Chapter V (1)

If then beneath the deep profound
Retires unseen the slipp’ry ground;
If melted metals pour’d from high
A verdant mountain grows by time,
Where frisking kids can browze and climb,
And softer scenes supply:
Let us who view the varying scene,
And tread th’ instructive paths between,
See famish’d Time his fav’rite sons devour,
Fix’d for an age--then swallow’d in an hour;
Let us at least be early wise,
And forward walk with heav’n-fix’d eyes,
Each flow’ry isle avoid, each precipice despise;
Till, spite of pleasure, fear, or pain,
Eternity’s firm coast we gain,
Whence looking back with alter’d eye,
These fleeting phantoms we’ll descry,
And find alike the song and theme
Was but--an empty, airy dream.

When one has exhausted all the ideas presented to the mind by the sight of Monte Nuovo, made in one night by the eruption of Solfa Terra, now sunk into itself and almost extinguished; by the lake Avernus; by the Phlegræan fields, where Jupiter killed the giants, with such thunderbolts as fell about our ears the other night I trust, and buried one of them alive under mount Ætna; when one has seen the Sybil’s grott, and the Elysian plains, and every seat of fable and of verse; when one has run about repeating Virgil’s verses and Claudian’s by turns, and handled the hot sand under the cool waves of Baia; when one has seen Cicero’s villa and Diana’s temple, and talked about antiquities till one is afraid of one’s own pedantry, and tired of every one’s else; it is almost time to recollect realities of more near interest to such of us as are not ashamed of being Christians, and to remember that it was at Pozzuoli St. Paul arrived after the storms he met with in these seas. The wind is still called here _Sieuroc_, o sia _lo vento Greco_; and their manner of pronouncing it led me to think it might possibly be that called in Scripture _Euroc_lydon, abbreviated by that grammatical figure, which lops off the concluding syllables. The old Pastor Patrobas too, who received and entertained the Apostle here, lies interred under the altar of an old church at Pozzuoli, made out of the remains of a temple to Jupiter, whose pillars are in good preservation: I was earnest to see the place at least, as every thing named in the New Testament is of true importance, but one meets few people of the same taste: for Romanists take most delight in venerating traditionary heroes, and Calvinists, perhaps too easily disgusted, desire to venerate no heroes at all.

Some curious inscriptions here, to me not legible, shew how this poor country has been overwhelmed by tyrants, earthquakes, Saracens! not to mention the Goths and Vandals, who however left no traces _but_ desolation: while, as the prophet Joel says, “_The ground was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness_.”

These Mahometan invaders, less savage, but not less cruel, afforded at least an unwilling shelter in that which is now their capital, for the wretched remains of literature. To their misty envelopement of science, fatigued with struggling against perpetual suffocation, succeeded imposture, barbarism, and credulity; with superstition at their head, who still keeps her footing in this country: and inspires such veneration for St. Januarius, his name, his blood, his statue, &c. that the Neapolitans, who are famous for blasphemous oaths, and a facility of taking the most sacred words into their mouths on every, and I may say, on _no_ occasion, are never heard to repeat _his_ name without pulling off their hat, or making some reverential sign of worship at the moment. And I have seen Italians from other states greatly shocked at the grossness of these their unenlightened neighbours, particularly the half-Indian custom of burning figures upon their skins with gunpowder: these figures, large, and oddly displayed too, according to the coarse notions of the wearer.

As the weather is exceedingly warm, and there is little need of clothing for comfort, our Lazaroni have small care about appearances, and go with a vast deal of their persons uncovered, except by these strange ornaments. The man who rows you about this lovely bay, has perhaps the angel Raphael, or the blessed Virgin Mary, delineated on one brawny sun-burnt leg, the saint of the town upon the other: his arms represent the Glory, or the seven spirits of God, or some strange things, while a brass medal hangs from his neck, expressive of his favourite martyr: whom they confidently affirm is so madly venerated by these poor uninstructed mortals, that when the mountain burns, or any great disaster threatens them, they beg of our Saviour to speak to St. Januarius in their behalf, and intreat him not to refuse them his assistance. Now though all this was told me by friends of the Romish persuasion; and told me too with a just horror of the superstitious folly; I think my remarks and inferences were not agreeable to them, when expressing my notion that it was only a relick of the adoration originally paid to Janus in Italy, where the ground yielding up its frost to the soft breath of the new year, is not ill-typified by the liquefaction of the blood; a ceremony which has succeeded to various Pagan ones celebrated by Ovid in the first book of his Fasti. We know from history too, that perfumes were offered in _January_ always, to signify the renovation of _sweets_; and this was so necessary, that I think Tacitus tells us Thrasea was first impeached for absence at the time of the new year, when in _Janus_’s presence, &c. good wishes were formed for the Emperor’s felicity; and no word of ill omen was to be pronounced.--_Cautum erat apud Romanos ne quod mali ominis verbum calendis_ Januariis _efferretur_; says Pliny: and the _strenæ_ or new-years gifts, called now by the French “les _etrennes_,” and practised by Lutherans as well as Romanists, is the self-same veneration of old _Janus_, if fairly traced up to Tatius King of the Sabines, who sought a laurel bough plucked from the grove of the goddess _Strenia_, or _Strenua_, and presented it to his favourites on the first of _January_, from whence the custom arose; and Symmachus, in his tenth book, twenty-eighth epistle, mentions it clearly when writing to the Emperors Theodosius and Arcadius--“Strenuarum _usus adolevit auctoritate Tatii regis, qui verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Strenuæ anni_.”

Octavius Cæsar took the name of Augustus on the first of January in Janus’s temple, by Plancus’s advice, as a lucky day; and I suppose our new-year’s ode, sung before the King of England, may be derived from the same source. The old Fathers of the Church declaimed aloud against the custom of new-years gifts, because they considered them as of Pagan original. So much for _Les Etrennes_.

As to _St. Januarius_, there certainly was a martyr of that name at Naples, and to him was transferred much of the veneration originally bestowed on the deity from whom he was probably named. One need not however wander round the world with Banks and Solander, or stare so at the accounts given us in Cook’s Voyages of _tattowed Indians_, when Naples will shew one the effects of a like operation, very _very_ little better executed, on the broad shoulders of numberless Lazaroni; and of this there is no need to examine books for information, he who runs over the Chiaja may read in large characters the gross superstition of the Napolitani, who have no inclination to lose their old classical character for laziness--

Et in otia natam
Parthenopen;

says Ovid. I wonder however whether our people would work much surrounded by similar circumstances; I fancy not: Englishmen, poor fellows! must either work or starve; these folks want for nothing: a house would be an inconvenience to them; they like to sleep out of doors, and it is plain they have small care for clothing, as many who possess decent habiliments enough, I speak of the Lazaroni, throw almost all off till some holiday, or time of gala, and sit by the sea-side playing at moro with their fingers.

A Florentine nobleman told me once, that he asked one of these fellows to carry his portmanteau for him, and offered him a _carline_, no small sum certainly to a Neapolitan, and rather more in proportion than an English shilling; he had not twenty yards to go with it: “_Are you hungry, Master?_” cries the fellow. “_No_,” replied Count Manucci, “_but what of that?_”--“_Why then no more am I_:” was the answer, “_and it is too hot weather to carry burthens_:” so turned about upon the other side, and lay still.

This class of people, amounting to a number that terrifies one but to think on, some say sixty thousand souls, and experience confirms no less, give the city an air of gaiety and cheerfulness, and one cannot help honestly rejoicing in. The Strada del Toledo is one continual crowd: nothing can exceed the confusion to a walker, and here are little gigs drawn by one horse, which, without any bit in his mouth, but a string tied round his nose, tears along with inconceivable rapidity a small narrow gilt chair, set between the two wheels, and no spring to it, nor any thing else which can add to the weight; and this flying car is a kind of _fiacre_ you pay so much for a drive in, I forget the sum.

Horses are particularly handsome in this town, not so large as at Milan, but very beautiful and spirited; the cream-coloured creatures, such as draw our king’s state coach, are a common breed here, and shine like sattin: here are some too of a shining silver white, wonderfully elegant; and the ladies upon the Corso exhibit a variety scarcely credible in the colour of their cattle which draw them: but the coaches, harness, trappings, &c. are vastly inferior to the Milanese, whose liveries are often splendid; whereas the four or five ill-dressed strange-looking fellows that disgrace the Neapolitan equipages seem to be valued only for their number, and have very often much the air of Sir John Falstaff’s recruits.

Yesterday however shewed me what I knew not had existed--a skew-ball or pye-balled ass, eminently well-proportioned, coated like a racer in an English stud, sixteen hands and a half high, his colour bay and white in large patches, and his temper, as the proprietor told me, singularly docile and gentle. I have longed perhaps to purchase few things in my life more earnestly than this beautiful and useful animal, which I might have had too for two pounds fifteen shillings English, but dared not, lest like Dogberry I should have been written down for an ass by my merry country folks, who, I remember, could not let the Queen of England herself possess in peace a creature of the same kind, but handsomer still, and from a still hotter climate, called the Zebra.

Apropos to quadrupeds, when Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, enumerates her lovers, she names the Neapolitan prince first; who, she says, does nothing, for his part, but talk of his horse, and makes it his greatest boast that he can shoe him himself. This is almost literally true of a nobleman here; and they really do not throw their pains away; for it is surprising to see what command they have their cattle in, though bits are scarcely used among them.

The coat armour of Naples consists of an unbridled horse; and by what I can make out of their character, they much resemble him;

Qualis ubi abruptis fugit præsæpia vinclis
Tandem liber æquus, &c. &c. &c.[2];

generous and gay; headstrong and violent in their disposition; easy to turn, but difficult to stop. No authority is respected by them when some strong passion animates them to fury: yet lazily quiet, and unwilling to stir till accident rouses them to terror, or rage urges them forward to incredible exertions of suddenly-bestowed strength. In the eruption of 1779, their fears and superstitions rose to such a height, that they seized the French ambassador upon the bridge, tore him almost out of his carriage as he fled from Portici, and was met by them upon the Ponte della Maddalena, where they threatened him with instant death if he did not get out of his carriage, and prostrating himself before the statue of St. Januarius, which stands there, intreat his protection for the city. All this, however, Mons. le Comte de Clermont D’Amboise did not comprehend a word of; but taking all the money out of his pocket, threw it down, happily for him, at the feet of the figure, and pacified them at once, gaining time by those means to escape their vengeance.

It was, I think, upon some other occasion that Sir William Hamilton’s book relates their unworthy treatment of the venerable Archbishop, who refused them the relicks with which they had no doubt of saving the menaced town; but every time Vesuvius burns with danger to the city, they scruple not to insult their Sovereign as he flies from it; throwing large stones after his chariot, guards, &c.; making the insurrection, it is sure to occasion, more perilous, if possible, than the volcano itself. And last night when _La Montagna fu cattiva_[3], as their expression was, our Laquais de Place observed that it might possibly be because so many hereticks and unbelievers had been up it the day before. “Oh! let us,” as King David wisely chose, “fall into the hands of God--not into those of man.”

I wished exceedingly to purchase here the genuine account of Massaniello’s far-famed sedition and revolt, more dreadful in a certain way than any of the earthquakes which have at different times shaken this hollow-founded country. But my friends here tell me it was suppressed, and burned by the hands of the common executioner, with many chastisements beside bestowed upon the writer, who tried to escape, but found it more prudent to submit to justice.

Thomas Agnello was the unluckily-adapted name of the mad fisherman who headed the mob on that truly memorable occasion: but it is not an unusual thing here to cut off the first syllable, and by the figure aphæresis alter the appellation entirely. By that device of dropping the _to_, he has been called Massaniello; and this is one of their methods to render the patois of Naples as unintelligible to us, as if we had never seen Italy till now; and one is above all things tormented with their way of pronouncing names. Here are Don and Donna again at this town as at Milan however, because the King of Spain, or _Ré Cattolico_, as these people always call him, has still much influence; and they seem to think nearly as respectfully of him as of their own immediate sovereign, who is however greatly beloved among them; and so he ought to be, for he is the representative of them all. He rides and rows, and hunts the wild boar, and catches fish in the bay, and sells it in the market, as dear as he can too; but gives away the money they pay him for it, and that directly: so that no suspicion of meanness, or of any thing worse than a little rough merriment can be ever attached to his truly-honest, open, undesigning character.

Stories of monarchs seldom give me pleasure, who seldom am persuaded to give credit to tales told of persons few people have any access to, and whose behaviour towards those few is circumscribed within the laws of insipid and dull routine; but this prince lives among his subjects with the old Roman idea of a window before his bosom I believe. They know the worst of him is that he shoots at the birds, dances with the girls, eats macaroni, and helps himself to it with his fingers, and rows against the watermen in the bay, till one of them burst out o’bleeding at the nose last week, with his uncourtly efforts to outdo the King, who won the trifling wager by this accident: conquered, laughed, and leaped on shore amidst the acclamations of the populace, who huzzaed him home to the palace, from whence he sent double the sum he had won to the waterman’s wife and children, with other tokens of kindness. Mean time, while he resolves to be happy himself, he is equally determined to make no man miserable.

When the Emperor and the Grand Duke talked to him of their new projects for reformation in the church, he told them he saw little advantage they brought into _their_ states by these new-fangled notions; that when he was at Florence and Milan, the deuce a Neapolitan could he find in either, while his capital was crowded with refugees from thence; that in short they might do _their_ way, but he would do his; that he had not now an enemy in the world, public or private; and that he would not make himself any for the sake of propagating doctrines he did not understand, and would not take the trouble to study: that he should say his prayers as he used to do, and had no doubt of their being heard, while he only begged blessings on his beloved people. So if these wise brothers-in-law would learn of him to enjoy life, instead of shortening it by unnecessary cares, he invited them to see him the next morning play a great match at tennis.

The truth is, the jolly Neapolitans lead a coarse life, but it is an unoppressed one. Never sure was there in any town a greater shew of abundance: no settled market in any given place, I think, but every third shop full of what the French call so properly _ammunition de Bouche_, while whole boars, kids and small calves dangle from a sort of neat scaffolding, all with their skins on, and make a pretty appearance. Poulterers hang up their animals in the feathers too, not lay them on boards plucked, as at London or Venice.

The Strada del Toledo is at least as long as Oxford Road, and straight as Bond-street, very wide too, the houses all of stone, and at least eight stories high. Over the shops live people of fashion I am told, but the persons of particularly high quality have their palaces in other parts of the town; which town at last is not a large one, but full as an egg: and Mr. Clarke, the antiquarian, who resides here always, informed me that the late distresses in Calabria had driven many families to Naples this year, beside single wanderers innumerable; which wonderfully increased the daily throng one sees passing and repassing. To hear the Lazaroni shout and bawl about the streets night and day, one would really fancy one’s self in a semi-barbarous nation; and a Milanese officer, who has lived long among them, protested that the manners of the great corresponded in every respect with the idea given of them by the little. His account of female conduct, and that even in the very high ranks, was such as reminded me of Queen Oberea’s sincerity, when Sir Joseph Banks joked her about Otoroo. It is however observable, and surely very praiseworthy, that if the Italians are not ashamed of their crimes, neither are they ashamed of their contrition. I saw this very morning an odd scene at church, which, though new to _me_, appeared, perhaps from its frequent repetition, to strike no one but myself.

A lady with a long white dress, and veiled, came in her carriage, which waited for her at the door, with her own arms upon it, and three servants better dressed than is common here, followed and put a lighted taper in her hand. _En cet état_, as the French say, she moved slowly up the church, looking like Jane Shore in the last act, but not so feeble; and being arrived at the steps of the high altar, threw herself quite upon her face before it, remaining prostrate there at least five minutes, in the face of the whole congregation, who, equally to my amazement, neither stared nor sneered, neither laughed nor lamented, but minded their own private devotions--no mass was saying--till the lady rose, kissed the steps, and bathed them with her tears, mingled with sobs of no affected or hypocritical penitence I am sure. Retiring afterwards to her own seat, where she waited with others the commencement of the sacred office, having extinguished her candle, and apparently lighted her heart; I felt mine quite penetrated by her behaviour, and fancied her like our first parent described by Milton in the same manner:

To confess
Humbly her faults, and pardon beg; with tears
Watering the ground, and with her sighs the air
Frequenting, sent from heart contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign’d, and humiliation meek.

Let not this story, however, mislead any one to think that more general decorum or true devotion can be found in churches of the Romish persuasion than in ours--quite the reverse. This burst of penitential piety was in itself an indecorous thing; but it is the nature and genius of the people not to mind small matters. Dogs are suffered to run about and dirty the churches all the time divine service is performing; while the crying of babies, and the most indecent methods taken by the women to pacify them, give one still juster offence. There is no treading for spittle and nastiness of one sort or another, in all the churches of Italy, whose inhabitants allow the filthiness of Naples, but endeavour to justify the disorders of other cities; though I do believe nothing ever equalled the Chiesa de Cavalieri at Pisa, in any Christian land. Santa Giustina at Padua, the Redentore at Venice, St. Peter’s at Rome, and some of the least frequented churches at Milan, are exceptions; they are kept very clean, and do not, by the scandalous neglect of those appointed to keep them, disgrace the beauty of their buildings.

Here has, however, been a dreadful accident which puts such slight considerations out of one’s head. A Friar has killed a woman in the church just by the Crocelle inn, for having refused him favours he suspected she had granted to another. No step is taken though towards punishing the murderer, because he is _religioso, è di più cavaliere_. What a miracle that more such outrages are not daily committed in a country where profession of sanctity, and real high birth, are protections from law and justice! Surely nothing but perfect sobriety and great goodness of disposition can be alleged as a reason why worse is not done every day. I said so to a gentleman just now, who assured me the criminal would not escape very severe castigation; and that perhaps the convent would inflict such severities upon that gentleman as would amply supply the want of activity in the exertion of civil power.

It is a stupid thing not to mention the common dress of the ordinary women here, which ladies likewise adopt, if they venture out on foot, desiring not to be known. Two black silk petticoats then serve entirely to conceal their whole figure; as when both are tied round their waist, one is suddenly turned up, and as they pull it quick over their heads, a loose trimming of narrow black gauze drops over the face, while a hook and eye fastens all close under the chin, and gives them an air not unlike our country wenches, who throw the gown tail over their heads, to protect them from a summer’s shower. The holiday dresses mean time of the peasants round Naples, are very rich and cumbersome. One often sees a great coarse raw-boned fellow on a Sunday, panting for heat under a thick blue velvet coat comically enough; the females in a scarlet cloth petticoat, with a broad gold lace at the bottom, a jacket open before, but charged with heavy ornaments, and the head not unbecomingly dressed with an embroidered handkerchief from Turkey, exactly as one sees them represented here in prints, which they sell dear enough, God knows; and ask, as I am informed by the purchasers, not twice or thrice, but four or five times more than at last they take, as indeed for every thing one buys here: One portrait is better, however, than a thousand words, when single figures are to be delineated; but of the Grotta del Cane, description gives a completer idea than drawing. Both are perhaps nearly unnecessary indeed, when speaking of a place so often and so accurately described. What surprised me most among the ceremonies of this extraordinary place was, that the pent up vapour shut in an excavation of the rock, should, upon opening the door, gradually move forwards a few yards, but not rise up above a foot from the surface, nor, by what I could observe, ever dissipate in air; I think we left it hovering over the favourite spot, when the poor cur’s nose had been forcibly held in it for a minute or two, but he took care after his recovery to keep a very judicious distance. Sporting with animal life is always highly offensive; and the fellow’s account that his dog was used to the operation, and had already gone through it eight times, that it did him no harm, &c. I considered as words used merely to quiet our impatience of the experiment, which is infinitely more amusing when tried upon a lighted flambeau, extinguishing it most completely in a moment. What connection there is between flame and vitality, those who know more of the matter than I do, must expound. Certain it is, that many sorts of vapour are equally fatal to both; and where fermentation is either going forward, or has lately been, people accustomed to such matters always try with a candle whether the cask is approachable by man or not; and I once saw a terrifying accident arise in a great brewhouse, from the headstrong stupidity of a workman who would go down into a vat, the contents of which had lately been drawn off, without sending his proper præcursor the candle, to enquire if all was safe. The consequence was half expected by his companions, who hearing him drop off the steps, and fall flat to the bottom, began instantly hooking him up again, but there were no signs of life; some ran for their master, others for a surgeon, but we were nearest at hand, and recollecting what one had read of the recovery of dogs at Naples, by tossing them suddenly into the lake Agnano, we made the men carry their patient to the cooler, and plunging him over head and ears, restored his life, exactly in the manner of the Grotta del Cane experiment, which succeeded so completely in this fellow’s case, I remember, that waking after the temporary suspension, we had much ado to impress so insensible a mortal with a due sense of the danger his rashness had incurred.

But it is time to tell of Herculaneum, Pompeia, and Portici; of a theatre, the scene of gaiety and pleasure, overwhelmed by torrents of liquid fire! the inhabitants of a whole town surprised by immediate and unavoidable destruction! Where that very town indeed was built with the lava produced by former eruptions, one would think it scarce possible that such calamities could be totally unexpected;--but no matter, life must go on, though we all know death is coming;--so the bread was baking in their ovens, the meat was smoking on their dishes, some of their wine already decanted for use, the rest in large jars (_amphora_), now petrified with their contents inside, and fixed to the walls of the cellars in which they stand.--How dreadful are the thoughts which such a sight suggests! how _very_ horrible the certainty, that such a scene may be all acted over again to-morrow; and that we, who to-day are spectators, may become spectacles to travellers of a succeeding century, who mistaking our bones for those of the Neapolitans, may carry some of them to their native country back again perhaps; as it came into my head that a French gentleman was doing, when I saw him put a human bone into his pocket this morning, and told him I hoped he had got the jaw of a Gaulish officer, instead of a Roman soldier, for future reflections to energize upon. Of all single objects offered here to one’s contemplation, none are more striking than a woman’s foot, the _print_ of her foot I mean, taken apparently in the very act of running from the river of melted minerals that surrounded her, and which now serves as an intaglio to commemorate the misery it caused. Another melancholy proof of what needs no confirmation, is the impression of a sick female, known to be so from the _stole_ she wore, a drapery peculiar to the sex; her bed, converted into a substance like plaster of Paris, still retains the form and covering of her who perished quietly upon it, without ever making even an effort to escape.

That one of these towns is crushed, or rather buried, under loads of heavy lava, and is therefore difficult to disentangle, all have heard; that Pompeia is only lightly covered with pumice-stones and ashes, is new to nobody; it is in the power, as a Venetian gentleman said angrily, of an English hen and chickens to scratch it open in a week, though these lazy Neapolitans will leave it not half dislodged, before a new eruption swallows all again.

Our visit to Portici was more than equally provoking in the same way; to see deposited there all the antiques which are so curious in themselves, so _very_ valuable when considered as specimens of ancient art, and of the mode of living practised in ancient Rome, kept at a place where I do sincerely believe they will be again overwhelmed and confounded among the king of Naples’s furniture, to the great torture of future antiquarians, and to the disgrace of present insensibility.

The _triclinia_ and _stibadia_ used at supper by the old Romans prove the verses which our critics have been working at so long, to have been at least well explained by them, and do infinite honour to those who, without the advantage of seeing how the utensils were constructed, knew perfectly well their way of carrying on life, from their acquaintance with a language long since _dead_, and I am sure _buried_ under a heap of rubbish heavier and more difficult to remove than all the lava heaped on Herculaneum; but it is a source of perpetual wonder, and let me add perpetual pleasure too, to know that Cicero, and Virgil, and Horace, if alive, would find their writings as well understood, ay and as perfectly tasted, by the scholars of Paris and London, as they had ever been by their own old literary acquaintance.

The sight of the _curule_ chair was charming, and one thought of old Papyrius, his long white beard, and ivory stick with which he reproved the insolence of a Gaulish soldier, who, when Brennus entered the city, seeing all those venerable senators sitting in a row, took them for inanimate figures, and stroked Papyrius’s beard, to feel whether he was alive or no. The _curule_ chair was so called from _currus_ a chariot, and this we examined had holes bored in it, where it had been fixed to the car: I do think there is just such a one in the British Musæum, but that did not much engage my attention, so great is the influence of locality upon the mind. The way in which they decypher the old MSS. here likewise is pretty and curious, and requires infinite patience, which as far as they have gone has not been well repaid; the operation _laboriosius est quam Sibyllæ folia colligere_[4], to use the words of Politian, whose right name I learned at Florence to be _Messer Angelo di Monte Pulciano_.

May not, however, a more important consequence than any yet mentioned be found deducible from what we have seen this day? for if _Jesus Christ_ condescended to use the Roman, or commonly adopted custom of supping on a _triclinium_ (as it is plain he did by the recumbent posture of St. John), when eating the Passover for the last time with his disciples at Jerusalem; that sect of Christians called Romanists ought sure to be the _last_, not _first_, to exclude from salvation all such of their brethren as do not receive the Lord’s Supper precisely in _their way_; when nothing can be clearer, from our blessed Saviour’s example, than that he thought old forms, if laudable, not necessary or essential to the well-performing a devotional rite; seeing that to eat the Passover according to original institution, those who communicated were bound to take it _standing_, and with a staff in their hands beside as expressive of more haste.

The Christmas season here at Naples is very pleasingly observed; the Italians are peculiarly ingenious in adorning their shops I think, and setting out their wares; every grocer, fruiterer, &c. now mingles orange, and lemon, and myrtle leaves, among the goods exposed at his door, as we do greens in the churches of England, but with infinitely more taste; and this device produces a very fine effect upon the whole, as one drives along _la Strada del Toledo_, which all morning looks showy from these decorations, and all evening splendid from the profusion of torches, flambeaux, &c. that shine with less regularity indeed, but with more lustre and greater appearance of expensive gaiety, than our neat, clean, steady London lamps. Some odd, pretty, moveable coffee-houses too, or lemonade-shops, set on wheels, and adorned, according to the possessor’s taste, with gilding, painting, &c. and covered with ices, orgeats, and other refreshments, as in emulation each of the other, and in a strange variety of shapes and forms too, exquisitely well imagined for the most part,--help forward the finery of Naples exceedingly: I have counted thirty of these _galante_ shops on each side the street, which, with their necessary illuminations, make a brilliant figure by candle-light, till twelve o’clock, when all the show is over, and every body put out their lights and quietly lie down to rest. Till that hour, however, few things can exceed the tumultuous merriment of Naples, while _volantes_, or running footmen, dressed like tumblers before a show, precede all carriages of distinction, and endeavour to keep the people from being run over; yet whilst they are listening to Policinello’s jokes, or to some such street orator as Dr. Moore describes with equal truth and humour, they often get crushed and killed; yet, as Pope says,

See some strange comfort ev’ry state attend:--

The _Lazaroni_ who has his child run over by the coach of a man of quality, has a regular claim upon him for no less than twelve _carlines_ (about five shillings English); if it is his wife that meets with the accident, he gets two _ducats_, live or die; and for the master of the family (house he has none) three is the regular compensation; and no words pass here about _trifles_. Truth is, human life is lower rated in all parts of Italy than with us; they think nothing of an individual, but see him perish (excepting by the hand of justice) as a cat or dog. A young man fell from our carriage at Milan one evening; he was not a servant of ours, but a friend which, after we were gone home, the coachman had picked up to go with him to the fireworks which were exhibited that night near the _Corso_: there was a crowd and an _embarras_, and the fellow tumbled off and died upon the spot, and nobody even spoke, or I believe _thought_ about the matter, except one woman, who supposed that he had neglected to cross himself when he got up behind.

The works of art here at Naples are neither very numerous nor very excellent: I have seen the vaunted present of porcelain intended for the king of England, in return for some cannon presented by him to this court; and think it more entertaining in its design than admirable as a manufacture. Every dish and plate, however, being the portrait as one may say of some famous Etruscan vase, or other antique, dug out of the ruins of these newly-discovered cities, with an account of its supposed story engraved neatly round the figure, makes it interesting and elegant, and worthy enough of one prince to accept, and another to bestow.

There is a work of art, however, peculiar to this city, and attempted in no other; on which surprising sums of money are lavished by many of the inhabitants, who connect or associate to this amusement ideas of piety and devotion: the thing when finished is called a _presepio_, and is composed in honour of this sacred season, after which all is taken to pieces, and arranged after a different manner next year. In many houses a room, in some a whole suite of apartments, in others the terrace upon the house-top, is dedicated to this very uncommon show; consisting of a miniature representation in sycamore wood, properly coloured, of the house at Bethlehem, with the blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and our Saviour in the manger, with attendant angels, &c. as in pictures of the nativity; the figures are about six inches high, and dressed with the most exact propriety. This however, though the principal thing intended to attract spectators’ notice, is kept back, so that sometimes I scarcely saw it at all; while a general and excellent landscape, with figures of men at work, women dressing dinner, a long road in real gravel, with rocks, hills, rivers, cattle, camels, every thing that can be imagined, fill the other rooms, so happily disposed too for the most part, the light introduced so artfully, the perspective kept so surprisingly!--one wonders and cries out, it is certainly but a baby-house at best; yet managed by people whose heads naturally turned towards architecture and design, give them power thus to defy a traveller not to feel delighted with the general effect; while if every single figure is not capitally executed, and nicely expressed beside, the proprietor is truly miserable, and will cut a new cow, or vary the horse’s attitude, against next Christmas _coûte qui coûte_: and perhaps I should not have said so much about the matter, if there had not been shewn me within this last week, _presepios_ which have cost their possessors fifteen hundred or two thousand English pounds; and, rather than relinquish or sell them, many families have gone to ruin: I have wrote the sums down in letters, not figures, for fear of the possibility of a mistake. One of these playthings had the journey of the three kings represented in it, and the presents were all of real gold and silver finely worked; nothing could be better or more livelily finished.--“But, Sir,” said I, “why do you dress up one of the Wise Men with a turban and _crescent_, six hundred years before the birth of Mahomet, who first put that mark in the forehead of his followers? The eastern Magi were not _Turks_; this is a breach of _costume_.” My gentleman paused, and thanked me; said he would enquire if there was nothing heretical in the objection; and if all was right, it should be changed next year without fail.

A young lady here of English parents, just ten years old, asked me, very pertinently, “Why this pretty sight was called a _Presepio_?” but said she suddenly, answering herself, “I suppose it is because it is _preceptive_:” such a mistake was more valuable than knowledge, and gave me great esteem of her understanding; the little girl’s name was Zaffory.

The King’s _menagerie_ is neither rich in animals, nor particularly well kept: I wonder a man of his character and disposition should not delight in possessing a very fine one. The bears however were as tame as lapdogs; there was a wolf too, larger than ever I saw a wolf, and an elephant that played a hundred tricks at the command of his keeper, little less a beast than he; but as Pope says, after Horace,

Let bear or elephant be e’er so white,
The people sure, the people are the sight.

Let us then tell about the two assemblies, _o sia conversazioni_, where one goes in search of amusement as to the rooms of Bath or Tunbridge exactly; only that one of these places is devoted to the _nobiltà_, the other is called _de’ buoni amici_; and such is the state of subordination in this country, that though the great people may come among the little ones, and be sure of the grossest adulation, a merchant’s wife, shining in diamonds, being obliged to stand up reverentially before the chair of a countess, who does her the honour to speak to her; the poor _amici_ are totally excluded from the subscription of the nobles, nor dare even to return the salutation of a superior, should a good-natured person of that rank be tempted, from frequently seeing them at the rooms, to give them a kind nod in the street or elsewhere. All this seems comical enough to us, and I had much ado to look grave, while a beautiful and well-educated wife of a rich banker here, confessed herself not fit company for an ignorant mean-looking woman of quality. But though such unintelligible doctrines make one for a moment ashamed both of one’s sex and species, that lady’s knowledge of various languages, her numerous accomplishments in a thousand methods of passing time away with innocent elegance, and a sort of studied address never observed in Italy before, gave me infinite delight in her society, and daily increased my suspicion that she was a foreigner, till nearer intimacy discovered her a German Lutheran, with a singular head of thick blonde hair, so unlike those I see around me. We grew daily better acquainted, and she shewed me--but not indignantly at all--some ladies from the higher assembly sitting among _these_, very low dressed indeed, a knotting-bag and counters in their lap, to shew their contempt of the company; while such as spoke to them stood before their seat, like children before a governess in England, as long as the conversation lasted.

I inquired if the men confined their addresses wholly to their own rank? She said, beauty often broke the barrier, and when a pretty woman of the second rank got a _cavalier servente_ of the first, much happiness and much distinction was the consequence: but alas! he will not even _try_ to push her up among the people of fashion, and when he meets any is sure to look ashamed of his mistress; so that her felicity can consist only in triumphing over equals, for to rival a superior is here an impossibility.

Our Duke and Dutchess of Cumberland have made all Naples adore them though, by going richly dressed, and behaving with infinite courtesy and good-humour, at an assembly or ball given in the _lower rooms_, as the English comically call them. A young Palermitan prince applauded them for it exceedingly; so I took the liberty to express my wonder. “Oh,” replied he, “we are not ignorant how much English manners differ from our own: I have already, though but just eighteen years old, as sovereign of my own state, under the King of both Sicilies, condemned a man to death _because he was a rascal_, but the law and the people govern in England I know.” My desire of hearing about Sicily, which we could not contrive to visit, made me happy to cultivate Prince Ventimiglia’s acquaintance; he was very studious, very learned of his age, and uncommonly clever: told me of the antiquities his island had to boast, with great intelligence, and a surprising knowledge of ancient history.

We wished to have made a party to go in the same company to Pæstum, but my cowardice kept me at home, so bad was the account of the roads and accommodation; though Abate Bianconi of Milan, for whom I have so much esteem, bid me remember to look at the buildings there attentively; adding, that they were better worth our observation than all the boasted antiquities at Rome; “as they had seen (said he) the original foundation of her empire, and outlived its decay: that they had seen her second birth too, and power under some of her pontiffs over all Europe about six or seven centuries ago; and that they would now probably remain till all _that_ was likewise abolished, with only slight traces left behind to shew that _fuimus_, &c.”

How mortifying it is to go home and never see this Pæstum! Prince Ventimiglia went there with Mr. Cox; he professes his intention soon to visit England, concerning the manners and customs of which he is very inquisitive, and not ill-versed in the language; but books drop oddly into people’s hands: This gentleman commended Ambrose Philips’s Pastorals, and I remember the Florentines seemed strangely impressed with the merit of the other Philips as a poet. Bonducci has translated his Cyder, and calls him _emulous of Milton_, in good time! but it is difficult to distinguish jest from earnest in a foreign language.

I will not, if I can help it, lose sight of our Sicilian however, till I have made him tell me something about Dionysius’s Ear, about the eruptions of Ætna, and the _Castagno a cento cavalli_, which, he protests, is not magnified by Brydone.

It is wonderfully mortifying to think how little information after all can be obtained of any thing new or any thing strange, though so far from one’s own country. What I picked up most curious and diverting from our conversation, was his expression of surprise, when at our house one day he read a letter from his mother, telling him that such a lady, naming her, remained still unmarried, and even unbetrothed, though now past ten years old. “She will,” said I, “perhaps break through old customs, and chuse for herself, as she is an orphan, and has no one whom she need consult.”--“Impossible, Madam!” was the reply.--“But tell me, Prince, for information’s sake, if such a lady, this girl for example, should venture to assert the rights of humanity, and make a choice somewhat unusual, _what would come of it?_”--“Why nothing in the world would come of it,” answered he; “the lass would be immediately at liberty again, for no man so circumstanced could be permitted to leave the country _alive_ you know, nor would her folly benefit his family at all, as her estate would be immediately adjudged to the next heir. No person of inferior rank in our country would therefore, unless absolutely mad, set his life to hazard for the sake of a frolic, the event of which is so well known beforehand;--less still, because, if _love_ be in the case, all _personal attachment_ may be fully gratified, only let her but be once legally married to a man every way her equal.” Could one help recollecting Fielding’s song in the Virgin unmasked? who says,

For now I’ve found out that as Michaelmas day
Is still the forerunner of Lammas;
So wedding another is just the right way
To get at my dear Mr. Thomas.

I will mention another talk I had with a Sicilian lady. We met at the house of the Swedish minister, Monsieur André, uncle to the lamented officer who perished in our sovereign’s service in America; and while the rest of the company were entertaining themselves with cards and music, I began laughing in myself at hearing the gentleman and lady who sat next _me_, called by others _Don Raphael_ and _Donna Camilla_, because those two names bring Gil Blas into one’s head. Their agreeable and interesting conversation however soon gave my mind a more serious turn when discoursing on the liberal premiums now offered by the King of Naples to those who are willing to rebuild and repeople Messina. Donna Camilla politely introduced me to a very sick but pleasing-looking lady, who she said was going to return thither: at which _she_, starting, cried, “Oh God forbid, my dear friend!” in an accent that made me think she had already suffered something from the concussions that overwhelmed that city in the year 1783. Her inviting manner, her soft and interesting eyes, whose languid glances seemed to shew beauty sunk in sorrow, and spirit oppressed by calamity, engaged my utmost attention, while Don Raphael pressed her to indulge the foreigner’s curiosity with some particulars of the distresses she had shared. Her own feelings were all she could relate she said--and those confusedly. “You see that girl there,” pointing to a child about seven or eight years old, who stood listening to the harpsichord: “she escaped! I cannot, for my soul, guess how, for we were not together at the time.”--“Where were _you_, madam, at the moment of the fatal accident?”--“Who? _me_?” and her eyes lighted up with recollected terror: “I was in the nursery with my maid, employed in taking stains out of some Brussels lace upon a brazier; two babies, neither of them four years old, playing in the room. The eldest boy, dear lad! had just left us, and was in his father’s country-house. The day grew _so_ dark all on a sudden, and the brazier--Oh, Lord Jesus! I felt the brazier slide from me, and saw it run down the long room on its three legs. The maid screamed, and I shut my eyes and knelt at a chair. We thought all over; but my husband came, and snatching me up, cried, _run, run_.--I know not how nor where, but all amongst falling houses it was, and people shrieked so, and there was _such_ a noise! My poor son! he was fifteen years old; he tried to hold me fast in the crowd. I remember kissing _him_: Dear lad, dear lad! I said. I could speak _just then_: but the throng at the gate! Oh that gate! Thousands at once! ay, thousands! thousands at once: and my poor old confessor too! I knew him: I threw my arms about his aged neck. _Padre mio!_ said I--_Padre mio!_ Down he dropt, a great stone struck his shoulder; I saw it coming, and my boy pulled me: he saved my life, dear, dear lad! But the crash of the gate, the screams of the people, the heat--Oh such a heat! I felt no more on’t though; I saw no more on’t; I waked in bed, this girl by me, and her father giving me cordials. We were on shipboard, they told me, coming to Naples to my brother’s house here; and do you think I’ll ever go back _there_ again? No, no; that’s a curst place; I lost my son in it. _Never, never_ will I see it more! All my friends try to persuade me, but the sight of it would do my business. If my poor boy were alive indeed! but _he!_ ah, poor dear lad! he loved his mother; he held _me_ fast--No, no, I’ll never see that place again: God has cursed it _now_; I am sure he has.”

A narrative so melancholy, so tender, and so true, could not fail of its effect. I ran for refuge to the harpsichord, where a lady was singing divinely. I could not listen though: _her_ grateful sweetness who told the dismal story, followed me thither: she had seen my ill-suppressed tears, and followed to embrace me. The tale she had told saddened my heart, and the news we heard returning to the Crocelle did not contribute to lighten its weight, while an amiable young Englishman, who had long lain ill there, was now breathing his last, far from his friends, his country, or their customs; all easily dispensed with, perhaps derided, during the bustle of a journey, and in the madness of superfluous health; but sure to be sighed after, when life’s last twilight shuts in precipitately closer and closer round a man, and leaves him only the nearer objects to repose and dwell on.

Such was Captain ----’s situation! he had none but a foreign servant with him. We thought it might sooth him to hear “_Can I do any thing for you, Sir?_” in an English voice: so I sent my maid: he had no commands he said; he could not eat the jelly she had made him; he wished some clergyman could be found that he might speak to: such a one was vainly enquired for, till it was discovered that ill-health had driven Mr. Mentze to Naples, who kindly administered the last consolation a Christian can receive; and heard the next day, when confined himself to bed, of his countryman’s being properly thrust by the banker into the _Buco Protestante_; so they contemptuously call a dirty garden one drives by in this town, where not less than a hundred people, small and great, from our island, annually resort, leaving fifty or sixty thousand pounds behind them at a moderate computation; though if their bodies are obliged to take _perpetual_ apartments here, no better place has been hitherto provided for them than this kitchen ground; on which grow cabbages, cauliflowers, &c. sold to their country folks for double price I trow, the remaining part of the season.