* * * * *


MASANIELLO.


The last No. (8,) of the _Foreign Quarley Review_, just published, contains
an attractive article on the Revolutions of Naples, in 1647 and 1648, in
which Masaniello played so conspicuous a part. The paper is in the easy
historical style of Sir Walter Scott; but as little could be selected for
our pages, except the Adventures of the Rebel Fisherman, and as we have
given the leading events of his life in an early volume of the MIRROR, we
content ourselves with the following passage. After a tolerably fair
estimate of the character of Masaniello, in which Sir Walter considers his
extraordinary rise as a work of fortune and contingency rather than of his
own device in the conception, or his own exertions in the execution--the
writer says--

"It would be doing Masaniello injustice, however, if we did not add, that
having no distinct prospect of rendering essential service to his country,
he was at the same time totally free from any sinister views of personal
aggrandizement. He appears to have been sincere in his wishes, that when he
had set Naples free,--by which he understood the abolition of imposts,--the
government of it should be committed to a popular management. The Memoirs
of 1828 record a singular circumstance with regard to this point, on the
authority of De Santis. While, on Friday, July 12th, the sixth day of the
insurrection, he was sitting in his judgment-seat, a female masked, or man
in woman's habit, approached and whispered, 'Masaniello, we have reached
the goal, a crown is prepared, and it is for thy brows.'--'For mine?' he