Part 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.