May 7th, 1830
In the morning to the Chapel of St. Januarius, to see the blood liquefy. The grand ceremony was last Saturday at the Cathedral, but the miracle is repeated every morning in the Chapel for eight days. I never saw such a scene, at once so ludicrous and so disgusting, but more of the latter. There was the saint, all bedizened with pearls, on the altar, the other silver ladies and gentlemen all round the chapel, with an abundance of tapers burning before them. Certain people were admitted within the rails of the altar; the crowd, consisting chiefly of women, and most of them old women, were without. There is no service, but the priests keep muttering and looking at the blood to see if it is melting. To-day it was unusually long, so these old Sibyls kept clamouring, ‘Santa Trinità!’ ‘Santa Vergine!’ ‘Dio onnipotente!’ ‘San Gennaro!’ in loud and discordant chorus; still the blood was obstinate,3 so the priest ordered them to go down on their knees and to say the Athanasian Creed, which is one of the specifics resorted to in such a case. He drawled it out with his eyes shut, and the women screamed the responses. This would not do, so they fell to abuse and entreaties with a vehemence and volubility, and a shrill clamour, which was at once a proof of their sincerity and their folly. Such noise, such gesticulations. One woman I never shall forget, with outstretched arm, distorted visage, and voice of piercing sharpness. In the meantime the priest handed about the phial to be kissed, and talked the matter over with the bystanders. ‘È sempre duro?’ ‘Sempre duro, adesso v’ è una piccola cosa.’ At last, after all the handling, praying, kissing, screaming, entreating, and abusing, the blood did melt,4 when the organ struck up, they all sang in chorus, and so it ended. It struck me as particularly disgusting, though after all it is not fair to abuse these poor people, who have all been brought up in the belief of the miracle, and who fancy that the prosperity of their city and all that it contains is somehow connected with its due performance. The priests could not discontinue it but by acknowledging the imposture, and by an imaginative people, who are the slaves of prejudice, and attached to it by force of inveterate habit, the acknowledgment would not be believed, and they would only incur odium by it; there it is, and (for some time at least) it must go on.
Went up to Craven’s villa (this is the villa at which the amour between the present Queen of Naples and Captain Hess was carried on), and sat there doing nothing in the middle of flowers, and sea breezes, and beautiful views. To comprehend all the luxury of the bel far niente one must come to Naples, where idleness loses half its evil by losing all its enervating qualities; there is something in the air so elastic that I have never been at any place where I have felt as if I could make exertions so easily as here, and yet it is a great pleasure to sit and look at the Bay, the mountains, the islands, and the town, and watch its amusing inhabitants. At least half an hour of every morning is spent at my window, while I am dressing, watching the lazaroni, who fish, work, swim, dress, cook, play, and quarrel under it. At this moment the scene is as follows:—Half a dozen boats with awnings and flags moored off the landing-place, a few fishing-boats with men mending their nets, three fellows swimming about them, two with red caps on perched upon the wall playing at cards, two or three more looking on, one on the ground being shaved by a barber with a basin (the exact counterpart of Mambrino’s helmet), and two or three more waiting their turn for the same operation—always a certain number lounging about, others smoking or asleep.
Notes
3 I dined at Hill’s; sat next to the Duchess de Dalberg, talked of the miracle, which she told me she firmly believed. I fancied none believed it but the lowest of the people, and was (very foolishly) astonished; for what ought ever to produce astonishment which has to do with credulity in matters of religion?
4 Illarum lacrymæ meditataque murmura præstant,—Juvenal, 6.