Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844. Various
never bear the Moor!"
The King he lighted from his horse,
He flung his brand away,
And took the Douglas by the hand,
So stately as he lay.
"God give thee rest, thou valiant soul,
That fought so well for Spain;
I'd rather half my land were gone,
So thou wert here again!"
We bore the good Lord James away,
And the priceless heart he bore,
And heavily we steer'd our ship
Towards the Scottish shore.
No welcome greeted our return,
Nor clang of martial tread,
But all were dumb and hush'd as death
Before the mighty dead.
We laid the Earl in Douglas Kirk,
The heart in fair Melrose;
And woful men were we that day—
God grant their souls repose!
MEMORANDUMS OF A MONTH'S TOUR IN SICILY
THE MUSEUM OF PALERMO
The museum of Palermo is a small but very interesting collection of statues and other sculpture, gathered chiefly, they say, from the ancient temples of Sicily, with a few objects bestowed out of the superfluities of Pompeii. In the lower room are some good bas-reliefs, to which a story is attached. They were discovered fifteen years ago at Selinuntium by some young Englishmen, the reward of four months' labour. Our guide, who had been also theirs, had warned them not to stay after the month of June, when malaria begins. They did stay. All (four) took the fever; one died of it in Palermo, and the survivors were deprived by the government—that is, by the king—of the spoils for which they had suffered so much and worked so hard. No one is permitted to excavate without royal license; excavation is, like Domitian's fish, res fisci. Even Mr Fagan, who was consul at Palermo, having made some interesting underground discoveries, was deprived of them. We saw here a fine Esculapius, in countenance and expression exceedingly like the Ecce Homo of Leonardo da Vinci, with all that god-like compassion which the great painter had imparted without any sacrifice of dignity. He holds a poppy-head, which we do not recollect on his statue or gems, and the Epidaurian snake is at his side. Up-stairs we saw specimens of fruits from Pompeii, barley, beans, the carob pod, pine kernels, as well as bread, sponge, linen: and the sponge was obviously such, and so was the linen. A bronze Hercules treading on the back of a stag, which he has overtaken and subdued, is justly considered as one of the most perfect bronzes discovered at Pompeii. A head of our Saviour, by Corregio, is exquisite in conception, and such as none but a person long familiar with the physiognomy of suffering could have accomplished. These are exceptions rather than specimens. The pictures, in general, are poor in interest; and a long gallery of casts of the chef-d'oeuvres of antiquity possessed by the capitals of Italy, Germany, England, and France, looks oddly here, and shows the poverty of a country which had been to the predatory proconsuls of Rome an inexhaustible repertory of the highest treasures of art. A VERRES REDIVIVUS would now find little to carry off but toys made of amber, lava snuff-boxes, and WODEHOUSE'S MARSALA—one of which he certainly would not guess the age of, and the other of which he would not drink.
LUNATIC ASYLUM
We saw nothing in this house or its arrangements to make us think it superior, or very different from others we had visited elsewhere. The making a lunatic asylum a show-place for strangers is to be censured; indeed, we heard Esquirol observe, that nothing was so bad as the admission of many persons to see the patients at all; for that, although some few were better for the visits of friends, it was injurious as a general rule to give even friends admittance, and that it ought to be left discretionary with the physician, when to admit, and whom. Cleanliness, good fare, a garden, and the suppression of all violence—these have become immutable canons for the conduct of such institutions, and fortunately demand little more than ordinary good feeling and intelligence in the superintendent. But we could not fail to observe a sad want of suitable inducement to occupation, which was apparent throughout this asylum. That not above one in ten could read, may perhaps be thought a light matter, for few can be the resources of insanity in books; yet we saw at Genoa a case where it had taken that turn, and as it is occupation to read, with how much profit it matters not. Not one woman in four, as usually occurs in insanity, could be induced to dress according to her sex; they figured away in men's coats and hats! The dining-room was hung with portraits of some merit, by one of the lunatics; and we noticed that every face, if indeed all are portraits, had some insanity in it. They have a dance every Sunday evening. What an exhibition it must be!
MISCELLANEA
That the vegetation of Palermo excels that of Naples, partly depends on the superior intelligence of the agriculturist, and partly upon soil and climate: the fruits here are not only more advanced, but finer in quality. We left a very meagre dessert of cherries beginning to ripen at Naples; the very next day, a superabundance of very fine and mature ones were to be had on all the stalls of Palermo. This must be the result of industry and care in a great measure; for on leaving that city, after a séjour of three weeks, for Messina, Catania, and Syracuse, although summer was much further advanced, we relapsed into miserably meagre supplies of what we had eaten in perfection in the capital; yet Syracuse and Catania are much warmer than Palermo.
The vegetables here are of immense growth. The fennel root (and there is no better test of your whereabouts in Italy) is nearly twice as large as at Naples, and weighs, accordingly, nearly double. The cauliflowers are quite colossal; and they have a blue cabbage so big that your arms will scarcely embrace it. We question, however, whether this hypertrophy of fruit or vegetables improves their flavour; give us English vegetables—ay, and English fruit. Though Smyrna's fig is eaten throughout Europe, and Roman brocoli be without a rival; though the cherry and the Japan medlar flourish only at Palermo, and the cactus of Catania can be eaten nowhere else; what country town in England is not better off on the whole, if quality alone be considered? But we have one terrible drawback; for whom are these fruits of the earth produced? Our prices are enormous, and our supply scanty; could we forget this, and the artichoke, the asparagus, the peas and beans of London and Paris, are rarely elsewhere so fine. To our palates the gooseberry and the black currant are a sufficient indemnity to Britain for the grape, merely regarded as a fruit to eat. Pine-apples, those "illustrious foreigners," are so successfully petted at home, that they will scarcely condescend now to flourish out of England. Nectarines refuse to ripen, and apricots to have any taste elsewhere. Our pears and apples are better, and of more various excellence, than any in the world. And we really prefer our very figs, grown on a fine prebendal wall in the close of Winchester, or under Pococke's window in a canon's garden at chilly Oxford. Thus has the kitchen-garden refreshed our patriotism, and made us half ashamed of our long forgetfulness of home. But there are good things abroad too for poor men; the rich may live any where. An enormous salad, crisp, cold, white, and of delicious flavour, for a halfpenny; olive oil, for fourpence a pound, to dress it with; and wine for fourpence a gallon to make it disagree with you;12 fuel for almost nothing, and bread for little, are not small advantages to frugal housekeepers; but, when dispensed by a despotic government, where one must read those revolting
——
Post vinum stomacho.—HOR.