The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-16 00:00:00

DESCRIPTION OF NAPLES.

We went about, however, next day to see all the out-
door wonders of Naples without any guide in its stony
wilderness, over which the sun, in Pope's Homeric
language, "refulgent shot intolerable day." Having
always associated the idea of Naples with that of lazy .
luxury, I was astonished to recognise in it chiefly the
idea of vastness—of prodigious height and enormous pro-
portions. Looking from the sea margin to its utmost
heights, it rather resembled a city of giants than the
■electest abode of pleasure: Lovely, no doubt—very
lovely—are some of the details which its towering succes-
sion of houses, gardens, and terraces present to the view
of an observer so placid ; but these, breaking the mass of
buildings, augment the effect of vastness, by instructing
the eye to appreciate their extent as it rises from point to
point to the summit. But a walk amidst its mazes, when
the sea and the great outlines of the city are lost, bewilders
and sickens. The height of the houses, which border the
steep and narrow ways, equalling the loftiest in the old
town of Edinburgh ; the dangling lamps, suspended by
ropes, which cross the arduous passages ; the loud babble
of strange tongues often accompanied by fierce gestures ;
and the unceasing rattle of carriages of all kinds, driven
with reckless disregard of foot-passengers, as if the coach.:
men set human life at a pin's fee, may well astonish the
Englishman who expected an epicurean paradise. Pant-
ing for some silent and green relief from this noisy con-
fusion, my son and I endeavoured to reach the country,
if country there should be, above this magnificent Tartarus
of a city, and accordingly threaded and picked our way up
one of its central heights, by alleys as steep as one of the
iron cascades "down which the ore thunders from a Welsh
mountain mine ; then along almost interminable avenues
between blank walls ; then up flights of stone and lava
steps polluted by filth of the most shocking kind. At last
we reached a bastion, and peeped over a battlement into a
barrack-yard, which bore traces of a less degraded
humanity ; but we could find no opening to a prospect;
and not a blade of grass, not a fountain, nor a breath of
untainted air refreshed our fruitless labour. How it is
possible for English men and women to pass months in
such a place, and " bless their stars and call it luxury,"
even, if the satiated mosquitos give them leave to sleep, is
a mystery which has doubtless a solution—which I sought
in vain.

Yet the groups we saw from our windows, which over-
looked the best area for the exhibition of the graceful side
of Neapolitan life, were usually instinct with a careless
grace, and often presented surprising harmonies of colour.
The best were supplied by the peasants bringing to
market, in the early morning, the spoils of the country
in huge baskets, where grapes, apricots, and other fruits
and vegetables were heaped up and capped with fresh
flowers ; sometimes borne on the heads of young girls,
treading with a cheerfulness which heightened the grace
of their movements, but often by haggard women, grown
prematurely old in sun-burnt labour, or bare-legged
tawny men who looked, on near approach, as if they had
crept out of earth-holes—but all, as they streamed along,
or clustered for gossip, unconsciously forming lively
pictures.

The charm of the book is, indeed, the cheerful
frankness and delicate grace with which the
various subjects are touched upon rather than dis-
cussed. The record is in every respect a personal
one, and yet the author is never felt to be intrusive,
and this his intellectual legacy will prove a gratify-
ing memorial to many an admirer of his genius.
Early Education. By W. H. Bainbrigge,

F.R.C.S. London j Blackader and Co.

This interesting little volume is the substance of
four lectures delivered by Mr. Bainbrigge, in Oct.
last, in the lecture-hall of the Collegiate Institution
in Liverpool, full abstracts of which we gave in the
Standard at the time of their delivery. These
lectures were greatly appreciated, and yielding to
the urgent solicitations of many who listened to
them, Mr. Bainbrigge has been induced to revise
and publish them. Their chief characteristic and
leading claim to attention will be found in the
completely practical nature of their recommenda-
tions, and the thoroughly catholic tone of the
mental training they inculcate. In his introduc-
tory remarks, Mr. Bainbrigge makes the following
sensible observations on