THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY.*
The Englialneontan in Italy possesses merits which entitle it to the place accorded it in Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library of Cheap Editions of Popular Modern Works. In simple language and un. pretending style it relates an English lady's experiences of Italian life and manners, describing the social and domestic condition of a part of that beautiful peninsula, little visited by travellers, "but which presents features of quaintness and originality not easily met with in this era. In illustrating the life and conversation of the Ancona and Macerate society, the authoress has not only carefully avoided all unnecessary political discussion, but has employed a fio- titious nomenclature, fearing to compromise the friends to whose hospitality or courtesy she was indebted. Her tale differs from many travellers' tales of Italy, both in its choice and rejection of topic. We have little of seethed description, no artistic raptures, no notes upon pictures, or criticisms on statues, but a clear matter-of-fact, narrative of what she has seen and heard during her residence in Ancona, the principal seaport of the Roman States on the Adriatic. Invited by her uncle, an English merchant of this city, to spend a few months with his family, our authoress enjoyed an opportunity such as strangers very rarely command of becoming acquainted with the customary life of an Italian population. The report of her im- pressions contained in this volume relates, however, to a wide area than that afforded by the ancient city of Ancona. A ten years' resi, deuce in the Roman States and Sardinia was necessarily rich in experiences, political and historical as well as social and domestic. The results of observation and inquiry, in this more extended sphere, follow the earlier impressions already indicated. Formal disquisi- tion, though not altogether omitted, is judiciously limited to a rapid review of stirring incidents or important events.
The first strictures of our observant traveller are directed against the erroneous system of marriage and the defective method of educa- tion which prevail in Italy. The bride elect knows little of her future husband, and goes to the altar without a thought of her new duties and responsibilities. Established under the parental roof, the young couple are treated like mere children ; the mother-in-law, who is almost invariably ignorant, prejudiced, and bigoted, exercisrng,a vexatious tyranny, both in the management of the household and the treatment of her grandchildren. Nor is the educational system any better than the matrimonial. At seven or eight years old, remarked an Italian of cultivated intellect, our boys are sent to Jesuit colleges, while our girls at even an earlier age are placed in nunneries to learn from women, perpetually secluded in the cloisters, the duties that are fit for wives and mothers in the world. A sad and curious illustra- tion of the depressing influence of Jesuit training was given by the same Italiangentleman in our authoress's hearing. A handsome, animated, andpromising boy of nine years old had been placed at the Jesuits' college at Loretto. Six mouths after the child's admission the count, on visiting the college, was scarcely able to recognize the child. Without ill-usage or compulsory discipline, but simply by the steady workings of a strangely compressive system, " the boy's spirit and originality appeared to be as completely extinguished as if they had never existed." The visitor horrified the ecclesiastic who was present at the interview, by rather maliciously asking the child if he still took as much interest as ever in scientific and mechanical 'pursuits. "As the sworn upholder of a government that opposes railways, and laments the invention of printing; the priest was bound to express his surprise at the suggestion. 'My child,' said he, mildly, addressing his pupil, is it possible you ever thought thus? You have other tastes now. Tell the signor oonte what you most wish to become.' The boy coloured, cast down his eyes,Juul murmured, 'Un Latinista'—a Latin scholar." The authoress, Mrs. Gretton, testifies to the general truth of this Italian gentleman's relation. The Jesuits were supported on political grounds by the party nicknamed Oscurantisti or Codini, the former appellation signifying literally obscurers, and the latter being derived, from the queue worn in the last century, " and without which, to this day,.upon the Italian stage, the portrait of a prejudiced, obstinate old noble is incomplete." The ignorance of some of the young Italian nobles on most subjects of general information is described in this volume as perfectly startling. "Tell me," said a youthful count, when the glowing patriotism of 1849 had suggested the adoption of, the principles of Protestantism as an expedient for getting rid of the prat' and conciliating England—" tell me, do the Protestants believe in God?" "How can I know anything about these matters ? " asked a youth fresh from Bologna, when an allusion was made to Cleopatra and the asp ; " I have never read the Bible." Intellect in Italy has
• The Englishwoman in Italy. Impressions of Life in the Roman States and_Sar: dinia during a Ten Years' Reaidence. By sirs. G. crew= Published by H 6 and Blackett, usually showed itself as a kind of passive genius, under this enerva- ting and compressive regime. The want of energy, however, which until lately was peculiar to most Italians who united reflection and high principle with patriotism and talent, happily no longer disgraces Central and Northern Italy, though from the course recent events have taken in the Marches, Mrs. Gretton infers that the political leaders there are still men of thought rather than action.
The best-educated class in Italy is the mezzocetto, or middle class, a class which comprises the physician, the lawyer, the merchant, the shopkeeper, and government underling. In Italy, it must be borne nund, that no untitled aristocracy, such as we have in England, exists. The scion of a noble family in the Pope's States has no re- source but the Church. The middle class rarely contribute to swell the ranks of the priesthood. The absence of gentle breeding and all social amenities observable in this class appears to be chiefly attri- butable to the low position held by the women belonging to it, or the contemptuous estimate of their power and capacity. The domestic life of this Italian bourgeoisie, as portrayed by Mrs. Gretton, has
little of grace, refinement, i or even intellectual cultivation to recom- mend it; though, doubtless, educated men abound in the bourgeois ranks.
Among the peculiarities of the people of Ancona described in Mrs. Gretton's amusing pages, is the prejudice prevailing against the use of fireplaces, or indeed against any appliances to mitigate the severity of the winter cold. Horace Walpole, she tells us, long since re- marked that the Italians seemed quite unaware of the rigour of their Climate, a remark which, though " made a hundred years ago, is still perfectly applicable" to the Anconitans of the present. day. The dread of sitting near a fire, and the contempt for carpels expressed by the old inhabitants, are extremely ludicrous. The authoress tells a story of a gentleman "who one night came freezing into our draw- ingroom, and as he stood complacently before the fire, made us laugh at the account of a visit he had just been paying to the Count M., the admiral of the port—a sinecure office, it is needless to re- mark. He found him in bed with a slight attack of gout, and his wife and daughter-in-law, with several visitors, were sitting round- him, making la sociela, the gentlemen in their hats and cloaks, and the ladies in shawls, handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and the never absent scaldino, filled with live embers, in their hands. Our friend was pressed by the admiral to follow the general example, and cloak and cover himself. He declined, at first, being of a very cere- monious disposition; but soon, he admitted, his scruples gave way before the excessive coldness of the room, on a northern aspect, destitute of fire or carpet, and he resumed his out-door apparel like the nest.
If the Italians have no home in the English sense of the word, they have at least home feelings and home practices. One of the most amiable features of the national character is the attachment mutually subsisting between masters and servants in the old families of the Italian nobility. It is greatly to the credit of a patrician household that it retains as supernumeraries or pensions off at least one or two faithful old domestics in its employment. It is pleasant to hear, too, that servants are rarely dismissed, even if slatternly and inefficient. In curious contrast with English habit and sentiment, more men are employed than women. " We knew a lady," says Mrs. Gretton, "whose man-servant sat up for eighty nights to tend her during a dangerous illness." On the other hand, wages are low, and though the allowance of wine and flour is liberal, the quantity of meat per head is only about six ounces a day. Another peculiarity that struok our authoress consists in "the unceasing contrast between the pathetic and grotesque that the Italian character presents." In all scenes of distress or affliction, she con- tinues, their sympathy and charity are very remarkable, and it is beautiful to witness their untiring solicitude towards each other in sickness. Even young men of apparently the most frivolous dispo- sition, evince under these circumstances a tenderness and forbear- ance we are apt to consider the exclusive attribute of women. Generally speaking, the Italians,according to Mrs.Gretton's report, are unwilling to speak on serious topics. The interest which in other countries attaches to science, politics, and religion, in Italy centres or the brill of a prima donna or the legs of a ballerina.
Our authoress touches lightly on many topics which we can only indicate: music, painting, love, and marriage where the hand is given without the heart (" that is the husband's affair,"—the poor man takes his chance !), the Santa Casa—the Virgin's cottage at Na- zareth, transported by angelic agency across the Adriatic to Ancona, and from Ancona to Loretto—the Carmelites at Je,si, the constitutional movement of 1830-'21, the Sanfedisti rising of 1831, the accession of Pius IX., the intrigues of Austria, the popular excess in Ancona, are among the subjects treated in this volume with a simple grace or with an unpretending instructiveness. In the concluding portion of the book we are conducted to Nice, with its wondrous skies and sapphire-like sea, its olive woods, and palms and aloes, its English bathing-machines, English groceries, hosiery, and baby-linen. In Nice there is no individuality, : English, French, Russians, and Ba- varians make it their winter residence. When our lady traveller visited Nice, English social influence predominated. We all know what political influence predominated, not very long after, possibly— for chronology is not always determinate—at or not long before, Mrs. Gretton's visit. Floristan, Prince of Monaco, and Duke of Valen- tinois, was at that time a nice specimen of a paternal governor. An Italian absentee, he spent in Paris the revenues he obtained from his subjects by exactions which have rendered him deservedly unpopular. Ole oppressive right which he possessed was that of compelling the Population to grind their corn at his mills, and to buy their bread at his bakers'. The result, a perfectly natural one, was that the five thousand or six thousand subjects of the principality eat the worst' bread in Italy. A glance at Turin in 1858, the progress of Sardinia, its railway enterprise, the absolutism of Austria, and the liberality and wisdom of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, are also among the topics handled towards the end of the volume. The rapid march of events renders every work of European travel more or less imperfect. Still there is valuable and informing matter in The Englishwoman is Italy: Pleasant anecdote, too, sensible comment, and illustrative fact may be found in its pages. At the period when a new kingdom is included among the recognized royalties of Europe, we welcome every book that sketches the past, paints the present, or suggests the future of the Italian peninsula. England is vitally interested in the fortunes. of a restored Italy. If the capricious accordance and withdrawal of her active sympathy and approbation, at no very remote date, once aggravated the miseries of herpeople, we rejoice to read the awn-- trace, though no longer new to us, contained in this cheap edition of Mrs. Gretton's travelling experiences, that "the tone now assumed• by the British Government relative to Italian affairs gives great delight to all who hold progressive opinions, and has regained Eng- land's prestige in the peninsula."
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