Part 24 (2/2)
The ceremonies of _Holy Thursday_ commenced with the ma.s.s in the Sistine chapel. Tired of seeing genuflections, and listening to a mumbling of which I could not catch a syllable, I took advantage of my privileged seat, in the Amba.s.sador's box, to lean back and study the celebrated frescoes of Michael Angelo upon the ceiling. A little drapery would do no harm to any of them. They ill.u.s.trate, mainly, pa.s.sages of scripture history, but the ”creation of Eve,” in the centre, is an astonis.h.i.+ngly fine representation of a naked man and woman, as large as life; and ”Lot intoxicated and exposed before his two daughters,” is about as immodest a picture, from its admirable expression as well as its nudity, as could easily be drawn. In one corner there is a most beautiful draped figure of the _Delphic Sybil_--and I think this bit of heathenism is almost the only very decent part of the Pope's most consecrated chapel.
After the ma.s.s, the host was carried, with a showy procession, to be deposited among the thousand lamps in the Capella Paolina, and, as soon as it had pa.s.sed, there was a general rush for the room in which the Pope was to _wash the feet of the pilgrims_.
Thirteen men, dressed in white, with sandals open at the top, and caps of paper covered with white linen, sat on a high bench, just under a beautiful copy of the last supper of Da Vinci, in gobelin tapestry. It was a small chapel, communicating with the Pope's private apartments.
Eleven of the pilgrims were as vulgar and brutal-looking men as could have been found in the world; but of the two in the centre, one was the personification of wild fanaticism. He was pale, emaciated, and abstracted. His hair and beard were neglected, and of a singular blackness. His lips were firmly set in an expression of severity. His brows were gathered gloomily over his eyes, and his glances, occasionally sent among the crowd, were as glaring and flas.h.i.+ng as a tiger's. With all this, his countenance was lofty, and if I had seen the face on canvas, as a portrait of a martyr, I should have thought it finely expressive of courage and devotion. The man on his left wept, or pretended to weep, continually; but every person in the room was struck with his extraordinary resemblance to _Judas_, as he is drawn in the famous picture of the Last Supper. It was the same marked face, the same treacherous, ruffian look, the same style of hair and beard, to a wonder. It is possible that he might have been chosen on purpose, the twelve pilgrims being intended to represent the twelve apostles of whom Judas was one--but if accidental, it was the most remarkable coincidence that ever came under my notice. He looked the hypocrite and traitor complete, and his resemblance to the Judas in the picture directly over his head, would have struck a child.
The Pope soon entered from his apartments, in a purple stole, with a cape of dark crimson satin, and the mitre of silver-cloth, and, casting the incense into the golden censer, the white smoke was flung from side to side before him, till the delightful odor filled the room. A short service was then chanted, and the choir sang a hymn. His Holiness was then unrobed, and a fine napkin, trimmed with lace, was tied about him by the servitors, and with a deacon before him, bearing a splendid pitcher and basin, and a procession behind him, with large bunches of flowers, he crossed to the pilgrims' bench. A priest, in a snow-white tunic, raised and bared the foot of the first. The Pope knelt, took water in his hand, and slightly rubbed the instep, and then drying it well with a napkin, he kissed it.
The a.s.sistant-deacon gave a large bunch of flowers and a napkin to the pilgrim, as the Pope left him, and another person in rich garments, followed, with pieces of money presented in a wrapper of white paper.
The same ceremony took place with each--one foot only being honored with a lavation. When his Holiness arrived at the ”Judas,” there was a general stir, and every one was on tip-toe to watch his countenance.
He took his handkerchief from his eyes, and looked at the Pope very earnestly, and when the ceremony was finished, he seized the sacred hand, and, imprinting a kiss upon it, flung himself back, and buried his face again in his handkerchief, quite overwhelmed with his feelings. The other pilgrims took it very coolly, comparatively, and one of them seemed rather amused than edified. The Pope returned to his throne, and water was poured over his hands. A cardinal gave him a napkin, his splendid cape was put again over his shoulders, and, with a paternoster the ceremony was over.
Half an hour after, with much crowding and several losses of foothold and temper, I had secured a place in the hall where the apostles, as the pilgrims are called after the was.h.i.+ng, were to dine, waited on by the Pope and cardinals. With their gloomy faces and ghastly white caps and white dresses, they looked more like criminals waiting for execution, than guests at a feast. They stood while the Pope went round with a gold pitcher and basin, to wash their hands, and then seating themselves, his Holiness, with a good-natured smile, gave each a dish of soup, and said something in his ear, which had the effect of putting him at his ease. The table was magnificently set out with the plate and provisions of a prince's table, and spite of the thousands of eyes gazing on them, the pilgrims were soon deep in the delicacies of every dish, even the lachrymose Judas himself, eating most voraciously. We left them at their dessert.
LETTER LIX.
SEPULCHRE OF CAIUS CESTIUS--PROTESTANT BURYING GROUND--GRAVES OF KEATS AND Sh.e.l.lEY--Sh.e.l.lEY'S LAMENT OVER KEATS--GRAVES OF TWO AMERICANS--BEAUTY OF THE BURIAL PLACE--MONUMENTS OVER TWO INTERESTING YOUNG FEMALES--INSCRIPTION ON KEATS' MONUMENT--THE STYLE OF KEATS' POEMS--GRAVE OF DR. BELL--RESIDENCE AND LITERARY UNDERTAKINGS OF HIS WIDOW.
A beautiful pyramid, a hundred and thirteen feet high, built into the ancient wall of Rome, is the proud _Sepulchre of Caius Cestius_. It is the most imperishable of the antiquities, standing as perfect after eighteen hundred years as if it were built but yesterday. Just beyond it, on the declivity of a hill, over the ridge of which the wall pa.s.ses, crowning it with two mouldering towers, lies the _Protestant burying-ground_. It looks toward Rome, which appears in the distance, between Mount Aventine and a small hill called Mont Testaccio, and leaning to the southeast, the sun lies warm and soft upon its banks, and the gra.s.s and wild flowers are there the earliest and tallest of the Campagna. I have been here to-day, to see the graves of _Keats_ and _Sh.e.l.ley_. With a cloudless sky and the most delicious air ever breathed, we sat down upon the marble slab laid over the ashes of poor Sh.e.l.ley, and read his own lament over Keats, who sleeps just below, at the foot of the hill. The cemetery is rudely formed into three terraces, with walks between, and Sh.e.l.ley's grave and one other, without a name, occupy a small nook above, made by the projections of a mouldering wall-tower, and crowded with ivy and shrubs, and a peculiarly fragrant yellow flower, which perfumes the air around for several feet. The avenue by which you ascend from the gate is lined with high bushes of the marsh-rose in the most luxuriant bloom, and all over the cemetery the gra.s.s is thickly mingled with flowers of every die. In his preface to his lament over Keats, Sh.e.l.ley says, ”he was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the ma.s.sy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome.” It is an open s.p.a.ce among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. ”_It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place._” If Sh.e.l.ley had chosen his own grave at the time, he would have selected the very spot where he has since been laid--the most sequestered and flowery nook of the place he describes so feelingly. In the last verses of the elegy, he speaks of it again with the same feeling of its beauty:--
”The spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the gra.s.s is spread.
”And gray walls moulder round, on which dull time Feeds like slow fire upon a h.o.a.ry brand: And one keen pyramid, with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and _beneath A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched, in heaven's smile, their camp of death_, Welcoming him we lose, with scarce extinguished breath.
”Here pause: these graves are all _too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned Its charge to each_.”
Sh.e.l.ley has left no poet behind, who could write so touchingly of his burial-place in turn. He was, indeed, as they have graven on his tombstone, ”_cor cordium_”--the heart of hearts. Dreadfully mistaken as he was in his principles, he was no less the soul of genius than the model of a true heart and of pure intentions. Let who will cast reproach upon his memory, I believe, for one, that his errors were of the kind most venial in the eye of Heaven, and I read, almost like a prophesy, the last lines of his elegy on one he believed had gone before him to a happier world:
”Burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.”
On the second terrace of the declivity, are ten or twelve graves, two of which bear the names of Americans who have died in Rome. A portrait carved in bas-relief, upon one of the slabs, told me, without the inscription, that one whom I had known was buried beneath.[9] The slightly rising mound was covered with small violets, half hidden by the gra.s.s. It takes away from the pain with which one stands over the grave of an acquaintance or a friend, to see the sun lying so warm upon it, and the flowers springing so profusely and cheerfully. Nature seems to have cared for those who have died so far from home, binding the earth gently over them with gra.s.s, and decking it with the most delicate flowers.
A little to the left, on the same bank, is the new-made grave of a very young man, Mr. Elliot. He came abroad for health, and died at Rome, scarce two months since. Without being disgusted with life, one feels, in a place like this, a certain reconciliation, if I may so express it, with the thought of a burial--an almost willingness, if his bed could be laid amid such loveliness, to be brought and left here to his repose. Purely imaginary as any difference in this circ.u.mstance is, it must, at least, always affect the sick powerfully; and with the common practice of sending the dying to Italy, as a last hope, I consider the exquisite beauty of this place of burial, as more than a common accident of happiness.
Farther on, upon the same terrace, are two monuments that interested me. One marks the grave of a young English girl,[10] the pride of a n.o.ble family, and, as a sculptor told me, who had often seen and admired her, a model of high-born beauty. She was riding with a party on the banks of the Tiber, when her horse became unmanageable, and backed into the river. She sank instantly, and was swept so rapidly away by the current, that her body was not found for many months. Her tombstone is adorned with a bas-relief, representing an angel receiving her from the waves.
The other is the grave of a young lady of twenty, who was at the baths of Lucca, last summer, in pursuit of health. She died at the first approach of winter. I had the melancholy pleasure of knowing her slightly, and we used to meet her in the winding path upon the bank of the romantic river Lima, at evening, borne in a sedan, with her mother and sister walking at her side, the fairest victim consumption ever seized. She had all the peculiar beauty of the disease, the transparent complexion, and the unnaturally bright eye, added to features cast in the clearest and softest mould of female loveliness.
She excited general interest even among the gay and dissipated crowd of a watering place; and if her sedan was missed in the evening promenade, the inquiry for her was anxious and universal. She is buried in a place that seems made for such as herself.
We descended to the lower enclosure at the foot of the slight declivity. The first grave here is that of _Keats_. The inscription on his monument runs thus: ”_This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraved on his tomb_: HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRITTEN IN WATER.”
He died at Rome in 1821. Every reader knows his history and the cause of his death. Sh.e.l.ley says, in the preface to his elegy, ”The savage criticism on his poems, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in a rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted.” Keats was, no doubt, a poet of very uncommon promise. He had all the wealth of genius within him, but he had not learned, before he was killed by criticism, the received, and, therefore, the best manner of producing it for the eye of the world. Had he lived longer, the strength and richness which break continually through the affected style of Endymion and Lamia and his other poems, must have formed themselves into some n.o.ble monuments of his powers. As it is, there is not a poet living who could surpa.s.s the material of his ”Endymion”--a poem, with all its faults, far more full of beauties. But this is not the place for criticism. He is buried fitly for a poet, and sleeps beyond criticism now. Peace to his ashes!
Close to the grave of Keats is that of Dr. Bell, the author of ”Observations on Italy.” This estimable man, whose comments on the fine arts are, perhaps, as judicious and high-toned as any ever written, has left behind him, in Naples (where he practised his profession for some years), a host of friends, who remember and speak of him as few are remembered and spoken of in this changing and crowded portion of the world. His widow, who edited his works so ably and judiciously, lives still at Naples, and is preparing just now a new edition of his book on Italy. Having known her, and having heard from her own lips many particulars of his life, I felt an additional interest in visiting his grave. Both his monument and Keats's are almost buried in the tall flowering clover of this beautiful place.
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