The Harbours of England | Page 6

to
heaven he holds them reared, Winnowing the air with those eternal
plumes, That not like mortal hairs fall off or change.'
"As more and more toward us came, more bright Appeared the bird of
God, nor could the eye Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down. He
drove ashore in a small bark so swift And light, that in its course no
wave it drank. The heavenly steersman at the prow was seen, Visibly
written blessed in his looks. Within, a hundred spirits and more there
sat."
I have given this passage at length, because it seems to me that Dante's
most inventive adaptation of the fable of Charon to Heaven has not
been regarded with the interest that it really deserves; and because, also,
it is a description that should be remembered by every traveler when
first he sees the white fork of the felucca sail shining on the Southern
Sea. Not that Dante had ever seen such sails;[K] his thought was utterly
irrespective of the form of canvas in any ship of the period; but it is
well to be able to attach this happy image to those felucca sails, as they
now float white and soft above the blue glowing of the bays of Adria.
Nor are other images wanting in them. Seen far away on the horizon,
the Neapolitan felucca has all the aspect of some strange bird stooping
out of the air and just striking the water with its claws; while the
Venetian, when its painted sails are at full swell in sunshine, is as
beautiful as a butterfly with its wings half-closed.[L] There is
something also in them that might remind us of the variegated and
spotted angel wings of Orcagna, only the Venetian sail never looks
majestic; it is too quaint and strange, yet with no peacock's pride or
vulgar gayety,--nothing of Milton's Dalilah:

"So bedecked, ornate and gay Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for
the Isles Of Javan or Gadire With all her bravery on and tackle trim,
Sails filled and streamers waving."
That description could only have been written in a time of vulgar
women and vulgar vessels. The utmost vanity of dress in a woman of
the fourteenth century would have given no image of "sails filled or
streamers waving"; nor does the look or action of a really "stately" ship
ever suggest any image of the motion of a weak or vain woman. The
beauties of the Court of Charles II., and the gilded galleys of the
Thames, might fitly be compared; but the pomp of the Venetian
fisher-boat is like neither. The sail seems dyed in its fullness by the
sunshine, as the rainbow dyes a cloud; the rich stains upon it fade and
reappear, as its folds swell or fall; worn with the Adrian storms, its
rough woof has a kind of noble dimness upon it, and its colors seem as
grave, inherent, and free from vanity as the spots of the leopard, or
veins of the seashell.
[K] I am not quite sure of this, not having studied with any care the
forms of mediæval shipping; but in all the MSS. I have examined the
sails of the shipping represented are square.
[L] It is not a little strange that in all the innumerable paintings of
Venice, old and modern, no notice whatever had been taken of these
sails, though they are exactly the most striking features of the marine
scenery around the city, until Turner fastened upon them, painting one
important picture, "The Sun of Venice," entirely in their illustration.
Yet, in speaking of poets' love of boats, I ought to have limited the love
to modern poets; Dante, in this respect, as in nearly every other, being
far in advance of his age. It is not often that I congratulate myself upon
the days in which I happen to live; but I do so in this respect, that,
compared with every other period of the world, this nineteenth century
(or rather, the period between 1750 and 1850) may not improperly be
called the Age of Boats; while the classic and chivalric times, in which
boats were partly dreaded, partly despised, may respectively be
characterized, with regard to their means of locomotion, as the Age of
Chariots, and the Age of Horses.

For, whatever perfection and costliness there may be in the present
decorations, harnessing, and horsing of any English or Parisian wheel
equipage, I apprehend that we can from none of them form any high
ideal of wheel conveyance; and that unless we had seen an Egyptian
king bending his bow with his horses at the gallop, or a Greek knight
leaning with his poised lance over the shoulder of his charioteer, we
have no right to consider ourselves as thoroughly knowing