Chapter V (2)

Well! well! if the Neapolitans do bury Christians like dogs, they make some singular compensations we will confess, by nursing dogs like Christians. A very veracious man informed me yester morning, that his poor wife was half broken-hearted at hearing such a Countess’s dog was run over; “for,” said he, “having suckled the pretty creature herself, she loved it like one of her children.” I bid him repeat the circumstance, that no mistake might be made: he did so; but seeing me look shocked, or ashamed, or something he did not like,--“Why, madam,” said the fellow, “it is a common thing enough for ordinary men’s wives to suckle the lapdogs of ladies of quality:” adding, that they were paid for their milk, and he saw no harm in gratifying one’s _superiors_. As I was disposed to see nothing _but_ harm in disputing with such a competitor, our conference finished soon; but the fact is certain.

Indeed few things can be foolisher than to debate the propriety of customs one is not bound to observe or comply with. If you dislike them, the remedy is easy; turn yours and your horses heads the other way.

20th January 1786.

Here are the most excellent, the most incomparable fish I ever eat; red mullets, large as our maycril, and of singularly high flavour; besides the calamaro, or ink-fish, a dainty worthy of imperial luxury; almond and even apple trees in blossom, to delight those who can be paid for coarse manners and confined notions by the beauties of a brilliant climate. Here are all the hedges in blow as you drive towards Pozzuoli, and a snow of white May-flowers clustering round Virgil’s tomb. So strong was the sun’s heat this morning, even before eleven o’clock, that I carried an umbrella to defend me from his rays, as we sauntered about the walks, which are spacious and elegant, laid out much in the style of St. James’s Park, but with the sea on one side of you, the broad street, called Chiaja, on the other. What trees are planted there however, either do not grow up so as to afford shade, or else they cut them, and trim them about to make them in pretty shapes forsooth, as we did in England half a century ago.

Be this as it will, the vaunted view from the castle of St. Elmo, though much more deeply _interesting_, is in consequence of this defect less _naturally_ pleasing than the prospect from Lomellino’s villa near Genoa, or Lord Clifford’s park, called King’s Weston, in Somersetshire; those two places being, in point of mere situation, possessed of beauties hitherto unrivalled by any thing I have seen. Nor does the steady regularity of this Mediterranean sea make me inclined to prefer it to our more capricious or rather active channel. Sea views have at best too little variety, and when the flux and reflux of the tide are taken away from one, there remains only rough and smooth: whereas the hope which its ebb and flow keep constantly renovating, serves to animate, and a little change the course of one’s ideas, just as its swelling and sinking is of use, to purify in some degree, and keep the whole from stagnation.

I made inquiry after the old story of Nicola Pesce, told by Kircher, and sweetly brought back to all our memories by Goldsmith, who, as Dr. Johnson said of him, touched nothing that he did not likewise adorn; but I could gain no addition to what we have already heard. That there was such a man is certain, who, though become nearly amphibious by living constantly in the water, only coming sometimes on shore for sleep and refreshment, suffered avarice to be his ruin, leaping voluntarily into the Gulph of Charybdis to fetch out a gold cup thrown in thither to tempt him--what could a gold cup have done one would wonder for Nicola Pesce?--yet knowing the dangers of the place, he braved them all it seems for this bright reward; and was supposed to be devoured by one of the polypus fish, who, sticking close to the rocks, extend their arms for prey. When I expressed my indignation that he should so perish; “He forgot perhaps,” said one present, “to recommend himself to Santo Gennaro.”

The castle on this hill, called the Castel St. Elmo, would be much my comfort did I fix at Naples; for here are eight thousand soldiers constantly kept, to secure the city from sudden insurrection; his majesty most wisely trusting their command only to Spanish or German officers, or some few gentlemen from the northern states of Italy, that no personal tenderness for any in the town below may intervene, if occasion for sudden severity should arise. We went to-day and saw their garrison, comfortably and even elegantly kept; and I was wicked enough to rejoice that the soldiers were never, but with the very utmost difficulty, permitted to go among the towns-men for a moment.

To-morrow we mount the Volcano, whose present peaceful disposition has tempted us to inspect it more nearly. Though it appears little less than presumption thus to profane with eyes of examination the favourite alembic of nature, while the great work of projection is carrying on; guarded as all its secret caverns are too with every contradiction; snow and flame! solid bodies heated into liquefaction, and rolling gently down one of its sides; while fluids congeal and harden into ice on the other; nothing can exceed the curiosity of its appearance, now the lava is less rapid, and stiffens as it flows; stiffens too in ridges very surprisingly, and gains an odd aspect, not unlike the pasteboard waves representing sea at a theatre, but black, because this year’s eruption has been mingled with coal. The connoisseurs here know the different degrees, dates, and shades of lava to a perfection that amazes one; and Sir William Hamilton’s courage, learning, and perfect skill in these matters, is more people’s theme here than the Volcano itself. Bartolomeo, the Cyclop of Vesuvius as he is called, studies its effects and operations too with much attention and philosophical exactness, relating the adventures he has had with our minister on the mountain to every Englishman that goes up, with great success. The way one climbs is by tying a broad sash with long ends round this Bartolomeo, letting him walk before one, and holding it fast. As far as the Hermitage there is no great difficulty, and to that place some chuse to ride an ass, but I thought walking safer; and there you are sure of welcome and refreshment from the poor good old man, who sets up a little cross wherever the fire has stopt near his cell; shews you the place with a sort of polite solemnity that impresses, spreads his scanty provisions before you kindly, and tells the past and present state of the eruption accurately, inviting you to partake of

His rushy couch, his frugal fare,
His blessing and repose.

GOLDSMITH.

This Hermit is a Frenchman. _J’ai dansé dans mon lit tans de fois_[5], said he: the expression was not sublime when speaking of an earthquake, to be sure; I looked among his books, however, and found Bruyere. “Would not the Duc de Rochefoucault have done better?” said I. “Did I never see you before, Madam?” said he; “yes, sure I have, and dressed you too, when I was a hair-dresser in London, and lived with Mons. Martinant, and I dressed pretty Miss Wynne too in the same street. _Vit’elle encore? Vit’elle encore?_[6] Ah I am old now,” continued he; “I remember when black pins first came up.” This was charming, and in such an unexpected way, I could hardly prevail upon myself ever to leave the spot; but Mrs. Greatheed having been quite to the crater’s edge with her only son, a baby of four years old; shame rather than inclination urged me forward; I asked the little boy what he had seen; I saw the chimney, replied he, and it was on fire, but I liked the elephant better.

That the situation of the crater changed in this last eruption is of little consequence; it will change and change again I suppose. The wonder is, that nobody gets killed by venturing so near, while red-hot stones are flying about them so. The Bishop of Derry did very near get his arm broke; and the Italians are always recounting the exploits of these rash Britons who look into the crater, and carry their wives and children up to the top; while we are, with equal justice, amazed at the courageous Neapolitans, who build little snug villages and dwell with as much confidence at the foot of Vesuvius, as our people do in Paddington or Hornsey. When I enquired of an inhabitant of these houses how she managed, and whether she was not frighted when the Volcano raged, lest it should carry away her pretty little habitation: “Let it go,” said she, “we don’t mind now if it goes to-morrow, so as we can make it answer by raising our vines, oranges, &c. against it for three years, our fortune is made before the fourth arrives; and then if the red river comes we can always run away, _scappar via_, ourselves, and hang the property. We only desire three years use of the mountain as a hot wall or forcing-house, and then we are above the world, thanks be to God and St. Januarius,” who always comes in for a large share of their veneration; and this morning having heard that the Neapolitans still present each other with a cake upon New-year’s day, I began to hug my favourite hypothesis closer, recollecting the old ceremony of the wheaten cake seasoned with salt, and called _Janualis_ in the Heathen days. All this however must still end in mere conjecture; for though the weather here favours one’s idea of Janus, who loosened the furrow and liquefied the frost, to which the melting our martyr’s blood might, without much straining of the matter, be made to allude; yet it must be recollected after all, that the miracle is not performed in this month but that of May, and that St. Januarius did certainly exist and give his life as testimony to the truth of our religion, in the third century. Can one wonder, however, if corruptions and mistakes should have crept in since? And would it not have been equal to a miracle had no tares sprung up in the field of religion, when our Saviour himself informs us that there is an enemy ever watching his opportunity to plant them?

These dear people too at Rome and Naples do live so in the very hulk of ship-wrecked or rather foundered Paganism, have their habitation so at the very bottom of the cask, can it fail to retain the scent when the lees are scarce yet dried up, clean or evaporated? That an odd jumble of past and present days, past and present ideas of dignity, events, and even manner of portioning out their time, still confuse their heads, may be observed in every conversation with them; and when a few weeks ago we revisited, in company of some newly-arrived English friends, the old baths of Baiæ, Locrine lake, &c. Tobias, who rowed us over, bid us observe the Appian way under the water, where indeed it appears quite clearly, even to the tracks of wheels on its old pavement made of very large stones; and seeing me perhaps particularly attentive, “Yes, Madam,” said he, “I do assure you, that _Don_ Horace and _Don_ Virgil, of whom we hear such a deal, used to come from Rome to their country-seats here in a day, over this very road, which is now overflowed as you see it, by repeated earthquakes, but which was then so good and so unbroken, that if they rose early in the morning they could easily gallop hither against the _Ave Maria_.”

It was very observable in our second visit paid to the Stuffe San Germano, that they had increased prodigiously in heat since mount Vesuvius had ceased throwing out fire, though at least fourteen miles from it, and a vast portion of the sea between them; it vexed me to have no thermometer again, but by what one’s immediate feelings could inform us, there were many degrees of difference. I could not now bear my hand on any part of them for a moment. The same luckless dog was again produced, and again restored to life, like the lady in Dryden’s Fables, who is condemned to be hunted, killed, recovered, and set on foot again for the amusement of her tormentors; a story borrowed from the Italian.

Solfaterra burned my fingers as I plucked an incrustation off, which allured me by the beauty of its colours, and roared with more violence than when I was there before. This horrible volcano is by no means extinguished yet, but seems pregnant with wonders, principally combustible, and likely to break with one at every step, all the earth round it being hollow as a drum, and I should think of no great thickness neither; so plainly does one hear the sighings underneath, which some of the country people imagine to be tortured spirits howling with agony.

It is supposed that Lake Agnano, where the dog is flung in, if the dewy grass do not suffice to recover him, with its humidity and freshness, as it often does; is but another crater of another volcano, long ago self-destroyed by scorpion-like suicide; and it is like enough it may be so. There are not wanting however those that think, or say at least, how a subterraneous or subaqueous city remains even now under that lake, but lies too deep for inspection.

_Sia come sia_[7], as the Italians express themselves, these environs are beyond all power of comprehension, much more beyond all effort of words to describe; and as Sannazarius says of Venice, so I am sure it may be said of this place, “That man built Rome, but God created Naples:” for surely, surely he has honoured no other spot with such an accumulation of his wonders: nor can any thing more completely bring the description of the devoted cities mentioned in Genesis before one’s eyes, than these concealed fires, which there I trust burst up unexpectedly, and, attended by such lightning as only hot countries can exhibit, devoured all at once, nor spared the too incredulous inquirer, who turned her head back with contempt of expected judgments, but entangling her feet in the pursuing stream of lava, fixed her fast, a monument of bituminous salt.

Though surrounded by such terrifying objects, the Neapolitans are not, I think, disposed to cowardly, though easily persuaded to devotional superstitions; they are not afraid of spectres or supernatural apparitions, but sleep contentedly and soundly in small rooms, made for the ancient dead, and now actually in the occupation of old Roman bodies, the catacombs belonging to whom are still very impressive to the fancy; and I have known many an English gentleman, who would not endure to have his courage impeached by _living wight_, whose imagination would notwithstanding have disturbed his slumbers not a little, had he been obliged to pass one night where these poor women sleep securely, wishing only for that money which travellers are not unwilling to bestow; and perhaps a walk among these hollow caves of death, these sad repositories of what was once animated by valour and illuminated by science, strike one much more than all the urns and lachrymatories of Portici.

How judicious is Mr. Addison’s remark, “That _Siste Viator!_ which has a striking effect among the Roman tombs placed by the road side, loses all its power over the mind when placed in the body of a church:” I think he might have said the same, had he lived to see funereal urns used as decorations of hackney-coach pannels, and _Caput Bovis_ over the doors in New Tavistock-street.

It is worth recollecting however, that the Dictator Sylla is supposed to be the first man of consequence who ordered his body to be burned at Rome, as till then, burial was apparently the fashion: his death, occasioned by the _morbus pedicularis_, made his interment difficult, and what necessity suggested to be done for him, grew up into a custom, and the sycophants of power, ever hasty to follow their superiors, now shewed their zeal even in _post obit_ imitation. But while I am writing, more modern and less tyrannic claimants for respect agreeably disturb one’s meditations on the cruelty and oppression used by these wicked possessors of immortal though ill-gotten fame.

The Queen of Naples is delivered, and we are all to make merry: the _Castello d’Uovo_, just under our windows, is to be illuminated: and from the Carthusian convent on the hill, to my poor solitary old acquaintance the hermit and hair-dresser, who inhabits a cleft in mount Vesuvius, all resolve to be happy, and to rejoice in the felicity of a prince that loves them.--Shouting, and candles, and torches, and coloured lamps, and Polinchinello above all the rest, did their best to drive forward the general joy, and make known the birth of the royal baby for many miles round the capital; and there was a splendid opera the next night, in this finest of all fine theatres, though that of Milan pleases me better; as I prefer the elegant curtains which festoon it over the boxes there, to our heavy gilt ornaments here at Naples; and their boasted looking-glasses, never cleaned, have no effect as I perceive towards helping forward the enchantment. A _festa di ballo_, or masquerade, given here however, was exceedingly gay, and the dresses surprisingly rich: _our_ party, a very large one, all Italians, retired at one in the morning to quite the finest supper of its size I ever saw. Fish of various sorts, incomparable in their kinds, composed eight dishes of the first course; we had thirty-eight set on the table in that course, forty-nine in the second, with wines and dessert truly magnificent, for all which Mr. Piozzi protested to me that we paid only three shillings and sixpence a head English money; but for the truth of that he must answer: we sate down twenty-two persons to supper, and I observed there were numbers of these parties made in different taverns, or apartments adjoining to the theatre, whither after refreshment we returned, and danced till day-light.

The theatre is a vast building, even when not inhabited or set off by lights and company: all of stone too, like that of Milan; but particularly defended from fire by St. Anthony, who has an altar and chapel erected to his honour, and showily decorated at the door; and on Sunday night, January the twenty-second, there were fireworks exhibited in honour of himself and his _pig_, which was placed on the top, and illuminated with no small ingenuity: the fire catching hold of his tail first--_con rispetto_--as said our Cicerone. But _il Rè Lear è le sue tre Figlie_ are advertised, and I am sick to-night and cannot go.

Oh what a time have I chose out, &c.
To wear a kerchief--would I were not sick!

My loss however is somewhat compensated; for though I could not see our own Shakespear’s play acted at Naples, I went some days after to one of the charming theatres this town is entertained by every evening, and saw a play which struck me exceedingly: the plot was simply this--An Englishman appears, dressed precisely as a Quaker, his hat on his head, his hands in his pockets, and with a very pensive air says he will take that pistol, producing one, and shoot himself; “for,” says he, “the politics go wrong at home now, and I hate the ministerial party, so England does not please me; I tried France, but the people there laughed so about nothing, and sung so much out of tune, I could not bear France; so I went over to Holland; those Dutch dogs are so covetous and hard-hearted, they think of nothing but their money; I could not endure a place where one heard no sound in the whole country but frogs croaking and ducats chinking. _Maladetti!_ so I went to Spain, where I narrowly escaped a sun-stroke for the sake of seeing those idle beggarly dons, that if they do condescend to cobble a man’s shoe, think they must do it with a sword by their side. I came here to Naples therefore, but ne’er a woman will afford one a chase, all are too easily caught to divert _me_, who like something in prospect; and though it is so fine a country, one can get no fox-hunting, only running after a wild pig. Yes, yes, I _must_ shoot myself, the world is so _very_ dull I am tired on’t.”--He then coolly prepares matters for the operation, when a young woman bursts into his apartment, bewails her fate a moment, and then faints away. Our countryman lays by his pistol, brings the lady to life, and having heard part of her story, sets her in a place of safety. More confusion follows; a gentleman enters storming with rage at a treacherous friend he hints at, and a false mistress; the Englishman gravely advises him to shoot himself: “No, no,” replies the warm Italian, “I will shoot _them_ though, if I can catch them; but want of money hinders me from prosecuting the search.” _That_ however is now instantly supplied by the generous Briton, who enters into their affairs, detects and punishes the rogue who had betrayed them all, settles the marriage and reconciliation of his new friends, adds himself something to the good girl’s fortune, and concludes the piece with saying that he has altered his intentions, and will think no more of shooting himself, while life may in all countries be rendered pleasant to him who will employ it in the service of his fellow-creatures; and finishes with these words, that _such are the sentiments of an Englishman_.

Were this pretty story in the hands of one of our elegant dramatic writers, how charming an entertainment would it make us! Mr. Andrews shall have it certainly, for though very flattering in its intentions towards our countrymen, and the _ground-plot_, as a _surveyor_ would call it, well imagined; the play itself was scarcely written I believe, and very little esteemed by the Italians; who made excuses for its grossness, and said that their theatre was at a very low ebb; and so I believe it is. Yet their genius is restless, and for ever fermenting; and although, like their volcano, of which every individual has a spark, it naturally throws out of its mouth more rubbish than marble; like that too, from some occasional eruptions we may gather gems stuck fast among substances of an inferior nature, which want only disentangling, and a new polish, to make them valued, even beyond those that reward the toil of an expecting miner.

The word gems reminds one of _Capo di Monte_, where the king’s _cameos_ are taken care of, and where the medallist may find perpetual entertainment; for I do believe nothing can exceed the riches of this collection; though it requires good eyes, great experience, and long study, to examine their merits with accurate skill, and praise them with intelligent rapture: of these three requisites I boast none, so cannot enjoy this regale as much as many others; but I have a mortal aversion to those who encumber the general progress of science by reciprocating contempt upon its various branches: the politician however, who weighs the interests of contending powers, or endeavours at the happiness of regulating some particular state; who studies to prevent the encroachments of prerogative, or impede advances to anarchy; hears with faint approbation, at best, of the discoveries made in the moon by modern astronomers--discoveries of a country where he can obtain no power, and settle no system of government--discoveries too, which can only be procured by peeping through glasses which few can purchase, at a place which no man can desire to approach. While the musical composer equally laments the fate of the fossilist, who literally buries his talent in the ground, and equally dead to all the charms of taste, the transports of true expression, and the delights of harmony, rises with the sun only to shun his beams, and seek in the dripping caverns of the earth the effects of his diminished influence. The medallist has had much of this scorn to contend with; yet he that makes it his study to register great events, is perhaps next to him who has contributed to their birth: and this palace displays a degree of riches _en ce genre_, difficult to conceive.

I was, however, better entertained by admiring the incomparable Schidonis, which are to be found only here: he was a scholar, or rather an imitator, of Correggio; and what he has done seems more the result of genius animated by observation, than of profound thought or minute nicety; he painted such ragged folks as he found upon the _Chiaja_; yet his pictures differ no less from the Dutch school, than do those which flow from the majestic pencil of the demi-divine Caracci and their followers, and for the same reason; their minds reflected dignity and grace, his eyes looked upon forms finely proportioned, though covered with tatters, or perhaps scarcely covered at all; no smugness, no plumpness, no _vulgar_ character, ever crossed the fancy of Schidone; for a _Lazaroni_ at Naples, like a sailor at Portsmouth, is no mean character, though he is a coarse one; it is in the low Parisian, and the true-bred London blackguard, we must look for innate baseness, and near approaches to brutality; nor are the Hollanders wanting in originals I trust, when one has seen so many copies of the human form from their hands, divested of soul as I may say, and, like Prior’s Emma when she resolves to ramble with her outlawed lover,

And mingle with the people’s wretched lee--
Oh line extreme of human infamy!--
Lest by her look or colour be exprest
The mark of aught high-born, or ever better drest.

Here is a beautiful performance too of the Venetian school--a resurrection of Lazarus, by Leandro Bassano, esteemed the best performance of that family, and full of merit--the merit of _character_ I mean; while Mary’s eyes are wholly employed, and her mind apparently engrossed by the Saviour’s benignity, and almighty power; Martha thinks merely on the present exertion of them, and only watches the deliverance of her beloved brother from the tomb: the restored Lazarus too--an apparent corpse, re-awakened suddenly to a thousand sensations at once, wonder, gratitude, and affectionate delight!--How can one coldly sit to hear the connoisseurs _admire the folds of the drapery_? Lanfranc’s St. Michael too is a very noble picture; and though his angel is infinitely less angelic than that of Guido, his devil is a less ordinary and vulgar devil than that of his fellow-student, which somewhat too much resembles the common peeping satyr in a landscape; whereas Lanfranc’s Lucifer seems embued with more intellectual vices--rage, revenge, and ambition.

But I am called from my observations and reflexions, to see what the Neapolitans call _il trionfo di Policinello_, a person for whom they profess peculiar value. Harlequin and Brighella here scarcely share the fondness of an audience, while at Venice, Milan, &c. much pleasantry is always cast into _their_ characters.

The triumph was a pageant of prodigious size, set on four broad wheels like our waggons, but larger; it consisted of a pyramid of men, twenty-eight in number, placed with wonderful ingenuity all of one size, something like what one has seen exhibited at Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Circus, &c.; dressed in one uniform, viz. the white habit and puce-coloured mask of _caro_ Policinello; disposed too with that skill which tumblers alone can either display or describe; a single figure, still in the same dress, crowning the whole, and forming a point at the top, by standing fixed on the shoulders of his companions, and playing merrily on the fiddle; while twelve oxen of a beautiful white colour, and trapped with many shining ornaments, drew the whole slowly over the city, amidst the acclamations of innumerable spectators, that followed and applauded the performance with shouts.

What I have learned from this show, and many others of the same kind, is of no greater value than the derivation of _his name_ who is so much the favourite of Naples: but from the mask he appears in, cut and coloured so as exactly to resemble a _flea_, with hook nose and wrinkles, like the body of that animal; his employment too, being ever ready to hop, and skip, and jump about, with affectation of uncommon elasticity, giving his neighbours a sly pinch from time to time: all these circumstances, added to the very intimate acquaintance and connection all the Neapolitans have with this, the least offensive of all the innumerable insects that infest them; and, last of all, _his name_, which, corrupt it how we please, was originally _Pulicinello_; leaves me persuaded that the appellation is merely _little flea_.

A drive to Caserta, the king’s great palace, not yet quite finished, carries me away from this important study, and leaves me little time to enjoy the praises due to a discovery of so much consequence.

The drive perhaps pleased us better than the palace, which is a prodigious mass of building indeed, and to my eye appears to cover more space than proud Versailles itself; court within court, and quadrangle within quadrangle; it is an enormous bulk to be sure--not pile--for it is not high in proportion to the surrounding objects somehow; and being composed all of brick, presents ideas rather of squat solidity, than of princely magnificence. Ostentation is expected always to strike, as elegance is known to charm, the beholder; and space seldom fails in its immediate effect upon the mind; but here the _valley_ (I might say _hole_) this house is set in, looks too little for it; and offends one in the same manner as the more beautiful buildings do at Buxton, where from every hill one expects to tumble down upon the new Crescent below. The stair-case is such, however, as I am persuaded no other palace can shew; vastly wider than any the French king can boast, and infinitely more precious with regard to the marbles which compose its sides. The immensity of it, however, though it enhances the value, does not do much honour to the taste of him who contrived it. No apartments can answer the expectations raised by such an approach; and in fact the chapel alone is worthy an ascent so fit for a triumphal procession, instead of a pair of stairs. That chapel is I confess of exquisite beauty and elegance; and there is a picture, by Mengs, of the blessed Virgin Mary’s presentation when a girl, that is really _paitrie des graces_; it scarcely can be admired or commended enough, and one can scarcely prevail on one’s self ever to quit it. Her marriage, a picture on the other side, is not so happily imagined; but it seems as if the painter thought that joke too good to part with, that there never was a particularly excellent picture of a wedding; and that Poussin himself failed, when having represented all the six other sacraments so admirably, that of marriage has been found fault with by the connoisseurs of every succeeding generation.

Well! if the palace at Caserta must be deemed more heavy than handsome, I fear the gardens must likewise be avowed to be laid out in a manner one would rather term savage than natural: all artifice is banished however: the king of Naples scorns petty tricks for the amusement of petty minds;--he turns a whole river down his cascade,--_a real one_; and if its formation is not of the first rate for assuming an appearance of nature, it has the merit of being sincerely that which others only pretend to be: while I am told that his architects are now employed in connecting the great stones awkwardly disposed in two rows down each side the torrent, with the very rocks and mountains among which the spring rises; if they effect this, their cascade will, so far as ever I have read or heard, be single in its kind.

Van Vittelli’s aqueduct is a prodigiously beautiful, magnificent, and what is more, a useful performance: having the finest models of antiquity, he is said to have surpassed them all. Why such superb and expensive methods should be still used to conduct water up and down Italy, any more than other nations, or why they are not equally necessary in France and England, nobody informs me. Madame de Bocages enquired long ago, when she was taken to see the fountain Trevi at Rome, why they had no water at Paris but the Seine? I think the question so natural, that one wishes to repeat it; and one great reason, little urged by others, incites me to look with envy on the delicious and almost innumerable gushes of water that cool the air of Naples and of Rome, and pour their pellucid tides through almost every street of those luxurious cities: _it is this_, that I consider them as a preservative against that dreadfullest of all maladies, canine madness; a distemper which, notwithstanding the excessive heat, has here scarcely a name. Sure it is the plenty of drink the dogs meet at every turn, that must be the sole cause of a blessing so desirable.

My stay has been always much shorter than I wished it, in every great town of Italy; but _here!_ where numberless wonders strike the sense without fatiguing it, I do feel double pleasure; and among all the new ideas I have acquired since England lessened to my sight upon the sea, those gained at Naples will be the last to quit me. The works of art may be found great and lovely, but the drunken Faun and the dying Gladiator will fade from one’s remembrance, and leave the glow of Solfaterra and the gloom of Posilippo indelibly impressed. Vesuvius too! that terrified me so when first we drove into this amazing town, what future images can ever obliterate the thrilling sensations it at first occasioned? Surely the sight of old friends after a tedious absence can alone supply the vacancy that a mind must feel which quits such sublime, such animated scenery, and experiences a sudden deprivation of delight, finding the bosom all at once unfurnished of what has yielded it for three swiftly-flown months, perpetual change of undecaying pleasures.

To-morrow I shall take my last look at the Bay, and driving forward, hope at night to lodge at Terracina.

JOURNEY FROM NAPLES TO ROME.

The morning of the day we left our fair Parthenope was passed in recollecting her various charms: every one who leaves her carries off the same sensations. I have asked several inhabitants of other Italian States what they liked best in Italy except home; it was Naples always, dear delightful Naples! When I say this, I mean always to exclude those whose particular pursuits lead them to cities which contain the prize they press for. English people when unprejudiced express the like preference. Attachments formed by love or friendship, though they give charms to every place, cannot be admitted as a reason for commending any one above the rest. A traveller without candour it is vain to read; one might as well hope to get a just view of nature by looking through a coloured glass, as to gain a true account of foreign countries, by turning over pages dictated by prejudice.

With the nobility of Naples I had no acquaintance, and can of course say nothing of their manners. Those of the middling people seem to be behind-hand with their neighbours; it is so odd that they should never yet have arrived at calling their money by other names than those of the weights, an _ounce_ and a _grain_; the coins however are not ugly.

The evening of the day we left this surprising city was spent out of its king’s dominions, at Terracina, which now affords one of the best inns in Italy; it is kept by a Frenchman, whose price, though high, is regulated, whose behaviour is agreeable, and whose suppers and beds are delightful. Near the spot where his house now stands, there was in ancient Pagan days a temple, erected to the memory of the beardless Jupiter called Anxurus, of which Pausanias, and I believe Scaliger too, take notice; though the medal of Pansa is _imago barbata, sed intonsa_, they tell me; and Statius extends himself in describing the innocence of Jupiter and Juno’s conversation and connection in their early youth. Both of them had statues of particular magnificence venerated with very peculiar ceremonies, erected for them in this town, however, _ut Anxur fuit quæ nunc Terracinæ sunt_[8]. The tenth Thebaid too speaks much _de templo sacro et Junoni puellæ, Jovis Axuro_[9]; and who knows after all whether these odd circumstances might not be the original reason of Anxur’s grammatical peculiarity, well known to all from the line in old _Propria que maribus_,

Et genus Anxur quod dat utrumque?

This place was founded and colonised by Æmilius Mamercus and Lucius Plautus, Anno Mundi 3725 I think; they took the town of Priverna, and sent each three hundred citizens to settle this new city, where Jupiter Anxurus was worshipped, as Virgil among so many other writers bears testimony:

Circeumque jugum, queis Jupiter Anxuris arvis
Præsidet[10].

7th ÆNEID.

Æmilius Mamercus was a very pious consul, and when he served before with Genutius his colleague, made himself famous for driving the nail into Minerva’s temple to stop the progress of the plague; he was therefore likely enough to encourage this superstitious worship of the beardless Jupiter.

Some books of geography, very old ones, had given me reason to make enquiry after a poisonous fountain in the rocks near Terracina. My enquiries were not vain. The fountain still exists, and whoever drinks it dies; though Martial says,

Sive salutiferis candidus Anxur acquis[11].

The place is now cruelly unwholesome however; so much so, that our French landlord protests he is obliged to leave it all the summer months, at least the very hot season, and retire with his family to Molo di Gaeta. He told us with rational delight enough of a visit the Pope had made to those places some few years ago; and that he had been heard to say to some of his attendants how there was no _mal aria_ at all thereabouts in past days: an observation which had much amazed them. It was equally their wonder how his Holiness went o’walking about with a book in his hand or pocket, repeating verses by the sea-side. One of them had asked the name of the book, but nobody could remember it. “Was it _Virgil_?” said one of our company. “_Eh mon Dieu, Madame, vous l’avez divinée_[12],” replied the man. But, O dear (thought I), how would these poor people have stared, if their amiable sovereign, enlightened and elegant as his mind is, had happened to talk more in their presence of what he had been reading on the sea shore, _Virgil_ or _Homer_; had he chanced to mention that _Molo di Gaeta_ was in ancient times the seat of the Lestrygones, and inhabited by canibals, men who eat one another! and surely it is scarcely less comical than curious, to recollect how Ulysses expresses his sensations on first landing just by this now lovely and highly-cultivated spot, when he pathetically exclaims,

----Upon what coast,
On what _new_ region is Ulysses tost?
Possest by wild barbarians fierce in arms,
Or men whose bosoms tender pity warms?

POPE’S ODYSSEY.

Poor Cicero might indeed have asked the question seven or eight centuries after, in days falsely said to be civilized to a state of perfection; when his most inhuman murder near this town, completed the measure of their crimes; who to their country’s fate added that of its philosopher, its orator, its acknowledged father and preserver.--Cruel, ungrateful Rome! ever crimson with the blood of its own best citizens--theatre of civil discord and proscriptions, unheard of in any history but her’s; who, next to Jerusalem in sins, has been next in sufferings too; though twice so highly favoured by Heaven--from the dreadful moment when all her power was at once crushed by barbarism, and even her language rendered _dead_ among mankind--to the present hour, when even her second splendours, like the last gleams of an _aurora borealis_, fade gradually from the view, and sink almost imperceptibly into decay. Nor can the exemplary virtues and admirable conduct of _this_, and of her four last princes, redeem her from ruin long threatened to her past tyrannical offences; any more than could the merits of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius compensate for the crimes of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero.--Let the death of Cicero, which inspired this rhapsody, contribute to excuse it; and let me turn my eyes to the bewitching spot--

Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the day.

That such enchantresses should inhabit such regions could have been scarce a wonder in Homer’s time I trow; the same country still retains the same power of producing singers, to whom our English may with propriety enough cry out;

----Hail, _foreign_ wonder!
Whom certes our rough shades did never breed.

MILTON.

That she should be the offspring of Phœbus too, in a place where the sun’s rays have so much power, was a well-imagined fable one may _feel_; and her instructions to Ulysses for his succeeding voyage, just, apt, and proper: enjoining him a prayer to Crateis the mother of Scylla, to pacify her rapacious daughter’s fury, is the least intelligible of all Circe’s advice, to me. But when I saw the nasty trick they had at Naples, of spreading out the ox-hides to dry upon the sea shore, as one drives to Portici; the Sicilian herds, mentioned in the Odyssey, and their crawling skins, came into my head in a moment.

We have left these scenes of fabulous wonder and real pleasure however; left the warm vestiges of classic story, and places which have produced the noblest efforts of the human mind; places which have served as no ignoble themes for truly immortal song; all quitted now! all left for recollection to muse on, and for fancy to combine: but these eyes I fear will never more survey them. Well! no matter--

When like the baseless fabric of a vision,
The cloud-capt tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like some unsubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a wreck behind.

ROME.

We are come here just in time to see the three last days of the carnival, and very droll it is to walk or drive, and see the people run about the streets, all in some gay disguise or other, and masked, and patched, and painted to make sport. The Corso is now quite a scene of distraction; the coachmen on the boxes pretending to be drunk, and throwing sugar-plumbs at the women, which it grows hard to find out in the crowd and confusion, as the evening, which shuts in early, is the festive hour: and there is some little hazard in parading the streets, lest an accident might happen; though a temporary rail and _trottoir_ are erected, to keep the carriages off. Our high joke, however, seems to consist in the men putting on girls clothes: a woman is somewhat a rarity at Rome, and strangely superfluous as it should appear by the extraordinary substitutes found for them on the stage: it is more than wonderful to see great strong fellows dancing the women’s parts in these fashionable dramas, pastoral and heroic ballets as they call them. _Soprano_ singers did not so surprise me with their feminine appearance in the Opera; but these clumsy _figurantes_! all stout, coarse-looking men, kicking about in hooped petticoats, were to me irresistibly ridiculous: the gentlemen with me however, both Italians and English, were too much disgusted to laugh, while _la premiere danseuse_ acted the coquet beauty, or distracted mother, with a black beard which no art could subdue, and destroyed every illusion of the pantomime at a glance. All this struck nobody but us foreigners after all; tumultuous and often _tender_ applauses from the pit convinced us of _their heart-felt_ approbation! and in the parterre fat gentlemen much celebrated at Rome for their taste and refinement.

As their exhibition did not please our party, notwithstanding its singularity, we went but once to the theatre, except when a Festa di Ballo was advertised to begin at eleven o’clock one night, but detained the company waiting on its stairs for two hours at least beyond the time: for my own part I was better amused _outside_ the doors, than _in_. Masquerades can of themselves give very little pleasure except when they are new things. What was most my delight and wonder to observe, was the sight of perhaps two hundred people of different ranks, all in my mind strangely ill-treated by a nobleman; who having a private supper in the room, prevented their entrance who paid for admission; all mortified, all crowded together in an inconvenient place; all suffering much from heat, and more from disappointment; yet all in perfect good humour with each other, and with the gentleman who detained in longing and ardent, but not impatiently-expressed expectation, such a number of _Romans_: who, as I could not avoid remarking, certainly deserve to rule over all the world once more, if, as we often read in history, _command_ is to be best learned from the practice of _obedience_.

The masquerade was carried on when we had once begun it, with more taste and elegance here, than either at Naples or Milan; so it was at Florence, I remember; more dresses of contrivance and fancy being produced. We had a very pretty device last night, of a man who pretended to carry statues about as if for sale: the gentlemen and ladies who personated the figures were incomparable from the choice of attitudes, and skill in colouring; but _il carnovale è morto_, as the women of quality told us last night from their coaches, in which they carried little transparent lanthorns of a round form, red, blue, green, &c. to help forward the shine; and these they throw at each other as they did sugar plums in the other towns, while the millions of small thin bougie candles held in every hand, and stuck up at every balcony, make the _Strada del Popolo_ as light as day, and produce a wonderfully pretty effect, gay, natural, and pleasing.

The unstudied hilarity of Italians is very rejoicing to the heart, from one’s consciousness that it is the result of cheerfulness really felt, not a mere incentive to happiness hoped for. The death of Carnovale, who was carried to his grave with so many candles suddenly extinguished at twelve o’clock last night, has restored us to a tranquil possession of ourselves, and to an opportunity of examining the beauties of nature and art that surround one.

St. Peter’s church is incontestably the first object in this city, so crowded with single figures: That this church should be built in the form of a Latin cross instead of a Greek one may be wrong for ought I know; that columns would have done better than piers inside, I do not think; but that whatever has been done by man might have been done better, if that is all the critics want, I readily allow. This church is, after all their objections, nearer to perfect than any other building in the world; and when Michael Angelo, looking at the Pantheon, said, “Is this the best our vaunted ancestors could do? If so, I will shew the advancement of the art, in suspending a dome of equal size to this up in the air.” he made a glorious boast, and was perhaps the only person ever existing who could have performed his promise.

The figures of angels, or rather cherubims, eight feet high, which support the vases holding holy water, as they are made after the form of babies, do perfectly and closely represent infants of eighteen or twenty months old; nor till one comes quite close to them indeed, is it possible to discern that they are colossal. This is brought by some as a proof of the exact proportions kept, and of the prodigious space occupied, by the area of this immense edifice; and urged by others, as a peculiarity of the _human_ body to deceive so at a distance, most unjustly; for one is surprised exactly in the same manner by the doves, which ornament the church in various parts of it. _They_ likewise appear of the natural size, and completely within one’s reach upon entering the door, but soon as approached, recede to a considerable height, and prove their magnitude nicely proportioned to that of the angels and other decorations.

The canopied altar, and its appurtenances, are likewise all colossal I think, when they tell me of four hundred and fifty thousand pounds weight of bronze brought from the Pantheon, and used to form the wreathed pillars which support, and the torses that adorn it. Yet airy lightness and exquisite elegance are the characteristics of the fabric, not gloomy greatness, or heavy solidity. How immense then must be the space it stands on! four hundred and sixty-seven of my steps carried me from the door to the end. Warwick castle would be contained in its middle _aisle_. Here are one hundred and twenty silver lamps, each larger than I could lift, constantly burning round the altar; and one never sees either them, or the light they dispense, till forced upon the observation of them, so completely are they lost in the general grandeur of the whole. In short, with a profusion of wealth that astonishes, and of splendour that dazzles, as soon as you enter on an examination of its secondary parts, every man’s _first_ impression at entering St. Peter’s church, must be surprise at seeing it so clear of superfluous ornament. This is the true character of innate excellence, the _simplex munditiis_, or _freedom from decoration_; the noble simplicity to which no embellishment can add dignity, but seems a mere appendage. Getting on the top of this stupendous edifice, is however the readiest way to fill one’s mind with a deserving notion of its extent, capacity, and beauty; nor is any operation easier, so happily contrived is the ascent. Contrivance here is an ill-chosen word too, so luminous so convenient is the walk, so spacious the galleries beside, that all idea of danger is removed, when you perceive that even round the undefended cornice, our king’s state coach might be most safely driven.

The monuments, although incomparable, scarcely obtain a share of your admiration for the first ten times of your surveying the place; Guglielmo della Porta’s famous figure, supporting that dedicated to the memory of Paul the Third, was found so happy an imitation of female beauty by some madman here however, that it is said he was inflamed with a Pigmalion-like passion for it, of which the Pontiff hearing, commanded the statue to be draped. The steps at almost the end of this church we have all heard were porphyry, and so they are; how many hundred feet long I have now forgotten:--no matter; what I have not forgotten is, that I thought as I looked at them--why so they _should_ be porphyry--and that was all. While the vases and cisterns of the same beautiful substance at Villa Borghese attracted my wonder; and Clement X.’s urn at St. John de Lateran, appeared to me an urn fitter for the ashes of an Egyptian monarch, Busiris or Sesostris, than for a Christian priest or sovereign, since universal dominion has been abolished. Nothing, however, _can_ look very grand in St. Peter’s church; and though I saw the general benediction given (I hope partook it) upon Easter day, my constant impression was, that the people were below the place; no pomp, no glare, no dove and glory on the chair of state, but what looked too little for the area that contained them. Sublimity disdains to catch the vulgar eye, she elevates the soul; nor can long-drawn processions, or splendid ceremonies, suffice to content those travellers who seek for images that never tarnish, and for truths that never can decay. Pius Sextus, in his morning dress, paying his private devotions at the altar, without any pageantry, and with very few attendants, struck me more a thousand and a thousand times, than when arrayed in gold, in colours, and diamonds, he was carried to the front of a balcony big enough to have contained the conclave; and there, shaded by two white fans, which, though really enormous, looked no larger than that a girl carries in her pocket, pronounced words which on account of the height they came from were difficult to hear.