First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent

Milan is a large city, and has the convenience of excellent pavements both for foot passengers and those in carriages. There are four trottoirs in each street, two of them in the middle of the road, which is a great advantage to all the draught horses of the place, as it considerably lessens and facilitates their exertions: I should not wonder if this improvement had been suggested by the guardian spirit of the amiable Borromeo, since we are told that "a righteous man is merciful unto his beast." The bourgeoises of Milan generally wear black or white transparent veils, thrown carelessly over the hair, and carry fans in the hand. Some have thin muslin mob caps with flat crowns under the veil, but the use of a bonnet is quite unknown. Both the peasantry and bourgeoisie are generally well-looking, and we saw two or three lovely women: one in particular, a true Madonna of Coreggio, who if seen in a London circle, would, I am sure, have created an immense sensation; we had no opportunity of judging whether she was fully aware or not of her own extraordinary beauty, but taking the thing in the most rational point of view, I should think it impossible that she should be ignorant of the personal advantages so liberally bestowed upon her. Nothing has ever appeared to me more sickening than the pretty innocence some women (who have been highly favoured by nature) think it amiable to affect. That it is genuine, no one will believe who is truly acquainted with human nature and the customs of society; nor will any female, who is not weak in intellect, or of very defective judgment, condescend to adopt so paltry an artifice. A woman of sense must know when she is handsome, and she will also know how to enjoy this species of superiority without abusing it. There is nothing, however, more common than the mistaking ignorance for virtue, amongst persons of a certain calibre of intellect, who yet at the same time pique themselves upon a reputation for solidity.

The fruit sold in the markets here is in the most luxuriant profusion that can be imagined. We saw grapes piled up in large wicker baskets, like those used for holding linen; peaches in tubs and wheelbarrows, and innumerable quantities of ripe figs. We had the pleasure of hearing several ballad-singers of a very superior stamp to those of London or Paris. This is giving them small praise; but I mean to say, that they were really excellent, differing widely from some to whom we had listened at Turin (who said they came from Rome), and whose harshness of voice was unpleasant, although their style, and the music they selected, was very good. But these people gratified us extremely: they sang a buffo duet (accompanied by a violoncello, violin, and guitar), with full as much spirit and correctness as either Signors N. or A. And we afterwards heard a man (who came under our windows with his guitar) execute one of Rossini's refined and difficult serious arias in an equally finished manner.

The next day we took a caleche, and drove to see many lions, amongst others the arena (i. e. amphitheatre), and the triumphal arch, begun, but not finished, by Napoleon. It was at Milan that this wonderful man was crowned king of Italy, in 1805; and the arch in question was intended to be at once a monument of his fame, and a gate to the grand road of the Simplon, which commences here. When finished, it must have proved the admiration of posterity; even now it is very striking to the imagination, and not the less so (in my opinion) for being left thus awfully incomplete. The groups of figures, prepared as ornamental friezes, lie piled together in a shed or outhouse hard by, scarcely secured from the injuries of weather. Nothing can be more chastely classical than their designs, and the figure of Napoleon, for ever prominent among them, in the costume of the ancient Roman conquerors, is a very correct personal likeness. A statue of him also is shewn here (with some little affectation of mystery), as large, or larger, than the life, and is equally marked as an accurate resemblance.

The amphitheatre (lately built by Cœnonica) is highly magnificent, and of immense proportions, chiefly appropriated to the celebration of the naumachia, or naval tournament. We found the city full of English; our attorney-general and Lord K., &c. were in the same hotel with ourselves (Albergo Reale); and I should in justice mention, that the master of this inn is one of the most attentive, civil, and obliging persons in the world: I hope all our countrymen will patronise him. In the evening we drove upon the promenade, which is a very fine one, and situated in the best part of the city. We were much struck by the width of the streets adjacent, and by the beauty and dignity of the buildings. Here we met a crowd of equipages, of every denomination and description; yet how mean did they all appear, in comparison with those which throng Hyde Park! I am certain that any English chariot and horses (however plain and unpretending) would have been gazed at, and followed here as a miracle of elegance and beauty. At night we took a box at the Opera (La Scala), which is universally allowed to be the largest and most superb in Europe. It was built by Pierre Marini, in 1778, and did indeed amaze us at the first coup d'œil, as a stupendous miracle of art: but we found the same want of brilliancy and cheerfulness as in all other foreign theatres, and the performance (to say nothing of the performers) was execrable. Many of the boxes were shut up; but, by the lights which twinkled through the green latticed blinds, we perceived that persons were in them; and once, upon this sullen screen being casually opened for a few moments, we saw them playing at cards, and eating ices, without the slightest idea of attending to what was passing upon the stage. The latter refreshment is quite indispensable in this hot climate, and it was brought to us in the course of the evening: Camporese was the prima donna here; but we did not see her, as she was unwell during the time of our stay at Milan. A Signora Gioja appeared in her stead, who made us all triste enough by her tame and stupid performance. The ballet was ennuyant à la mort: its strength lay in its numbers, and the manner of grouping them; for as to the dancing it was – in short, there was no such thing which properly merited that name. The theatre is far too large for the purposes of hearing (much less of enjoying) music; and there was such a stunning echo, that the noise of the enormous band of musicians in the orchestra was almost rendered insupportable to a delicate and refined ear. They played also (to my indignant astonishment) so loud as to drown the voices of the singers, instead of keeping the instruments under, and subservient to them; which I had imagined was a rule so firmly established, as to render all deviation impossible in a country which boasts itself to be the veritable land of harmony. In short, we infinitely preferred the opera at Turin, and were completely disappointed with La Scala. Indeed, I consider our own Opera in the Haymarket (however fastidiously abused by soi-disant connoisseurs, and although it appears like a nutshell in point of size, when compared with this overgrown rival), to be indisputably superior in every real advantage. The whole of Italy (as I afterwards learned from some good judges at Geneva) is at present lamentably deficient in talent, both vocal and instrumental; and whatever it affords of any celebrity is sure to come over to England, where a richer harvest is to be reaped than can be found in any other country. I mean not, however, ignorantly to deny the superior excellence of the Italian school of music – superior (as all real judges must allow) to ours or any other. It is the original parent of excellence, the nursing mother of true genius. Whatever has charmed us in the art has sprung from the principles it inculcates; and when, even in the national melodies of Ireland and Scotland, I have heard a finished singer enchant and touch the feelings of their enthusiastic sons, I have been perfectly aware that what they have blindly insisted upon as being preferable to the Italian school, has in reality been formed upon its rules; and when I hear a contrary doctrine asserted, I look upon it as nonsense, unworthy even the trouble of contradiction. I only mean to say, that the present singers, performers, and composers of Italy are anxious to transplant themselves to the fostering protection of British taste and munificence.

We left Milan at an early hour the next morning, and found the country beyond, both flat and ugly for some distance. We saw great quantities of white mulberry trees (for the benefit of the silk-worms) in every direction, and many poplars (being now in Lombardy). The leaf of the latter we observed to be much larger than those in England: perhaps the tree degenerates in some measure in our climate. The maple also springs in abundance, and I suppose there must be a proportionate number of nightingales in consequence, if the old saying is true, that these birds love the maple better than any other tree. The postillion wore the usual Austrian costume, common to his profession: it bore some resemblance to that of an old English jester, being a yellow jacket with black worsted lace, and a red waistcoat.

At Rho we passed by a church, called Notre Dame des Miracles; where signs and wonders are believed to be displayed even in these philosophical days. All the peasants and bourgeoises wore beautiful coral necklaces, brought from the Mediterranean, of the true light pink colour, which is so expensive in England. The infants here were cramped up in swaddling-clothes, and had no caps upon their heads; while the want of hair, peculiar to their tender age, gave them the air of little unfledged birds. But now the period approached when we were to encounter a more serious and hair-breadth scape than any which had occurred during our tour. Passing through the town of Gallarate, near the foot of the Alps, we were stopped by a gentleman in an open travelling carriage, whose rueful visage, scared air, and animated gesticulations, awakened our most lively curiosity and attention. He was a merchant of Neufchatel, and perceiving that we were proceeding upon the same route which he had just passed, desired us most earnestly to stop at Gallarate, and furnish ourselves with a couple of gens d'armes, unless we wished to encounter the same fate from which he had just escaped. He then went on to relate a most terrific account of his having been robbed (he might have added, frightened) by three horrible-looking banditti, masked, and armed with carabines, pistols, and stilettos! They had forced his postillion to dismount, and throwing him under the carriage, with his head beneath the wheel (to prevent his offering any interruption to their plunder), proceeded to attack him; and, finally, spared his life, only by his consenting to part with every thing valuable in his possession. They not only took his watch and all his money, but a chain of his wife's hair, which they discovered around his neck; but their ill humour was great, and vehemently expressed, upon finding this poor man's property a less considerable booty than they had expected. All this had passed within a quarter of an hour from the time at which we met him at Gallarate. Of course, we felt ourselves much indebted for the warning; and as my courage had completely sunk under the recital, and I found it (like that of Bob Acres, in the Rivals) "oozing out at my fingers' ends," at every word this gentleman spoke, my husband took compassion upon me, and accordingly despatched messengers to summon the attendance of a couple of well-mounted and completely armed Austrian soldiers, with long moustaches, and fierce martial-looking countenances. These men afterwards rode with us (one on each side the carriage) until we had completely passed the borders, and had entered the king of Sardinia's dominions; where we were assured of finding perfect safety. No event of the kind had occurred for the last twelve months; but we were astonished and indignant at the supine apathy of the police, who did not appear to have the smallest intention of sending any soldiers after the robbers, or of making exertions to secure them. These Austrian states have a bad reputation, as we were told by our host at Lans le Bourg, and were warned by him of the possibility of a similar adventure. Mr. W., who was so good as to undertake to order the guards for me at Gallarate, found that not a single person he encountered in the town understood French, and he was obliged to be conducted to the schoolmaster (the only man capable of conversing in the language), before he could make our wishes comprehended and attended to. My husband remained in the carriage to scold me into better spirits; for, I confess, I never remember to have been more frightened in my life.

The country beyond this place began to improve in picturesque beauty; the Alps (to which we had approached very close), and woody hills in the distance, forming very imposing features in the landscape. Here we were met by several English carriages, protected, as we were, by the attendance of gens d'armes; which proved that fear had not been confined to my bosom alone, and that other people felt the same necessity of precaution: a black servant upon the box, grimly leaning upon a monstrous sabre, formed an additional guard. We now entered an irregular forest, where the postillion (who was the same person that had driven Monsieur Bovet) shewed us the spot where the ruffians had issued forth. It was a fine place for a romantic adventure of this sort; and never did I feel so thankful as when I cast my eyes upon the spirited horsemen, who continued to keep close by the side of our vehicle, giving me now and then looks of mirthful encouragement: indeed they seemed to consider the business as a party of pleasure, and we heard them laughing more than once as they rode along.

At Sesto a mob gathered round the carriage, as it stopped at the post-house; and I am not sure that they did not at first mistake us for state prisoners. Our postillion was now truly a great man! the centre of an open-mouthed, staring circle, wild with curiosity, to whom he held forth at length upon the danger he had undergone. Here we crossed a ferry over the river Tessin, which divides the dominions of Austria from those of Sardinia. The richness and grace of the wooded banks, which fringed this fine stream, delighted us; and the face of the whole country gradually smiled and brightened, till it at last expanded into the most glorious burst of exquisite loveliness that the imagination can conceive: for now we first beheld the Lago Maggiore, embosomed in romantic hills, with the superb Alps rising beyond them, and its shores studded with innumerable hamlets, villas, and cottages. The declining sun shed a warm colouring of inexpressible beauty upon the calm surface of this celebrated lake, whose waters, smooth and glassy, pure and tranquil, seemed indeed, in the words of Byron, to be a fit

"Mirror and a bath"For Beauty's youngest daughters."

It was impossible not to kindle into enthusiasm as we gazed upon a scene of such Armida-like fascination. Why should I attempt a description of the Borromean Isles, the Isola Madre, Isola Bella, and other fairy-green gems, which adorned the bosom of this queen of waters? They have been already so celebrated by the pencil and the lyre, that my efforts would be those of presumption. I find it quite too much even to relate the effect they produced upon our minds; for no words can adequately express our feelings of admiration and surprise!

We were now once more in Piedmont, and the road led us through the town of Arona, built upon the shores of the lake, which is full forty miles in length. We saw a picturesque figure of a peasant girl kneeling upon the banks, and laving (like a young naiad) her long tresses in the stream. There is a fine grey ruin of a castle upon the left, as you enter Arona, and a chain of bold cliffs covered with vineyards, with several cottages, peeping out from amid bowers of fragrance, near their craggy summits. A refreshing breeze tempered the still ardent heat of day: it seemed to rise upon us, in a gale of balmy softness, from the water, whose placid waves are sometimes, however, ruffled into sudden anger, by storms of wind from the surrounding Alps; and many unfortunate accidents to boatmen, &c. arise in consequence. It would be difficult to imagine any thing in nature more luxuriantly beautiful than the hanging gardens belonging to the little villas in this neighbourhood; where standard peach-trees, olives, filberts, grapes, figs, Turkey wheat, orange blossoms, carnations, and all the tribe of vegetables, are mingled together in rich confusion, and the vines trained upon low trellises slope down to the water's edge; while, among the grass at the feet of the taller trees, the pumpkin trails her golden globes and flowers. We remarked several pretty faces, in a style neither wholly Italian nor French, but which formed an agreeable and happy mixture of both. The ever odious goître, nevertheless, sometimes obtruded its horrid deformity among them; and it was an equal mortification to our dreams of perfection to observe, that even in the little towns, built in the very heart of all this sweetness and purity, the most disgusting smells (indicative of innately filthy habits) perpetually issued forth, poisoning every street, and mingling their pollutions with the fragrant breath of the mountain gale. But now the fanciful crags on the opposite side of the lake began to assume a purplish blue tint, deeply influenced by, and half lost in, the shadow of lowering clouds, which (fast gathering round their summits in dark and misty volumes) foreboded an approaching storm. Bright and catching lights, however, still lingered upon the bright sails of distant boats, and upon the no less white walls of the little villages; which were built so close upon the shore as to seem as if they sprung from the bosom of the waves.

We arrived at Feriola (inn La Posta), a small town, washed by the same transparent waters, and sheltered by granite mountains (covered with a mossy vegetation mixed with vineyards), which rose abruptly and immediately above the walls of the house: here we passed the night; the storm was just beginning, as we drove up to this welcome refuge: flashes of red and forked lightning shot fiercely down from the Alpine heights, and were quenched in the dark lake below; while peals of hollow thunder reverberating from the adjacent caverns, increased the awful effect of the whole. Torrents of rain soon followed, and lasted without intermission for many hours. We slept well, our beds being free from vermin, although of the humblest sort, without curtain or canopy, and covered with quilts which were very like stable rugs. They had been occupied before us, by dukes and duchesses; who, although not used to more comforts than those which surround me in my own happy home, had certainly reason to expect more stateliness of accommodation; necessity, however, has no law, and I dare say they were as glad as I was to avail themselves of clean sheets, and a substantial roof over head, after the fatigues of travelling. The whole of this little inn was built of granite, from the neighbouring quarries. We rose the next morning at four, and as I drest by the yet imperfect light, which streamed into the room through the lowly casement, I was interested in observing the different appearances of nature, in the midst of such wild scenery, and at so early an hour.

The dewy mists were slowly rising from the valley, which smiled in all the fresh loveliness of morning, as they gradually rolled off, and settled round the brows of the higher mountains like a shadowy veil. The grass smelt strongly of thyme and balm, after the late rain, and seemed to be eagerly relished by a flock of sheep, which two shepherdess figures were leading up the winding path. This fair prospect did not last long; a heavy rain re-commenced; and as we proceeded upon our journey we could hardly see our route amid the mountains, from the dense and heavy fog which obscured every object. All nature truly appeared to be weeping; this is no merely poetical term, but the truth: there are some things which cannot be adequately described in the common expressions of prose, and this is one of them.

We passed Monte Rosa, which is fifteen thousand feet in height: a beautiful little church hung upon its shelving side, built in a style that gave it much the air of the Sybil's temple. In all parts of the country through which we had gone, we observed numerous shrines of the Virgin; but instead of a simple and appropriate statue, which good taste might reasonably have hoped to find within, they were constantly disgraced by a paltry gaudy painting, in distemper. The outside walls of houses, also, were generally daubed in the same ridiculous manner, and afforded us perpetual cause of exclamation against the melange of real and false taste, which Italy thus exhibits. We were sorry to have missed seeing (near Arona, in our preceding day's journey) the celebrated colossal statue of St. Carlo Borromeo in bronze; which, rearing its proud height far above the surrounding woods, forms a very grand and noble spectacle: a man (in speaking of its proportions to Mr. B.) told him that the head alone held three persons, and that he himself had stood within the cavity of the nose! I believe it is seventy feet from the ground.

We passed over a bridge on the river Toscia, a graceful serpentine stream, whose waters were of a milky hue, owing to the heavy rains. Here we met a peasant, wearing a singular sort of cloak, made of long dry silky rushes, admirably adapted to resist and throw off the wet; he looked at a distance like a moving thatched hut, his hat forming the chimney, and we afterwards saw several women and children in the same costume. The common people also use a rude kind of umbrella of divers gaudy colours, the frame and spokes being made of clumsy wood.

At Domo d'Ossola we stopped to take refreshment at la Posta, a most comfortable and cleanly inn; every thing was sent up neatly, and really tempted the fastidious traveller to "eat without fear: " a degree of heroism which I confess I could not always command, not feeling sure that I might not be poisoned by some of the dishes; although it would have been by dirt, not arsenic. This is almost the last town in the Sardinian dominions, for as soon as you have crossed the Simplon, you enter Switzerland. This arduous task we now commenced, taking four horses instead of the usual three. We ascended in a zigzag direction, which seems to be the plan upon which all roads cut through very high mountains are formed; the present much resembled those by which we had descended Mont Cenis. Here we had the leisure and opportunity of contemplating nature in her grandest forms! The wild fig-tree sprung from the sides of the most profound ravines, overhanging gulfs from which the affrighted eye recoiled; and at the base of the most stupendous mountains lay valleys of inimitable verdure and luxuriance. An Alpine foot bridge, like a slight dark line, crossed a rapid river here, and was dimly discovered at intervals, amid the snowy foam of the waves; there were also frequent waterfalls, pouring their sounding floods from immense heights above us. At this spot, Mr. B. tied a handkerchief over my eyes, for three or four minutes: I thought I heard the noise of water in my ears, louder and more hollow than usual; when he suddenly removed the handkerchief, and I beheld myself in the first of those astonishing galleries of the Simplon, of which so much has justly been said by all travellers. They were half cut, half blasted by gunpowder, through the solid rock, and have the appearance of long grottos, with rude windows, or rather chasms in the sides, to admit light, and through which we discovered, with a shuddering sensation of admiring wonder, the awful precipices and steeps around. It was delightful to contemplate them while thus in a situation of perfect security; a species of feeling analogous to that which I have sometimes experienced, when comfortably housed beneath the domestic roof, during the raving of a wintry storm! How different was the aspect of the ancient road; the view of which, as it dangerously wound along the opposite mountains, nearly blocked up by fallen masses of rock, overgrown with tangled shrubs and weeds, and undefended by even the slightest wall from the yawning abysses, which frowned horribly beneath, really made my heart quake with terror! There are rude crosses by the way side, erected here, at long intervals; sad monuments of the tragical end of former unfortunate travellers. Nothing can be more terrific than the showers of stony fragments from the overhanging rocks, which frequently fall here during stormy weather; at particular seasons it is certain destruction to attempt to pass. We observed the lower and more level ground to be strewn so thickly with these formidable masses, that it brought to my mind the ancient story of Jupiter's wars with the giants; the place indeed truly resembled the state of a field of battle after one of those mighty engagements.