The English who wintered in Naples at the same time with the Spencer family seemed to have formed, as they generally do, a special caste. They dined together, drove out together, they laughed at the churches, and crowded the opera. Their conduct in the latter place did not seem to be very edifying to the Neapolitans, who, perhaps, may have thought it was an English custom to see a nobleman "tumbling tipsy one night into Earl Spencer's box," to the no small disedification of the whole family, who were models of sobriety and decorum. The English, by forming their own circles in this exclusive manner, and by their external deportment on various occasions, keep away the higher and more pious grades of society in Catholic cities. The scoffers at monachism and priestly rule are freely admitted within the English pale, and pay for their hospitality, by catering to the worst prejudices of their entertainers, and maligning their neighbours. It is very often a repetition of the fable of the sour grapes. For this we have ample testimony in the writings of our contemporaries, which we will strengthen by quoting Father Ignatius's own words a little later. The better Italians sometimes laugh at all this, so that John Bull is become a by-word among them for exclusiveness and arrogant, selfish pride. The blame lies with the English. They sometimes found disagreeable incidents from the clashing of tastes and customs. On the 8th of December they made the round of the churches, but were sorely piqued that the Neapolitans had too much respect for our Blessed Lady to open the operas and theatres on the evening {66} of the Feast of her Immaculate Conception, so they had to content themselves with whist, and discordant notes from George's guitar. Another of these crosses occurred a few days after. George made a lame excursion to Vesuvius, and when groaning from toothache on his return, heard that the father of his bosom friend, Sir Thomas Fremantle, senior, was dead. To make matters worse, the remains could not be interred in a cemetery, and the _Inglesi_ had to pay the last sad rites to their friend in a private garden. On Christmas Day they had service at the Consul's, and then they walked about, and had their whist for the rest of the day. The old year was danced out at a grand quadrille party, of which more hereafter; and George tells us very carefully that "a set of us drank in the new year in _diavolone_." How remarkable, at every turn, and even by such chance and off-hand expressions, to note the contrast between the George Spencer of that day and the subject of divine grace he afterwards became!