Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal - William Beckford

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for, still better to appreciate the present, we should be led not unfrequently to recall the intellectual muzziness of the past.

      But happily these pages are not crowded with such records: they are chiefly filled with delineations of landscape and those effects of natural phenomena which it is not in the power of revolutions or constitutions to alter or destroy.

      A few moments snatched from the contemplation of political crimes, bloodshed, and treachery, are a few moments gained to all lovers of innocent illusion. Nor need the statesman or the scholar despise the occasional relaxation of light reading. When Jupiter and the great deities are represented by Homer as retiring from scenes of havoc and carnage to visit the blameless and quiet Ethiopians, who were the farthest removed of all nations, the Lord knows whither, at the very extremities of the ocean—would they have given ear to manifestos or protocols? No, they would much rather have listened to the Tales of Mother Goose.

      London, June 12th, 1834.

       OF

       THE FIRST VOLUME.

       Table of Contents

THE LOW COUNTRIES AND GERMANY.
LETTER I.
Passage to Ostend.—The Capuchin church.—Ghent.—Quiet and Content, the presiding deities of Flanders.—Antwerp.—The Place de Meir.—Silence and solitude of the town, contrasted with the tumult and uproar of London. 3
LETTER II.
Visit to the cabinets of pictures in Antwerp.—Monsieur Van Lencren’s collection.—The Canon Knyff’s house and gallery of paintings.—The Canon himself.—His domestic felicity.—Revisit the cathedral.—Grand service in honour of Saint John the Baptist.—Mynheer Van den Bosch, the organist’s astonishing flashes of execution.—Evening service in the cathedral.—Magical effect of the music of Jomelli.—Blighted avenues.—Slow travelling.—Enter the United Provinces.—Level scenery.—Chinese prospects.—Reach Meerdyke.—Arrival at the Hague. 14
LETTER III.
The Prince of Orange’s cabinet of paintings.—Temptation of St. Anthony, by Breughel.—Exquisite pictures by Berghem and Wouvermans.—Mean garrets stored with inestimable productions of the Indies.—Enamelled flasks of oriental essences.—Vision of the wardrobe of Hecuba.—Disenchantment.—Cabinet of natural history.—A day dream.—A delicious morsel.—Dinner at Sir Joseph Yorke’s.—Two honourable boobies.—The Great Wood.—Parterres of the Greffier Fagel.—Air poisoned by the sluggish canals.—Fishy locality of Dutch banquetting rooms.—Derivation of the inhabitants of Holland.—Origin and use of enormous galligaskins.—Escape from damp alleys and lazy waters. 24
LETTER IV.
Leave the Hague.—Leyden.—Wood near Haerlem.—Waddling fishermen.—Enter the town.—The great fair.—Riot and uproar.—Confusion of tongues.—Mine hostess. 32
LETTER V.
Amsterdam.—The road to Utrecht—Country-houses and gardens.—Neat enclosures.—Comfortable parties.—Ladies and Lapdogs.—Arrival at Utrecht.—Moravian establishment—The woods.—Shops.—Celestial love.—Musical Sempstresses.—Return to Utrecht. 35
LETTER VI.
Arrival at Aix-la-Chapelle.—Glimpse of a dingy grove.—Melancholy saunterers.—Dusseldorf Gallery.—Nocturnal depredators.—Arrival at Cologne.—Shrine of the Three Wise Sovereigns.—Peregrinations of their beatified bones.—Road to Bonn.—Delights of Catholicism.—Azure mountains.—Visionary palaces. 39
LETTER VII.
Borders of the Rhine.—Richly picturesque road from Bonn to Andernach.—Scheme for a floating village.—Coblentz.—A winding valley.—The river Lahn.—Ems.—The planet.—A supposed Apparition.—A little sequestered Paradise. 47
LETTER VIII.
Inveterate Idlers.—The planet Orloff and his satellites.—A Storm.—Scared women.—A dreary Forest.—Village of Wiesbaden.—Manheim.—Ulm.—The Danube—unlimited plains on its margin.—Augsburg.—Sketch of the Town.—Pomposities of the Town House. 53
LETTER IX.
Extensive woods of fir in Bavaria.—Grand Fair at Munich.—The Elector’s country palace.—Court Ladies.—Fountains.—Costume.—Garden and tea-room.—Hoydening festivities there.—The Palace and Chapel.—Gorgeous riches of the latter.—St. Peter’s thumb.—The Elector’s collection of pictures.—The Churches.—Hubbub and confusion of the Fair.—Wild tract of country.—Village of Wolfrathshausen.—Perpetual forests.—A Tempest.—A night at a cottage. 63
LETTER X.
Mittenwald.—Mountain chapels.—Saint Anna’s young and fair worshippers.—Road to Inspruck.—Maximilian’s tomb.—Vast range of prospects.—A mountain torrent.—Schönberg. 73
LETTER XI.
Steinach.—Its torrent and gloomy strait.—Achievements of Industry.—A sleepy Region.—Beautiful country round Brixen. 84
ITALY.

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