have spectres at our bed's-foot every midnight
in the year?

Lest quackdom, however, left to itself,
should quite cure—or kill—Capri out of
hand, it is but justice to remember that it is
the dwelling-place of very many learned and
accomplished physicians and surgeons—men
whose long lives have been spent not only in
the ardent pursuit of knowledge and science,
but also in doing good to their fellow-
creatures—in healing not only wounds but hearts;
and who glorify by their charity the profession
which by their talents they adorn.

Ought I to say anything of the reverend
profession in Capri? Shall I be impertinent
in lightly touching on themes ecclesiastical?
Would not, moreover, a paraphrase of that
which I have said of the doctors do also for
the clergy? For there are doctors and
doctors, and there are parsons and parsons.
Orthodox ecclesiastics—good, pious, charitable,
unostentatious men, doing acts of mercy
by stealth; Christian priests of every
denomination, labouring heartily in their vocation,
and earning their reward. And there are
also the irregular Cossack corps, the sellers
of pious pills, and holy ointments, and
polemical plaisters—braying Boanerges, cushion-
thumpers—men who jump, and howl, and
rave, and throw their arms about, and pipe
all hands to repentance as violently and
hoarsely as boatswains. When I hear the
Reverend Mr. Tinklesimble, who is wonderfully
eloquent, but a comb for whose hair and
soap for whose face are decidedly (under
correction) desiderata—when I hear Mr.
Tinklesimble lecture upon the Beast in the
Pit, and the Seventh Vial, and the
Crystal Sea, proving by word and gesture,
plainly though involuntarily, that the study
of the Apocalypse hath found him mad or
left him so; when in twenty other streets
and chapels I hear reverend lunatics gnashing
in their padded rooms—I mean pulpits—I
am content to pass them by: what would
animadversion upon them have to do with
Capri, though they dwell there! Are not
they common to every nation and every creed,
and to all humanity?

Ecclesiastic architecture is of much
account in Capri. Tall steeples point upwards
like the tall chimneys of Preston, telling of
extensive factories of grace. Gothic and
Corinthian, Saxon and Byzantine—of every
style are these fanes. Yet do I seem to miss
a church on a hill I loved twenty years syne:
it was the parish church of Capri, when Capri
was yet but in the hundred of Herringbone,
a poor fishing hamlet. The old church, the
natives affectionately called it;—that ancient,
grey, shingled, moss-grown edifice, with its
carved porch and lazy sun-dial. How many,
many times when a boy I have played among
the green graves, or sat and gazed in childish
contemplation at the town beneath, and the
blue sea rising straight up at the sky as
though to engulph it; or spelt over the
inscription on the tomb of the brave sea-captain
who took the fugitive Charles the Second over
to France after the battle of Worcester, and
of that famous old woman who fought in male
attire at Blenheim and Ramilies and
Malplaquet, all through the wars of Queen Anne,
and who died when she was more than a
hundred years of age, pensioned by the king
of Capri.

But the clergy, the doctors, the schools, the
aristocracy, all of the proudest features of
Capri, culminate on her boulevards, the Cliff.

The stones of the Paris boulevards and my
feet are brothers; I know the gardens of the
palace at Lacken; I have walked Unter den
Linden, and toiled up the Grande Rue of
Pera. I have yet to lounge on the Toledo
and the Quay Santa Lucia; to smoke a
cigarette at the Puerta del Sol; to humectate the
evening breeze on the Pincian Hill; to buy
sweetmeats on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence,
or bargain for a yard of Venice gold-chain
on the Rialto. Regent Street is familiar to
me, likewise Ratcliffe Highway; yet I question
if any public promenade the wide world
through be as pleasant, gay, and picturesque
as the Cliff at Capri. The footpath is so narrow,
to begin with; the throng is so thick, the
people so well dressed; they look so happy;
there is so much youth. There are so many
smiles. The very commerce is light-hearted
and picturesque; jewellery, shells, fancy
walking-canes, toys, curiosities, French kid-
gloves, bonnets and feathers, hot-house fruits
and flowers, gay lithographs, gift-books,
albums and church-services bound in velvet
and gold. None but the amenities of trade
find stalls in this gay mart. The bagatelle is
triumphant. Vive la bagatelle!

If you are unmarried, unhappy, poor and
have no friends, but are withal of a cheerful
temperament, and unenvious of the prosperity
of others, it is balm to your wounded spirit
to walk here on a breezy morning or sunny
autumn evening, gliding silently but
observantly among the motley, careless crowd.
Hundreds of little histories you may weave
for yourself, and not one tragic one among
them. Here are sweethearts, young couples
on their wedding tour, bluff papas of stock-
broking tendencies, who have come express
from Capel Court to take their young families
out walking; stout mammas in gorgeous silks
and bonnets, like a page out of Mr. Audubon's
natural history book. Here are delicious
young ladies blushing to find from the admiring
eyes of passers-by how pretty they are;
here are wonderful foreigners, whose mustachios,
braiding, and mosaic jewellery, would
do honour to Verrey's or the Café Cardinal,
and who, disgusted at the turpitude of the
Austrian government, the tyranny of the
French Emperor, and the tergiversation of
the King of Prussia, have come to Capri as
to another Patmos; and are not too proud to
teach German verbs, and " Do, Re, mi, fa,
sol," for a livelihood. If you have a becoming