Thus ended a day which was not without its pleasures:—yet had I planned a party of pleasure to Pompeii, methinks I could have managed better. Par exemple, I would have deferred it a fortnight later, or till the vines were in leaf; I would have chosen for my companions two or at most three persons whom I could name, whose cultivated minds and happy tempers would have heightened their own enjoyment and mine. After spending a few hours in taking a general view of the whole city, we would have sat down on the platform of the old Greek Temple which commands a view of the mountains and the bay; or, if the heat were too powerful, under the shade of the hill near it. There we would make our cheerful and elegant repast, on bread and fruits, and perhaps a bottle of Malvoisie or Champagne: the rest of the day should be devoted to a minute examination of the principal objects of interest and curiosity: we would wait till the shadows of evening had begun to steal over the scene, purpling the mountains and the sea; we would linger there to enjoy all the splendours of an Italian sunset; and then, with minds softened and elevated by the loveliness and solemnity of the scenes around, we would get into our carriage, and drive back to Naples beneath the bright full moon; and, by the way, we would "talk the flowing heart," and make our recollections of the olden time, our deep impressions of the past, heighten our enjoyment of the present: and this would be indeed a day of pleasure, of such pleasure as I think I am capable of feeling—of imparting—of remembering with unmixed delight. Such was not yesterday.
M** brought with him this evening, for our amusement, an old man, a native of Cento, who gains his livelihood by a curious exhibition of his peculiar talents. He is blind, and plays well on the violin: he can recite the whole of the Gerusalemme from beginning to end without missing a word: he can repeat any given stanza or number of stanzas either forwards or backwards: he can repeat the last words one after another of any stanzas: if you give him the first word and the last, he can name immediately the particular line, stanza, and book: lastly, he can tell instantly the exact number of words contained in any given stanza. This exhibition was at first amusing; but as I soon found that the man's head was a mere machine, that he was destitute of imagination, and that far from feeling the beauty of the poet, he did not even understand the meaning of the lines he thus repeated up and down, and backwards and forwards, it ceased to interest me after the first sensations of surprise and curiosity were over.
After I had read Italian with Signior B** this evening, he amused me exceedingly by detailing to me the plan of two tragedies he is now writing or about to write. He has already produced one piece on the story of Boadicea, which is rather a drama than a regular tragedy. It was acted here with great success. After giving his drama due praise, I described to him the plan and characters of Fletcher's Bonduca; and attempted to give him in Italian some idea of the most striking scenes of that admirable play: he was alternately in enchantment and despair, and I thought he would have torn and bitten his Boadicea to pieces, in the excess of his vivacity.
The subject of one of his tragedies is to be the Sicilian Vespers. Casimir Delavigne, who wrote Les Vêpres Siciliennes, which obtained some years ago such amazing popularity at Paris, and in which the national vanity of the French is flattered at the expense of the Italians, received a pension from Louis XVIII. B** spoke with contempt of Casimir Delavigne's tragedy, and with indignation of what he called "his wilful misrepresentation of history." He is determined to give the reverse of the picture: the French will be represented as "gente crudeli—tiranni—oppressori, senza fede;" Giovanni di Procida, as a hero and patriot, à l'antique, and the Sicilians as rising in defence of their freedom and national honour. The other tragedy is to be founded on the history of the famous Congiura dei Baroni in the reign of Ferdinand the First, as related by Giannone. The simple facts of this history need not any ornaments, borrowed from invention or poetry, to form a most interesting tale, and furnish ample materials for a beautiful tragedy, in incident, characters, and situations. B** is a little man, dwarfish and almost deformed in person; but full of talent, spirit, and enthusiasm. I asked him why he did not immediately finish these tragedies, which appeared from the sketches he had given me, so admirably calculated to succeed. He replied, that under the present regime, he dared not write up to his own conceptions; and if he curbed his genius, he could do nothing; "Besides," added he mournfully, "I have no time; I am poor—poverissimo! I must work hard all to-day to supply the wants of to-morrow: I am always surveillé by the police, as a known liberal and literato." "Davvero," added he, gaily, "I would soon do, or say, or write something to attract the honour of their more particular notice, if I could be certain they would only imprison me for a couple of years, and ensure me during that time a blanket, bread and water, and the use of pen and ink: then I would write! I would write! dalla mattina alla sera; and thank my gaolers as my best friends: but pens are poignards, ink is poison in the eyes of the present government; imprisonment for life, or banishment, is the least I could expect. Now the mere idea of imprisonment for life would kill me in a week, and banishment!—Ah lungi dallá mia bella Patria, come cantare! come scrivere! come vivere! moriro io anzi nell' momento di partire!"
I drove to-day, tête-à-tête with Laura, to the Lago d'Agnano, about a mile and a half beyond Pausilippo. This lovely fair lake is not more than two miles in circuit; and embosomed in romantic woody hills: innumerable flocks of wild fowl were skimming over its surface, and gave life and motion to the beautiful but quiet landscape. While we were wandering here, enjoying the stillness and solitude, so delightfully contrasted with the unceasing noise, bustle, and crowd of the city, the charm was rudely broken by the appearance of the king; who, attended by a numerous party of his guards and huntsmen, had been wild boar shooting in the neighbouring woods. The waterfowl, scared by the report of fire arms, speedily disappeared, and the guards shouted to each other, and galloped round the smooth sloping banks; cutting up the turf with their horses' hoofs, and deforming the whole scene with uproar, confusion, and affright. Devoutly did I wish them all twenty miles off. The famous Grotto del Cane is on the south bank of the lake, a few yards from the edge of the water. We saw the torch, when held in the vapour, instantaneously extinguished. The ground all around the entrance of the grotto is hot to the touch; and when I plunged my hand into the deleterious gas, which rises about a foot, or a foot and a half, above the surface of the ground, it was so warm I was glad to withdraw it. The disagreeable old woman who showed us this place, brought with her a wretched dog with a rope round his neck, bleared eyes, thin ribs, and altogether of a most pitiful aspect. She was most anxious to exhibit the common but cruel experiment of suspended animation, by holding his head over the mephitic vapour, insisting that he was accustomed to it, and even liked it; of course, we would not suffer it. The poor animal made no resistance; only drooped his head, and put his tail between his legs, when his tyrant attempted to seize him.
Though now so soft, so lovely, and so tranquil, the Lago d'Agnano owes its existence to some terrible convulsion of the elements. The basin is the crater of a sunken volcano, which, bursting forth here, swallowed up a whole city. And the whole region round, bears evident marks of its volcanic origin.