CHAPTER VI. Oh! felice chi mai non pose il piede, "In the month of July," said Lord Mowbray, "the great heats render a residence at Naples insufferable; and the noise of the streets throughout the night as well as day makes it a perfect Pandemonium. The vaunted clearness of the sky no longer exists. The Bruma di Mare—” "That again in English, if you please, my Lord, means-?" "The mists that lie on the sea, which are often so dense that they conceal Vesuvius from its base to its summit; and Capri, that beautiful island, at the entrance of the bay, which seems to stand forth as a champion to the unrivalled charms of the parent city, is totally obscured." "And this," interrupted Mr. Altamont again, who was delighted to find something to abuse in all of foreign kind, "is your vaunted blue heaven. I am happy to hear it with all my heart." "This is the case during a short period, or may occur at intervals; but when it does, one goes to Castella Mare, to Sorrento, to Ischia; all of them retreats, which offer a paradise to the enchanted senses. On quitting Naples, it will be two years next month, I chose the first mentioned of these places. Lying under a brow of the Sorrento coast, it is shaded from the sun, and affords in its mountain paths every luxurious and beautiful situation which the eye can wish for, or the mind desire to contemplate. There is too in its climate a refreshing coolness, which is unlike all the damp airs, so called in this country; and, after the suffocation and glare of the capital, proves indescribably delightful. It was with great satisfaction that I found very few of my countrymen settled at this spot." "Your Lordship surely mistakes; for satisfaction read affliction :-but no-very true; I stand corrected. It is only the worst portion of the English community who reside abroad; the present company always excepted." Lord Mowbray smiled and resumed his narrative:"A few regular sight-hunters, who were too busily engaged doing nothing, as all people are who follow that sport, did not impede my comfort much; once or twice they invited me to join their coteries and be sociable,' as they termed it but, as I excused myself somewhat peremptorily, in order to avoid a repetition of giving offence, they voted me, according to the phraseology of one of the young ladies, a philanthropist, that is, I presume, a misanthropist ; and I was left at liberty to follow my own devices as I willed. I was known by the name of the strange Englishman. My voluntary seclusion made my time completely my own. For my favourite pursuit, sketching, I had ample leisure and ample subject. I found every thing adapted to picture, seldom any thing to reject or change, as though Nature had combined her elements in this enchanted region for the very express purpose of the painter. No overwhelming feature of greatness usurped undue space or interest in the scene; but a harmony of scale reigned in all the parts. An outline undulated through all the forms, such as the classic Poussin must have delighted to trace; and how often have I recognised the groundwork of his finest subjects on this spot, while a colour, such as the pencil of Claude alone has reached, would be spread over the whole, and leave the senses to repose in unmixed delight and ecstasy upon the glories of the Italian world! Yet do not the glories that I speak of pall upon the sense by their luxuriance, any more than they strike upon it at first by the wonderment they create. Wonder is not the homage which we pay to the most refined and perfect objects; neither is it the sensation most grateful to our own breasts; but the consciousness of an increasing and ever renovated charm, which grows by what it feeds on,' that is the test of true superiority in the object we contemplate." "I should like to see Italy," said Mr. Altamont involuntarily; "let us go." Lord Mowbray smiled, and shook his head "Go, and feel Italy, and then you will never be happy out of it.” "Not for the world, then, would I go; if I am to believe you. No, no! I will not stir on any account; there is nothing like England!" "When I had pretty well exhausted Castella Mare, (the expression is a wrong one,) I mean to say, when I wished to explore fresh beauties, I gave my people orders to arrange my baggage; for I never learnt to do without it, though there is always more than is necessary, and always more plague than pleasure in it, and desired them to go by sea to Sorrento, I myself purposing to take the mountain path, across a chain of hills that skirts the coast, and with a couple of half-naked Lazzaroni, who are to be caught at all hours for a few paolis" "That, again, done into English,' I conclude means ragamuffins. You'll excuse me, but I don't like larding the English tongue with useless foreign phrases." Well, a couple of these ragamuffins, if you choose them to be so called, were found as readily as you may catch a pony in the highlands of Scotland with a handful of oats, to accom |