from time to time, pronounce the words Phaw! and Stuff!-one would think them the express reprefentatives of the Pagan gods, who have eyes but do not fee, and ears

but do not hear.

I know not what may be the cafe at the opera; but I can affure you there are none of those bufts among the auditories which the ftreet-performers at Naples gather around them. I faw very lately a large clufter of men, women, and children, entertained to the higheft degree, and to all appearance made exceedingly happy, by a poor fellow with a mask on his face, and a guitar in his hands. He affembled his audience by the fongs he fung to the music of his inftrument, and by a thousand merry ftories he told them with infinite drollery. This affembly was in an open place, facing the bay, and near the palace. The old women fat liftening, with their diftaffs, fpinning a kind of coarfe flax, and wetting the thread with their spittle; their grandchildren

children fprawled at their feet, amused with the twirling of the fpindle. The men and their wives, the youths and their miftreffes, fat in a circle, with their eyes fixed on the musician, who kept them laughing for a great part of the evening with his ftories, which he enlivened occafionally with tunes upon the guitar. At length, when the company was most numerous and at the highest pitch of good humour, he fuddenly pulled off his mafk, laid down his guitar, and opened a little box which stood before him, and addreffed the audience in the following words, as literally as I can tranflate them :-"Ladies and gentlemen, there is a time "for all things; we have had enough "of jefting; innocent mirth is excellent "for the health of the body, but other "things are requifite for the health of "the foul. I will now, with your permiffion, my honourable mafters and mif"treffes, entertain you with fomething "ferious,

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"ferious, and of infinitely greater importance; fomething for which all of you "will have reafon to blefs me as long as cc you live." Here he fhook out of a bag a great number of little leaden crucifixes."I am just come from the Holy House of Loretto, my fellow chriftians," continued he, on purpose to furnish you with "thofe jewels, more precious than all the

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gold of Peru, and all the pearls of the ocean. Now, my beloved brethren and fifters, you are afraid that I fhall de"mand a price for thofe facred croffes, "far above your abilities, and fomething "correfpondent with their value, by way "of indemnification for the fatigue and

expence of the long journey which I "have made on your account, all the way "from the habitation of the Bleffed Vir

gin to this thrice renowned city of Naples, the riches and liberality of whose "inhabitants are celebrated all over the globe. No, my generous Neapolitans;

"I do not wish to take the advantage of

your pious and liberal difpofitions. I "will not ask for those invaluable cruci"fixes (all of which, let me inform you, "have touched the foot of the holy "image of the Bleffed Virgin, which was "formed by the hands of St. Luke; and,

moreover, each of them has been fhaken "in the Santiffima Scodella, the facred "porringer in which the Virgin made "the pap for the infant Jefus); I will not, "I fay, afk an ounce of gold, no not

even a crown of filver; my regard for

you is fuch, that I fhall let you have them for a penny a-piece."

You must acknowledge, my friend, that this morfel of eloquence was a very great pennyworth; and when we recollect the fums that fome of our acquaintance receive for their oratory, though they never could produce fo pathetic a fpecimen, you will naturally conclude, that eloquence is a much rarer commodity in England than in Italy.

LETTER LXI.

Naples.

I

HAVE made two vifits to Mount Vefuvius, the firft in company with your acquaintance Mr. Nifbet. Leaving the carriage at Herculaneum, we mounted mules, and were attended by three men, whose business it is to accompany strangers up the mountain. Being arrived at a hermitage, called Il Salvatore, we found the road fo broken and rough, that we thought proper to leave the mules at that place, which is inhabited by a French hermit. The poor man must have a very opinion of mankind, to choofe the mouth of Mount Vefuvius for his nearest neighbour, in preference to their fociety. From the hermitage we walked over various fields of lava, which have burst out at different periods. These feemed to be

bad

perfectly