The first view of Provence was something entirely new, and the escape was hailed from the flat fields and the long poplar avenues of Central France. Everything, even the most squalid villages, seemed to fall into a picture. It was something like a sun that burst upon the rocks. The olive trees laden with purple fruit were a delight after the apples and pears, and the contrast between the brown rock and the blue Mediterranean, was quite a new sensation. At Marseilles we embarked for Leghorn, which was then, in Italy, very much what Lyons was in France. It was the head-quarters of brigands. Indeed it was reported that a society existed, whose members were pledged to stab their fellow-creatures, whenever they could do it safely. And it was brought to light by the remorse of a son, who had killed his father by mistake. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, with his weak benevolence, was averse to shedding blood, and the worst that these wretches expected was to be dressed in the red or the yellow of the Galeotti, and to sweep the streets and to bully the passenger for bakshish. Another unpleasant development was the quantity of vermin,—even the washerwoman's head appeared to be walking off her shoulders. Still there was a touch of Italian art about the place, in the days before politics and polemics had made Italian art, with the sole exception of sculpture, the basest thing on the Continent: the rooms were large, high, and airy, the frescoes on the ceiling were good, and the pictures had not been sold to Englishmen, and replaced by badly coloured daubs, and cheap prints of the illustrated paper type.

The Italians had their own amusements. The principal one was the opera, a perfect den of impurity, where you were choked by the effluvia of pastrane or the brigands' cloaks, which descended from grandfather to grandson. The singing, instrumentation, and acting were equally vile, but the Pisani had not the critical ferocity of the Livornesi, who were used to visit the smallest defect with "Torni in iscena, bestia!" The other form of amusement was the conversazione. Here you entered about six o'clock, and found an enormous room, with a dwarf sofa and an avenue of two lines of chairs projecting from it perpendicularly. You were expected to walk through the latter, which were occupied by the young women, to the former, upon which sat the dowagers, and after the three saluts d'usage and the compliments of the season, you backed out by the way you came in, and then passed the evening leaning over the back of the chair of the fair dame whose cavaliere servente you were supposed to be. Refreshments were an occasional glass of cold water; in luxurious houses there were water ices and sugared wafers. They complain that we English are not happy in society without eating, and I confess that I prefer a good beefsteak to cold water and water ices.

There was no bad feeling between the Italians and English; they simply ignored one another. Nothing could be shadier than the English colony at Pisa. As they had left England, the farther they were the more wretched they became, till they reached the climax at Naples. They had no club, as at Tours, and they met to read their Gagliani at a grocer's shop on the Lung' Arno. They had their parson and doctor and their tea-caddies, but the inhospitable nature of the country—and certainly Italy is the least given to the savage virtue—seemed to have affected the strangers. Equally unknown were the dinner-parties of Tours and the hops of Blois. No one shot and no one fished. A madman used to plunge through the ice on the Lung' Arno in midwinter, but most of them contented themselves with promenading the Quai and basking in its wintry sun till they returned to their stuffy rooms. A good many of them were half-pay officers. Others were Jamaican planters, men who had made their fortunes in trade; the rest were nondescripts whom nobody knew. At times some frightful scandal broke out in consequence of some gentleman who had left his country for his country's good.

The discomforts of Pisa were considerable. The only fireplace in those days was a kind of brazier, put in the middle of the room. The servants were perfect savages, who had to be taught the very elements of service, and often at the end of the third day a great burly peasant would take leave, saying, "Non mi basta l'anima!" My father started a fearful equipage in the shape of a four-wheeled trap, buying for the same a hammer-headed brute of a horse which at once obtained the name of "Dobbin." Dobbin was a perfect demon steed, and caused incalculable misery, as every person was supposed to steal his oats. One of us boys was sent down to superintend his breakfast, dinner, and supper. On journeys it was the same, and we would have been delighted to see Dobbin hanged, drawn, and quartered. We tried riding him in private, but the brute used to plant his forelegs and kick up and down like a rocking-horse. The trap was another subject of intense misery. The wheels were always supposed to be wanting greasing, and as the natives would steal the grease, it was necessary that one of us should always superintend the greasing. There is no greater mistake than that of trying to make boys useful by making them do servant's work.

The work of education went on nimbly, if not merrily. To former masters was added an Italian master, who was at once dubbed "Signor No," on account of the energy of his negation. The French master unfortunately discovered that his three pupils had poetic talents; the consequence was that we were set to write versical descriptions, which we hated worse than Telemachus and the Spectator.

And a new horror appeared in the shape of a violin master. Edward took kindly to the infliction, worked very hard, and became an amateur almost equal to a professional; was offered fair pay as member of an orchestra in Italy, and kept it up after going into the Army, till the calls of the Mess made it such a nuisance that he gave it up; but took to it again later in life con amore. I always hated my fiddle, and after six months it got me into a terrible scrape, and brought the study to an untimely end. Our professor was a thing like Paganini, length without breadth, nerves without flesh, hung on wires, all hair and no brain, except for fiddling. The creature, tortured to madness by a number of false notes, presently addressed his pupil in his grandiloquent Tuscan manner, "Gli altri scolari sono bestie, ma voi siete un Arci-bestia." The "Arci" offended me horribly, and, in a fury of rage, I broke my violin upon my master's head; and then my father made the discovery that his eldest son had no talent for music, and I was not allowed to learn any more.

Amongst the English at Pisa we met with some Irish cousins, whose names had been Conyngham, but they had, for a fortune, very sensibly added "Jones" to it, and who, very foolishly, were ashamed of it ever after. There was a boy, whose face looked as if badly cut out of a half-boiled potato, dotted with freckles so as to resemble a goose's egg. There was a very pretty girl, who afterwards became Mrs. Seaton. The mother was an exceedingly handsome woman of the Spanish type, and it was grand to see her administering correction to "bouldness." They seemed principally to travel in Italy for the purpose of wearing out old clothes, and afterwards delighted in telling how many churches and palaces they had "done" in Rome per diem. The cute Yankee always travels, when he is quite unknown, in his best bib and tucker, reserving his old clothes for his friends who appreciate him. Altogether the C.J.'s were as fair specimens of Northern barbarians invading the South, as have been seen since the days of Brennus.

The summer of '32 was passed at Siena, where a large rambling old house was found inside the walls. The venerable town, whose hospitality was confined to an inscription over the city gate, was perhaps one of the dullest places under heaven. No country in the world shows less hospitality—even Italians amongst themselves—than Italy, and in the case of strangers they have perhaps many reasons to justify their churlishness.

Almost all the English at Siena were fugitives from justice, social or criminal. One man walked off with his friend's wife, another with his purse. There was only one old English lady in the place who was honourable, and that was a Mrs. Russell, who afterwards killed herself with mineral waters. She lived in a pretty little quinta outside the town, where moonlight nights were delightful, and where the nightingales were louder than usual. Beyond this amusement we had little to do, except at times to peep at the gate of Palone, to study very hard, and to hide from the world our suits of nankin. The weary summer drew to a close. The long-surviving chariot was brought out, and then Dobbin, with the "cruelty van," was made ready for the march.

It was now resolved to pass the Holy Week at Rome, and the only events of the journey, which went on as usual, were the breaking down of Dobbin's "cruelty van" in a village near Perugia, where the tutor and boys were left behind to look after repairs. We long remembered the peculiar evening which we passed there. The head ostler had informed us that there was an opera, and that he was the primo violino. We went to the big barn, that formed the theatre. A kind of "Passion play" was being performed, with lengthy intervals of music, and all the mysteries of the faith were submitted to the eyes of the faithful. The only disenchanting detail was, that a dove not being procurable, its place was supplied by a turkey-cock, and the awful gabbling of the ill-behaved volatile caused much more merriment than was decorous.

We, who had already examined Voltaire with great interest, were delighted with the old Etruscan city of Perugia, and were allowed a couple of hours' "leave" to visit Pietro di Aretino's tomb, and we loitered by the Lake Thrasimene.

Still Florence was always Florence. The climate, when it was fine, was magnificent. The views were grand, and the most charming excursions lay within a few hours' walk or drive. The English were well treated, perhaps too well, by the local Government, and the opportunities of studying Art were first-rate. Those wonderful Loggie and the Pitti Palace contained more high Art than is to be found in all London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna put together, and we soon managed to become walking catalogues. A heavy storm, however, presently broke the serenity of the domestic atmosphere at Siena.

After a slow but most interesting drive we reached the Eternal City, and, like all the world, were immensely impressed by the entrance at the Porto del Popolo. The family secured apartments in the Piazza di Spagna, which was then, as it is now, the capital of English Rome. Everything in it was English, the librarian, the grocer, and all the other little shops, and mighty little it has changed during the third of a century. In 1873, when my wife and I stayed there, the only points of difference observed were the presence of Americans and the large gilded advertisements of the photographers. The sleepy atmosphere was the same, and the same was the drowsy old fountain.

At Rome sight-seeing was carried on with peculiar ardour. With "Mrs. Starke" under the arm, for "Murray" and "Baedeker" were not invented in those days, we young ones went from Vatican to the Capitol, from church to palazzo, from ruin to ruin. We managed to get introductions to the best studios, and made acquaintance with all the shops which contained the best collections of coins, of cameos, of model temples, in rosso-antico, and giallo-antico, and of all the treasures of Roman Art, ancient and modern. We passed our days in running about the town, and whenever we found an opportunity, we made excursions into the country, even ascending Mount Soracte. In those days Rome was not what it is now. It was the ghost of the Imperial City, the mere shadow of the Mistress of the world. The great Forum was a level expanse of ground, out of which the half-buried ruins rose. The Coliseum had not changed for a century. The Palatine hill had never dreamt of excavation. The greater part of the space within the old walls, that represents the ancient City, was a waste, what would in Africa be called bush, and it was believed that turning up the ground caused fatal fevers. It had no pretensions to be a Capital. It wanted fortifications; the walls could be breached with six-pounders. The Tiber was not regulated, and periodically flooded the lower town. The Ghetto was a disgrace. Nothing could be fouler than the Trastevere: and the Leonine City, with the exception of St. Peter's and the Vatican, was a piggery.

At Rome there was then very little society. People met when doing the curiosities, and the principal amusements were conversaziones, when the only conspicuous object was some old Cardinal sitting in red, enthroned upon a sofa. Good old Gregory XVI. did not dislike foreigners, and was even intimate with a certain number of heretics, but that could not disperse the sleepy atmosphere of the place, whilst the classes of society were what the satirical French duchesse called, 'une noblesse de Sacrament'—and yet it was the season of the year. Then, as now, the wandering world pressed to Rome to see ceremonies of the Holy Week, to hear the music of the Sistine Chapel, to assist at the annual conversion of a Jew at St. John of Lateran, to walk gaping about at the interior of St. Peter's, and to enjoy the magnificent illuminations, which were spoiled by a high wind, and a flood of rain. Nothing could be more curious than the contrast between the sons of the Holy City and the barbarians from the North, and the far West, when the Pope stood in the balcony delivering his benediction urbi et orbi; the English and Irish Catholics seemed to be overwhelmed with awe whilst the Romans delivered themselves of small jokes, very audible withal, upon the mien and the demeanor of the Vecchierello. Inside the great cathedral the crowd used to be of the most pushing kind, and young priests attempted to scale one's shoulders. Protestant ladies consumed furtive sandwiches, and here and there an aged sightseer was thrown down and severely trampled upon. In fact, there was a perfect opposition between the occasion of the ceremony and the way it was carried out.

It was necessary to leave Rome in time to reach Naples before the hot season began, and return to summer quarters. In those days the crossing of the Pontine Marshes was considered not a little dangerous. Heavy breakfasts were eaten to avoid the possible effect of malaria upon an empty stomach, and the condemned pistols were ostentatiously loaded to terrify the banditti, who were mostly the servants and hangers-on of the foul little inns.

At Terracina we found an Englishman temporarily under arrest. This was Mr. St. John, who had just shot in a duel Count Controfiani. The history of the latter was not a little curious. He was a red-haired Neapolitan, extremely plain in appearance, and awkward in manner, but touchy and sensitive in the extreme. His friends and his acquaintances chose to make a butt of him, little fancying how things were going to end. One day he took leave of them all, saying that he was going to travel for some years. He disguised himself with a wig, and hid in the suburbs, practising pistol-shooting, foil, and broadsword. When satisfied with his own progress, he reappeared suddenly in society, and was received with a shout of ironical welcome, "Ecco il nostro bel Controfiani." He slapped the face of the ringleader, and in the duel which followed cut him almost to pieces. After two or three affairs of the kind, his reputation was thoroughly made, even in a City where duelling was so common as Naples. At last, by some mischance, he met St. John at Rome, and the two became intimate. They used to practise pistol-shooting together, and popular report declares that both concealed their game. At last a quarrel arose about some young person, and Controfiani was compelled to fight at the pleasure of a member of the Royal family of Naples, of whose suite he was. The duel was to be à la barrière, first shot at twenty-five paces, and leave to advance twelve, after standing the fire. The delay was so great that the seconds began to show signs of impatience, when St. John levelled his pistol, and hit his adversary in the flank, above the hip. Controfiani had the courage to plug his wound with the forefinger of his left hand, and had the folly to attempt advancing, mortally wounded as he was. The movement shook him, his hand was unsteady; his bullet whizzed past St. John's head, and he was dead a few hours later.

The family halted a short while at Capua, then a quiet little country town, equally thoughtless of the honours of the past, or the fierce scenes that waited it in the future; many years afterwards my friend Blakeley of the Guns, and I, offered the Government of King Francis, to go out to rifle the cannon, which was to defend them against Garibaldi and his banditti. Unfortunately the offer came too late, It would have been curious had a couple of Englishmen managed, by shooting Garibaldi, to baffle the plans which Lord Pam. had laid with so much astuteness and perseverance.

At Naples a house was found upon the Chiaja, and after trying it for a fortnight, and finding it perfectly satisfactory and agreeing to take it for the next season, the family went over to Sorrento. This, in those days, was one of the most pleasant villegiature in Italy. The three little villages that studded the long tongue of rock and fertile soil, were separated from one another by long tracts of orchard and olive ground, instead of being huddled together, as they are now. They preserved all their rural simplicity, baited buffalo-calves in the main squares, and had songs and sayings in order to enrage one another. The villas scattered about the villages were large rambling old shells of houses, and Aunt G. could not open her eyes sufficiently wide when she saw what an Italian villa really was. The bathing was delightful; break-neck paths led down the rocks to little sheltered bays with the yellowest of sands, and the bluest of waters, and old smugglers' caves, which gave the coolest shelter after long dips in the tepid seas. There was an immense variety of excursion. At the root of the tongue arose the Mountain of St. Angelo, where the snow harvest, lasting during summer, was one perpetual merry-making. There were boating trips to Ischia, to Procida, to romantic Capri, with its blue grotto and purple figs, to decayed Salerno, the splendid ruin, and to the temples of Pæstum, more splendid still. The shooting was excellent during the quail season; tall poles and immense nets formed a chevaux de frise on the hilltops, but the boys went to windwards, and shot the birds before they were trapped in the nets, in the usual ignoble way. In fact, nothing could be more pleasant than Sorrento in its old and uncivilized days. Amongst the amusements at Sorrento, we indulged ourselves with creeping over the Natural Arch, simply because the Italians said, "Ma non è possibile, Signorini." It was a dangerous proceeding, as the crumbling stone was ready at every moment to give way.

There was naturally little variety in amusements. The few English families lived in scattered villas. Old Mrs. Starke, Queen of Sorrento, as she loved to be called, and the authoress of the guide book, was the local "lion," and she was sketched and caricatured in every possible way in her old Meg Merrilies' cloak. Game to the last, she died on the road travelling. An Englishman, named Sparkes, threw himself into one of the jagged volcanic ravines that seam the tongue of Sorrento; but there is hardly a place in Italy, high or low, where some Englishman has not suicided himself. A painter, a Mr. Inskip, brought over an introduction, and was very tipsy before dinner was half over. The Marsala wine supplied by Iggulden & Co. would have floored Polyphemus. The want of excitement out of doors, produced a correspondent increase of it inside. We were getting too old to be manageable, and Mr. Du Pré taking high grounds on one occasion, very nearly received a good thrashing. My father being a man of active mind, and having nothing in the world to do, began to be unpleasantly chemical; he bought Parke's "Catechism;" filled the house with abominations of all kinds, made a hideous substance that he called soap, and prepared a quantity of filth that he called citric acid, for which he spoiled thousands of lemons. When his fit passed over it was succeeded by one of chess, and the whole family were bitten by it. Every spare hour, especially in the evening, was given to check and checkmating, and I soon learned to play one, and then two games, with my eyes blindfolded. I had the sense, however, to give it up completely, for my days were full of Philidor, and my dreams were of gambits all night.

The dull life was interrupted by a visit from Aunt G. She brought with her a Miss Morgan, who had been governess to the three sisters, and still remained their friend. She was a woman of good family in Cornwall, but was compelled, through loss of fortune, to take service.

Miss Morgan was very proud of her nephew, the Rev. Morgan Cowie, who was senior Wrangler at Cambridge. He had had the advantage of studying mathematics in Belgium, where in those days the entering examination of a College was almost as severe as the passing examination of an English College. She was also very well read, and she did not a little good in the house. She was the only one who ever spoke to us children as if we were reasonable beings, instead of scolding and threatening with the usual parental brutality of those days. That unwise saying of the wise man, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," has probably done more harm to the junior world than any other axiom of the same size, and it is only of late years that people have begun to "spoil the rod and spare the child." So Miss Morgan could do with the juniors what all the rest of the house completely failed in doing. The only thing that was puzzling about her was, that she could not play at Chess. Aunt G. waxed warm in defence of her friend, and assured the scoffers that "Morgan, with her fine mind, would easily learn to beat the whole party." "Fine mind!" said the scoffers. "Why, we would give her a Queen."

Naples after Sorrento was a Paris. In those days it was an exceedingly pleasant City, famous as it always has been for some of the best cooks in Italy. The houses were good, and the servants and the provisions were moderate. The Court was exceedingly gay, and my father found a cousin there, old Colonel Burke, who was so intimate with the King, known as "Old Bomba," as to be admitted to his bedroom. There was also another Irish cousin, a certain Mrs. Phayre, who for many years had acted duenna to the Miss Smiths (Penelope and Gertrude). Penelope had always distinguished herself in Paris by mounting wild horses in the Bois de Boulogne, which ran away with her, and shook her magnificent hair loose. She became a favourite at the Court of Naples, and amused the dull royalties with her wild Irish tricks. It is said that, on one occasion, she came up with a lift instead of the expected vol au vent, or pudding. She ended by marrying the Prince of Capua, greatly to the delight of the King, who found an opportunity of getting rid of his brother, and put an end to certain scandals. It was said that the amiable young Prince once shot an old man, whom he found gathering sticks in his grounds, and on another occasion that he was soundly thrashed by a party of English grooms, whom he had insulted in his cups. The happy pair had just run away and concluded the "triple alliance," as it was called (this is a marriage in three different ways, in order to make sure of it; Protestant, Catholic, and Civil), when our family settled in Naples, and they found Mrs. Phayre and Gertrude Smith, the other sister, in uncomfortable State, banished by the Court, and harassed by the police. All their letters had been stopped at the post-office, and they had had no news from home for months. My father saw them carefully off to England, where Gertrude, who had a very plain face and a very handsome figure, presently married the rich old Lord Dinorben. Poor Miss Morgan also suffered considerably at Naples from the stoppage of all her letters; she being supposed at least to be a sister of Lady Morgan, the "wild Irish girl," whose writings at that time had considerably offended the Italian Court.

Naples was perhaps the least strict of all the Italian cities, and consequently it contained a colony, presided over by the Hon. Mrs. Temple, Lady Eleanor Butler, Lady Strachan, and Berkeley Craven, who would somewhat have startled the proprieties of another place. The good-natured Minister was the Hon. Mr. Temple, Lord Palmerston's brother, who cared nothing for a man's catechism provided he kept decently clear of scandal. The Secretary of Legation was a Mr. Kennedy, who married a Miss Briggs, and died early. These were great friends of the family. On the other hand, the Consul, Captain Galway, R.N., was anything but pleasant. He was in a perpetual state of rile because his Consular service prevented his being received at Court; moreover, he heard (possibly correctly) that Mrs. Phayre and her two protégées were trying to put Colonel Burton in his place. He was also much troubled by his family, and one of them (the parson) especially troubled him. This gentleman having neglected to provide for a young Galway whose mamma he had neglected to marry, the maternal parent took a position outside the church, and as the congregation streamed out, cried in a loud voice, pointing to the curate, "Him the father of my child." Another element of confusion at Naples was poor Charley Savile, Lord Mexborough's son, who had quarrelled himself out of the Persian Legation. He was a good hand with his sword, always ready to fight, and equally ready to write. He always denied that he had written and sent about some verses which all Naples attributed to him, and they were certainly most scandalous. Of one lady he wrote—

"Society courts her, wicked old sinner,
Yet what won't man do for the sake of a dinner?"

Of another he wrote—

"You look so demure, ma'am,
So pious, so calm,
Always chanting a hymn,
Or singing a psalm.
Yet your thoughts are on virtue and heav'n no more
Than the man in the moon—you dreadful young bore."

This pasquinade led to some half-dozen challenges and duels. It was severe, but not worse than society deserved. Naples has never been strict; and about the forties it was, perhaps, the most dissolute City on the Continent. The natives were bad, but the English visitors were worse. In fact, in some cases their morals were unspeakable.

There was a charming family of the name of Oldham. The father, when an English officer serving in Sicily, had married one of the beauties of the island, a woman of high family and graceful as a Spaniard. The children followed suit. The girls were beautiful, and the two sons were upwards of six feet in height, and were as handsome men as could well be seen. They both entered the army. One, in the 2nd Queen's, was tortured to death by the Kaffirs when his cowardly soldiers ran away, and left him wounded. The other, after serving in the 86th in India, was killed in the light cavalry charge of Balakalava. The families became great friends, and I met them both in India.

Naples was a great place for excursions. To the north you had Ischia and the Solfatara, a miniature bit of Vulcanism somewhat like the Geyser ground in Iceland, where ignoramuses thought themselves in the midst of untold volcanic grandeur. Nothing could be more snobbish than the visit to the Grotto del Cane, where a wretched dog was kept for the purpose of being suffocated half a dozen times a day. There I was determined to act dog, and was pulled up only in time to prevent being thoroughly asphyxiated. The Baths of Nero are about equal to an average Turkish Hammám, but nothing more. To the south the excursions were far more interesting.

Beyond Herculaneum, dark and dingy, lay Pompeii, in those days very different from the tame Crystal Palace affair that it is now. You engaged a cicerone as best you could; you had nothing to pay because there were no gates; you picked up what you liked, in shapes of bits of mosaic, and, if you were a swell, a house or a street was opened up in your honour. And overlaying Pompeii stood Vesuvius, which was considered prime fun. The walking up the ash cone amongst a lot of seniors, old men dragged up by lazzaroni, and old women carried up in baskets upon lazzaroni's backs, was funny enough, but the descent was glorious. What took you twenty minutes to go up took four minutes to go down. Imagine a dustbin magnified to ten thousand, and tilted up at an angle of thirty-five degrees; in the descent you plunged with the legs to the knees, you could not manage to fall unless you hit a stone, and, arrived at the bottom, you could only feel incredulous that it was possible to run at such a rate. We caused no end of trouble, and I was found privily attempting to climb down the crater, because I had heard that an Englishman had been let down in a basket. Many of these ascents were made; on one occasion during an eruption, when the lava flowed down to the sea, and the Neapolitans with long pincers were snatching pieces out of it to stamp and sell, we boys, to the horror of all around, jumped on the top of the blackening fire stream, burnt our boots, and vilely abused all those who would not join us.

At Naples more was added to the work of education. Caraccioli, the celebrated marine painter, was engaged to teach oil-painting; but he was a funny fellow, and the hours which should have been spent in exhausting palettes passed in pencil-caricaturing of every possible friend and acquaintance. The celebrated Cavalli was the fencing-master; and in those days the Neapolitan school, which has now almost died out, was in its last bloom. It was a thoroughly business-like affair, and rejected all the elegances of the French school; and whenever there was a duel between a Neapolitan and a Frenchman, the former was sure to win. We boys worked at it heart and soul, and generally managed to give four hours a day to it. I determined, even at that time, to produce a combination between the Neapolitan and the French school, so as to supplement the defects of the one by the merits of the other. A life of very hard work did not allow me any leisure to carry out my plan; but the man of perseverance stores up his resolve, and waits for any number of years till he sees the time to carry it out. The plan was made in 1836, and was completed in 1880 (forty-four years).[1]

My father spared no pains or expense in educating his children. He had entered the army at a very early age. Volunteers were called for in Ireland, and those who brought a certain number into the field received commissions gratis. The old Grandmamma Burton's tenants' sons volunteered by the dozen. They formed a very fair company, and accompanied the young master to the wars; and when the young master got his commission, they all, with the exception of one or two, levanted, bolted, and deserted. Thus my father found himself an officer at the age of seventeen, when he ought to have been at school; and recognizing the deficiencies of his own education, he was determined that his children should complain of nothing of the kind. He was equally determined they none of them should enter the army; the consequence being that both the sons became soldiers, and the only daughter married a soldier. Some evil spirit, probably Mr. Du Pré, whispered that the best plan for the boys would be to send them to Oxford, in order that they might rise by literature, an idea which they both thoroughly detested. However, in order to crush their pride, they were told that they should enter "Oxford College as sizars, poor gentlemen who are supported by the alms of the others." Our feelings may be imagined. We determined to enlist, or go before the mast, or to turn Turks, banditti, or pirates, rather than undergo such an indignity.

Parthenope was very beautiful; but so true is English blood, that the most remarkable part of it was "Pickwick," who happened to make his way there at the time of the sojourn of our family. We read with delight the description of the English home. We passed our nights, as well as our days, devouring the book, and even "Ettore Fieramosca" and the other triumphs of Massimo d'Azelio were mere outsiders compared with it; but how different the effect of the two books—"Pickwick," the good-humoured caricature of a boy full of liquor and good spirits, and the "Disfida di Barletta," one of the foundation-stones of Italian independence.

At last the house on the Chiaja was given up, and the family took a house inside the City for a short time. The father was getting tired and thinking of starting northwards. The change was afflicting. The loss of the view of the Bay was a misfortune. The only amusement was prospecting the streets, where the most extraordinary scenes took place. It was impossible to forget a beastly Englishman, as he stood eating a squirting orange surrounded by a string of gutter-boys. The dexterity of the pickpockets, too, gave scenes as amusing as a theatre. It was related of one of the Coryphæi that he had betted with a friend that he would take the pocket-handkerchief of an Englishman, who had also betted that no man born in Naples could pick his pocket. A pal walked up to the man as he was promenading the streets, flower in button-hole, solemnly spat on his cravat, and ran away. The principal, with thorough Italian politeness, walked up to the outraged foreigner, drew his pocket-handkerchief and proceeded to remove the stain, exhorted the outraged one to keep the fugitive in sight, and in far less time than it takes to tell, transferred the handkerchief to his own pocket, and set out in pursuit of the barbaro.

My brother and I had seen too much of cholera to be afraid of it. We had passed through it in France, it had followed us to Siena and Rome, and at Naples it only excited our curiosity. We persuaded the Italian man-servant to assist us in a grand escapade. He had procured us the necessary dress, and when the dead-carts passed round in the dead of the night, we went the rounds with them as some of the croquemorts. The visits to the pauper houses, where the silence lay in the rooms, were anything but pleasant, and still less the final disposal of the bodies. Outside Naples was a large plain, pierced with pits, like the silos or underground granaries of Algeria and North Africa. They were lined with stone, and the mouths were covered with one big slab, just large enough to allow a corpse to pass. Into these flesh-pots[2] were thrown the unfortunate bodies of the poor, after being stripped of the rags which acted as their winding-sheets. Black and rigid, they were thrown down the apertures like so much rubbish, into the festering heap below, and the decay caused a kind of lambent blue flame about the sides of the pit, which lit up a mass of human corruption, worthy to be described by Dante.

Our escapades, which were frequent, were wild for strictly brought up Protestant English boys—they would be nothing now, when boys do so much worse—but there were others that were less excusable. Behind the Chiaja dwelt a multitude of syrens, who were naturally looked upon as the most beautiful of their sex. One lady in particular responded to the various telegraphic signs made to her from the flat terrace of the house, and we boys determined to pay her a visit. Arming ourselves with carving-knives, which we stuffed behind our girdles, we made our way jauntily into the house, introduced ourselves, and being abundant in pocket-money, offered to stand treat, as the phrase is, for the whole neighbourhood. The orgie was tremendous, and we were only too lucky to get home unhurt, before morning, when the Italian servant let us in. The result was a correspondence, consisting in equal parts of pure love on our side and extreme debauchery on the syrens'. These letters, unfortunately, were found by our mother during one of her Sunday visitations to our chambers. A tremendous commotion was the result. Our father and his dog, Mr. Du Pré, proceeded to condign punishment with the horsewhip; but we climbed up to the tops of the chimneys, where the seniors could not follow us, and refused to come down till the crime was condoned.

This little business disgusted our father of Naples, and he resolved to repair to a pure moral air. Naples is a very different place now; so is all the Italy frequented by travellers, and spoiled by railways and officialdom.

In 1881 a distinguished officer, and a gentleman allied to Royalty, wrote as follows: "You threw some doubts on the efficiency of the Italian posts, and I believe you; I don't think I was ever so glad to get home. At Malta it looks so clean after the filth of Naples. I think Italy, the Italians, their manners, customs, and institutions, more damnable every time I see them, and feel sure you will meet with less annoyance during your travels on the Gold Coast, than I met with coming through Italy. Trains crowded, unpunctual; starvation, filth, incivility, and extortion at every step; and, were it not that there are so many works of art and of interest to see, I doubt if any one would care to visit the country a second time."

(Here is an account of a purchase made to transfer home.) "A small table was packed in a little case, and firmly nailed down. At the station they refused to let it go in the luggage van, unless it were corded, lest it might be opened en route. The officials offered to cord it for bakshish, which was paid, but the cord not put on. They cut open my leather bag, and tried to open my portmanteau, but when I called this fact to the notice of the station-master at Rome, he simply turned on his heel and declined to answer. At Naples they opened the little case, because furniture was subject to octroi; and, on leaving, the case was again inspected, lest it might contain a picture (they were not allowed to leave the country)." It is no longer the classical Italy of Landor, nor the romantic Italy of Leigh Hunt, nor the ideal Italy of the Brownings, nor the spiritualized Italy of George Eliot, nor the everyday Italy of Charles Lever. They thought they were going to be everything when they changed Masters, but they have only succeeded in making it a noisy, vulgar, quarrelsome and contentious, arrogant, money-grasping Italy, and the sooner it receives a sound drubbing from France or Austria the better for it. It will then reform itself.