field on one of these
occasions, "or rather, I was never more mistaken in any place in my life
than in this town of Naples. I had heard much of lazzaroni lying about
in the sun, eating maccaroni, and of the love of the people for gaudy
colours and tinsel, even to the sticking gold-leaf and little flags of
red paper upon the meat in the butcher's shop; and I had seen depicted
the more curious costumes of man and horse, and especially this
_curiculo_, as I believe they call it, which seems originally to have
been like our old-fashioned one-horse chaise, but by the extension of
the shafts into a sort of platform before and behind, and by means of a
network suspended underneath between the wheels, has been made to hold a
quite indefinite number of persons, and still remains a one-horse
chaise, inasmuch as the whole cluster of mortals is generally carried on
at a gallop by one little black horse, who, as some sort of compensation
for the work they give him, is tricked out as fine as leather and brass
nails, ribands and feathers, can make him. Well, out of all these
materials I had contrived for myself a picture of utter and contented
idleness on the one hand, and the extreme of hilarious activity on the
other. I need not tell you how little such a picture answers to the
reality, how little prepared I was to encounter the din, and more than
Cheapside confusion of this main thoroughfare, the _Toledo_ street. The
impression which Naples actually makes, is of a city where noise and
turmoil and confusion are at their very height. Carried one step
further, "chaos would come again." There is the same incessant toil for
gain as in London itself--as little of repose, as little of hilarity.
Here is the spirit of trade without the order and method which trade
should introduce. It is commerce bewildered, and passionate after pence.
There are some parts of London more thickly stocked perhaps with carts
and wagons, and carriages of all descriptions, but they are order itself
compared to this _Toledo_ street. Every thing one can desire to
purchase, every thing one can desire to escape from, comes walking
abroad upon its even, uniform pavement, where men and carriages are
circulating together. Glass, and tea-trays, and crokery-ware, and
haberdashery, all meet you in the street. You are running for dear life
from some devil of a driver, who thinks that if he does but shout loud
enough, he is at perfect liberty to break your bones, and you are