THE

No. 6.

I HAVE already regaled you with the ruins on one side of Naples, and before I present you those on the other, I will introduce you to the amusements and manners of the Neapolitans.

There are four theatres, three of which are generally open at the same time. The royal theatre, contiguous to the palace of the king, is just closed, at the commencement of Lent. The theatre itself is the largest in Europe. The fronts of the boxes were formerly covered with mirrors, which, when the theatre was illuminated, produced the most brilliant effect. The boxes are now painted, but each one has in the inside one or two small mirrors, in front of which candles are lighted. The theatre, except on particular occasions, is very obscure; it is impossible to distinguish any countenance in the distant boxes; there are no lights, except on the stage. Those who hire the boxes, which is generally done by the season, light their own boxes if they choose; this is but rarely done, so that, excepting half a dozen scattered boxes with four or five wax lights, the body of the theatre is in obscurity. I have been only twice at this theatre. The performances were a serious opera, followed by a Vol. III. No. 6. 2M

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ballet, neither of which could be called excellent. The dancing did not rise above mediocrity, and the dancers appeared to be more anxious to exhibit feats of strength, than those graceful, characteristick movements, which form the excellence of this art. In the musick also I was disappointed; the orchestra was mean, and there was no singer of great talent. There are three other theatres, at one of which comedy and tragedy are occasionally played. There are one or two actors and one actress possessed of considerable merit, but their action and gestures were violent and exaggerated. theatres is devoted to the opera Buffa, and in this the Neapolitan singers and composers excel all others. The person that can hear the delightful airs of Cimarosa and Paisiello without emotion and delight, must be fit for "treason, stratagems, and murder." During Lent the theatre Del Fondo is opened for performing oratorios. That of Saul has been the only one given this season. Though I have heard it five or six times, my pleas ure seems increased at every repetition. There is in this oratorio a quartetto, beginning "Pietoso Dio," &c. which I have no hesitation in preferring to every other piece of

musick I have ever heard. Naples formerly boasted of the first singers and most able composers in Europe. The recent misfortunes of this country have driven most of them away. Paisiello is in Paris; Mrs.Billington in England; yet they still possess Monbelli, who, though past his prime, is the first tenor in Europe. The Miller is an admirable comick singer, and they have a promise of a great singer in the Pinotti, a young girl of seventeen, who has vast powers of voice, and is already a rival with the first cantatrices. If she continues to improve, she will become the best singer in Europe. Their orchestras are all of them mean; indeed the Neapolitans pay but little regard to instrumental musick, and have not patience enough to become great performers. I have seen them make many wry faces in executing some passages of German musick, which delights in difficulties.

There is little variety at these theatres; the same pieces are given for a month together, and the Italians who have heard them very often pay very little attention to the stage. They employ themselves in conversation, excepting the moment when some favourite air is sung, when they are profoundly silent. A stranger may vex himself to no purpose; the recitative and many of the airs are drowned in the talking of the audience.

The boxes are generally hired by the month, and, as no single tickets are sold, strangers have recourse to the pit, in which the seats are very convenient, having a cushion and arms to each; and each seat being separate, they are often hired by the month together, and in that case are locked up, when the occupant is not present, The theatres are opened through

the year at the second hour of the night; so that in summer time the performance does not begin till ten o'clock in the evening. This awkward mode of counting time is very perplexing to a stranger, and the inhabitants here know no other. Sunset is, according to them, twenty-four o'clock; from whence they begin one, two, &c. As each day varies a little, their time is perpetually incorrect. It has been my misfortune to make several ridiculous blunders in this way of reckoning time.

The conversazioni are one of the most common amusements of Naples, and those to which a stranger is generally introduced. These are parties given in the evening, though of all others they least deserve the name of conversations. There are a few ladies who hold them every evening. Two of these, at the houses of the Dutchess of chioness

and the Marare the most respectable, and are the resort of the nobility and respectable strangers. There are others of different grades, so that all ranks have accession to some of these parties. A stranger who should go to a conversazione with an idea to rational conversation, would be wretchedly disappointed. From the highest to the lowest, the chief occupations are cards and intrigue. Different games are played, but there is always one party for trente un, and this is the most common game. A person may have their choice of losing five dollars, or five hundred guineas in an evening. It was very disagreeable to see ladies seated at these tables, and intent upon the game: they certainly are never less attractive, than when thus employed. for the Neapolitans in general, they are the coolest gamblers I

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have ever seen. Losing or winning, their countenance undergoes no alteration. In this they have a great advantage over the imprudent stranger, who suffers himself to be heated with his game. Not long since, an English officer, who had obtained a furlough, came to Naples to pass a few months, and had devoted a thousand guineas for his expenses. A few evenings after his arrival, being introduced at one of the principal conversazioni, he unluckily approached the table of trente un; he lost only a hundred guineas, because it was all he had about him; but in the course of two or three evenings, in regain ing this, he lost the rest, and employed the last fifty in rejoining his regiment.

The company generally retire about two or three in the morning. No refreshment is given at these parties but iced water; and these conversazioni comprize the hospitality of Naples. As every person comes attended with one or more servants, they are playing for copper in the antichamber while their masters in the saloon are playing for gold. This rage for gaming appears to be universal. Every rank is engaged in it, and I have never been in any house at Naples, except the French ambassador's, where cards have not been introduced, and formed the principal amusement.

Hospitality is not a virtue of the Neapolitans. A stranger very rarely partakes of a dinner or supper in one of their houses. They are very temperate, and their repasts of the frugal kind. Fish of various kinds, which are caught in the bay, is the food they esteem the most luxurious. They have a singular prejudice against all kinds of tame water fowl; and ducks and geese, which

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are favourite food with other nations, are seldom placed on their tables. Their most common food is maccaroni, and many thousands in this city live on this food alone. A dish of boiled maccaroni with a little cheese grated over it, forms the breakfast, dinner, and supper of the mass of the people, and in one shape or another, they always form a part of a Neapolitan repast. The frugality of their tables is perhaps the reason, why strangers are excluded from them, whose sturdy appetites would be indignant at the insipidity of maccaroni. Excess in drinking is a vice almost unknown, and toasts are never given. The common hour of dining is at two o'clock, the hottest hour of the day the dinner is soon finished, and then, overcome with lassitude, they strip themselves to the skin, and lay down. After the heat of the day is past, and the approach of evening invites them to partake of its refreshing coolness they rise and drive in their carriages to the Corso, which extends from the city to Pausilipo; here they turn and return for an hour or two, criticise each other, rehearse the anecdote of the day, and when the last purple ray has faded from the summit of Vesuvius, and the distant shores of the bay are enveloped in obscurity, they return to the city, and stopping their carriages at the ice houses, they regale themselves with ices in their carriages. This is with them a favourite luxury, and in no part of the world are they so well made, as at Naples.

After going home and adjusting their dress, they go to the theatre, which is generally over before midnight, and then they go to a conversazione, or, in the heat of summer, to a supper party at Pausilipo, and an excursion on the bay. At the approach of morn

ing they retire to repose from their fatigue, and to prepare themselves for the next day. I have been so well initiated into this regular mode of life, that I seldom see my bed before three or four o'clock in the morning, the hour when the industrious farmer in America has already begun his daily labour.

The Neapolitan men are of superiour stature to most other nations; it is rare in any country to see so many large men as are in this city. Some of them are celebrated for their personal strength but their indolent manners and inactive appearance make them appear incapable of strong exertions. They are the slaves of voluptuousness, and extremely serious. Gaiety requires a degree of elasticity, both physical and moral, which they never possess, or which the climate destroys. The vivacity, the sprightly activity of a Frenchman forms the most striking contrast, with the grave indolence of the Neapolitans.

The appearance of the women is inferiour to that of the men. The climate soon matures and soon destroys their charms. A fine complexion is seldom seen, and their excessive indolence encourages corpulency, to which they are most of them subject. Yet one feature they have in perfection; they have universally fine eyes, sparkling, penetrating, and full of expression. They never walk; but when they go out it is always in a carriage. The publick promenade, called the villa, is a very pleasing one, yet it is little frequented. There are not more than a dozen ladies who walk in it, and only four or five of these often use this exercise. As they are never seen, except in a carriage, or sitting in a room, pains are bestowed only on the bust, and their head

and shoulders are generally ar ranged with care and taste, whilst the rest of the dress is awkward and slovenly; like the graceful neck and snowy breast of the swan, which appears so beautiful when he is swimming on the water, but which is wholly destroyed by his clumsy gait in walking. The Neapolitan ladies should not be seen walking, as their waddling gait and uncouth dress are always ridiculous, and sometimes disgusting. Rouge is little used. They are affable to strangers, and appear sometimes to prefer their society to that of their own countrymen. Most travellers have attributed to the sex in this country a strong disposition for amorous gallantry and intrigue; and Dupaty says, that they deceive with singular adroitness. What all concur in,is generally true; I have no reason to contradict their opinions.

Both sexes are generally very slovenly, and the people are very dirty. They have many fine fountains, and might easily have hot and cold baths in every part of the city; but they appear to have an antipathy to water, and there are only three months in the year that they bathe; when temporary sheds are erected upon the borders of the bay for this purpose. It is singular,that the luxury of warm baths, so natural to an effeminate people, and which was so common under the ancient Romans, that even the meanest people made use of them, should be wholly unknown at Naples, when they might be so easily obtained, and would be so important both to their health and pleasure.

The little fidelity that is found in matrimonial life, and of course the corrupt state of society, must be attributed to the manner in which marriages are formed. Con

versing on this subject with a lady, whose own conduct was irreproachable, she asked me how it was possible, that it could be otherwise, when the marriages were formed by the parents, directed by motives of interest and ambition, and in which the parties themselves were never consulted! A young girl is taken from a convent, and espoused to a man, who may be wholly disgusting to her she complains for some time of her destiny; the seduction and example of society soon persuade her to meliorate it. The husband, who has taken his wife from convenience, sees her lover with as much indifference as the rest of society, and derives his consolation in making the injury mutual.

After having dwelt on the defect of hospitality, and the insipid, degraded state of society in this great city, I should be unjust, if I did not inform you, that several causes have contributed to make it peculiarly bad at the present moment. The revolution produced the most fatal effects; some of the best characters fell sa

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crifices to the rage of different parties, and many noble families were constrained by their political opinions to abandon their country. Those, who remained, were plundered of their property, and their estates were ruined. The king is at Palermo, where he holds his court. The queen is at Vienna, and a part of the court is with her. The hereditary prince is the only one of the royal family now at Naples, except a little prince, of six years old, and the courtiers know too well the danger of paying much attention to him. William Hamilton, whose hospitable house was frequented by the best society, is no longer here, and the French influence is so predominant, that the present English minister lives in rather a retired manner. At the house of Mr. Alguier, the French ambassador, there are no Neapolitans cards admitted, and this is the only house, where I have seen that kind of society, and enjoyed that rational, liberal conversation, which are found in the circles of some other countries.

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SOTHEBY.

No. 10.

sympathy, which rebounds from the coincidence of natural and ideal beauty. This sympathy, however, is not merely confined to such a harmony of beauties; it mingles also with what is tranquil in nature, and it extends with what is sublime. The softness of the landscape at sun-setting breathes itself to the bosom with the tenderest melancholy, and the stillness of