The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
lemons. When his fit passed over it was succeeded by one of chess, and the whole family were bitten by it. Every spare hour, especially in the evening, was given to check and checkmating, and I soon learned to play one, and then two games, with my eyes blindfolded. I had the sense, however, to give it up completely, for my days were full of Philidor, and my dreams were of gambits all night.
The dull life was interrupted by a visit from Aunt G. She brought with her a Miss Morgan, who had been governess to the three sisters, and still remained their friend. She was a woman of good family in Cornwall, but was compelled, through loss of fortune, to take service.
Miss Morgan was very proud of her nephew, the Rev. Morgan Cowie, who was senior Wrangler at Cambridge. He had had the advantage of studying mathematics in Belgium, where in those days the entering examination of a College was almost as severe as the passing examination of an English College. She was also very well read, and she did not a little good in the house. She was the only one who ever spoke to us children as if we were reasonable beings, instead of scolding and threatening with the usual parental brutality of those days. That unwise saying of the wise man, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," has probably done more harm to the junior world than any other axiom of the same size, and it is only of late years that people have begun to "spoil the rod and spare the child." So Miss Morgan could do with the juniors what all the rest of the house completely failed in doing. The only thing that was puzzling about her was, that she could not play at Chess. Aunt G. waxed warm in defence of her friend, and assured the scoffers that "Morgan, with her fine mind, would easily learn to beat the whole party." "Fine mind!" said the scoffers. "Why, we would give her a Queen."
Naples.
Naples after Sorrento was a Paris. In those days it was an exceedingly pleasant City, famous as it always has been for some of the best cooks in Italy. The houses were good, and the servants and the provisions were moderate. The Court was exceedingly gay, and my father found a cousin there, old Colonel Burke, who was so intimate with the King, known as "Old Bomba," as to be admitted to his bedroom. There was also another Irish cousin, a certain Mrs. Phayre, who for many years had acted duenna to the Miss Smiths (Penelope and Gertrude). Penelope had always distinguished herself in Paris by mounting wild horses in the Bois de Boulogne, which ran away with her, and shook her magnificent hair loose. She became a favourite at the Court of Naples, and amused the dull royalties with her wild Irish tricks. It is said that, on one occasion, she came up with a lift instead of the expected vol au vent, or pudding. She ended by marrying the Prince of Capua, greatly to the delight of the King, who found an opportunity of getting rid of his brother, and put an end to certain scandals. It was said that the amiable young Prince once shot an old man, whom he found gathering sticks in his grounds, and on another occasion that he was soundly thrashed by a party of English grooms, whom he had insulted in his cups. The happy pair had just run away and concluded the "triple alliance," as it was called (this is a marriage in three different ways, in order to make sure of it; Protestant, Catholic, and Civil), when our family settled in Naples, and they found Mrs. Phayre and Gertrude Smith, the other sister, in uncomfortable State, banished by the Court, and harassed by the police. All their letters had been stopped at the post-office, and they had had no news from home for months. My father saw them carefully off to England, where Gertrude, who had a very plain face and a very handsome figure, presently married the rich old Lord Dinorben. Poor Miss Morgan also suffered considerably at Naples from the stoppage of all her letters; she being supposed at least to be a sister of Lady Morgan, the "wild Irish girl," whose writings at that time had considerably offended the Italian Court.
Naples was perhaps the least strict of all the Italian cities, and consequently it contained a colony, presided over by the Hon. Mrs. Temple, Lady Eleanor Butler, Lady Strachan, and Berkeley Craven, who would somewhat have startled the proprieties of another place. The good-natured Minister was the Hon. Mr. Temple, Lord Palmerston's brother, who cared nothing for a man's catechism provided he kept decently clear of scandal. The Secretary of Legation was a Mr. Kennedy, who married a Miss Briggs, and died early. These were great friends of the family. On the other hand, the Consul, Captain Galway, R.N., was anything but pleasant. He was in a perpetual state of rile because his Consular service prevented his being received at Court; moreover, he heard (possibly correctly) that Mrs. Phayre and her two protégées were trying to put Colonel Burton in his place. He was also much troubled by his family, and one of them (the parson) especially troubled him. This gentleman having neglected to provide for a young Galway whose mamma he had neglected to marry, the maternal parent took a position outside the church, and as the congregation streamed out, cried in a loud voice, pointing to the curate, "Him the father of my child." Another element of confusion at Naples was poor Charley Savile, Lord Mexborough's son, who had quarrelled himself out of the Persian Legation. He was a good hand with his sword, always ready to fight, and equally ready to write. He always denied that he had written and sent about some verses which all Naples attributed to him, and they were certainly most scandalous. Of one lady he wrote—
"Society courts her, wicked old sinner,
Yet what won't man do for the sake of a dinner?"
Of another he wrote—
"You look so demure, ma'am,
So pious, so calm,
Always chanting a hymn,
Or singing a psalm.
Yet your thoughts are on virtue and heav'n no more
Than the man in the moon—you dreadful young bore."
This pasquinade led to some half-dozen challenges and duels. It was severe, but not worse than society deserved. Naples has never been strict; and about the forties it was, perhaps, the most dissolute City on the Continent. The natives were bad, but the English visitors were worse. In fact, in some cases their morals were unspeakable.
There was a charming family of the name of Oldham. The father, when an English officer serving in Sicily, had married one of the beauties of the island, a woman of high family and graceful as a Spaniard. The children followed suit. The girls were beautiful, and the two sons were upwards of six feet in height, and were as handsome men as could well be seen. They both entered the army. One, in the 2nd Queen's, was tortured to death by the Kaffirs when his cowardly soldiers ran away, and left him wounded. The other, after serving in the 86th in India, was killed in the light cavalry charge of Balakalava. The families became great friends, and I met them both in India.
Naples was a great place for excursions. To the north you had Ischia and the Solfatara, a miniature bit of Vulcanism somewhat like the Geyser ground in Iceland, where ignoramuses thought themselves in the midst of untold volcanic grandeur. Nothing could be more snobbish than the visit to the Grotto del Cane, where a wretched dog was kept for the purpose of being suffocated half a dozen times a day. There I was determined to act dog, and was pulled up only in time to prevent being thoroughly asphyxiated. The Baths of Nero are about equal to an average Turkish Hammám, but nothing more. To the south the excursions were far more interesting.
Beyond Herculaneum, dark and dingy, lay Pompeii, in those days very different from the tame Crystal Palace affair that it is now. You engaged a cicerone as best you could; you had nothing to pay because there were no gates; you picked up what you liked, in shapes of bits of mosaic, and, if you were a swell, a house or a street was opened up in your honour. And overlaying Pompeii stood Vesuvius, which was considered prime fun. The walking up the ash cone amongst a lot of seniors, old men dragged up by lazzaroni, and old women carried up in baskets upon lazzaroni's backs, was funny enough, but the descent was glorious. What took you twenty minutes to go up took four minutes to go down. Imagine a dustbin magnified to ten thousand, and tilted up at an angle of thirty-five degrees; in the descent you plunged with the legs to the knees, you could not manage to fall unless you hit a stone, and, arrived at the bottom, you could only feel incredulous that it was possible to run at such a rate. We caused no end of trouble, and I was found privily attempting to climb down the crater, because I had heard that an Englishman had been let down in a basket. Many of these ascents were made; on one occasion during an eruption, when the lava flowed down to the sea, and the Neapolitans with long pincers were snatching pieces out of it to stamp and sell, we boys, to the horror of all around, jumped on the top of the blackening fire stream, burnt our boots, and vilely abused