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CHAPTER IV.

THE CITY AND BAY OF NAPLES. THE BLESSINGTONS AND THEIR SOCIETY IN NAPLES. JUNE, 1823, TO FEBRUARY, 1826.

JUNE 2nd (1823), the Blessingtons left Genoa, and passed through Lucca, where they stayed a few days, and arrived in Florence on the 8th of the same month. Here they remained till the 1st of July. Lady Blessington spent her whole time visiting monuments of antiquity, churches, galleries, villas, and palaces, associated with great names and memories. In no city of Italy did she find her thoughts carried back to the past so forcibly as at Florence. A thousand recollections of the olden time of the merchant princes, the Medici, and the Pazzi, of all the factions of the republic, the Neri and Bianchi, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, recurred to memory in her various visits to the different localities of celebrity in the noble city, the grandeur and beauty of which far surpassed her expectations. After a sojourn of about three weeks in Florence, the party set out for Rome. On the 5th of July, the first view of the Eternal City burst on the pilgrims from St. James's Square.

As they entered the city, the lone mother of dead empires, all appeared wrapt in silent solemnity, not wanting, however, in sublimity. "Even the distant solitude of the Campagna," says Lady Blessington, was not divested of the latter. But in the evening the Corso was crowded with showy equipages,

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occupied by gaily dressed ladies, and thronged with cavaliers on prancing steeds riding past them. Nothing could surpass the gaiety of the evening scene, or contrast more strangely with the gloom of the morning aspect of the sombre suburbs." The mournful contemplations awakened by the ruins of ancient Rome, are frequently spoken of by Lady Blessington.

I cannot help thinking they were of too mournful a character for her Ladyship to make that city of the dead, of shattered thrones and temples, of shrines and sepulchres, a place of abode congenial to her feelings, tastes, and predilections.

The Eternal City and its everlasting monuments appear to have made less impression on the mind of Lady Blessington, than might have been expected by those acquainted with her refined tastes and literary acquirements.

The gloom of the sombre monumental city seemed oppressive to her spirits; the solemn aspect of the sites of places renowned of old, and those sermons in stones, of crumbling monuments, and all the remaining vestiges of a people, and their idols of long past ages, speaking to the inmost soul of decay and destructibility, were not in accordance with her turn of mind, and her natural taste for objects and scenery that exhilarated the senses, and communicated joyousness to every faculty. Naples, in Lady Blessington's opinion, and not Rome, was the appropriate locality for an elysium that was to last for ever, and for any sojourn of English tourists of haut ton, that was intended to be prolonged for the enjoyment of Italian skies and sunshine, scenery, and society.

On the 14th of July, nine days after her arrival in Rome, Lady Blessington writes in her diary, "Left Rome yesterday, driven from it by oppressive heat, and the evil prophecies dinned into my ears of the malaria. I have no fears of the effect of either for myself, but I dare not risk them for others."

There were other circumstances besides those referred to,

in all probability, which determined the precipitate departure from Rome. All the appliances to comfort, or rather to luxury, which had become necessary to Lady Blessington, had not been found in Rome. Her Ladyship had become exceedingly fastidious in her tastes. The difficulties of pleasing her in house accommodation, in dress, in cookery especially, had become so formidable, and occasioned so many inconveniences, that the solicitude spoken of, for the safety of others, was only one of the reasons for the abrupt departure referred to.

With the strongest regard for Lady Blessington, and the fullest appreciation of the many good qualities that belonged to her, it cannot be denied that whether discoursing in her salons, or talking with pen in hand on paper in her journals, she occasionally aimed at something like stage effects in her diaries, as well as in society, and at times assumed opinions, which she abandoned a little later, or passed off appearances for realities. This was done with the view of acquiring esteem -strengthening her position in the opinion of persons of exalted intellect or station, and directing attention to the side of it that was brilliant and apparently enviable, not for any unworthy purpose, but from a desire to please, and perhaps from a feeling of uncertainty in the possession of present advantages.

The first impressions of Lady Blessington of the beauty of the environs of Naples, the matchless site of the city, its glorious bay, its celebrated garden-the Villa Reale, its delightful climate, and exquisite tints of sea and sky, and varied aspect of shore and mountain-of isles and promontories, are described by her, in her diaries, in very glowing terms.

Her hotel, the Gran Bretagna, fronted the sea, and was only divided from it by the garden of the Villa Reale, filled with plants and flowers, and adorned with statues and vases. The sea was seen sparkling through the opening of the trees, with numbers of boats gliding along the shore. In the

"Idler in Italy," Lady Blessington thus speaks of the delightful climate and its cheering influences.

"How light and elastic is the air! Respiration is carried on unconsciously, and existence becomes a positive pleasure in such a climate. Who that has seen Naples, can wonder that her children are idle, and luxuriously disposed? To gaze on the cloudless sky and blue Mediterranean, in an atmosphere so pure and balmy, is enough to make the veriest plodder who ever courted Plutus, abandon his toil, and enjoy the delicious dolce far' niente of the Neapolitans."*

A few words of this epitome of paradise, may be permitted to one who enjoyed its felicity of clime and site and scenery, for upwards of three years.

The city of Naples retains no vestiges of Greek or Roman antiquity. It occupies the site of two ancient Greek towns, Palæopolis founded by Parthenope, and Neapolis or the New Town. Eventually they merged into one city, which became a portion of the Roman Empire, and obtained the name of Neapolis. The bay of Naples, for the matchless beauty of its situation, and its surrounding scenery, is unrivalled. Its circling beach extends from the promontory of Pausilippo to Sorento, a line of more than thirty miles of varied beauty and magnificence. This city, with its churches, palaces, villas, and houses, luxuriant gardens and vineyards, with the surrounding hills and grounds thickly planted in the vicinity, backed by the Apennines, well deserves its poetical designation, "Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra." Naples, it is truly said, "viewed by moonlight is enchanting. The moon pouring out an effulgence of silvery light, from a sky of the deepest azure, through a pure and transparent atmosphere, places all the prominent buildings in strong relief; and whilst it makes every object distinctly visible, it mellows each tint, and blends the innumerable details into one vast harmonious

*The Idler in Italy, p. 244. Ed. Par. 1839.

whole, throwing a bewitching and indescribable softness and repose on the scene.

From the time that this city and territory fell under the power of the Romans, to the period of the destruction of Pompeii, in the year of our Lord 79, Neapolis, on account of the beauty of its situation, and excellence of its climate, became the favourite place of residence in the winter season, and the chosen sojourn for a continuance of several of the magnates of the Eternal City, of the Emperor Tiberius, for the last years of his iniquitous reign-of many of the most illustrious sages and philosophers of Rome. For some centuries subsequently to the destruction of Pompeii, Naples shared the calamitous fate of the other Italian cities-it was ruled, harassed, pillaged, and devastated, successively by Goths, Vandals, Saracens, Lombards, and Parmans, and ultimately by Germans, French, and Spaniards. The flight of the King of Naples in 1799-the short reign of Joseph Bonapartethe rule of Murat-his deposition, execution, and other modern vicissitudes, it is hardly necessary to refer to.

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The Castello del 'Ovo, standing on a projecting insulated rock, commands the entire of the two semicircular bays on which the city stands. In one direction extends the long line of shore on which are the Chiatamone, the Marino and Chiaja, with numerous ascending terraces of streets behind them, crowned by Fort St. Elmo and Castello Nuovo, the convent of Camaldole, the Palazzo Belvidere, and the hill of the Vomero and still farther westward, the promontory of Pausilippo terminates the land view, and in this vicinity lie the beautiful little islands of Ischia and Procida. In the other direction, to the eastward of the Castello del 'Ovo, are semicircular clusters of houses, convents, and churches, with the mole, the lighthouse and harbour, the quay of Santa Lucia, surmounted by the Palace of Capo di Monte, and the eminence of Capo di Chino, and in the distant back-ground the