is a crowd which has no pause or
cessation: early in the morning, late at night, it is ever the same.
The whole population seems poured into the streets and squares; all
business and amusement is carried on in the open air: all those minute
details of domestic life, which, in England, are confined within the
sacred precincts of _home_, are here displayed to public view. Here
people buy and sell, and work, wash, wring, brew, bake, fry, dress,
eat, drink, sleep, etc. etc. all in the open streets. We see every
hour, such comical, indescribable appalling sights; such strange
figures, such wild physiognomies, picturesque dresses, attitudes and
groups--and eyes--no! I never saw such eyes before, as I saw to-day,
half languor and half fire, in the head of a ruffian Lazzarone, and a
ragged Calabrian beggar girl. They would have _embrase_ half London or
Paris.

I know not whether it be incipient illness, or the enervating effects
of this soft climate, but I feel unusually weak, and the least
exertion or excitement is not only disagreeable but painful. While the
rest were at Capo di Monte, I stood upon my balcony looking out upon
the lovely scene before me, with a kind of pensive dreamy rapture,
which if not quite pleasure, had at least a power to banish pain: and
thus hours passed away insensibly--

"As if the moving time had been
A thing as stedfast as the scene,
On which we gazed ourselves away."[N]

All my activity of mind, all my faculties of thought and feeling and
suffering, seemed lost and swallowed up in an indolent delicious
reverie, a sort of vague and languid enjoyment, the true "_dolce far
niente_" of this enchanting climate. I stood so long leaning on my
elbow without moving, that my arm has been stiff all day in
consequence.

"How I wish," said I this evening, when they drew aside the curtain,
that I might view the sunset from my sofa, and sky, earth and ocean,
seemed to commingle in floods of glorious light--"how I wish I could
transport those skies to England!" _Cruelle!_ exclaimed an Italian
behind me, _otez-nous notre beau ciel, tout est perdu pour nous_.

THE LAST EVENING AT NAPLES

Yes, Laura! draw the shade aside
And let me gaze--while yet I may,
Upon that gently heaving tide,
Upon that glorious sun-lit bay.

Land of Romance! enchanting shore!
Fair scenes, near which I linger yet!
Never shall I behold ye more,
Never this last--last look