LETTER XIX.
Passage to Naples in a heavy gale.—Street amusement at Naples.—The Mole.—Shipping and Vessels of War.—Neapolitan Skies.—Effect of Sunset.—The Museum.—Process of unrolling and decyphering the Herculaneum MSS.—Liberality of Government in carrying on the investigations.—Familiar articles found in the ruins.—Suggestions for the improvement of American Coinage.—Moral evidence of articles deposited in the Museum.
The November of Sorrento proved a rough visiter, and we were driven to cluster around the solitary fire-place of the Cassa detta del Tasso. We resisted every inducement to remove, until the tramontane got to be so marrow-chilling, that the alternative lay between total defeat and flight. We chose the latter, preferring abandoning the place we loved so well, to being chilled into mummies. The cold might have been resisted, had the house been in good repair, and suited to a winter’s residence; but, as the cook had possession of one of our two fire-places, the other proved insufficient for our wants. This letter is consequently written from Naples. You are not to fancy a freezing cold by this account, but one that was excessively chilling; and this the more so, from the circumstance that our house was fully exposed to the north winds, standing, as it did, on the northern edge of the plain, with the entire bay between us and the Apennines.
The day we quitted Sorrento, the wind blew so heavily from the east, that the people of the Divina Providenza looked surprised when we presented ourselves at the Marinella, in readiness to embark. They knew the bay better than I did; for, judging by the force of the gale and sea within the curvature of our shore, I thought we might make the passage without any risk. Finding us ready to proceed, however, the fine fellows made no objection, but stood out boldly into the gulf. At the distance of a mile or two from the cliffs, we took the whole force of the wind; and really there were a few minutes when I thought of putting back. All our previous boating was a fair-weather frolic, compared to this.
The wind drew through the pass between Vesuvius and Castel-a-mare like a pair of bellows, and the sea, at times, almost laid our little sparanaro on her side. The vessel, however, was admirably handled, and, by watching the sheet, which was eased off in the puffs, we wallowed across the opening, luffing up to our course handsomely, until we made the lee of the mountain. Here we literally found a calm, and were compelled to use the oars! We had no sooner swept by the base of the mountain, however, than we took the breeze again, stiff as ever, but without the disagreeable attendant of rough water. Notwithstanding the delay of the calm, we made the passage in a little more than two hours.
We are in private lodgings here. Of course, you understand by private lodgings, not a dwelling that differs from a tavern, with a table d’hote, only in name, but an apartment, as it is termed, in which we have every thing, from the kitchen to the parlour, to ourselves. The American “boarding-house” does exist in Europe, certainly, but it is scarcely in favour. We are near the mole and the Toledo, and have been passing the month in doing Naples more effectually than we could do it in the first visit.
The place is inexhaustible in street amusements. I never tire of wandering about it, but find something to amuse me at every turn. In one quarter, the population appear literally to live in the open air, and we have driven through a street in which cooking, eating, wrangling, dancing, singing, praying, and all other occupations, were going on at the same moment. I believe I mentioned this in the first visit, but I had not then fallen on the real scene of out-door fun. The horses could not move off a walk, as we went through this street; and their heads, suddenly thrust into the centre of a ménage, appeared to produce no more derangement than a puff from a smoky chimney in one of our own kitchens.
But the mole is the spot I most frequent. Besides the charm of the port, which to me is inexhaustible, small as the place is, we have all sorts of buffoons there. One recites poetry, another relates stories, a third gives us Punch and Judy, who, in this country, bear the more musical names of Polichinello and Giulietta, or some other female name equally sonorous, while all sorts of antics are cut by boys. The shipping is not very numerous, though it has much of the quaintness and beauty of the Mediterranean rig. The vessels of war lie behind the mole also, and they show, plain enough, that the fleet of Naples is no great matter. The ships of the line could scarcely cope with modern frigates; and one or two of the latter, though prettily moulded vessels enough, are not much heavier than large sloops of the present day.
A daughter of the king, the Princess Christina, has just married her uncle, the King of Spain, and a frigate is about to sail with a portion of the royal trousseau. I have visited this vessel, which is a pretty ship, and I feel persuaded that this nation, with its materials, could it bear the expense in money, might easily become a naval power to command respect in this sea. The country is all coast, has an uncommonly fine population, in a physical sense at least, and wants only the moral qualities necessary to carry out such a plan.
The weather changed soon after we came to Naples, and it has taught us what is really meant by Neapolitan skies. Until the middle of October, I had no notion of the extent of their beauty, which, though not absolutely unknown to us, is of a kind that we know the least. There is a liquid softness in the atmosphere, during the autumnal months, that you must have observed, for we are not without it in America. By this, however, I do not mean, the bright genial days of September and October, that are vulgarly praised as the marks of a fine autumn, but the state of the air, which renders every thing soft, and lends prismatic colours, in particular to the horizon, morning and evening. These colours are quite unlike the ordinary gorgeousness of an American sunset, being softer, more varied, and quicker in their transitions. I have often seen them, in October and November, near the American coast, when at sea, in latitudes as low as 40°; but they are by no means frequent on shore; still we have them, though seldom, perhaps never, in the perfection they are seen here.
You will smile at my old passion for fine skies and landscape scenery, but I have climbed to the castle of St. Elmo a dozen times within the last month to see the effect of the sunset. Just as the day disappears, a soft rosy tint illumines the base of Vesuvius, and all the crowded objects of the coast, throwing a glow on the broad Campagna that enables one almost to fancy it another Eden. While these beautiful transitions are to be seen on the earth, the heavens reflect them, as the cheek of a young girl reflects the rose in her bosom. Of the hues of the clouds at such moments, it is impossible to speak clearly, for they appear supernatural. At one time the whole concave is an arch of pearl; and this perhaps is succeeded by a blush as soft and as mottled as that of youth; and then a hundred hues become so blended, that it is scarcely possible to name or to enumerate them. There is no gorgeousness, no dazzling of the eye in all this, but a polished softness that wins as much as it delights the beholder. Certainly, I have never seen sunsets to compare with these, on shore, before this visit to Naples; though at sea, in low latitudes, they are more frequent, I allow.
I presume these are the peculiar charms of the Italian skies, of which the poets and painters have spoken from time immemorial. The American who runs in and out of Naples nine months in the year, although he may see beautiful transitions of light in the heavens, can know nothing of these particular beauties unless he happen to hit the right months.
I have said nothing of the Museum, which contains the articles found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, because travellers have written so much about them, that little remains to be said. We have witnessed the slow, nice, and one might almost say, bootless task of unrolling the manuscripts found at the latter place, and it certainly speaks well for the patience of mankind, and of the disposition of this government to encourage learning. I say, found at Herculaneum, for I believe none have been found at Pompeii, nor would they be burned like these had any been found there.
All the manuscripts of the ancients appear to have been kept on wooden rollers: if any were folded in the manner of the modern book, I have not seen them. The heat of the lava has reduced the parchments or papyrus of those found at Herculaneum to a state so near that of cinder or ashes, that a breath of wind will commonly separate the fibres. Still they exist in scrolls, and the object is to unroll them, in order to get a sight of the writing. Fortunately, an ancient manuscript’s legibility does not depend at all on the chirography of the author. As printing was unknown, of course all works that were thought worthy of publication, if such a term can properly be applied to such a state of things, were properly written out by regular copyists, in a large fair hand, that was nearly as legible, if not quite as legible, as large type. If any thing remarkable is ever to be discovered among the manuscripts of Herculaneum, we shall be indebted to this practice for its possession. As yet, I believe nothing of particular merit, or of particular value, either in the way of art or history, has been found.
To return to the process, which is sufficiently simple in practice, though difficult to be understood from a verbal or written description. The wooden scroll is secured, in a way that admits of its turning, at the bottom of a small frame that a little resembles one of the ordinary frames on which females extend their needlework. This frame is secured. Threads of silk are attached to screws in the upper part of the frame, and their lower ends are made to adhere to the outer end of the manuscript, by means of the white of eggs and goldbeater’s skin. These threads, of which there are several along the edge of the manuscript, are tightened gently, by means of the screws, like fiddle-strings, and then the workman commences separating the folds by inserting the thin blade of a proper instrument. If the manuscript has a hole, or it yields, it is strengthened by applying goldbeater’s skin. It is gradually—and very gradually, as you may suppose—unrolled by tightening the threads, until a piece is raised as high as the frame, where it is examined by a man of letters and carefully copied. The letters, owing to the chemical properties of the ink, are more easily distinguished than one would at first imagine. The colour is all black, or a dark brown; but the letters are traced by a species of cavities in the substance,—or perhaps it were better to say, by offering a different surface,—for the whole fabric is almost reduced to the consistence of gossamer. The unrolled manuscript has more or less holes in it, and the vacancies in the text are to be guessed at.
We saw people busily employed in all the stages of the process. Some were mere mechanics, others scholars capable of reading the Latin, and of detecting the more obscure words, as well as of comprehending the abbreviations. The first copy, I believe, in all instances, is a facsimile; after which it is turned over to a higher class of scholars, to have the vacuums in the text conjectured, if possible, and for commentaries and examination.
This operation has now been going on for years, with extraordinary zeal and patience. The Americans who travel in this country are a little too apt to deride the want of “energy” in the government, and a large class falls into the puerile mistake of fancying it patriotism to boast of what we could do under the same circumstances. Certainly, I shall not pretend to compare the benefits of any other political system, as a whole, with those of our own, nor do I object to throwing the truth into the teeth of those who ignorantly contemn every thing American; but we have our weak spots as well as our neighbours, and I very much question if any Congress could be found sufficiently imbued with a love of learning, or sufficiently alive to its benefits even to our own particular and besetting motive, gain, to persevere in voting funds, year after year, to carry on the investigations that are now making in Naples. Neither a love of the fine arts nor a love of learning has yet made sufficient progress in America to cause the nation to feel or to understand the importance of both on general civilization, without adverting to their influence on the happiness of man, the greatest object of all just institutions. We have too many omissions of our own to throw about us these sneers indiscriminately.
The number of manuscripts that has been found in different places is said to exceed two or three thousand; though it is probable many are duplicates. The greater portion of them, too, are past decyphering; as would have been the case with all, had the ancients used no better paper than the moderns. England, it is true, might possibly resist an eruption; but as for France and America, and Germany, and Italy herself, the heat of the volcano, in an ordinary time, would almost destroy their cobweb fabrics, if exposed to it any where near the crater.
The collection of familiar articles found in the ruins, and collected in the museum, is of great interest; but the publications concerning them are so minute, that a description by me is unnecessary. I was much struck with the beauty of the forms, and with the classical nature of the ornaments. Thus, the weights of steel-yards, and many other things of the most familiar uses, are in the shape of heads, most probably busts, and possibly commemorative of the distinguished men of the country.
America might do something in this way that should speak well for the sentiment and tastes of the nation. Alter the coin, for instance, which is now the ugliest in Christendom. The same may almost be said of the flag; though it is not an easy matter to make one uglier than some one sees here. Could the miserable hermaphrodite yclept Liberty that now disfigures the American coin be replaced by the heads of those citizens who have become justly eminent, the expedient would be a worthy substitute for that of statues and medals. To have one’s head on the coin, would possess all the advantages of a patent of nobility, free from the evils. To prevent abuses, the solemn votes of the states might be taken, unanimity as states required, and the honour postponed until the party had been dead half a century. This, you know, is the mode in which the Romish Church makes saints. These honours might be graduated too, giving to the most illustrious the honours of the gold, to the next those of the silver, and to another class those of the copper coin. The quasi, or ephemeral great, might still figure on the bank notes, as they do to-day. We could begin with Washington and Franklin, two names of which Rome herself might have been proud, in the best days of the republic. The copper coin might, in due time, take most of the presidents, on which, I fancy, they would very generally be placed by posterity. Perhaps old John Marshall might work his way up to the silver; though I fear original thinkers are too rare in America to resist the influence of fifty years. The American jurist is yet to make his appearance.
What should we do with Jefferson under such a plan? Put him on the gold—certainly not. He was too much a party man for that. Even Franklin would get there as a physical philosopher, and not as a moral philosopher, or even as a politician; for as the first of these last he was too mean, and for the second too managing. John Jay might get up to the silver; certainly, had he not retired so early; and as to integrity and motives, he merits the gold. Jefferson might get on the silver, but I fear it would be with some alloy. Poor Hamilton, whose talents and honesty deserve the gold, would fail after all; or, at least, he would get on the reverse of the coin, because he was elsewhere on the wrong side.
A great deal of poetic justice might be thrown into the scheme, you see. I fear we should have to import a few hogsheads of cowries from Africa, for the oi polloi of American greatness. It clearly would never do to trust the decision to Congress, as every man in it would vote for his neighbour, on condition that his neighbour voted for him. The coin might want rolling, but it should not be “log-rolling.”
To treat a grave matter seriously, the tastes of the ancients are fast producing an influence on the tastes of the moderns; most of the beautiful forms that are embellishing the bronzes of France and Italy being directly derived from models found at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
One is a little puzzled with the moral evidence of many of the articles in the Museum. It is not easy to say whether they prove extreme depravity of taste and great dissoluteness of manners, or extreme innocence and simplicity. Taking Juvenal and Ovid as guides, it is to be feared the first is the true solution. The proofs are of the most extraordinary kind, and quite on a level with those which Captain Cook found in some of the South Sea Islands. But the world of the nineteenth century, in decency, whatever it may be in facts, is not the world of any other era. The frescos of Andrea del Sarto, in the loggie of churches even, and the tastes of the divine Raphael himself, to say nothing of that of his scholars, sufficiently show this.
It is startling to see rouge, play-tickets, knives, spoons, and other familiar things, that were used two thousand years ago. Every one is surprised to see how little these articles have been changed. As to the rouge, it is not surprising, for it is a relic of barbarism, and nations cease to use it as they approach nearest to the highest civilisation. It is said that no lancets have been found; from which some infer that bleeding was unknown to the ancients, who may have used leeches and cupped. Forks, also, are said to have been unknown. I do not remember to have seen any. Of course, there was no silver-fork school; a singular blessing for a common-sense people.
I think it quite evident, from the articles in the Museum, as well as from the houses in Pompeii, that the ancients were much in advance of the moderns in many matters, and as much behind them in others. In most things pertaining to beauty of forms, and what may be termed the poetry of life, the advantage would seem to have been with them; but it is scarcely exaggerated to say, that one may detect the absence of the high morality introduced by Christ, in a great portion of their habits. Domestic life does not appear to have been enjoyed and appreciated as it is now; though I confess this is drawing conclusions from rather slender premises.
The Romans, like the French, lived much in public; and yet the English, who lay such high claims to domesticity, do not cherish the domestic affections to the same degree as these very French. It is quite possible to enjoy baths, forums, public promenades, theatres and circuses, and yet have no passion for celibacy, club-houses, and separate establishments. The Americans, who have less publicity than common in their pleasures, have scarcely any domestic privacy, on account of “the neighbours;” while the French have actually a species of family legislation, and a species of patriarchal government, that are both beautiful and salutary.