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THE THEATRE OF SAN CARLO, AT NAPLES, AND 

 MADAME MALIBRAN. 



" Oui, Monsieur, certainement : les lois, 1'eglise, le gouvernement, 1'etat, sont quelque 

 chose, mais, Monsieur, les acteurs, et les actrices 1" 



WHENEVER our community shall be smitten with a universal mono- 

 mania, it will be upon the subject of the necessaries of life. The 

 necessaries of life ! We English are constantly talking of the neces- 

 saries of life 1 What are they '? Is there actually such a class of 

 things in existence ? or is it only necessary that the human imagina- 

 tion should always have something to pine and to pant after ? The 

 latter hypothesis strikes me as being by far the most probable ; 

 otherwise we should find the different nations of the earth, much 

 better agreed than they really are, in deciding what is the summum 

 bonum, the TO KO\OV which is to furnish the material substance of 

 their chiefest happiness. 



Deprive an Esquimaux of his oil and seal's flesh, and you instantly 

 convert him into a miserable man. What is a Scotsman ^without 

 " the dew of his native hills ?" What is he, but a miserable man ? 

 What is an Englishman, cut off from his hot joint and bottle of port? 

 What is a German, if you pull the pipe from his mouth, and with- 

 hold the beer-jug from his lips? What is the Frenchman, without 

 vanity? What is the Irishman, without a row? What are they all, 

 but miserable men ? But what is their misery, compared with that 

 of the Neapolitan, if you shut up his theatre? His misery is com- 

 parable to no other state of mortal torture, that can be imagined. 

 He is, like Satan, supreme in misery. 



The Neapolitan careth not for train-oil or seal's flesh, as doth the 

 Esquimaux. He would as soon swallow a lump of lava, hot from 

 Vesuvius, as drink a glass of " whusky" with the canny Scotchman. 

 He would much sooner commit murder, than dine, with the English- 

 man, off an underdone leg of mutton. Beer he loveth not much ; 

 and tobacco he detests ; vanity he hath none ; nor doth the bump of 

 pugnaciousness appear upon his cranium : but the [theatre ! the 

 theatre is his necessary of life, his heart's delight, his soul's darling! 

 Shut that, and you either crush his spirit, or rouse it to desperation, 

 according to the peculiar disposition of the unfortunate individual. 

 The latter event is much the more likely to happen. San Carlo was 

 burnt down : within three hundred days after the fire was'quenched, 

 it was rebuilt by the government with increased splendour. The 

 liberality and magnificence of the monarch were lauded to the skies: 

 but some praise is due to his zoisdom ; since, next to a rise in the 

 price of ice, no other national misfortune would be so sure to create 

 a revolution. 



In short what meat, drink, air, and clothing are to another man, 

 the stage (including all its varieties, from San Carlo, down to the 

 puppet show of the Creation of the World, in three acts) is to the 

 Neapolitan. Turn him out of house and home, he would not much 



