The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 96

_December_ 6.--Captain Pigot inclines to take me on with him to Naples, after which he goes to Tunis on Government service. This is an offer not to be despised, though at the expense of protracting the news from Scotland, which I engage to provide for in case of the worst, by offering Mr. Cadell a new romance, to be called The Siege of Malta, which if times be as they were when I came off, should be thankful[ly received] at a round sum, paying back not only what is overdrawn, but supplying finances during the winter.

_December_ 10, [_Naples_].--I ought to say that before leaving Malta I went to wait on the Archbishop: a fine old gentleman, very handsome, and one of the priests who commanded the Maltese in their insurrection against the French. I took the freedom to hint that as he had possessed a journal of this blockade, it was but due to his country and himself to give it to the public, and offered my a.s.sistance. He listened to my suggestion, and seemed pleased with the proposal, which I repeated more than once, and apparently with success. Next day the Bishop returned my visit in full state, attended by his clergy, and superbly dressed in costume, the pearls being very fine. (The name of this fine old dignitary of the Romish Church is Don Francis Caruana, Bishop of Malta.)

The last night we were at Malta we experienced a rude shock of an earthquake, which alarmed me, though I did not know what it was. It was said to foretell that the ocean, which had given birth to Graham's Island, had, like Pelops, devoured its own offspring, and we are told it is not now visible, and will be, perhaps, hid from those who risk the main; but as we did not come near its lat.i.tude we cannot say from our own knowledge that the news is true. I found my old friend Frere as fond as ever of old ballads. He took me out almost every day, and favoured me with recitations of the Cid and the continuation of Whistlecraft. He also acquainted me that he had made up to Mr. Coleridge the pension of 200 from the Board of Literature[499] out of his own fortune.

_December_ 13, [_Naples_].--We left Malta on this day, and after a most picturesque voyage between the coast of Sicily and Malta arrived here on the 17th, where we were detained for quarantine, whence we were not dismissed till the day before Christmas. I saw Charles, to my great joy, and agreed to dine with his master, Right Hon. Mr. Hill,[500] resolving it should be my first and last engagement at Naples. Next morning much struck with the beauty of the Bay of Naples. It is insisted that my arrival has been a signal for the greatest eruption from Vesuvius which that mountain has favoured us with for many a day. I can only say, as the Frenchman said of the comet supposed to foretell his own death, "_Ah, messieurs, la comete me fait trop d'honneur_." Of letters I can hear nothing. There are many English here, of most of whom I have some knowledge.

_December_ 25, [_Bay of Naples_].--We are once more fairly put into quarantine. Captain Pigot does not, I think, quite understand the freedom his flag is treated with, and could he find law for so doing would try his long thirty-six pounders on the town of Naples and its castles; not to mention a sloop of ten guns which has ostentatiously entered the Bay to a.s.sist them. Lord knows we would make ducks and drakes of the whole party with the _Barham's_ terrible battery!

There is a new year like to begin and no news from Britain. By and by I will be in the condition of those who are sick and in prison, and ent.i.tled to visits and consolation on principles of Christianity.

_December_ 26, [_Strada Nuova_].--Went ash.o.r.e; admitted to pratique, and were received here.[501] Walter has some money left, which we must use or try a begging-box, for I see no other resource, since they seem to have abandoned me so. Go ash.o.r.e each day to sight-seeing. Have the pleasure to meet Mr.[502] and Mrs. Laing-Meason of Lindertis, and have their advice and a.s.sistance and company in our wanderings almost every day. Mr. Meason has made some valuable remarks on the lava where the villas of the middle ages are founded: the lava shows at least upon the ancient maritime villas of the Romans; so the boot of the moderns galls the kibe of the age preceding them; the reason seems to be the very great durability with which the Romans finished their domestic architecture of maritime arches, by which they admitted the sea into their lower houses.[503]

We were run away with, into the grotto very nearly, but luckily stopped before we entered, and so saved our lives. We have seen the Strada Nuova--a new access of extreme beauty which the Italians owe to Murat.

The Bay of Naples is one of the finest things I ever saw. Vesuvius controls it on the opposite side of the town.

I never go out in the evening, but take airings in the day-time almost daily. The day after Christmas I went to see some old parts of the city, amongst the rest a tower called Torre del Carmine, which figured during the Duke of Guise's adventure, and the gallery of as old a church, where Masaniello was shot at the conclusion of his career.[504] I marked down the epitaph of a former Empress,[505] which is striking and affecting.

It would furnish matter for my Tour if I wanted it.

"Naples, thou'rt a gallant city, But thou hast been dearly bought"--[506]

So is King Alphonso made to sum up the praises of this princely town, with the losses which he had sustained in making himself master of it. I looked on it with something of the same feelings, and I may adopt the same train of thought when I recall Lady Northampton, Lady Abercorn, and other friends much beloved who have met their death in or near this city.

FOOTNOTES:

[499] By "Board of Literature" Scott doubtless means the Royal Society of Literature, inst.i.tuted in 1824 under the patronage of George iv.; see _ante_, vol. i. pp. 390-91. Besides the members who paid a subscription there were ten a.s.sociates, of whom Coleridge was one, who each received an annuity of a hundred guineas from the King's bounty. When William IV.

succeeded his brother in 1830, he declined to continue these annuities.

Representations were made to the Government, and the then Prime Minister, Earl Grey, offered Coleridge a private grant of 200 from the Treasury, which he declined.

The pension from the Society or the Privy Purse of George iv., which Mr.

Hookham Frere told Sir Walter he had made up to Coleridge, was one hundred guineas.

[500] Afterwards Lord Berwick.

[501] The travellers established themselves in the Palazzo Caramanico as soon as they were released from quarantine.

[502] A brother of Malcolm Laing, the historian.

[503] An account is given by Sir William Gell of an excursion by sea to the ruins of such a Roman villa on the promontory of Posilipo, to which he had taken Sir Walter in a boat on the 26th of January.--_Life_, vol.

x. pp. 157-8.

[504] For a picturesque sketch of Naples during the insurrection of 1647 see Sir Walter's article on Masaniello and the Duke of Guise.--_Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. pp. 355-403.

[505] See Appendix iv.: "A former Empress." Sir Walter no doubt means the mother of Conradin of Suabia, or, as the Italians call him, Corradino,--erroneously called "Empress," though her husband had pretensions to the Imperial dignity, disputed and abortive. For the whole affecting story see _Histoire de la Conquete de Naples_, St.

Priest, vol. iii. pp. 130-185, especially pp. 162-3.

[506] A variation of the lines on Alphonso's capture of the city in 1442:--

"And then he looked on Naples, that great city of the sea, 'O city,'

saith the King, 'how great hath been thy cost, For thee I twenty years--my fairest years--have lost.'"

--Lockhart's _Spanish Ballads_, "The King of Arragon."

1832.

JANUARY.

_January 5_.--Went by invitation to wait upon a priest, who almost rivals my fighting bishop of Malta. He is the old Bishop of Tarentum,[507] and, notwithstanding his age, eighty and upwards, is still a most interesting man. A face formed to express an interest in whatever pa.s.ses; caressing manners, and a total absence of that rigid stiffness which hardens the heart of the old and converts them into a sort of petrifaction. Apparently his foible was a fondness for cats; one of them, a superb brindled Persian cat, is a great beauty, and seems a particular favourite. I think we would have got on well together if he could have spoken English, or I French or Latin; but _helas!_ I once saw at Lord Yarmouth's house a Persian cat, but not quite so fine as that of the Bishop. He gave me a Latin devotional poem and an engraving of himself, and I came home about two o'clock.

_January_ 6 to 12.--We reach the 12th January, amusing ourselves as we can, generally seeing company and taking airings in the forenoon in this fine country. Sir William Gell, a very pleasant man, one of my chief cicerones. Lord Hertford comes to Naples. I am glad to keep up an old acquaintance made in the days of George IV.

He has got a breed from Maida, of which I gave him a puppy. There was a great crowd at the Palazzo, which all persons attended, being the King's birthday. The apartments are magnificent, and the various kinds of persons who came to pay court were splendid. I went with the boys as Brigadier-General of the Archers' Guard, wore a very decent green uniform, laced at the cuffs, and pantaloons, and looked as well as sixty could make it out when sworded and feathered _comme il faut_. I pa.s.sed well enough. Very much afraid of a fall on the slippery floor, but escaped that disgrace. The ceremony was very long. I was introduced to many distinguished persons, and, but for the want of language, got on well enough. The King spoke to me about five minutes, of which I hardly understood five words. I answered him in a speech of the same length, and I'll be bound equally unintelligible. We made the general key-tone of the harangue _la belle langue et le beau ciel_ of _sa majeste_. Very fine dresses, very many diamonds....

A pretty Spanish amba.s.sadress, Countess da Costa, and her husband. Saw the Countess de Lebzeltern, who has made our acquaintance, and seems to be very clever. I will endeavour to see her again. Introduced to another Russian Countess of the diplomacy. Got from Court about two o'clock. I should have mentioned that I had a letter from Skene[508] and one from Cadell, dated as far back as 2d December, a monstrous time ago, [which]

yet puts a period to my anxiety. I have written to Cadell for particulars and supplies, and, besides, have written a great many pages of the Siege of Malta, which I think will succeed.

[_January_ 16-23].--I think 200 a month, or thereby, will do very well, and it is no great advance.

Another piece of intelligence was certainly to be expected, but now it has come afflicts us much. Poor Johnny Lockhart! The boy is gone whom we have made so much of. I could not have borne it better than I now do, and I might have borne it much worse.[509]

I went one evening to the Opera to see that amus.e.m.e.nt in its birthplace, which is now so widely received over Europe. The Opera House is superb, but can seldom be quite full. On this night, however, it was; the guards, citizens, and all persons dependent on the Court, or having anything to win or lose by it, are expected to take places liberally, and applaud with spirit. The King bowed much on entrance, and was received in a popular manner, which he has no doubt deserved, having relaxed many of his father's violent persecutions against the Liberals, made in some degree an amnesty, and employed many of this character. He has made efforts to lessen his expenses; but then he deals in military affairs, and that swallows up his savings, and Heaven only knows whether he will bring [Neapolitans] to fight, which the Martinet system alone will never do. His health is undermined by epileptic fits, which, with his great corpulence, make men throw their thoughts on his brother Prince Charles. It is a pity. The King is only two-and-twenty years old.

The Opera bustled off without any remarkable music, and, so far as I understand the language, no poetry; and except the _coup d'il,_ which was magnificent, it was poor work. It was on the subject of Constantine and Crispus--marvellous good matter, I a.s.sure you. I came home at half-past nine, without waiting the ballet, but I was dog-sick of the whole of it. Went to the Studij to-day. I had no answer to my memorial to the Minister of the Interior, which it seems is necessary to make any copies from the old romances. I find it is an affair of State, and Monsieur ----- can only hope it will be granted in two or three days;--to a man that may leave Naples to-morrow! He offers me a loan of what books I need, Annals included, but this is also a delay of two or three days. I think really the Italian men of letters do not know the use of time made by those of other places, but I must have patience. In the course of my return home I called, by advice of my _valet de place_, at a bookseller's, where he said all the great messieurs went for books.

It had very little the air of a place of such resort, being kept in a garret above a coach-house. Here some twenty or thirty odd volumes were produced by an old woman, but nothing that was mercantile, so I left them for Lorenzo's learned friends. And yet I was sorry too, for the lady who showed them to me was very [civil], and, understanding that I was the famous Chevalier, carried her kindness as far as I could desire.

The Italians understand nothing of being in a hurry, but perhaps it is their way.[510]

_January_ 24.--The King grants the favour asked. To be perfect I should have the books [out] of the room, but this seems to [hurt?] Monsieur Delicteriis as he, kind and civil as he is, would hardly [allow] me to take my labours out of the Studij, where there are hosts of idlers and echoes and askers and no understanders of askers. I progress, however, as the Americans say. I have found that Sir William Gell's amanuensis is at present disengaged, and that he is quite the man for copying the romances, which is a plain black letter of 1377, at the cheap and easy rate of 3 _quattrons_ a day. I am ashamed at the lowness of the remuneration, but it will dine him capitally, with a share of a bottle of wine, or, by 'r lady, a whole one if he likes it; and thrice the sum would hardly do that in England. But we dawdle, and that there is no avoiding. I have found another object in the Studij--the language of Naples.

_Jany_. 2[5?].--One work in this dialect, for such it is, was described to me as a history of ancient Neapolitan legends--_quite in my way_; and it proves to be a dumpy fat 12mo edition of Mother Goose's Tales,[511]

with my old friends Puss in Boots, Bluebeard, and almost the whole stock of this very collection. If this be the original of this charming book, it is very curious, for it shows the right of Naples to the authorship, but there are French editions very early also;--for there are two--whether French or Italian, I am uncertain--of different dates, both having claims to the original edition, each omitting some tales which the other has.

To what common original we are to refer them the Lord knows. I will look into [this] very closely, and if this same copiator is worth his ears he can help me. My friend Mr. D. will aid me, but I doubt he hardly likes my familiarity with the department of letters in which he has such an extensive and valuable charge. Yet he is very kind and civil, and promises me the loan of a Neapolitan vocabulary, which will set me up for the attack upon Mother Goose. Spirit of Tom Thumb a.s.sist me! I could, I think, make a neat thing of this, obnoxious to ridicule perhaps;--what then! The author of _Ma Sur Anne_ was a clever man, and his tale will remain popular in spite of all gibes and flouts soever. So _Vamos Caracci_! If it was not for the trifling and dawdling peculiar to this country, I should have time enough, but their trifling with time is the devil. I will try to engage Mr. Gell in two researches in his way and more in mine, namely, the Andrea Ferrara and the Bonnet piece.[512]

Mr. Keppel Craven says Andrea de Ferraras[513] are frequent in Italy.

Plenty to do if we had alert a.s.sistance, but Gell and Laing Meason have both their own matters to puzzle out, and why should they mind my affairs? The weather is very cold, and I am the reverse of the idiot boy--

"For as my body's growing worse, My mind is growing better."[514]