ity of Rossini's
style, the music, even of the divine Mozart, appears to go off heavily.
There is too much of what the French call _musique de fanfares_ in the
opera of _Don Giovanni_ and I believe most of the Italians are of my way of
thinking.

We have just heard of the death of the poor Princess Charlotte. I am no
great admirer of Kings and Queens; and yet I must own, I could not help
feeling regret for the death of this princess. I had formed a very high
opinion of her, from many traits in her character; and I fancied and hoped
that she was destined to redeem England from the degradation and bad odour
into which she had been plunged by the borough-mongers and bureaucrats,
engendered by the Pitt system. She had liberal ideas and an independent
spirit. I really almost caught myself shedding tears at this event, and had
she been buried here, I should have gone to scatter flowers upon her tomb:

His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani
Munere.[108]

Has no royalist or ministerial poet been found to do hommage to her
_manes_? Had she lived to be Queen of England she would have found a
thousand venal pens to give her every virtue under heaven.

There is a professor of natural philosophy now at Naples, of the name of
Amici, from Modena, who has invented a microscope of immense power. The
circulation of the blood in the thigh of a frog (the coldest animal in
nature), when viewed thro' this microscope, appears to take place with the
rapidity of a Swiss torrent.

Since I have been here, I have once more ascended Vesuvius; there was no
eruption at all this time, but I witnessed the sight of a stream of red-hot
liquid lava flowing slowly down the flank of the mountain. It was about two
and a half feet broad.

In my letters from Naples, the last time I was there, I gave you some idea
of the state of society. Among the upper classes gaming is reduced to a
science and is almost exclusively the order of the day. There is little or
no taste for litterature among any part of the native society. The upper
classes are sensualists; the middling ignorant and superstitious. With
regard to the _Lazzaroni_, I do not think that they at all deserve the ill
name that has been given to them. They always seem good humoured and
willing to work, when employment is given to them; and they do not appear
at all disposed to disturb the public peace, which, from their being so
numerous and formidable a body, they could easily do. The Neapo