XXIX. CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES.* ARTICLE V.- ITALIAN SOCIETY. Dickens and Kip-Superficial travelers-Writing for money-Lady tourists-License for gossipingCharacter of Dickens as a writer-Baretti and Sharp--Italian contentment--Two extremes to be avoided in the social condition-Material comforts-Difference between the Italians and Americans-Laboring classes in Italy-Italian squalor-Mode of life among Italians--Their sprightliness -Vivacity of children-Italians a social people-Their amusements-Gambling-Horse races among them and us compared-Profane swearing-Temperance-General use of wine-Its effects on temperance and health-Politeness-Meekness among the great-Training of children in Italy -A gross charge against Italian morality refuted-The fashion of employing Cavalieri Serventi— How it originated. We do not sit down to write a review of the two recent works on Italy, published by Dickens and Kip. They have already received fully as much notice as they deserved. The Dublin Review has administered a withering rebuke to Mr. Dickens, more, however, in sorrow than in anger; while the utter flimsiness, the manifold inconsistencies, and the glaring absurdities of the "Recantation" have been already sufficiently exhibited. Our purpose at present is, merely to take occasion from these publications to throw together some general remarks on certain leading features of Italian society; a subject little understood, and upon which there exists much popular misapprehension and no small amount of error. The chief cause of this is, that our people have been too much in the habit of looking at Italy through a false medium, that of the peculiar political bias or religious prejudices of certain writers who have traveled in that beautiful country. These tourists usually give us a view of Italian manners and customs, not as they really are in themselves, but as they choose to apprehend them. They furnish us with their own hasty impressions, rather than with facts and data by which we might be enabled to reach a sound conclusion. We must either look at Italy through their spectacles, or not look at it at all. We must see just as much as they see, hear just as much as they hear, and feel just as much as they feel; neither more nor less. If they choose to treat us only to a mere bird's-eye view, or to an imperfect glimpse of the country from a coach window, we must be content with their productions, such as they are. Besides, these men are, for the most part, utterly incapable of giving *1. Pictures from Italy. By Charles Dickens. 2. Recantation, or the Confessions of a Convert to Romanism; a tale of domestic and real life in Italy; edited by the Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip, M. A., author of the Christmas Holydays in Rome, &c. New York. 1846. us a correct picture of Italian society. They are often totally disqualified for this grave task. They generally know little of the Italian language, and still less of Italian manners and feelings. They do not mingle much with the people, but are content to view them at a distance. Their associations are chiefly with their own set; with English or American travelers as ignorant, as frivolous, and as prejudiced as themselves. In such company, they stand aloof from the vulgar Italian crowd, imagine themselves beings of a higher order, dropped down from some upper sphere unto this lower earth; and, like the pharisee of the Gospel, they turn up their eyes to heaven, and thank God that they are not like the rest of men, even as those despicable, "priest-ridden" Italians! They visit Italy with their minds already made up, both on religion and on politics; and every thing they see and hear only tends to strengthen the conclusion already reached. They either do not see, or they cannot understand or appreciate, any thing that is opposed to their opinions already formed. Even if they should happen to stumble upon facts which would tend to stagger them in their preconceived theories, they usually take care to pretermit them, or to give them in some remote corner or note, for fear of shocking the prejudices of others, and thereby injuring the sale of their book. They never fail to keep a steady eye to business in all their movements, and especially in what they may conclude to publish on Italy. How will this incident, this picture, this anecdote, take with the reading community among whom my work is to be circulated? Will it jar with their cherished notions, or shock their religious and political feelings? If so, I must omit it altogether. Will it tickle their fancy, cause them to rub their hands with glee, and chuckle over the woful darkness and degradation of the "popish" Italians? It will do; it is the very thing; it must occupy a prominent place in the book. Now, we do not mean to say that such reflections as these actually pass through the minds of all our Italian tourists, when on the eve of publishing their travels; still less would we say, that they are always fully conscious to themselves of this process of reasoning. Some there may be, who are entirely above these selfish considerations; many others there are, who would be ashamed to acknowledge such motives even to themselves. Still, our remark is not the less true, in the main, for all this. Verily we live in a most enlightened age; that is, in one which is most specially enlightened in material interests and in the matter of dollars and cents. If we have not yet discovered the philosopher's stone, it has not been surely for the want of seeking after it with earnestness and assiduity. We labor to transmute every thing into gold. What matters it, if the reputation of our neighbors suffer, if falsehood be retailed for truth, if caricatures be vended for veritable "pictures" of real life?" So that the investment turn out a good one, and the adventure meet with a substantial return in the way of profits, it is all right. Truth, virtue, conscience,every thing may be lawfully sacrificed on the altar of mammon. It is a reflection as sad as it is well founded, that many men of our enlightened day seem to carry their consciences rather in their pockets than in their hearts. Every thing for money; little or nothing for truth-seems to be at least a tacit motto in our age. And in this respect, however enlightened, we are certainly not peculiar. Pagan society was marked by a similar feature, from the days of Horace. POST NUMMOS VIRTUS — AFTER MONEY, VIRTUE ;· was the prevailing maxim with the Roman youth of his epoch. Should any one be inclined to suspect that our remarks are too severe, or too highly colored, we beg him to look, for one moment, at the general complexion of those books on Italy with which we have been regaled during the last few years. Are they really much better than an implied insult to the understanding of our people? Can we well conceive of any thing more thoroughly egotistical, more ridiculously empty and superficial, more devoid of all good taste both as to style and matter, than Headley's Italian Letters? In these respects, and in a dashing volubility and contemptible superciliousness, they are surpassed by nothing of the kind with which we are acquainted in our language; except, perhaps, by the earlier Letters of Theodore Fay, who was so thoroughly demolished some years ago by the late talented bishop of Charleston.' If there is any thing in the language which is as utterly worthless as the publications of these two male tourists in Italy, it is to be found in the recent works of two female writers on the same subject, the one an American, the other an English lady: Miss Waldie's "Rome in the nineteenth Century," and the "Recantation," by an anonymous authoress. It is not for us, however, to deal harshly with these gentle writers. In the matter of gossip, of scandal, and of small talk, ladies have claimed certain privileges from time immemorial; and we would not, for the world, encroach upon their rights in this respect, or insist upon confining them strictly to dull matters of fact, when they can show off to so much more advantage in the higher and more graceful regions of fancy. Especially would we be inclined to gentleness towards them, when their motives are so religious and excellent; -to exhibit fancied error in all its native deformity, and suspected or alleged vice in all its natural hideousness! Far be it from us to carry out the suggestion of that heartless satirist, Hudibras, and "To scandalize that sex for scolding, Women who were our first apostles, Without whose aid we had been lost else; In which the cause might be concerned." We can pardon much to ladies, who piously undertake to enlighten us on the subject of Italian darknesss and superstition. We even know how 1 In a series of letters published in the United States Gazette. 2 Part ii, canto ii, 1. 773-8. to make some allowances for Lady Morgan, who wielded a more masculine pen, and slew the Italians right and left, as with the club of Hercules. She probably thought that she was doing right well, and was exhibiting a singular dexterity in the ungracious undertaking of disparaging her neighbors: she knew at least that her efforts would be hailed with delight, and would gain her much additional fame, among her numerous English and Scotch admirers at home. Her anecdotes of Italian society were the very thing to suit the palates of her readers; gossip and scandal flowed from her pen with inimitable grace and volubility; her statements would pass unquestioned in the community,' and her hints and insinuations would be received with relish. Upon the whole, her fame would be enhanced by the publication. But what shall we say of Dickens? What of the inimitable London satirist, the idol of the English and American reading public, the steadfast friend of the poor and the scourge of the rich, the graceful and agreeable moralist, the author of the beautiful conceptions of Oliver Twist, Kate Nickleby, the Cheryble Brothers, and little Nell? What shall we say of his "Pictures from Italy?" In sorrow and in sadness of heart, we must say, that they are no pictures at all, but miserable and ill-natured caricatures. They have not one redeeming quality, not even that of literary merit, a high order of which had distinguished most of his previous writings. They are not the productions of Boz, but of another character altogether different. The good-natured, and laughing and high-toned champion of virtue down-trodden by heartless avarice, the exquisite transformer of virtue in a hovel and in rags into the ideal of all that constitutes loveliness, has suddenly dwindled down into the contemptible London cockney abroad, dealing unblushingly in all the low slang and vulgar insinuation of his tribe. What a falling off! The uniform gentleness and politeness of the Italians,—which even he does not dare gainsay,-is not sufficient to check his wayward humor, nor to remove the sting from his heartless satire. The classic reminiscences of the Italian soil, every foot of which tells a thrilling tale of by-gone deeds; the beautiful Italian churches, decorated with the most sublime works of the greatest artists that ever lived; the sweet melody of Italian music, unequaled in all the world besides; the reunion of all that is best calculated to call up stirring remembrances of the past and to awaken feelings of admiration for the present: all this could not melt Mr. Dickens, nor turn him for one moment from his stern, preconceived purpose of libeling the Italians. His "American Notes" were superficial and bad enough, especially that portion of them which was written after his disappointment at Washington city in obtaining the grant of an international copyright; but they are 1 Not so, however, with all of them. She made one grievous blunder, which Dr. Wiseman took the trouble to expose. She stated that the venerable chair of St. Peter, kept in St. Peter's church at Rome, when examined at the time of the French occupancy of Rome, was found to bear an Arabic inscription! Dr. Wiseman proves conclusively that the chair she alluded to exists in Venice, not in Rome, and that it was a present made to the Doge in the middle ages, by some Mohammedan prince! nothing in comparison with his "Pictures from Italy." His visit to America seems, in fact, probably from the disappointment just alluded to, to have changed his entire nature, to have disgusted him with the world, and to have filled him with settled chagrin. We wish heartily, for his own reputation, that he had stayed at home, and confined himself entirely to that department of literature for which alone he seems suited by nature and education, to works of fiction. Whenever he ventures upon the field of sober realities, he is ill at ease, and is but too apt to revert to his old province of fancy. He was certainly a stranger in Italy; and he appears to have felt it himself. Why is it, that even the best writers have failed so signally in their portraitures of Italian society? Why is it, that almost all our writers on Italy, from the days of Addison and Sharp, down to those of Beckford and Dickens, have, with very few exceptions, turned out little better than mere Trolloping gossipers and contemptible retailers of slander? There must be some reason for this moral phenomenon, sufficiently ample to apply to the whole class. That reason we have already intimated. The writers alluded to did not look beyond the mere surface of Italian society; and they even looked at this but slightly, and with an obliquity of vision, which would have been wholly inexcusable in matters of much less moment than the character of an entire people. A good work on Italy, one that would furnish us with correct and impartial information on the religious and the social manners and customs of that lovely country, is still a desideratum in our literature. We have met with no book of the kind, at least with no one which comes down to the present times. The work of Baretti, the famous Italian lexicographer and grammarian, comes the nearest to our notion of what a book on Italy should be. It is written with much ability and candor; it sets off the excellencies and the foibles of Italian character; it unfolds the general structure of Italian society; it embodies much valuable information on the material condition and resources of Italy, at the period when it was written. There is, withal, a vein of pleasantry pervading the work, which gives it a singular zest and piquancy. This humor is indulged in even on some matters which should not have been treated of with levity, such as certain religious festivals and practices of the Italians, and this is the principal defect we remarked in the publication. It was written nearly a century ago in England and in English, and was intended as a reply to a book on Italy, by a certain Samuel Sharp, Esq., who had lately returned from his travels on the continent, and had given to the English public the result of his observations on Italy, in a publication which fully reflected the sour temper and morose malevolence of its author. We are sure that he must have been heartily laughed at by all the readers of Baretti's reply; and we think that any one who would republish the latter work, with such additions and modifications as would adapt it to our own times, would deserve well of our reading community, and would supply a want in our literature. The valuable "Classical |