The Christmas season here at Naples is very pleasingly observed; the Italians are peculiarly ingenious in adorning their shops I think, and setting out their wares; every grocer, fruiterer, &c. now mingles orange, and lemon, and myrtle leaves, among the goods exposed at his door, as we do greens in the churches of England, but with infinitely more taste; and this device produces a very fine effect upon the whole, as one drives along la Strada del Toledo, which all morning looks showy from these decorations, and all evening splendid from the profusion of torches, flambeaux, &c. that shine with less regularity indeed, but with more lustre and greater appearance of expensive gaiety, than our neat, clean, steady London lamps. Some odd, pretty, moveable coffee-houses too, or lemonade-shops, set on wheels, and adorned, according to the possessor’s taste, with gilding, painting, &c. and covered with ices, orgeats, and other refreshments, as in emulation each of the other, and in a strange variety of shapes and forms too, exquisitely well imagined for the most part,—help forward the finery of Naples exceedingly: I have counted thirty of these galante shops on each side the street, which, with their necessary illuminations, make a brilliant figure by candle-light, till twelve o’clock, when all the show is over, and every body put out their lights and quietly lie down to rest. Till that hour, however, few things can exceed the tumultuous merriment of Naples, while volantes, or running footmen, dressed like tumblers before a show, precede all carriages of distinction, and endeavour to keep the people from being run over; yet whilst they are listening to Policinello’s jokes, or to some such street orator as Dr. Moore describes with equal truth and humour, they often get crushed and killed; yet, as Pope says,
See some strange comfort ev’ry state attend:—
The Lazaroni who has his child run over by the coach of a man of quality, has a regular claim upon him for no less than twelve carlines (about five shillings English); if it is his wife that meets with the accident, he gets two ducats, live or die; and for the master of the family (house he has none) three is the regular compensation; and no words pass here about trifles. Truth is, human life is lower rated in all parts of Italy than with us; they think nothing of an individual, but see him perish (excepting by the hand of justice) as a cat or dog. A young man fell from our carriage at Milan one evening; he was not a servant of ours, but a friend which, after we were gone home, the coachman had picked up to go with him to the fireworks which were exhibited that night near the Corso: there was a crowd and an embarras, and the fellow tumbled off and died upon the spot, and nobody even spoke, or I believe thought about the matter, except one woman, who supposed that he had neglected to cross himself when he got up behind.
The works of art here at Naples are neither very numerous nor very excellent: I have seen the vaunted present of porcelain intended for the king of England, in return for some cannon presented by him to this court; and think it more entertaining in its design than admirable as a manufacture. Every dish and plate, however, being the portrait as one may say of some famous Etruscan vase, or other antique, dug out of the ruins of these newly-discovered cities, with an account of its supposed story engraved neatly round the figure, makes it interesting and elegant, and worthy enough of one prince to accept, and another to bestow.
There is a work of art, however, peculiar to this city, and attempted in no other; on which surprising sums of money are lavished by many of the inhabitants, who connect or associate to this amusement ideas of piety and devotion: the thing when finished is called a presepio, and is composed in honour of this sacred season, after which all is taken to pieces, and arranged after a different manner next year. In many houses a room, in some a whole suite of apartments, in others the terrace upon the house-top, is dedicated to this very uncommon show; consisting of a miniature representation in sycamore wood, properly coloured, of the house at Bethlehem, with the blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and our Saviour in the manger, with attendant angels, &c. as in pictures of the nativity; the figures are about six inches high, and dressed with the most exact propriety. This however, though the principal thing intended to attract spectators’ notice, is kept back, so that sometimes I scarcely saw it at all; while a general and excellent landscape, with figures of men at work, women dressing dinner, a long road in real gravel, with rocks, hills, rivers, cattle, camels, every thing that can be imagined, fill the other rooms, so happily disposed too for the most part, the light introduced so artfully, the perspective kept so surprisingly!—one wonders and cries out, it is certainly but a baby-house at best; yet managed by people whose heads naturally turned towards architecture and design, give them power thus to defy a traveller not to feel delighted with the general effect; while if every single figure is not capitally executed, and nicely expressed beside, the proprietor is truly miserable, and will cut a new cow, or vary the horse’s attitude, against next Christmas coûte qui coûte: and perhaps I should not have said so much about the matter, if there had not been shewn me within this last week, presepios which have cost their possessors fifteen hundred or two thousand English pounds; and, rather than relinquish or sell them, many families have gone to ruin: I have wrote the sums down in letters, not figures, for fear of the possibility of a mistake. One of these playthings had the journey of the three kings represented in it, and the presents were all of real gold and silver finely worked; nothing could be better or more livelily finished.—“But, Sir,” said I, “why do you dress up one of the Wise Men with a turban and crescent, six hundred years before the birth of Mahomet, who first put that mark in the forehead of his followers? The eastern Magi were not Turks; this is a breach of costume.” My gentleman paused, and thanked me; said he would enquire if there was nothing heretical in the objection; and if all was right, it should be changed next year without fail.
A young lady here of English parents, just ten years old, asked me, very pertinently, “Why this pretty sight was called a Presepio?” but said she suddenly, answering herself, “I suppose it is because it is preceptive:” such a mistake was more valuable than knowledge, and gave me great esteem of her understanding; the little girl’s name was Zaffory.
The King’s menagerie is neither rich in animals, nor particularly well kept: I wonder a man of his character and disposition should not delight in possessing a very fine one. The bears however were as tame as lapdogs; there was a wolf too, larger than ever I saw a wolf, and an elephant that played a hundred tricks at the command of his keeper, little less a beast than he; but as Pope says, after Horace,
Let bear or elephant be e’er so white,
The people sure, the people are the sight.
Let us then tell about the two assemblies, o sia conversazioni, where one goes in search of amusement as to the rooms of Bath or Tunbridge exactly; only that one of these places is devoted to the nobiltà, the other is called de’ buoni amici; and such is the state of subordination in this country, that though the great people may come among the little ones, and be sure of the grossest adulation, a merchant’s wife, shining in diamonds, being obliged to stand up reverentially before the chair of a countess, who does her the honour to speak to her; the poor amici are totally excluded from the subscription of the nobles, nor dare even to return the salutation of a superior, should a good-natured person of that rank be tempted, from frequently seeing them at the rooms, to give them a kind nod in the street or elsewhere. All this seems comical enough to us, and I had much ado to look grave, while a beautiful and well-educated wife of a rich banker here, confessed herself not fit company for an ignorant mean-looking woman of quality. But though such unintelligible doctrines make one for a moment ashamed both of one’s sex and species, that lady’s knowledge of various languages, her numerous accomplishments in a thousand methods of passing time away with innocent elegance, and a sort of studied address never observed in Italy before, gave me infinite delight in her society, and daily increased my suspicion that she was a foreigner, till nearer intimacy discovered her a German Lutheran, with a singular head of thick blonde hair, so unlike those I see around me. We grew daily better acquainted, and she shewed me—but not indignantly at all—some ladies from the higher assembly sitting among these, very low dressed indeed, a knotting-bag and counters in their lap, to shew their contempt of the company; while such as spoke to them stood before their seat, like children before a governess in England, as long as the conversation lasted.