally of ability and discretion. I assured him I seldom had had occasion to put any surgeon's ability to the proof, and never his discretion and taciturnity. I rose in her good opinion for both these merits, if we may call them so. I then expressed to him, in confidence, my long sufferings and ex informed the Duchess of them, I never have discovered: but her Highness said so many kind words to me on the subject, that I could no longer refuse to eat whatever she recommended. Yet I was obliged to retire immediately after dinner, partly from weakness of stomach, and partly from the rigid devotion which occasioned it. "What can be the matter with the poor cardinal?" said her Highness. "Highness! the naked truth must out," replied the chaplain. "He does whatever you command or wish: he smiles, however languidly; he drinks, one would almost think, with relish; he eats, I will not say like one with an appetite, but at least as much; to remove all anxiety from your Highness." "Well but this naked truth. . I have the courage to encounter it," said the Duchess. "There are baths at Pisa and Lucca, both near, and there are minerals and instruments quite at hand." The worthy chaplain shook his head, and answered, "His Eminence does nothing, day or night, but kneel before the Holy Family in his bed-chamber." "Then get the cushion well stuffed," said her Highness, "or let him have another put upon it: bring him the green velvet one from the chapel; and take especial care that no loose gold-wire, in the lace about it, catches his stockings." When I was going away I began to despair, and I prayed again to my blessed Benefactress. Signor Marchese! Signor Conte! She never abandons those who put their trust in her. Both. Never, never. So bountiful is she that she leaves them nothing to desire. She gives all at once. Legate. On the morning of my departure, the Duchess sent up some fine Dresden porcelain to my room, and several richly bound books, requesting my acceptance, she was graciously pleased to say, of the few trifling things she had ordered to be placed there. I humbly told her I could not deprive her of any luxury, to every kind of which I was indifferent and dead. Again she politely asked me if there was nothing I would accept as a remembrance of my visit to Massa. After a pause, and after those protestations of impossibility which good manners render neces sary, and indeed after four retrograde steps, it occurred to me as an urgent duty, to declare positively that I would only take the picture; which, if left where it was, might deprive others equally devout, of as much sleep as I had lost by it. The Duchess stood with her mouth open. . and very pretty teeth she had in those days. . I abashed my head, kissed her hand, and thanked her with many tears and tendernesses for a gift which (to me at least) was a precious one, said I, and a pledge of her piety, although no proof of my desert. Scampa. The Duchess is wealthy, and . . |