diplomatic circle, separates her a little from our daily course; but she loves nothing better than to throw off the trammels of her position once in a while, and enjoy what she calls "true life" with us. She has lived in Naples several years, and is quite familiar with the country and its history in its various remarkable phases, its classic, mediæval, and modern, so that with her assistance, added to our own previous and continued studies, we find out nearly all we wish to know.

She told me a curious story about this Colletta book. General Colletta, its author, was an officer in the Engineers, who served under Murat, and distinguished himself. In 1820, after the return of Ferdinand I., he was banished from Naples. He went to Florence, and soon found his way into the literary and political society of the Palazzo Buondalmonte.

a

Now I must make a little digression to explain what this Palazzo Buondalmonte was. It was literally a great literary workshop, belonging to a Genevese, Jean Pierre Viesseaux. In 1820 he took this palazzo, and divided it off to suit his purposes. On the ground-floor he put his printing-presses; on the next was a circulating library, of great extent, with magazines, reviews, and journals from every part of Europe spread out on the tables, public reading-room. The upper stories were devoted to his editors, press-correctors, secretaries, clerks, in short all the staff of an extensive publishing business. The Anthologie, a review something like the Revue des Deux Mondes, was published by him. When it had reached its thirteenth year, it was suppressed to gratify the Czar of Russia, who thought it had treated him and his affairs too familiarly in one of its numbers. Cavour was one of its contributors, when Predari was its editor, somewhere near 1846 or 1847.

But to return to the Palazzo. Its reading-saloon has always been the rendezvous of the literary and political men of the day. Giordani, Nicolini, Leopardi, Porio, and many other Italian notorieties, could be found there. A gentleman carrying a letter of introduction to M. Viesseaux would always receive an invitation to his Thursday réunion of artists and savants. He was a generous and intelligent publisher, not only helping authors to means, but to fame.* His encouragement and good advice developed General Colletta into an historian, for he felt a great sympathy as well as friendship for the old man.

* Viesseaux had some happy days at the close of his long life. In 1859 he completed his eightieth year, on which occasion his friends presented him with a gold medal, bearing his profile and this simple legend:

Per quarant' anni benemerito

Dell' Italiana Civilità

Compriva l' Oltantesimo della Vita

Il 29 Settembre 1859.

Before he died the old man had the satisfaction of seeing his friends who had been disgraced and persecuted for politics' sake high in favor, and foremost in rank, — Peruzzi twice in power, Ricasoli at the summit. The great work was accomplished, the dream verified, and Viesseaux could sing the canticle of old Simeon, and go to sleep in triumph. One morning in 1863, Victor Emmanuel arrived in Florence, and Viesseaux seemed to have grown sixty years younger. His serene joy burst out into youthful gayety. He invited relatives and friends to reunite at his house the next day, and rejoice with him over the attainment of National Unity. But on that very evening the old man was stricken down with apoplexy, from which blow he never arose, and the 30th of the same month a funeral procession from a mourning city followed the remains of this great publisher to the Protestant cemetery of Florence.

Up to his last moments he retained his faculties and mental strength. His correspondence extended over two hemispheres, and was with high and low. M. Marc-Monnier, from whose article in the Revue Germanique, 1 July, 1863, the facts in this note are taken, mentions that he has upwards of twenty letters from Viesseaux, written just before his death, the handwriting of which is firm and clear.

Soon after Colletta became a habitué of the Palazzo Buondalmonte, finding his companions were all great authors, a natural spirit of emulation made him desire to be one also. And two greater reasons than mere ambition impelled him, a need of support, and an earnest desire to tell his country's story, which he felt he knew by heart better than any one else. The brave old soldier had never read a book in his life but Tacitus. This was nothing. He resolved to write his nation's history, taking up the thread where Giannone had stopped, and continuing it up to 1825; for, he thought, in that period the causes of many present evils could be found, the palliation of many sins discovered, and, from them, future help and improvement be obtained. So he set to work boldly.

When he brought the manuscript of his first volume to his literary friends at the Palazzo Buondalmonte, to his extreme mortification they condemned it. Leopardi, it is said, even discouraged him from continuing. The style was stiff and diffuse, the stories prolix and dull.

But the kind, good publisher would not listen to his giving up the work. He encouraged him, and roused anew the old man's flagging energy. Accordingly, the brave soldier set to work again courageously from the very beginning.

"Write your story as you tell it; that's all," said the practical Viesseaux.

And he did. He tore up the stilted pages of the first volume, and put down on paper his own simple, but fiery and rapid words. He recast the whole work, and grouped facts with soldierly precision together. The result was a striking, well-written narrative, that was applauded highly by the very ones who had condemned the first attempt.

Viesseaux did not think it prudent to publish the book

in Florence, so he sent it to Geneva to be brought out. The good old man, like Byron, awoke one fine day and found himself famous. The free tone of the work delighted the large body of Liberalists throughout reading Europe; and the book was gladly received, as it contained just the information everybody wished to know. But its stern condemnation of the poor Bourbons created a great alarm and enmity. The good-natured Grand Duke found himself forced to banish the author from Florence, even before his work had appeared in the city.

But the order of exile, and the fame, and the worldly prosperity arrived nearly too late. When the officer came to deliver the Grand Duke's message, he found the poor old man in bed, dying.

“Ask his Highness," said Colletta, "to grant me the delay of a few hours. In that time I shall have departed for an exile where no police will trouble me again."

A little while after, the stout-hearted old soldier lay stiff and dead. He never had the gratification of seeing his fine History in print; but the coming sound of its future fame reached his dying ears, and, I hope, it gave him much peace and content.

7#

"NOBILE OZIO."

66

APLES is the very place in which one can best enjoy Machiavelli's nobile ozio, a noble idleness of delightful society, with classical associations, under a heaven of beauty." The weather is delicious just on the threshold of May, a pleasant season in most countries, but in this paradise particularly lovely.

"Soft, silken hours,

Open suns, shady bowers;

'Bove all, nothing which lowers."

I have already told how we spend our mornings. Late in the afternoon we drive on the Chiaja, and out to Posilippo, or loiter through the long alleys of the Villa Reale, which, “with its ever green groups of holm-oaks and laurels, its fountains and sculptures, its temples sacred to Virgil and Tasso, lies along the shore of the Mediterranean like a string of emeralds.”*

Sometimes the morning's occupation keeps us out so late that we feel indifferent about the drive to the Posilippean hills; then we meet on the terrace, to enjoy the sunset, and watch the stream of elegant equipages rolling along the smooth lava pavement of the Chiaja and Mergellina, and look at the groups of idlers lying down or

* De Reumont.