Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844

We are here high up amidst the mountains, where, we are to remember, as the ancients came not to spend, like ourselves, an idle hour, but to consume most of the day, shelter would be wanted. Two large lateral spaces, or as it were, side chambers, have received this destination at the hands of the antiquary, and have been supposed lobbies for foul weather or for shade at noon. We were made to notice by our guide, what we should else have overlooked, how the main passage described above communicates with several smaller ones in its progress, and that a small stair was a subsequent contrivance or afterthought meant to relieve, on emergency, the overcharged large one; its workmanship and style showed it plainly to have been added when the edifice had already become an antiquity. This altogether peculiar and most interesting building has also suffered still later interpolations: a Saracenic frieze runs round the wall; so that the hands of three widely different nations have been busy on the mountain theatre, which received its first audience twenty-five centuries ago! The view obtained from this spot has often been celebrated, and deserves to be. Such mountains we had often seen before; such a sky is the usual privilege of Sicily; these indented bays, which break so beautifully the line of the coast, had been an object of our daily admiration; the hoary side of the majestic Etna, and Naxos with its castellated isthmus, might be seen from other elevated situations; and the acuminated tops of Mola, with its Saracenic tower, were commanded by neighbouring sites—Taormina alone, and for its own sake, was the great and paramount object in our eyes, and possessed us wholly! We had been following Lyell half the day in antediluvian remains; but what are the bones of Ichthyosauri or Megalotheria to this gigantic skeleton of Doric antiquity, round which lie scattered the sepulchres of its ancient audiences, Greek, Roman, and Oriental—tombs which had become already an object of speculation, and been rifled for arms, vases, or gold rings, before Great Britain had made the first steps beyond painted barbarism!

The eruptions of Etna have all been recorded. Thucydides mentions one of them episodically in the Peloponesian war. From the cooled caldron that simmers under all that snow, has proceeded all the lava that the ancients worked into these their city walls. The houses of Taurominium were built of and upon lava, which it requires a thousand years to disintegrate. After dinner we walk to Naxos, saluting the statue of the patron of a London parish, St Pancras, on our way. He stands on the beach here, and claims, by inscription on his pedestal, to have belonged to the apostolic times, St Peter himself having, he says, appointed him to his bishopric. He is patron of Taormina, where he has possessed himself of a Greek temple; and he also protects the faithful of Giardini. Lucky in his architects has been St Pancras; for many of our readers are familiar with his very elegant modern church in the New Road, modelled, if we have not forgotten, on the Erechtheum, with its Pandrosean Vestries, its upright tiles, and all the subordinate details of Athenian architecture. We met here the subject of many an ancient bas relief done into flesh and blood—a dozen men and boys tripping along the road to the music of a bagpipe, one old Silenus leading the jocund throng, and the whole of them, as the music, such as it was, inspired, leaping about and gesticulating with incredible activity. It was a bacchanalian subject, which we had seen on many a sarcophagus, only that the fellows here were not quite naked, and that we looked in vain for those nascent horns and tails by which the children of Pan and Faunus ought to be identified. We always look out for natural history. Walking in a narrow street, we saw a tortoise, awake for the season, come crawling out to peep at the poultry; his hybernation being over, he wants to be social, and the hens in astonishment chuckle round him, and his tortoiseshell highness seems pleased at their kind enquiries, and keeps bobbing his head in and out of his testudo in a very sentimental manner. Women who want his shell for combs do not frequent these parts, and so, unless a cart pass over him as he returns home, he is in clover.

A bird frequents these parts with a blue chest, called Passer solitarius; he abounds in the rocky crevices. The notes of one, which was shown to us in a cage, sounded sweetly; but, as he was carnivorous, the weather was too hot for us to think of taking him away. We saw two snakes put into the same box: the one, a viper, presently killed the other, and much the larger of the two. Serpents, then, like men, do not, as the Satirist asserts, spare their kind. We are disappointed at not finding any coins, nor any other good souvenirs, to bring away with us. The height of Taormina is sufficient to keep it from fever, which is very prevalent at Giardini below. Its bay was once a great place for catching mullet for the Roman market. It seems to have been the Torbay of Sicily. Some fish love their ease, and rejoice not in turbulent waters. The muræna, or lamprey, on the contrary, was sought in the very whirlpools of Charybdis. The modern Roman, on his own side of Italy, has few turbot, but very good ones are still taken off Ancona, in the Adriatic, where the spatium admirabile Rhombi, as the reader will, or ought to recollect, was taken and sent to Domitian at Albano by Procaccio or Estafetta. Juvenal complains that the Tyrrhene sea was exhausted by the demand for fish, though there was no Lent in those times. If the Catholic clergy insist that there was, we beg to object, that the keepers thereof were probably not in a condition to compete with the Apiciuses of the day, who bought fish for their bodies', and not for their SOULS' SAKE.

CATANIA

Tum Catane nimium ardenti vicina Typhæo.

After a pleasant drive of twenty miles, we find ourselves at Aci-Reale, where a street, called "Galatea," reminds us unexpectedly of a very classical place called Dean's Yard, where we once had doings with Acis, as he figures in Ovid's Metamorphoses. We were here in luck, and, having purchased some fine coins of several of the tyrants of Sicily from the apothecary, proceeded on our way to Catania. In half an hour we reach the basaltic Isles of the Cyclops, and the Castle of Acis, whom the peasants hereabouts tell you was their king, when Sicily was under the Saracenic yoke. The river Lecatia, now lost, is supposed formerly to have issued hereabouts, in the port of Ulysses. Our next move placed us amidst the silk-slops of Catania. We have hardly been five minutes in the town, when offers abound to conduct us up Ætna, in whom, as so much national wealth, the inhabitants seem to take as much interest as in her useful and productive silk-looms. Standing fearless on the pavement of lava that buried their ancient city, they point up with complacency to its fountains above. The mischievous exploits of Ætna, in past times, are in every mouth, and children learn their Ætnean catechism as soon as they are breeched. Ætna here is all in all. Churches are constructed out of his quarried viscera—great men lie in tombs, of which the stones once ran liquid down his flames—snuff is taken out of lava boxes—and devotion carves the crucifix on lava, and numbers its beads on a lava rosary—nay, the apothecary's mortar was sent him down from the great mortar-battery above, and the village belle wears fire-proof bracelets that were once too hot to be meddled with. Go to the museum, and you will call it a museum of Ætnean products. Nodulated, porous, condensed, streaked, spotted, clouded, granulated lava, here assumes the colour, rivals the compactness, sustains the polish, of jasper, of agate, and of marble; indeed it sometimes surpasses, in beautiful veinage, the finest and rarest Marmorean specimens. You would hardly distinguish some of it, worked into jazza or vase, from rosso antico itself. A very old and rusty armoury may, as here, be seen any where; but a row of formidable shark skulls, taken along the coast, and some in the very port of Catania, are rarities on which the ciceroni like to prelect, being furnished with many a story of bathers curtailed by them, and secure a large portion of attention, especially if you were just thinking of a dip. A rather fine collection of bronzes has been made from excavations in the neighbourhood, which, indeed, must always promise to reward research. A figure of Mercury, two and a half feet high, and so exactly similar to that of John of Bologna, that his one seemed an absolute plagiarism, particularly attracted our attention on that account. The great Italian artist, however, had been dead one hundred and fifty years before this bronze was dug up. Next in importance to the bronzes, we esteem the collection of Sicilian, or Græco-Sicilian vases, though inferior in number and selectness to those of the Vatican, or Museo-Borbonico. There is also some ancient sculpture, and some pretty mosaic. Of this composition is a bathfloor, where a family of Cupids, in the centre of the pavement, welcome you with a utere feliciter, (may it do you good.) Round the border, a circle of the personified "months" is artistically chained together, each bearing his Greek name, for fear of a mistake—names not half so good as Sheridan's translation of the Revolutionary calendar—snowy, flowy, blowy—showery, flowery, bowery—moppy, croppy, poppy—breezy, sneezy, freezy. In Catania, we find no lack of coins, nor of sharp-eyed dealers, who know pretty generally their value throughout Europe; but, in order to be quite sure of the price current, ask double what they take from one another, and judge, by your abatement of it, of the state of the market elsewhere. Now mind, sir, when they present you the most impudent forgeries, you are not to get into a passion; but, glancing from the object to the vender, quietly insinuate your want of absolute conviction in a "che vi pare di questa moneta." He now looks at it again, and takes a squint at you; and supposing you smell a rat, probably replies that certainly he bought it for genuine; but you have suggested a doubt, and the piece really begins, even to him, to look suspicious, "anzi à me." You reply coolly, and put it down—"That was just what I was thinking;" and so the affair passes quietly off. And now you may, if you happen to be tender-hearted, say something compassionate to the poor innocent who has been taken in, and proceed to ask him about another; and when you see any thing you long to pocket, enquire what can he afford to let a brother collector (give him a step in rank) have it for; and so go on feeling your way, and never "putting your arm so far out that you cannot comfortably draw it back again." He will probably ask you if you know Mr B—— or C——, (English collectors,) with whom he has had dealings, calling them "stimabili signori;" and, of course, you have no doubt of it, though you never heard of them before. It is also always conciliative to congratulate him on the possession of such and such rare and "belle cose;" and if you thus contrive to get into his good graces, he will deal with you at fair prices, and perhaps amuse you with an account of such tricks as he is not ashamed to have practised on blockheads, who will buy at any cost if the die is fine. Indeed, it has passed into an aphorism among these mezzo-galantuomini, as their countrymen call them, that a fine coin is always worth what you can get for it.

We heard the celebrated organ of St Benedict, which has been praising God in tremendous hallelujahs ever since it was put up, and a hundred years have only matured the richness of its tones. Its voice was gushing out as we entered the church, and filling nave and aisle with a diapason of all that was soft and soothing, as if a choir of Guido's angels had broke out in harmony.

A stream of fresh water issues under the old town-wall, and an immense mass of incumbent lava, of at least ninety feet high, impends just above its source, the water struggling through a mass of rock once liquefied by fire, in as limpid a rill as if it came from limestone, and so excellent in quality that no other is used in Catania. Women with buckets were ascending and descending to fetch supplies out of the lava of the dead city below, for the use of the living town above. Moreover, this is the only point in Catania where the accident of a bit of wall arresting for some time the progress of the lava current, has left the level of the old town to be rigidly ascertained.

Here, as at Aci-Reale, balconies at windows, for the most part supported by brackets, terminating in human heads, give a rich, though rather a heavy, appearance to the street. Much amber is found and worked at Catania. It has been lately discovered in a fossil state, and in contiguity with fossil wood; but we were quite electrified at the price of certain little scent-bottles, and other articles made of this production. You see it in all its possible varieties of colour, opacity, or transparency. The green opalized kind is the most prized, and four pounds was demanded for a pair of pendants of this colour for earrings. Besides the yellow sort, which is common every where, we see the ruby red, which is very rare: some varieties are freckled, and some of the sort which afforded subjects for Martial, and for more than one of the Greek anthologists, with insects in its matrix. This kind, they say, is found exclusively on the coast of Catania. There are such pieces the size of a hand, but it is generally in much smaller bits. Amber lies under, or is formed upon the sand, and abounds most near the embouchure of a small river in this neighbourhood. Many beautiful shells, fossils, and other objects of natural history, appear in the dealers' trays; and polished knife-handles of Sicilian agate may be had at five dollars a dozen.

THE LAST OF THE KNIGHTS

DON JOHN AND THE HERETICS OF FLANDERS

It would almost seem as though chivalry were one of the errors of Popery; so completely did the spirit of the ancient orders of knighthood evaporate at the Reformation! The blind enthusiasm of ignorance having engendered superstitions of every kind and colour, the blow struck at the altar of the master idol proved fatal to all.

In Elizabeth's time, the forms and sentiment of chivalry were kept up by an effort. The parts enacted by Sidney and Raleigh, appear studied rather than instinctive. At all events, the gallant Sir Philip was the last of English knights, as he was the first of his time. Thenceforward, the valour of the country assumed a character more professional.

But a fact thus familiar to us of England, is more remarkable of the rest of Europe. The infallibility of Rome once assailed, every faith was shaken. Loyalty was lessened, chivalry became extinct; expiring in France with Henri IV. and the League—in Portugal with Don Sebastian of Braganza—and in Spain with Charles V., exterminated root and branch by the pen of Cervantes.

One of the most brilliant effervescences, however, of those crumbling institutions, is connected with Spanish history, in the person of Don John of Austria;—a prince who, if consecrated by legitimacy to the annals of the throne, would have glorified the historical page by a thousand heroic incidents. But the sacrament of his baptism being unhappily unpreceded by that of a marriage, he has bequeathed us one of those anomalous existences—one of those incomplete destinies, which embitter our admiration with disappointment and regret.

On both sides of royal blood, Don John was born with qualifications to adorn a throne. It is true that when his infant son was entrusted by Charles V. to the charge of the master of his household, Don Quexada, the emperor simply described him as the offspring of a lady of Ratisbon, named Barbara Blomberg. But the Infanta Clara Eugenia was confidentially informed by her father Philip II., and confidentially informed her satellite La Cuea, that her uncle was "every way of imperial lineage;" and but that he was the offspring of a crime, Don John had doubtless been seated on one of those thrones to which his legitimate brother Philip imparted so little distinction.

Forced by the will of Charles V. to recognize the consanguinity of Don John, and treat him with brotherly regard, one of the objects of the hateful life of the father of Don Carlos seems to have been to thwart the ambitious instincts of his brilliant Faulconbridge. For in the boiling veins of the young prince abided the whole soul of Charles V.,—valour, restlessness, ambition; and his romantic life and mysterious death bear alike the tincture of his parentage.

That was indeed the age of the romance of royalty! Mary at Holyrood,—Elizabeth at Kenilworth—Carlos at the feet of his mother-in-law,—the Béarnais at the gates of Paris,—have engraved their type in the book of universal memory. But Don John escapes notice—a solitary star outshone by dazzling constellations. Commemorated by no medals, flattered by no historiographer, sung by no inspired "godson," anointed by neither pope nor primate, his nook in the temple of fame is out of sight, and forgotten.

Even his master feat, the gaining of the battle of Lepanto, brings chiefly to our recollection that the author of Don Quixote lost his hand in the action; and in the trivial page before us, we dare not call our hero by the name of "Don Juan," (by which he is known in Spanish history,) lest he be mistaken for the popular libertine! And thus, the last of the knights has been stripped of his name by the hero of the "Festin de Pierre," and of his honours by Cervantes, as by Philip II. of a throne.—

Hard fate for one described by all the writers of his time as a model of manly grace and Christian virtue! How charming is the account given by the old Spanish writers of the noble youth, extricated from his convent to be introduced on the high-road to a princely cavalier, surrounded by his retinue, whom he is first desired to salute as a brother, and then required to worship, as the king of Spain! We are told of his joy on discovering his filial relationship to the great emperor, so long the object of his admiration. We are told of his deeds of prowess against the Turks at Lepanto, at Tunis against the Moor. We are told of the proposition of Gregory XIII. that he should be rewarded with the crown of Barbary, and of the desire of the revolted nobility of Belgium, to raise him to their tottering throne; nay, we are even assured that "la couronne d'Hibernie" was offered to his acceptance. And finally, we are told of his untimely death and glorious funeral—mourned by all the knighthood of the land! But we hear and forget. Some mysterious counter-charm has stripped his laurels of their verdure. Even the lesser incidents of the life of Don John are replete with the interest of romance. When appointed by Philip II. governor of the Netherlands, in order that he might deal with the heretics of the Christian faith as with the faithful of Mahomet, such deadly vengeance was vowed against his person by the Protestant party headed by Horn and the Prince of Orange, that it was judged necessary for his highness to perform his journey in disguise. Attired as a Moorish slave, he reached Luxembourg as the attendant of Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of Prince Amalfi, at the very moment the troops of the king of Spain were butchering eight thousand citizens in his revolted city of Antwerp!—

The arrival of the new governor afforded the signal for more pacific measures. The dispositions of Don John were humane—his manners frank. Aware that the Belgian provinces were exhausted by ten years of civil war, and that the pay of the Spanish troops he had to lead against them was so miserably in arrear as to compel them to acts of atrocious spoliation, the hero of Lepanto appears to have done his best to stop the effusion of blood; and, notwithstanding the counteraction of the Prince of Orange, the following spring, peace and an amnesty were proclaimed. The treaty signed at Marche, (known by the name of the Perpetual Edict,) promised as much tranquillity as was compatible with the indignation of a country which had seen the blood of its best and noblest poured forth, and the lives and property of its citizens sacrificed without mercy or calculation.

But, though welcomed to Brussels by the acclamations of the people and the submission of the States, Don John appears to have been fully sensible that his head was within the jaws of the lion. The blood of Egmont had not yet sunk into the earth; the echoes of the edicts of Alva yet lingered in the air; and the very stones of Brussels appeared to rise up and testify against a brother of Philip II.!

Right thankful, therefore, was the young prince when an excuse was afforded for establishing himself in a more tenable position, by an incident which must again be accounted among the romantic adventures of his life. For the sudden journey of the fascinating Margaret of Valois to the springs of Spa, on pretence of indisposition, was generally attributed to a design against the heart of the hero of Lepanto.

A prince so remarkable for his gallantry of knighthood, could do no less than wait upon the sister of the French king, on her passage through Namur; and, once established in the citadel of that stronghold of the royalists, he quitted it no more. In process of time, a camp was formed in the environs, and fortresses erected on the banks of the Meuse under the inspection of Don John; nor was it at first easy to determine whether his measures were actuated by mistrust of the Protestants, or devotion to the worst and most Catholic of wives of the best and most Huguenot of kings.

The blame of posterity, enlightened by the journal of Queen Margaret's proceedings in Belgium, (bequeathed for our edification by the alienated queen of Henri IV.,) has accused Don John of blindness, in the right-loyal reception bestowed on her, and the absolute liberty accorded her during her residence at Spa, where she was opening a road for the arrival of her brother the Duke of Alençon. It is admitted, indeed, that her attack upon his heart met with defeat. But the young governor is said to have made up in chivalrous courtesies for the disappointment of her tender projects; and Margaret, if she did not find a lover at Namur, found the most assiduous of knights.

Many, indeed, believe that his attentions to the French princess were as much a feint as her own illness; and that he was as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don John who possessed the clue to the mystery.

Ottavio Gonzaga, on his return from a mission to Madrid with which he had been charged by Don John, was the first to acquaint him with the suspicions to which the sojourn of Margaret had given rise.

"I own I expected to find your highness in better cheer," said he, when the first compliments had been exchanged. "Such marvels have been recounted in Spain of your fêtes and jousts of honour, that I had prepared myself to hear of nothing at headquarters but the silken pastimes of a court."

"Instead of which," cried Don John, "you find me, as usual, in my steel jerkin, with no milder music at command than the trumpets of my camp; my sole duty, the strengthening of yonder lines," continued he, (pointing from a window of the citadel, near which they were standing, commanding the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse,) "and my utmost diversion, an occasional charge against the boars in yonder forest of Marlagne!"