and its main beauty therefore lost. It is useless to speak of the beauty of Egyptian architecture and sculpture to those who, not going to Egypt, can form no conception of its main condition;its appropriateness. I need not add that I think it worse than useless to adopt Egyptian forms and decorations in countries where there is no Nile and no Desert, and where decorations are not, as in Egypt, fraught with meaning-pictured language—messages to the gazer. But I must speak more of this hereafter. Suffice it now that in the hills, angular at their summits, with angular mounds at their bases, and angular caves in their strata, we could not but at once see the originals of temples, pyramids, and tombs. Indeed, the pyramids look like an eternal fixing down of the shifting sand-hills, which are here the main features of the Desert. If we consider further what facility the Desert has afforded for scientific observation-how it was the field for the meteorological studies of the Egyptians, and how its permanent pyramidal forms served them, whether originally or by derivation, with instruments of measurement and calculation for astronomical purposes; we shall see that, one way or another, the Desert has been a great benefactor to the Egyptians of all time, however fairly regarded, in some senses, as an enemy. The sand may, as I said before, have a fair side to its character, if it has taken a leading part in determining the ideas, the feelings, the worship, the occupation, the habits, and the arts of the people of the Nile valley, for many thousand years. [JAMES FORSYTH, the author of "Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters during an Excursion in Italy," was born at Elgin in 1763. He was educated at Aberdeen, and subsequently became the head of a classical school near London. His passionate desire was to see Italy; and in 1802 and 1803 he accomplished his object, and acquired the materials for the volume which were constructed in a country which had no woods, and before the forests of northern Europe are discernible in the dim picture of ancient history. has given him a more enduring reputation than is won by many tourists. Upon the rupture between England and France, which followed the short peace, Mr Forsyth was seized at Turin, on his return home, and was detained in Italy and France till 1814, when the allied armies entered Paris. His health was broken by his long confinement under the brutal despotism of Napoleon, and he died in 1815.] When a Nobility is nowhere so pure as in a barbarous state. nation becomes polished, its nobles either corrupt their blood with plebeian mixture, as in England; or they disappear altogether, as in France. Now Naples, in spite of all her fiddlers, is still in a state of barbarian twilight, which resisted the late livid flash of philosophy; and the nobility of Naples remains incorrupt. Though often cut by adultery with footmen, and sometimes reduced to beg in the streets, still is it pure both in heraldry and opinion; for nothing here degrades it but mésalliance, commerce, or a hemp rope. The Neapolitan noblemen have seldom been fairly reported. In England, where rank is more circumscribed, nobility generally commands fortune or pride enough to protect it from common contempt. At Naples it is diffused so widely and multiplies so fast, that you find titles at every corner. Principi or de' principi, without a virtue or a ducat. Hence strangers, who find no access to noblemen of retired merit, must form on those of the coffeehouses their opinion of the whole order, and level it with the lowest lazaroni, till the two extremes of society meet in ignorance and vice. In fact, these children of the sun are too ardent to settle in mediocrity. Some noblemen rose lately into statesmen and orators in the short-lived republic; some fell gloriously; others have enriched literature or extended the bounds of science; a few speak with a purity foreign to this court; and not a few are models of urbanity. If you pass, however, from these into the mob of gentlemen, you will find men who glory in an exemption from mental improvement, and affect "all the honourable points of ignorance." In a promiscuous company, the most noted sharper or the lowest buffoon shall, three to one, be a nobleman. In the economy of the noblest houses there is something farcical. In general, their footmen, having only six ducats a month to subsist on, must, from sheer hunger, be thieves. A certain prince, who is probably not singular, allots to his own dinner one ducat a day. For this sum his people are bound to serve up a stated number of dishes, but then he is obliged to watch while eating; for, if he once turn round, half the service disappears. Yet such jugglers as these find their match in his Highness; for, whenever he means to smuggle the remains of his meal, he sends them all out on different errands at the same moment, and then crams his pockets for supper. Yet, when this man gives an entertainment, it is magnificence itself. On these rare occasions he acts like a prince, and his people behave like gentlemen for the day. He keeps a chaplain in his palace; but the poor priest must pay him for his lodging there. He keeps a numerous household; but his officers must play with him for their wages. In short, his whole establishment is a compound of splendour and meanness- -a palace of marble thatched with straw. sex. In this upper class, the ladies, if not superior in person, seem far more graceful than the men, and excel in all the arts of the Those of the middle rank go abroad in black silk mantles, which are fastened behind round the waist, pass over the head, and end in a deep black veil ; the very demureness of this costume is but a refinement in coquetry. If Naples be "a paradise inhabited by devils," I am sure it is by merry devils. Even the lowest class enjoy every blessing that can make the animal happy-a delicious climate, high spirits, a facility of satisfying every appetite, a conscience which gives no pain, a convenient ignorance of their duty, and a church which insures heaven to every ruffian that has faith. Here tatters are not misery, for the climate requires little covering; filth is not misery to them who are born to it; and a few fingerings of maccaroni can wind up the rattling machine for the day. They are, perhaps, the only people on earth that do not pretend to virtue. On their own stage they suffer the Neapolitan of the drama to be always a rogue. If detected in theft, a lazarone will ask you, with impudent surprise, how you could possibly expect a poor man to be an angel? Yet what are these wretches? Why, men whose persons might stand as models to a sculptor; whose gestures strike you with the commanding energy of a savage; whose language, gaping and broad as it is, when kindled by passion, bursts into oriental metaphor; whose ideas are cooped indeed within a narrow circle, but a circle in which they are invincible. If you attack them there, you are beaten. Their exertion of soul, their humour, their fancy, their quickness of argument, their address at flattery, their rapidity of utterance, their pantomime and grimace, none can resist but a lazarone himself. These gifts of nature are left to luxuriate unrepressed by educa tion, by any notions of honesty, or habits of labour. Hence their ingenuity is wasted in crooked little views. Intent on the piddling game of cheating only for their own day, they let the great chance lately go by, and left a few immortal patriots to stake their all for posterity, and to lose it. In that dreadful trial of men's natures, the lazaroni betrayed a pure love of blood, which they now disavow, and call in the Calabrians to divide the infamy. They reeled ferociously from party to party, from saint to saint, and were steady to nothing but mischief and the Church. These cannibals, feasting at their fires on human carnage, would kneel down and beat their breasts in the fervour of devotion, whenever the sacring bell went past to the sick; and some of Ruffo's cut-throats, would never mount their horses without crossing themselves and muttering a prayer. On a people so fiery and prompt, I would employ every terror human and divine against murder; yet nowhere is that crime more encouraged by impunity. A mattress-maker called lately at the house where I lodged, with a rueful face and a "Malora! malora !" "What is the matter?" said my landlord. "My son, my poor Gennarro, has had the misfortune to fall out with a neighbour, and is now in sanctuary." "What! has he murdered him ?" "Alas! we could not help it." "Wretch! were you an accessory too?" Nay, I only held the rascal's hands while poor boy despatched him." "And you call this a misfortune?” my "I would "It was the will of God: what would you have?" have you both hanged. Pray, how have you escaped the gallows?" "Alas! it has cost me two thousand hard-earned ducats to accommodate this foolish affair." "And so the relations of the dead have compounded?" "No, hang them! the cruel monsters insisted on bringing us both to justice. You must know, one of the fellow's compari' is a turner, who teaches the prince royal his trade. This vile informer denounced me to his pupil, his pupil to the king, and the king ordered immediate search to be made for me! but the police paid more respect to my ducats than to his majesty's commands. We have now pacified all concerned, except a brother of the deceased, a malicious wretch, who will listen to no terms." "He does perfectly right." "Not if he consult his own safety. My Gennarro, I can assure you, is a lad of spirit." "Miscreant! would you murder the brother too?" "If it be the will of God, it must be done. I am sure we wish to live peaceably with our fellow-citizens; but if they are unreasonable, if they will keep honest people away from their families and callings, they must even take the consequences, and submit to God's holy will." My landlord, on repeating this dialogue to me, added, that the mattress-maker is much respected in Naples, as an upright, religious, warm-hearted man, who would cheerfully divide his last ducat with a friend. A Farewell to Tobacco. MAY the Babylonish curse Or a language to my mind, CHARLES LAMB, hate: Or in any terms relate |