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                                    A
                                  VIEW
                                   OF
                           SOCIETY AND MANNERS
                                   IN
                                 ITALY:

                                  WITH
             ANECDOTES relating to some EMINENT CHARACTERS.

                           BY JOHN MOORE, M.D.

                                VOL. II.

          Strenua nos exercet inertia: navibus atque
          Quadrigis petimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hic est.

                                                            HOR.

                           THE SECOND EDITION.

      LONDON: Printed for W. STRAHAN; and T. CADELL, in the Strand.
                               MDCCLXXXI.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

                           LETTER XLVI. p. 1.

    _Busts and statues of distinguished Romans—of Heathen
    Deities.—Passion of the Greeks and Romans for
    Sculpture.—Farnesian Hercules criticised by a Lady.—Remarks
    on that statue.—On the Flora.—Effect which the sight of the
    statues of Laocoon and his sons had on two spectators of
    opposite characters.—Mr. Lock’s Observations on the same
    group.—The Antinous.—The Apollo._

                          LETTER XLVII. p. 21.

    _The present Pope.—Ganganelli.—A Scotch Presbyterian._

                          LETTER XLVIII. p. 34.

    _Zeal of Pius VI.—Institution of the Jubilee.—Ceremony of
    building up the holy door of St. Peter’s by the present
    Pope.—The ceremony of high mass performed by the Pope on
    Christmas-day.—Character of the present Pope.—He is admired by
    the Roman women.—The Benediction pronounced in the grand area
    before the church of St. Peter’s._

                           LETTER XLIX. p. 48.

    _Presented to the Pope.—Reflections on the situation of
    Sovereigns in general.—The Sovereign Pontiff in particular._

                            LETTER L. p. 63.

    _Modern Romans.—Roman women compared with those of
    England.—Portrait painting in Italy, and elsewhere._

                            LETTER LI. p. 78.

    _Carnival at Rome.—Masquerades and other amusements in the
    Corso.—Horse-races.—Serious Opera.—Great sensibility in a
    young woman.—Extravagant expression of a Roman citizen at the
    Opera.—A Serenade on Christmas morning.—Female performers
    prohibited on the Theatres at Rome.—Eunuchs substituted.—The
    effect on the minds of spectators._

                           LETTER LII. p. 91.

    _Journey from Rome to
    Naples.—Veletri.—Otho.—Sermonetta.—Peevish Travellers.—Monte
    Circello.—Piperno.—Fossa Nuova._

                          LETTER LIII. p. 104.

    _Terracina.—Via Appia.—Fundi.—Gaeta.—Illustrious French
    Rebels.—Bourbon.—Minturnæ.—Marius.—Hannibal._

                           LETTER LIV. p. 120.

    _Naples.—Fortress of St. Elmo.—Conversation with a Lady
    regarding the Carthusians.—Manufactures.—Number of inhabitants._

                           LETTER LV. p. 131.

    _Manners._

                           LETTER LVI. p. 138.

    _Respect paid to Kings during their lives.—Freedoms used with
    their characters after their deaths.—The King of Naples.—A game
    at billiards.—Characters of the King and Queen._

                          LETTER LVII. p. 147.

    _The Neapolitan Nobles.—The Peasants._

                          LETTER LVIII. p. 158.

    _Citizens.—Lawyers.—Physicians.—Clergy.—Convents.—Lazzaroni._

                           LETTER LIX. p. 168.

    _Herculaneum.—Portici.—Pompeia._

                           LETTER LX. p. 186.

    _Poetical Rehearsers in the streets of Naples.—Street Orators
    and Historians—Improuvisatories.—Signora Corilla.—Sensibility
    of Italians.—English Gentlemen of the Ton.—A Neapolitan
    Mountebank._

                           LETTER LXI. p. 204.

    _A visit to Mount Vesuvius._

                          LETTER LXII. p. 217.

    _Observations on the pulmonary Consumption._

                          LETTER LXIII. p. 257.

    _Neapolitan and English customs and characters criticised and
    compared, in a conversation between two English Gentlemen._

                          LETTER LXIV. p. 273.

    _The liquefaction of St. Januarius’s blood.—Procession,
    ceremonies, anxiety of the people.—Their preposterous abuse of
    the Saint.—Observation of a Roman Catholic._

                           LETTER LXV. p. 290.

    _The Tomb of Virgil.—Pausilippo.—A Neapolitan Valet.—Grotta
    del Cane.—Campi Phlegrei, Solfaterra, Monte Nuova,
    &c.—Puzzoli.—Baia.—Cumæ._

                          LETTER LXVI. p. 301.

    _Palace of Casserta.—African slaves.—Gardens.—Fortifications._

                          LETTER LXVII. p. 308.

    _Character of the Archduchess.—Attend the King and Queen on a
    visit to four nunneries.—Entertainments there.—Effect of the
    climate on the constitution of Nuns and others._

                         LETTER LXVIII. p. 318.

    _Tivoli._

                          LETTER LXIX. p. 330.

    _Frescati and Albano.—Dialogue between an English and Scotch
    Gentleman._

                           LETTER LXX. p. 350.

    _Florence.—The English Minister.—Grand Duke and
    Duchess.—Florentines.—Particular species of virtù._

                          LETTER LXXI. p. 359.

    _Gallery.—Dialogue between an Antiquarian and a young Man
    concerning the Arrotino.—The Tribuna.—The Gallery of Portraits._

                          LETTER LXXII. p. 370.

    _State of the common people, particularly the peasants in
    Italy.—Of Roman Catholic Clergy.—Clergy in general._

                         LETTER LXXIII. p. 389.

    _Manners.—The Count Albany._

                          LETTER LXXIV. p. 398.

    _Cicisbeism._

                          LETTER LXXV. p. 408.

    _The same subject continued._

                          LETTER LXXVI. p. 421.

    _Commerce.—Jews.—Actors.—The Chapel of St. Lorenzo.—The rich
    not envied by the poor.—The Palazzo Pitti.—Observations on the
    Madonna della Seggiola._

                         LETTER LXXVII. p. 431.

    _A public Discourse by a Professor at the Academy of Arts at
    Bologna.—Procession of Corpus Domini.—Modena.—Parma.—Different
    opinions respecting a famous picture of Correggio._

                         LETTER LXXVIII. p. 441.

    _Milan.—The Cathedral.—Museum.—Manners._

                          LETTER LXXIX. p. 451.

    _Turin.—St. Ambrose.—A Procession.—Mount
    Cenis.—Modane.—Aiguebelle.—Hannibal’s passage into Italy._

                          LETTER LXXX. p. 464.

    _Journey from Geneva to Besançon.—Observation of a French
    peasant.—Of an old Woman.—Remarks of a French Friseur on the
    English nation._

                          LETTER LXXXI. p. 472.

    _The Marquis de F——._

                         LETTER LXXXII. p. 483.

    _Reflections on foreign travel._

A VIEW OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS

IN

ITALY.

LETTER XLVI.

                                                                    Rome.

I beg you may not suspect me of affectation, or that I wish to assume
the character of a connoisseur, when I tell you, that I have very great
pleasure in contemplating the antique statues and busts, of which there
are such numbers in this city. It is a natural curiosity, and I have
had it all my life in a strong degree, to see celebrated men, those
whose talents and great qualities can alone render the present age an
interesting object to posterity, and prevent its being lost, like the
dark ages which succeeded the destruction of the Roman empire, in the
oblivious vortex of time, leaving scarcely a wreck behind. The durable
monuments raised to fame by the inspiring genius of _Pitt_, and the
invincible spirit of _Frederick_, will command the admiration of future
ages, outlive the power of the empires which _they_ aggrandized, and
forbid the period in which _they_ flourished, from ever passing away like
the baseless fabric of a vision. The busts and statues of those memorable
men will be viewed, by succeeding generations, with the same regard and
attention which we now bestow on those of Cicero and Cæsar. We expect to
find something peculiarly noble and expressive in features which were
animated, and which, we imagine, must have been in some degree modelled,
by the sentiments of those to whom they belonged. It is not rank, it is
character alone which interests posterity. We know that men may be seated
on thrones, who would have been placed more suitably to their talents on
the working-table of a taylor; we therefore give little attention to the
busts or coins of the vulgar emperors. In the countenance of Claudius,
we expect nothing more noble than the phlegmatic tranquillity of an
acquiescing cuckold; in Caligula or Nero, the unrelenting frown of a
negro-driver, or the insolent air of any unprincipled ruffian in power.
Even in the high-praised Augustus we look for nothing essentially great,
nothing superior to what we see in those minions of fortune, who are
exalted, by a concurrence of incidents, to a situation in life to which
their talents would never have raised them, and which their characters
never deserved. In the face of Julius we expect to find the traces of
deep reflection, magnanimity, and the anxiety natural to the man who
had overturned the liberties of his native country, and who must have
secretly dreaded the resentment of a spirited people; and in the face of
Marcus Brutus we look for independence, conscious integrity, and a mind
capable of the highest effort of virtue.

It is natural to regret, that, of the number of antique statues
which have come to us tolerably entire, so great a proportion are
representations of gods and goddesses. Had they been intended for real
persons, we might have had a perfect knowledge of the face and figure of
the greatest part of the most distinguished citizens of ancient Greece
and Rome. A man of unrelaxing wisdom would smile with contempt, and ask,
if our having perfect representations of all the heroes, poets, and
philosophers recorded in history, would make us either wiser or more
learned? to which I answer, That there are a great many things, which
neither can add to my small stock of learning nor wisdom, and yet give me
more pleasure and satisfaction than those which do; and, unfortunately
for mankind, the greatest part of them resemble me in this particular.

But though I would with pleasure have given up a great number of the
Jupiters and Apollos and Venuses, whose statues we have, in exchange for
an equal, or even a smaller, number of mere mortals whom I could name;
I by no means consider the statues of those deities as uninteresting.
Though they are imaginary beings, yet each of them has a distinct
character of his own of classical authority, which has long been
impressed on our memories; and we assume the right of deciding on the
artist’s skill, and applauding or blaming, as he has succeeded or failed
in expressing the established character of the god intended. From the
ancient artists having exercised their genius in forming the images of
an order of beings superior to mankind, another and a greater advantage
is supposed to have followed; it prompted the artists to attempt the
uniting in one form, the various beauties and excellencies which nature
had dispersed in many. This was not so easy a task as may by some be
imagined; for that which has a fine effect in one particular face or
person, may appear a deformity when combined with a different complexion,
different features, or a different shape. It therefore required great
judgment and taste to collect those various graces, and combine them with
elegance and truth; and repeated efforts of this kind are imagined to
have inspired some of the ancient sculptors with sublimer ideas of beauty
than nature herself ever exhibited, as appears in some of their works
which have reached our own times.

Though the works of no modern artist can stand a comparison with the
great master-pieces now alluded to, yet nothing can be more absurd than
the idea which some people entertain, that all antique statues are of
more excellent workmanship than the modern. We see, every day, numberless
specimens of every species of sculpture, from the largest statues
and bassos-relievos, to the smallest cameos and intaglios, that are
undoubtedly antique, and yet far inferior, not only to the works of the
best artists of Leo the Tenth’s time, but also to those of many artists
now alive in various parts of Europe. The passion for sculpture, which
the Romans caught from the Greeks, became almost universal. Statues were
not only the chief ornaments of their temples and palaces, but also of
the houses of the middle, and even the lowest, order of citizens. They
were prompted to adorn them with the figures of a few favourite deities,
by religion, as well as vanity: no man, but an atheist or a beggar,
could be without them. This being the case, we may easily conceive what
graceless divinities many of them must have been; for in this, no doubt,
as in every other manufactory, there must occasionally have been bungling
workmen employed, even in the most flourishing æra of the arts, and goods
finished in a very careless and hurried manner, to answer the constant
demand, and suit the dimensions of every purse. We must have a very high
idea of the number of statues of one kind or other, which were in old
Rome, when we consider, how many are still to be seen; how many have at
different periods been carried away, by the curious, to every country in
Europe; how many were mutilated and destroyed by the gothic brutality
of Barbarians, and the ill-directed zeal of the early Christians, who
thought it a duty to exterminate every image, without distinction of age
or sex, and without considering whether they were of God or man. This
obliged the wretched heathens to hide the statues of their gods and of
their ancestors in the bowels of the earth, where unquestionably great
numbers of them still remain. Had they not been thus barbarously hewed to
pieces, and buried, I had almost said, alive, we might have had several
equal to the great master-pieces in the Vatican; for it is natural to
imagine, that the rage of the zealots would be chiefly directed against
those statues which were in the highest estimation with the heathens; and
we must likewise imagine, that these would be the pieces which they, on
their part, would endeavour, by every possible means, to preserve from
their power, and bury in the earth. Of those which have been dug up, I
shall mention only a very few, beginning with the Farnesian Hercules,
which has been long admired as an exquisite model of masculine strength;
yet, admirable as it is, it does not please all the world. I am told that
the women in particular find something unsatisfactory, and even odious,
in this figure; which, however majestic, is deficient in the charms
most agreeable to them, and which might have been expected in the son
of Jupiter and the beauteous Alcmena. A lady whom I accompanied to the
Farnese palace, turned away from it in disgust. I could not imagine what
had shocked her. She told me, _after recollection_, that she could not
bear the stern severity of his countenance, his large brawny limbs, and
the club with which he was armed; which gave him more the appearance of
one of those giants that, according to the old romances, carried away
virgins and shut them up in gloomy castles, than the gallant Hercules,
the lover of Omphale. Finally, the lady declared, she was convinced this
statue could not be a just representation of Hercules; for it was not
in the nature of things, that a man so formed could ever have been a
reliever of distressed damsels.

Without such powerful support as that of the fair sex, I should not have
exposed myself to the resentment of connoisseurs, by any expression
which they might construe an attack upon this favourite statue; but,
with their support, I will venture to assert, that the Farnese Hercules
is faulty both in his form and attitude: the former is too unwieldy for
active exertion, and the latter exhibits vigour _exhausted_. A resting
attitude is surely not the most proper in which the all-conquering god
of strength could be represented. Rest implies fatigue, and fatigue
strength exhausted. A reposing Hercules is almost a contradiction.
Invincible activity, and inexhaustible strength, are his characteristics.
The ancient artist has erred, not only in giving him an attitude which
supposes his strength wants recruiting, but in the nature of the strength
itself, the character of which should not be passive, but active.

Near to Hercules, under the arcades of the same Palazzo Farnese, is a
most beautiful statue of Flora. The great advantage which ancient artists
had in attending the exercises of the gymnasia, has been repeatedly urged
as the reason of their superiority over the moderns in sculpture. We
are told, that besides the usual exercises of the gymnasia, all those
who proposed to contend at the Olympic games, were obliged, by the
regulations, to prepare themselves, by exercising publicly for a year at
Elis; and the statuaries and painters constantly attended on the Arena,
where they had opportunities of beholding the finest shaped, the most
graceful, and most vigorous of the Grecian youth employed in those manly
sports, in which the power of every muscle was exerted, and all their
various actions called forth, and where the human form appeared in an
infinite variety of different attitudes. By a constant attendance at
such a school, independent of any other circumstance, the artists are
supposed to have acquired a more animated, true, and graceful style,
than possibly can be caught from viewing the tame, mercenary models,
which are exhibited in our academies. On the other hand, I have heard
it asserted, that the artist, who formed the Farnesian Flora, could not
have improved his work, or derived any of its excellencies, from the
circumstances above enumerated; because the figure is in a standing
posture, and clothed. In the light, easy flow of the drapery, and in the
contour of the body being as distinctly pronounced through it, as if the
figure were naked, the chief merit of this statue is thought to consist.
But this reasoning does not seem just; for the daily opportunities
the ancient artists had of seeing naked figures, in every variety of
action and attitude, must have given them advantages over the moderns,
in forming even drapery figures. At Sparta, the women, upon particular
occasions, danced naked. In their own families; they were seen every day
clothed in light draperies; and so secondary was every consideration,
even that of decency, to art, that the prettiest virgins of Agrigentum,
it is recorded, were called upon by the legislature, without distinction,
to shew themselves naked to a painter, to enable him to paint a Venus.
Whilst the moderns, therefore, must acknowledge their inferiority to the
ancients in the art of sculpture, they may be allowed merit, on account
of the cause, to which it seems, in some measure at least, to be owing.

The finest specimens of antique sculpture are to be seen in the Vatican.
In these the Greek artists display an unquestionable superiority
over the most successful efforts of the moderns. For me to attempt a
description of these master-pieces, which have been described a thousand
times, and imitated as often, without once having had justice done
them, would be equally vain and superfluous. I confine myself to a very
few observations. The most insensible of mankind must be struck with
horror at sight of the Laocoon. On one of my visits to the Vatican, I
was accompanied by two persons, who had never been there before: one of
them is accused of being perfectly callous to every thing which does not
immediately touch his own person; the other is a worthy, good man: the
first, after staring for some time with marks of terror at the groupe,
at length recovered himself; exclaiming with a laugh,—“Egad, I was afraid
these d——d serpents would have left the fellows they are devouring, and
made a snap at me; but I am happy to recollect they are of marble.”—“I
thank you, Sir, most heartily,” said the other, “for putting me in mind
of that circumstance; till you mentioned it, I was in agony for those two
youths.”

Nothing can be conceived more admirably executed than this affecting
groupe; in all probability, it never would have entered into my own head
that it could have been in any respect improved. But when I first had the
happiness of becoming acquainted with Mr. Lock, a period of my life which
I shall always recollect with peculiar pleasure, I remember my conversing
with him upon this subject; and that Gentleman, after mentioning the
execution of this piece, in the highest terms of praise, observed that,
had the figure of Laocoon been _alone_, it would have been perfect. As a
man suffering the most excruciating bodily pain with becoming fortitude,
it admits of no improvement; his proportions, his form, his action, his
expression, are exquisite. But when his sons appear, he is no longer an
insulated, suffering individual, who, when he has met pain and death
with dignity, has done all that could be expected from man; he commences
_father_, and a much wider field is opened to the artist. We expect the
deepest pathos in the exhibition of the sublimest character that art
can offer to the contemplation of the human mind: A father forgetting
pain, and instant death, to save his children. This Sublime and Pathetic
the artist either did not see, or despaired of attaining. Laocoon’s
sufferings are merely corporal; he is deaf to the cries of his agonizing
children, who are calling on him for assistance. But had he been
throwing a look of anguish upon his sons, had he seemed to have forgotten
his own sufferings in theirs, he would have commanded the sympathy of the
spectator in a much higher degree. On the whole, Mr. Lock was of opinion,
that the execution of this groupe is perfect, but that the conception is
not equal to the execution. I shall leave it to others to decide whether
Mr. Lock, in these observations, spoke like a man of taste: I am sure he
spoke like a father. I have sensibility to feel the beauty and justness
of the remark, though I had not the ingenuity to make it.

It is disputed whether this groupe was formed from Virgil’s description
of the death of Laocoon and his sons, or the description made from the
groupe; it is evident, from their minute resemblance, that one or other
must have been the case. The Poet mentions a circumstance, which could
not be represented by the sculptor; he says that, although every other
person around sought safety by flight, the father was attacked by the
serpents, while he was advancing to the assistance of his sons—

    —auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem.

This deficiency in the sculptor’s art would have been finely supplied by
the improvement which Mr. Lock proposed.

Reflecting on the dreadful condition of three persons entangled in
the horrid twinings of serpents, and after contemplating the varied
anguish so strongly expressed in their countenances, it is a relief to
turn the eye to the heavenly figure of the Apollo. To form an adequate
idea of the beauty of this statue, it is absolutely necessary to see
it. With all the advantages of colour and life, the human form never
appeared so beautiful; and we never can sufficiently admire the artist,
who has endowed marble with a finer expression of grace, dignity, and
understanding, than ever were seen in living features. In the forming of
this inimitable figure, the artist seems to have wrought after an ideal
form of beauty, superior to any in nature, and which existed only in his
own imagination.

The admired statue of Antinous is in the same Court. Nothing can be more
light, elegant, and easy; the proportions are exact, and the execution
perfect. It is an exquisite representation of the most beautiful youth
that ever lived.

The statue of Apollo represents something superior, and the emotions it
excites are all of the sublime cast.

LETTER XLVII.

                                                                    Rome.

The present Pope, who has assumed the name of Pius the Sixth, is a tall,
well-made man, about sixty years of age, but retaining in his look all
the freshness of a much earlier period of life. He lays a greater stress
on the ceremonious part of religion than his predecessor Ganganelli, in
whose reign a great relaxation of church-discipline is thought to have
taken place. The late Pope was a man of moderation, good sense, and
simplicity of manners; and could not go through all the ostentatious
parade which his station required, without reluctance, and marks of
disgust. He knew that the opinions of mankind had undergone a very great
change since those ceremonies were established; and that some of the most
respectable of the spectators considered as perfectly frivolous many
things which formerly had been held as sacred. A man of good sense may
seem to lay the greatest weight on ceremonies which he himself considers
as ridiculous, provided he thinks the people, in whose sight he goes
through them, are impressed with a conviction of their importance; but if
he knows that some of the beholders are entirely of a different way of
thinking, he will be strongly tempted to evince, by some means or other,
that he despises the fooleries he performs, as much as any of them. This,
in all probability, was the case with Ganganelli; who, besides, was
an enemy to fraud and hypocrisy of every kind. But, however remiss he
may have been with regard to the etiquette of his spiritual functions,
every body acknowledges his diligence and activity in promoting the
temporal good of his subjects. He did all in his power to revive trade,
and to encourage manufactures and industry of every kind. He built no
churches, but he repaired the roads all over the ecclesiastical state;
he restrained the malevolence of bigots, removed absurd prejudices, and
promoted sentiments of charity and good-will to mankind in general,
without excepting even heretics. His enemies, the Jesuits, with an
intention to make him odious in the eyes of his own subjects, gave him
the name of the Protestant Pope. If they supposed that this calumny would
be credited, on account of the conduct above mentioned, they at once
paid the highest compliment to the Pope and the Protestant religion.
The careless manner in which Ganganelli performed certain functions,
and the general tenour of his life and sentiments, were lamented by
politicians, as well as by bigots. However frivolous the former might
think many ceremonies in themselves, they still considered them as of
political importance, in such a government as that of Rome; and the
Conclave held on the death of the late Pope, are thought to have been in
some degree influenced by such considerations in chusing his successor.
The present Pope, before he was raised to that dignity, was considered
as a firm believer in all the tenets of the Roman Church, and a strict
and scrupulous observer of all its injunctions and ceremonials. As his
pretensions, in point of family, fortune, and connexions, were smaller
than those of most of his brother cardinals, it is the more probable that
he owed his elevation to this part of his character, which rendered him
a proper person to check the progress of abuses that had been entirely
neglected by the late Pope; under whose administration free-thinking was
said to have been countenanced, Protestantism in general regarded with
diminished abhorrence, and the Calvinists in particular treated with a
degree of indulgence, to which their inveterate enmity to the church of
Rome gave them no title. Several instances of this are enumerated, and
one in particular, which, I dare say, you will think a stronger proof of
the late Pope’s good sense and good humour, than of that negligence to
which his enemies imputed it.

A Scotch presbyterian having heated his brain, by reading the Book of
Martyrs, the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, and the Histories of
all the persecutions that ever were raised by the Roman Catholics against
the Protestants, was seized with a dread, that the same horrors were just
about to be renewed. This terrible idea disturbed his imagination day
and night; he thought of nothing but racks and scaffolds; and, on one
occasion, he dreamt that there was a continued train of bonfires, with a
tar-barrel and a Protestant in each, all the way from Smithfield to St.
Andrews.

He communicated the anxiety and distress of his mind to a worthy sensible
clergyman who lived in the neighbourhood. This gentleman took great pains
to quiet his fears, proving to him, by strong and obvious arguments,
that there was little or no danger of such an event as he dreaded. These
reasonings had a powerful effect while they were delivering, but the
impression did not last, and was always effaced by a few pages of the
Book of Martyrs. As soon as the clergyman remarked this, he advised the
relations to remove that, and every book which treated of persecution
or martyrdom, entirely out of the poor man’s reach. This was done
accordingly, and books of a less gloomy complexion were substituted in
their place; but as all of them formed a strong contrast with the colour
of his mind, he could not bear their perusal, but betook himself to the
study of the Bible, which was the only book of his ancient library which
had been left; and so strong a hold had his former studies taken of
his imagination, that he could relish no part of the Bible, except the
Revelation of St. John, a great part of which, he thought, referred to
the whore of Babylon, or in other words, the Pope of Rome. This part of
the scripture he perused continually with unabating ardor and delight.
His friend the clergyman, having observed this, took occasion to say,
that every part of the Holy Bible was, without doubt, most sublime, and
wonderfully instructive; yet he was surprised to see that he limited his
studies entirely to the last book, and neglected all the rest. To which
the other replied, That _he_ who was a divine, and a man of learning,
might, with propriety, read all the sacred volume from beginning to end;
but, for his own part, he thought proper to confine himself to what he
could understand; and _therefore_, though he had a due respect for all
the scripture, he acknowledged he gave a preference to the Revelation
of St. John. This answer entirely satisfied the clergyman; he did not
think it expedient to question him any farther; he took his leave, after
having requested the people of the family with whom this person lived,
to have a watchful eye on their relation. In the mean time, this poor
man’s terrors, with regard to the revival of popery and persecution,
daily augmented; and nature, in all probability, would have sunk under
the weight of such accumulated anxiety, had not a thought occurred which
relieved his mind in an instant, by suggesting an infallible method of
preventing all the evils which his imagination had been brooding over for
so long a time. The happy idea which afforded him so much comfort, was no
other, than that he should immediately go to Rome, and convert the Pope
from the Roman Catholic to the Presbyterian religion. The moment he hit
on this fortunate expedient, he felt at once the strongest impulse to
undertake the task, and the fullest conviction that his undertaking would
be crowned with success; it is no wonder, therefore, that his countenance
threw off its former gloom, and that all his features brightened with
the heart-felt thrillings of happiness and self-applause. While his
relations congratulated each other on this agreeable change, the exulting
visionary, without communicating his design to any mortal, set out for
London, took his passage to Leghorn, and, in a short time after, arrived
in perfect health of body, and in exalted spirits, at Rome.

He directly applied to an ecclesiastic of his own country, of whose
obliging temper he had previously heard, and whom he considered
as a proper person to procure him an interview necessary for the
accomplishment of his project. He informed that gentleman, that he
earnestly wished to have a conference with the Pope, on a business
of infinite importance, and which admitted of no delay. It was not
difficult to perceive the state of this poor man’s mind; the good-natured
ecclesiastic endeavoured to sooth and amuse him, putting off the
conference till a distant day; in hopes that means might be fallen on,
during the interval, to prevail on him to return to his own country. A
few days after this, however, he happened to go to St. Peter’s church, at
the very time when his Holiness was performing some religious ceremony.
At this sight our impatient missionary felt all his passions inflamed
with irresistible ardour; he could no longer wait for the expected
conference, but bursting out with zealous indignation, he exclaimed,
“O thou beast of nature, with seven heads and ten horns! thou mother
of harlots, arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls! throw away the golden cup of abominations,
and the filthiness of thy fornication!”

You may easily imagine the astonishment and hubbub that such an
apostrophe, from such a person, in such a place, would occasion; he was
immediately carried to prison by the Swiss halberdiers.

When it was known that he was a British subject, some who understood
English were ordered to attend his examination. The first question
asked of him was, “What had brought him to Rome?” He answered, “To
anoint the eyes of the scarlet whore with eye-salve, that she might
see her wickedness.” They asked, “Who he meant by the scarlet whore?”
He answered, “Who else could he mean, but her who sitteth upon seven
mountains, who hath seduced the kings of the earth to commit fornication,
and who hath gotten drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of
the martyrs?” Many other questions were asked, and such provoking answers
returned, that some suspected the man affected madness, that he might
give vent to his rancour and petulance with impunity; and they were for
condemning him to the gallies, that he might be taught more sense, and
better manners. But when they communicated their sentiments to Clement
the Fourteenth, he said, with great good humour, “That he never had heard
of any body whose understanding, or politeness, had been much improved at
that school; that although the poor man’s first address had been a little
rough and abrupt, yet he could not help considering himself as obliged to
him for his good intentions, and for his undertaking such a long journey
with a view to do good.” He afterwards gave orders to treat the man with
gentleness while he remained in confinement, and to put him on board the
first ship bound from Civita Vecchia to England, defraying the expence of
his passage. However humane and reasonable this conduct may be thought
by many, there were people who condemned it as an injudicious piece of
lenity, which might have a tendency to sink the dignity of the sacred
office, and expose it to future insults. If such behaviour as this did
not pass without blame, it may be easily supposed, that few of the late
Pope’s actions escaped uncensured; and many who loved the easy amiable
dispositions of the man, were of opinion, that the spirit of the times
required a different character on the Papal throne. This idea prevailed
among the Cardinals at the late election, and the Conclave is supposed
to have fixed on Cardinal Braschi to be Pope, from the same motive that
the Roman senate sometimes chose a Dictator to restore and enforce the
ancient discipline.

LETTER XLVIII.

                                                                    Rome.

Pius the Sixth performs all the religious functions of his office in
the most solemn manner; not only on public and extraordinary occasions,
but also in the most common acts of devotion. I happened lately to be
at St. Peter’s church, when there was scarcely any other body there;
while I lounged from chapel to chapel, looking at the sculpture and
paintings, the Pope entered with a very few attendants; when he came
to the statue of St. Peter, he was not satisfied with bowing, which is
the usual mark of respect shewn to that image; or with kneeling, which
is performed by more zealous persons; or with kissing the foot, which
I formerly imagined concluded the climax of devotion; he bowed, he
knelt, he kissed the foot, and then he rubbed his brow and his whole
head with every mark of humility, fervour, and adoration, upon the
sacred stump.—It is no more, one half of the foot having been long
since worn away by the lips of the pious; and if the example of his
Holiness is universally imitated, nothing but a miracle can prevent
the leg, thigh, and other parts from meeting with the same fate. This
uncommon appearance of zeal in the Pope, is not imputed to hypocrisy
or to policy, but is supposed to proceed entirely from a conviction
of the efficacy of those holy frictions; an opinion which has given
people a much higher idea of the strength of his faith, than of his
understanding. This being jubilee year, he may possibly think a greater
appearance of devotion necessary now, than at any other time. The first
jubilee was instituted by Boniface the Eighth, in the year 1300. Many
ceremonies and institutions of the Roman Catholic church are founded on
those of the old Heathens. This is evidently an imitation of the Roman
secular games, which were exhibited every hundredth year in honour of
the gods[1]; they lasted three days and three nights; they were attended
with great pomp, and drew vast numbers of people to Rome, from all parts
of Italy, and the most distant provinces. Boniface, recollecting this,
determined to institute something analogous, which would immortalize
his own name, and promote the interest of the Roman Catholic religion
in general, and that of the city of Rome in particular. He embraced
the favourable opportunity which the beginning of a century presented;
he invented a few extraordinary ceremonies, and declared the year 1300
the first jubilee year, during which he assured mankind, that heaven
would be in a particular manner propitious, in granting indulgences,
and remission of sins, to all who should come to Rome, and attend the
functions there to be performed, at this fortunate period, which was
not to occur again for a hundred years. This drew a great concourse of
wealthy sinners to Rome; and the extraordinary circulation of money it
occasioned, was strongly felt all over the Pope’s dominions. Clement the
Sixth, regretting that these advantages should occur so seldom, abridged
the period, and declared there would be a jubilee every fifty years; the
second was accordingly celebrated in the year 1350. Sixtus the Fifth,
imagining that the interval was still too long, once more retrenched the
half; and ever since there has been a jubilee every twenty-fifth year[2].
It is not likely that any future Pope will think of shortening this
period; if any alteration were again to take place, it most probably
would be, to restore the ancient period of fifty or a hundred years;
for, instead of the wealthy pilgrims who flocked to Rome from every
quarter of Christendom, ninety-nine in a hundred of those who come now,
are supported by alms during their journey, or are barely able to defray
their own expences by the strictest œconomy; and his Holiness is supposed
at present to derive no other advantage from the uncommon fatigue he is
obliged to go through on the jubilee year, except the satisfaction he
feels, in reflecting on the benefit his labours confer on the souls of
the beggars, and other travellers, who resort from all corners of Italy
to Rome, on this blessed occasion. The States which border on the Pope’s
dominions, suffer many temporal inconveniencies from the zeal of the
peasants and manufacturers, the greater part of whom still make a point
of visiting St. Peter’s on the jubilee year; the loss sustained by the
countries which such emigrants abandon, is not balanced by any advantage
transferred to that to which they resort; the good arising on the whole,
being entirely of a spiritual nature. By far the greater number of
pilgrims come from the kingdom of Naples, whose inhabitants are said
to be of a very devout and very amorous disposition. The first prompts
them to go to Rome in search of that absolution which the second renders
necessary; and on the year of jubilee, when indulgences are to be had at
an easier rate than at any other time, those who can afford it generally
carry away such a stock, as not only is sufficient to clear old scores,
but will also serve as an indemnifying fund for future transgressions.

There is one door into the church of St. Peter’s, which is called the
Holy Door. This is always walled up, except on this distinguished year;
and even then no person is permitted to enter by it, but in the humblest
posture. The pilgrims, and many others, prefer crawling into the church
upon their knees, by this door; to walking in, the usual way, by any
other. I was present at the shutting up of this Holy Door. The Pope being
seated on a raised seat, or kind of throne, surrounded by Cardinals and
other ecclesiastics, an anthem was sung, accompanied by all sorts of
musical instruments. During the performance, his Holiness descended from
the throne, with a golden trowel in his hand, placed the first brick,
and applied some mortar; he then returned to his seat, and the door
was instantly built up by more expert, though less hallowed, workmen;
and will remain as it is now, till the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when it will be again opened, by the Pope then in being, with
the same solemnity that it has been now shut. Though his Holiness places
but a single brick, yet it is very remarkable that this never fails to
communicate its influence, in such a rapid and powerful manner, that,
within about an hour, or at most an hour and a half, all the other
bricks, which form the wall of the Holy Door, acquire an equal degree of
sanctity with that placed by the Pope’s own hands. The common people and
pilgrims are well acquainted with this wonderful effect. At the beginning
of this Jubilee-year, when the late wall was thrown down, men, women,
and children scrambled and fought for the fragments of the bricks and
mortar, with the same eagerness which less enlightened mobs display, on
days of public rejoicing, when handfuls of money are thrown among them.
I have been often assured that those pieces of brick, besides their
sanctity, have also the virtue of curing many of the most obstinate
diseases: and, if newspapers were permitted at Rome, there is not the
least reason to doubt, that those cures would be attested publicly by the
patients, in a manner as satisfactory and convincing as are the cures
performed daily by the pills, powders, drops, and balsams advertised in
the London newspapers. After the shutting of the Holy Door, mass was
celebrated at midnight; and the ceremony was attended by vast multitudes
of people. For my own part, I suspended my curiosity till next day, which
was Christmas-day, when I returned again to St. Peter’s church, and saw
the Pope perform mass on that solemn occasion. His Holiness went through
all the evolutions of the ceremony with an address and flexibility of
body, which are rarely to be found in those who wear the tiara; who are,
generally speaking, men bowing under the load of years and infirmities.
His present Holiness has hitherto suffered from neither. His features
are regular, and he has a fine countenance; his person is straight, and
his movements graceful. His leg and foot are remarkably well made, and
always ornamented with silk stockings, and red slippers, of the most
delicate construction. Notwithstanding that the papal uniforms are by no
means calculated to set off the person to the greatest advantage, yet the
peculiar neatness with which they are put on, and the nice adjustment of
their most minute parts, sufficiently prove that his present Holiness is
not insensible of the charms of his person, or unsolicitous about his
external ornaments. Though verging towards the winter of life, his cheeks
still glow with autumnal roses, which, at a little distance, appear as
blooming as those of the spring. If he himself were less clear-sighted
than he seems to be, to the beauties of his face and person, he could
not also be deaf to the voices of the women, who break out into
exclamations, in praise of both, as often as he appears in public.
On a public occasion, lately, as he was carried through a particular
street, a young woman at a window exclaimed, “Quanto e bello! O quanto e
bello!” and was immediately answered by a zealous old lady at the window
opposite, who, folding her hands in each other, and raising her eyes to
heaven, cried out, with a mixture of love for his person, and veneration
for his sacred office, “Tanto e bello, quanto e santo!” When we know that
such a quantity of incense is daily burnt under his sacred nostrils, we
ought not to be astonished, though we should find his brain, on some
occasions, a little intoxicated.

Vanity is a very comfortable failing; and has such an universal power
over mankind, that not only the gay blossoms of youth, but even the
shrivelled bosom of age, and the contracted heart of bigotry, open,
expand, and display strong marks of sensibility under its influence.

After mass, the Pope gave the benediction to the people assembled in the
Grand Court, before the church of St. Peter’s. It was a remarkably fine
day; an immense multitude filled that spacious and magnificent area; the
horse and foot guards were drawn up in their most showy uniform. The
Pope, seated in an open, portable chair, in all the splendour which his
wardrobe could give, with the tiara on his head, was carried out of a
large window, which opens on a balcony in the front of St. Peter’s. The
silk hangings and gold trappings with which the chair was embellished,
concealed the men who carried it; so that to those who viewed him from
the area below, his Holiness seemed to sail forward, from the window
self-balanced in the air, like a celestial being. The instant he
appeared, the music struck up, the bells rung from every church, and the
cannon thundered from the castle of St. Angelo in repeated peals. During
the intervals, the church of St. Peter’s, the palace of the Vatican,
and the banks of the Tiber, re-echoed the acclamations of the populace.
At length his Holiness arose from his seat, and an immediate and awful
silence ensued. The multitude fell upon their knees, with their hands and
eyes raised towards his Holiness, as to a benign Deity. After a solemn
pause, he pronounced the benediction, with great fervour; elevating his
outstretched arms as high as he could; then closing them together, and
bringing them back to his breast with a slow motion, as if he had got
hold of the blessing, and was drawing it gently from heaven. Finally, he
threw his arms open, waving them for some time, as if his intention had
been to scatter the benediction with impartiality among the people.

No ceremony can be better calculated for striking the senses, and
imposing on the understanding, than this of the Supreme Pontiff giving
the blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s. For my own part, if I had
not, in my early youth, received impressions highly unfavourable to the
chief actor in this magnificent interlude, I should have been in danger
of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in
which I was educated.

    [1] The Carmen Seculare of Horace was composed on occasion of
    those celebrated by Augustus in the year of Rome 736.

    [2] To this last abridgement I am indebted for having seen the
    ceremonies and processions on the termination of this sacred
    year.

LETTER XLIX.

                                                                    Rome.

In my last, I informed you of my having been seduced almost into
idolatry, by the influence of example, and the pomp which surrounded the
idol. I must now confess that I have actually bowed the knee to Baal,
from mere wantonness. We are told that, to draw near to that Being,
who ought to be the only object of worship, with our lips, while our
hearts are far from him, is a mockery. Such daring and absurd hypocrisy
I shall always avoid: but to have drawn near to _him_, who ought not to
be an object of worship, with the lips only, while the heart continued
at a distance, I hope will be considered as no more than a venial
transgression. In short, I trust, that it will not be looked on as a
mortal sin in Protestants to have kissed the Pope’s toe. If it should,
some of your friends are in a deplorable way, as you shall hear.—It is
usual for strangers to be presented to his Holiness, before they leave
Rome. The D—— of H——, Mr. K——, and myself, have all been at the Vatican
together, upon that important business. Your young acquaintance Jack,
who, having now got a commission in the army, considers himself no longer
as a boy, desired to accompany us. We went under the auspices of a
certain ecclesiastic, who usually attends the English on such occasions.

He very naturally concluded, that it would be most agreeable to us to
have the circumstance of kissing the slipper dispensed with. Having had
some conversation, therefore, with his Holiness, in his own apartment,
while we remained in another room, previous to our introduction; he
afterwards returned, and informed us, that the Pontiff, indulgent to the
prejudices of the British nation, did not insist on that part of the
ceremonial; and therefore a very low bow, on our being presented, was all
that would be required of us.

A bow! cried the D—— of H——; I should not have given myself any trouble
about the matter, had I suspected that all was to end in a bow. I look on
kissing the toe as the only amusing circumstance of the whole; if that is
to be omitted, I will not be introduced at all. For if the most ludicrous
part is left out, who would wait for the rest of a farce?

This was a thunderstroke to our negociator, who expected thanks, at
least, for the honourable terms he had obtained; but who, on the
contrary, found himself in the same disagreeable predicament with other
negociators, who have met with abuse and reproach from their countrymen,
on account of treaties for which they expected universal applause.

The D—— of H—— knew nothing of the treaty which our introducer had just
concluded; otherwise he would certainly have prevented the negociation.
As I perceived, however, that our ambassador was mortified with the
thoughts that all his labour should prove abortive, I said, that,
although he had prevailed with his Holiness to wave that part of the
ceremonial, which his Grace thought so entertaining, yet it would
unquestionably be still more agreeable to him that the whole should be
performed to its utmost extent: this new arrangement, therefore, needed
not be an obstruction to our being presented.

The countenance of our Conductor brightened up at this proposal. He
immediately ushered us into the presence of the Supreme Pontiff. We all
bowed to the ground; the supplest of the company had the happiness to
touch the sacred slipper with their lips, and the least agile were within
a few inches of that honour. As this was more than had been bargained
for, his Holiness seemed agreeably surprised; raised the D—— with a
smiling countenance, and conversed with him in an obliging manner, asking
the common questions, How long he had been in Italy? Whether he found
Rome agreeable? When he intended to set out for Naples?—He said something
of the same kind to each of the company; and, after about a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes, we took our leave.

Next day, his Holiness sent his compliments to the D——, with a present of
two medals, one of gold, and the other of silver; on both of which the
head of the Pontiff is very accurately engraved.

The manner in which the generality of sovereign princes pass their time,
is as far from being amusing or agreeable, as one can possibly imagine.
Slaves to the tiresome routine of etiquette; martyrs to the oppressive
fatigue of pomp; constrained to walk every levee-day around the same dull
circle, to gratify the vanity of fifty or a hundred people, by whispering
a something or a nothing into the ears of each; obliged to wear a smiling
countenance, even when the heart is oppressed with sadness; besieged by
the craving faces of those, who are more displeased at what is withheld,
than grateful for the favours they have received; surrounded, as he
constantly is, by adepts in the art of simulation, all professing the
highest possible regard; how shall the puzzled monarch distinguish real
from assumed attachment? and what a risk does he run, of placing his
confidence where he ought to have directed his indignation! And, to
all these inconveniencies, when we add this, that he is precluded from
those delightful sensations which spring from disinterested friendship,
sweet equality, and the gay, careless enjoyments of social life, we must
acknowledge, that all that is brilliant in the condition of a sovereign,
is not sufficient to compensate for such restraints, such dangers, and
such deprivations.

So far indeed are we from considering that envied condition as enviable,
that great part of mankind are more apt to think it insupportable; and
are surprised to find, that those unhappy men, whom fate has condemned
to suffer the pains of royalty for life, are able to wait with patience
for the natural period of their days. For, strange as it may appear,
history does not furnish us with an instance, not even in Great Britain
itself, of a king, who hanged, or drowned, or put himself to death in any
other violent manner, from mere tædium, as other mortals, disgusted with
life, are apt to do. I was at a loss to account for such an extraordinary
fact, till I recollected that, however void of resources and activity the
minds of monarchs may be, they are seldom allowed to rest in repose. The
storms to which people in their lofty situation are exposed, occasion
such agitations as prevent the stagnating slime of tædium from gathering
on their minds. That kings do not commit suicide, therefore, affords
only a very slender presumption of the happiness of their condition:
although it is a strong proof, that all the hurricanes of life are not
so insupportable to the human mind, as that insipid, fearless, hopeless
calm, which envelopes men who are devoid of mental enjoyments, and whose
senses are palled with satiety. If there is any truth in the above
representation of the regal condition, would not you imagine that of all
others it would be the most shunned? Would not you imagine that every
human being would shrink from it, as from certain misery; and that at
least every wise man would say, with the Poet,

    I envy none their pageantry and show,
    I envy none the gilding of their woe?

Not only every wise man, but every foolish man, will adopt the sentiment,
and act accordingly; provided his rank in life removes him from the
possibility of ever attaining the objects in question. For what is
situated beyond the sphere of our hopes, very seldom excites our desires;
but bring the powerful magnets a little nearer, and they attract the
human passions with a force which reason and philosophy cannot controul.
Placed within their reach, the wise and the foolish grasp with equal
eagerness at crowns and sceptres, in spite of all the thorns with which
they are surrounded. Their alluring magic seems to have the power of
changing the very characters and natures of men. In pursuit of them, the
indolent have been excited to the most active exertions, the voluptuous
have renounced their darling pleasures; and even those who have long
walked in the direct road of integrity, have deviated into all the
crooked paths of villany and fraud.

There are passions, whose indulgence is so exceedingly flattering to the
natural vanity of men, that they will gratify them, though persuaded that
the gratification will be attended by disappointment and misery. The love
of power and sovereignty is of this class. It has been a general belief,
ever since the kingly office was established among men, that cares
and anxiety were the constant attendants of royalty. Yet this general
conviction never made a single person decline an opportunity of embarking
on this sea of troubles. Every new adventurer flatters himself that he
shall be guided by some happy star undiscovered by former navigators; and
those who, after trial, have relinquished the voyage—Charles, Christina,
Amadeus, and others—when they had quitted the helm, and were safely
arrived in port, are said to have languished, all the rest of their
lives, for that situation which their own experience taught them was
fraught with misery.

Henry the Fourth of England did not arrive at the throne by the natural
and direct road. Shakespear puts the following Address to Sleep, into the
mouth of this monarch:

        ——O Sleep! O gentle Sleep!
    Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
    That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
    Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
    And hush’d with busy night-flies to thy slumber;
    Than in the perfum’d chambers of the Great,
    Under the canopies of costly state
    And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody?
    O thou dull God! why ly’st thou with the vile
    In loathsome beds; and leav’st the kingly couch?
    A watch-case, or a common ’larum bell?
    Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
    Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
    In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
    And in the visitation of the winds,——
    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
    Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
    With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry shrouds,——
    Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
    And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
    With all appliances and means to boot,
    Deny it to a King?——

However eager and impatient this Prince may have formerly been to obtain
the crown, you would conclude that he was quite cloyed by possession at
the time he made this speech; and therefore, at first sight, you would
not expect that he should afterwards display any excessive attachment to
what gives him so much uneasiness. But Shakespear, who knew the secret
wishes, perverse desires, and strange inconsistencies of the human heart,
better than man ever knew them, makes this very Henry so tenaciously fond
of that which he himself considered as the cause of all his inquietude,
that he cannot bear to have the crown one moment out of his sight, but
orders it to be placed on his pillow when he lies on his death-bed.

Of all diadems, the Tiara, in my opinion, has the fewest charms; and
nothing can afford a stronger proof of the strength and perseverance of
man’s passion for sovereign power, than our knowledge, that even this
ecclesiastical crown is sought after with as much eagerness, perhaps
with more, than any other crown in the world, although the candidates
are generally in the decline of life, and all of a profession which
avows the most perfect contempt of worldly grandeur. This appears the
more wonderful when we reflect, that, over and above those sources
of weariness and vexation, which the Pope has in common with other
sovereigns, he has some which are peculiar to himself.—The tiresome
religious functions which he must perform, the ungenial solitude of
his meals, the exclusion of the company and conversation of women,
restriction from the tenderest and most delightful connexions in life,
from the endearments of a parent, and the _open acknowledgment_ of his
own children; his mind oppressed with the gloomy reflection, that the
man for whom he has the least regard, perhaps his greatest enemy, may
be his immediate successor; to which is added, the pain of seeing his
influence, both spiritual and temporal, declining every day; and the
mortification of knowing, that all his ancient lofty pretensions are
laughed at by one half of the Roman Catholics, all the Protestants, and
totally disregarded by the rest of mankind. I know of nothing which can
be put in the other scale to balance all those peculiar disadvantages
which his Holiness labours under, unless it is the singular felicity
which he lawfully may, and no doubt does enjoy, in the contemplation of
his own infallibility.

LETTER L.

                                                                    Rome.

In their external deportment, the Italians have a grave solemnity of
manner, which is sometimes thought to arise from a natural gloominess of
disposition. The French, above all other nations, are apt to impute to
melancholy, the sedate serious air which accompanies reflection.

Though in the pulpit, on the theatre, and even in common conversation,
the Italians make use of a great deal of action; yet Italian vivacity is
different from French; the former proceeds from sensibility, the latter
from animal spirits.

The inhabitants of this country have not the brisk look, and elastic
trip, which is universal in France; they move rather with a flow
composed pace: their spines never having been forced into a straight
line, retain the natural bend; and the people of the most finished
fashion, as well as the neglected vulgar, seem to prefer the
unconstrained attitude of the Antinous, and other antique statues, to
the artificial graces of a French dancing-master, or the erect strut of
a German soldier. I imagine I perceive a great resemblance between many
of the living countenances I see daily, and the features of the ancient
busts and statues; which leads me to believe, that there are a greater
number of the genuine descendants of the old Romans in Italy, than is
generally imagined.

I am often struck with the fine character of countenance to be seen in
the streets of Rome. I never saw features more expressive of reflection,
sense, and genius; in the very lowest ranks there are countenances which
announce minds fit for the highest and most important situations; and we
cannot help regretting, that those to whom they belong, have not received
an education adequate to the natural abilities we are convinced they
possess, and placed where these abilities could be brought into action.

Of all the countries in Europe, Switzerland is that in which the
beauties of nature appear in the greatest variety of forms, and on the
most magnificent scale; in that country, therefore, the young landscape
painter has the best chance of seizing the most sublime ideas: but Italy
is the best school for the history painter, not only on account of its
being enriched with the works of the greatest masters, and the noblest
models of antique sculpture; but also on account of the fine expressive
style of the Italian countenance. Here you have few or none of those
fair, fat, glistening, unmeaning faces, so common in the more northern
parts of Europe. I happened once to sit by a foreigner of my acquaintance
at the Opera in the Hay-market, when a certain Nobleman, who at that time
was a good deal talked of, entered. I whispered him—“That is Lord ——.”
“Not surely the famous Lord ——,” said he. “Yes,” said I, “the very same.”
“It must be acknowledged then,” continued he, “that the noble Earl does
infinite honour to those who have had the care of his education.” “How
so?” rejoined I. “Because,” replied the foreigner, “a countenance so
completely vacant, strongly indicates a deficiency of natural abilities;
the respectable figure he makes in the senate, I therefore presume must
be entirely owing to instruction.”

Strangers, on their arrival at Rome, form no high idea of the beauty
of the Roman women, from the specimens they see in the fashionable
circles to which they are first introduced. There are some exceptions;
but in general it must be acknowledged, that the present race of women
of high rank, are more distinguished by their other ornaments, than by
their beauty. Among the citizens, however, and in the lower classes, you
frequently meet with the most beautiful countenances. For a brilliant red
and white, and all the charms of complexion, no women are equal to the
English. If a hundred, or any greater number, of English women were taken
at random, and compared with the same number of the wives and daughters
of the citizens of Rome, I am convinced, that ninety of the English would
be found handsomer than ninety of the Romans; but the probability is,
that two or three in the hundred Italians, would have finer countenances
than any of the English. English beauty is more remarkable in the
country, than in towns; the peasantry of no country in Europe can stand a
comparison, in point of looks, with those of England. That race of people
have the conveniencies of life in no other country in such perfection;
they are no where so well fed, so well defended from the injuries of the
seasons; and no where else do they keep themselves so perfectly clean,
and free from all the vilifying effects of dirt. The English country
girls, taken collectively, are, unquestionably, the handsomest in the
world. The female peasants of most other countries, indeed, are so hard
worked, so ill fed, so much tanned by the sun, and so dirty, that it is
difficult to know whether they have any beauty or not. Yet I have been
informed, by some Amateurs, since I came here, that, in spite of all
these disadvantages, they sometimes find, among the Italian peasantry,
countenances highly interesting, and which they prefer to all the cherry
cheeks of Lancashire.

Beauty, doubtless, is infinitely varied; and happily for mankind, their
tastes and opinions, on the subject, are equally various. Notwithstanding
this variety, however, a style of face, in some measure peculiar to its
own inhabitants, has been found to prevail in each different nation of
Europe. This peculiar countenance is again greatly varied, and marked
with every degree of discrimination between the extremes of beauty and
ugliness. I will give you a sketch of the general style of the most
beautiful female heads in this country, from which you may judge whether
they are to your taste or not.

A great profusion of dark hair, which seems to encroach upon the
forehead, rendering it short and narrow; the nose generally either
aquiline, or continued in a straight line from the lower part of the
brow; a full and short upper lip; by the way, nothing has a worse effect
on a countenance, than a large interval between the nose and mouth; the
eyes are large, and of a sparkling black. The black eye certainly labours
under one disadvantage, which is, that, from the iris and pupil being
of the same colour, the contraction and dilatation of the latter is not
seen, by which the eye is abridged of half its powers. Yet the Italian
eye is wonderfully expressive; some people think it says too much. The
complexion, for the most part, is of a clear brown, sometimes fair, but
very seldom florid, or of that bright fairness which is common in England
and Saxony. It must be owned, that those features which have a fine
expression of sentiment and meaning in youth, are more apt, than less
expressive faces, to become soon strong and masculine. In England and
Germany, the women, a little advanced in life, retain the appearance of
youth longer than in Italy.

With countenances so favourable for the pencil, you will naturally
imagine, that portrait painting is in the highest perfection here. The
reverse, however, of this is true; that branch of the art is in the
lowest estimation all over Italy. In palaces, the best furnished with
pictures, you seldom see a portrait of the proprietor, or any of his
family. A quarter length of the reigning Pope is sometimes the only
portrait, of a living person, to be seen in the whole palace. Several of
the Roman Princes affect to have a room of state, or audience chamber,
in which is a raised seat like a throne, with a canopy over it. In those
rooms the effigies of the Pontiffs are hung; they are the work of very
inferior artists, and seldom cost above three or four sequins. As soon as
his Holiness departs this life, the portrait disappears, and the face of
his successor is in due time hung up in its stead. This, you will say,
is treating their old sovereign a little unkindly, and paying no very
expensive compliment to the new; it is not so œconomical, however, as
what was practised by a certain person. I shall not inform you whether
he was a Frenchman or an Englishman, but he certainly was a courtier,
and professed the highest possible regard for all living monarchs; but
considered them as no better than any other piece of clay when dead. He
had a full length picture of his own Sovereign in the principal room
of his house; on his majesty’s death, to save himself the expence of a
fresh body, and a new suit of ermine, he employed a painter to brush out
the face and periwig, and clap the new King’s head on his grandfather’s
shoulders; which, he declared, were in the most perfect preservation,
and fully able to wear out three or four such heads as painters usually
give in these degenerate days.

The Italians, in general, very seldom take the trouble of sitting
for their pictures. They consider a portrait as a piece of painting,
which engages the admiration of nobody but the person it represents,
or the painter who drew it. Those who are in circumstances to pay the
best artists, generally employ them in some subject more universally
interesting, than the representation of human countenances staring out of
a piece of canvas.

Pompeio Battoni is the best Italian painter now at Rome. His taste and
genius led him to history painting, and his reputation was originally
acquired in that line; but by far the greater part of his fortune,
whatever that may be, has flowed through a different channel. His chief
employment, for many years past, has been painting the portraits of the
young English, and other strangers of fortune, who visit Rome. There are
artists in England, superior in this, and every other branch of painting,
to Battoni. They, like him, are seduced from the free walks of genius,
and chained, by interest, to the servile drudgery of copying faces.
Beauty is worthy of the most delicate pencil; but, gracious heaven! why
should every periwig-pated fellow, without countenance or character,
insist on seeing his chubby cheeks on canvas?

“Could you not give a little expression to that countenance?” said a
gentleman to an eminent English painter, who showed him a portrait which
he had just finished. “I made that attempt already,” replied the painter;
“but what the picture gained in expression, it lost in likeness; and by
the time there was a little common sense in the countenance, nobody knew
for whom it was intended. I was obliged, therefore, to make an entire new
picture, with the face perfectly like, and perfectly meaningless, as you
see it.”

Let the colours for ever remain, which record the last fainting efforts
of Chatham; the expiring triumph of Wolf; or the indecision of Garrick,
equally allured by the two contending Muses! But let them perish and
fly from the canvas, which blind self-love spreads for insipidity and
ugliness! Why should posterity know, that the first genius of the age,
and those whose pencils were formed to speak to the heart, and delineate
beauteous Nature, were chiefly employed in copying faces? and many of
them, faces that imitate humanity so abominably, that, to use Hamlet’s
expression, they seem not the genuine work of Nature, but of Nature’s
journeymen.

To this ridiculous self-love, equally prevalent among the great vulgar
and small, some of the best painters in France, Germany, and Great
Britain, are obliged for their subsistence. This creates a suspicion,
that a taste for the real beauties of painting, is not quite so
universal, as a sensibility to their own personal beauties, among the
individuals of these countries. And nothing can be a stronger proof of
the important light in which men appear in their own eyes, and their
small importance in those of others, than the different treatment which
the generality of portraits receive, during the life, and after the
death, of their constituents. During the first of these periods, they
inhabit the finest apartments of the houses to which they belong; they
are flattered by the guests, and always viewed with an eye of complacency
by the landlord. But, after the commencement of the second, they begin to
be neglected; in a short time are ignominiously thrust up to the garret;
and, to fill up the measure of their affliction, they finally are thrown
out of doors, in the most barbarous manner, without distinction of rank,
age, or sex. Those of former times are scattered, like Jews, with their
long beards and brown complexions, all over the face of the earth; and,
even of the present century, Barons of the most ancient families, armed
cap-a-pee, are to be purchased for two or three ducats, in most of the
towns of Germany. French Marquises, in full suits of embroidered velvet,
may be had at Paris still cheaper; and many worshipful citizens of London
are to be seen dangling on the walls of an auction-room, when they are
scarce cold in their graves.

LETTER LI.

                                                                    Rome.

There are no theatrical entertainments permitted in this city, except
during the Carnival; but they are then attended with a degree of ardour
unknown in capitals whose inhabitants are under no such restraint. Every
kind of amusement, indeed, in this gay season, is followed with the
greatest eagerness. The natural gravity of the Roman citizens is changed
into a mirthful vivacity; and the serious, sombre city of Rome exceeds
Paris itself in sprightliness and gaiety. This spirit seems gradually
to augment, from its commencement; and is at its height in the last
week of the six which comprehend the Carnival. The citizens then appear
in the streets, masked, in the characters of Harlequins, Pantaloons,
Punchinellos, and all the fantastic variety of a masquerade. This humour
spreads to men, women, and children; descends to the lowest ranks, and
becomes universal. Even those who put on no mask, and have no desire to
remain unknown, reject their usual clothes, and assume some whimsical
dress. The coachmen, who are placed in a more conspicuous point of view
than others of the same rank in life, and who are perfectly known by the
carriages they drive, generally affect some ridiculous disguise: Many of
them chuse a woman’s dress, and have their faces painted, and adorned
with patches. However dull these fellows may be, when in breeches, they
are, in petticoats, considered as the pleasantest men in the world; and
excite much laughter in every street in which they appear. I observed to
an Italian of my acquaintance, that, considering the staleness of the
joke, I was surprised at the mirth it seemed to raise. “When a whole
city,” answered he, “are resolved to be merry for a week together, it
is exceedingly convenient to have a few established jokes ready made;
the young laugh at the novelty, and the old from prescription. This
metamorphosis of the coachmen is certainly not the most refined kind of
wit; however, it is more harmless than the burning of heretics, which
formerly was a great source of amusement to our populace.”

The street, called the Corso, is the great scene of these masquerades. It
is crowded every night with people of all conditions: Those of rank come
in coaches, or in open carriages, made on purpose. A kind of civil war
is carried on by the company, as they pass each other. The greatest mark
of attention you can shew your friends and acquaintance, is, to throw a
handful of little white balls, resembling sugar-plums, full in their
faces; and, if they are not deficient in politeness, they will instantly
return you the compliment. All who wish to make a figure in the Corso,
come well supplied in this kind of ammunition.

Sometimes two or three open carriages, on a side, with five or six
persons of both sexes in each, draw up opposite to each other, and fight
a pitched battle. On these occasions, the combatants are provided with
whole bags full of the small shot above mentioned, which they throw at
each other, with much apparent fury, till their ammunition is exhausted,
and the field of battle is as white as snow.

The peculiar dresses of every nation of the globe, and of every
profession, besides all the fantastic characters usual at masquerades,
are to be seen on the Corso. Those of Harlequin and Pantaloon are in
great vogue among the men. The citizens wives and daughters generally
affect the pomp of women of quality; while their brothers, or other
relations, appear as train-bearers and attendants. In general, they seem
to delight in characters the most remote from their own. Young people
assume the long beard, tottering step, and other concomitants of old age;
the aged chuse the bib and rattle of childhood; and the women of quality,
and women of the town, appear in the characters of country maidens, nuns,
and vestal virgins. All endeavour to support the assumed characters, to
the best of their ability; but none, in my opinion, succeed so well as
those who represent children.

Towards the dusk of the evening, the horse-race takes place. As soon as
this is announced, the coaches, cabriolets, triumphal cars, and carriages
of every kind, are drawn up, and line the street; leaving a space in the
middle for the racers to pass. These are five or six horses, trained on
purpose for this diversion; they are drawn up a-breast in the Piazza del
Popolo, exactly where the Corso begins. Certain balls, with little sharp
spikes, are hung along their sides, which serve to spur them on. As soon
as they begin to run, those animals, by their impatience to be gone, shew
that they understand what is required of them, and that they take as much
pleasure as the spectators in the sport. A broad piece of canvas, spread
across the entrance of the street, prevents them from starting too soon:
the dropping that canvas is the signal for the race to begin. The horses
fly off together, and, without riders, exert themselves to the utmost;
impelled by emulation, the shouts of the populace, and the spurs above
mentioned. They run the whole length of the Corso; and the proprietor of
the victor is rewarded by a certain quantity of fine scarlet or purple
cloth, which is always furnished by the Jews.

This diversion, such as it is, seems highly entertaining to the Roman
populace; though it appears a mighty foolish business in the eyes of
Englishmen. An acquaintance of mine, who had entirely ruined a fine
fortune at Newmarket, told me, that Italian horse-races were the most
absurd things in the world; that there were not a hundred guineas lost
or won during a whole Carnival; and nothing could be a greater proof of
the folly of the people, than their spending their time in such a silly
manner.

Masking and horse-races are confined to the last eight days; but there
are theatrical entertainments, of various kinds, during the whole six
weeks of the Carnival. The Serious Opera is most frequented by people
of fashion, who generally take boxes for the whole season. The opera,
with which this theatre opened, was received with the highest applause,
though the music only was new. The Italians do not think it always
necessary to compose new words for what is called a new opera; they
often satisfy themselves with new music to the affecting dramas of
Metastasio. The audience here seem to lend a more profound and continued
attention to the music, than at Venice. This is probably owing to the
entertainment being a greater rarity in the one city than in the other;
for I could perceive that the people of fashion, who came every night,
began, after the opera had been repeated several nights, to abate in
their attention, to receive visitors in their boxes, and to listen only
when some favourite airs were singing: whereas the audience in the pit
uniformly preserve the most perfect silence, which is only interrupted
by gentle murmurs of pleasure from a few individuals, or an universal
burst of applause from the whole assembly. I never saw such genuine marks
of satisfaction displayed by any assembly, on any occasion whatever.
The sensibility of some of the audience gave me an idea of the power of
sounds, which the dulness of my own auditory nerves could never have
conveyed to my mind. At certain airs, silent enjoyment was expressed in
every countenance; at others, the hands were clasped together, the eyes
half shut, and the breath drawn in, with a prolonged sigh, as if the soul
was expiring in a torrent of delight. One young woman, in the pit, called
out, “O Dio, dove sono! che piacer via caccia l’alma?”

On the first night of the opera, after one of these favourite airs,
an universal shout of applause took place, intermingled with demands
that the composer of the music should appear. Il Maestro! il Maestro!
resounded from every corner of the house. He was present, and led
the band of music; he was obliged to stand upon the bench, where he
continued, bowing to the spectators, till they were tired of applauding
him. One person, in the middle of the pit, whom I had remarked displaying
great signs of satisfaction from the beginning of the performance, cried
out, “He deserves to be made chief musician to the Virgin, and to lead
a choir of angels!” This expression would be thought strong, in any
country; but it has peculiar energy here, where it is a popular opinion,
that the Virgin Mary is very fond, and an excellent judge, of music. I
received this information on Christmas morning, when I was looking at two
poor Calabrian pipers doing their utmost to please her, and the Infant in
her arms. They played for a full hour to one of her images which stands
at the corner of a street. All the other statues of the Virgin, which are
placed in the streets, are serenaded in the same manner every Christmas
morning. On my enquiring into the meaning of that ceremony, I was told
the above-mentioned circumstance of her character, which, though you
may have always thought highly probable, perhaps you never before knew
for certain. My informer was a pilgrim, who stood listening with great
devotion to the pipers. He told me, at the same time, that the Virgin’s
taste was too refined to have much satisfaction in the performance of
those poor Calabrians, which was chiefly intended for the Infant; and
he desired me to remark, that the tunes were plain, simple, and such as
might naturally be supposed agreeable to the ear of a child of his time
of life.

Though the serious opera is in highest estimation, and more regularly
attended by people of the first fashion; yet the opera buffas, or
burlettas, are not entirely neglected, even by them, and are crowded,
every night, by the middle and lower classes. Some admired singers have
performed there during the Carnival, and the musical composers have
rendered them highly pleasing to the general taste.

The serious and burlesque operas prevail infinitely over the other
theatrical entertainments at Rome, in spite of the united efforts of
Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Punchinello.

The prohibition of female performers renders the amusement of the Roman
theatre very insipid, in the opinion of some unrefined Englishmen of your
acquaintance who are here. In my own poor opinion, the natural sweetness
of the female voice is ill supplied by the artificial trills of wretched
castratos; and the aukward agility of robust sinewy fellows dressed in
women’s clothes, is a most deplorable substitution for the graceful
movements of elegant female dancers. Is not the horrid practice which
is encouraged by this manner of supplying the place of female singers,
a greater outrage on religion and morality, than can be produced by the
evils which their prohibition is intended to prevent? Is it possible to
believe, that purity of sentiment will be preserved by producing eunuchs
on the stage? I should fear it would have a different effect. At the
funeral of Junia, the wife of Cassius, and sister of Brutus, the statues
of all the great persons connected with her family by blood or alliance,
were carried in procession, except those of her brother and husband. This
_deficiency_ struck the people more than any part of the procession, and
brought the two illustrious Romans into their minds with more force than
if their statues had been carried with the others.—Præfulgebant Cassius
atque Brutus, says Tacitus, eo ipso, quod effigies eorum non visebantur.

LETTER LII.

                                                                  Naples.

I take the first opportunity of informing you of our arrival in this
city. Some of the principal objects which occurred on the road, with the
sentiments they suggested to my mind, shall form the subject of this
letter.

It is almost impossible to go out of the walls of Rome, without being
impressed with melancholic ideas. Having left that city by St. John
de Lateran’s gate, we soon entered a spacious plain, and drove for
several miles in sight of sepulchral monuments and the ruins of ancient
aqueducts. Sixtus the Fifth repaired one of them, to bring water into
that part of Rome where Dioclesian’s baths formerly stood: this water is
now called _aqua felice_, from Felix, the name of that pontiff, while he
was only a Cordelier. Having changed horses at the Torre de Mezzo Via,
so called from an old tower near the post-house, we proceeded through a
silent, deserted, unwholesome country. We scarce met a passenger between
Rome and Marino, a little town about twelve miles from the former, which
has its name from Caius Marius, who had a villa there; it now belongs to
the Colonna family. While fresh horses were harnessing, we visited two
churches, to see two pictures which we had heard commended; the subject
of one is as disagreeable, as that of the other is difficult to execute.
The connoisseur who directed us to these pieces, told me, that the first,
the slaying of St. Bartholomew, by Guercino, is in a great style, finely
coloured, and the muscles convulsed with pain in the sweetest manner
imaginable; he could have gazed at it for ever. “As for the other,”
added he “which represents the Trinity, it is natural, well grouped, and
easily understood; and that is all that can be said for it.”

From Marino, the road runs for several miles over craggy mountains. In
ascending Mons Albanus, we were charmed with a fine view of the country
towards the sea; Ostia, Antium, the lake Albano, and the fields adjacent.
The form and component parts of this mountain plainly shew, that it has
formerly been a volcano. The lake of Nemi, which we left to the right,
seems, like that of Albano, to have been formed in the cavity of a crater.

We came next to Veletri, an inconsiderable town, situated on a hill.
There is one palace here, with spacious gardens, which, when kept in
repair, may have been magnificent. The staircase, they assured us, is
still worthy of admiration. The inhabitants of Veletri assert, that
Augustus was born there. Suetonius says, he was born at Rome. It is
certainly of no importance where he was born. Perhaps it would have been
better for Rome, and for the world in general, that he never had been
born at all. The Veletrians are so fond of emperors, that they claim
a connexion even with Tiberius and Caligula, who had villas in their
neighbourhood. The ruins of Otho’s palace are still to be seen about
a mile from this city, at a place called Colle Ottone. Of those four
emperors, the last-mentioned was by much the best worth the claiming as a
countryman. As for Caligula, he was a mischievous madman. Tiberius seems
to have been born with wicked dispositions, which he improved by art.
Augustus was naturally wicked, and artificially virtuous; and Otho seems
to have been exactly the reverse. Though educated in the most vicious of
courts, and the favourite and companion of Nero, he still preserved, in
some degree, the original excellence of his character; and, at his death,
displayed a magnanimity of sentiment, and nobleness of conduct, of which
the highly flattered Augustus was never capable. “Alii diutius imperium
tenuerint,” says Tacitus; “nemo tam fortiter reliquerit.” Convinced that,
if he continued the contest with Vitellius, all the horrors of a civil
war would be prolonged, he determined to sacrifice his life to the quiet
of his country, and to the safety of his friends[3]. “To involve you in
fresh calamities,” said this generous prince to the officers who offered
still to support his cause, “is purchasing life at a price beyond what,
in my opinion, is its value. Shall Roman armies be led against each
other, and the Roman youth be excited to mutual slaughter, on my account?
No! for your safety, and to prevent such evils, I die contented. Let me
be no impediment to your treating with the enemy; nor do you any longer
oppose my fixed resolution. I complain not of my fate, nor do I accuse
any body. To arraign the conduct of gods or men, is natural to those only
who wish to live.”

Though they are not to be compared in other respects, yet the _death_ of
Otho may vie with that of Cato; and is one of the strongest instances to
be found in history, that a life of effeminacy and voluptuousness does
not always eradicate the seeds of virtue and benevolence.

In the middle of the square of Veletri, is a bronze statue of Urban the
Eighth. I think they told us it is the workmanship of Bernini.

Descending from that town by a rough road, bordered by vineyards and
fruit-trees, we traversed an unsalubrious plain to Sermonetta; between
which, and the post-house, called Casa Nuova, a little to the left of the
highway, are some vaults and ruins, not greatly worthy of the notice of
the mere antiquarian. Yet passengers of a singular cast of mind, who feel
themselves as much interested in the transactions recorded in the New
Testament, as men of taste are in paintings or heathen antiquities, stop
a little here to contemplate the _Tres Tabernæ_, which are said to be the
three Taverns mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Christian
brethren from Rome came to meet St. Paul, when he was on his journey to
that city. I have seen, however, some Christian travellers, who, without
being connoisseurs, were of opinion, that old ruined houses derived
little value from the circumstance above mentioned, and who preferred a
good modern inn to all the antiquities, sacred or profane, that they met
with on their grand tours. Without presuming to blame any set of men for
their particular taste, I may venture to say, that a traveller, who loves
always to see a well-peopled and well-cultivated country, who insists
on good eating every day, and a neat comfortable bed every night, would
judge very wisely in never travelling out of England.—I am certain he
ought not to travel between Rome and Naples; for on this road, especially
the part which runs through the Ecclesiastical State, the traveller’s
chief entertainment must arise from a less substantial foundation; from
the ideas formed in the mind, at sight of places celebrated by favourite
authors; from a recollection of the important scenes which have been
acted there; and even from the thought of treading the same ground, and
viewing the same objects, with certain persons who lived there fifteen
hundred or two thousand years ago. Strangers, therefore, who come
under the first description, whose senses are far more powerful than
their fancy, when they are so ill advised as to come so far from home,
generally make this journey in very ill humour, fretting at Italian
beds, fuming against Italian cooks, and execrating every poor little
Italian flea that they meet with on the road. But he who can put up with
indifferent fare cheerfully, whose serenity of temper remains unshaken
by the assaults of a flea, and who can draw amusement from the stores of
memory and imagination, will find the powers of both wonderfully excited
during this journey. Sacred history unites with profane, truth conspires
with fable, to afford him entertainment, and render every object
interesting.

    Proxima Circeæ raduntur littora terræ.

Driving along this road, you have a fine view of Monte Circello, and

            ——the Ææan bay,
    Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the Day;
    Goddess and queen, to whom the powers belong
    Of dreadful magic and commanding song.

This abode of the enchantress Circe has been generally described as an
island; whereas it is, in reality, a promontory, united to the continent
by a neck of land. The adventures of Ulysses and his companions at this
place, with all the extraordinary things which Homer has recorded of
Circe, must serve to amuse you between Casa Nuova and Piperno; the road
affords no other.

At Piperno, anciently Privernum, you quit Circe, for Virgil’s Camilla, a
lady of a very different character, whose native city this is[4].

Near to Piperno, an abbey, called Fossa Nuova, is situated on the ruins
of the little town of Forum Appii, the same of which mention is made in
the Acts of the Apostles, and by Horace, in his account of his journey to
Brundusium.

          ——Inde Forum Appi
    Differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis.

The abbey of Fossa Nuova is said to have made a very valuable acquisition
of late, no less than the head of St. Thomas Aquinas. We are told, in
the memoirs of that Saint, that he was taken ill as he passed this way,
and was carried to this convent, where he died. His body was afterward
required by the king of France, and ordered to be carried to Thoulouse;
but before the remains of this holy person were removed from the convent,
one of the monks, unwilling to allow the whole of such a precious
deposite to be carried away, determined to retain the most valuable part,
and actually cut off the saint’s head, substituting another in its stead,
which was carried to Thoulouse, very nicely stitched to the body of the
saint. The monk, who was guilty of this pious fraud, hid the true head
in the wall of the convent, and died without revealing the secret to
any mortal. From that time the supposititious head remained unsuspected
at Thoulouse; but as impostures are generally detected sooner or later,
the venerable brethren of Fossa Nuova (this happened much about the time
that the Cock-lane ghost made such a noise in London) were disturbed with
strange knockings and scratchings at a particular part of the wall.—On
this noise being frequently repeated, without any visible agent, and the
people of the neighbourhood having been often assembled to hear it, the
monks at length agreed to pull down part of the wall at the place where
the scratching and knocking were always heard. This was no sooner done,
than the true head of St. Thomas Aquinas was found as fresh as the day it
was cut off;—on the vessel in which it was contained was the following
inscription:

    Caput divi Thomæ Aquinatis.

And near it a paper, containing a faithful narrative of the whole
transaction, signed by the monk who did the deed.

Some people, not making a proper allowance for the difference between
a saint’s head and their own, say, this cannot possibly be the head of
Thomas Aquinas, which must have putrified some centuries ago; they say,
the paper is written in a character by much too modern; they say, the
monks contrived the whole affair, to give an importance to their convent;
they say—but what signifies what they say? In this age of incredulity,
some people will say any thing. We next came to Terracina, and here I
must finish my letter; in my next I shall carry you to Naples.

    [3] Hunc animum, hanc virtutem vestram, ultra periculis
    objicere, nimis grande vitæ meæ pretium puto. An ego tantum
    Romanæ pubis, tot egregios exercitus, sterni rursus et
    republicâ eripi patiar? Este superstites, nec diu moremur; ego
    incolumitatem vestram, vos constantiam meam. De nemine queror,
    nam incusare deos vel homines, ejus est, qui vivere velit.
    TACIT. Hist. lib. ii.

    [4]

        Hos super advenit Volscâ de gente Camilla,
        Agmen agens equitum et florentes ære catervas,
        Bellatrix: Non illa colo calathisve Minervæ
        Fœmineas assueta manus; sed prœlia virgo
        Dura pati, cursuque pedum prævertere ventos.

                                    ÆNEID. lib. vii.

LETTER LIII.

                                                                  Naples.

Terracina, formerly called Anxur, was the capital of the warlike
Volsci[5]. The principal church was originally a temple of Jupiter, who
was supposed to have a partiality for this town, and the country around
it. Virgil calls him Jupiter Anxurus. Enumerating the troops who came to
support the cause of Turnus, he mentions those who plough the Rutulian
hills:

    Circeumque jugum; queis Jupiter Anxurus arvis
    Præsidet, et viridi gaudens Feronia luco:
    Qua saturæ jacet atra palus, &c.

Near this place we fell in again with the Appian Way, and beheld, with
astonishment, the depth of rock that has here been cut, to render it
more convenient for passengers. This famous road is a paved causeway,
begun in the year of Rome 441, by Appius Claudius Cæcus the Censor, and
carried all the way from Rome to Capua. It would be superfluous to insist
on the substantial manner in which it has been originally made, since
it still remains in many places. Though travellers are now obliged to
make a circuit by Casa Nuova and Piperno, the Via Appia was originally
made in a straight line through the Palude Pontine, or Palus Pomptina,
as that vast marsh was anciently called: it is the Ater Palus above
mentioned, in the lines quoted from Virgil. That part of the Appian road
is now quite impassable, from the augmentation of this noxious marsh,
whose exhalations are disagreeable to passengers, and near which it is
dangerous to sleep a single night.

Keysler and some others say, that Appius made this road at his own
expence. I do not know on what authority they make this assertion; but,
whatever their authority may be, the thing is incredible. Could a Roman
citizen, at a period when the inhabitants of Rome were not rich, bear an
expence which we are surprised that even the State itself could support?
Though this famous road has received its name from Appius, I can hardly
imagine it was completed by him. The distance from Rome to Capua is above
one hundred and thirty miles; a prodigious length for such a road as this
to have been made, during the short course of one Censorship; for a man
could be Censor only once in his life. This was an office of very great
dignity; no person could enjoy it till he had previously been Consul. It
was originally held for five years; but, a hundred years before the time
of Appius, the term was abridged to eighteen months. He, however, who,
as Livy tells us, possessed all the pride and obstinacy of his family,
refused to quit the Censorship at the end of that period; and, in spite
of all the efforts of the Tribunes, continued three years and a half
beyond the term to which the office had been restricted by the Æmilian
Law. But even five years is a very short time for so great a work; yet
this was not the only work he carried on during his Censorship. “Viam
munivit,” says the Historian, “et aquam in urbem duxit.” The Appian road
was carried on, afterwards, from Capua to Brundusium, and was probably
completed so far, in the time of Horace; as appears by this verse, in one
of his Epistles addressed to Lollius:

    Brundusium Numici melius via ducat, an Appi.

Terracina is the last town of the Ecclesiastical, and Fundi the first of
the Neapolitan, dominions. This last town stands on a plain, sheltered by
hills, which is seldom the case with Italian towns: it probably derives
its name from its situation. There is nothing very attractive in this
place, now, more than in Horace’s time; so we left it as willingly as he
did:

    Fundos Aufidio Lusco Prætore _libenter_ Linquimus.

Continuing our route, partly on the Appian way, we came to Mola di Gaeta,
a town built on the ruins of the ancient Formiæ. Horace compliments Ælius
Lamia, on his being descended from the first founder of this city:

    Auctore ab illo ducis originem,
    Qui Formiarum mœnia dicitur,
    Princeps.

The same Poet puts the wine, made from the grapes of the Formian hills,
on a footing with the Falernian:

        ——mea nec Falernæ
    Temperant vites, neque Formiani
      Pocula colles.

Cicero had a villa near this place; and it was on this coast where that
great orator was murdered in his litter, as he was endeavouring to make
his escape to Greece. The fortress of Gaeta is built on a promontory,
about three miles from Mola; but travellers, who have the curiosity
to go to the former, generally cross the gulph between the two; and
immediately, as the most remarkable thing in the place, they are shewn
a great cleft in a rock, and informed that it was miraculously split in
this manner at the death of our Saviour. To put this beyond doubt, they
shew, at the same time, something like the impression of a man’s hand
on the rock, of which the following account is given.—A certain person
having been told on what occasion the rent took place, struck the palm of
his hand on the marble, declaring he could no more believe their story,
than that his hand would leave its stamp on the rock; on which, to the
terror and confusion of this infidel, the stone yielded like wax, and the
impression remains till this day.

Nothing is so injurious to the cause of truth, as attempts to support it
by fiction. Many evidences of the justness of this observation occur in
the course of a tour through Italy. That mountains were rent at the death
of our Saviour, we know from the New Testament; but, as none of them are
there particularized, it is presumptuous in others to imagine they can
point out what the Evangelists have thought proper to conceal.

This rock, however, is much resorted to by pilgrims; and the Tartanes,
and other vessels, often touch there, that the seamen may be provided
with little pieces of marble, which they earnestly request may be taken
as near the fissure as possible. These they wear constantly in their
pockets, in case of shipwreck, from a persuasion, that they are a more
certain preservative from drowning, than a cork jacket. Some of these
poor people have the misfortune to be drowned, notwithstanding; but
the sacred marble loses none of its reputation on that account. Such
accidents are always imputed to the weight of the unfortunate person’s
sins, which have sunk him to the bottom, in spite of all the efforts of
the marble to keep him above water; and it is allowed on all hands, that
a man so oppressed with iniquity, as to be drowned with a piece of this
marble in his pocket, would have sunk much sooner, if, instead of that,
he had had nothing to keep him up but a cork jacket.

Strangers are next led to the Castle, and are shewn, with some other
curiosities, the skeleton of the famous Bourbon, Constable of France, who
was killed in the service of the emperor Charles the Fifth, as he scaled
the walls of Rome.

It is remarkable that France, a nation which values itself so much on an
affectionate attachment to its princes, and places loyalty at the head
of the virtues, should have produced, in the course of the two last
centuries, so many illustrious rebels: Bourbon, Coligni, Guise, Turenne,
and the Condés; all of them were, at some period of their lives, in arms
against their sovereign.

That it is the duty of subjects to preserve their allegiance, however
unjustly and tyrannically their prince may conduct himself, is one of
the most debasing and absurd doctrines that ever was obtruded on the
understanding of mankind. When Francis forgot the services which the
gallant Bourbon had rendered him at Mirignan; when, by repeated acts
of oppression, he forgot the duty of a king; Bourbon spurned at his
allegiance, as a subject. The Spanish nobleman, who declared that he
would pull down his house, if Bourbon should be allowed to lodge in it,
either never had heard of the injurious treatment which that gallant
soldier had received, or he betrayed the sentiments of a slave, and
meant to insinuate his own implicit loyalty to the Emperor. Mankind in
general have a partiality for princes. The senses are imposed on by the
splendour which surrounds them; and the respect due to the office of a
king, is naturally converted into an affection for his person: there must
therefore be something highly unpopular in the character of the monarch,
and highly oppressive in the measures of government, before people can be
excited to rebellion. Subjects seldom rise through a desire of attacking,
but rather from an impatience of suffering. Where men are under the
yoke of feudal lords, who can force them to fight in any cause, it may
be otherwise; but when general discontent pervades a free people, and
when, in consequence of this, they take arms against their prince, they
must have justice on their side. The highest compliment which subjects
can pay, and the best service they can render, to a good prince, is, to
behave in such a manner, as to convince him that they would rebel against
a bad one.

From Mola we were conducted by the Appian way, over the fertile fields
washed by the silent Liris:

        ——Rura quæ Liris quieta
    Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis.

This river bounded Latium. On its banks are still seen some ruins of
the ancient Minturnæ. After Manlius Torquatus, in what some will call
a phrenzy of virtue, had offered up his son as a sacrifice to military
discipline; and his colleague Decius, immediately after, devoted himself
in a battle against the Latins; the broken army of that people assembled
at Minturnæ, and were a second time defeated by Manlius, and their lands
divided by the senate among the citizens of Rome. The first battle
was fought near Mount Vesuvius, and the second between Sinuessa and
Minturnæ. In the morasses of Minturnæ, Caius Marius, in the seventieth
year of his age, was taken, and brought a prisoner to that city, whose
magistrates ordered an assassin to put him to death, whom the fierce
veteran disarmed with a look. What mortal, says Juvenal, would have been
thought more fortunate than Marius, had he breathed out his aspiring
soul, surrounded by the captives he had made, his victorious troops, and
all the pomp of war, as he descended from his Teutonic chariot, after his
triumph over the Cimbri.

              ——Quid ilio cive tulisset
    Natura in terris, quid Roma beatius unquam?
    Si circumducto captivorum agmine, et omni
    Bellorum pompâ, animam exhalâsset opimam,
    Cum de Teutonico vellet descendere curru.

Several writers, in their remarks on Italy, observe, that it was on the
banks of the Liris that Pyrrhus gained his dear-bought victory over the
Romans. They have fallen into this mistake, by confounding the Liris with
the Siris, a river in Magna Græcia, near Heraclea; in the neighbourhood
of which Pyrrhus defeated the Romans by the means of his elephants.

Leaving Garilagno, which is the modern name of the Liris, we pass the
rising ground where the ancient Sinuessa was situated; the city where
Horace met his friends Plotius, Varius, and Virgil. The friendly glow
with which this admirable painter has adorned their characters, conveys
an amiable idea of his own.

        ——Animæ, quales neque candidiores
    Terra tulit; neque queis me sit devinctior alter.
    O, qui complexus et gaudia quanta fuerunt!
    Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.

Do you not share in the happiness of such a company? And are you not
rejoiced that they happened to meet near the Ager Falernus, where they
could have the best Massic and Falernian wines?

New Capua, through which the road from Rome to Naples lies, is a small
town of no importance. The ancient city of that name was situated two
miles distant from the new. The ruins of the amphitheatre, which are
still to be seen, give some idea of the ancient grandeur of that city.
Before the amphitheatre of Vespasian was built, there was none in Rome of
equal size with this. Old Capua is said, at one period, to have vied in
magnificence with Rome and Carthage:

    Altera dicta olim Carthago, atque altera Roma,
    Nunc prostrata jacet, proprioque sepulta sepulchro.

The army of Hannibal is said to have been conquered by the luxuries of
this place; but the judicious Montesquieu observes, that the Carthaginian
army, enriched by so many victories, would have found a Capua wherever
they had gone. Whether Capua brought on the ruin of Hannibal or not,
there can be no doubt that Hannibal occasioned the ruin of Capua.

Having broken their connection with Rome, and formed an alliance with
her enemy, the Capuans were, in the course of the war, besieged by the
Consuls Fulvius and Appius. Hannibal exerted all his vast abilities
for the relief of his new friends; but was not able to bring the Roman
army to a battle, or to raise the siege. When every other expedient
had failed, he marched directly to Rome, in the hopes of drawing the
Roman army after him to defend the capital. A number of alarming events
conspired, at this time, to depress the spirit of the Roman Senate. The
Proconsul Sempronius Gracchus, who commanded an army in Lucania, had
fallen into an ambuscade, and was massacred. The two gallant brothers,
the Scipios, who were their generals in Spain, had been defeated and
killed; and Hannibal was at their gates. How did the Senate behave at
this crisis? Did they spend their time in idle harangues and mutual
accusations? Did they throw out reflections against those senators who
were against entering into a treaty with the Carthaginians till their
army should be withdrawn from Italy? Did they recall their army from
Capua? Did they shew any mark of despondence? In this slate of affairs,
the Roman Senate sent orders to Appius to continue the siege of Capua;
they ordered a reinforcement to their army in Spain; the troops for that
service marching out at one gate of Rome, while Hannibal threatened to
enter by storm at another. How could such a people fail to become the
masters of the world!

The country between Capua and Naples displays a varied scene of lavish
fertility, and with great propriety might be named Campania Felix, if
the richest and most generous soil, with the mildest and most agreeable
climate, were sufficient to render the inhabitants of a country happy.

    [5] Anxur fuit quæ nunc Terracinæ sunt; urbs prona in paludes.
    TIT. LIV. lib. iv.

LETTER LIV.

                                                                  Naples.

The day after our arrival at this place, we waited on Sir W—— H——, his
Majesty’s minister at this court. He had gone early that morning on a
hunting party with the King; but the Portuguese ambassador, at L——y H——’s
desire, undertook to accompany the D—— on the usual round of visits;
Sir W—— was not expected to return for several days, and the laws of
etiquette do not allow that important tour to be delayed so long. As we
have been continually driving about ever since our arrival, I am already
pretty well acquainted with this town, and the environs.

Naples was founded by the Greeks. The charming situation they have
chosen, is one proof among thousands, of the fine taste of that
ingenious people.

The bay is about thirty miles in circumference, and twelve in diameter;
it has been named Crater, from its supposed resemblance to a bowl. This
bowl is ornamented with the most beautiful foliage, with vines; with
olive, mulberry, and orange trees; with hills, dales, towns, villas, and
villages.

At the bottom of the bay of Naples, the town is built in the form of a
vast amphitheatre, sloping from the hills towards the sea.

If, from the town, you turn your eyes to the east, you see the rich
plains leading to mount Vesuvius, and Portici. If you look to the west,
you have the Grotto of Pausilippo, the mountain on which Virgil’s tomb
is placed, and the fields leading to Puzzoli and the coast of Baia. On
the north, are the fertile hills, gradually rising from the shore to
the Campagna Felice. On the South, is the bay, confined by the two
promontories of Misenum and Minerva, the view being terminated by the
islands Procida, Ischia, and Caprea; and as you ascend to the castle of
St. Elmo, you have all these objects under your eye at once, with the
addition of a great part of the Campagna.

Independent of its happy situation, Naples is a very beautiful city. The
style of architecture, it must be confessed, is inferior to what prevails
at Rome; but though Naples cannot vie with that city in the number of
palaces, or in the grandeur and magnificence of the churches, the private
houses in general are better built, and are more uniformly convenient;
the streets are broader and better paved. No street in Rome equals in
beauty the Strada di Toledo at Naples; and still less can any of them be
compared with those beautiful streets which are open to the bay. This is
the native country of the Zephyrs; here the excessive heat of the Sun is
often tempered with sea breezes, and with gales, wafting the perfumes of
the Campagna Felice.

The houses, in general, are five or six stories in height, and flat at
the top; on which are placed, numbers of flower vases or fruit trees, in
boxes of earth, producing a very gay and agreeable effect.

The fortress of St. Elmo is built on a mountain of the same name. The
garrison stationed here, have the entire command of the town, and could
lay it in ashes at pleasure. A little lower, on the same mountain, is a
convent of Carthusians. The situation of this convent is as advantageous
and beautiful as can be imagined; and much expence has been lavished
to render the building, the apartments, and the gardens, equal to the
situation.

To bestow great sums of money in adorning the retreat of men who have
abandoned the world for the express purpose of passing the remainder
of their lives in self-denial and mortification, seems to be very ill
judged; and might, on some occasions, counteract the design of their
retreat. I expressed this sentiment to a Neapolitan lady at Sir W—— H——’s
assembly, the evening after I had visited this convent. She said, “that
the elegant apartments, the gardens, and all the expensive ornaments I
had particularised, could not much impede a system of self-denial; for
they soon became insipid to those who had them constantly before their
eyes, and proved no compensation for the want of other comforts.” “In
that case,” said I, “the whole expence might have been saved, or bestowed
in procuring comforts to others who have made no vows of mortification.”
“Tolga iddio!” cried the lady, forgetting her former argument, “for
none have so good a title to every comfortable and pleasant thing in
this world, as those who have renounced it, and placed their affections
entirely on the next; instead of depriving these sanctified Carthusians
of what they already possess, it would be more meritorious to give them
what they have not.”

“Give them then, said I, what will afford some satisfaction, instead of
the luxuries of sculpture, and paintings and architecture, which, as you
say, become so soon insipid; let them have enjoyments of a different
kind. Why should their diet be confined to fish and vegetables? Let
them enjoy the pleasures of the table without any limitation. And since
they are so very meritorious, why is your sex deprived of the happiness
of their conversation, and why are they denied the pleasure which the
society of women might afford them?”

“Cristo benedetto!” cried the lady, “You do not understand this
matter.—Though none deserve the pleasures of this world, but those who
think only on the next; yet none can obtain the joys of the next, who
indulge in the pleasures of this.”

“That is unlucky,” said I.

“Unlucky! to be sure it is the most unlucky thing that could have
happened, _ecco dove mi doleva_,” added the lady.

Though Naples is admirably situated for commerce, and no kingdom produces
the necessaries and luxuries of life in greater profusion, yet trade is
but in a languishing condition; the best silks come from Lyons, and the
best woollen goods from England.

The chief articles manufactured here, at present, are, silk stockings,
soap, snuff boxes of tortoise shells, and of the lava of Mount Vesuvius,
tables, and ornamental furniture, of marble.

They are thought to embroider here better than even in France; and
their macaroni is preferred to that made in any other part of Italy.
The Neapolitans excel also in liqueurs and confections; particularly
in one kind of confection, which is sold at a very high price, called
Diabolonis. This drug, as you will guess from its name, is of a very hot
and stimulating nature, and what I should think by no means requisite to
Neapolitan constitutions.

The inhabitants of this town are computed at three hundred and fifty
thousand. I make no doubt of their amounting to that number; for though
Naples is not one third of the size of London, yet many of the streets
here are more crowded than the Strand. In London and Paris, the people
who fill the streets are mere passengers, hurrying from place to place
on business; and when they choose to converge, or to amuse themselves,
they resort to the public walks or gardens: at Naples, the citizens
have fewer avocations of business to excite their activity; no public
walks, or gardens to which they can resort; and are, therefore, more
frequently seen sauntering and conversing in the streets, where a great
proportion of the poorest sort, for want of habitations, are obliged to
spend the night as well as the day. While you sit in your chamber at
London, or at Paris, the usual noise you hear from the streets, is that
of carriages; but at Naples, where they talk with uncommon vivacity,
and where whole streets full of talkers are in continual employment the
noise of carriages is completely drowned in the aggregated clack of human
voices. In the midst of all this idleness, fewer riots or outrages of any
kind happen, than might be expected in a town where the police is far
from being strict, and where such multitudes of poor unemployed people
meet together every day. This partly proceeds from the national character
of the Italians; which, in my opinion, is quiet, submissive, and averse
to riot or sedition; and partly to the common people being universally
sober, and never inflamed with strong and spirituous liquors, as they are
in the northern countries. Iced water and lemonade are among the luxuries
of the lowest vulgar; they are carried about in little barrels, and sold
in half-penny’s worth. The half naked lazzarone is often tempted to spend
the small pittance destined for the maintenance of his family, on this
bewitching beverage, as the most dissolute of the low people in London
spend their wages on gin and brandy; so that the same extravagance which
cools the mob of the one city, tends to inflame that of the other to acts
of excess and brutality.

There is not, perhaps, a city in the world, with the same number of
inhabitants, in which so few contribute to the wealth of the community by
useful, or by productive labour, as Naples; but the numbers of priests,
monks, fiddlers, lawyers, nobility, footmen, and lazzaronis, surpass all
reasonable proportion; the last alone are computed at thirty or forty
thousand. If these poor fellows are idle, it is not their own fault;
they are continually running about the streets, as we are told of the
artificers of China; offering their service, and begging for employment;
and are considered, by many, as of more real utility than any of the
classes above mentioned.

LETTER LV.

                                                                  Naples.

There is an assembly once a week at the house of the British minister;
no assembly in Naples is more numerous, or more brilliant, than this.
Exclusive of that gentleman’s good qualities, and those accomplishments
which procure esteem in any situation, he would meet with every mark
of regard from the Neapolitan nobles, on account of the high favour
in which he stands with their Sovereign. Sir W——’s house is open to
strangers of every country who come to Naples properly recommended, as
well as to the English; he has a private concert almost every evening.
L——y H—— understands music perfectly, and performs in such a manner, as
to command the admiration even of the Neapolitans. Sir W——, who is the
happiest tempered man in the world, and the easiest amused, performs
also, and succeeds perfectly in amusing himself, which is a more valuable
attainment than the other.

The Neapolitan nobility are excessively fond of splendour and show.
This appears in the brilliancy of their equipages, the number of their
attendants, the richness of their dress, and the grandeur of their titles.

I am assured, that the King of Naples counts a hundred persons with the
title of Prince, and still a greater number with that of Duke, among his
subjects. Six or seven of these have estates, which produce from ten to
twelve or thirteen thousand pounds a year; a considerable number have
fortunes of about half that value; and the annual revenue of many is not
above one or two thousand pounds. With respect to the inferior orders
of nobility, they are much poorer; many Counts and Marquisses have not
above three or four hundred pounds a year of paternal estate, many still
less, and not a few enjoy the title without any estate whatever.

When we consider the magnificence of their entertainments, the splendour
of their equipages, and the number of their servants, we are surprised
that the richest of them can support such expensive establishments.
I dined, soon after our arrival, at the Prince of Franca Villa’s;
there were about forty people at table; it was meagre day; the dinner
consisted entirely of fish and vegetables, and was the most magnificent
entertainment I ever saw, comprehending an infinite variety of dishes,
a vast profusion of fruit, and the wines of every country in Europe. I
dined since at the Prince Iacci’s. I shall mention two circumstances,
from which you may form an idea of the grandeur of an Italian palace,
and the number of domestics which some of the nobility retain. We
passed through twelve or thirteen large rooms before we arrived at the
dining room; there were thirty-six persons at table, none served but the
Prince’s domestics, and each guest had a footman behind his chair; other
domestics belonging to the Prince remained in the adjacent rooms, and in
the hall. We afterwards passed through a considerable number of other
rooms in our way to one from which there is a very commanding view.

No estate in England could support such a number of servants, paid and
fed as English servants are; but here the wages are very moderate indeed,
and the greater number of men servants, belonging to the first families,
give their attendance through the day only, and find beds and provisions
for themselves. It must be remembered, also, that few of the nobles give
entertainments, and those who do not, are said to live very sparingly;
so that the whole of their revenue, whatever that may be, is exhausted on
articles of show.

As there is no Opera at present, the people of fashion generally pass
part of the evening at the Corso, on the sea-shore. This is the great
scene of Neapolitan splendour and parade; and, on grand occasions, the
magnificence displayed here will strike a stranger very much. The finest
carriages are painted, gilt, varnished, and lined, in a richer and more
beautiful manner, than has as yet become fashionable either in England
or France; they are often drawn by six, and sometimes by eight horses.
As the last is the number allotted to his Britannic Majesty when he goes
to parliament, some of our countrymen are offended that any individuals
whatsoever should presume to drive with the same number.

It is the mode here, to have two running footmen, very gaily dressed,
before the carriage, and three or four servants in rich liveries behind;
these attendants are generally the handsomest young men that can be
procured. The ladies or gentlemen within the coaches, glitter in all the
brilliancy of lace, embroidery, and jewels. The Neapolitan carriages,
for gala days, are made on purpose, with very large windows, that the
spectators may enjoy a full view of the parties within. Nothing can be
more showy than the harness of the horses; their heads and manes are
ornamented with the rarest plumage, and their tails set off with riband
and artificial flowers, in such a graceful manner that you are apt to
think they have been adorned by the same hands that dressed the heads of
the ladies, and not by common grooms.

After all, you will perhaps imagine the amusement cannot be very great.
The carriages follow each other in two lines, moving in opposite
directions. The company within smile, and bow, and wave the hand, as they
pass and repass their acquaintance; and doubtless imagine, that they are
the most important figures in the procession. The horses, however, seem
to be quite of a different way of thinking, and to consider themselves
as the chief objects of admiration, looking on the livery servants, the
volantis, the lords, and the ladies, as their natural suit on all such
solemn occasions.

LETTER LVI.

                                                                  Naples.

The greatest part of kings, whatever may be thought of them after their
death, have the good fortune to be represented, at some period of their
lives, generally at the beginning of their reigns, as the greatest
and most virtuous of mankind. They are never compared to characters
of less dignity than Solomon, Alexander, Cæsar, or Titus; and the
comparison usually concludes to the advantage of the living monarch. They
differ in this, as in many other particulars, from those of the most
distinguished genius and exalted merit among their subjects, That the
fame of the latter, if any awaits them, seldom arrives at its meridian
till many years after their death; whereas the glory of the former is
at its fullest splendour during their lives; and most of them have the
satisfaction of hearing all their praises with their own ears. Each
particular monarch, taken separately, is, or has been, considered as a
star of great lustre; yet any number of them, taken without selection,
and placed in the historical galaxy, add little to its brightness, and
are often contemplated with disgust. When we have occasion to mention
kings in general, the expression certainly does not awaken a recollection
of the most amiable or most deserving part of the human species; and
tyranny in no country is pushed so far, as to constrain men to speak of
them, when we speak in general terms, as if they were. It would revolt
the feelings, and rouse the indignation, even of slaves. Full freedom
is allowed therefore on this topic; and, under the most arbitrary