YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY From the Library of WILLIAM M. ODOM A GLANCE AT REVOLUTIONIZED ITALY: & Visit to iWessfna, A TOUR THROUGH THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES, THE ABRUZZI, THE MARCHES OF ANCONA, ROME, THE STATES OF THE CHURCH, TUSCANY, GENOA, PIEDMONT, &c, &c., IN THE SUMMER OF 1848. Bt CHARLES MAC FARLANE, AUTHOR OP CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1828, THE KOMAKCE OP ITALIAN HISTOItT, HISTORY OP THE FP.ENCH EEVOLUTION, SPORTS, PASTIMES, AND EECOLLECTIONS OF THE SOUTH OP ITALY, IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 1849. London : Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. PREFACE. Italy is not a new country to me. I lived iii it from the month of January, 1816, to the month of May, 1827, having quitted it only for a few months during that long space of time, to make a visit to England. When I left it for the East, in 1 827, its language and literature were nearly as familiar to me as my own. I had travelled through every part of the Peninsula, not excepting the Abruzzi, the Calabrias, Apu lia, and other rarely visited provinces and dis tricts. Without being blind to the defects of their varied character (a character so varied* not only in different states, but in different pro*- vinces, and in various parts of the same province, that it is impossible to generalize it or to speak of it as a national or one Italian character)—^ without being insensible to the vices which re quired and still demand reform — I had, and I still have, not only a passionate admiration for a 2 IV PREFACE. their beautiful country, but a warm affection for the Italian people in general. During my long absence I had maintained some correspondence with old friends in the country, and I had directed my attention to the progress of its literature, to the schemes executed or suggested for the social improvement of the people, and to the various unfortunate, precocious attempts to revolutionize the Peninsula, to expel the Aus trians, and to establish constitutional govern ments. Being at Constantinople in the month of June last, I had to choose my route home wards. I had intended to ascend the Danube, to visit the principalities of Moldavia and Wal- lachia, to pass through Transylvania, and to find my way to Vienna through a part of Hun gary. But insurrections and revolutions, or the ill-augured war of races, were raging all along the banks of the Danube ; the season was too far advanced ; the terrible malaria fevers of the Danube had begun, and the cholera was bad at Galatz and other places through which we must pass. We could not return by the Adriatic Sea, Friuli, and the Tyrol, for the port of Trieste was blockaded by the squadrons PREFACE. V ofthe King of Sardinia, the steamboats of the Austrian Lloyd Company had ceased to run, and the southern mouth of the Tyrolese valley and the country in advance of it were then the theatre of a fierce war. To every other route there were objections, more or less serious. Persons who prized their tranquillity, and who felt a fearful uncertainty as to the course which revolution and war might run, saw no safe way of reaching England except by making the whole voyage by sea. To this I had serious objections. I had, moreover, a strong desire to see Italy under her new aspects, and some friends earnestly advised me to go through that country, flattering me with their belief that the observations of an old resident like myself might, at the present moment, be interesting, and, perhaps, of some public and political utility. Even when Charles Albert was in the field, and hostilities were in full progress, it seemed not difficult to avoid the theatre of actual war, and to traverse without interruption the whole country, from the Bay of Naples to the Alps. If the prospect of difliculty had been much greater than it was, the ardent desire to see VI PREFACE. again the scenes and places where I had passed many happy days, and to meet those Italian friends from whom I had been so long separated, would, in all probability, have induced me to take this route. Having made up my mind, I left Constantinople for Smyrna and Malta on the 4th of July. It will be seen that even during my residence in the Turkish capital I was brought in contact with many Italians — men from all parts of the Peninsula, and of nearly every possible colour and shade of political opinions ; that in that numerous colony I saw something like a prelude to the revolutions which have since been played off; and that I had the opportunity of witness ing the effects produced by the arrival and rather long sojourn of the first Papal nuncio to the Ottoman Porte. These circumstances served as a key to some of the mysteries. I have declared that I have a warm affection for the Italian people in general. I repeat that declaration, after having made a new survey of them and their country, and after having written the volumes which are now before the public, and in which, most assuredly, many Italians PREFACE. Vll will find motives for condemnation and censure. In wishing every good to the Italians, and ultimate success to their too-hurried scheme of nationality and union, I could not but con demn the violent factious men, the visionary republicans and impracticable rhetoricians, who have misled the more active portion of the people, and have spoiled their chance of suc cess. Nor would my literary conscience permit me to indulge in that suppressio veri which some of my Italian friends seem to consider necessary or favourable to the cause they have in hand. I have narrated that which I saw and heard precisely as I saw and heard it. If I have said more of the extreme liberal or anarchical party than of any other, it is be cause that party was loudest and most active, and constantly on the scene ; and because I believe that faction to be answerable for so many evils which have taken place, and for so much mischief which is yet in prospect. I may please no party whatever, because I have endea voured to tell the truth of all ; I shall be cursed by the fanatics of " Young Italy," but I shall not forfeit the good opinion of the friends of PREFACE. rational liberty, nor lose the affection of those in the country whose friendship, for the most part, dates from twenty-five to thirty years ago. As the explanation may be given in a very few words, it may be as well to state that I was accompanied in my travels by my eldest son, a youth of sixteen. This is why the pronoun We so frequently occurs in the book. London, January, 1849. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. Commencement of the Italian Movement — Pope Pius IX. — The Italian Liberals at Constantinople — A Te Deum and a Dinner — Count Stunner — The Pope's Nuncio to the Sultan — Revo lutions — Carlo Alberto — A Venetian Republican — Beards and Whiskers — Revolution Hats — Riots . . Page 1 CHAPTER II. Italians at Smyrna — At Malta — Absurd Quarantine — Lazzaretto — Weak Garrison — Neapolitan War-Steamer — Neapolitan Patriots — A Tailor Patriot — Jesuits — Fugitive Princes — Hereditary Prince of Parma — Prince of Capua — Sicilian Revolutionists .... ... .27 CHAPTER III. A French Steamer — Prince of Parma — A Carlist Colonel — Henri de Bourbon — An Armenian Drogoman — Italian Liberals — A Sicilian — Arrive at Messina — General Pronio — Revolu tionary aspect — Newspaper falsehoods — The Arsenal — Pla cards — Patriots and Pickpockets .... 42 CHAPTER IV. Naples — The English Fleet — City Improvements — Lazzaroni — Corriboli — Palazzo Gravina — Theatre of San Carlo — The Neapolitan Parliament — The King's Swiss Troops — New Schools for the Poor — Popular Superstition • • 67 VOL. I. b CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER V. Naples — Cooks spoiled by Politics — Popularity of King Ferdi nand — A Riot in the Toledo — Carlo Alberto — The Men of Santa Lucia — Decay of Trade and increase of National Debt — The Expedition against Messina . . . Page 83 CHAPTER VI. Naples — Chamber of Deputies — Rumours of counter-revolution — House of Peers — No men of business — Government Offices — The War Office — Elements of Democracy, &c. . . 96 CHAPTER VII. Naples — Political Propagandism — Character of King Ferdinand — Roman Catholic Intolerance — The Pope — • Vincenzo Gio- berti — Charles Albert — The Grand Duke of Tuscany — The 15th of May — The Neapolitan Barricades — Conduct of the King — Defeat of the Insurgents — Small amount of their loss . 107 CHAPTER VIII. Naples — The conduct of the King after the Barricades — Journalism — Trial by Jury — Misrepresentations of the King's conduct — Violence of the Chamber of Deputies at Turin — Recall of the King's troops from Lombardy — General William Pepe — Neapolitan Volunteers at Venice — Me"iiance ! — Effect pro duced by withdrawing the Neapolitan troops — Lying Reports — General Statella — The Second Neapolitan Parliament — Seclusion of the King — Sicily — The Hon. W. Temple — Lord Napier — Lord Minto — Sir Edmund Lyons — Our Diplomacy in general ........ 149 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. XI CHAPTER IX. Castellamare — Railroads — Prosperous appearance of the People — Souvenirs — Improvements — Sir William Parker's Fleet — New Road to Sorrento — A Party at Sorrento — Music — The Duchess of Atri — A musical prodigy — Mr. Whiteside — Greatly improved Education — Domestic virtues — Moral tone of the Neapolitan Court — A night-drive — Aboard the English Fleet — Neapolitans at Palermo — Florestan Pepe — Calabrians as Soldiers — Sicilians and Neapolitans compared — Cruelty of the Palermitans — English occupation of Sicily — The Consti tution of 1812 — Strange conduct of Admiral Parker — A forced Loan — The Palmerston Policy . . . Page 174 CHAPTER X. Pompeii — Works there all suspended — Distress — Recent disco veries — Barbarous practice of writing names — Stealing in the ruins — Maccaroni Manufactory — A Neapolitan Calesso — Smart driving — Museo Borbonico — Vandalism of the Liberali — Mr. Whiteside 207 CHAPTER XI. Naples — Splendid new Cemetery — La Madonna del Pianto — Chapels and Tombs — Masses for the Dead, falling off — Com plaints of a Franciscan — Ischia Passage-boat — A Hermit — Island and Town of Ischia — J. W. — General Florestan Pepe — Admiral Baudin — Agricultural Improvements — Pozzuoli — Prince of Ischitella — Vico di Pantano — Extensive Draining — Cure for Malaria — The King promotes Draining and Road- making — The late Duke of Rocca Romana and his Duel — A Festa — Populousness and general Aspect of Naples — The Air of a great Capital — Foreign Propagandists and Barricade- Makers — Grape-shot ready for them — Marshal Radetzky and Pope Pius 221 XU CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER XII. Naples — Crowded Churches — Increase of devotion — Neapolitan Cabinet — Princes of Ischitella, Cariati, and Torella — Mergil- lina — Scenes at the Post Office — Midnight Mass — Departure from Naples — Aversa and its wine — Campagna Felice — Capua — Good state of Troops — The Valley of the Vulturnus — Admirable Roads — Improved condition of the Peasantry — Our queer Courier — Brigands — The Bandit Ranieri — Isernia — Castel di Sangro — Piano di Cinque Miglie — A Moon-light Battle — All Moonshine — Sulmona — State of Siege — Popoli — Chieti — Immense Improvements — Abruzzese hospitality — Pescara — A Judge and his story — A Salt Harvest — Atri — Agricultural Improvements — Giulia Nuova — Neapolitan "Middle Men" Page 245 CHAPTER XIII. Roman Frontier — Marches of Ancona — San Benedetto — Roman Patriots and Roman Beards — Porto di Fermo — Macbetto in Musica — Feuds — Prosperity of the Country — Loreto and the Santa Casa — A Cicerone who has been a Tragedian — The Jesuits — Rights of Women and Banquet of Citizenesses — A discussion — Unpopularity of the Pope — Beautiful Country — Ancona — Placards and National Guards — Club Orators — A Whistling Stable-boy ...... 282 CHAPTER XIV. Ancona — The fine Harbour — No trade — Improvements stopped — Streets — Suburbs — A Roman dragoon — Journey towards Rome — Osimo — Macerata — Improved Roads — Tolentino Colfiorito — Foligno and its Patriots — Books — A Festa — Spoleto and Warriors Singing — Terni — A Monopoly — The Fall of the Velino — Narni and more Proclamations — Civita- Castellana and more National Guards — Baccano and Malaria Fevers — Rome 313 A GLANCE REVOLUTIONIZED ITALY. CHAPTER I. Commencement of the Italian Movement — Pope Pius IX. — The Italian Liberals at Constantinople — A Te Deum and a Dinner — Count Stunner — The Pope's Nuncio to the Sultan — Revo lutions — Carlo Alberto — A Venetian Republican — Beards and Whiskers — Revolution Hats — Riots. When I left England for the East in the month of July, 1847, the eyes of Europe were curiously intent on the reforms and changes of the new and most popular Pope, Pius IX., and on his more than half- developed scheme for the federal union and inde pendence of all Italy. Some of these reforms chal lenged and obtained the admiration even of conser vative statesmen. In particular, the administration of the Roman states was, and long had been, so de fective, so faulty and corrupt, that almost any change or attempt to change appeared as an improvement. Generally the sympathies of Englishmen were with the Italians, and I believe there were few among us who would not have rejoiced to see the union and VOL. I. b 2 ITALIAN LIBERALS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. independence of that country. Many thought that so desirable an end might be reached by perseverance and moderation, by progress of time and education, and without revolution and bloodshed. Others, how ever, had their doubts, and foresaw many evils and convulsions as likely to result from the new alliance between papacy and democracy — between the infal lible pope and the sovereign people. Some were even of opinion that Pius IX. acted upon calculation as the head of the Romish church, and for the ex clusive benefit of that church ; and that he, seeing popery declining everywhere, thought he could give it fresh life and vigour by uniting himself with the liberals of Italy, and appealing to the political pre dilections or passions of the multitude. Though a novelty in modern times, such an alliance between pope and people had not been unknown in the middle ages. A zealous Presbyterian friend of mine would never see in this present union and contract anything but the scarlet lady of Rome seated upon the many-headed beast ; and he predicted that, in the end, either the scarlet woman would slay the monster or the monster the scarlet woman. I had not been many days in Constantinople ere I thought I saw some inconsistency and hollowness in this new alliance. That city has always an im mense Italian colony, or a congeries of Italian colonies, not particularly distinguished by unity and concord, or by living quietly and amicably together. There were Neapolitans, Romans, Tuscans, Genoese, Piedmontese, Lombards, Venetians — many men from ITALIAN LIBERALS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. d almost every part of the Peninsula. Among these were throngs of political refugees, unfortunate re formers or baulked revolutionists ; and great was the trouble of their respective ministers and consuls to keep peace among them. As in every other place where Italians abound, there were among this mixed multitude many men of good character and calm judgment — experienced men of the world, who could neither be mystified by a Gioberti, nor excited by a Mazzini. These individuals were happy at the administrative reforms of the Pope, and they spoke with warm admiration of the excellent manner in which Tuscany and Piedmont had long been admi nistered ; they looked calmly but confidently forward to a gradual improvement of the whole of Italy ; but they were decidedly of opinion that rashness and overhaste would destroy this bright prospect, and check that material prosperity and improve ment which the whole of Italy had been enjoying since the peace of 1815. But the men entertaining these opinions were certainly in the minority at Constantinople. Tetes vertes et tetes chaudes — green heads and hot heads — predominated. The baulked revolutionists were one and all for trying again ; only scarcely two could be found who agreed in their schemes of revolution, or in the form of government to be set up when the revolution should be com pleted. Some of these fugitives, in default of other industry and occupation, had set themselves up as lawyers among the Franks of Pera and Galata. It was said that they made strange havoc with law ; but b2 4 ITALIAN LIBERALS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. this was not very noticeable in a country wherein, correctly speaking, there is no law at all. But their new profession or practice had sharpened their tongues and wits. They were a conceited, pre sumptuous, quarrelsome, pestilent set. There was one of them, with a very dark name, that had a tongue and a temper sufficient to disturb the har mony ^of a celestial colony. Besides the disputes which he got up among the Italians with an eye to business, he was always engaged in some fierce quarrel and feud on his own account. In any other country on the continent of Europe he must have gotten his passport and orders to leave long ago ; but the Turks have a listlessness and indolence which often looks like toleration, and they care not how often or how savagely the Christian dogs tear one another to pieces. The reasonable portion of the Italians had frequently endeavoured to quench or cool this firebrand, and to preserve in the colony or colonies that degree of tranquillity and decency which especially became men living in a foreign, unchristian, and semibarbarous country. These efforts had seldom been attended with much success. But at the time of our arrival there was a pleasant lull in the storm. All the Italians were wondrously united by love and admiration of the reforming Pope ; and while the enthusiasts were anticipating a perfect millennium, all looked forward to a greatly improved state of things in their native country. " Long life to the Pope !" ( Viva Pio Nono /) were words chalked upon the walls, and written on paper, A TE DEUM AND A DINNER. 5 and placarded at the turning of nearly every street in the Christian suburbs ; and the heads of sundry Greeks had been broken, for that, in their schismatic hatred and jealousy, they had defaced some of these inscriptions. Liberali, who had never been seen in the churches before, but who had often been seen insulting or mocking the Catholic clergy of the place, went now regularly to mass or to prayers said for the Pope. Nay, it was said that some of them — believers in no gospel except the gospel according to Helvetius, or D'Alembert, or Diderot, or Vol taire, or Rousseau — had carried their condescension or their gratitude so far as to kneel in public at the confessional, and, after confession, to take absolution from the monk or priest with contrite countenances. I believe that it was the second Sunday after our arrival that they had a grand celebration up in Pera, to rejoice at Pope Pius's happy or miraculous escape from assassination at Rome. There were those who did not beheve that there had been any attempt to murder his Holiness, but who shrewdly suspected that that conspiracy had been gotten up by the Liberals to answer their own purposes and bind the Pope the more to their party. But let this pass. I, for one, am contented to leave it among " Historical Doubts." In the morning they had a grand chanted mass and Te Deum in one of the Catholic churches ; in the evening they had a subscription dinner at Blondel's Hotel de France ; and at night they made grand illuminations all along " Les Petits Champs des Morts," or smaller Turkish cemetery. " Viva b TRI-COLOUR RIBBON ASSUMED. Pio Nono !" was set forth in gigantic letters, composed of illumination-lamps ; there were other inscriptions, and a lighting of blue lights and a letting off of fire works ; and a great deal of music played by a stroll ing band, and much mixing of whiskers and beards and hugging and kissing among the patriots. We did not see the festa, having gone away the pre ceding evening to the Sultan's model farm at St. Stephano. We were, however, assured that the celebration went off joyously and harmoniously ; that at the dinner they toasted his Sardinian Ma jesty Charles Albert after his Holiness the Pope ; that some of the Liberali were considerably excited by M. Blondel's champagne ; and that nothing oc curred to disturb the harmony of the meeting except a difliculty on the part of some of the pa triots to pay their share of the reckoning. As the Pope took further strides on the road of reform, and as Charles Albert assumed a more war like and defiant attitude towards Austria, the ex patriated patriots became louder in their talk, and higher in their pretensions. They began to wear tri-colour ribbons — the green, white, and red being the tri-colours of Italy — and not satisfied with wearing these badges themselves, they pretended that every Italian in Turkey, or son, or grandson, or great-grandson of an Italian should also wear them. Even in the shipping which arrived in port they would not tolerate the Bourbon flag of Naples, or the flag of Austria in Venetian or Dalmatian ships, or in any Italian vessel any other flag than COUNT STURMER. 7 the revolutionary tri-colour — a flag which had not been acknowledged by any power whatsoever. Although it was not easy to discover how such a functionary or such a mission could affect the Italian cause, these liberals attached an amazing deal of importance to the coming of Bishop Ferrieri, the Pope's nuncio and envoy to Sultan Abdul Medjid. At length, in January, 1848, it was officially an nounced that the Nuncio had embarked on board of a Genoese man-of-war, belonging to the Pope's ally Charles Albert, and that he might be expected at Constantinople in a few days. The Italian colonists called a grand meeting to deliberate and decide upon the best means of giving the Nuncio a splendid reception. They voted the erection of a triumphal arch, with appropriate inscriptions, down in Galata ; they voted that the whole body of the Italians, attired in their best, and wearing tri-colour scarfs and cockades, should meet the most reverend Signor at the landing place on the Golden Horn ; they voted that there should be a long procession of flags, and that a large tri-colour flag, with the inscription " Union and Independence of all Italy," should head the procession in going and returning. Placards were printed and stuck up, containing the abstracts of these votes, together with a call upon every Italian in the country to be present on the occasion, and to comport himself as a true Italian patriot and unionist. Count Sturmer, the Austrian ambassador to the Porte, who had been frequently annoyed and vexed before, took umbrage at the union and inde- 8 ARRIVAL OF THE NUNCIO. pendence banner; and, representing to the Porte that a very considerable part of upper Italy belonged to his master the Emperor, he obtained from Res- chid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and from Ali Pasha, the minister of foreign affairs, a positive order that the Italian processionists should not carry the national or revolutionary flag. They were left free to carry any other flag, device, or emblem. The chiefs of the movement party decided that, as they could not carry the tri-colour national banner, they would carry nothing at all, and get up no procession to receive the Nuncio. They put out flaming papers in print to this effect. Count Sturmer received menacing and truculent letters ; and Reschid Pasha, as head of this absolute government of Turkey, was applied to, as one that ought to be favourable to ItaHan unionism and constitutionalism ; and those who addressed him did not neglect to remind him of those days when the Turks were thundering at the gates of Vienna, and those other days when Austria, conquering Belgrade, was strong along the line of the Danube, and threatened the walls of Constantinople. At last the Nuncio arrived. He came to the Golden Horn on Sunday, the 16th of January — one of the gloomiest of days. The snow, wafted from the Black Sea, was lying knee-deep in Pera, and there was a fog along the sea of Marmora, and in the port of Constantinople, and along the Bospho rus, which might have rivalled the worst of our fogs in the valley of the Thames. There was no TRIUMPHAL ARCH. 9 procession, no Italian national flag to receive him : but the triumphal arch was left standing. Not that that arch was more than an erection of painted deal-boards and lath and plaster. It annoyed my nationality to see and know that this papistical triumphal arch — this blazoned but contemptible structure, which annoyed every Englishman in the place (though it delighted one or two Irishmen) — was erected by an Englishman, calling himself an architect. To mention the name of Smith, is to speak in nubibus — it implies no more than Jack or Bob, or Tom or Will — it is a name that names nobody. But the " Smith " of whom I speak is a man who must have been caught in the woods, and (so well do we manage these matters) he was em ployed and sent out by the "Woods and Forests" to build up a palace or ambassadorial residence, to supply the place of that which had been burnt in the great conflagration of 1830. His arch was erected at the top of Galata, a Httle before you come to the great Genoese tower, commonly called the Tower of Galata, in the part of the Christian suburb where dead dogs, dead cats, dead rats, and all other abominations do most abound. Coming from Rome, or from any — the worst — part of Italy, the Pope's legate must have been sorely annoyed in sight, in smell, and in his other senses. On the architrave was inscribed, in gigantic letters, " Viva Pio Nono," and under that Hne, in still more gigantic letters, " Pio IX. Pontifex Max. et Opt." Such as it was, the Tope's Nuncio went through it, or under it. And 10 POLICY OF RESCHID PASHA. bad as it was in taste, and unfair as a distribution of honour to a diplomatic man, Monsignore Ferrieri might flatter himself that he, the first envoy from the Pope of Rome to the Sultan of Turkey, had received more honour, or semblance of honour, than had been paid to any, the most distinguished repre sentative of the greatest power in Christendom. The wooden triumphal arch remained some days or weeks after the representative of the Pontifex Opti- mus et Maximus had passed under it. The whole thing appeared to me out of place, and preposter ous. Y^et was it curious to see that, coincidently in date, the Mussulman Sultan of Turkey, the repre sentative at least for a large part of the Mahometan world, agreed to receive, and in part helped to receive, with extraordinary honours and jubilations, and for the first time, a representative and, politi cally, an alter ego of his Holiness, just as we in England were deliberating in Parliament on the propriety or impropriety of renewing, for the first time since we have been a Protestant people, diplo matic relations with the see of Rome. The whole display at Constantinople — which excited some bitter animadversions on the part of the orthodox or old-school Mussulmans — was quite consonant with the policy of Reschid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and his latitudinarian and would-be-believed liberal government : besides being secured very prominent places in the three newspapers which are published in the French language in Turkey, and which are salaried by the Porte, the reception was pretty sure PRESENTS FROM THE POPE. 11 to make a figure in all the continental and a good many of the EngHsh newspapers : these articles would show to all Christendom that the government of Reschid Pasha was distinguished by its religious toleration. It was a cheap way of obtaining cele brity. Yet it was not so very cheap after all ; for if the ItaHan colony and its sympathizers paid for the triumphal arch, and defrayed other out-of-door ex penses, the Nuncio and his somewhat numerous suite were boarded and lodged at the sole charge of the Sul tan. The whole of the Hotel Blondel was engaged for this purpose ; and there Monsignore Ferrieri, with his secretary and his under-secretaries, his maitre- d'h6tel, his valets, his footmen and running footmen tarried, and was well entertained for some three months. Before he left there was a very distressing vacuum in the Sultan's treasury, and many com plaints were whispered about this heavy and unne cessary expense. There was also much irreverent ¦ jesting. The Nuncio had brought from Rome, as presents from the head of the Roman Catholic church to the representative of the Caliph of the Mussulmans, some very beautiful presents — a copy, with restorations, of Trajan's Column, and other works of art. The column was some ten feet high ; the bassi rilievi on it were beautifully executed : it was said that the work had occupied a Roman artist more than ten years. After the Sultan had looked at it, it was thought no more of— it was said to have been thrown aside in a lumber room. An Italian artist, who had lived long enough in Turkey to 12 THE NUNCIO— ANOTHER TE DEUM. know something of these matters, laughed at the folly of the Pope in sending works of art to such a destination. " If," said he, " his HoHness had really wished to make acceptable presents to his Highness Abdul Medjid, he ought to have for warded to him by this most reverend nuncio a speci men, a living flesh and blood specimen of all the women in Italy — a Sicilian, a Neapolitan, a Roman, a Florentine, a Genoese, a Milanese, a Venetian, at the very least. These the Sultan would have prized. But what does he know about Trajan's Column, or the history it refers to — or what does he care for any works of pure art ?" The Nuncio was an active, alert man, not at all old ; perhaps he was rather younger than Pius IX., the youngest man that has worn the tiara for a very long time. His manners were most courtly and bland, his countenance most intelligent ; but he had about the cunningest eye I ever fixed mine upon. Although the weather was deplorable (a Constanti nople winter must be endured before it can be judged of), he was almost constantly in motion, driving about in an old rumbling carriage which the Porte had furnished, and over the roughest, worst- paved streets in the world, and through the most miry of roads. A Sunday or two after his arrival another grand Te Deum was celebrated. AH Pasha, the minister for foreign affairs, by order from the Sultan or Rescind Pasha, gave him a grand diplomatic dinner, to wliich aU the heads of the fo reign legations were invited, and at which the Pope's RECEPTION OF THE NUNCIO. 13 health was drunk in bumpers of champagne by Turks and Christians of all denominations. The patriarch of the Armenians of the old Armenian church, the head of the Catholic Armenian church, the primate of the Greeks, and even the Chief Rabbi of the Jews paid ceremonious visits to the Nuncio in his hotel, and had to receive his return visits in their own houses. Except the Roman CathoHc Armenian bishop none of these function aries went willingly, or wished otherwise than that this meddling priest were back at Rome — or safely bestowed in some more remote place. They went because they were ordered so to do by the Turkish government, and because they durst not disobey. But the Greek patriarch, who least of all liked this fraternizing, received the Nuncio so coldly when he went to return his visit, that the whole interview lasted a very few seconds. It was even rumoured that they gave Monsignore Ferrieri cold coffee. The Greeks were not a whit more disposed to repeat the " Filioque " or to conform with the Church of Rome than they had been in the fifteenth century. It should seem that the Nuncio and those who sent him thought otherwise, for he brought with him and distributed great heaps of tracts, in Romaic or modern Greek, in Italian, in French, and in other languages. The text of these tracts was, that there is and can be only one true, one Christian Church ; that that church indisputably is the apostolical Church of Rome ; that the Greeks and other Ori ental churches did not, in reality, differ in essentials; 14 RECEPTION OF THE NUNCIO. that the time was now come for the unity, the oneness of the church ; and that Rome was ready to meet halfway such as had wandered from the flock. These pamphlets gave great offence to the Greeks of all classes and conditions ; they sorely alarmed the married priests, and perhaps still more the wives of priests ; and the alarm became the greater when a report was industriously spread by a few credulous persons and by a good many mischief-makers that the Sultan was going to conclude a treaty and concor- datum with the Pope of Rome, and to compel all his Christian Rayah subjects to unite themselves to the Romish church. We knew some old Greeks who believed so implicitly in this rumour, that they could give themselves no rest or peace, but talked of emi grating to Russia. One ancient lady looked upon the Nuncio as the veriest bird of ill-omen. " So soon as he arrived," said she, " the cholera grew worse, and meat and all provisions grew dearer; old grudges and dissensions broke out between Greeks and papists; and now here we have the French revolution, and the revolution at Vienna, and the prospect of a war everywhere." It was curious to observe with what jealousy and ill-will (very ill-concealed by diplomatic politeness) the French and Austrian legations regarded Mon signore Ferrieri and his mission. At least from the time of Louis XIV. France has assumed to herself the right of being the protectress of the Roman Catholics throughout the Levant; and in many cases, even of recent date, the French, though igno- DEPARTURE OF THE NUNCIO. 15 rant or contemptuous of any religion at home, have strenuously taken the part of the bigots of popery abroad, with the view of maintaining their influ ence. On the other hand Austria has long claimed the right of protecting the Catholics of Bosnia, and of other parts of Turkey in Europe. Neither power was willing to lose any portion of this moral weight and influence ; and Monsieur de Bourqueney and Count Sturmer, in common with most other persons who paid any attention to the subject, sus pected that the Nuncio had for his primary object in visiting Turkey a plan for inducing all the Ca tholics in the Levant to acknowledge the direct pro tection of the Pope, and to get the Sultan to concur in such an arrangement. The revolutions soon swept the French minister from his post, and gave the Austrian minister more serious matters to think about. But the presence of Monsignore Ferrieri continued to disturb the minds and consciences of the Greeks ; and it is quite certain that the Sub lime Porte was very glad to see the last of him. He had widened the breach and embittered the rancour existing between the Armenians of the Roman Catholic Churchy and the Armenians who adhered to the Eutychean Confession ; and some in terference in favour of the Catholics, and some other meddling, roused him up powerful enemies among the Armenian seraffs, and was said to have given great offence to Reschid Pasha, the Vizier. The ItaHan Liberals saw the departure of the Nuncio with a feeling very like indifference. 16 NEWS OF THE CONTINENTAL REVOLUTIONS. Although they had made so much of him at first, they seemed to take little heed of him after another gloomy, stormy day, in the month of March, when we received authentic intelligence of the revolution which had been worked out in Paris in February. Looking far over the Seven Hills of Rome, and the head of him who wears the tiara, all their eyes and hopes were then fixed upon Pdris and the sovereign people of the French Republic. They thought that they had no longer any need to play the part of devotees, or to kneel at confessionals, or to attend masses and Te Deums ; that French arms would now fly everywhere to support French principles ; and that a democratic Republic would be esta blished forthwith not only in Italy, but in every other part of Europe. The fast succeeding news — news which came so fast and was so astounding that it stunned and bewildered much soberer heads than theirs — of the revolutions in Austria, Hungary, Prussia, and other parts of Germany, raised these hopes to the most extravagant pitch. When Carlo Alberto began to move, or to take his leap in the dark, he became the object of idolatry : and for a time no name was heard but his. It was about this time — we being on a voyage to Nicomedia — that I had a conversation with an old Venetian who had mixed in his breast the leaven of the Gallo-Italian Republicanism of 1797 with the dregs of the Libe ralism of 1848. He had served both as a soldier and as a sailor under Napoleon Bonaparte ; he had fled from Venice in 1815 ; he did not allege political BEARDS AND WHISKERS. 17 causes for his flight ; he was silent, and perhaps prudently so, on this part of his history ; but since then he had practised as a doctor in Algiers, in Tunis, and in Egypt ; and now he was in the Sul tan's army, and was going into Asia to examine the recruits they were catching in the mountains. He was infinitely rejoiced at the present aspect of affairs. " As for Carlo Alberto," said he, "he will flare for a day and then go out like a snuffed candle. So will all kings. As for the Pope, he i6 an old woman, and teaches a rehgion fit only for old women. We men of liberal principles are neither Roman CathoHcs nor of any other religion. The world is too enlightened for that. But Pius IX. has played our cards for us, and we will let him play on a little longer, until we shall have no further need of him — and then we can cut off the old fool's head." I have softened his language, and have taken out cer tain expletives which would not well bear repeating. This old white-bearded and mustachioed adventurer was no doubt an exaggerated specimen of the class to which he belonged ; but I know that sentiments similar to his were and are entertained very gene rally by men of his school. There was a good crop of beards, whiskers, and mustachios before, but after we got the news of the French Revolution these things underwent a won derful growth and increase. To shave, or to touch any part of one's face with a razor, was considered a certain sign of monarchical and aristocratical ten dencies. Your true Republican face presented no vo l. i. c 18 REVOLUTION HATS. thing but a bit of forehead, eyes, nose, and bushy hair. Political opinions were also strongly pro nounced in hats. The Liberals sported hats of all manner of shapes, the favourite colour being white or drab. They had their Chapeau a la Robespierre, their Chapeau Republicain, their Chapeau a la Ca- labraise, &c. &c, for the most part decorated with tri-colour ribbons or cockades. And how contemptu ously did they look down upon us peaceable matter- of-fact Englishmen, who wore none of these fashions or emblems ! When these hats first came out, we could scarcely walk through the streets of Pera, or through those two Perote paradises, the smaller and the great burying-ground, without the risk of being insulted otherwise than by looks. But if there was little harmony between them and us, it cannot be said that there was much, of a durable kind, among them selves. Old jealousies broke out anew; and fresh discords arose as affairs advanced, and as they consti tuted themselves into political circles or clubs. Not a few of them seized such favourable opportunities for giving vent to private piques and resentments. More lost their temper when the political discus sions were opened. At first their head-quarters were in a coffee-house, or rather a coffee-shop, in Pera, near to the French palace. Afterwards they hired rooms, and called public Italian meetings, which were attended by many nondescript Perotes in whose veins there remained very little of Italian blood, but whose ancestors had been Venetian or Genoese drogomans or traders. The mock enthu- ANOTHER SUBSCRIPTION DINNER. 19 siasm of this hybrid race — who had never known a nationality, who had no one mother language, but who spoke bad Greek, bad Turkish, bad French* and worse Italian — was farcical beyond description. One of them, who had been for many years attached to the British legation, and whose brothers, uncle and father, and perhaps grandfather, had been em ployed in the same capacity, while other members of the family had served and been in the diplomatic secrets of Russia (so nicely are we served in this particular), pretended to be so much elevated above himself and so filled with patriotic zeal when he heard that the Venetians had driven out the Aus trians and declared the restoration of their old Re pubHc, that he talked of throwing up his comfort j able English place and pay, and of going to Venice to shed his blood for the Republican cause ; though Venice was in reality no more to him nor he to Venice than was Hecuba to Hamlet's poor hired actor. He did nothing of the sort. He only va poured; and this was aU that was done by the Perotes. But loud was the noise they made. As for real refugee Italians, they were all going back to their own country to eat up the last remnant of the Austrians. Yet, after all, very few went ; and those few were of a sort that even Pera and Galata could well spare. The Liberali got up a cheap subscription dinner to celebrate, in anticipation, the expulsion of the barbarians or Austrians, and the happy union of all Italy; they quarrelled furiously in their cups3 c2 20 M. DE BOURQUENEY INSULTED. and it was with difficulty the meeting was pre vented from ending in a general scuffle and fight. They fraternized, as might be expected, with all the French, in the place, of the French Republican party ; and after the Revolution of February nearly every Frenchman in Turkey, though he had avowed himself a stanch Louis-Philippist in January, and would then have sworn that though perchance there might be an emeute in the streets of Paris about the political banquets, there was not the slightest chance of a Revolution and there were but very few Republicans in all France, became a Republican, if not of the most decided or sincere, at least of the loudest talking kind. Many were the pranks they played between them. If my information was correct, the Italian law-practitioner of the sinister name and ill- visage gave an impulse and furor even to these Frenchmen, and suggested not a few of the proceedings which they adopted. Never was poor diplomatist so insulted and bullied as M. de Bourqueney, the French Minister. The morning after the arrival of the first news from Paris, a letter was delivered, telling him, in terms more energetic than polite, that his occupation was gone ; that he had better think of returning to the trade of his father ; and that a few honest Repub licans in the country, rather than see him and his family reduced to absolute want, would, at their own cost, purchase some razors and scissors and combs for him. Their story was, that the French minister's father had been a barber and hairdresser. M. DE BOURQUENEY INSULTED. 21 It was observed to some of them that this only gave the minister a true democratic standing, making him essentially a man of the people; and surely this was something in the days of equality and fraternity. But they argued that M. de Bour- (\ueney fils had been a journalist ; that he had made his way in the world by writing for the now over thrown government in the execrable ' Journal des Debats ;' that he had been a protege and creature of M. Guizot, who had launched him into diplo macy, and a base flatterer of Louis- Philippe, who had made him a baron ; and that since he had been a baron and an ambassador he had lost all sympa thy with the people, and had behaved in a very lordly and ambassadorial manner to men better born and bred than himself. Eh ! vive l'egalite ! About a week after this — on a Saturday forenoon — we received by a French Government steamer full confirmation of the Paris news, of the installation of Lamartine's provisional Repubhcan Government, and of the total disappearance of Louis-Philippe and his family. That night the French and Ita lian Republicans united made a fearful charivari under the minister's residence, singing the Mar seillaise, and giving him to understand that he must expect a formal visit to-morrow from the patriots, who intended to take possession of the palace of France as national property. M. Bour- queney on the next morning sent his wife and children to the private house of a friend in Pera. As the devouter or quieter Perotes were returning 22 ALARM OF COUNT STURMER. from their noon-day mass on that Sunday, they saw that the palace of France had been invaded and occupied by a mob in which there were considerably more Italians than Frenchmen. Some fellows were chiselling out in the front of the building that figured book and emblem of the charter of 1830 which, ever since the barricade-fighting that had placed Louis-Philippe on the throne, had been substituted for the royal arms of France. Other alert patriots were hoisting the altered tri-colour flag over the palace. The lowest rabble were naturally the most active in these operations. A French citizen cobbler proposed that, as he and his wife and poor people like them had never been invited to M. de Bourqueney's balls, a truly democratic ball should now be given in the palace by the people themselves, and to which every poor Frenchman and Italian should be invited. Baron Sturmer, the Austrian minister, if not more annoyed and insulted, was, or pretended to be, much more seriously alarmed. They had used menacing lan guage to him several times as he passed in his carriage ; but when it was known that Venice was revolutionized, they addressed him a letter in which he was told that the house he inhabited did not belong to Austria, but to Venice ; that it was built by the Venetian Republic for the accommodation of its resident agent; that Austria had unfairly possessed it when Venice was betrayed and sold to her, and had held it while Venice was subject to her ; but that now that Venice was once more a free, COUNT STURMER'S GARRISON. 23 independent, and glorious Republic, she must claim her own ; and that if he, the Count Sturmer, did not evacuate the palace quietly, the Venetians at Constantinople would drive him forcibly out of it. The fact was quite true as to the building and original property of the palace — the only building in all Constantinople worthy of being called a palace, or possessing any claims to architectural distinction. It was built by the Venetians, and had remained their property until the treaty of Campo Formio. But of those who claimed repossession there were not many Venetians, for the majority of that people in Constantinople inclined to the Em peror of Austria, and lamented the revolution which had taken place in their native city. The letter was the merest bravado; but Count Sturmer applied to the Ottoman Porte for protection, and 200 soldiers of the Sultan's disciplined or half-dis ciplined army were sent to protect the palace. And not satisfied with this force, which, indifferent as it might be, was more than enough to tumble all the ItaHan patriots and their French allies and con- fraternizers into the Golden Horn or into the Bosphorus, the Count hired some fifty or sixty stout Sclavonians, who were quartered inside the house from the cellars up to the garrets, while the Turks bivouacked outside. The whole affair ended in the idle threat. But the Turks doubled their guards on the unchristianly-Christian side of the Golden Horn, and, for a short time— no precaution or rule of this sort lasting long in Turkey— they kept 24 PAPER WAR. moving strong patrols by night through the streets of Pera and Galata. Now began also the war of printed papers and broadsides, of lampoon and scandal. This patriot accused that of being no better than he should be, and that patriot accused this of crimes for which the gallows were too mild a punishment. The men of sense, the friends of peace and progress, those who had hoped that with mo deration great present good and an immense future advantage might be brought out of the Italian movement, deplored all these heats and excesses, and began to predict that now, as in former days, the hopes of Italy would be ruined by madmen Hke these. But, publicly, no moderate man could deliver his opinion without being stigmatized as a retro- gradist, a Jesuit, and a traitor. Strepitous en counters, with beatings, and not a few stabbings, took place between the sailors of Italian merchant vessels and the sailors of merchant vessels under the Austrian flag ; the latter being for the better part Dalmatians, or Sclavonians, from the Bocca di Cattaro, although, generally," there were a good many born Italians among them, but Italians who pre ferred crying ' Long live the Emperor !' to ' Long live Charles Albert !' Being the more numerous, the Carlo Albertists had generally the better of it ; but one evening, up the Bosphorus, at Buyukdere, a party of men landed from an Austrian war- schooner, and being insulted and getting engaged in an affray, they gave the tri-colour Italians a very sound drubbing. My excellent friend Mr. , STREET-FIGHTS OF THE ITALIANS. 25 the minister of , must remember something of this scene : for while he was looking on it from his front window, his house was invaded — not in angry threat, but in pathetic earnest, by a party who entered it at the rear — a party of ladies who had suddenly found their evening walk interrupted by the fight, and who had run into the palazzo, without any previous acquaintance with its occupant, to take refuge. Nor were these skirmishes altogether confined to sailors and shipboys, or to the quays on the Bosphorus or the wharfs of Galata; they as cended the diplomatic hill of Pera ; and, among the ambassadorial palaces, we had indecent street-fights, and fights not of Italians against Austrians and Sclavonians, but of Italians against Italians. Long before the reverses of Charles Albert, a feud broke out between his subjects, the Piedmontese and Sardinians, and the Lombards and other Italians. The fastest of the factions, being the one headed by the practitioner of law, declared open hostilities against the Sardinian legation ; and one fine morn ing, as a Piedmontese gentleman attached to that legation was entering the main street, he was as saulted and struck with a stick over the head by a man who came from some other part of Italy. When the Piedmontese turned to defend himself and was about closing with his adversary, others came up and struck him ; but at the same moment there arrived several attaches of the Sardinian legation. Blows or scratches were exchanged, and there was a prospect of a very pretty quarrel and 26 RIOTOUS CONDUCT OF THE ITALIANS. fight, when the bystanders interfered. Upon being reported to the Turkish Government over at Con stantinople, the Porte opined that this was a very disgraceful affair ; that an end ought to be put to similar disturbances ; that the turbulent men who caused them ought to be sent out of the country by their respective embassies ; and that as, at present, the rjowers of most Christian ambassadors seemed to be in abeyance, it might be incumbent on the Sublime Ottoman Porte, though contrary to usual practice and treaty, to cause its own officers to seize these disturbers of public tranquillity, and pack them off for their own country, The practitioner of law was particularly named. As — infinitely to my satisfaction — I left Pera a few days after this menace, I know not what became of him ; but the chances are that the Turks thought no more about him, and that he and his satellites are still holding clubs, breaking heads, and stabbing reputations in the Christian suburb of Constantinople. " Losco, fosco, io ti conosco, Se avessi pane non avresti tosco." ITALIANS AT SMYRNA. 27 CHAPTER II. Italians at Smyrna — At Malta — Absurd Quarantine — Lazzaretto — Weak Garrison — Neapolitan War-Steamer — Neapolitan Patriots — A Tailor Patriot — Jesuits — Fugitive Princes — Hereditary Prince of Parma — Prince of Capua — Sicilian Revolutionists. At Smyrna we found that the Italian colony had been very busy and very noisy in setting up tri- colour flags, holding Te Deums, and taking oaths to die for the union and independence of all Italy ; and that there, too, there had been many signs of dis union and jealousy among them, although there had been no such disgraceful scenes as at the Turkish capital. The soft Ionian air still seems to produce its ancient effects, and all things and persons in Smyrna (if we except certain Maltese, Greeks from the Seven Islands, and rough, draw-knife Sclavo- nians) are gentler and softer than at Constantinople, the physical and moral atmospheres of which produce the most disastrous effect upon the temper of all who live long in the place. Although it was daily expected, the cholera had not yet appeared at Smyrna. At Constantinople we had left it on the increase, and our bill of health stated as much : we were, however, instantly admitted to free pratique. When we reached Malta Ave were not quite so fortunate, the Board of Health having just length- 28 ABSURD QUARANTINE AT MALTA. ened the quarantine from five to nine days, not withstanding the many representations which had been made to them that the cholera was not a contagious disease. They might as well have attempted to keep off the scirocco wind, which so often dissolves the flesh of the islanders, by their lazzarettos, and cordons, and sanitary guard-boats. It would scarcely be more absurd to put men in quarantine for having come from a place where rheumatism prevailed, or to subject a poor fellow to imprisonment and very heavy expenses because he was suffering from a gun-shot wound. I do not believe that these regulations proceed from any real fear, or that they are adopted with the honest conviction that they are necessary precautions. The quarantine establishment is of a most dis proportionate size, and swarms with Maltese func tionaries, who for the greater part get very little regular pay, and so must live upon the fees, com missions, and other gains wrung from shipmasters in the quarantine harbour, and from unfortunate passengers in the lazzaretto. This present pro longation of quarantine, which gave us so much annoyance, made merry the hearts of a host of employes, who would have been merrier still if the term had been lengthened to twenty days. We were landed and thrust into the very hottest part of that heated oven the lazzaretto. We had the sun right upon us from 10 or 11 a.m. till 7 in the evening, and glare from the white bare rocks and from the white walls on the other side of the har- LAZZARETTO AT MALTA. 29 bour, and blinding reflected lights, from five in the morning until dark. They gave us very bad food, and overcharged us shamefully for it. This prison, meant to preserve the health of the island, is enough to kill the poor traveller who is long shut up in it. We were in perfect health when we entered, but if we had remained in it much longer than we did we must have fallen sick. Mediterranean vessels with different dates of quarantine were huddled together close under our nose, and we had the music of pumping and the pleasant, salutary smell of bilge- water from morning till night and from night till morning ; there were two or three filthy, rotten, old vessels that could be kept afloat only by constant pumping. The people about the place were very negligent and uncivil : they were all Maltese. Our Whig reformers have not left a single Englishman on or in the establishment. The Smiches love to execute authority over those whom in former days they considered as their superiors and masters. They are very ingenious in the art of swelling a quarantine bill of expenses. At every other lazza retto that my ill luck has made me acquainted with, they allot you a guardian, or watchman, who is never to lose sight of you, and who is to perform the few and very trifling services which you may require during your imprisonment. But here, in Malta, in addition to your guardiano, they saddle you with a man servant, making you, of course, pay for both. Except when some visitor came to us we never saw our guardian, who kept below stairs 30 NEAPOLITAN WAR-STEAMER. smoking his pipe and gossiping with his comrades ; and as for our servant, he was never at hand when he was wanted, for, being fond of fishing, and a gallant and amorous young man, he passed nearly all his time in hooking in the port for those pretty little fish called " sweethearts," or in talking through a wooden grating with a very black-eyed damsel that came down to him every day from the Pieta. At night we were cheered by hearing the frequent and far-prolonged " All's well" of the EngHsh sen tries : this at least told us that — spite of reformers — there was something English still left in the island. Our fleet was away ; it had left a day or two before our arrival, and was said to be partly off Sicily and partly in the Bay of Naples. From all that I heard and saw, Malta was very badly prepared to resist a sudden and formidable coup de main. There was a small Neapolitan war-steamer whose proceedings gave some offence to our authorities. For several days she kept off and on, poking about the island, and sometimes looking into the mouth of the port : but she showed her colours, which were the colours of an ally of England, and she never came very near. Her mission appears to have been to interrupt the communications of the Sicilian revolutionists with Malta, and to intercept the defeated Calabrian insurgents, who were fleeing in considerable numbers to Corfu. Complaints reached Sir William Parker, and one fine morning an English war-steamer came up with the Neapolitan, and asked her captain (not in very courteous terms NEAPOLITAN PATRIOTS. 31 it was said) what he was doing there, and why he so frequently came into the waters of Malta. The Neapolitan replied that his mission was just over, that he had never been Avithin a league of the island, that by his instructions he Avas to return home that very day, that he was on the point of going. Before evening he disappeared. He Avent because he saw that he Avould not be alloAved to remain. This is only one of many instances in Avhich the might of England Avas made to pass for right : in Avhich Ave blotted the book of the law of nations, hampered the proceedings of the King of Naples, and threAV our shield OArer his revolted subjects, Avho were as much rebels as the mad Irish who folloAved at the heels of Smith O'Brien, only a vast deal more for midable and dangerous. A Aveek or two before this incident a Neapolitan war-steamer had decoyed and captured, at the mouth of the Adriatic, within sight of the island of Corfu, three small Neapolitan or Sicilian brigs, which had on board some 300 or 400 men, Avho had been in arms against the King of Naples, Avhohad committed shameful excesses in Calabria, who had been driven out of that country by the royalist general, Nunzi ante, and who were now running away, with the hope of soon getting back to Sicily and joining the rebels of Messina or Palermo. Many — I believe most — of these men had belonged to a band of 800 Sicilians of the most turbulent and desperate character, who had gone over to Calabria to join the insurgents there, and Avhose departure had been witnessed Avith 32 NEAPOLITAN PATRIOTS. great contentment by their own Provisional Govern ment, not because it Avas expected that they Avould achieve any great exploit, but because Palermo Avould be all the quieter and better for their absence. If the members of that government had known the story, they might have adopted the Avords of the famous Hassan Capitan Pasha. When the Rus sians held possession of the island of Lemnos, and had a strong fleet stationed between that island and the main, the truculent old Turk Avas going to send over in open boats some 12,000 undisciplined Mus sulmans to retake Lemnos. It was represented to him that there was scarcely a chance of success — that the heavy guns of the Russian ships would smash and sink his frail embarkations with every man in them. " That may be," quoth the Pasha, " but then Constantinople will only have 1:2,000 black guards the less." Old Hassan's vagabonds, contrary to every rational expectation, retook Lemnos; but these Sicilians had not taken the Calabrias and driven the King from Naples. Among them were two or three officers of the army, Avho had Avorn the King's uniform, and taken more than one oath of fidelity to him. These Avere fair subjects for a court- martial. Such a court sate upon them and sen tenced them to death, but the King suspended their execution, and, I believe, they are all now living. The Sicilian revolutionists, the liberal or barricade party of Naples, and the liberals all over Italy from south to north, set up a tremendous outcry at this capture : they represented the runagates as patriots NEAPOLITAN WAR-STEAMER. 33 of the purest and brightest colour, as amiable en thusiasts for the cause of Italian unity, as the bravest sons of liberty, as heroes worthy of the days of Timo- leon, or any of the most heroic and best times of an tiquity. All the newspapers of this party (who barely permitted any other paper to appear) took up the cry, and deafened all Italy with it. They alleged that the Neapolitan war-steamer had de coyed the brigs which bore the fugitives, by hoist ing English colours; that these vessels had been captured within the Avaters of Corfu, nay, close in to the island; and they maintained that therefore the British government was in honour and in duty bound to claim and instantly obtain — by bombard ing the King of Naples in his palace, if necessary — the restitution of the brigs and the liberation of all the prisoners. According to these men the mere fact of the Neapolitan having shown English colours was enough to demand all this. They would not be told that the vessel of King Ferdinand had only exercised a ruse which all beUigerents resort to, and have a right to use ; that during the last war there was hardly an EngHsh ship in the service but had hoisted every flag of Europe and of America to boot; that the rules of war can no more interdict such practices at sea than they could put doAvn de lusive signals and ambuscades by land ; and that the receipts of our prize officers would have presented a comparatively low figure if our sailors had been de barred the use of the French and Spanish flags. There is indeed a refinement in this matter which VOL. I. d 34 NEAPOLITAN WAR-STEAMER. may look pretty and delicate enough to conquerors and captors, but which can scarcely offer any solace or be of the least consequence to the conquered and captured. You must not fire a gun under a false flag, but when you have decoyed a vessel and have brought her under your lee by the exhibition of that flag — when you have her at your mercy — you must haul down the false and hoist your true flag. I am told that in the hurry and skurry of the last war many a decoy French flag Avas left flying when our warning gun was fired. But the alleged breach of the rule by the Neapolitan, although it could scarcely justify the bombardment of a royal palace, might merit inquiry. The question of capture with in the waters of Corfu is a great deal more serious. If King Ferdinand's steamer did make prizes of the brigs within the distance of a league from that island, then it was an unfair capture, and an insult had been offered to England. But there Avere those who po sitively declared, and were ready to swear, that the Neapolitan steamer was not within that distance when she took the brigs and their live cargoes. Here inquiry was seriously called for. Sir William Parker, we were told, had gone to the Bay of Naples to make it, and to demand at the same time imme diate satisfaction for other alleged grievances. The unfairness lay in this : all the liberals and most of their EngHsh Whig sympathizers prejudged the case, and called for vengeance on the head of King Ferdinand without any examination whatever ; and it was notorious that the British admiral himself had NEAPOLITAN PATRIOTS. 35 gone away from Malta much irritated against that sovereign. Since the month of February there has scarcely been a sovereign prince in Europe that has not been bullied. In the majority of cases, however, these princes have been bullied only by their own subjects ; but it has been the fate of King Ferdinand to be browbeaten by foreign and ostensibly friendly poAvers as AveU as by his own people — it has been his fate to see those powers (England and France) take up the quarrel when he had prevailed at Naples against the men of the barricades, and when he was prevailing at Messina and all along that coast against the Sicilians. During our confinement in the lazzaretto I ob tained some amusing information from an excellent old friend, Avho has known Malta these last thirty years, and whose English feelings have not been spoiled by the atmosphere and the habits of the Medi terranean. There are a great many Neapolitans in the island, some being settled, and some mere visitors for business or for pohtics. It appears that the ma jority are Liberals, or pretend to be so. A short time ago they Avere all wearing revolutionary tri-coloured sashes, breastknots, hatbands, or cockades ; but when the news came that King Ferdinand had smashed the barricades at Naples they stowed these things away ; and not an inch of tri-colour had they sported since. So was it at Naples in 1821, (when intelligence came that William Pepe's carbonari army had run away from the Austrians at Rieti.) with sashes, ribbons, mustachios, and carbonari insignia and diplomas. d'2 36 A TAILOR PATRIOT. Alors les poils dtaient a bon marche' a Naples. Hu man bristles were cheap. I went to bed one night leaving all the city most martially, and constitution ally, and liberally whiskered and mustachioed ; when I awoke the next morning you could not have found in all Naples a whisker or mustachio for love or money. Our tailor, who had been a national guards man, a clubsman, a Carbonaro of the intensest heat and biggest mustachios, called for his bill — for the Austrians were coming, and he could not tell what else might happen. I did not know him, he was so clean shaved and altered. These Neapolitan liberals at Malta had been fraternizing with Sicilian patriots, who were in the island chiefly for revolutionary business; but dis agreements had arisen between them just as they would speedily arise at Naples, if the Sicilians were allowed to go thither and fraternize with the men of the movement party who had been applauding them for their very heroic resistance to tyranny, merely out of spite for their own dastardly defeat at the barricades on the 15th of May. They were as savagely hostile to the Neapolitan house of peers as to the sovereign. They had obtained an influence over some of the many ignorant, un scrupulous, libellous newspapers, which have sprung up in Malta since the Whig Government thought fit to extend to that island the full liberty of the press ; and through these papers King Ferdinand was constantly assailed, and every proceeding of his government scandalously misrepresented. Malta JESUITS. 37 had in fact been converted into a foyer of malice and sedition against our ally. Therefore was I not much surprised Avhen, recently, the King of Naples, taking advantage of a blunder committed by the Maltese Board of Health, imposed a long quarantine upon all vessels arriving in his dominions from that island. One forenoon a very dark and stern visaged Maltese entered into our prison-room without announcement or ceremony of any kind. It was one of the doctors or under-doctors ofthe lazzaretto. He asked us how we did. I replied that we Avere very Avell, but should not continue to be so if we were kept much longer in that oven. He looked at us for a few seconds, and then turned his back and went his way. The next morning, at a very early hour, another Maltese came and told us that our quarantine was over, and that we were at liberty to go into the town, or wherever else Ave chose. In five minutes we were in a boat, and in little more than ten Ave were comfortably quartered with our old friend at La Pieta. We very soon found that there were other foreigners here besides Sicilian patriots and Neapolitan liberals. In a miniature shape Malta was like England. Refugees of nearly all possible countries, parties, and sects had been driven hither. Twenty - eight of the Jesuits expelled from Naples, Rome, and other parts of Italy, by the recent revolutions, were all lodged together in a large low building between the walls of La Valletta and the suburban village of 38 FUGITIVE PRINCES. La Pieta; and constantly and numerously were they visited by other ItaHan refugees, and by the devouter or more bigoted portion of the Maltese gentry. We never passed that house without seeing a string of carriages drawn up opposite to the door. There Avere several noble and other ItaHan families who had been obliged to flee from their country on very short notice, and with very light supplies. There was a prince of royal blood — of the ancient blood of the Bourbons — the hereditary Prince of Parma and husband to the sister of the Duke of Bordeaux, who had arrived in the island a short time before us, as about the poorest and barest of all these refugees. He had not 15/. to pay for three months' rent of a small house, the owner of which Avould not let it to him without being paid in advance : he had scarcely a dollar, nor could he obtain, from any of the native Maltese, credit for a dollar's worth. These people are keen, suspicious, and hard in their dealings ; but they had suffered aforetime, and more than once, by giving credit to another prince of the Bourbon blood. This last was Don Carlo, Prince of Capua, and brother to the King of Naples, with whom he embroiled himself many years ago by marrying that fair Irish woman Miss Penelope Smith, and then by insisting that she should be treated in all respects by his brother and the court as a Princess Royal — a claim which no royal court in Europe would have ad mitted. The hereditary Prince of Parma quartered PRINCES OF PARMA AND CAPUA. 39 himself with his Royal Highness of Capua, Avho, truth to say, was very ill prepared to receive him. Don Carlo, and his spouse and children, occupied a large and a very fine house at Sliema, a little beyond La Pieta — a house built by my dear old friend J. R., and surrounded by a fair garden. There Avas abundance of room ; there Avas nothing to say against the house ; outside the city walls it was, and is, the best house in the island ; but, unfortu nately, the frequent executions and seizures of Don Carlo's Maltese creditors had left very little but bare Avails. To those who can enjoy the spectacle of elevated rank in sordid distress, or of princes struggling with pecuniary difficulties, Sliema would, at this moment, have presented a very interesting sight. Various attempts had been made to effect a reconciHation between the Prince and his brother the King, and it was said that these had failed through the dogged obstinacy of Don Carlo. I was assured afterwards, at Naples, by persons about the court, that the King had. offered to confer a title of nobihty upon the fair Irishwoman, and to treat her otherAvise with consideration ; but that further he Avould never go. While we were at the island the Prince's mother, who was also mother of the King, and who is since deceased, remitted a considerable sum of money for her son's use to the Neapolitan consul; and this functionary, like a true open- mouthed Neapolitan, went talking about the re mittance in the coffee-houses and the public squares ; and thereupon the quick Maltese creditors attached 40 A SICILIAN REVOLUTIONIST. the money in his hands, so that the Prince could not get a ducat of it. The hereditary Prince of Parma was somewhat more fortunate, for he ob tained some present supplies in Malta, and the English government had kindly offered him the use of one of its steamers, wherewith he AA'as to repair to Leghorn, there to take on board his wife, and thence to proceed to England, the refugium pec- catorum, and, happily, the refuge as well of those Avho have only misfortunes as of those who have political sins to answer for. His wife, being enceinte, had not been able to accompany him in his flight ; and at this moment there was not a place in all Italy where he could land or safely set his foot. Terrible tales were told of his dissipation, de bauchery, extravagance ; but these tales were told by liberals. With the single exception of getting into an altercation with one of Don Carlo's most flinty creditors in the streets of Valletta, he did nothing during his residence at Malta to commit himself, or give a hold to scandal. A feAv mornings after the departure of the Nea politan war-steamer there was a fresh arrival of Sicilians. One of these men must have made his fortune if he had come out, in one of our London theatres, in the brigand or conspirator line of business. Let O. Smith ruddle or blacken his face as he will, he will never get up such a countenance as this felloAV had by nature. He was a very John of Procida, only modernized and vulgarized. To believe him, a massacre worse than that of the A SICILIAN REVOLUTIONIST. 41 Sicilian Vespers Avas now in course of perpetration. " When we patriots," said he, " suspect any man of being friendly to the Neapolitans, or a creature and spy of the tyrant, we shoot him or stab him. We have despatched a great many at Palermo and Messina. We will kill them all, all ! And we will kill our AviA'es and our children, and ourselves, rather than submit again to King Ferdinand, or be united to the NeapoHtan !" These Avords. and others more atrocious, with curses, oaths, and imprecations, which made one shudder, were uttered in the public piazza, close by the Governor's palace. In decency this ruffian ought to have been silenced by the Maltese police. A knot of Sicilians and Maltese applauded his patriotic sentiments. 42 PRINCE OF PARMA— CARLIST COLONEL. CHAPTER III. A French Steamer — Prince of Parma — A Carlist Colonel — Henri de Bourbon — An Armenian Drogoman — Italian Liberals — A Sicilian — Arrive at Messina — General Pronio — Revolu tionary aspect — Newspaper falsehoods — The Arsenal — Pla cards — Patriots and Pickpockets. We embarked at Malta, in a French government steamer, for Messina and Naples. On. going on board we found the fugitive son and heir of the Duke of Parma, with a Spanish Carlist Colonel who was going to seek his Highness's wife (sister of the Duke of Bordeaux), and to bring her down to Leghorn or Genoa. This specimen of the Bourbon race differs widely from all that I have seen of that family, being very tall and very slim, and having an open and merry countenance. He had the ap pearance of a light-hearted, light-headed, careless young man ; but as we looked at him we could not believe a tithe of the very bad stories which are current against him. Besides, I knew of old how unscrupulously and fearfully Italian political hatred exaggerates the defects of its opponents, never ceas ing the work of denigration until it has converted them into monsters of vice. The young duke walked the deck, conversing eagerly, and by no means sotto voce, with the Spanish Carlist, speaking frequently of his wife, and of his infant, which had HENRI DE BOURBON. 43 been born in Tuscany since his flight, and sending salutations and kind messages to friends whom he had left behind at Lucca and other places. There was some imprudence in this, for we had Italian patriots on board, whose quick ears might have caught the names of these friends, aud whose malice would scarcely have failed to denounce them to the political clubs. When our anchor was up the Du- chino embraced the Spanish colonel and left the vessel. The colonel proved a very gentlemanly person and pleasant companion. His political views ran into extremes; his love of legitimacy was an absolute passion ; but he had fought long, and it Avas said bravely, for the cause he preferred, and he bore about him marks of that warfare. He was a man thoroughly in earnest; there was nothing of sham in him. Such a person is always interesting. The only end he could see to all these revolutions on the continent of Europe was the re-establishment of legitimacy. In France, after some months, or it might be years, of anarchy, they Avould place the Duke of Bordeaux on the throne ; and in Spain they would assuredly recall Don Carlos and make him king. He was so confident, and so happy in this conviction, that I could not find it in my heart to dispute it. He bitterly complained that, in all these insurrections, barricade-makings, revolutions, the people of Europe did nothing but servilely copy the Parisian fashions ; yet he seemed to consider — and without anger or shame — that the legitimist counter-revolution in Spain must be a consequence 44 ARMENIAN DROGOMAN. and a dependency on the counter-revolution in France. He Avas greatly delighted with a legitimist anagram which had been found in some house at Paris, in the course of one of those domiciliary visits which have proved to the Avorld how much liberty and security are enjoyed under the present French Republic. The anagram Avas simply this — " Henri de Bourbon, Roi de Bonheur ! " " If," said the Colonel, " this only takes, it may make another Revolution and lead to an earlier restoration than the best of us hoped for." We EngHsh rather predominated; but we had for our fellow-passengers people from nearly all the countries on the Mediterranean — Maltese, Greeks from the kingdom of Otho, Greeks from the domi nions of the Sultan, Greeks from the Ionian Islands, Armenians from Constantinople and Smyrna, Jews from the Barbary Coast, Tuscans, Romans, Ge noese, Sicilians, and Mussulmans from Egypt. The last-named party was composed of two Mollahs — proud, austere, green-turbaned men (who Avere going to Florence to get cured of some diseases), of their Egyptian servants, and a greasy pert Arme nian, who murdered the French and Italian lan guages and acted as drogoman. The Mollahs and their servants soon disappeared from view, for they greAv sea-sick, took to their berths in the second cabin, and never quitted them until Ave reached Messina ; but their insufferable drogoman Avas con stantly in sight, running about the deck, fore and ITALIAN LIBERALS. 45 aft, and intruding himself and his vulgarity and ignorance upon every one on board. Against all rule he wore the uniform of a Turkish officer of the regular reformed army, with a long sword by his side — Avhich Avould have been beaten about his thick head and long ears if he, a Christian dog, a dirty Er- meeni, had presumed to wear it anywhere in Turkey. The long sword and the drogoman were, however, inseparable here. I could never look across or along the deck without seeing this long sword — I believe the fellow must have slept Avith it girded to his loins. Of course he Avas the only man on board that did Avear a sword. The French officers were an noyed at the constant apparition of the Aveapon, and at last the captain told the Armenian that he must not come aft, on the quarter-deck, that he was a second class passenger, and must keep fonvard. This gave us some shght relief; but it did not check the drogoman's swagger and impudence. He kept flitting between the funnel and the bows, rattling his sword, and talking to every one, whe ther he was heard or not. Impudence and strut I had seen before in many an Armenian ; but I never saw so much vivacity or such a lively impertinence in any of that race. /"Our Italians were all patriots, liberals, revolutionists, or, for the nonce, pretended to be so. Yet they disputed, wrangled, and quar relled among themselves. Every one of them seemed to have a plan of his own for the regeneration and union of Italy, and to fall into a paroxysm of rage because his interlocutors could not see its infalli- 46 A SICILIAN REVOLUTIONIST. bility, and submit their judgments to his. As they grew warm, the Tuscan insulted the man of Genoa for being a Genoese, and the Genoese reproached the man of Tuscany for being a Tuscan. There Avas nothing new in this. Ever since the French Revolution of February I had been hearing the same things among the united ItaHan colony at Con stantinople. But by far the most violent man we had on board was a Sicilian who had fought in the Messinese revolution. He boasted that he had killed seven Neapolitans with his own hand ; and he was very decidedly of opinion that no Neapolitan ought to be let live. He had plans, of his own in vention, for bloAving whole columns into the* air should the King of Naples attempt to recapture Messina. "But," said he, "the cowardly tyrant will make no such attempt ! He knows that one armed Sicilian citizen is worth ten Neapolitan sol diers ! And then, has not the French Republic pro mised solemnly to protect us and all people who rise against tyrants ? And have we not Lord Minto and our oldfriends the English ?" Through all this man's vapouring and boasting, and his assumed reliance " In native steel and native ranks," I thought I could discover that he was mainly, if not entirely, sustained by the hope of foreign aid and intervention. Nor could I be surprised that it should be so with him and with the whole body of his countrymen when I came to see how badly they were provided with the means of sustaining a de fensive Avarfare. ARRIVE AT MESSINA. 47 The French, as Avell men as officers, were cour teous and well behaved. There was no boasting, no disputing, either among themselves or with us Eng lish. But I noticed here, as I had done elsewhere, that there Avas not a man among them that seemed to have any belief in their Republic or in its dura tion. Some of them plainly but cautiously lamented the Revolution of February, and, without any re serve, rejoiced at the bloody defeat of the Red Re publicans in June. But the generality of them spoke as if they considered the Republic as a melan choly and unexpected accident, the effects of which must be patiently borne for a season. It was on a brilliant morning in A ugust that we entered the Straits of Messina, which I never before saw look so beautiful. The passage of the Darda nelles is monotonous and tame compared to this. The mountains of Calabria and Sicily were smiling upon each other, but fierce hostile bands were arrayed at their feet. The King of Naples was collecting an armament at Reggio for the invasion of the island, and armed Sicilians covered the heights behind Messina, and loosely occupied the sea-coast as far as the tower of the Faro and the whirlpools of Cha- rybdis. During the last great Avar an English army held the ground now occupied by the Sicilian insurgents, and Murat was at Reggio and a French and Neapolitan army encamped on the heights be hind; but the hatred between the belligerents at that period was love and fraternity compared with the passions which now reigned on cither side the 48 LAW OF NATIONS VIOLATED. straits. As we approached the citadel of Messina we saw troops of the King of Naples on some of the bastions. A Neapolitan war-steamer was cruising up and down the straits, to keep open the communi cation between Reggio and the citadel of Messina, to supply the Neapolitan garrison with food, and to overhaul any Sicilian craft that might appear in those Avaters. The King of Naples had not been allowed by France and England to declare or main tain a blockade at Messina, Palermo, or any other point of Sicily. He had been deprived of one of the rights of war by those who had all along encou raged the revolt of his Sicilian subjects. A French frigate and an English war- steamer lay right in the port of Messina. The Neapolitan steamer in the straits did not dare to challenge our French steamer — we had rebels to the King of Naples on board of us, men who had been leaders in the revolt, men who had been occupied for weeks and some of them for months, in the island of Malta, in procuring the means wherewith to continue the contest — men who had threatened to murder if not to eat every Neapo litan they met Avith ; yet Avere we allowed to glide past the king's ship without a word said or a signal exchanged, to come to anchor to the leeward of the French frigate, to communicate at once with the shore, and to land whomsoever or whatsoever we might think fit. Our French captain confessed that he had never known such rents made in the law of nations as by his flag and ours in these Sicilian affairs : and that he had never seen a war carried on GENERAL PRONIO. 49 like the present. The king's general, Pronio, had from two thousand to three thousand men in the citadel, Avhich perfectly sweeps the port and com mands the toAvn. He was well supplied with guns and mortars, shot and shell, and Avith all the means of attack and annoyance. So short is the distance between the citadel and the town that in three hours of active bombardment he might have de stroyed half of the houses, burying the Messinese in the ruins or driving them out of the city. He Avas generally reported to be the very man for such an enterprise. Pronio comes of a family that have shown a very energetic loyalty in former days, and his name ought to be remembered with dread by some men yet living in France. He is nephew to the famous Abbate Pronio, who co-operated with Cardinal Ruffo in the counter-revolutionary war of 1799, and who hung with fatal effect on the rear of the retreating army of French republicans. French historians and Italian writers of their school of poli tics have always represented old Pronio as a brigand ; but, Hke the warlike cardinal, he Avas only a priest turned soldier for the time, and he acted with the conviction that he was fighting for his king and church against foreign invaders and internal anar chists. He made war somewhat ferociously, but the men he led were fierce mountaineers, without gentle nurture, and when they had the upper hand the French and their allies the Neapolitans of the republican party had not set an example of mercy and moderation. The nephew is said to resemble vol. i. e 50 GENERAL PRONIO. the uncle in vigour and decision. He would gladly have opened a fire upon the town, but he was re strained by the most positive orders from King Ferdinand. I know from the best authority that these orders were reiterated, and that the king was kept in a state of great uneasiness by apprehensions that Pronio's zeal might lead him to transgress them, or that his temper, constantly tried by the insults, taunts, and bravadoes of the Messinese, might carry him away at least to some hot and destructive cannonade. But nothing of the sort had happened. General Pronio had contented himself with throwing a shot or a shell or two when the Sicilians fired at the citadel from the miserable forts behind the town. We were told that salutes and compliments of this kind had been interchanged the day before our arrival, but that no harm had been done on either side. Months before, I had read at Constantinople, in French, ItaHan, and EngHsh newspapers — and at first with belief and horror — that the King's troops in the citadel had bombarded the town in the most persevering and relentless manner, and that two-thirds at least of Messina were reduced to unsightly heaps of ruins. Descend ing the Levant, and drawing nearer and nearer to the scene of action, this frightful rumour, unlike real and material objects, became smaller and smaller. But still even at Malta it was reported that Pronio had done great mischief with his bombs and balls. Now neither by the naked eye nor by the aid of a good telescope could I discover any APPEARANCE OF MESSINA. 51 signs of this destruction. There, before us, stood the fair city of Messina, far fairer and far larger than when I last looked upon it in the summer of 1827. Look where I would, along the Marina, or to the suburbs towards the Faro point, or to the suburbs which stretch beautifully along the road leading to Giardini, Taormina, Siracusa, and Catania, I saw striking evidences of enlargement and improve ment ; but nowhere could I discover anything like traces of a bombardment or serious cannonade. The long row of palace-looking houses on the Marina, far within point-blank range of the guns of the citadel, were all erect, all intact, shining brightly out in the morning sun, and exhibiting more clean liness and elegance than in 1827. We landed. Still not the slightest sign of bom- . bardment, not the weakest trace of the havoc of war. O fabulous journalists ! mendacious news paper correspondents ! It was not until we came to a place of arms, near the harbour, Fort Reale, that we saAv any evidence of a conflict. This fort was breached in two places and the gaps were yet open and ragged ; but these breaches had been made by the Messinese themselves, Avho had stormed the fort and driven out a weak garrison of somewhat less than 200 men. When the Sicilians first got pos session of this Avork the citadel fired a few shots at it, but this artillery practice had merely dented a few stones on the seaward face of the fort. The Messinese had never garrisoned the work, nor done anything to repair the breaches, though, in case of e2 52 MESSINESE NATIONAL GUARD. an attack by the Neapolitans upon the city, this would have been a highly important position and defence. I hinted as much to a master tailor who was figuring as a captain of the National Guard ; but he sneered at the suggestion, being persuaded that the French and English fleets would not allow the King to make an attack. We Avalked all over the city. At nearly every step I saw evidence of im provement ; most of the houses Avere neatly stuccoed, several of the streets had been widened, various nuisances, with Avhich I had been familiar, were entirely removed — it was a different town from that which I had known. But never before had I beheld a place presenting such a strange, wild, and thoroughly revolutionized aspect ! The names of the streets were changed : there was " Victory Street," " Liberty Street," " Strada Carlo Alberto," &c. ; and Ferdinand Street had been turned into "Strada Pio Nono." Every fellow we met was armed and wore some kind of uniform, though not one among them was well armed or well dressed, or carried his weapons like a soldier, or moved Hke a man that had been drilled. There were tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, barbers — all the artizans of Messina, and all the rabble Avho had no art at all, but had hitherto lived by that precarious resource which is called in London " chancing it." Of the rural population of the villages in the immediate neigh bourhood, from the hills behind Messina and the shores of the Straits, we saAv scarcely one that was thus armed and attired ; and I Avas assured that this MESSINESE NATIONAL GUARD. 53 class of men had all along shown a distaste for the service, and a total indifference to the exciting harangues and appeals of the poHtical clubs. Those Avho were the best equipped of these National Guards wore a blouse of a coarse blue cotton stuff manufactured in the island, loose pantaloons of the same material, and a cloth cap with a broad scarlet band. But all manner of shakos and military caps met our sight, in shop windows, on stalls and on the heads of men, boys, and Httle children. There were caps enough to stock with fashions the fancy-cap Avarehouse of the world — caps of all cuts, colours, and shapes. I thought that Sicilian revolutionism must surely have developed a wonderful deal of genius for cap-making ; but I afterwards found that many of these fashions had been imported from the continent, and that ever since the beginning of these revolutions the^ genius of Neapolitans, Romans, Tuscans, and Lombards had been running in the same direction. Hippocrates ought to come to life again were it only to write a chapter upon caps as a pendant to that chapter upon hats which Moliere has quoted. There was not a company of regular troops, there was not a disciplined soldier, there was not an artilleryman, there was scarcely a military officer of any training or experience among all this armed host. The officers of the civic or National Guard were all burghers, and for the most part tradesmen. Some lawyers held the highest posts, but I saw very few gentlemen or members of the Messinese nobility. We saw them relieve the grand 54 VAPOURING MESSINESE PATRIOTS. guard, and a very curious and unmilitary sight it was. One of my companions ventured to hint that a Httle more drill and discipline, a few good artil lerymen, and a few experienced officers would be very necessary ; but Sicilian pride and self-delusion took offence at the remark. They had beaten the troops of the tyrant when they were still worse armed and less trained than now ; they would beat them again if they came upon them as ten to one ; but England and France would not let them come. These men boasted that, if they had not driven the Neapolitans out of the citadel, it was only through forbearance and deference to the French and English, who wished hostilities to remain suspended in order that they might negociate and bring the tyrant to reason. But for these reasons they would storm the citadel to-morrow. This was said at a moment when they had neither guns to breach that very strong place, nor bombs to throw into it, neither engineer officers to direct operations, nor gunners to work properly such guns as they had. With much more reason General Pronio might have said — as indeed he did say — that with the King's leave, and the free use of his means of offence, he would retake Messina to-morrow. I have lived much among boasting, braggadocio nations or peoples, but I never heard such vapouring as among these unwashed Messinese patriots. We walked over nearly the whole of the city : everywhere the same armed and turbulent mobs. We could scarcely see a man working at his trade, or pursuing any peaceful occu- THE " NATIONAL ARSENAL." 55 pation. If the felloAvs had been drilling, or even learning the goose-step, it would have been some thing, but they were engaged in nothing but talk — loud talk, vehement disputations, and with such violent contortions of countenance and such ges ticulations as can be made only by Sicilians, Neapolitans, and Greeks. Beggars of the toAvn, and famishing peasants from the mountains — men and women, old and young, squalling infants, the lame, the halt and the bHnd, and the representatives of nearly all other human calamities— were swelling the horrible discord. In the main street the noise Avas astounding. It was a scene of Dante's Hell. " Diverse lingue, orribili favelle, Parole di dolore, accenti d' ira, Voci alte e fiocche, e suon di man con elle." * We went to a place which they called their national arsenal. Tavo or three dozen blacksmiths, carpenters, and other artizans were working in the courtyards and stables of a large deserted house, furbishing up old muskets and old swords, mending crazy gun-locks, making gun-stocks, forging pike- heads, patching up small gun-carriages and the like. The artillery collected in this arsenal consisted of about a dozen old iron guns, sadly rusted, and for the most part small ship guns on low wooden car riages taken out of merchant vessels. They showed us the " Hero gun," they say the first and only gun they had to point against the Neapolitans Avhen the * Dante, Inferno, Canto III. 56 HOTEL DE VILLE. war began. A very diminutive gun it was ! scarcely bigger than Uncle Toby's wooden guns. They hugged and kissed it. Not to give direct offence we stooped down and put our hands upon the breech as the patriots did, but I cannot say that I partook in their enthusiasm, or believed in their story that with this mere patterero they had breached Fort Reale and slain hundreds of Neapolitans. From the arsenal we Avent to the Hotel de Ville, where a council of war, a committee of public security, and I know not how many other com mittees were assembled. The magnificent staircase, the spacious galleries and halls, were all crowded. I was much struck with the great number of priests and Avomen. All were talking at the top of their voices, and all Avere, or seemed to be, in a fury of passion. There was no order or attempt to main tain order : here was a counterpart of the French Jacobin Club or Cordelier Club of 1792. Stacks of pikes, dirty flags and banners suspended from some of the ceilings, and printed manifestos and pro clamations to the sovereign people, completed the illusion or resemblance. But in the midst of all this noise and frantic enthusiasm we could now and then hear feeble, misgiving voices, and muttered complaints that there was no money ! In the prin cipal streets all the door-posts and nearly all the lower part of, every house, church,. or convent were covered Avith placards, some printed and some manuscript, and almost every one extreme and vio lent in its language. I read some scores of them, THE " DIVINE PEOPLE." 57 shuddering as I read. I had fancied that the French Republicans had carried the flattery of the mob or the heroes of the barricades to its utmost limits; but I found that they were exceeded by the demagogues of Messina, and leaders of this Sicilian revolution, who out-Herod Herod, and out- Frenchify the French. Not satisfied with calling the Messinese a " people of heroes," an " invincible people," one of these placards called them a " Divine people " — Popolo divino. This placard was wet from the press, and such of the mob as could read were perusing it with avidity and infinite self-com placency. But some of these papers were written in a less confident tone, betraying doubts, mis givings, and dark suspicions, all calculated to excite in other men's minds the perilous passion of sus picion — that passion and rage to which the Sicilians, like aU these people of the south, are so naturally or habitually inclined. One fellow, who gave a fictitious and classical name, called upon the sove reign people to keep their eyes open, to be watchful by night and by day, as it was a well-known fact that there were many spies and partizans of the tyrant in the city. Another intimated that the rich were not making sacrifices enough for the cause of liberty and independence. One opined that the revolution was not going fast enough ; that the par liament sitting at Palermo, being far too aristo- cratical, was doing nothing, and ought to be unseated; that the son of Charles Albert would not accept the Sicilian crown which was offered 58 MESSINESE DEMAGOGUES. him, and that another form of government ought to be thought of. A very Trinculo of a demagogue proclaimed that the sovereign people, being sove reign and divine, ought to govern themselves by themselves without either king or parliament ; that the Sicilians did not yet sufficiently understand the signification of the words democracy, liberty, equality, and fraternity. Another Messinese in formed the divine people that he must to his great grief decline accepting a governmental place to Avhich he had been elected by a large majority of votes, since he had incurred, without meriting it, the suspicions — i sospetti — of some of his fellow citizens. Another patriot, who Avas evidently in a great fright, solemnly denied that he was a spy, or that he, or his father, or his brother, or his mother, or his sister had ever acted in that capacity. Another patriot proposed a new " conquer or die " oath, as necessary to be taken by the whole Sicilian nation, with instant death to those who would not take it. They Avere constantly changing the mem bers of their local government : no sooner was a man in office than he excited envy and saw a faction formed against him — " La tua cittk e piena D' invidia si, che gik trabocca il sacco."* The English and other merchants had nearly all withdraAvn into the country, or had quitted the island. Of the better class of the Sicilian gentry * Dante, Inferno, Canto VI. UNFIT FOR FREE INSTITUTIONS. 59 and nobility, like the amiable and Avell-educated family of the Duke of San Giovanni, who had been accustomed in former times to make Messina their occasional residence, I could see or hear nothing. In Palermo it is different, but here, among all the leaders and rulers, I could not discover one high or known name ; and unless an end be put to the present state of things, the princes and dukes, the counts and barons of Palermo will assuredly be ousted first, and despoiled and butchered after wards. They are suspected already ; and a man had better Hve with a halter round his neck than under popular suspicion in this revolutionized Sicily. From information I collected on the spot, I was led to believe that my Messinese orator at Malta had not much exaggerated when he said that all those suspected of beiug friends of King Ferdinand Avere assassinated : gun and pistol, dagger and knife, had been actively at work not only in the streets of Messina, but in the neighbouring towns and viUages ; and old grudges and feuds, and private vengeances — vendette — had been gratified under the mask of nationaHty and patriotism. O that word vendetta ! so long as it rings as it has done for ages and still does throughout this island, as in Calabria, and Sardinia, and Corsica, and so long as the sentiment it expresses burns in the hearts of these people, they must be unfit for self-government and free institutions. One might as well give a constitution to a herd of tigers. Among the many sights which grieved me at 60 BRITISH OFFICERS FRATERNIZE Messina, feAv grieved me more than this — to see officers of the British navy hand and glove Avith officers of this civic or national guard, and Avith leaders of the revolutionary rabble, walking with them in the streets, sitting with them in the coffee houses, and (at least in outward show) fraternizing with them. But this is but a consequence of Lord Minto's mission, and Admiral Sir William Parker's partiality : here, and afterwards at Naples and at Rome, I received the fullest confirmation, and from the best of all authorities, of the fact that an English ship of war stationed at Palermo was the first to salute the revolutionary flag of Sicily, when hoisted to denote that the Sicilian parliament had set aside their lawful sovereign and our ally, King Ferdinand of Naples, and had elected the Duke of Genoa, second son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia. This British ship was the war-steamer "Bulldog," Commander Ashley Cooper Key, which had pre viously carried LordMinto and his somewhat nume rous family and suite to and from various ports of the Mediterranean. Such was the " indecent haste "* of Commander Key that he began to fire his salute before the Sicilians had finished theirs. The motive alleged for this haste was the anxious Avish that the English should salute the flag of rebellion before the French, for a ship of the Grande Republique was lying at Palermo, and was quite sure to pay the * This expression is not mine. It was used, in the heat of the moment, by a dear old friend, who has been established some thirty years at Naples. WITH MESSINESE REVOLUTIONISTS. 61 compliment to the emblem of Revolution. Had the French saluted first, they might have appeared more ardent in their Sicilian sympathies than the English; and so, forsooth! we must exhibit a dis graceful hurry and commit a military solecism ! In this manner have Ave been running a race with the French for the favour of insane insurrectionists and unprincipled anarchists half over Europe. Some people on shore at Palermo, knowing that Com mander Key Avas but a young officer, half surmised that he acted on his own discretion, or indiscretion ; that he had been carried away by his own private partialities : but the next day Sir William Parker came to Palermo with his entire squadron and saluted the same flag. This could leave little doubt that Commander Key had express orders for Avhat he had done ; but he may have carried the more zeal to the execution of these orders from his having previously had Lord Minto and his family so much on board with him. Here, at Messina, as at Palermo, a man-of-war under the Royal Standard of England was the first to salute the revolutionary flag, leaving a ship of the French democratic Republic to follow and imitate her performance. We were told by some confident patriots that they had big guns and good ones in the forts on the hills behind the town. We did not ascend to these works, nor do I think that we should have been allowed to do so ; but it was a Messinese who told us that everything was in confusion there, and that these guns, being so misdirected, had done nearly 62 PARTIES IN THE ISLAND. as much mischief to the town as the fire of the Neapolitans from the citadel : nor did we visit that part of the city which lies about and behind the Porto Franco. The people in the citadel were now and then throwing a shot or two in that direction when a gathering of Sicilians took place. I had reason to believe that there some mischief had really been done by the Neapolitans, as that is a point from which the citadel or its sentries might be seriously annoyed. The Porto Franco itself had not wholly escaped, and bonded merchandise had been destroyed in it, but to a small amount. The patriots and their Provisional Government had blazoned to the world that the Sicilians Avere unanimous. Not to speak of sub-divisions and minor factions, there were just three parties in the island : 1 . Red Republicans with Communist notions strongly developed; 2. The Elective Monarchy Men, or those who adhere to the Provisional Government and Parliament, and desire the advent of Charles Albert's son; 3. The friends of King Ferdinand, including all those who dread democratic Re publicanism and Communism or Socialism. The two first are violent and hot up to red-hot iron heat ; but, as yet, the RepubHcans are numerically weak ; the last party is, just now, borne down,- timid and silent, submissive to a reign of terror, but it is known to be numerous, it bides its time, and when that time comes it will join the King's troops and make sanguinary reprisals for' the murders com mitted on its members, and for all that it has PARTIES IN THE ISLAND. 63 suffered these last nine months. In no party is there any moderation, any coolness of blood or collected- ness of head. The peasantry, with the exception of such portions as had caught a vague notion of the new-old philosophy of Proudhon, Cabet, and Louis Blanc, were said to be in most parts of the island indifferent to the struggle for independence, and sadly bewildered to understand what difference it Avould make to them whether a Prince of the house of Savoy or the Bourbon Ferdinand should be King of Sicily. My informants classed with the peasantry all the coloni or small farmers. The Neapolitan Government and the friends of King Ferdinand complain, and certainly had complained long before this unhappy revolution, that their efforts to im prove the island and the condition of the people had been constantly thwarted by the Sicilian nobility, clergy, and monastic bodies — that the obstacle to progress exists, and existed, in the Sicilians them selves — that it was the fault of the Sicilians that the island had not, at the least, kept pace with the Calabrias. The fault of this time, and of all times, has been to throw the onus exclusively on those who govern. Here, as everywhere else, the blame ought to be divided — and it ought, moreover, to be recollected that peoples make governments, and not governments peoples. When I first knew Sicily, and travelled in the interior, I could have repeated the words of Coleridge, and have said that it was impossible to conceive a Hinder government or a more fooHsh people. Some administrative improve- 64 PARTIES IN THE ISLAND. ments have been effected since 1816; but there remains much with which the Neapolitan Govern ment may, perhaps, be reproached, justly and ex clusively. But I did not meet at Messina or any where else among the Sicilian revolutionists one man who could give a distinct idea of any serious political or governmental grievance. Their cuckoo note — cuckoo in its monotony, but an eagle's scream in its pitch — was, that they hated and abhorred the Neapolitans, and that the Neapolitans hated and abhorred them-^that it was disgraceful for Sicilians to be governed by, or united with base, oppressive, tyrannous Neapolitans — that there was an ancient, natural, irremovable antipathy between the two races. The idea was inevitable. In listening to these ravings I at times thought that I was hearing an Irish orator in fuU peroration about the English. To more than one of these inflammatory Sicilians I spoke in this way : — " But you claim to belong to the Italian family, and so do the Neapolitans : the mixed race of either of you is composed of very nearly the same elements ; you both speak dialects of the same language, and neither in language nor habits, neither in character nor in appearance do you differ, except in the slightest degree, from your nearest neighbours the Calabrians, who form so considerable a part of the Neapolitan kingdom. You say that the one idea, which is revolutionizing and convulsing all Italy, which you cherish yourselves, and Avhich Pope Pius IX. has sanctioned and sanctified, is the union of all Italy, the fraternization of all Italians THE HARBOUR DESERTED. 65 from the foot of the Alps to the most southern angle of your island, and yet here you are declaring your selves the irreconcileable foes of those Italians who are your nearest neighbours and oldest associates. In separating from Naples you make a new disunion, a new rent in what was already too much divided." On passing the corner of a street Ave saAv a man sticking up a manuscript placard which gave the positive and solemn assurance that the King of Sardinia had accepted for his son the crown offered by the SiciHan deputies who had been sent by the Provisional Government from Palermo into Pied mont, and that the Duke of Genoa would arrive in Sicily Avithin a fortnight to be crowned King as Albert Felix I. In all probability he who penned these lying paragraphs knew them to be lies ; but it was evidently considered necessary by him and by others to do something from time to time in order to keep up the flagging spirits of the Popolo divino. Everybody knows how beautiful and com modious is the sickle-shaped harbour of Messina. It is one of the finest ports in the Mediterranean. When I last quitted it, in the summer of 1827, it Avas crowded with merchant vessels of every flag. I had never seen it otherwise. Now, though the city remains, and increased and beautified, Avhere is all this shipping ? Except the French frigate and the English man-of-war steamer there was not, at the time of my visit, one foreign vessel at Messina. A few small, miserable Sicilian craft were drawn up on the beach beyond the quays of the port, not VOL. I. F 66 PATRIOTIC PICKPOCKETS. being able to put to sea for fear of the Neapolitan steamer in the Straits and the flotilla which King Ferdinand had in the waters of Calabria and Sicily. So badly provided were these insurgents that they had scarcely the embryo of the smallest navy. The dependence of this city was on its trade, and trade there was none. Poverty and starvation were staring the Messinese in the face; nor did it fare much better with the inhabitants of the rest of the island. In one little art the Messinese patriots seemed to have made some progress. 'During these perambu lations (which did not occupy three hours) we were three in company, and two of us had our pockets picked. ITALIAN VOLCANOS. 67 CHAPTER IV. Naples — The English Fleet — City Improvements — Lazzaroni — Corriboli — Palazzo Gravina — Theatre of San Carlo — The Neapolitan Parliament — The King's Swiss Troops — New Schools for the Poor — Popular Superstition. The Italian volcanos were quiet. The eruptions were aU political ; there was no scorching lava except the lava-torrent of revolutionism. We left Mount Etna behind us without so much as a Avreath of smoke on its head. Stromboliwas equally tranquil, and so was Vesuvius. The sea too was as calm as a deep-lying mountain tarn. We approached Strom- boli towards sunset, seeing beyond it, away to our left, the Lipari islands steeped in wonderful colour ing, and grouped in the most exquisite manner. As we glided past Stromboli the young moon rose, poising herself over the peak of the crater, like a crescent over the dome of a Turkish mosque. Not a flame, not a spark, not a streak of smoke rose from that cone. I had passed Stromboli rather frequently before, and had never before seen it in this quiescent state. Upon going on deck the next morning, I found we were gliding across the glorious Gulf of Salerno. Behind us was Cape Palinurus and its Virgilian story ; to our right were the temples of Psestum; and, as we proceeded, the fair city of Salerno showed herself, and the antiquated walls of f2 68 BAY OF NAPLES— ENGLISH FLEET. Amalfi, and convents and hermitages built on the loftiest steeps, with the chapel of Mount St. Angelo presiding over all. Soon we were abreast of the Syren rocks, and I could clearly see my old haunts on the ridges of the hills above the Conti and the town and plain of Sorrento. " Sento 1' aura antica ed i dolci colli Veggio apparir." * Standing through the narrow strait which separates Caprsea from thp main and turning the promontory of Minerva, Ave came into the Bay of Naples and into full view of that first of all panoramas. The preference I felt twenty years ago was still stronger now. There is nothing in Europe equal to this bay. In that corner of the bay which lies between Mount St. Angelo and Mount Vesuvius, we saw the English fleet at anchor — seven sail of the line, frigates, steam-ships, and smaller craft. It was a proud sight, and the meteor flag floated proudly on the summer breeze ; but that flag, in my apprehen sion, had recently been displayed in a mean, ignoble manner, and that gallant fleet had been made to play the part of a bully. Before landing at Naples I could discover many tokens of increase and im provement. On setting foot on shore some notice able improvement — some neAV building, or some old building restored and beautified, some widened pathway, something to promote the comfort and * Petrarca. IMPROVEMENTS IN NAPLES. 69 convenience of the people — met me at nearly every step I took. The quays Avhich run along the port had been converted from their narroAv, dirty, foul- smelling state into a condition of admirable neatness and cleanliness ; there was a fine long range of iron railing Avhere none existed before, and the issue towards the mole and the broad street of Castello Nuovo had been much enlarged and admirably paved. I compared what 1 saw with what I had seen and known so many years before, and a hundred things struck me which scarcely excited the notice of those Avho had been constantly living in Naples and had seen the improvements operated bit by bit. And to my eyes the condition of the people seemed as much improved as the town itself — albeit they were not half so talkative, facetious and merry as aforetime. All that Ave met, even in the lower part of the town, were clean-shirted and well-dressed : even the priests (who were far more numerous than 1 should have desired) had glossy beavers and broad brims : of the shoeless, stockingless, jacketless, shirt less vagabonds of other days, I scarcely saw a speci men. There were no poor in tatters — without having quite so much need of being well clad, the poor of Naples seemed to be as Avell-dressed as our poor or our labourers in England. There Avas far more order, silence, and regularity than ever I had seen before, or had hoped to see, in this most noisy and bustling of cities. In fact Naples has lost nearly every original or striking point which formerly distinguished it, and it now looks very much like 70 LAZZARONI— CORRIBOLI. any other European city — civilized, regularized, and somewhat dull. I could have dispensed with some , of this order and mechanical civilization, if I could have had some of the old life and brio, and fuu. But we nmst take what we can get. Soberer and more prosaic, and far less amusing it is ; but it is now nonsensical to talk and write, as people and journalists do, of Naples as being the city of laz zaroni, and the same sort of place it was when Du Paty, Kotzebue, and the De Stael wrote about it. Properly speaking, there are no lazzaroni now. Another thing which struck me at the first glance, and which recurred to me every day that I spent , there, was that there were no more corriboli or hack- gigs. The lazzaroni were fast disappearmg, and had in a manner ceased to exist before 1827 ; but of the dashing, hard-going corriboli, and their noisy, screaming drivers, I had left an abundant supply in the maccaroni-eating capital. They were as numerous and as rapid as when Alfieri sung of them.* But now they are all vanished ! Not one of them is permitted to ply. Their place is supplied by four-wheeled vehicles, draAvn by one horse and having a leather head, which may be drawn over the hinder seat as a shelter from sun or rain. The government and the police interfered and put down the corriboli, as being perilous to life or limb. No doubt the four-wheelers are a good deal safer ; but they are comparatively dull and unexciting machines, * See ' I PALAZZO GRAVINA. 71 and they bear a name which is dissonant to the ear since the abuse made of it in these days of revolu tionism and democratic republicanism. They call them citizens — cittadini. In losing her rapid, smart- painted corriboli, Naples has lost one of her most characteristic features. Nor, Avith good luck, was that curriculum so very perilous. The neAvspapers had given terrific accounts of the mischief inflicted by the fire of the King's artillery at the barricade fight in the month of May. We had read that the best part of Naples was riddled, that the principal street, Strada Toledo, had suffered nearly as much as the bombarded Messina. After a long walk, and a longer drive, we could see nothing of this devastation; and it was not until two or three days after our arrival that we dis covered that one large house or palace, Palazzo Gravina, had suffered the destruction of its roof and upper story. This was the only evidence we saw of war or conflict. The damages in the houses in the Toledo or in the street of Santa Brigida, the chief scenes of the action, had never gone much beyond the knocking in of a few doors and window frames, a smashing of panes of glass, and a dinting of the waUs by musket shot. Carpenters, glaziers, and plasterers had set all this to rights in a very few days ; and three months before our arrival all the tell tale marks had been removed. But that mad barricade demonstration — that wretched 15th of May — had left sinister effects behind it. The city was scarcely scratched, but the minds of the 72 THEATRE OF SAN CARLO. people seemed to be turned topsy-turvy. The peaceful part of the community were dreading that another attempt might be made by the ultra-revo lutionists. The principal theatres were closed, and such of the minor ones as Avere occasionally opened were very thinly attended. Society Avas dislocated. Its members were scattered aU about. Some few families, being able so to do, had quitted the king dom altogether : others had betaken themselves to the country ; and most of those Avho remained, shut themselves up betimes at night. No concerts — no re unions at the Accademia — no social parties anyAvhere. But everywhere we could see that uneasy, unhappy, and unsafe state which an Italian has described in a few words — un sospetto, un tremito, una paura. To the people in easy circumstances, and of easy, enjoy ing disposition, this Avas a very unpalatable order of the day. I met my old friend the Cavalier di , a fanatico per la musica (like so many of his country men), and a fanatic or an enthusiast for nothing else — an ease- taking, self-indulging, joyous man, who probably had never bestowed a serious thought upon politics in the whole course of his long life, but who had gone to the opera of San Carlo every night that it was open, and to the opera at the Theatre del Fondo Avhen it Avas not. " Well, Cavalier," said I, " how are matters going on here ?" The cavalier shrugged his shoulders, balanced his open right hand in the air, and said, " Cosi a cosi. Abbiamo la Costituzione, e vero — ma e chiuso San Carlo." — (So, so. We have got the constitution, it is true ; but San NEAPOLITAN PARLIAMENT. 73 Carlo is shut up.) And as he said the last word he groaned inwardly. To a large portion of the Nea politans the opera-house of San Carlo was almost everything. If the shutting up had come upon them suddenly, when at the height of its glories, I hardly think they could have stood it. But for a long time the splendour had been diminished, and that social sun of Naples had been subject to eclipses. On first arriving at our hotel in the Piazza di Fontana Medina, our hostess took care to tell us — and to thank God for that same — that she Avas not a NeapoHtan, but a Roman — cittadina Romana, a Roman citizeness. One of my earliest inquiries Avas after the house or houses of parliament. In 1820-21, when the NeapoHtans, by virtue of military revolt and the will of the Carbonari clubs, had set up the one- chambered Spanish Constitution, I had frequently attended the debates. I wanted to compare this parliament to that. I believe I must have asked well nigh a dozen Neapolitans before I found one that could tell me positively where the present parliament assembled. One said it was in this old church, another in that old monastery — one that it was east, another that it was west ; some frankly confessed that they never knew where it was, and one old man thought it would be quite as well if nobody ever should know. One morning we ap phed to a laquais de place, who undertook to guide us thither, and who misconducted us. At last we 74 NEAPOLITAN PARLIAMENT. found the parliament or its nest in that immense stack of buildings called the Gesu Vecchio, which is situated in a narrow, dingy, out-of-the-way street, in a low part of the city. This building Avas once a College of the Jesuits, and it was in it that the chiefs of that order were arrested by night in 1767, when the Neapolitan Government resolved upon their suppression. In my time it Avas converted into the University of Naples, and many are the lectures, good and bad, which I have heard within its walls. We were told that it still served as the university, although both houses of parliament had found lodging there. No doubt there would be room for all and for more ; but since the beginning of the revolutionary movements the university studies have been interrupted, some of the profes sors and students having found more congenial occupations, and others of them having betaken themselves to their homes, in order to be quiet and out of harm's way. The first time that we got to this Gesu Vecchio, we found that neither house of parliament was sitting, it being a Saint's day, or the festival of some Madonna. We learned from the custode or doorkeeper that the two houses rarely if ever sat on one and the same day. When the peers met, the commons gave themselves a holiday, or went about other" and more profitable business: when the commons sat, the peers made a dies non. It was usual for them to assemble at eleven o'clock a.m., or a little later. Although they had no prayers, the reading of the proces verbal of the NEAPOLITAN PARLIAMENT. 75 preceding sitting and other forms carried them on to twelve o'clock or beyond it ; they then proceeded to business, but by three o'clock in the afternoon they rose, for the maccaroni must not be kept wait ing, and there must be reasonable time for a siesta between dinner and the evening promenade. At times they rose before three, but they seldom sat beyond that hour. On one occasion when they had a four hours' sitting, it was considered that they had made an extraordinary effort. Some of the deputies say that they Avould work harder if they were paid for it ; that they would attend more frequently and for longer intervals, if they were not obliged to mind their own affairs in order to live. As yet the deputies or members of the lower house have no pay : many of them are busy lawyers. On a second visit I was more fortunate. The peers were sitting, and I was freely admitted to a seat in the gallery to hear their proceedings. It Avas but a thin house, and among those present I could discover only two whom I knew, or whose names were known to me. The hall they occupied had, I believe, been at one time a lecture-room of the university ; it was fitted up in a shabby pro tempore-looking style, as though the accommodations and decorations were not meant to last. The separate gallery reserved for the corps diplomatique was entirely empty ; the public gal lery was very far from being, crowded, and the auditors there assembled were very far indeed from belonging to the better classes of Neapolitan so ciety. There were at least as many priests as 76 NEAPOLITAN PARLIAMENT. laymen in this gallery — chiefly young priests, who did not seem at all satisfied Avith the conservative and somewhat languid tone of the debate. Nobody, however, ventured to make a clamour or take part in the discussion, this prevalent bad practice having recently been put down; but some of the priests and others testified their disapprobation and im patience by scraping their feet, or by making a clat tering noise as they bustled from the gallery, and descended a flight of temporary wooden steps. The remarks which fell from these people were not very complimentary to the peerage. A set expression seemed to be " 0 che Pari ! che vene pare ? — O what peers ! how do they appear to you ? " But ever since the institution the liberal papers of Naples and all Italy had been fearfully abusing this upper or other house, and quoting the words of Napoleon Bonaparte in support of the dogma that any kind of peerage was incompatible with the present state of France and Italy. The debates in 1820-21 had at least the merit of being lively. Then, too, in that one chamber, where clergy, nobility, and com mons all sat and voted together, there Avas at least an appearance of men being in earnest ; although in the end, or some time before the end, the earnest ness of most of them turned out to be little more than an appearance. There was also a certain amount of eloquence, the Neapolitans being, perhaps, even above all other Italians, a ready-worded and, in several senses, an eloquent people. But verily these peers were but tame and dull. The Cardinal NEAPOLITAN PARLIAMENT. 77 Archbishop (a member of the very ancient and noble family of Riario Sforza) Avas napping in his scarlet attire, at the right hand of the tribune or speaking place, and that tribune was occupied nearly the Avhole time of our stay by a stout elderly gentleman in black dress and white gloves (the president, as I was told, of some court of law), Avho Avas deli vering a cold, dry, tedious discourse on the necessity of the Kingdom of Naples remaining at peace, without taking part in the war against the Aus trians in Lombardy. It was not altogether a bad discourse : it dwelt upon the good which Govern ment had done, and upon the greater good which it meant to do; and it was interlarded with fat morsels of liberalism, and compliments to the sove reignty of the people : but more than half of the speech was read — and it read very much like a second or third-rate article of the ' Edinburgh Re view ' since the Whigs have been in office. Before the orator had finished several of the peers went away to dine ; and Ave ourselves went to take a walk through the old part of the city. When we entered the house, there were not above sixty persons in the gallery ; and when we departed, we scarcely left twenty behind us. The guard stationed beloAv at the gate consisted solely of re-formed civic or national guardsmen — respectable men, substantial, wearing an exceedingly good uniform, and having the appearance of persons much more likely to fight against than behind barricades. It was a work of some difficulty; but after the affair of the 15th of 78 IMPROVEMENTS IN NAPLES. May these citizen troops were properly and nicely weeded. I visited, and rather minutely surveyed, the Avhole of the older and poorer and more crowded part of the town — the quarter of the Vicaria and Porta Capuana; the Mercato, or Great Market-place, where Masaniello began his insurrection ; San Lo renzo, whither he went in triumph ; and the monas tery hard by, where, after going mad, he was basely shot by the people he had led. .We went through the Lavinaro, and aU through that part of the town called Napoli senza sole, for there the houses are sb high, and the streets so narrow, that you may walk in constant shade even in the dog-days and at noon day. We went through the quarter of San Giovanni dei Carbonari, and then backwards and fonvards, in districts wherein few Neapolitan gentry ever set their feet, and then out of the old gate and across the ditch (which Belisarius is said to have deepened) into the densely peopled suburb of the Foria ; and here, where I had scarcely hoped to find improve ment of any kind — Avhere, twenty-one years ago, the refinements of modern Europe had scarcely pene trated at all, I found a considerable and a striking advancement. The streets, lanes and alleys, Avhich used to be abominably dirty, were comparatively clean ; drains and sewers had been made ; avenues had been opened to admit the free circulation of the air ; and the houses Avere neater ; and men, women, and children were more quiet and orderly, and much better dressed and much cleaner, than ever I had SWISS GUARD. 79 seen them. The improvements of Naples were, therefore, not confined to the fashionable part of the town, which foreigners reside in, and which is the only part that nineteen-twentieths of our travellers know anything about. Even in the way of material outward improvement there may still remain much to do ; but assuredly much has been done, much of Avhich neither king-nor government has ever made a boast, and of which the rest of Europe knows next to nothing. But even in the way of intellectual improvement I saw several encouraging indications. There were schools for poor children in many of these obscure unknown streets— so many rays of light let into the sunless part of Naples. Two very large suppressed monasteries, which merely served for stables in my time, had been converted into houses of education for the very poorest of the com munity, and girls were taught there as well as boys. In these popular parts of the town, in these the head-quarters and camp of Neapolitanism, we saw numbers of the King's Swiss guard walking about with their side-arms, and associating familiarly and on the most friendly terms with the common people. Between these Swiss and the people there was a fraternization — only, instead of leaguing with them as insurrectionists, men of barricades and revolu tions, the Swiss fraternized with the people, because they were faithful and loving subjects of the Sove reign they themselves were bound to serve by their capitulations and for a given number of years. It was in the course of this day's long perambula- 80 THE CATHEDRAL. tion that we stopped at the Cathedral Church, which is situated in this old part of the city, and Avhich is itself of very ancient date. There are portions of it Avhich were built by the first Christians under the Roman Empire ; yet, as late as 1827, the Cathedral was one of the most disguised, most neglected, din giest, and dirtiest of Neapolitan churches. So it was when I left it, but I now found it one of the most beautiful of the sacred edifices of this capital. I speak of the interior. Externally there are not two churches at Naples worth looking at. The work of restoration, consisting in a great measure of undoing that which had been done in tasteless, bar barous times, had been commenced about the year 1830 by the predecessor of the present Cardinal Archbishop, and had been completed, or nearly so, by his eminency Riario Sforza, a much better arch bishop than member of the House of Peers, who has devoted to the work a large portion of his revenue. This, too, is progress in its Avay. Yet I knoAv not that I should have mentioned the old Cathedral, or my visit to it, but for two or three small incidents, Avhich Avent to show that the inward popular mind was but little altered, and that there existed still in its full force the old leaven of papistical superstition, Avhich I humbly opine is and must be inconsistent with liberal institutions and constitutional forms of government. The reputed miraculous blood of St. Januarius, and the reputed skull of that saint and martyr, are kept in the Cathedral in a chapel and tesoro or treasury, which is not quite so rich as it FESTIVAL OF THE MADONNA. 81 Avas before the French first visited Naples, but which is still very rich. Having seen all that trum pery many times before, I declined paying the fee necessary to obtain the key of the chapel. The guide Avho was showing us over the church said, " Perhaps, signore, you will stay to see the miracle ; the blood, you know, liquifies in September. Ah ! if that miracle does not set matters to rights this time, it will be all over with us ! We have been in a perilous way ever since our revolution !" On the large folding doors of the church were several printed copies of an Invito Sacro, or Holy Invitation, which ran in the name of the Cardinal Archbishop, Riario Sforza, and which was addressed to all the faithful — to all good Christians. His Eminence said that it had gladdened his heart to see that, on a recent festival of the most blessed Virgin Mary, the Neapolitan people, notwithstanding the inward dis turbances of the State and the perils Avhich threat ened it from abroad, had kept the said festival with a becoming and exemplary zeal; and that, as another festival of the said most blessed Virgin Mother of God was now fast approaching, he prayed and hoped that their religious fervor would not be cooler, but warmer; and he invited them all to attend the masses of that festival and the cere monies of the Vigil, and then and there to confess all their sins, promising plenary indulgence to all such as complied with the terms of this holy invita tion. This festival of the Madonna was now close at hand. It was, in fact, the eve or Vigil of the VOL. I. G 82 FESTIVAL OF THE MADONNA. feast, and, in the streets near the Cathedral, they were preparing for a grand celebration, hanging out carpets, bright-coloured draperies, and silks from the balconies and over the doorways ; hanging fes toons of leaves and flowers across the streets, sus pending little coloured lamps, erecting cressets, and dressing up big processional images. The whole mind of this most populous district was intent on this one matter, and evidently had not a thought to bestow upon any other. Compared to this festival of the Madonna, what, to these people, was parlia ment — what constitution? A whiff of grape-shot might have carried aAvay the one and scattered the other, and they would not have cared an iota; but if any force, national or foreign, had A'entured to curtail the exhibitions of this eve and the greater morrow — if any attempt had been made to interfere in the slightest degree with this festival, these fellows would have fought up to their knees in blood. COOKS SPOILED BY POLITICS. 83 CHAPTER V. Naples — Cooks spoiled by Politics — Popularity of King Ferdi nand — A Eiot in the Toledo — Carlo Alberto — The Men of Santa Lucia — Decay of Trade and increase of National Debt — The Expedition against Messina. Naples had used to be a very distinguished place for good eating and drinking — one of the choicest places on the whole continent for the gourmand and the gourmet. As every body was out of town, as all hospitality was suspended, we had but slight opportunity of judging of the present state of private dinners and entertainments. The hotels and ristoratori had sadly declined. Those who kept them, or attended in them, said that this declension was owing to the Revolution and the barricading of May, which had driven away the English and all other money-spending travellers. It seemed to me that a good part of the falling off was to be traced directly to the noisy, stunning politics of the day, and to the obligation under which so many of these people still found themselves of turning out at all hours and, at times, at the shortest summonses to do duty as national guardsmen. The cook Avould be heating his own head with an inflammatory neAVs- paper instead of minding his casseroles and turn ing the calf's head he Avas cooking. The maitre d'h6tel would leave unsolved your interesting query o 2 84 POPULARITY OF KING FERDINAND. about the vintage of Caprsea, in order to run away and huddle on his uniform and gird on his sword, for there Avas a row in Toledo, and the gendrale was beating, or expected to beat. The sum total of all this Avas, that I never got a decent or comfortable meal in the place where I had eaten so many. I trust I bore' this with becoming patience. Not so, one day, did an old Tuscan gentleman. After being disappointed in other things, he wanted some mustard. He was told there was none. " Good God !" exclaimed he, "you have got a constitution, and you have got no mustard !" Although the King was strong in the affections of the popular body, in the steadiness of the SAviss, and in the devotion of his own native troops, and although the anarchic party had not been able to raise their heads since the 15th of May, there Avere frequent noises and disturbances in the streets, and there was every day some report more or less con fidently spread that the revolutionists meant to try again, and that there would be more barricades. The very first night after our arrival Ave witnessed a scene curious to us, though not at all rare now-a- days in Naples. Having had an early dinner and a good deal of exercise after it — and having nothing else to amuse or occupy us — we went to supper. The trattoria I selected was the Corono di Ferro, Avell known to all English travellers between the years 1816 and 1827. It Avas then one of the best houses in the city. I was told it had sadly fallen off, but I went to it for the sake of old recollections RIOT IN THE TOLEDO. 85 and associations ; for I had been happy here in my young days with some who are noAv growing old and careworn like myself, but who had then no care upon earth, and Avith some who, alas ! are now under the earth. It was a sort of clubhouse for young English artists, young litterateurs, and nondescripts. It Avas here I first congregated with E. N , A. V , C. M , T. W , W. R , and others, of whom some have made themselves a name in the Avorld, and some — the wiser of the lot — are en joying the world without making or caring for a name. In those symposia, whereat we Avere always right merry if we were not always Avitty, we assembled in a room up stairs ; but this evening we sat in the room on the ground-floor which has folding doors that open upon the street — the grand street of Toledo. We were sitting quietly at table ; there Avas nobody in the room except ourselves ; it was about ten o'clock — when, all of a sudden, there was a terrible clattering, and screaming, and shouting in the street. Before we could begin to Avonder what it meant, the landlady rushed into the room, clutched up the silver forks and spoons, and shrieked to the waiter to close and bar the doors. When this Avas done she said, " Patriots or Royalists, they are all thieves! whenever there is a fracasso (row), some body is plundered ! What a life for honest people ! and this is the life we have been leading ever since last January, when the King promised the Consti tution !" She and the waiter advised us not to stir until the riot should be over. There was no getting 86 RIOT IN THE TOLEDO. out of the house, for all the doors were barred, and there was no seeing Avhat was going on in the street. We heard a marching of troops, a clattering of arms, and tremendous vociferations ; but there Avas no firing, and the baruffa was soon over. It was not until the next day that Ave learned the cause and the nature of the disturbance, which had terrified a great many besides our hostess of the Iron Crown. An officer stopped at a tobacconist's to buy a cigar. The tobacconist, like many others of his calling, had added to his ordinary trade that of newsvender, and his counter was covered with the revolutionary papers, satirical broadsides, and very gross carica tures. One of the last gave great offence to the officer, as it held up to ridicule not only King Ferdinand, but the whole Neapolitan army. The man of the sword asked the man of the weed whether he was not ashamed to sell such scandalous trash as that? " How," said a priest of the radical and union-and-independence-of Italy party, " have we not the liberty of the press ? Are we not a consti tutional people ? And are not you, a soldier, ashamed of being here when you ought to be Avith Carlo Alberto fighting against the barbarians? Ah ! our King is but a Coglione, and our soldiers are but poltroons !" The officer stretched out his arm towards the priest's nose. Somebody (already a crowd had gathered by the open shop-door) struck down the officer's arm, and others threatened him with personal chastisement. Two or three other officers, who chanced to be passing by, stepped up RIOT IN THE TOLEDO. 87 to the rescue of their comrade, and a loud squabble and a confusion ensued. Attracted by the noise a small body of police and a patrol of the Royal Guards came up from the palace, upon which nearly all of the rioters took to their heels, running up the narrow streets and lanes on the left-hand side of the Toledo. But Avhile the hullabaloo had lasted the tobacconist and newsvender had been robbed of sundry packets of cigars and some snuff. The patriots swore that the military had committed the theft, and had made the baruffa for that sole object. The military said that the priest and his friends had stolen the goods. In all probability some poor vagabonds, who belonged to neither party, had availed themselves of a favourable opportunity and committed the theft: but the accusation and counter-accusation are in keeping Avith all the rest, and shoAV the madness and unscrupulousness of Italian factions. A party man in Italy can never rest satisfied until he has charged his adversary with the meanest of offences, as well as the blackest or most revolting of crimes ; and he repeats to others and to himself his malicious inventions until he believes them to be truths. I have known persons, otherwise honourable and estimable, fall into this sad failing. Englishmen knoAv what party spite has done and yet can do in England ; but,un.less they have lived long among them, they can have but a faint conception of the extreme violence and malice of the Italians in this respect. It has been so with them in all times. Dante, the greatest of their 88 CARLO ALBERTO. poets, considered that he had not done with a political opponent until he had thrust him into hell, and had seen him there undergoing his torments. They had for some time given up the Pope be cause he would not issue a formal declaration of war against the Austrians, but the Liberals of Naples still clung to the King of Sardinia, calling him the champion of Italian unity, the sword of Italy, the bravest hero, and the greatest and most accomplished warrior of modern days. All their newspapers had been unanimous in praise of Carlo Alberto : they converted his defeats into victories, they would not admit that he could be conquered. When, owing to the cowardice and indiscipline of the patriot volunteers, his far-extending line had been broken through and through, and even when Marshal Radetsky, after hard fighting, had com pletely overthroAvn the gallant army of Piedmontese and Savoyards, and Avas in full march upon Milan, these Neapolitan journalists proclaimed that Carlo Alberto was victorious, Radetsky a prisoner of war, and the last Austrian soldier flying across the Alps. But, at last, such neAvs came, and from so many quarters, that it Avas impossible even for them to affect to maintain the splendid fiction any longer. Carlo Alberto had been beaten — battu a plate couture — there was no denying the fact. Some of King Ferdinand's friends, who had been often taunted with his Sardinian Majesty's exploits, now retaliated ; and this led to another scuffle and to a fight in Toledo. The Ferdinandists asked their THE MEN OF SANTA LUCIA. 89 adversaries Avhat they thought now of their King of all Italy — their King Carlo Alberto? Was he coming to Naples to dethrone King Ferdinand, or Was he going to Vienna to ask pardon of the Em peror Ferdinand IV.? This fracas was not put down until the Swiss guard interfered, and one or tAvo heads had been broken. Some French republicans domiciled at Naples had very strongly espoused the cause of the men who made the barricades there on the 15th of May. One of them, meeting a Neapolitan artillery officer, who had been very active in destroying the barri cades, first struck him on the head with a bludgeon, and called him a base assassin and murderer of the people afterwards. The officer Avas stunned by the blow ; but some of the common people laid hold of the Frenchman, and presently a commissary of police came up and carried him to a lock-up house in the police-office. The republican went away gaily and triumphantly, saying that his ambassador would be sure to get him released the next morning. That same evening there Avas a more serious combat between some of the crew of a French war-steamer, lying in port, and the fishermen and fishmongers of Santa Lucia, whom the French and others will per sist in calling lazzaroni. These men of Santa Lucia are all stanch royalists ; they are much attached to King Ferdinand and his family, and they have fought with the troops against the men of the barri cades. The animosity between them and the French sailors was so violent that they could seldom meet 90 DECAY OF TRADE AT NAPLES. Avithout coming to blows. Not only did the Neapo litan Government fear giving offence to the Grande Republique, but the French minister feared to take any steps which might give offence to the French sailors, a fraction of the sovereign people. Thus peace and good order were constantly interrupted. There Avas, however, no ground for any very serious apprehensions ; the Swiss troops were numerous, and were true Swiss; the Neapolitan army was strong, devoted to the King, and far better disciplined than ever I had seen it ; and that Avhich Avas most of all, the great body of the people — not merely lazzaroni, but all the labouring classes, all the shopkeepers and traders, and nearly ' 411 of the middle and upper class, shared in the loyal feelings of the soldiers and the men of Santa Lucia. The Neapolitans wanted peace — but peace with the re- annexation of Sicily. ' The port of Naples was not empty, like that of Messina, but trade was exceedingly depressed and dull, as in every part of the Mediterranean — or may we not say of the world ? The want of employment was beginning to be seriously felt, and although the streets no longer thronged with the ragged, vocifer ous, merry beggars of former times (who used to tell you that they were dying of hunger with a strength of lung and a jovialness of countenance that 'made you envy them), we were rather frequently accosted, and more particularly in the dusk of the evening, by decently attired people, with woe-begone countenances, and with other indications that begging BOLDNESS OF THE PICKPOCKETS. 91 was to them a new and a painful trade. Some had taken to other professions. Petty larceny and a skilful jerking out of pocket-handkerchiefs Avere not uncommon things in my time ; but burglary or street-robbing was certainly rare. I had been accustomed to go through the streets at all hours of the night — and Avhen the books of hasty tourists abounded with accounts of nightly robberies and assassinations — without once meeting with a street robber ; and as I did, so did many others of my countrymen. Now, I was therefore rather surprised, one night when upon asking the way to a particular street of a very respectable looking man, he held me in talk for some seconds, and, fancying that my attention was engaged, made a bold snatch at my front pocket. On relating the circumstance to an old Neapolitan friend, he said, " These things occur nightly; but what will you have of it?— cosa ne volete — it is desperation ! Since our glorious revolution, which made it necessary to find places for new men, so many have been turned out of their places and into the streets ! " The Risorgimentoj or resurrec tion of Italy, had been here (as I afterwards found in other states and provinces) little better than a melancholy funeral. Before the military insurrec tion and Carbonari Revolution of 1820, the Neapo litan Government had nearly discharged its not very onerous national debt. That debt was increased by those precocious demonstrations, and by the sup port of a large Austrian army for five years ; but; as compared with the developed resources of the 92 INCREASE OF NATIONAL DEBT. country, the debt was again small when the present revolutionary movements first began. But now it is augmenting at a fearful rate. The expenses incurred in Sicily, and through the expeditions directed against that island, have been very great ; and, dating from the Paris Revolution of February, and the industriously-spread doctrine of liberty, fraternity, and equality, and the erection everywhere of conciliabula, or clubs, very large portions of the people in the provinces had declined paying any taxes : and, to avoid the chances of insurrection upon many points at once, the Government, already per plexed by the revolt of Sicily, and serious troubles in Calabria, had abstained from the employment of force. Even those who — at least for a time — had set their hearts on the revolution, were bemoaning their hard fate in having to pay revolution price for it. These lively Italians generally — these people who lived day by day, and every day that they lived — seemed to me utterly incapable of making any great sacrifice of the present for the prospective benefits of futurity. I never spoke with one of them but Avas startled and made melancholy by the truism which I repeated; — that revolutions never benefit the generations which make them. As in 1820, they, one and all (of the revolu tionary party at least), seemed to expect an imme diate and tangible advantage ; the humbler hoped to have to pay lower taxes, the ambitious to leap into higher places. I haA'e mentioned the Neapolitan forces collected EXPEDITION AGAINST MESSINA. 93 at Reggio, in the straits of Messina, for the re-inva sion of Sicily. In the port of Naples another expe dition was preparing, which was to join the army at Reggio. There Avere eleven steam-vessels anchored betAveen the royal palace and the Castello dell' Uovo. A considerable supply of arms and ammunition and some troops were already embarked : but Sir William Parker's fleet, which had saluted the flag of Sicilian independence, was lying in a corner of the bay, off Castellamare, scarcely more than twelve miles dis tant, and full in sight, and doubts were entertained Avhether that fleet — one ship of the line of which might have destroyed the Neapolitan flotilla— would permit the King's expedition to make its way to Sicily. A gentleman connected with the Neapolitan govern ment, an old friend, asked me for my opinion, not attaching to it any more weight than the slight one which it could bear. He merely asked me as an Englishman, and as one not supposed to be entirely ignorant of the law of nations and the prevalent feel ing of his own country, whether I thought that if the flotilla put to sea Admiral Sir William Parker would stop it. My answer was, that 1 could not be lieve such a measure possible — that the law of nations, which ought to be respected by the strong as well as by the weak, was wholly opposed to such an inter ference — that with equal right France or Russia, or any other power strong enough to do it, or bold enough to attempt it, might intervene between England and Ireland, at this moment when Ave were sending troops and stores across the Irish 94 EXPEDITION AGAINST MESSINA. Channel to put down an insurrection and check a rebellion. " But," said my interlocutor, " you English have displayed such.a partiality towards the Sicilians; Lord Minto and Admiral Parker have countenanced them so much, and Lord Palmerston's policy seems to us so shifty and intricate ! We doubt. But tell me, as an Englishman and a friend, what you think would be the feeling of your nation if your fleet should send our flotilla back into port by force of cannon balls." As I understood the matters, I could not defend Admiral Parker, or the Earl of Minto, or my Lord Palmerston ; but to this point I spoke confidently — that the English nation at large Avould be revolted at any such interference, and particularly at a mo ment like the present. And, with an equal regard to the welfare of the Sicilians and the benefit of the Neapolitans, I presumed to recommend that the ex pedition should be sent on its course forthwith ; for if the troops embarked were kept long in close con finement on ship-board in this hot weather there was a certainty of sickness, and if time were allowed to the dominant faction in Sicily it might probably grow stronger, and so render the final struggle more sanguinary, while, in the interval, the King's very numerous party in the island must be subjected to terrible persecutions. This conversation was held at Naples on Sunday the 6th of August. On Satur day the 5th of August Lord Palmerston, at London, read the law of nations as I did, and assured the Neapolitan minister that England had no intention EXPEDITION AGAINST MESSINA. 95 of interfering, or that the British fleet would not pre vent the sailing of the expedition. The result of this conference in Downing Street did not reach the Neapolitan government until the 12th of August. A few days after that the expedition sailed ; and no interruption was offered to it either by the EngHsh or by the French admiral, though both were close at hand, and kneAv, and had known for months, that the Neapolitan force was destined for Messina, and that if that unhappy city did not sur render or capitulate, it would be bombarded in earnest. 96 NEAPOLITAN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. CHAPTER VI. Naples — Chamber of Deputies — Rumours of counter-revolution — House of Peers — No men of business — Government Offices — The War Office — Elements of Democracy, &c. We made several fruitless efforts to hear a debate in the Neapolitan Commons, or Chamber of De puties. When we were in toAvn the house never chanced to meet ; and when we were in the country, what with festas and other interruptions, it met only once or twice, and for not more than three hours at a time. There were, I know, other disturbing causes and other motives which had tended to thin the house and to render its sittings so rare ; but fear, personal fear, was certainly a powerful agent. The anarchic party were incessantly spreading the most alarming reports. A day or two before the 15th of July, the great festa of the Madonna del Carmine, they, by some occult machinery, got it rumoured throughout the city that the feast Avould be a day of mourning and of blood ; that a great " plebeian demonstration " was all prepared ; that the " low people," basso popolo, set on by the King and the enemies of liberty, and impelled also by the dearness of provisions, were going to fall upon the Chamber of Deputies and entirely destroy it ! Other and still more horrible stories were invented NEAPOLITAN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 97 and spread, and, for the moment, believed by many. Some members received Gunpowder Plot- looking letters, Avarning them to keep from the House. Except a few enthusiasts, and the Radical party, it seemed that hardly any of the members were in earnest or fancied that they Avere to go on, or that this constitution could last. Judging from the debates which I read, the Opposition party/though not Avithout talent, was entirely Avanting in modera tion. Instead of concurring Avith the government on the Sicilian question, it had been constantly urging it to take part in the Avar in Lombardy ; and it continued to pursue the same line of argument or invective after the defeat of the King of Sardinia and the shameless flights or capitulations of his allies — the Lombards, Tuscans, and Romans. These opposition members had been constantly summoning ministers before them, putting them as it Avere in the Avitness-box, and crSss-examining them like so many cut-purses or sheep-stealers. Men of the most liberal opinions before they became ministers Avere objects of suspicion and hatred so soon as they took office. The fact of their accepting office was construed into a high crime and misdemeanor against the nation. They were accused of a most unpatriotic desire to moderate or stop the wheels of revolution ; and this desire was attributed to a merely selfish motive : they had gained by the revolution in as far as it had gone, and they wished it to go no farther, in order that they might enjoy their personal benefits and advantages : — VOL. t. h 98 NEAPOLITAN HOUSE OF PEERS. " Qual e quel cane ch' abbajando agugna, E si racqueta poi che '1 pasto morde, Che solo a divorarlo intende e pugna."* In truth they one and all wanted the ministerial pasto for themselves, and were very rabid at seeing the majority of the cabinet composed of members of the aristocracy. As for the House of Peers, the members of which are appointed for Hfe, I found upon inquiry that several who had been named by the King had de clined the honour altogether, and that more, after accepting the peerage, had either not taken their seats or had been very rarely at the House, con sidering it as little better than a farce, and being averse to sit on the same level with superannuated lawyers and other men of no birth. I considered this as a great political mistake, if not worse ; and I said as much to some friends with whom I could take the liberty of so doing. My arguments were, that it behoved the aristocracy to give a fair chance to this constitution now that they had got it ; to support the King and stand between him and the Lower House ; to give the weight of their names and whatever other weight they might have to the Upper House, which was in Avant of all the strength that could be given to it. To have taken the old libro rosso or red book of the Court, wherein none were regis tered but the families of the highest or most ancient nobility, and to have selected exclusively from it the list of peers, would never have done ; for three- * Dante. WANT OF BUSINESS MEN. 99 fourths of those ancient families are in abject poverty, and even if they were not, such a selection would be too violent a shock for the democratic feeling and for the jealousies of the minor nobility. The King and his advisers, in attempting the con struction of an Upper House, prudently followed the example set by King Leopold in Belgium, and with proper temper and management, with a due renun ciation of old caste prejudices, and with a sense of the constitutional importance of their mission, the Neapolitans might, by degrees, form a House of Peers at least as respectable as that which sits at Brussels. The absence of these peers from their seats, and the lukewarmness of so large a portion of the Lower House, made the Count of say, " Hoav can we expect that this constitutional regime is to last when those most immediately concerned in its maintenance show, by their OAvn conduct, either that they believe it cannot or wish it should not?" As might be expected from people so new at this sort of work, the capital defect in both Houses was the want of practical men of business. Nearly every discourse I read was vague and theoretical, while but too many of them were mere rhetoric and bombast. But in the Peers there was one admirable exception. The old cavalier Boccapianola produced an excellent, practical project, for draining the many Pantani or swamps which poison the air of the country, and for canalizing the rivers, the annual overflowings of which feed the pestiferous bogs and render immense tracts of the kingdom next to uninhabitable during h2 100 THE GOVERNMENT OFFICES. five months of the year. This canalization Avas to go hand in hand Avith, and to contribute to, an extensive system of irrigation — a system to which the vast plains of Lombardy are indebted for so much of their fertility. The Cavaliere named more than fifty rivers within the limits of the continental kingdom, the Avaters of the far greater part of which are left to run to waste, and to worse than waste. The Chamber of Peers gave leave to bring in his bill or project of law ; but nothing more Avas done, or is likely to be done, until Sicily be resettled, tranquillity re-established, and the finances restored. The good works which were begun, and were in active progress (and they were many) before the Revolution, are now all stopped. The ministries, or head offices of Government, were infinitely more frequented and more thought of than the tAvo Houses of Parliament. They Avere thronged from morning till night by applicants for favours, places, or promotions. Ever since the time when Joseph Bonaparte was seated on this throne and the French centralization system Avas intro duced, place-hunting has been a curse of the country. But of late the malady has been on the increase ; people from all parts of the kingdom were clamouring for employments, and presenting consti tutional or ultra-liberal rights to them. Hardly a man that had been imprisoned under the absolute regime (no matter for what offence) but stood forth as a suffering patriot and demanded his reward. Some had brothers or cousins who had been shot by HOTEL DES MIXISTERES. 101 courts-martial or persecuted and fustigated by that terrible ex-minister of pohce Del Carretto — and was not this title enough to employment ? A Avoman had lost a son through the troubles brought about by the mad Calabrian expedition of the brothers Bandieri ; but she had another son Hving, and ought he not to be made something of? Others pleaded that they had been the very first in their several districts to cry out " Viva la Costituzione /" — others, that their fathers had been the first to do so in 1820 — others, that their grandfathers had been patriots and martyrs for liberty in 1799, or some years earlier— and now that the constitution was esta blished and liberty the order of the day, were not the descendants of such men to be rewarded? Others there were who rested their claims upon grounds still more ridiculous ; and some there Avere Avho pretended a right to eat the bread of govern ment or the nation, through certain family com pliances which are not to be named. The Hotel des Ministeres is an immense pile of buildings which runs back from tb^ Toledo street to the largo or square of Castelnuovo, having a front on the street, a front on the square, and side en trances from the street of San Giacomo, of which the edifice forms one entire side. It is one of the largest compact buildings in Europe. It was not finished in 1827, but had been in progress during a good many years. It noAv gives accommodation to the Ministry of Finance, the Home-office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the War-office and Admiralty, 102 NEAPOLITAN WAR-OFFICE. the Board of Works, and every other important office of government ; while in the lower part of the building a commodious section serves as the Bourse or Exchange. The arrangement is good, and A'ery convenient. A person having business with various offices finds them all under the same roof, and thus saves much time and trouble. During my short stay I was rather frequently in the edifice ; and every time I was there I found the spacious stair cases, corridors, halls, and antechambers crowded, and crowded in good part by women and priests. In the War- office one could scarcely have expected to meet such company, but even there priests and women abounded ; and however little this might be to the taste of the present war-minister, he was not able to prevent it. The ladies seemed to be mostly natives of the capital, but a great many of the priests were from the provinces. They sat very comfortably and cosily in a large, cool, well-ventilated apartment, gossiping with one another until it came to their several turns to be admitted to the minister or one of his secretaries or chef de bureau. My earnest friend who then held (and he stiU holds) the portfoHos of Avar and marine found the giving of these audiences the most tedious and oppressive part of his duties as minister. Where the suitors were so numerous, the number of the disappointed could not be few; and, unhappily, every one who was disappointed became an enemy to the Government, and clamoured loudly for an immediate change of ministers. Under the old regime the Neapolitan THE NEAPOLITAN ARMY. 103 minister's patience Avas often and sorely tried in these respects ; but in these days of constitu tionalism, and liberty and equality, the applicants are as ten to one. They must all be listened to ; they must all be conciliated, or at least the attempt must be made to conciliate them. If the common people thought that the word constitution meant " no taxes," the classes above them clearly fancied that its true signification Avas " places for all, or promotions for all." Since the proclamation of the constitution of 1848, the King had called into active employment, or re instated in their military rank, a great many officers who had been cashiered or put upon very low pensions for the part they took in the military revolt of 1820. The officers thus restored to the service had been sobered down by time and misfortune ; they had lost their Carbonari zeal, if they ever had had any, and were considered to be perfectly well satisfied Avith the present system, and as well affected to the King as the officers who had grown up under his immediate care, and had never taken any part in revolt or revolution. The pay of these restored officers added a considerable item to the minister of Avar's budget ; but it was far better to pay this money than to leave a considerable number of mili tary men in those desperate circumstances which are found to be so favourable to insurrection and rebellion. Previously to this increase of the num ber of officers, the cost of the Neapolitan army was very great, and to all appearance disproportionate. 104 THE NEAPOLITAN ARMY. Even by those who were not his enemies or habitual censurers, King Ferdinand Avas often blamed for keep ing on foot an army of 60,000 men in a kingdom which did not count a population of 8,000,000 ; but if it had not been for this army, the King Avould at this moment be an exile, and a Avar of Communism, and the most horrible of all internal strifes, Avould be raging throughout his realms. From the moment of his accession the King had bestowed extraordi nary and incessant pains upon the formation, the proper maintenance, and discipline of this army ; and in the course of seventeen years it has certainly become far superior to any Neapolitan army of Avhich we have any record. He was not the first to employ the Swiss troops. Long before the French Revolution of 1790, the Swiss cantons had military conventions Avith Naples, as Avell as with France, Spain, Rome, and other countries. These of course Avere all broken by the first French Republicans; but King Ferdinand's father made a new compact, and secured the services of two strong Swiss regi ments in 1826. To this Swiss force Ferdinand has made gradual additions; and when his present troubles commenced he had from 6000 to 7000 steady faithful Helvetians, well officered and ad mirably disciplined. The first Swiss corps, indeed, served both as a nucleus and as a model to the native army -he had to raise. There was a time when the security of his throne and the tranquillity of his whole kingdom depended solely upon three or four thousand Swiss. Strong in their support, he THE NEAPOLITAN ARMY. 105 took time in reconstructing his native forces and in selecting his materials. Regiment after regiment Avas gradually gathered round the Swiss centre, and the admirable military morale of the mountaineers acted as a salutary example, and produced excellent effects upon the young Neapolitan soldiery. Re cently, Avhen brought under fire together, these Neapolitans have emulated the steadiness and bravery of the Swiss; and in all those plottings, conspirings, insurrection -making and barricade- making, the native troops of King Ferdinand have been true to him and their oaths. If a portion of them have been shamefully beaten by armed mobs in Sicily, it has been attributable to the imbecility or treachery of those who commanded them. Since then, and indeed since the time when I had the opportunity of -observing them and making inquiries about them, they have Avell retrieved their laurels at Messina. As far as my observation and inquiries Avent, they were devotedly attached to the King, and to be trusted upon any emergency. Being well commanded by General Nunziante, they had really made a brilliant little campaign in Calabria against the anarchists and the Sicilian free corps. They had resisted the temptations of democratic clubs and political propagandists ; and, in an army which was always mutinying or deserting in masses in former days, mutiny had become unknown, and even single desertions were but rarely heard of. Twenty years ago I never thought that there could be, in my time, a Neapolitan army entitled to so much impartial 106 ELEMENTS OF DEMOCRACY. honest praise. It has been King Ferdinand's doing, and truly it is marvellous in our eyes. In whatever else he may have failed, or whatever else he may have done amiss, he has indisputably succeeded in forming a well-disciplined, well- affected, reliable army. The conviction that he has done so is worse than gall and wormwood to the ultra-liberal and revolutionary party. They had tried all manner of tricks and devices to shake the loyalty of the troops, and to set them and the Swiss by the ears. They counted a good deal upon the passion of jealousy, and upon the great difference of pay between the foreigners and the native soldiers. The Swiss Guards were paid twice as much as the Neapolitan line. Could Neapolitans bear this, and not revolt? But the Neapolitans did bear it ; and when it came to barricade-fighting, they joined the Swi.ss in firing upon and charging the insurgents, who all in vain called them countrymen and brothers. Since the 1 5th of May the revolutionists seem to have lost all hope of inducing the troops to fraternise. " Ah ! " said a disconsolate demagogue, " if we could only Avin over the troops, and the common people, and all the shopkeepers, then would we drive away the tyrant, and carry out the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and make a true democratic republic ! Ma la malora e, but the mischief of it is, all the people are against us." Then where are the materials for your demo cracy ? POLITICAL PROPAGANDISM. 107 CHAPTER VII. Naples — Political Propagandism — Character of King Ferdinand — Roman Catholic Intolerance — The Pope — Vincenzo Gio- berti — Charles Albert — The Grand Duke of Tuscany — The 15th of May — The Neapolitan Barricades — Conduct of the King — Defeat of the Insurgents — Small amount of their loss. Secret conspiracy and political propagandism — Avhich did not begin this year, nor last, nor ten years ago — spreading over the whole breadth of the civilized or old Avorld, and reaching to almost every corner of it, succeeded in the spring of 1848 in revolutionizing half of the capitals of Europe ; and the more open conspiracy or confederation among the radical journalists of the continent has defamed every sovereign that has been strong enough to resist the makers of barricades, and every country which has not allowed itself to be made the scene of revolution and the stage for democratic republicanism to stalk upon. The collective calumny, the con centrated malice of all these journalists are things fearful to contemplate. When the liberal press of every state in Europe (having also its ready and loud echo in the countries beyond " the Atlantic wave"), when shoals of newspapers, pamphlets, reviews, books, from east, west, north, and south, agree in telling the same dark stories, in repeating them, in exaggerating them, a large portion of the 108 CHARACTER OF KING FERDINAND. Avorld must end by believing the darkest tales. The full weight of this concentration of malice has been brought to bear upon the King of Naples. Ever since his triumph over the barricades on the loth of May, he has been the Avorst abused sovereign in the universe ; and precisely because he, from whom nothing of the sort could ever have been expected, has been the only prince in Europe who has fully held his own in spite of barricades. Our own ultra- Whig and Radical papers have taken up and prolonged the continental outcry, without understanding it or its political bearing, and without making any inquiry into facts; and they have been unanimous in representing as the assailant, and a bloodthirsty tyrant, a King Avho was assailed, and fought for the preservation or his throne, his life, the lives of his wife and children, the rights of property, the existence of law and order — for everything Avhich makes the difference between order and anarchy, happiness and misery. There is scarcely a foul epithet in our language which has not been applied to Ferdinand ; and when their mother-tongue has failed them, our journalists have taken refuge in bad French. Correctives have been applied from time to time by newspapers of a different caste and higher character, but the effect of the calumny remains, and I believe there are at this moment few people in England that are not vio lently prejudiced against his Majesty of the Two Sicilies. And assuredly, the conduct pursued by CHARACTER OF KING FERDINAND. 109 Lord Talmerston and his diplomatic agents has tended to confirm this popular prejudice ; it being scarcely comprehensible that the British Govern ment should act so hostilely tOAvards King Ferdi nand if it were not fully convinced of his deme rits and delinquencies. I have no intention or wish to set myself up as the eulogist of this Bourbon prince, but I would gladly be the means of exposing some of the many falsehoods which have been reported of him. I would fain expose the character and conduct of those anarchists Avho have disturbed the peace and most fatally interrupted the commerce and the prosperity ofthe world, and who have sacrificed the bright hopes which Italy might reasonably have entertained at the close of the year 1847. I say those anarchists, for they are the same men or the same principles everywhere, whether it be at Paris, or BerHn, or Vienna, or Frankfort, or Naples. Ferdinand's early education Avas certainly not a good one ; his father, Francis, a valetudinarian and a bigot, surrounded him with priests and old men of the most antiquated ideas ; but as a boy and youth he Avas noted for anything rather than for a cruel and. ferocious temper. Mild, gentle, generous, and warm-hearted — this was the character he uni versally bore twenty years ago. Some of the effects of his early education are seen in his conduct and demeanour : he will on no account pass the meanest crucifix or picture of saint or Virgin without taking 110 ROMAN CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. off his hat ; if he is approaching any very conspi cuous effigies, he will begin bowing and crossing himself while he is yet a hundred yards off. His enemies set all this down as a base, calculating hypocrisy ; but it is quite as reasonable to believe that it is sincere de\'otion or superstition. It is quite true that this reverential behaviour singularly endears him to the great body of the people. It was the united bigotry of King and people Avhich set at the very head of this last constitution of 1848 the intolerant clause — " That the Roman Catholic religion was and ever should be the predominant faith, and that no other forms of religion would be permitted." If the King had been so inclined, and had attempted to introduce the ordinary toleration clause, he would thereby have lost more than half of the hearts of the people. His ministers and advisers knew this, and although few or none of them Avere bigoted papists themselves, or in any Avay intolerant in matters of religion, they aU con curred in the necessity of assuring the popular masses that no changes were contemplated in reli gion. The Sicilians, less civilized than the Nea politans, are not 'more tolerant. In their boasted Constitution of 1812, the First clause was: — "The Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Religion is, to the exclu sion of every other, the Religion of the State." As the Italian revolutionary movement Avas in disputably begun by the Pope, and as Pius IX., though a reformer in all other matters, had shown PIUS IX. — VINCENZO GIOBERTI. Ill himself the most decided of anti-reformers with respect to the Catholic Church, it was so much the more necessary for the liberals to avoid giving offence to any old dogma, or exciting by any mea sure or means the susceptible jealousy and suspicion of the Church of Rome. Those Avho preached the unity, the oneness of Italy, were fain to preach also the oneness ofthe Church, for without flattering the last (the spiritual) pretension, there was no hope of realizing the merely mortal and political one. Vin- cenzo Gioberti, Avho is little more than an Italian Abbe Lamennais, set himself — in journals, pam phlets, and books too numerous to be named, and far too heavy and pedantic to be read through by any EngHshman — to work out the double propo sition, that Italy must be one, with liberty presiding over her, and that the religion of the world must be one, with the Pope presiding over the Church. Not a compliment did he pay to liberty without giving a concurrent compliment to Pius IX. Gio berti all but deified the pontiff. While Pius was yet in the flesh, and suffering the infirmities of the flesh, he, over and over again, made his apotheosis, placing him in heaven at the right hand of the Almighty. He told the Italians that if they worshipped Pius as an immortal, and offered sacrifices to him as to a God, they would commit only a slight and very pardonable error. He told them that the Pope was the real author of that marvellous movement (maraviglioso moto) which was agitating Europe, and which was destined to embrace in its course all the 112 . VINCENZO GIOBERTI. civilized world ; that Pius was the Redeemer (Reden- tore) and he might say the Creator {Creatore) of Italy; that Italy was dead, lying Hke a corpse that had been mouldering for centuries in the grave, until he, Pius the Immortal, brought her to life again, and restored her to her youthful years and strength by the miracle of his Word.* Ever since his return from exile to Italy, in the summer of 1847, Vincenzo Gioberti has stood forth as the Apollyon of Reform, and he has had his claims allowed by nearly all the men of the move ment, who are almost as extravagant in his praise as he is, or has been, in that of the Pope, and who really speak and Avrite of him as if Italy — so fertile in great men — had never produced a great man or a legislator until the day she gave birth to him. He is at the very head of their school in politics, and the head of their school in literature. He has been implicitly followed, imitated, aud commented upon by Massimo d' Azeglio, Giuseppe Montanelli, Leopoldo Galeotti, Cesare Balbo, a crowd of other writers, and a multitude of those individuals in whom the imitative spirit is so strong, that they must always be doing that which they see done by any very conspicuous man. " Come Ie peccorelle escon del chiuso Ad una, a due, a tre, e 1' altre stanno Timidette, atterrando 1' occhio e '1 muso, * See ' Delle Condizioni Presenti e Futuri d' Italia, per Vincenzo Gioberti, 1848.' THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY. 113 E cib che fa la prima, V altre fanno, Adossandosi a lei, s' ella s' arresta, Semplici e quete, e lo 'mperche non sanno."* We shall presently see hoAV this pope-worship Avas modified by political occurrences and defeats in Lombardy, and hoAV rapidly all this passionate love Avas converted into deadly hatred. But the idolatry and the love were all-prevalent among the Liberals of Italy when King Ferdinand granted his constitu tion. From the moment that Pius IX. commenced his reforms and changes in the contiguous States of the Church, and that Charles Albert precipitated his reforms and changes in Piedmont, the King of the Tavo Sicilies had never been allowed a day's repose. Still more seriously was he disturbed Avhen the Pope, allying himself more and more closely with the movement party, intimated as holy principles that Italy must be united and independent, and that the rule of any foreigners south of the Alps was not to be tolerated ; and when the King of Sardinia, not yet on horseback, but having his foot in the stirrup, hinted that he would be the first soldier in this Holy War. The mild, beneficent, and excel lent Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose rule had been one uninterrupted blessing to his people, and whose country was the happiest in all Italy, and one of the happiest in the world, was carried away by the stream, and obliged to adopt many precocious re forms and to resort to changes Avhich proved no reform at all. Clubs were opened and crowded, and * Dante, Purgatorio, Canto III. VOL. I. I 114. CLUBS AND NATIONAL GUARDS. in the greater part of the Peninsula, that curse and abomination of modern Europe, an armed unselected National Guard, sprang up to domineer and give the laAV. Some of the accredited diplomatic agents of Piedmont and Rome wearied King Ferdinand's ears by appeals to his Italianism and by obstre perous arguments, meant to prove that it Avas incum bent on him to adopt the happy reforms of his neighbours, and to enter into an anti-Austrian league with them. This is not a phrase or a conjecture ; I know it to be fact, and I knoAv that the King of Naples Avas rendered uneasy and unhappy by it. Central and Upper Italy cast their spaAvn upon Naples. Shoals of propagandists, Unitarian fanatics (politically), who had no visible means of existence, but who yet lived in plenty and luxury, overran the city, and many of these Avere there when the barri cades were raised in the month of May. Mission aries of this class found their Avay into Calabria, and even into the yet wilder regions of Sicily. The stages of their journey were marked by the sudden erection of circles and clubs. In Sicily they found a people Avho were already much excited, and who at every revolutionary demonstration in Europe, have been disposed to take up arms against their felloAv subjects, the Neapolitans. They did this in 1820, when the Neapolitans set up their Spanish constitution. They would have none of that consti tution, not because it Avas so bad a one, but because it Avas introduced at Naples. They wanted, and they would have, a separation and a constitution of REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. 115 their own, or that half-English constitution Avhich Lord William Bentinck had given them in 1812. They considered that a season of revolution in the continental state must favour their essay at perma nent disseverance, and that they had at least as much right to fight the Neapolitan army as that army had had to rebel against their king, and force the aforesaid Spanish constitution upon him. Mo rally disorganized, as too many of them were, the Neapolitans put doAvn that insurrection in Palermo, but not until blood had been shed and atrocious cruelties committed by the Sicilian mobs. The re membrance of that defeat rankled in the hearts of many Sicilians, who determined to try again. The preachers of the union, or oneness of Italy, thought it would be a good beginning to divide two Italian countries Avhich had been so long united. They suspected the King of Naples, and they feared his army, which, next to that of Carlo Alberto, was by far the most numerous and best army in the Penin sula. A Sicilian revolt would embarrass the king and give occupation to his forces ; and whether he won or lost in the end, the cause of Liberalism would profit in the interval. From a simple demand of redress of grievances the excitable Sicilians, who really had some serious grounds of complaint, soon proceeded to talk of the constitution of 1812; and then, instead of stopping at that point, they pro ceeded to pretend and to declare that their island must be independent, and for ever separated from Naples. In Palermo, Avhere, and Avhere alone, the i2 116 REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. feeling has been all but unanimous, all classes soon began to arm. In the first conflicts the Neapoli tans, being taken by surprise and miserably com manded, Avere disgracefully beaten. The insurrection spread — the cry for the constitution of 1812 made itself heard all over the island, although, in sober truth, a comparatively small number of the islanders kneAv what it meant. As Sicily took fire, the flames caught here and there in Calabria, and even the city of Naples became hot and feverish. Ardent provincials Avent up in bodies to the capital to fra ternize Avith all the Liberals there ; petitions to the king and proclamations to the people Avere concocted, popular processions were arranged, and other and much more serious demonstrations were devised and kept in petto. There Avould have been a turn-out in the streets in the month of December, but the Neapolitan soldiers Avould not giA'e any hope of fra ternizing; the Swiss were unsympathizing, and formidable in their numbers as well as in their dis cipline ; and as yet the N ational Guard Avas not in existence. It behoved them to Avait a little longer. Meanwhile the troubles in Sicily kept on the in crease, and greatly embarrassed the king and his government. In January there Avere great gather ings of people in the Toledo and other principal streets of Naples. On the 27th and 28th of that month there Avere alarming displays made by Avhat we should call " moral force " men. These Avere headed by priests, chiefly from the provinces, and by women whom neither policemen nor soldiers could molest. FERDINAND PROMISES A CONSTITUTION. 117 On the evening of the 28th Naples really looked like a city that Avas about to become the scene of a revolution. On the 29th the king issued a procla mation, announcing a change of ministers and pro mising a constitution — not the Spanish one of 1820, nor the Sicilian of 1812, but still a constitution, with two houses or chambers. It is said that when he made up his mind to this course, having pre viously been so goaded and tormented by the diplo macy of his neighbours, Ferdinand said spitefully, " They have been driving me on ; now I will drive them on — anno voluto spingere a me : adesso spingerb io a loro." He would be excusable if something of the sort did really pass through his mind ; but he had other and stronger motiA'es than any such anger or retaliation. The promise of the constitution might not only tranquiUize the minds of his subjects on this side the Straits of Messina, but it might also reconcile and win back the revolted Sicilians ; and for a time both objects seemed to have been accom plished. Naples Avas ecstatic. That joyous city is said never to have been seen so joyful as on the 29th of January, 1848. The street of To ledo, and the square or Largo del Palazzo, were croAvded and crammed, by juvenile citizens, who were all hugging and kissing one another, and saying " Che bella giornata e questa ! " — What a beautiful day is this ! and paying more extravagant compliments to King Ferdinand than Casti's courtier- beasts lavished upon King Lion on his lick-paw day. The Della Crusca dictionary and the very copious 118 ECSTATIC CONDITION OF NAPLES. vocabulary of the Neapolitan dialect Avere both ex hausted for commendatory epithets— every adjective Avas put in the superlative degree. Adoratissimo Sovrano, most adored Sovereign ; Amatissimo Prin cipe, most beloved Prince ; Salvatore del Regno, saviour of the kingdom, Avere Avords in every man's mouth, and Avere about the most moderate terms employed. Flags were displayed, balconies Avere dressed out with tapestry and bright silks and satins, shouts rent the air, and at night there was a mag nificent consumption of wax, the opera-house of San Carlo being trebly illuminated. From this day and for evermore liberty, concord, peace, and happiness, Avith abundance and Avith a prosperity that should reach every man's door, were to reign in the land ; for had they not got the constitution? The man who would have hinted that there are good consti tutions and bad constitutions ; that they did not yet knoAv what their constitution was to be ; that there Avere people who Avere fit, and others who Avere very unfit, for constitutions ; and that the best of consti tutions, acting in the most favourable circumstances, and with a people most fully prepared for such a regime, had never yet been knoAvn to produce a millennium on earth, would assuredly have been hissed or stoned that day at Naples. They Avere all bewitched by the mere " magic of a name," and be witched to that degree, that they could make no use of their senses or their reason. The odes and son nets which were written in this state of mental alien ation would fill many volumes. While it lasted NEWS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 119 the joy Avas perfectly sincere — the rapture sprang from the heart. The king, the chief recipient of it, Avas overcome, and moved to a luxury of tears. He might have exclaimed, like old Voltaire, that they were kuling him Avith kindness — that they were making him die under roses. Alas ! this excitable people must see everything couleur de rose, or a horrible jet-black; their imagination admits of no middle tints — of nothing but the absolutely beautiful and perfect, or of the absolutely bad, atrocious, dam nable. In Palermo they were not so rapturous as at Naples ; yet the leaders of the Sicilian revolt began to reconsider their situation and the grounds of their quarrel, and to intimate that, as King Fer dinand's constitution Avas going to be very like their constitution of 1812, they might possibly adjust their quarrel and live in harmony Avith the Neapo litans under the same ruler. But in a month — in less than one short month — the Parisian revolution of February cooled all this rapture and destroyed every hope of harmony. From the very instant news reached Naples and Sicily a dense shadow passed over Ferdinand and his charter, and the Liberals took up new starting points. The Neapolitans said — Why submit to aristocratic domi nation ? Why allow of a house of peers ? Why not revive our one chamber constitution of 1820 ? Why not drive out the Bourbons from our country, as the French have done from theirs ? Why not go for a republic ? Has not France, our great model, the most enlightened and the greatest of all nations, con- 120 HARMONY DESTROYED. stituted herself a pure democratic republic ? This King's father and grandfather betrayed us in 1820 and 1821, and will not he betray us now? Down with Ferdinand! Death to the tyrant! Let us send his brood to join Louis Philippe in Eng land! And notwithstanding the aversion of the vast majority of the kingdom to such a revolution or to any such summary proceedings, but for the attachment of the common people of the capital and the bravery of the Swiss and the fidelity of the Neapolitan troops, Ferdinand would assuredly have been driven from his throne, in that season of storm and whirlwind Avhen crowns were turned into foot balls, and when it really seemed " Che gli antichi Regi cadder e venner meno Tutti."* In Sicily they would no longer hear of a re-union with Naples, or of Ferdinand or of his constitution. They would be a separate, independent, and tho roughly free people. They Avould set up for themselves and stand by themselves — and did not the magnanimous and puissant French Republic promise aid and assistance to all peoples that might be warring against tyrants? Those among them who went the farthest Avould have been satisfied to take for their king one of Ferdinand's sons — the very maddest of them would have agreed to this arrangement on the 22nd of February ; but at the end of that month when the whole of the marvellous x^ory of Paris Avas made known to them, they * Dante. NEWS OF OTHER REVOLUTIONS. 121 voAved they Avould have nothing to do with any Bourbon, and that if they did not make a Republic (which a good many of them were inclined to do) they would elect a king from some other and better royal house. Then came on in rapid bewildering succession, the wild insurrection at Vienna, the rising in Lombardy, the expulsion of the Austrians from Milan, the revolution at Berlin, the insurrec tions at Parma and Modena with the flight of the princes of those two states, the inexplicable expul sion ofthe Austrians from Venice, and the declara tion of a republic in that city, the marching of Charles Albert and his army into Lombardy, the retreat, and seemingly the defeat of the Austrians everywhere, and the benedictions Avhich Pope Pius Avas said to have lavished upon the new crusaders. No wonder they all went madder still. From the uttermost point of Calabria, from the remotest Africa-pointing cape of Sicily to the passes of the Alps, there were few Italians to be found, who did not believe that the Austrians had for ever lost Lombardy and the Venetian provinces and all they had in the peninsula ; that the Austrian empire was dislocated, broken up, ruined past recovery; that glory and poAver had at last taken an eternal fare well of the ancient and often menaced house of Hapsburg; that Italy would be left to resettle herself in her own way, that every people in Europe would have free scope to cashier their old rulers, establish a sovereign unlimited democracy, and re model their governments after the Parisian fashion. 122 LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE PRESS. The liberty of the press, which stood foremost in King Ferdinand's concessions, noAv rushed into a fearful licentiousness. The most indecent attacks Avere made on the private as well as public character of the King, of every member of his family that was not a mere infant, of every one of his ministers, advisers, or personal friends, of nearly every officer in the King's service, and of nearly every member of the aristocracy who had not put on the livery of democracy and made himself, or pretended to make himself, a coffee-house orator and flaming dema gogue. I was complaining to my friend, the Prince di , of the state in which I found the periodical press in the month of August. " Cosa da niente — It is nothing now," said he ; " it is comparatively quite decent, moderate : you should have been here to see its condition betAveen the last days of February and the 15th of May! Our bullets aud cannon-balls Avhich cleared the barricades, cleared up the news paper atmosphere also; they were grand expur- gators — sharper and better than a censorship of two or three old priests. They scattered and drove away the most malignant of the scribblers." Although confident in his OAvn strength, the King for a long time yielded to the storm, and endea voured to avert its fury by concessions and conde scensions of all sorts — not excepting some sorts which perhaps were scarcely reconcileable Avith royal dignity or manly honour. He affected to join the Italic league, and to break with his near connexion the Emperor of Austria, and he sent 8000 or 10,000 CONCESSIONS OF FERDINAND. 123 of his best troops through the Roman States and across the Po to co-operate Avith Charles Albert and his undiscipHned and thoroughly unwarlike allies ; and he did this at a period when a very large party among the liberals and unity men of Upper Italy, taken off their legs by a feAV insignificant successes, gained with the Piedmontese army, and inflated by conceit and extravagant hope, Avere expounding with very Httle periphrasis their favourite doctrine or dogma, that his majesty of Sardinia must be King of all Italy. In his programme, Ferdinand had stated that his constitution might be modified by the two houses of parliament when they should meet, and by his OAvn necessary consent to the bills they might introduce for that purpose. But the factions Avanted not modifications, but an entire change of the constitution, and that too before the parliament met or could meet. They wanted the constitution of 1820, Avith one chamber. "No," said the King, " I never promised that. This is the con stitution of 1848, and the basis of it is a parliament Avith tAvo chambers. From this fundamental prin ciple I will not swerve." To remove their hostility to an upper House, the Liberals themselves Avere allowed to draw up a list of such individuals as they thought proper to be peers, and the King conferred the peerage on nearly every man whose name was in this list. I have taken no note of the number, but if my memory does not deceive me there were about sixty peers thus selected by the people and confirmed by the 124 REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. sovereign. The members for the Chamber of De puties were elected by the manoeuvres and violence and dictation of the political clubs. This Avas par ticularly the case in the provinces the farthest from the capital, Avhere no moderate candidate (except in a few rare instances) had the remotest chance of success. Some quiet men, Avho were returned against their Avish and without their knowledge, begged to be excused, fearing to be mixed up with such a set of firebrands. The impression was very general that the deputies would not sit a Aveek Avithout a combustion. But the grand combustion took place before they sat at all as a House. BetAveen the 1st and the 13th of May a good many of the deputies arrived in the capital from the provinces — and wild- looking deputies most of them were— from the Calabrias, from the mountains of Basilicata, from the deep glens of the Molise, from the burning plains of Apulia, and from the forests of Capitanata. A good many of them came attended by national guardsmen of their OAvn districts — just as in former times the barons came up each with a long tail of armigeri. On the 12th a steam-boat brought a considerable number of passengers from the coast of Calabria, every man of whom Avas armed to the teeth and all of Avhom Avere allowed to land ; for the con stitution had been promised and proclaimed, and no one could say nay to them. So soon as there could possibly be a muster of the ultra-revolutionary de puties a quarrel was raised against the king. In the first place doubts Avere expressed on the formula REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. 125 of the giuramento, or oath to the constitution, as in dicated in the programme drawn up by the minister of the interior. Certain proclamations had not been signed by him, but by one or tAvo of his ministers, The king must sign them himself, or the patriots Avould not trust to them. The patriots could not condescend to the acknowledgment of an aristocracy or on any account permit the existence of a house of peers. The patriots had strong suspicions against the present ministry, and therefore all the ministers must be dismissed. The patriots must have the constitution of 1820, or woe betide the king. The government had attempted to send away some of the provincial national guard, and this the patriots could never alloAv. The patriots must have equality as well as liberty, for Avithout equality liberty was nought— as the enlightened French people had de monstrated. The king must dismiss his Swiss guard, reduce the native army, and give up the Castello Nuovo, the Castello del Uovo, the Castello St. Elmo, and aU other fortresses and forts to be occupied by the national guards; for otherwise the patriots could not consider that their parliamentary deliberations would be free. On the 14th of May the members of the Chamber of Deputies called a great meeting in the Palazzo Gravina. About eighty members at tended; but these eighty soon dwindled down to forty, for as the views of the anarchs were developed, and as the prospect of a sanguinary contest was made evident, the moderate men and the timid withdrew. Those who remained in the Palazzo Gravina grew 126 REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS. so much the more rabid. A deputation of the po pularly-elected peers repaired to this conciliabulum, and represented that the king Avas ready to issue in his own name every proclamation at once Avhich had been made ; that the king sincerely wished the con stitution to be formed and to prosper ; that as they, the members ofthe LoAver House, were not yet con stituted, and as the constitution could be modified only by parliament lawfully assembled, they had better wait a few days before taking any measures. The forty replied, " You are peers ! Doavu Avith the peerage !" The deputation of peers Tejoined, " You are not constituted ! Before doing anything, Avait at least till to-morrow, Avhen parliament will be opened by the king, and when you would legally become a capital portion of the parliament." To this the patriots only shouted, " Down with the peerage ! let us have a democratic constitution — a constitution Avith one Chamber — the constitution of 1820." The peers Avithdrew. Some of the forty deputies fol lowed them; others beat a retreat shortly after wards, and when the sanguinary conflict became imminent, there Avere not above twenty of these anarchical members left in the Palazzo Gravina. The majority of the LoAver House met in another part ofthe city and issued a proclamation informing the people that the differences between the parlia ment and the king were adjusted, that his majesty had made concessions and was ready to make others if a legally constituted parliament should demand them. The obstinate deputies Avho Avere left in the THE NEAPOLITAN BARRICADES. 127 Gravina palace called up some of the armed Cala- brians and invited the people of the city of Naples to unite Avith them. Unconstituted, unformed, a small minority as they were, these patriots presumed to give orders as if they Avere the one and sole autho rity in the State, and unhappily they found but too many Avho through political fanaticism or ignorance were quite ready to obey them. " Let there be barricades ! no revolution at this time of day can be made without barricades ! The patriot part of the national guards Avill of course fight ; the people will join them ; and then Avhat are the tyrant's Swiss and regulars?" Some of the idiots Avent away to make barricades and to beat the gene rale in the streets. It was now dark night. A good many barricades Avere raised, but as soon as they were up, those Avho had made them skulked aAvay to their beds instead of stopping to defend them. Out of all the number only two Avere strong or con structed according to the rules of this art — one at the entrance into the street of Toledo close to the royal palace, another, a little higher up, in the street of Santa Brigida which opens from the Toledo into the largo or square of Castello Nuovo, — and both these Avere raised under the direction and guidance of three or four Frenchmen Avho were adepts and professors. When the barricades which had been raised had been nearly all abandoned, the insane directors of this most mad attempt at revolution went about the city ordering more to be made. Their plan was to blockade the royal family in the palace, 128 THE NEAPOLITAN BARRICADES. leaving them no issue except by sea, and the hope was entertained that, if the Swiss were repulsed, the Neapolitan soldiery would join the insurrection and effectually prevent any escape of the king. The barricade labours were loosely prosecuted through out the night. They were raised in the name of liberty, but it was found necessary to compel and beat the contributors and labourers. Poor peace able fellows Avere dragged out of their beds to lend a hand. Early on the following morning the Duke of , minister of , living in the diplomatic quarter of Chiaja, heard a fearful noise (the first intimation he had that there was going to be a de monstration) close under his windows, and upon looking out he saw a black, bony, tall priest from Calabria — as his accent intimated — folloAved by a number of armed men, belabouring with a big stick the poor shopkeepers and working people, and screaming at them with frightful objurgations that, if they did not go and help to raise barricades, he would cut all their throats. The stalwart priest car ried his impudence so far as to enter within the gates ofthe ambassador, to ask how many carriages he had got there, and to command that they should all instantly be sent out to serve as materials for a barricade he Avanted to make. The duke very ener getically urged his ambassadorial rights, privileges, and exemptions ; but that Avhich perhaps served in as good stead was the opportune display of his whole household, secretaries, attaches, servants, and all, and some of them were quite as stalwart as the THE NEAPOLITAN BARRICADES. 129 black Calabrian priest himself. No barricade was made there. In a street near at hand, abutting upon the Chiaja, they raised a tolerably strong one — but when it was made not a man stopped to fight behind it. The consul of saAv the curious scene at this point ; and he gave a very good de scription of it. Hearing a noise in the street he asked what it meant. He was told that the patriots were going to make a demonstration, a fight, a re volution. Looking out, he saw some two or three dozens of men running down the street from the Toledo. Presently these were joined by some two or three dozens more who came in from some side streets ; then came down a still more considerable band led on by two provincial priests Avho gesticulated and vociferated like maniacs. Still, however, the whole number was inconsiderable. A single patrol of horse or foot might have scattered them — seven good London policemen would have beaten them all. But nobody either resisted or remonstrated. Everybody seemed panic struck and paralyzed. The respecta bilities looked on from their upper Avindows and housetops : and so the insurgents seized tAvo or three carts which had been passing, and two or three hackney-coaches which Avere there on a stand, and arranged them in a long loose line running not straight across the street, but diagonally. They then brought a few paving-stones, the stand of a seller of iced water, some baskets filled with earth, and other objects and materials, and threw them all into the openings or void spaces of the line. A VOL. I. K 130 REVOLUTIONARY PRIESTS. Avretched breast-work it was. When it was finished — and the whole operation did not occupy ten minutes — the patriots broke into the houses on either side of the street, seized upon beds and bedding, brought the mattresses, bolsters, and pillows to the windows, or out into the open balconies, and ar ranged them so as to serve as mask and cover — for their intention was to fight here and not down below in the streets. There was one large palace, solid and strong, and Avith a fine long range of balconies on the first floor, and two ranges above it. Most of these balconies Avere fenced with mattresses, loop holes being left between for muskets. The aspect was rather ludicrous than warlike. By this time the insurgents, being Avholly unopposed, had in creased in number and apparently in audacity ; but there could not have been at any moment more than a hundred of them at this point. The tAvo priests seemed to exercise the right of command. It has been observed by those Avho have made an attentive study of the history of this country that there never was a Neapolitan revolution, insurrection, or emeute of any consequence that had not a priest or priests at the head of it. The Abbe Minichini Avas as much the hero of the revolution of 1820 as Avas the de serting Lieutenant Morelli, or General William Pepe. But on no previous occasion had there been so great a turn-out of the clergy as now. It must not however be fancied that the priests Avere unani mous, for generally those of the capital were averse to the revolution and to all the changes which had THE ROYAL PALACE BLOCKADED. 131 taken place since the 29th of January ; and in the provinces the majority of the clergy were well dis posed towards the king and dismayed rather than enchanted by the novel and daring policy of the Pope. From time to time the generale was heard beating in the Toledo, and groups of men in the uniform of the National Guard were seen collecting. By nine o'clock in the morning the royal palace Avas in a manner blockaded, and by men who, for the far greater part, knew not what they Avanted, or what they Avere there to do, or what cry they ought to set up. " The Constitution of 1820 !" " Down with the Peers !" " A Parliament with one Chamber !" were heard noAv and then, though by no means frequently. " Viva la Republica !" Avas not heard more than two or three times, and then it was raised by very few voices, and by men Avho were betrayed by their French accent. The leaders of the insurrection had done next to nothing to prepare the minds of the people, and so ignorant were some of the poor burghers as to the intentions of the revolutionary deputies and the object of the insurrection, that they fancied they Avere called out not to attack but to defend the King. So soon as these men found out their mistake ; they vanished. At about ten o'clock all the palaces and houses in the lower part of the Toledo, and near the royal palace, Avere broken into and occupied by the insurgents, who made the same use of beds and bedding as we have seen adopted elsewhere. I know, not from one, but k 2 132 COMPOSITION OF THE INSURGENTS. from many of the suffering housekeepers, whose household goods Avere so disturbed, and whose fur niture was so much damaged, that there Avere very few native Neapolitans among these invaders ; that the mass of them were wild fellows from the pro vinces, and a very considerable number of them adventurers and propagandists from Rome, from the Marches of Ancona, from Bologna, from Lom bardy, and nearly every corner of Italy. When it is recollected that these men were the first to enter the houses of the gentry and peaceful citizens of Naples, and that they occupied these houses for hours, entering every room, and doing what they chose with all persons and things that Avere found therein, it may reasonably be conjectured that the delinquencies, thefts, and robberies, laid entirely to the charge of the Kings troops and the extra loyal populace who entered those houses to drive the in surgents out, could not all haA'e been committed by the soldiery and the royalist mob. One of the heroes of Santa Lucia said to me, with an amusing mixture of indignation at being called a thief, and of regret at having found nothing to steal, " Questi revoltosi maledetti I — These accursed revolters accuse me of robbing ! Why ! the house into which I entered with my compari was so stripped and bare that there was nothing left in it but broken furniture and the mattresses at the balconies ! There was nothing left to take that Avas worth the trouble of taking !" Several attempts were made not only by the King, but by respectable citizens, to induce the insurgents DISPOSITION OF THE KING'S TROOPS. 135 to depart quietly, and to convince them that, seeing the smallness of their numbers, and the great force of the military, their struggle must be a hopeless one, and productive of nothing but ruin to them- seh'es and a serious injury to the city. Although these appeals could not disarm the fanatics and anarchists, they still further reduced the number of National Guardsmen Avho had turned out for the fight. When the conflict actually began, not a tenth part of the National Guard was there under arms ; but in very many cases provincials, and men from Central and Upper Italy, were dressed in the uni forms, and armed Avith the muskets, bayonets, and sAvords of the National Guardsmen of the city of Naples, having in some instances taken these things by force, and in others with the connivance of the civic heroesj who Avanted to have a fight without exposing their own persons in it. The King's troops were drawn up in the square before the palace, in the square of Castello Nuovo, and along the quays of Santa Lucia and the Chiata- mone, as far as and a little beyond that ancient Norman fortress called the Castello dell' Uovo. There was a free, unembarrassed, well-covered, or strongly defended communication between the palace and the castles and the arsenal; and the castle of St. Elmo, on the heights above the city, was well fur nished Avith artillery, which, if the King had had any such ferocious intention, might really have committed that destruction on the city which he was aftenvards accused of having relentlessly perpetrated. The 134 DEMEANOUR OF THE KING. Neapolitan officers of all ranks and all opinions, and Avhether in active service or en retraite, showed on this day that they understood the primary duty of soldiers, and that they had a sincere and earnest conviction, that if this revolt were not speedily put down it must terminate in a horrible pillage, blood shed, and anarchy. They put on their uniforms, girded on their SAVords, and went to the palace. The generals and superior officers were admitted to the Kmg's presence, and many of them remained with him to act as a council of Avar. General Florestan Pepe — a wiser man and a worthier soldier than his hair-brained brother William — though suffering, lame, sick almost to death, dragged him self to the royal apartment, where many men met and saluted and took counsel together, Avho had not met upon amicable terms for many a long year. It Avas about this moment that a very distinguished foreign diplomatist, a man of the most liberal senti ments in politics, a high-born, highly-educated, and highly-principled gentleman, in Avhose veracity I have as entire a confidence as can possibly be ac corded to any merely human testimony, arrived at the palace, after having encountered many obstruc tions and difficulties on his way. He found the King pacing up and down the room, pale, and dreadfully agitated. From time to time Ferdinand stopped and said to those who Avere about him, or to such of the corps of foreign diplomatists as kept arriving — " Gentlemen, I did not expect this ! I have not deserved this of my people ! I have HIS ANXIETY TO PREVENT SLAUGHTER. 135 granted the Constitution, and I intend faithfully to maintain it! I have granted everything — I have done everything to avoid, bloodshed ; and now they blockade me and my family in my own house." When the troops moved, and the firing began at the great barricade at the end of the Toledo, scarcely two hundred yards from the palace, he was still more agitated, though evidently not by personal fear, for which there Avas not, during the whole day, the slightest ground. To a general officer who came up for instructions, he. said, in the hearing of hundreds — " Spare my misguided people! Make prisoners! Do not kill! Make prisoners!" A little later, Avhen the signal-guns Avere first beginning to roar in the streets, a superior officer came in and asked permission to take military possession of that great pile of building of Avhich I have spoken in the preceding chapter as containing the War and Finance offices, and nearly all the public offices of the state. " With that building Avell fflled with troops," said the officer, " I promise your Majesty that we will soon reduce this canaille {canaglia) to reason." The King stepped up to him, and putting his hand on his shoulder, said, " Be calm, Sir, and do not call the people canaglia ! They are Neapolitans — they are my countrymen and subjects ! They are misguided by a few bad men ; but they are still my people !" And when the officer Avas taking his de parture, with the necessary order, Ferdinand called him back and again said, " Be calm ! If you allow yourself to be transported with passion, there will be 136 THE FIGHTING BEGINS. great slaughter, and this I would by all means avoid ! Take prisoners, but do not kill ! There are many now in the streets, who, by to-morroAV, will repent of their error !" The fighting began at Naples at about noon-day, and it was begun by the insurgents, and while fresh attempts were being made to tranquillize them. Having halted their troops at a short distance from the barricade, two or three officers advanced to parley ; and they were talking with some of the insurrectionary leaders when tAvo shots were fired from behind the barricade at the end of the Toledo. The first shot wounded a Neapolitan soldier, the second killed an officer. Orders were then given to charge the barricade, but before they had well issued from the mouth of the commander some of the Swiss soldiers Avere upon the barricade, and these veere presently followed by infuriated Neapolitans, Avho for the moment could not be restrained or kept in any order. The liberal papers of Central and Upper Italy represented the insurgents as having made a very long and very desperate resistance at this their chief barrier. In plain truth they ran away almost immediately, betaking themselves for the most part to the strong stone houses which lined the street, and then joining others in opening a hot fire of musketry from behind the iron railing of the balconies and the concealing covering mattresses. Under this fire, Avhich could scarcely be returned by them with any effect, a score or tAvo of SAviss and Neapolitans fell. The soldiery then broke into the ROUT OF THE INSURGENTS. . 137 houses to dislodge their sheltered adversaries. Many of the insurgents managed to escape, climbing over walls and running away at the backs of the houses as the troops entered in front; but a good many were caught with muskets hot in their hands from their frequent firing, and these met Avith the fate which they merited, and which would have been dealt out to them by any troops in the world. In some instances the people of the house were killed or Avounded, either because the melee was thick and the fighting and firing carried on in rooms and narrow corridors, or because they had been known to favour the revolutionary party, and were sus pected of having given the insurgents free ingress to their houses. But as for the bayoneting of helpless old men, and the throwing of Avomen and children and sucking infants out of the windoAvs, I could find no one that could say he had seen them, or had heard them attested upon anything like evidence. One story, which ran the round of that far-extending circle the European press, was that General Statella was wounded by a woman who fired at him from a balcony, and that a few seconds afterwards this interesting patriotess was flung out of window by soldiers, and dashed to pieces on the lava pavement in the street. It is true that General StateUa was wounded by a musket-ball which pro ceeded from one of the balconies ; my friend General the Prince of Ischitella was close at his side when he fell; the shot might have been fired by a woman, but the prince saAv no Avoman thrown out of windoAV, 138 DEATH OF COLONEL DE SALIS. although he must have seen it if such a deed had been performed. At another barricade a brave old Swiss officer, a venerable Avhite-haired man, after essaying his eloquence and persuasiveness upon the mob, put his hat upon his sword and cheered his men on to the charge of the barrier. As he was in the act, a fellow taking deliberate aim, and firing Avith his musket in rest, shot him through the heart ; the veteran bounded some feet into the air, and then fell prone upon the pavement in front of the barri cade. He was a man respected by all who knew him, and by none more than the worthy English resident merchant who saAv him fall and who told me the tale. He was of the honourable and ancient Swiss family of De Salis, a family Avhich has furnished many brave warriors to Switzerland, and many a trusty, duty-true officer to other nations of Europe. I have stood by the tombs of some of his AArarlike ancestry in the old cathedral of Basle ; and others, who had attained high military rank and distinction in their day, he buried in other parts of SAvitzerland, and in France, and Spain, and the Netherlands. The brave old man who lost his life in this wretched street-fight had a son in the service who Avas wounded, and who died shortly after. The monks of the mo nastery in the new cemetery outside the city showed us the graves of father and son, and said that the son had died not of his Avound, but of filial affection and grief. As soon as they had killed Colonel de Salis and fired a few random, trepidating shots, the heroes of that barricade ran aAvay, some quitting FIGHTING AT THE PALAZZO GRAVINA. 139 the scene of combat altogether, and some taking refuge within the stone walls of the houses, and firing from the balconies. Except when well covered the heroes scarcely fought at all : all the barricades, except the two I have named, were too Ioav and Aveak to afford shelter: the soldiers jumped over them, laughing as if they had been employed in some sport. But their attacks upon some of the very large, strong, and many-windowed palaces, with a fire of musketry from every window, was no laughing matter. A good many fell killed or wounded. It was necessary to bring up some artillery to dis lodge the insurgents by application of grape-shot and cannon ball. The most determined resistance of all was made from the upper story of the Palazzo di Gravina, where the revolutionary de puties and other chiefs of the insurrection had in stalled themselves as a provisional government, with a committee of public safety, and all the other French revolutionary machinery and appliances. Both the Swiss and Neapolitan troops suffered considerably in front of this very strong edifice. The officers in command were loth to injure that beautiful edifice, which, as I have already noticed, is the finest piece of palatial architecture in the city : but at last, on the approach of evening, artillery was brought up, and rockets and shrapnels were thrown upon the roof of the building; the massive iron-bound gates were blown open, the upper story of the building took fire, was soon in one blaze, the soldiers rushed in and ascended the great 140 FLIGHT OF THE DEMAGO UES. staircase, and then there ensued a scene of bloody retaliation. Many prisoners were, however, taken ; but neither among the prisoners nor among the bodies of the slain could there be discovered so much as one deputy, one leader, or one chief demagogue. The scoundrels had all run away before the fighting became serious, leaving their proselytes to stay, and fight, and perish. This fact converted a good many of the revolutionists: it proved to them how careful of their own lives were the demagogues who had turned their brain, and who, equally with themselves, had sworn to conquer or perish in this quarrel. One of the fugitives, Avhile in the act of flying or hiding, sent a paper to conjure the patriots to be steady in the good fight, to prolong the contest Hke heroes, as they were ; but in the end of his address he cautiously Avarned them that it might be as weu, before renewing the combat, to wait the arrival of a revolutionary army from Cala bria, which — although he knew he lied — he posi tively assured them was on its march to the capital. The fighting ended at the Palazzo Gravina : it was all over by seven o'clock in the evening. Dinted walls, broken doors, an immensity of broken window-glass, and the scattered fragments of the barricado materials, remained to tell of the affray: the patriots, barricade-heroes, blood- red flags, and tri-colour sashes, had all gone off as if they had melted into thin air, or evaporated in the smoke which rose from the Gravina palace, where the fire was not extinguished until it had CONDUCT OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 141 entirely consumed the interior of the upper story, the seat of the provisional government. It is quite true that multitudes of the common people of the city cried " Viva il Re !" and took an active part in some of the operations of the day ; but it is not true either that they Avere employed by the King or encouraged and paid by the govern ment—either that they Avere promised the plunder of the city, or that the lists of houses belonging to individuals obnoxious on account of their politics were put into their hands that they might plunder them. It Avas entirely a voluntary, spontaneous, and popular movement. The King and the government did all that they could do to check it. It was commenced by the fishermen, fish-vendors, boatmen, and labourers of Santa Lucia, avIio live close by the palace, and Avho have a hereditary re putation for loyalism and Bourbonism. They had long been smarting at the insolence of the Liberals towards the King, and at the necessity Ferdinand had considered himself under of shutting himself up in his palace for weeks together, instead of showing himself frequently, as he had been wont to do, to his most faithful people — fidelissimo popolo Napolitano. No doubt, besides the rough, untutored, unreasoning loyalty in their hearts, many of these fellows may have had a certain itchiness in their palms, a strong acquisitiveness, to be indulged in at so favourable an opportunity, and at the expense of their betters ; but to doubt the existence of the loyalty, or to deny that it Avas the first and strongest impulse, is unfair 142 EXAGGERATED REPORTS OF and absurd. They Avere animated by the same sentiments as their fathers and grandfathers in the years 1799 and 1806; and the enthusiastic affection which was felt then for King Ferdinand the grand father was noAv felt for Ferdinand the grandson. As the barricades were knocked down and the bal conies cleared, these fellows, armed with boat-hooks, bludgeons, or whatever they could lay their hands upon, followed on the footsteps of the soldiers, knocking on the head sundry insurgents and some that were not insurgents at all, entering into the houses, breaking open doors, cupboards, drawers, chests, and the like. It is not likely that all should find houses so bare as the indignant and disappointed Santa Lucian I have spoken of. I knoAv from some of those to whom they offered their spoils for sale, that on the morning after the conflict a good many of these unceremonious visitors had watches, jewels, trinkets, shawls, and fine dresses in their possession. These must all have been stolen. Some of these marauders, in attempting to carry off more cumbrous articles, were intercepted by Swiss soldiers, who took the property from them and restored it to those to whom it belonged. Orders were sent from the palace to this effect. An English merchant saw the Swiss shoot two long-legged fellows, who, instead of standing and delivering, attempted to run off Avith their booty. The plunder and devastation, like all the other incidents of the day, Avere enormously ex aggerated; but there was a pillaging which could not be prevented, and the less was the possibility of THE PLUNDER AND DEVASTATION. 143 so doing Avhen the number of the common people grew greater, when the popular and densely-peopled quarters of the old city sent out their torrents of loud- tongued, quick-handed volunteers to fight or bawl and scramble for King Ferdinand and the holy faith — " Ferdinando nostro e la Santa Fede !" I can very weU believe that a good many of the Neapo litan and some of the Swiss soldiery were not alto gether delicate in their treatment of houses from the windows and balconies of Avhich they had seen their comrades fusiUaded ; and that some of these men did not resist the temptation offered to them in certain apartments of the rich. I should be sorry to see the best of our own troops, after having their blood heated by a war of streets, exposed to such temptation. But that was an infamous amplifica tion which described not only all the soldiers, but also all their officers, as mere housebreakers and plunderers. Yet this dirty romance was circulated by the defeated Liberali of Naples, and Avas taken up and repeated, and still farther exaggerated by the revolutionary journalists of all Italy. Because they had done their duty as soldiers, and had thoroughly triumphed over the Ultra-liberals, they were set down as thieves. The Swiss officers de manded and obtained a commission of inquiry, and that commission exonerated them one and all.* Not * The Swiss Federal Directory sent commissioners to Naples for the purpose, and the report of those gentlemen, all liberals, nay, radicals, but honest Swiss withal, was perfectly exonerating as regarded theJSwiss troops.^ 144 EXEMPLARY CONDUCT OF THE SWISS. the shadow of a charge could be made out against one of these officers. Yet during our stay in Naples we heard the charge revived in many quar ters, and knew not a few persons who gave it implicit credence : so sure is it that the falsehood constantly and boldly repeated ends in becoming a doctrine of truth with many who have not the patience and may not have the opportunity of im'es- tigating the facts of the case. I knew from several Neapolitans of rank whose houses had been invaded that the conduct not only of the Swiss officers, but of the non-commissioned officers and privates of that country, had been altogether different from that which the revolutionists had described — had in fact been exemplary. These witnesses merely bore tes timony to what had passed under their own eyes. Setting aside other anecdotes bearing upon this point, I will cite merely one — that one because I have known the relater of it from her childhood, because I bear the warmest gratitude and affection to her and her family, and because, in addition to the justice it renders to calumniated men, it affords a fine proof of womanly courage. Donna Amalia Acquaviva is " Twice illustrious — in her sire and mother," uniting the ancient paternal blood of the counts of Conversano and the maternal blood of the Co- lonnas. She is a young and accomplished woman — the most graceful person to be found in all Naples. On the morning of the 15th of May her husband DONNA AMALIA ACQUAVIVA. 145 and one of her brothers went out to obtain informa tion about" the events in the streets which had taken them by surprise, leaving her alone in the house or with only a feAv servants. When the firing became hot close to their palace, the servants all ran away or hid themselves under the roof of the house, leaving Donna Amalia completely by herself. When her anxiety for those who were the nearest and dearest to her had reached an agonizing height, and Avhen musketry was" rattling, and noAv and then a cannon roaring in the street below, she heard a hasty ringing of the door-bell. Having nobody to serve her or help her, and fancying it must be her husband, she rushed to the door, opened it herself, and in the opening saw some twenty Swiss soldiers with muskets and fixed bayonets. The Swiss told her that they were sorry to alarm her, but that they must search the apartments to see whether there were armed insurgents in them or men that had been firing upon the King's troops. Donna Amalia was not alarmed. She bade them enter, and she calmly led them from room to room. The soldiers did not touch a single thing — they did not offer any insult or hazard the slightest impertinence to this unpro tected charming lady ; and, after having done their duty, they quietly withdrew, tendering many excuses for the trouble they had given. Monstrous were the tales Avhich were told of the slaughter in the fight and of the summary execu tions after it. The journalists in Rome, Florence, and Upper Italy set down the number of killed at- VOL. I. L 146 TALES OF THE JOURNALISTS. 1900 and odd, and the number of Avounded at more than 3000. They described, Avith those details and minutiae which tend to give an appearance of truth to any fable, the execution, the morning after the combat, of 53 individuals, in the ditch of the Castello Nuovo, all, as a matter of course, most inter esting individuals, worthy citizens, spotless patriots, and all put to death without any form of trial. There were no such executions : for Avant of room some of the insurrection prisoners were thrown into the Castello Nuovo, but there was not a man shot either in the ditch of that castle or anywhere else. The whole of Revolutionary Italy, and a good part of Europe besides, were made to shudder at the recital of the atrocious execution of the Duke of Ripari and his tAvo young sons. There was no such Duke in the kingdom, nor any other nobleman bearing any such name. But the refutation Avas made com plete when I said — that which I now repeat with proofs and a perfect confidence in the facts — that there was no execution at all. Cover themselves as they will, and run aAvay as fast as they will, it is not to be supposed that people are to play at bar ricades without getting some of their number despatched or seriously hurt. An English merchant long resident in the City of Naples took the utmost pains to ascertain the number of the killed on the 15th. The inquiry was not so difficult as it might have been elseAvhere or under other cir cumstances: the dead insurgents were all buried in one campo santo or cemetery, and he found that he ADMIRAL BAUDIN'S MENACES. 147 could not carry the figure of mortality much above 400, and that of this number nearly one-half were Neapolitan or Swiss soldiers. A good many may have died of their wounds days or weeks after the conflict; but it is altogether incredible that the entire number of deaths amounted to half of the "estimates of the journalists, who merely pretended to giAre the deaths of the patriots without taking any account of the vile soldiers of the tyrant. The official government accounts I saAv set doAvn the total of killed at 500 and odd. It is not quite true that M. Baudin, the Admiral of the French Republic, reproached King Ferdinand for massacring his people, and threatened to land part of his force, and even to bombard the royal palace, if he did not put an end to those atrocities. What the French Admiral did was this: a short time after the fighting was over, when the triumph of the King and of order was complete in the capital, but Avhen Naples was yet in a very uneasy state and threatened by insurrectionists from Calabria, he made a pompous and menacing display of his force, and he called upon the Neapolitan government to pay instantly a series of extravagant claims of compensation which certain domiciled citizens of the Grand Republic had sent in to him. Those vir tuous Republicans — some of whom were said to have been engineers to the two chief barricades of Toledo and Sa. Brigida, and aU of whom had been propa gandists ore rotundo — pretended to have suffered great loss and damage by King Ferdinand's cannon- l 2 148 THE FRENCH CLAIMANTS. balls, or at the hands of the troops who had upset the barricades. No scrutiny of accounts, no exami nation of items was entered into by Admiral Baudin, nor Avas the Neapolitan government allowed time or means for such processes. Whatever any Frenchman put down must be paid, and that on the nail. Among the claimants was a well-known Parisian haircutter — best known by his long-endur ing, confirmed impecuniosity. For many a year he had practised upon the head of my very old friend H. D., Avho had paid him 4d. the cut, and who had never known him to be in possession of a five-franc piece. The artiste's shop was notoriously as poor as Shakspere's starved apothecary's. This barber- citizen of the French Republic laid his damages at 10,000 francs ; and got them too. Other French men obtained much higher amounts without having suffered much more loss than the peruquier. Talk of robbery — here was robbery committed under the tri-colour-flag and under the shotted guns of the French squadron. When the English merchants, shopkeepers, and other residents Avere apphed to by some of our functionaries who would not at all have disliked to give further embarrassment to King Ferdinand and make out a long account against him, they honestly replied that they had suffered no loss, and that the slight injuries inflicted on the houses they inhabited Avould be repaired by their Neapolitan landlords. I was assured that not a franc or a carlino was claimed by any Englishman. PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED— NEWSPAPERS SUPPRESSED. 149 CHAPTER VIII. Naples — The conduct ofthe King after the Barricades — Journalism — Trial by Jury — Misrepresentations of the King's conduct — Violence of the Chamber of Deputies at Turin — Recall of the King's troops from Lombardy — General William Pepe — Neapolitan Volunteers at Venice — Metiance ! — Effect pro duced by withdrawing the Neapolitan troops — Lying Reports — General Statella — The Second Neapolitan Parliament — Seclusion of the King — Sicily — The Hon. W. Temple — Lord Napier — Lord Minto — Sir Edmund Lyons — Our Diplomacy in general. Having disposed of the barricades, King Ferdinand dissoWed this his first Parliament, the factious and frantic minority of which had attempted to make a sanguinary revolution. A few of the most violent and indecent newspapers were forcibly suppressed, and their types seized. This is a clumsy bad way of combating such abuses, but the Government can scarcely be said to have had any other way open to them. They had no usage, no precedent, no legal and constitutional machinery. Libels and other offences of the press can, according to our notions, be properly punished only by the verdict of a jury ; but trial by jury had not been made a part of the Neapolitan charter, the country not being considered ripe for such an institution, and the introduction of it being strongly opposed even by many of the 150 TRIAL BY JURY. Liberals themselves, some of whom well knew what had followed the sudden introduction of juries in Corsica and other ill-prepared countries. " Take my word for it," said an old Neapolitan gentleman who has erred on any side rather than on that of absolutism, " the mass of this kingdom is not in a state to derive benefit from that which you claim as one of your great blessings in England. Among us, a jury in civil causes would be but a centre of in trigue, liable to all manner of influences, direct and indirect ; and in criminal prosecutions involving death or transportation, or forfeiture or fine, or any serious punishment, the members of the jury, where they concurred in a sentence, would remain exposed to the deadly hatred and fierce vengeance of the culprit's family and connexions. In the capital we might possibly protect such jurymen, but in most of the provinces they would be shot or stabbed, just as happened in Corsica Avhen Lord Minto's father, Sir Gilbert Elliot, so prematurely gave his imitation of an English constitution to that rough island, and again, many years later, when the French re-intro duced trial by jury there. Can you say that Ireland is fitted for such an institution? No! We have not yet trial by jury, and thank God for it ! " It may be suspected that the people who are not ripe for juries are not fitted for constitutions; but this is a question upon which we will not enter. If the King had prosecuted the anarchical journalists be fore the ordinary tribunals, the decisions of the judges would have been held up by all the Liberals ARMY RECALLED FROM UPPER ITALY. 151 as flagrant acts of injustice, as infringements on the promised liberty of the press, and as base corrupt submissions to the will of the tyrant. But then again with this leaven all Italy, and the whole of the revolutionised continent of Europe, are imbued and permeated — the passion for extreme, peremp tory, absolute measures — the uncontrollable desire, on the part of the stronger, to have recourse to vio lence and force against the weaker. Let them be Royalists of the old school, or Constitutional Mo narchists, or rose-coloured Republicans, or blood- red Republicans, they have all, in their hour of suc cess, but one theory and one practice ; and this, as it has been well said, because their ideas are all and equally formed upon royal or imperial practice. The King of Naples did no more with his refractory journahsts after his victory of May, than General Cavaignac did with those of Paris after his victory of June ; but those who have applauded the French dictator for his decision have bitterly censured the Bourbon prince for his unconstitutionalism. Ferdinand also recalled his army from Upper Italy so soon as he was liberated from revolutionary dictation. The Liberals, who flew into a most un mannerly fury at this desertion of the common cause — at this high treason against the unity and independence of Italy — had done everything that men and factions and fanatics well could do to bring about the effect and resolution of which they com plained. They had, in the most barefaced manner, encouraged rebellion in Sicily and insurrection in 152 KING FERDINAND TRADUCED Calabria ; from Central and Upper Italy they had sent their propagandists to infect the Neapolitans, and their adventurers to fight at the barricades; they had insulted the King beyond the limits of en durance ; they had hardly ever paid a compliment to Charles Albert without balancing it with foul abuse of Ferdinand ; and one of their capital maxims had been, that, since the dethronement of Louis Philippe, the reign of a Bourbon in Italy was incon sistent with the honour and tranquillity of the Peninsula ; they had given the falsest and most odious colouring to the affair ofthe 15th of May; and all this they had done, and continued to do, not only in newspapers and political clubs, but also in a constituted parliament. On the 24th of May the Chamber of Deputies at Turin Avas turned into a judgment seat or tri bunal of Inquisition, the criminal tried in contumace being King Ferdinand, who Avas as yet a member of the Italian league. He Avas charged Avith crimes as black as any that are to be found in the blackest pages of Tacitus and Suetonius : he Avas called the bombarding king, the juggler and butcher, who had entrapped his people first, and slaughtered them afterwards.* Count Santa Rosa endeavoured to * One of Gioberti's countless biographers and eulogists, writing at the time when the news of King Ferdinand's victory over the men of the barricades was first known, exclaims — " Here are new treasons of the King of Naples 1 (Nuovi tradimenti del Re di Napoli .') Oh ! justice of God ! why dost thou not blast with thy lightning the monster who pretends to reign in thy name? In Turin they have hanged the banner of the traitor : — it is little — may the Neapolitans hang some- BY THE REVOLUTIONISTS. 153 stop these vociferations : he said that they Avere not met there to discuss the internal affairs of a separate and independent kingdom ; that very different re ports prevailed about the melancholy 15th of May, and that it Avas not becoming in them to load with such reprobation a prince Avho had an army in the field co-operating with the troops of their own so vereign. But the ultra Liberals would not be silenced or calmed. " Ferdinand is a monster," cried Ravina, " a crowned assassin ! We must record our abhorrence of him, and of all who acted under his orders ; and at the same time we ought to pass a vote in honour of the Neapolitan patriots, of those heroes Avho fought so long at the barricades, and who could be driven from them only by the thick and murderous grape-shot of the tyrant." "We ought to declare in the name ofthe whole Italian people that the tyrant has ceased to reign,'' shouted another deputy. Siotto Pintor, a caustic, witty member from the Island of Sardinia, and one of the most sensible men in the house, said, that their vote would scarcely dethrone King Ferdinand, who was beloved by his own people. Treatment like this was surely not calculated to gain the heart of his Majesty of Naples, or to make him ardent in a very desperate cause, towards which he had been thing more (possano i Napolitani impiccare qualche cosa di piii)." See ' Vincenzo Gioberti, Cenni pel Popolo di Felice Govean. Torino, 1848.' This is pretty well ; but it is short, and the language is even gentle compared with the hundreds of diatribes which came pouring from the press all over Italy. 154 WILLIAM PEPE. always, perhaps, lukewarm or even cold. When he sent his orders of recall to his troops beyond the Po he had only recently subdued an insurrection on the Sebeto ; he was every day threatened Avith some new emeute in his capital ; several of his provinces, being travailed by propagandists and communists, Avere getting into an uneasy state, and shoAving a decided indisposition not only to the payment of taxes to government, but also to the payment of rent to landlords ; Calabria was in a blaze at several points ; the Neapolitan troops retained possession of nothing in Sicily except the citadel of Messina. Ferdinand wanted the services of every man' in his army within his own frontier, and this need had been in great measure created by the manoeuvres of those who accused him of deserting the cause of Italy when he withdrew his forces from the war against the Aus trians. The exhibition made on this occasion by that very vain, vapouring man of one idea, that caricature of Lafayette, General William Pepe, is fresh in the recollection of everybody who has paid the least attention to this Italian drama, or this medley of many dramas. In consequence of the part he played in 1820-1, he had been for tAventy-seven years an exile from his country. When Ferdinand, in the hope of having a bloodless revo lution, promised a free constitution and granted a general amnesty for political offenders, William Pepe returned to Naples — and he returned no Aviser than he was Avhen he departed or fled for his life from that city. His time had been chiefly spent in WILLIAM PEPE. 155 Paris among French politicians and revolution- makers, and political refugees from Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany; his apartment served as head quarters or general rendezvous to all the ardent expatriated spirits Avho, in imitation of France, took the name of " Young Italy." He had entered into the wildest schemes entertained by that party, and when he re-appeared at Naples the prospect of constitutional liberty and of a gradual but general improvement in his own country could not satisfy the cravings of his mind; he could be contented with nothing less than the realization of all the day dreams of " Young Italy," he must have the whole of the peninsula independent, and united (federally or otherwise) ; he must forthwith see driven beyond the Alps the last column of the Austrians —those odious Austrians who had given him so flat a fall in his faint wrestle with them at Rieti in 1821. Like so many others of the Italian patriots he would not allow himself to doubt of the ready assistance of the new democratic French republic, if such assistance should be needed. King Ferdinand re ceived him with courtesy and even with kindness. The last may have been but a show; but yet it may also have been a heartfelt reality, for Pepe was now advancing in the vale of years, and his long exile rendered him interesting. He was restored to his military rank. When the King was induced to send out his army of co-operation, William Pepe was offered a command in it. His best friends — and he had many good friends, as Avell as several 156 WILLIAM PEPE. good personal quahties which win and retain friend ship — advised him to decline the offer, for they knew his creduHty and rashness, and clearly foresaw that, if he went with the army, he would involve himself in some new scrape. They represented that his age and past sufferings gave him a right to repose ; that younger men, who had groAvn up with King Ferdinand's army, were eager to obtain the post, and that, seeing the disorganised condition of the greater part of Italy and the jealousies and re sentments which reigned in every part of it, there was but a faint hope that this " Holy war " would prove either successful or glorious. 1 believe that his own worthy, affectionate elder brother, General Florestan Pepe, took this view of the case, and ad vised him to stay at home. But Don Guglielmo must needs be en Evidence — must have his harness on his back, and must be mounted and capering on his white charger, as he had practised in 1820, and as Lafayette had done in 1790. From so frequently seeing the one and reading of the other, I never can separate the image of William Pepe from that of his Avhite horse, nor that of Lafayette from his. When the orders to countermarch reached the Neapolitan camp, Pepe threw his hat in the air and vowed that he could not obey them. He appealed to the other general officers and their staffs, as Italians, as men whose country was not Naples but all Italy, as champions for the unity and indepen dence of the Peninsula; and Avhen he had made these appeals in vain, he addressed himself to the WILLIAM PEPE. 157 common soldiers, calling upon them to abide with him and advance in the path of honour, instead of obeying their king and returning disgracefully. But of the regular army not a man would stay with him or folloAv him. The volunteers, on the contrary, all threAv up their caps and stayed. These consisted of an heterogeneous mixture of wild young men and boys, whose departure the city of Naples had wit nessed Avith much satisfaction, and whose return, in most instances, Avould have been very unsatisfactory to themselves, for they had not there any ostensible means of Hving, and they had left behind them debts and various other troubles. These volun teers, about two thousand in number, remained with WilHam Pepe, and have formed his so-called Nea politan army. Since that day many are the mad pranks and Avorse than pranks that they are said to have played upon the Brenta, in Venice and else where. According to the patriotic newspapers of Upper Italy they have more than once incurred the suspicion of the Venetians whom they were to aid. One of these papers, in the month of August, affirmed that they were miraculously detected in a plot to deliver up to the Austrians the fortress of Malghera, one of the keys to Venice, and a position from which that city can be effectually bombarded. The story is quite as Hkely to be untrue as true. I merely notice it as a proof of the small confidence the Italians, from different states, repose in one another, and of their almost universal proneness to suspicion and unexamining assertion. An old 158 MEFIANCE ! French adage of revolutionary origin, and one that I saw quoted by a conspicuous member of the Pied montese parliament, is La mefiance est la mere de la sur ete* If mejiance could secure to the unity and independence men the high game which they are playing, they might leap from their seats and cry Avon ! won ! Were I to imitate the liberal press of Italy, Avhich admits as proven facts all the horrors rumoured not only of the Austrians but of the Italians Avho are not unity and independence men, I could startle the reader Avith a list of atrocities imputed by the non-revolutionary party to these Neapolitan volunteers, among Avhose offences theft and simple homicide are said to have been about the least. I never believed a tithe of these tales, yet can I very well credit that such a force, com mencing their career by an act of mutiny and re bellion against their own sovereign, and receiving no pay and no regular rations, and being under the command of a General William Pepe, may have, in very many instances, done that which they ought not to have done, and which King Ferdinand's dis ciplined army would not have done had it been left in the field. By the withdrawing that army, Avhich might soon have amounted to 20,000 men, the right wing of Charles Albert became a sham and a nullity in war, the space which it might have occupied being loosely covered by troops of the Pope and troops of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (whose re- * Signor Eavina was the member who quoted the adage. See the Turin journal ' II Eisorgimento.' WILLIAM PEPE. 159 gular forces, had they been all united, Avhich they could not be, would barely have made a total of 7000), and by undisciplined, disorderly, conceited volunteers from Central Italy, Avho went away be fore the Austrians like chaff before the wind. Poor William Pepe pretended that in giving up his com mission he got rid of his allegiance to King Ferdi nand. The Neapolitan government paper took very slight notice of his defection. Before Ave quitted Italy he Avas issuing proclamations in pairs — in the one he was telling the patriots that he was a patriot and a brave and determined man, as he ahvays had been; that Venice Avas the bulwark of Italian liberty ; that he would bury himself under its ruins rather than see the Austrians back again ; but that with such heroic citizens, and with such heroic troops as he had with him, victory was certain : and in the other proclamation he was telling the dear patriots that he had no money, that there was no money among the patriots of Venice ; that with out money Venice, the bulwark, could not be de fended ; and that they must raise money for him all over the Peninsula by donations or voluntary loans, and send it to him forthwith. It was the beggar's petition tacked to a bravado. General Di Longo led back King Ferdinand's army in excellent order. As we had read in Italian and French papers that these troops behaved infa mously and as if they were in an enemy's country, I took some pains to ascertain the fact. I did not rest satisfied with the reports of Neapolitan officers 160 CONDUCT OF THE ARMY IN UPPER ITALY. and of their minister of war ; I inquired of others, Avithin the frontier of the kingdom and beyond it ; and even in the Marches of Ancona, in the Roman states, where the population nourishes its OAvn pre judices, I was assured that the discipline of the retiring army Avas admirable, that scarcely a theft or a single act of violence was heard of, and that the Avhole conduct and demeanour of the troops pre sented a striking contrast to the minds of those who had witnessed the behaviour of Murat's Neapolitan army in the same country in 1814 and 1815. Our own hostess at Loreto, who for several days had had her hotel filled Avith cavalry officers, declared that she had never met with more orderly and gentlemanly men. When the army had crossed its own mountainous frontier, and Avas marching, a part upon the capital and a part into Apulia, the jour nalists of Rome, Florence, and Upper Italy reported that only an unfortunate combination of circum stances had prevented its utter annihilation by the indignant Roman volunteers and patriots of Bologna, and the heroic people of the Marches of Ancona. The Neapolitan army were quite capable of defend ing themselves if any attempt had been made to molest their retreat ; but no such attempt was made, nor ever was contemplated until apres les faits, by newspaper writers and club-orators. The peasantry, the great mass of the people in the provinces through which they passed, felt no interest in the Holy War ; they wanted to be at peace, and to see a return of that prosperity which had been interrupted by revo- GENERAL STATELLA— A NEW PARLIAMENT*. 161 lutions ; and Avhen they saw the Neapolitans behave so Avell, they admitted them as friends into their houses, or followed their camp to sell them refresh ments and provisions. What some of the Liberali really attempted to do was to assassinate a Neapo litan general, Avho was travelling with only a single servant. This was General Statella. The scene of attempted assassination Avas in the gentle, polite city of Florence ; and the Florentine mob that Avould have done the deed was said to have been led on by a fugitive Neapolitan or Calabrian priest. Thanks to his OAvn presence of mind and the timely inter vention of some of the Grand Duke's officers, General Statella escaped uninjured; but they seized his letters and papers and everything he had with him, and then burned his carriage in one of the public squares, in the midst of the shouts and applauses of hundreds of patriots and clubbists.* This exploit was performed in the month of May ; and as late as September, when Ave Avere at Flo rence, I could not learn that any body had been brought to account for it. Shortly after the dissolution of his first parliament, King Ferdinand, who retracted none of his conces sions, issued writs for a second. In too many in stances, the provinces elected the same men who had been returned before, or men of the same stamp ; but in several places the electors boldly set their * The Florentines also tore down from over his door the royal arms of the Neapolitan minister and burned them. I copied these particulars from a Florentine newspaper. VOL. I. M 162 INSURGENTS ROUTED BY NUNZIANTE. faces against the dictation of the clubs and returned moderate men. But the ultra Liberals and the timid time-servers kept away from Naples until they should see what turn the insurrection in Cala bria would take ; the first cherishing the hope that the insurgents would triumph and march upon the capital, and so enable them to put themselves at the head of another revolution ; and the second fearing to commit themselves until they should see how the war in Calabria was really to end, and whether Ferdinand wa$ to be a king or a fugitive. There never met sufficient members to form a house until the fire in Calabria Avas trampled out under the heels of the king's troops. While the contest was maintained, the Liberali, all over Italy, would not believe, or allow it to be believed, that the Cala- brians could be beaten. Week after week they vamped up victories for them. They represented the royal troops as flying everywhere from the brave mountaineers; andAvhen General Nunziante, assisted by the best part of the people of Calabria, had beaten the insurgents at every point, they confidently pro claimed that Nunziante Avas a prisoner — was wounded — was dead of his Avounds ; and that nothing but a wretched fragment was left of all his forces. And all these monstrous fables found easy belief among those whom they Avere meant to deceive. The acuteness and sagacity of the Italians were blunted and stultified by the vehemence of their political passions. They would believe that Avhich they Avished to be true. PLOTS FOR MURDERING THE KING. 163 When there could no longer be any doubt as to" the result of the civil Avar in Calabria the Deputies met, and Parliament was opened in a very cold, dull manner. The King did not open it in person. There were said to be plots for murdering him in the streets if he had gone. He had showed himself abroad on the 16th of May, the day after the barri cade fighting, but ever since then he had remained closely shut up in the palace, almost as much a pri soner as was Louis XVI. in the Tuileries after the flight to Varennes. In this state Avef found him on our arrival at Naples early in August, and during our stay he never once came out. He received his ministers daily, but hardly any one else. In the cool of the evening he and his family took air and exercise in a very long balcony at the back of the palace, OArerlooking the glorious Bay, the volcano, the mountains, and the Island of Capri. In these narrow and melancholy promenades Ferdinand could be seen from several points of the city. A much frequented coffee-house stood so near that it was thought a rifle-ball fired from it might reach the King in the balcony ; and it was rumoured that some of the secret police — men apt to invent more than they discover — had information that some of the barricade men had bound themselves by oath to shoot at the King from that coffee-house. The pohce shut up the cafe, and it remained closed. It seemed to me that all this was little and contemp tible, and that the King's immuring himself was very impolitic. Some of the Liberals attributed it m 2 164 FERDINAND ANXIOUS FOR THE to remorse of conscience for the blood shed on the 15th of May, but more of them said it was sheer pusillanimity— a dastardly dread of the vengeance of the patriots. The only excuse for the King which I heard Avas this— he did not quit his palace because he apprehended that the people of St. Lucia and other portions of the ultra-loyal populace, excited by his appearance in the streets, would make a tumult, and fall upon the constitutionalists. By night, voices had frequently been heard shouting near the palace " Viva il Re! A basso la Costitu- zione !" By not appearing at the opening of Par liament, Ferdinand contributed to give to that 'assembly the phantomy, unreal character, Avhich it has had in the eyes of the majority of the Neapo litan people. By increasing the number of peers, he augmented the ill-humour of the Chamber of De puties. As if the two Houses were to vote together as one, the deputies expressed great alarm at seeing the number of peers made nearly equal to their own number. They pretended that they would be over-ridden by the Upper House ; that the persons on whom the King himself had conferred the peerage were anti-democrats ; and that the Parlia ment ought to be all of one colour, interest, and sentiment. The truth was that they wished there should be no peerage Avhatever. To re-unite Sicily to his continental dominions Avas naturally the first anxious desire of Ferdinand. A large party in that island earnestly desired that the ancient union should be restored ; and in general the Neapolitan RE-ANNEXATION OF SICILY. 165 people were sensible of the disgrace the King's arms had sustained at Palermo and Messina, Avere wise enough to know the importance of the island, and Avere warlike enough to contemplate the re covery of it at whatsoever price. Though given to boasting, I did not hear any of the Neapolitans boast like the Sicilians ; nor did any of them seem to be transported with that savage hatred and fury which Ave had seen animating the Messinese. Some of the soldiers who had been driven out of Palermo, after Avitnessing the slaughter of so many of their comrades, were impatient to return thither under a better commander ; and these men spoke of retrieving the honour they had lost, and of giving the Paler- mitans a lesson which they should remember ; but these are sentiments which would have been enter tained by any soldiery in the world under the same circumstances. In the hearts of the Ultra-liberals the feeling of patriotism was, as I have intimated, silenced and smothered by the dictates of faction and their fear and hatred of the King. " Let Sicily go," said they, " provided the tyrant do not become too powerful." Some of them attempted to demon strate that, in losing the island, Naples would lose neither honour nor any solid advantage ; that Sicily Avas only an expense to Naples ; and that it would signify nothing if she remained separate and inde pendent. " Nothing !" said an accomplished foreign diplomatist, who noAv and then reasoned with these Liberali. " Is it nothing to see the disseverance of two countries which have been united for centuries, 166 THE HON. WILLIAM TEMPLE. and which are made by nature to be united ? Is it nothing to have on the other side of a narrow strait a rival and hostile people instead of a friendly people living under the same government and obeying the same laws as yourselves ? Is it not something to lose in Sicily three of the finest ports in the Mediterranean ? Is it not a great deal to abandon your numerous friends in that island, who wish to be re-united with you, and who are now suf fering the worst of persecutions from a dominant faction who have voAved eternal enmity to all Nea politans?" Yet Avhen King Ferdinand's ministers applied to Parliament for its hearty co-operation and for the means of carrying on the Sicilian war with vigour, these Liberals endeavoured to thwart them at every step. Their efforts were, however, unsuccessful, and Parliament concurred with the nation that Sicily must be recovered at any price. During all these periods of crisis the British minister to the court of Naples was absent from his post, and quietly enjoying himself in England. This envoy extraordinary and minister plenipo tentiary is, as every one knows, the Hon. William Temple, brother to Lord Palmerston. At the time of our arrival he had been on leave of absence more than a year, and he Avas not then expected baek very soon, because, as we were told, his house at Naples was to. undergo a thorough repair, and the smell of fresh paint and plaster was very offensive to him. Surely in a city containing half a million of inhabitants, and hundreds of spacious, airy OUR NATIONAL DIPLOMACY. 167 palaces, a good temporary residence might have been found for this honourable diplomate ! Is our national diplomacy to be made dependent on the quickness or slowness of plasterers and painters? Is a minister to prolong an absence from his post which, considering the circumstances of the times, had been far too long, and scandalously too long, on account of petty personal discomfort which a Httle foresight might have provided against, and from which the outlay of a few pounds sterling would rescue his susceptible nerves ? Are our foreign relations become a farce, and at this the most aAvful crisis Avhich modern Europe has Avit- nessed, and when a general war can be avoided only by diligent, upright, and enlightened diplomacy ? Our well-paid envoys, wherever they may be, have duties to perform, or they have none : if they have duties, they ought to be at their post to perform them ; if they have none, their pay is so much money robbed from the people of these kingdoms. Dele gatus non potest delegare. This ancient rule ought to be made peremptory in diplomacy : even with the assent of the Foreign Office an ambassador or minister, excepting rare cases, ought not to be allowed to delegate his secretary. If the mode rately paid secretary is equal to the work, why have a minister, or why pay both ? Mr. Temple took his departure from Naples at the very moment when there was a prospect of difficult work to do ; Avhen the revolutionary spirit was beginning to manifest itself in an alarming manner in Central 168 THE HON. WILLIAM TEMPLE. and Upper Italy ; Avhen, if ever, he ought to have been at his post, and Avhen a British minister pro perly impressed with the sense of his duties would have hurried back to his post, if he had been absent from it. During the many years that Mr. Temple had been envoy extraordinary at Naples, he cer tainly had had no extraordinary or hard work to complain of; he had led one of the easiest and pleasantest of diplomatic lives in the most beautiful country of Europe. Except in discussing that wearisome question about sulphur and brimstone, Avhich after all Avas not settled by him, but by his brother Lord Palmerston, he had done very little, and had had but little to do. The first fresh hour after breakfast must have been more than enough for his usual daily work ; and he had secretaries and attaches to help him, and a consul and vice- consul under him to attend to commercial business. He bore the character of an easy, self-indulging, someAvhat indolent man, but amiable, accessible, prudent, and dispassionate. He was of mature age : an advantage in his favour, for youthful diplomatists do not generally inspire confidence or impose respect. The King of Naples had at one time entertained a strong prejudice against him, believing that he had co-operated Avith Lady S in inveigling his brother, the Prince of Capua, into his mesalliance Avith Miss Penelope Smith ; but this had been cleared up, to the perfect exculpation of Mr. Temple, the King's prejudices had been removed, and from that time his Majesty had showed a preference to LORDS NAPIER AND MINTO. 169 the advice and counsel of the English minister. Ferdinand had regretted his departure, and had many times strong motives to Avish for his return. Mr. Temple left behind him as charge" d'affaires the secretary of legation, Lord Napier, an inex perienced young man, and who looked younger than he Avas. They say in Scotland that there never was a Napier without ability, or without a bee in his bonnet. In this young lord's bonnet the bee is said to hum so loudly as to drown the voice of discretion and common sense, and common diplomatic decorum. He openly rejoiced when the revolutionary ferment began at Naples, and prognosticated that nothing but good to the country could possibly proceed from it. As the revolutionists grew bolder his admiration for them seemed to increase. When the Sicilians rose in rebellion his sympathies were all with them. Un happily the society and advice of old age came in to the aid of his juvenile indiscretion : Lord Minto in the course of his roving and (in part) illegal com mission arrived at Naples, after having fraternized with the liberals all through Italy, and (metaphori cally at least) hoisted the black flag in the front of well nigh every royal palace in the peninsula. But there is scarcely any metaphor in saying that Lord Napier, representing the representative of Queen Victoria, " patted on the back " sundry of the insti gators of the desperadoes who made the barricades of the 15th of May, and whose success, had it been attainable or possible, must have ended in the death 170 LORD NAPIER. of King Ferdinand or in his precipitate flight Avith his Avhole family— in plunder, massacre, anarchy for the city of Naples, and a long and bloody civil war for the kingdom ! Lord Napier made his house a place of rendezA'ous for all the fiery young men of the Nea politan society, and himself the centre of a political faction : he collected all his intelligence from these . sources ; he would apply to none others ; he avoided the men of the moderate party ; he turned the cold shoulder on gentlemen with whom he had been intimate because they accepted office under the King — because they became constitutional ministers of the crown. If he did not himself indulge in an indecent licence of language against these ministers and the King himself, he alloAved such language to be used in his presence. " La Bestia," the beast, Avas about the mildest epithet applied to Ferdinand bjr Lord Napier's associates. With such sources of information one may well imagine what sort of despatches his Lordship wrote to Downing Street. They could not be otherwise than most unfavourable to Ferdinand, and favour able to the movement or revolutionary party. Yet the Marquis of LansdoAvne has ventured, in the House of Lords, to applaud those despatches as wonderfully able compositions, or as masterpieces of diplomatic correspondence, and to assure that House that, during the long absence of the Honour able William Temple, England has been ably and admirably represented by Lord Napier. If those are good despatches which contain nothing but ex- SIR EDMUND LYONS. 171 parte statements, and the loud echo of the voice of a faction — if he is a good representative of England who leagues himself with the violent political and personal enemies of the sovereign to whom he is accredited — then may this young diplomate merit Lord Lansdowne's eulogium. The praise may be made the warmer in consideration of Lord Napier's youth and precocity of talent in this line, but ap plause cannot be wholly denied to older men and more experienced diplomatists. Not at this mo ment to mention others, Sir Edmund Lyons must come in for a share of it, for he has been doing at Athens for tAvelve years that which Mr. Temple has done at Naples during eighteen months. It is scarcely to be expected that the princes to whom such envoys are sent, and at whose court they are kept in spite of frequent and earnest remonstrance, should join in the eulogiums pronounced in our Parliament by members of the Whig Government. It is now nearly four years ago that the King of Greece, excited by ill treatment, and alarmed at the anarchical state of the country, said to an Eng Hsh gentleman, " Does your Government really wish me to be dethroned, and driven out of Greece ? If it has such a wish, let it plainly be declared, and I will abdicate at once, and return to Bavaria." The Englishman replied that he could never be lieve that his Government had any such wish, or entertained any such idea. "Then," said Otho, still more excited, " why, in spite of my remon strances and entreaties, do they persist in keeping 172 NECESSITY OF REFORM IN here a minister who declares himself, in nearly all companies and on all occasions, my personal enemy — who associates on the most friendly terms with my worst enemies, with the leaders of a desperate faction that will never be at rest until I am driven from Greeee — who takes from men like these his notions of my character and conduct and motives, and reports upon their evil report to his own Go vernment—who has endeavoured to fill Avith preju dices against me the mind of every English tra veller that has visited Athens — Avho has made his house a centre of agitation — who has fostered revo lution — who has mainly contributed to force upon me a constitution for which the country is not pre pared, and the effect of which will be to leave no government, no authority, no law in Greece ! " Otho's interesting Queen, whom no faction, no art, has been able to render unpopular, said to the same English gentleman, and with tears in her eyes, " Dieu sait comment tout cela va finir ! Je crains meme pour la vie de mon mari." The King of Naples might have spoken of Lord Napier in almost the same terms as those which the King of Greece applied to Sir E. Lyons; nor have the alarms and anxieties of his Queen been less than those of the Queen of Greece. Many are the tears which have rained from her eyes since the 29th of last January, when Ferdinand granted the constitution, and when her name was coupled with his, in the enthusiasm of the moment, as that of an adored sovereign. Of all the corps in our service there is not one OUR CORPS DIPLOMATIQUE. 173 which so much needs revision and reform as the corps diplomatique. It is extravagantly costly, and in general miserably inefficient. Where it is not dissipated, negligent, slothful, it is perversely active ; Avhere it is active in intermeddling with the internal poHcy of a country, it is notoriously careless of the interests of British subjects living in or trading with that country. It has adopted as a principle that such interests are not to be allowed to interfere with local political views and plans for reform and regeneration. 174 CASTELLAMARE— RAILROADS. CHAPTER IX. Castellamare — Railroads — Prosperous appearance of the People — Souvenirs — Improvements — Sir William Parker's Fleet — New Road to Sorrento — A Party at Sorrento — Music — The Duchess of Atri — A musical prodigy — Mr. Whiteside — Greatly improved Education ¦ — Domestic virtues — Moral tone of the Neapolitan Court — A night-drive — Aboard the English Fleet — Neapolitans at Palermo — Florestan Pepe — Calabrians as Soldiers — Sicilians and Neapolitans compared — Cruelty of the Palermitans — English occupation of Sicily — The Consti tution of 1812 — Strange conduct of Admiral Parker — A forced Loan — The Palmerston Policy. We Avent for a few days to Castellamare to visit some of my old Neapolitan friends, who had retired to that pleasant, well-known watering place, and to see the English fleet which Avas still lying in that corner of the Bay of Naples. We travelled on an excellent railroad — the first Avhich was made in Italy, and still one of the best. This line extends some eight or ten miles farther than Castellamare, turning the roots of Mount Vesuvius, ascending the magnificent, richly cultivated valley of the beautiful river Sarno, and terminating at the well-peopled and recently prosperous town of Nocera — or, to give it its full antique denomination, Nocera de' Pagani. But for the ItaHan revolutions, the line, by this time, would have been carried much farther, to the great benefit of the community. Another line of railroad PROSPEROUS APPEARANCE OF THE PEOPLE. 175 leads to the important fortress and city of Capua, having a branch which conducts to the splendid royal palace of Caserta, the Versailles of Naples. These Hnes also would have been prolonged. Other lines Avere planned. Perhaps the greatest and the most promising of these projects Avas that of a line of rail from Naples and the Tyrrhenian Sea to Brindisi (the ancient Brundusium), and the en trance to the Adriatic. Such a line would nearly bisect the kingdom, traverse several of its most important provinces, and touch at many of its best peopled cities and towns ; it AA'ould bring close to the capital the corn and cattle and Avool-producing Apulia, the olive-growing Terra di Bari, the dis trict of Ostuni, and the province of Lecce, and part of the Terra d' Otranto, which present one con tinuous olive grove; it would unite that line of coast which from Barletta to Fasano is studded with ancient cities and large towns (nearly all on the margin of the Adriatic) far more closely than any other line of coast of the same extent that I can remember is dotted with hamlets and villages. This is one of the most civilized parts of the Nea politan dominions, but hitherto it has been rarely visited by the traveller. I knew it first in 1816, when it was only just beginning to recover from the effects of the long war, and Bonaparte's con tinental system ; I visited it the last time in 1826, when it had perfectly recovered and was in a high state of prosperity — thanks to that general peace which the reckless Italian patriots would now cause 176 IMPROVEMENTS. to be broken for a passionate Avhim and impracti cable theory. In completion of the grand plan, the ancient, magnificent, commodious double harbour of Brundusium was to have its sand-choked mouth cleared out. Were all this done, that port must, from its position, attract a considerable share of the trade of the Levant, and a good portion of our over land travellers from India, Avhom the railroad would enable to reach Naples in a few hours. I Avas as sured that the Neapolitan Government might soon have found the means to commence these grand works, which, in the course of a feAV years, would have changed the aspect of a good part of the king dom. But now this and every other scheme of improvement is set aside and apparently forgot ten. The railway to Castellamare is indeed excellent. We travelled on a holiday, and found all the car riages filled with elegantly or well-dressed passen gers. A recent traveller — Mr. Whiteside — who looked through revolutionary spectacles, and saw lazzaroni everyAvhere, might possibly have seen them in the open third-class vehicles, but we saAv only decently attired people, who looked very cheer ful, and as if they were very well fed. The rich Paduli or plain of alluvial soil Avhich extends from the outskirts of the city and the banks of the little river Sebeto almost to Portici and the foot of Ve suvius, never seemed to me to be so well and dili gently cultivated as now, although it has been for ages the exuberant kitchen garden of Naples. The RAILWAY TO CASTELLAMARE. 177 houses of the little farmers and gardeners were certainly far neater, and exhibited more signs of comfort and well-doing than when I had last seen them. The children, Avho were swarming about the doors and playing merrily in the full blaze of an August sun, which would have scorched most Englishmen, and driven them into the shade, had clean cotton shirts to their backs, and clean coarse cotton draAvers or trousers below. The railway soon strikes the shore of the Bay, and then continues to run along it or curve round it, always close to the sea, until you reach Castellamare. It drives through a part of the immense lava stream which buried Herculaneum, through part of the torrent which Sir William Hamilton saw Vesuvius roll into the Bay in 1787, and across other broad lava beds, some of ancient and some of modern date ; and it runs smoothly over the overflowings of the mud, pumice- stone, and lapdli which entombed the city of Pompeii. There is not a spot along the whole line that was not familiar to me, or that was not endeared by many recollections. La route vaut bien les souvenirs, or without my recollections any traveller on this railroad may enjoy a transport of pleasure, all the way from Naples to Castellamare, so exquisite and so varied are the views which it commands. By the neat and convenient terminus at Cas tellamare Ave found a group of sailors from Sir William Parker's fleet, waiting to be conveyed to Naples for a frolic. Ascending the hills behind the town, on our way to Quisisana, where the pleasantest VOL. I. N 178 MONTE SANT' ANGELO. of the villas and lodging-houses are situated among gardens, and groves, and avenues of trees, we met a long string of merry young midshipmen, mounted on donkeys, and coming down from the magnificent mountain which towers between the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno— the famed Monte Sant' Angelo, on whose rocky peak there is a hermitage with a dingy old chapel and a very miraculous image of the Virgin. The archangel Michael once caught the devil up there, among the clouds, seek ing to do some mischief to the holy house. At the approach of the seraph the demon fled precipitately down the rocks and chasms ; but the archangel pois ing his lance, threw it after the demon — and missed him. But from the solid rock which was struck by Michael's lance there instantly gushed a stream of cold, pure, and most refreshing water, which has never since ceased to flow, and which no pilgrim or other traveller ever fails to stop and taste. Our midshipmen had not drunk it neat : from appearances I judged that they must have mixed some of the generous wine of Gragnano with the miraculous water. I found my Neapolitan friends of whom I Avas in search. They were all living together, or in houses at very short distances from each other. I was in a family, a colony of dear old friends. Twenty- one years of absence, and some culpable neglect on my part in the way of correspondence, had not chilled the affection or altered one sentiment of these warm hearted people. They welcomed me as one might Avelcome a son or beloved brother after a long CASTELLAMARE. 179 absence ; and they cherished my dear boy because he Avas mine — and very like what I Avas when they first knew me. Here I found the Duke and Duchess of Atri. the earhest, Avarmest, and most constant of my Italian friends, and their accomplished daughter and manly sons whom I had known as children, and (two of them) from the day of their birth. Here Avas the widowed Princess of Stigliano Colonna, in whose house I had passed so much of a happy time. The dead could not be recalled ! Her husband, Don Ferdinando Colonna, the kindest-hearted, most amiable of men, and — " when we were first acquent," — one of the most joyous and frolicsome, had perished in his prime ; but his three sons were here, grown up into fine, handsome men, and looking like their father, and speaking with their father's voice, and loving me because I was their dear father's friend. Here were others of the associates of my youth and early manhood, among whom I appeared, without any previous announcement, like one dropped from the clouds. Here I found my true, English-hearted friend William I , with whom I used to read Italian poetry in the year 1817 ! "Out upon time !" I shall neA-er forget the reception I met with under the shadow of old Mount Sant' Angelo. I found Castellamare and everything about it amaz ingly improved. When 1 first knew the place there was only one mean house that aspired to the title of locanda. The rest of the places of entertainment Avere mere taverne, or cabarets. There are now a dozen or more comfortable hotels, two of which may k 2 180 CASTELLAMARE. be called splendid houses. The lodging-houses, and the furnished houses and villas to let to foreigners and visitors, have been trebled in number and greatly raised in quality. The principal street, and the quay, Avhich affords a fine promenade along the bay, have been widened and beautified. Through out the town there was an appearance of neatness, comfort, and finish which were only beginning when I was last here. For this result the place had been chiefly indebted to the annually increasing influx of wealthy foreigners ; and of this fact the fixed popula tion was fully sensible. The people of CasteUamare and the neighbourhood had always been distin guished as very hot Royalists: the absence of foreigners and the falling off of their prosperity in this troubled year had made them very anti-consti tutional, and almost counter-revolutionary. " Who," said they, "have driven away the English lords and the Russian and German princes, and the other foreigners Avho fed us and enriched us ? Who but these revolutionists ? We have had no prosperity — no peace since this constitution was made. We do not want the constitution. We want peace and the foreigners back again. Our houses areempty, our horses and asses are unemployed; we have nothing to do ! ' Though not very pleasantly announced at Naples, the long visit of the English fleet was a God-send to Castellamare, for the officers and men of so considerable a force naturally spent a good deal of money on shore, and many of the ship supplies were purchased in the town. We chanced ROAD FROM NAPLES TO SORRENTO. 181 to be there on a pay-day, and in the course of that day and the three folloAving ones, the best part of 3000/. Avere expended in the town. Our fleet was indeed the only good customer. The Neapolitan nobility and gentry, receiving hardly any rents from their estates, were living quietly and economically, and there were no Avealthy foreign visitors. We had been told, and we had read, of the mag nificent new road which the present King has made along the southern side of the bay from Naples to Sorrento. That road surpassed my expectations, and is deserving of even more praise than has been bestowed upon it by travellers of all nations. The engineer is a Neapolitan officer attached to the department which they call " Ponti e Strode," and the French " Ponts et Chausse'es." His name is Giordani. I regret I do not remember his Christian name ; for to speak of a Signor Giordani in this country is like talking of a Mr. Smith in England, the name being so very common that it is scarcely a designation. He had many difficulties to overcome. The bold promontory — an offshoot of the Apennines — which stretches from Castellamare to Sorrento and the Cape of Minerva or Capo Campanella, is one long, lofty, rugged mountain, cut by deep chasms, and having several separate peaks and salient rocky masses, like Monte Sant' Angelo, Massa, Vicovaro, &c. : on the side of the Gulf of Salerno the mountain drops a pic into the sea, Amalfi, Posidonia, and the other little towns and viUages on that side being built upon narrow ledges of rock, to which access is 182 NIGHT DRIVE TO SORRENTO. afforded by zig-zag paths and steps cut in the cliffs: on the side of the Bay of Naples, though not so perpendicular, the mountain is very precipitous : it has scarcely anywhere a narrow level space between it and the sea ; in many places it terminates in bluff cliffs, from fifty to a hundred and twenty feet high, and the ravines which occur frequently are, for the most part, broad and profound. Some of these chasms the engineer has skilfully turned ; others he has boldly bridged. To a considerable extent he has cut his road out of the live rock. Until it Avas made, the land communication between Castellamare and Sorrento was most difficult, and even perilous to such as could not perform it on foot, for the most careful and experienced mules of the country fre quently fell among the large loose rolling stones, or in ascending or descending the bare slippery rocks. We were told that the new road had cost the King a very large sum ; and this I could easily believe on seeing the work. When I was domiciled here I Httle thought that such a road could or would be made. One evening we drove to Sorrento Avith the Duchess of Atri and her family to visit one of her sisters at the Villa Correale. Even for the month of August and this delicious climate, it Avas a Avonder- fully brilliant and beautiful evening. From the road, Avhich runs nearly everywhere close about the bay, we saw the sun set in all its glory behind the sublime volcanic peaks of the island' of Ischia. I never saAv such a sky or such a colouring in Greece or Turkey. At many points of the road Ave had VILLA CORREALE— MUSICAL PRODIGY. 183 vineyards and olive-groves above our heads, and olive-groves and vineyards at our feet. Coming upon the Piano di Sorrento, where there is a broad level space about a mile and a half long, Ave were in the midst of Avalled-in gardens and groves of orange, lemon, and citron trees, which loaded the cool even ing air Avith perfume. It was the March esa's Festa or Giorno Onomastico, and so there was society, with plenty of first-rate music (chiefly by amateurs) and a Httle dancing. I met other old friends and the graceful daughters of some that were the " beauties " of Naples in my time. Here also I met one who cannot fail of becoming famous — a young musician from the mountains of Abruzzi, who played upon the violoncello with an ease and a felicity of execution and a taste and feeling Avhich I never heard surpassed. He was the son of a poor shoemaker, or cobbler, of the little town of Giulia Nova, for centuries one of the fiefs of the Atri family, and in and around which they have still considerable possessions. The poor boy had learned music by ear, and could both sing and play in a manner altogether extraordinary, considering, not only his total want of instruction, but the fact that he had never had the opportunity of hearing any good music in his life. About four years ago, when the Duchess was residing at her pleasant villa, a few hundred yards beyond the antique towers and walls of Giulia Nova, some of the good townspeople, who, in spite of the abrogation of the feudal system, will persist in calling themselves her " vassals," 184 A MUSICAL PRODIGY. spoke to her about the young musical prodigy. Besides being the kindest and most generous hearted of human beings, the Duchess has a finished taste in music, and a passion for it ; and she has been one of the best dilettante singers in Italy. Never, in the days of Petrarca or in any time since then, can there have been a more perfect mistress of " II cantar Che nell' anima si sente." Her singing, which went to the soul, came from hers. Her heart sung more than her voice ; but her speaking voice was music, her face Avas music, her daily life was music — nor could misfortune, or calamity, or suffering jar for an hour the harmony of her nature, the melody of her being. She sent for the poor boy, and having overcome his bashful- ness by her kindness, she made him play. She was astonished at his rude skill, and delighted with the accuracy of his ear. It was a delicate boy, unfit for any hard work, and very averse to his father's craft. There was little probability that he would ever make a good cobbler, but the Duchess was sure he would make an excellent musician. She gave him lessons and many valuable hints herself; and, seeing that he improved rapidly, she exerted aU her interest for him at Naples, and eventually got him placed in the Conservatorio or Royal Academy of Music in that city. When we heard him he had been three years in that establishment, studying under accomplished masters, who one and all had taken him into special favour. Mercadante, the MR. WHITESIDE'S MISREPRESENTATIONS. 185 well-knoAvn composer, the present Head Master and Director in the Conservatorio, declares that he never had a pupil of such high promise. He had studied counter-point and composition, and had already produced a feAv little pieces remarkable for their originality, fancy, and feeling. I feel confident that, in his line, he will have an European reputation. He has a strong desire to travel. We shall see and hear him some day in England. Not only for the sake of his patroness and my dear friend, but for his own sake, I shall feel most happy if the few words I have said about him should serve as a slight in troduction. He is a modest, affectionate, grateful creature. Although there was more music than conversation — for there was no possibility of talking without getting on the subject of politics, of which all pre sent had had enough, and more than enough, since last January — I could have wished Mr. Whiteside to have been here, or at one of our little parties at Castellamare, for an hour or two, as he could not have failed to find many motives for changing his hurried sweeping censure of the aristocracy of this country. But Mr. Whiteside, like Mr. Rae Wilson and other censorious travellers, never got a footing in Neapolitan society — never was in that society at all. I met nobody that had known him, and I am assured that, until his book was published, his name was altogether unknown to the Neapolitan nobility, upon whom he sits in judgment. The learned Queen's Counsel at the Irish bar repeats an 186 EDUCATION OF NEAPOLITAN LADIES. old and worn out calumny Avhen he says tha*t it is common to find persons among the nobility who cannot write their own names. The statement is grossly untrue ; and Mr. Whiteside's reviewer in the ' Quarterly ' is quite correct in affirming that the education of the upper classes at Naples, far as it may be from the best, is by no means neglected.* I can also assure the reader that the system of edu cation was considerably improved between the years 1816 and 1827, and that I found in 1848 that still further improvements had taken place during my long absence. I found the young men of the day more quiet and serious, more studious and fond of reading. To the great benefit of society, in more Avays than one, the conventual education of young ladies has been, to a very great extent, abandoned at Naples. The daughters of the nobility are nearly all brought up at home, instead of being immured Avith doating old nuns for six or seven years in a monastery, and then married and turned out upon the world with a total and fatal ignorance of the world's ways. They have their governesses and their private masters, and many are the respect able foreigners who have gained a comfortable living by teaching languages or by giving other private tuition in the houses of the Neapolitan aristocracy. Not to speak of the universal accomplishment of music, which, in many instances, is carried almost to a scientific knowledge and perfection, all these young ladies, as well as their brothers, learn French, and * ' Quarterly Review,' Vol. LXXXIII. THE NEAPOLITAN NOBILITY. 187 many of them study English. I could name not a few who read Shakspeare and Milton in the original, and who can speak our difficultly-spoken language with fluency and propriety. Among the young men it would be difficult to find many that are altogether ignorant of English. I have known, and have long and intimately associated Avith, members of the Neapolitan nobility who Avere not only " as well able to discuss the ordinary topics of conversation as the polished society of most other capitals of Europe," * but who would have been distinguished in that society by the extent of their information, the vi vacity of their wit, their exceeding fertility of illus tration, and the finished elegance of their manners. The superiority in culture, education, civilization, political knowledge, valour, fortitude, and other high qualities, assumed by the people of Upper Italy over those of Lower Italy, is, for the most part, a piece of pedantry and prejudice, a miserable rem nant of the old municipal and state jealousy which has done so much mischief to the peninsula. Both in ancient and modern times Naples and her pro vinces have contributed at the very least their full quota to the celebrities of Italy in letters, science, art, and even war. The fathers of the science of political economy were Neapolitans ; some ofthe most learned and acute jurisconsults have been Neapo litans, as were Filangieri, Conforti, Pagano, and other eminent writers on the science of legislation. If the Reformers and constitution-makers of the day Avould * ' Quarterly Review.' '188 GREAT MORAL IMPROVEMENT. rid themselves of their French philosophism and revolutionary theories, burn such vapid declama tions as those of Gioberti and Mazzini, and diligently study these Neapolitan writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they would be more likely than they now are to effect Avholesome judicial re forms, and to establish rational and lasting consti tutions. I am inclined to attribute in good part to the superiority of domestic to conventual education the great moral improvement which has now been ob servable for a good many years in Neapolitan society. Everybody that has known Naples as long as I have will acknowledge that there is in general a wide difference in the domestic virtues between the young wives of the present and those of the preceding generations. Exemplary wives and mothers now abound, and may be said to form the rule, while those of less commendable reputations are only the exception. Of those Avho were young marriageable girls when I left the country, and who have now long been wives and mothers, I scarcely heard of one who had not been distinguished by the exempla- riness of her conduct. These ladies had all been educated at home, had been brought into society, and had opportunities of seeing and knowing their suitors, and had been alloAved at least a voice in the important decision of marriage ; whereas their mothers were never brought out until they were brides, seldom saw their husbands until the two con tracting families had signed and sealed the irrevo- CHARACTER OF FERDINAND. 189 cable contract, and Avere hardly ever allowed a choice, or the opportunity of a choice, or the right of refusal : they passed from the ceU and cloister, and the grated gallery of their monastic church, to the giddy baU-room, the bewitching opera, and the in sidious court. The consequences of all this could hardly have been different from Avhat they Avere. No doubt the moral tone ofthe court since the accession of the present king has had an influence on the right side. His enemies, who have accused him of every thing else, have not ventured to charge Ferdinand with dissoluteness or incontinence. He is a strict observer of domestic morals and decencies, an im portant fact in a country like this, and a great deal to say of any king of Naples. In these respects his court has been a model, which some of the princes of the continent would have done well to imitate. The difference in the menage of so many of the nobility struck me very forcibly ; and my attention was afterwards called to it, and the facts upon which I founded my conclusions were confirmed by an excel lent and inteUigent English woman, who has lived twenty-seven years in the country, and brought up in it an interesting family of her own. Our return from Sorrento was, if possible, more delicious than our drive thither. It was about two hours after midnight. The moon, though not nearly at the full, shone as she shines only in these heavens. Her brilliancy almost turned the old Marquis Caraccioli's joke into the semblance of a fact. An Englishman, meeting that minister and 190 RETURN FROM SORRENTO. wit in Hyde Park on one of our sunniest days, fell into a rapture about the beauty of the Aveather and the brightness of the sun. " Yes," said the marquis, " it is nearly as bright as our moon at Naples." The road Avas as smooth and hard as a billiard- table, the horses of our carriages were fresh and vigorous, and the cool night air and their homeward course gave them additional spirit. We flew along Hke Faustus when he travelled across the Hartz Moun tains with the witches, and heard the giant crags " snort and blow," and the forest tops cry out ho, ho ! * The mountain sides shone out distinctly in the moonlight, with their evergreen thickets and olive-groves and vineyards, and white-faced cottages between ; and where the road was not shaded with tall growing trees it was as white and bright as a snow -path ; but in the deep chasms we had to pass there was aAvful depth of gloom. It required some previous knowledge of the road, and of the strength of its bridges and their good para pets, to avoid a feeling of alarm in crossing these ravines; and in spite of this previous acquaintance, it Avas something like a trial of the nerves to a short-sighted man to see himself whirled along a road which every here and there seemed to termi nate on the very edge of a tall cliff, under Avhich were sharp rocks and the deep sea. But each time the road suddenly turned some shoulder of the mountain or some projecting rock; and horses no more like to break their necks than do the prouder * See Shelley's wonderful translation. BRITISH FLEET. 191 animals they draw ; and Neapolitan horses are well in hand, and Neapolitan coachmen (though they may perform in a slovenly manner) are masters in their craft; and thus we aU went safely and merrily, and were never in any real danger. The preceding day had been scorching hot ; it was happiness enough ' (for the time) to live and breathe this cool night air. We looked forAvard with regret to the near moment when our night drive must finish. Our fleet, or very strong squadron, lay at anchor off the town, in beautiful order. There were seven ships of the line, two frigates, and two war-steamers. Among the first rates were the Hibernia, the Howe, and the matchless Queen — a ship well worthy of her name — a true Queen of the waves — a perfect ship in every point, and admirably appointed. We visited some of these magnificent vessels, and were received as travellers always are, with much polite ness. I never saw ships in such thorough order, and perfect warlike trim ; nor did I ever see a finer set of officers and men. In a very large proportion the crews were composed of remarkably well made, well-looking young fellows ; too young, perhaps, to be first-rate able seamen, but with an intelligence and a will about them which gave a promise and assurance that they would become the best of mariners. They were remarkably clean and cheer ful. Their pleasant humour bore favourable testi mony to the altered discipline which has now for a good many years prevailed in our navy. The milder and more considerate treatment the men 192 BRITISH FLEET. receive, the greater attention paid to their diet, the diminution of the daily allowance of rum, with a make up in the shape of tea, the improved educa tion of some of our poorer classes, and a fondness for reading, which is now not uncommon among our sailors, have all contributed to bring about a mani fest and manifold improvement. The duty which is done with cheerfulness is always done the best : the merrier our men become the better mariners they will make. We had seen a good deal of the " leave parties " on shore, and had also heard from the townspeople very favourable accounts of their behaviour. They certainly did, now and then, over- elevate their spirits with wine ; but the wine was good and light, and would not do them any harm ; and the vile ardent spirits of the country they seemed to avoid. I did not see one case of disgusting drunken ness among any of the fleet. The politics of a fleet — which never count for much, and Avhich are nowhere less thought of than in the fleet itself — generally take their colouring from those of the Admiral. I was sorry to find among the officers a strong prejudice against the Neapolitan King and people, and an ill-considered predilection for the Sicilians and their rebellion . They had only heard one side of the story : they had associated much Avith the Sicilians, and uot at all with the Nea politans. They had been disgusted by the too current accounts of the cowardice displayed by the King's forces at Palermo, and had not sufficiently reflected on the miserable blundering of the general PREJUDICE AGAINST THE NEAPOLITANS. 193 in command, whose conduct and absurd dispositions were enough to take the heart out of the best of troops. He landed them in the port among shipping and tall strong houses, where they could not act, but only suffered ; he sent them into coupes-gorges, into the worst street fighting; he broke them up into fragments, and, like our OAvn madmen at Cabul, he shut his eyes and let the insurgents take the ma gazines of provisions and military stores. Ever since the unhappy French precedent of 1830, it has been the fashion Avith too many journalists to convert all insurrectionists, barricade-makers, and balcony fighters into heroes and unconquerable patriots. The Palermitans came in for more than their share of these laudations, and their self-praise was more vociferous than even that of the Parisians. In 1820 Palermo was neither weaker nor stronger than she now is, yet seven thousand Neapolitans presently tamed her pride and brought her to order. But that army was weU commanded by General Florestan Pepe, who landed his troops at the Bagheria, and where they ought to be landed, who drove the Sicilians before him, and who, instead of exposing his men in an unequal murderous contest in the streets, conquered and occupied all the heights which command it, and all the roads which gave ingress or egress to the city. And assuredly at that time the Neapolitan army was very far from being so well disciplined and so well affected as it now is. I do not believe in the existence of nations of cowards. When well officered by English officers, VOL. i. o 194 PREJUDICE AGAINST THE NEAPOLITANS. or by native officers trained and paid by us, and when acting Avith British forces, the Sicilians, during the last war, frequently behaved manfully, and both by land and sea. But so did the Neapolitans when properly officered and acting with veteran French troops. We had some of the Calabrians in our own service, and steady, active, exceUent soldiers they became under the scarlet jacket. The mixed foreign regiment of General Count Rivarola, which once formed part of the garrison of Malta, was well known. My old friend A. V , who Avas some years in that regiment, says that the Sicilians were good, but that they had about a hundred Calabrians who might, in every point, have been compared with or pitted against any, the best, soldiers in Europe. When men are robbed by their own officers — robbed one day and cajoled and familiarly associated with the next — when they are commanded by fools or traitors, little can be expected from them. Both NeapoHtans and Sicilians have too frequently found themselves under these demoraliz ing and depressing influences ; and both have very frequently behaved like an undisciplined rabble or a set of poltroons. But neither are to be called cowards, nor do I believe that the one people can claim over the other any superiority of courage. Compared as two separate wholes, the Sicilians are certainly less civilized and more ferocious than the Neapolitans ; but the farther Calabrians, who are almost Sicilians in speech, are quite their equals in ferocity. One of the young officers in our fleet ATROCITIES AT PALERMO. 195 thought that both were A'ery bad, but that, as com batants, one Sicilian Avas Avorth two Neapolitans. This was an absurd notion. Another officer said, that, in their bad qualities, there was about six of one and half-a-dozen of another. " No," said a senior, who had known them aforetime, " there is six of one and five of the other, for your real Nea poHtans are not cruel or blood-thirsty." The stories we heard here and elsewhere of the atrocities per petrated by the concerioti and other classes at Palermo made one shudder, and, being well attested, they prepared the mind for the belief of any horrors that they might hereafter commit in their desperate moments. At an early stage of their insurrection they seized upon all the officers ofthe pohce, whether Sicilians or Neapolitans. I was told that nearly all those functionaries were Sicilians and natives of the city. No doubt, the political department of the police, in suppressing clubs and secret meetings, in hunting down clubbists, in making domiciliary visits and arbitrary arrests (often upon the merest sus picion, or to gratify some private revenge), had given many and very great provocations ; but there were others who had merely done their duty in pre serving law and order; and the indiscriminate, blind, sanguinary vengeance exercised by the Paler mitans will leave an indelible stain upon the cha racter of that populace., To have killed at once would have been mercy. They put the police officers to slow and exquisite torture — to tortures which will not bear description. o 2 196 SICILIAN GRATITUDE. When the English quitted the military occupation of Sicily in 1815 many old quarrels Avere forgotten, and they left a good name behind them. The people had derived very great benefit from our long stay and the money we so freely spent among them. Our army and navy, which protected the island from the otherwise inevitable conquest of the French, were paid by ourselves ; for a considerable time such of the Sicilian corps as were paid at all were paid by us. The king received from England an annual subsidy of 400,OOOZ. ; a great deal of money was brought into the country by English travellers ; the poor found employment, the farmer and gardener a wonderfully improved market ; and when that granary of ancient Rome Avas threatened by famine, which, owing to the wretchedly neglected state of agriculture, soon happened, fleets of British transports brought it corn from the Black Sea, the African regencies, and other parts. I have more than once borne public testimony to the gratitude of the Sicilian people. In 1816 I found them deploring our departure and wishing for our speedy return ; the wish of course was as far as possible from being disinterested; they Avanted our money. As for the constitution which Lord William Bentinck had given them and which the old king had taken from them, I scarce met a man that said or that seemed to care a straw about it. While we were in full occupation, the sense of obligation, the feeling of gratitude was not quite so universal; many of the Sicilians caballed, and some of them entered BRITISH FLEET IN THE BAY OF NAPLES. 197 into very perfidious and dangerous plots against us. But they all seemed to have forgotten these facts, and it Avould have been disagreeable to remind them of them ; and having then recently witnessed the rude ingratitude of certain other countries which we had protected at an infinite cost of blood and treasure, I Avas gratified with the professions and declarations of the Sicilians. I Avas a boy, but I suspect that, during the last and the present year, some of our officers of mature age have taken these professions for a good deal more than they are Avorth, and have allowed themselves to be capti vated by Sicilian compliments and a very winning loquacity. From the prevailing feeling in the fleet I should have judged that officers and men would have been glad to prevent the sailing of the king's expedition against Sicily, but none of the officers with whom I conversed seemed to believe that such an interference would be permitted by Lord Pal merston's government. Sir William Parker had already occasioned a great consternation in the city of Naples. I have mentioned his departure from Malta, and that he set off for Naples in no very good humour. After touching at Sicily, which was then in triumphant rebellion, and on the coast of which English mer chant-vessels as well as French were landing arms and munitions of Avar against our treaties with King Ferdinand and against all international law, he sailed into the bay with his imposing force, and came to anchor Avith the whole of it, and in the 198 BULLYING ATTITUDE OF THE- BRITISH FLEET. most warlike attitude, close in to the city, with his broadsides bearing upon the royal palace, the arsenal, the harbour, and the forts. The mad rivoltosi on shore were in a momentary transport of joy ; they thought that the British fleet had come to bombard the "tyrant," and that while the bom bardment lasted they might try another rising and making of barricades. Considering the condition of the king, who had so recently been involved in the dire necessity of a civil war, and who was yet sur rounded by combustible materials — considering his weakness and our strength — considering the con dition of the country, the tendencies and principles of the revolutionary party, which ought by this time to have been well known to Sir William Parker, I cannot but repeat that our fleet played the part of a bully ; I cannot but feel that this hostile display was calculated to encourage revolutionism and pro mote anarchy, and Avas impolitic, indecent, revolting. It was contrary to usage, if not to treaty, for more than four ships of the Hne to anchor off the city : our admiral ought to have known, and probably did know, this established rule. When the Neapo litan government remonstrated with him, he ac knowledged that they were in the right by sending some of his ships to Castellamare. He soon followed with the rest, satisfied with a general assurance that the redress he claimed and the explanations he demanded would be given where he could show that they were justly due. If I Avas correctly informed, the differences were BRITISH CLAIMS FOR COMPENSATION. 199 all adjusted at Castellamare, where the admiral might have anchored at first, without threatening the king in his palace, or causing such a commotion in the capital. The officer in command of the Neapolitan steamer which captured the Sicilians in the Adriatic went on board our flag-ship, and would have shoAvn by his log that he was not within the forbidden distance of Corfu. Sir William, we were told, would not look at the log, but said he would take the word of the Neapolitan, as that of an officer and gentleman. That question, which had so excited and heated the admiral and many in our fleet, was let drop in a very cool, careless manner. Sir William claimed compensation for some property of British subjects alleged to have been destroyed in the Porto Franco, at Messina, by the fire of the king's artillery. The Neapolitan government replied that compensa tion would be given Avhen the accounts of the losses were made out and officially vouched for ; and the British admiral could not imitate Monsieur Baudin, the admiral of the French republic, who had exacted instant payment without any examination of accounts beyond the ipse dixit of each of the French claimants. In the midst of its difficulties, when the revolu tionary fever was at its height, and nobody could tell in what it would end, the Neapolitan govern^ ment had very unwisely had recourse to a forced loan — a measure always odious, and generaUy unpro ductive. The resident English merchants had been called upon for their quotas, which had been fixed according to an estimate of their wealth or means 200 THE FORCED LOAN. draAvn up by the gwernmcnt itself. The money advanced Avas to bear interest at the rate of 6 per cent., and a not distant term Avas fixed for the liquidation of the debt. Several of the English merchants Avould very Avillingly have lent tlie money for Avhich they avci-c called upon ; but others — and they Avero quite right — refused to contribute, because they were exempted by treaty from any such contri butions, and because submission might afterwards be turned into a precedent. The sums demanded from these gentlemen Avere not heavy ; but, to com pare small things with great, it Avas with them as with Hampden and the ship-money, — the money Avas nothing, but the principle Avas a great deal. One of them persisted in his refusal, and alloAved a piano forte and other of his household goods to be taken in execution by the Neapolitan collectors. These functionaries behaved with perfect politeness in this painful business ; they Avere compelled to obey tho orders of their government ; that government main tained that the British merchants resident in the country Avere not exempted by treaty, the British merchants maintained the contrary ; it Avas very necessary to bring the matter to an issue, and this seizure Avould do it. The English merchant stated the case in a letter to Lord Palmerston, and Avas left more than three months Avithout an answer. 1 beheve he never Avas ansAvered at all from DoAvning Street. The ministry which imposed the forced loan was broken up soon after the experiment ; the grievance Avas an old one when our fleet came blus- LORD PALMERSTON'S POLICY. 201 tering into the Bay ; nor Avas there ever any thing in it to call for such demonstrations as were made by Sir William Parker on his first arrival. But Lord Napier, the Earl of Minto, the Admiral, and appa rently Lord Palmerston himself, had taken King Ferdinand en grief, and the Sicilian rebels into unac countable favour ; and so the king must be — and was — broAvbeaten in his capital. I believe that few were less pleased with these demonstrations than were the resident English merchants and the gentleman who Avrote the letter of complaint to Lord Palmerston. An old NeapoHtan nobleman, Avho has had expe rience in courts and camps, in diplomacy and actual war, and who is as adverse to despotism as to the anarchy Avhich has threatened to take its place, expressed his astonishment at Lord Palmerston's policy, and at the course pursued by the British legation at Naples since the departure of Mr. Temple. " We always," said he, " looked up to England as the friend of civil liberty and constitu tional principles; but at the same time we always regarded her as the stan chest friend of order and law. But what has she been doing of late ? She has been encouraging rebellion in Sicily and ultra- revolutionism at Naples. In the first instance she has broken faith with an ally, and trampled upon the laws of nations, which, if they are to be anything, ought to be most respected by those who are most powerful; in the second case, she has given the hand to factions and men who entertain all the bad principles against which she took up arms in 1 792, 202 BRITISH SYMPATHY FOR INSURRECTION. and against which she waged war for nearly a quarter of a century. Our ultra-liberali are but Jacobins under another name. They have invented nothing, they have originated nothing, they have put forth no new idea, but they have exaggerated some of the most subversive notions of Robespierre and Marat, and have put in their front line schemes and principles which the Jacobins of the last century kept in their rear, or left in the clubs and " social circles " of the Abbe Fauchet and such visionaries. Their communism is only a revival of the Abbe Fauchet's socialism ; but the maddest of the French Republicans laughed at the Abbe, while in our days his copyists Cabet, Blanqui, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon, are held up as great men, and the wisest of political teachers! In her anxiety to avoid a war, England may deem it wise to conciliate the French, Avho have promised assistance to all revolted peoples. But if the present system continue at ' Paris, the French will not be conciliated long. They suspect your intentions. They say you have given encouragement to the Sicilians, because you wish to take and hold Sicily for yourselves, or at the least to reduce her to a condition of entire dependence, as they accuse you of having done with Portugal. They cannot believe in the sincerity of this your neAV sympathy for insurrection and unlimited democracy. They are constantly reminding the world that Eng land is a monarchical and aristocratical country. Palter Avith them, flatter them as you may, the ItaHan revolutionists will never believe that you are LORD PALMERSTON'S POLICY. 203 sincere. It is said by some who defend your foreign policy, that Lord Palmerston, though desirous of avoiding even the shadow of offence to the suscep tible Republique, is equally anxious to check French influence, and the spread and inauguration of repub lican principles ; and that the unprecedented lengths to which his Lordship has gone in Sicily have been chiefly owing to his apprehension that if England did not go so far, France would go a great deal farther — that if England did not sanction the Sicilians in electing the son of Charles Albert to be their king, France would have stepped in and have encouraged and urged that people to proclaim a republic. But at this moment the French would not have dared to interfere if the English had not interfered first. As for their republic, nobody believes it can last ; but they have as much right to recommend repub lican institutions as you can have to promote the dethronement of one king and the election of ano ther. You have involved yourselves in a competition which will be neither honourable nor beneficial to you. The French will always outbid you in the revolutionary market. If the factions, and frantic parhaments, and democratic clubs are to be appealed to, the French will carry everything over your heads. The radicals of the continent hate your country and her institutions. Those who love and admire both are those whom Lord Palmerston is insulting or discouraging. His Lordship may make enemies of all the moderate men and of every esta blished government in Europe, but he will never 204 LORD PALMERSTON'S POLICY. make friends of these revolutionists, or be able to turn them to his purpose, or moderate their Ja cobinical fury. Even as matters noAv are, you will soon see that the French, having got you involved with themselves in uncalled for mediations, officious interferences, and irregular illegal interventions, will take the lead of you in Sicily, Lombardy, and elseAvhere, and pretend to the right of settling these quarrels in their own way. And then there must be Avar. That war will become a fearful Avar of principles ; and England will have to enter upon it with a tarnished flag, with the old confidence in her good faith shaken, if not uprooted ; with no belief in the steadiness of her policy, but with wide-spread and disturbing doubts whether she may not be anti-revolutionary to-dayT and revolutionary to morrow — a conservative at home, and a preacher of insurrection abroad." Another gentleman, who was more caustic and concise, said that Lord Palmerston was an exception to the general rule of humanity; that, instead of being calmed and cooled by age, he became more impetuous and hotter as he grew old ; that he was a brouillon ; that he had been an imbroglione in Spain, an imbroglione in Portugal, an imbroglione in Den mark, an imbroglione in Sicily and at Naples ; and that the end of all his imbrogli would be the inex tricable confusion of all Europe, and the disgrace if not the ruin of his own country. The language is not quite polite, nor such as I would apply to his Lordship ; but there may be some use in telling the LORD PALMERSTON'S POLICY. 205 reader in what light our foreign policy is regarded abroad by well-educated and experienced men who live in countries to Avhich that policy is applied ; and the noble Viscount who presides in Downing Street might possibly be benefited or Avarned if he now and then read reports such as he is not likely to find in the despatches of his envoys and plenipo tentiaries, charge d'affaires and consuls, " a classis of men " whom gratitude or self-interest predisposes to chime in with the minister who has given them their places, and who can give them promotion. I have seen some instances of it myself, and I have been told that many of these functionaries, instead of writing the plain unbiassed truth, have rather studied to write that which should be agreeable to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and coincide with his views. Then there is the disinterested but often very strong bias of political party. A Whig of the new school sees the same object in another aspect than that in which it is seen by a Whig of the old school, to say nothing of the Tories who were and the Conservatives who are. The progeny of the Reform Bill, which, whatever it may have been to the country, has been a bountiful sucking- mother to many of our countrymen, must have a larger sympathy with revolutionists than can be felt by Englishmen of another school and of different nur ture. What we consider as plotting, they may re gard as agitation within the law ; and what we hold to be rebellion, they may applaud as a legitimate display of moral force. Then these men, Avho can 206 NECESSITY OF DIPLOMATIC REFORM. scarcely mask their hostility to royalty and aristo cracy at home, are their declared enemies abroad. Whenever a quarrel occurs between kings and sub jects, or between the higher and the lower, their instincts and habits lead them to take part Avith the subjects and the lower. I know how difficult the reform is ; I know (Avhat reformers and revolu tionists will not feel) that men wiU be men, and subject to worldly influences; I know that so long as Ave have a constitution Ave must have parties, and that parties must provide for party men or their relatiA-es or proteges; but still — and with infinite respect for some excellent men who belong to it — I repeat that no corps in our service so much needs reform as our corps diplomatique. POMPEII— AWFUL STILLNESS. 207 CHAPTER X. Pompeii — Works there all suspended — Distress — Recent disco veries — Barbarous practice of writing names — Stealing in the ruins — Maccaroni Manufactory — A Neapolitan Calesso — Smart driving — Museo Borbonico — Vandalism of the Liberali — Mr. Whiteside. We could not leave Castellamare without a painful effort and deep regret. I, for one, was not likely ever to visit that beautiful spot of earth again, and, as regarded the older and better part of them, the chances were against my friends and I meeting again in this world. I thought the place had never looked half so lovely as when we quitted it. Returning towards Naples we left the railroad at the town of Torre dell' Annunziata. There we took a country calesso which wafted us in a few minutes to Pompeii. We entered the " City of the Dead " — as it ought always to be entered — by the Street of Tombs. That street was awfuUy still ; there was nothing moving in it except some little lizards, which now and then ghded across the stone pavement, glancing their green backs and golden sides in the sun. We ad vanced some way up the street before any human being appeared. At last, as we were standing at the foot of the tall white marble tomb of an old Roman, on the sides of which are sculptured, in reHef, a ship in rapid motion, torches reversed with 208 DISTRESS AT POMPEII. their flames dying aAvay in smoke, and other types and symbols of the brevity of human life, a guide came running round to us. At first the old fellow Avas rejoiced at seeing so rare a sight as two visitors, but he soon relapsed into the dolefuls, and began teUing us how badly he and his companions had fared ever since the revolutionists and barricaders. I remarked that this Avas not the season for many tourists. " True," said he, " but this year we have had no season at all. There were no more travellers in the cool springtime of the year than there are iioav. Very true ; this is the month of August ; but in the good peaceable times there was never any month, hot or cold, that did not bring us a good num ber of visitors. You Englishmen do not fear the Sole caniculare (the dog days). Except your officers and sailors, nobody ever comes near us now. If this lasts we must all starve !" The arrival of the Eng lish fleet had been a God-send to the ciceroni of Pompeii as well as to the people of Castellamare. Our guide confessed that he had picked up a few half dollars by it. Upon inquiring hoAV many labourers were em ployed in excavating the very large portion of the city that yet lies buried under the volcanic mud, ashes, and lapilli which were disgorged by Vesuvius, and the deep vegetable soil Avhich had accumulated over all during sixteen hundred years, I was informed that, owing to the political troubles and the conse quent draining of the government exchequer, the interesting work was at a stand still. " The gangs WORKS AT POMPEII SUSPENDED. 209 were diminished by degrees, and the men dis charged," said our guide, " as the king became poorer or wanted more and more money for the war in Calabria and the war in Sicily, and for putting down these rivoltosi Avho have ruined us all ! Last Aveek there were only five men left, and as they could do next to nothing they were told they might go and seek work elsewhere. But where is work to be found now ? God knows Avhat wiU become of all the poor men who had regular employment here, and of their families. Stiamo male, Signore. We are badly off, sir." I pitied the labourers thrown out of employment, and regretted the suspension of a work which interests every lover of art and anti quities, and which ought to be carried on at the ex pense of the whole civilized world. But I could only pity and regret. Of late the labours had been directed on a good, consistent plan. They were clearing the grand arm or trunk of the quadrivium which conducts from the great street, called the street of Fortune, to the theatres, and the road which anciently led to the sea-port of Pompeu, passing behind the Basilica. A great deal more might have been done in twenty - one years ; but much had been done since I was last here, and some of the most interesting edifices, sculptures, mosaics, and other works of art ever discovered in Pompeii have been dug up during that interval. The grand mosaic of the battle of Alexander and Darius — by far the grandest Avork of the kind in ancient art — was disinterred in 1829. VOL. I. P 210 BARBAROUS PRACTICE OF WRITING Another chefd'auvre, inferior only to the Portland vase, which has sustained so sad a fate in the British Museum, was discovered in 1837. It is a superb blue vase, covered with enamel and white bassi-rilievi representing groups of Cupids engaged in the plea sant toils of the vintage. The little figures are all life, and (unless some madman break the vessel) will live and laugh there for ever, like Keates's nymphs on the ancient Greek vase of marble. In 1841 and 1842 many curious houses were laid open to the light of the sun, and many domestic utensils, marbles, and frescos were recovered. And, indeed, there has been scarcely one year which has not made some important additions to the unrivalled coUection in the Bourbon Museum at Naples, where the domestic manners of the ancients may be studied in the objects they themselves left behind. On the spot there already exist materials for a very copious addition to the beautiful work on Pompeii produced by the late Sir William Gell and Mr. Gandy. I remarked that a good many of the paintings on stucco, which were in their proper place on the walls of the rooms of dwelling-houses, or of other edifices in which they had been originally painted, were cut out and removed. The guide told us that we should find them in the Museo Borbonico, at Naples — where, assuredly, they will not be so interesting as when here in situ. But there was good reason for this removal. At every step some annoying evidence met our eye, that stuccos and even marbles and bronzes were not safe at Pompeii — an infinitude NAMES ON WORKS OF ART. 211 of vulgar visitors, of nearly all the nations of the earth, had been scratching their ugly anti- classical names on the beautiful stucco of the houses and temples, deeply engraving them on marble columns, capitals and architraves, sinking them into almost every accessible object or substance. One Goth, who must have undergone great toil and some peril, had ascended into a niche, had climbed up to the shoulder of a marble statue much larger than life — the well-preserved effigies of a heroine or a goddess — and had deeply cut the name of Mrs. on the very forehead of the figure. I am sorry to say that the name is an English one, and that English men and Americans have committed more of these abominations ; have done more to deface that which time has left us, and which a volcanic eruption has almost miraculously preserved for us, than the people of any other country. It is excessively annoying to find at every turn or corner, in every house and temple, in every chamber and bath, in the openest, as well as in the most retired and secret places, the names of " Smith" and " Brown," " White " and " Green," " Johnson " and " Thompson," staring you in the face. I have heard of a gentleman who was driven half-crazy by the prevalence of this abominable practice in all our show-places in England, and who endeavoured to correct it by writing little additions to the inscrip tions which he found in his Avay. Thus, under "John Brown was here on the 10th of August," &c, he would scrawl, " having just returned from p 2 212 STEALING IN THE RUINS. transportation ;" under " Robert Jones " he would write, " his father was hanged at Newgate ;" and so on, through a great variety of fanciful illustration. I am not sure that this cure, if generally adopted, might not correct the crying evil ; but I should not like to see it introduced among the stuccos and marbles of this ancient city, as it would accelerate the defacement and the destruction which already go on at too rapid a pace. Then, these irreverent destructionists, these rob bers of the dead and despoilers of a city of the dead, can never go away empty-handed. They must take something with them to show that they have been at Pompeii. They cut away great pieces of stucco, they break off fragments of marble, they dislodge and pocket bits of tile and brick, they wrench from their sockets bronze hinges, and they play mischief or the very devil among the ancient pottery and all other relics. The ciceroni or guides, and the custodi or keepers, have strict orders to prevent these proceedings ; but their backs are often turned, they cannot be always watching every member of a large party, and I fear very few of them have virtue enough to resist the temptation of two shil- Hngs and a penny sterhng, or a piece of six carlini. We afterwards saAv an English skipper who boasted that he had broken many things, and had carried off bronze enough to make a soup kettle for his ship's company. The man was brass to tell it. But he evidently considered that common usage -excused his operations, and that he had done nothing wrong. MACCARONI MANUFACTORY. 213 We met a party of officers from the " Howe" line- of-battle-ship ; and with them we made an excellent refection in the cool vaulted chamber of an ancient Roman bath, eating figs and raisins from the flanks of Vesuvius and from the gardens and vineyards which still cover so considerable a portion of the city of Pompeii, and tempering and cooling our wine with water drawn in the Temple of Isis, from a branch ofthe river Sarnus, which the ancient citizens had carried through the town and under the temple in an artificial subterraneous channel. In the cool of the evening we commenced our return to Naples in the same primitive vehicle Avhich had carried us to Pompeii. We had seen the raUway, and wanted to see the common high road, which is always so thronged and animated, and which I had traversed innumerable times, and in nearly every possible mode of locomotion. Our driver stopped in the town of the Torre dell' Annunziata to change his horse ; not, as he said, that the animal was at all tired, but because he wished to show us how fast he could go, and in what style he could drive us into Naples. The rogue had discovered by my talk that I was an old amateur of calesso and corribolo driving. The halt gave us an oppor tunity of visiting one of the great manufactories of maccaroni, which is nowhere made in such perfection as here and at the neighbouring towns of Torre del Greco, Resina, and Portici ; and it is because these towns lie along the coast of the gulf that the best of Neapolitan maccaroni is called " maccaroni 214 A NEAPOLITAN CALESSO. della costa." In the establishment we visited, half the men had been discharged, and those who re mained seemed to be doing only half work. "Times are so bad," said the foreman, "that I really believe the Neapolitans are going to leave off eating maccaroni !" Apres cela le deluge! On regaining our calesso we saw two horses to it instead of one. The driver had improved upon his original plan — the horse in the shafts was not at all beaten; he had only made the run to Pompeii and back, and done a small matter of work before that ; he had had a bite of caruba-beans and a sip of water, and was as fresh as a roebuck ; he had just clapped his second horse to run in traces outside the shafts — "and now," said our driver, "your Excel lencies shall see hoAV we will go !" We climbed up to the high single seat, the Jehu with his long rope reins in his hands sprung up to the board behind, and having taken up a stout peasant, to balance the carriage, throw all the Aveight right upon the axles, and relieve the back of the horse between the shafts, and, at the same time, to gain an honest penny or tAvo from the countryman for his passage to the great city, Ciccio gave a tug at the reins, a crack ' with his Avhip, and a scream from his throat, and off we went like mad. We were out of the tOAvn in the twinkling of an eye. To Naples — a distance of about twelve English miles — the road, running round the bay, a little above the railway, is paved, nearly the whole length, with flags of lava, broad, smooth, and well fitted together. Our pair of SMART DRIVING. 215 calesso Avheels, of ambitious diameter, rolled over this pavement without shock or impediment, and we Avere in such nice trim that there was no weight on the shaft-horse, and he, like his companion that was capering outside the shafts on the near side, had nothing to do but canter and pull. Their bells jingled merrily, and noAv and then Ciccio gave them additional encouragement with a smack of the whip and a modulated scream. We dashed into the Torre del Greco, and through that town also, for our driver was fairly on his mettle, and resolved to make a distinguished figure. Resina and Portici soon appeared and disappeared ; and we rumbled over the hard lava crust which covers the ancient Herculaneum. We flew past a succession of villas and gardens. The road, even now, was crowded with vehicles of every description, some of which were meeting us and going at a pace quite as rapid as our own. But these Neapolitans, as I have hinted, are good whips, they give notice of approach by a loud bawling, and their horses know what they are up to. Our Ciccio took some close shaves, but always cleared his way through in first-rate Neapolitan style. He pulled in a little when he got upon the Marina and fairly into the city ; but in less than an hour from our starting at Torre dell' Annunziata, he landed us at the door of our hotel. He asked me for another pinch of snuff, for he was free, easy, and familiar, as gentlemen of his calling are apt to be in this country ; and then he said with great glee, " There ! what does your Excellency 216 MUSEO DORBONICO. think of that ? This is what I caU driving a milordo as he ought to be driven !" My Excellency or Lord ship thought he had enjoyed the sport considerably more when he was five and twenty years younger. But there was no great risk in the matter, and my son could not fairly have said that he knew Naples if he had not taken a smart drive in a calesso. The day which followed our visit to Pompeii we devoted to the Museum of Naples. We had the range of the place almost entirely to ourselves, there being nobody there except the keepers and servants. The place was abandoned, the people were low- spirited. In corners and sotto voce they complained to us that their salaries were not so regularly paid as they used to be, that there was a stop to promo tion and to the sale of synopses, catalogues, guide books, and other objects which travellers and foreign visitors purchased of them, that they lost other advantages which they had been accustomed to derive from foreigners, and that, not long ago, the visits of their own countrymen from the provinces had turned the Museum into a bear-garden, and had scared them out of their wits, as they remained answerable for any injury done to the valuable objects of art entrusted to their care. It appears that these provincials came up to the capital in the guise of National Guardsmen, and that between the 29th of January and the 15th of May their insolence and arrogance knew no limits. Because the agitators and demagogues who led them and in doctrinated them, had proclaimed that the adjective VANDALISM OF THE LIBERALI. 217 " Royal " was a word not to be used by freemen, and must give place to the adjective "National" — because they told them that all palaces, parks, galleries, museums, and the like did belong, and always had of right appertained unto the sovereign people, each tasteless clown took it into his head that every article in the Museum belonged sepa rately to himself, or at least that in these days of liberty and restored rights he was free to maul and spoil it, or do what he thought proper with it. They were for touching and puUing at everything. They took in their rough awkAvard paws those unrivalled Etruscan vases whose loss could never be replaced. They forced .open the Avire-grated doors of the cabinets to handle and stupidly examine the ancient trinkets, exquisite little bronzes, and other treasures dug out from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabia, and which materially help to make up by far the most interesting collection in the world. They were impatient and altogether intolerant of remonstrance. They called the keepers and attendants slaves of the tyrant, and told them that times were changed. Their song was — " Questa e robba mia ; cib e robba nostra, robba nazionale, cib e robba del Popolo ; giacche il Popolo significa nazione, e la nazione e il Popolo, ed il Popolo siamo noi." The words of the song are soon learned, and the tune is as easy as that of " Ca ira." In the galleries of sculpture, on the ground-floor of the museum, is preserved that most magnificent ancient mosaic representing the grand and final 218 VANDALISM OF THE LIBERALI. conflict between Alexander and Darius, which I have mentioned as having been discovered and disinterred at Pompeii. It is a large piece, and it must have reached the museum very little injured. It is an object to value and guard as one would the apple of one's eye. They have placed it (perhaps not very judiciously) on a level with the floor of the gallery, or only a few inches above it. They have put a hand-rail round it, and placed stools and chairs that the spectator may see it with better effect. But the provincial national guardsmen could not be satisfied with that, the best, view of a chef-d'oeuvre, of the merits of which as a work of art they knew nothing, and of the historical subject it dehneated they knew less ; and so they vaulted over the railing or crept under it, to walk upon the mo saic with their hob-nailed shoes or iron-bound boots. The attendants told them that they might seriously injure an ancient work which was of great value, and a grand attraction to foreigners and connois seurs. " E robba nostra," said the savages, '' This is now a free country ! " " You thought these things belonged to the tyrant ! Che sbaglio ! what a mis take ! They belong to the people, ed il popolo siamo noi ! " The poor man who told us this story told it with the tears standing in his eyes. Loyalty apart, of which it might be that he had not more than his neighbours, he had been employed for many years in the museum ; the museum was the source of his little revenue, his house, his home, his world ; and by daily familiarity with them he MR. WHITESIDE. 219 had contracted a regard and love for works of art. Such men must be sadly out of place in revolution ary times. No doubt these provincials were a set of uneducated, illiterate men, who for the most part had come up to the capital from their moun tains and their wild districts for the first time in their lives : but, generally, modern Italian liberal ism, whether here, or at Rome, or at Florence, or in Piedmont, or in Lombardy, has not been very favour able to the liberal arts. Mr. Whiteside, who appears to have associated only with liberals, and to have taken all his notions from that party, is quite conformable with their philosophy and school when he disparages architecture, sculpture, and painting ; and maintains that the fine arts in Italy have been the slaves and servile instruments of tyranny, and that it was by their means that the family of the Medici corrupted the republican virtue of Florence. I have heard the same liberal sentiments expressed and advocated in writing and speaking from one end of Italy to the other ; and not only now, but also many years ago. In 1799 one ofthe first things the Neapolitan republicans did was to knock down or deface a great many of the public monuments of their city. In 1821, when the crazy constitution of the preceding year was falling to pieces, and an Austrian army under General Frimont was advancing upon the frontiers, the treasury was empty, and the liberals had not gone to work in such a way as to obtain any trust or credit. " Money must be had," said one of their leaders in the parliament ; " we can do without statues and pictures, but we cannot do 220 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SHUT UP. without liberty and the constitution. Let us pawn or sell the whole contents of our museum, and turn the money into arms and cannon balls and gun powder ! " I heard the speech and the cheering Avhich followed it from the whole ultra-liberal party. The advance of old Frimont allowed them time neither to pawn nor to sell. And, only the other day, the liberals of Venice who have elected them selves to be a provisional government, resolved and publicly offered to pledge all the works of art and public monuments of that city for a loan which should enable them to pay and feed their starving troops. In our progress through central and upper Italy we saw some striking proofs of the disrespect with which works of art are now treated in this ancient land of art. The splendid public library in the Neapolitan Museum, in which I formerly spent so many long mornings, and which was then accessible to every one, well-dressed or ill-dressed, with recommenda tion or without, was now shut up, there being no readers, no students left in the capital. I would fain have seen once more some of the old books and manuscripts, the autographs of Tasso, and that ancient MS. copy of Sir Bevis of Southampton which gave so much delight to Sir Walter Scott when he was here in his last days ; but the keeper had locked the door and taken away the key in his pocket. They very politely offered to send in search of him, but I did not like to give this trouble, and I never found time to return to the library. SPLENDID NEW CEMETERY AT NAPLES. 221 CHAPTER XI. Naples — Splendid new Cemetery — La Madonna del Pianto — Chapels and Tombs — Masses for the Dead, falling off — Com plaints of a Franciscan — Ischia Passage-Boat — A Hermit — Island and Town of Ischia — J. W. — General Florestan Pepe — Admiral Baudin — Agricultural Improvements — Poz- zuoli — Prince of Ischitella — Vico di Pantano — Extensive Draining — Cure for Malaria — The King promotes Draining and Road-making — The late Duke of Bocca Romana and his Duel — A Festa — • Populousness and general Aspect of Naples — The Air of a great Capital — Foreign Propagandists and Barricade-Makers — Grape-shot ready for them — Marshal Radetsky and Pope Pius. Being very desirous of seeing two or three old friends who had retired to Ischia, I made up my mind to pay a visit to that beautiful island. I pre ferred going by one of the common passage-boats, which make the voyage by night, for by day-time the weather was excessively hot. We dined in Naples, and were summoned to the boat nearly two hours before it was ready to depart. We occupied that interval of time by taking a calesso and driving to the new cemetery, the beauty of which I had heard much extolled. The poorer classes of Nea- poHtans had long been buried outside the town, in a peculiar cemetery, which has often been described ; but untU the dreadful visitation of the cholera in 1836, the richer classes had persisted' in burying 222 LA MADONNA DEL PIANTO. their dead within the crowded city, in vaults under the churches. But after the fatal cholera several important sanitary reforms were introduced, and it was ordered that the rich as weU as the poor should be buried outside the city, that the basements of the churches should be cleared and no longer be permitted to be crammed with decomposing corpses, which in many instances had scarcely been three feet underneath the pavement or flooring of the church. The present new cemetery was then begun, some what on the model of the Pere de la Chaise at Paris, and the Neapolitan gentry Avere suddenly seized by a taste for costly mausoleums, cenotaphs, tombs, and monumental decorations. This new cemetery is very spacious, and its situation is ad mirable : it covers part of the green shelving hills which He between the Campo di Marte and Poggio Reale, and the high road leading to AveUino and Apulia. It looks over the fertile, highly cultivated Paduli or valley of the Sebeto ; it directly faces Mount Vesuvius and the Apennine chain in the rear of that volcano ; at certain points it embraces a good part of the Bay of Naples, with the towns and villages on its shores. At a short distance from it, on the same green acclivities, to your right hand as you stand with your back to the hills and your face turned to Mount Vesuvius, is a church Avith a very romantic name, and to which Mrs. Radcliffe has attached a very romantic interest : this is the church of "La Madonna del Pianto," Our Lady of Tears ; but the church is neither pic- CHAPELS AND TOMBS. 223 turesque nor romantic in itself, and the Neapolitan people have long since spoiled the romance of the name by proverbially saying that players who lose in the lottery go there to weep their losses. Those who bury their morts de qualite in the new cemetery have erected a great many chapels, cru cifixes, and images of saints. Nearly every noble or respectable confraternity, or burying-club, has built a chapel on the spot, wherein the service for the dead and other duties are performed. These chapels, aU spick and span new, prominent and garish, are in nearly every possible style of archi tecture, and compose and group together in the oddest manner. As most of them are diminutive, and none of them of imposing proportions, they look like models or patterns : they reminded me of some of the new streets or avenues in the London suburbs, where no two houses are alike. There were chapels in the Egyptian style, Grecian chapels, Roman, Gothic, and one that looked EHzabethan, and another that looked very Byzantine. The new Franciscan monastery they have built on a sweUing eminence in the midst of the grounds is in better taste, but it never can harmonize with the other edifices, nor they with themselves. Among the tombs there was a still greater want of harmony. How different the ancient mausoleums in the Street of Tombs at Pompeii ! but the Neapolitans only share in a bad taste which is universally prevalent. Of all the places upon earth our modern burying- places are those in which vanity, caprice, conceit, 224 VERY FEW MASSES FOR THE DEAD. and a worse than Lower Empire barbarism alloAv themselves to take the widest and most reckless range. Some of the monuments here, with their sparkling white marble faces, and glowing letters in gold, and their busts, bassi-rilievi, or full-statured statues, looked rather splendid, and doubtlessly had cost a very great deal of money. The Neapolitans are a free, money -spending people: they never were, and never will be, economical like the Romans, or parsimonious like the Tuscans ; and as a taste for these gaudy tombs was a novelty, they had indulged it with the ardour people usually throw into a new branch of enjoyment or expenditure. One of the old Franciscan friars was quite scandalized at this expensive taste. " Ci stanno malamente i muorti," the dead are badly off here, said he. " How so ? Surely they are better here, on this beautiful hill-side, among trees and flowers, and under this open sky, than in the charnels under the churches, in the close streets of Naples." " Signore," said the monk, "that is not Avhat I mean. Volevo dire, I wanted to say that their sur vivors, who spend so much money for these monu ments, will spend hardly anything in masses for the dead. The stonemasons and sculptors get what used to go to the clergy. We are seven monks and three lay-brothers up in our house ; Ave are bound to attend to the cemetery, Ave have neither the per mission nor the time to do outside duty, and send the lay-brothers on the cerca (seeking or begging), as other Franciscans use ; and all the salary we get, TOUCHING SCENERY. 225 for our entire establishment, is fourteen ducats a month, paid by the municipality of Naples. When Ave first came here, Ave expected to get a good deal of money by masses for the dead. We get little, very little ! People spend all the money on the tombstones — so much the Avorse for them, and so much the worse for the dead, say I ! And very bad it is for us poor Franciscans !" The old friar was so depressed, that I was obliged to raise his spirits Avith a donation of three carlini. I had my reward, for he led us away from the gaudy mausoleums to some quiet, modest, touching tombs, at the foot of a feAV Italian pine-trees — a spot such as poor Ugo Foscolo imagined to himself when he was Avriting the best of his poems, and one which never ought to be let perish, ' I Sepolcri.' On extending our ramble over this extensive Necropolis, we found several such groups, and probably there were others Avhich we did not see. We lingered about the grounds until the Franciscan convent and the church of La Madonna del Pianto sounded the solemn " Ave Maria," and from the city " A drowsy chime of distant bells came down." It is difficult to overrate the beauty of the spot ; and at that time it was hohly beautiful — the tall pines, the cedars, the cypresses, the flowery shrubs, the green sward, and the white marble monuments, being all softened, harmonized, and made solemn in the brief twiUght. Let no traveller quit Naples without paying one visit to this cemetery ; and let VOL. i. Q 226 THE ISCHIA PASSAGE-BOAT. him find himself here at the " Ave Maria." Besides, it merits attention as one of the recent improvements ofthe country. The moon Avas up and shining brightly before our Ischia passage-boat got out of port. We had plenty of company, the boat being crowded with passengers. They were chiefly little traders, vine-dressers, and peasants from the island ; several of them had their wives with them, and all of them were talkative and good humoured. The only decidedly disagreeable person of the party was a young priest, who was very conceited, very ignorant, and not over delicate in his language ; but, having carefully stowed away his new shining broad-brimmed beaver, and tied a red cotton handkerchief over his tonsure and round his jaAvs, he soon laid himself down in the bottom of the boat and fell fast asleep. He snored ; but his snoring was less disagreeable than his talk. The rest of the company and the sailors kept gossiping very cheer- fuUy about their own little affairs and the affairs of their neighbours, about the fishery and the prospects of the next vintage, about their sports and pastimes, and, most of all, about the pleasure and revelry they anticipated from one of the Virgin Mary's ten thou sand festivals which Avas near at hand, and which the Ischiotes invariably celebrate with great devotion and joviality. The night was deliciously cool; but there was scarcely a breath of wind, and the boatmen had to row their heavy bark nearly the whole distance — some good twenty English miles. As Ave pulled posILippo— ischia. 227 past the point of Posilippo, we saAv the little her mitage on the rock close over the sea, the hermit in his gown and cowl, the long canna stretching over the Avaves, with a Httle basket at the end of it to receive the contributions of the sea-going faithful, and the torch and burning tow (dipped in aqua vita) which the hermit always lights up when a large boat is approaching, and which serve as the only light to illuminate him when the nights are dark. The man is a heathen who passes that out-stretching cane and supplicatory basket without dropping in his mite. So it was a quarter of a century ago — and so is it noAv ; and so wiU it be for many a long year to come. The Liberals assure us that Italy is not what she was at the time of the Congress of Vienna. Popularly she is what she was then, and what she has been for many ages. Go out of any given capital or great town, and at a step you get into the twelfth century. Nay, without leaving capitals and great towns, visit their old popular quarters, and there you will find the habits, usages, thoughts, feelings, superstitions of the middle ages, scarcely touched by our boasted modern civilization and encyclopsediacal knowledge. It is so at Rome quite as much as at Naples, at Florence as much as at Rome, and at Turin and Milan perhaps even more than at Florence. The day was dawning when we landed at Ischia, just under the romantic old castle, which stands on the summit of a high, rugged, detached rock — as Mr. Stanfield has so admirably described upon canvas. In 1812 that old fortress surrendered to one who q2 228 improvements at ischia. bore my name, and who was my brother-clansman and friend. His name is not forgotten either here or in Sicily, for he was a man of high principle and generous humanity, who could infuse mildness even into the harshness of mUitary command and martial rule : wherever he went he was beloved, and the odour of a good name which he left in dying has its fragrance on the shores and islands of the Mediter ranean.* It was not without reason that Guido put the horses attached to the car of Aurora at the galloping pace : day-dawn in Southern Italy comes and goes most rapidly. By the time we were a hundred yards from the landing-place it was broad daylight. It was, howe\rer, too early to disturb anybody, so we went to the house of one of the boat men which stood at the edge of the Httle toAvn of Ischia, and there lay down to take a rest for three or four hours. It happened to me to have to do the same thing one early morning in the autumn of 1817, when I was in company with a Greek student and my philological friend E. N. We were kindly entertained then, as we were now; but the present mariner's house, though homely enough, was a palace compared with the den we then occupied. This advance in material comfort — and I found it general not only throughout the island of Ischia, but in nearly every Avell-known place and district which I revisited in the kingdom — affords the best of all proofs of the blessings of peace, and surely bears testimony to the mildness of the old Neapo- * The late General Sir Robert Mac Farlane. decay in turkey. 229 litan government. We Avere fresh from regions as fertile and as highly favoured by nature as any of these — and Avhat had Ave seen in Turkey ? A popu lation in rags and misery, villages unroofed and abandoned, towns which I had seen well-peopled twenty years ago falling into a rapid decay, crazy wooden houses, wretched hovels tottering to their fall because their occupants Avere afraid to repair them lest such an improvement should be taken by the government authorities and the blood-sucking tax-gatherers as evidence of increasing prosperity, the least suspicion of which must entail an increase of taxation. We had seen and carefully examined, during eleven months, a country going headlong to ruin under real tyranny and unlimited corruption ; we Avere famUiar with all the symptoms of national ruin, and what to most people must be a mere figure of rhetoric, a metaphor without a distinct meaning, was to us a stern reality, a demonstrated problem, a bare fact. We were famUiar with all the diagnostics of decay, and could not again be mis taken in them if they came under our eye. But how different were the symptoms which had pre sented themselves to our observation from the day we landed at Naples ! Our boatman's spare bed was a very large one, and sweet and clean. At its head were the never- failing cross and picture of the Virgin. Nor were other lares missing. There was a print of the patron saint of the house, whose name was borne by the mariner ; and in a dark passage or landing- 230 improvements at ischia. place at the top of the stairs, outside the room, there Avas another picture of the Madonna, Avith a very tiny silver lamp burning before it. Round the chamber was some plain but good substantial fur niture, and a well-filled chest of drawers intimated that our host and his wife were provided with the wherewithal to cut a good figure at the festival. What gave me less satisfaction Avas the sight of a musket and bayonet, and a military cap with a scarlet band. When we rose from our short sleep the boatman brought us in an admirable refresh ment, in the shape of good wheaten bread, dehciously ripe figs just plucked from the tree, and thin slices of smoked ham. This is the best time and this is the best manner of eating fresh figs. I took up the musket and asked Gennaro whether he belonged to the national guard. " Certamente," certainly, said he; "there are four hundred of us in this island, and I am a corporal." The town of Ischia had considerably increased. I noticed a good many neAV houses along the marina, and most of the old houses which used to show their rough materials of lava, sandstone, and volcanic tufa, were neatly stuccoed over. The main street, which used to be encumbered and filthy, was clear and clean. Our short ride Avas most pleasant, ex hibiting at nearly every step a wonderful view and some more or less important sign of improvement. A number of villas on the hUl-sides had been re paired and rather tastefully decorated, and the peasants' cottages, scattered among the luxuriant GENERAL FLORESTAN PEPE. 231 vineyards, Avore an air of more neatness and comfort than they had done Avhen I Avas last here. The people we met on the road, or saAv at work in the vineyards or fields, Avere decently dressed, clean, and cheerful. The little villages through which we passed swarmed Avith healthy-looking children. The volcanic mud-baths, the hot mineral water-baths, and the other thermae and springs which are found to be so efficacious in many disorders, and which have long given a celebrity to the island, were weU frequented; but the visitors were chiefly sick sol diers sent o\7er at the expense of government, and poor people maintained by some of the numerous and not ill-managed charitable institutions of the capital. There were very few foreigners ; and here, as at Castellamare, we heard lamentations and complaints. In a pleasant house high up the hills, in the very pleasantest and coolest spot of the island, we found my ancient and steady ally, J. W. I had been with him at Ischia in 1824 : our last parting had been in the streets of Cheltenham in 1840. He had not grown younger, but he was as cheerful, as fuU of heart, and as overflowing with kindness as ever. A near neighbour was his and my very old friend General Florestan Pepe. It grieved me to find the General in a very infirm and precarious state. His health had suffered severely during the Russian campaign of 1812, and had been stiU further im paired in the subsequent siege of Dantzic, where he Avas frostbitten and almost frozen to death. He was 232 GENERAL FLORESTAN PEPE. somewhat of a valetudinarian all the time I knew him, but, compared to what he was in 1827, he was now a complete wreck. I was told by others that some three years ago he had made a hasty journey to Paris to see his exiled brother William, who could then have had but little hope of being allowed to return to his own country. The fatigues of that journey, undertaken solely out of fraternal affection, had given a shock from which he had never rallied. He had not been well a single day since then ; and it was evident to every one who associated with him that distress and anxiety about his brother were now working fatally upon his enfeebled frame aud hurrying him to the grave. When I had sat with him for an hour or two, talking of old times, of old incidents which interested him, and of old friends (among whom his English horses were not forgotten), he recovered a little of his former spirit and placid, pleasant humour. He had been as brave a man as ever led troops in battle, he had passed all his early life in camps and campaigns, and he had been made familiar with blood and carnage ; but a more gentle, unassuming, amiable man, or one more considerate of other men's feelings, and more alive to the sorroAvs and misfortunes of others, it has not been my lot to know. This true-hearted Neapolitan or Calabrian (for he was born in Calabria, where his family had long been settled) has been true on aU occasions, and has preserved the honour of a soldier without spot or blemish. With thoroughly Italian feelings, he wished for the independence, the internal freedom, ADMIRAL BAUDIN. 233 the advancement, and the greatness of Italy ; but he deplored the rashness and violence of the ultra- liberal party, who were throwing away the best chance the country has had any time these last two hundred years. Of pohtics, however, we spoke very little ; the subject was too exciting, and an allusion could scarcely have been made to it Avithout causing him to think of Venice and his brother. The General allowed that the morale of the Neapolitan army had been improved since the accession of the present King. But his eye became bright and his Aveakened voice was firm when he spoke of some old battles in which Neapolitan troops had done as well as the best. He spoke most modestly of his own operations against the revolted Palermitans in 1820; and, as a soldier, he showed in one concise sentence how the King's last expedition against Palermo had of necessity failed. M. Baudin, the French admiral, was staying at Ischia, for the benefit of his health, as was said. He had chosen a very snug and comfortable retreat. We Avere told that his fleet Avas still on the coast of Sardinia ; but he had a fine war-steamer in attend ance on him, and now at anchor here. We saw and heard more of the utter holloAvness of this neAV French republicanism, and Gallo-Spartanism, and democratic simplicity, and perfect equality, and the rest of that " dodge." The repubhcan admiral was Hving like a Sybarite. The officers of the steamer were running after all the pleasures which the island afforded, and were intent upon a dejeuner 234 sojourn at ischia. and a dance on board ; and the greatest uneasiness then agitating the breasts of these stern republicans arose out of the apprehension that the ices might not be well made, and that there would not be dames and demoiselles enough to make a kmerry, brilliant parti de plaisir. We passed three days at Ischia, and right pleasant days they Avere. High up the hills, our friend's quarters benefited by the morning breeze, and the evening, and every little wind that blew. They were hot and broiling down below, but up at the Sentinella we were always cool. We had no mos quitoes, no sandflies, no vermin of any kind, and the air which came into the house from all sides was exhilarating and sweet — a delightful contrast to this time last year, when we were perched upon the foul hiU of Pera, at Constantinople, tormented Avith bugs, fleas, sandflies, and mosquitoes, and breathing an atmosphere loaded with noxious vapours. I did not extend my excursion much beyond this choice spot, but I learned from my friends that Foria and the rest of the island were as much improved as the town of Ischia and the other parts we had seen ; that the cultivation of the vine Avas extended ; that by means of terraces and strong buttresses cultivation had been carried high up the mountains, and by another application of industry and ingenuity, a good way across the volcanic plain of rough lava, which covers the western part of the island and sur rounds Foria. We hired a small row-boat to carry us back as pozzuoli. 235 far as Pozzuoli. We started from the little marina below La Sentinella, about noon, on another glorious day. Keeping between Procita and the main, we had near and distinct views of all that enchanting coast, and of all those places of ancient name and fame with which I had been so familiar in my young days, and the images of which had remained faith fully impressed on my memory. In about three hours we were landed at Pozzuoli. I would gladly have turned off here to the north-Avest, to revisit certain scenes and localities which must always interest me. In that direction, at the distance of some eight miles from Pozzuoli, lies Vico di Pan- tano, an estate of my friend the Prince of Ischitella. It is an immense tract of country, lying between the hills, the Lake of Patria, and the sea, and extending almost as far as the mouth of the Vulturnus. It had been for ages, and probably from all time, a swamp, a bog, a maremma, like those on the Roman and Tuscan coasts, and almost as unhealthy and as pestiferous as they are. The marshes of Minturnum, where Caius Marius hid himself, is a continuation and repetition of this Pantano. The description of Plutarch wiU apply to both at this day. Except a few desperadoes, chiefly fugitives from justice or from their creditors, who gained a precarious live lihood by fishing the waters, by shooting wild boars in the dense woods and thickets, and kilhng snipes, ducks, and other wild fowl, no people lived perma nently in these fens and marshes. All people not desperate dreaded the malaria fevers. There was 236 VICO DI PANTANO. not a house, not a hut to be seen for miles, along that dead flat. The outcasts of society, always few in number, lived in the midst of the woods, in wig wams, like Indian savages, and they moved from place to place, in the wet season, in punts like the rudest American canoes. Sometimes in the course of the winter a few Neapolitan sportsmen would go there for a day's shooting, but they were obliged to be well guarded and on the alert ; and they always hurried aAvay before night set in, thus losing the best moment in all the four-and- twenty hours for duck-shooting, for it was after sunset and during the brief twiUght that the ducks flew aAvay in clouds from the Lake of Patria and the bogs and sedges, and, crossing our pantano, made for the hills Avhere they passed the night. Our improvements spoiled the sport ; but when I first kneAv the Pantano it was the finest place in the Avorld for snipe-shooting, and one of the best for wild boars. But beyond a few heads of game and a few braces of birds, a few loads of charcoal, and wood for firing, the estate rendered hardly anything to its owner. The prince, who had travelled in England, had seen the wonders which are to be achieved by draining. He knew the his tory of the Bedford Level and of those other great works Avhich have converted the fens of Lincolnshire into a rich agricultural country. He was also fuUy aware that the malaria which rendered his estate uninhabitable was to be reduced by draining, and that if the king and the other proprietors who had land in that neighbourhood could be induced to THE PRINCE OF ISCHITELLA. 237 foUow his example, the atmosphere might be almost entirely purified, and that vast extent of rich allu vial soil, running from the rocks of Miniscola to the Vulturnus, and from that river to the Liris, might be turned into a cultivated and well-peopled district, as fair, as smiling, as productive a strip of country as any in Italy, lying close along the Tyrrhenian Sea, with abundant facilities for the transport of its produce ; for the sea was there, and the excellent high road which leads from Naples to Rome was nowhere more than a few miles distant. Ischitella's plan was vast, noble, and of national importance. He seriously commenced operations in the year 1821, in the spring, and from that time down to the spring of 1827 I was very frequently his companion on the spot, driving down from Naples by daylight, and returning late in the evening. Summer or winter, broiling hot weather, or drenching wet weather, the prince was at Pantano two days in the week, and if I was at Naples I went with him once a week. It was on one of these matutine journeys that, between Pozzuoli and the estate, we met with the unpleasant adventure which I have related elsewhere.* We were stopped by muskets at our breasts, and robbed of 3000 Neapolitan ducats, which we were carrying to pay to the labourers as two weeks' wages. We had other adventures; and my friend encountered innumer able difficulties and obstacles ; but by the summer of 1824 he had so far succeeded in his oper- * " Lives of Italian Banditti, &c." 238 DRAINING. ations that we could gallop for miles on good firm roads and cross roads, and we had built a stone house on dry, solid ground, which had been three feet under water in summer time, and six or seven in Avinter; our two great trunks and our smaller canals which filled them would, if measured together, have made a very imposing length of excavation and canalization; there were six hundred acres of re covered land now under Indian corn, hemp, and flax, and bearing the most magnificent crops ; there were immense swamps converted into good meadow- land, and partially covered with cattle ; the en tangling copses had been in good part cut down, and the woods, whose recesses had been the lair of the malaria monster as well as of the wild boar, were thinned, cleansed, cut by avenues and broad roads. By 1825 the air, though not rendered wholesome, Avas greatly improved, and a little village was gradually growing round a farmhouse, stables, and granaries, which the Prince had built near the inland limits of the estate. Inland people, peasants from the hills, and little farmers from the country between Capua and Aversa, who had dreaded the very name of the place, came down to Pantano to rent patches of the rich recovered land. Encouraged by success, my friend extended his operations — and extended them far beyond the limits of his pecuniary means. A check, an accident easily remedied, terrified some timid Neapolitan capitalists Avho had made advances, and who Wanted instant returns; and these men seized the reclaimed portions of the EXTENSIVE IMPROVEMENTS. 239 estate, and left to the Prince the unproductive bogs. They left him in a Slough of Despond. He had mortgaged his other estates, and the money was there, — in the clearings, the canals, the dykes, the roads. He had recovered a swamp, but swamped his fortune. The government of that day rather discouraged than encouraged his noble enterprise ; and the example he set was followed by none. But the present king has relieved Is-. chitella of Avhat was Httle else than a burthen to him : he has taken the estate and the draining into his OAvn hands, giving the prince a rente viagere, and leaving to him the direction of the works and the management of everything. Since then, the scarcely passable cut-throat by-way, where we were robbed, has been turned into an excellent carriage- road, and another beautiful road has been carried from the Pantano to the town of Aversa, where it falls into the high post-road. The King has commenced clearing and draining on some of the crown lands in the vicinity, and, induced by this royal example, other proprietors are beginning to do a little along that coast. These are operations and incidents which escape the notice of our hur ried tourists and inconsiderate writers of books of travels ; yet surely they are of the highest interest : they betoken progress and vital improvement. The King was making other roads, and devoting money to other improvements, when the reformers put a stop to everything. It was with pain that, instead of driving round to 240 POZZUOLI— DUKE OF ROCCA ROMANA. Pantano, I turned the head of the horse of the citta- dina we had hired at Pozzuoli in the direction of Naples. But time pressed; we had been long from home, and had already spent eleven days in this capital and neighbourhood, and we had arranged our departure for the evening of the next day. The town of Pozzuoli was cleansed and much improved. Fastidious travellers may find something to criticise even now. They should have seen the town thirty years ago. The magnificent road which runs for the greater part on terraces or quays over the bay towards the grotto of Posilippo, was also improved and widened in several parts, and some engineering operations, now suspended for Avant of money, had been recently in active progress. As we drew near to the Bagnuoli, — that pleasant evergreen spot, lying between the grotto, the hills of Posilippo, and the sea, where the Virgilian picture of the marriage of the Vine and the Elm is seen in perfection, and where that Neapohtan Paladin, the late Duke of Rocca Romana, lopped off the arm of a bravadoing French colonel, in antique duello, with sabres on horseback, — we met multitudes of people in carts, hack carriages, and calessi of the country fashion. For the major part, they were citizens of the inferior order — lazzaroni, as the Irish barrister would call them ; but they Avere very well dressed and very joyous ; and this being another festa, they had come out of the hot town to enjoy the country air, and feast at the rural and piscatorial taverne, which are thickly spread along this route. Every house of the POPULOUSNESS OF NAPLES. 241 sort that Ave passed was crowded. Some of the merry parties Avere singing, and the burden of their song was not Viva la Liberth ! The number of people on the road increased as Ave drew nearer to the city. No doubt at the same hour all the other outlets from Naples Avere about equally thronged. Go Avhere you will on any holiday — out by this road or the Strada Nuova of Posilippo, or the Portici road, or the Vomero road which leads to the beauti ful heights behind the city, or the Capo di Monte road, or the Roman road, or the Apulian road, or the magnificent broad road which leads to the Campo di Marte and some villages beyond it — you never fail of meeting with crowds upon crowds ; and on a common Avorking day these great avenues, particu larly at an early hour of the morning and in the cool of the evening, are peopled in a manner to give a striking idea of the populousness of this capital. Of all the cities of Italy, magnificent as many of them are, and superior in architecture as most of them are, Naples has always appeared to me the only one that really has the air of a capital. It is not only by far the most populous city in the penin sula, but it has also an expansiveness, a life, and general movement about it which are not to be found elsewhere. It does not surprise me that the Neapolitan people should be most hostile to schemes of union — fusion agglomeration — to any scheme of Italian independence and unity which Avould go to make Rome or Florence, Turin or Milan, the one capital of the peninsula. The Liberals call this VOL. I. R- 242 REVOLUTIONARY RUMOURS. feeling a vile municipal jealousy, a miserable rem nant ofthe prejudices and antipathies of the middle ages; but their abuse Avill not uproot, it, nor their rhetorical thunder shake it, and the feeling or passion is as strong in sundry other great Italian cities as it is in Naples: On our arrival in town we were told that there ought to have been a demonstration of the patriots last night— ma, una dimostrazione grande ! but the patrols had been doubled, and so the pa triots had stopped indoors, and nothing had been done. Contemptible as they were, and powerless and despicable as Avas the beaten faction from Avhich they originated, these constantly recurring rumours sorely disquieted many nervous people. The re ports also gave much trouble to the government ; for although there was not the shadoAV of a chance that any insurrection could succeed, or even become serious at any one point, riot and loss of life might take place at several points, and to avoid these it was necessary to be ahvays on the alert and well prepared. "And," said the war-minister, "we are well prepared. If they try to make any more barri cades, they shall be plied in earnest with grape-shot. They had only a taste of it last May ; next time they Avill have a bellyful — they will not get off so easily again." Though a man deeply to feel and bitterly deplore any such cruel necessity, my old friend Ischitella is certainly the man Avho Avould do the deed should the necessity occur ; and doubtlessly he would do it the more readily from the assurance and positive knoAvledge he had that the maniacs or REVOLUTIONISTS IN NAPLES. 243 scoundrels Avho were urging on an infinitesimal frac tion of the Neapolitan people to their ruin Avere not Neapolitans. They have got rid of them since, in a summary but justifiable manner, having seized them and conveyed them to the other side of the frontier ; but when Ave Avere at Naples the city abounded with anarchists from Central and Upper Italy, and noisy declamatory radicals, propagandists, and boutes-feux from nearly every country of Europe. Except our OAvn Radicals and Chartists, I really believe that every revolutionary faction of Europe had its representative or representatives at Naples ; and although the Neapolitan revolutionists were scattered or timid and someAvhat silenced, these strangers put no restraint upon their tongues, and but very little upon their actions ; and whenever they Avere called to account (which rarely happened) they threw themselves on the protection of some foreign legation, and bearded the Neapolitan authorities. A lacquais de place, a fellow from the provinces, Avhom we had employed for Avant of a better, was a patriot of the first water and a gobemouche of the largest capacity. He had been a sucking carbonaro at the time of the revolution of 1820; he had been in trouble and in prison since then, and quite re cently he had been a volunteer in the wars in Lom bardy, as he had a certificate to show ; but he had been included in the capitulation with the Austrians at Vicenza, and a hungry belly had driven him back to Naples. " Well, Pasquale, any news to-night?" b2 244 ABUSE OF RADETZKY. " News, Signore !— I think there is. That horrible butcher, Marshal Radetzky, has issued a proclama tion offering a hundred ducats for the head of a Roman priest, a thousand ducats for the head of a Roman bishop, ten thousand ducats for the head of a cardinal, and one hundred thousand ducats to anybody who will bring him the head of the Pope. What a sanguinary villain ! Were there ever such savages as these Austrians ?" Pasquale was a poor and very ignorant servitore di piazza, but the next morning I heard the same fable repeated by people of much higher condition. They Avere liberals, ultra-liberals, of course, and an Italian ultra-liberal will believe anything for a day or two. I rarely met one of them Avho did not seem to believe that Radetzky was very eager for the assassination of Pius IX. NAPLES— CROWDED CHURCHES. 245 CHAPTER XII. Naples — Crowded Churches — Increase of Devotion — Neapolitan Cabinet — Princes of Ischitella, Cariati, and Torella — Mergel- lina — Scenes at the Post Office — Midnight Mass — Departure from Naples — Aversa and its Wine — Campagna Felice — Capua — Good state of Troops — The Valley of the Vulturnus — Admirable Roads — Improved condition of the Peasantry — Our queer Courier — Brigands — The Bandit Ranieri — Isernia — Castel di Sangro — Piano di Cinque Miglie — A Moonlight Battle — All Moonshine — Sulmona — State of Siege — Popoli — Chieti — Immense Improvements — Abruzzese hospitality — Pescara — A Judge and his Story — A Salt Harvest — Atri — Agricultural Improvements — GiuliaNuova — Neapolitan " Mid dle Men." Ix was our last day in Naples. I re- visited some more of my old haunts, and looked — I believe for the last time — into the church of San Ferdinando, Santa Maria la Nuova, the Gesu Nuovo, Santa Chiara, and some other churches, where there are pictures worth seeing, or old historical associations, or wherein there were objects and recollections which, without being historical, were very dear to me. In no former time had I seen the masses more fre quented, or the confessionals more besieged. In many instances the persons kneeling at the grate, and pouring their sorrow and contrition into the ears of the confessor, were not of the class which I had been accustomed to see thus employed. Many of 246 INCREASE OF DEVOTION. them were elegantly dressed, and a good portion of them Avere men. My old friend Major G could not now have fairly made the remark to which he gave utterance a quarter of a century ago — " Surely all the sins in Naples must be committed by the women, for one hardly ever sees a man at confes sion !" But, to be serious, the very serious condition of affairs, the decay of prosperity, the indefinite apprehension of new troubles and calamities may, at this moment, have heightened the devotional feel ings of the people. However this may be, I judged from what I saw this morning, and from many indi cations I had seen previously, that the philosophes of Naples Avould have to sing " Wait a little longer ;" that they could not have it all their OAvn way just yet. I took leave of a feAv old friends who had come into Naples for a day or two, and of some who be longed to or were connected Avith the present administration. I believed then, and I continue to believe now, two things : 1. That King Ferdinand would wil lingly submit to the restraints of a moderate and proper constitutional system ; 2. That the majority of his present ministry, though calumniated, black ened, and assailed at all points by the Radicals at Naples and the Ultra-liberals of all Italy, are honest, well-intentioned, and high-minded men, far too well educated to be narroAV-minded bigots — far too enlightened and really liberal to be friendly or subservient to any despotism, Avhether exercised by NEAPOLITAN CABINET. 247 clubs and a mob, or by a monarch. Of three of these ministers, of whom two have in former times suffered severely for the liberality and consistency of their principles and the steadiness of their attach ment to Avhat they considered honour and right, I can speak with some confidence, as I have knoAvn them and all about them for well nigh thirty years. These three are, the Prince of Ischitella, Minister of War and Marine ; the Prince of Cariati, Minister for Foreign Affairs; and the Prince of Torella, Minister of Public Works. With such component parts this constitutional and responsible cabinet of his Majesty of the Two Sicilies must be entitled to a very different measure of respect than that Avhich has been meted to it by the republican government of France and by Viscount Palmerston and young Lord Napier. The government of a constitutional monarchy like our own ought to have given such men countenance and friendly encouragement, for they stand betAveen a bloody anarchy and a return to the old absolute system — they are in a proba tionary state, and are trying, under nearly every difficulty, a great political experiment, and solving the problem whether the Neapolitans can or cannot be governed constitutionally. In such a state of things a generous foe, and much more a powerful friend and ancient ally, would overlook slight differ ences and allow time for the settlement of serious ones. In the afternoon we went to Mergellina, at the commencement of the Strada Nuova of Posilippo, 248 SCENES AT THE POST-OFFICE. to dine with Mr. and Mrs. J. We left our friends early in order that we might finish a few prepara tions. We might have stopped some hours longer, and had cause to regret that we had not done so. A regular line of diligences running between Naples and Rome had been established since my time (Avhen there were no diligences at all), but the course had been interrupted by the troubles, and the carriages now ran only at very uncertain periods. I had, hoAvever, no intention of journeying by that route ; for I wanted to traverse the Abruzzi once more, to see an early friend who was living there, to visit the marches of Ancona, and to traverse the interesting country which lies between Ancona and Rome. We had taken our places in the procaccia or carriage which conveys the courier and his letter-bags to Popoli and Acquila in the Abruzzi ; and we had been charged to be ready and at the post-office by ten o'clock. We Avere true to time, but could see nothing of the courier, nor hear any note of prepara tion for departure. We Avalked down towards the Molo, and up and down the street opposite the Castello Nuovo, and returned to our rendezvous : no courier, no draAvn-out carriage, no signs of post- horses, and not a man or boy to speak to that could give an intelligible answer, or tell us when we really were to start. We went to the corner of the Rua Catalana, and dissipated a good half-hour in eating water-melons and gossiping Avith the thorough bred Neapolitan (uomo del Popolo) who vended them, and who vowed by the Madonna del Carmine and MIDNIGHT MASS. 249 San Gennaro that things were going all awry, that the rivoltosi had spoiled trade and the sale of melons, and that matters would never come right until the King came out of his palace, and Avith his troops and most faithful Neapolitan people smashed the Par liament and all enemies of the holy faith. We then Avent back to the post-office, where a functionary or understrapper comforted us with a " subito, Signori, subito " — presently, presently. But still no sign of horses, or of the courier, or of his bags, without which there Avas no departing. As the clocks were striking the midnight hour Ave saw the mail-bags brought to the coach, and the courier coming out of a room under the archway. Now at last Ave are off. Not a bit of it ! The courier made himself invisible again. My patience vanished Avith him, and I began to inquire, in the vernacular, and perhaps with some loudness of voice and a touch of Neapolitan ges ticulation, what this irregularity and protracted delay could mean. " Signori," said a fellow in a white nightcap, " they are gone to refresh their souls with a mass." " Who are gone to mass at this hour ?" said I. " Don Pepino, and the postilion who is to drive you, and the gentleman who is to be your fellow- traveller as far as Sulmona," responded Avhite nightcap. "But this is a strange hour for mass." " Niente affatto, not at all, please your Excel lency: to-morrow, or to-day — for we are in it — is a grand festa of the holy and blessed Virgin, and mass 250 MIDNIGHT MASS. must be heard by Christians, and there will be no time to hear it on the road, and Christians are Christians ; and they do say that there are brigands out in the Abruzzi, and that people may get accisi —killed." We had heard as much as the latter part of nightcap's speech before; but we had detected so many exaggerations and lies, that we had become incredulous to every report. I asked the man what church they had gone to for their mass. He told us that they had gone to no church at all; that there was a chapel for midnight masses in the post- office, as an indispensable part of the establishment ; and he pointed to the door, a few yards from us, which led to it. We went, and found Avithin that door a narrow staircase which smelt more strongly of tobacco and other fumes than of incense. We thought that Ave must have mistaken the direction, but the tinkling of a priest's hand- bell reassured us. We ascended the stone staircase, and found a little chapel — not larger than a moderately sized English parlour — and a tall tapestry-dressed priest saying mass, and eight or ten people genuflecting and crossing themselves. Among these Avere our courier, postilion, and fellow-traveller. The three looked very solemn by the light of those midnight tapers, but, owing to an owlishness of countenance natural to him, and never changing, the courier looked by far the most solemn of the three. Unless it be a messa cantata, no mass, whether at noonday or at midnight, lasts very long. We Avere soon out in the DEPARTURE FROM NAPLES— AVERSA 251 street — the horses then came up jingling their bells — the solemn courier ordered them to be put to, and Avhen he had sworn an oath or tAvo at some of the blundering half-asleep under-strappers — not neg lecting our friend in the AA'hite nightcap — we were ensconced in the vehicle and were off. It was one o'clock in the morning ofthe 15th of August. Naples Avas all asleep in the broad moonlight Avhen we left it. That light was so brilliant that we could see distinctly every object along the road — the viUas and farm-houses, and groups of habitations of the peasantry, the tall elm trees running in inter minable roAVs, aa ith. the vines hanging in festoons from the one to the other. This arrangement of the grape-bearing plant, though so beautiful to the eye, is not at all favourable to the stomach, the fruit thus grown being miserably poor, pulpless, and devoid of the saccharine and generous qualities of the grape ; it is not eatable, and the Avine made from it can scarcely be drunk without setting the teeth on edge and deranging the bowels that are not accustomed to it, or not as hard as those of Horace's Roman reapers. The wine made in these parts has had a notoriously bad name ever since the time of Redi. " Questo, d' Aversa, asprido ' Asprigno' Che non si sa s' e aceto o vigno." * And, albeit not named in poetry or history, the thin, sour, white Avine of Aversa, Avhich is still called * Bacco in Toscana. 252 CAMPAGNA FELICE. Asprigno, had an evil reputation centuries before the time of Redi. They grow their vines now as they did in the days of the Csesars ; they till the ground with a plough that dates from the time of the Tarquins. Day was dawning as we stopped to change horses at Aversa. We drove on, across that Avonderfully rich, fertile plain of the Terra di Lavoro, or Campagna Felice, the cultivation of which extorted praise even from Mr. Whiteside, who appears to have made up his mind to praise nothing in this country, because the people have shown themselves anti-liberals, and the King has battered barricades instead of submitting to them. Though industrious and intelligent, I Avould not take the inhabitants of this soft luxurious plain as a fair specimen of the Neapolitan peasantry. This is an error generally committed by travellers, Avho see a good deal of the people dwelling near the capital, and very little of the peasantry of any other province. An Abruzzese, a Calabrese, bears no more resemblance to the man of the Terra di La voro than does a bold Biscayan to a peasant of the effeminate Valenca — " La terra molle, lieta ed ubertosa Simili a se gl" abitator produce."* Every succeeding race that has conquered and occu pied these plains has soon lost its energy, enterprise, and bold daring. * Tasso. capua. 253 We Avere soon at Capua. The glance I had of that town Avas enough to convince me that it had been materially improved. When I first knew it there Avas only one considerable inn in the place, and that was so dirty and so swarming with fleas and other vermin, that it was next to impossible to obtain sleep in it. I still see the doleful visage of an old comrade who once had the ill fate to pass a night there with me. He had leaped out of bed in despair, and was holding a cresset lamp in his hand and muttering to himself — " If there had been as many bugs and fleas in Hannibal's time, he would not have stayed so long in Capua !" There are now several respectable looking inns, and I was told that they were as good as they looked. The Neapolitan soldiery in garrison seemed to be clean, well dressed, and well behaved. A short Avay beyond Capua the route to the Abruzzi forks off from the Roman road, running for some thirty miles up the valley ofthe Vulturnus. This fine road had been macadamized and other wise improved ; some wooden bridges had given place to solid stone bridges ; the rugged course of the river had been cleared in several places, and in some others the bed had been encased by rocks and stones to prevent the ravages of the winter and spring torrents. About five miles up the valley, at a spot I well remember, near an old olive grove and the ruins of a very ancient castle, the rich cul tivation ceased, and after a desert tract, it only appeared here and there in narrow belts round the 254" FINE CROPS. townships. But noAv I found agriculture driven nearly all the way up the valley — into and across the province of Molise, and to the very foot of the Abruzzi mountains. I do not say that Ave had here the cultivation and wonderful fertility of the Terra di Lavoro— the climate is comparatively bleak, and human industry could not cover the many rocky parts ofthe valley Avith the black, rich, six feet deep vegetable mould Avhich covers the broad plain ; but 1 mean to say that all the upper part of the valley of the Vulturnus is a garden to Avhat it was in 1826, when I had traversed it for the last of many times, and that what has been done by the industry and perseverance of the peasantry of these parts, who had so frequently to contend with an ungrateful soil, is highly creditable to them, and is another proof that they have not been Avrung and oppressed by their government. They had just finished taking in fine crops of Indian corn, Avhich they had grown at the Avarm bottom of the valley, in large en closures irrigated by Avater furnished by the Vul turnus, or by little torrents and brooks Avhich flowed down from the mountains to fall into that river. High up on the hill sides — which Avere occasion ally terraced — they had grown wheat, oats, barley, and buckwheat. I had been accustomed to see here misery, and rags, and foul sheep-skin jackets, but now, with scarcely a single exception, the pea sants we met AA'ere well attired. The villages Avere all cleaner and neater, the toAvns all improved, more or less. The approach to Venafro — the ancient A NEAPOLITAN COURIER. 255 Venafrium, the savour of whose Avild boar flesh Avas borne in grateful recollection by Horace — was most delightful ; for the road Avinded in a graceful line among tall groAving trees, and then ran in . a straight, cool avenue, shaded by magnificent Lom bard poplars. Having been his vis-a-vis for some hours, I had by this time studied the countenance and character of our courier. A true character he was! He had the face of a bird of prey, and the voice of a bird of prey : his eyes Avere round, black with scarcely any ring of Avhite, puckered all round, and droAvsy look ing ; his bushy eyebroAvs, of a reddish brown colour, seemed made not of hair, but of feathers ; his hooked nose Avas no nose at all, but a beak; it dropped over his thin compressed lips, and long bristles which projected from his nostrils looked like the whiskers of an owl; his face was round and yet sharp — smaU, and yet his head was all face; as for the whiskers, they were the rough and fretted plumage of an owl. Yet was he not Hke our Eng Hsh owls. He resembled rather the cucuvaja or screech-owl of Asia Minor, Avhich we had studied so attentively at the foot of Mount Olympus, and among the ruins of Nicsea, and at so many other places in desolated Turkey. His voice Avas pre cisely that of a cucuvaja. I shall never forget either the one or the other. For a native Neapolitan he was marvellously taciturn. He preferred smok ing to talking. The cigar was seldom out of his mouth — and if the reader can figure to himself a 256 BRIGANDS. screech-OAvl smoking, he will have a lively image of the man. He filled with the greatest dignity a post Avhich Avas of high importance in the eyes of these simple mountaineers. All the postilions gave him the " Don," and some of them called him " Ca- valiere " and " your Excellency." Never was bird of Minerva more cautious. I could not get a po litical opinion or a decided opinion of any sort out of him. As we Avere getting involved among the lofty mountains I questioned him about the brigands. '' Some people do say that there are some of them out — a thing not known in the Abruzzi for a very great number of years," said he, taking a Avhiff at his cigar for fear it should go out. " Are the bands reported to be strong?" " Piccole comitive, small companies, as I am told, but I have never seen them. They do not often attack his Majesty's procaccie, so you need not be afraid." " We are not afraid," said I, "we run no more risk than you do. But we are fond of robber stories. You have been travelling this road fre quently of late — have you not heard of the band Ranieri ?" *' Ranieri is dead." " But where did he die, and hoAV was he killed ? " Seeing that there Avas no escape, and having nearly finished his cigar, our owl-man or man- cucuvaja threw the fragment of tobacco out of the carriage AvindoAV, sent some spittle after it, cleared RANIERI THE BRIGAND. 257 his throat or attempted to clear it, drew himself up in the corner, like an owl in the angle of an ivied AvaU, and told his story in his most owlish voice. Being translated and condensed, it ran thus :— Giacomo Ranieri Avas a decent, honest, Avell-reputed stonemason, Hving in the Vail' Cscura, through which we were to pass. Nobody had a word to say against the man or against his wife. But at the beginning of the present political troubles he had a law-suit with a neighbour, and then a quarrel with that neighbour and his kindred. The neigh bour was found dead one morning, and some people did say that Ranieri had murdered him. Cucuvaja would not decide whether it was so or not. How ever it might be, the stonemason was pursued by the family and relations of the deceased, and was under the necessity of flying to the mountains. Then, find ing that the times were favourable to such a line of life, he resolved to turn robber. He had a ready tongue, which might have enabled him to make a figure in one ofthe democratic clubs of Sulmona, if he had turned his attention to politics, and had been free of that family vendetta which drove him to the recesses of Monte Maiello. As it was, he used his eloquence in another way : he found some shep herds Avho were out of employment, and some other peasants who were either dissatisfied with the times, or thought the times all out of joint, and very favourable to brigandage. These fellows joined him; and in a very few weeks Ranieri was the captain of a band which was variously estimated at vol. i. s 258 RANIERI THE BRIGAND. twenty, thirty, forty men. The number probably varied according to circumstances. They obtained firearms and plenty of ammunition, and as the means by which they had so done could not be clearly explained, people had recourse to shrugs and inuendos; the liberals suspecting that the robbers had been armed by the royalist re-actionary party ; and the royalists suspecting that muskets, powder, and ball must all have come from the liberals. As such banditti had not been heard of for very many years, Ranieri's comitiva made a great noise all over that country. They kept up the bruit by committing sundry atrocities, in addi tion to their flagrant breaches of the article in the Decalogue which saith " Thou shalt not steal." At least so some people had told our courier, who did not seem to care very much whether the story was true or false ; being so well satisfied that they had never molested him or stopped his Majesty's procaccia. Ranieri's career was, however, very brief, lasting only a short time longer than the provisional government of M. Lamartine, or the administration of a constitutional minister at Rome, Florence, or Turin. His wife had retired to the village of Pettorano, at the head of the Vail' Oscura, and not far from their old quiet home 'in the season when he was not a brigand, but a decent stonemason ; and one night he was detected and caught in that village in the disguise of a priest. The villagers literally hacked him to ISERNIA. 259 pieces ; for he had robbed some of them, and, it was said, had tortured and barbarously treated those he had robbed. As to the last-named par ticulars our man-owl had no certain information ; but he kneAv, for a positive fact, that Ranieri had been made into mincemeat, as, Avith his own wise OAvlish eyes, he had seen some of the bits and scraps, only a few days ago, at the village in the VaU' Oscura. At the end of his story our courier lighted another cigar. " But the band," said I, " is Ranieri's band dispersed ? " The answer was a puff, a whew ! and a " Cosi credo — so I believe." " I Avish it may be so," said our Abruzzese fellow- traveller, who had scarcely opened his lips since leaving Naples. About two hours after noon Ave Avere in the very heart of the country of the old Samnites, and stopped to eat maccaroni and toasted cheese at Isernia. Here too were manifest signs of improve ment and increasing prosperity. The situation of Isernia on the crown of a hill, with the valley of the Vulturnus below it, and mountains all round, is very beautiful ; the slopes of the hill and the whole district near the town were well cultivated. A few miles beyond Isernia we began to ascend a lofty ridge which separates the valley of the Vul turnus from that of the river Sangro. On the hither s2 260 CASTEL DI SANGRO. side of this ridge the waters run to the Mediterra nean, on the farther side they empty themselves into the Adriatic. Both the ascent and the descent are long and rather steep ; but the road is beautifully engineered, and is at present kept in admirable order. The town of Castel di Sangro is charmingly situated on the right bank of the little river, in a quiet, secluded verdant valley; it rises partly up the sides of a detached rock, and the ridge of that rock is crowned with the picturesque ruins of a feudal castle. The river abounds Avith the finest trout I ever tasted ; the surrounding mountains offer a great abundance and variety of game, and descending the valley tOAvards the sea and the mouth of the river there are traces of ancient cities and ruins enough to occupy an amateur for days and days. Down there the valley of the Sangro, like the plain of Troy, may be called " a glorious field for conjecture and snipe-shooting." But, for one ruin or remnant of antiquity on the Troad there are twenty here — unnoticed, unknown. Leaving Castel di Sangro we ascended another lofty ridge which brought us to the edge of the Abruzzi and the " Piano di Cinque Miglie." This remarkable plain, the length , of which is pretty accurately given in the name it bears, is at the very top of the Apennines, having only Ioav lines of hills rising above it and flanking it in its whole length : the plain is perfectly flat — a long, dead level. Being some four thousand feet above the level of the sea, the plain is delightfully cool and green in the sum- VALL' OSCURA. 261 mer time, Avhen the grass in the valley and on the sides of the flanking hills is cropped by immense flocks of sheep, which are annually removed to the Avarm plain of Apulia in the autumn. But in the winter season the snoAv lies deep in this elevated valley, and the wind sweeps it with the force of a tornado, and the famishing wolves hoAvl and prowl about it, and hunt in packs in desperate pursuit of mutton. Before Ave came to the entrance of the plain, or to the village Roccarasa, the sun went down ; but the moon rose magnificently, and being now at the full, she gave us a soft, sweet, and yet brilliant light. The air was exquisitely cool and pure. We rolled along the excellent smooth road at an accelerated pace, and we were exhilarated and in a condition of perfect enjoyment when we came out at the other end of this lofty, table-land valley, and were begin ning to descend into the deep Vail' Oscura. Here Ave heard firing. The postilion suddenly pulled up with a jerk which nearly sent us over a precipice : the courier called upon the Virgin and upon a saint or tAvo, crossed himself, and gave other symptoms that his nerves were not heroically strung ; our fel low-passenger, the silent Abruzzese, uttered a groan, but said not a word. We opened the carriage door and got out upon the road, which lay white and shining under the broad moon. Rap ! rap ! crash ! The postilion said he had counted twenty-five dis tinct reports of fire-arms. The sounds all came from below — from the loAvest depth of that obscure valley 262 VALL' OSCURA. or dark chasm into which Ave were to descend, by a precipitous, difficult zigzag road. What were they about down there ? What Avere we to do ? To re trace our steps to Roccarasa would be unpleasant and very inconvenient. What would the people of that viUage know of the state of affairs in Vail' Osfiura ? If the robbers were out in force, it might be as dangerous to go backward as to go forward — if the dark valley Avere a Scylla, the bared rock might be our Charybdis. But the firing ceased; the valley sent up no other hostile sound : re-encou raged, and relying again on his past experience that brigands Arery rarely attacked his Majesty's mail- coaches, our cucuvaja, in about a quarter of an hour, resolved to proceed. But Ave walked for a consider able time down the steep and always somewhat perilous zigzag road, stopping at each turn to listen, and to peer down into the black gulf below us. We could hear nothing but the dashing of a distant mountain torrent and the cool night breeze sighing among the trees and underwood ; at the bottom of the valley Ave could see nothing but the tops of trees and projecting rocks, and those we saw very indis tinctly, as the abyss Avas nearly all in deep shade. At length, Avhen the road became less steep and more direct we got into the carriage again, and the postilion having removed the drag, mounted, cracked his Avhip, and drove on at a good round pace. " Cosa sard stato ? — What can it have been ?" said I. " Chi lo sa ? — Who knows ?" said the courier. " Ha, indeed, Avho knoAvs ?" said the taciturn PETTORANO— RANIERI'S BAND. 263 Abruzzese, " perhaps the clubs are fighting — per haps .... but Avho knows ?" and here he gave utter ance to a second groan. We soon did know : as we drove into the village of Pettorano at the bottom of the valley Ave found everybody up and out of doors, and saw some twenty or thirty national guardsmen, without uniform, but with muskets in their hands, talking and deliberating with the sindaco or chief magistrate of the village. These men were presently round our carriage, and their short stories in our ear. Ranieri's band had made a sudden, secret, night attack on the place, hoping to find the early villagers napping, to make bloody reprisals for the cruel death of their chief, and to recover some of his spoils which had been taken out of his wife's dwelling. But, not being without apprehension of an invasion of the sort, some of the villagers Avere wide awake, the robbers were seen as they were stealing in ; the alarm was given, the guard turned out, and then, as one of them assured us himself, they fought valorously — " siamo combattuti valor osamente." As such reports implied a hot and close combat, Ave tenderly inquired after the wounded. Not a man had been hit. scratched, or touched; the vil lagers were all in statu quo ante bellum. They thought that they must have hit one or two of the robbers. The probabilities of the case are that the brigands had fled at the first alarm, and that the valorous guard had been firing in the empty air. We drove on again. " Che paese ! Cosa mai ci 264 PATRIOTS AT SULMONA. siamo diventati !" (What a country ! What have we become !), said our Abruzzese, after he had groaned again : " What a country ! And we were so quiet ! And now nobody pays anybody ! No trade ! And Sulmona declared in a state of siege ! Misericordia !" I put a few questions to him, but it Avas less from his ansAvers than from information Ave obtained after - Avards that I gathered the following facts : — Sul mona, which had long been noted as a quiet, orderly, thriving city, had taken hardly any part in the provincial demonstrations made at Naples to force the king to grant a constitution, or to bully him after he had granted it ; the people attended to their ordinary affairs with their usual phlegm, and seemed to care very little indeed about what might be passing in the capital : but even Sulmona had its ardent, revolutionary spirits ; and these formed themselves into a political circle or club. At their own request the intendente Avas removed, and a new functionary was sent to Sulmona by the present constitutional ministry. The patriots soon declared in their club that he Avas not a Liberal of the true stamp ; and, rising tumultuously, they drove him out of the town, and made him fly tOAvards the capital in dread for his life. They Avould not tolerate that majority of their felloAV-citizens Avho might, and who ought to, have crushed them at the beginning. They would clear the coffee-houses of every man who was not a professed and loudly pro fessing revolutionist. Some fierce quarrels took place at the doors of the cafes, Avith cuffs and blows, STATE OF SIEGE. 265 and a drawing of daggers and sAvord-sticks. The civic or national guard was called out ; but as the active, factious part of the population, being the first to set themselves forward, had nearly filled the ranks of that force, the Moderati, the inactive, un- combined majority gained nothing by this interven tion, but continued to be browbeaten and ridden over. Within the limits of a little city there Avere two parties, and the smaller domineered over the greater — the worse over the better : — " Or dentro ad una gabbia Fere selvagge, e mansuete gregge S' annidan si, che sempre il miglior geme."* The government had been outraged, the law had been set at nought, and at last strong representations had been made by the suffering party ; and there upon Sulmona had been declared in a state of siege, and some troops of the line had been marched into it. On emerging from the Vail' Oscura, the road runs on a beautiful level to Sulmona, in the valley of the river Pescara. We had the lofty Monte Maiello on our right, and the rapid river close on our left. It Avas near midnight when we entered the^town, with out any hindrance or impediment. Had it been in the hands of the Liberali, Ave should have been stopped by barricades. We saw a strong patrol of infantry in the principal street; but all other persons seemed to be in bed and asleep, and the town Avas as quiet as could be desired. * Petrarca. 266 popoli. A continuation of the same excellent level road brought us in less than two hours to Popoli, where the valley of the Pescara is narrowed by mountains which advance on either side, and terminate in bold ' cliffs. Except a short turn of it Avhich ascends to the populous city of Chieti, this magnificent road continues to run on level ground all the way to Pescara, at the mouth of the river of that name, and from Pescara to the Tronto", which there forms the Roman frontier. Take it altogether, from the capital to that extremity of the kingdom, I have not travelled upon a better route, for the same length of miles, in this island or in any other country, or upon one that is now better kept. It was far otherwise when I last travelled over it. There were then some bad places betAveen Popoli and Chieti ; and between Chieti and Pescara nearly the whole Avay was detestable. We had dropped our desponding Abruzzese at Sulmona. At PopoH, where Ave arrived a little be fore two o'clock in the morning, we parted with our Cucuvaja. He and the carriage struck off to the left to ascend lofty mountains and repair to the city of Aquila; but a vetturaof the country was to carry us, and such of the letter-bags as Avere not bound for Aquila, on to Pescara, Giulia Nuova, &c. The courier left us standing with our portmanteaux in the street, telling us that the vettura would be ready immediately. His subito turned out to be good two hours and a half of time. We Avere tired, cold, hungry, and sleepy, for our repast at Isernia CHIETI. 267 had- not been very substantial, and this was the second night that Ave Avere spending on the road. The inns were shut and barred ; but Ave knocked up a poor Avoman who kept a taverna for carters and muleteers. It Avas Horace's Avorst inn, only Avithout the jangling and quarrelling. Some muleteers were sleeping on the floor, and some upon the table at Avhich we were to sup ; but our hostess roused up these last, and spread a cloth upon the table, and set before us bread, cheese, cold fried fish, and a boAvl of bitter mountain salad. We had made many a Avorse meal, aud in much dirtier places, in Turkey. The poor Avoman was very obliging, and even the poor muleteers who had been disturbed in their sleep were very civil. Still the taverna did not invite to a long stay ; and so, when we had finished our supper, we walked to the bank of the Pescara, and amused oursdves by watching that river as it raced towards the Adriatic. It Avas now broad daylight, and a jingling of bells announced that our carriage was getting ready. On going up to it we found a galantuomo of the place, who was to be our fellow-passenger as far as Chieti. I suspected that it was for his convenience that we and the mail-bags had been kept waiting so long. Chieti has long been celebrated as one of the politest, most civilized places in the Neapolitan kingdom. The town, however, though beautifully situated on a broad eminence, is not in general very well built, most of the streets being narroAv 268 CHIETI. and tortuous. They Avere built so in the olden time, and in this country, where houses will last for many centuries, it is not easy or cheap to make street alterations. But if the streets were not widened, the houses themselves, judging only from the exterior, were much improved ; the shops and coffee-houses were very neat. The people who thronged the Piazza, where we stopped for a few minutes, were quite as well dressed as the inhabit ants of an English country town or provincial city ; and there Avas an air of life and quiet activity about the whole place. To avoid the deep descent to the valley and the Pescara road, they had commenced a beautiful terraced road along the side of the hill, with a very gentle declination ; but the pressure of the times, or the political turmoils which have made the pressure, had suspended this work of public utility. We took up a respectable old country gentleman who Avas going down to Pescara. I have heard it said and seen it written that there does not exist in the kingdom the class to which I assign our fellow-traveller. It is, unhappily for themselves and for the country, quite true that the Neapolitan nobility and landed proprietors live almost entirely in the capital, rarely visiting their estates, except when they want to raise money, and very seldom staying more than a few days upon them ; nevertheless there are many persons fairly entitled to be called "country gentlemen," in the Abruzzi, in Apulia, and in other parts of King Ferdinand's dominions - gentlemen in easy, if not affluent cir- CHIETI. 269 cumstances, Avho live upon their OAvn lands, or in the toAvnships close at hand, exercising a homely, decent, unostentatious hospitality, and visiting the city of Naples as seldom as the gran Signore visits his estates. Many is the time in which I have profited by their hospitality in regions where there were no inns of any kind, and where the hospitality- dispensing monasteries of the superior orders Avere all suppressed. Our new acquaintance had just come doAvn from the city of Aquila, Avhich he described as being in, or getting fast into, a very turbulent state — and all on account of the political clubs, and the timidity and inactivity of the majority. " The common people," said our old gentleman, " under stand absolutely nothing of the political questions which are agitated ; but some wicked men (Avhom may God forgive !), to work out their OAvn purposes, are fiUing their heads with French communist notions." As we Avere descending the hill of Chieti, our companion pointed out the place of his residence— a white shining little town, right across the widened valley of the Pescara, on a charming ridge of hills, which was well planted with trees, and backed by lofty mountains that terminated, near the line of the Adriatic Sea, in the sublime mass called " Il Gran Sasso d' Italia" — and with much politeness and true Abruzzese hospitality he told me that if we would pass that way, he would be happy to lodge and entertain us. The views of Chieti during that wind ing descent were sunny and beautiful ; and I could 270 PESCARA. observe that the suburbs and outskirts of the city, filled with neat villas and pleasant gardens, had been greatly improved. We saAv little of Pescara ; for although we entered that loAV-lying regular fortress, which commands the mouth of the river, we had not time to walk through the town. The garrison seemed strong. We crossed the rapid river on a large ferry-boat. From the left bank of the river the road was more than ever delightful, running at the edge of a level plain from one to two miles broad, between the hills and the sea, and, for a long way, close on the margin of the Adriatic, and having some clean villages and a great many detached villas and neat farm-houses on its line. Here is another "Castellamare," an elegarit, snoAV-white village on the spur of a hill, much frequented by the gentry from the interior of the province for the benefit of sea-bathing — a sort of miniature English watering place. It was so long ago, but since my time the place had been enlarged, and, at considerable distances from it, and close to the sea, a number of small but exceedingly neat lodging-houses had been erected for the ac commodation of the bathers ; and there was every where visible an increasing prosperity, and Avith it an additional attention to order aud arrangement, neatness, and cleanliness and comfort. I should be disposed to cite this district as the one in which I saAv the most decided proofs of improvement and progress. Unluckily, the road is cut here and there by fiumari, or the stony beds of the mountain COMMUNISM. 271 torrents ; and some of these are so broad, and the waters they bring down during the rainy season so impetuous, that it has not hitherto been found possible to bridge them ; and at times it happens that travellers and post-bags are kept waiting many hours by the angry torrents. We had a new comrade, a, very calm, well-informed, sensible person, the judge or giudice di pace of a neighbouring district. He talked freely of the state of the country, and represented its condition as becoming an alarming one. Although a constitu tionalist himself, and recently appointed to his post by the constitutional government, the ultra-liberals had declared war against him, and the communists had given him great trouble and vexation. "These poor deluded men," said he, " who were formerly so submissive to law and authority and so easy to manage, have been taught to believe that ' constitu tion' means a suspension or cessation of all law. Not only wiU they not pay taxes to government, but they will pay no rents to their landlords — nay, they hold themselves exempted by the new order of things from paying their private debts." I said that I had seen some melancholy conse quences of all this — that a number of my friends living at Naples had received hardly any rents from their estates. " And none will they get," said the judge, " unless a check can be given to, these doctrines. The King's government is too mild. The King believes in the efficacy of gentle admonitions and proclama- 272 STABBING A BAILIFF. tions. They will do nothing. In my district there are men who are breaking up the very foundations of society. They will not pay their private personal debts ; and they fly in the face of the law. The other day this happened : a man OAved another the sum of a hundred ducats. The money had long been owing, and the debtor was well able to pay it. At last the creditor had legal process. I sent an usciere (bailiff) to the house to exact payment. The debtor told my officer that we had gotten the consti tution — that these were times of liberty and equality — that no man was such a fool as to think of paying debts now — and that if he did not instantly quit the house he would beat him soundly, if he did not kill him. I was bound to procure assistance for the civil officer. Having no other force from Avhich to choose, I sent one of our civic guard Avith the usciere, who returned to the house. Instead of submitting, the debtor fell upon the national guardsman, and wounded him very severely. In all probability the poor man will die." " And have you not been able to seize the assassin ?" " Not yet," said the judge, " the clubs are so powerful, the communists are becoming so numerous, and our respectable people are so afraid of any collision." A great troop of peasants driving asses heavily laden from the sea-side to the high-road attracted our attention. " That is one of the signs of the times," said the ROBBING THE SALT-PANS— ATRI. 273 judge. " Down there by the beach are some of the royal saline (salt-pans). The people have driven away the King's collectors and labourers, and are now helping themselves, without any duty or pay ment whatsoever. They have now been at this work for weeks. Half the country has turned out to the saline. Though so close to a fortified town with a considerable garrison, they have met Avith no opposi tion. Salt was a government monopoly — an ancient recognized source of revenue ; but the price put upon it was light. If these men would stay at home and work, they might gain in any day double the value of the salt they are stealing. Then, one breach of the law leads on to another. They are smuggling all along this coast ; and the offences will not end in smuggling and robbing the salt-pans." A little farther on we met another troop of peasants, who were driving their donkeys from the hills to the saline. They passed us in unusual glee, and one of them, giving a whack to his ass, cried " Viva la Costituzione !" We drove under several antique, romantic little towns, each perched on the top of a steep hill, and being walled in and battle- mented, and having its old baronial castle or strong keep. The most ancient, the most romantic, and every way the most interesting of these toAvns is Atri, from which my old friend derives his title. There appears to have been a town upon that hill from the time when towns were first built in Italy. Even the name of the remote race to which its first founders belonged is a mystery. The present walls vol. I. T 274 GIULIA NUOVA. Avere built by an ancestor of the Duke some six centuries ago. BetAveen Atri and Giulia Nuova, on the gentle slopes between the hills and the sea-side, the Duke has made a magnificent plantation of olives — a species of culture which of late years has been much neglected by the Abruzzesi, although they have a great deal of country highly favourable to it. The plantation is about a mile and a quarter in length, having an average breadth of half a mile. The first trees were put in the ground about sixteen years ago, and are now beginning to bear. In the course of a few years it Avill be a magnificent olive- grove, and a rich source of revenue. A few of the Duke's neighbours had taken the hint, and were preparing to convert land which rendered them little or nothing into olive plantations. We arrived at Giulia Nuova at midday. That little town, like aU the others, is seated on a hill and walled in, the walls being battlemented, and having their strong towers and turrets ; but the hill is more gentle than those in the neighbourhood, and the walls exhibit fewer signs of ruin. The road which leads up from the high-road to the gate of the town is of gentle ascent, broad, smooth, and beautiful. It might serve as an approach to a royal residence. The miniature town was busy and bustling, and seemed to be prosperous. Going through the town, and issuing from the opposite gate, we saw before us, at the distance of tAvo or three hundred yards, the beautifully situated farm- THE DUKE OF ATRI'S VILLA— MIDDLE-MEN. 275 house AA'hich the good taste of the Duke and Duchess of Atri had converted into a comfortable and elegant villa. We approached it by a cool avenue of acacias, which they had planted only a few years before, and which reaches from the house to within a stone's throw of the old romantic waUs of the town. Don Luigi Acquaviva, the Duke's eldest son, was residing here, and warm was the welcome he gave us. He Avas fond of the country and a country life, and, like every member of his family who had lived on the estate, he was respected and much beloved by the peasants. During the last eighteen years that the Duke or some of his children have made this place their residence for a good part of the year, their revenue has been materially improved. If more of the noble famihes of the kingdom Avould follow this example, they would derive similar benefits ; then there Avould be society in the country (as among country neighbours in England), and a residence in the provinces would not be regarded as a dreary exile ; then a most salutary check might be put upon the rapacity, trickery, and absolute roguery of factors and stewards, and all those " middle-men " who, ever since the estabHshment of the French and of their system in the kingdom in 1806, have been cheating, despoiling, and ruining their careless, negligent employers, and raising themselves to wealth and eminence upon their ruin ; then the commanding and often dangerous influence of these " middle-men " — the democrats of democrats — would be abated or balanced, and the aristocracy, living t2 276 EVILS OF ABSENTEEISM. among the people — who are not at all insensible to the charms of an ancient name or the traditions of the baronial castle, or the hill-side tales which tell how such or such a family had held the land time out of mind, and how their grandfathers and great grandfathers and remotest ancestors had lived under that family, and had all been buried by the blessed Church which the barons had built — would gradu ally and, I believe, rapidly recover, not their feudal supremacy, which has gone for ever, and which no one wishes to see restored, but that fair propor tionate share of influence Avhich an aristocracy ought to possess, and which will ahvays be one of the best safeguards against kingly tyranny on the one hand and revolutionism on the other. Even without changing the French laAvs of inheritance and other laws which ought to be changed — for they were conceived in the very spirit of ultra-democratism, and their tendency is to bring all men and families down to a dead level, and to render any prolonged existence of an aristocracy an impossibility — I am of opinion that most important and beneficial changes (as beneficial to the country as to them selves) would ensue if all the Neapolitan nobility would forsake the capital for six months eArery year, and pass that time on their estates. Diminished, cut up, parcelled out as these estates have been, many of them are still very considerable in extent and susceptible of immense improvements, Avhich will never be undertaken, projected, or eAren con templated by the "middle-men," until they get the ORIGIN OF THE ULTRA-LIBERALS. 277 lands into their own possession. At one time, and at no distant period, a very large portion of this province ofthe Abruzzi belonged to the Atri family ; and their Conversano estates in Apulia ran in an uninterrupted line of many miles. Here, in the Abruzzi, you might ride a whole summer's day and not pass their limits. Our friend the judge, Avhom we left at Giulia Nuova to continue his journey to Martin Sicuro, had spoken a good deal of the fortunes of this family as we passed their old castles and the other remains of their former greatness. "While they were going down hill," said he, " all their agents and factors were rapidly ascending. Their spoils have made more possidenti— landed proprietors — than I can count. Half of the galantuomini that I knoAv hereabout, are the sons of men who acted as agents to the duke's father, and grandsons of men Avho were vassals, menial servants, shepherds, woods men, or tillers of the soil in the time of the duke's grandfather." It is precisely from this plunderous class of " middle men " and agents and factors that the ultra-liber ali, the presidents and orators of clubs, and the real archi tects of the barricades have sprung, and do yet spring, not only in this kingdom, but through the rest of Italy, where the noblesse have been equally negligent and averse to a country life, and have been equally pillaged. Italian robbers always call the man they rob a thief and assassin. Men always hate those whom they most wrong. In acquiring 278 CHARACTER OF THE ABRUZZESI. the estates of the nobility, these provincial, rustical agents have not been able to obtain a footing in the noble society of Naples, or the entre'e at court. They are fenced out. Family pride has survived the decay of family wealth ; and it is only on very rare occasions that the novi homines are to be seen in the house of a second-rate nobleman at Naples, let their wealth be what it may. But these en riched rustics very commonly send their sons up to Naples to be educated, and to study the laAV — and these young lawyers from the provinces are your revolutionists par excellence. These are your rabid declaimers against an aristocracy which has been plundered by their fathers, and Avhich has no longer an aristocratic exemption or privilege left to it, but Avhich Avill not yet " forgather " with the progeny of their paid servants — these are the indecent assailants of royalty, the calumniators of the king. It Avill be seen that my impression of the general character of the Abruzzesi is very favourable. They are indeed a sober, quiet, steady, industrious people, very hospitable, capable of very Avarm affection, frank and open-hearted ; having both fortitude and courage — the power of sustaining fatigue, hardship, and misfortune, as well as that of facing and braving danger— -and being orderly, methodical, and very amenable to discipline, they make excellent soldiers. The composure, the quietness of talk and de meanour of these people offer a striking contrast to the excitable and noisy inhabitants of Naples and NEWS OF AN INSURRECTION AT ROME. 279 the Terra di Lavoro. They are not like the same people, and, though co-nationals, they are not the same people. The Abruzzesi of these parts differ in an equal degree from their close neighbours the inhabitants of the Marches of Ancona. Though subjects of his Holiness the Pope, they are volatile, remuant, passionate, fiery, noisy, and turbulent, committing: more assassinations in a month than are knoAA-n over the whole surface of the two Abruzzi in a year. Don Luigi, who had seen so much of these mountaineers, and who kneAv them thoroughly, spoke most favourably of their general character. " It is even beyond the power of Avine," said he, " to excite these men or make them noisy, or quar relsome, or forgetful of propriety." The day after our arrival at Giulia Nuova some " gentlemen " from the Marches, who had come across the frontier, and who Avere on their way to Sulmona (I fear with no good intentions), dropped, as they passed, some startling intelligence. There had been a rising of the patriots of Ancona— there had been a popular insurrection at Rome, the Pope's secretary had been stabbed and Avas dead, the Pope had shut himself up in the castle of Sant' Angelo Avith a feAv of the cardinals and was thought to be dying; the Roman people were all out under arms, etc. A young priest and one or two of the men of Giuha Nuova, who repeated this blazing story, seemed to believe it implicitly, and expressed their doubts whether we should be able to proceed, or 280 MARTIN SIOURO. whether, under the circumstances, the Neapolitan authorities on the frontier would viser our passport, or allow us to cross the frontier. Up at the villa we were not quite so credulous. As, however, I had noticed ever since the preludes to the French revolution of February that an outbreak was pre ceded by many rumours, and that the leading parts of the tales and horrors told by anticipation Avere afterwards verified, and as Ave had heard so many of these tales about Rome, I thought their fulfilment might also be at hand ; and being perfectly well aware that there was no government worthy of the name in the States of the Church, I thought it as well to set off that very afternoon, lest the hinder- ances and perils with which the newsmongers threat ened us might really arise. If Ave had allowed ourselves to be stopped by alarming reports, we never should have got on at all. In an hour a light little carriage of the country conveyed us to Martin Sicuro — Safe Martin. This frontier station consists only of an old round tower, a chapel, a rude inn, a very humble custom-house, and one or tAvo other houses. There were no troops, no guards, not so much as a picket of the guardia civica to watch this entrance to the kingdom. There were five custom-house officers, Avho were very civil, and who very conveniently preferred taking a buona mano to opening our portmanteaux. These functionaries, and a quiet gentlemanly man Avho examined our passport and signed it, assured me that, whatever might he the state of the country A POLITICAL LIGHTNING-CONDUCTOR. 281 farther up, it was perfectly tranquil as far as Porto di Fermo. The keeper of the little inn Avas pro prietor of, or partner in, a very neat good open carriage, and a pair of stout black Roman horses ; and these Ave hired. Not only was there no guard, but there was no human being on the Roman side of the Tronto ; and Ave advanced a good mile or more before we met two fat priests driving in a timonella with a hog- necked and hog-maned black horse, and a laquais on the foot-board behind wearing a tri-colour cockade. The said cockade might have been meant to act as a para-tonnerre, or political lightning con ductor, for the violet-coloured cloaks of the priests showed that they were dignitaries in the church. 282 ROMAN FRONTIER— SAN BENEDETTO. CHAPTER XIII. Boman Frontier — Marches of Ancona — San Benedetto — Koman Patriots and Roman Beards — Porto di Fermo — Macbetto in Musica — Feuds — Prosperity of the Country — Loreto and the Santa Casa — A Cicerone who has been a Tragedian — The Jesuits — Bights of Women and Banquet of Citizenesses — A discussion — Unpopularity of the Pope — Beautiful Country — Ancona — Placards and National Guards — Club Orators — A, Whistling Stable-boy. The road in the Marches of Ancona was but a con tinuation of the smooth, macadamized, well-kept, beautiful route which we had left, behind us in the Abruzzi ; but, as Ave advanced, it was flanked by more continuous and neater hedge-rows than any we had seen in the Neapolitan kingdom. At the distance of about two miles from the frontier we came to the small papal tOAvn of San Benedetto, Avhere they Avould have examined our luggage if Ave had not given some more buona mano, and where they did sign our passport and made us pay for it. Being near the hour of Ave Maria, the Piazza was crowded — and crowded, for the most part, by fiercely mustachioed and long-bearded men, nearly all wearing the uniform of the national guard, or fan tastic military caps, or broad red stripes on their trowsers, or something else to denote that they were citizen-soldiers. We had left the Neapolitans a LE GROTTE— THE ADRIATIC. 283 tolerably clean shaven people — the broken barri cades had acted like razors ; we had hardly seen there one long beard, or any beard at all approach ing to the patriot dimensions of the Roman States, Tuscany and Lombardy. But here, and so onward, razors had had a long holiday. Every man was more hirsute than a bear of Monte Maiello. All was "pelo, e non pelle " — hair, and no flesh or face visible, except the nose, the cheek-bones, and the bit of forehead that might peep under the martial cap — whiskers, beard, and mustachios running all into one broad black mass. Bristles come early in these precocious climates, but it was evident that some of the youngsters had been greasing their chins and upper lips in order to forward the crop, and give themselves that martial and patriotic aspect Avhich was a la mode. The night closed in, rough and stormy, before we reached the town of Le Grotte, on the brink of the Adriatic, which is much frequented by sea-bathers ; and we drove through that place Avithout seeing it. For some distance the road lay almost close to the water-mark, running over the shingle, and we felt the rising spray of the Adriatic on our faces. The moon was covered — the wind ceased — the blacken ing sky was streaked with broad, but at first faint, flashes of lightning — the rain began to come down in slow, immense globules. I knew the symptoms aforetime. We were in for the prelude of the first rains. Not a drop of rain had fallen here or at Naples for nearly four months. 284 PORTO DI FERMO— MORE DEMAGOGUES. We entered the Porto di Fermo with eclat. The thunder pealed over our heads, and rolled over that little seaport as if it would bury it in the sea, the lightning flashed terrifically bright, the rain came down in a perfect torrent. We stopped at our inn door at the very nick of time ; the poor horses would no longer have faced those blinding lightning flashes and that blinding rain, and all that turmoil of the elements. In the dining-room of the inn was a green placard or handbiU — City of Fermo. This evening will be given THAT MOST FAMOUS DRAMA MACBETTO, in Music. The strolling company might have had their thunder and lightning and rain for nothing to-night. The ancient city of Fermo, which was a place of strength and importance in the days of Hannibal, lies inland, up the hills, at the distance of about four miles from the sea and this httle place which is called its port. We were told that at the present moment the tranquillity of the town was sadly dis turbed by politics and rival parties ; that some democratic circles and an equality and fraternity club had been opened ; that from the day they were opened there had been no peace in Fermo ; that two or three violent demagogues domineered EXTORTIONATE VETTURINI. 285 over the citizens, and gave the only laAV which ex isted there— a law of bludgeons and poignards. Alas! it is now as in the days of the fugitive Ghibelline — " ChiS le terre d' Italia tutte piene Son di tiranni, ed un Marcel diventa Ogni villan che parteggiando viene.'' Our hostess at the Porto, who was lamenting her decaying trade, Avas certainly not a liberal, and it is probable that the accounts we heard of the state of the old city might be exaggerated ; but Ave soon saw enough to convince us that the outline of the picture was correct enough if applied to other towns. We had hoped to find some public conveyance at the Porto in which we might travel to Loreto ; but there was none, for people had other things in their heads than the miraculous Santa Casa, and, very generally, the regular conveyances were interrupted. We were thus obliged to hire vehicles for ourselves, and being at the mercy of a few vetturini, who were leagued together, and who, in these days of liberty, would tolerate no competition, we had, nearly every where as Ave went on, to pay considerably more than double the proper fare ; and, after letting a car riage to us, the vetturino Avould usually take up any other stray passenger or person on the road that would pay him a trifle. On one occasion, in the Roman States, I thought of applying to the magis trate ; but that dispenser ofthe laAV had been chosen by the mob, was a liberate himself, and Avould cer- 286 ROAD TO LORETO. tainly have taken part with the vetturino, who wore the tricolor cockade. We engaged at Porto di Fermo a carratella with a pair of white, lean, old horses, and drove from that place about seven o'clock in the morning. The tempest of the preceding night had been far too violent to last long ; but it had cleared and cooled the atmosphere, and the rain had completely laid what little dust there was on that beautiful road. The aspect of all things was bright and cheerful : the Adriatic, close at our right hand, was as smooth as a deep-lying mountain tarn, and the hills on our left were as green and fresh as if there had been no scorching summer. The whole of this line of coast, from San Benedetto to the pleasant shores below Loreto, merits the commendation of old Biondo da Forli, who surveyed it three hundred years ago — " Except those of Sorrento and Gaieta, this is the pleasantest coast and the most delightful in all Italy, the most full of oranges, vines, olives, and other most beautiful fruit-bearing trees." * As Ave advanced the groves became less frequent ; nicely enclosed fields spread along the narrow plain and up the sides of the nearest gentle hills, in the rear of Avhich Avere seen, afar off, the rugged tops of the Abruzzi mountains. The detached farmhouses, showing their white faces for the most part on the sides of the hills, were remarkably neat, and had all the signs of rural prosperity about them. They Avere backed and flanked by good corn-ricks and hay- * Italia Illustrata. IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PAPAL STATES. 287 ricks — some of a pretty bell shape, tall, aud taper ing, and others in the form of beehives. These Avere the first real hay- ricks we had seen since leav ing England. In Turkey they have none. These hay-ricks of the Marches looked to us like dear, old, famihar friends ; and the morning sun shining on their sides and evaporating the rain which had fallen upon them in the night, brought out a sweet Enghsh odour which Avas like the breath of home. The villages through which we passed were all im proved ; the villagers were all well dressed. We did not see a man, Avoman, or child in rags ; nor did we meet with a single beggar until Ave came to Loreto. The central administration, the financial management were very defective, and, altogether, the vices of the old Roman were greater than the vices of the old Neapolitan government ; yet surely what we saAv here and what we continued to see in the Papal States must be taken as evidence that the predecessors of Pius IX. were neither the rogues nor the idiots that they are now described as having been, and that his immediate predecessor Gre gory XVI., who left the country in an unexampled condition of prosperity, could not have been a destructive tyrant. We did not see things at their best ; although I saw them better than they were in 1826, and far, far better than they were in 1816. The prosperity had been on the ebb for two years, or nearly ever since the accession of the re forming Pope. But for the failure in the potato crops nearly everywhere, and the famine in Ireland, 288 LORETO. and our importations of wheat, Indian corn, and other Italian produce, the ebb of tide would have been more rapid, the decline from that high state of prosperity more apparent. Most beautiful and exhilarating was our ascent to the high broad hill-top on which the picturesque old city of Loreto is built, with its walls and towers, and the proud dome of that church of churches which encloses and enshrines with beauty and mag nificence " The Holy House" — that object of Catholic veneration and adoration, which for five centuries and a half has attracted crowds of pilgrims from all Italy, and some pilgrims from nearly every part of the globe. The miracle made the town — for, until the arrival of the " Santa Casa," " the most Holy House of Nazareth," the hill was a solitude standing in the midst of woods — and the town has Hved, thrived, and increased upon the money of the pilgrims. '' Buy a guide to the Holy House ! Buy some rosaries and crosses that you may have them blessed in the Holy House !" These were the first words we heard ; they rung in our ears during nearly the whole of the time that we stayed there, and they were the last words we heard on taking our de parture. One side of the principal room, in the Arery clean and comfortable hotel we stopped at, was covered with these rosaries and crosses, and medals of the Virgin and medals of Pope Pius IX., and engravings of the church, the Holy House, the statues and pictures. These commodities form the ROSARIES OF LORETO. 289 principal trade ofthe place. Nobody can go through without purchasing some; the non -Catholic English travellers had annually been great purchasers : for some of the rosaries make very pretty necklaces, and they serve as souvenirs of Loreto, Avhere, mixed with the puerile and the ridiculous, there is much that is high and beautiful in art. But our landlady complained that the profitable trade was sadly on the decline ; that the Avars and troubles kept aAvay all the pilgrims and all the foreign travellers ; that matters were going from bad to worse ; that her house had been empty for months, and that she feared they must soon shut it up. " As for my corone (rosaries), my crosses, and these other pretty things Avhich I used to sell in such quantities to the travellers that came to my house, they have become a weight on my hands : I have not sold for the value of a paolo these last two months." We bought a few of her beads and nick-nacks, put them in our pockets to have them blessed in due form, and sallied out for the Santa Casa, under the guidance of a young fellow who had offered his services as cicerone. Before we reached the church -door we were over taken by a stout, large-faced, lame old man, who wore a greasy hat all on one side, and carried in his hand a very thick stick or bludgeon with which he cut figures in the air whenever he spoke. After saying a few words aside to our young man, he addressed us with a measured solemnity of tone and a pedantry of language which were irresistibly vol. i. u 290 THE "HEAD CICERONE" OF LORETO. droll. " Their excellencies," said he, " are cavaliers of education and of the highest intellect (intelletto sublime) ; their excellencies require the most in telligent and best of ciceroni. I, who humbly offer my services to their excellencies, am the head cicerone of this city of Loreto and this santissima Casa, and I know the names of the painter of every picture, the sculptor of every statue and rilievo, and the donor of every diamond and pearl in the church, the treasury and the sacristy likewise ; and all the legends of the miracle, or, to speak more correctly, the succession of miracles, by which the Holy House was brought through the air from Nazareth in Palestine to Dalmatia ; and from Dal matia, by a new flight, to the spot where it now is, as I have had the honour of explaining to many mi- lordi, their excellencies' similars. As for this most worthy young man (here he pointed with his stick towards our original guide, and spoke with a regular stage-whisper), he is but a novice in the profession of cicerone. He is my friend, my pupil, and I have good hopes of him ; but as yet .... why really he is not the man to serve their excel lencies as they ought to be served." The young fel low seemed to think so too, or to fancy that he would have no chance now that so formidable a competitor had taken the field : for while the old man was rounding his periods he turned round on his heel and walked away. The cicerone in capo, taking entire possession of us, led us back across the square which is in front of the church, to make us PRIMO TIRANNO. 291 observe, from his favourite points of sight, the colossal bronze statues of two Popes, the facade of the church, the pontifical palace on the one side of the square, and the Jesuits' college on the other. He had a small collection of anec dotes reflecting no credit upon Popes, Jesuits, or priests in general, which he had no doubt re tailed to every Englishman that had come in his way, and to every other traveller that he had taken for a Protestant. As I did not laugh at these jokes, having heard them so very often before, and having but Httle taste for such ribaldry from a professing Roman Catholic, I believe that, until Ave went into the Church and came to the test of the holy-water dipping and the image kissing, he took me for a devout, stanch papist. His descriptions of the objects around us, his allusions to local history, and his criticisms on the works of art were far more amusing than his anecdotes, being delivered with the most ludicrous pomposity and conceit, in a tone and manner something between that of an English showman and that of a modern Roman tragedian. From his stage whisper I had almost concluded that he must have been a player before he became a guide to the Holy House. Such was really the case. He told me that he had once been a person of more consideration ; that he had been many years upon the stage, playing the parts of primo tir anno or first tyrant, for which his person, countenance, and deep voice had especially qualified him. " But," said he, " waving his bludgeon in the air as if it had u 2 292 LORETO— THE SANTA CASA. been a stage truncheon, " this vile sciatica made me limp and forced me from the boards." On going over the church — which is worth a pil grimage for the works of art it contains— we found a party of priests vehemently discussing politics in the sacristy, which lies between the main body of the church and the treasury. The loudest of the disputants Avas a gigantic, dark-visaged priest, who was putting on his sacerdotal robes to say mass. I stopped nearly opposite to him to examine an exquisite little picture of the Madonna by Sasso Ferrato : while I was thus engaged, the burly priest nearly dragged me into the argument, for he said in a loud, sonorous voice which must have rolled through the lofty, wide, open doors ofthe sacristy into the body of the church, where three or four other priests were celebrating mass, "We cannot settle the question ourselves ! At this moment the destinies of Italy, the destinies of all civilized Europe are in the hands of England. If England plays the wise and generous part, all will go well ; if not, then ruin !" As for some time past I had been holding this as a solemn truth, I turned round to the priest and said that the English nation was not likely to take any other than a generous part in the troubles of the Continent, and that it was to be hoped that her generosity would be aided by wisdom. " But," said another of the disputants, " England has a great debt, and the French navy is now very strong, and the republicans of the United States of America — it SPLENDID VOTIVE OFFERINGS. 293 is said — have made an alliance offensive and de fensive with the new French republic, and are going to send a strong fleet into the Mediterranean to act Avith the French." I assured him that these reports were unfounded : he shook his head, and evidently retained his belief, going into some astounding sta tistics touching the population, wealth, armies, and fleets of the United States. '¦ But," said another of the disputants, " cannot France and England re main good friends, and conjointly mediate for us, and resettle Europe without jealousy or strife?" " Never !" said the burly priest, in his most sten torian tone. Feeling the same conviction in my own heart and mind, I opened the inner door and Avent into the treasury, leaving the heated, flushed priests to settle the politics of Europe and their own dispute in their own way. The votive offerings of the Catholicity of the Avorld made rather a grand show, and would cer tainly set up, in stock of trade, a new Rundell and Bridges. Diamonds of large size, astonishing pearls, and other gems and jewels of price, gleamed brightly out from the surrounding glass cases or presses ; and there seemed to me to be a good many more neck laces for the Virgin, bandeaux, stomachers, ear-rings, bracelets, rings, reliquaries, &c, than when I was here last. Among these offerings were several very splendid ones from the mother of Napoleon Bona parte, and from other members of Napoleon's family, which I had either not noticed before or forgotten. I believe, however, that most of these had been added 294 WEDDING SUIT OF THE ELECTOR OF SAXONY. to the collection since my time. Our primo tiranno, or tragical cicerone, seemed determined that we should pass nothing unnoticed now. Standing in the midst of the room, raising his truncheon, and pointing to the case, and leaning his other hand upon that unfortunate sciaticafied hip which had driven him from the stage, he said, solemnly, " There, their excellencies will see a rich fawn-coloured brocade silk coat, richly fringed with brilliants, and with rich brilliants round the collar, the pocket-holes and the skirts ; that coat, 0 Signori, was the coat of Sta nislaus Augustus, Elector of Saxony ; and it is the very coat he was married in ; and he sent it as an offering to the blessed Virgin of Loreto ; and under neath that coat are the brocade silk breeches, richly set with brilliants, which he wore with the coat when he Avas married, and which he likewise sent to the Virgin ; and the breeches were not hid behind the coat some years ago as they now are ; but the breeches used to produce much laughter — unsuiting so holy a place — particularly from foreign travellers ; and therefore are the said breeches behind the coat and concealed from sight !" We were fairly guilty of the unsuitable laughter, provoked more by the cicerone's manner than by his story. In the latter part of his speech he had dropped his voice to the stage whisper ; but still it was the voice of a primo tiranno, with attitude corresponding thereunto ; and all the while there Avas a roguish twinkle and irony and sarcasm in the corners of his old eyes. After the tale of the culottes Ave would hear no more, see NO REFORM IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 295 no more in that place. Our tiranno estimated the present value of the votive offerings at about 20O,O0OZ. sterling. " Before the French first came here," said he, " they were said to be worth ten times as much ; but it is also said that our priests had been before the republicans, and that many of the things Avhich the French took away as diamonds turned out to be mere paste and crystal." Re turning into the church, we found the sturdy priest, who had been attiring himself and disputing upon politics, now at the altar and saying mass with a great show of unction and devout concentration. I have already intimated — that which scarcely needs any intimation, for it is shown in all his public acts — that the present reforming Pope has never contemplated any reformation of the church, has never attempted in the slightest degree to curtail or modify the legends, the saint and image worship, the derogatory, incredible, ridiculous miracles, and all that " trumpery " which goes, and has for ages gone, to make sceptics, unbelievers, and scornful infidels, of nearly all the educated classes in this country. If the belief of these men were not so over-taxed — so over-charged and gorged in their childhood — they would believe something in their manhood: as it is, not one in ten of them believes anything. Scarcely had Pius IX. begun his reign — or, as one of our local guide-books has it, " asceso appena sulla cattedra della verita" — than he sent to Loreto his rich episcopal cross, together with two of his rich episcopal rings, wherewith to adorn " the 296 PRESENTS FROM PIUS IX. prodigious simulacre of the Virgin," having first bestowed upon them his apostolical benediction ; and his presents were accompanied by an apostolical letter to the bishop, who is commissary or chief keeper of the Santa Casa and its treasures. And in this letter, which is dated the 22nd of August, 1846, Pius IX. declared that, from the first years of his infancy, he had nourished a most lively filial affec tion for the Virgin, and he sanctioned and re-affirmed the entire legend of the miracle, by which the holy house had been brought " over immense spaces of land and sea from Galilee into Italy ;" declaring also that, through a series of centuries, the house had been " ennobled" by continual miracles. And so much had he these matters at heart, that he wrote an autograph note to the bishop to tell him how the cross and rings were to be placed. By this time our cicerone had made out that we were not Roman Catholics ; and our laughter in the treasury encouraged him to be free spoken and sar castic again. " Well," said he, " their excellencies have now been ' nella casa Di Nostra Donna sul lito Adriano ;' and what do they think of it ?" I replied that I thought that the church Avas rich and beautiful, and that some of the sculpture, mosaics, and paintings Avere exquisite. " But the house," said he, •' the little house, and the bricks and mortar that flew through the air, or that were borne, without their foundation, upon the shoulders of angels ; and that ROMAN VOLUNTEERS AND LEGIONARIES. 297 little, ugly, black-visaged Virgin, and that rubbing and blessing of the corone ? " I smiled ; and he, cutting the air with his truncheon, said, " Empty fancies ! AU humbug — tutta coglioneria ! " I had had more than enough of this. I asked him about the Roman volunteers and legion aries. "Have you not seen any of those wild brave young fellows ? " said the cicerone. We told him not yet. " Ha ! " said he, " then you have something to see. Before going to the wars they invented the prettiest warlike costumes you can imagine ! Quite theatrical, I assure you ; and I, who have trod the stage, know Avhat becomes the stage. Such a charming variety too, especiaUy among our student volunteers ! Affe di Bacco ! with their campaign dresses, a company of them might supply costumes for all manner of plays, for all sorts of periods. They are said to have been very scapestrati, par ticularly when they got among the women on the other side of Bologna. Natural enough. But for courage — Ha ! non c e che dire, there is nothing to be said against that." And here the ex-tragedian, laughing with his eyes, but not with his mouth, struck his breast as they do on the stage, and said with mock solemnity : — " Everybody has been saying these six months and more that we are as brave as the ancient Romans — ' Che 1' antico valor Negli Italic! cor non e ancor morto.' Indeed, many will have it that the only faults of our 298 WHY WERE THE JESUITS DRIVEN AWAY? volunteers were having a great deal too much courage, and no discipline at all." Such was our cicerone's way of hinting his opinions, without committing himself (which might have been dangerous, for although nearly everybody in the towns seemed to consider himself at liberty to heap abuse upon the sovereign Pontiff, they evidently did not enjoy the same liberty as to the volunteers and national guard), and such was his process of damning, not with faint but with loud praise. The process is very Roman. The most perfect professors of this masked sneering that I ever knew were Roman citizens or Roman nobles. The velati sensi, the veiled thoughts of our old man were unmis- takeably and simply these — that the Roman volun teers were, separately, fantastic fops, dissolute scamps, and great cowards; and, collectively, an undisciplined and undisciplinable rabble. Poor old cicerone ! No doubt his principles were as worn and threadbare and ragged as his coat; but he was very amusing, he had afforded me some hearty laughs ; and he Avas old, and very poor, and pro bably was hungry. We gave him an unusual solatium, and he gave us another speech and more scraps of poetry, and then flourished his stick, and went aAvay rejoicing. Our hostess was very glad that we had seen the Jesuits' college (we had seen only the outside), and mortally sorry that the radicals had driven the Jesuits away. " I never could understand," said she, " Avhat the outcry against the Jesuit fathers FEMALE PATRIOTS AT LORETO. 299 meant. They were the best friends to the poor that ever this city of Loreto knew. They were the kindest attendants on the sick. I am an old woman and know things beyond yesterday. Loreto was much indebted to those fathers, and derived great benefit when the order was re-established, and when they opened this college. They had more than a hundred boardingjpupils, who mostly came from other parts, and were the sons of people who were well to do in the Avorld. This brought in money to the town ; and, in the fine seasons of the year, some parents, or relations, or friends of these students were ahvays coming to see them, and to make Httle parties of pleasure ; and that brought in more money. Many a time have I had this house, which you now see empty, full of those who came on account of the Jesuit coUege. It would be ungrate ful in me if I did not speak well of the Jesuit fathers. And those who drove away the Jesuits, and have made all these troubles, have kept away the foreign travel lers. Now none come to Loreto ! Unless the Blessed Virgin perform a miracle, we shall all be ruined ! " At either end of the large, airy dining-room in which we Avere seated, there was an inscription to commemorate a Reform banquet, held here by the female patriots of Loreto and its vicinity. As the he-patriots had held several celebrations of the kind, and, as these were days of liberty and equality, and as there had been a revival of the doctrine, or the talk, about the "rights of women," the matrons of the place had resolved not to be left behind by 300 FEMALE PATRIOT BANQUET. their husbands. Our sage landlady confessed that her own head was a little touched at the time ; and then the custom brought money, and the revolu tionists were making such promises of universal prosperity and happiness. I asked whether the ladies made many speeches. We were told that there was no speech-making at aU ; that the only lady in the town who had that gift — il dono del parlare — and who was to have been in the chair — la presidente— was rather suddenly delivered of a male child — un bel maschio — the evening before the dinner, and so, being in the straw, she could not be in the chair. "Mafu tutta robba da ridere — it was aU rather a joke than anything else," continued our hostess : " except two or three, who were set on by their husbands, or by some other men, the good women thought nothing at all about pohtics and state affairs ; and they laughed and amused them selves as people do. I read in our neAvspapers that the ladies in France are more in earnest at their political banquets." " There was not a man ad mitted into the room — women waited, and the ladies had it all to themselves," quoth the waiter. Here follow the commemorative lines, which were hastily painted on the wall, and which may as hastily dis appear : — " ECCITATE PER LO ESEMPIO DEI M1LITI LORETANI LE LORETANE CITTADINE IN DN INSIEME CONVITANO PERCHE L' UNIONE INAUGURATA DA QUELL1 IN QUESTE SI COMPIA." FEMALE PATRIOTS AT LORETO. 301 Under this inscription Avas hung a shabby engraved portrait of Pius IX. The inscription at the opposite end ofthe room was this : — " aspirando a virili propositi Uno stcolo muliebke In UNA GIOIA CONVIVALE Fraternizza." Some irreverent jokes had been made at the desire expressed, in the first of the two inscriptions, by the patriotesses for the completion of the Union begun by the patriots ; and ;some had ventured to laugh heartily at the second inscription, and its " virile thoughts," and its " womanly throng " fra ternizing in "convivial joy." We were told that the author of the inscriptions was a priest of the town, who had long been noted as having a genius for such compositions. We were refreshing ourselves with an exceedingly well-cooked dejeuner, and some choice light wine of the district, when the rare sound of carriage- wheels was heard in the street, approaching the hotel. The hostess, and Ukewise the host, who had now entered the room, were excited ; the waiter ran to a window, threw open the blinds (with a risk of bhnding me with the sudden inroad of a glare of light), looked over the balcony, like sister Anne in Blue-beard, to see who was coming : the carriage stopped in a few seconds under the window; the waiter came back into the room and said — " Niente ! soltanto tre Romagnuoli — nothing ! only three little 302 RUMOURED ADVANCE OF THE FRENCH. Romans ! " " Cosi va, so it goes," sighed the land lord. The arrivals came up, drove a bargain in a corner for their dinners, and then came and sat down near us. They were three men well advanced in years, and came from Civita Castellana, about thirty-five miles from Rome. In a few minutes an old gentleman came in and joined them : he was not of Loreto, but of a little town close to Ancona. They got presently into a maze of politics — and a pretty maze that is among the major part of these people, who receive erroneous impressions with astonishing credulity, and then support them with all the obstinacy of ignorance. " Che son d' error con ignoranzia attorto." *' How ! " said one of the party to the old gentle man who last arrived, and who had been imparting his intelligence, " How ! No French troops at An cona! Impossible! We were told that they had arrived — ten thousand men, an advance guard of the grand armed intervention in our favour. We had our news from Rome only yesterday." The old Anconitano replied that he had left Ancona yester day, and that there were then no French. " Astonishing !" said one of the three ; " but it can only be a delay ; they must be coming. We can do nothing without them." " Who are coming ?" inquired our old woman, the hostess, Avho would have made a wiser and better minister of state than any of your Mazzinis, Mamianis, Guerrazzis, or Giobertis, " di grazia, who is coming ?" " The French," said the gentleman. " God forbid !" said RUMOURED ADVANCE OF THE FRENCH. 303 the hostess. " I know things beyond yesterday : I remember how they conducted themselves when they were here before. If we must have foreign masters but why have any ?" The gentleman was nettled ; but he said very blandly, " but this time the French are to come only as auxiliaries, and are to serve Avith the forces of the Pope and the army of independence only until the Aus trians are expelled." I expressed my doubt whe ther the pride of the French Avould ever permit them to serve as auxiliaries. The old lady said, " If they come, they will not go so soon ! They will again eat us up with taxes and military con tributions, and take away our sons with their con scriptions." " But if they do not come," said one of the Romagnuoli, "we cannot prevent the Aus trians from crossing the Po and entering the Roman States!" Our landlady had not meant to say quite so much ; but getting warm in argument, she did noAv say, " Then better the Austrians than the French !" I said I hoped that the Roman States and Tuscany would be visited by neither; that although Romans and Tuscans had invaded the possessions of the Emperor and had fought against the Austrians, I did not believe that there Avas the slightest intention of retaliating on this side the Po., Three out of the four gentlemen seemed to think that I might be right, and that the wisest thing the Romans could do would be to remain quiet within their OAvn frontiers. Not so the fourth, who had been so anxious for the arrival of the French at An- 304 THE ITALIAN MOVEMENT PREMATURE. cona. " But," said he, " this is not a Roman ques tion ; it is an Italian question. We must have the unity and independence of all Italy! We must drive the Austrians across the Alps ! We must no more have them in Lombardy and the Venetian provinces than in our States ! Now, how is this to be done ? Perhaps the English gentleman will tell me how we are to do this ?" I replied that I knew of no other way than by hard fighting, and that if the Italians could do it of themselves and by themselves, and afterwards settle down in peace and order, I for one should be happy to see it done. " But," said the Romagnuolo, " we are too weak, too distracted, too jealous the one State ofthe other, too much rent by factions ; and Charles Albert has betrayed us, and we have been beaten in the field by the Austrians, and our Roman troops have been compelled to enter into a shameful capitulation under the walls of Vicenza." " All this," said I, " only proves that you have begun prematurely ; that the Italians are not yet ripe for the theories which have been framed by your political writers — are not yet prepared for the grand experiment. Half a century of custom-house leagues, and rail ways, and an increased steam communication along all your coasts, might prepare the people and bring about some approach to a unity of interest and feeling : it does not now exist, as you confess, and I cannot see how you can pretend to do by foreign intervention and foreign arms that which you cannot do yourselves." " But," rejoined my Roman, " the EFFECTS OF M. LAMARTINE'S PROCLAMATIONS. 305 French republic promised its assistance to all op pressed peoples that should rise and make war upon their tyrants." " And a very wicked and absurd pro mise it was," said I. " But you must remember that you have exempted the French from any keeping of that promise in your regard, by declining their aid — by declaring, in the beginning, that the Italians were quite capable of fighting their own battle, and stood in no need of French assistance." " Ah !" replied the Romagnuolo, " that was at the very beginning of all, Avhen we were overjoyed at the expulsion of Radetzky from Milan, merely by the people, and Avhen we thought that the insurrections in Hungary and the revolution at Vienna had broken up the Austrian empire.* But I can tell you that there would have been no beginning in Italy if it had not been for the French revolution of February and M. Lamar- tine's proclamations and promises. We rejected the French aid then, because we thought we should not want it ; but we always continued to think that France would assist us if an unfortunate turn of the war made it necessary : it has become necessary. The king of Naples deserted our cause in May ; the * The Italians, being generally very ignorant of political affairs, believed all that was told them by their journalists and pamphleteers, who were not much wiser than themselves, who indulged an extra vagant imagination, and who represented the street-fighting at Milan as a series of the most splendid victories that had ever been obtained in modern Europe. According to their showing, the Milanese had already finished the war. " L' Austria e sterminata dall' Italia, e, fra poco, sark sciolto il mo- saico del suo impero." — Gli Ultimi Cinque Giorni degli Anstriaci in Milano. Del Cittadino Ignazio Cantu. Milano, 28 Marzo, 1848. VOL. I. X 306 ENGLISH ENCOURAGEMENT OF ITALIAN REVOLUTION. king of Sardinia betrayed us in July — all our princes and old governments have been traitors ; so now we must have a French army in Italy. The republic must keep her promise, whatever we may have said at first, or she will be loaded with eternal disgrace !" I gently hinted that he might be the first to regret such an intervention ; that the crossing of the Alps by a French army must give umbrage to other great powers, and would, in all probability, lead to a general and frightful war ; that, much as I loved Italy, I should be sorry to see such a quarrel begin on her account — and all the sorrier because I felt assured that she would suffer most during the war, and be no nearer to the attainment of her object, at the end of the war, than she was now. " But," said my Roman, " England as well as France has pledged herself in favour of unity and independence." " Where is this pledge, where any promise ?" said I. My Roman, who never lost his temper, smiled and resumed—" You English are a more reserved and cautious people than the French. You have given us no promise like M. Lamartine's, your diplomatists have signed no pledge — there is no treaty ; but we judge by circumstances and indications ; and persons connected with your government, and commanders of your ships of war, have given us a few ocular demonstrations. Have they not everywhere showed themselves favourable to the revolutionists of Italy, and unfavourable to' the old governments ? Have they not encouraged the Sicilians, and threatened the King of Naples? Was it not only the other day that your Admiral Avas going to bombard Fer- THE EARL OF MINTO. 307 dinand in his OAvn palace ? Did not officers of your ships show the people how to point their guns in. the batteries behind Messina? Did not Lord Minto fraternize Avith our patriotic leaders at Turin, Ge noa, Florence, Rome, and everywhere else ? Did he not, in the piazza at Rome, salute a popular gather ing ? On the word of a gentleman I heard him with my own ears. . And is not Lord Minto a member of Queen Victoria's private council, and father-in-law to your accredited minister at Turin, and father-in- law to Lord Russell, the prime minister of England ? From a personage of less consideration, or from a younger man, or one less closely connected with your Cabinet, this might bear a less important sense, but coming from Lord Minto what other interpret ation can be given to it than that which Ave have made ?" I could neither deny some of these facts nor attempt to excuse or explain away the conduct attributed to the Earl of Minto ; I could only assure the very courteous disputant that the British parlia ment and nation would very probably criticise that conduct ; that cabinets in England were liable to sudden and great changes, which sometimes gave to our foreign policy that appearance of inconsistency and insincerity of which foreigners often complained — that the presence of a French army in Italy would be distasteful to the English people and to every established gbvernment in Europe, and must lead, a little sooner or later, to a general and most de structive war, in the course of which Italy, instead of advancing as she had been doing ever since the peace and the treaties of Vienna in 1815, would be x 2 308 THE POPE A TRAITOR. thrown back a hundred years. "Ah! blessed Vir gin, if you do not perform the miracle, what is to become of us ?" said our attentive hostess ; and so the discussion ended. Ever since entering the Roman States we had seen " Viva Pio Nono !" painted at the corner of every street, and almost over every house door we had passed ; but the people of Loreto had lengthened the inscription and Tiad painted everywhere about their town, " Viva 1' Immortale Pio Nono !" or " Long live the Immortal Pius IX. !" All this had been done in the first fervour of enthusiasm, or in the rhapsodical stages of the idolatry for the new Pope. There had been no painting of late, except painting out. Black brushes had been passed across some of the inscriptions, others had been pelted with stones, others covered with mud, and other unmen tionable filth. In one, the Avords " Viva " and " Im mortale " were effaced, and under the words " Pio Nono" was written in the largest of characters the word " Traditore," traitor. We were obliged to take the vehicle and pair of horses we had hired at Porto di Fermo on to Ancona. The driver said that, having had a good four hours' rest at Loreto, the horses would perform allegramente; and, with the occasional aid of a pair of bullocks to help us up the steep hills, we got along pretty well. I should have been sorry to go much faster, for the country through which we passed was most beautiful, and cultivated like a garden. Here were extensive vineyards, with the vines cut low, as they ought to be. The villages. THE MARCHES OF ANCONA. 309 and old picturesque towns on neighbouring heights, were frequent ; the farmhouses, with their extensive granaries and barns, and ricks and stacks, and the detached villas with their orchards and Httle parks, and avenues of ornamental trees, were exceedingly numerous. Many of these villas and not a few of the farmhouses were truly elegant buildings, and there was about all of them and throughout the whole of this choice section of the Marches, an air of comfort, prosperity, and security. We drove under the strong citadel, Avhere we could discern only national guardsmen, round the pleasant bay, along the marina, and then about an hour before sunset, dismounted in the city of Ancona, at the Piazza del Teatro, where a great crowd of bearded patriots were gathered round a mountebank and his jack- pudding. Over their heads, on the columns and the facade of the theatre, were stuck the most flaming placards, telling the people that the German bar barians were advancing, and calling upon every patriot that was capable of bearing arms to enrol and march forthwith to the frontiers. We made a short but diligent study of placards. They were stuck up in every street, and in nearly every instance they were signed by the president of a club, by some mob-elected municipal officer, or by some officer of the national guard who had been elected by his own men, or had appointed himself to the visionary command of some battalion or legion of volunteers, which was yet in nubibus, but which he hoped to form upon solid earth by force of puffing his own valour. One of these papers 310 a BRAGGADOCIO CITIZEN-COLONEL. which bore the name of D. Belluzzi, colonel of the national guard, carried out the braggadocio strain until it must have cracked in the ears of any people that had not lost their senses. It might have figured on the walls of Messina. I believe that this citizen-colonel had been in one or two skirmishes with the Austrians ; but I had never seen his name before, or heard it ; nor do I believe that the man was known in any part of the rest of Italy ; but if he had been a Caesar, a Turenne, or a Napoleon, he could not have assumed a more imposing and solemn attitude than he did here in print. He declared that he was the same man that he had been at such a place (naming the scene of one of his skir mishes), and that to follow him was to march to certain victory. " I am a man," said he, " Avhose perseverance and courage always rise in proportion with the increase of difficulties and danger." Not relying entirely upon the spontaneous enrolments of such as could do without pay, some of the self- constituted authorities were offering, by means of placards, rations and daily pay to volunteers — and this pay was more than thrice the sum the Papal government had been giving their regular dis ciplined troops. At sunset there was a tremendously loud beating of drums, blowing of bugles, rattling of arms and the like, with a marching and counter-marching of national guardsmen. Instead of a place of trade, Ancona looked like a place of arms. Nearly every man and boy wore some uniform or other. Even the little children Avere dressed up like national ANCONA— NATIONAL GUARDSMEN. 311 guardsmen; and here, as afterwards at Rome, Florence, and too many other cities, we saw urchins not ten years old strutting about with swords by their sides and cigars in their mouths. In the puerile affectation and miserable cant of the day, these chil dren dressed as soldiers are called " Le Speranze della Patria "—the hopes of the country. They will become hopeful candidates for the gallows or the gaUeys. If a fellow could afford nothing more, he clapped a blue cloth cap with a broad scarlet band on his giddy pate. Those who were considered as being complete in their appointments wore a great cross on the left breast of their coats, to denote that they were " crusaders," and were going — some day or other — into the holy war which the liberals pre tended the Pope had declared against the Austrians. The sword they wore, and which was worn by the volunteer " Roman Legion," and generally by the citizen soldiers, was the straight, broad, short sword, with a cross guard — the very sword of the conquer ing legionaries of ancient Rome. But what has the long beard to do with these imitations of classical antiquity? The long beard was not Roman, but barbarian — essentially barbarian, and the very figure by which the Romans designated barbarism. The black beards of these volunteers and mock legionaries may make them look fierce in the streets, but will no more give them the martial qualities of the long bearded men who toppled over the rotten fabric of the Roman empire, than the short straight sword will impart the military virtues of the un- 3] 2 COFFEE-HOUSES FULL OF VAPOURING PATRIOTS. conquerable legions of Rome in the times of the republic and under the first Csesars. And what are all these felloAvs doing here with their beards and their swords, their crosses, and their oaths to conquer or die ? What are they doing but strutting about, talking big, hunting for intrigues, or lounging in coffee-houses? They have virtually dethroned the Pope already ; they have for these four months and more been following their own devices, or taking no orders except from the Mamiani, the Sterbini, the Cicerovacchi, and the other demagogues and clubbists of Rome ; they or their fellows haA'e declared war, and invaded the Austrian frontier, without the Pope's consent : it is a mockery to say now that they wait for orders — the Austrians are there ! They are whipping their runagates on to Bologna ; and they, who are so many, and such fire- eaters, are playing at billiards or smoking cigars ! All the coffee-houses we passed were crowded with them. We asked if the theatre were open to-night. No ! it Avas shut ; but two political clubs were open, and in one of them a very distinguished orator and patriot was to deliver an harangue on the Holy War, and the necessity of immediately rescuing all Italy from the " Tedesca rabbia." The clubs did not tempt me. We went to our hotel, and amused ourselves till bedtime by listening to a whistling stable-boy — a prodigy in his way. ANCONA. 313 CHAPTER XIV. Ancona — The fine Harbour — No trade — Improvements stopped — Streets — Suburbs — A Roman dragoon — Journey towards Rome — Osimo — Macerata — Improved Roads — Tolentino — Colfiorito — Foligno and its Patriots — Books - — A Festa ¦ — Spoleto and Warriors singing — Terni — A Monopoly — The Fall of the Velino — Narni and more Proclamations — Civita- Castellana and more National Guards — Baccano and Malaria Fevers — Rome. We were woke the next morning before five o'clock by drumming and bugling. I should not have thought the National Guardsmen of Ancona such early risers ; I wished they had slept a Httle longer ; but as they had not done so we could not ; so we soon rose and went out in Piazza, to settle our mode of continuing the journey towards Rome as far as Terni, and to inquire after news. The very knowing driver who had brought us from Porto di Fermo, was deter mined to keep possession of us ; he had been round the trade, and none of the vetturini would bid against him, or offer to convey us at any other price than a monstrously high one. They said that there was no public conveyance — which was true — but they added, that our Porto di Fermo friend was a very honest man — which was false. As for news, there was plenty : Rome was in revolution, the Pope had fled down the Tiber, the last of the Cardinals 314 FINE HARBOUR, BUT NO TRADE. having gone off or been massacred before his flight; the regular troops had joined the National Guards, the volunteer legion, and the people ; and the people were exercising justice on the nobles and the rich ; the roads in Umbria and Sabina were insecure, for great bands of robbers had showed themselves. We rowed round the harbour, which was greatly improved since my last visit, but which was now almost empty. For some years the Papal govern ment — under more than one Pope — had been spend ing considerable sums on the improvements of the port and its dependencies : they had nearly finished a new arsenal and dockyard for ship-building ; but all had come to the money-lock, the deadest of aU dead-locks. The workmen were discharged : there was nothing doing. The poor boatmen, who had been gaining good livelihoods, the shipping por ters, the unemployed sailors, Avere loitering about the quays in despondent attitudes, or were stretched along the hard stones and sleeping in strips of shade. Within the city we saw many signs of present poverty, and many of recent improvements. The streets, though still none of the cleanest or sweetest, were very clean and pure compared to the state in which I had known them. But the situation of the town is close and bad, and its ancient distribution, in narrow, winding streets and lanes, is not easy to be remedied, owing to want of space, and to the dura bility and value of those large stone-houses. Unless they build new houses up the very steep sides of the hills in the rear, the Anconitani can scarcely enlarge A ROMAN DRAGOON. 315 their town. But they had been expanding in the country outside the town precincts, and the number of villas they had built or improved since 1826 was honourable to their taste, and good evidence of their prosperity. Our old white horses really looked fresh when they Avere brought out after a rest of eighteen hours. The driver again told us that they would do wonders. He had picked up in a coffee-house in Ancona a stray passenger — -not so much for the sake of the lucre, which was little, very little indeed, but because he thought an agreeable companion would make the journey all the pleasanter to us. This passenger Avas a cadet in the Pope's Dragoons. " Cinque soldati del Papa Non valgono una rapa." "Five soldiers ofthe Pope are not worth a turnip;" so says the Roman proverb ; but I had known some good men in this service, and I was glad to have the opportunity of talking with one who was fresh from the wars. He was young, very tall, and very slender, and wore the longest cavalry-sabre I ever saw in my life; his clothes were considerably the worse for wear — his jacket was slit under the arms and out at elbows, Hke the coat of Dicky Watt in the farce ; but this only looked like campaigning, and he had a better jacket and a cleaner shirt tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, and a smart helmet, and an astonishing pair of epaulettes stowed away in a leather-case, which was keeping company with our 316 osimo. portmanteaux on the roof of the carriage. He Avas sufficiently well mannered, not ill informed, and surpassingly courteous to all. He had no beard — not even a moustache — and this was a good deal in his favour. As we drove out of Ancona we met two Nea politan volunteers, who were begging their way homewards. First they had deserted their King, and now they had deserted from General William Pepe. The road continued to be beautiful, but the hills were rather frequent and steep, rendering necessary the auxiliary force of a couple of bullocks. We made a halt at the old walled town of Osimo, which, like all the towns in this country, stands on the very top of a hill, and was built in the Middle Ages on the site of some Roman city or municipium or other place still more ancient. These towns could not be left out of the line, and therefore it is that the road makes so many ascents and descents, to the fatigue of the cattle and weariness of the impatient traveller, but to the joy and delight of those who have time to spare, and an eye to see, and a heart to feel the beauty of the views which those heights afford. At Osimo we saw that most of the large and respectable houses were shut up, that there was a considerable excitement in the town, and a great many bearded patriots lounging in the Piazza. Though so near to the port we were here again asked whether the French had not landed at Ancona. A patriot assured us that he kneAv for a certainty that rations for twelve thousand men had OSIMO— MACERATA— GENERAL DURANDO. 317 been prepared in expectation of their hourly arrival. Placards abounded. One of them set forth that it was entirely false that General Cavaig nac had refused to send an army into 1 taly, and that it was indubitably true that the French were on their way. Another called upon the Roman troops and volunteers who had capitulated at Vicenza, to re sume their arms in spite of the capitulation, and hasten to Ferrara, where the " barbari Tedeschi " were committing never before-heard-of-barbarities, murdering infants and doing worse with maids and matrons! Another summoned the patriots of the town to the political circle for that evening. We asked how many volunteers Osimo had sent to the Avars. We Avere told that the total number was two hundred, and that every man of them had fought like a lion. Then how many came back ? We were told that every mother's son of them had come back safe and sound. The Osimo heroes must have fought like our friends in Vail' Oscura. As we journeyed on to Macerata our dragoon spoke out freely about the Roman volunteers in general, and the incidents of the short and inglorious campaign in which he had been engaged. He allowed that the regular troops, badly officered, and badly commanded by the incompetent Durando, whom Charles Albert, or rather those who domi neered over him, had sent to be their general, were not quite what they ought to be ; but he maintained that they would have done far better without the volunteers than they had done with them — that it 318 ROMAN TROOPS IN ACTION. was the volunteers who ruined all discipline, and spread distrust and disaffection by calling Durando and all their superior officers cowards, or imbeciles, or traitors — who gave rise to the worst of those panics which made the line of defence as weak as a spider's web, for, obeying no orders, conforming to no one plan, but acting in separate parties, according to their own caprice or momentary inspiration, they were always making rash, ignorant, blind movements in advance, only to be beaten back upon the line by the Austrians. If they stopped to fight, it was always in the wrong place, and when they ought to have stood to it they were nearly always in headlong retreat. They formed the Bersaglieri, or rifle corps, or light infantry of the army. If they were sent forward to act as iclaireurs, and to occupy a given post until the army should come up, they were seldom found at that post when the army arrived, for they had seen a position which they thought a better one, or a town or village in Avhich there were better quarters and coffee-houses ; or they had gone .away, like geese across a common, in search of some insignificant Austrian detachment or outpost which they might have heard of. Our dragoon affirmed that there were among them, and especially among the young Roman students, instances of great per sonal courage, and address in the management of arms ; but battles are not to be won by skill in fence. He insisted that the unpardonable offences which had been given to the peasantry in the Ve netian territories had, in nearly every instance, been LYING REPORTS OF AUSTRIAN ATROCITIES. 319 given by the volunteers, and not by the regular troops. He allowed that the capitulation of Vi cenza was a necessity on the part of the Italians. He also confessed that, at a critical moment, when the Austrian grape-shot was thickening, whole ranks of the Papal forces, regulars as well as volunteers, threAv themselves upon their faces and wept and shrieked. A veteran officer (and there were a few men of this calibre with the forces), a grey-headed old man who had served Napoleon, and had been under hotter fires, tried to rouse his people. " But," said they, " these grape-shot ! these cannon- balls ! " " In coming to the wars, did you expect to be pelted only with carnival sugar-plums ? " said the old soldier. We inquired of our dragoon whe ther he had seen any of the atrocities attributed to the Austrians. He declared that he had seen nothing of the sort, and that scenes which had been represented in the Roman newspapers as scenes of massacre and horror had in reality been as far as possible from bearing any resemblance to such de scriptions. "Then," said I, "why do you not con tradict such reports, such placards as we saw just now up at Osimo?" "Perche," said he, "perche non mi conviene ; e perche, per dire il vero, non oso — because it does not become me ; and because, to tell the truth, I dare not do it." " Why ? " " Because I should not be believed, as I belong to the regular troops. People believe only the volunteers and the leaders of clubs and the placards; and then, although the stories are not true, they serve to 320 MACERATA. excite the people against the Austrians, and some think that a levSe en masse might yet do something wonderful." I said that there was no doubt it would, if ever they did rise en masse — that there would be an anarchy never to be forgotten — but that there was not the slightest probability of any such rising. We arrived in the stately but somewhat dull city of Macerata at about ten o'clock at night, and stopped at an immense hotel, which was like a dirty barrack when I was last here, but which was noAv clean and comfortable. There was only one solitary guest in all that immense house, and he was travel ling towards Ancona, and did not know that we had left that place only a few hours before. He Avore a bit of tri-colour ribbon, and he told us that a French army, tAventy thousand strong, had disembarked at Ancona ! On the following morning we left Macerata at too early an hour to see anything, except that the streets were well paved and clean, and that some of the old palazzi had been tastefully improved. Be tween Macerata and Tolentino, in the deep hollow between the hills, the road used to be almost im passable at certain seasons, and detestable in all times of the year. I once stuck fast down there, and, though the carriage was light, it took, not a pair, but three pair of oxen to drag us out of the slough and pull us up the hill. The road was now admi rably macadamized. Before taking an early break fast at Tolentino Ave walked about the town, and TOLENTINO— SCENERY. 321 visited the house or palazzo in Avhich Napoleon Bonaparte resided three or four days previously to signing his memorable Tolentino treaty of peace with Pope Pius VI., on the 11th of March, 1797. The present owner of the house, whose father purchased it from the Parisani family in 1806, re ceived us politely, and even kindly, although I believe we rang- him out of his bed. He shoAved us over the apartment, on the upper story, Avhich Bonaparte had occupied, and in which nothing had been changed since his visit. We descended from Tolentino into Serravalle, a beautiful narrow valley or ravine, with a fine stream foaming through it. A river is the eye of a land scape ; water, in some shape, is a necessity in every landscape ; it is the most poetical part of the picture, and productive of the greatest variety of emotions. " It is the image of repose in the tranquil pool, of progress in the river, of extent in the ocean, and of destruction in the torrent."* We slept this night high up the Apennines, at a lonely Httle village called Colfiorito or the Flowery HiU— a name sufficiently inappropriate, for it is a bleak, dreary place, with a broad quagmire in front of it ; in winter it is nearly as bad a pass as the Piano di Cinque Miglie ; and in summer none stop at the village who can push on farther. We could not choose, our old white horses being done up. But even here, in a little roadside public-house, we * ' On the Elements of Picturesque Scenery, considered with reference to Landscape- Painting, by Henry Twining, Esq.' VOL. I. Y 322 FOLIGNO. found a tolerably good dinner and clean beds. We left Colfiorito at a very early hour the next morn ing. The ride from thence to Foligno was perfectly magical. The town of Foligno was all in a bustle, for it was a head-quarter of liberalism and clubbism, and abounded with national guardsmen and other men fiercely bearded. Mattresses might have been stuffed with the croppings of these long black beards of the patriots of Foligno. A printing-press Avas hard at work in the main street, striking off inflammatory placards and unauthorised proclama tions ; and in the bookseller's shop attached to the printing establishment they Avere vending inflam matory trash that was enough to make an explosion and blow the town to pieces. There was a transla tion of Lamartine's historical romance called the 'History ofthe Girondins,' and in which the roman- tical prevails over the historical in about the same proportion that the Avhisky prevails over the water in the toddy of a hard-drinking Highlander : there were the works of Vincenzo Gioberti, the great apostle of Italian Unitarianism, down to the last pamphlet which the post had brought from Turin (but this last pamphlet, though neAV in Foligno, Avould be old by to-day in Turin, for Gioberti — eternally scrib bling — seems to publish a pamphlet as often and as regularly as he eats his daily dinner) : there were the political ravings of that stark mad Bolognese friar, Padre Gavazzi : and there Avere the drawling, and yet (to uninstructed Italians) exciting addresses MODERN ITALIAN LITERATURE. 323 and democratic visions of the Leghorn lawyer Guer- razzi, Avho has been turned into a statesman and a minister of state, because he had Avritten two long- Avinded Italian historical romances (not above the level of those that are manufactured in England by scores every year), and because he had made frequent use of the word " Patria," and had echoed the cuckoo song of Gioberti, that the Italians were, are, and ever will be, the°first people in the world : there were the political Avorks of Massimo Azeglio, another Avriter of historical romances, and, not to mention others of less note, the prose works of Giuseppe Mazzini, who had done his best at Milan to make a desperate cause still more des perate by thAvarting Charles Albert because he was a king, and by preaching a perfectibilian republicanism of his own invention. Except this precious political pabulum, there was nothing in the shop but certain atrocious libels against the King of Naples, and little treatises upon drill, &c, for the benefit of the citizen-soldiers. I could not see a single copy of any of the old historians, or poets, Avho have conferred such glory upon modern Italy, and Avho are held as classics in every civilized country upon earth. I saw nothing but the writings of the present day — nothing but wild, impracticable politics, trash and bombast. In the large room of the hotel into Avhich we were shown we found two very busy Frenchmen, Avhose looks were not at all prepossessing, One of them was seated at a table, which was covered with y2 324 FRENCH PROPAGANDISTS. letters, papers, envelopes, and scrolls like the desk of a Parisian employe in a governmental bureau ; the other was going and coming, bustling up stairs and down, and now talking to the waiters, and now to some national guardsmen below stairs, or over the Avay in a coffee-house, and reporting to his colleague at the table, who now and then Avrote a few lines and whispered to his nimble-footed Mer cury. Here was a,0 clear case of political propa gandism ; and these propagandists must have known their ground well when they chose Foligno as a centre of operations. They neither spoke to us, nor had they returned the salute which, according to a continental custom of which 1 approve, Ave had given them on entering the room. Perhaps they were too busy to be commonly polite. We might have asked for another room ; but this was the salle a manger, and the waiter spread a table-cloth, and presently served up our dejeuner. The Frenchmen packed up their papers and disappeared. We found a pleasanter companion in an old gentleman of Pe rugia, who arrived shortly after, and Avho, speaking cautiously in presence of the waiter and our dragoon, spoke out frankly when they were away. The view he took of affairs, though not quite gloomy, was far from being encouraging. He found the people in his own neighbourhood inclined to be orderly and submissive to law ; but there were clubs ! there were clubs ! and the devil of communism was getting possession of some of them, his inroads being facili tated by that poverty and Avant of employment PIUS IX. AND LOUIS PHILIPPE. 325 Avhich revolutionism had created. He gently blamed the Pope for having put a stone in motion at the brink of a precipice without first looking down to see what heads might be crushed beloAv ; he blamed him for going too fast and too far, or for beginning with a velocity of reform which never could be checked or moderated at will. " But," said the Perugino, "he was driven and goaded on by those Avho made him Pope, and who would not see the difference betAveen the Roman States and France — the difference between a Pope of Rome and a King of France, nursed and cradled in revolutions, versed in the Avays of the world and all its politics, and carried to the throne by revolutions— a king like Louis-Philippe. But for French influence and Louis- Philippe, and his Ambassador at Rome, M. Rossi, who, after more than thirty years of exile, came back to Italy more French than Italian, Pius would never have been Pope. When seated in the Va tican he showed his gratitude by following M. Rossi's advice. If there had been no revolution in Paris the Pope might have been committed and endan gered ; but now that Louis-Philippe, who made him Pope, has fallen, I look upon it as certain that Pius IX. must fall." I met Avith many other Italians who appeared firmly to believe that the political destiny of Pius was indissolubly connected with that of the ex-King of the French. Our friend from Perugia was evi dently no bigot, but he seemed to wish and to hope that the country curates would not lose their in- 326 MUTUAL ANIMOSITY. fluence over the rural populations, whom he con sidered as too ignorant to be trusted a moment by themselves. He treated the union and independence of all Italy as a vision. He did not speak of upper Italy, but only of central and lower Italy. " How will you have this union brought about by the people when you find the inhabitants of two neigh bouring towns, in the same State, and living for centuries under the same government, continuing to envy and hate one another as if they Avere still Guelphs and Ghibellines ? Just now Ave have had the fair of Sinigaglia : owing to the troubles of the times it has scarcely been a fair this year ; hardly any business has been transacted ; the people of Sini gaglia have been great losers ; many of them are reduced to bankruptcy. Ebbene ! their neighbours, the people of Ancona, are rejoicing at their mis fortunes !" We took another Avalk in the town. Even in Foligno the public mind Avas not Avholly occupied by politics. F6tes were in preparation, and the com mon people were thinking a great deal more of these than of the Austrians, or of the troubles thickening at Rome and aU around them. Carpe diem ! " Quant' e bella giovinezza Che si fugge tuttavia : Chi vuol esser lieto, sia ; Di doman non vi' e certezza."* A large green placard reminded all people that the biennial festival solemnized in Bevagna "to the * Lorenzo de' Medici. FESTIVAL OF GIACOMO BIANCONI. 327 holy memory of the blessed Giacomo Bianconi, and to the honour of God and the said Beato," was at hand; that the sarcophagus which contained the uncorrupted remains (I' incorrotta spoglia) of the Beato Avould be adorned with a neAV pall ; that there Avould be a festive ringing of the " Sacred Bronzes " (church bells) and a great firing of mortars to salute the dawn of that solemn day ; that at half-past ten o'clock in the morning there Avould be sung a mass in music, composed by Signor Maestro Antonio of Bologna, and executed by performers collected in the Marches and in Umbria ; that in the afternoon a tombola, or lottery, Avould be drawn in the Piazza of the Game of Balls (Piazza del Giuoco del Pal- lone) ; that after this drawing of the lottery there would be sung the solemn cantata of Tantum Ergo, which would be followed by the performance of the grand symphony in Nebuchadnezzar ; that towards dusk (sull' imbrunire della sera) a fire-balloon would be let off ; and that the festa in honour of the Beato Giacomo Bianconi would be terminated by a brilliant and surprising exhibition of fireworks. " Sara bella la festa" said a young fellow, rubbing his hands. " Chi ne dubita ! " quoth his companion. There Avere several attempts made in the placard to give the holiday a political turn. Thus, it spoke of "the brutal Avar of foreign hordes" Avhich was afflicting the country ; and of the zealous, apostolic zeal with which the Beato had laboured to introduce love and fraternity among the people of Umbria, who, in his time, were divided and torn to pieces by 328 SPOLETO. the factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines; but it would not do — the gay young people could think only of the lottery, the music, and the fireworks. A few miles farther on this beautiful route we came to Spoleto. I found the town enlarged and amazingly improved, and the whole neighbourhood beautifully cultivated. The entrance, by the An cona and Tuscany road, over a bridge and under a noble archway, is majestic. The people of the toAvn were clean and well dressed, and had been tranquil and very prosperous. But the tranquillity was now sadly disturbed, and consequently the prosperity was on the decline. Two factions were fiercely raging, one being led by the political clubs, and one being devoted to the church and opposed to all political change. For the present the men of the latter party were said to be cowed ; but they carried on by night an active war against their adversaries, defiling or tearing down the placards Avhich they stuck up by day. The Spoleto placardists and proclamationists seemed to have gone further than their felloAv- labourers in the other towns. At least it Avas here that Ave first read the translation of the terrible words of Danton, " La Patria e in pericolo !" — La Patrie est en danger ! This proclamation called upon the people to fly to arms, with or Avithout the consent of the Roman government. It set down Charles Albert and all the princes of Italy as tyrants and traitors leagued Avith the Austrians; and it enforced with frantic language Danton's terrible doctrine, " 77 faut faire peur /" In short, it recom- STUDENT VOLUNTEERS. 329 mended the Jacobin terrorism of 1792, in the very language of that year of blood and wholesale mas sacre. Verily, verily, these southern demagogues are the most servile of imitators ! They have not invented one revolutionary idea. They speak as the French Jacobins spoke, they do as they did ; and if they are left to themselves they Avill do whatever Avas done by the mobs of Paris, and, in many cases, for no other reason than because it was done by the Jacobins. Some unsympathising hands had smeared over the Avords " The country is in danger ;" and Avhen we passed through Spoleto on our way from Rome to Florence, nearly all the copies of this ter rorist placard were torn down or covered with filth. Our hotel was empty, and long had been so ; the waiter, who was bitterly feeling the want of the buono mano of the foreign traveller, Avas sulky and almost ferocious. In a house of entertainment on the opposite side of the street a troop of volunteers and national guardsmen were drinking pretty freely, and singing patriotic songs with a volume and strength of chorus that made the old city ring again. If the Austrians could have been beaten by beards and songs they would never have got to Milan. A queer, lumbering carriage arrived from Rimini, full of student volunteers, who had been included in the Vicenza capitulation, and who Avere returning to their homes at Rome — not abashed by the miserable figure they had made, not saddened by the irrepa rable reverses which had befallen the cause of unity 330 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS. and independence, or by the aspect of the misery Avhich was marching through their native country with gigantic strides — not sobered by experience, but exultant, joyous, noisy, and insolent, as if they had come from a glorious victory. I thought of my primo tiranno at Loreto, and Avent down to the street to see these choice specimens of Roman volunteers. The first object that caught my eye was a white muslin collar, broad, embroidered, and fringed Avith lace. My impression that the Avearer must be a woman was confirmed by a lustre of velvet under the collar, and by the display of a pair of white kid gloves ; but, Avithin the shade of the corner of the carriage, my son discovered a bit of beard and a pair of mustachoes above the collar, and a peaked hat above the mustachoes. In an opposite corner, and with his head partly out of the window, was a young fellow in a green tunic, with a broad flapped hat, and a bunch of black feathers, the ends of which dropped over his cheek. The three other "insides" were all fantastic and all different in their attire. We saAv them better that evening in a coffee-house at Terni. He of the white collar wore the Vandyke costume, being dressed and trimmed very like the well-known portrait of Charles I. ; he of the hat and feathers was dressed alia Spagnuola, or like the received Spanish cavalier ofthe melodrama. Another felloAv wore the green jerkin and the green tights in which our players do the part of Robin H ood ; another of them wore a hat and dress a la Louis Quatorze ; another had made his costume as nearly TERNI. 331 as possible like to that of a Avarrior of the ancient Roman legion ; and another wore the dress in which Raffaele painted himself in his youth. They were fops and puppies all, but the most insupportable of them Avas the Vandyke-collar gentleman, with his close-fitting black and silk velvet tunic and his white kid gloves. Our vetturino from Porto di Fermo fairly gave in at Spoleto. After a good rest and refreshment at Fohgno, and a three hours' rest here, the old white horses, so far from being renovated, were absolutely finished. There Avas a crazy little vehicle with one large black horse that was returning to Terni, and to this Ave transferred ourselves and our portmanteaux. We walked up the steep mountain called La Somma, pausing at the pleasant little village near the ridge, and looking back with de light on the verdant and rich and highly cultivated Campi Spoletani. Some time before sunset we were in the populous town and crowded streets of Terni, where some noticeable improvement met me at nearly every step. We stopped at a vast house on the Piazza, which had been converted from the foul albergo that it Avas into a most comfortable and even splendid hotel, with all those appliances and means to boot Avhich most English travellers require, and which, in fact, they had been the first to introduce in Italy. The house had been made by English money and by the English taste for the clean and the comfortable. The host had spent a large sum only two years ago to complete the hotel. 332 POSTING MONOPOLY. " And now," said he, " nobody comes, and I shall soon be a ruined man. Until your arrival I had not had a party of travellers or a single foreigner in my house for more than three months ; and for the last twelve months I have not been taking enough to pay rent. I wish those who began these revolutions were in the devil's house — in casa del diavolo !" He was very disconsolate, and the ser vants were all out of heart. We could not pass so near to the matchless cataract of Terni Avithout visiting it. The people of the hotel told us that we must hire post- horses from the government post, as the contractor had a monopoly of the road to and from the falls, and no private vetturino, or letter-out of horses, was permitted to take fares to that place — nay, that not so much as a donkey was allowed to ply upon that road, or to interfere in that monopoly. It was so when I was here before, but then the weather was cool and the time no object, and so I and my comrades tricked the postmaster by walking to the cataract and back again — the use of one's own legs not being prohibited in the Papal grant of monopoly. But now the weather was hot and we were in a hurry. We went ourselves to the post- house and ordered a carriage for the next moraine. The charge, we Avere told, as fixed by the post master's tariffa, was about eight shillings English, no very great sum for a mountainous journey of eight miles (going and coming;, and for four or five hours' detention, at the falls, of carriage, horses, and VETTURINO. 333 driver; but still it was about double what the private vetturini would, in ordinary times, have charged for the job, and all men, and perhaps most of all Englishmen, hate these narrow Ioav monopolies. But it was the laAV established, and I did not like to show any disrespect to it at a moment like this ; and I felt perfectly sure that if Ave, as foreigners, had gone into the Piazza and had bargained with any vetturino, he Avould now have asked us just as much, or within a few baiocchi of it, or perhaps even more. On returning to our inn we were met by one of these worthies, who pressed us to hire his vettura. We told him that we had ordered horses at the postmaster's. " Oh signor," said he, " why have you done so?" " Because'it is the law of the place," said I. " What place, what law?" rejoined the vetturino :" it is true there was a law of that sort, and people used to obey it formerly, but noAv we have got a Constitution and liberty, and we all do as we like, and we laugh at the beard of the postmaster, Avho can do nothing to us now. How should he? We all belong to the civic guard. What a pity you have been so hasty ! I would have taken you to the Cascades and brought you back for one-third of the money." The postmaster served us well. Two clumsy- looking but spirited Roman horses — on one of Avhich rode a tall gaunt old postilion, Avearing the broad badge of the Pope and his Holiness's uniform — carried us up the steep but beautifully made road; and at an early hour in the morning we 334 CATARACT OF TERNI. were in the elevated valley of the Velino, and just above the thundering cataract. Looking up that still ascending valley is one of the finest mountain views — if not the very finest— in all the peninsula. The mountains are those of the Abruzzi, and they form the majestic frontier of the Neapolitan king dom. A short drive of ten miles would have brought us to Rieti, Avhere William Pepe's army made its ddbacle in 1821, and a little beyond that we should have crossed the frontier line and entered the grand mountain-pass of Antrodoco. With a brave and well-disciplined army stationed along that majestic frontier, no enemy, however numerous or bold, would easily penetrate into the kingdom. The Velino takes its rise among those mountains of the Abruzzi. All that has ever been said or written of its majestic fall or leap doAvn the perpendicular rocks into the river Verde falls immeasurably short of the reality. Words can give no idea of the wonderful scene, and painting can only give tame fragments — mere soundless shadows ; and what is a cataract without its roar? The exclamation of poor Wilson, our English Claude, Avas the best com pliment ever paid to this glorious cascade — " Well done water, by God !" We Avere there three hours, and they glided away Hke three minutes. By the time we began our reluctant retreat we were sur rounded by all the hungry ciceroni, and well-nigh every man, Avoman, and child of the neighbourhood, all lamenting the badness of the times, and all appealing to our purse. They Avere as hungry or . FAIR OF SINIGAGLIA. 335 as avid as wolves. They had had nobody there for months, I thought Ave should never have got clear of the village beloAv the Falls, to Avhich our carriage descended to take us up : when I thought I had satisfied all just claims, and all services, even to the opening of a wicket gate, or the picking up of my stick when I dropped it, or the plucking of a wild flower, or the answering of a single question, there sprang up a neAV class of claimants ; and when I had disposed of these as best I could, there were others and others, Avho founded their right upon this — that there had been no English there for so very long a time. The monopoly exercised by these villagers wa"s to me a more serious affair than the monopoly of his Holiness's postmaster. The vetturino who had so much wanted to take us at a cheap rate to the cataract drove a rogue's bargain with us to take us on to Rome. We started from Terni about an hour after mid-day. In a street of the town our driver took up another tra veller — a more mopish man than the taciturn Abruzzese Avho had come with us from Naples to Sulmona. The Abruzzese had groaned now and then; but this man was all a groan. He had been to the fair of Sinigaglia, he had travelled many miles, he had spent a great deal of money, and he had done no business at the fair — none ! Nobody had done any business ! Trade was ruined — he was ruined — his friends were ruined — the Pope would be ruined, and would have to thank his reforms and his friends the liberali for it. There had been no- 336 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGOON. body at the fair of Sinigaglia but a few Dalmatians and Greeks. The papal government had been accustomed to derive a net annual revenue of two or three hundred thousand scudi from the fair; this year they had not received in all tAvo thousand scudi, and they must have spent eight thousand in preparation. Woe ! This Avas all the conversation we could force out of our melancholy mercante, who yet wore the military cap and the scarlet striped trowsers of a national guardsman. Our bold dragoon and his long sword had left us the preceding evening. I had offered to take him to the FaUs, but he had little taste for objects of that kind; he had been several times through Terni, and had never thought of turning aside ; he had been told that the cataract was only a river tumbling over a rock ; and he was very eager to reach Rome, where he expected to obtain promotion. He had therefore gone off before daybreak this morning Avith the gentlemen of the white collar and Spanish hat and feathers —with some of those volunteers Avhom he had so severely criticized. The neighbourhood of Terni is now as verdant, rich, and well cultivated as can well be imagined. I should be glad if all our peasantry at home Avere as well dressed as those we saw here, or as Avell fed or half as cheerful as these men, women, and child ren appeared to be. We were soon within the picturesque, old, Availed town of Narni, the situation of which is even more beautiful than that of Terni. A crowd of civic PLACARDS IN NARNI. 337 guards was gathering in the Piazza and in front of the cafes ; but the majority of the people were either taking their siesta, or quietly attending to their private affairs. The interior of the town, though still rather dingy, is very much improved. I observed many little indications of cleanliness, order, comfort, and material happiness, of Avhich there Avere but feAV traces when I last saw the place. Placards were not Avanting. One of these contained the most ex travagant laudation of the volunteers and civic or national guards who had fought at Treviso and at " the heroic defence of Vicenza," and who had per formed such " miracles in war." " All Italy," con tinued this marvellous paper, addressed to men who had run away or had capitulated, " All Italy feels a noble pride in the experiment Avhich you have made. You stood firmly in face of an enemy four times more numerous than yourselves, nor Avould the courage have failed you to die all — morir tutti — if your death could have saved Vicenza. You showed to the Avorld that Austrians cannot conquer Italians unless they be four times more numerous. Foreign nations were accustomed to smile at our warlike endeavours : noAv they are forced to admire us !" As to the question of num bers, Avhy, the statement is as true as all the rest. Beyond Narni this fine road, which I have praised so often, becomes truly magnificent. We had light enough to see the fine bridge Avhich spans the Tiber, and Avhich was first built in the line of the Fla- minian Way, by Caesar Augustus, and, after it had VOL. I. Z 338 CIVITA CASTELLANA. long been a ruin, repaired by Pope Sixtus V. For some few years past small steamboats from Rome ascend the Tiber as far as this bridge, producing a benefit to the country of which the people were fully sensible, and the more so as these communications, if not interrupted, had become very irregular, like all other things, since the "friends of the people" have been in the ascendancy. We rolled over the bridge, entered the Sabine country, passed a low rocky defile covered with underwood and once famous for robbers, and continued our journey by moonlight to the strongly-walled and not iU-fortified town of Civita Castellana. In the sala of our clean and comfortable hotel we found assembled rather a large party of national guardsmen — some from Rome, some from the Marches — who had three ladies with them, and who were all impatiently clamouring for supper. In a corner of the room were two young Austrian officers in plain clothes, who had been taken prisoners in some affair beyond the Po, and Avho were now allowed to return to their corps. The national guardsmen looked very unlovingly at them. The placards and all the monstrous lies told of Austrian atrocity had been enough to put in jeopardy the lives of these young men, and of others who were in the same circumstances. They very quickly withdreAv, to continue their journey towards the Adriatic. Our citizen-soldiers soon became very loud, but not at all furious. Having damned the Austrians, they dismissed all politics — unless we may consider as politics the abuse in Avhich they SCENE IN AN HOTEL. 339 indulged against their neighbours the Neapolitans. One of the bearded heroes of the Marches main tained that one man of his country or district was a match for any three Neapolitans, and he told stories and anecdotes in proof. The most wonderful of his narratives Avas about the old Boja, or executioner, of Ancona, Avho, after Murat's retreat from the country in 1815, did, single-handed, with only one long knife and his back to a wall, discomfit seven Neapolitan soldiers armed with muskets and bayo nets and swords, slaying three of them, and leaving the rest in lamentable plight. " Ah !" said one of the party, " that executioner was a giant in his time, a very devil when he was young." " I knoAv his daughter," said one of the ladies; "she married a friend of mine, a very respectable citizen of Rome. He felt a prejudice at first, and was afraid that people would point at him in the streets for marrying a hangman's daughter ; but the girl had a good dota, and was tall and well made and not ill-looking; and not long after a young Roman nobleman, a real cavalier, made love to her (la faceva V amore), and they have been a happy, very respectable couple ever since." This charming stofy gave a new turn to the conversation, and they talked about matches and amori, opera-singers, actors, and actresses, and told smutty stories, till they went to bed. Dear Patriots ! And the country in danger ! La patria inpericolo! In the lobby were bandboxes, bales, and cases, which proved that the citizen-soldiers Avere travelling on business — were a set of haber- z2 340 APPROACHING FESTA. dashers and men-milliners. But they had their guns and side-arms with them, and they really looked very fierce in their long black beards. " Levata era a filar la vecchierella Discinta, e scalza, e desto avea '1 carbone." * We left Civita Castellana at an early hour the next morning, as the country people were singing along the road, and bringing into market their fruit, vegetables, and other produce. The road continued to be admirably kept aU the Avay to Rome, and to shame the Via Flaminia, if ancient roads and rough stone blocks could be sensible of shame. The country was well cultivated as far as Nepi, and the peasants, to all appearance, cheerful and healthy. The entrance to the hiU-town of Nepi, with the morning sun shining on its. old massy walls, is a sight to be seen ; and every traveller ought to stop and descend into the picturesque ravine in front ofthe town. The people of Nepi were aU highly excited, not by the danger of the country but by the near ap proach of the festa of their patron saint. They were erecting a temporary orchestra, setting up tall poles for the fireworks, and fencing in a part ofthe Piazza for a " combattimento di tori," or a bull-fight alia Romana, and fiddlers, bassoon-players, trumpeters, horn-blowers, fluters, fifers, conjurors, dancers, and tumblers were coming in from all parts. An old man at the coffeehouse said that * Petrarca. THE CAMPAGNA. 341 Nepi meant to distinguish herself this time ; that it would be a festa " come vene son poche," and he persuaded us to stay and see. The Piazza was all in confusion, and the streets Avere rather close and dirty ; but, even here, the blessed peace, and the progress made in every part and parcel of Italy during the last quarter of a century, had not been witliout their effects. Let the climate be hot or cold, window-sashes and panes of glass are signs of civilization and comfort. It Avas not so before, but now I found these consolatory signs in nearly every house in Nepi, as Ave had done all along the road from the Marches. Beyond Nepi the hiU country ceased, and no heights were in view except those of Horace's own Soracte; but the country continued for some way farther to be undulated, partially wooded, and very neatly enclosed. It looked like many parts of England wherein agriculture is less attended to than pasturage and pastoral affairs. Instead of ap pearing ghostly and dismal, as it has been described by so many of our tourists Avho could not or Avould not use their eyes, and who were hoodwinked by stale theories and conventional repetitions, the Campagna of Rome looks bright and smiling ; and its wide, open expanses and the buffaloes and other cattle, the mounted herdsmen with their droves, and the shepherds with their flocks of sheep, seen here and there, afford a pleasing variety to those who have traversed the mountains, defiles, and woods of Umbria. Hardly anywhere is the 342 BACCANO. Campagna a dead level or a barren-looking Avaste : it is undulated, and is verdant at all seasons. Nearly the same may be said of the Pontine Marshes. The country is essentially a pastoral country, with all the roughness and simplicity and with nearly all the charms of such districts. It is to be questioned whether the land could be employed to better purpose. It is unhealthy — sadly unhealthy — but so it was in the days of the Commonwealth and under the Empire. From the left bank of the Tiber to Terracina it was unsuited to permanent habitation, as it is now. Sylla would not have found room so near to Rome for his military colonists if the country had been otherwise ; and Sylla's veterans died off. We stopped at Baccano for a couple of hours to refresh our tired horses, and to take breakfast our selves. The inn Avas vast, well found in provisions and Orvieto wine, but gloomy, dirty, sad, and, with one exception, everybody in it looked sad and sickly. The exception was a young felloAv, a waiter, from the city of Rome, who did not seem destined to die of so slow a death as that of malaria fever. He was the most impudent varlet and the most bullying that we had hitherto met. He even bullied two national guardsmen who were there Avith their swords and beards, eating a minestra. " Di grazia" said one of the citizen-soldiers, " were you ever a brigand ? " " No," quoth Battista, " but 1 may be ; and perhaps I have a brother that is." He brought us a portentous bill, and was exorbitant in his expectation of buona mano. I MALARIA. 343 remonstrated. " What can you expect? " said Bat- tista ; " people will not stay in a place like this for nothing ! I am the sixth head waiter that has been here since the spring ; two of them are dead, and the other three are in the hospital." There was no resisting an argument like this : we paid him his biU, and gave him a double buona mano, only wishing he were a little more poHte. " And what keeps the fever from you, Battista ? " " Vino, vino ; niente, niente che il buon Orvieto! — wine, wine; nothing but. good Orvieto ! When the sun goes down, and the vapours come up from the hollows and cracks below, I sit by the big kitchen fire, and drink and drink till I am sleepy ; and when I get up in the morning the first thing I do is to empty a flask of Orvieto. Unless a man go sleeping out in the sun he never catches these fevers in. the middle of the day. It is at night and in the morning that a man must' take care of himself — not that I mean to say that a flask at noonday is not very necessary." Battista was, if not drunk, muzzy ; and he had probably been in this state ever since he came to live at Baccano. His dread of the malaria was the cause of his inebriety, and inebriety was, no doubt, the principal cause of his insolence. About two hours and a half after leaving Bac cano we came again upon the "Flavus Tiber," which, at this season, was not flavus at all, but rather of a dirty pea-green colour. We crossed the river by the good modern Milvian bridge, to which the repre sentatives of the people and the sham senators of 344 ENTRANCE INTO ROME. Rome had come out, only a few days before, to give a triumphant reception to a column of the Roman heroes who had capitulated at Vicenza. We drove through the very long straight street of the suburb of Sant' Andrea, Avhich was improved out of all knowledge ; Ave entered Rome by the im posing Porta and Piazza del Popolo, and at about five o'clock in a hot dazzling afternoon we were set down at our hotel in the Piazza di Spagna. END OF VOL. I. London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 02984 9560