and jut into the blue air, shattered into the forms of overhanging rocks. It has been changed by time into the image of an amphitheatre of rocky hills overgrown by the wild olive, the myrtle, and the fig-tree, and threaded by little paths, which wind among its ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries: the copsewood overshadows you as you wander through its labyrinths, and the wild weeds of this climate of flowers bloom under your feet. The arena is covered with grass, and pierces, like the skirts of a natural plain, the chasms of the broken arches around. But a small part of the exterior circumference remains-it is exquisitely light and beautiful; and the effect of the perfection of its architecture, adorned with ranges of Corinthian pilasters, supporting a bold cornice, is such as to diminish the effect of its greatness. The interior is all ruin. I can scarcely believe that when encrusted with Dorian marble and ornamented by columns of Egyptian granite, its effect could have been so sublime and so impressive as in its present state. It is open to the sky, and it was the clear and sunny weather of the end of November in this climate when we visited it, day after day.

Near it is the arch of Constantine, or rather the arch of Trajan; for the servile and avaricious senate of degraded Rome ordered, that the monument of his predecessor should be demolished in order to dedicate one to the Christian reptile, who had erept among the blood of his murdered family to the supreme power. It is exquisitely beautiful and perfect. The Forum is a plain in the midst of Rome, a kind of desert full of heaps of stones and pits; and though so near the habitations of men, is the most desolate place you can conceive. The ruins of temples stand in and around it, shattered columns and ranges of others complete, supporting cornices of exquisite workmanship, and vast vaults of shattered domes distinct with regular compartments, once filled with sculptures of ivory or brass. The temples, of Jupiter, and Concord, and Peace, and the Sun, and the Moon, and Vesta, are all within a short distance of this spot. Behold the wrecks of what a great nation once dedicated to the abstractions of the mind! Rome is a city, as it were, of the dead, or rather of those who cannot die, and who survive the puny generations which inhabit and pass over the spot which they have made sacred to eternity. In Rome, at least in the first enthusiasm of your recognition of ancient time, you see nothing of the Italians. The nature of the city assists the delusion, for its vast and antique walls describe a circumference of sixteen miles, and thus the population is thinly scattered over this space, nearly as great as London. Wide

wild fields are enclosed within it, and there are grassy lanes and copses winding among the ruins, and a great green hill, lonely and bare, which overhangs the Tiber. The gardens of the modern palaces are like wild woods of cedar, and cypress, and pine, and the neglected walks are overgrown with weeds. The English burying-place is a green slope near the walls, under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To see the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such is the human mind, and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy and oblivion.

I have told you little about Rome; but I reserve the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the Vatican, and Raffael, for my return. About a fortnight ago I left Rome, and Mary and C- followed in three days, for it was necessary to procure lodgings here without alighting at an inn. From my peculiar mode of travelling I saw little of the country, but could just observe that the wild beauty of the scenery and the barbarous ferocity of the inhabitants progressively increased. On entering Naples, the first circumstance that engaged my attention was an assassination. A youth ran out of a shop, pursued by a woman with a bludgeon, and a man armed with a knife. The man overtook him, and with one blow in the neck laid him dead in the road. On my expressing the emotions of horror and indignation which I felt, a Calabrian priest, who travelled with me, laughed heartily, and attempted to quiz me, as what the English call a flat. I never felt such an inclination to beat any one. Heaven knows I have little power, but

he saw that I looked extremely displeased, and was silent. This same man, a fellow of gigantic strength and stature, had expressed the most frantic terror of robbers on the road; he cried at the sight of my pistol, and it had been with great difficulty that the joint exertions of myself and the vetturino had quieted his hysterics.

But external nature in these delightful regions contrasts with and compensates for the deformity and degradation of humanity. We have a lodging divided from the sea by the royal gardens, and from our windows we see perpetually the blue waters of the bay, forever changing, yet forever the same, and encompassed by the mountainous island of Capres, the lofty peaks which overhang

Salerno, and the woody hill of Posilipo, whose
promontories lude from us Mienum and the lofty
isle Inarime, which, with its divided summit,
forms the opposite horn of the bay. From the
pleasant walks of the garden we see Vesuvius; a
smoke by day and a fire by night is seen upon its
summit, and the glassy sea often reflects its light
or shadow. The climate is delicious. We sit
without a fire, with the windows open, and have
almost all the productions of an English summer.
The weather is usually like what Wordsworth
calls the first fine day of March;" sometimes
very much warmer, though perhaps it wants that
"cach minute sweeter than before," which gives
an intoxicating sweetness to the awakening of the
vath from its winter's sleep in England. We
Save made two excursions, one to Baire and one
po Vosgevus, and we propose to visit, successively,
ibe vada - be, Passtum, Pompeii, and Beneventum.

ing like roc. boat, we lan 24 through the ca

which pieres) the lake, and water, surrour foundly solitary

Pluto stand on

are reflected in beautiful than all the material Avernus was of lential vapours. a high hill, calles volcanic fire.

Passing onwar Dicæarchea, who ing of a temple, enormous amphit into a natural hii Here also is the

poetical descriptio beginning" Est l the poet are infinit for it is not a very things we returned boat. What colou radiance in the ev was encompassed regions!

Our next excursi to Resina in a carriag mules, and C w shoulders of four me liament after he has g with less reason, quite at the hermitage of hermit, belted with r our refreshment.

We set off an hour after sunrise one radiant egan a bite boat; there was not a cloud in phy sky, což a wave upon the sea, which was so ata showet that you could see the hollow caverns ok. Not with the glaucous sea-moss, and the leaves che ashes of those delicate weeds that pave the - Noten of the water, As noon approached, boat, and especially the fight, became intense. vel. Poscopo, and came first to the eastern the Agy of Pussoli, which is within the Nages, and which again encloses that hia are lofty rocks and craggy islets, davidow and poortals of precipice standing in Zayers caverns, which echoed be matmut of the languid tide. This 1x sin sh Argha, We then went ava to the promontory of Misenum, wwxxcom pland of Nisido on the 2-4 www pornducted to see the Mare Nyssan fields; the spot on which la va ple mynery of the Sixth Eneid. Kesson à beautiful, as a lake, and woody és d'une sky must make it, I confess Comment The guide showed us an westory, where the niches used for very urns of the dead yet remain. ale vyand the bay of Bair to the left, in a we saw many picturesque and interesting der I have to remark that we never disemAuto Zer we were disappointed while from the yoot of the scenery was inexpressibly 1 colours of the water and the air esa " things here the radiance of their Ar passing the bay of Baix, and trống cho those of its antique grandeur stand

8118

* En - A Man name of Ischia.

Vesuvius is, after th sive exhibition of the e It has not the immeas powering magnificence beauty of the glaciers; of tremendous and ir Resina to the hermitag tain, and cross a vast which is an actual imag changed into hard blac The lines of the boiling air, and it is difficult to which seem hurrying dow in motion. This plain wa From the hermitage we cr of lava, and then went on the only part of the ascen

difficulty, and that difficulty has been much ex-
aggerated. It is composed of rocks of lava, and
declivities of ashes; by ascending the former and
descending the latter, there is very little fatigue.
On the summit is a kind of irregular plain, the
most horrible chaos that can be imagined; riven
into ghastly chasms, and heaped up with tumuli of
great stones and cinders, and enormous rocks
blackened and calcined, which had been thrown
from the volcano upon one another in terrible con-
fusion. In the midst stands the conical hill from
which volumes of smoke, and the fountains of
liquid fire, are rolled forth forever. The mountain
is at present in a slight state of eruption; and a
thick heavy white smoke perpetually rolled out,
interrupted by enormous columns of an impene-
trable black bituminous vapour, which is hurled up,
fold after fold, into the sky with a deep hollow
sound, and fiery stones are rained down from its
darkness, and a black shower of ashes fell even
where we sat. The lava, like the glacier, creeps on
perpetually, with a crackling sound as of suppressed
fire. There are several springs of lava; and in
one place it rushes precipitously over a high crag,
rolling down the half-molten rocks and its own
overhanging waves; a cataract of quivering fire.
We approached the extremity of one of the rivers
of lava; it is about twenty feet in breadth and ten
in height; and as the inclined plane was not rapid,
its motion was very slow. We saw the masses of
its dark exterior surface detach themselves as it
moved, and betray the depth of the liquid flame.
In the day the fire is but slightly seen; you only
observe a tremulous motion in the air, and
streams and fountains of white sulphurous smoke.

servant promised them a beating, after which they became quiet. Nothing, however, can be more picturesque than the gestures and the physiognomies of these savage people. And when, in the darkness of night, they unexpectedly begin to sing in chorus some fragments of their wild but sweet national music, the effect is exceedingly fine.

Since I wrote this, I have seen the museum of this city. Such statues! There is a Venus; an ideal shape, of the most winning loveliness. A Bacchus, more sublime than any living being. A Satyr, making love to a youth in which the expressed life of the sculpture, and the inconceivable beauty of the form of the youth, overcome one's repugnance to the subject. There are multitudes of wonderfully fine statues found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. We are going to see Pompeii the first day that the sea is waveless. Herculaneum is almost filled up; no more excavations are made; the king bought the ground and built a palace upon it.

You don't see much of Hunt. I wish you could contrive to see him when you go to town, and ask him what he means to answer to Lord Byron's invitation. He has now an opportunity, if he likes, of seeing Italy. What do you think of joining his party, and paying us a visit next year; I mean as soon as the reign of winter is dissolved? Write to me your thoughts upon this. I cannot express to you the pleasure it would give me to welcome such a party.

I have depression enough of spirits and not good health, though I believe the warm air of Naples does me good. We see absolutely no one here. Adieu, my dear P

Affectionately your friend,

LETTER XVI.

To T. L. P., Esq.

P. B. S.

Naples, Jan. 26th, 1819.

MY DEAR P.,-Your two letters arrived within a few days of each other, one being directed to Naples, and the other to Livorno. They are more welcome visitors to me than mine can be to you.

At length we saw the sun sink between Capreæ and Inarime, and, as the darkness increased, the effect of the fire became more beautiful. We were, as it were, surrounded by streams and cataracts of the red and radiant fire; and in the midst, from the column of bituminous smoke shot up into the air, fell the vast masses of rock, white with the light of their intense heat, leaving behind them through the dark vapour trains of splendour. We descended by torch-light, and I should have enjoyed the scenery on my return, but they conducted me, II writing as from sepulchres, you from the habiknow not how, to the hermitage in a state of intense bodily suffering, the worst effect of which was spoiling the pleasure of Mary and C. Our guides on the occasion were complete savages. You have no idea of the horrible cries which they suddenly utter, no one knows why; the clamour, the vociferation, the tumult. C in her palanquin suffered most from it; and when I had gone on before, they threatened to leave her in the middle of the road, which they would have done had not my Italian

tations of men yet unburied; though the sexton, Castlereagh, after having dug their grave, stands with his spade in his hand, evidently doubting whether he will not be forced to occupy it himself. Your news about the bank-note trials is excellent good. Do I not recognise in it the influence of Cobbett? You don't tell me what occupies Parliament. I know you will laugh at my demand, and assure me that it is indifferent. Your pamphlet I want exceedingly to see. Your calculations in the

gekom hete, 7 a ajue astra,” the word w Rad
yet have d ul-te i whether they were mary hundred
feet higher than the mutant to jo

'

la my accounts of pictures and th..128, I am
more på-ased to interest y su than the many; and
this is fortunate, because, in the first ¡ lars, I have
no idea of attenting the latter, and if I did
attempt it, I should assurefiș fail. A perception
of the beautiful characterises those who differ from
ordinary men, and those who can perceive it would
not buy enough to pay the printer. Besides,
I keep no journal, and the only reeds of my
voyage will be the letters I send you The bodily
fatigue of standing for hours in galleries exhausts
me; I believe that I don't see half that I ought,
on that account. And then we know nobody;
and the common Italians are so sullen and stupil,
it's impossible to get information from them. At
Rome, where the people seem superior to any in
Italy, I cannot fail to stumble on something more.
O, if I had health, and strength, and equal spirits,
what boundless intellectual improvement might I
not gather in this wonderful country! At present
I write httle else but poetry, and little of that
My first act of Prometheus is complete, and I
think you would like it. I consider poetry very
subordinate to moral and political science, and if I
were well, certainly I would aspire to the latter;
for I can conceive a great work, embodying the
discoveries of all ages, and harmonising the con-
tending creeds by which mankind have been ruled.
Far from me is such an attempt, and I shall be
content, by exercising my fancy, to amuse myself,
and perhaps some others, and cast what weight I
can into the scale of that balance, which the Giant
of Arthegall holds.

they are very, DATE

but all e nstri i cally for this cas

a court, or oth tent of the b sometimes surtilit on fluted colum** paved with m ski of vine leaves, 87 more or less besid

the inhabitant. T: most of them have

royal museums. L ornaments of exquis is an ideal life in the evidently the work an incomparable i

seems as if, from the a which surrounded them a splendour not his su

how the bed-rooms we pictures, one represen was built up, where thes the other Venus and Mi and a little niche, wh domestic god. The f mosaic of the rarest ri porphyry; it looks to the snow-white columns, wi have only one story, an floor of the portico the results from this, why not large, are very key The public buildings, wo supported ental'atures, as it were of white flate-l were seen on all sides ever This was the excelence

Since you last heard from me, we have been to see Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return of spring weather, to visit, first, Paestum, and then the islands; after which we shall return to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of this city; I had no conception of anything so perfect yet remaining. My idea of the mode of its destruction was this. First, an earthquake shattered it, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its columns, that a rain of light small pumice-stones All, then forrents of boiling water, mixed with nchise, Bilbat up all its arevices. A wide, flat hill, from which das city was excavated, is now covered by thich wounds, and you see the tombs and the theatrica, the temples and the houses, surrounded by the unindulated wilderness. We entered the town from the side towards the sea, and first saw

private expenses were comparatively moderate; the dwelling of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with most beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town of Pompeii, (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants,) it is wonderful to see the number and the grandeur of their public buildings. Another advantage, too, is that, in the present case, the glorious scenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeians could contemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven; could see the moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with an atmosphere of golden vapour, between Inarime and Misenum.

We next saw the temples. Of the temple of Esculapius little remains but an altar of black stone, adorned with a cornice imitating the scales of a serpent. His statue, in terra-cotta, was found in the cell. The temple of Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a portico of fluted columns, and in the area around it are two altars, and many ceppi for statues; and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most exquisite proportion; its panels are adorned with figures in bas-relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most delicate and perfect that can be conceived. They are Egyptian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has harmonised all the unnatural extravagances of the original conception into the supernatural loveliness of his country's genius. They scarcely touch the ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes seem in the place of wings. The temple in the midst raised on a high platform, and approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some of which we saw in the museum at Portici. It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic, and fluted Jonic columns of white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it.

Thence through other porticos and labyrinths of walls and columns, (for I cannot hope to detail everything to you,) we came to the Forum. This is a large square, surrounded by lofty porticos of fluted columns, some broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under them. The temple of Jupiter, of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and the Hall of Public Justice, with their forests of lofty columns, surround the Forum. Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size, (for, whether they supported equestrian statues, or were the altars of the temple of Venus, before

which they stand, the guide could not tell,) occupy the lower end of the Forum. At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we sate, and pulled out our oranges, and figs, and bread, and medlars, (sorry fare, you will say,) and rested to eat. Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and between the multitudinous shafts of the sun-shining columns was seen the sea, reflecting the purple heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, on its line the dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly deep, and tinged towards their summits with streaks of new-fallen snow. Between was one small green island. To the right was Capreæ, Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumes of thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was sometimes darted into the clear dark sky, and fell in little streaks along the wind. Between Vesuvius and the nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the main line of the loftiest Apennines, to the east. The day was radiant and warm. Every now and then we heard the subterranean thunder of Vesuvius; its distant deep peals seemed to shake the very air and light of day, which interpenetrated our frames, with the sullen and tremendous sound. This scene was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii, you know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony with nature; and the interstices of their incomparable columns were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe to visit those whom it inspired. If such is Pompeii, what was Athens ? What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds? The islands and the Ægean sea, the mountains of Argolis, and the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, and the darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed ?

From the Forum we went to another public place; a triangular portico, half enclosing the ruins of an enormous temple. It is built on the edge of the hill overlooking the sea. That black point is the temple. In the apex of the triangle stands an altar and a fountain, and before the altar once stood the statue of the builder of the portico. Returning hence, and following the consular road, we came to the eastern gate of the city. The walls are of enormous strength, and inclose a space of three miles. On each side of the road beyond the gate are built the tombs. How unlike ours! They seem not so much hiding-places for that which must decay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits. They