Buch lesen: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847.», Seite 16

VALEDICTORY VISITS AT ROME

Andiamo a Napoli; and so we will, in accordance with the repeated suggestions we have received during the last ten days from all the vetturini in Rome. Easter is gone by, the Girandola went off last week, the English are going, and so is our bell, tinkle! tinkle! tinkle! – as if its wire had a touch of vernal ague – while the old delf plate in the hall is filled and running with cards, every pasteboard parallelogram among them with two P's and a C in the corner; for we are becoming too polite, it seems, to take leave of each other in our own tongue. As the English quit Rome, the swallows arrive, and may be seen in great muster flitting up and down the streets, looking at the affiches of vacancies before fixing on a lodging. Unlike us, these callow tourists – though many of them on their first visit to Rome – are no sooner within the walls, than they find, without assistance, their way to the Forum, and proceed to build and twitter in that very Temple of Concord where Juvenal's storks of old made their nidus and their noise! Andiamo a Napoli; yes, but not yet; we are sure at this season to have an impatient patient or two to visit in the Babuino, or at Serny's; who, labouring under incipient fever which has not yet tamed them into submission, tell us they would – optative mood – be at Florence in a week, and add – in the imperative – that they must be in London in three! Vedremmo! These cases – may they end well – are sure, meanwhile, to be somewhat tedious in their progress; and besides, were there none such, two motives have we for always lingering the last in Rome: the one, to avoid the importunity of many indiscreet acquaintance, who would else be sure at this season to plague us with some trifling commission, on purpose to open a sudden correspondence, in the hope of learning all about the heat, the fever, the mosquitoes, the fare and the accommodation of Castellamare and Sorrento, thinking themselves, meanwhile, perfect Talleyrands in diplomacy, in employing a ruse which it is impossible not to see through; the other and more important, to secure the necessary quiet while we linger about favourite haunts, and refresh our memory with sites and scenes endeared by long and intimate acquaintance. To describe people or places accurately, requires a long and attentive familiarity, but to do so feelingly and with effect, we should trust principally to first and last impressions: either will be more likely to furnish a lively representation, as far as it goes, than when too great intimacy with details leads us to forget what is characteristic, and to dwell without emphasis, or with equal and tedious emphasis, upon all alike. New scenes, owing, perhaps, part of their charm to that circumstance, may occasionally betray us into exaggeration; but the records of a last coup-d'œil, when we dwell with sad complacency upon every feature, as upon those of a friend from whom we are about to part, are characterised at once by an equal freshness, and by more truth, feeling, and discrimination. We might proceed to exemplify this, from a long series of first and last views in Italy: with some of them the reader may be familiar, for we have frequently met in Maga's pages; with others he will – should it so please him – become acquainted, when, leaving the company of our present agreeable associates, we stand forth an author of "Travels," and have more ample scope for our egotism. We confine ourselves now to a few valedictory visits in and about Rome.

THE VILLA BORGHESE

It was on 15th April, 1843, seven A. M., when we went to take farewell of the Borghese. In passing up the Via Babuino on our way thither, our ears catch some of the well-known street cries. These generally attract a momentary attention, even amidst all the bustle, activity, and din of agreat commercial city: how much more, then, in the comparative stillness of Rome, particularly in the morning, when few people are stirring, and we are most alive to sounds? Some of these cries are not unpleasing: the first to greet us, plaintive and melancholy in its character, is that of "Aqua acetosa," which announces the water of a mineral spring in the neighbourhood, brought in at sunrise for those who are too idle or too ill to drink it at its source. Another kind of water – also very matutinal in its delivery, – the "Aqua vita," is intonated by the Aquavitario, in a sharp kestrel key, – hear him! Now, list to two men carrying a large deep tub of honey between them, and bellowing in rapid alternation, "Miele, miele," and say if their accents are mellifluous! Next, comes a loud-tongued salesman, who out-brays Lablache, but confines his singing to "Che vuole, che vuole!" and oranges and lemons are his commodity. From an itinerant green-grocer, who passes with his panniered donkey, suddenly bursts forth, "Cimaroli, cimaroli!" The last cry we hear is that of "Tutti vivi, tutti vivi!" from the asparagaro, who is bringing frogs and wild asparagus into Rome. Now we are in the Piazza del Popolo, and having glanced a moment at those buxom goddesses, at the foot of the Pincian hill, who look right well this morning in their flowing robes, turn out of the Popolo Gate, just as a large drove of lean turkeys, driven in from the Campagna, besiege the entrance on their way to the bird-market, where they are to be presently slaughtered, drawn, and quartered; their "disjecta membra" exposed to sale at so many baiocchi a pound; and their blood, which is more esteemed than their flesh, hawked about the streets in cakes: of course we are too humane to hint to them their coming destiny. In front of the elegant Borghese entrance, and round the Park lodge, all strewn about in picturesque disarray, we behold one of those numerous herds of goats, which come in every morning, to be milked at the different house doors: their udders at present are brimful, and almost touch the lintel of the gate where they are standing – "gravido superant vix ubere limen;" and though they are emptied continually, soon fill again, —

 
"Et plus ta main avare épuise leurs mammelles
Plus la douce ambroisie entre tes doigts ruisselle."
 

Some are lying down to lighten their load; and some, with an air of patient expectancy, turn their heads towards an "osteria cacinante" opposite, knowing that so soon as their drover has finished his own cold broccoli breakfast, he will come out to accompany them into Rome to disperse theirs. And now we are within the enceinte of the Borghese grounds, have passed the good-humoured custode at the gate, responded a hearty "da vero," to the "che bella qiornata" with which we are greeted, tarried for an instant by the little pond to the left, and heard the Babylonian willow susurrate the same salutation to the water under its boughs, and then make for, and soon reach, the large ever-spouting fountain which is scattering its comminuted water-dust far and near, and bathes our cheek refreshingly as we pass it: and now we are at the Borghese dairy, and now by Raphael's little frescoed house, untenanted within, and with a solitary robin, the custode of the porch; but at the back premises we come upon an artist in a blouse making a sketch. He could not have chosen a more picturesque spot than this any where in the park: for foreqround, a beautiful green sward, well dotted with recumbent and standing cows, and interspersed with masses of acanthus-crowned ruin; and for the back, the graceful sweep of the old gray Roman walls, with the Villa Medici and the Pincian hill peering just above. Fain would we carry away some such souvenir; but as nature or our misfortune forbid this, our endeavour shall be to supply its place, however inadequately, by dotting down a few words of description of one or two of the principal trees, which here so greatly embellish the view.

The Ilex, interesting alike from its appearance and physiology, first engages our notice. Compact and solid while yet a shrub, (for hers is indeed an old head upon young shoulders,) she grows like a tree that is to count by centuries, and under no advantage of soil or situation does her sober aspect change; no premature overgrowth was ever known to weaken her fibres, those têtes mortées; the Lombardy poplars there, whose only merit is their height, may shoot up ever so tauntingly, for aught she cares, at her elbow; her ambition is not like that of the stately pines, to nurse a noisy aviary on high; nor does she seek to rival the fair sisterhood of the Acacias in the youthful vanity of overdecking her person; one dark-coloured investment lasts her, and remains unchanged the whole year through. But though she takes no improper "pride in dress," even the rigid Dr Watts would hardly be disposed to object to the exceedingly charming trimming of semi-transparent green flouncing, and the rich festoons of straw-yellow tassels, with which – not to appear insensible to the festivities of spring – she has just now fringed her winter apparel. Making less demands upon the earth than many of her neighbours, she turns her supplies to better account; her acorns from early youth are firm and mature; excrescences, the common result of excess, mar not the rough symmetry of her hardy frame – few insects feed upon that uncompromising rind, which, opposing itself to most cryptogamic alliance, seldom suffers moss or lichen to spread over its incised and tesselated surface,

 
"Save here and there in spots aye dank and dark,
When the green meshes fill the fissured bark."
 

Much does the Ilex gain by this prudent economy of her resources; for, long after the autumnal rains have stripped her companions bare, while they are shivering and sighing in the blast, she knows neither moult nor change. Immutably serene, she plants the dense screen of well-clothed boughs across the road, and affords shelter to the careless wight who has forgotten his umbrella, keeping him dry and warm under an impenetrable water-proof and winter-proof canopy. Of all trees that bloom, (especially when as now in full feather,) few can rival the acacia in delicacy of white, or in profusion of blossoming. Nodding their heavy plumes and parting their leafy tresses in the breeze, they are the charm of every spot where they grow; whether as here, alternating in beautiful relief by the lofty wall of the aqueduct, commingling their snowy bunches amidst thousands of red and white Banksian roses; or else standing sentinel with a weeping willow over some garden fountain. Whether alone or in company, there is not a more beautiful sylvan blonde than the acacia; but it is too apparent that such loveliness will not last, that her stature is fully beyond her strength. For example, there is a row of them; none counts her twelfth birth-day, and yet all are grown up! Turn we, now, to the great stone pines: here they stand in the morning sun, that has already cracked their fevered bark, and caused it to peel off in red laminæ from the rugged trunk. See the ground at their base strewn with these thin vegetable tiles; and large quantities of that most beautiful of funguses, the Clatharus Cancellatus, chooses this situation to blush and stink. This group is a well-known land-mark for miles around Rome; far off in the Campagna we recognise the clump; the dome of St Peter's itself meets not sooner the inquiring eye of the arriving tourist. They are also the artists' trees; not a bough of them but has been studied and depicted time after time for centuries; they have stood oftener for their portraits than they have cones to count, and are as familiar to the young painter, as the line-school that beset the Pincian hill. These are the principal trees which give character to the garden; but there are hosts of others that help to make up the beauty of the scene; Catalpas, Meleas, Brousenitias, &c. &c., all now in light green foliage. Some are still hung with pods and berries of their last year's growth, producing an insieme of pictorial effect rarely to be met with out of Italy, and in Italy only at this season of the year. Continuing our walk, we pass under the rose-crowned aqueduct, and strike into the green avenue that darkens beyond; listening to the distant water bubbling up from the deepest recesses, and to the fitful whistle of blackbird and thrush, as they flit athwart the moss-grown gravel, and perch momentarily on the heads of mutilated termini and statues; whilst the clipt trees vibrate under the wings of others extricating themselves on a piratical cruise against a whole flotilla of butterflies, which is rising and falling over the sunny parterres beyond. "The well-greaved grillus" bounds twenty feet at a spring, and having thighs as thick as a lark's to double under him, makes little use of his wings. Many a callow bee is buzzing helplessly in the path. The gray curculio walks with snout erect, snuffing the morning air; and here we fall upon a party of apprentice pill-beetles, learning to make up stercoraceous boluses, and forming nearly as long a line as the shopmen who are similarly engaged behind Holloway's counter in the Strand. Near us, hordes of "quick-eyed lizards," – insect crocodiles, which much infest this region, start from their holes in the wall, and, rustling along the box hedge, suddenly pounce upon a butterfly, detach his wings – the whole walk is strewed with them – and having bolted his body, retire again to their resting – no – they never rest– lurking-places. Notwithstanding, however, these constant aggressions, from both birds and reptiles, the lepidopterous race is not, it seems, to be exterminated; and there, in evidence, lies that very blue-zoned peacock-butterfly, with his wings extended, and motionless as if pinned to the gravel, on the same sunny spot where we have been in the habit of noticing him for these three successive Aprils past. The eye that follows butterflies takes note also of the flowers on which they settle, but we must not indulge ourselves in pointing them out to the reader, who, unless a botanist, or inclined that way, might turn as restive as the young bride listening to her "preceptor husband."

 
"He showed the flowers from stamina to root,
Calyx and corol, pericarp and fruit;
Of all the parts, the size, the use, the shape:
While poor Augusta panted to escape:
The various foliage various plants produce,
Lunate and lyrate, runcinate, retuse,
Latent and patent, papilous and plain;
'Oh!' said the pupil, 'it will turn my brain!'"
 

And, therefore, though "flowers, fresh in hue and many in their class," absolutely "implore the pausing step," we forbear, and will let him off this time with rehearsing only three or four among them: – the Allium fragrans, he will join with us, if he has been in Italy, in the wish that all onions there were like it! the Anchusa Italica, through whose long funnel the proboscis of the ever-buzzing Bombylius finds its way to the sweet nectar prepared within; the Scilla Lilio-hyacinthus– a Squill masquerading it as a Hyacinth; the leaves of the Cnicus Syraicus, most beautiful of thistles, glistening here in abundance, and scarcely inferior in attractions to the far-famed Acanthus. But the society of plants is as promiscuous as our own, and accordingly we find here the jaundiced Chelidonium filled with bilious juices; the feculent-smelling flowerets of the Smyrnum olusatrum, and the stinking Geranium robertianum, mingle with the sweets of Calendula, Narcissus, and Jonquil; not to mention the Orchis tribe, which flourishes in profusion. Traversing the green arena of the amphitheatre, – where annual festas are held, and occasional cricket matches played – to the left, and leaving the Temple of Diana to the right, we come upon a deep descent just in front of the villa, and enter it for a minute to cast a hasty coup-d'œil at the ample frescoes of the ceiling and the grim mosaics of the floor; the subjects of the latter, however, not being congenial to an unbreakfasted stomach, we relinquish them presently, for the beauties of the park… By the time we think of retracing our steps, the clock of Monte Citorio has struck ten; but the morning is still delightfully cool and exhilarating; we have been overtaken and passed by three pedestrians, each carrying away from the grounds something more than mere recollections; one, a semplicista of the Rotunda, with a collection of Galenicals for his shop; another with a pocket full of Arum roots, which he has been grubbing up for his wife, a lavatrice, to clear linen; and a third, whose handkerchief contains several pounds weight of prugnoli—Agaricus prunulus– destined for his breakfast. These do not long keep pace with our lingering footsteps; we are loth to quit hastily, and for the last time, this scene of by-gone pleasures. Oh! Villa Borghese, well known to us from curly-pated boyhood, before Waterloo was won, and often at intervals since, till now, when half our hair has become gray, and the remainder has left our temples, while grown-up nephews and nieces declare to us, what our contemporaries will not – the progress of time – how many happy hours of careless childhood have we frolicked away among thine avenues and plantations – on which we cast a last sad look – with urchins now as bald as ourselves! In early youth we have read our favourite authors under thy trees; a little later, have botanised with friends who loved thee and nature as dearly as we did; and thus have we learned to know thee, in every dress, in every phase of light and shade, and in every month of the year. During our last sojourn, in particular, this has been our favourite haunt; in winter, when walking required speed, and stalactites of ice would glisten occasionally from the aqueduct; or when summer returned, and we could bask under the tall spread pines, and watch the cawing rooks as they went and came over head, or screened ourselves in some dark avenue from the fervency of the sun, from whence we could see him blazing at both ends of it. A long and endearing familiarity has indeed been ours, melancholy and unsating; and it has given rise to a host of trying associations, conjured up by each new visit after a brief absence from Rome, and now adds poignancy of regret to what we feel must be the last, —

 
"While at each step, against our will
Does memory, with pernicious skill,
Our captive thoughts enchain,
Recalls each joy that treach'rous smiled,
And of green griefs and sorrows wild,
Resuscitates the pain.
 

THE VILLA ALBANI

An Italian villa is like any other Italian belle; we would rather pay either a morning visit than summer and winter with them; both dress themselves out for strangers, and often at the expense of their rightful owners. An Italian villa is very charming for a brief spring, malarious in summer and autumn, and incommodiously furnished for every season. Comfort makes but slow progress abroad, and has not yet found its way into Italy at all; neither into her dictionaries as a name, nor into her dwellings as a thing. What should we, ease-loving English, think of a house, which, lined with marbles and frescoes, carpeted with mosaics and adorned with statues, offered nothing but niches and marble curule chairs to write on and to sit in? Yet such is the general scheme and internal arrangement throughout most villas in Italy; for as to the prime of the house, the piano nobile, that belongs as by prescriptive right to the Cæsars, being indeed only fitted for impassive marble and bronze emperors: – while the over-hospitable entertainer of these august guests is content to stow away himself and family in apartments which are frequently little better than our offices for menials, in which his few articles of rococo furniture, of all sorts and sizes, are crazy, cumbersome, undusted, and ill-matched; in short, more like the promiscuous contents of some inferior broker's shop, than the elegant ameublement we might have expected to correspond to the profusion of objects of vertu which grace the principal show-rooms of the mansion. At home, we may differ in our notions about comfort in the details, but there are certain conditions which are rightly held essential to its possible existence; and if "the cold neat parlour, and the gay glazed bed," have their admirers, it is because cleanliness and neatness are two of them: but in Italy we look in vain for either, and there is nothing to compensate their absence. Few Englishmen could engage in literary labour in the fireless, ill-furnished rooms which throughout Italy are a matter of course; where carpets, curtains, or an easy chair, are unknown luxuries; and into which, entering by various ill-placed and worse fitting windows and doors, confluent draughts catch you in all directions, turning the sanctum of study into a perfect Temple of the Winds! Yet, to some men, comfort seems as unnecessary as it is unattainable. The Italian antiquary, in particular, had need be careless of his ease, and regardless of external temperature; as that degree of it necessary for the conservation of nude marble figures, is by no means congenial to flesh and blood. This reflection occurs to us to-day – not for the first time, certes – under the noble portico of the villa Albani, with a volume of Winkelmann in our hand; for in this palace, and in some such study as we have hinted at, must he have shivered over these recondite labours, while meditating, composing, and consulting authorities, to constitute himself hereafter the great oracle of the fine arts. Had Winkelmann been half as curious in his research after comfort as vertù, verily the world would have lost many an able dissertation and ingenious conjecture; and this villa in particular – to which we are now come to pay our respects – we fear our last respects – had been deprived of this renowned commentary on her treasures. Let us hope parenthetically that a recent perusal of the venerable antiquary, together with some slight acquaintance with the objects themselves, will on such an occasion excite in us a spark of that enthusiasm which animates all his descriptions. What a beautiful portico! we catch ourselves saying con amore for the hundredth time – and who will gainsay us? – with its thirty columns of different coloured granites and rare marbles, cipolino, porta santa, occhio di pavone (vide Corsi); its busts, its ornamented tazzas, its statues, and many other et cœteras too numerous to catalogue. Among the statues, our eye soon singles out the queenly figure of Agrippina seated in her marble chair. Stateliness and high rank apparent in her features, grace and perfect self-possession in her attitude, doubtless she is expecting a deputation of importance, or maybe a visit from the emperor, and has prepared her well-tutored countenance to receive either with dignity. Here are the busts of Nerva and of the first Cæsar, to whose characters, while history gives the key, we are apt to fancy, as we stare at them, that to Lavater we owe the discovery. Those ubiquitous emperors Hadrian, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Gordianus ditto, on whom as on other boring acquaintance you are sure to stumble in every gallery at Rome till you almost yawn in their faces, are here of course. Besides these, by way of novelty, we fall in with the grave, much-bearded, long-faced bust, Epicurus underwritten on the pedestal. If it be that sage, then has not his face any vestige of the jovial "live while you live" expression which we might have expected, were he true to his own philosophy; but, on the contrary, a dignified Melancthon sadness, as if, like Solomon, he had had enough of pleasure, and had found nothing but "vanity and vexation of spirit" from them all. Opposite to him, we look with interest on the much less apocryphal head of Scipio Africanus, not only exhibiting on his bald temple a large crucial cicatrice, in token of a wound which we know him to have received, but presenting the singular appearance of having been trefined, an operation of which there is certainly no record in his life. Just before we ascend, we glance up at those beautiful Caryatides, who give their name to one of the principal saloons, and, loitering for a few moments on the stair before a charming little group of Niobe and her children, are presently in the gallery above. There – omitting all minor objects of interest chronicled in the guide books, (which we have now no time to re-examine,) – we devote ourselves chiefly to the reconsidering two or three favourite marbles and bronzes. First among the former stands the Minerva, a specimen of Roman sublime, (vide Winkelmann) – perfect, say all the guide books; but how a lady with an artificial nose, and a right arm palpably modern, can be so considered, it would be difficult to explain. By the side of his wise daughter is niched a noble statue of Jupiter, executed by some great artist while the god was master of Olympus, and probably brought to Rome when he had ceased to reign, and his effects were sold. In the effeminate Antinous, an alto-relievo of whitest marble, we admire the prototype of that arrow-stricken youth, the comely St Sebastian. Nothing can exceed the grace of the bronze Apollo; but, on looking from his form into his face, you are surprised to find him literally stone-blind; a shocking case of double cataract, produced by adopting for eyes two sardonyxes, whereof the second layer, representing the iris, is dark, while the white centre of the orb, corresponding to the pupil, exhibits a hopeless opacity. We pause in succession before those weird sisters, arranged stiffly à l'Etrusque, who are receiving the infant Bacchus, not to give him milk, you may be sure, but to dry-nurse him upon Burgundy; a perfectly intellectual head, planted upon misshapen shoulders, supposed to be Æsop, a beautiful deformity; a Hercules, leaning against a column, and reposing after some of his many labours; the large marble vase with Bacchante figures and attendant Fauns, carrying skins of wine to keep up the festivities; all these are well worthy of a longer inspection than we have now time to bestow. The mosaics on the floor, too, offer pleasing representations of different objects of natural history; many birds, "goldfinch, bullfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, and all the finches of the grove;" cicadæ and dragonflies, fruits and flowers, the arbutus and the ivy, commingling their various forms and colours, and all inimitably executed. Descending slowly, we find ourselves once more at Agrippina's side in the Portico; not this time to look at the statues, but out upon the prospect, sub dio, and amuse ourselves with tracking the broken and often interrupted lines of converging aqueducts that cross and recross the plain. The clear Italian atmosphere renders objects so distinct, that with a glass we can read the names of the locanda at Frascati, nine miles off, and almost determine what provisions the man in the white apron has in his hand. Tivoli and Frascati, not far distant from each other, stand high upon the hills; and still higher up is Rocca di Papa on its lofty site; while between us and them, in the dancing air, lies that malarious Campagna, which, though unfruitful in corn, wine, or olives, yields notwithstanding a rich harvest of its own. From it, every year are gathered bushels of imperial and consular coins; engraved stones, and other works of ancient art; and from the same "marble wilderness" many of the busts and bas-reliefs, which adorn not only this villa, but also most of the mansions in and about Rome. But we have to walk home; and we accordingly look with natural alarm at the garden, with its broad shadeless walks blazing in the sun; the sparrows can bear the heat no longer; a whole bevy, who for the last five minutes have been jargoning their uneasiness over our head, have finally gone off to seek shelter in the bushes; – their instinct having first prompted several expedients to relieve their distress, all of which failed them; thus, when they found that sitting either in company or "alone upon the house top" would not do, and that hopping on the tiles blistered their feet, they bethought them of the metal pipes, and tried to effect an entrance, but quickly issued screaming, having made the discovery, that they had only got out of the fire into a frying-pan. On issuing from the Portico, we pass a large fountain, in which the gold fish keep studiously at the bottom of the water, while the restless dragon-fly (who finds the glittering shell-work too hot to hold him) is as studiously skimming backwards and forwards over the surface, to cool and refresh himself; and the frogs, in a neighboring tank, while conjugal duties keep them also on the top, feebly croak as they float with their wives among the green feculence, and make love behind the bulrushes. On leaving the garden, we mount our green spectacles, hoist our umbrella, and resolutely set our face homeward and Romeward. Half an hour's broiling walk brings us up under the friendly covert of the city walls; following the giro of which, we arrive in about as much time as it has taken us to reach them, at the Popolo Gate, and enter the Piazza, which no mortal wight would now care to traverse, who could avoid it. The owls – how cruel to place owls upon an obelisk dedicated to the sun– never blinked to a brighter flood of light in the streets of Thebes, than that which here streams on every object to-day. The Tazza's fountain, at its base, is a perfect cauldron, in which the glowing water bubbles up against, the sides, as if it were actually about to boil over; the domes of the two churches, opposite the city gate, will soon warm their capacious interiors, from the large, supply of caloric they are now rapidly absorbing; a stand of bayonets before the Dogana, sparkles as if it were on fire; and when we have arrived at the foot of the wide white Scalinata of the Trinita di Monti, the whole expanse from top to bottom shines with unmitigated and unsupportable splendour. No importunate beggar can stand and rattle his tin box on the summit, and if he could, there is no passenger to heed or hear him; the Sabine model belle is not there to offer herself to the first artist who wants a madonna or a saint, nor amateur bandits, nor faun-like children playing on the steps; even the patient goats, long since milked, lie panting under the convent wall; not a dog is visible on the large immondezaro in front of it; and had we not had already painful experience of the heat of the day, the donkey who lives below, in the court of the Palazzo Mignanelli, exhibits it most strikingly; there he stands, a fine subject for Pinelli, with a wo-begone countenance, – Sancho's ass not more triste – ruminating over a heap of fresh vegetables, which he feebly snuffs, and wants resolution to stoop his head and munch; whilst his adopted friend, the large house-dog, totally regardless of his charge, sleeps heavily in the opposite corner of the court.