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CHAPTER XXVIII.

SKETCH OF NAPLES GENERALLY-AMUSEMENTS, NATURAL BEAUTIES, &c.-PAUSYLIPAN GROTTO-LAGO D'AGNANÒ— GROTTA DEL CANE-STUFE DI SAN GERMANO-TEATRO DEL FONDO, AND VIOLIN-THE BACCIAMANO, AND OPERA AT ST. CARLO-APARTMENTS ON THE CHIAJA-CONVENT OF LA CERTOSA, AND PICTURES, &C-SAN SEVERO, AND SCULPTURES-ST. JANUARIUS' MIRACLE, AND CATHEDRAL— BALL AT THE EMBASSADOR's.

NAPLES. So embarrassed is a new comer by the multiplied attractions of this city; so oft impeded in his progress through it by the amusements, and diversions, that court him, at the same moment, on every side; so enchanted with its luxuriant natural beauties; so struck with its awful volcanic terrors; and so soothed with its classical recollections and associations, that I can hardly attempt a summary even of its exterior, and general appearance; but, however-Imagine a city rising from the shores of the Mediterranean, its circling beach sweeping in graceful curves, and forming the boundary of the acknowledged unrivalled Bay of Naples. Viewed from the ocean are seen lines of palaces, stately spires, towers, and terraced roofs, houses, and villas, o'ertopping each other, but they mingle amid luxuriant gardens, olive groves, grapes festooned to all the trees, hill and dale illumined by the brightest sun, teeming

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Streets of Naples.

with boundless produce, rendered delicious by the softest clime, and by the perfume of the orange, and the lemon, blooming in the open air, with all the luscious fruits unknown in our northern sphere.

Then for the interior of the town.-It were easier to find a man in the crowd of Cheapside than sometimes in the Via Toledo of Naples. The population is immense, and the distraction, hurry, and fun, of London, or Paris, is a joke to this place. The people seem always as animated, and eager, as our countrymen are occasionally in popular excitements. Here are all sorts of trades carried on in the streets, not in the shops; all sorts of eatables, hot, or cold, ready-cooked, or raw; fruits, natural, preserved, roasted, or boiled; fish frying at every corner, and chesnuts too; macaroni gobbled down in strings an ell long; stalls with their lemonade, orgeat, iced water, and liqueurs, perpetually inviting you; every thing gilt; the shops are gilt, the ornaments are gilt, the carriages are gilt; the apothecary's pill that you swallow, and the butcher's beef that you roast, are gilt; nay, even the donkies are gilt! Every trade, tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, smiths, money-changers, provision-mongers, all working away in the open air; each party extolling their own commodities, and bawling, running about, and ringing bells in your ears without mercy. Every body shoving, and shoved in turn by his neighbour, whirled about, and almost pushed out

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of, if you don't quite forget, the course you meant to take. Groups of idlers filling up the little pathway left; carriages of every kind, sediolas, calashes with one horse, two horses, mules, or donkies, driving, dashing, and whipping away, in every direction, without care of any one, and through crowds of people, who scamper away, like frightened geese.

The poorer class, or Lazzaroni, basking in the sun the live-long day, existing upon that which bounteous nature spontaneously gives; fruit, or fish, or kernels, with little cost or care, and happy in the enjoyment of nothing to do, with hardly the trouble to find covering for themselves in a climate so delicious that they scarcely need any.

Then come the equipages of the grandees, as fine as possible, all bedizened with gold and lace; then church processions as long as you please, and as great a mummery too; with religious, and monkish, orders of every degree, male, and female, bareheaded, and barefooted; pomp, and poverty, all jumbled together, and in the oddest possible combinations.

Walk to the Mole:-Here is one entire range of stalls, plays, punch, conjurors, exhibitions, learned and dancing dogs, bagpipes, quacks, recitations, singing, dancing, legerdemain, with countless, wondering crowds, all day long, morning, noon, and night; and the admission to most of

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The Pausilypan Grotto.

sufficient passport to heaven in the evening, and to extenuate almost all that follows.

The delicious climate subdues the two better energies of the soul:-the courage of man; the virtue of woman :-pleasure is the pursuit, and Naples is thought the most licentious city in the world:-in fine it has been significantly called a Paradise of Devils!

8th January. I now proceed to describe in detail the particular object of each day's visit, beginning with those more immediately in the vicinity.

The Pausilypan Grotto.-After walking along the Chiaja, the fashionable parade of Naples, through the Royal Gardens and its verdant walks, enriched with choice sculpture; after gazing on the boundless expanse of ocean, whose waves gently undulate the shore beneath the gardenwalls; after viewing the life, and bustle, on its banks, and the distant vessels on the buoyant waves which seem suspended like castles floating in the air; how striking the effect of entering this long, and gloomy, cavern, which becomes darker, and darker, the further you advance; here and there, by day, a faint gleam of the light of heaven, let in by two perforations above; and, by night, only the fainter glimmer of a solitary lamp thrown across the vault. The hollow cave resounds with the tramping of some distant feet which the

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eye in vain seeks to discover; while the shouts, or rude songs, which are set up by the muleteers, and people, passing through, seem meant to dissipate the imaginary terrors of the place.

The ground is paved with flags of lava; and volcanic substances are mingled with the ancient reticular brickwork of the Romans.

There is no doubt that this artificial passage was cut by them; being, most probably, originally, only considered as a quarry of stone, and afterwards perfected as a public thoroughfare; but it owes its present great height (varying from 30 to 80 feet, lofty at the entrances, and lowering towards the middle; and its breadth of about 22 feet) to the labours of Charles V. In length it is more than half a mile. Its classical recollections are that it is alluded to both by Seneca and Strabo: that it is supposed to have been the work of the Roman architect, Cocceius, although the lower Neapolitan orders firmly believe it to have been effected by the powers of magic, and that Virgil (whose tomb is above, of which hereafter) was the sorcerer; while its name, Pausilypo, is derived from two Greek words, signifying, cessation from sorrow, owing to the exquisite scenery of the lofty spot above, where the immortal poet is entombed.

Bright, and verdant, is the luxuriant prospect on emerging; entire orchards additionally enriched with festoons of vines trailed in fantastic