The splendor of the climate requires
nothing more than shade from the sun, and occasionally shelter from a
violent storm: the outer arcade affords them both; it becomes the
nightly lounge and daily dormitory of its inhabitant, and the interior
is abandoned to filth and decay. Indolence watches the tooth of Time
with careless eye and nerveless hand. Religion, or its abuse, reduces
every individual of the population to utter inactivity three days out of
the seven; and the habits formed in the three regulate the four. Abject
poverty takes away the power, while brutish sloth weakens the will; and
the filthy habits of the Italian prevent him from suffering from the
state to which he is reduced. The shattered roofs, the dark, confused,
ragged windows, the obscure chambers, the tattered and dirty draperies,
altogether present a picture which, seen too near, is sometimes
revolting to the eye, always melancholy to the mind. Yet even this many
would not wish to be otherwise. The prosperity of nations, as of
individuals, is cold and hard-hearted, and forgetful. The dead die,
indeed, trampled down by the crowd of the living; the place thereof
shall know them no more, for that place is not in the hearts of the
survivors for whose interests they have made way. But adversity and ruin
point to the sepulcher, and it is not trodden on; to the chronicle, and
it doth not decay.
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