It is
certain that Rosa Taddei gives as fine thoughts as are to be met with in
most poets, and I am very much tempted to incline to Forsyth's opinion that
Homer himself was neither more nor less than an improvisatore, the Greek
language affording nearly as many poetic licences as the Italian, and the
faculty of heaping epithet on epithet being common in both languages.
The other genius in this wonderful art is Signer Sgricci. He is so far
superior to Rosa Taddei in being five or six years older, in being a very
good Latinist and hi improvising whole tragedies on any subject, chosen
by the audience. When the subject is chosen, he develops his plan, fixes
his dramatis personae and then strikes off in versi sciolti. He at
times introduces a chorus with lyric poetry. I was present one evening at
an Accademia given by him in the Palazzo Chigi. The subject chosen was
Sophonisba and it was wonderful the manner in which he varied his plot
from that of every other dramatic author on the same subject. He acted
the drama, as well as composed it, and pourtrayed the different characters
with the happiest effect. The ardent passion and impetuosity of Massinissa,
the studied calm philosophy and stoicism of Scipio, the romantic yet
dignified attachment of Sophonisba, and the plain soldierlike honorable
behaviour of Syphax were given in a very superior style. I recollect
particularly a line he puts in the mouth of Scipio, when he is endeavouring
to persuade Massinissa to resist the allurements and blandishments of love:
Che cor di donne e laberinto, in quale
Facil si perde l'intelletto umano.
This drama he divided into three acts, and on its termination he improvised
a poem in terza rima on the subject of the contest of Ajax and Ulysses
for the armour of Achilles.
Wonderful, however, as this act of improvising may appear, it is not
perhaps so much so as the mathematical faculty of a youth of eight years of
age, Yorkshireman by birth, who has lately exhibited his talent for
arithmetical calculation improvised in England and who in a few seconds,
from mental calculation, could give the cube root of a number containing
fifteen or sixteen figures.
Is not all this a confirmation of Doctor Gall's theory on craniology? viz.,
that our faculties depend on the organisation of the scull. I think I have
seen this frequently exemplified at Eton. I have known a boy who could not
compose a verse, make a considerable figure in arithmetic and geometry; and
another, who could write Latin verse with almost Ovidian elegance, and yet
could not work the simplest question in vulgar fractions. Indeed, I think
there seems little doubt that we are born with dispositions and
propensities, which may be developed and encouraged, or damped and checked
altogether by education.
I have become acquainted with several families at Rome, so that I am at no
loss where to spend my evenings. Music is the never failing resource for
those with whom the spirit of conversation fails. The society at Rome is
perfectly free from etiquette or gene. When once presented to a family
you may enter their house every evening without invitation, make your bow
to the master and mistress of the house, enter into conversation or not as
you please. You may absent yourself for weeks together from these
conversazioni, and nobody will on your re-appearance enquire where you
have been or what you have been doing. In short, in the intercourse with
Roman society, you meet with great affability, sometimes a little ennui,
but no commerage. The avvocati may be said to form almost exclusively
the middling class in Rome, and they educate their families very
respectably. This class was much caressed by the French Government during
the time that Rome was annexed to the French Empire, and most of the
employes of the Government at that time were taken from this class. I have
met with several sensible well-informed people, who have been accurate
observers of the times, and had derived profit in point of instruction from
the scenes they had witnessed.
The Papal Government began, as most of the restored governments did, by
displacing many of these gentlemen, for no other fault than because they
had served under the Ex-government, and replaced them by ecclesiastics, as
in the olden time. But the Papal Government very soon discovered that the
whole political machine would be very soon at a stand, by such an
epuration; and the most of them have been since reinstated. Consalvi, the
Secretary of State, is a very sensible man; he has hard battles to fight
with the Ultras of Rome in order to maintain in force the useful
regulations introduced by the French Government, particularly the
organisation of a vigilant police, and the putting a stop to the murders
and robberies, which used formerly to be committed with impunity. The
French checked the system of granting asylum to these vagabonds altogether.
But on the restoration of the Papal Government a strong interest was made
to allow asylums, as formerly, to criminals. Many of these gentry began to
think that the good old times were come again, wherein they could commit
with impunity the most atrocious crimes; and no less than eighty persons
were in prison at one time for murder. This opened the eyes of the
Government, and Consalvi insisted on the execution of these men and carried
his point of establishing a vigilant police. The Army too has been put on a
better footing. The Papal troops are now clothed and disciplined in the
French manner, and make a most respectable appearance. The infantry is
clothed in white; the cavalry in green. The cockade is white and yellow.
