it much worse.[509]

* * * * *

I went one evening to the Opera to see that amusement in its birthplace,
which is now so widely received over Europe. The Opera House is superb,
but can seldom be quite full. On this night, however, it was; the
guards, citizens, and all persons dependent on the Court, or having
anything to win or lose by it, are expected to take places liberally,
and applaud with spirit. The King bowed much on entrance, and was
received in a popular manner, which he has no doubt deserved, having
relaxed many of his father's violent persecutions against the Liberals,
made in some degree an amnesty, and employed many of this character. He
has made efforts to lessen his expenses; but then he deals in military
affairs, and that swallows up his savings, and Heaven only knows whether
he will bring [Neapolitans] to fight, which the Martinet system alone
will never do. His health is undermined by epileptic fits, which, with
his great corpulence, make men throw their thoughts on his brother
Prince Charles. It is a pity. The King is only two-and-twenty years old.

The Opera bustled off without any remarkable music, and, so far as I
understand the language, no poetry; and except the _coup d'oeil,_ which
was magnificent, it was poor work. It was on the subject of Constantine
and Crispus--marvellous good matter, I assure you. I came home at
half-past nine, without waiting the ballet, but I was dog-sick of the
whole of it. Went to the Studij to-day. I had no answer to my memorial
to the Minister of the Interior, which it seems is necessary to make any
copies from the old romances. I find it is an affair of State, and
Monsieur ----- can only hope it will be granted in two or three
days;--to a man that may leave Naples to-morrow! He offers me a loan of
what books I need, Annals included, but this is also a delay of two or
three days. I think really the Italian men of letters do not know the
use of time made by those of other places, but I must have patience. In
the course of my return home I called, by advice of my _valet de place_,
at a bookseller's, where he said all the great messieurs went for books.
It had very little the air of a place of such resort, being kept in a
garret above a coach-house. Here some twenty or thirty odd volumes were
produced by an old woman, but nothing that was mercantile, so I left
them for Lorenzo's learned friends. And yet I was sorry too, for the
lady who