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pearance is hailed with a great clamour of tongues, and a
general sensation for which in our modesty we are some-
what at a loss to account, until, turning into the yard, we
find that one of a party of French gentlemen who were on
the mountain at the same time is lying on some straw in the
stable, with a broken limb: looking like Death, and suffer-
ing great torture; and that we were confidentiy supposed
to have encountered some worse accident.
So «well returned, and Heaven be praised!» as the
cheerful Vetturino, who has borne us company all the way
from Pisa, says, with all his heart! And away with his ready
horses, into sleeping Naples!
It wakes again to Policinelli and pickpockets, buffo
singers and beggars, rags, puppets, flowers, brightness,
dirt, and universal degradation; airing its Harlequin suit
in the sunshine, next day and every day; singing, starving,
dancing, gaming, on the sea-shore; and leaving all labour
to the burning mountain, which is ever at its work.
Our English dilettanti would be very pathetic on the
subject of the national taste, if they could hear an Italian
opera half as badly sung in England as we may hear the
Foscari performed, to-night, in the splendid theatre of San
Carlo. But, for astonishing truth and spirit in seizing and
embodying the real life about it, the shabby little San Car-
lino Theatre - the ricketty house one story high, with a
staring picture outside: down among the drums and trum-
pets, and the tumblers, and the lady conjuror - is without
a rival anywhere.
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