136

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

latter denomination. Most of the parties I am alluding toare, I believe, still alive, and for the pleasure they willderive from the reminiscence, if they ever see this work, Iwill mention their names. There was John Robert Stcuart,lately a partner of Finlay, Hodson, and Co.; John Timmins,Frederick Degen, Messrs. Vallin, Routh, and Valentine,George Noble, William Dixon, John Scott, British Consul,William Walker, an early English Reformer, J. Paley, sonof the well known Archdeacon Paley, and some others, allgood jOien and true.

Every day of the week, a considerable party met to dineat one or other of their houses. Pic-nic excursions tosome noted site of the beautiful surrounding country—toPompeii^.Baja, the Lake Fusaro, of oyster celebrity, MountVesuvius , Sosyento, &c., were continually being arranged.Besides which, *every family expected their table to be dailyvisited by two or three adventitious guests; and everyevening their houses were opened to whist and supper.

I had been at Naples but a couple of months, when I forthe first time, knew the horrid feeling of intoxication; and atthe same time witnessed a striking instance of British navaldiscipline. For the sake alone of recording the latter, Imust mention the former. I was invited to a grand dinnerby the officers of the British eighty gun ship, the Gibraltar .So many of those gentlemen asked me to drink, that by thetime the dessert was dispatched my discretion had taken itsdeparture. Nothing would satisfy me but a bath, andleaping out of the wardroom window into the sea. I believeI was rather encouraged than otherwise in this freak, butMr. Ireland the first lieutenant, instantly ordered twomidshipmen to strip and join me in the water, to keep mecompany as he said. I was not so far gone, as not to be struckwith this instance of discipline, when I saw the two younggentlemen hastily get into a boat, strip, and plunge into the