CHAPTER II.

They arrived at Naples by day, amid its immense population of animated idlers. They first crossed the Strada del Toledo, and saw the Lazzaroni lying on the pavement, or crouching in the wicker works that serve them for dwellings night and day; this savage state, blending with civilization, has a very original air. There are many among these men who know not even their own names; who come to confession anonymously, because they cannot tell what to call the offenders. There is a subterranean grotto, where thousands of Lazzaroni pass their lives, merely going at noon to look on the sun, and sleeping during the rest of the day, while their wives spin. In climates where food and raiment are so cheap, it requires a very active government to spread sufficient national emulation; material subsistence is so easy there that they dispense with the industry requisite elsewhere for our daily bread. Idleness and ignorance, combined with the volcanic air they imbibe, must produce ferocity when the passions are excited; yet these people are no worse than others; they have imagination which might prove the parent of disinterested action, and lead to good results, did their political and religious institutions set them good examples.

The Calabrese march towards the fields they cultivate with a musician at their head, to whose tunes they occasionally dance, by way of variety. Every year is held, near Naples, a fête to our Lady of the Grotto, at which the girls dance to the sound of tambourines and castanets; and they often make it a clause in their marriage contracts, that their husbands shall take them annually to this fête. There was an actor of eighty, who for sixty years diverted the Neapolitans, in their national part of Polichinello. What immortality does the soul deserve which has thus long employed the body? The people of Naples know no good but pleasure; yet even such taste is preferable to barren selfishness. It is true that they love money inordinately; if you ask your way in the streets, the man addressed holds out his hand as soon as he has pointed--they are often too lazy for words; but their love of gold is not that of the miser: they spend as they receive it. If coin were introduced among savages, they would demand it in the same way. What the Neapolitans want most is a sense of dignity. They perform generous and benevolent actions rather from impulse than principle. Their theories are worth nothing; and public opinion has no influence over them; but, if any here escape this moral anarchy, their conduct is more admirable than might be found elsewhere, since nothing in their exterior circumstances is favorable to virtue. Nor laws nor manners are there to reward or punish. The good are the more heroic, as they are not the more sought or better considered for their pains. With some honorable exceptions, the highest class is very like the lowest; the mind is as little cultivated in the one as in the other. Dress makes the only difference. But, in the midst of all this, there is at bottom a natural cleverness and aptitude, which shows us what such a nation might become if the government devoted its powers to their mental and moral improvement. As there is little education, one finds more originality of character than of wit; but the distinguished men of this country, such as the Abbé Galiani and Caraccioli, possessed, it is said, both pleasantry and reflection--rare union, without which either pedantry or frivolity must prevent men from knowing the true value of things. In some respects the Neapolitans are quite uncivilized; but their vulgarity is not like that of others; their very grossness strikes the imagination. We feel that the African shore is near us. There is something Numidian in the wild cries we hear from all sides. The brown faces, and dresses of red or purple stuff, whose strong colors catch the eye, those ragged cloaks, draped so artistically give something picturesque to the populace, in whom, elsewhere we can but mark the steps of civilization. A certain taste for ornament is here found, contrasted with a total want of all that is useful. The shops are decked with fruit and flowers; some of them have a holy day look, that belongs neither to private plenty nor public felicity; but solely to vivacious fancy, which fain would feast the eye at any rate. The mild clime permits all kinds of laborers to work in the streets. Tailors there make clothes, and cooks pastry--these household tasks performed out of doors much augment the action of the scene. Songs, dances, and noisy sports accompany this spectacle. There never was a country in which the difference between amusement and happiness might be more clearly felt; yet leave the interior for the quays, look on the sea, and Vesuvius, and you forget all that you know of the natives. Oswald and Corinne reached Naples while the eruption still lasted. By day it sent forth but a black smoke, which might be confounded with the clouds; but in the evening, going to the balcony of their abode, they received a most unexpected shock. A flood of fire rolled down to the seas, its flaming waves imitating the rapid succession and indefatigable movement of the ocean's billows. It might be said that nature, though dividing herself into different elements, preserved some traces of her single and primitive design. This phenomenon really makes the heart palpitate. We are so familiarized with the works of heaven, that we scarcely notice them with any new sensation in our prosaic realms; But the wonder which the universe ought to inspire, is suddenly renewed at the sight of a miracle like this; our whole being is agitated by its Maker's power, from which our social connections have turned our thoughts so long; we feel that man is not the world's chief mystery; that a strength independent of his own at once threatens and protects him by a law to him unknown. Oswald and Corinne promised themselves the pleasure of ascending Vesuvius, and felt an added delight in thinking of the danger they thus should brave together.