"We left Florence before seven yesterday morning [26th November]for this place;travelling on the northern side of the Arno,by Prato,Pistoia,Pescia.We tried to see some old frescos in a Church at Prato;but found the Priests all about,saying mass;and of course did not venture to put our hands into a hive where the bees were buzzing and on the wing.Pistoia we only coasted.A little on one side of it,there is a Hill,the first on the road from Florence;which we walked up,and had a very lively and brilliant prospect over the road we had just travelled,and the town of Pistoia.Thence to this place the whole land is beautiful,and in the highest degree prosperous,--in short,to speak metaphorically,all dotted with Leghorn bonnets,and streaming with olive-oil.The girls here are said to employ themselves chiefly in platting straw,which is a profitable employment;and the slightness and quiet of the work are said to be much more favorable to beauty than the coarser kinds of labor performed by the country-women elsewhere.Certain it is that I saw more pretty women in Pescia,in the hour I spent there,than I ever before met with among the same numbers of the 'phare sect.'
Wherefore,as a memorial of them,I bought there several Legends of Female Saints and Martyrs,and of other Ladies quite the reverse,and held up as warnings;all of which are written in _ottava rima_,and sold for three halfpence apiece.But unhappily I have not yet had time to read them.This Town has 30,000inhabitants,and is surrounded by Walls,laid out as walks,and evidently not at present intended to be besieged,--for which reason,this morning,I merely walked on them round the Town,and did not besiege them....
"The Cathedral [of Lucca]contains some Relics;which have undoubtedly worked miracles on the imagination of the people hereabouts.The Grandfather of all Relics (as the Arabs would say)in the place is the _Volto Santo_,which is a Face of the Saviour appertaining to a wooden Crucifix.Now you must know that,after the ascension of Christ,Nicodemus was ordered by an Angel to carve an image of him;and went accordingly with a hatchet,and cut down a cedar for that purpose.He then proceeded to carve the figure;and being tired,fell asleep before he had done the face;which however,on awaking,he found completed by celestial aid.This image was brought to Lucca,from Leghorn,I think,where it had arrived in a ship,'more than a thousand years ago,'and has ever since been kept,in purple and fine linen and gold and diamonds,quietly working miracles.I saw the gilt Shrine of it;and also a Hatchet which refused to cut off the head of an innocent man,who had been condemned to death,and who prayed to the _Volto Santo_.I suppose it is by way of economy (they being a frugal people)that the Italians have their Book of Common Prayer and their Arabian Nights'Entertainments condensed into one."_To the Same_.
"_Pisa,December 2d_,1838.--Pisa is very unfairly treated in all the Books I have read.It seems to me a quiet,but very agreeable place;with wide clean streets,and a look of stability and comfort;and Iadmire the Cathedral and its appendages more,the more I see them.
The leaning of the Tower is to my eye decidedly unpleasant;but it is a beautiful building nevertheless,and the view from the top is,under a bright sky,remarkably lively and satisfactory.The Lucchese Hills form a fine mass,and the sea must in clear weather be very distinct.
There was some haze over it when I was up,though the land was all clear.I could just see the Leghorn Light-house.Leghorn itself Ishall not be able to visit....
"The quiet gracefulness of Italian life,and the mental maturity and vigor of Germany,have a great charm when compared with the restless whirl of England,and the chorus of mingled yells and groans sent up by our parties and sects,and by the suffering and bewildered crowds of the laboring people.Our politics make my heart ache,whenever Ithink of them.The base selfish frenzies of factions seem to me,at this distance,half diabolic;and I am out of the way of knowing anything that may be quietly a-doing to elevate the standard of wise and temperate manhood in the country,and to diffuse the means of physical and moral well-being among all the people....I will write to my Father as soon as I can after reaching the capital of his friend the Pope,--who,if he had happened to be born an English gentleman,would no doubt by this time be a respectable old-gentlemanly gouty member of the Carlton.I have often amused myself by thinking what a mere accident it is that Phillpotts is not Archbishop of Tuam,and M'Hale Bishop of Exeter;and how slight a change of dress,and of a few catchwords,would even now enable them to fill those respective posts with all the propriety and discretion they display in their present positions."At Rome he found the Crawfords,known to him long since;and at different dates other English friends old and new;and was altogether in the liveliest humor,no end to his activities and speculations.Of all which,during the next four months,the Letters now before me give abundant record,--far too abundant for our objects here.His grand pursuit,as natural at Rome,was Art;into which metaphysical domain we shall not follow him;preferring to pick out,here and there,something of concrete and human.Of his interests,researches,speculations and descriptions on this subject of Art,there is always rather a superabundance,especially in the Italian Tour.