How judicious is Mr. Addison’s remark, “That _Siste Viator!_ which has a striking effect among the Roman tombs placed by the road side, loses all its power over the mind when placed in the body of a church:” I think he might have said the same, had he lived to see funereal urns used as decorations of hackney-coach pannels, and _Caput Bovis_ over the doors in New Tavistock-street.
It is worth recollecting however, that the Dictator Sylla is supposed to be the first man of consequence who ordered his body to be burned at Rome, as till then, burial was apparently the fashion: his death, occasioned by the _morbus pedicularis_, made his interment difficult, and what necessity suggested to be done for him, grew up into a custom, and the sycophants of power, ever hasty to follow their superiors, now shewed their zeal even in _post obit_ imitation. But while I am writing, more modern and less tyrannic claimants for respect agreeably disturb one’s meditations on the cruelty and oppression used by these wicked possessors of immortal though ill-gotten fame.
The Queen of Naples is delivered, and we are all to make merry: the _Castello d’Uovo_, just under our windows, is to be illuminated: and from the Carthusian convent on the hill, to my poor solitary old acquaintance the hermit and hair-dresser, who inhabits a cleft in mount Vesuvius, all resolve to be happy, and to rejoice in the felicity of a prince that loves them.--Shouting, and candles, and torches, and coloured lamps, and Polinchinello above all the rest, did their best to drive forward the general joy, and make known the birth of the royal baby for many miles round the capital; and there was a splendid opera the next night, in this finest of all fine theatres, though that of Milan pleases me better; as I prefer the elegant curtains which festoon it over the boxes there, to our heavy gilt ornaments here at Naples; and their boasted looking-glasses, never cleaned, have no effect as I perceive towards helping forward the enchantment. A _festa di ballo_, or masquerade, given here however, was exceedingly gay, and the dresses surprisingly rich: _our_ party, a very large one, all Italians, retired at one in the morning to quite the finest supper of its size I ever saw. Fish of various sorts, incomparable in their kinds, composed eight dishes of the first course; we had thirty-eight set on the table in that course, forty-nine in the second, with wines and dessert truly magnificent, for all which Mr. Piozzi protested to me that we paid only three shillings and sixpence a head English money; but for the truth of that he must answer: we sate down twenty-two persons to supper, and I observed there were numbers of these parties made in different taverns, or apartments adjoining to the theatre, whither after refreshment we returned, and danced till day-light.