1830.] [ 449 ] 



NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 



IT is said that the Neapolitan Court, moved by the petitions of some 

 scores of English dilettanti, lords and commoners, have serious thoughts 

 of requesting His Highness of Algiers to remove to Leghorn, or go 

 back to the sunny shores of the Land of Lions. Since he has arrived, 

 the persons of those noble absentees have appeared beggarly, their 

 dresses contemptible, and their moustachios not to be named as the 

 product of the human visage. The splendid Moor gives a sequin for 

 every paul of theirs, which is in the exact proportion of a guinea 

 Moorish to a shilling British ; his white chintz turban, his crimson velvet' 

 caftan, his green silk trowsers, his diamond-studded dagger, his gold- 

 hilted scymetar, his rings, bracelets, pipe, and girdle, each of them 

 worth half the rent-roll of our best finished dandy ; and above all, his 

 beard, sleek, rich, and perfumed a grand national product, of which 

 all the coaxing, combing, and curling of all the valets in Naples cannot 

 produce the remotest similitude have thrown the whole race of those 

 delicate creatures into unutterable despair. The moment the magni- 

 ficent Moor appears abroad, the countesses fly after him, the duchesses 

 desert the foreign ambassadors, and the " principessas" will not waste 

 a smile upon an English lord, even with three months' allowance in 

 M. Falconet's hands. 



To pistol or sabre the infidel, would be the obvious English mode ; 

 but he is reckoned one of the best shots on the earth, his scymetar could 

 cut through a turban, and the experimentalist would run a fair chance 

 of being sliced into fragments before he had made three passes. Poison 

 would be the natural Neapolitan mode, as the stiletto would be the 

 Italian, in general. But he is so surrounded with guards as to be 

 completely inaccessible ; and, between his valets and his double-barrelled 

 and gold-mounted pistols, the thing is beyond the calibre of the most 

 desperate dandy. ;" . 



In the mean time His Highness carries on the African administration 

 within his Palazzo in very superior style. 



" One of his servants had been guilty of some act of disobedience, 

 and was sentenced to death for it. The Neapolitan porter was directed 

 to procure a cart to carry away a corpse ; he asked if any body in the 

 house was dead, and received for answer that the execution would take 

 place in a few hours. On this he ran to fetch a Commissary of Police, 

 who gave the Dey to understand that he was not to take justice into his 

 own hands at Naples, but must leave it to the government. When the 

 Dey received the news of the events in France, he exclaimed, ' God is 

 great ! He drove me from my throne now his people have driven 

 him away.' " 



The French are already beginning a coinage for the new dynasty. 



" The French money is to bear the head of the new sovereign, sur- 

 rounded by the legend, < Louis Philippe I. King of the French.' The 

 reverse will present a crown formed of a branch of olive and laurel, 

 in the interior, of which the date of the year and the value of the piece 

 will be inscribed." 



All this is doubtless perfectly right, as nothing can sooner efface an 

 old king from the bosoms of a loving people, than their having no 

 remembrance of him in their pockets. There was palpable impolicy, 



M.M. New Series. VOL. X. No. 58. 3 L 



