As it wanted but a few days to Lent, I chose to remain _incognito_ during that time, busying myself in studying the genius of the people, and the manners and habits of the various classes. The tumult of the city, at all hours, and in all parts, was equally novel and strange to me; as was likewise the great contrast I observed between those who were in authority, and those whose duty it was to obey: the first, full of importance, and proud of their privileges, assumed not merely an air of superiority, but of disdain and contempt for the lower classes; who, in their turn, aware of their necessities, and humiliated by their lot, betrayed in their countenances a sense of their utter degradation, and seemed themselves to authorize the slavery that debased them. This moral deformity presented a strange contrast to the physical beauty that reigned on every side: the one inspiring satisfaction and delight, the other abhorrence and disgust. Naples itself is a paradise; but the Neapolitans, to what are they to be likened? Whatever they are, it is the government which has made them so. The people--and by the people I do not merely understand the lower orders, but even those who inhabit the court--have not a single fault that is not to be attributed to their rulers: the better they are by nature, the worse they become by their education. This evil is more apparent in the capital than in the provinces; an evident proof that the government and the court occasion the evil, and the consequent demoralization; in fact, it is with the king himself, who sets the example, that the whole mischief originates. Suppose a lazzarone steals a handkerchief out of your pocket; might he not plead in excuse that others commit far greater robberies with impunity? Does not theft pervade every rank of society, even to royalty itself? What barefaced depredations are not made on the public purse, under the title of salaries and stipends, for duties which do not exist! Whatever vices prevail in the lower classes, are invariably to be found in a greater degree in the higher, and more especially in the court circle. Lying, which is so common a vice among the lower orders, is elevated to a science in the middle class, while among the nobility it is regarded as a grace and a sort of gallantry, and with the king and his ministers it is esteemed as an essential principle in the art of governing.