Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
History
Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant, 1810-1817: The Journal of C. R. Cockerell, R.A.
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert)
Cockerell, C. R. (Charles Robert), 1788-1863; Europe -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel
With one exception there were no Englishmen, artists or others, in
Naples at that time, but a number of Frenchmen, with some of whom
Cockerell struck up a great intimacy. In spite of national feeling,
which was running very high at the time, he got on very well with them,
but he says in a letter from Rome they were dreadful time-servers in
their political views. Of course it was a difficult moment for
Frenchmen. After Napoleon's abdication at Fontainebleau in April 1814,
they had had to accommodate themselves to a revival of the ancient
monarchy, which could not be very satisfactory to anyone, and now
Napoleon was back again in France. Between two such alternatives no
wonder that their judgment oscillated; but to Cockerell--patriotic,
enthusiastic, and troubled by no awkward dilemmas--their vacillation was
unintelligible.
The one Englishman was Gell (afterwards Sir William), who speaks of a
stay they made together at Pompeii as the pleasantest time he had spent
in his three years' tour.
During this time Cockerell worked hard, and besides what he did which
could only be of use to himself, he made himself so familiar with
Pompeii that Gell proposed to him to join him in writing an itinerary of
that place.
Altogether, leaving Athens on the 15th of January, it was six months
before Cockerell got to Rome. Between Naples and Rome the country seems
to have been in a very unquiet state, and Carl Rester, who was still
with him, writes afterwards: "You remember how anxious about brigands we
all were on the journey."
Soon after they arrived, Rester, who must by now have become an irksome
burden, started from Rome to walk to his own home at Frankfort. He took
a long time about it, but he got there at last in December, only to find
his family so reduced by the wars that he determined, as he says, not to
be a burden to them, but to show his gratitude to his benefactor by
asking for more favours and throwing himself as a burden upon him. So he
determined to extend his walk to England. Before leaving his native
town, however, he says he published in the local newspaper the following
strange tribute to Cockerell's generosity:
"Magna Britannia victoriosa, gloriosa, bene merens, felix. Carolus
Robertus Cockerell nobilis Anglus et moribus et scientiis praeclarus me
infelicem perditum Germaniae prolem, primis diebus 1815 e Morea barbaris
deportavit. Ad Corfum deinde amicis meis Anglis restituit et patriae
advicinavit per Napolem universum, Romae me secum ducentem [for ducens]
humaniter semper et nobili amicitia me tractavit a London, Old
Burlington Street, No. 8, nobilissimi parentes ipsum progenuerunt
dignissimum membrum magnae nationis et hominem ubicunque aestimatissimum
Pro gratia universis Anglis et ipsi
Carolus Rester germanus.
Gallis merentibus, Britannia juncta Germanis felix Auspicium semper
semperque erit." (Are these two last lines elegiacs?--ED.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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