DOI chapter:
Chap. IV: Return of the King to Naples - Rejoicings - Ornamental Buildings - Court - Character of that Monarch - of the Queen - Illuminations - Lazzaroni - Character of the Neapolitans - Return to Rome
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0150
110
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. IV.
and content themselves with it as a fair specimen
of the first society of the place. To give par-
ticular instances would be both odious and un-
grateful ; for in many such houses, travellers
receive very flattering attentions, totally free
from interested views or sinister motives; for
such kindness grateful acknowledgments are
due, and to expose them because their society is
made up of heterogeneous particles, would be
ungenerous. But from these mixed companies,
writers have not unfrequently formed their ideas
of foreign manners, and have given the public
descriptions in caricature as just and accurate
representations. Of this mode of drawing
national characters, foreigners frequently and
justly complain, and every man of candor will
join with them in condemning such partial and
injurious sketches.*
The style of society in a country is not that
which takes place merely between two and
three, or even ten persons of rank and fashion
at an accidental interview ; there are in every
* I do not mean to reproach English travellers as pecu-
liarly guilty in this respect, 1 merely wish to caution them;
if attacks can justify retaliation we need only open some
French and German accounts of England
2
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. IV.
and content themselves with it as a fair specimen
of the first society of the place. To give par-
ticular instances would be both odious and un-
grateful ; for in many such houses, travellers
receive very flattering attentions, totally free
from interested views or sinister motives; for
such kindness grateful acknowledgments are
due, and to expose them because their society is
made up of heterogeneous particles, would be
ungenerous. But from these mixed companies,
writers have not unfrequently formed their ideas
of foreign manners, and have given the public
descriptions in caricature as just and accurate
representations. Of this mode of drawing
national characters, foreigners frequently and
justly complain, and every man of candor will
join with them in condemning such partial and
injurious sketches.*
The style of society in a country is not that
which takes place merely between two and
three, or even ten persons of rank and fashion
at an accidental interview ; there are in every
* I do not mean to reproach English travellers as pecu-
liarly guilty in this respect, 1 merely wish to caution them;
if attacks can justify retaliation we need only open some
French and German accounts of England
2