"The players," observes Forsyth, "seem to keep pace with the poets in improvement. As if ashamed of their descent from the maschere dell' arte,' they have renounced the rant and buffoonery of the old stage, and affect a temperance bordering upon tameness. Yet still degraded in society, and everywhere rated below the warbling wethers of the opera, they claim no respect for an art which denies them the rank and emolument of liberal artists; they style it only recitation; they expose, like showmen in the streets, their scenes 'painted upon a pole and underwrit;' and they close each performance with a long imploring invitation to the next." The theatrical year is divided into four or five seasons. Each season brings a different company of performers to each theatre. The heterogeneous composition of these curiosité plus encore que par le sentiment, et il sait trouver la surprise qui fait rire. Of Rossi he says:-Quand on raconte ses pièces, elles paraissent parfaitement plaisantes; chaque caractère est original; leur rencontre, leur opposition, les developpent réciproquement; les evenemens sont inattendus et cependant naturels, et le dénouement met la dernière main à la satire. Quand on a fini, on trouve qu'on aurait du rire; mais nul part l'auteur n'a su trouver de ces mots heureux qui donnent en quelque sorte le signal de l'éclat de rire, et qui entraînent le parterre. La gaieté de Gherardo de' Rossi est toute réfléchie; elle n'est point assez spontanée pour se communiquer, Of Giraud, a gentleman of French extraction, he observes:-On trouve dans ses pièces la bonhommie Italienne et la finesse Française: ses intrigues ont un mouvement et une gaieté qui semblent propres aux peuples du Midi; mais ses personnages, même dans les situations les plus bouffonnes, conservent un mélange de dignité, dont le goût Français ne permet jamais l'abandon absolu. -Vol. ii, 408, &c. various corps may be reckoned among the many second causes which have impeded the growth and progress of the Italian drama. Almost every town in Italy boasts its theatre, the management of which is undertaken by individuals, who recruit, how they can, and often at very small bounties, from almost every province. "The effect of this system,' says Rose, "is, in some degree, the same as would be produced by a dramatic conscription from the different counties of England. Let an Englishman, therefore, conceive a Hamlet soliloquizing in broad Yorkshire, and he may guess at the feelings of a Florentine on hearing the lyrical effusions of a David from Bergamo. The Italians are very indulgent with regard to accent; but I have heard as strong disgust expressed in Florence at the barbarous pronunciation of Milan, as a well-educated Londoner would feel at the whine of Devonshire, or the burr of Northumberland." The scene is so often laid in England*, that one would expect to see some attempt at propriety of costume. "I have seen in one and the same evening," says Forsyth, "a Venetian senator with a foreign order, a pale-faced Othello habited as a Turk, our prince Hal in a Spanish dress, and Poins in a round hat, blue coat, and silk stockings. Their scenery often corresponds with their dress. Ill painted, ill set, inappropriate, rumpled, * Il y a sur le théâtre Italien un Tom Jones, une Clarice, et un grand nombre d'autres pièces où les noms prètendus Anglais, et les mœurs prétendues Anglaises, conviennent à la Chine comme au Japon,-Sismondi, Hist. Lit. ii: 407. ragged and slit, it presents its strolling poverty in the face of the noblest architecture. No illusion can be attempted on a stage where the prompter rises in the front, and reads the whole play as audibly as his strutting echoes, who, from their incessant change of parts, can be perfect in none. "Benefits are allowed only to the chief performers. A prima donna is bound to call on all the gentry of the place to solicit their attendance, and on the evening allotted to her she sits greedily at the receipt of custom, bowing for every crown that is thrown on her tea-tray. The price of a ticket to the pit is but three or four pauls; nor will this appear so low, when you consider the short roll of actors, their small salaries, their mean wardrobe, and the cheap composition of an orchestra, where noblemen volunteer their fiddles with the punctuality of hirelings." Italians seem to look upon the theatre chiefly as a pleasant place of resort, where, as de Staël phrases it, nothing but "the ballet is listened to," for then only it is that the pit is silent. The post of honour in a box is not that which commands the best view of the stage, but that from which the occupant can be best seen by the audience: here visits are made, and here, too, occasionally, little entertainments are given. 159 VALLOMBROSA-CAMALDOLI-LA VERNA. Presentiorem et conspicimus Deum Clivosque præruptos, sonantes Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem.—GRAY. AMONG the objects of interest in the neighbourhood of Florence, the three sanctuaries, Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Verna, must not be forgotten. these, The first of Once called "Sweet Waters," now the "Shady Vale," seated in a sequestered spot about twenty miles from Florence, derived its former name of Acqua Bella from the beauty of its stream, as it derives its present one from the wooded valley which leads up to it. Ariosto lauds it for its wealth, and the courteous reception it was wont to afford to strangers*; while Milton, in a passage, of which the beauties are familiar to every reader, celebrates it for the charms of its scenery. Eustace, however, seems to doubt whether Pope has not furnished us with a truer description of it in the following passage of his epistle from Eloisa to Abelard: The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined The wandering streams that shine between the hills, But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, And breathes a browner horror o'er the woods. On the other hand, Forsyth will have it that the amphitheatre of hills in which the abbey stands is so accurately described by Milton, that the picture in his mind could only be a recollection of Vallombrosa, which Crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm; Of stateliest view. |