in modern Navigation, as compared with that of the ancients that the method of conducting a ship now from place to place, as depending upon definite and distinct rules, is much more safe and simple, and requires, perhaps, less training and study, while it effects much more than the method of the ancients. The naval officers particularly offering themselves to our notice by their official variation from the moderns, are the master of the rowers, and the pilot. It was the business of the former to attend to the rowing department of the vessel, to assign their places to the rowers, to encourage them in their labours, and to keep time to the motion of the oars, by the strokes of his mallet, or the musical intonations of his voice. The other officer, who especially claims our attention, is the pilot, or master of the ship; to whom belonged the duty of navigating the vessel, and who was consequently responsible for the safety of the ship, and all on board. His place was at the stern; and to excel in his vocation, he had to possess an exact knowledge of his art, which consisted chiefly in skill in steering, in managing the sails, and in the use of other nautical appurtenances, together with a knowledge and experience of the winds, of the heavenly bodies, as indicating the seasons, portending the weather, and directing the course of the ship, and of the site of commodious ports and harbours; when rocks and quicksands were to be dreaded, and how they might be avoided. The ancients retired into harbour when they saw the Winter signs begin to rise; where they remained till the constellations of Spring invited them upon the waters. It was not usual, therefore, for them to prosecute their voyages long after the Autumnal Equinox. The gales which then prevailed in the Mediterranean, formerly called Euroclydons, or Tuffoonest, but now Levanters, or Michaelmas flows, being hazardous to shipping, made them lie by for the Winter. The necessity of this is alluded to in Acts xxvii. 9. The Jewish fast of expiation, which is there meant, was on the 25th of September. It was also necessary for the pilot to understand and explain the signs and prognostics which offered themselves from the sea-birds, the fishes, the surge, the billows dashing upon the shore, and the waving of the woods on the impending heights. A seaman, unapt in the solution of any novelty of this sort, could not attain to the reputation of a good pilot. It was also expected that this personage should have procured an ample supply of favourable winds; as the Lap lander captain of our times buys of the wise women a quantity of this necessary material for navigation. We are told that Ulysses, having procured a bag of wind, was returning home to Ithaca with a prosperous sail. When his native isle was just in sight, and the hero had fallen asleep through fatigue, the bag was opened by the sailors, who suspected that treasure was concealed in it: whereupon the winds rushed forth with awful violence, and drove the ship backward a distance of ten days' sail. At the termination of a voyage, the vessels were usually stranded by urging them stern foremost towards the land, when the crews drew them up out of the water by main force. The notion of light-houses seems to have been generally adopted about the time of the Christian era from the Egyptians. The small island of Pharos, in the bay of Alexandria, had been joined to the continent by a causeway of a mile in length, about 284 B. c. At the extremity of this mole was built a white marble tower, at the top of which a fire was kept constantly burning, visible, we are told, at the distance of one hundred miles; but this would make it to have been somewhat more than a mile in height from the surface of the earth, unless, indeed, it were visible from some eminence a hundred miles distant. This part of the account seems apocryphal, and even the site of the celebrated Pharos is a matter of dispute. The pride of man has doubtlessly exaggerated the facts of many ancient narratives; and from this, perhaps, as well as from many other classical stories, we must make considerable deduction but, at any rate, we have accounts of various erections of this nature, and they seem at the later period of ancient navigation to have been not uncommon, when ample experience had made nocturnal sailing less formidable. We find them accordingly erected at most of the harbours and naval stations which ships frequented; places where nature had been assisted by art, and where the larger-sized ships rode at anchor, secure from the swell of the seas around. The ancients generally, as well as the barbarians of modern times, carried their idols with them on a voyage, thinking thereby to ensure the safety of the ship. Vows, therefore, which had been made previously to, or during the voyage, were now discharged, and especially was due reverence paid to Neptune, whose peculiar dominion they had just safely left. Those who had landed in safety after a storm, or any other of the manifold hazards of a seavoyage, hung up in one of the numerous temples surrounding the port, a picture of their disaster, together with the garments in which they had escaped it. This, with a multitude of other Pagan customs, has been exploded by time in most of the countries of the world; but we learn that this act of piety is still practised on the coasts of the Medi terranean, where the people profess the Roman Catholic faith. Happy would it have been for the human race, if no heathen custom more questionable than this, had received the sanction of the teachers of Christianity in the ages succeeding the times of the Apostles! ANCIENT ROMAN WAR GALLEY. LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PART PRICE SIXPENCE THE STORY OF MASANIELLO, THE FISHERMAN, AND THE REVOLUTION OF NAPLES. PART THE FIRST. THE LAZZARONI OF NAPLES. THERE are few kingdoms in Europe which have undergone so many vicissitudes as that of Naples; and the chief source of its calamitous changes was the preposterous claims of the popes to dispose at After the overthrow of their pleasure of the crown. the Hohenstauffen, a dynasty remarkable for its uncompromising hostility to the papal usurpations, the Sovereignty of Naples was bestowed upon the house of Anjou; but this French race of princes soon became unpopular, and after many changes and convulsions, the Neapolitan dominions were annexed to the kingdom of Spain, then rapidly rising into the It remained foremost rank of European states. quietly subject to Spain for nearly 150 years, until in The the year 1647, a poor fisherman raised a revolt, it additional misery. upon which entailed history of this extraordinary revolution is so very interesting, and so very instructive, that we shall relate it at full length, especially as some of the most important details have been hitherto hidden from English readers. To understand the causes of the revolution, it will be necessary to give a preliminary sketch of the Spanish tyranny over the Neapolitans. VOL. XII When Spain first acquired dominion over Naples, the latter country, notwithstanding recent wars, was wealthy and populous; and its position afforded a Spain, reasonable prospect of increasing prosperity, for it possessed the finest ports in the Western Mediterranean, then the great high-road of commerce. on the other hand, was exhausted by long wars against the Moors, the recent discovery of America had seduced a large portion of the population to emigrate to the new countries, and the gold and silver imported from Mexico and Peru did not compensate for the abstraction of cultivation from the land, the emigration of the most industrious, and the consequent cessation of domestic improvement. these circumstances the Spanish government regarded by which all the pecuniary deficiences of Spain might its Neapolitan territory as a kind of reserved treasury be supplied and the chief object of their administration was to drain as much money from their Italian subjects, as they could obtain by fair means or by foul. Naples, of course, was governed by viceroys; the only object contemplated in the selection of these officers was their skill in extortion, and if they sent home money in plenty, no objection was made to any 359 Under acts of tyranny or rapacity in which they might please | indolence. On this numerous and dangerous class to indulge on their own account. The fertility and opulence of the Neapolitan dominions would have enabled them to bear very heavy exactions, but the more the Spaniards obtained, the more they desired, and the very ease with which existing taxes were paid, became an excuse and encouragement for fresh impositions. Thus matters proceeded, until, as an Italian historian justly remarked. "The secret fires of Vesuvius were not so numerous, nor so dangerous, as the revengeful flames which burned in the bosoms of the Neapolitan populace." During the reigns of Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth of Spain, the sufferings of the Neapolitans were aggravated by the custom which prevailed of farming the taxes. The Genoese brokers, who purchased them from the King of Spain, extorted profit in every shape and way, from the unfortunate peasant and artisan, and when profits no longer supplied their rapacity, compelled the unfortunate victims of their rapacity to yield up their little capital. Under such a system it is not wonderful that the wealth of Naples at length became exhausted; and when the Admiral of Castile, the ruling viceroy, demanded a subsidy from the assembled estates, he received a refusal which he was convinced arose from absolute poverty. He wrote to Philip the Fourth, that Naples in its present exhausted state, could not meet the new demand; he received in reply, peremptory orders to exact the subsidy, but the gallant admiral refused to become the agent of oppression, and immediately resigned the government. the tax pressed with enormous severity; to use their own expression, recorded by a contemporary writer, "it took the food out of their very mouths." Acts of violence succeeded to their disregarded murmurs; the viceroy could not appear abroad without being subjected to seditious clamours, and even personal insults; insurrectionary placards were posted in the market-place; and the booth erected for the collection of the tax was burned to the ground. Arcos at length, greatly alarmed, summoned his council, and went through the mockery of deliberation; but every other source of revenue was pledged and mortgaged to the outside of its value, money was to be raised at all hazards, and, of course, the consultations ended in ordering the continuance of the tax. Some efforts were made to punish those who publicly testified their dissatisfaction; but this only increased the number of secret conspirators, and the viceroy soon received an alarming warning of the perils by which he was environed. A Spanish flotilla lay in the Bay of Naples, the admiral's galley was remarkable for its strength and beauty, and 300,000 ducats were placed on board her for transmission to Spain. On the night of the 12th of May, she was discovered to be on fire, and ere means could be taken to save her, she blew up with all her treasure, and a portion of her crew. There was not one who saw the spectacle that did not feel convinced that it was the work of treachery, and the viceroy felt so much alarmed, that though he was pre-eminently superstitious, he forbade the annual procession on the 24th of June, in honour of John the Baptist, lest the collection of a multitude should lead to a sudden outbreak of insurrection. Among those who exclaimed most bitterly against the fruit tax, was Tomasso Aniello, better known by the abbreviation Mas-aniello, whose destiny it was to experience more rapid changes of condition in the ensuing troubles, than any mortal ever underwent in the same space of time. He was a handsome, lightbuilt, active, young man, not more than twenty-four years of age, but already recognised as a leader among his associates, from his readiness of wit, and great personal activity in the manly sports which delight the fishermen of Naples. His wife was detected by the tax collectors concealing a bag of flour, to evade the duty; she was grossly insulted and dragged to prison. The rest of the history must now assume the form of a journal, that our readers may the better appreciate the rapidity with which events followed each other. This excellent nobleman was succeeded by the Duke of Arcos, a man of a very opposite character. Like most Spaniards, he was haughty, vindictive, and obstinate, but unlike his countrymen, he was crafty and treacherous. He had not been long in office, when the French, then at war with Spain, sent out a fleet which threatened to invade Naples, and consequently forced the viceroy to prepare an armament for the protection of his province. The practice of that day in such an emergency, was to borrow the amount of the parliamentary grant from some capitalist, to whom a branch of the public revenue was mortgaged for the interest and repayment of the loan, and who generally derived an exorbitant profit from the transaction. Such was the general opinion of the Neapo-. litan resources, that a lender and money were easily found, but such, also, was the exhaustion of the country, that the viceroy's council were at their wits' end to devise an impost for its repayment. At length it was proposed by Andrea Nauclerio, the provost of the merchants, to levy a tax of one carlin per pound, on all the fruits and vegetables which were brought to market, and which then, as now, formed the principal articles of food to the lower classes at Naples.cumstances of peculiar solemnity. Among other The proposition was adopted, and an edict for its enforcement issued on the 3rd of January, 1647. This tax was by no means a new invention; several viceroys had already attempted to establish it, but had finally abandoned the scheme, from a conviction of its odious and oppressive nature. The Duke of Arcos, however, was deaf to all remonstrances, and he even accused those counsellors of treason, who ventured to remind him of the homely proverb, that "Hunger will break through stone walls." Scarcely was the edict published, when loud murmurs were heard throughout the entire city of Naples. It is a city in which a large vagrant body, called the Lazzaroni, accustomed to support life at a very trifling expense, support themselves by chance jobs, because a trifling remuneration, less than Englishmen frequently bestow in alms, enables them to live in the luxury of July 7, 1647. This was the second Sunday before the feast of our lady of Carmel, one of the festivals celebrated by the superstitious Neapolitans with cir amusements, it was customary to erect a wooden fortress, which the fishermen defended disguised as Turks, while the Lazzaroni attacked it in their ordinary habiliments. So popular was this spectacle, that it was always rehearsed on the three preceding Sundays; on the Sunday of which we speak, Masaniello, who had been chosen leader of one of the parties, assembled a crowd of boys and young persons, at a very early hour, to practise their parts in the performance. It so happened that this was also a great market-day, and crowds of peasants from the neighbouring districts had come in with fruit and vegetables for sale. Either on account of the superabundant supply, or the engagement of the multitude in their sports, the market was very heavy, and purchasers could not be found for the articles. The fi3cal officers insisted that the tax should be paid on everything, whether it was sold or not; but it still remained to be decided whether the tax should be paid by the peasants or by the hucksters. The dispute was referred to Nauclerio, the provost of the merchants, whom we have already mentioned as the proposer of the obnoxious impost, and he decided that the tax should be paid by those who brought the fruit to market. Masaniello's brother-in-law, a hard-working peasant from Pozzeroli, was one of the persons aggrieved by this decision; he exclaimed against the injustice of being compelled to pay for articles which had as yet produced him no profit, and his loud tones soon attracted the notice of Masaniello and his companions. They hurried into the market-place, and the peasant, now sure of support, ventured to give free scope to his indignation, by throwing about the figs, which had been the original cause of the dispute, crying out, "Take these who will, our tyrants shall have none of them!" In an instant, Masaniello, who stood by his side, seized a bunch of figs, and flinging it violently into Nauclerio's face, exclaimed, "Let them take this at the least!" This was the signal for a general riot, missiles of every description were flung at the taxgatherers and their attendants, one act of violence led to another, the toll-bars were torn down, the booths of the collectors burned, and in a very few minutes the market-place was at the mercy of an infuriate populace. Masaniello seized the opportunity of addressing his companions, indignation prompted his eloquence, and though he had no advantages of education, his harangue was one well calculated to ensure the support of the mob. He pointed out to his hearers the dangers they had already incurred by provoking the vengeance of the Spaniards, he declared that this was the crisis of their country's fate, he conjured them to stand by him, and promised in the strongest terms a redress of all the grievances of which they had to complain. they knew full well that a mob, after having used the nobles, whom deluded ambition has led to participate in their efforts, must eventually yield to the natural jealousy with which the lower orders regard their superiors and fling them away as broken tools, too fine and too weak to execute the rough work required by an imperious democracy. Shocked at the excesses he was compelled to witness, the Prince took the earliest opportunity of escape, while the confused masses spread over the city, began to direct their forces on one common centre and move towards the viceroy's palace. The viceregal guards made a faint effort to resist the popular current, but they were soon overcome, and a body of the rioters forcing their way into the viceroy's presence, imperiously demanded not only the abolition of the obnoxious impost on fruit, but of all other taxes and impositions whatever. Terrified by violence, destitute of any force on which he could rely, and perceiving that the popular excitement increased every hour, the Duke of Arcos readily assented to every demand; but his compliance did not allay the tumult, the mob began to destroy his most valuable furniture, and did not abstain from personal violence. He attempted to escape in a coach, but was detected, abused, threatened and struck; by flinging money among the mob, he diverted their attention for a moment, and while they were eagerly engaged in a scramble, he succeeded in making his escape. 66 After his departure, the moo proclaimed Masaniello Captain General of the faithful people of Naples," he who had been an humble fisherman in the morning, was an absolute sovereign ere the night closed in. He nominated a council composed of the lowest and most infamous of the rioters, but, in the true spirit of a low democrat, flushed by temporary power, he did not permit his fellow rebels to deliberate on his orders; indeed he would scarcely deign to listen to their advice He Such, indeed, are the topics always used by a demagogue to inflame a multitude; but Masaniello Even at this early stage of the revolution, symptoms was not an orator who traded on excitement, it was were perceptible of the insanity to which Masaniello a mere accident which elevated him to be the author ultimately fell a victim, and which was necessarily and leader of a movement. But his career fully ripened by the excitement of the strange circumproved the perils that arise from stimulating the pas- stances in which he found himself placed. sions of the ignorant, and added one to the many made the tower of the Carmelites his head-quarters, proofs which history affords of the impossibility of and there, while his council talked rather than delibecorrecting evils by an appeal to physical force, with-rated, he stood in moody silence, warming his hands out producing calamities infinitely greater than the oppressions which led to the insurrection. Goaded onwards by the fiery harangue of Masaniello, the mob rushed from the market-place; some armed themselves with their ordinary implements of industry, others broke open the shops of the gunsmiths and seized the weapons they contained; the houses of the farmers of taxes were broken open, shots were fired into the houses of persons supposed to be favourable to the Spaniards, and many took the opportunity of revenging private quarrels under pretence of zeal for the public cause. At first the insurgents abstained from plunder, but in this as in countless other instances, the vehemence of patriotism was soon unable to restrain the lust of pillage; the women who had joined the rioters, gave the example of pilfering, which soon extended into a regular system of robbery. As yet the insurgents had no acknowledged leader; like all vulgar rioters they wished to have a member of the aristocracy, and accidentally meeting the Prince of Bisignano, they compelled him to act as their chief. But though the Neapolitan nobles were justly indignant at the tyranny of the Spanish viceroy, they were too wise to countenance the outbreak of the populace; | over a chafing-dish of coals. The only answer he made to repeated inquiries was, "I feel a burning and a heaviness as if my brain were overflowed by molten lead; but the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Saints appear to me every night, and promise me their assistance and protection. I have promised freedom to the people and they shall be free, yes I promise it, I swear it, they shall be free." This and similar broken speeches were uttered with maniac vehemence, which made them pass with his deluded votaries for words of inspiration. They unhesitatingly obeyed his orders to break open all the prisons, and liberate the captives; they massacred the few inhabitants who ventured to resist, and they set fire to the mansions of several obnoxious individuals. One of the houses which became the prey of the incendiaries, contained a large quantity of gun-powder, it was blown up, and eighty seven persons lost their lives. Sunday night was spent sleeplessly by the population of Naples; the flames of burning houses lighted every quarter of the city; the shrieks of the wounded and the lamentations of the relatives of the slain were heard in every street, save where the imperious insurgents forcibly compelled silence. HISTORY OF THE OLIVE TREE, AND THE MODE OF PREPARING THE OIL. No. I THE Olive-tree (Olea Europea,) came originally from Asia, and grows abundantly about Aleppo and Lebanon. It is naturalized in many parts of Southern Europe, being found in woods and hedges, and in this wild state produces a small fruit of no value. When cultivated, however, it becomes one of the richest productions of the South. It is an evergreen tree, with thick and leathery leaves, well calculated to resist the action of water, as they once did for the space of two hundred and seventy-one days; the period that elapsed from the day on which "the fountains of the great deep were broken up," until the evening when the dove came in to Noah, "and lo! in her mouth was an Olive-leaf pluckt off." And ever since, in all ages and countries, wherever this tree is known, has its branch been the favourite emblem of peace. The same chapter of Genesis also illustrates the locality of the Olive. The ark had rested on Mount Ararat one hundred and fourteen days, and the tops of the mountains had been seen forty days, yet when Noah sent forth the dove the first time, it returned, finding "no rest for the sole of her foot ;" and it was not until seven more days had passed that the waters had retired from the plains, valleys, and rocky ravines where the dove is accustomed to seek its food, and in which the Olive delights to grow. The flowers are delicately small and white, are very numerous, and fall off in showers when the tree is shaken; so Eliphaz, upbraiding Job for his sins and misfortunes, and alluding to the loss of his children, "The wicked man shall shake off his unripe says, grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the Olive." (Job xv. 33.) The oval fruit has a delicate light-blue bloom upon it, but when this is rubbed off, is of a deep purple colour, shines, and has lost its beauty. To an English eye this tree has, at first sight, no striking characteristic of beauty. Its height, which rarely exceeds thirty feet, creates no idea of grandeur, which in countries like England, that abound with lofty forest trees, is considered one of, if not the chief, element of beauty in trees. Again, it has a most sober hue that ill agrees with our preconceived notions of the golden tints of southern foliage; hence those, who in the rapidity of travelling glance at it with a careless eye, are generally disappointed, and hence it is almost universally compared with our own willow. Southey speaks of its "willowy foliage," but the points of resemblance are not sufficiently well marked to justify the comparison of an Olive-grove with an ozier-holt. It is true that both trees are of about equal height, and have the under surface of their leaves of a lighter colour than the upper, which is very beautiful when their branches are turned or lifted by the wind. The cultivated Olive, too, is pollarded or deprived of some of its branches in order to develop the young wood; but as the fruit is the object and not merely the wood, as is the case with the willow, its branches are never destroyed year after year, and, consequently, it never has the unsightly appearance that that tree has when deprived of all its foliage. The poet Virgil contrasts the Olive with the willow. Making a shepherd praise one man at the expense of another, he says, "You are as much superior to him, as the dusky willow yields in beauty to the pale Olive." But it has charms superior, not only to the willow, but to most other trees. If the eye is not attracted towards it at first by any striking beauty, there are few natural objects that improve so much upon acquaintance. The more you see it, the more its graceful form and quiet beauty wins your admiration. It appears to greatest advantage in rocky situations, in the country round Athens for example, where an absence of general vegetation, during the warmer months, produces a beautiful contrast between the naked and burning rocks and the luxurious Olivegroves of the lower lands. A more beautiful scene can hardly be imagined than that from the Acropolis, a rocky fortress that rises abruptly on the south side of the city: standing within the portico of its Parthenon, you look down upon Mars' Hill, where St. Paul declared unto the superstitious Greeks the unknown God whom they ignorantly worshipped; beyond is the scarcely less famous pulpit of Themistocles, but it is to the plain to which the eye flies for relief, for See there the Olive-grove of Academe Plato's retirement. Previous to the late revolution, this grove extended from the walls of the city to the sea; but during the war, 20,000 trees were burnt, and many an old tree may now be seen reduced to charcoal on one side, yet retaining its vitality on the other. The annexed figure represents one that had actually been burnt into two separate trees, resting against each other for mutual support, yet loaded with fruit at the time the sketch was taken. Some of these were purposely destroyed by the enemy, and some were cut for firewood. The facility with which this tree takes fire, even when standing in the green state, was not unknown to the ancients, and is thus noticed by Virgil: Sparkling fire from hind's unwary hands DRYDEN's Virg. Georgics. II. Since the peace, many thousand trees have been destroyed by floods. Drainage has been neglected, and the water stood for months upon the roots, and eventually killed the trees. A burning sun acting upon this mass of decayed vegetable matter, generated one of the most dreadful fevers that ever visited Athens. It paralysed the whole population; for two seasons there was scarcely an indication of exertion to cultivate the soil. In the suburbs, where scraps of land are generally so precious, there were no gardens; a few fig-trees and a solitary palm, which the war had spared, were almost the only |