Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844», страница 5

CATANIA

Tum Catane nimium ardenti vicina Typhæo.

After a pleasant drive of twenty miles, we find ourselves at Aci-Reale, where a street, called "Galatea," reminds us unexpectedly of a very classical place called Dean's Yard, where we once had doings with Acis, as he figures in Ovid's Metamorphoses. We were here in luck, and, having purchased some fine coins of several of the tyrants of Sicily from the apothecary, proceeded on our way to Catania. In half an hour we reach the basaltic Isles of the Cyclops, and the Castle of Acis, whom the peasants hereabouts tell you was their king, when Sicily was under the Saracenic yoke. The river Lecatia, now lost, is supposed formerly to have issued hereabouts, in the port of Ulysses. Our next move placed us amidst the silk-slops of Catania. We have hardly been five minutes in the town, when offers abound to conduct us up Ætna, in whom, as so much national wealth, the inhabitants seem to take as much interest as in her useful and productive silk-looms. Standing fearless on the pavement of lava that buried their ancient city, they point up with complacency to its fountains above. The mischievous exploits of Ætna, in past times, are in every mouth, and children learn their Ætnean catechism as soon as they are breeched. Ætna here is all in all. Churches are constructed out of his quarried viscera—great men lie in tombs, of which the stones once ran liquid down his flames—snuff is taken out of lava boxes—and devotion carves the crucifix on lava, and numbers its beads on a lava rosary—nay, the apothecary's mortar was sent him down from the great mortar-battery above, and the village belle wears fire-proof bracelets that were once too hot to be meddled with. Go to the museum, and you will call it a museum of Ætnean products. Nodulated, porous, condensed, streaked, spotted, clouded, granulated lava, here assumes the colour, rivals the compactness, sustains the polish, of jasper, of agate, and of marble; indeed it sometimes surpasses, in beautiful veinage, the finest and rarest Marmorean specimens. You would hardly distinguish some of it, worked into jazza or vase, from rosso antico itself. A very old and rusty armoury may, as here, be seen any where; but a row of formidable shark skulls, taken along the coast, and some in the very port of Catania, are rarities on which the ciceroni like to prelect, being furnished with many a story of bathers curtailed by them, and secure a large portion of attention, especially if you were just thinking of a dip. A rather fine collection of bronzes has been made from excavations in the neighbourhood, which, indeed, must always promise to reward research. A figure of Mercury, two and a half feet high, and so exactly similar to that of John of Bologna, that his one seemed an absolute plagiarism, particularly attracted our attention on that account. The great Italian artist, however, had been dead one hundred and fifty years before this bronze was dug up. Next in importance to the bronzes, we esteem the collection of Sicilian, or Græco-Sicilian vases, though inferior in number and selectness to those of the Vatican, or Museo-Borbonico. There is also some ancient sculpture, and some pretty mosaic. Of this composition is a bathfloor, where a family of Cupids, in the centre of the pavement, welcome you with a utere feliciter, (may it do you good.) Round the border, a circle of the personified "months" is artistically chained together, each bearing his Greek name, for fear of a mistake—names not half so good as Sheridan's translation of the Revolutionary calendar—snowy, flowy, blowy—showery, flowery, bowery—moppy, croppy, poppy—breezy, sneezy, freezy. In Catania, we find no lack of coins, nor of sharp-eyed dealers, who know pretty generally their value throughout Europe; but, in order to be quite sure of the price current, ask double what they take from one another, and judge, by your abatement of it, of the state of the market elsewhere. Now mind, sir, when they present you the most impudent forgeries, you are not to get into a passion; but, glancing from the object to the vender, quietly insinuate your want of absolute conviction in a "che vi pare di questa moneta." He now looks at it again, and takes a squint at you; and supposing you smell a rat, probably replies that certainly he bought it for genuine; but you have suggested a doubt, and the piece really begins, even to him, to look suspicious, "anzi à me." You reply coolly, and put it down—"That was just what I was thinking;" and so the affair passes quietly off. And now you may, if you happen to be tender-hearted, say something compassionate to the poor innocent who has been taken in, and proceed to ask him about another; and when you see any thing you long to pocket, enquire what can he afford to let a brother collector (give him a step in rank) have it for; and so go on feeling your way, and never "putting your arm so far out that you cannot comfortably draw it back again." He will probably ask you if you know Mr B—— or C——, (English collectors,) with whom he has had dealings, calling them "stimabili signori;" and, of course, you have no doubt of it, though you never heard of them before. It is also always conciliative to congratulate him on the possession of such and such rare and "belle cose;" and if you thus contrive to get into his good graces, he will deal with you at fair prices, and perhaps amuse you with an account of such tricks as he is not ashamed to have practised on blockheads, who will buy at any cost if the die is fine. Indeed, it has passed into an aphorism among these mezzo-galantuomini, as their countrymen call them, that a fine coin is always worth what you can get for it.

We heard the celebrated organ of St Benedict, which has been praising God in tremendous hallelujahs ever since it was put up, and a hundred years have only matured the richness of its tones. Its voice was gushing out as we entered the church, and filling nave and aisle with a diapason of all that was soft and soothing, as if a choir of Guido's angels had broke out in harmony.

A stream of fresh water issues under the old town-wall, and an immense mass of incumbent lava, of at least ninety feet high, impends just above its source, the water struggling through a mass of rock once liquefied by fire, in as limpid a rill as if it came from limestone, and so excellent in quality that no other is used in Catania. Women with buckets were ascending and descending to fetch supplies out of the lava of the dead city below, for the use of the living town above. Moreover, this is the only point in Catania where the accident of a bit of wall arresting for some time the progress of the lava current, has left the level of the old town to be rigidly ascertained.

Here, as at Aci-Reale, balconies at windows, for the most part supported by brackets, terminating in human heads, give a rich, though rather a heavy, appearance to the street. Much amber is found and worked at Catania. It has been lately discovered in a fossil state, and in contiguity with fossil wood; but we were quite electrified at the price of certain little scent-bottles, and other articles made of this production. You see it in all its possible varieties of colour, opacity, or transparency. The green opalized kind is the most prized, and four pounds was demanded for a pair of pendants of this colour for earrings. Besides the yellow sort, which is common every where, we see the ruby red, which is very rare: some varieties are freckled, and some of the sort which afforded subjects for Martial, and for more than one of the Greek anthologists, with insects in its matrix. This kind, they say, is found exclusively on the coast of Catania. There are such pieces the size of a hand, but it is generally in much smaller bits. Amber lies under, or is formed upon the sand, and abounds most near the embouchure of a small river in this neighbourhood. Many beautiful shells, fossils, and other objects of natural history, appear in the dealers' trays; and polished knife-handles of Sicilian agate may be had at five dollars a dozen.

THE LAST OF THE KNIGHTS

DON JOHN AND THE HERETICS OF FLANDERS

It would almost seem as though chivalry were one of the errors of Popery; so completely did the spirit of the ancient orders of knighthood evaporate at the Reformation! The blind enthusiasm of ignorance having engendered superstitions of every kind and colour, the blow struck at the altar of the master idol proved fatal to all.

In Elizabeth's time, the forms and sentiment of chivalry were kept up by an effort. The parts enacted by Sidney and Raleigh, appear studied rather than instinctive. At all events, the gallant Sir Philip was the last of English knights, as he was the first of his time. Thenceforward, the valour of the country assumed a character more professional.

But a fact thus familiar to us of England, is more remarkable of the rest of Europe. The infallibility of Rome once assailed, every faith was shaken. Loyalty was lessened, chivalry became extinct; expiring in France with Henri IV. and the League—in Portugal with Don Sebastian of Braganza—and in Spain with Charles V., exterminated root and branch by the pen of Cervantes.

One of the most brilliant effervescences, however, of those crumbling institutions, is connected with Spanish history, in the person of Don John of Austria;—a prince who, if consecrated by legitimacy to the annals of the throne, would have glorified the historical page by a thousand heroic incidents. But the sacrament of his baptism being unhappily unpreceded by that of a marriage, he has bequeathed us one of those anomalous existences—one of those incomplete destinies, which embitter our admiration with disappointment and regret.

On both sides of royal blood, Don John was born with qualifications to adorn a throne. It is true that when his infant son was entrusted by Charles V. to the charge of the master of his household, Don Quexada, the emperor simply described him as the offspring of a lady of Ratisbon, named Barbara Blomberg. But the Infanta Clara Eugenia was confidentially informed by her father Philip II., and confidentially informed her satellite La Cuea, that her uncle was "every way of imperial lineage;" and but that he was the offspring of a crime, Don John had doubtless been seated on one of those thrones to which his legitimate brother Philip imparted so little distinction.

Forced by the will of Charles V. to recognize the consanguinity of Don John, and treat him with brotherly regard, one of the objects of the hateful life of the father of Don Carlos seems to have been to thwart the ambitious instincts of his brilliant Faulconbridge. For in the boiling veins of the young prince abided the whole soul of Charles V.,—valour, restlessness, ambition; and his romantic life and mysterious death bear alike the tincture of his parentage.

That was indeed the age of the romance of royalty! Mary at Holyrood,—Elizabeth at Kenilworth—Carlos at the feet of his mother-in-law,—the Béarnais at the gates of Paris,—have engraved their type in the book of universal memory. But Don John escapes notice—a solitary star outshone by dazzling constellations. Commemorated by no medals, flattered by no historiographer, sung by no inspired "godson," anointed by neither pope nor primate, his nook in the temple of fame is out of sight, and forgotten.

Even his master feat, the gaining of the battle of Lepanto, brings chiefly to our recollection that the author of Don Quixote lost his hand in the action; and in the trivial page before us, we dare not call our hero by the name of "Don Juan," (by which he is known in Spanish history,) lest he be mistaken for the popular libertine! And thus, the last of the knights has been stripped of his name by the hero of the "Festin de Pierre," and of his honours by Cervantes, as by Philip II. of a throne.—

Hard fate for one described by all the writers of his time as a model of manly grace and Christian virtue! How charming is the account given by the old Spanish writers of the noble youth, extricated from his convent to be introduced on the high-road to a princely cavalier, surrounded by his retinue, whom he is first desired to salute as a brother, and then required to worship, as the king of Spain! We are told of his joy on discovering his filial relationship to the great emperor, so long the object of his admiration. We are told of his deeds of prowess against the Turks at Lepanto, at Tunis against the Moor. We are told of the proposition of Gregory XIII. that he should be rewarded with the crown of Barbary, and of the desire of the revolted nobility of Belgium, to raise him to their tottering throne; nay, we are even assured that "la couronne d'Hibernie" was offered to his acceptance. And finally, we are told of his untimely death and glorious funeral—mourned by all the knighthood of the land! But we hear and forget. Some mysterious counter-charm has stripped his laurels of their verdure. Even the lesser incidents of the life of Don John are replete with the interest of romance. When appointed by Philip II. governor of the Netherlands, in order that he might deal with the heretics of the Christian faith as with the faithful of Mahomet, such deadly vengeance was vowed against his person by the Protestant party headed by Horn and the Prince of Orange, that it was judged necessary for his highness to perform his journey in disguise. Attired as a Moorish slave, he reached Luxembourg as the attendant of Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of Prince Amalfi, at the very moment the troops of the king of Spain were butchering eight thousand citizens in his revolted city of Antwerp!—

The arrival of the new governor afforded the signal for more pacific measures. The dispositions of Don John were humane—his manners frank. Aware that the Belgian provinces were exhausted by ten years of civil war, and that the pay of the Spanish troops he had to lead against them was so miserably in arrear as to compel them to acts of atrocious spoliation, the hero of Lepanto appears to have done his best to stop the effusion of blood; and, notwithstanding the counteraction of the Prince of Orange, the following spring, peace and an amnesty were proclaimed. The treaty signed at Marche, (known by the name of the Perpetual Edict,) promised as much tranquillity as was compatible with the indignation of a country which had seen the blood of its best and noblest poured forth, and the lives and property of its citizens sacrificed without mercy or calculation.

But, though welcomed to Brussels by the acclamations of the people and the submission of the States, Don John appears to have been fully sensible that his head was within the jaws of the lion. The blood of Egmont had not yet sunk into the earth; the echoes of the edicts of Alva yet lingered in the air; and the very stones of Brussels appeared to rise up and testify against a brother of Philip II.!

Right thankful, therefore, was the young prince when an excuse was afforded for establishing himself in a more tenable position, by an incident which must again be accounted among the romantic adventures of his life. For the sudden journey of the fascinating Margaret of Valois to the springs of Spa, on pretence of indisposition, was generally attributed to a design against the heart of the hero of Lepanto.

A prince so remarkable for his gallantry of knighthood, could do no less than wait upon the sister of the French king, on her passage through Namur; and, once established in the citadel of that stronghold of the royalists, he quitted it no more. In process of time, a camp was formed in the environs, and fortresses erected on the banks of the Meuse under the inspection of Don John; nor was it at first easy to determine whether his measures were actuated by mistrust of the Protestants, or devotion to the worst and most Catholic of wives of the best and most Huguenot of kings.

The blame of posterity, enlightened by the journal of Queen Margaret's proceedings in Belgium, (bequeathed for our edification by the alienated queen of Henri IV.,) has accused Don John of blindness, in the right-loyal reception bestowed on her, and the absolute liberty accorded her during her residence at Spa, where she was opening a road for the arrival of her brother the Duke of Alençon. It is admitted, indeed, that her attack upon his heart met with defeat. But the young governor is said to have made up in chivalrous courtesies for the disappointment of her tender projects; and Margaret, if she did not find a lover at Namur, found the most assiduous of knights.

Many, indeed, believe that his attentions to the French princess were as much a feint as her own illness; and that he was as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don John who possessed the clue to the mystery.

Ottavio Gonzaga, on his return from a mission to Madrid with which he had been charged by Don John, was the first to acquaint him with the suspicions to which the sojourn of Margaret had given rise.

"I own I expected to find your highness in better cheer," said he, when the first compliments had been exchanged. "Such marvels have been recounted in Spain of your fêtes and jousts of honour, that I had prepared myself to hear of nothing at headquarters but the silken pastimes of a court."

"Instead of which," cried Don John, "you find me, as usual, in my steel jerkin, with no milder music at command than the trumpets of my camp; my sole duty, the strengthening of yonder lines," continued he, (pointing from a window of the citadel, near which they were standing, commanding the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse,) "and my utmost diversion, an occasional charge against the boars in yonder forest of Marlagne!"

"I cannot but suppose it more than occasional," rejoined Gonzaga; "for I must pay your highness the ill compliment of avowing, that you appear more worn by fatigue and weather at this moment, and in this sunless clime, than at the height of your glorious labours in the Mediterranean! Namur has already ploughed more wrinkles on your brow than Barbary or Lepanto."

"Say rather in my heart!" cried the impetuous prince. "Since you quitted me, six months ago, my dear Gonzaga, I have known nothing but cares! To you I have no scruple in avowing, that my position in this country is hateful. So long accustomed to war against a barbarous enemy, I could almost fancy myself as much a Moor at heart, as I appeared in visage, when in your service on my way to Luxembourg, whenever I find my sword uplifted against a Christian breast!—Civil war, Ottavio, is a hideous and repugnant thing!"—

"The report is true, then, that your highness has become warmly attached to the people of these rebel provinces?" demanded Gonzaga, not choosing to declare the rumour prevalent in Spain, that an opportunity had been afforded to the prince by the Barlaimont faction, of converting his viceroyalty into the sway of absolute sovereignty.

"So much the reverse, that the evil impression they made on me at my arrival, has increased a hundred-fold! I abhor them yet more and more. Flemings or Brabançons, Hainaulters or Walloons, Catholic or Calvinist, the whole tribe is my aversion; and despite our best endeavours to conceal it, I am convinced the feeling is reciprocal!"

"If your highness was equally candid in your avowals to the Queen of Navarre," observed Gonzaga gravely,—"I can scarcely wonder at the hopes she is said to entertain of having won over the governor of Mons to the French interest, during her transit through Flanders."

"Ay, indeed? Is such her boast?" cried the prince, laughing. "It may indeed be so!—for never saw I a woman less scrupulous in the choice or use of arms to fight her battles. But, trust me, whatever her majesty may have accomplished, is through no aiding or abetting of mine."

"Yet surely the devoted attentions paid her by your highness"—

"My highness made them appear devoted in proportion to his consciousness of their hollowness! But I promise you, my dear Ottavio, there is no tenderer leaning in my heart towards Margaret de Valois, than towards the most thicklipped of the divinities who competed for our smiles at Tunis." Gonzaga shrugged his shoulders. He was convinced that, for once, Don John was sinking the friend in the prince. His prolonged absence had perhaps discharged him from his post as confidant.

"Trust me," cried the young soldier, discerning his misgivings—"I am as sincere in all this as becomes our friendship. But that God has gifted me with a happy temperament, I should scarcely support the disgusts of my present calling. It is much, my dear Gonzaga, to inherit as a birthright the brand of such an ignominy as mine. But as long as I trusted to conquer a happier destiny—to carve out for myself fortunes as glorious as those to which my blood all but entitles me—I bore my cross without repining. It was this ardent hope of distinction that lent vigour to my arm in battle—that taught prudence to my mind in council. I was resolved that even the base-born of Charles V. should die a king!"—

Gonzaga listened in startled silence. To hear the young viceroy thus bold in the avowal of sentiments, which of late he had been hearing imputed to him at the Escurial as the direst of crimes, filled him with amazement.

"But these hopes have expired!" resumed Don John. "The harshness with which, on my return triumphant from Barbary, my brother refused to ratify the propositions of the Vatican in my favour, convinced me that I have nothing to expect from Philip beyond the perpetual servitude of a satellite of the King of Spain."

Gonzaga glanced mechanically round the chamber at the emission of these treasonable words. But there was nothing in its rude stone walls to harbour an eavesdropper.

"Nor is this all!" cried his noble friend. "My discovery of the unbrotherly sentiments of Philip has tended to enlighten me towards the hatefulness of his policy. The reserve of his nature—the harshness of his soul—the austerity of his bigotry—chill me to the marrow!—The Holy Inquisition deserves, in my estimation, a name the very antithesis of holy."

"I beseech your highness!" cried Ottavio Gonzaga—clasping his hands together in an irrepressible panic.

"Never fear, man! There be neither spies nor inquisitors in our camp; and if there were, both they and you must even hear me out!" cried Don John. "There is some comfort in discharging one's heart of matters that have long lain so heavy on it; and I swear to you, Gonzaga, that, instead of feeling surprised to find my cheeks so lank, and my eyes so hollow, you would rather be amazed to find an ounce of flesh upon my bones, did you know how careful are my days, and how sleepless my nights, under the perpetual harassments of civil war!—The haughty burgesses of Ghent, whom I could hate from my soul but that they are townsmen of my illustrious father, the low-minded Walloons, the morose Brugeois, the artful Brabançons—all the varied tribes, in short, of the old Burgundian duchy, seem to vie with each other which shall succeed best in thwarting and humiliating me. And for what do I bear it? What honour or profit shall I reap on my patience? What thanks derive for having wasted my best days and best energies, in bruising with my iron heel the head of the serpent of heresy? Why, even that Philip, for some toy of a mass neglected or an ave forgotten, will perchance give me over to the tender questioning of his grand inquisitor, as the shortest possible answer to my pretensions to a crown,—while the arrogant nobility of Spain, when roused from their apathy towards me by tidings of another Lepanto, a fresh Tunis, will exclaim with modified gratification—'There spoke the blood of Charles the Fifth! Not so ill fought for a bastard!'"

Perceiving that the feelings of his highness were chafed, the courtier, as in vocation bound, assured him he underrated the loyalty towards him of his fellow countrymen of the Peninsula; and that his services as governor of the Low Countries were fully appreciated.

"So fully, that I should be little surprised to learn the axe was already sharpened that is to take off my head!" cried Don John, with a scornful laugh. "And such being the exact state of my feelings and opinions, my trusty Gonzaga, I ask you whether I am likely to have proved a suitable Petrarch for so accomplished a Laura as the sister of Henry III?"—

"I confess myself disappointed," replied the crafty Italian.—"I was in hopes that your highness had found recreation as well as glory in Belgium. During my sojourn at the court of Philip, I supported with patience the somewhat ceremonious gravity of the Escurial, in the belief that your highness was enjoying meanwhile those festal enlivenments, which none more fully understand how to organize and adorn."

"If such an expectation really availed to enliven the Escurial," cried Don John recklessly, "your friendship must indeed possess miraculous properties! However, you may judge with your own eyes the pleasantness of my position; and every day that improves your acquaintance with the ill blood and ill condition of this accursed army of the royalists, ill-paid, ill-disciplined, and ill-intentioned, will inspire you with stronger yearnings after our days of the Mediterranean, where I was master of myself and of my men."

"And all this was manifested to Margaret, and all this will serve to comfort the venomous heart of the queen mother!"—ejaculated Gonzaga, shrugging his shoulders.

"Not a syllable, not a circumstance! The Queen of Navarre was far too much engrossed by the manoeuvres of her own bright eyes, to take heed of those of my camp."

"Your highness is perhaps less well aware than might be desirable, of how many things a woman's eyes are capable of doing, at one and the same time!"—retorted the Italian.

"I only wish," cried Don John impatiently, "that instead of having occasion to read me those Jeremiads, you had been here to witness the friendship you so strangely exaggerate! A ball, an excursion on the Meuse, a boar hunt in the forest of Marlagne, constitute the pastimes you are pleased to magnify into an imperial ovation."

"Much may be confided amid the splendour of a ball-room,—much in one poor half hour of a greenwood rendezvous!"—persisted the provoking Ottavio.

"Ay—much indeed!" responded Don John, with a sigh so deep that it startled by its significance the attention of his brother in arms. "But not to such a woman as the Queen of Henri the Béarnais!" returned the Prince. "By our Lady of Liesse! I wish no worse to that heretic prince, than to have placed his honour in the keeping of the gente Margot."

Fain would Gonzaga have pursued the conversation, which had taken a turn that promised wonders for the interest of the despatches he had undertaken to forward to the Escurial, in elucidation of the designs and sentiments of Don John,—towards whom his allegiance was as the kisses of Judas! But the imperial scion, (who, when he pleased, could assume the unapproachability of the blood royal,) made it apparent that he was no longer in a mood to be questioned. Having proposed to the new-comer (to whom, as an experienced commander, he destined the colonelship of his cavalry,) that they should proceed to a survey of the fortifications at Bouge, they mounted their horses, and, escorted by Nignio di Zuniga, the Spanish aide-de-camp of the prince, proceeded to the camp.

The affectionate deference testified towards the young governor by all classes, the moment he made his appearance in public, appeared to Gonzaga strangely in contradiction with the declarations of Don John that he was no favourite in Belgium. The Italian forgot that the Duke of Arschot, the Counts of Mansfeld and Barlaimont, while doffing their caps to the representative of the King of Spain, had as much right to behold in him the devoted friend of Don John of Austria, as he to regard them as the faithful vassals of his government.

A fair country is the country of Namur!—The confluent streams—the impending rocks—the spreading forests of its environs, comprehend the finest features of landscape; nor could Ottavio Gonzaga feel surprised that his prince should find as much more pleasure in those breesy plains than in the narrow streets of Brussels, as he found security and strength.

On the rocks overhanging the Meuse, at some distance from the town, stands the village of Bouge, fortified by Don John; to attain which by land, hamlets and thickets were to be traversed; and it was pleasant to see the Walloon peasant children run forth from the cottages to salute the royal train, making their heavy Flemish chargers swerve aside and perform their lumbering cabrioles far more deftly than the cannonading of the rebels, to which they were almost accustomed.

As they cut across a meadow formed by the windings of the Meuse, they saw at a distance a group formed, like most groups congregated just then in the district, of soldiers and peasants; to which the attention of the prince being directed, Nignio di Zuniga, his aide-de-camp, was dispatched to ascertain the cause of the gathering.

"A nothing, if it please your highness!" was the reply of the Spaniard—galloping back, hat in hand, with its plumes streaming in the breeze;—that the Prince's train, which had halted, might resume its pace.