FOOTNOTE: [32] There is a charming description of the Lake of Albano, in a collection of poems by Madame Brunn, _nee_ Muenter, whose talent and imagination give her a first rank among the women of her country. Chapter ii. They arrived at Naples by day, in the midst of that immense population, at once so animated and so indolent. They first traversed the Via Toledo, and saw the Lazzaroni lying on the pavement, or in osier baskets which serve them for lodging, day and night. There is something extremely original in this state of savage existence, mingled with civilization. There are some among these men who do not even know their own name, and who go to confess anonymous sins; not being able to tell who it is that has committed them. There is a subterranean grotto at Naples where thousands of Lazzaroni pass their lives, only going out at noon to see the sun, and sleeping the rest of the day, whilst their wives spin. In climates where food and raiment are so easy of attainment it requires a very independent and active government to give sufficient emulation to a nation; for it is so easy for the people merely to subsist at Naples, that they can dispense with that industry which is necessary to procure a livelihood elsewhere. Laziness and ignorance combined with the volcanic air which is breathed in this spot, ought to produce ferocity when the passions are excited; but this people is not worse than any other. They possess imagination, which might become the principle of disinterested actions and give them a bias for virtue, if their religious and political institutions were good. Calabrians are seen marching in a body to cultivate the earth with a fiddler at their head, and dancing from time to time, to rest themselves from walking. There is every year, near Naples, a festival consecrated to the _madonna of the grotto_, at which the girls dance to the sound of the tambourine and the castanets, and it is not uncommon for a condition to be inserted in the marriage contract, that the husband shall take his wife every year to this festival. There is on the stage at Naples, a performer eighty years old, who for sixty years has entertained the Neapolitans in their comic, national character of Polichinello. Can we imagine what the immortality of the soul may be to a man who thus employs his long life? The people of Naples have no other idea of happiness than pleasure; but the love of pleasure is still better than a barren egotism.