Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/18

10 pasteboard. There was a great deal of country scenery in this one, and in the distance what looked like pilgrimages; elaborate trees, rocks, and stones, with people of all ages resting and eating, amongst them St. Anne, at a very advanced age. The poor people revelled in it all, pointing to the figures: "Ecco, come si mangia, come si fa!" you heard at every turn; and mothers held up dirty, ragged children to show them these wonders.

(5) Another Presepio may be mentioned, that of Gesù Vecchio. This being in a very old part of the city, only frequented by the very poor, was more shabbily got up, and the dresses of the Virgin and St. Joseph and the Babe more tawdry. There were the usual figures of Magi and their black boy-pages; angels with paper wings flapping; peasants and corn: but done in calico and tinsel, of a style about as good as might be seen in any English country fair. But the poor people were equally happy in gazing on it; and this had the additional attraction of a presentment of the Massacre of the Innocents in another niche of the church. The poor little babes were all represented dead, each held by one foot by a rough-helmeted and armed Roman soldier, who flourished his sword in the other hand, and seemed to "mock the ruin he had wrought". Agonised women, apparently running hither and thither, and begging for the little bleeding bodies with heart-rending earnestness—this was really touching, spite of its artistic coarseness. Herod, with a large gilt crown, sat high above, under a stately canopy, dressed in royal robes, feasting his eyes on his cruel work. This tragedy seemed quite fresh to the children and ignorant women looking on at it, and they were full of sympathy and grief, and many in tears.

⁂ For some of the foregoing I am indebted to a MS. of the late Miss M. Oldfield, who lived for some time in Naples. She kindly let me copy her notes, and Nos. 3-5 are taken with very little alteration from them.