140

THE PATHS OF DARKNESS.

"For here forlorn and lost we tread
With feeble steps and slow,
While wilds immeasurably spread
Seem lengthening as we go."

We retraced then our steps through a gloom little less profound than absolute night.

stars.

The very limited degree of light which the vast boughs of the woods permitted to our path was that of a purple firmament studded over with We could not see a yard before us, and were perpetually in danger of taking a wrong turn, there being innumerable paths that intersected the forest; and although the benevolent bell did not cease for a moment its warning clang, there was not a glimpse of the belfroy from which it called to us, and still less of the princely Casino, to which it is so kindly an appendage. Imagine, then, in this wooded solitude, in all the sinking of heart and bewilderment of eye, which utter darkness, loneliness, and ignorance of the path so painfully produce, how welcome was the wellknown voice of that great Fountain, approached by endless tiers of balustrated steps in front of the Casino. Its ghostly Statues of armed gigantic Knights, grim and horrible as they used to look in the twilight, seemed like old and venerated friends; and the magnificent Palace, with its red lighted windows, like so many moons spotted up and down in its vast soaring pile, resembled one's own Home. There was all of interest that Uncertainty could

THE GIRANDOLA.

141

produce, without absolute Danger. I was more than once reminded of that beautiful passage in Milton's most finished effusion, the Masque of Comus:

"Unmuffle, ye faint stars, and thou, fair moon,
That wont'st to love the traveller's benizon,
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades;
Or if your influence be quite damm'd up
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us

With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light,
And thou shalt be our star of Arcady,

Or Tyrian Cynosure.

Or if our eyes

Be barr'd that happiness, might we but hear
The folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reeds with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs."

The town of Frascati seemed, by the dark lustre of a moonlight sky, to be ancient and picturesque.

On the first night we went to see the Girandola, the Cardinal Governor himself firing it by means of an electric line from a window of his own palace. Of course, it seemed somewhat feeble, after the glorious display we had witnessed from the embattled brow of the Mole of Hadrian, but after all it was a very beautiful spectacle.

142

THE TOWN IN THE DUSK.

Our second visit to the town was also by night; a careless ramble through the streets, without any definite aim or design; we were particularly struck with a huge Convent, whose black windowless walls completely realized our most romantic ideas of a stern inexorable Abbess, naughty Nuns, and Niches in the wall, waiting only for their guilty inmates to be snugly shut up with brick and

mortar.

There were many of those places of refreshment which the Italians call Taverni, whose broad folding doors were thrown wide open, and whose numerous iron lamps, suspended from the vaulted cieling, not only illuminated the entire rude and vast interior, but streaming in a flood of radiance across the hilly streets, afforded the only light, and that of course very partial, that might guide the passenger from the putrid puddle on the one hand, and steep mounds of steps on the other. We were particularly struck with one Osteria of usual size, it was precisely the scene that Cattermole would have loved to paint. Vaulted upon an apparently endless succession of round arches, it stretched away so deep and far from the street, that you only discerned its termination by the great wood fire and diverse cooking utensils which distinguished the kitchen. In the foremost division of these arcades, and next the door, sat diverse groups, each in the snow white shirt, red sash, and green velvet breeches which the Italians

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143

still so dearly love. They were drinking of the white wine, for which this country is famed, apparently in the most friendly and peaceable manner; but even in this quiescent state, seen as they were by the light of the iron cressets from above, each countenance would have made a story in itself. Their conversation became free and animated: how that conversation was to end was the question. This indeed seemed a matter of no small interest and anxiety to a group of women, who, with white flat head gear, scarlet boddice, and gaudy variegated petticoats, sat plying the distaff and the needle in the wide arched chamber that lay immediately beyond. It might be a Wife's, it might be a Sister's solicitude that prompted, in several of this groupe, that Guido turn of the neck with which they furtively watched from time to time the progress which the good wine of Frascati was making in the outer chamber.

In the meantime, many of this party contented themselves with ogling and giggling, doubtless desirous to prove to their Bacchanalian lovers that their eyes were at least as bright as those golden libations they so freely indulged. The rest made the vaulted roof ring again with the blithe melody of their native lays.

144

THE CAMPAGNA.

Rome, 28th July, 1844.

It was between the sunset and the twilight when the Campagna, so long seen afar from those hillside groves and villas, received us from the wooded heights of Frascati. When we watched it from that vaunted scene of silence, tranquillity, and refreshing airs, Christina and I endeavoured to persuade ourselves that its yellow dusky tints proceeded from fields of corn. It was too withering to the imagination to fancy it anything else. But, alas! defaced Tombs and ruinated Villas attracting us irresistibly from the highway, to examine the shadowy hollows of their architectural wilderness, served only to convince us that the most beautiful Flora Agrestis (that mockery of the morass-) alone supplied with its flimsy gaudy loveliness the place of healthful and fruitful cultivation. All was barren; all was in sympathetic unison with those masses of masonry where you hardly discerned the towery buttressed sepulchre from the arched and pillared palace ;-one parched brown rusty surface. It is true, we did not actually see the fox looking out from the thistle and long grass of the windows; but when, as the night closed, the shouts of our postillion reclaimed us reluctantly from our reveries, we were informed that foxes in numbers, quite sufficient to tempt Lord Chesterfield and his Hounds, harboured in these hoary Ruins.