DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53553#0406
364
Titus, an Antoninus, a Henry quatre, or a George. The
people here arc literally mad. This ecstacy my cynic land-
lord, who sees every object through the medium of his dis-
coloured and splenetic fancy, malignantly deduces rather
from the eagerness of the vulgar for the expected festivities
and exhibitions, and their hope for the return of prosperity
with that of the court and its numerous attendants, than
from any effervescence of loyalty ; a virtue which he prides
himself to possess in a pre-eminent degree, and for which,
indeed, according to his relation, he has suffered severe per-
secution during the revolutionary epoch of the recent Neapo-
litan history. When he speaks of his king, it is invariably by
these fond terms, cc il nostro amatissimo sovrano.”* This,
really sincere, devotion to his king, a few7 days ago, procured
him a singular office.
In order to give to this city, beautiful enough in itself, a
kind of temporary holiday dress, it is at this moment in the
act of being decorated with a number of superb gingerbread
structures, wherever there is room for cramming them, all of
classic model, you may' suppose.— Ampitheatres, temples,
triumphal-arches, and colonnades, are springing up like
mushrooms. The marble and granite solidity of their an-
cestors of the Augustan age—lack a day !—is aped in canvas
and deal boards !—The superintendance of the erection of
one of these doll’s houses is said to be a good thing ; and I
am assured by Don Michele, that, if every competitor had
obtained a slice of the job of canvas-architecture, a very de-
cent, city might have been run up ; and that, as government
could not possibly satisfy all, many of the disappointed can-
vas-candidates had gone over to the opposition, (if I may be
allowed to profane this hallowed term by transplanting it to
Neapolitan soil; and might, for aught he knows, attempt to
make a patriotic bonfire of these combustible monuments of
modern
* Our most beloved Sovereign,
Titus, an Antoninus, a Henry quatre, or a George. The
people here arc literally mad. This ecstacy my cynic land-
lord, who sees every object through the medium of his dis-
coloured and splenetic fancy, malignantly deduces rather
from the eagerness of the vulgar for the expected festivities
and exhibitions, and their hope for the return of prosperity
with that of the court and its numerous attendants, than
from any effervescence of loyalty ; a virtue which he prides
himself to possess in a pre-eminent degree, and for which,
indeed, according to his relation, he has suffered severe per-
secution during the revolutionary epoch of the recent Neapo-
litan history. When he speaks of his king, it is invariably by
these fond terms, cc il nostro amatissimo sovrano.”* This,
really sincere, devotion to his king, a few7 days ago, procured
him a singular office.
In order to give to this city, beautiful enough in itself, a
kind of temporary holiday dress, it is at this moment in the
act of being decorated with a number of superb gingerbread
structures, wherever there is room for cramming them, all of
classic model, you may' suppose.— Ampitheatres, temples,
triumphal-arches, and colonnades, are springing up like
mushrooms. The marble and granite solidity of their an-
cestors of the Augustan age—lack a day !—is aped in canvas
and deal boards !—The superintendance of the erection of
one of these doll’s houses is said to be a good thing ; and I
am assured by Don Michele, that, if every competitor had
obtained a slice of the job of canvas-architecture, a very de-
cent, city might have been run up ; and that, as government
could not possibly satisfy all, many of the disappointed can-
vas-candidates had gone over to the opposition, (if I may be
allowed to profane this hallowed term by transplanting it to
Neapolitan soil; and might, for aught he knows, attempt to
make a patriotic bonfire of these combustible monuments of
modern
* Our most beloved Sovereign,