ON our arrival at the Monastery we were received by the Superior, or Guardiano, with great civility; we soon arranged all the particulars respecting our lodging and fare, and immediately took up our residence in two little white-washed cells in the poor retreat of the Francescani. The Monastery stands on the edge of the cliffs which overhang the sea; it is a rectangle, enclosing a little court, in the middle of which is a very large well of excellent water. The clois ters run round the court, and serve occasionally as a promenade for three pigs, which are kept on the refuse of the convent kitchen, until they are fat enough to go to a meal, not where they eat, but where they are

eaten.

The cells in the cloisters are but few; some of them are appropriated to the use of the lay brothers, and others are employed as store-rooms; one large outlet leads from the cloisters into the church; another gives admittance to the garden; and a third, secured with a large folding door, is a dark narrow passage cut through the rock, and leads to the cellars: continuing to descend, it opens low down upon the cliffs, and from the opening a winding path, cut in the face of the rock, leads almost to the shore; then, entering the cliffs again, the path ends in a broad cavern where the monks keep their boats; a few steps bring one to the sea-side.

We arrived at the Monastery a little before noon, and we had but just ended our conference with the Guardiano, when a cracked bell, which hung by the door of the refectory, called the willing monks to dinner: the Superior conducted us thither, and led us to the seat of honour at the upper end of the room, where he placed us by his side. The refectory is rather spacious; on the sides and at the upper end the floor is raised about a foot; this elevated part is about four feet wide, and on it are ranged the narrow tables, and the benches on which the monks sit. The walls on the sides are painted JAN. 1823.

Naples, June, 1822.

with figures of saints of both sexes, but these are sadly decayed by time and damp; and we learned afterwards, that the Superior was considering-seriously and sorrowfully considering-whether it would not be better to white-wash them out altogether. Over the door is an oil painting, representing the Persons of the Trinity and San Francesco, with a good many wax tapers before it, which the monks light up every Saturday night, and, according to their rules, sing and pray half an hour by the blaze: to the left of this picture is a pulpit, perched high against the wall, and ascended to by a flight of wooden steps. The kitchen adjoins the refectory, and there is an opening near the foot of the pulpit through which the laybrothers receive the dinner for the community from the cook; under this opening is inscribed, “Si non est satis, memento paupertatis." When we entered, we found five or six novices, and two or three friars, ranged in a row, and singing with all their might: after exercising themselves in this manner for a few minutes, they took their places at table, except one novice, who ascended the pulpit, and read a homily out of a great greasy book. His homily ended, he stopped until a lay brother had received the portions of soup, and had begun to deliver them round; then, immediately lifting up his voice, he sang a short grace, and closing the book with a slap, ran down the steps with surprising agility, bowed reverently to the Superior, and shuffled into his place at the board. A very good minestra di cavoli (cabbage broth) began the repast; it was followed by a plate of boiled meat, and that by another of roast; there was nothing very superlative in the cookery of these dishes, and the quantity was far from being considerable, and might be taken as a proof of the frugality or poverty of our hosts. Every monk had about a bottle of wine in an earthenware jug; and this liquor, we may observe, we (during our residence)

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found pretty good when they were obliged to buy it, but "very middling indeed" when it was what they had begged; for the good folks of Sorrento too generally make it a rule to give away in charity the very worst things they happen to have. A few figs and grapes from their own garden furnished the dessert. The monks' simple meal was eaten in haste: when it was ended, the Superior rang a little hand-bell; at this signal the novices got up, advanced towards the Superior with their arms crossed upon their breasts, bowed to him, and kissed the table at which he sat; they then bowed to each other, and, retreating a few steps, fell on their knees, their arms still crossed, and their faces turned towards their temporal chief: they remained in this situation a few minutes, when the Superior rang his bell again;. the monks then rose from table, the novices began to chaunt, and soon after rising, they, the monks and the Superior, sang and prayed in unison: all at once they stopped and fell on their knees; a single monk then carried on the prayer, and when he had concluded, the whole community joined in the response. This lasted about five or six minutes; the monks then formed a double line, and the Superior, taking the lead with awkward stateliness, made his exit from the refectory.

This, as we afterwards found, was the regular convent dinner; but it underwent a little variation on particular occasions,-as on Fridays and Saturdays fish was eaten instead of meat, as also on appointed fasts, or on other rare days when ways and meaus were rather embarrassed; for the happy times are past when the monks could assure themselves of abundant and unfailing supplies: still, however, they strive hard to distinguish the feast days from the ordinary ones, and on such times we found that the meal was generally reinforced by an additional plate of

meat, or some maccaroni, or a pizra, and a glass of wine better than common.

After dinner, the Superior out of politeness returned to us: in a few days other monks came to join us at the same time, and in short this innovation grew gradually into a habit; and as we usually remained at table longer than the monks, or took a bottle of wine and some fruit out into one of the alcoves over the sea, we had generally a little conversazione after dinner, which equally amused us and them. The novices, as soon

as they had dispatched their meal, retired to their seminary; and when they were gone, the monks dropped in upon us one after another, some to ask strange questions about foreign parts, some to tell stories of miracles, others to relate anecdotes of different monasteries in which they had resided, or of monks with whom they had associated. The Superior's favourite hero was a certain Irish Franciscan, Padre Tormichele,* lately defunct, whom he considered as a mostro di santità e di scienza; and we suspect he was inclined to believe that this Padre Ibernese had fully merited canonization. Another inexhaustible source of conversation was Enrico Ottavo, Anna Bolena, and Lutero, all of whom were huddled together in his head in a most amusing confusion. He frequently, with infinite pathos, observed, it was a great pity that England, which had once been such a flourishing garden of Catholicism, and had produced so many and such great saints and martyrs-martyrs inferior to none, and saints all but equal to those of Naples,-should now teem with nothing but noxious weeds, and be always covered with dark clouds; and that the English, who were such bella gente, should all be consigned into the hands of the dark one: he used, however, to console himself with the hope that the Almighty would not abandon that

unhappy country for ever to reprobation, but would in his own good time restore it to the true faith, and to his favour and protection, which he had so long withheld. Another subject of discourse was Naples, the Neapolitans, and the Carbonari. The Guardiano's opinion about his native city was, that it undoubtedly stood higher in the favour of God than any other spot on earth; in this opinion he was principally confirmed by the circumstance that miracles are performed there up to the present day: the Neapolitans, he said, were undoubtedly very bad people, very ignorant, very lazy, great thieves, great liars, and very malignant; but they had one capital virtuethat of believing more devoutly than any other people; and the bad part of them, he said, was composed entirely of those who had been spoiled by the French, or seduced by the Carbonari. He allowed that the Neapolitans did not excel in manufactures, which he attributed solely to the influence of the air; and this opinion he sustained and elucidated by the following ingenious explanation:-" our countrymen," said he, as all the world knows, can make very good maccaroni, and this is, because the air of Naples is favourable to the making of maccaroni ; but if they go to Rome, they cannot make good maccaroni there, because the air of Rome is not favourable to maccaroni-making:-now, now in England you excel in manufactures, because your air is cold and moist, and favourable to manufactures, especially to cotton weaving and cutlery-but Englishmen cannot make razors or stockings in Naples, for the air prevents them."

Our conversations were sometimes enlivened by Padre Torpietro, the Lettore (or instructor of the novices), a tall, thin, sententious old man who had grown grey in the cloisters; he was a very dogmatical personage, and prided himself extremely on his Latin, his logic, his theology, and his natural philosophy, of all which, as it seemed to us, he understood but very little. He was a person of great consideration in the Monasterythe most learned and the most agedand these circumstances, added to his experience in his business, made him

quite a confidential person in the town: the penitents, to whom he administered spiritual admonitions, continually supplied him with some little luxuries by way of presents, which gave him another sort of superiority in the eyes of his confreres. The presents he produced at table were generally choice fruit, and when he had eaten his fill, with equal generosity and condescension he regaled some of his favourite novices with the remainder; they received the gift with great eagerness, never, however, forgetting to mutter the Franciscan formula, "per l'amor di Dio." All the monks looked up to Torpietro with fear and trembling, and even the commanding spirit of the Superior stood cowed before him; nothing of importance was undertaken without his sanction, and every one craved his counsel in all affairs, heartily wishing at the same time that the old man was safe in his cell at Santa Maria la Nuova in Naples, to which monastery he belonged, as he resided at Sorrento only on account of his health. We do not, however, suppose that he will speedily relieve them from the unwelcome honour of his presence; for, no doubt, he finds himself much more comfortable in his capacity of confessor, and much more dignified in his quality of censor, than he would be as an undistinguished member in his own convent. Besides which, he was here quite a privileged person: on account of his age he was exempted from attending constantly at the prescribed services; he occupied the finest cell in the building; and he was listened to with patient and admiring attention whenever he told again his "thrice-told tales," which he generally did every day; for the old sage was very fond of hearing himself talk, and of the profound respect which was paid him by every individual in the convent,-monk, novice, and lay.

The alcoves, to which we have alluded before, were occasionally the scenes of consultations rather curious for a monastery. Here the lay-brothers came to confer with their Superiors upon the value of dreams, deaths, accidents, &c. with reference to the buona Offiziata, or Neapolitan lottery. The sacerdoti are not allowed

to play in the lottery themselves, but they study the cabala,* and give their advice to the laici, who, not lying under the same inability, continually tried their luck, as it always happened that they had dreams, or met with accidents more promising than any which they had had before: but notwithstanding these continual advances, we never heard that any success crowned their expectations. The Guardiano's opinion in these matters was the most esteemed, though for what reason we know not, as he never happened to divine the fortunate numbers: yet his ill success did not abate the poor monks' credulity, and they continued to consult him, and he to give his advice, with as much confidence as ever. When we first went to reside with the monks we ourselves were several times so licited to give our opinion: the first time this occurred was one day when we were walking in the cloisters, at the hour when the greater part of the monks had retired to take their siesta; on this occasion a lay-brother came up to us with a soliciting smile on his face, and, after a short preface, said, "Ne Signori! volete far mi una grazia?-Voi altri Inglesi siete nomi

nati per il calcolo non mi potresse combinare un terno? + We assured him that, whatever other Englishmen might know of the matter, we knew nothing about it: he desisted from his solicitations, which, however, he repeated once or twice afterwards, and we believe we never thoroughly persuaded him of our incapacity in this respect.

The Superior's ruling passion was music, and his skill in that art was one of his most useful qualities in the church; his greatest ambition was to be heard above all the rest in the Messa Cantata, which he always was, on account of his voice being a high and shrill falsetto: he used frequently to amuse us in the alcove after dinner with an exhibition of his musical powers, sometimes singing the solos of a favorite mass, sometimes an old opera air, and at other times resuming the musical exercises of his youth, several of which we found very pretty. We send you two exercises on the scale, which are true antiques, and are not altogether destitute of merit:they were composed by a Franciscan monk, who lived and died in this very monastery.

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vanquished they took to flight, darting away, wrapped in sulphureous flames. Next to this, his most frequent subject of discourse was hell, which he most devoutly dreaded and abhorred; he thought he had a pretty good notion of its geography and of its terrors, which latter he described with all the puerile hideousness which a heated and feeble imagination, and a hankering after horrors, enabled him to invent.

One of the monks, who was most res gular in his attendance after dinner, was Padre Michel Angelo, a poor old man, "half daft," who had been for three or four years unsuccessfully engaged in a law-suit, the vexation of which, joined to a want of the means of procuring a few luxuries necessary to old age, and of which even poor Franciscans have need, had somewhat prematurely brought on dotage. The constant theme of his conversation was this interminable law-suit, and we believe not one of his companions escaped hearing something about it at least once a day. You would hardly guess what sort of a law-suit it is; these are the particulars: his father made him a monk, and his sister a nun, at a very early age; and to another sister, who afterwards mar ried, he left all his little property, charged however with the encumbrance of twelve ducats a year; this money was to be paid for forty masses, which he wished to have said by his son every year for the repose of his soul. Some years after the father's death, the sister discontinued paying this sum, and the object of the lawsuit was to compel her to discharge this obligation; but as Padre Michel Angelo had no money, his lawyer only worked per l'amor di Dio; and not caring much for such sort of motives, did not seem to be very diligent in his calling; and, in all appearance, the aged monk will come to an end before the law-suit. The sum in question the poor Franciscan looked upon as very considerable, and it would indeed have been sufficient to supply all his little wants, and to make his old age comfortable. But though this was the principal subject of Michel Angelo's conversation, it was by no means the only one: another favourite theme was a long rambling story about a young woman in Naples whom he had known in his youth this poor girl was possessed with devils, who used to hold audible conversations in her inside; he had frequently heard these conversations himself, but was not possessed of sufficient power to put a stop to this singular ventriloquism; at length, there came a venerable monk, who, by the force of his sanctity and his logic, was enabled to overcome these devils in an argument concerning God, and immediately on being

It sometimes happened that the monks did not pay their usual attendance, either because they had affairs which engaged their attention, or because the heat of the weather gave them more inclination for sleep than for conversation; and on such occasions we generally used to retire to an alcove at the end of the dormitory, whence, as it almost hung over the edge of the cliffs, and was open on two sides, we had a most beautiful view, comprising a great part of the bay and its islands; the city of Naples and the hills behind it; Vesuvius, of course; the towns of Portici, Resina, La Torre del Greco, and La Torre del Annunziata; and on our own side of the bay, the cliffs of Monte Chiaro, a part of the Piano, the pretty garden of the capuchin Monastery there, and the fine hills and shore of the peninsula running towards Cape Minerva; an old watch tower standing out on a little cape near some ruins, said to be of a temple of Neptune; and now and then a vessel coming round the peninsula, from Calabria, or the crowded passage boats from Naples, lowering their sails as they entered the little port of Sorrento, which was just below us, and creating in a moment a pleasing and busy maritime scene. We were accustomed to lounge about in this nook till the cool of the evening, when we generally took a walk; sometimes through the villages in the Piano; sometimes up the hills that lie between Sorrento and Massa: the last never failed to delight us; and our steps often turned mechanically into the long narrow street that led that way. We passed an old low gateway, immediately beyond which a bridge strides over the deep natural fosse or ravine which runs round the town: beyond the fosse there is a narrow green flat, and then a fine coloured mass of rocks covered on the