but out upon are not rooted up without blood. wooed death. They do not willingly seek Lavinian thee, I say, thou foul ugly phantom! shores. A new state of being stag- I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with gers me. Friar John) give thee to six score Sun, and sky, and breeze, and so- thousand devils, as in no instance to litary walks, and summer holydays, be excused or tolerated, but shunned and the greenness of fields, and the as a universal viper; to be brandelli, delicious juices of meats and fishes, proscribed, and spoken evil ct! in and society, and the chearful glass, no way can I be brought to digest and candle-light, and fireside conver, thee, thou thin, melancholy, Privaa sations, and innocent vanities, and tion, or more frightful and confound. jests, and irony itself—do these things ing Positive ! go out with life? Those antidotes, prescribed against Can a ghost laugh ; or shake his the fear of thee, are altogether frigid gaunt sides, when you are pleasant and insulting, like thyself. For what with him? satisfaction hath a man, that he shall And you, my midnight darlings, “ lie down with kings and emperors my Folios ! must I part with the in- in death,” who in his life-time never tense delight of having you, (huge greatly coveted the society of such armfuls) in my embraces ? Must bed-fellows ?-or, forsooth, that “so knowledge come to me, if it come at shall the fairest face appear”—Why, all, by some awkward experiment of to comfort me, must Alice W intuition, and no longer by this fami- be a goblin? More than all, I con liar process of reading ? ceive disgust at those impertinent and Shall I enjoy friendships there, misbecoming familiarities, inscribed wanting the smiling indications upon your ordinary tomb-stones. which point me to them here,—the Every dead man must take upon recognizable face—the “sweet as- himself to be lecturing me with his surance of a look ” —? odious truism, that “ such as he now In winter this intolerable disincli- is, I must shortly be.” Not so shorta nation to dying-to give it its mild- ly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. est does more especially in the meantime I am alive. I move · haunt and beset me. In a genial about. I am worth twenty of thee. August noon, beneath a sweltering Know thy betters! Thy New Years sky, death is almost problematic. At pays are past. I survive, a jolly those times do such poor snakes as candidate for 1821. Another cup of myself enjoy an immortality. Then wine-and while that turn-coat bell, we expand, and burgeon. Then are that just now mournfully chanted the we as strong again, as valiant again, obsequies of 1820 departed, with as wise again, and a great deal taller. changed notes lustily rings in a sucThe blast that nips and shrinks me, cessor, let us attune to its peal the puts me in thoughts of death. All song made on a like occasion by things allied to the insubstantial, hearty chearful Mr. Cotton.wait upon that master feeling ; cold, numbness, dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star spectral appearances, that cold Tells us, the day himself's not far ; ghost of the sun, or Phæbus' sickly And see where, breaking from the night, sister, like that innutritious one de- He gilds the western hills with light. nounced in the Canticles :- I am none With him old Janus doth appear, of her “ minions”-I hold with the Peeping into the future year, Persian. With such a look as seems to say, Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me The prospect is not good that way. Thus do we rise ill sights to see, out of my way, brings death into my mind. All partial evils, like humours, When the prophetic fear of things And 'gainst ourselves to prophecy ; run into that capital plague-sore.I have heard some profess an indif- More full of soul-tormenuing gall, A more tormenting mischief brings, ference to life. Such hail the end of Than direst mischiefs can befall. their existence as a port of refuge; But stay! but stay! methinks my sight, and speak of the grave as of some Better inform’d by clearer light, soft arms, in which they may slum. Discerns sereneness in that brow, on a pillow. Some have That all contracted seem'd but now. name THE NEW YEAR. ber as His revers'd face may show distaste, And merits not the good he has. Then let us welcome the New Guest best ; And smiles upon the New-born year. Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, He looks too from a place so high, And renders e'en Disaster sweet : The Year lies open to his eye ; And though the Princess tum her back, And all the moments open are Let us but line ourselves with sack, To the exact discoverer. We better shall by far hold out, Yet more and more he smiles upon Till the next Year she face about. The happy revolution. How say you, reader--do not these Why should we then suspect or fear verses smack of the rough magnaniThe influences of a year, So smiles upon us the first morn, mity of the old English vein? Do And speaks us good so soon as born ? they not fortify like a cordial; enPlague on't! the last was ill enough, larging the heart, and productive of This cannot but make better proof; sweet blood, and generous spirits, in Or, at the worst, as we brush'd thro' the concoction? Where be those The last, why so we may this too ; puling fears of death, just now ex. And then the next in reason shou'd pressed, or affected ?-Passed like a Be superexcellently good: cloud-absorbed in the purging sun For the worst ills (we daily see) light of clear poetry-clean washed Have no more perpetuity, away by a wave of genuine Helicon, Than the best fortunes that do fall; your only Spa for hese hypochonWhich also bring us wherewithal dries—And now another cup of the Longer their being to support, Than those do of the other sort ; generous !--and a merry New Year, And who has one good year in three, and many of them, to you all, my And yet repines at destiny, masters! Appears ungrateful in the case, 1st Jan. 1821. ILIA. WITH A LAMPE FOR MIE LADIE FAIRE. The Spirite of the Lampe loquitur. may veile the Heauenne aboue VIRGINE! . Janus. The Travels and Opinions ОР EDGEWORTH BENSON, Gentleman. ADVERTISEMENT Of what the readers of these Articles, which will be published monthly, in the London MAGAZINE, may expect them to contain. Venice : its external appearance ; its justification of its poetical character ; sketches of its people and manners ; a Countess's account of past times ; its paintings and painters ; historical glory; Lord Byron ; Maria Louisa. Discussions at Milan on various subjects; behaviour of the congregation in the churches there; remarks on religious feeling, and reference made to its present state on the Continent; Portrait of a Valet de Place, and of the Conductor (guard) of a Diligence. A disquisition on the Letters of Madame de Sevigné; an attempt to show her to English readers in her true character that of one of the most dea lightful of all writers. A Prima Donna in a passage-boat ; the ballets and music of Italy ; first sight of a soldier of the Pope ; Ferrara ; preparations for the Emperor of Austria; palace of the Dukes of Este ; a printseller's stall ; Ariosto, Tasso, Buonaparte. Something of myself, extracted by a visit to the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble, to which the reader is introduced :—lost friends, wonder expressed ; hints on education ; and advice as to making love. Ancona and Loretto : the quiet of an Italian life, and the richness of Itam lian landscape ; the Adriatic ; the Apennines ; the Sacred House : nice disa tinction, made by a priest, between Frenchmen and Englishmen : two Italian travellers one of them dependent on the other; sketches of character. The dispute between “ the Classics and the Romantics :" an attempt to prove both parties the wrong, and a confession of liking both classical and romantic literature ; doubt suggested whether these epithets mean any thing with reference to the present dispute :-the French shown to be a poora hearted people ; allusions to living Italian aud French combatants on this question. Description of a family at Villefranche, near Lyons : the writer in a scrape ; conversation wis a French General,-his parrot, garden, and study. Rousseau. Something on Rome : an eagle's feather from Parnassus. More on Rome, including Canova and the Pope. Brantome ; Cardinal Retz; Louis the Fourteenth. Young German Artists reading Goethe's Faustus at Tivoli :-walks amongst the mountains ; the Convent of Cosimato; the writer talks at length about what is impressive in history, and beautiful in fiction and art. Naples and its environs : much rapture expressed ; Sorrento ; more rapture ; .a ht ascent of Vesuvius ; sharp criticism of that volcano ; Pompeii; the writer forgets himself ; the tombs, and Cicero's villa; remains of a Roman lady's toilette; Sappho,-a portrait ; it is like a lady of the writer's acquaintance. 1 Italian Poetry: some of the older prose writers in that language: the limits which divide the arts of design from poetry: on the rise and progress of art in Italy: the influence of the Crusades on the mind of Europe. English manners contrasted with foreign: alterations perceptible in the former: their tendency: remarks on the history of the last twenty years: remarks on English Literature, and Fine Art: on English Actors, and the English Stage: the women of England compared with foreign women: an owre true tale." This is not all,—nor more than half of the “ Travels and Opinions," but, as the contents of more than twelve chapters have now been sketched, and as these will reach through all the Numbers of the Lone DON MAGAZINE for the year 1821, it seems needless at present to notify further. The Editor, however, thinks it right to state, that Mr. Benson has put into his hands the whole of the manuscript of the work,--so that no disappointment as to the continuation of the series can occur. Mr. Benson will be found a reflective traveller, as well as an observant one: early disappointments in life (as the saying is) seem to throw their shadows over his fairest and brightest views, yet his disposition is the furthest in the world from harbouring misanthropy or rancour. He frequently alludes to his British contemporaries, and is profuse, rather than niggardly in his reference to European literature and the principles of general criticism ; but he also keeps a quick eye on the peculiarities of foreign character and manners; and seems ambitious to describe, in a lively and striking way, the external features of the remarkable places, and celebrated objects, belonging to the interesting countries through which he has loitered. It is only necessary to add, that the above list of contents does not certainly indicate the order in which the chapters will appear; a discretion is reserved on this point; and nothing like the regular progress of a book of travels is to be expected. The writer must be allowed to go backwards and forwards from Italy to France, and England,—from Italian Paintings to his own life, from the Coliseum to Madame de Sevigné,—just as he pleases. The traveller's mind pursues a course as irregularly discursive as this; and so subtle are the links of association, that where connection exists it cannot always be traced :-yet the principle of harmony may please amidst the most marked variety, and the interest of a subject be much heightened by its being placed in the immediate neighbourhood of others, to which it bears no self-evident sign of relationship. The feelings*** often associate under the influence of suggestions that are verbally most dissimilar. No. I. a VENICE: ITS EXTERNAL APPEARANCE; ITS JUSTIFICATION OF ITS POETICAL CHARACTÈR; SKETCHES OF ITS PEOPLE AND MANNERS; A COUNTESS'S ACCOUNT OF PAST TIMES ; ITS PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS; HISTORICAL GLORY; MARIA LOUISA; LORD BYRON. Venice, more than any other city, dinner: but the pageant of triumph or place, I have ever seen, realized gradually became one of mortifica the image of itself, which had gradu- tion, and finally of indifference :-it ally grown up in my fancy, in the was then time it should cease, and course of years, under the influence in the fullness of things it has ceased. of all that travellers, novelists, his. Yet the memorials of the past still eitorians, and poets have said and rich the present, which, without them, written concerning this sovereign would be poor indeed. Three lofty spouse of the Adriatic. In Petrarch's masts were erected in front of the work, “ De Gestis Imperatorum,” church of Saint Mark, commemorathere is a magnificent account of the tive of the sovereignty of Venice over pomp, and ceremony, and concourse the three kingdoms of Candia, Cypof strangers, which accompanied the rus, and the Morea: they are still famous marriage, when the Doge to be seen, erect as ever:" We went in the Bucentaur, followed by have lost the kingdoms,” said a Vethe state barges of his Council of netian of the lower order to me; Ten, the gay peoti of the Senate, and “but the masts remain to us!” In the sombre gondolas, with their fair these few words is comprised the and gallant freight, and wedded the present state of Venice. chafing sea to the mastery of his And yet she is still, to appearance, stern Republic. Then was the time what the mind had pictured her.to see Venice,-when the Doge Ziani You leave the main land to find her discharged this symbolic rite; a type in the midst of the water, where she which, in his hands, was not empty stands, with her spires, and towers, pretension. It was he who conquered and the sails and vanes of her shipBarbarossa for the Pope Alexander ping, mingled and coping together.the Third, when, driven from the The sea-gulls, and sometimes an holy city, the Pontiff came to him eagle from the distant Alps, or the as a mendicant friar. The military mountains of Dalmatia, are the only events that followed are still to be birds whose wings pass over the seen in the pictures that hang on the heads of the inhabitants of Venice. walls of the Chamber of the Great Huge fronts of white marble edifices Council, done by the son of Paul Ve- rise against the eye, like the rocks of ronese, and Bassano. Ziani died, Staffa; — palaces and churches are after completing this great restora- congregated and pressed as on a vast tion, full of years, and heaped with raft; while the population, pent glory; and his monument now stands up in narrow alleys and sinuous in the church of Saint George, in the passages on terra firma, seems to Giudecca, built by Palladio. To emerge from constraint and awkthis monument his successors were wardness, like water-fowl, when accustomed to pay a solemn visit of it issues forth on the surface of respect, each Christmas-day, after the Venetian element. More of the |