Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople 9781463216917

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Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople

Cultures in Dialogue, Second Series

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Series Editors Reina Lewis Teresa Heffernan

Cultures in Dialogue returns to active circulation out of print sources by women writers from the East and the West. Series two focuses on the politics and poetics of western women travelling to the East from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries.

Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople

By

Elizabeth Craven Introduction by Daniel O ' Q u i n n

1 gorgias press 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2010

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ISBN 978-1-60724-087-7

ISSN 1935-6994

Original edition is based on the 1789 Dublin edition.

Printed in the United States of America

CULTURES IN DIALOGUE

SERIES EDITORS: TERESA HEFFERNAN AND REINA LEWIS Cultures in Dialogue returns to active circulation out of print sources by women writers from the East and the West. Tracing crosscultural and intra-cultural exchanges over three centuries, this project brings to light women's engagement with discourses of gender emancipation, imperialism, nationalism, Islam, and modernity. While the figure of Woman—Orientalised and Occidentalised— has been a central and fought over symbol in the construction of an East/West divide, women's own texts have been marginalized. Focusing on dialogue instead of divide, Cultures in Dialogue uses women's varied and contestatory contributions to reconsider the historical tensions between Eastern and Western cultures, offering a nuanced understanding of their current manifestations. SERIES T W O : TRAVELLING EAST

Series two focuses on the politics and poetics of western women travelling to the East from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. If pre-modern travel narratives were largely fabulous tales that drew on classical and biblical sources, by the eighteenthcentury travel literature had gained a reputation for being objective and credible. Equally critical to the new importance and legitimacy granted to travel writing was the expansion of the British Empire. The establishment and repetition of Orientalist stereotypes was, as Edward Said has argued, essential to the consolidation of imperial ideologies, and travel literature, with its new "truth" status, played a key part in circulating information about the East. One of these transhistorical tropes that emerged in the seventeenth century was that of the oppressed and eroticised Muslim woman, a female figure that was and continues to be presented as symptomatic of unv

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civilized cultures. Unavailable to western men who, nevertheless, speculated wildly on what went on behind harem walls, western women's access to this space spawned a complex cross-cultural exchange that in turn produced a distinct literature as it opened up a unique opportunity for social interaction between women on both sides of the East/West divide. One of the first women to travel to the Ottoman Empire and write about it, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu accompanied her husband when he was appointed ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Her letters, published posthumously in 1763, controversially declared Turkish women to be the "only free people in the Empire." Later in the century, Lady Elizabeth Craven, escaping a very public sexual scandal in England that involved a separation from her husband, repeated her famous predecessor's declaration about veiled women's "liberty" which, she declared, rendered them "the happiest creatures breathing." Lady Mary and Lady Craven were well aware of the hypocrisy in the West that allowed men to live openly with their mistresses whereas women accused of adultery often lost their children, their social status, and their wealth—as was the case with Craven. Both women, victims of property laws that rendered them chattel, had suffered the consequences of the social/sexual surveillance of women in "free" Europe; hence, they appreciated the mobility that veiling allowed and envied Muslim's women's right to inherit and control property. Lady Mary and Lady Craven were both elite and exceptional as men's accounts of the Orient continued to dominate in this period. By the nineteenth century, however, the development of the travel industry, a growing market for harem literature, and the increase in women's social mobility helped to produce record numbers of travel narratives. From Emilia Bithynia Hornby, Lady Marconi, who travelled with her husband to Turkey and Greece during the Crimean War on a mission to help educate middle-class women; to Sophia Poole, who travelled with her brother Edward Lane supplementing his "authoritative" account with her own intentionally gendered perspective; to Lucie Duff Gordon, who travelled to Egypt in 1862 for health reasons and died there seven years later, women's narratives about the East were increasingly popular. Poole emphasised that she was writing at her brother's behest, and presents her insights into the lives of elite harems, full of disclaimers about her lack of personal ambition. Journeying before Cook's

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tours to Egypt (1869) greatly increased the numbers travelling for pleasure to the region, Poole was one of the few visitors to elite harems; in contrast, Annie Jane Harvey, who travelled later in the century, reported on the problems of gaining invitations to harems, which were often inundated with Western visitors. Lucie Duff Gordon's immensely popular letters inspired flocks of British tourists to search out the places and people described in them. By the mid nineteenth century, women were also travelling as professionals to work in the East. Emmeline Lott and Ellen Chennels were employed as governesses in Egypt and Constantinople, whilst Florence Nightingale was sent over to manage nursing during the Crimean war. In a period when British women were only just making inroads into art as a professional practice, Mary Walker achieved considerable success as an artist in Istanbul, where she lived for 30 years, gaining commissions to paint portraits for the imperial family and the Ottoman Muslim elite. Her account of the portrait sittings disrupted presumptions of Western superiority: her elite sitters were perfectly aware that they outranked her and were employing her. However, unlike the dependent foreign governesses, she was confident in her independent status as an artist. By the twentieth century, working in an ethnographic vein, Lucy Garnett, Elizabeth Cooper, and Ruth Woodsmall broadened the range of social descriptions to include not only racial but also class diversity. Garnett, for instance, a pioneer in ethnography, carefully classifies national types in her study of Ottoman women. Visiting Cairo as a professional writer, Cooper rented an apartment so that she could invite Egyptian women to her home. Able thus to interact with women of all social classes—in contrast to the much more limited social access of earlier women travellers—Cooper's account of modern Egyptian women in a changing world was augmented with her own photographs. Demonstrating that women were finally now gaining professional recognition and institutional backing, Woodsmall was commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and the American University at Beirut to produce a comparative study of women's changing conditions in Iran, India, Turkey, Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. Woodsmall's range extends beyond the series' focus on Turkey and puts the new Turkish Republic in the context of many newly formed Muslim nations, including successor states of the Ottoman Empire. Her ability to recognize the significance of re-

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gional variations in female emancipation and to historicize locally the varied practices by which Western technologies and social habits were adapted made her an astute observer of regional change. The twentieth century opened up other types of professional opportunities for women travelling in the region. Having launched her career in 1915 with the catchy titled An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem, Grace Ellison shifted her brand into an overtly political register when she returned to Turkey post World War One to produce An Englishwoman in Angora. Making the most of being the first woman to interview Ataturk behind "enemy lines" in the nationalist stronghold in Angora, her political engagement anticipates the writings of Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark, who were engaged overtly in political and diplomatic missions.

INTRODUCTION

In a letter to his friend Horace Mann, dated 16 March 1786, the author and politician Horace Walpole, known now primarily for his Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764) and for his remarkable house at Strawberry Hill, notes that he has been following "the adventures of a certain lady and her cousin Vernon...I comfort myself that I have never dealt with my heroine but in compliments or good advice: but this comes of corresponding with strolling Roxanas." (25:632—3). The "Roxana" in question here is the scandalous Lady Elizabeth Craven and the adventures referred to here would eventually be collected in her travel narrative A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople, which was first published in London in 1789 by Robinsons in a costly quarto edition with six engravings and a "Map of the Roads of Crimea". Walpole's remark offers a useful starting point for an introduction to Craven's text because of the double meaning of Walpole's preferred appellation. To call Lady Craven a "strolling Roxana" compares her not only to the famous wife of the sixteenth-century Sultan Suleiman and thus to a whole host of resilient fantasies regarding Eastern sexuality and Oriental despotism, but also to the eponymous heroine of Daniel Defoe's novel Jkoxana of 1724. Defoe's novel is about the rise and demise of an English courtesan, who, in a famous scene, clinches an affair with the King by donning the costume of a Turkish woman. The masquerade is both heavily eroticized and thematically rich because Defoe deploys Turkish costume to figure Roxana's threat to the cultural and social order of early eighteenth-century Britain. As Laura Brown argues, Roxana is threatening because, like the supposed wife of the sultan, her erotic agency gives her access not only to the sinews of power, but also to a form of financial independence wildly at odds with normative British understandings of femininity and class identity (146—57). As a "Fortunate Mistress"—Defoe's phrase—Roxana develops an entrepreneurial relation to her own virtue that simultaneously provides her with remarkable class mobility and denies her the safety net of reputable friends and relations. ix

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But what are we to make of the fact that for Walpole, Craven was a "strolling Roxana"? At one level, the verb stroll carries the connotation of prostitution, but it also connotes travel. So the question can be refigured as does women's travel, particularly to the East, partake of the social opprobrium reserved for prostitution? This is a vital question because Craven's narrative is at pains to distance itself from the sexual scandals which precipitated her departure from England. We will return to these matters shortly, for there is another way of reading Walpole's remark that merits our attention. From as early as 1778, Lady Craven had been writing and translating plays including Pont de Vile's La somnambule ("The Sleepwalker). Throughout the late 1770s and early 1780s, Lady Craven's plays were performed for the benefit of the local poor at Benham, near the Craven's seat at Newbury, and eventually farces such as The Miniature Picture and The Silver Tankard; or, the Point at Portsmouth were performed at Drury Lane and the Haymarket in 1781. By modifying the phrase "strolling player," Walpole is signaling Lady Craven's deep connection to both private theatricals and to the lower genres of theatre, which would eventually undermine the legitimacy of the Royal Patent Theatres. Throughout the eighteenth-century, the patent theatres had exclusive rights to present comedy and tragedy in London, but a wide range of theatrical practices emerged that challenged this government sponsored monopoly. Strolling players were the lowest members of the theatrical community, moving from town to town to get up shows outside the reach of the censor. As commercial entertainers, they shared a great deal with courtesans and prostitutes, who also threatened, through commercial means, the norms of legitimate sexual exchange which structured British society. Walpole is emphasizing something already nascent in the reference to Defoe's novel, namely that Craven travels through the world behind a series of complex and potentially unsettling personae. Walpole's remark reminds us that the narrator of A Journey both is and isn't Lady Craven, and that much of the complexity of this book lies in the transit from historical personage to a self-styled theatrical citizen of the world. It is at times difficult to imagine a more fascinating character. Elizabeth Craven was born on 17 December 1750, the youngest daughter of the fourth Earl of Berkeley. Seventeen years later she was married to William Craven, who would become Baron Craven

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in 1769. Monogamy was not their strong suit. They had six children and numerous affairs. What is interesting is that these infidelities were in no way discreet. In 1773, Lady Craven conducted a remarkably public affair with the Due de Guiñes. He was the French ambassador to London and the affair was sensationalized in the Town and Country Magazine (Mayl773) 5: 246. George Romney, competing with Sir Joshua Reynolds for the most fashionable sitters, was fully aware of Lady Craven's notoriety and her beauty when he painted her portrait in 1778. It was also during this period that she developed literary relationships with Horace Walpole, Samuel Johnson, and James Boswell. In 1783, Baron Craven formally separated from his wife by settling £1500 per annum on her. She left England with her youngest son to reside near Versailles. Like Defoe's Roxana, her departure and her husband's subsequent actions against her meant that she was permanently alienated from her other children. For his part, the Baron faced no such scrutiny or disgrace. He had a public mistress, a Mrs. Byrne, who figures quite prominently in the Journey's dedication: Beside curiosity, my friends will in these Letters see at least for some time where the real Lady Craven has been, and where she is to be found—it having been the practice for some years past, for a Birmingham coin of myself to pass in most of the inns of France, Switzerland, and England, for the wife of my husband. My arms and coronet sometimes supporting, in some measure this insolent deception; by which, probably, I may have been seen to behave very improperly. (4—5)

With this gesture, Lady Craven sets her text up as defense against what she calls "a treason to my birth and character" perpetrated by her husband and his mistress. Despite this retroactive gambit to restore her relative virtue, Lady Craven lived in France, like many other men and women of fashion, as a sexual expatriate. Forced to leave England because of sexual indiscretions, these aristocrats had the financial wherewithal to circulate in European society without the social barriers imposed by strict codes of reputation and honor, but they were often permanently separated from their relations. Among these scandalous figures were important collectors of antiquities such as Sir Richard Worsley, who fled England in 1783 after it was revealed that he enabled the numerous adulterous af-

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fairs of his wife. He was traveling through Greece, Turkey, and the Crimea at the same time as Craven and she arranged for part of his transit to the Crimea (282). Already socially suspect, these men and women were heavily scrutinized in the London press for their cosmopolitan social ties. While living near Versailles, Craven became part of the social circles at court, wrote plays for the court theatre, and appears to have captivated a number of men including Henry Vernon, the rather un-notable fashionable lover who accompanies her on her travels to Russia and Constantinople, and Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-AnsbachBayreuth, to whom A. Journey is dedicated and who would eventually become her husband. The Margravate encompassed two Franconian principalities which were sold to Prussia in 1791 shortly after his marriage to Lady Craven; thus when he retired to Britain with Lady Craven, he was one of many Germanic nobles with relations in the British court who had exchanged their titles for an annual stipend. The situation of these two men both in Craven's life and in her travel narrative is intriguing. The journey recorded by Craven's narrative is very much an erotic adventure: between 1783 and 1786 she traveled in Vernon's company, but his presence—and the sexual liaison it implies—is all but erased in the text. He is referred to near the end of the narrative, but reference was probably not that necessary when the book was published in 1789. As Katherine Turner argues, "By March 1786 Lady Craven's affair with Vernon had become public knowledge in London and Lord Craven had successfully discouraged her children from writing to her." Furthermore, many readers in London would have known that by March 1787 Lady Craven, like Roxana in Defoe's novel, had moved up the social ladder and was openly living with the Margrave of Anspach in spite of the fact that the invalid Margravine was still alive. Shortly after the publication of the Journeys in 1789, the mainstream monthly, The Gentleman's Magazine, with the benefit of hindsight drew attention to Craven's dedication to the Margrave in order to insinuate that her "tender character of a brother*' didn't quite capture the true nature of this relationship (1789:237). For readers aware of this sexual itinerary, Journey's very public dedication to the Margrave and its suppression of Vernon reads as a progress of vice in which every new relationship involves the reinvention of the courtesan. As in Roxana, that re-invention is inter-

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esting because it also reconfigures the social dynamics which surround her self-representation, and in this case that has significant political ramifications. It is important to remember that Lady Craven goes to France just as the Treaty of Paris and the Treaties of Versailles were bringing the American war to a close. From 1778 to 1783, France had been allied with the American colonists against Britain and thus Lady Craven's history of affection for French officials and her life at court in Versailles immediately after the war meant that her patriotism was easily impugned. The transit from 1784—the time of her journey—to 1789—the date of publication—follows a trajectory from social suspicion to increasingly normative class affiliation for Lady Craven. This is important because significant portions of Journey are devoted to reconstituting Lady Craven's political affiliation with Britain. Her extended homage to George Eliott, the British Governor of Gibraltar who heroically withstood a three and a half year siege by the French and Spanish forces, and her satire of French tactical errors in the final phases of that conflict are the most obvious examples of this strategy (60—72), but there are more subtle negotiations with the question of Anglo-French relations throughout the book. Lady Craven's access to foreign courts is generally managed through her French connections, and she directs a great deal of attention towards her various French hosts. This is especially acute during her stay in Constantinople where she is the guest of the French Ambassador, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, a prominent antiquarian and a member of the Académie française. The text satirically indicates that her stay at the Palais de France was controversial and it is important that we think through why she does not stay with the British envoy, Sir Robert Ainslie (282). As Craven notes, Choiseul-Gouffier was studiously composing picturesque prospects of Greece as part of an overall project of restoring ancient Greece to its former glory, by freeing modern Greece—at least phantasmatically—from Ottoman rule. Lady Craven's celebration of the philhellenic activities of the Ambassador and of his immediate social circle in Constantinople is part of an important aestheticization of political relations which consistently misrecognizes the contemporary Mediterranean world in terms of the classical past. What she does not indicate is that, like Lord Elgin some years later, de Choiseul-Gouffier secured a firman from the Ottoman Porte that

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enabled him to remove valuable antiquities from the Parthenon and Attica, which would eventually make their way to the Louvre. In other words, de Choiseul-Gouffier's philhellenism both relies on and yet critiques Turkish control of the region. A similar duplicity applies to Choiseul-Gouffier's diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Porte. A Journey does not discuss the diplomatic activities of Lady Craven's host, but they serve as an important backdrop to much of text's subtle engagement with matters of foreign policy. From the end of the American war in 1783 to the arrival of Lady Craven in Pera in the spring of 1786, Britain was in a condition of relative diplomatic isolation. With the loss of the American colonies, protecting Britain's holdings in India from incursions by the French and the Dutch became of paramount importance. As Jeremy Black observes, At the same time as Britain was vying with the Franco-Dutch alliance for dominance over the maritime route to India, Russia and France, though from different directions and only episodically and very loosely in cooperation, were apparently becoming more influential over the overland route. (49—50)

From 1781, Catherine the Great was in control of the trade passing through the Caspian Sea to Bukhara and on the way to India. By 1783, she had annexed the Crimea from the Turks and thus was on the verge of control of the Black Sea. British officials were extremely concerned by the opportunity that this raised for both Russia and France. France had historically opposed Russian incursions on the Ottoman empire, but in 1783, none other than de ChoiseulGouffier argued in a memorandum that France should expand her influence in the Levant by increasing her trade there. He argued that it would be possible both to preserve the Turkish Empire and to develop trade with Russia via the Black Sea. In August 1784 Louis XVI wrote to the Sultan seeking admission to the Black Sea for ships flying the French flag; Choiseul-Gouffier had been give instructions to the same end on 2 June. The Turks refused, but Marseilles ships flying the flag of Russia were acceptable. In 1785 a French trading company was established at Kherson, at the mouth of the Dnieper. (Black 51)

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This period in which France mediated between the Ottoman Porte and Russia came to an end with the onset of explicit hostilities between the two empires in 1787, but for the entire period of Craven's journey, the diplomatic actions of her primary host in Constantinople were of grave concern to the ministry of William Pitt and to George III. Thus when she discusses her audience with Catherine II at the Hermitage, or describes a visit to Potemkin's palace outside Kherson, it is important to recognize that she is conversing with political figures widely understood to pose a threat to British imperial interests. The political complexity of her text becomes extremely acute in passages such as the following: Cherson [Kherson] may in time become a very beautiful town, and furnish the borders of the Botisthenes with examples of commerce; that inestimable and only real source of greatness to an empire; I am not soldier enough to know what fault there was in the fortifications, so that they are intirely to be done anew—but by the active and studious spirit of Korsakof, I have no doubt that they will be executed in a masterly manner— I can conceive nothing so pleasant to a young soldier, as to be employed in places where his talents must create the defence and stability of newly acquired possessions; (210—11)

Is this an expression of envy? Or is it a warning about the substantial French and Russian gains in this strategically vital area? It is remarkable that Craven doesn't indicate that the commercial activity described here is that of a French trading company working in concert with the Russian military. When she explicitly registers her wish "to see a colony of honest English families here; establishing manufactures,.. .establishing a fair and free trade from hence, and teaching industry and honesty to the insidious and oppressed Greeks, waking the indolent Turk from his gilded slumbers," she emphasizes that she does not wish to see the expansion of British mercantile interests in the region to come at a cost to French policy and trade (249). Rather her economic commitment to free trade subsumes British mercantilism in a cosmopolitan fantasy "which considers all mankind as one family, and, looking upon them as such, wishes them to be united for the common good; excluding from nations all selfish and monopolizing views" (249).

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Larry Wolff reminds us that for many of Lady Craven's readers her journey was a precursor of sorts to the widely reported journey of Catherine the Great from Petersburg to the Crimea in 1787 (123). Craven actually takes advantage of the preparations for Catherine's triumphal procession to the Crimea by staying in many of the accommodations being prepared for the empress. This raises an important parallel between the two women that needs to be explored. During this period, Catherine was exerting increasing amounts of pressure on the hinterlands of the Ottoman empire. In the period following Russia's incursion of the Crimea in the 1770's, Catherine secretly negotiated with Austria an alliance with the aim of eliminating the Ottomans from Europe altogether. This vast plan neatly divided the Ottoman territories such that Russia would control Turkey, Thrace, Bulgaria and Northern Greece in what amounted to a renovated Byzantine empire. Austria for its part would lay claim to Serbia, Bosnia, Herzogovina, and Dalmatia. The plan also involved the active participation of Venice, who would control Crete and Cypress, and France, who would gain Syria and Egypt. The implications of the latter annexation would be catastrophic to British trading interests in the Levant. France's extraordinary potential gains were a direct result of a progressive abandonment of its traditional Ottoman allies in the region following Louis XVI's marriage to Marie Antoinette and its resulting intensification of the Franco-Austrian alliance. Hence the British government found itself in the unfamiliar role of protector of the Ottomans and was on the verge of declaring an ill-advised war against Russia all through the spring and summer of 1791. Lady Craven's text was published prior to the Ochakov crisis of 1791, but it is interesting to consider how many of her desires mirror those of Catherine. Her journey through the Crimea is full of the language of colonization, only Craven's "possession" of these spaces is aesthetic. Similarly, Catherine's so-called "Greek Plan" has its counterpart in Craven's aesthetic desire to restore the Hellenic world from Turkish rule. What is remarkable is that Craven's aesthetic translation of Catherine's political actions and aspirations is brokered by an alliance with France that looks very much like the kind of commercial and diplomatic relation desired by British officials all through this period. This leads one to wonder whether the parallel is established either to demonstrate an opening for Britain in this region or to highlight the real benefits of a com-

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mercial/political alliance with Russia. In other words, Craven seems to establishing a desire for substitution whereby Britain supplants France and joins Russia and Austria in the partitioning of the Ottoman empire. This brings Craven's text in line with the generally francophobic approach to foreign affairs, but intriguingly it does so by aspiring to the position and accomplishments of someone like the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier. French mediation between Turkey and Russia was shattered by war between the two powers in 1787, which seriously challenged the balance of power both in the region and among the various allies in continental Europe. Thus readers picking up Craven's text in 1789 may well have expected an elucidation of this volatile historical and political moment. But, as many reviewers noted at the time, A Journey does not seem to offer much in the way of useful knowledge regarding the Crimea, Russia, or Constantinople. 1 Joseph Johnson's radical monthly The Analytical

Review is particularly

telling on this point: In the slight remarks she makes, we have not observed much discrimination, and reflections are very thinly scattered. It has been said by a periodical writer, "that people, in a certain rank, carry an atmosphere with them wherever they go." Vanity, and many other causes, produce also a thick mist, through which objects are seldom seen as they really are; all in the same light. At the different courts Lady Craven visits, she converses with polite princes; but the reader cannot gather any information with respect to their characters as men, or catch a glimpse of a prominent feature to them again in another company. (3: 177— 8)

This notion of a traveling atmosphere or mist which distorts Lady Craven's view offers a useful way of theorizing her representation of foreign spaces and peoples. The reviewer here ties this distortion

Readers interested in the politics of the region would have had to turn to Baron François de Tott's Memoirs of Baron de Tott. Containing the state of the Turkish Umpire and the Crimea, during the late war with Russia. With numerous anecdotes, ... London, 1785, or William Coxe's Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Interspersed with historical relations and political inquiries. ... London, 1790. 1

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to Lady Craven's rank, thus implying that the very aristocratic qualities which grant her access to the cosmopolitan world prevent her from seeing it as anything other than a reflection of herself. Thus the narrative is limited both in its purview—it rarely goes beyond her subjective aesthetic responses to her surroundings— and in its relation to preexisting ways of seeing social relations. That she should be amenable to both de Choiseul-Gouffier's erasure of present-day Greece and Turkey in favor of a warmed over fantasy of classical liberty and Catherine's desire to establish a second Byzantine empire is a sign of the importance of this aestheticization to the consolidation of rank. These aestheticizations of the east are deeply entwined with fantasies of aristocratic election which cross conventional boundaries of nationality. That Craven's narrative is published at the time of French revolution is extraordinarily important because these historical events bring her and the Ambassador together on political as well as aesthetic grounds. They are both part of the ancien regime which would be celebrated by Burke in the Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). As Horace Walpole indicates in his private repudiation of A Journey, Lady Craven's reputation would never be fully repaired, but her affiliation with the ancien regime allowed for a somewhat counter-intuitive refiguration from sexual expatriate to political refugee (34:36—7). And the very signs which rendered her suspect in 1783—her vanity, her francophilia, her commitment to fashion and the beau monde—became the marks of her aristocratic bearing in the early 1790s. However, the radical reviewer for The Analytical Review subtly registers the obsolescence of this fantasy of superior rank by indicating that Craven fails to fully recognize the gravity of the scenes she encounters. Although it is unverifiable, the possibility that this review was written by Mary Wollstonecraft, who regularly contributed to Johnson's publication, is intriguing for it resonates with many of Wollstonecraft's critiques of aristocratic demeanor in both A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). At play here is a long-standing critique of fashion and luxury that became highly acute in the 1780s. For readers of Craven's A Journey, this has wide-reaching implications. Her representation of Ottoman culture is very much a function of her class privilege, and although we can discern typical forms of ethnocentrism throughout the text, philhellenism provides an important key

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to her descriptions of Turkish and Greek society. Importantly, that philhellenic stance is established well-before she arrives in Constantinople in the narration of her visit to the Tribuna in the Uffizi palace in Florence. This famous octagonal room contained the Venus De Medici, widely considered to be one of the finest antiquities on the Grand Tour, and Lady Craven provides two descriptions of her reaction to this work. 2 Her first remark isolates a set of general responses to the entire room: I hope you do not expect a very rational letter from me, as I have been three days successively to see the statues and pictures, and am so much delighted with them, that I am at a loss how to give an account of my feelings, otherwise than by telling you, that while I am in the Tribune, the vulgar idle tale of real life never once comes into my mind, and I feel quite happy; and if till now I have been sorry often, which I have felt conscious of having nice feelings, or what is commonly called taste, at this moment I am extremely glad of it; I think and dream of nothing but the statues, from the time I leave them till I see them again (106)

This sense of the Tribuna as site of temporal suspension where the subject blessed with taste withdraws into a more perfect realm is reinforced in the second passage: in the humour I am in, I could almost be tempted to remain a prisoner for life, upon condition my cachot was the Tribune; and I would ask for no other company than the heavenly inanimate figures in it, their silence is so much more eloquent than language, their forms so harmonious. I think you begin not to undestand me, and as I am not at all certain, if your ear and your eye agree together, as mine do, I will not attempt to explain what may be felt, but not described; (110)

Lady Craven's resistance to this temptation to retire to a harmonious realm beyond the reach of linguistic description comes from a memory of her children set off by a resemblance of a nearby Apollo to her son William. In other words, her encomium to the

2

See Hale for related English responses to the Venus de' Medici.

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power of art is trumped by her profession of maternal feeling. 3 One could argue that the Venus de Medici itself provides an useful heuristic device because eighteenth-century viewers saw the sculpture's pose as simultaneously chaste and revealing, thus providing a crucial template for much female portraiture in the period. George Romney's famous portrait of Lady Craven from 1778 replicates the sideways glance of the Venus and thus at least part of her pleasure in the room has to do with a dreamlike condensation of her own beauty with this iconic rendering of classical beauty that quite literally ruptures the temporal continuum. This involution of aesthetic rapture and the self-vindication of her character condenses the primary rhetorical strategies of the text into one symptomatic whole, and it is from here that we can understand her critique of Ottoman culture. Readers of A Journey would have recognized its divergence from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's celebrated Turkish embassy letters, which deployed Turkish society to generate a scathing critique of Augustan social and sexual ideology. Montagu's letters were based on her travels in Turkey in 1717, but it was not until 1763 that they were published as letters of the Right Honourable Lady M y W y M e: written, during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa. Her text went through numerous editions and was widely discussed in the ensuing years. As Katherine S. H. Turner argues, "both writers commend the respect and apparent liberty granted to Turkish women, but Montagu's account of their grace and beauty is vigorously contradicted by Craven" (119). As we will see, the question of female beauty is anything but a trivial matter in A Journey. In a provocative gesture, Craven both parodies and openly disparages Lady Mary's letters as fraudulent (105). This provocation prompted censure from all of the reviewers, but perhaps the most salient issue here is the degree to which all extant readings of Craven's text, and indeed its composition, are colored by prior knowledge of Montagu's letters. This is symptomatically disclosed in a letter sent from Walpole to Craven on 2 January 1787 when she was preparing A Journey. 3 Craven's subtle negotiation with the problem of virtue and pleasure resonates with Barrell's analysis of how the Venus confounded notions of masculine public virtue in the period. See 63—87.

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I am sorry to hear, Madam, that by your account Lady Mary Wortley was not so accurate and faithful as modern travelers. The invaluable art of inoculation, which she brought from Constantinople, so dear to all admirers of beauty, and to which we owe perhaps the preservation of yours, stamps her an universal benefactress; and as you rival her in poetic talents, I had rather you would employ them to celebrate her for her nostrum, than detect her for romancing. However, genuine accounts of the interior of seraglios would be precious; and I was in hopes would become the greater rarities, as I flattered myself that your friends the Empress of Russia and Emperor were determined to level Ottoman tyranny. His Imperial Majesty [Joseph II, the Holy Roman Emperor], who has demolished the prison bars of so many nunneries, would perform a still more Christian act in setting free so many useless sultanas; and her Czarish Majesty, I trust, would be as great a benefactress to our sex, by abolishing the barbarous practice that reduces us to be of none. Your Ladyship's peregrinations should have such great objects in view, when you have the ear of sovereigns every fair Circassian would acknowledge that one English lady had repaid their country for the secret which another had given to Europe from their practice. (42:183—4)

The primary point of contention between Craven and Montagu pertains specifically to the beauty of Turkish women. Beyond its labored jokes on the liberation of women from the Sultan's harem, Walpole's response to Craven's harsh reproval of Montagu's assessment of Turkish beauty amounts to an apology for Lady Mary on the grounds that her importation of the practice of inoculation from Turkey preserved the beauty not only of the British fair, but also of Craven herself from the scourge of smallpox. This apology opens onto a rather strange quid pro quo of feminine preservation where the debt incurred by Montagu for the beauty-preserving practice of smallpox vaccination is repaid by Craven's incitement of Catherine and Joseph to "liberate" the harem. In what is admittedly a joking letter, Walpole brings the question of female beauty into direct relation to questions of state, and in this he is merely making explicit something that was nascent in Montagu's letters and would figure quite prominently in Craven's text.

xxii JOURNAL THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE

Like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Craven is fascinated by the harem and the hammam, but her account of Constantinople is fully framed by a detailed vindication of the taste of M. de Choiseul-Gouffier and the circle of artists living under his roof. 4 The first thing she relates upon her arrival in Constantinople is the convening of an impromptu academy in her room (266). The intimacy of this scene of classical appreciation should give us pause, because it is a rehearsal of the erotic economy which was introduced in the Tribuna passages. In this space, among these men, Lady Craven asserts a very specific kind of aesthetic agency that animates her attack on the Sublime Porte for its failure to recognize the value of the Greek antiquities it owns. That attack is most explicitly articulated in Letter LV where Craven describes the disappointment felt by her and her French companions when their attempts to convey statuary from the Parthenon to M. de ChoiseulGouffier are foiled by a Turkish official. As important as the explicit declaration that the Turks "have really not the smallest idea of the value of the treasures they possess, and destroy them wantonly on every occasion" (334) is her scornful narration of her interview with the Governor's daughters and wife on the next page. She portrays the Turks as both superstitious and subject to bodily decay. The former quality is a confirmation of her general belief in Turkish ignorance, but the latter is part of a larger construct which ties back into the veneration of classical—and by extension, her own— beauty. Unlike Lady Mary, whose letters return again and again to the beauty of the women she encounters in the bath and the harem, Lady Craven finds Turkish women physically repulsive. Her visit to the Acropolis is immediately followed by a visit to the local bath and I think it is important to think of them in similar terms. Just as her account of the decaying and destroyed statuary of the Acropolis is framed by architectural prospects, so too is her description of the women in the Bath framed by an architectural threshold: The Consul's wife, Madame Gaspati, and I went into a room which precedes the Bath, which room is the place where the

See Turner 1999 for a detailed reading of the relationship between Montagu's and Craven's texts. 4

INTRODUCTION TO THE REPRINT

xxiii

women dress, and undress, sitting like tailors upon boards— there were above fifty; some having their hair washed, others dyed, or plaited; some were at the last part of their toilet, putting with a fine gold pin the black dye into their eyelids; in short, I saw her Turkish and Greek nature, through every degree of concealment, in her primitive state—for the women sitting in the inner room were absolutely so many Eves—and as they came out their flesh looked boiled—These Baths are the great amusement of the women, they stay generally five hours in them; that is in the water and at their toilet together— but I think I never saw so many fat women at once together, nor fat ones so fat as these....We had very pressing solicitations to undress and bathe, but such a disgusting sight as this would have put me in an ill humour with my sex in a bath for ages. Few of these women had fair skins or fine forms—hardly any—and Madame Gaspari tells me, that the encomiums and flattery a fine woman would meet with in these baths, would be astonishing—I stood some time in the door-way between the dressing-room and the Bath, which last was circular, with niches in it for the bathers to sit in; it was a very fine room with a stone dome—and the light came through small windows at the top—(341-3)

In a passage specifically designed to counter Montagu's famous hammam letter, in which she too is pressed to liberate herself from her corset and regretfully states that she must join her husband "to see the ruins of Justinian's church, which did not afford me so agreeable a prospect as I had left, being little more than a heap of stones," Lady Craven not only undermines the desirability of the women around her, but also keeps her readers' attention focused on the beauty of the Roman building which surrounds the scene (1:164). But this rhetorical manoeuvre is not without its ambivalence, for she lingers in the doorway between the present world of social and potentially erotic engagement and her fantasy of the classical past. It is here that the specific terms of her derogation of the women are so crucial. The fatness of the women is overdetermined and this passage, like an earlier one, links the women's ostensible corpulence to their posture. This posture is tellingly compared to that of a tailor laboring on the ground (295), and thus

xxiv JOURNAL THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE

fatness a n d labor conjoin to f o r m a kind of class-based revulsion. T h e s e w o m e n are decaying b e f o r e L a d y C r a v e n ' s eyes, a n d the sign of their decay, fatness, is a f u n c t i o n of their lassitude. In other w o r d s , these w o m e n h a v e b e e n destroyed b y the cultural a n d social n o r m s of the O t t o m a n s . A s she states, till some one, more wise than the rest, finds out the premature decay of that invaluable gift, beauty, and sets and example to the rising generation of a different mode of life, they will always fade as the roses they are so justly fond of— (296) J u d g i n g T u r k i s h society according to the n o r m s of fashion, L a d y C r a v e n takes the signs of bodily c o m p o r t m e n t to be indicators of character. Importantly, she underlines that fatness is a result of a w a y of being. O n c e that w a y of b e i n g is eradicated, a rather different care of the self can b e inculcated to restore f e m i n i n e b e a u t y to its classical state. T h i s is w h y the a c c o u n t of the B a t h is p r e c e d e d b y a rather different description of a visit to t w o G r e e k brides shortly after C r a v e n ' s arrival at de C h o i s e u l - G o u f f i e r ' s h o u s e h o l d : Their custom is to receive every body who has any curiosity to see their wedding clothes. These were very magnificent, and the women pretty; and looked prettier from a singular contrast in the turn of their features. One had a true Greek face, her head small, her nose straight, large blue eyes, with dark or rather black eyelids and hair, and her eyebrows straight; her neck long and round, her person rather inclining to lean than fat; a soft and sad countenance. The other was fattish; had black lively eyes, with a cheerful laughing countenance, her blood seemed to ebb and flow with more vivacity than her sister's-in-law. Her mouth, rather large, shewed a fine set of teeth, while the one with a smaller mouth and prettier teeth, seemed as unwilling to shew them, or light up her fine features with smiles, as the black-eyed bride was ready to laugh upon every or no occasion. They had both very little red on, and the pallid skin of the delicate Greek was perfectly suited to the form of the one—the other blushed often. They might have served for good models for the Tragic and Comic Muse. I would Sir Joshua had been at my elbow, his compositions are fine enough to satisfy a youthful poet's imagination, but here his

INTRODUCTION TO THE REPRINT

XXV

pencil might not have disdained to copy two such charming originals. (306) Again this fawning invocation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the premier portraitist of London's beau monde, is meant to counter Montagu's gently satirical incorporation of Charles Jervas, principal portrait painter to George I, into her earlier text (1:162). But the crucial thing here is that these women are understood to be the living embodiment of Melpomene and Thalia, the muses of tragedy and comedy. They are valuable as signs of the classical past and as indicators of the pernicious effects of Ottoman occupation. The story of women corrupted by Ottoman practices is an allegory for the destruction of a feminized Greek cultural heritage by hyper-phallic Ottoman occupation. Craven emphasizes that the destruction of the Acropolis occurs because the Turks use the site as a military encampment and munitions dump. In other words, like much of the discourse on Eastern despotism, the corruption of gender and politics allegorize one another. In this light, philhellenism amounts not only to a desire to figure the classical past as a mirror for a rapidly receding fantasy of aristocratic nobility, but also to a simultaneous desire to figure forth that fantasy in the aesthetic recuperation of ruins, whether those ruins are made of stone or flesh. It is in this sense that we need to see Lady Craven's manipulation of her persona as a similar attempt to recuperate her ruined character. Like de Choiseul-Gouffier and his associates' attempt to re-constitute the classical past through art, or Catherine's attempt to re-invent Byzantium through force and diplomacy, Lady Craven's narrative explicitly attempts to re-constitute her nobility. Within the terms set by the allegory, the despotism of the Ottoman Porte is comparable to the tyranny of her husband. But this allegorical connection is not based on comparable forms of power or governmentality, but rather on a shared inability to assess true value. The Turks fail to value the art of classical Greece and Lord Craven fails to value his beautiful wife when he opts instead for a counterfeit "Birmingham coin" (5). Bringing together the geopolitical and the domestic in this way under the strained notion of aesthetic taste renders the Journey a very unsettling self-justification. At one level, we could argue that through these means Craven is shoring up her own persona with fantasies of racial and class supremacy, but there is another more disturbing implication. What hap-

xxvi JOURNAL THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE

pens if we see the self-justification as something not solely confined to Craven herself, but rather extended to British national and imperial fantasy? In the period following the American war, many of the key components of British patriotic identity were themselves in ruins. Recent writings on aristocratic masculinity and on the representation of elite sociability in the post-war era have argued that the humiliation of the loss of the American colonies generated a host of compensatory fantasies of national election and a full-scale re-evaluation of the aristocracy's role in both domestic and foreign policy. In this light, could we argue that the "mist" which seems to surround Craven's account of her travels amounts to a symptomatic obfuscation that is part of a larger cultural project to put the American debacle in abeyance? There are strong incentives to read the text in this way. First, it helps to establish a logic linking seemingly disparate historical circumstances as the siege of Gibraltar, the Grand Tour, the Russian occupation of the Crimea, the philhellenic activities of Craven's associates, the Ottoman colonization of Greece, and the everyday details of travel. Throughout the text, Craven brings the reader to the verge of serious political or social commentary, but then suspends the analysis either by following a digression or by simply allowing her letters to dissipate into line after line of ellipses. This tendency was marked in all of the reviews, but nowhere more cogently than in The Critical Revieiv. This journey, with all the advantages which female elegance and rank command, must have been the most delightful gratification to the philosopher, the antiquary, and the politician. Lady Craven amuses us by the ease of her narrative, and the minute circumstances, which would probably have been overlooked by either of those characters. But we are amused only: she travelled as lady Craven, and she saw objects from a female view. The observations are, in a few places, trifling, and the new facts are not always considerable or important; while the language sinking into familiar ease, is sometimes colloquial and inelegant.... (67: 282)

Here the reviewer is signaling that the trajectory of this journey could open onto matters of great seriousness, but the reader only senses them on the periphery of the text, because Lady Craven's attention is taken up with matters ostensibly only of interest to

INTRODUCTION TO THE REPRINT

xxvii

women of fashion. But the fact that the reviewer can discern the larger implications means that they are nonetheless present. So what we are faced with is—to borrow a term from painting—a figure and ground problem. If we ignore the central figure—i.e. Lady Craven's immediate subjective responses—and attend to the background figures—i.e. Henry Vernon, the Margrave of Anspach, M. de Choiseul-Gouffier—then there suddenly emerges an entire cadre of cosmopolitan men invested in styles of social and sexual exchange forged in the courts of continental Europe in the period before the Seven Years War. The styles of nobility were precisely those embraced by the officers and politicians who led Britain to imperial splendor in 1759; who oversaw the disintegration of the Atlantic imperium in the 1770s and early 1780s; and who were now engaged in a complex re-configuration of empire in the Levant and in the Indian ocean. As Horace Walpole's response to the publication of A Journey demonstrates all too painfully, Lady Craven affiliates herself with these figures in more or less scandalous ways such that the entire assemblage of social relations and cultural affiliations returns to Britain in an unsettling form to quite literally encapsulate much of what the middling orders, not to mention more radical constituencies, saw was defective or obsolete in aristocratic subjectivity. Perhaps this is why Walpole is so uncomfortable with the text, because it comes perilously close to anatomizing what is wrong with the upper orders at a moment when the Ministry, and most notably Edmund Burke, were about to embark on a full scale encomium to the gentry of a bygone era. As he states in a letter to Lady Ossory, Lady Craven's Travels I received from Robson two hours ago. Dodsley brought the MS. to me before I came to town, but I positively refused to open it, though he told me my name was mentioned in it several times; but I was conscious how grievous it would be to her family and poor daughters, and therefore persisted in having nothing to do with it. In own I have impatiently cut the leaves in search of my own name, and am delighted on finding it there but thrice, and only by the initial letter. When I have the honour of seeing your Ladyship, I can tell you many collateral circumstances; but I will not put them on paper. I fear she may come to wish, or should, that she had not been born with a propensity for writing. (34:36—7)

x x v i i i j O URN AL THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE

Walpole's desire to distance himself from Craven, in spite of the fact that he encouraged the publication of A Journey, is a sign of how sensitive matters of aristocratic dissipation had become. In censoring his own letter, Walpole effectively screens himself from guilt by association, but in other letters written directly to Craven he encourages her to publish^! Journey (42:181—4). As Feliz Turhan has perceptively argued, Walpole's ambivalence can be directly related to his rank (43), but Walpole's discreet duplicity is not that distant from Charles Pigott's vociferous attack on Craven in The Jockey Club of 1792. Pigott was an ardent radical and his text is a scurrilous attack on aristocratic luxury. Thus he quickly overlooks Craven's disparaging remarks on Ottoman culture and her explicitly nationalist praise of the British navy in order to attack her preference of the Due de Guiñes over her "plain downright British husband" and her scandalous liason with Henry Vernon on her journey (159—60). Pigott's critique, although coming from a different place than Burke's nostalgia and Walpole's ambivalence, is similarly committed to putting the dissipation and immorality of the upper orders in permanent abeyance. In Pigott, Lady Craven is used as one of many examples of what must be gotten rid of in order for Britain to reform its political and social institutions. What is important to note here is that despite a heavy cultural investment in re-activating the nobility of the ancien regime as exemplars of moral and political stability on the one hand or shaming the cultural elites as the source of all that was wrong with British society, the management and resolution of the political problems facing Britain's eastern empire was very much in the hands of the middling orders. Craven herself recognizes this when she dreams of a colony of honest English merchants in the Crimea (249). Advent of war with France on the continent resulted in two important developments in Egypt and India respectively which would render many of the geopolitical implications of Craven's text irrelevant. The first was Nelson's epochal victory over the French at Abu Qir and the successful repulsion of the French at Acre. And the second was the defeat of Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1799. These two related events effectively ended the French threat to British imperial holdings in India and inaugurated a new set of diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Porte that would render Lady Craven's text somewhat obsolete.

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Similarly, Lady Craven's social career following the publication of A Journey seems locked in an earlier era. After marrying the Margrave of Anspach almost immediately after the death of the first Margravine in 1791, the couple established Brandenburg House at Fulham as a site of fashionable recreation. As Katherine Turner notes, the new Margravine's social success was achieved "despite influential disapproval" from George III and prominent ladies of fashion. Her passion for private theatricals was re-engaged and she was again painted by Romney. 5 This style of aristocratic life was propagated in the country as well after the Margrave purchased the Berkshire seat of the Cravens in 1799. Upon the Margrave's death in 1807, the Margravine inherited £150,000 and returned to Europe to eventually settle at Naples and build "Villa Craven." A second expanded edition of A Journey was published 1814. In a gesture reminiscent of Walpole's comparison of Craven and Defoe's Roxana, Craven published her Memoirs in 1826, two years prior to her death, unapologetically describing her transit through the world of fashion and scandal. Like Roxana, she was painfully separated from the children of her first marriage; but unlike Defoe's heroine, Craven did not end her story with remorse, but rather in a defiant declaration of personal and financial autonomy. Daniel O'Quinn School of English and Theatre Studies University of Guelph

WORKS CITED

Anon. Rev. of A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople by Lady Craven The Analytical "Review 3 (1789):176—83. Anon. Rev. of A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople by Lady Craven Critical Review 67 (1789): 281-7.

5 For an intriguing example of Craven's theatrical practice in this period see John Frances china's on-line edition of Craven's 1799 play The Georgian Princess. The play has obvious resonances with A Journey and Franceschina's introduction includes an engraving of Brandenburg House.

x x x JOURNAL THROUGH THE CRIMEA TO CONSTANTINOPLE

Anon. Rev. of A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople by Lady Craven The Gentleman's Magazine 59 (March 1789):237—9. Anon. "Tete a Tete" Town and Country Magazine 5 (May 1773):245— 7. Barrell, John. The Birth of Pandora and the Division of Knowledge. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992. Black, Jeremy. British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783— 1793. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Brown, Laura. Ends of Umpire: Women and Ideology in Early EighteenthCentuty English Uterature. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. Coxe, William. Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Interspersed with historical relations and political inquiries. London, 1790. Craven, Lady Elizabeth. A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople. London: Robinson's, 1789. . Tetters from the Right Honorable Tadj Craven, to his serene highness the margrave of Anspach, during her travels through Trance, Germany, and Russia in 1785 and 1786. London: 1814. . Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach. Written bj Herself. 2 vols. London: Henry Col, 1826. Franceschina, John. ed. Elizabeth Craven The Georgian Princess. British Women Playwrights around 1800. http://www.etang. umontreal.ca/bwpl800/plays/craven_georgian/index.html Hale, J. R. "Art and Audience: The 'Medici Venus' c. 1750-cl850," Italian Studies 31 (1976). Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. Tetters of the Right Honourable Tadj M y W y M e: written, during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, to persons of distinction, men of.... 3 Vol. London: T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt, 1763. Pigott, Charles. The Jockey Club; or a Sketch of the Manners of the Age. Part the third. 2nd ed. London, 1792. de Tott, Baron François. Memoirs of Baron de Tott. Containing the state of the Turkish Empire and the Crimea, during the late war with Rjissia. With numerous anecdotes, ... London, 1785. Turhan, Feliz. The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire. New York: Routledge, 2003. Turner, Katherine S. H. "From Classical to Imperial: Changing Visions of Turkey in the Eighteenth Century" in Steve Clark, Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit. London: Zed Books, 1999,113-28.

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. "Lady Elizabeth Craven," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Walpole, Horace. The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence. Ed. W. S. Lewis. 48 vols. N e w Haven: Yale UP, 1937-83. Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilisation on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994.

A

J O U R N E Y T H R O U G H

T H E

C R I M E A T

O

CONSTANTINOPLE. I

A SERIES

N

OF

LETTERS

FROM THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ELIZABETH LADY TO H I S S E R E N E

CRAVEN,

HIGHNESS

THE MARGRAVE OF BRANDEBOURG, ANSPACH, AND BAREITH. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR M DCCLXXXVI.

D

U

B

L

I

N

:

PRINTED FOR H. CHAMBERLAINK, R. W . COLLES, G. BURNET, W . W I L S O N ,

MONCRIEFFE, L. WHITE,

X\ B Y R N E , P . W O G A N , H . C O L B E R T , J . J . J O N E S , and B. DORNIN. M,DCC,LXXXIX.

MOORE,

HIS S E R E N E HIGHNESS

T H E

M A R G R A V E OF B R A N D E B O U R G , A N S P A C H , AND B A R E I T H .

C

U S T O M has long given a Preface to

every book that has been publiihed—It is likewife accompanied with a Dedication.

I have always thought the lail made

the

firft

unneceffary—indeed both may As

be

4

DEDICATION.

be difpenfed with, if an author does not think his

ftile

requires

an apology for

offering to the Public a work, which his humility or juftice may lead him to think fit only to put his readers to ileep The

greateft part of the public has my

permiffion

to

iheets,

I expofe them to

as

doze

of my enemies,

over the

following the

malice

without referve,

merely

to oblige many of my friends; who, knowing

I had taken

nary journey,

a long and extraordi-

have deiired

them fome account of it. could

give,

manner to part

and in the

to

to give

The moil

myfelf, was by

of my letters

me

beft I

agreeable

tranfcribing

you—in

which,

though in a curfory manner, I have given you have feen,

a

faithful pidure Befide curiofity,

of

what

I

my friends will

D E D I C ATI

0 N.

$

vvili In t h e f e Letters fee at leaft for fome time w h e r e the real L a d y C r a v e n has been, and w h e r e

ilie is to be f o u n d — i t h a v i n g

been a practice for fome years pail, for a B i r m i n g h a m coin of mylelf to pafs in m o i l of the inns in F r a n c e , England,

Switzerland,

for the wife of m y

and

huiband—-

M y a r m s a n d coronet fometimes f u p p o r t ing, in

fome

meafure,

this infolent de-

ception ; by which, probably, I may h a v e been

feen

to

behave

very

improperly.

I think it my d u t y to aver u p o n my hon o u r , t h a t it has f r e q u e n t l y happened tome,

travelling

find

a landlady,

with

my

fweet child, t o

w h o has i h e w n a parti-

cular defire of lerving

me

in

the moft

menial offices, with tears in her eyes, and upon my afking neft indignation

the rcafon, of

her

in

heart,

the hollie faid,

6

D E D I C A T I O N .

ihe had

been impofed upon, at fuch a

time, by a traveller who called herfelf by my name.

If I had poffeffed the inva-

luable blefllng of

having you for

my

real brother—this curious and unheard of treafon to my birth

and

chara&er

would long fince have been puniihed in the perfon who could only countenance the deceit.

But let me thank Heaven

that I have found in you, Sir, all

the

virtues which I could defire in a brother, and that affe&ion

and refped

which

leads me to dedicate thefe Letters to you. My actions in future will prove more than this feeble tribute, how deeply impreffed I am with all the feelings of efteem that can fill a grateful heart; your people, Sir, your many virtues, that make all

7

DEDICATION.

all that approach you happy, will juftify my dedicating my ftudious, as my focial hours to you

ELIZA

CRAVEN.

LADY CRAVEN's JOURNEY T O

C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

L E T T E R

PARIS,

I. June 15,

E honour you do me, in wiihin3 tc hear from me, deferves in return a greater entertainment than my letters can afford ; and if it was not for the precious name of fitter, which you order me to take, I ihould B perhaps

2

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

perhaps be a long time before I could venture to write to you ; but when you command me to look upon you as my brother, the idea coincides fo perfe&ly with the efteem and friendihip I feel for you, that I obey with pleafure Since your Highnefs left Paris, I have had my brother and iifter here; the fouth of France has entirely recovered her, and ihe is m a fairway of producing an heir— I have many nephews, but none of that name yet

I ihall fet out to-morrow for Touraine, called by the French le yardin de la France ; and at three o'clock in ihe morning, as it is very hot—My harp is in the coach with me; for though my intention is not to iiay above three weeks where I am going to I cannot be fo long abiênt from the found of an inftrument that I prefer to every in* confeille de monter derrière votre Ecrit ne, comme il n'y avait point de malk—ô prejeni les pojl¡lions ne veulent ras m'y Jatjfir— — Comment vous appeliez

VOVÏ

?

CajJiu!.. CaJJïus—voila

un beau nom-, oui. Madame,

faid the child j who had never

heard or

read o f any other Cafllus but himfelf— mon

vere ¿mit gentilhomme,

and he gave me a

pocket-book which contains letters.

One

o f thefe was from a lady o f quality to the child's difiant relations at îa Rochelle, deû x h * then1, to place hiir. on board a Ihip.

TO Comment,

CONSTANTINOPLE.

9

fays I ; nvous voudriez

fer*

vir *. CW, Madame-, je nefaurnis être domejîique, parce que mes peres étaient gentilhomme s,—and among a variety of quefh'ons which I afiked h i m — a n d to which he anfwered modeftly and pertinently

whenever he recollefled

that circumftance, it was a painful idea. H e had a brother aqd fitter at Paris, w h o had f e n t him to go from thence to la R o chelle on foot, with fix livres, and his letters o f

recommendation, for his fupport

and prote&ion. Avez

What

unfeeling people !

vous dine aujourdhui ? It was then

about fix o'clock. Oui, Madame., le maître de pojle à Blois nia donné à diner—ce font les pojlillons d'ici qui ne veulent pas que je monte derriere votre voiture. T h e poftillions by this time were liftening to my converiation with the child, and one o f them with a g r u f f voice faid —fi ce petit monfieur vett payer un cinquième cheval, il * Seri'ir h

F r e n c h converiation always means ferve in a

jniiitaiy capacity, and not as a f e r v a n t - * - —

montera.

,-„

L A D >" C R A V t N ' s

montero.—¡it

/¡j'cvais

JOURNEY

HHC grande uuiUe* coram?

de coutume?- fnys i. Mante-z^mniez.

men enfant ^

and turning to the poftiliion, "cms aurez ami

boh\> «/ fa flint i-; To he w a s

pleafed,

as in

France

and the boy delighted ; but more

de

than in any other country

world, th< value

of every

thing

in

the

i s — " So

much niouey as 'twill b r i n g ; " — m y maid was f u r p r i z e d a t n;v Ir.ntc /fame, cat

never

but once .1 day ia travelling, and that

at the end of my forget my into

As I

my

journey

1 ihall n e v e r

fuppe; Lift night bed

fatigued, and

maid to bring me a foup.

1 had got ordered

I had

my

lain half

an h o u r ; the room was dark ; a n d w h e n the door opened, the firft tiling I f a w w a s Cailius holding t w o wax-lights, preceding my

maid.

He

{aid, Mademoifelle

might

go to her fupper, and he would wait upon rac, and his countenance had a mixture of comfort, j o y , and gratitude in it, fcarcely to be feen but in the candour of youth. T h i s morning I had fettled with the miftrefs of the inn that fhe ihould agree with a waggoner

to take Cailius f a f e to R o -

chejle-—--1 had given him f o m e m o n e y (too little

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

n

little for charity to name—perhaps what the avaricious would think too much) and a recommendation figned with my name, and my feal upon it, when the poftillions I had ordered to take me to came to inform me, that, as it was a crofs-country road, they expe&ed three times the f u m ufually paid As I might juft as effectually argue with a horfe as with a French poftillion, I aiked where the poft-houfe was ? Only two doors off. I went there; the mailer was out, but his wife was at home; and while I was fettling matters with her, one of the old faihioned French poil-chaifes ftopt at the door, with an officer in it, feemingly emaciated by iicknefs, and his head wrapp'd up very much Caffius was at my elbow: Madame, Madame, fays he, ce mon-. Jieur n'a point de matte, (in fail all the luggage was before ;) Jirais bien plus vite a la Rochette, Ji nous voidiez lui demander de me laijfer monter fur fa voiture. 1 went up to the

LADY CRAVEN's JOU1ÌNEY the chaifc, and curtfied very low ; the officer bowed ilighiiy ; I ftept back ; but Caillus puiled me by the ileeve,—«—— lb i once a^aia advanced and curtfied Mcnfieur—— Madame I brought Catlius forward. — V o i c i un pauvre orphelin qui va à la Roche!ie Il eft venu depuis Bias fur ma Berime ; Ji vous voulez bien lui permettre de monter derrière votre voiture ce fera moi qui vous en aurai l'obligation Moi • repeated in a higher tone of voice. T h e officer had begun by flaring at me from head to f o o t ; r.tid before Ï h-;d finished my fpeech he endeavoured, but in vain, to draw off his night-cap Teat ce que vous ordonnez- — tout ce quil vous plaira, Madame And I had the iatisfailion of feeing little orphan comfortably feated, and ing towards la Rochelle, certain that would neither be robbed nor beaten on ro : .d r —

the flyhe the

I am

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

13

I am feiting out for * * * from whence I will write you an account of any thing I ihall obfcrve worthy of being related—

L E T T E

R

*4

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

L E T T E R

IV.

EN TOURAINE, June 21,

1785.

approach to this place was through bad crofs-country roads. I have feen nothing yet that could juftify the idea of this province being le Jar din dela France. I faw many chateaux, which from the fingular towers, their only ornaments, my fancy might have reprefented heralds, giants, or dwarfs, iffuing fofth to enquire what bewildered heroine came fo near—man helas— I did not fee one preux chevalier, nor any thing about thefc ancient i1ru£!ures that could make me imagine they belonged to gentlemen, much lefs to noble warriors 0 '

Beiides I was graveiy feated in a comfortable coach, varniihed and gilt, inftead of being on a white palfrey. T o be ferious, 1 am probably writing in a room once inhabited

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

15

habited by one of Marguerite Reine de Navarre's

ladies of h o n o u r ; for this chateau

was built by Francis the Firft for his fifter. T h e outfide is neither regular nor beautiful, and I cannot guefs what order of architecture was intended to be fnevvn in the building

One front is towards the river

Cher, flanked by two large round towers with fpiral tops, and the ground floor, towards the court, is at leafl four flories high from the meadows in which the Cher runs ; this fuite of

apartments was probably

royal,

the rooms remarkably lofty and well proportioned

1 am told the fropristaire

had

laid out four thoufand pounds to repair the houfe and beautify the gardens

A s to

the firfl, it is in the fame ftate moil country houfes in France a r e — w a n t i n g

painting,

white-wailiing, and repairs of every fort T h e ornaments in the garden are thcie : many canals ftnall enough to look troughs

like

and ilalues made in plaifter, ail

mutilated ; the little that remains of them made me wiih they had never e x i f l e d — Part of the cafile-ditch remains, and under it are cellars and fubicrrancous paifages of an

16

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

enormous fize and length In this part of the country, the peafant's habitation is chiefly hewn in the rock, the door being thé only wooden part of it ; the labourers catch agues and fevers frequently, by returning home warm, and rciting in thefe damp cells. From my windows I could fée the Loire if at its ufual height, and I have the profpeâ of a Chateau where the heirefs cf Bretagne gave with her hand that province to France. In a few days I fhall go to Tours, from whence I fhall again write, and aiTure you how7 much I am your affectionate fifier

L E T T E R

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

17

V.

T O U R S , J u n e «5, 1 7 8 5 .

I

GALLOPED

all the

way

here

on

borfeback, along a delightful meadow, and got

off my horfe at the

Mail,

a very

fine

bottom

o f the

walk fhaded by

fomc

venerable elms, which, by fome flrange prodigy, have efcaped the cizeau of the tondeur — a n d fpread their majeftic branches m u c h to the comfort of the Bourgeoifie of T o u r s , w h o here find a cool promenade.

But I am

told they are foon to be cut down. trop vieux

If

M r , d'Kclufel,

lisfont the

late

intendant, was alive, he would oppofe this horrid f c h c m e ; England

fome

enough to adopt

for as he had lived months,

and

had

in

fenfe

what was good with us,

he has given this town a clean appearance by adding trottoirs on each fide o f the n e w flreets palace.

1 am lodged at the archiepifcopal Monfeignear C

is not

here, which I regret

i8

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

I regret 1 am told he is a man of letters—of tafte I am fure he is, by a chapef he has juft added to his palace. There is a large cathedral clofe to it, the outiide Gothic—the ftone-work is worth feeing—nothing in the iniide but what is very

mediocre. Another large church here, de St. M a r tin *, is fo nearly conne&ed with our St. Martin's in the Fields in London, that the T o u r s clergy were obliged to fend to London t o get fome ancient charter explained There are many Engliih here

Adieu, I remain yours moft affe&ionately, P. S. I recoiled that you may not know what I mean by the cizeau of the tondeur; to explain which 1 muft inform you, thai

T h e king is chanoine de St. M a r t i n — a very fingttlar circuraftance—In t h e cloirter is a moil beautiful frize, d o n ; by the mafteriy hand of Michael Angeto.

¿hearing

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

19

Shearing the trees in a F r e n c h garden is a t u f l o m as ancient, and t h o u g h t as n e c e f l a r y , as (having the b e a r d ; and tondeurs are paid f o r it by the year, month.

as barbers are

by

the

I h a v e had feveral reafons g i v e n t o

m e for this G o t h i c c u f t o m ; a m o n g the reft, t h a t it m a d e a tree g r o w more beautiful a n d ftrong;

w h i c h laft e x c u f e m u f t n o

longer

be mentioned, naturalifts having; difcovered lately, that a tree d r a w s as m u c h n o u r i i h m e n t f r o m the fluid received by the leaves, as f r o m the root itfelf, B u t nature may plead in vain her c a u f e for centuries to c o m e in F r a n c e , ihe will l o n g g o d i f g u i f e d — - T h e gardens and the exhibit

melancholy

proofs

of

tins

poetry truth,

w i t h o u t m y mentioning any m o r e at prefent.

L E T T E R

¿o

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNET

L E T T E R

VI.

June jo,

i^i

1 H A V E been to fee Veret, a houfe of D u e d' Aguillon's, where there is not worth looking at, and Richelieu, where only the palace but the town was built the Cardinal of that name 1 rode 1 village called JMlebciichar, loft my w and rambled above thirty miles over country, before I could find out the Cm houfe I was going to dine with. H e is good fort of a man, fenfible and learn« and had aiicmblcd al! the good compat in the neighbourhood to dine under a Iar; tent in the garden with me 1 muft nt forget to teii you that I palled clofe by th church from whence Joan of Arc took he invincible Avord, placed there by Divini Power. Lillebouchar is only two league: from Richelicu ; where at the firii gate ol the avaunt-covr two old guards, with clothes as

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

21

as ancient as their faces, their bayonets on their ihoulders, precede the company to the inner court. Here the concierge ihevvs flrft, ftatues of the Roman emperors and heroes, tolerable copies. T h e chapel is next ihewn, where there is a p i d u r e that pleafed me much, and which is faid to have been painted by Michael Angelo -It is fpoiling for I take it to be a copy w a n t of care—and I was told moil of the good pi&ures were fent to Paris. I w a s led through many rooms—the palace is immenfely large. O n e apartment was called the Queen's * — - i t was the Cardinal's firft intention to bring the whole court to R i c h e l i e u - — E v e r y beam of wood was i h e w n in the cielings of thofe t i m e s H e r e they are almofl: all carved and gilt o v e r — j u d g e of the expence. T h e r e is a whole-length pi&ure of the Cardinal, by an Italian mailer, and a good one. After being walked over the houfe, large enough to tire a very able walker, I was offered

* For the Queen's apartment, and all the rooms, according to their dcllinations, uz ikcv/c,

to

22

L A D Y CRAVEN's JOURNEY

to fee the Jardins; but from the windov I had perceived the tafte of them, ar therefore declined that pleafure

1 im:

gine the reafon why the Cardinal prevente the court from ever coming to Richelie •was the fame policy that he introduce and that exift even now, of drawing £ the rich nobles from the feats of their ar ceftors involving them in all the e pences of the court at Verfailles, that the might not feel they had a proteftion their home but look for that, and f u j port likewife, from royal favour a l o n e — A cunning idea of making the nobles fup port him in his meafures, and particular if he afted contrary to the good of h country. T h e nobles of my country may thar heaven, when they reflect that they a. members of a great nation, enjoying the ancient feats, and expecting honours ar emoluments from the court as they nu deferve them from their country.

TV

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

The French nobleffe, at prefent, indeed have a comfort under the weight of debts their fathers may have left them they have a young monarch, generous and juft and I really believe one of the beil kings that ever exifted. As his power is great if the nobles deferve he wiU beilow greatly Adieu, Dear Sir, Yours.

P. S. I cannot fee Chanteloup, the Due de Choifeul's houfe the Seelie is put on. He is dead but lately fo I can give you no account of that place I was obliged to aiTure the Intendant, and fome more French, the other day at his houfe, that Sir George Elliot * was not a Frenchman. Since he has immortalized

* Sir George muft not be highly flattered at this, for the French are fo fond of monopolizing ali that is worth poffeffing, that Prince Eugene and our Capability Brown, with saany others, are claimed by them.

his

24

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

his name at Gibraltar, I find this natic is extremely deiirous of claiming h i m — but I took upon me to fay I believed See land might boaft of being his native lan and that of moft of his forefathers— H o w e v e r , if indeed they would choofe date from a much earlier period, moft us old Englifh would be found to be Dane Normans, &c. Y o u will be furprized to find, that i ftead of

returning to Paris

Southward B

My

eldeft

I

am goir

brother,

Lo

, has written me word, that it is pc

ilble he may pafs the winter in Italy; as is fo long ilnce he has been out of Englan I have given him two routes, and have to him I ill all proceed g ently to Florenc there to wait for h i m — "

L E T T E R

T O CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

35

VII

LYONS,

July 15.

\ A M fafely arrived here, and to avoid going round fome leagues I came a crofsc o u n t r y r o a d ; look on your poft-map for Cormery, Loches, Buxancely, Chateauroux, Ardante, la Chatre, M o n t m a r a u Culan, Roanne - B u t , dear Sir, follow me only on paper; for the roads in fome places were fo bad, and the lanes fo narrow, that my coach is fcratched—and the drivers, with difficulty perfuaded to go to the places I ordered them, fometimes loft their way. I went through great part of the Bourbonnais and within ten miles of Vichy, where the king's aunts were taking the waters. T h e Auvergne mountains were fine objects to the right. Oil my approaching Lyons, I felt a great difference in the air—A warmer climate was eaiily to be pcrceived

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y perceived

T h e fmall conic winding hills

r o u n d which the country girls with thei iirange ilraw hats, and their diftaff at thei iide, were conducting their goats as the f p u n , formed a landfcape n e w to me particularly as the flat roofs to the cottage gave a Iightnefs to the buildings that pleafei me much

-

A iimpie kind of plough likevvife, drawi bv t w o oxen, brought that period to m mind, w h e n the R o m a n s were conquerin towns, or founding c o l o n i e s — - T h e even ing coming on, with a flormy iky, mad m e almoft fancy that a R o m a n legion wa here and there conccalcd by the rock: which crown a 1 moil every one of th conic hills I have before mentioned, an which might ferve as fmall batteries; na the very clouds, which I often faw reflin between the hills, might have ferved fa m o m e n t a r y conceahnent.

Bu

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

27

But w e will ftep out of thefe clouds if you pleafe for I am neither a Roman general nor a goddefs, but at this moment a very much fatigued mortal in a handfome apartment, Hotel Dauphin, rue de /' yirfenal, where I ihall eat a good fupper, drink your health, and wiih you as good a night's reft as I am likely to enjoy

L E T T E R

28

L A D Y CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

L E T T E R

VIiL

L y n v p , July

iS.

O N the iixteenth I was too much f a iigued to look at any thing but the juniiior of the Soane and the Rhone, but on th 1 7 t h I law the paintings in the Hotel a Ville, rnofUy by Blanchet: his works ar fpoiling under the cold hands of negle£ and time

The

Taurobclum

may b

very fine, and much to be admired by a lovers of antiquity; but I, who can no admire what I do not think beautifu looked at it with great i n d i f f e r e n c e - — Spon and other writers give a learned account of this, and of the brafs-plate or which is engraved the fpeech made b' Claudius in favour of the town, and whicF is left within the reach of mifchievou. boys or idle beggars. T h e people of L y o n : f:-;era to pay a greater regard to the vanity o:

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

eg

of the moderns than to the pride of the ancients. I faw a beautiful iarcophagus in a lawyer's court-yard that ferved as a ciftern—and, in many old walls and houfes, carvings or infcriptions which I wiihed to examine, while the tradefmen within thefe habitations flared at the ftrangers, who could be more anxious about ruins than the n e w iilks or embroidery they wiihed to fell. I cannot help thinking any antiquary might find many more things well worthy of the cabinet of the curious here than have already been difcovered. As to the town's being handfome, which I was told it was, I m u f t affert that many parts of it are pofitively frightful; that the houfes are crouded together; each ftory, as it rifes, proje&ing over the other and the ftreets, as narrow and (linking as thofe of Paris ; but the environs are beautiful, and it is extremely amuiing to go in a boat every way out of the town 1 took feveral {ketches from different points, one from a little iiland, which was formerly called Infula Barbara. You recoiled a large round tower

3o

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

t o w e r which crowns the prifon of Pierreencife. T h e proportions of it ltruck rrr ideas of f y m m e t r y very much—and afte looking at it for fome time, I landed at th foot of the prifon, and walked u p a hun dred and t w e n t y fleps cut in the rock the guards let me in very civilly, and, t( m y u t t e r furprife, among t h e prifoners found the mult

r e m e m b e r , as he was

whom yoi very

ofter

with

H e aiked me a t h o u f a n d queftions abou J , and laughed very much in talk ing over feveral parties with him and j but I laughed on my part at hi — taking M r . for L o r d B -. I had been told Pierre-encife was a flat prifon, but it is no fuch t h i n g : it ferves a a temporary retreat for people of faihio w h o live too fail—and are placed there b L e t t r e s de cachet, till it pleafes the kin parents w h o have obtained them to releai the

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

their prifoners. declares, whenever he obtains his liberty, he fhall reviiit England, which I fuppofe at this time, more than at any other, feems to him a paradife, as there is no fuch thing as a Lettre de cachet there D o you recoiled a moil charming pitfur'e by Rubens, in the chapelle des 'Penitents? I examined it a long time with great delight And did you ever obferve that all the fine pictures in France are fpoiling, but thofe pofTefled by the church? Indeed knowledge and tafte are chiefly confined to the clergy—all other etats in France not having leifure to form their tafte; of which truth I mud give a mofl ridiculous example Every body laft year, that would be quite a /' Anglaife at Paris, had to wait on them, what they called a Jaka)\ a little boy with ftraight, lank, unpowdered hair, wearing a round hat—and this groom-like looking thing waited upon them at dinner, and was frequently fluck up with three tall footmen behind a fine gilt coach It was in vain for me to aiTert to foine a g'ave

32

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

grave old French people that jockey meani riding-groom in a running-horfe ilable and that no grooms ever waited upon ue nay fcarcely ever came into the houfe, anc certainly nothing but fervants, wel dreiTed and powdered as the French» waitec upon us, or went behind our carriages They anfwered, it mail then be a new faihion, for it was tout-a-fait a I'Anglaife— et comme on fefait a Londresl a m called away to go up to the towei of Fourviere to look over all the town ai once,

Yours, Adieu*

L E T T E R

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

IX.

^ ^

T H

33

L Y O N S , July 21.

E fine profpedi I was promifed from

the tower was

immenfely

fo indeed

Landfcapes fo various, and obje&s fo vaft and

innumerable, that

vain

for a refting

the eye feeks in

place

1

do

not

k n o w , dear Sir, if you are of my opinion ; but I like that mind

ihould

pleaiing

my

light as well

as my

be collected, to enjoy o n e

f u b j e i t at a

time

Vary

fcene as often as you pleafe

the

but I hate

confufion fo much, that if 1 was obliged to choofe a houfe, fituated on an commanding

eminence,

a large city, many windings

of a river, and an immenfe tradl of c o u n try, or one at the bottom of that eminence, with a view fo confined that I could fee only to the end of a fmall garden, I think I ihould prefer the latter may

feem

very

ilupid, D

1 k n o w this but

I

never could

34

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

qould comprehend the pleafure of what is ufuaHy called a fine profped, where it is only wilh a telefcope that the wanderings of the fight are to be fixed

I have hired a boat to take mo down the R h o r e to Avignon ; it is only 8 few planks nailed together that brought wood from Savoy, a fort of raft, but looks quite fírong enough to contain me and my fmall retinue. I fend my horfe by the cocht d'eau —Do not fuppofe that my love for the ancients has totally made me overlook the modern artifls here ; a Lyonnaii merchant, whom I bought iilks of in London, has ihewn me all the new filks anc patterns. An ill tañe prevails univerfall) as to drefs in F r a n c e ; the laft new defign; for waificoats, particularly, are frightfu great fprawling butterflies -the verj man who was fhewing them fhrugged uj his ihoulders:

%

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

Que voulez vouz, Madame ? II faut toujour a du mimeau

There on

is a

bobbins

the f o u r t h fets

mill

to w i n d

iiIk

h e r e ; a h o r f e in a garret ftcrry

feveral

motion,

curious

turns one

on all the

and

thofe

wheel

other

turn

which

floors

many

on in

thcufand

bobbins.

Every

ancient

building

here is

u p o n a r o c k ; and I c a n n o t help they

look

like

as roots to Saone

ran who

to g i v e

the

them in

w h a t it n o w Swifs

teeth,

thinking

rocks

ferving

I w a s a flu red the

a

different c h a n n e l

does, had

the

ftuck

and that cut

river

through

its

it

from

was the

the, rocks

prefent c o u r f e

but if it e v e r w a s t u r n e d , I ihould think it w a s done by the R o m a n s , w h o f e great and u f e f u l ,

ftampsd

T h e remains, that did in the fairly

rny D

their date

t e f t i f y h o w m u c h they

environs

excufe

works,

of

this

fnppofition 2

piace,

may

if

Caligula's

36

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

gula's fucceiTor could now peep out of his grave or Nero, who re-eftabliihed this town they might have fome difficulty in believing it was the fame • Adieu, Dear Sir, Yours.

L E T T E R

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

X.

A V I G N O N , J u l y 30,

1785.

N o t h i n g can be more delightful than my laft method of travelling by water. I have had high and contrary w i n d s ; but the Rhone's famed rapidity that I had heard fo much of, was neither furprifing nor terrifying—the ihores on each fide were rocks interfperfed with vine-yards and caftles I landed the firft day at Condrieux, where I bought fome excellent wine for 25 fols a bottle, the growth of that place

About

a league from thence is la Montagne T u p a i n , belonging to M r . de la Condamine, where the beft Cote-rotie wine is to be had ; that word fignifies really and truly roafted-coaft, the grapes being almoft broiled by the fun. T h e wine is of a red and ftrong kind reckoned very fine; but like many other fine things, I did not reliih it,

A little farther

38

LADY CR4VfN's JOURNEY

farther on the left is l'Hermitage, a fpot fo called becaufe formerly a hermit lived upon that hill, the wine of which is too much known for me to fay any thing about it. I gave three livres a bottle for it, but found the white fo much bettes than the red that I ordered fome to be fent to M a r feilles, from whence I ihall have it (hipped for England.

T h e r e is a fmall town called Vienne, that has a fine Gothic cathedral, which I went on ihore to look at, together with a monument belonging

to the

Montmorin

family, well executed-

I faw feveral people on the banks of the Rhone fifting gravel; they find among it little bits of folid gold, Waihed down from the mountains ; a rooft horrid employment in this hot weather I ihould t h i n k ; but what will not poor mortals do for gold, fince the rich are often ilaves to that which they ought to be mailers of Monte-

TO C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

39

Montelimart is a caftle from whence I am told three kingdoms are Teen, and feven

provinces.

I

did

not

this or any other of the

f l o p to

fee

many caftles

I

pa(Ted by. A t the Pont St. E f p r i t , which is a noble bridge indeed, I think

the paifage

be dangerous, if the boatmen very attentive.

M y coach

might

were

not

is fo large,

and has fuch excellent blinds, that I have not fullered from

the heat at

all

T h e ihores lofe all their beauty near A v i g non,

which

it

furrounded

is

I

could by

not a

fee,

becaufe

high

turrcted

wall. M a d a m e de Brancas, the D u e de CrilIon's fitter, was very civil to me, and w e talked about I dined with

— Lord

is much impaired,

, whofe and

mate will do him good.

I

hope

health

this

cli-

A d i e u , dear

Sir, yours

P. S.

I am

4o

LADY CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y P. S.

I am told,

by fome one who

knows the Due de Crillon very well, that his iiftcr is exactly like him ; which I can eaiily conceive, for ihe has as many projects about her gardens and houfes as her brother had about the taking of Gibraltar: I hope they will fucceed better than have, for ihe is very good-humoured.

L E T T E R

his

TO C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

L E T T E R

XI.

Murpeili.rs

J ) E A R

Sir, I t h o u g h t

to give you

any

41

Auguft

it

17S5.

unneceflary

defcription o f

Avignon,

b e c a u f e y o u h a v e been there, but as

you

did not t a k e the f a m e road to it as I did in c o m i n g from it, I will e n d e a v o u r to g i v e y o u f o m e faint idea o f a natural that

I have

curiofity

feen, and w h i c h pleafed m e

h i g h l y — t h e m u c h famed F o n t a i n e de V a u clufe. I fet o u t from A v i g n o n in o f t h e d a y , and arrived

the

at a t o w n

L i l l e , w h e r e I took a F r e n c h and

went

in

it

by

Sorgue's clear f l r e a m , too

narrow

for

middle

the till

port chaife,

fide the

the carriage

called

of

the

road

was

to

proceed;

I then w a l k e d in a n a r r o w path

winding round

42

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

round the immenfe rocky mountains to the left, with the ftream rapidly flying by me to the right about a mile, till a cavern, pretty much in the fhape of thofe which lions come out of in an opera, prefented itielf to my view, and from that flows the river. I am told it is an unfathomable abyfs. W h y it is called a Fontaine, I am at a lofs to guefs. Monflrous rocks rife over and on each fide of this craggy a r c h ; thefe feem to bend forward to meet or cruih the curious.—Which ever way I turned my eyes, I faw gigantic and fantaftic ihapes, which nature feems to have placed there to aftoniih the gazer with a mixture of the melancholy, terrible, and cheerful; for the elearnefs and rapidity of the river make it a lively objeti, and where there is a flat place on the banks, though not above a few feet in circumference, the peafants have planted trees or fowed gardens you lift up your eyes, 3nd fee the moil p e r f e d contrails to them-*—the birds, which hovered towards the upper part of the rocks,

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

rocks, w e r e fcarcrly perceptible.

43

In

look-

ing into the cavern, it appears horrible and gloomy ; 1 could almoft have fancied the river ran

thus f a i l ,

rejoiced to quit the

maniion from whence it fprung. der

Petrarch's

long

was

N o won-

plaintive,

if he

courted h i s m u f e with this fcene perpetually before his e y e s ; L o v e and all his laughing train

mull

fly

the

human

imagination,

w h e r e nature difplays her features in the majeftic and terrible glad to

find

flile,

fo good

and I was very

an

excufe as this

iituation for Petrarch's eternal c o m p l a i n t till now I w a s puzzled to guefs, how a man of his fenfe could pafs the greateft part of his life in eternizing a lady's contempt of a faithful paffion—but Í

now

believe there

w a s no L a u r a - c r if there exifled one, he found in either cafe his imagination particularly turned to poetry, and that o f the melancholy

kind,

f u m m e r ' s reíidence. , and h a v e ever

fmiied upon *

in

this,

probably

Í, w h o you k n o w as

playful a m u f e

mortal,

fat

the alloniiliing picture before lllent

reverential

his

fort of

as

examining

r>

me

with a

admiration and

44

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

and ihould have remained there till night, if f had not been informed that it grew very late, and I m u d fee the pi&ures of Petrarch and Laura in the Chateau of the Marquis de Chamont, which is a miferable houfe a few fteps from the Fontaine. Thefe pi&ures are very modern—probably as like you as the perfons they were drawn for. 1 returned to Lille, and eat crawfiih and trout, the moil excellent that I ever tafted, which abound in the Sorgue— I paffed through Aix, to come to this place ; I did not flop, as I expe&ed a letter at Marfeilles, the contents of which interefted me very much : for

I faw many plantations of canes, which I wonder we do not cultivate in our watermeadows in England and I bought very excellent melons out of the fields for five fols a piece.

A country

TO C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

45

A country flowing with wine and oil, and where figs and melons are to be gathered on each fide of the public road, may be a very fine thing; but a want of verdure and fine trees gives it a moil uncomfortable and ungentlemanlike appearance, W h e n I compared England and the fcene before me together, I could al~ moil have fancied I had the maladie du pays upon a

me

green

fo much carpet

fome of our

did I wiih to fee

under

beautiful

my foliage

feet,

and

over

my

head Adieu, dear Sir j h o w often I wiih to be with you I leave the juftice of your heart to determine.

I remain yours moil

affectionately-— P. S. I forgot to tell you, that while I was changing hotfes at Lille, I talked to Captain B

, a failor, w h o lives

with

his wife and t w o children in that neighbourhood Fie very civilly invited m e to pafs the evening at his boule, talked about my brother G~~—, and informed me

46

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

me that the fource of the Sorgue was at this time remarkably low ; and I found by the marks the torrent had left on the rocks when at its height, that it muft be at Jeaft forty feet lower now than when it takes its winter-courfe: as I f a w it, it creeps humbly from the cavern under part of the rock, and becomes rapid as it finds its level and forms a river; whereas, when it is in all its glory, it tumbles over the rock a wild cafcade, which muft add coniiderably to its terrific beauties — — I was informed

by the inhabitants of

Vauclufe, that people, who are tired of life, fling themfelves

into

the

cavern,

where, as I told you before, the water is unfathomable;

upon

this information,

I

afked if bodies were often found there; I was anfwered in the affirmative, and that they were chiefly the bodies of p r i e f t s — Adieu P. S.

I never felt any heat like that

which I experience here

L E T T E R

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

47

XII.

M a r s e i l l e s , Aug-. 8, 1785.

I H A V E e x a m i n e d the rocks j u i l out of this h a r b o u r , and think f o m e of them moil f o r t u n a t e l y fituated to defend the port, b u t w h a t furprifed me much, was being aiTured by the boatmen w h o r o w m e o u t twice a day (to get a breath of air) t h a t , at all times of t h e night, boats are f u f t e r e d to come in and out of the h a r b o u r w i t h o u t being examined

People of all nations, that fill every day t h e great walk leading to the quay, made m e think on my arrival t h a t fome import a n t event had drawn all the people f r o m the houfes and the (hips together

but a

repetition of the f a m e fcene foon convinced m e of my miftake. T h e r e are t w o very I fine

48

L A D Y CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

fine pi&ures, painted by Puget, reprefenting fome of the horrid fcenes at the time o f the plague at Marfeilles; they are only too Well executed; figures

I faw

feveral

dying

taking leave of their friends and

looking their laft anxious kind and wiihful prayer on their iick infants, that made the tears flow down my cheeks

1 was told

the phyficians and noblemen w h o were afiifting the iick and dying were all portraits. I can eafily conceive it, for in fome of the faces there is a look of reflexion and concern which could only be drawn from the life I have fpoke to Captain mands the K i n g - F i i h e r ; he

, w h o comis obliged

perform quarantine here, though he

to had

already done his duty in that way at .Leghorn and Genoa before; but the

plague

rages very much all along the Barbary coaft, from whence he is c o m e ; and one cannot be furprifed at any

precaution taken at

Marfeilles to avoid this danger

I do

TO I do not

CONSTANTINOPLE. think

Marfeilles a

49

beautiful

town ; and the country houfes in the environs, which they call here Baftides, are frightful. I have juit got a note from on hoard the K i n g - F i i h e r , that has been foaked in vinegar;

the diredion

is fcarceiy legible

A d i e u , dear S i r ; the heat is io

exceiuve

here that I am abfolutely ftupified by it.

Believe me yours affectionately-

E

j . ]•: T

T

P. u

5o

LADY CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

L E T T E R

HYERES,

XIII.

A u g . io,

1785.

I S T O P P E D in my way here at Toulon, and intended to look at the dock-yards, but was refufed, which furprifed me very much, as an Engliih lady of my acquaintance was fuffered to go into them at the time of the laft war with France, when her hufband and all the gentlemen with her were fent out of the town 1 could get no other reafon afligncd for the refufal, but this—that fince Lord had feen them, nothing of Englijh blood ihould ever be permitted to go into them. So I walked about, and all I could fee was that the fineft ports in the world, and ihips worthy of being commanded by our admirals, will never make (at leaft for a great while to come) good lailors of the French—my reafons I will tell you, when we meet. Mr.

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

51

Mr. de S , who refufes to let any Engliih perfon fee the dock-yards at Toulon, expreffed a great diflike to our nation, faying he had reafon; you will laugh when I tell you, that hi-s reafon for hating us is, that in the la;e war two thirds of his fquadron were taken, with the greateft part of his convoy, deftined for the Eaft-Indies, and had he not bravely ran away himfelf, he would certainly have fallen a prey to thofe opiniâtres, feroces matelots as he calls our failors T h e gentleman who waited upon Soulanges to aik permifiion and plead my caufe, wiihing to recoiled what defence Mr. de Soulange's fquadron had made, aiked an officer in the room the name of the French Chips, which the poor Mr. de Soulanges fo bitterly lamented , he anfwered he ihoulcl recoiled them if he heard their names, but could not exa&ly remember M y friend aiked if it was the Ville de Paris, le Glorieux—le Centaur—l'Artois—le Caton—T Argonaut—le Jafon E 2 le

52

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

le Prothee—le Solitaire—le Pegafe—here the gentleman flared at him, and faid> le Pegafe was one of them Soulanges faid, yes, but the Foudroyant that took her was one of the largefi ihips in our navy, and commanded by that feroce matelot Captain Jervais, who would attack the devil, if he met him at f e a ; but, added he, Jervais could not have taken the Pegafe, unlefs affiiled by other fhips M y friend told him, the Foudroyant was a two decker and carried only fix more guns than the Pegafe, and was taken in the war before the lad, by the Engliih ihip the Monmouth, commanded by Captain Gardiner, that carried but 64 guns—that, though he had not the pleafure of being perfonally known to Captain Jervais, from his public character he was fure he would do his beft in time of war to burn, (ink, or take the devil, if under French colours. -He had a great inclination to have told Mr. de Soulanges what is very well known, that Captain Jervais took the Pegafe after an a&ion of little nore

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

53

m o r e t h a n half an h o u r , w i t h o u t a n y

help

w h a t f o e v e r , hut

iiis c o m m a n d s

to a

gal-

lant c r e w - — a n d

that the other

fail of

the

line u n d e r S o u l a n g e ' s

command ilruck

the

IVlait!iiid,

Queen,

Captain

c e i v i n gO a i h i iO de a repetition

b r o a d i i d e ;7

to

after

re-

b u t he t h o uOg h t

o f naval actions, fairly

rtated,

m i g h t be p i i n f u l t o m a n y o f f i c e r s w h o w e r e prcfent, and

w h o paid

the t r i b u t e d u e

to

o n r n . i v y , in r x p i e f f i n g t h e high e l l c f t e e n i »or i t ;

a m i Jo l o o k his l e a v e .

T i n - P , g i i f c in q u c H i o n is t h e v e r y f h i p my brother c o m m a n d e d i,ftcn

b e e n t-;!d

that

L.'i v:ar.

ihc

could

I

have

not

fail,

b y the F r e n c h — b u t I a l w a y s a l l u r e d t h e m , t h a t f i i e has p r o f i t e d f o m u c h he g a v e h.er, t h a t

ihe

goes

bv

the t r i m

now

perfectly

well T h e y h a v e alio t a l k e d provement mane war;

in

much

o f the

their m a r i n e

im-

the la ft

b u t u n l c i s it ¡3 in the e l o a t i i i u g t h e i r

ihips' c o m p a n y , Old

S c a n n o t find o u t in w h a t

Engliih

they a l w a y s f o u n d

otlicers their

have

told

h e a r t s lay

me,

in

the

fame

54

L A D Y CRAVEN's J O U R N E Y

fame place as heretofore and that whenever they could fail faft enough to get along iide of the enemy, the bufinefs was prefcntiy fettled —I think I need no better proof of this afiertion than one, which I hope may ftand unaltered in the book of Fame for centuries to c o m e ; it is this—our marine is in part compofed of line-of-battle fhips taken from our enemies ; whereas there exifts not a power upon the face of the globe that can boaft of having in their marine one ihip of the line taken from the Britifh nation I do not doubt but that the Minifire de la marine de France, and French officers, are excellent naval officers in theory—but when that is to be put in pra&ice, I hope events will prove, that we remember we have no other ramparts to defend our country and our liberties but the ocean, and that we ever were, are, and mu:ft be, a

race

f feroces,

opiniatres, matelots

Y o u fay amen to this wiib, I am fure fo remain yours moft affectionately. J think

TO I think Toulon

CONSTANTINOPLE.

55

the drive

to

from

Marfeilles

is b e a u t i f u l — t h e rocks are as ftu-

pendous and nearly as fantaftic as thofe about V a u c l u f e , and for f o m e miles

they

are covered with fir trees —— Y o u may form fome idea of the magnitude of the hills and rocks by my protcfting,

that

which

the

adorn

trees

and a f e w coUagcs

them,

look,

the

fx 1 ft

like

tooth-picks, and the latter like the fmallefl: Dutch

t o y s — t h e road winds round

gracefully; valley, As

wherever

I faw

large

there flocks

was of

moll

a

little

goats

I came nearer to T o u l o n , I began to

fee many orange and pomegranate trees in the g a r d e n s ; pretty

but

and

the

{linking

caper, which is a

crccper, grows

wild,

w h e r e v e r it is permitted to take root F r o m T o u l o n to i l y c r e s I was gradually apprifed of the charming fituation of the latter place, by the approach to it, which grew

more and more lovely every ftep I

t o o k — T h e hedges on the road are pofed of

myrtle,

com-

pomegranate, and wild vine;

56

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

vine j I paffed by feveral neat-looking white houfes, the gardens of which are full of large orange trees. T h e town of Hyeres is about a league from the fea, placed on the fide of a hill. I ihall wait patiently here for that letter I expe&ed at Marfeilles—This happy fpot is refreihed by fea-breezes—and from the elegant cheerfulnefs which reigns here, it might almoft tempt one to devote many months to lolitude and ftudy.

L E T T E R

TO

C O N . V J .AN 1

57

L E T T E R

XIV.

I I I i R i - s , A u g 15,

* WENT chapel

u p Lift nipht on h o r f e b a e k to a

fituntcd

notrc Dame

17°5-

on a hill n e a r t h e fea, called

de Conjoint ion : t h e r e is a

man

w h o calls h i m f e l f a h e r m i t , b y n a m e

Lau-

rent,

a n d w h o by his medical

knowledge,

as h e a f i u r e s m e , and t h e a i i i f t a n c c of t h e BlciTed

V i r gO i n .-

cuns.

the

K i n oO' s

Evil.

I t a l k e d to him f o m e t i m e , his i g n o r a n c e and

iimplicitv a m u i c d

me

very

much;

but

I pity t h o f e w h o ii nil to his physical

k n o w l e d g e ; I gave him i o m e very c u r i o u s r e c e i p t s , all i m p r o m p t u , as ••, on m a y guefs, adoring

him,

among

other things,

that

b a t h i n g p e o p l e in a q u a iortis w a s an infallible r e m e d y (or the d i ' o r d e r he c u r e d

I defire,

58

L A D Y CRAVEN'S JOURNEY I defire, if ever chance ihould bring you

to Hyeres, that you will afcend this hill, and

examine the lcenes around, towards

t h e f e a j theiilands of Portecroix a n d P o u r querolle are beautiful obje&s, and a peninfula called G i e n which is joined to the land only by a narrow road, forms a landfcape worthy

o f a great

looking towards

matter's pencil

On

the land, mountains

on

every iide, whofe tops are decorated with firs and rocks alternately, and towards the bottom, with olive, orange, and fig trees, form a beautiful circle, feemingly intended by nature to prevent the fea from extending any farther land, rifes the is built

A t a little diftance, inhill, on the fide of which

the town

of Hyeres: above

the

t o w n are feen rocks and remains o f the ancient town

and wall.

1 could

have

fat and looked at all this beautiful fcenery for ever ; but the evening clofing fent me home to my harp and my books.

Yours affe&ionately

l e t t e r

T O CO \ S I AN T I N O ¡' LE.

L E T T E R

IT-.

«

1

HOPE

the

.59

XV.

At!-. IS, r7S5.

following lines will amufe

you, for a m o m e n t ; I only wifli they may make you laugh as much as I did, when I read the French o f l i c V s melancholy flory in profe; whoibevrr he may be, fhouid ho take offence at my in'viag turned his tragedy into a farce, I Jhai! bear his anger patiently, when 1 think that the princes o f the Houfe

of Bourbon, all the Spaniards,

Lord Howe, and Sir George Elliot, each o f whole

valour

laugh, with me. where I have

he

llights,

will

certainly

1 have marked the pages literally tranihted his own

phraies, that you may not fuppofe 1 have in vented the llrance things he i-iys—and

I

feud vou his p.imph!( t that you may compare the one with the ot;,> r V E R S

E

S

6o

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

V

E

R

S

E

S

Written at Hyeres, on reading a pamphlet called l'Hifioire du Siège de Gibraltar, par un officier de l'Armée Françaife, imprimée à Cadiz, l'an 1783. S W E E T mufe, who haitwith fragrant rofesfpread T h e thorny path of life, which mortals tread ; W h o haft, with fancy's gayeft varied flowers, Bedeck'd with many a wreath my youthful hours ; If e'er and oft thy fong beguil'd my care, Smiling maliciouily, O Mufe appear— Apoilo form'd this fea-girt orange-grove, Fit hau.it for playful Mufe, or happy love; Here myrtle-bloffoms gracefully entwine, And mix their perfume with th'encircling vine— And this, a youthful poet might fuppofe, T h e fpot where Venus from the waves arofe— O Mufe, approach, with all thy mirth and fire, While Momus, laughing, ihailnew-ftringmy lyre, That I may briefly fmg in numbers gay, W h a t I have heard a profmg Frenchman fay ; His country's difappointment to affuage, He tells a tale, of fam'd Gibraltar's fiege ;

A Tom-

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

61

A Tom-TIrumb ftory of this fiege relates — Of Gallic fame, heroic Gallic feats; Of Crillon's Duke, and all his conquer'd men. W h o ilalk'd out wilhhim—toilalkhome again.— My lyre beilrong, for chords perchance may break, When Frenchmenof their arms and valour fpeak; While wond'ring worlds of Elliot's juilly ring : Thus fpoke the grieving Frenchman, thus I fir.g :

P. 5. Seven thoufand men, and eke Y o r k -town, line 1. Artillery immenfe our own, Lately all taken by my nation, 1. 3. Has added to its reputation The conqueft of St. Kit's adorn d, Names henceforth never to be fcorn'd, The names of (as new worlds can ihew) 1. 6. IVaJhiiigton, Bonillc, Rochamb. au, p. 6. Bujfy, with our friend Hyder Kan. 1. 2. Sujfrcin, unconquerable man, Promis'd in Afia greater feats, Than e'er were fung in Paris' flreets ; 1. 3. Promis'd us viftory and teas ; Our ftreamers glorying o'er thefeas, Proudly difplay'd on th' eaitern ihore, 1. 6 Where Engliih banners wav'd before. L: 9. Minorca too we call our own, Which adds 'o CrlHon's name, Mahon. Pail

62

LADY

1. 12.

1. 16.

Paft conquefts, oft bring freih in view : Thus fet we out in eighty-two, L i k e the moil brilliant fummer's morn, A Dauphin at that time was b o r n ; T h e people all were drunk with joy,

1. 17. I. 20.

T o fee fo fine a royal boy. Ruffia's young heir from Northern courts, Came to admire our fuperb ports,

1. 13.

CRAVEN's

JOURNEY

Our induilry, fertilifation A n d Paris rais'd his admiration. W h a t circumftances thefe, t' inflame Our minds with glory and with fame! p. 28. But to thefe fplendors, fad reverfe ! Unpleafant news our joys difperfe ; For Rodney's vict'ry reach'd our ears Which chang'd our vap'ring into tears, > p. 32.

p. 7. 1. 18.

Our fêtes to mourning, hopes to fears. J Since the year twenty-feven had Spain Thought of Gibraltar's rock in vain ; In awful filence long had itar'd, But to attack it never dar'd ; Till * Crillon ofFer'd gold and penfions, For fuch unheard-of new-inventions,

* A paper-merchant offered the D u k e an immenfe K i t e , at the T a i l of w h i c h a Man in a fack was to afcend, and was to pour aquafortis over the officers and foldiers at the Parade. I am told that the Duke had the kite fent over the r o c k — luckily for the inventor, w h o had put himfelf into the fack, tjhe firing broke, juft as he was lifted off t h e g i o u n d . I

As

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

63

A s might this iturdy rock invade, For this full many a fcheme was laid : p. 6. TheHoufe of Bourbonfquadrons mann'd 1. 33. Colle&ed armies, batt'ries plann'd ; Thefe preparations, vaft and great, A l l Europe knew, were to defeat p. 7. Brave Elliot in his fnug retreat 1. 2. * D ' A r ç o n of floating batt'ries fpoke ; Great Crillon haften'd to St. Roque, T o take upon him the command O f th' army, both by fea and land, p. 11. Four hundred workmen, under d'Arçon, 1. 9. (Whofe batteries were made a farce on) Incefiant work'd by day and night, T o finifh them, which gave delight T o Monfeigneur d'Artois, who came 1. 16. W i t h laurels to bedeck his name.

*

Le

Chevalier

d'Arcon,

whofe

floating

batteries

de-

ferved a different fate f r o m w h a t t h e y e x p e r i e n c e d ; t h e y w e r e neither e x e c u t e d

n o r feconded a c c o r d i n g to his plan.

1 have

e x a m i n e d t h e i n v e n t i o n , w i t h perfons w h o f e j u d g m e n t I can truft t o , and am convinced that it is a very g o o d o n e — a n d if j u f t i c e had been done in the e x e c u t i o n

o f t h e m , the batteries,

I d o believe, w e r e i n c o m b u f t i b l e and i n f u b m c r l i b l e , as he aff e i t e d t h e y w e r e ; but as to their aiTifting t o w a r d s taking

of

G i b r a l t a r — f r o m the pruclenee o f the general w h o defended it, I rather t h i n k w e have to regret, and the c o m b i n e d .tnnles to r e j o i c e , that they f u c c e c d c d n o b ' tn r.

Now

64

LADY

CRAVEN'S

JOURNEY

N o w martial feats his fenfes warming, A n d w a r l i k e ftores around h i m f w a r m i n g ; Vefl'els of ev'ry name and fize, 1.19-23-In numbers dance before his e y e s : N o w to the lines the French troops march, Their queues fo tied, their curls fo ftarch, p. 1 3 .

Heavens, how the Spaniards flood aghait!

1. 1 6 .

( O f Soldiers they the leaft, and laft)

I . 1 7 , 1 8 . In flocks they came our men to fee, 1.19,20. A n d , by their curioiity, 1.21,22 P r o v ' d how imperfect was their notion 1. 2 3 . 1. 24.

Of mufic f w e e t , and rapid motion Our troops the Spaniards wonder rais'd— So on Columbus Indians gaz'd ! A n Engliih brig of fixteen guns W a s taken by tliefe ilupid dons,

p. 1 4 . A n d this unufual thing, a prize ! 1. 28.

Our hopes uplifted to the ikies

1. 29.

T h e little fleet that watch'd the b a y ,

p. 1 5 .

F o r on a holiday 'tis right.

1. 1 0 .

That Catholics ihould pray, not fight—

1. 1 1 .

B u t whilft our ihips delay'd their cruifing,

Came in to keep St. James's day ;

1. 1 2 .

T h e Engliih brought the ugly news in Of R o d n e y ' s triumph ; from the R o c k Of guns our ears receiv'd the ihock ; F o r Elliot thought, a gallant a&ion

1. 30.

D e f e r v ' d a mark of fatisfa&ion Soon

T O CONSTANTINOPLE.

65

Soon after this, four Engliih knaves Î. 3 1 . Deferted, and inform'd us, flaves 1. 32. Of hope and fear—that Elliot's troops p. 16. Of provender had loft all hopes. l . i , 2 , 3 . W h i c h rais'd our fpirits, made us gay, And think all fighting only play. Then d'Arçon made us move fo fwift, p. 2 1 . His barrels * and his b^gs to lift, 1. 5, 6. That in one night, his epaulement 1. 7. Was form'd fo thick, fo long, fo ftrong, p. 2 1 . That fure, if Elliot and his men 1. 8, 9. Could ever be alarm'd, 'twas t h e n — The Duc de Bourbon came to pore 1. 16. O'er d'Arçon's work, on feaandihore; His floating batteries complete ; His forty cannon-boats fo neat j

* T h e fame Chevalier d ' A r ç o n , who invented the floating batteries, executed an epaulement (which he planned) within the fpace of four hours, in the dark part of the night, between the 15th and 16th of A u g u f t , 1 7 8 2 .

It was called

by him the Parallel Battery, but more properly by Sir George Elliot, the Sappe Volante, from the rapidity of the execution : It was 1 0 1 0 toifes in length, and ten feet in heighth and breadth, formed of facks and barrels, brought to the fpot and filled with the fand found there : I have feen his own account of the diflribution of employment among fo great a number of men (viz. 1 7 , 0 0 0 ) and which proves, that he had a clear head to calculate the

work, fo as to prevent con-

fufion.

F

His

66

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

His twenty bomb-boats add to thefe, Will take the place whene'er we pleafe. T h e royal princes, twain of Bourbon, Of caution fcorn'd to clap the curb on ; But yielding to their valour hot, p. 26. Advanc'd almoft within gun-fhot—1. laft. Thefe awful things together bind Tiiumph and vi&'ry in our mind, p. 35. Our foldiers play, and fing and dance: 1.3,27. Oh! happy nation ! happy France! Whofe people, light at head and heel, N o pangs for others ever feel. — A l l the work's fo quickly done, Hope on ev'ry vifage ihone : But all's not gold, alas, that ihines j For Elliot fct in flames our lines; T o the fea for water went our men ; The Englifh fir'd on thefe again ; A h , barb'rous nation ! cruel foes ! p. 36. Who mercilefs could fire on thofe, I.13,15.Whom ye confus'd by many a ihot, B y Elliot's order made red hot—W e burn'd our fingers, then we refted. In fleep our fad affronts digefted. Our balls now fly round Elliot's head ; p. 40. But he lay filent, as if dead; 1. j 1,12. In vain we make our bullets dance, or Sing againil the rock—no anfwer Heav'n

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

67

p. 4. 1. 26. 1. 29.

Heav'n feem'd to favour our intent; The wind to weilward firmly bent; Ships of the line, full forty-eight Of ours, befpoke poor Elliot's fate—A t anchor firm before his face, Refolv'd no Englilh ihip ihould place Or beef, or mutton, in his diihj (He, food for us) or feed on fiih) Gibraltar mute, by us ftruck dumb, Our triumph now was foon to come:— p. 49. A l a s ! (the wheel is ever turning) 1.5, 6. Our triumph foon was chang'd to mourning :

1. 1 8 .

The floating batt'ries our reliance T o fet the general at defiance, From them by fea to end the matter, Withihowers of balls,his rock we fpatter; He, feeing now what moil we want is T o eternife our new flottantes, Red bullets fends Us by the fcore, That caus'd fuch mifchief heretofore, And men of all degrees and nations, That gaze upon our diff'rent ftations, With monitrous grief, exceiiive wonder, See turn'd to fmoke our floating thunder. Some in the camp were free from care, Nor dream'd they of the dire defpair, The

68

L A D Y CRAVEN'S

JOURNEY

p. 54. The rage, calamity, and crime, I. 14. That ftruck us jointly at that time : I. 20. For thirteen Engliih gun-boats came,. T o add freih fuel to the flame. Amidil this burning, what could fave Hundreds from th' untimely grave ? For through the flames no Frenchman chofe, In faving friends, to fcorch his nofej His brethren broiling calmly views, Rather than finge his beard or ihoes. But Elliot and his men of iteel, That a£t fo flout, can pity feel, p. 55. And Curtis led the gen'rous crew, 1. 16. T o fave the foe, with death in view: Three hundred French and Spaniards took, And nurs'd and fed them at the rock, With anxious care, a care divine ; 1. 30. Such deeds, brave Elliot, fuch were thine! More to thy glory far, 'tis faid, p. 60. Than with hot balls to ftrike us dead— I. 22. Our batt'ries burnt—our fpirits fail, And gloomy thoughts our minds aifail. p. 65. Hiilorians fay that we inherit 1. 3, 5. From Gauls a moil impetuous fpirit; But that it laits not, as it ought, And ends before a battle's f o u g h t — 2

Our

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

69

Our princes, fick of war's alarm, Whom Crillon's camp no longer charm, With Cordova were going away ; But freih bad news made them delay— A Spanilh brig announc'd that night Howe and the Engliih fleet in fight-— Now hopes alone our bofom warm, For buriting clouds befpeak a ftorm, •Sad councils and reflexions came About our ihips, our hopes, our fame—T h e ftorm came on ; it quickly bo^e The Engliih off" the Spanilh ihore, And ours from all their anchors tore: Some were driven near Elliot's guns, Who fing'd the whiikers of the dons j Too fure there's fire in that head ; p. 78. He fent us fcores of bullets red j 1. 22. In him, 'twas horrid, I declare, T o take la Fortune de la Guerre, When beat by rain and ftorms we were. In the midifc of all this fad confufion, The Engliih fquadron made intrufion ; Cordova, fpight of wind and weather, p. 79. Call'd all his officers together : 1. 30. They held a council, talk'd of fight— A frigate at th' approach of night, A n Engliih frigate, ikimm'd away, 1 . 3 4 . Like lightning into Rofiere's bay—Oh

7

o

L A D Y CRAVEN'S JOURNEY O h heaven and earth! to France and Spain, W h a t indignation, wonder, pain. It was to fee two more advance, A n d Englifh tranfports to enhance ! T h e horror of our fouls aggriev'd, F o r thus Gibraltar was r e l i e v ' d ; It was reliev'd, dear F r a n c e ; but k n o w , N o t to brave Elliot, or to H o w e , Is due the glory of this deed, W h i c h makes our forrowing hearts oft bleed,

p, 91.

B y copper, and by coals alone

1. 4,

Their martial courage was made k n o w n ; A n d if an Elliot's facred nameW i t h that of honour be the fame-— T o wond'ring ages yet to come, A n d we were fent like children h o m e — T h e coals that made his bullets red Deferve the wreaths that crown his h e a d — A n d copper-bottom'd ihips I ween, T h a t feud along fo neat, .0 c l e a n Secure the a&ive Britiih foe, A n d not the valour of their H o w e - — Dear friends, like me, treat with difdain Their glory, and forget your pain ; Hate honour from your haughty fouls That's gain'd by copper, and by coals—And

TO

CONSTANTINOPLE.

And now, ye playful dolphins, quickly bear, Acrofs the leas, this difmal tale with care; At Calpe's * foot, I charge ye, reft a while, Divert the warrior from his hourly toil A Britiih hero fcarcely can refufe This trifling tribute from an Engliih Mufe. Then to the weftern ocean fpeed your way, Nor loiter thoughtlefs on the Bifcayn-bay In Britain's channel once arriv'd, remain ; And let my countrymen from you obtain Your facred charge Beneath the oak's deep ihade, My honour'd friends, retir'd from toil, are laid While they on French defcription fmiles beitow, France fows freih laurels for each Engliih brow. Mean time with care a myrtle-wreath I weave To grace but one f , the braveit of the brave.

* Sir G e o r g e Elliot w a s then at Gibraltar,

f

Sir G e o r g e Elliot.

You

;a

LADY CRAVEN's JOURNEY

You fee, dear Sir, I meant to have fent it to Sir George Elliot ; I know he has the French pamphlet but as he may not be fo partial to the productions of my mufe as you are, I am rather content that you ihould fee it.

Believe me your's moil affe&ionately.

L E T T E R

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

H Y ERES,

73

XVI.

A u g u f t 24,

I785.

D E A R Sir! I am extremely furprifed that invalids, who fly to the fouth in winter, do not choofe Hyeres in preference to Montpellier or N i c e ; it is true that it is more folitary than either of thefe places; but I am fure, by the accounts I have had of the laft, its lying, goffiping, mifchievous ftile of the fociety rauft be a moil horrid thing for nerves ihaken by illnefs. There is an uncommon clearnefs in the air h e r e ; the iilands appear to the eye to be not above three miles diftant, and I am aiTured they are feven leagues—Proviiions are excellent here, particularly fiih ; among thefe, the John-dory and the red Mullet are of an amazing iize, and excellent; I thought the Dory was called the Dorade, but it is called the PoiiTon de St. Pierre j

74

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

Pierre;

and the Dorade, o f which there

is plenty, is a very indifferent fiih T h e y fpoil the red Mullet by conftantly pulling out the livers.

T h e land is too

precious here to be fpared for

building,

yet there are houfes enough to lodge feveral families T h e r e is very feldom any rain at Hyeres, and the rides of the environs are the mod beautiful that your imagination can form —particularly of

one towards

the reiidence

a M r . Glapiere de St. Tropes—who

has near his houfe a beautiful large valley between the mountains, which he might with little expence turn into a charming park with a river running through it—You muft not fuppofe from the want o f rain here, that there is no verdure, or that the orange-gardens look burnt by the f u n ; the natives o f this happy fpot are extremely ingenious in turning every little fpring that comes from the mountains (and thefe fprings are numerous) over their fields and gardens, fo that the conftant want of rain here is the

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

ys

the very reafon why every vegetation never fails of being refreihed perpetually.— Put all thefe circumftances together, with another, which I think muft weigh with every reafonable perfon, out of their own country, which is, that proviiions are very cheap, and you will agree with me, that Hyeres is a very good place for an invalid to pafs a winter in I am fetting out for Antibes, having received the information I waited for I remain your's moil truly, E. C —

L E T T E R

76

L A D Y CRAVEN'S

JOURNEY

L E T T E R

XVII.

ANTIBES,

M

O ST

A u g . 28,

1785.

part of the road f r o m H y e r e s

to this place is very mountainous and row,

fo

I rode along

the

nar-

greatefl: part

of it I find here an ancient w o r k of the R o mans

it is an a q u e d u i t w h i c h a Colonel

d'Aquillon imagined might be reftored to its former u f e of bringing water to the t o w n , at a fmall expence

he met with much o p -

poiition and ingratitude f r o m the very people to whom it could be of u f e ; but I a m told he has obtained a p e n f i o n , and a m o n u m e n t is intended to be e r e & e d to his h o n o u r — I believe there is no nation

but

ours that waits for a perfon's death, to i h e w f o m e fign of

f a t i s f a d i o n — f o r the benefit

derived f r o m their luperior talents

If

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

77

If V a u b a n ' s plan had been followed for this port, it would have been one of the fineft in the M e d i t e r r a n e a n — A s it is at prefent,

none

but veffels of the lighteft

burthen can enter I have hired a felucca, a long narrow boat

with

three

ihoulder-of-mutton-fails,

and ten oars, in which I mean to go from hence to L e g h o r n — I have talked fo much lately to you about orange-gardens,

that

you m a y fairly fuppofe, I paifed much m y time in t h e m ; for they

of

but indeed I have not,

are f a r from being comfortable

things to be in, though magnificent to look at, from a little diftance; there is one, and not a very large

garden, at Hyeres, that

brings the proprietor

in

fifteen

hundred

pounds fterling a y e a r ; I was taken to fee it upon m y a r r i v a l — b u t

the ground is f o

precious in thefe gardens, that none is to be fpared for w a l k s — f o that I was forced to creep among

the orange-trees as I could,

like any other earthly reptile T h e Spaniards and Algerines having lately made a

peace,

I am informed I run fome

78

L A D Y CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

fome riik of being taken by a Barbary corfair, as the Algerines turn their fpirit of piracy on all other veffels but Spaniih at prefent—however I cannot fay I am the leaft afraid, fince the very fears of my Italian failors will prevent them from going farther from the ihore than what is abfolutely neceiTarv for failing

Adieu, dear Sir,

I remain your's-

l e t t e r

—

TO C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

L E T T E R

79

XVIII.

GENOA,

Sept. i, 1785.

I Got no farther than Monaco laft night, where I looked over the old caftle which ftands perpendicularly upon a rock from the fea. T h e prince was abfent: he is adding a Salle de Compagnie to his chateau, which it wants very much The building being ancient and irregular; he has taken moft of the fine pidures to Paris, as his people told me, and I was ihewn a modern corniih in ftucco, one of Adam's defigns, executing as a great curioiity, though it was none to me, as we have fuch in moil of our parlours in England There are the remains of forne fine painting eu frefque in the court The room the poor Duke of York died in isoneof the moft melancholy I ever faw ; the very bed had a gloomy look ; but indeed all the apartments are dark and difmal The prince has three 1 houfe*

8o

LADY CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

houfes for his own refidence, at a fmall diftance from each other, on this coaft Monaco, Moncobron, and Menton—His pofleffions do not feem very fertile, from whence probably arifes an Italian diftich my boatmen repeated fo often in going u p to Monaco, that I could not avoid retaining i t ; in Englifh it is—Monaco upon a rock, neither fows nor reaps, but lives on others property T h e y added, that part of his revenue coniifted in a tribute which all fmall veiTels pay in going from France to Italy, that is, all but the French, who are exempt from this tax, which, by the bye, i faw no other method of exadting but a miferable little veflel of his I law in the port, which they told me went after the others, who might refufe to pay it T h e r e were arms and ammunition for forty thoufand men fent in there, by fmall quantities at a time, for fifteen months part —from France Monaco's Prince, from his connexion with French families, and his frequenting Verfailles,

TO C O N S T A N T I N O P L E .

8i

Verfailles, is become, I fuppofe (though a fovereign prince) only a tool of that court • T h e f e private military preparations are conveniently placed for Italy,, Monaco being within four-and-twenty hours fail of any Italian port north of Leghorn. Here I found the great ufe of my new travelling bed—the feet, which are of iron, are placed in tin cups full of water, and a zinzaliere, or gauze curtain with no opening to it, that lets down over me, prevented my being devoured by gnats and every other fort of biting, flinging vermin I can conceive nothing pleafanter than having a clean comfortable Engliih yatcht, with four or five feniible people to go with into Italy, coaftingas I d o — T h e fcenery is beautiful—Nice, which I paiTed by, is a fine obje£t ; the iky too is fo clear, every thing feems to confpire in making this voyage delightful—but, alas! in a felucca, it is too true, what the late Lord D faid, that you never come out of one, without feeling all alive. As foon as the heat of the fun goes off, with the approach of the evenG ing,

82

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

ing, thefe Italian failors make a horrid noife too j they fing, it is true, not unharmonioufly; but for two hours, nay more, the fame hymn to the Virgin—now and then interfperfed with a lively ballad—£b that the ilill part of the evening, which at fea particularly invites to contemplation or converfation, is ruffled by the gaiety of thefe poor fellows. 1 am at prefent in a very good inn, the Golden Stag—and every thing I fee here is fo unlike any thing I ever faw before, that I am at the window gaping like a country-mifs, that is in London for the firft time in her life When I have gaped to fome purpofe, you fhall profit by it —— I now wiih you and —— a good night—

Your's affe&ionately

L E T T E R

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

L E T T E R

83

XIX

GENOA, S e p t . 16,

178s.

T H I S town is oddly iituated—it is f o much confined between the fea and high mountains; the churches, convents, and their gardens, take up fo much room, that mercantile people can fcarcely find habitations ; the palaces are extremely fine, but lo lofty, and the ilreets fo narrow, that to fee the outfide of the houfes, I think one ihould lie down in the middle of a ftreet I never faw any thing more truly magnificent than fome of the palaces, the pillars and ftaircafes of which are all marble Y o u may judge of the folidity of thefe buildings: fome of them are feven and eight hundred years o l d — I faw one ftaircafe, the altering of which coft twenty thoufand pounds. It is well worth any perG a fon's

u

LADY CRAVENs J O U R N E Y

fon's while to come here who loves fine pictures in moil of the palaces there are f o m e — a few of the palaces have large colleitions; and in thefe printed catalogues of t h e m — I have had the greateft pleafure in looking at fome—there are two Vandykes in one of the Brignoli palaces, that I think invaluable. T h e man is on a grey horfe, the lady his wife, is a whole length—there is as much grace and beauty in her face and figure, as his pencil could exprefs All the magnificence of the Genoefe is confined to their palaces; by their laws, they cannot have gold either on their clothes, carriages, or liveries. T h e chief amufement of ladies here is walking the ftreets in the evening, with their fedanchair and feveral fervants behind them, accompanied by one or more gentlemen—it is very much the faihion likewife, for every perfon who can afford it, to have one or feveral country-houfes—as they call them j but the iituations of them, perched about the fteep rocks, gives me but little idea of the country. T h e people in general do not look

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

85

look healthy All the women wear what is called a mezzaro, viz. about two yards or more of black iilk or chintz, wrapped about their heads and ihoulders, inftead of a cloak; it is extremely graceful, if well put on. E v e r y woman has an opportunity of hiding a defeat, or ihewing a beauty, as they may conceal one eye, the throat, the forehead, the chin, or in ihort fuffer thofe they meet to fee only what they choofe to difplay. T h e mezzaro too has a great convenience, which is, that a woman can fo hide herfelf in it, that ihe may walk all over the town unknown; this mezzaro is particularly advantageous to a perfon with fine ihoulders and eyes. There are but two ftreets in the town where carriages can g o ; f o t h a t fedan chairs or walking are the principal methods of going from one place to another. T h e females among the lower clafs difgufted me much by their head-drefs—their hair is ftrained up to a point on the top of their head, and fattened to a pin

-judge

what a figure an old greyheaded or bald woman muil make. I cannot,

86

LADY CRAVEN'S JOURNEY

I cannot help thiriking this once floufiihing republic, notwithftanding the opulence of fome of its noble families, is becoming very faft a dependent on, of a creature of the court of France. Some of their nobles marry into French families—and 1 foon lofe their fortune and their patriotic ideas in the extravagance and fervility of that court-— Corfica is a melancholy proof of this opinion Of the t w o noble Genoefe, to whom I had letters, the lady is dead, and the gentleman is not here; fo that I have announced myfelf no where, as I would not be detained here longer than juft to fee the churches and pi&ures, and though I ihould have been pleafed to have feen the manner of living of the Genoefe nobles, I would not upon any account get into a train of mipifters dinners and viiits I have been much furprifed to fee a black Virgin and child in one of the churches h e r e : unlefs it be to tempt Negroes to t u r n Chriflians, I cannot conceive why they f u f fer it to remain I havo

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

8;

I have been, on board the Galères•—and if the variety of very fine pictures have delighted me, the fight of heavy chains, and fo many human beings enduring flavery for years, has ihocked me beyond defcription ; yet they do not look unhappy ; and I think fervitude a more rational puniihment for fome crimes than death ; but flavery to an Englifh mind, I fuppofe, muft be very horrible by what I feel Yefterday two Algerine ilaves came to my apartment to fell flippers ; the oldeft of the two was one of the handfomeft brown men, with the beft countenance I ever faw ; he has been a flave five-and-twenty years, and is fuffered to go about without the ufuat attendant, which is a man with a ftout ftick in his hand, who follows the flaves who walk about the town chained together, always in pairs W h e n I thought upon the fate of this old m a n ; guilty of no crime ; a prifoner of war ; his looks fo noble and fo honeft ; I wept, andwiihed I might have had intereil enough

88

LADY CRAVEN'S J O U R N E Y

enough with the Doge and Senate of Genoa to have fent him home to JUgiers T h e f e fort of pi&ures in real life, are of a dark h u e : I muft therefore again turn to thofe I have feen in the palaces; I confefs I ihould not diflike to pafs three winter months here to examine them at leifure, -and copy a few. T h e r e is a buft of Vitellius in one of the palaces, for which I am affured the D u k e of Marlborough offered to give its weight in gold. T h e f u m m u f t neceffarily have been very large, for the buft is fo maffy that it probably weighs above half any other marble ftatue: But it does much honour to the duke's tafte, as the work is p e r f e d ; and much likewife to the poiTeffor, to prize fo highly what deferves fo well to be efteemed. i have been offered any price I choofe to aik for a cheftnut Suffolkhorfe here; the ftable it is in is crowded every day, and it grieves fome of the Genoefe very much that I will not part with him j but I think a good woman's horic

TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

89

horfe is fo difficult to be had, that I never can underftand how any perfon can part with one

Adieu, my dear Sir——Believe mc-