Dressed In A
Blue-Tailed Coat Down To His Heels, Bright Yellow Breeches, And A
White Hat:
Comes abroad, riding double on a rearing horse, with an
English lady (Lady Betsy) in a straw bonnet and green veil, and a
red spencer; and who always carries a gigantic reticule, and a put-
up parasol.
I walked through and through the town all the rest of the day, and
could have walked there until now, I think. In one place, there
was a very pretty modern theatre, where they had just performed the
opera (always popular in Verona) of Romeo and Juliet. In another
there was a collection, under a colonnade, of Greek, Roman, and
Etruscan remains, presided over by an ancient man who might have
been an Etruscan relic himself; for he was not strong enough to
open the iron gate, when he had unlocked it, and had neither voice
enough to be audible when he described the curiosities, nor sight
enough to see them: he was so very old. In another place, there
was a gallery of pictures: so abominably bad, that it was quite
delightful to see them mouldering away. But anywhere: in the
churches, among the palaces, in the streets, on the bridge, or down
beside the river: it was always pleasant Verona, and in my
remembrance always will be.
I read Romeo and Juliet in my own room at the inn that night--of
course, no Englishman had ever read it there, before--and set out
for Mantua next day at sunrise, repeating to myself (in the coupe
of an omnibus, and next to the conductor, who was reading the
Mysteries of Paris),
There is no world without Verona's walls
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banished from the world,
And world's exile is death -
which reminded me that Romeo was only banished five-and-twenty
miles after all, and rather disturbed my confidence in his energy
and boldness.
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