: Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France Italy and Germany Vol. 2 (of 2) by Piozzi Hester Lynch - Italy Description and travel; Germany Description and travel; France Description and travel; Europe Description and travel

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Transcriber's Note: Mrs. Piozzi's own manner of writing has been retained, including spelling and grammar that is inconsistent and perhaps unfamiliar to the modern reader.

OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

MADE IN A JOURNEY THROUGH

France, Italy, and Germany.

NAPLES.

Nothing sure was ever more sublime or awful than our entrance into Naples at the dead hour we arrived, when not a whisper was to be heard in the streets, and not a glimpse of light was left to guide us, except the small lamp hung now and then at a high window before a favourite image of the Virgin.

The Ville de Londres inn was full, and could not accommodate our family; but calling up the people of the Crocelle, we obtained a noble apartment, the windows of which look full upon the celebrated bay which washes the wall at our door. Caprea lies opposite the drawing-room or gallery, which is magnificent; and my bed-chamber commands a complete view of the mountain, which I value more, and which called me the first night twenty times away from sleep and supper, though never so in want of both as at that moment surely.

Such were my first impressions of this wonderful metropolis, of which I had been always reading summer descriptions, and had regarded somehow as an Hesperian garden, an earthly paradise, where delicacy and softness subdued every danger, and general sweetness captivated every sense;--nor have I any reason yet to say it will not still prove so, for though wet, and weary, and hungry, we wanted no fire, and found only inconvenience from that they lighted on our arrival. It was the fashion at Florence to struggle for a Terreno, but here we are all perched up one hundred and forty two steps from the level of the land or sea; large balconies, apparently well secured, give me every enjoyment of a prospect, which no repetition can render tedious: and here we have agreed to stay till Spring, which, I trust, will come out in this country as soon as the new year calls it.

Our eagerness to see sights has been repressed at Naples only by finding every thing a sight; one need not stir out to look for wonders sure, while this amazing mountain continues to exhibit such various scenes of sublimity and beauty at exactly the distance one would chuse to observe it from; a distance which almost admits examination, and certainly excludes immediate fear. When in the silent night, however, one listens to its groaning; while hollow sighs, as of gigantic sorrow, are often heard distinctly in my apartment; nothing can surpass one's sensations of amazement, except the consciousness that custom will abate their keenness: I have not, however, yet learned to lie quiet, when columns of flame, high as the mountain's self, shoot from its crater into the clear atmosphere with a loud and violent noise; nor shall I ever forget the scene it presented one day to my astonished eyes, while a thick cloud, charged heavily with electric matter, passing over, met the fiery explosion by mere chance, and went off in such a manner as effectually baffles all verbal description, and lasted too short a time for a painter to seize the moment, and imitate its very strange effect. Monsieur de Vollaire, however, a native of France, long resident in this city, has obtained, by perpetual observation, a power of representing Vesuvius without that black shadow, which others have thought necessary to increase the contrast, but which greatly takes away all resemblance of its original. Upon reflection it appears to me, that the men most famous at London and Paris for performing tricks with fire have been always Italians in my time, and commonly Neapolitans; no wonder, I should think, Naples would produce prodigious connoisseurs in this way; we have almost perpetual lightning of various colours, according to the soil from whence the vapours are exhaled; sometimes of a pale straw or lemon colour, often white like artificial flame produced by camphor, but oftenest blue, bright as the rays emitted through the coloured liquors set in the window of a chemist's shop in London--and with such thunder!!--"For God's sake, Sir," said I to some of them, "is there no danger of the ships in the harbour here catching fire? why we should all fly up in the air directly, if once these flashes should communicate to the room where any of the vessels keep their powder."--"Gunpowder, Madam!" replies the man, amazed; "why if St. Peter and St. Paul came here with gunpowder on board, we should soon drive them out again: don't you know," added he, "that every ship discharges her contents at such a place , and never comes into our port with a grain on board?"

VERSES.

First of Achelous' blood, Fairest daughter of the flood, Queen of the Sicilian sea, Beauteous, bright Parthenope! Syren sweet, whose magic force Stops the swiftest in his course; Wisdom's self, when most severe, Longs to lend a list'ning ear, Gently dips the fearful oar, Trembling eyes the tempting shore, And sighing quits th' enervate coast, With only half his virtue lost.

Let thy warm, thy wond'rous clime, Animate my artless rhyme, Whilst alternate round me rise Terror, pleasure, and surprise.-- Here th' astonish'd soul surveys Dread Vesuvius' awful blaze, Smoke that to the sky aspires, Heavy hail of solid fires, Flames the fruitful fields o'erflowing, Ocean with the reflex glowing; Thunder, whose redoubled sound Echoes o'er the vaulted ground!-- Such thy glories, such the gloom That conceals thy secret tomb, Sov'reign of this enchanted sea, Where sunk thy charms, Parthenope.

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