You speak not as you think : But I'm no priest Nor you a penitent- Come, will you help me catch this runaway? This feather-footed Daphne of the hill ? Here is no time for capping butterflies ; Fie, my lord! fie! (Pointing The air itself is not so light as you are. Where would you seek her, now? Though she were hid i' the eagle's aërie ; housed And if I play the woman as before Was't not a sigh? My cap to a capuchin, (Going to the cave. (Nerina runs out, and escapes up the rocks. A miracle! a miracle ! (Exit, pursuing Nerina. There he goes! o'er the hill and down the hollow, (Eseunt. a VISIT TO THE CITY OF SORRENTO.* August, 1822. In our last we gave you some ac- return; so inextricably mixed are its count of Naples, a place where few attractions and its repulsions : sick people can live long without being of heat, and noise, and confusion, we tired of it, and yet which few can determined to emigrate to some cool have left long without wishing to quiet spot on the Peninsula that dis This Letter ought to have preceded the Account of the Monastery of Sorrento, Vol. vii. p. 53; but by some accident it was not received in time. us. vides the Bay of Naples from the her shoes and stockings were for Bay of Salerno. We had no sooner show, not use; and perhaps her ocformed a determination to be gone, cupation the next day would be to than we threw a few things into a lead a cow up and down a hilly portmanteau, and hastened down green lane for pasture ; yet she would to the Molo : the boats were just be still as gay then as now. But putting off for Sorrento, Meta, what shall we say of those three Massa, Castellamare, &c.: to us it gentlemen, with dirty cravats and mattered not; we jumped into one, unshaven chins, who looked upon it was going to the Piano of Sore themselves as the galantuomini of rento; we seated ourselves, and be the party? What can we say of gan to look round: beside us sat a them? Why, that they took snuff, monk, muffled in his cowl, and gird- and talked about melons and maccaed by his white cord; dull by con- roni, and stufati, and similar weighty stitution and by habit, and fattened matters, and sometimes passed to by indolence: his whole appearance lighter subjects, such as volcanoes, told the old and slanderous tale of earthquakes, revolutions, constitumonkish sloth, and filth, and good tions, &c. and anon, with surprising fare; a tale which, though often versatility, they assumed a middle true, we must confess we have our- tone, talked smuttily, and laughed selves frequently seen contradicted gaily and condescendingly around. by the practice of monasteries. This shall we record here that one of these monk was a Franciscan, and appa- worthies was exceedingly fond of rently had grown stupid in the stale pollastri, and that another was even round of unmeaning discipline still more fond of coccozzelli, or shall there was little in him to interest we suffer those two remarkable facts Next to him, or rather sitting to remain unknown? We will even humbly at his feet in the bottom of mention them, for those circumthe boat (having modestly made stances furnished conversation for way for the monk aforesaid, a dirty more than an hour, and surely they priest, two Neapolitan corporals, must deserve one line. Another of three galantuomini with thread-bare these gentlemen of rather more precoats, and marvellously dirty linen), tension began to discourse on literary sat a country girl, black eyed and matters; he cited a few lines from brown faced, but comely, and dres- Metastasio, whom, however, he said sed in her gold-laced jacket and he had given over reading, on acgayest gown; her hair was bound count of his slavish principles; he up by a fillet, in a glossy knot, went on to talk about Tasso; kindly through which a silver spatella* was informed us all that we were going forced transversely; from the spa- to the place where he was born : he tella hung two blue ribbons, and a assured us that Tasso was the greatstray ringlet; a white handkerchief est poet that ever lived, having was folded over her neck and should written the Gerusalemme Liberata ers, and her whole dress was clean before he was fourteen years old, and modest. She, like the other pea- “ but then,” said he,“ his father sants of the neighbourhood, had im- was a poet before him, and wrote mense ear-rings, studded with pearls, the Aminta before Tasso was born; and several rings adorned her hand; and therefore it was natural to exher face was flushed with exuberant pect Tasso would be a great man.” health, her eyes sparkled with ha- As no one interrupted him, he contibitual vivacity, and she might have nued his lecture with increasing conmet the heiress of prouder hopes sequence and good humour; he without a sigh of inferiority; her soon, however, ran himself out in finery must, indeed, be doffed when Italian literature, and fell into Neashe reached home, being only used politan ; he sang a curious song in on solemn and important occasions; that dialect, which he informed the The spatella is an ornament sometimes of silver, and sometimes, though more rarely, of gold; which is passed through the knot of hair at the back of the head ; it is generally about six inches long, and commonly worked at one end into the figure of a d. company was from the Celeberrimo a sleep, and we turned ourselves about Lepidissimo Don Nicola Capassi, fa- to watch the capricious and shifting moso poeta Napoletano. He then lights and shades,—the shades so discoursed as learnedly about Ca- black, the lights so laughing, that passi, as he had before done about played upon Vesuvius, bestowing Tasso, and proceeded to give us some upon the dark and solitary giant a choice specimens ; the morsel which very grotesque and unbecoming vis he dwelt upon with the most feeling vacity. A fine bold range of moun.' was a quatrain, current in Naples, tains seemed to rise before us, running said to have been written by that out from behind Vesuvius, and wit, as an inscription for a taverra; stretching to the promontory of the this is it: Syrens, or Cape Campanella. Saint Angelo, reared high in the air, lofty Magnammo, amici miei, magnammo e bi. and rude, looked like the father of vimmo, Finchè dura ll' uoglio nella lucierna ; the giant brood ; all these mountains Chi så se all' autro munno ci vidimmo are disposed in striking disorder, Chi sà, se all' autro munno c'è tavierna ? some of them are great masses, rude, abrupt, and bare; others rise in terLet us eat, my friends, let us drink and eat raced slopes, and are every where As long as the oil to the lamp gives light; covered with vegetation. After aWho knows if we may in the next world bout three hours we reached the meet? shore, just before which period a Who knows if a tavern may there invite ? collection was made among the pas sengers for the anime in purgatorio ; The captain of the boat, who had the sailor went round with his dirty listened with great pleasure and cap open, the three galantuomini great attention to his singing, listened made a donation of a grain a piece, also to this very gravely; but when some other passengers gave half a the learned man had done, he ob- grain, and the monk muttered a served with some surprise, and with prayer in Latin, it being, of course, more disdain, ma questo non è robba di contrary to his practice to give momusica ; and, several times after- ney on any occasion. By this time, wards, expressed his contempt of Ischia and Capri had disappeared, every thing that was not written to and Naples had diminished to a thin white line which stretched far along But we must now leave our fellow the shore. The Somma had almost passengers, to consider other sub- disappeared behind Vesuvius, but jects; the crew was composed prin- still a little of its saw edge could be cipally of fine strong fellows, who seen on either side of the smoking scrambled about over the ill-dis- cone. The shore is everywhere posed cargo with the agility of mon- high, and the cliffs almost vertical; keys: as soon as we had got fairly the rocks are all old lava, which age out of the port, they began to hoist has converted into a kind of tufo; it their long three-cornered sail, not as seems as though some violence had our profane English sailors, with yeo torn away the contiguous masses, ho yeo's, &c. but civilly and piously and left the rocks fractured in almost too, requesting the assistance of Sant perpendicular planes; they are very Antonio, or San Francesco, or San forbidding, but over them peeps the Gennaro, or perhaps the Madonna, green and shady garden which covers each addressing himself to that saint the whole plain, and makes it a pawhom he considered to have most radise of fruit and blossoms, and power, or most good nature. When the fresh bowers. The view on apsail was up, and the wind began to proaching the shore was exceedingly draw our bottom through the furrow- romantic and beautiful; the brown ed sea, they laid themselves down to and lofty cliffs formed a wall which be sung. * Capassi was a Neapolitan advocate, who some forty or fifty years ago was the bel esprit and punster of a punning city. He wrote a good deal of poetry, and chiefly in the dialect of his country; he made a burlesque translation of the two first books of Homer, which is irresistibly funny. The good things attributed to him are almost innu. merable. We may very probably return to this subject on another occasion. inclosed the little marina, or port blows which the stout fellows armed. saw some stone seats, where in the even- nella, sweeping round the Bay to ing the gentry of Sorrento repair to Cape Misenum, is the basis of the enjoy the bel fresco, and the fine whole shore. To find a cause adewide view; and they call the place quate to such an effect, conjecture Prospetto (or Prospietto) by way of has converted the Bay into the crater distinction. After walking about a of an antediluvian volcano; and little here, we bent our steps towards the enormous size of such a volcano the Piano, and soon reached the si- is not a very important objection, - lent and shady lanes by which it is when it is considered that the agents intersected; they are formed of high first employed in the formation of walls, which inclose the raised gar- the world were endowed, in all prodens that occupy almost the whole bability, with prodigious energy, plain and stretch up some of the and acted with a violence unparalhills. These gardens are the most leled by any thing that exists in hudelicious retreats imaginable: here man record. The Piano of Sorrento are long groves of lemons and seems to have been formed by an oranges, whose scented blossoms be- effusion of lava which, restrained by stow fragrance on every breeze: the the hills around, sank almost to a stately almond, the olive, and the fig level, and formed one plain of stone; tree, whose fantastic arms are thrown this, shrinking as it cooled, opened in about to the right, to the left, up- several broad, deep, irregular fiswards, downwards; in short, whose sures, which now in rainy weather branches wander about in every di- serve as channels for the waters that rection but a straight one: but, a- descend from the hills; the plain bove all, in beauty as in use, here is was afterwards, it seems, ruptured the classic vine, not kept down to the on the side towards the sea, and the ground as in France, but gracefully disjointed mass was thrown back into trailed from pole to pole, or tree to the bay. It is not, however, our tree, and forming alleys and bowers object to theorize; it is our object not unworthy even of the muse. to look around us, and to amuse you The Piano is divided into six pa- with a relation of what we see; we rishes, the most considerable of them proceed therefore to facts. are Meta, which lies immediately After rambling some time about under Monte Chiaro ; Carotta, and the Piano, we began to ascend the St. Agnolo, which occupy the middle hill, called Conte Fontanella, which of the plain; and Trasaiella, which lies behind; and after half an hour's stands on the slope of the lesser St. walk through the lanes which stretch Angelo. Besides the two other vil- up the ascent, we emerged upon the lages, which are called Mortora and open slope; terrace after terrace lay Trinita, and which stand respectively spread out before us covered with behind Meta and Carotta, there are fruit trees, vines, and corn. On the several hamlets and clusters of cot- left was a copse, in whose cool shades tages, which lie in the defiles and on we were tempted to sit down awhile; the wooded slopes: an amphitheatre and there, sheltered from the sun by of hills incloses the whole, rising up a screen of leafy boughs, we abanpile after pile, to the lofty summit of doned ourselves to the enjoyment of St. Angelo, and wheeling round to the delicious freshness, and lazily the rough ridge between Sorrento amused ourselves, each propped up on and Massa. The Piano is, of course, his elbow, by peeping through a of considerable extent; its population green bush, down to the Piano, the is said to be 12,000 persons. The crowded gardens of which looked bed of the whole plain is tufo, and it like a forest, hiding in its shades two seems to have been formed by one or three villages, two or three whitedeposit, since there are no traces of washed convents, and the painted different layers here, as there are in domes of a few towers which just the tufo of Posilipo; but whether rose above the trees. We enjoyed the deposit was effected at once, or the view for some time, then leaving at many different times, it was evi- our seats we began once more to asdently of a very extraordinary ex- cend, and in less than half an hour tent, for the same material, with lit- we reached the summit of the Conte tle interruption from Cape Campa. Fontanella ; the view here opens very |