He stayed in Rome this time only a week: for on the 17th November they all started for Naples. In passing through Terracina he meets what Catholics will recognize as a _svegliarino_. It is customary, when a mission is being given in some parts of Italy, for one of the missioners to go out, accompanied by a bell, and such companions, lay and clerical, as wish to take part in the ceremony, go {63} around the village, and preach from a table in three or four different places. This has a remarkable effect--the listless loungers who prefer basking in the sun, or swallowing maccaroni, to going to the church for the sermons, are thus roused so far as to put their heads out of the window or door and ask what's the matter. By-and-bye the crowd thickens, one looks inquisitively at the other, and when their curiosity has been worked upon sufficiently, the missioner gets up, and in a fiery zealous discourse puts the fear of God into his hearers. Thousands are brought to repentance by these means every year. The sermon, of course, is not a polished oration, with points of rhetoric to suit the laws of criticism. It is rather broken and inflamed, short and telling sentences, and delivered with all that unction and impetuosity for which Italians are remarkable; and which is anything but intelligible to an Englishman, who is accustomed to the measured discourses of a London Churchman. Accordingly we find this proceeding thus dotted down in the journal:--"At Terracina we were very much _amused_ by a procession of penitents with the Bishop of Terracina, and an extravagant sermon preached by a priest from a table before the inn." At that time, how little could he foresee that he should afterwards give such a mission in Italy himself, and further, to the utmost of his power, with equal zeal, though with more sedateness, even such an _extravaganza_, as it now appeared to him. His style of preaching, however, as we shall hereafter see, was never such as to qualify him for an emphatic _svegliarino_. On November 21 they arrive in Naples, not very pleasantly, as Lady Spencer had suffered from the roughness of the road, and was obliged to rest a night in Capua, and George was suffering from a soreness in his eye. These inconveniences were forgotten for a moment on meeting Lord George Quin and his lady, daughter to Lord Spencer. Young Spencer was delighted with the children, though they could only speak French or Italian. The soreness of his eye keeps him at home next day, which he enjoys as he has full opportunity of chatting with his sister, whom he {64} seems to have loved very much. He has already alluded to the plan his mother formed for his learning to play on the guitar; so we shall not quote any of the handsome greetings which the guitar-master receives as he comes to inflict the penance of making his pupil tune the strings of this romantic instrument. {65} CHAPTER X. English Life In Naples.