22 DECEMBER 1860, Page 17

TWO YEARS IN SWITZERLAND AND ITALY..

Miss BREMER'S record of the incidents that marked her progress, and the impressions and reminiscences of scenery, life, and cha- racter that she received during a two years' migratory residence in Switzerland and Italy, will probably not disappoint public expec- tation. We are by no means, however, entirely satisfied with these volumes. The narrative portion is not sufficiently concen- trated or exclusive: and the speculative parts are indistinct and hazy. The subject may perhaps be thought to justify the inser- tion of an already twice-told tale, and a little ecstasy among lakes and mountains may be easily forgiven; but the frequent effusion of a rapturous piety or romantic religiosity might well be spared. Those, however, who would willingly wander, though but in thought, among shining Alpine peaks and luxuriant green pas- turages, or who appreciate vaticinatory lucubrations on the church of the future, will find little in these volumes of travel which they will not read with some pleasure or satisfaction. We may add, too, that the poetical and vivacious temperament that characterizes the authoress, her sympathy with suffering or conquering human- ity, her frequent notices of men, women, and books, make her an agreeable travelling companion, when she once gets on fresh ground, or obligingly descends from her theosophical elevation to the level of our mundane understanding.

The two years which our gifted authoress spent in Switzerland and Italy included those of 1857 and 1858. Her excursion, in- deed, occupied more than the biennial period which the title of her book assigns to it ; for Miss Bremer found herself in Switzer- land in the beginning of the summer of 1856. The principal, if not the sole, motive of her journey thither, was to ascertain the re- lation in which the new Free Church in the Canton Vaud stood to the Bible, Protestantism, and the Catholic Church—of the Future. Thinking to find there what she sought for, "the origi- nEd fountain of her faith," as proclaimed by Alexandre Vinet, and before him by St. Paul, Pascal, Rousseau, and Schleiermacher, she traversed the regions of the Swiss Alps, in hope if not in exultation. The free church of Vaud, though not without its pe- culiar merits, proved too narrow for a theologian, whose ecclesia comprehends Fenelon and Channing, Washington, and Vinet, Zoroaster, and Buddha, Socrates and Spinosa. Two years of travel were not, however, destined to be lived in vain. Under the teaching of Vinet and Secretan, Miss Bremer discovered in "con- sciousness," " conscience," or Plato's "third eye,"—" the visual nerve of which exists in connexion with God, and beholds the eternal primal images, as they live in him and his kingdom "—the fountain of truth and certainty in everything. We cannot fol- low out the preeminently subjective reasoning by which Miss Bremer persuades herself, not only that there must be a Univer- sal Church of the Future, but that it must grow, and be per- fected in accordance with a certain ideal of Christian life. For though somewhat vague and shadowy in her profession of faith, Miss Bremer is sincerely Protestant. Yet, while protesting against Popish errors, she is not intolerant. She would even in- sert in her Protestant creed two doctrines which, " when they are divested of their childish forms, constitute the requirements of every feeling, thinking, human soul, and of which the most an- cient traditions and the paintings in the Catacombs testify "—the doctrines of purgatory, and of the uninterrupted connexion with the departed. Quitting this debateable ground, we will now accompany our traveller on her journey, with no intention, however, of following her route uninteruptedly, but with the view only of tracing it roughly and irregularly, and of reporting her occasional impres- sions or observations. From the vineyards of Heidelberg, when she saw the Chevalier Bunsen, whose loss we have so recently had to deplore, "healthy, cheerful, and overflowing with life, and the enjoyment of labour," Miss Bremer proceeded to Basle ; from Basle, she went to Berne; and from Berne to Lausanne. At Lausanne, she found life simple, yet rich in kindly influences. The wealthy there, are occupied in improving the condition of the poor, and promoting the education of the children ; while the new religious reform, in its practical applications, seems to be beneficially modifying- the social and domestic life of the people. Further on, in the valley of Rossiniere, with its roses, rhododen- drons, and wild strawberries, Miss Bremer found plenty of honey, milk, cream, butter, and cheese. The villagers of Rossiniere are poor, peaceable, and industrious. The common occupation of children and women is straw-platting ; but it is highly detri- mental to the health of both. At Rossiniere '° marriages are few, and in these love is less the question than the means of living."

* Two Years in Eleitserland. By Frederika Bremer. Translated by Mary llowitt. In two volumes. Published by Burst and Blacken. " Morals are so pure that, during a hundred years, there has not been a single illegitimate child born here."

We will leave Miss Bremer to pursue her journey alone through the Idyllian (Idyllic?) Hassli valley, into the forest cantons, expa- tiating on a supposed Swedish emigration, and visiting Biirglen, the birthplace of Tell ; Grutli, where the sworn confederates held their nightly meetings, more than five centuries ago, &c., while we hasten on to Zurich, the Athens of Switzerland. Miss Bremer describes, in somewhat glowing colours, the material and moral characteristics of this beautiful and flourishing city. The people are prosperous ; the poor comparatively few ; science and art are cultivated even by the artisan classes. Thousands of families are maintained by the silk-looms ; and, as the work is done at their own homes in the country, overcrowding is there an evil quite unknown. The chief captain of industry at Zurich seems to be Mr. F. Ascher, who gives his working regiments what opportu- nities he can for moral and intellectual improvement. " Mathilda Ascher, the daughter of the great manufacturer, is spoken of by all the needy as an angel of goodness and mercy."

From Zurich Miss Bremer returned to Basle, and thence " flew on the wings of steam over land and water to Brussels," wishing to be present at the opening of the International Congres de Bienfaisance to be held there. Among the towns in Belgium, which she visited on the close of the Exhibition, was Ghent. We pause there a moment only to draw attention to Miss Bre- mer's account of the small pocket-handkerchiefs which cost each from five to seven hundred francs, and which seemed to her " more suitable for the noses of angels than for those of human beings." Without dogmatizing on the subject, Miss Bremer thinks it probable that the sedentary employment of lace-making is really injurious to the physical and spiritual development of the young girls engaged in it. As female occupation is one of the prominent social topics of our time, we will transfer from its appropriate context, since the opportunity presents itself, Miss Bremer's impression of the effect of work on women in the well-to-do watchmaking town of Chaux de Fonda— "Husband and wife work at the same occupation, and get good earnings which makes living easy The women can earn from three to fifteen francs a day ; the greater number, however, leas than five. 'I bey like their work, but become, in consequence, less clever as housewives ; give them- selves no time to attend to cooking and their clothes, and often not even to take care of the sick child, which neglect cannot be compensated for by any amount of pecuniary gains. This working life is assuredly not altogether good for married women. For the unmarried, it appears to me a great blessing."

Before reentering Switzerland, Miss Bremer paid a flying visit to the volcanic capital of France, with its present calmness, based

not like that of England, Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland, on the consciousness of the nation and its power of self-government, but on the life-thread of one man, who is the helmsman of the moment, but not of the future ; who keeps together the old, and approves himself as a great policemaster, whose continued power is the condition of the nation's order, but who is powerless to initiate a new life, and whom even Frenchmen themselves regard without

confidence. As a set-off against this somewhat unfavourable portrait, our authoress acknowledges, though in qualified lan- guage, the third Napoleon's services in the Italian war of libera- tion, and pronounces his programme of peace well worthy of the attention both of princes and people.

From Paris, Miss Bremer again proceeded to Lausanne, where she passed the winter months. In the September of the following year, 1857, after an intervening residence during the spring and summer at Geneva, where she read Calvin's Institutes ; and at Neufchatel, where she went to see C. Secretan, the youngest friend and contemporary of Alexandre Vinet,—she crossed the Simplon and entered Italy. Her Italian narrative contains a retrospective review of the revolutionary state of that beautiful peninsula, with notices of Carlo Alberto, the Hamlet of the South, hesitating, uncertain, reactionary, first favouring reform, then persecuting its friends, but dying with a martyr's aureole round his head ; and of Cavour, who reminded her more of an "English red-complexioned country squire," whose pleasure lies in his work, but who may be seen "wandering along the promenades, whistling carelessly and play- ing with his cane ; " whose morals and character are above as- persion, and whose enemies have never experienced his hatred. The reply which this great statesman once gave to the advocates of a policy less bold and daring than his own is characteristic. " Ought you not to pause, or to go on more slowly ? I have to guide a carriage with four horses down hill. When we have reached the level and begin to go up-hill again, then I will drive slowly."

Miss Bremer speaks with her usual eloquence of Gioberti, Leo- pardi, and other Italian notables. With a strong predilection against the democratic republicanism of Mazzini, she does that high-minded if impracticable politician justice, when she attests that through the force of his character and nobleness of his views, Mazzini wrought up to enthusiasm many people as well in Rome as in the whole of Italy ; when she expresses her belief in his moral purity and in his energetic will; and points out how "when he became dominant in Rome, the old martial spirit of the city seemed to reawaken ; how while he never slept and never wearied, it fought an heroic fight against far superior armies during eight months.

With Pio Nono, our lady traveller had not only a long inter- view, but a long and somewhat singular conversation on the merits and claims of their respective churches. She found the

Pope tolerant, so true and evangelical in many of his words that she even momentarily beheld in him the representative of the teacher who, in life and doctrine preached humility not before man but before God. This favourable estimate applies, however, only to Pio Nono, as she saw and heard him. As a temporal so- vereign, Miss Bremer severely condemns him. Of all the Ita- lian Powers, she says the States of the Church has been the most severe in its punishment of political offenders. She accuses Pio Nono of having broken all his promises but one ; she adopts the words of Count Cesare Balbo, in 1850, who complained even then of the increasingly bad government of the Papal States, of the wretched police, the persecutions, the financial disorder, the foreign arms, and ecclesiastical interference in the most temporal affairs all alike resulting in a position in which the pontifical rule loses all its dignity.

Miss Bremer's experiences at Rome were many and interesting. Catholicism she admits has its undoubted sanctities, but Popery flourishes to this hour in the Eternal City, as is ;hewn by the miracle of the Talking Madonna, whose audible complaint of poverty has made her church one of the richest in Rome, has covered her with ornaments of gold and precious stones, and has worn away her (gilt) foot with perpetual osculation. During the hour-and-a-half that Miss Bremer remained in her sanctuary, she observed the people, hurrying forward in one continuous stream, all eager to kiss this marble foot, with its faded splendours. "Below the altar it is inscribed in golden letters, that Pius VII. promised two hundred days' absolution to all such as should kiss the Madonna's foot, and pray with the whole heart, Ave Maria. A priest was seated near the altar at a writing table, ready to write out pardons for the dead, for whose souls prayers were desired and payment made."

It is but fair, however, to observe, that Miss Bremer half concedes that the Madonna worship is favourable to the de- velopment of sentiments of devotional love in the warm- hearted children of the South. It is asserted, she says, that the men of Italy almost universally feel a reverence and regard for "the mother," which is elsewhere very rare, and that ladies may move about in an Italian crowd without any kind of rough treat- ment or annoyance. Our authoress visited many towns and cities of Italy, besides Rome. At Pisa, she saw some antique statues in the Cathedral. Of the accommodating spirit of the Roman Catholic religion here, she gives the following instance.

"This, said my Cicerone, pointing to a warlike figure in marble, is a statue of the god Mars, which was found not far from this place.' But what has the god Mars to do in the church here ? ' I asked. Oh! replied Antonio, the sacristan, they have baptized him San Piso, and so they were able to set him up here." How ! They have baptized a marble statue,' I asked. Yes,' replied Antonio, unmoved, because they said it was a beautiful statue, which would be an ornament to the church. And, there- fore, the god Mars is baptized, and now he is San Piso." At Florence, Miss Bremer, after wandering in the famous gal- lery, and noticing the marble men and women of Pagan Greece and 'Rome, drew conclusions in favour of the physical superiority of modern humanity- " From all this it is clear to me that the human race, at least the Chris- tian portion of it, has not since that time deteriorated, but, on the contrary, considerably increased in the beauty and harmonious structure of the out- ward frame. The form of the head has especially undergone a change. For in the people of antiquity the forehead and upper portion of the head were low, in particular amongst the Romans, with whom the head has a square build, broad rather than high. Amongst the modern cultivated na- tions, the arch of the skull is considerably higher, and likewise the forehead. The opening of the eye is also larger, and-the whole countenance has a more beautiful rounding and lovelier proportions, especially amongst the women."

We should like to know how far these allegations can be esta- blished ; how far it can be demonstrated that " the ideal has descended into reality, and has elevated it to a resemblance with itself."

It would be pleasant to journey with Miss Bremer in Naples, remembering " that the noblest of the Neapolitan families took part in the struggle of 1848," to accompany her to Sorrento, Prestum, Pompeii, Capri, and Sicily, to traverse with her " the

city disinterred," and see the painted of man, goddess, satyr, faun, and animal, that yet glows upon the walls of many of the rooms, and interesting (to revert once more to Rome) to descend with her into the Christian catacomb of the first century, forgot- ten for long hundreds of years, till rediscovered by De Rossi about six years ago—" the so-called Calixti Catacomb, with the graves of Fabianus and St. Cecilia, and many other of the ancient martyrs." There are other scenes, too, which we could profit- ably survey ; and some noble men and women pass before us in these volumes, with whom we might make or renew our ac- qaintanee. he Tgraceful and touching love story at the end of the second volume will, no doubt, find admirers. We gather from the preface that it is partly fictitious, and that it is made up of two distinct romances. Such tampering with fact, in a work professing to report realities, we cannot but regard as an impertinence. On the other hand, had the episode of " Wal- do " and " the Princess Elsa" been a faithful reflex of actual occurrence, we should still object to the novelist policy of making literary capital out of the sacred communications of friendship.