MISS CRAWFORD'S LIFE IN TUSCANY*

Tins volume is the best and most interesting picture of the man- nets, opinions, and character of the people of Tuscany that has been published for years ; we say of Tuscany, because one or two books have appeared. on Rome, that take a wider range of politi- cal inquiry, and exhibit a more masculine kind of thought. Per- haps Miss Crawford may sometimes luxuriate a shade too much over the beauties of Italian scenery ; or dwell a leetle too long on the baths of Monte Catini and Lucca, and the small watering place of Viareggio ; or even be too minute in her sketch of the Carnival at Pisa. The Florentine brotherhood of Mercy has also been explained more than once by previous writers, and her account of the Revolution in Tuscany of 1848-'49, tells little" that might not be got from the newspapers ; though just now it is advantageous to have it, from the insight it fur- nishes of the public opinion of the Tuscans. These points, how- efer, are very slight blemishes. To persons with a taste for de- scriPtion, and little acquainted with works on Italy, they will not b'ellemishes but advantages. Even those who may think the landscapes slightly overdone, and that the mere outward life at watering places might have borne curtailment, will still find a good many passages which distinctly and vividly bring the con- dition of the people and the tastes of the classes above them be- fore the mind. At the baths of Lucca, too, we have a glimpse of the Ducal family and of the feelings of the people towards them. The other sections of the book are important in their subjects, arid are solid and informing in their treatment ; while they derive an adventitious advantage from the interest now attaching to everything connected with the feelings, the opinions, and the conduct of the Italians in daily life, so far as such conduct cite influence their character as men and citizens.

Materials for forming a judgment on these points will be found more or less throughout Miss Crawford's volume. They are most thoroughly treated in five chapters, which exhibit the Tuscans in various classes and under various circumstances. "The Peasant" is a valuable picture of Italian cultivation, the Italian culti- vator' his economical condition, and its causes. It is further en- titled to praise for the useful contribution to economical science which its facts furnish. In " Society" the reader has an analytical display of the classes above the peasantry and small traders in their education, pursuits, modes of living and characteristic traits, the conclusion giving, as we intimated last week, but sorry hopes of success in any struggle for national independence and pblitical freedom, from the want of robustness, of an unselfish self-sacrificing spirit, and of all those harder and loftier qualities which are requisite to secure a triumph in a national contest. " Manners and Incidents" display Society in its conduct and bearing, illustrate it by anecdotes passing into stories, and give an account of domestic life with some idea of the cost and modes of living, if you can live and bargain as Italians do. "Florentine Scenes and Amusements," relate of course to more superficial mat- ters, but are sometimes indicative of the national mind by the interest which it attaches to little things—" the sports of children satisfy the child." " Religion" goes over the subject, Miss Craw- ford not greatly differing from other writers in the more purely religious conclusions. But though she conceives the masses de-

• Life in Tuscany. By Mabel Sharman Crawford. Published by Smith and Elder.

vont according to their lights, and sincerely attachet4 to the church, she thinks the clergy are very indifferently respec

" Though amongst the mass of the population in Tuscany the vidences of a warm faith iu the tenets of their Church may be discerned, heir re- spect and affection for, the ministers of that Church by no means ma to correspond. On the hart of many who were extremely strict in he per- formance of their religious duties, who held implicitly every tenet of the Roman Catholic faith, I have found a feeling towards the priesth.(xid very far indeed from a reverential one. At the baths of Monte Catini, the mis- tress of the hotel where I was staying, a rigid Catholic, told me she itvoided as much as she possibly could the admission of the cose nere (blackOings) into her house ; and she gave me reasons for doing so, which were anything but complimentary to the ministers of her Church. I have heard avarice, stinginess, and immorality imputed to them, by persons entirely free from all Protestant tendencies. The very bitterest enemy of them I knew was a zealous Catholic woman, who had masses constantly performed for the bene- fit of a deceased uncle's soul, who wore a medallion of the Virgin next her heart, kept a bone of St. Anthony in her purse, and had a memento of some other saint suspended round her neck."

Miss Crawford conceives that infidelity prevails among the bulk of the educated and upper classes, as in Romanist countries gene- rally. According to the conclusions to be drawn from our tourist's observations two great causes operate to produce the inferiority of the Italian character ; the despotism of the Government ; and the morals of the people. Both, however, are perhaps finally resolvable into the narrow tyranny of the Government. Shut out from all elevated and manly public pursuits ; deprived of the power of free speculation unless he confines his speculations to himself ; and even fearful of indulging in free conversation on account of the system of espionage, an Italian above the shopkeeping class has no opening for the exercise of his better faculties, still less of his ambition. Literature may involve him in danger, art has withered in long, stagnant conventionalism, even commerce and mane- factures are closed to an Italian, on account of the ignorant ap- prehensions, prejudices, and contracted notions of his rulers, which impede freedom of trade and inter-communication. He is compelled from sheer vacancy and ennui,

" to fly to the bowers

Where pleasure lies carelessly smiling at fame."

An existence wasted in idleness, trivial amusements, sensual pleasures, and intrigue, of necessity forms an effeminate, ir- resolute, and tortuous character: In a community such evils , propagate themselves, and produce others of which suspicion and unbelief in human virtue are not the least. Miss Crawford does not speak highly of the men, but she expresses herself worse of the women, not as regards their natural qualities, which ap- pear excellent, but of the state to which ignorance, distrust, and the tolerated vices of society reduce them. As in the case of men, the evil also propagates itself. To tie up as it is called a widow's income from alienation is common enough. It would ap- pear that a Tuscan goes much further ; appointing a guardian who doles money out to the lady as he thinks fit. This passage forms part of an illustrative story of a widow of thirty, who was left under the guardianship of a priest.

"Although every widow lady in Italy may not have the misfortune to le

under the rule of a Signor Carlo, it seemed to me, from what I heard, that the practice was general on the part of a dying husband to invest some one with the control over the management of the pecuniary affairs of his widow. Indeed, in many cases this might prove a wise provision for her welfare ; for from the effects of the system of tutelage under which the Italian wife has lived, she is so destitute of prudence and forethought—so much the slave of impulse, so passionately fond of dress—that with her income as a widow at her own disposal, she is capable of spending in a week, on the merest frip- peries of fashion, the whole amount of her annual income. Signora Teresa was no exception to this rule : she acknowledged that she was dreadfully extravagant. The number of bonnets and dresses she possessed was abso- lutely startling ; and nearly all the very small amount of pocket-money allowed to her by Signor Carlo was expended in the purchase of lottery tickets."

In each of the five chapters enumerated, as well as throughout the book, will be found many facts and incidents exhibiting Italians as they are. The section most satisfactory as regards comprehensiveness and completeness is that relating to the pea- sant, or more properly the cultivator ; for though not rising to a ' farmer in the English meaning of the word, he is not a labourer. This is the external picture.

" The impress of art—of industry, no less than that of a bounteous nature,

is seen stamped upon the land unmistakeably. Fields, where not a weed is to be discerned ; farms, in which not one crooked or useless fence is visible, where the sower follows quickly upon the reaper's track, and where the fresh turned-up sod is fast covered over by a bright carpet of verdure ; where, from dawn till dusk, the labourer is seen plying spade or hoe indefatigably : all these things, seen in various parts of Tuscany, attest that the Tuscan peasant is far from being an ungrateful recipient of the bounties of Provi- dence. As the traveller journeys in spring or summer through this favoured land, especially along the vale of the Arno, his onward course will be through scenes calculated to suggest the idea of a realised Arcadia. Far as the sight can reach on either aide, farm after farm, for miles together, displays the same richness of produce, the same economy of apace, the same garden-like degree of cultivation. Seen from a distance, the tile-roofed dwellings of the peasant, rising invariably at least two stories in height, though devoid of at- traction as picturesque objects, seem to speak almost as strongly of comfort and prosperity as do the well-tilled fields, with their rich and varieffpro- duce, visible around them. Under the influences of the scene, bright are the pictures that farcy calls up before the traveller's eye, of the domestic life enjoyed by the Tuscan peasantry."

Notwithstanding all this careful cultivation and promise of

plenty, the cultivator in Tuscany, whatever he may be in Lom- bardy under the Austrians " beholds in vain," as he did in the days of Addison, the teeming crops and blooming fruitage around him.

" To see the actual state of things with the Tuscan peasant, let us visit him in his home, selecting a fine day in early summer for this purpose. Quit- ting the high road, we take a narrow pathway winding through the fields in the directian of a substantial-looking two-storied house, whose red-tiled roof is seen rising above an intervening screen of foliage. Every yard of our progre as we advance, is marked by features that cannot fail to be ad- mired. ,On either hand are luxuriant crops of grain alternating with strips of lupinA, vetches, peas, and beans, intersected by rows of vines, whose long ' branchelattanging in rich festoons as they trail from tree to tree, close in the vie* in every direction; not a rood of ground we traverse but bears the mark of neatness, care, and industry. No weeds, no crooked fences, no yawning ditches are visible—all waste of space, all waste of soil by useless vegeta on, seem scrupulously avoided. Until we reach the immediate pre- cinctsof the dwelling, the rich picture is not marred by one unpleasant fea- ture, but once there—arrived at our destination, the whole character of the scene undergoes a complete metamorphosis. The evidences of neatness, care, and abundance disappear, giving place to signs as unmistakeable of dirt, slovenliness, and poverty. The dwelling, which viewed from afar had an air of comfort and respectability, appears on close inspection a cheerless and utterly comfortless habitation : discoloured walls, wood-work from which almoit every trace of paint has vanished, windows without sashes or glass- merelarge square apertures in fact, crossed at regular intervals by iron bars —present themselves to notice; and the vacant space before the entrance

door is littered over with rubbish. • " Inside, a still more dreary sight awaits us : stepping across the threshold we eater a good-sized apartment, which serves at the same time as kitchen and sitting-room for the inhabitants of the dwelling. The light that enters freely through tho large unglazed casement reveals walls begrimed with smoke and dirt, and blackened rafters. A bench here, a table there, a stool and two or three decrepit-looking rush-bottomed chairs, with a few pots and pans, compose the whole amount of furniture visible. Ascending by a steep ladder with a hand-rail, serving as staircase, we gain the second story, and find the characteristic features of the scene below repeated in the foul, comfortless, and almost furnitureless rooms, which are used as sleeping apartments by the members of the household. Harmonizing well with the aspect of the interior is the appearance of the _mistress of the dwelling ; a dirty slattern, without shoes or stockings, clad in a coarse gingham dress, become from the effects of dirt and age of a kind of nondescript colour; her face, arms, and neck are, through, exposure to the sun, tanned to a dark brown hue, and a quantity of black, tangled, dishevelled hair peers forth from beneath a red cotton handkerchief, covering the back part of the head and tied beneath the chin. The children, clustering around in scanty tat- tered garments, with shocks of uncombed hair and faces guiltless of any but a most remote acquaintance with soap and water, correspond in air and as- pect with the maternal model. * * • " Poor in quality, and often scant in quantity, is the food which sustains the lives of the Tuscan peasantry. When the landlord's share is deducted out of their small patch of wheat, the portion that remains serves but for a short time to afford a supply of white bread for family use. In the absence of this luxury, a dark vile-looking compound of rye and other inferior kinds of grain,',made into a thick fiat cake or clumsy roll, is generally eaten. Acting upon the idea that things are not in many cases at all so bad as they appear, I ventured on the experiment of trying the unattractive-looking fare, but found that in this case, at least, the decision of the taste fully con- firmed the judgment of the eye. * * *

" Black bread, kidney beans, and porridge made of Indian corn, consti- tute, it may be said, the fare of the Tuscan peasant. Occasionally he has in the summer or autumn season a few luxuries, such as peas, tomatoes, cherries, figs, and chestnuts, to vary his unattractive food. Milk he seldom tastes, for the Italian peasant's cow is looked on as a means of rearing calves, and not of providing a nutritious beverage for himself and family; and but- ter, it may be said, as a general rule, is absolutely unknown."

. We could, pursue this subject further, but we must leave it with the remark that the condition of the peasant has. of late been de- teriorated from the failure of the vines. Two causes are assigned by the natives or by Miss Crawford for this poverty. One is the metayer systena, under which the landlord furnishes implements, and contributes towards the expense of seed-corn, &c.' taking in return one-half of the produce. Some Economists disapprove of the metayer system ; but it has always seemed to us rather the sign of a poor and (commercially speaking) backward social con- dition, than so absolutely bad in itself. The tenant farming in England, and in a few parts of the United States, is undoubtedly a better plan ; but if the circumstances of the people do not admit of it, the metayer system seems to us the next best mode ; cer- tainly better than labour or service-rents. What Miss Crawford terms the " secondary cause," namely, competition reducing the size of the farms below what is necessary to afford a fair subsist- ence, strikes us as being the first cause, unless there is some other that we fail to perceive. "'A secondary cause of the poverty that prevails in Tuscany may be dis- oovered in the density of the rural population, and consequent smallness of the farms. ' We are too thick,' they say themselves ; ' our holdings are too small.' This is true indeed, in many instances, where a man's holding is limited, as it sometimes is, to two acres in extent; the entire produce of which would be required to afford to him and his probably numerous family a comfortable subsistence. Under such circumstances, a tenant must be poor however equitable or even liberal are the terms on which his farm is rented. But mingled with holdings of this minute description are others evidently of a Sufficient size, taken in connexion with the fertility of the - soil, to-afford,rafter the payment of a reasonable rent, a comfortable subsist- ence to the cultivator. Yet, in the aspect of a farm so circumstanced, in

• the apperiraiiee of the Occupier and his family, in their mode of life, in the character of their dwelling,—although, in all these respects, a marked supe- riority over the small holding' class may be observed,—the evidences of a hard-struggling comfortless existence are still discernible."