Part 3

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.

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.