That
Signor Pulcinello Is Condemned To Be Hanged For A Robbery, And That Unless
He Can Procure Molti Denari To Bribe The Officers Of Justice To Let Him
Escape, He Will Inevitably Be Hanged And The People Will Never More Behold
Their Unhappy Friend Pulcinello.
The showman now implores the commiseration
of the audience, and now reproaches Pulcinello with his profligacy and
nefarious pranks which have brought him to an untimely end.
Pulcinello
sobs, cries, promises to reform and to attend mass regularly in future.
What Neapolitan heart can resist such an appeal? The grani are collected.
Pulcinello gives money to the puppet representing the executioner; down
goes the gibbet, and Pulcinello is himself again.
I shall return in a day or two to Rome, having seen nearly all that Naples
affords. I have now full liberty to die when I chuse according to the
proverb: Veder Napoli e poi morire.
Naples certainly is, taking it all in all, the most interesting city in
Europe, for it unites every thing that is conducive to the agremens of
life. A beautiful city, a noble bay, a vast commerce, provisions of the
best sort, abundant and cheap, a pleasant society, a delicious climate,
music, Operas, Balli, Libraries, Museums of Painting and Sculpture; in
its neighbourhood two subterraneous cities, a volcano in full play, and
every spot of ground conveying the most interesting souvenirs and
immortalized in prose and verse. Add thereto the vapour baths of sulphur
for stringing anew the nerves of those debilitated by a too ardent pursuit
of pleasure, and the Fountain of St Lucia for those suffering from a
redundancy of bile. Now tell me of any other residence which can equal
this? Adieu.
ROME, 22nd Octr.
Nothing material occurred on my return from Naples to Rome; but on the 2d
day after my arrival I made an excursion to Tivoli, which is about eighteen
miles distant from Rome. I passed the night at the only inn at Tivoli. The
next morning I walked to the Villa d'Este in this neighbourhood, which is
a vast edifice with extensive grounds. Here on a terrace in front of the
villa are models in marble of all the principal edifices and monuments,
ancient and modern, of Rome, very ingeniously executed. From the Villa
d'Este is a noble view of the whole plain of Latium and of the "Eternal
City."
From hence I walked about two miles further to visit the greatest antiquity
and curiosity of the place, which is the Villa or rather the ruins of the
celebrated Villa built by Adrian, which must have been of immense size from
the vast space of ground it occupies. It was intended to unite everything
that the magnificent ideas of a Prince could devise who wished to combine
every sort of recreation, sensual as well as intellectual, within the
precincts of his Palace; columns, friezes, capitals, entablatures and
various other spoils of rich architecture cover the ground in profusion:
many of the walls and archways are entire and almost an entire cupola
remains standing.
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