The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

shaven crowns; there were the sham peasantry, who dressed themselves out

  in masquerade costumes, with bagpipe and goatskin, with crossed leggings

  and scarlet petticoats, who let themselves out to artists at so many

  pauls per sitting; but he never passed a Roman's door except to buy a

  cigar or to purchase a handkerchief. Thither, as elsewhere, we carry our

  insular habits with us. We have a little England at Paris, a little

  England at Munich, Dresden, everywhere. Our friend is an Englishman, and

  did at Rome as the English do.

  There was the polite English society, the society that flocks to see the

  Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the Vatican to behold

  the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the churches on public

  festivals in black veils and deputy-lieutenants' uniforms, and stares,

  and talks, and uses opera-glasses while the pontiffs of the Roman Church

  are performing its ancient rites, and the crowds of faithful are kneeling

  round the altars; the society which gives its balls and dinners, has its

  scandal and bickerings, its aristocrats, parvenus, toadies imported from

  Belgravia; has its club, its hunt, and its Hyde Park on the Pincio: and

  there is the other little English world, the broad-hatted, long-bearded,

  velvet-jacketed, jovial colony of the artists, who have their own feasts,

  haunts, and amusements by the side of their aristocratic compatriots,

  with whom but few of them have the honour to mingle.

  J. J. and Clive engaged pleasant lofty apartments in the Via Gregoriana.

  Generations of painters had occupied these chambers and gone their way.

  The windows of their painting-room looked into a quaint old garden, where

  there were ancient statues of the Imperial time, a babbling fountain and

  noble orange-trees with broad clustering leaves and golden balls of

  fruit, glorious to look upon. Their walks abroad were endlessly pleasant

  and delightful. In every street there were scores of pictures of the

  graceful characteristic Italian life, which our painters seem one and all

  to reject, preferring to depict their quack brigands, contadini,

  pifferari, and the like, because Thompson painted them before Jones, and

  Jones before Thompson, and so on, backwards into time. There were the

  children at play, the women huddled round the steps of the open doorways,

  in the kindly Roman winter; grim, portentous old hags, such as Michael

  Angelo painted, draped in majestic raggery; mothers and swarming bambins;

  slouching countrymen, dark of beard and noble of countenance, posed in

  superb attitudes, lazy, tattered, and majestic. There came the red

  troops, the black troops, the blue troops of the army of priests; the

  snuffy regiments of Capuchins, grave and grotesque; the trim French

  abbes; my lord the bishop, with his footman (those wonderful footmen); my

  lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach and his two, nay three,

  footmen behind him;--flunkeys, that look as if they had been dressed by

  the costumier of a British pantomime; coach with prodigious emblazonments

  of hats and coats-of-arms, that seems as if it came out of the pantomime

  too, and was about to turn into something else. So it is, that what is

  grand to some persons' eyes appears grotesque to others; and for certain

  sceptical persons, that step, which we have heard of, between the sublime

  and the ridiculous, is not visible.

  "I wish it were not so," writes Clive, in one of the letters wherein he

  used to pour his full heart out in those days. "I see these people at

  their devotions, and envy them their rapture. A friend, who belongs to

  the old religion, took me, last week, into a church where the Virgin

  lately appeared in person to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him

  from heaven in light and splendour celestial, and, of course, straightway

  converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and, kneeling down

  beside me, I know prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might

  shine down upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven at all. I saw but

  a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with tawdry

  strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W---- went away, humbly

  saying 'that such might have happened again if heaven so willed it.' I

  could not but feel a kindness and admiration for the good man. I know his

  works are made to square with his faith, that he dines on a crust, lives

  as chaste as a hermit, and gives his all to the poor.

  "Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many respects, so

  superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They seem to

  answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes away satisfied

  as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. Of course our first

  pilgrimage was to St. Peter's. What a walk! Under what noble shadows does

  one pass; how great and liberal the houses are, with generous casements

  and courts, and great grey portals which giants might get through and

  keep their turbans on. Why, the houses are twice as tall as Lamb Court

  itself; and over them hangs a noble dinge, a venerable mouldy splendour.

  Over the solemn portals are ancient mystic escutcheons--vast shields of

  princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto's knights might take down; and

  every figure about them is a picture by himself. At every turn there is a

  temple: in every court a brawling fountain. Besides the people of the

  streets and houses, and the army of priests black and brown, there's a

  great silent population of marble. There are battered gods tumbled out of

  Olympus and broken in the fall, and set up under niches and over

  fountains; there are senators namelessly, noselessly, noiselessly seated

  under archways, or lurking in courts and gardens. And then, besides these

  defunct ones, of whom these old figures may be said to be the corpses,

  there is the reigning family, a countless carved hierarchy of angels,

  saints, confessors of the latter dynasty which has conquered the court of

  Jove. I say, Pen, I wish Warrington would write the history of the Last

  of the Pagans. Did you never have a sympathy for them as the monks came

  rushing into their temples, kicking down their poor altars, smashing the

  fair calm faces of their gods, and sending their vestals a-flying? They

  are always preaching here about the persecution of the Christians. Are

  not the churches full of martyrs with choppers in their meek heads;

  virgins on gridirons; riddled St. Sebastians, and the like? But have they

  never persecuted in their turn? O me! You and I know better, who were

  bred up near to the pens of Smithfield, where Protestants and Catholics

  have taken their turn to be roasted.

  "You pass through an avenue of angels and saints on the bridge across

  Tiber, all in action; their great wings seem clanking, their marble

  garments clapping; St. Michael, descending upon the Fiend, has been

  caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the Castle of St. Angelo: his

  enemy doubtless fell crushing through the roof and so downwards. He is as

  natural as blank verse--that bronze angel-set, rhythmic, grandiose.

  You'll see, some day or other, he's a great sonnet, sir, I'm sure of

  th
at. Milton wrote in bronze; I am sure Virgil polished off his Georgics

  in marble--sweet calm shapes! exquisite harmonies of line! As for the

  Aeneid; that, sir, I consider to be so many bas-reliefs, mural ornaments

  which affect me not much.

  "I think I have lost sight of St. Peter's, haven't I? Yet it is big

  enough. How it makes your heart beat when you first see it! Ours did as

  we came in at night from Civita Vecchia, and saw a great ghostly darkling

  dome rising solemnly up into the grey night, and keeping us company ever

  so long as we drove, as if it had been an orb fallen out of heaven with

  its light put out. As you look at it from the Pincio, and the sun sets

  behind it, surely that aspect of earth and sky is one of the grandest in

  the world. I don't like to say that the facade of the church is ugly and

  obtrusive. As long as the dome overawes, that facade is supportable. You

  advance towards it--through, oh, such a noble court! with fountains

  flashing up to meet the sunbeams; and right and left of you two sweeping

  half-crescents of great columns; but you pass by the courtiers and up to

  the steps of the throne, and the dome seems to disappear behind it. It is

  as if the throne was upset, and the king had toppled over.

  "There must be moments, in Rome especially, when every man of friendly

  heart, who writes himself English and Protestant, must feel a pang at

  thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated from European

  Christendom. An ocean separates us. From one shore or the other one can

  see the neighbour cliffs on clear days: one must wish sometimes that

  there were no stormy gulf between us; and from Canterbury to Rome a

  pilgrim could pass, and not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts of

  the great Mother Church I believe among us many people have no idea; we

  think of lazy friars, of pining cloistered virgins, of ignorant peasants

  worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences, absolutions,

  and the like commonplaces of Protestant satire. Lo! yonder inscription,

  which blazes round the dome of the temple, so great and glorious it looks

  like heaven almost, and as if the words were written in stars, it

  proclaims to all the world, this is that Peter, and on this rock the

  Church shall be built, against which Hell shall not prevail. Under the

  bronze canopy his throne is lit with lights that have been burning before

  it for ages. Round this stupendous chamber are ranged the grandees of his

  court. Faith seems to be realised in their marble figures. Some of them

  were alive but yesterday; others, to be as blessed as they, walk the

  world even now doubtless; and the commissioners of heaven, here holding

  their court a hundred years hence, shall authoritatively announce their

  beatification. The signs of their power shall not be wanting. They heal

  the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cause the lame to walk to-day as

  they did eighteen centuries ago. Are there not crowds ready to bear

  witness to their wonders? Isn't there a tribunal appointed to try their

  claims; advocates to plead for and against; prelates and clergy and

  multitudes of faithful to back and believe them? Thus you shall kiss the

  hand of a priest to-day, who has given his to a friar whose bones are

  already beginning to work miracles, who has been the disciple of another

  whom the Church has just proclaimed a saint,--hand in hand they hold by

  one another till the line is lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us

  acknowledge this, and go and kiss the toe of St. Peter. Alas! there's the

  Channel always between us; and we no more believe in the miracles of St.

  Thomas of Canterbury, than that the bones of His Grace John Bird, who

  sits in St. Thomas's chair presently, will work wondrous cures in the

  year 2000: that his statue will speak, or his portrait by Sir Thomas

  Lawrence will wink.

  "So, you see, at those grand ceremonies which the Roman Church exhibits

  at Christmas, I looked on as a Protestant. Holy Father on his throne or

  in his palanquin, cardinals with their tails and their train-bearers,

  mitred bishops and abbots, regiments of friars and clergy, relics exposed

  for adoration, columns draped, altars illuminated, incense smoking,

  organs pealing, and boxes of piping soprani, Swiss guards with slashed

  breeches and fringed halberts;--between us and all this splendour of

  old-world ceremony, there's an ocean flowing: and yonder old statue of

  Peter might have been Jupiter again, surrounded by a procession of

  flamens and augurs, and Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, to inspect the

  sacrifices,--and my feelings at the spectacle had been, doubtless, pretty

  much the same.

  "Shall I utter any more heresies? I am an unbeliever in Raphael's

  'Transfiguration'--the scream of that devil-possessed boy, in the lower

  part of the figure of eight (a stolen boy too), jars the whole music of

  the composition. On Michael Angelo's great wall, the grotesque and

  terrible are not out of place. What an awful achievement! Fancy the state

  of mind of the man who worked it--as alone, day after day, he devised and

  drew those dreadful figures! Suppose in the days of the Olympian dynasty,

  the subdued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a palace for Jove, they

  would have brought in some such tremendous work: or suppose that Michael

  descended to the Shades, and brought up this picture out of the halls of

  Limbo. I like a thousand and a thousand times better to think of

  Raphael's loving spirit. As he looked at women and children, his

  beautiful face must have shone like sunshine: his kind hand must have

  caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. If I protest against the

  'Transfiguration,' and refuse to worship at that altar before which so

  many generations have knelt, there are hundreds of others which I salute

  thankfully. It is not so much in the set harangues (to take another

  metaphor), as in the daily tones and talk that his voice is so delicious.

  Sweet poetry, and music, and tender hymns drop from him: he lifts his

  pencil, and something gracious falls from it on the paper. How noble his

  mind must have been! it seems but to receive, and his eye seems only to

  rest on, what is great, and generous, and lovely. You walk through

  crowded galleries, where are pictures ever so large and pretentious; and

  come upon a grey paper, or a little fresco, bearing his mark-and over all

  the brawl and the throng recognise his sweet presence. 'I would like to

  have you been Giulio Romano,' J. J. says (who does not care for Giulio's

  pictures), 'because then I would have been Raphael's favourite pupil.' We

  agreed that we would rather have seen him and William Shakspeare, than

  all the men we ever read of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy--as

  Spagnoletto did! There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious

  shape. There's a fellow in our mess at the Lepre, a clever enough fellow

  too--and not a bad fellow to the poor. He was a Gandishite. He is a genre

  and portrait painter, by the name of Haggard. He hates J. J. because Lord

  Fareham, who is here, has given J. J. an order; and he hates me, because

  I wear a clean shirt, and ride a cock-horse.
>
  "I wish you could come to our mess at the Lepre. It's such a dinner: such

  a tablecloth: such a waiter: such a company! Every man has a beard and a

  sombrero: and you would fancy we were a band of brigands. We are regaled

  with woodcocks, snipes, wild swans, ducks, robins, and owls and oionoisi

  te pasi for dinner; and with three pauls' worth of wines and victuals the

  hungriest has enough, even Claypole the sculptor. Did you ever know him?

  He used to come to the Haunt. He looks like the Saracen's head with his

  beard now. There is a French table still more hairy than ours, a German

  table, an American table. After dinner we go and have coffee and

  mezzo-caldo at the Cafe Greco over the way. Mezzo-caldo is not a bad

  drink--a little rum--a slice of fresh citron--lots of pounded sugar, and

  boiling water for the rest. Here in various parts of the cavern (it is a

  vaulted low place) the various nations have their assigned quarters, and

  we drink our coffee and strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or

  Bernini selon les gouts, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would make

  Warrington's lungs dilate with pleasure. We get very good cigars for a

  bajoccho and half--that is very good for us, cheap tobaccanalians; and

  capital when you have got no others. M'Collop is here: he made a great

  figure at a cardinal's reception in the tartan of the M'Collop. He is

  splendid at the tomb of the Stuarts, and wanted to cleave Haggard down to

  the chine with his claymore for saying that Charles Edward was often

  drunk.

  "Some of us have our breakfasts at the Cafe Greco at dawn. The birds are

  very early birds here; and you'll see the great sculptors--the old Dons,

  you know, who look down on us young fellows--at their coffee here when it

  is yet twilight. As I am a swell, and have a servant, J. J. and I

  breakfast at our lodgings. I wish you could see Terribile our attendant,

  and Ottavia our old woman! You will see both of them on the canvas one

  day. When he hasn't blacked our boots and has got our breakfast,

  Terribile the valet-de-chambre becomes Terribile the model. He has

  figured on a hundred canvases ere this, and almost ever since he was

  born. All his family were models. His mother having been a Venus, is now

  a Witch of Endor. His father is in the patriarchal line: he has himself

  done the cherubs, the shepherd-boys, and now is a grown man, and ready as

  a warrior, a pifferaro, a capuchin, or what you will.

  "After the coffee and the Cafe Greco we all go to the Life Academy. After

  the Life Academy, those who belong to the world dress and go out to

  tea-parties just as if we were in London. Those who are not in society

  have plenty of fun of their own--and better fun than the tea-party fun

  too. Jack Screwby has a night once a week, sardines and ham for supper,

  and a cask of Marsala in the corner. Your humble servant entertains on

  Thursdays: which is Lady Fitch's night too; and I flatter myself some of

  the London dandies who are passing the winter here, prefer the cigars and

  humble liquors which we dispense, to tea and Miss Fitch's performance on

  the pianoforte.

  "What is that I read in Galignani about Lord K-- and an affair of honour

  at Baden? Is it my dear kind jolly Kew with whom some one has quarrelled?

  I know those who will be even more grieved than I am, should anything

  happen to the best of good fellows. A great friend of Lord Kew's, Jack

  Belsize commonly called, came with us from Baden through Switzerland, and

  we left him at Milan. I see by the paper that his elder brother is dead

  and so poor Jack will be a great man some day. I wish the chance had

  happened sooner if it was to befall at all. So my amiable cousin, Barnes

  Newcome Newcome, Esq., has married my Lady Clara Pulleyn; I wish her joy

  of her bridegroom. All I have heard of that family is from the newspaper.

  If you meet them, tell me anything about them.--We had a very pleasant