from Lyons, and the best woollen goods from England* .- •*. The chief articles manufactured here at present, are silk stockings, soap, snuffboxes of tortoise shell, and of the lava of Mount Vesuvius; tables, and ornamental furniture, of marble. They are thought to embroider here better than even in France; and their macaroni is preferred to that made in any other part of Italy. The Neapolitans excel also in . liqueurs and confections, particularly in one kind of confection, which is sold at a very high price, called Diabo* lbnis. This drug, as you will guess from its name, is of a very hot and stimulating nature, and what I should think by no means requisite to Neapolitan constitutions. The inhabitants of this town are computed at three hundred and fifty thousand. I make no doubt of their amounting to that number;'' for though Naples is not one third of the size of London, yet many of the streets here are more crowded than sengers, hurrying from place to place on business; and when they choose to converse, or to amuse themselves, they resort to the public walks or gardens: at Naples, the citizens have fewer avocations of business to excite their activity, no publicwalks, or gardens, to which they can resort; and are therefore more frequently seen sauntering and conversing in the streets, where a great proportion of the poorest sort, for want of habitations, are obliged to spend the night as well as the day. While you sit in your chamber at London, or at Paris, the usual noise you hear from the streets, is that of carriages; but at Naples, where they talk with uncommon vivacity, and where whole streets full of talkers are in continual employment, the noise of carriages is completely drowned in the aggregated clack of human voices. In the midst of all this idleness, fewer riots or outrages of any kind happen, than might be expected in a town where the police is far from being strict, and This partly proceeds from the national character of the Italians; which, in my opinion, is quiet, submissive, and averse to riot or sedition; and partly to the common people being universally sober, and never inflamed with strong and spirituous liquors, as they are in the northern countries. Iced water and lemonade are among the luxuries of the lowest vulgar; they are carried about in little barrels, and sold in half-penny's worth. The half naked lazzarone is often tempted to spend the small pittance, destined for the maintenance of his family, on this bewitching beverage, as the most dissolute of the low people in London spend their wages on gin and brandy; so that the same extravagance which cools the mob of the one city, tends to inflame that of the other to acts of excess and brutality. There is not, perhaps, a city in the world, with the same number of inhabitants, in which so few contribute to the wealth of the community by useful, or by 118 VIEW U* SUUAETY AND yers, nobility, footmen, and lazzaronis, surpass all reasonable proportion; the last alone are computed at thirty or forty thousand. If these poor fellows are idle, it is not their own fault; they are continually running about the streets, as we are told of the artificers of China; offering their service, and begging for employment; and are considered by many, as of more real utility than any of the classes abovementioned, LETTER LVI. Naples. Herb is an assembly once a week at the house of the British minister; no assembly in Naples is more numerous, or more brilliant, than this. Exclusive of that gentleman's good qualities, and those accomplishments which procure esteem in any situation, he would meet with every mark of regard from the Neapolitan nobles, on account of the high favour in which • he stands with their Sovereign. Sir William's house is open to strangers of every country who come to Naples, properly recommended, as well as to the English; he has a private concert almost every evening. Lady Hamilton understands music perfectly, and performs in such a manner, as to command the admiration even nf the Neanolirans. Sir William- who is |