for the court, to whose misgovernment the miserable condition of the
country was so greatly to be imputed. By the kindness of her nature,
as well as by her attractions, she had won his heart. Earl St. Vincent,
writing to her at this time, says, "Pray do not let your fascinating
Neapolitan dames approach too near our invaluable friend Nelson, for he
is made of flesh and blood, and cannot resist their temptations." But
this was addressed to the very person from whom he was in danger.

The state of Naples may be described in few words. The king was one of
the Spanish Bourbons. As the Caesars have shown us to what wickedness
the moral nature of princes may be perverted, so in this family, the
degradation to which their intellectual nature can be reduced has been
not less conspicuously evinced. Ferdinand, like the rest of his race,
was passionately fond of field sports, and cared for nothing else.
His queen had all the vices of the house of Austria, with little to
mitigate, and nothing to ennoble them--provided she could have her
pleasures, and the king his sports, they cared not in what manner the
revenue was raised or administered. Of course a system of favouritism
existed at court, and the vilest and most impudent corruption prevailed
in every department of state, and in every branch of administration,
from the highest to the lowest. It is only the institutions of
Christianity, and the vicinity of better-regulated states, which prevent
kingdoms, under such circumstances of misrule, from sinking into a
barbarism like that of Turkey. A sense of better things was kept alive
in some of the Neapolitans by literature, and by their intercourse with
happier countries. These persons naturally looked to France, at the
commencement of the Revolution, and during all the horrors of that
Revolution still cherished a hope that, by the aid of France, they
might be enabled to establish a new order of things in Naples. They were
grievously mistaken in supposing that the principles of liberty would