When in 1783, the coasts of Calabria were desolated by a most extensive earthquake, and thousands of families reduced to absolute misery; while the court, the nobility and the clergy at Naples, exerted themselves with becoming zeal to alleviate their distress, and supply them with clothes, provisions, and other articles of absolute necessity; the Lazzaroni gave all they could command their daily labor, and volunteered their services in collecting, transporting and accelerating the conveyance of the different stores to the place of their destination. The truth is, if we may believe some Neapolitan writers, the Lazzaroni, properly so called, are the most laborious and disinterested part of the population, attached to religion and order, simple and sincere in their manners and expressions, faithful to those who trust them, and ready to shed the last drop of their blood sooner than betray the interests of their employers. It is however to be observed, that they confine these encomiums to the true born Neapolitan Lazzaroni, who are to be carefully distinguished from a set of beggars, who infest the churches and are seen lounging in rags and idleness in public places, endeavoring to procure by begging what the others carn by labor; these, they assure us, are in general strangers, who resort to Naples on açcount of the climate, and generally contrive to beset the doors of inns and force themselves upon travellers under the appellation of Lazzaroni. From these vagrant and unprincipled mendicants, many writers seem to have taken the odious picture which they have drawn of that hard-working, faithful class of people*.

* These vagrants are oftentimes known by the contemptuous epithet of

With regard to the third charge, that of debauchery, it must be recollected that nations, like individuals, have their favorite virtues and vices; their attachment to the former, they fondly imagine may compensate their indulgence in the latter. The northern nations were anciently distinguished by their chastity*, and have at all times been reproached with a

Banchieri, from the benches in public places on which they sleep at night. The others take their appellation from their stands, as Li Lazari del Mercato, del Lavinaro, del Molo, &c. It is remarkable, that they were once called Vastasi, a word derived from Greek so long prevalent in Naples.

* Cæsar and Tacitus have, as is generally known, praised the chastity of the Germans. Near four centuries after we find, not the Germans only, but the Goths and Vandals celebrated for an exemplary display of the same virtue. Salvian, a presbyter and afterwards bishop of Marseilles, witnessed the invasion of Gaul, Spain, and Africa, by the Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals, and ascribes their success to their chastity. The picture which he has drawn of the universal and almost incredible corruption of the Roman provinces, and the description which he has given by way of contrast of the chastity and even innocence of the barbarians, appear both overcharged; yet he speaks of the manners of the times, and records events actually passing under his own observation, and of course could scarce have indulged himself in any material exaggeration. Thus speaking in the name of the Romans, he says, "Inter pudicos barbaros impudici sumus. Plus adhuc dico offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos præjudicio nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani . . . . . fornicatio apud illos crimen atque discrimen est, apud nos decus." Of the Vandals, who had overrun Spain, he says, "Accessit hoc ad manifestandam illic impudicitiæ damnationem ut Wandalis potissimum, id est pudicis barbaris traderentur." He afterwards gives the character of the different tribes of barbarians, "Gothorum gens perfida, sed pudica est; Alanorum impudica, sed minus perfida; Franci mendaces, sed hospitales; Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed castitate mirandi-Salvian De Gubernatione Dei, v11. 6, 7, 15. The Romans, when they conquered Greece, adopted not the vices but the arts of the subjugated nation; the northern barbarians, on the

The inhabitants of the

strong propensity to intemperance. warmer and more genial regions of the south, have ever been prone to the enjoyments equally sensual, but more sentimental of lawless love, while they have been remarkable for their moderation in the pleasures of the table, though surrounded with all the means of convivial indulgence. This latter virtue still remains a characteristic quality in Italy, while the preceding vice seems to have extended its empire over the North, and kindled there its lawless fires, that now spread as widely and burn as fiercely under the frozen as under the torrid zone. This vice, pernicious as it is in its consequences, and destructive of the best qualities and sweetest enjoyments of human nature, unfortunately seems to accompany riches and refinement; it has infected all civilized nations, and is at once the bane and scandal of the humanized world.

In furias ignemque ruunt, amor omnibus idem.

Virgil Georg,

The guilt is, I fear, common to all; and so far is it from being confined to the south, that for libertinism in all, even its most odious and disgusting forms, Berlin and Petersburg equal any two cities that lie between them and the equinoctial,

In this general depravity, to divide the guilt and portion it out to different nations, would be presumptuous and unjust, and

contrary, seem to have copied not the arts but the vices of the enslaved Romans; for chastity soon ceased to be a predominant feature of the invading tribes, while barbarism constituted the ground-work of their character for many ensuing ages.

require more intimate acquaintance with them all, than a traveller can possibly be supposed to acquire, I will not say in one, but in many years of residence. This much we may venture to say, that in Naples, even in the very highest classes, there are women of a most abandoned and shameless character, who seem to have resigned all the delicacy of their sex, and abandoned themselves without reserve to the impulse of passion. This conduct is not accompanied by that disgrace and public reprobation which among us brands lawless indulgence, and compels even impudence itself to withdraw from the walks of life, and hide its infamy in retreat and obscurity. The titled prostitute makes her appearance at court, and is received with the same smile; she flaunts in parties of pleasure, and is treated with the same distinction as the most virtuous and exemplary matron; a mode of conduct which the moralist will reprobate as a crime in itself, because a connivance; and even the man of the world will lament as a degradation of the sex, upon whose honor and reputation depend the domestic comforts and happiness of mankind. Whatever tends to diminish the delicacy of women, or weaken that keen sense of honor which Providence has made their best protection and surest claim to love and respect, is a certain source of private misery, and a step towards public infelicity and ruin*. The untravelled reader will ask with surprize

No nation ever neglected the lesson so emphatically expressed in these lines with impunity.

J

the motives of a conduct so contrary to the common feelings and interests of the sex, as well as to the lessons of religion imprinted deeply on their minds in their earliest infancy. Many reasons have been assigned; and in the first place the mode in which marriages are contracted, with little regard to the feelings, but a great and almost exclusive consideration of the interests of the contracting parties. This inattention to the affections has sometimes produced very serious evils in England, where it seldom occurs, and may without doubt occasion similar inconveniencies in Naples, or rather on the continent at large, where it is perhaps too general; but taken singly, it does not seem capable of effecting such extensive mischief. The parties it is to be remembered, are generally of the same age, always of the same rank, and not often remarkable for any defect moral or physical on either side, of course they cannot be said to be ill-assorted, and in such cases, mutual attention and habitual intimacy cannot fail to produce attachment.

The qualities of the climate have been sometimes supposed, and not without reason, to influence the moral feelings; but allowing such causes their full effect, it must be recollected that they are not all-powerful, and that they frequently counteract each other. Thus, if a genial climate softens the mind, it also unbraces the body, and by that means weakens the temptation while it diminishes the power of resistance. But the truth seems to be that a warm atmosphere produces neither of these effects, as the greatest instances of self-denial on one side, and of sensual excess on the other, occur under suns almost tropical, and in climates far south of Italy. May it not be ascribed to