The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

since touched upon or followed up by Dr. Sewell, Mr. Cope, and Mr. Ruskin. The second volume of the "Two Sicilies" pleases us less than the first. At Sorrento, long residence and quiet observation give a weight to Miss Kavanagh's writing, in which her visits to Palermo (all she saw of the other ' Sicily') and the remaining localities are deficient. To these she seemed to have paid only the mere flying visit of an ordinary tourist, and the chapters she devotes to them are not wholly free from the suspicion of book-making. Thoroughly known a s Pompeii is, it was hardly necessary to give us an abridgment of Pliny's account of the eruption of 79, or to write a chapter on Italian sepul ture apropos of the Roman tomb of Ccelia Metella. That which throws new light on the character of a people is always interesting ; the objects of curiosity in their country may easily be exhausted. In the following eloquent pas sage Miss Kavanagh shows so true a sense of what was needed that we wonder she has not followed out the notion more faithfully and more exclusively : The real mat (pities that speak, and have a lan guage both graceful and impressive, are those that are blended with the lives of the people. They are not the set ruin which the Cicerone takes you to see, and which von cannot leave the place without seeing These are nothing—worse than nothing ; they are delusive They help to inspire a contempt for the past, which no past deserves from the present, least of all a past which, spite all its sins, filled ages with its splendour, and shone with glorious glow long before our sun had arisen; above all. they serve to lead away the mind from tree knowledge and true learning, and to deliver it, bound hand and foot, to the knowledge and learning of guide-books. The true antiquities—those truly worthy of our attention—are the slight, but visible traces of ancient speech and ancient rue, of ancient feelings and manners to which human tenacity has clung through ages of vicissitudes, which barbaric invasions, a new faith, end a new civilization have not effaced from the land. They are the half-naked peasant boy, who crosses his bare legs and leans against a tree with the look and attitude of the graceful Faun in the Capitol, the brown girl who binds her hair and pins up her skirt at the sides like a Grecian Virgin, the priest who throws his cloak over his shoulder arid across his breast in the folds of the Roman toga, the jar that has preserved almost unchanged the shape of the kmphora, the earthen scaldino that seems the very same held by the statue of the slave in the Vatican, even as he seems the progenitor of the popular Roman of today; the fatted calf that is led to the hatcher's, adorned with flowers like a victim of the ancient rites, the gay draperies that adorn the church on festive days, the narrow shop where you can scarcely move, the narrow street paved with lava like the shops and streets of buried Pompeii, and, above all, the beautiful graceful nature, that makes you believe in Virgil in the land where Virgil sang and died. The Solfatara, the Museum of Naples, Baia, and Pozzuoli, are in like manner pleasantly enough described, but we really do not find more in these notices than in the accurate but not dry pages of Mr. Octavian Blewitt. That which is really valuable in Miss Kavanagh is her pic turesque sense of Italian landscape and her sym pathy with Italian character, and we should have been glad, for her own sake, if her observations had been drawn from even a wider range. Her book also contains a good deal of information about the chari table institutions of Italy, which will be new to many readers, though her toleration of Italian mendicancy seems to us to be carried to aperfectly ridiculous extent. But, since her volumes contain much that is new, and as even those parts which are less so are executed with practised literary ability, most people will find them agreeable reading. Certainly, barring the defects we have noticed, they are among the pleasantest volumes of travel we have lately met with, and we can, therefore, cordially recommend them. THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858. And yet in the choice of these words and this fashion there lies something more, we suspect, than a mere effort at questionable wit. The truth is, that the entrance of a woman into the literary arena is, in Italy, a step not only rare enough, but irregular enough, to suggest in her who takes it some of that self-mistrust which so closely simulates self-condemnation. The posi tion of the fair sex in this, the Garden of Europe, smacks still not a little of the Oriental. And if this is true, more or less, for the whole of the Ausonian peninsula, from the Alps to Cape Spartivento, it is specially true for the favoured region of which our friend Virginia is a native-- the region which suns itself in the warm blessings poured from that fountain of enlightened freedom and incorruptible justice, the throne, namely, of Rome's most pious and worthy son, servant, and stay, King Bomba. The toilet and the kitchen are generally con sidered by , orthodox Italians as representing the two foci of the female orbit, and it is round these alone that the woman can decorously revolve. Cookery she may study in all its branches, both theoretical and practical. Here even the eccle siastical censor forgets his dread office, and inno vation itself may win acceptance and approval. The cultivation of the decorative arts, again—in their personal applications—is thrown open to the Italian female intellect ; and it must be allowed that, here, opportunity and material are generally supplied with a liberal hand. But further than this, society is neither exigent nor even indulgent. Reading and writing, for instance—particularly the latter—are by no means regarded (unless in the upper circles) as necessary parts of a girl's education. In the great majority of female schools for the middle and lower classes, sewing, repeating. the " Pater Noster " and the " Ave Maria " in Latin, and perhaps just enough familiarity with the printed words of the Breviary to recognize at sight the prayers already learnt by heart, comprise the whole cur riculum.* As for writing and arithmetic, both are, although peradventure borne upon the pro spectus, as essentially " extras " as music or drawing. The lady who presides over such an establishment rarely, if ever, pretends to impart these recondite studies herself. It is her son, her brother, or her cousin, the Pretino, the young candidate for Orders, who undertakes this arduous duty, if any among the fair scolarine are revolu tionary enough in their aspirations to claim his services. _ _ This statement may, very possibly, be regarded with considerable scepticism by many—as it will assuredly be denied point-blank by some. The sceptics will be rife among those numerous loungers in the Florentine Cascine and on the Roman Monte Pincio, who fondly believe that the periodical respiration of Italian air and con templation of Italian scenery supply all that is required to constitute an intimate acquaintance with Italy. The denials will proceed from a far more formidable phalanx—from the Italians them selves ! With nations, as with individuals, there is no more trying humiliation than the contrast of present debasement with past grandeur ; and in the finely organized and sensitive Italian we must not be surprised if a feeling like this begets an emulous concealment of home shortcomings which would throw Caleb Balderstone quite into the shade. During a residence of many years in Italy, and a familiar intercourse with various classes of society, we found this invariably the case. Only by personal observation or indirect admission could the many plagu e -s pots be de tected which sully that social frame, so rich in all the elements of perfection, and yet so sadly, so strikingly imperfect. Any direct questioning — any show, even, of inquisitiveness—awoke at once the feeling alluded to ; and from that moment all reliance upon statements and replies was at an end. In the matter above touched upon—the stan dard of female education even up to the middle classes in Italy—we find an unexpected as unim peachable witness, ready to band, in the work before us. " Carlo Guelfi " stands pretty nearly alone among Italian novels, inasmuch as in it the historical walk is abandoned to which these, from Manzoni to Canal, have been hitherto exclusively confined, and an attempt is made to place the scenes and actors of our own day before us. Let us see, then, in what colours the author draws the • We may judge from this the real value of the imposiug educational statistics given in Morichin:'s otherwise excellent work "Degl' latituti di 13011011000Z 11 publics a Rona." 1087 aeconda donna of her dramatis persona—the daughter of Don Francesco Saverio, a Neapolitan barrister of influence and repute, in the year of grace 1837 : Filomena was eighteen years old, blooming, attractive' and gsy, with superb bltek hair, black eyebrows, long eye lashes, and black eyes, sparkling with almost a phosphatic lustre. And in their impetuous passions, the movement of these eyes was so rapid and decided, that their flashes glanced light upon the rising thought, ere the girl's heedless words had time openly to express it. Her stature was about the average; her figure voluptuously rounded, with rosy cheeks and vermillion lips—the latter somewhat full, and naturally fashioning themselves into a smile, which dis played a row of brilliantly white and even teeth. " I don't wish her to be taught reading and writing," Don Francesco hed deci.led—" because girls who can read and write can easily keep up an epistolary correspondence with their sweethearts, and I don't mean to allow either sweethearts or epistles."+ Filomena therefore remained innocent of the alphabet (ancifabela is the concise Greecism used by our author), and all the more hopelessly from the shudder of horror awakened in her mother by the term " epistolary," which had been proffered by the learned advocate with a gravity and emphasis sufficient alone to ratify for ever his exalted prohibition. Thus the instruction which Filomena might have drawn from good books was honourably bartered for that commu nicated to her by the juvenile womankind who on various pretexts frequented the house. As for the finishing touch to this instruction, that also was self supplied—in the time when these fair damsels,—some a little more, some a little less ignorant than herself,— managed, unknown to their anxious mothers, to bring their small heads together in secret council. It was grand on these occasions to see, amid so much wisdom, what noble emula tion in experience was manifested among them. Things might be heard in those assemblies of which no well educated girl knows anything—or, if she does know, will make mention to anybody. Among these young ladies the possession of a lover was an absolute necessity. Not to possess one was regarded as proof positive of deficient merit. And by dint of egging each other on, of mutual taunts, of affecting to regard such deficiency, or rather such a scandalous anomaly, as impos sible, they came at last to turn every thought to the duty of conforming themselves to the general rule, and giving proof of their merit. Filomena was not long in following the example of her friends. She too must needs take as a lover the first youth who cast an admiring glance at her—that glance which, with its headstrong impetuosity, says to the inex perienced girl, " I love you! I have need of your love ; I must have it." And she, poor child ! was touched by that glance, felt convinced that he would be miserable without her love--and loved him. She loved him, received a note from him—a facsimile of many others,— got it read to her, and shut up its every word in her heart. Poor heart ! it had such a wealth of affection ! But what is she to do P She wishes to reply and cannot. She mistrusts others, and is ashamed to confess her own ignorance ; and, with the dread that accident may some day reveal her canning, she chooses the shortest road, and invites her lover to come privately, at certain hours, to speak with her through a little grating in the house•door. Measuring the youth's affection by the force of his words and their effect upon herself, she holds the former to be true and infallible because the latter are warm, profuse, and bold. Trusting in the love of her William (such is the youth's name), every interview brings her nearer to ruin. The mother knows nothing of this passion, and the daughter has already made of it the very element of her life. The self-defeat of Don Francesco's " analpha betical " theory of female education is not ill worked out here. Indeed, the character of Filomena is drawn, through all its phases of pas sion, repentance, and purification, with a truth to nature (Italian nature, mind !) which redeems many serious defects in the book. Let us hasten, in justice to Filomena's fair fame, to explain that the " repentance " alluded to is not consequent upon that disastrous issue of the " passion ' which our last-cited paragraph would seem to antici pate. " William ' turns out a far more moral youth than is often found among his confraternity of medical students either at home or abroad. Dissecting his own feelings—for, like Descartes, he seems to handle with equal skill both the phy sical and the metaphysical scalpel—he detects the entire absence of the matrimonial element therein, and, by an honourable impulse, declares off at once. In the anguish of her despair, Filomena— urged on by that inevitable evil Genius of enamoured young ladies, a wicked and designing servant-girl—seeks the aid and counsel of a renowned witch, who, finding the case a difficult one, recommends a personal application to the fountain-head of all unhallowed lore—his Satanic Majesty himself. Noteworthy testimony to the genuineness of the colours in which our author dips her pencil is borne by the fact that no one of the personages to whom this fearful step of Filomena becomes afterwards known expresses any other feeling 4. It may be worth while to mention that thir is pi etisei) the reason for not teaching girls to write, which the reviewer has heard assigned in a far more advanced province of Italy than Naples—in the birth•land of Dante and of Petraroh. Carlo Guelfi. Racconto di Virginia Pulli. Filotico. London : Jeffs. "AIEA culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima bulpa! Such are the penitent accents with which the f air Virginia initiates a preface, couched in the terminology of the Confessional, and closed with a prayer for absolution. The wards and their fashion, spite of the solemnity of both, are not, of course, meant to be taken au grand serieux. For in Italy religious forms —nay, even religious dogmas—have be come so hackneyed and vulgarized by that daily and hourly repetition, which fixes indelibly the material habit while it destroys irrevocably , the spiritual feeling, that even the Confessional may be made an element of the humorous without any discredit to the orthodoxy of the humorist.