I inquired if the men confined their addresses wholly to their own rank? She said, beauty often broke the barrier, and when a pretty woman of the second rank got a _cavalier servente_ of the first, much happiness and much distinction was the consequence: but alas! he will not even _try_ to push her up among the people of fashion, and when he meets any is sure to look ashamed of his mistress; so that her felicity can consist only in triumphing over equals, for to rival a superior is here an impossibility.
Our Duke and Dutchess of Cumberland have made all Naples adore them though, by going richly dressed, and behaving with infinite courtesy and good-humour, at an assembly or ball given in the _lower rooms_, as the English comically call them. A young Palermitan prince applauded them for it exceedingly; so I took the liberty to express my wonder. “Oh,” replied he, “we are not ignorant how much English manners differ from our own: I have already, though but just eighteen years old, as sovereign of my own state, under the King of both Sicilies, condemned a man to death _because he was a rascal_, but the law and the people govern in England I know.” My desire of hearing about Sicily, which we could not contrive to visit, made me happy to cultivate Prince Ventimiglia’s acquaintance; he was very studious, very learned of his age, and uncommonly clever: told me of the antiquities his island had to boast, with great intelligence, and a surprising knowledge of ancient history.
We wished to have made a party to go in the same company to Pæstum, but my cowardice kept me at home, so bad was the account of the roads and accommodation; though Abate Bianconi of Milan, for whom I have so much esteem, bid me remember to look at the buildings there attentively; adding, that they were better worth our observation than all the boasted antiquities at Rome; “as they had seen (said he) the original foundation of her empire, and outlived its decay: that they had seen her second birth too, and power under some of her pontiffs over all Europe about six or seven centuries ago; and that they would now probably remain till all _that_ was likewise abolished, with only slight traces left behind to shew that _fuimus_, &c.”