Buch lesen: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847», Seite 15

"A long time had elapsed without his seeing or hearing any thing of the friend to whom he had given the portrait, and he was one day about to go out and inquire after him, when the man himself entered the room. But his former joviality of manner was gone. He looked worn and melancholy, his checks were hollow, his complexion pale, and his clothes hung loosely upon him. My father was struck with the change, and inquired what ailed him.

"'Nothing now,' was the reply: 'nothing since I got rid of that infernal portrait. I was wrong, my friend, not to let you burn it. The devil fly away with the thing, say I! I am no believer in witchcraft and the like, but I am more than half persuaded some evil spirit is lodged in the portrait of the usurer.'

"'What makes you think so?' said my father.

"'The simple fact, that from the very first day it entered my house, I, formerly so gay and joyous, became the most anxious melancholy dog that ever whined under a gallows. I was irritable, ill-tempered, disposed to cut my own throat, and every body else's. My whole life through, I had never known what it was to sleep badly. Well, my sleep left me, and when I did get any, it was broken by dreams. Good Heavens! such horrible dreams; I could not bring myself to believe they were mere dreams, ordinary nightmares. I was sometimes nearly stifled in my sleep; and eternally, my good sir, the old man, that accursed old man, flitted about me. In short, I was in a pitiable state, lost flesh and appetite, and cursed the hour I was born. I crawled about, as if drunk or stupid, tormented with a vague incessant fear, a dread, and anticipation of something frightful about to happen, of some uncommon danger besetting me at every turn. At last, I bethought me of the portrait, and gave it away to a nephew of mine, who had taken a great fancy to it. Since then I have been much relieved; I feel as if a great stone had been rolled off my heart; I can sleep and eat, and am recovering my former spirits. It was a rare devil you cooked up there, my boy!'

"My father listened to his friend's confession with the closest attention.

"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last inquired.

"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got it off his hands.'

"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries, which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture, which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after, the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees, lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus—the profound and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe—the solemn silence and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet—the holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work—the combined impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son, and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'

"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of being sent to Italy—the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out, exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my guidance in art—precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him; on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life, especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments, when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it; you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee, and thy days be long in the land.'

"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised, and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success, until to-day—at this auction."

Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who, looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the throng.

"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears, drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.

HOUNDS AND HORSES AT ROME

ENGLISH KENNEL

"The Dog-Star rages!"—Pope

To do at Rome as the Romans do, is an adage which we English can no longer apply to our proceedings in that city; we now reverse this, and carrying thither our games, field-sports, and other whimsies, not only practise these ourselves, but would impose them upon her senate and people; for a senate she still has, and the Romans take a strange pleasure in exhibiting, on state occasions, the well-known letters, which tell of formerly allied, but long since departed glories. What would her ancient senate, the stern descendants of the wolf-nursed twins—

"Curius quid sentit, et ambo Scipiadæ?—"

have said to the subserviency of their present mis-representatives, who go forth, not to give races, but to witness the feats of barbarian jockeyship, on a turf that once resounded only to the hoofs of their own favourite racers;

 
"Whose easy triumph and transcendant speed
Palm after palm proclaimed; whilst Victory,
In the horse circus, stood exulting by."³¹
 

If the senator Damisippus once received such a castigation at the hands of the bard of Aquinum, for merely driving his own phaeton at noon, and for nodding varmintly to a friend as he passed, how would that poet's indignation or muse—

 
"Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum—"
 

have dealt with you, Princes Borghese and Cesarini, Doria and Colonna, who, changing your long robes for the scarlet jacket, (worse than any Trechidipna), have learned to vie with each other in acquiring a field-note, of which Alaric had been proud, to strive for precedence in a fox-hunt, and to glory more in winning his brush, than ever did your ancestors on wresting a trophy from the Sicambri. But, thanks to Popes who have wisely prohibited satirists and satire, ye are free to follow, unscathed by the Iambic muse, this or any other pastime you please, however unsuited in character to the dignity of your descent. To one merely paying a transitory visit to Rome in the grand tour of twenty years ago, it might not have occurred as a likely contingency that a pack of English fox-hounds should be one day kennelled close up to her gates; but to him who witnessed the sporting monomania of some of our countrymen, and the difficulty they found (having nothing else to kill) in killing time, it would never have seemed improbable. The enthusiasm which every one, gets up for the Coliseum, or the Arch of Titus, generally expends itself on the spot, and is not afterwards to be resuscitated. This leads many during a six weeks' sojourn in the eternal city, (which seems to them already an eternity), to ask themselves, with Fabricius, their business there; while some, following his example still farther, leave it in disgust. Till certain very recent arrangements had been completed for his equipment, no one's position was more to be compassionated—if you adopted his own view of it—than that of the English sportsman; it was really lamentable to hear him describe, while it would occasionally prompt a smile to see his expedients, to relieve it. Finding little that was congenial to his tastes or his talents in the arts or the society of the place, he would sometimes seek to abridge the tedium and length of his stay at Rome, by episodes of lark-shooting at Subiaco, or by looking after wild-boars at Ostia; and some, to whom hunting was indispensable, would hire dogs and make them chase each other, while they harked on the ragged pack, on the best hacks they could procure for the purpose. This, however, which might have proved excellent sport had the dogs always chosen to run properly, was oft-times tried and relinquished, in consequence of a practical difficulty, originating in the pack itself, which refused to supply from its ranks the necessary quota of amateur hares required by the riders. By this token, it was high time something should be done! At length the auspicious day dawned when the sporting world (already on the alert to contrive less unturf-like proceedings than the last mentioned) was agreeably saved from the embarrassment of further thought on the subject, by a spirited announcement, noticed with becoming gratitude in Galignani, from Lord C—— that he had actually sent for his dogs from England. No time was lost; the groom, despatched in haste with the necessary instructions, returned within six weeks, leaving the kennel and canaille that accompanied it only a few days behind on the road. One morning, shortly after, it was announced at the Vatican, that a pack of hungry hounds was at the Popolo Gate, barking for admittance, and apparently threatening to eat up the whole Apostolic Doganieri if they kept them much longer. The matter pressed: a deputation of Englishmen waited on the governor, requesting permission for the establishment of a kennel in a spot already fixed upon for the purpose, (it was somewhere about the site where Constantine's mother was buried, and where, by tradition, Nero's ghost is supposed to brood, beyond the Pons Nomentana, and the Sacred mount); and having obtained the desired leave, the dogs were at once established in their new settlement. When they had recovered the fatigues of their journey, a notice was posted up, advertising the first "throw off" for the next day. On this occasion they hunted an old fox round the Claudian Aqueduct, into the body of which, on getting over his surprise, he scoured a retreat, thus baffling the pursuers. The next field-day his successor was not so fortunate, losing both brush and life at the end of a long run. The third was distinguished by the feat of a Roman prince, who contrived to be in at the death, and received the brush for his encouragement. After this the weekly obituary of foxes increased permanently in number. Meanwhile a few dogs disappeared in subterranean mystery, awkward falls occurred, wrists and ankles were dislocated; but no brains spilt. At last forty persons, having nothing better to do with themselves, agree to meet regularly twice a-week and to set up a subscription. While it is yet early in the winter, dogs come dropping in by couples, from various well-wishers in England; while large orders in the shape of scarlet coats and hunting-caps, duly executed and forwarded, are stopped at the Dogana Apostolica, and after a suitable demur on account of the Cardinalesque colour, allowed to pass, on paying a handsome duty. These liveries at first produced a great sensation in Rome, not only amongst the hierarchy, who were jealous of the profanation, but with the populace, both within and without the walls: from the prince to the peasant, every body had something to say about them. As they paced along the streets the men stared in silent admiration, while the women clapped their hands and cried, "Guardi! Guardi!" When they trotted out to cover, the delighted swine-herd whistled to his pigs to make way for them to pass; while the mounted buffalo-driver, from some crag above the road, would point them out with his long-spiked pole, to the man in the sheepskin who was on foot. We do not know what comments these might make, but those of the Roman townsfolk were by no means in keeping with the flattering admiration they expressed. "What a gay livery!" said a Roman citizen, emerging from the Salara Gate, as a detachment of the "red-coats" was turning in. "Cazzo! how well they ride, and what a number too!" "Yes," said his friend at our elbow; "to whom do they belong—a chi appartengono?" "'Tis the livery of a Russian prince who came last week to Rome, and has put up at Serny's," said the other, affecting to know all about it. "Well, to my mind, they beat Prince Torlonia's postilions out-and-out." "Altro—I agree with you there; ma abbia pazienza—wait a bit, and depend on it our Prince, when he has seen them, will not be long in taking the hint!" We hope he will; for, however we may elsewhere admire a mounted field, here it shocks every notion of propriety. That fox-hunters should have their meeting where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied, with no other reference than to runs; and Veii be scared in her lofty citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with the slang of the London mews, is something still worse.

"Quoi! Venue d'un peuple roi,

Toi, reine encore du monde!"

Thou who hast taken the lead by turns, in legislature, literature, and the fine arts, doomed at last to become the sovereign seat for hunting—the Melton Mowbray of the South! May thy genius loci forbid it; may thy goddess of fever visit the hounds in one of her ugliest types; λοιμος or λιμος destroy them; old Tiber rise with his yellow waves to drown, catacombs yawn to ingulf, and aqueducts fall to crush them! Or, should inanimate nature disregard our row, two other hopes remain: the one, that the foxes, made aware by this time of the love with which the Roman princes contemplate il loro brush, will send them a yearly tribute of a certain number of these appendages, on condition that they forthwith dismiss the dogs; the other, that the Dominicans, who are well known to be jealous of our movements, will come to regard hunting as an heretical sport, especially as here practised by Protestant dogs and riders—and in Lent, too, against orthodox foxes—and persuade the Pope to abolish it!

THE STEEPLE-CHASE

In that grassy month of the Campagna, ere the sun has seared the standing herbage into hay—when anemones, cyclamens, crocuses, and Roman hyacinths, as prescient of the coming heat, lose no time in quickening, and burst out suddenly in myriads to cover the plain with their loveliness; while the towering ferula conceals the sandy rock whence it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays; and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas, how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked by unusual sounds in the street. These proceeded from the young Romans vociferating to their friends to bestir themselves to procure places at the steeple-chase programmed for this 14th of March. An hour before Aurora had opened her porte cochère to Phœbus, and those sleek piebald coursers whose portraits are to be seen in the Ludovisi and Ruspigliosi palaces, all the vetturini and cabmen of Rome had already opened theirs; and while some were adjusting misfitting harness to every specimen of horseflesh that could be procured for the occasion, others were trundling out from their black recesses in stable and coach-house, every mis-shapen vehicle that permitted of being fastened to their backs, in order to proceed out of the Porta Salara betimes. By six all Rome was awake, and by seven, in motion towards the race-course. On that memorable morning artists forewent their studies, the Sapienza its wisdom, the Roman college its theology; shopkeepers kept their windows closed; Italian masters barouched with their pupils, mouthed Ariosto, and seemed highly delighted; while the professions of law and physic sent as many of their members as public safety could spare. In short, it had been long ago settled that all the world would be present; and all the world was present, sure enough, and long before the time. It was a lively and a pleasing spectacle, to which novelty lent another charm, when, about two miles beyond the Salara gate, we looked from our double-lined procession of Broughams and Britskas, fore and aft, and saw, for miles, scattered over that usually deserted plain, groups of peasants in the gay costumes of the adjacent villages, now animating it in every direction; some emerging from under the arches of aqueducts, or the screen of ruined columbaria, alternately lost to sight and again rising above those abrupt dips in which the ground abounds, all tending in one direction, all bent on one object. At length our carriage, (which has been intimating its purpose shortly to stop,) pulls up definitely, and Joseph, having already told us that he can neither move backward nor forward, touches his hat for orders. On such an occasion, we resigned ourselves to wait, without any feeling of impatience, finding sufficient amusement, both from the distant prospect and in the immediate vicinity; sometimes watching the wheeling of those sporting characters, the Peregrine Hawks overhead, now listening to the warbling of the loudest lark music we ever remember to have heard; then exchanging a few words with some roadside acquaintance, and anon giving ourselves up exclusively to the silent enjoyment of the weather. We were kept long enough in all conscience, waiting till even the quietly expectant Romans, drilled by their church into habits of great forbearance, at length began to murmur aloud disapprobation, and we could hear one coachman ask another "Quando quel benidetto stippel-chess" was to be; while the respondent, shrugging his shoulders, growled out for answer a "Chi lo sa!" Meanwhile our attention was fitfully resuscitated by a rider in costume doing a bit of turf, by an unsaddled racer led across the ground, or by men on horseback carrying small flags to stake at the different leaps; sometimes by an English oath, startling the Genius loci or whoever heard it; or more agreeably by a display of voluble young countrywomen, standing tiptoe on their carriage seats, eager to see the first fall, and permitting the young men who swaggered by to scare them into the prettiest attitudes of dismay, by a prophetical announcement of the bones that would be broken before the race was won. Some little buzz there is about unfairness and jockeyship, when we catch, from the mouth of our Anglo-Roman livery-stable-man, who chanced to be near, that "the osses is a-saddling." It took long to saddle; long to mount; and some time still before they started, during which interval

 
"The jockeys keep their horses on the fret,
And each gay Spencer prompts the noisy bet,
Till drops the signal; then, without demur,
Ten horses start,—ten riders whip and spur;
At first a line an easy gallop keep,
Then forward press, to take th' approaching leap:
Abreast go red and yellow; after these
Two more succeed; one's down upon his knees;
The sixth o'ertops it; clattering go two more,
And two decline; now swells the general roar."
 

And every horse on the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head, and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,—four close together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap, not far from the last, and no refusals! Over and on again. Another! and this time three favourites are abreast, the fourth is a second behind, but may still be in, for he has cleared the fence and is coming up with the others; the motion appears smoother as they recede; the riders, diminished to the size of birds, are still seen gliding on—on:—

 
"No longer soon their colours can we trace,
Lost in the mazy distance of the race
Till at Salara's far-off bridge descried,
Like coursing butterflies, they seem to glide;
Then, dwindling farther, in the lengthening course,
Mere floating specks supplant both man and horse;
Till, having crossed the Columbarium gray,
They swerve, and back retrace their airy way."
 

At this point of the contest we cross the road—and there far away, two dots, a yellow and a blue one, are seen with increasing distinctness every second; which may be in advance of the other we cannot say, notwithstanding the clearness of the air; they seem, from where we stand, in the same line of distance; the coloured dots disappear momentarily behind a slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper; and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "Guardi il Verde;" "Per me guadagna il Giallo." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the Mill." "Done." "Who's riding the bay-mare?" "Mr A. for Lord G. and a pretty mess he's making of it." "Das ist wunderbar, nicht wahr?" "Ya, gut!" "Les Anglais savent manier leurs chevaux, parbleu!" "I'll be blowed if Lord G. don't win after all!" "Well, Miss Smith, I shall call for my gloves to-morrow." "Bravi tutti quanti!" "Cazzo! che cavalli!" "Forwartz! Forwartz." "Allons, Messieurs! avancez." "Allez! Allez!" "Guardi! Guardi!" And here a distant shout, fleeter in its journey than the fleetest of the horses that it sped onwards, reaches our ears; another moment brings the two foremost to the last leap, the blue hesitates—the red springs into the air, drops d'aplomb, then on again swifter than before. The blue sticks close to him, is near, nearer still; comes up—

 
"Then anxious silence breaks in deafening cries,
His whip and spur each desperate rider plies;
The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl,
Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal;
True to their blood, and frantic still to win,
Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in;
Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain
In rival speed, a single inch to gain.
Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad,
Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load
Just at the goal—one spur and it is done!
The rowel'd Red starts forward, and has won!"
 

After this exploit, the red, green, and yellow liveries could have done what they would with the uninitiated Romans. Captain Cooke's arrival at Otaheite; the first steamer seen on the Nile; the introduction of gun and gunpowder amongst people hitherto hunting or making war with bow and arrow,—are only parallel cases of that enthusiasm mixed with awe, with which the Romans viewed the English gentleman jockeys on this day. They would have been delighted to have it over again six times, but had to learn that races (unlike songs) are never encored.