The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3) / A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV

is beautiful, and close to Gensano we went to look at the Lake of Nemi, which is very pretty, but not so grand as Albano. The peasantry are a fine race in these parts, and we met many men driving carts or riding asses who would not disgrace the most romantic group of banditti. The people were all working in the open air, and seemed very gay. There were few beggars, and not much rags and wretchedness.

Started from Velletri at six in the morning; went very quick over the Pontine Marshes (which form an avenue of about twenty miles, quite straight, shaded with trees, and with vegetation of remarkable luxuriance on each side) to Terracina (Anxur), where we breakfasted in a room looking upon the sea. The place is extremely pretty. Thence to Mola di Gaeta, which is very beautiful, but where we did not stop; and, after a very tiresome journey, got to Naples at two o’clock in the morning. Vesuvius was so obliging as to emit some flames as we passed by, just to show us his whereabouts. They were, however, his first and his last while I was at Naples.

Naples, April 18th, 1830

I am disappointed with Naples. I looked for more life and gaiety, a more delicious air, beautiful town, and picturesque lazaroni, more of Punch, more smoke and flame from Vesuvius. It strikes me as less beautiful than Genoa, but these are only first impressions. The Bay and the Villa Reale, a garden along the sea, full of sweets and sea breezes and shade, are certainly delightful. All the people seem anxious to cheat as much as they can, from the master of the inn to the driver of the hackney-coach. At present I don’t feel disposed to stay here, and when I have seen Pæstum, Pompeii, and the environs I shall be glad to get back to Rome. Sir Henry Lushington said at dinner yesterday he had seen at Naples a ‘Courier’ newspaper of that day week, produced by Rothschild and brought by one of his couriers. I came very fast, but was 236 hours on the road, including 20 hours’ stoppage. This is 168 hours, which appears incredible, but ‘gold imp’d by Jews can compass hardest things.’

April 19th, 1830

I retract all I said about disappointment, for I have since seen Naples, and it is the most beautiful and the gayest town in the world. Yesterday morning with Morier I walked up to the Castle of St. Elmo and the Certosa; went over the chapel, which is full of costly marbles, and fine pictures both in oil and fresco, particularly one by Spagnolet as fine as any at Rome or anywhere. Tasted the custode’s lachryma Christi, which, if it be as good of the sort as he pretends, is middling stuff, but not bad with water. Saw all the views, which are magnificent. Walked down to the Villa Reale, which was crowded with people, and the Chiaja with carriages. Dined with Hill—half English and half foreigners—and went to the Opera; a very indifferent opera of Rossini, ill sung, called the ‘Siege of Corinth.’

This morning at half-past eight we went to the Court of Justice to hear an extraordinary trial which excites great interest here. The proceedings of the day happened to be very uninteresting, not that it made much difference, for I could not understand a word anybody said, but I had an opportunity of seeing the manner in which they conduct trials in this country, and the behaviour of the judges, the counsel, and the prisoners. Nothing can be less analogous than the proceedings here to those which prevail in our courts; and although it is possible that ours might be better, it is not possible that theirs could be worse.

I soon left the Court, and walked up the Strada di Toledo—the finest and liveliest street in the world, I believe—crowded with people. An Italian proverb says, ‘Quando Dio onnipotente è tristo, prende una finestra nella Toledo.’ Then to the Museum, of which everything was shut but the library and the papyri. The former contains 180,000 volumes, but is deficient in modern (particularly foreign) books. They showed us the process of deciphering the papyri, which is very ingenious. The manuscript (which is like a piece of charcoal) is suspended by light strings in a sort of frame; gum and goldbeater’s skin are applied to it as it is unrolled, MARQUIS DI GALLO’S VILLA and, by extreme delicacy of touch, they contrive to unravel without destroying a great deal of it, but probably they have been discouraged by the small reward which has attended their exertions; for there are several black-looking rolls which have never yet been touched, and very few men at work. The gentlemen who explained to us the process said that Sir Humphrey Davy had attended them constantly, and had taken great pains to contrive some better chemical process for the purpose, but without success.

April 20th, 1830

A delightful drive (made by Murat) to the Marquis di Gallo’s villa on the Capo di Monte, which far surpasses all the villas I saw at Rome. The entrance is about half a mile from the house, through a wood, one part of which is a vineyard; the vines hanging in festoons from cherry trees, and corn growing underneath. The house is not large, but convenient; a wide terrace runs along the whole front of it with a white marble balustrade; below this is a second terrace covered with rose-trees; below that a third, planted with vines, and oranges, and myrtles. From the upper terrace the view is beautiful. Naples lies beneath, and the Bay stretches beyond with the opposite mountains, and all the towns and villages from Portici to Sorrento. On the right the Castle of St. Elmo and the Certosa, and Vesuvius on the left. There is a large wood on one side, cut into shady walks and laid out with grottoes, and on the other a vineyard, through which there is also a walk under a treillage of vines for nearly half a mile. The ground extremely diversified, and presenting in every part of it views of the surrounding country—

It is always let, and, till he went away, was occupied by Stackelberg, the Russian Ambassador.

In the evening went to a ball at the Duchesse d’Eboli’s; very few people, and hardly any English, and those not the best—only four, I think: Sir Henry Lushington, the Consul; a Mr. Grieve, of whom I know nothing but that his father was a physician at St. Petersburg, and that he killed his brother at Eton by putting a cracker into his pocket on the 5th of November, which set fire to other crackers and burnt him to death; Mr. Auldjo, the man who made a very perilous ascent of Mont Blanc, of which he published a narrative; Mr. Arbuthnot, who levanted from Doncaster two years ago—but most of the Italian women were there, and I was surprised at their beauty. Acton, who introduced me to some of them, assured me that they were models of conduct, which did not precisely tally with my preconceived notions of Neapolitan society. They danced, but with no music but a pianoforte. This is one of the few houses here which is habitually open, for they have not the means of doing much in the way of society and gaiety; they are poor, and the Government (the worst in the world) interferes. The Duchesse d’Eboli is poor, but she was a beauty, and has had adventures of various sorts.

April 21st, 1830

Dined with Keppel Craven yesterday; Acton, Morier, Duchesse d’Eboli, and some other people.

The day was so disagreeable yesterday I could not go out—not cold, but a hurricane and clouds of dust. The principal topic of conversation at dinner was the trial, which goes on every day, has already lasted a month, and is likely to last two or three more. The Code Napoléon is in force here, so that there may probably be something like a certain and equal administration of justice between man and man; but this is a Government prosecution, and therefore exempted from ordinary rules. The history of this trial exemplifies the state of both the law and the Government of this country. The accused are five in number; the principal of them, Matteis, was an intendente, or governor, of a province; 2nd, the advocate-general of the province; 3rd, Matteis’s secretary; and 4th and 5th, two spies. These men united in a conspiracy to destroy various persons who were obnoxious to them in the province, some of them actuated by political motives, and others in order to get possession of the property of their victims. The bugbear of the Court is Carbonarism, and Matteis pretended that there was a Carbonari plot on MATTEIS’S TRIAL foot, in which several persons were implicated. He employed the spies to seduce the victims into some imprudence of language or conduct, and then to inform against them; in this way he apprehended various individuals, some of whom were tortured, some imprisoned or sent to the galleys, and some put to death. These transactions took place eight or nine years ago, and such was the despotism of this man and the terror he inspired, that no resistance was made to his proceedings, or any appeal against them ever sent to Naples. At last one of his own secretaries made some disclosures to Government, and the case appeared so atrocious that it was thought necessary to institute an immediate enquiry. The intendente was ordered to Naples, and commissioners were sent to obtain evidence in the province and sift the matter to the bottom. After much delay they made a report confirming the first accusations and designating these five men as the criminals. As soon as the matter was thus taken up, the public indignation burst forth, and a host of witnesses who had been deterred by fear from opening their lips came forward to depose against Matteis and his associates. They were arrested in the year 1825 and thrown into prison, but owing to the difficulties and delay which they contrived by their influence to interpose, and to the anomalous character of the prosecution, five years elapsed before the proceedings began. At length a royal order constituted a Court of Justice, composed of all the judges of the Court of Cassation (about twenty), the highest tribunal in the kingdom, and they have just been enjoined not to separate till the final adjudication of the case. Although the offences with which the criminals are charged are very different in degree, they are all arraigned together; a host of witnesses are examined, each of whom tells a story or makes a speech, and the evidence is accordingly very confused, now affecting one and now another of them. They have counsel and the right of addressing the Court themselves, which the intendente avails himself of with such insolence that they are obliged to begin the proceedings of each day by reading an order to the prisoners to behave themselves decently to the Court. Their counsel are assigned by the Court, and it is not one of the least extraordinary parts of this case that the advocate of Matteis is his personal enemy, and a man whom he displaced from an office he once held in the province. They say, however, that he defends him very fairly and zealously. The day I was there the proceedings were uninteresting, but yesterday they were very important. An officer was examined who had been imprisoned and ill-treated in prison, and who deposed to various acts of cruelty. They on their part hardly deny the facts, but attempt to justify them by proving that the sufferers really were Carbonari, that other governors had done the same thing, and that they were doing a service to the Government by these pretended plots and consequent executions. Though their guilt is clear, it is by no means so clear that they will be condemned, or at least all of them. The public indignation is so great that they must sacrifice some of them, and the spies, it is said, will certainly be hanged. Matteis has interest in the Court, but, as a majority of votes will decide his fate, it is most likely he will be condemned.

April 22nd, 1830

Yesterday to Pompeii, far better worth seeing than anything else in Italy. Who can look at other ruins after this? At Rome there are certain places consecrated by recollections, but the imagination must be stirred up to enjoy them; here you are actually in a Roman town. Shave off the upper storey of any town, take out windows, doors, and furniture, and it will be as Pompeii now is: it is marvellous. About one-fifth part of the town has been excavated, and the last house found is the largest. It is said 1,000 men would clear it in a year, and there are thirty at work. The road is a bed of dust, and infested with blind beggars, each led by a boy. There are habitations almost uninterruptedly along the road between Naples and Pompeii, built apparently for no other reason than because they are exposed to eruptions of the mountain, for any other part of the Bay would be just as agreeable, and safe from that danger.

This morning we went to an Ursuline convent to see two TAKING THE VEIL girls take the veil. The ceremony was neither imposing, nor interesting, nor affecting, nor such as I expected. I believe all this would have been the case had it been the black veil, but it was the white unfortunately. I thought they would be dressed splendidly, have their hair cut off in the church, be divested (in the convent) of their finery, and reappear to take leave of their relations in the habit of the order. Not at all. I went with A. Hill and Legge, who had got tickets from the brother of one of the sposine; we were admitted to the grating, an apartment about ten feet long by five wide, with a very thick double grating, behind which some of the nuns appeared and chattered. A turning box supplied coffee and cakes to the company. I went to the door of the parlour (which was open), but they would not admit me. There the ladies were received, and the nuns and novices were laughing and talking and doing the honours. Their dress was not ugly—black, white, and a yellow veil. The chapel was adorned with gold brocade, and blue and silver hangings, flowers, tapers; a good orchestra, and two or three tolerable voices. It was as full as it could hold, and soldiers were distributed about to keep order; even by the altar four stood with fixed bayonets, who when the Host was raised presented arms—a military salute to the Real Presence! The brother of one of the girls did the honours of the chapel, placing the ladies and bustling about for chairs, which all the time the ceremony was going on were handed over heads and bonnets, to the great danger of the latter. It was impossible not to be struck with this man’s gaiety and sang-froid on the occasion, but he is used to it, for this was the fourth sister he has buried here. When the chapel was well crammed the sposine appeared, each with two marraines. A table and six chairs were placed opposite the altar; on the table were two trays, each containing a Prayer Book, a pocket-handkerchief, and a white veil. The girls (who were very young, and one of them rather pretty) were dressed in long black robes like dressing-gowns, their hair curled, hanging down their backs and slightly powdered. On the top of their heads were little crowns of blue, studded with silver or diamonds. The ladies attending them (one of whom was Princess Fondi and another Princess Bressano) were very smart, and all the people in the chapel were dressed as for a ball. There was a priest at the table to tell the girls what to do. High Mass was performed, then a long sermon was delivered by a priest who spoke very fluently, but with a strange twang and in a very odd style, continually apostrophising the two girls by name, comparing them to olives and other fruit, to candelabri, and desiring them to keep themselves pure that ‘they might go as virgins into the chamber of their beloved.’ When the Sacrament was administered the ladies took the crowns off the girls, who were like automata all the time, threw the white veils over them, and led them to the altar, where the Sacrament was administered to them; then they were led back to their seats, the veils taken off and the crowns replaced. After a short interval they were again led to the altar, where, on their knees, their profession was read to them; in this they are made to renounce the world and their parents; but at this part, which is at the end, a murmuring noise is made by the four ladies who kneel with them at the altar, that the words may not be heard, being thought too heart-rending to the parents; then they are led out and taken into the convent, and the ceremony ends. The girls did not seem the least affected, but very serious; the rest of the party appeared to consider it as a fête, and smirked and gossiped; only the father of one of them, an old man, looked as if he felt it. The brother told me his sister was eighteen; that she would be a nun, and that they had done all they could to dissuade her. It is a rigid order, but there is a still more rigid rule within the convent. Those nuns who embrace it are for ever cut off from any sort of communication with the world, and can never again see or correspond with their own family. They cannot enter into this last seclusion without the consent of their parents, which another of this man’s four sisters is now soliciting.

We afterwards drove through the Grotto of Pausilippo, that infernal grotto which one must pass through to get BAIÆ out of Naples on one side; it is a source of danger, and the ancient account of it is not the least exaggerated:—

Nihil isto carcere longius, nihil illis faucibus obscurius, quo nobis præstant non ut per tenebras videamus sed ut ipsas.

There are a few glimmering lamps always obscured by dust, and it is never hardly light enough to avoid danger except at night; in the middle it is pitch dark.

Then round the Strada Nuova, Murat’s delightful creation, and walked in the Villa Reale, where I found Acton, who had been all the morning at the trial, which was very interesting. A woman was examined, who deposed that her husband was thrown into prison and ill-treated by Matteis because he would not give some false evidence that he required of him; that she went to Matteis and entreated him to release him, and that he told her he would if she would bring her daughter to him, which she refused, and he was put to death. On this evidence being given, the examining judge dropped the paper, and a murmur of horror ran through the audience. The accused attacked the witness and charged her with perjury, and said he was ill in bed at the time alluded to. The woman retorted, ‘Canaglia, tu sai ch’ egli è vero,’ and there was a debate between the counsel on either side, and witnesses were called who proved that he was in good health at the time. They think the evidence of to-day and the apparent disposition of the judges must hang him.

Salerno, April 24th, 1830

Here Morier and I are going to pass the night on our way to Pæstum, and as he is gone to bed (at half-past eight) I must write. Yesterday morning Morier, St. John, Lady Isabella, and I went to Pozzuoli, embarked in a wretched boat to make the giro of Baiæ.

I was disappointed with the country, which is bare and uninteresting; but the line of coast, with the various bays and promontories and the circumjacent islands, is extremely agreeable, and the Bay of Baiæ, with the Temple of Venus, delightful. The Temple of Mercury is also worth seeing. The Cave of the Sybil, Lake Avernus, and Temple of Apollo are not worth seeing, but as they are celebrated by Virgil they must be visited, though the embellishments of Virgil’s imagination and the lapse of time have made disappointment inevitable. Nature indeed no longer presents the same aspect; for there is a mountain more (Monte Nuovo) and a wood less about the lake than in Virgil’s time. We found two ridiculous parties there, one English, the other French, the latter the most numerous and chattering, and mounted on asses, so as to make a long cavalcade. There was a fat old gentleman just coming puffing out of the cave, and calling with delight to his ladies, ‘Ah, mesdames, êtes-vous noires?’ as they certainly were, for all one gets in the cave is a blackened face from the torches. There was another gaunt figure of the party in a fur cap, who was playing the flute—

We landed from our boat in various places, but declined going down the Cento Camerelle to have a second face-blackening. All the ruins, said to be of Cæsar’s and Marius’s Villas, Agrippina’s Tomb, Caligula’s Bridge, &c., may be anything; they are nothing but shapeless fragments, only on a rock I saw a bit of marble or stucco in what they call Cæsar’s Villa. The Stygian Lake presented no horrors, nor the Elysian Fields any delights; the former is a great round piece of water, and the latter are very common-looking vineyards. When well wooded, which in the time of the EXCAVATIONS AT POMPEII Romans it was, this coast must have been a most delicious and luxurious retreat, so sequestered and sheltered, such a calm sea, and soft breezes.

We went up to look at the old harbour of Misenum, where, instead of a Roman fleet, were a few fishing-boats, and walked back through fields in which spring was bursting forth through endless varieties of cultivation—figs, mulberries, and cherry trees, with festoons of vines hanging from tree to tree, and corn, peas, and beans springing up underneath.

Our boatmen, as we rowed back, were very proud of their English, and kept on saying ‘Pull away,’ ‘Now boys,’ and other phrases they have picked up from our sailors. This morning we set off to come here [to Salerno] with Vetturino horses; the dust intolerable; stopped at Pompeii, and walked half round the walls and to the Amphitheatre. All the ground (now covered with vineyards) belongs to the King (for Murat bought it); the profusion and brilliancy of the wild flowers make it quite a garden—

If Murat had continued on the throne two or three years longer, the whole town would have been excavated. He, and still more the Queen, took great interest in it, and they both went there frequently. She used to see the houses excavated, and one day they found the skeleton of a woman with gold bracelets and earrings, which were brought to her, and she put them on herself directly. In their time 800 men and 50 cars were at work; now there are 40 men and 6 cars. The expense of 800 men and 50 cars would be about 13,000ℓ. a year, but these men will spend nothing. A car costs a scudo, and a man four carlins, a day. (A scudo is ten carlins, a carlin fourpence.) The Royal Family seldom or never come here; the Duke of Calabria has been once. The Amphitheatre, though not to be compared in size or beauty with the Coliseum, is much more perfect. The road here is beautiful, particularly about La Cava. I walked up to the Convent of the Trinità; it stands on the brink of a deep ravine in the middle of the hills, which are tossed into a hundred different shapes and covered with foliage—a magnificent situation. The convent is very large, and well kept; it contains fifty monks, who were most of them walking about the road. Here were all the raw materials requisite for a romance—a splendid setting sun, mountains, convent, flock of goats, evening bell, friars, and peasants. Arrived here, delighted with the outside and disgusted with the inside of the town; but the Bay of Salerno is beautiful, the place gay and populous, all staring at a fire-balloon which was just ascending, and soon after came down in the sea. The inns execrable. We got into one at last, in which there is a wide terrace looking over the sea, and there we ordered our dinner to be laid; but we were soon driven in, not by the cold, but by the flaring of our tallow candles.

We were obliged to write our names down for the police, who are very busy and inquisitive. One man, whose name was just before mine, had added this poetical encomium on the inn:—

I could not concur with this poet, so I added to my name this contradiction:—

Naples, April 25th, 1830

Started at four o’clock in the morning from Salerno, and got to Pæstum at eight. Tormented to death by beggars and ciceroni (often both characters in one), for in Italy everybody who shows a stranger about is a PÆSTUM cicerone, from Professor Nibby down to a Calabrian peasant. There is little beauty in the scenery of Pæstum, but the temples amply repay the trouble of the journey. I agree with Forsyth that they are the most impressive monuments I have ever seen. The famed roses of Pæstum have disappeared, but there are thousands of lizards ‘nunc virides etiam occultant spineta lacertos.’ No excavations have ever been made here, but they talk of excavating. There were some fine Etruscan vases found in a tomb at Pæstum, which we did not see. The brute of a custode knew nothing of it, nor should I if I had not seen the model in the Museum afterwards. Thousands of Etruscan vases may be had for digging; they are found in all the tombs. The peasants have heaps of little carved images of terra cotta and coins, which they offer for sale. I believed they were fabricated, but a man I met there showed me two or three that he had turned up with his stick, so that they may be genuine. What treasures Naples possesses, and how unworthy she is of them! Pæstum[1] long neglected, and Pompeii hardly touched! At Rome they are always digging and doing something, and though the Papal Government is neither active nor rich, I do believe they would not let this town (Pompeii, I mean) remain buried when a few thousand pounds would bring it all to light. There seem to be no habitations near Pæstum, but there is a church, which was well attended, for the peasants were on their knees all round it; and while we were breakfasting (in a manger with the horses out in the air) they came out, strange-looking figures, rude, uncouth, and sunburnt, and without any of the finery which they generally wear on a Sunday.

Naples, April 26th, 1830

To the Museum; met the Dalbergs and Prince and Princess Aldobrandini, a good-looking daughter and two sons. They will have all Prince Borghese’s estate. I only went into the Pompeii and Herculaneum part of the collections.

The lazaroni are very amusing. This morning four of them stripped stark naked under my window, put off in a boat, and thirty yards from the shore fished for cockle fish, which they do by diving like ducks, throwing their feet up in the air as the ducks do their tails. The creatures are perfectly amphibious; they don’t care who sees them, and their forms are perfect. Then there are little lazaroni who ape the big ones. Met a christening this morning, and then a funeral. The wet nurse, full dressed, was carried in a sedan chair down the middle of the street, and the child, dressed also, held out of the window in her arms, and so she was going to church. The funeral was a priest’s—a long file of penitents in white, carrying torches, a bier covered with crimson and gold, and the priest dressed in robes and exposed upon it, a ghastly sight, with a chalice in his hand and a book at his feet, other priests following, the cross borne before him. When young girls are buried in this way, they are gaily dressed with chaplets of flowers, a flower in the mouth, and flowers at their feet.

Rode to the race-course and round the hills; such views and such an evening! At seven o’clock I could see the houses at Sorrento, nineteen miles off on the other side of the Bay. Dined with Acton; none but English. In the evening went to Toledo, the Spanish Ambassador’s. The Duc de Dalberg talked of an association to excavate at Calabria and Apulia. The Government reserves four places—Pompeii, Pæstum, Stabiæ, Herculaneum—for its own use, and anybody may excavate elsewhere who will be at the trouble and expense.

April 29th, 1830

On Tuesday again to the Museum and the King’s Palace; rather fine, good house, very ridiculous pictures of the royal families of Naples and Spain. The Duchess of Floridia’s apartment (old Ferdinand’s wife) is delightful; the rooms are furnished with blue satin and white silk, opening upon a terrace covered with orange-trees, ANTIQUE PAINTING flowers, and shaded walks, and looks over the Bay. A few fine pictures, but not many. There is a bath, built after one of those at Pompeii.

From what I saw at the Museum, I see no reason to doubt that the ancients were as excellent in painting as in sculpture; there are some very exquisite paintings taken from Pompeii. Then we are not to believe that the best have been found, or that a provincial town contained the finest specimens of the art. Painted on walls, they appear deficient in light and shade, but the drawing and expression, and sometimes the colouring (allowing for spoiling), are very good. There are some Cupids playing at games, and driving chariots, very like the Julio Romanos in the Lanti Villa at Rome, which indeed were borrowed from the ancient frescoes discovered in the Baths of Titus. The bronzes taken out of Herculaneum and Pompeii are very interesting, because they display the whole domestic economy of the ancients, and their excellent taste in furniture, sacrificial instruments, &c., but there is nothing particularly curious in the fact of their pots and pans being like our pots and pans, for if they were to boil and stew they could not well have performed those operations with a different kind of utensils. However, all the people marvel at them; they seem to think the Romans must have been beings of a different organisation, and that everything that is not dissimilar is strange. What is really curious is a surgical instrument which was lately found, exactly similar to one invented thirty years ago in France. The lava would not touch bronze; the iron was always encrusted and spoilt, but the bronze things all look like new.

May 2nd, 1830

Went to the Lake of Agnano and the Grotto del Cane; very pretty lake, evidently the crater of a volcano; saw the dog perform; a sight neither interesting nor cruel; the dog did not mind it a bit, and the old woman must make a fortune, for she had eight carlins for it. The grotto is very hot and steaming; a torch goes out held near the ground, and when I put my face down the steam from the earth went up my nose like salts. Virgil’s Tomb, which is very picturesque, and from whence the common view of Naples is taken; there has been plenty of discussion whether it really is Virgil’s tomb or not. Forsyth seems to doubt it, with one of his off-hand flings at the authority for its being so, a sort of ‘Who the Devil, I humbly beg to know, is Donatus?’ but there is tradition in its favour, the fact of Virgil having been buried here or hereabouts, and the honour being claimed by no other spot. When there is probability it is unwise to be so very sceptical: take away names, and what are the places themselves? Here not much, at Rome nothing.

Thursday.

Went a long and most beautiful ride up to the Camaldoli, from which the view extends over sea and land to an immense distance in every direction.

The convent was once very rich, but the French stripped all the convents of their property, which they have never since recovered. It is remarkably clean and spacious. Each monk has a house of his own containing two or three little rooms, and a little garden, and they only eat together on particular days. The old man who took us about said he had been there since he was eighteen, had been turned out by the French, but came back as soon as he could, and had never regretted becoming a monk. He showed me a bust of the founder of their order (I think San Romualdo), and when I asked him how many years ago it was founded, he said, ‘Perhaps 2,000.’ I said when I became a monk I would go to that convent, when he asked very seriously if I was going to be a monk. I said, ‘Not just yet.’ ‘Very well,’ he said; ‘you must pay 120 ducats, and you can come here.’ We went down a road cut for miles in the mountain, very narrow and steep, through shady lanes, groves, and vineyards (with magnificent views), through Pianura to Pozzuoli, entering by the old Roman road and Street of Tombs. The columbaria in the Street of Tombs are the best worth seeing ejus generis of any. Went to the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, of which there are very curious remains. RUINS ABOUT NAPLES

To the ruins of the Amphitheatre, from the top of which there is one of the finest views I ever saw of the Bay of Baiæ and the islands; and then to the Solfaterra. The ruins scattered about Naples (those at Pozzuoli, for instance) are far more extensive than most of those at Rome, but partly ‘carent quia vate sacro,’ and partly because there are no well-known names attached to them, the ground is not so holy, and little is said or thought about them. If these temples were at Rome, what an uproar they would cause! The Solfaterra is remarkable as a sort of link between the quick and the dead volcanoes; it is considered extinct, but the earth is hot, the sulphur strong, and at a particular spot, when a hole is made, it hisses and throws up little stones and ashes, and exhibits a sort of volcano in miniature, but the surface of the crater is overgrown with vegetation. The road to Naples by the convent of the Jesuits and Chapel of St. Januarius is the most beautiful I ever saw, particularly towards sunset, when the colouring is so rich and varied. It lies over a crest commanding a prospect of the mountains on one side and the sea on the other.

May 3rd, 1830

We sailed across the Bay to Resina, to see Herculaneum, the old and new excavations. At the new there are only seven or eight men at work; the old are hardly worth seeing. So much earth and cinders are mixed with the lava in the new part, that they might excavate largely if they would spend money enough; at present they have only excavated one or two houses, but have found some bronzes and marbles. The houses are laid open, just like those at Pompeii.

The next day Morier, Watson, and I set off to ascend Vesuvius; we rode on donkeys from Salvatore’s house to the bottom of the last ascent, which was rather less formidable than I expected, though fatiguing enough. Another party went up at the same time: one man of that party, Watson, and I walked up alone; the others were all lugged up. They take the bridles off the donkeys and put them on the men; the luggee holds by this tackle and the guide goes before him. After infinite puffing and perspiring, and resting at every big stone, I reached the top in thirty-five minutes. It was very provoking to see the facility with which the creatures who attended us sprang up. There was one fellow with nothing on but a shirt and half a pair of breeches, who walked the whole way from Resina with a basket on his head full of wine, bread, and oranges, and while we were slipping, and clambering, and toiling with immense difficulty he bounded up, with his basket on his head, as straight as an arrow all the time, and bothering us to drink when we had not breath to answer. I took three or four oranges, some bread, and a bottle of wine of him at the top, and when I asked Salvatore what I should pay him, he said two carlins (eightpence English). I gave him three (a shilling), and he was transported. It was a magnificent evening, and the sunset from the top of Vesuvius (setting in the sea) a glorious sight—

The view, too, all round is very grand; the towns round the Bay appear so clear, yet so minute. I had formed to myself a very different idea of the crater, of which the dimensions are very deceitful; it is so much larger than it appears. The bottom of the crater is flat, covered with masses of lava and sulphur, but anybody may walk all about it. At one end stands what ASCENT OF VESUVIUS looks like a little black hillock, from which smoke was rising, as it was from various crevices in different parts; that little hillock is the crater from which all eruptions burst. The mountain was provokingly still, and only gave one low grumble and a very small emission of smoke and fire while we were there; it has never been more tranquil. The descent is very good fun, galloping down the cinders; you have only to take care not to tumble over the stones; slipping is impossible. The whole ascent of the mountain is interesting, particularly in that part which is like a great ocean of lava, and where the guides point out the courses of the different eruptions, all of which may be distinctly traced. We got to the Hermitage just as it was dark; there was still a red tint round the western horizon, and the islands were dimly shadowed out, while the course of the Bay was marked by a thousand dancing lights. Salvatore has especial care of the mountain under the orders of Government, to whom he is obliged to make a daily report of its state, and he is as fond of it as a nurse of a favourite child, or a trainer at Newmarket of his best race-horse, and delights in telling anecdotes of old eruptions and phenomena, and of different travellers who have ascended it.

Two years ago an English merchant here laid a bet of 200 napoleons that he would go from Resina[2] to the top in an hour and a half. Salvatore went with him, and they did it in an hour and thirteen minutes. The Englishman rode relays of horses, but the guide went the whole way on foot, and the best part of the ascent had to drag up his companion He said it nearly killed him, and he did not recover from it for several weeks; he is 53 years old, but a very handsome man. He said, however, that the fatigue of this exploit was not so painful as what he went through in carrying the Duke of Buckingham to the top; he was carried up in a chair by twelve men, and the weight was so enormous that his shoulder was afterwards swelled up nearly to his head. When the Duke got down he gave a great dinner (on the mountain), which he had brought with him to celebrate the exploit. Salvatore said that he continues to write to many scientific men in various parts of Europe when anything remarkable occurs in the mountain, and talked of Buckland, Playfair, and Davy. We got down to Resina about half-past nine, and at ten embarked again and sailed over to Castel-a-Mare, where we arrived at one o’clock.

The next morning Mr. Watson and I got a six-oared boat (with sails) and went to Sorrento. Castel-a-Mare and the whole coast are beautiful. Landed a mile from Sorrento, and walked by a path cut in the rock to the Cocomella, a villa with a magnificent prospect of the Bay exactly opposite Naples.

Then to the town to see the curiosities, which are the Piscine, Tasso’s house, and some very romantic caverns in a wild dell under the bridge at Sorrento; all very well worth seeing, but Tasso’s house was locked, so we could not get to the terrace. Just as we arrived at Sorrento we found they were performing a ceremony which takes place there every year on the 1st of May, and there only—the benediction of the flowers, the ushering in the may.

It was in the Archiepiscopal church, which was gaily adorned with hangings of various colours, gold and silver and flowers, full of people, all in their best attire. A priest in the pulpit opposite the Archbishop’s throne called on the representatives of the different parishes (seven in number), who advanced in succession, each bearing a huge cross fifteen or twenty feet high, entirely made of flowers, and adorned with THE BLOOD OF SAN GENNARO garlands and devices, all likewise of the most brilliant flowers, and, as each came up, a little cannon was fired off. They were blessed in succession, and then deposited around the throne of the Archbishop, who, after this ceremony was concluded, went up to the altar and celebrated High Mass. They told me that this festival had taken place at Sorrento from the remotest time.

After seeing the Piscine we went into a garden above, where there was a profusion of orange and lemon trees, loaded with ripe fruit; the oranges we pulled off the trees and ate; they were excellent, and as red as Morella cherries—