The Diary of an Ennuyée | Page 9

and more particularly through Lombardy,
without being struck with the magnificence and vastness of his public
works--either designed or executed. He is more regretted here than in
France; or rather he has not been so soon banished from men's minds.
In Italy he followed the rational policy of depressing the nobles, and
providing occupation and amusement for the lower classes. I spoke
to-day with an intelligent artisan, who pointed out to us a hall built near
the public walk by Napoleon, for the people to dance and assemble in,
when the weather was unfavourable. The man concluded some very
animated and sensible remarks on the late events, by adding
expressively, that though many had been benefited by the change, there
was to him and all others of his class as much difference between the
late reign and the present, as between l'or et le fer.
The silver shrine of St. Carlo Borromeo, with all its dazzling waste of
magnificence, struck me with a feeling of melancholy and indignation.
The gems and gold which lend such a horrible splendour to corruption;
the skeleton head, grinning ghastly under its invaluable coronet; the
skeleton hand supporting a crozier glittering with diamonds, appeared
so frightful, so senseless a mockery of the excellent, simple-minded,
and benevolent being they were intended to honour, that I could but
wonder, and escape from the sight as quickly as possible. The Duomo
is on the whole more remarkable for the splendour of the material, than
the good taste with which it is employed: the statues which adorn it
inside and out, are sufficient of themselves to form a very respectable
congregation: they are four thousand in number.
9th, Tuesday.--We gave the morning to the churches, and the evening
to the Ambrosian library. The day was, on the whole, more fatiguing
than edifying or amusing. I remarked whatever was remarkable,
admired all that is usually admired, but brought away few impressions
of novelty or pleasure. The objects which principally struck my
capricious and fastidious fancy, were precisely those which passed

unnoticed by every one else, and are not worth recording. In the first
church we visited, I saw a young girl respectably and even elegantly
dressed, in the beautiful costume of the Milanese, who was kneeling on
the pavement before a crucifix, weeping bitterly, and at the same time
fanning herself most vehemently with a large green fan. Another
church (St. Alessandro, I think) was oddly decorated for a Christian
temple. A statue of Venus stood on one side of the porch, a statue of
Hercules on the other. The two divinities, whose attributes could not be
mistaken, had been converted from heathenism into two very
respectable saints. I forget their christian names. Nor is this the most
amusing metamorphosis I have seen here. The transformation of two
heathen divinities into saints, is matched by the apotheosis of two
modern sovereigns into pagan deities. On the frieze of the salle,
adjoining the amphitheatre, there is a head of Napoleon, which, by the
addition of a beard, has been converted into a Jupiter; and on the
opposite side, a head of Josephine, which, being already beautiful and
dignified, has required no alteration, except in name, to become a
creditable Minerva.
10th.--At the Brera, now called the "Palace of the Arts and Sciences,"
we spent some delightful hours. There is a numerous collection of
pictures by Titian, Guido, Albano, Schidone, the three Carraccis,
Tintoretto, Giorgione, etc. Some old paintings in fresco, by Luini and
others of his age, were especially pointed out to us, which had been cut
from the walls of churches now destroyed. They are preserved here, I
presume, as curiosities, and specimens of the progress of the arts, for
they possess no other merit--none, at least, that I could discover. Here
is the "Marriage of the Virgin," by Raffaelle, of which I had often heard.
It disappointed me at the first glance, but charmed me at the second,
and enchanted me at the third. The unobtrusive grace and simplicity of
Raffaelle do not immediately strike an eye so unpractised, and a taste
so unformed as mine still is: for though I have seen the best pictures in
England, we have there no opportunity of becoming acquainted with
the two divinest masters of the Italian art, Raffaelle and Correggio.
There are not, I conceive, half a dozen of either in all the collections
together, and those we do possess, are far from being among their best
efforts. But Raffaelle must not make me forget the Hagar in the Brera:

the affecting--the inimitable Hagar! what agony, what upbraiding, what
love, what helpless desolation of heart in that countenance! I may well
remember the deep pathos of this picture; for the face of Hagar has
haunted me sleeping and waking ever since I beheld