The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori

We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing of St. Peter to a Cross; the best design, though not very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist copying it spoke English to us.

Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wallraf: got admission. Found a venerable old man who has spent his life in making a collection of paintings and other objects of vertù belonging to his country, Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native town.

[This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder of the celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. The statement which ensues as to an early oil-painter named Kaft is noticeable; whether correct I am unable to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum does not contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the name Campavella could apply: there is a fine picture by him of Ovid and Corinna.]

Many pictures were extremely good, especially painting of individuals. Kaft was a native of this town, who painted in oil before oil-painting was known. Saw some Poussins, Claude Lorraines. Some moderate. A Tintoretto of Campavella beautiful: colouring and drawing strong and expressive. A Rembrandt and a Teniers, etc. A master of Rubens. A copy in colours from the drawing of Raphael by one of his disciples. Cologne has stamped more coins than some empires, and has coined twenty-six kinds of gold. He had made drawings of them, but the revolution stopped it. The revolutionary Gauls, he said with a tear in his eye, had destroyed many very valuable relics of Cologne; and, pointing to a leaf of a missal with another tear, he said: "Many like this once adorned our churches: this is all." He had the original manuscript of Albert le Grand, History of Animals; Titian's four designs of the Cæsars at Polenham, with his own handwriting; the Albert Durer's sketch of Christ's head which belonged to Charles II; and a painting of Albert Durer's Master.3 He wishes for a copy of any of Caxton's printing in England.

Went to buy some books. Found Miss Helmhoft, a fine woman. Had a long confab. Bought more books than I wanted. Heard her spout German poetry that I did not understand; and laughed at the oddity of her gesticulation, which she took for laughter at the wit of a poet who was describing the want of a shirt—and was highly pleased.

The French destroyed convents, and made of them public places for walking.

Have been taken for servants, Frenchmen, merchants—never hardly for English. Saw the Rhine last night—fine mass of water, wide as the Thames some way below Blackwall; but no tide, and very deep. Town dirty, very decayed, badly paved, worse lighted, and few marks of splendour and comfort.

May 10.—We have seen crucifixes for these four days at every turn, some made of wood, some of stone, etc. Set off, after having defeated the imposition of a postman, to Bonn; the scenery not anything particular till we see the Seven Hills, a large amphitheatre on the right, glimpses on the left of the Rhine, and the Seven Hills. Bonn at last appeared, with its steeples, and on the neighbouring hills castles and cots, towers, and (not) towns.4

I saw yesterday a picture of Rembrandt's with three lights in it very well managed, at Wallraf's.

Saw R. Simmons' writing in the police-book at Bonn, and wrote to Soane.

[This was John, the son of Sir John Soane, founder of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]

The innkeeper makes you put your name—whence—whither—profession and age—every night. Rogues all of them, charging much.

May 11.—We saw the first vines a little before entering Cologne some days ago. We left Bonn at eleven, the town having nothing in particular. The Seven Hills were the first that struck our sight on one of the highest pinnacles in Drachenfels, now a mere ruin, formerly a castle of which many a tale is told. There was by the roadside a monument raised upon the spot where one noble brother killed another. Crucifixes all the way. We had the river on one side, whence rose hills (not mountains) cultivated halfway for vines—and the rest, nuts, shrubs, oak, etc. Towers on pinnacles, in ruin; villages (with each its spire) built of mud.

Cultivation in a high degree; no hedges, ground minutely divided into beds rather than fields; women working in the fields; ox and horse ploughing; oxen draw by their heads alone. Peasantry happy-looking and content. Two points particularly struck us—the Drachenfels, and the view at a distance before coming to Videnhar when the distant hills were black with the rain. But the whole way it is one of the finest scenes, I imagine, in the world. The large river with its massy swells and varied towered banks.

We changed horses at Bemagne, and passed over a road first cut by Aurelius, Theodoric, and Buonaparte. B[uonaparte]'s name is everywhere. Who did this? N[apoleon] B[uonaparte].—Who that?—He. There is an inscription to record this. Andernach—a fine entrance from Bemagne, with its massy towers and square-spired church. From Andernach we passed on. Saw on the other side Neuwied, a town owing its existence to the mere toleration of religion. It is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at a distance; went to it. There was inscribed "The army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in-chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble slabs broken, and it is falling. But—

"Glory of the fallen braveShall men remember though forgot their grave,"

and the enemies may launch malicious darts against it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost sublime, palls, and man is fastidious.

[The celebrated lyric by Byron introduced into Childe Harold, an address to his half-sister, is stated farther on to have been written on this very day. I cite the first stanza—

"The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,Whose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vine;And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,And fields which promise corn and wine,And scatter'd cities crowning these,Whose far white walls along them shine,Have strew'd a scene which I should seeWith double joy wert thou with me."]

About a mile from Coblentz we saw Marceau's tomb—too dark. Crossed the bridge over the Moselle, entered Coblentz; asked of military, no pass; went to inns, rascals. Went to the Trois Suisses—well served; fine view of Ehrenbreitstein fortress in sight. When French besieged it, Marceau was here at this inn, and the cannon-ball pierced it several times.—There were 84 French officers here, when they would not believe the Cossacks would pass; they had to fly as quick as horses could convey them, for the C[ossacks], getting into boats, made their horses swim across. C[ossack]s rascals—ate and drank and never paid. The general of them mean into the bargain; for he sent the waiter in search of a louis he had never dropped, and went off.—A flying bridge in face of me.

[Marceau died in 1796 of a wound received near Altenkirchen, at the age of only twenty-seven. High honours were paid to his remains both by his own army and by the Austrians whom he had been combating. Polidori passes rapidly from the affair of Marceau to that of eighty-four French officers and a body of Cossacks: but it is clear that these two matters have no real connexion: the latter must relate to 1815 or 1814. Byron devotes to Marceau two stanzas of Childe Harold—

"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,There is a small and simple pyramidCrowning the summit of the verdant mound.Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,Our enemy's: but let not that forbidHonour to Marceau; o'er whose early tombTears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume."Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.

General Hoche, although a separate monument to him was observed by Byron and Polidori, was in fact buried in the same tomb with Marceau. He died at Wetzlar in 1797, aged twenty-nine. It may be noticed that Byron (line 4) writes "heroes'," plural, followed by "enemy's," singular. "Heroes'" must be intended for both Marceau and Hoche, and I suspect that "enemy's" is a misprint for "enemies'."]

May 12.—Got up. Looked at the fine view, and went to the bath, which was at a maltster's—30 sous. Thence entered a Catholic church—organ—children singing, which had a fine effect. A copy of Rubens—lineal. Breakfasted.

Mounted a calèche, and went to Marceau's monument. The tomb of heroes made into a certain place very much expressed the flickering flame of fame. Thence to the Chartreuse: deserted, ruined, windowless, roofless, and tenantless—with another in sight in the same state. Plenty of reliefs on the roadside belonging to the Road to Calvary, an oratory on the hillside, where were many peasants bowing in reverence. Thence to the flying bridge managed by boats fastened in the stream with a rope, and by the rudder.

Saw a motley group of peasants with their head-dresses of gold and crimson or green with the steel pin. Cocked hat, blue coat and stockinged heroes with a fork. Officers, artillery-men, etc.; crosses given apparently with as profuse a hand to the soldiers as to the roadside.

Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by gunpowder; immense masses of solid stone and mortar thrown fifty yards from their original situation; ruined walls, gateways, and halls—nothing perfect. Splendid views thence—Coblentz, Rhine, Moselle with its bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilderness, everything below my feet. Mounted again. Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking very like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage—set off. Scenes increasing in sublimity. The road raised from the side of the river without parapet: two precipices coming to the road headlong. Indeed the river reaches foot to foot—splendid, splendid, splendid. Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he raised customs, and resisted in consequence sixty cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the first post saw the people in church; went to hear them sing—fine.

May 13.—Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense plain to the mounts, with the Rhine in medio, covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to Mayence made by Nap[oleon]; his name has been erased from the inscription on the column commemorative of the work. Insolence of power!

Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prussians, all in the town—belonging to all. The best town we have seen since Ghent.

[Mayence was at this date, locally, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse: but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps Bavarians)].

One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.

Arrived at Mayence at 6-1/2. Saw along the Rhine many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe Harold, from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine."5

May 14.—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as gravely putting forth his powdered head from under a tombstone he has just lifted up—with an inscription saying "I am here."

From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a fine country. Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Taken very ill with a fever at Mannheim—could not write my Journal.

May 15.—Being a little recovered, set off. Fine alleys of Lombardy-poplars and horse-chestnuts—neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe through a grove of Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect. Saw the Palace.

Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac and op. gr. 15. Headache, vertigo, tendency to fainting, etc. Magnesia and lemon acid—a little better, no effect.

Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest town we have yet met with: the only objection is the houses stuccoed white—bad for the eyes. Saw the outside of the Palace, and went into the garden laid out in the English manner.

Went home: dreadful headaches: ate some stewed apples; took some more magn[esia] and acid; had no effect; lay down; got up after two hours. Was just going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to take from my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one. Got on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the servants to me. Took 4 pills; going out again, when L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the plated candlestick, to take up a brass one; went to bed.

[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or mortifying his physician. There must have been a candle in each candlestick; and it is conceivable that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might have needed it throughout the night.]

Medicine had violent effect: better on the whole, though weak.

Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad an account of my positively dying that he came to enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He took care to tell us he was a great friend of the Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole (he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the worthy Mayor;6 gave us a long sermon about rheumatism, routes, etc.; left us. In the evening he sent in the Guide du Voyageur en les pays de l'Europe, begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's] poems.

Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs—Corinthian, golden capitals: loaded everywhere with gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-tawdry. The environs are beautiful. Drove a great deal about: fine trees and fine cultivation.

May 18.—From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much better. Slept halfway: blinds down the other, so nothing to mention except fine trees, fine cocked hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions.

May 19.—Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes that pleased me much; hills and clouds upon them; woods with mists. Passed through Freiburg, where we saw the steeple pervious to the top with trellis-work showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful appearance.

I think Charles, when he said, "The German for his horse," remembered the G[erman] postillions; for they talk to theirs, and the horses on their part listen and seem to understand. The greater part of to-day I have found the ladies in a strange costume of short wide red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of straw as wide as a wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to sleep. Left Krolzingen: got to a hill. Fine view thence: the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains, and a fine plain before us—fine country. Crossed the Rhine, and were in Switzerland. The town upon unequal ground—some parts very high, and some low; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea went to take a walk: went upon the Rhine bridge—upon a hill in the town [Bâle presumably].

May 21.—Went to see a panorama of Thun, the first Swiss one: crowded foolishly with people, and too small. Saw a gallery that the artist had formed. A fine Raphael, not his; a good Rembrandt, the first I saw historical; a Circumcision; a head of the caricaturist David; two heads of Divinity; a Christ and Virgin—mere pieces of flesh and drapery. Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw there Nelson's Death, Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England. The Dance of Death has been destroyed: but it was not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The collection is dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings.

Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to Geneva in five days. Set off. Country increases from hills to mountains with great beauty. Passed through Lipstadt and came to –. Went before supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd who could not understand the French that asked for milk till it had the commentary, "We will pay for it." The scene was very fine: to the right, beautiful; to the left, it had a tendency to sublimity; on one side, hills covered to the top with trees; on the other, mountains with bald pates. Came down. Found the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged to run the bowls along a narrow board to the men. Supper: read Arabian Nights; went to bed.

May 22.—Left – at 9; passed the Jura mountains, where we saw some fine castellated scenery, and women ornamented strangely—amazingly short petticoats, not below the knee, with black crape rays round their heads that make them look very spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone fortifications, and a clean church with fountains before it. The houses in this neighbourhood have a pleasing strange appearance on account of the roofs, which slant out on every side a great way. Immense number of Scotch firs—roads fine. Voituriers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a day, being two; which being too much according to the Guide du Voyageur en Europe, where it is said 1-1/2 fr., we showed it to our courier, who was in a passion. Came to –, where we slept.

May 23.—Left –: got a sight of some fine Alpine snow-capped mountains. Came to Berne; delightfully situated; beautiful streets with arcades all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees; Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind, with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived at Morat; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown inn. All the way had debates whether clouds were mountains, or mountains clouds.

May 24.—The innkeeper at Morat, being a little tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself, favoured us with some of his infidel notions while serving us at supper. Near Morat was fought the battle wherein the Burgundians were so completely thrashed. Their bones, of which we took pieces, are now very few; once they formed a mighty heap in the chapel, but both were destroyed by the Burgundian division when in Switzerland, and a tree of liberty was planted over it, which yet flourishes in all its verdure—the liberty has flown from the planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum; there remains sufficient of the walls to trace the boundaries of the ancient town; but of all the buildings, both for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains, and that the only remnant for more than a hundred years. There are mosaic pavements, and even the streets may be perceived in a dry summer by the grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably once of a temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic cavalry came and turned it into a stable. It is formed of little pieces of black, white, and red bricks; little now remains. There was also a copper vessel in the middle; that too has disappeared. The town is shamefully negligent of the antiquities of their fathers, for there is another more beautiful and perfect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould rather than buy it. We found in a barn heads, plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped promiscuously. The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rudeness of first art—a capital of a strange mixed order. There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect, but no stonework visible; overgrown with trees; the size, my companion told me, was larger than common. In the town there were some beautiful fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the walls; all marble. In the walls of the church we sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison mentions to Julia Alpinula.

[Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches) Byron devotes some stanzas in Childe Harold, 63 to 67, and notes to correspond. Morat he terms "the proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard of bones, and says: "I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero," for "careful preservation." His reference to Aventicum and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that "we sought in vain for the inscription." Byron's readers must always, I apprehend, have inferred the contrary.

"By a lone wall a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,And looks as with the wild bewildered gazeOf one to stone converted by amaze,Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,Making a marvel that it not decays,When the coeval pride of human hands,Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands."And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gaveHer youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would craveThe life she lived in; but the judge was just,—And then she died on him she could not save.Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."

Byron's note runs thus: "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago. It is thus: 'Julia Alpinula hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of greater interest. These are the names and actions," etc.]

I copied the one below on account of its medical tendency. The letters in this as well as in all the other inscriptions are formed like our Roman print, not in the least imperfect: "Nvminib. Avg. et Genio Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib. Medicis et Professorib, D.S.D."

From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne. We have seen in many places boys leading goats just in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon—dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to the view descending to Morat.

Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein – defended himself against the French who besieged it for a month: looks so weak, it seems a wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so interesting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered Lausanne.

May 25.—Left Lausanne, after having looked at a bookseller's, who showed me a fine collection of bad books for four louis. Enquired for Dewar: name not known. We went along the lake, that a little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad as it really is, and the mountains near it, though covered with snow, have not a great appearance on account of the height [of the] lake itself. We saw Mont Blanc in the distance; ethereal in appearance, mingling with the clouds; it is more than 60 miles from where we saw it. It is a classic ground we go over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker, Staël, Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except Rousseau). Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close to the road.

[Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded who Bonnet was. He was a great physicist, both practical and speculative, Charles Bonnet, author of a Traité d'Insectologie, a Traité de l'usage des Feuilles, Contemplations de la Nature, Palingénésie Philosophique, and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died in 1793.]

We arrived at Sécheron—where Lord Byron, having put his age down as 100, received a letter half-an-hour after from Inn Keeper?—a thing that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to be the land of the vine. Women, who till the Pays de Vaud were ugly, improving greatly.

May 26.—After breakfast, and having made up the accounts to to-day, and having heard that the voituriers made a claim of drink-money all the way back, we ordered a calèche; but, happening to go into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering, we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it was pris pour un monsieur Anglais, who happened to be –.7 We got another, and went out to bathe. I rode first with L[ord] B[yron] upon the field of Waterloo; walked first to see Churchill's tomb; bathed and rowed first on the Leman Lake.—It did us much good. Dined; entered the calèche; drove through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that pleased me: it was porticoes from the very roof of the high houses to the bottom.