Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840 - 1843 (Complete)

These Volumes were thus originated. Visiting spots often described, pursuing a route such as form for the most part the common range of the tourist—I could tell nothing new, except as each individual’s experience possesses novelty. While I passed in haste from city to city; as I travelled through mountain-passes or over vast extents of country, I put down the daily occurrences—a guide, a pioneer, or simply a fellow-traveller, for those who came after me.

When I reached Italy, however, and came south, I found that I could say little of Florence and Rome, as far as regarded the cities themselves, that had not been said so often and so well before, that I was satisfied to select from my letters such portions merely as touched upon subjects that I had not found mentioned elsewhere. It was otherwise as regarded the people, especially in a political point of view; and in treating of them my scope grew more serious.

I believe that no one can mingle much with the Italians without becoming attached to them. Their faults injure each other; their good qualities make them agreeable to strangers. Their courtesy, their simplicity of manner, their evident desire to serve, their rare and exceeding intelligence, give to the better specimens among the higher classes, and to many among the lower, a charm all their own. In addition, therefore, to being a mere gossiping companion to a traveller, I would fain say something that may incite others to regard them favourably; something explanatory of their real character. But to speak of the state of Italy and the Italians—

Non è poleggio da picciola barca

Quel, che fendendo va l’ardita prora,

Nè da nocchier, ch’a se medesmo parca.

When I began to put together what I knew, I found it too scant of circumstance and experience to form a whole. I could only sketch facts, guess at causes, hope for results. I have said little, therefore; but what I have said, I believe that I may safely declare, may be depended upon.

Time was, when travels in Italy were filled with contemptuous censures of the effeminacy of the Italians—diatribes against the vice and cowardice of the nobles—sneers at the courtly verses of the poets, who were content to celebrate a marriage or a birth among the great:—their learned men fared better, for there were always writers in Italy whose names adorned European letters—yet still contempt was the general tone; and of late years travellers (with the exception of Lady Morgan, whose book is dear to the Italians), parrot the same, not because these things still exist, but because they know no better.

Italy is, indeed, much changed. Their historians no longer limit themselves to disputing dates, but burn with enthusiasm for liberty; their poets, Manzoni and Niccolini at their head, direct their efforts to elevating and invigorating the public mind. The country itself wears a new aspect; it is struggling with its fetters,—not only with the material ones that weigh on it so heavily, and which they endure with a keen sense of shame, but with those that have entered into and bind the soul—superstition, luxury, servility, indolence, violence, vice.

Since the date of these letters Italy has been much disturbed,—but the risings and their unfortunate consequences to individuals, are regarded by us with contempt, or excite only a desire of putting an end to them as detrimental to the sufferers, without being of any utility to the cause of civilisation and moral improvement. Yet it ought not to be forgotten, that the oppression suffered in that portion of the country which has been recently convulsed, is such as to justify Dr. Johnson’s proposition, that “if the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.”

Englishmen, in particular, ought to sympathise in their struggles; for the aspiration for free institutions all over the world has its source in England. Our example first taught the French nobility to seek to raise themselves from courtiers into legislators. The American war of independence, it is true, quickened this impulse, by showing the way to a successful resistance to the undue exercise of authority; but the seed was all sown by us. The swarms of English that overrun Italy keep the feeling alive. An Italian gentleman naturally envies an Englishman, hereditary or elective legislator. He envies him his pride of country, in which he himself can in no way indulge. He knows, at best, that his sovereign is a weak tool in the hands of a foreign potentate; and that all that is aimed at by the governments that rule him, is to benefit Austria—not Italy. But this forms but a small portion of his wrongs. He sees that we enjoy the privilege of doing and saying whatever we please, so that we infringe no law. If he write a book, it is submitted to the censor, and if it be marked by any boldness of opinion, it is suppressed. If he attempt any plan for the improvement of his countrymen, he is checked; if a tardy permission be given him to proceed, it is clogged with such conditions as nullify the effect. If he limit his endeavours to self-improvement, he is suspected—surrounded by spies; while his friends share in the odium that attaches to him. The result of such persecution is to irritate or discourage. He either sinks into the Circean Stye, in which so many drag out a degraded existence, or he is irresistibly impelled to resist. No way to mitigate the ills he groans under, or to serve his countrymen, is open, except secret societies. The mischievous effects of such to those who are implicated in them, are unspeakably great. They fear a spy in the man who shares their oath; their acts are dark, and treachery hovers close. The result is inevitable; their own moral sense is tampered with, and becomes vitiated; or, if they escape this evil, and preserve the ingenuousness of a free and noble nature, they are victims.