"Two hours after the cessation of the rain, the water had disappeared, and I then perceived the use of this kind of deluge. The streets were clean; which they never are in Naples except after a flood of this sort."
One short anecdote, and we have done. After a long account of St Januarius, including the well-known miracle of the liquefaction of his blood, and some amusing illustrations of his immense popularity with the Neapolitans, M. Dumas, in two pithy lines, gives us the length, breadth, and thickness of a lazzarone's religion.
"I was one day in a church at Naples," he says, "and I heard a lazzarone praying aloud. He entreated God to intercede with St Januarius to make him win in the lottery."
On the whole, we think this one of the most amusing of M. Dumas's works, very light and sketchy, as is evident from our extracts; but at the same time giving a great deal of information concerning Naples, its environs, inhabitants, and customs, of much interest, and calculated to be highly useful to the traveller. It is also very free from a fault with which we taxed its author in a former paper, and we can scarcely call to mind a single line which it would be necessary to expunge, in order to render it fit reading for the most fastidious. As far as we ourselves are concerned, we heartily wish M. Dumas would travel over all the kingdoms of the earth, and write a book about each of them; and if he is as good company in a post-chaise as his books are at the chimney-corner, there are few things we should like better than to accompany him on his pilgrimage.
"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"