The next day we made an excursion into the country on horseback to see the Convent of the Camaldoli. Unfortunately the late hours of Devonshire House are transferred to the Chiaia, so we did not begin our expedition till six o’clock; when just as we arrived at the Convent the last fiery rays sank behind the promontory of Circe. What a view lay stretched at our feet! Objects that would rouse torpor itself, and call forth the energy of the poet, philosopher, painter, historian. The Campania Felix backed by the bold ridge of Apennines, with the Lake of Patria, Linternum, etc., the distant islands of Ponza and Ventotene, the nearer ones of Ischia and Procida, Baia, Misenum, Capri, and Cape Minerva. I cannot enumerate all the grand and pleasing objects. We exhausted the patience of two planets; the sun first shunned us, and then palefaced Cynthia left us, before we got home.
I never in my life experienced the degree of happiness enjoyed: it was the gratification of mind and sense. The weather was delicious, truly Italian, the night serene, with just enough air to waft the fragrance of the orange flower, then in blossom. Through the leaves of the trees we caught glimpses of the trembling moonbeams on the glassy surface of the bay; all objects conspired to soothe my mind and the sensations I felt were those of ecstatic rapture. I was so happy that when I reached my bedroom, I dismissed my maid, and sat up the whole night looking from my window upon the sea.
This frolick was unusually absurd, as I was to go early with ye D. of Devonshire, etc. to dine at Belvedere[33] with the King. I was ready at seven, but ill and faint, and obliged to eat diavoloni to keep alive. We arrived too late: the King waited an hour. The King was very pleasant and conversable; he shewed us the whole manufactory, the mechanical part I did not much comprehend. He was so gallant to me that they joked and said I should be sent to Calabria, the common way the Queen takes to remove her rivals, tho’ she allows him to people his own colony of manufacturers. Before we quitted him he insisted on our promising to dine at Carditello, and the Sunday after at St. Leucio to see the wedding. From the Belvedere we went to the English garden, which is very beautiful from being in many respects unlike one. There is one of the prettiest thoughts for an ornament I ever saw; a large building representing ancient baths, supposed to have been dug out from a stratum of tufa which covered them. It is done with the best taste and judgment possible, and is as complete a thing as can be. I returned home at night more dead than alive from fatigue.
1793 VESUVIUS
The next day after, we went to the mountain. I invited poor Italinski. I would not go higher than the Cross, that is, I would go no further than my mule could carry me; the others went to the running lava. We all wrote our names at the Hermitage, a retreat inhabited by a man clothed in a holy garb,[34] but whom report says is not sanctified in his deeds; many rendezvous are kept in his neat, trim cell, and but for his paying he would be expelled from his nominal solitude.
Saturday was the last morning I passed in Naples. I quitted those scenes of tranquil pleasure and harmless gratification with unfeigned regret. But ah me! what can please or cheer one who has no hope of happiness in life. Solitude and amusement from external objects is all I hope for: home is the abyss of misery! I am but as a zero in society, attached to none, belonging to none I esteem. We passed the evening at Caserta with the Hamiltons; their house was not large enough to hold us all, and I lodged in Hackhert’s[35] house. Mullady sang Nina, Paisiello’s music; her vile discordant screaming took off the whole effect of his simple melody.
On Sunday morning we went to the Belvedere to see the ceremony of the St. Leucio marriages;[36] as I went with the Duchess I was, of course, too late. They were over. The King as soon as he heard of our arrival came and met us upon the perron, and conducted us upstairs, where we found the Queen: her coming was an unexpected condescension on her part. The sight of the manufacturers enjoying the Festival was very pretty and gratifying. A thousand people were enjoying themselves among their families in their gala clothes, dining under the prettiest rustic arcades ornamented in the best possible taste: this number all fed, even existing, by the bounty of the King, and each pouring out the sincerest benediction upon him for his bounty. I wished this picture of happiness of his own creation might excite the disposition to extend the blessings of ease and security by encouraging industry in Calabria and other parts of his dominions, where the wretched peasant is ferocious from ignorance and sloth. He conversed with them with familiarity, and enquired into their family details, all of which he seemed perfectly acquainted with; scandal says their establishment answers the double purpose of seraglio and nursery. The Queen was, as she always is, very conversable and clever, but appears to have a most impetuous temper. We dined at 12, a very good dinner, all off his own farm; the wines were from his vineyard. The evening was not tedious, tho’ long; she brought all her children to us and shewed off their talents. At night the Court was illuminated, and the happy colonists danced tarantulas. We stayed till the Queen withdrew about 10 o’clock. She was very flattering in her compliments to me, and shook my hand with cordiality; her reason for liking me that I had been at Vienna and knew many of her old friends.
A ROYAL FARM
The next day we dined at Carditello with the King; it is a small hunting palace in the centre of his farm. The dinner was served upon a table of Merlin’s construction. No servants attend, but by pulling a bell your plate is pulled down and a clean one sent up; so with the dishes, and all you ask for. In short, it is exactly like a trap-door at a theatre. He showed us all his cows, hogs, and pigs, and his breed of stallions. He occasionally favours ladies with a sight of a strange operation to be performed upon them before women; but this we escaped. His carriages conveyed us to Capua, where we found our own. The Devonshires went on to Rome. Some arrangements required my return to Naples; Lady Plymouth drove me in her phaeton home.
The evening previous to my quitting Naples, 22nd May, I walked in the Villa Reale after supper with Ly. Plymouth, Ld. Berwick,[37] and Italinski. The latter was much dejected at my approaching absence, and I really was affected by his sorrow, as he is not a man to say lightly things he does not feel. He said when I went he should imitate Mark Antony, who after his defeat retired to Alexandria and wrote Timoleon [sic] over his door, thereby declaring he was become a misanthrope. I was sorry at leaving Ly. P., because, tho’ I am not very prudent, I think she is less so, and I might have kept her out of the scrape she is on the brink of falling into, for Ld. Berwick remains the whole summer. Lord Palmerston, comically enough, calls them ‘Cymon and Iphigenia,’ for till their attachment began Ld. B. was never heard to speak: love roused him.