They arrived at Naples by day, amid its immense population of animated idlers. They first crossed the Strada del Toledo, and saw the Lazzaroni lying on the pavement, or crouching in the wicker works that serve them for dwellings night and day; this savage state, blending with civilization, has a very original air. There are many among these men who know not even their own names; who come to confession anonymously, because they cannot tell what to call the offenders. There is a subterranean grotto, where thousands of Lazzaroni pass their lives, merely going at noon to look on the sun, and sleeping during the rest of the day, while their wives spin. In climates where food and raiment are so cheap, it requires a very active government to spread sufficient national emulation; material subsistence is so easy there that they dispense with the industry requisite elsewhere for our daily bread. Idleness and ignorance, combined with the volcanic air they imbibe, must produce ferocity when the passions are excited; yet these people are no worse than others; they have imagination which might prove the parent of disinterested action, and lead to good results, did their political and religious institutions set them good examples. The Calabrese march towards the fields they cultivate with a musician at their head, to whose tunes they occasionally dance, by way of variety. Every year is held, near Naples, a fête to our Lady of the Grotto, at which the girls dance to the sound of tambourines and castanets; and they often make it a clause in their marriage contracts, that their husbands shall take them annually to this fête. There was an actor of eighty, who for sixty years diverted the Neapolitans, in their national part of Polichinello. What immortality does the soul deserve which has thus long employed the body? The people of Naples know no good but pleasure; yet even such taste is preferable to barren selfishness. It is true that they love money inordinately; if you ask your way in the streets, the man addressed holds out his hand as soon as he has pointed--they are often too lazy for words; but their love of gold is not that of the miser: they spend as they receive it. If coin were introduced among savages, they would demand it in the same way. What the Neapolitans want most is a sense of dignity. They perform generous and benevolent actions rather from impulse than principle. Their theories are worth nothing; and public opinion has no influence over them; but, if any here escape this moral anarchy, their conduct is more admirable than might be found elsewhere, since nothing in their exterior circumstances is favorable to virtue. Nor laws nor manners are there to reward or punish. The good are the more heroic, as they are not the more sought or better considered for their pains. With some honorable exceptions, the highest class is very like the lowest; the mind is as little cultivated in the one as in the other. Dress makes the only difference.