Having in my last given you a little sketch of Naples, and of my mode of life there, I shall now proceed to some account of its neighbourhood. The first time of my going to Pozzuoli was on foot; I walked through the Chiaja, and afterwards along a short street, a sudden turn in which exposes the lofty entrance of the Grotto of Pausilippo. Just at the point where this turn takes place, there is a little monument, erected in 1668; which is introduced into most of the published views of the grotto, but the entrance cannot be seen till we arrive at the monument, and consequently their union in one scene is fictitious. Beyond this point there is a high rock on each side of the road, not made perpendicular by nature, but cut so by art, and on the top of the left-hand precipice is the tomb of Virgil, which however I could not distinguish from below; and another more visible fragment exhibiting a portion of a vault, which is, I suppose, a tomb, but I know not of whom. The grotto is at present about ninety feet high at the entrance, but diminishes as we proceed towards the middle; it existed in Roman times, but was complained of as narrow and dusty, and it was necessary to ascend part of the hill in order to reach the entrance. Robert, King of Naples, passing through it one day with Petrarc, required his opinion on the tradition of the neighbourhood, that Virgil had formed it by magic in a single night; but the poet replied, that he saw many marks of iron, but none of demons. Alphonso the First lowered part of the road on the side towards Naples, but D. Pietro di Toledo, viceroy in 1537, cut it down to the present level, and consequently gave it its actual height, and enlarged it considerably. The paving is still more recent, and it is now lighted by lamps night and day. As I walked through it leisurely, frequently stopping to look at the rock, and at the effects of the external scene, as seen through the narrow and lofty arch, I perceived nowhere any deficiency of light; but on other occasions, when I have passed it rapidly in a corribolo, I was hardly able to distinguish any object. From the termination of the grotto, after passing through the miserable village of Fuori Grotta, a straight road between vine-covered poplars, leads down to the sea-shore, which we coast for two or three miles, to Pozzuoli; the scenery is beautiful, but the sea is shallow and rocky. We pass under cliffs of lava, ejected from the Solfatara, rising in broken masses immediately above the road. The town is on a projecting rock, most picturesque in itself, and in its situation; and abundance of fragments of walls and vaults are seen on its rocky and broken shores, but they are mere fragments. Inside, there are some remains of the temple of Augustus, which appears to have been pseudo-peripteral, as the tops of six half-columns are seen in the wall of the cathedral, but all the ornament of the capital is gone, and we can only just determine the order to have been Corinthian. The architrave is of three faces, but without intermediate mouldings, and there are no traces of enrichment, either on this or the remaining course of stones which appears to have formed the frieze; but these members are rather small, and the cornice is wholly wanting. There is said to have been an inscription on the frontispiece, but I could find neither frontispiece nor inscription. We are also conducted to a statue of Q. Flavius Ma sius, a letter being deficient before the s, who he was I cannot tell; and to a pedestal dedicated to Tiberius, and supposed to have supported a statue of that emperor. It is adorned by fourteen female figures, representing as many cities of Asia, which having been injured, or destroyed by an earthquake, were restored by him. There is a name to each, but I have some doubt of their genuineness.

The most valuable antiquity is just out of the town, consisting of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, and warm baths attached to it. Romanelli Viaggio a Pozzuoli, etc. p. 129, says, that by an inscription found there, it is ascertained to have been erected in the seventh century of Rome; but nothing of that date is now to be determined. You will find a plan in the next page, which I have subjoined, in order to render my description intelligible.

The principal feature seems to have consisted of an open portico, of four beautiful columns in front, and two columns and two antæ behind. Three of the front columns are still standing. They are of cipollino, containing crystals of quartz, and about 4 feet 10 inches in diameter. The lower part of the shaft, for about 8 feet, is very perfect, for 5 feet more it is perforated in all directions by a marine shell-fish; the upper part is without perforations, and considerably weatherworn. This upper part, we know, was long exposed to the weather, the lower part was protected by being buried in the earth till about 1750; but how the central part of the column should have been under water, and perforated by the pholas, while still erect in its place, is a standing puzzle for antiquaries and naturalists. The cell was small, open in front, or only inclosed by an iron grating, and terminated by a semicircular apsis, containing one large and deep niche and two smaller ones. An upright joint divides the circular part of the work from the rest, and it is possible it may have been an addition. Part of the variegated marble pavement remains. In front of each of the four external columns there was a pedestal, probably to support a statue, and before the middle intercolumniation is a ring, to which it has been supposed that the victims intended for sacrifice were attached. The court in which this portico or temple stood, has also been surrounded by columns, and remaining fragments of these, and of their entablature, show that some of them were acted upon by the pholas, in the same manner as the principal columns; while others were perhaps thrown down and covered with earth, before this singular phænomenon took place. There is neither capital nor entablature remaining to the larger columns; the bases are Corinthian, and from these, and the workmanship of the columns, we may judge of the excellence of the architecture, both in taste and in execution. The remains of the court are also of the Corinthian order, but the columns have Attic bases, and both the style and execution of the ornament are decidedly inferior to those of the principal building, and announce a more recent date. A large circle of columns on a raised platform, occupied the centre of this colonnaded court. They appear too slender to have supported a domical covering, and some remaining fragments of a circular entablature, which are finished alike on both sides, induce me to believe that they merely formed a screen round the platform. In front of each column, but not rising so high as the platform, there is a pedestal, which was doubtless covered with marble. In two of the spaces between these pedestals are as many marble cylinders, which have been called altars, by those who did not observe that they were hollow; and mouths of wells, by those who did not observe that they were closed at the bottom; they are strictly marble tubs, but as in many other circumstances of this building, we are obliged to confess our ignorance of their use. There was a series of small chambers round the court, which alternately opened internally, and towards an external passage; the former uniformly exhibit traces of having been lined with marble, which is not the case with the others. In some of those at the western end there are a few steps, which seem to indicate an upper story over some of these rooms, if not over all, but there are no vestiges of vaults, or any sort of covering in any part. Opposite to the principal columns there is a larger division, which probably formed the vestibulum of the building. The most curious circumstances of the plan occur in two rooms occupying the angles of the east side of the building. In these we may observe a channel for water close to the walls, then a small space, and then a smaller channel. Over the first channel there was a continued bench, pierced with holes about 6½ inches in diameter, and 16 inches apart, regularly spaced. The guides tell you that the plan was to put one leg in one of these holes, and the other in another, and let the feet dangle in the warm water below; but they are not disposed in pairs. In the best preserved of these two chambers there is at present a current of water in the larger channel, but this is effected by means of a mere hole in the wall, which has been broken through in modern times. The spring which supplies this, rises copiously in an artificial excavation behind the cell of the temple. It is just high enough to give a current to the water across the pavement of the court, and it passes partly in this direction, and partly by a channel cut for it on the south side of the edifice. The pavement is below high water mark, and accordingly, we find it occasionally covered with water. There are two other springs behind the cell, the water of which is cold; all three are mineralized, but with different tastes. Much more of these remains might still have existed, and perhaps enough to satisfy our curiosity in every particular, if instead of preserving the objects as they were discovered, the Neapolitan court had not employed them in the ornamental architecture of Caserta. Other fragments were taken to the museum at Portici, or to the Studii at Naples, where, standing entirely detached, and without any memorial, they are comparatively of little value.

The preceding account is the result not of one, but of several visits to Pozzuoli. The first time that I was there, after leaving the temple, I ascended the hill behind it to some ruins of considerable extent, called with very little reason, the Temple of Neptune. They consist of two massive parallel walls, each I suppose, 300 feet long. The space between has been covered by vaults in different directions, and at different elevations. The brow of the hill here forms a noble terrace, whence the views are admirable. At one end of this terrace is a monument, probably sepulchral, in the form of a little temple. The front was adorned with four brick half columns, and there were five, or possibly six, on the sides; but internally it appears almost solid. A little farther back is the fragment of a room covered with a circular dome, which has been named the Temple of Diana. All these are so buried among vines and poplars, that it is impossible to obtain any general view of them; and as for the architecture, none remains; they are mere masses of brick and rubble walls, mixed with reticulated work. The amphitheatre is of similar materials, and overgrown in the same manner. It has been a large one, but its great object of attraction to the modern Italians is the cell where San Gennajo was confined, previously to being exposed to wild beasts on the arena. At a convent at a little distance a stone is shown, said to have been stained with his blood. At the time when the blood of the saint liquefies at Naples, the mark on this stone becomes of a bright red, which, after eight days, gradually fades into a dull brown, which is its permanent colour; there is no standing against so many sham miracles. It becomes not charity, but folly, to hesitate in pronouncing the monks a set of impostors. The views here are exquisite, for the convent is just on the brow of the hill, and wherever circumstances admit any command of distant objects, the landscape is most beautiful; yet all this beauty is passed over as a matter of course, after a short residence on the spot, and we walk about without noticing it, except now and then from some point where it is seen to particular advantage, or when some circumstances in the sky, or in the mind of the spectator, awaken his attention.

Our next object was the Solfatara, evidently the crater of an extinct volcano, or at least, of one so far extinct as to throw up no fire, and to make no eruptions, but it still smokes, or rather steams, for what arises is a vapour charged with sulphureous acid, which will moisten, and not burn, a paper exposed to it, but which deposits beautiful crystals of sulphur and alum on the borders of the opening from which it issues. The steam issues with considerable violence and a hissing noise. The Solfatara presents a plain, of a form nearly circular, surrounded by steep broken banks. The soil is of a whitish clay, without grass, but it supports bushes of chesnut, which also cover great part of the surrounding banks, and great abundance of the Inula viscosa. The ground sounds hollow, but this arises merely from the spongy texture of the soil, for in digging for sulphur they have proceeded, through a nearly homogeneous substance, to the depth of fifty palms, nearly as many English feet, when their further progress was stopped by the quantity of hot water. The sulphur seems more or less disseminated through the whole mass of this clay. In the part which is dug out, it amounts nearly to one fourth, and is purified on the spot. From the Solfatara I proceeded towards the lake of Agnano, and the Grotto del Cane, but the boy who had accompanied me insisted that these were not included in the bargain we had made, as they were close by Naples, and not near Pozzuoli, I stated my reasons for the contrary opinion, and offered to pay him in proportion to what he had already performed, but I found that I could not obtain attention, and that he still persisted in his assertion, that these were close by Naples, when therefore I had once made him understand me, I walked on without replying to his remonstrances. This was a new subject of grief, which made him quite forget the other, and he began to cry about it, “Ma rispondete Signore, parlate, per l’amor di Dio, una parola, una parola sola,” finding me inexorable, “O sangue di Dio!” he exclaimed, and many other exclamations and invocations familiar to a Neapolitan, and his tears flowed afresh in greater profusion than ever; but at last finding he could make no impression, he became quiet, and did not even grumble when I paid him; he would not have been an Italian if he had not asked for more. He was a youth of about fifteen, who called himself Giovanni. We parted very good friends, with a particular request that I would call for him when I came again to Pozzuoli, which I have done several times, and always have been perfectly satisfied with him. He is civil and intelligent, and if he cannot cheat me himself, seems quite to have made up his mind that nobody else shall.

The lake of Agnano is a pretty little circular piece of water, more varied in its banks than the volcanic lakes about Rome. It abounds in wild fowl, but is said to be destitute of fish. There are some remains of ancient baths, which have been rudely fitted up for modern use, under the name of Stufe di San Germano, a stufa being a steaming place, as opposed to a bath where you enter the water. A hot sulphureous vapour issues from the rock, which is supposed in many cases to be very conducive to health. After walking about 100 yards by the side of the lake, where the ground was covered with frogs three deep, on which it was impossible to avoid treading, we arrived at the Grotto del Cane. I had refused the dog, but I suppose he does not suffer greatly, since he accompanied us of his own accord to the mouth of the grotto. This is merely a little hollow in the side of the hill, hardly deserving the name of a cave, but fastened with a door for fear of accidents. I could hardly stand upright in it. A warm vapour rises about eighteen inches from the ground, which extinguishes a torch instantly. From this I walked back to Naples, being already nearly two miles on the road, but I shall here add the account of some farther excursions, in one of which I engaged the corribolo from Naples, as far as the Arco Felice. We pass under what is called the Villa of Cicero, at a small distance from Pozzuoli. It only consists of rubble walls, partially faced with reticulated tufo, and is certainly misnamed. We pass behind Monte Nuovo, which as all the world knows, rose in one night. The present height is 460 feet, but it appears at first to have been considerably greater. The old crater is covered with herbage, but there is one spot on the outside where the ground is still warm. Beyond this hill we look down to the left on the lake of Avernus, no longer a pestiferous lake which birds cannot fly over; but as it is evidently one of the volcanic craters with which this country abounded, one knows not what formerly may have been the case. Although looking down upon one crater, we still seem inclosed in a larger one, whose circuit is penetrated by the Arco Felice. This is pretended to have been part of the circumference of the ancient Cuma, but it is a Roman work formed of rubble-work faced with brick, wherever it is not part of the natural rock.

The Citadel of Cuma is more than half a mile distant: in our progress to it we pass the Temple of the Giants, a piece of brick and rubble-work, containing a large niche, and two or three other small fragments of no account. What remains of the citadel is a wall against a hill, in one part of considerable height. It is composed internally of large tufo, rubble, and mortar, externally of large squared blocks of a coarse lava. There are various vaults and walls on the slope of the hill below, the work of which is between the reticulated and uncertain; lower down still, is the magnificent opening of the Grotto of the Sybil, which appears to be a natural cave, but contains an ascending flight of steps leading to nothing, at least there is at present no practicable way beyond it, but there appears to have been a small opening now filled with rubbish. It was perhaps by this passage that Narses took the citadel, but it seems hardly large enough to admit a man, and more suited for a tube by which the oracles were delivered in the temple above. After leaving these objects, we proceed to the Amphitheatre, which occupies a natural hollow in the ground. There is no appearance of vaults.

Continuing our course to the south, we arrive at the Lago del Fusaro, or Acheron: there is a singular contrast between these terrible names and the lovely scenes which surround one; but the borders of these lakes are still dreadful by their insalubrity; this is a reasonable mal aria, such as one might expect from circumstances: a shallow stagnant lake in a strip of flat and marshy land, stretches along the foot of the hills parallel to the sea. The water is almost filled with putrefying confervæ, and being used in addition, as a place for steeping hemp, must be a disagreeable neighbour. It abounds, like several other lakes of the same sort in this district, with fish, and oysters, which adhere to stakes fixed in the bottom for that purpose: from this lake I crossed the hill which forms the western boundary of the bay of Naples, and without stopping at Baia, which lay close on the south, turned to the north and visited the baths of Nero, and Stufe of Tritola: the road is here cut in the rock for some distance, and nearly at the extremity of the gallery there are several chambers cut also in the soft rock, and a long winding passage, apparently artificial, which conducts to a pool of hot salt water. You are told that it will harden an egg in two minutes. I took off my coat and neckcloth and followed my guide. The heat at first was almost suffocating. However, by stooping very low, I found it more supportable, and afterwards a profuse perspiration relieved me, so that while the man was cooking his egg, I was perfectly at ease: he took with him a bucket, which he dipped into the water, and then put the egg into the bucket; he held it there three minutes, and the white was not entirely fixed, so that the temperature is probably less than 212, but being salt, if it had really boiled it would have been more. As nearly as I could estimate, the water here is at the level of the sea. The baths of Nero are close by, consisting of a large vaulted chamber cut in the rock, with some preparation for baths. I then came to the Lago Lucrino, famous now, as formerly, for its oysters, and swarming with fish, but it has been much diminished in size by the eruption of Monte Nuovo. We pass along a lane, and through vineyards to the left, to the grotto of the Sybil, that at Cuma being her town-house, and this her country residence; here are a long gallery passing through a subordinate hill, several chambers, and a bath with stone beds, where the vaults and walls are covered with mosaics; all these rooms have about 18 inches of water in them. The path afterwards ascends till it reaches a brick archway, at which we stare with wonder, as its situation seems perfectly unaccountable. It perhaps formed the original entrance, but at present all direct communication with the day is prevented by the earth which fills up the farther part.

All this is very near the lake of Avernus. Close on its banks are the remains of a large domed room called the Temple of Apollo, or of Proserpine; behind it are several small chambers. What it was, I cannot tell, the fragments here are so numerous that the attempt to determine their names seems a hopeless task.

My guide had been contending with me very strenuously, that the hot water of the stufe of Tritola, proceeded from the Solfatara passing by a natural channel under the sea. As I was walking leisurely back along the shore, he desired me to put my hand into the sea, I did so mechanically, and started back on finding both the sand and the water quite hot; this was a great triumph for him, for he considered his position to be perfectly proved. Nearer to Pozzuoli are the bases of a range of columns in the sea; they are in a straight line, and apparently horizontal, so that they do not give the idea of having slipt from their original position, but rather of an elevation in the level of the sea: this is not so mysterious as the circumstances of the columns of the temple of Serapis, but even with these smaller things, it is difficult to hit upon any theory which will consistently explain all the phenomena, and to save trouble we cut the knot and say that the ground has been heaved or depressed by the action of subterraneous fires.

On approaching to Pozzuoli we discern, projecting from an angle of the hill on which the city stands, the remains of a mole which inclosed the ancient port. It consists of brick arches, the springing of which is below the usual level of the sea, and it is this circumstance probably which has obtained for it the popular name of the bridge of Caligola. It must have been a noble work, and is evidently a Roman one; once consisting, as we are told, of twenty-five arches, of which we may perhaps now make out traces of thirteen.

On another occasion I walked from Pozzuoli along the ancient Campanian way, where the multitude of ancient tombs is very interesting, and several of them in a state almost perfect:

many of the urns remain, because they are in such abundance that no one has thought proper to take them away: they are entirely plain. Much of the stucco ornament and of the colours which enriched it, exist, as fresh apparently as when first executed.

Instead of passing through the grotto of Pausilippo, we may take a road which is called La Mergellina, near the shore of the bay, whence we enjoy the most delightful views. The hill of Pausilippo, so named from a village on its summit, forms a long narrow ridge, which advancing into the sea, divides the bay of Pozzuoli from that of Naples. At the beginning is a small church dedicated to Santa Maria del Parto, which contains the tomb of Sanazzaro. This monument is decorated with the figures of Apollo and Minerva, but the piety of the neighbouring inhabitants has changed the names to David and Judith. The road soon leaves the water’s edge, and ascends obliquely to the ridge of the hill, nor is it possible to keep close to the sea, though there are several paths leading down to it. The modern houses are very picturesque, standing frequently half in the water, or on some insulated rock, connected by an arch with the shore. About the grotto, and in the nearest part of the promontory, the Roman antiquities are few; but as we approach the point, they crowd upon us in rapid succession, baptized by different names of temples, baths, fishponds, villas and schools.^[24]

I returned over the hill of Pausilippo; for part of the way the view is confined between the walls of the vineyards, but wherever there is any opening, the scenery is delightful, including on one side, the bay of Pozzuoli, with the islands of Ischia, Procida and Nisida; and on the other, the city of Naples, which rising on this side on the Chiatamone, and terminated at one end by the castle of St. Elmo, and at the other by the Castel del Uovo, forms a most picturesque object. Beyond it lie Vesuvius, the long mountainous promontory of Sorrento, and the rugged island of Capri. I took the tomb of Virgil in the descent. It is a small, square, vaulted chamber, which has been surmounted by a circular edifice, formerly on the road side, but now on the edge of the cliff, which has been cut down full 50 feet to make the present road more commodious. It is very much ruined, and covered with ivy and creeping shrubs, and all the ornaments and inscriptions, external and internal, have been taken away.

I believe I told you that there were two Englishmen in the cabriolet in my journey to Naples. The statement was not quite correct, as they are Scotchmen, but we do not mind these little differences so far from home. We took a boat together a few days ago to visit Baiæ. There were three men, and the agreement was for sixteen carlines. The men were moderate in their demands, for at first they only asked thirty carlines, and perhaps had we gone without a bargain, would not have required more than forty, and as a general rule at Naples, the man who does not ask you more than twice what he ought to have beforehand, or three times as much after the service is performed, has treated you well. The trip was delightful, we set off about half-past eight, and touched first at the point beyond Pausilippo. Virgil’s school is here, and several other antiquities, christened the Temple of Fortune, of Augustus, the villa of Lucullus, of Pollio, and the fishponds of the latter, where he fed his lampreys on human flesh: but these pretended fishponds are long vaulted chambers, and were probably reservoirs for water, like so many others scattered in all directions in this neighbourhood. In a climate like England, where the rain is divided through the year, such reservoirs would be comparatively of little use; but here, where it rains in three days more than as many inches, and then no more for several months, they are of great value. A single fit of rainy weather, which usually lasts from three to five days, might fill a large reservoir to the depth of 12 or 15 feet, and provide a small but constant supply of water through the summer. There are other vaults scattered about in the vineyards, which have not been reservoirs, for they have doors in them. Other remains again are shapeless masses, or mere traces of foundations, some in the sea, and some on land, and so numerous, so mixed, and so confused, that it would be hardly possible to mark what belongs to one edifice, and what to another. Some of them indeed are so deeply buried in the hill, that they seem rather the productions of nature than of art: the prevailing style of workmanship is rubble, faced with a reticulated work of very soft stone, which is less durable than the mortar which cemented it, and yet the mortar here is seldom very good; but even this imperfection of materials enhances our wonder; where the waste is so considerable, and yet so much still remains, what must the edifices once have been! The hill consists of a soft, sandy rock, which has furnished the materials of the buildings, and we cannot help reflecting, that one stormy English winter would wash half these antiquities away. In one place, a long vault is cut in the rock, which perhaps furnished a subterraneous road to some villa. It is very extensive, but the earth has fallen in, and rendered the farther part inaccessible. Leaving this point, we passed by the island of Nisida, an extinct volcano, part of which has been eaten away by the tides, and thence crossed the bay of Pozzuoli to Cape Miseno. Here again we landed in the port, and examined the remains of the ancient city. There are the foundations of a small theatre and some other fragments; and at a short distance, on a little peninsula, are some caverns called the Dragonara, said to have been made by Nero, to convey the hot waters from Baiæ, but it has no appearance of a water conduit, and was perhaps a reservoir. The lower part of one opening, which is stuccoed, and appears to be ancient, seems adverse to my theory, but there is now fresh water standing in some parts, hardly if at all above the level of the sea. The port is very beautiful, but shallow. Just behind it is the Dead Sea, and on its shores the Elysian fields, which like so many other places about Naples, are covered with a grove of vine-supporting poplars. After satisfying ourselves here, we proceeded to Bauli, or as the boatmen pronounced it, Bagoli, near which is the Piscina mirabile, a reservoir of water supposed to have been constructed for the supply of the Roman fleet at Miseno. It is about 250 feet long, above 80 wide, and 25 high, or deep. The Romans seem to have been fond of these large reservoirs, and always vaulted them over. Here is a thick and very hard tartar deposited from the water over the stucco, but the stucco itself is not particularly hard, and those who tell you that it is, are speaking of the tartar. Thence we went to the Cento Camarelle, which consist of one room above, and various branched and winding passages below, all cut in the rock, but sometimes lined with rubble-work, and always with stucco. Some have imagined they were prisons, others fancy them to be substructions of some destroyed villa; there is no probability that they were either, but I cannot tell what to make of them. The situation is delightful, commanding the islands, the Mare Morto, and the Elysian fields. On the road between the landing-place and these antiquities, are many other remains which I shall not attempt to particularize. Quite on the shore is a fragment called the tomb of Agrippina, but it has rather the appearance of a little theatre. There is also a so-called temple of Hercules, but a few fragments of foundations may be named anything.

Returning to our boat, we proceeded to Baiæ, where are the temples of Venus Genitrix, of Diana Lucifera, and of Mercury, names which at least serve to distinguish the objects. The first is octagonal externally, built of brick and reticulated tufo: it forms a good object among the vines. Behind it are some small chambers ornamented in stucco, called the baths of Venus. The Temple of Mercury, called also Truglio, a word of uncertain derivation, is a large, domed room nearly entire, but in which the ground is considerably raised. It is about 130 feet in diameter, and is famous for an echo, which repeats a sound several times, an effect apparently owing to the manner in which the dome is broken: there are many smaller buildings about it, and it appears to be a place well worth investigation. The reticulated work in some of the vaults is covered with a stucco containing fragments of marble, which seem to have been commonly used as a sort of gauge, when a marble lining was intended. The Temple of Diana is also a rotunda, and half the dome remains, shewing that there was no opening at the top, which there is in the temple of Mercury. The hills seem to be cut away to make room for these buildings, many of which are still half underground. They are generally of tufo faced with brick, and sometimes with alternate layers of brick and tufo.

Among all these ruins there is perhaps no one which individually would make much impression, and the ornamental architecture has long disappeared, but the immense number of fragments scattered in all directions, keeps up a continual feeling of astonishment. Wherever we see some mass of masonry, or some half-ruined vault, we are reminded of Rome, of her luxurious senators, and of their eagerness to enjoy the delights which Baiæ could afford. The recollection is principally of selfishness, slavery, and cruelty. The stern virtues of republican Rome, which have so much power over the imagination, are not here called to mind. About Baiæ the peasants do not mention Cicero and Virgil, whose names cast something of a redeeming spell over the ruins at Pozzuoli and Pausilippo. All is vice, and the mind feels a sort of satisfaction in the destruction even of objects, which considered in themselves, might have been highly beautiful. Yet I doubt this. Architecture seems highly sensible of mental degradation, and the caprices of an over-indulged taste, tend rapidly to deprive her of every beauty. In point of scenery, nothing can be more enchanting. The broken coast rising into rocky hills of various forms; sometimes projecting into headlands, sometimes retiring into charming bays, where the unruffled mirror doubles by reflecting every beauty, presents an inexhaustible variety. It nowhere rises so high as to be of difficult access, it is everywhere inhabitable, and even now, everywhere inhabited and cultivated. The loose, steep banks, which at Hastings or the Isle of Wight would only be spotted with tufts of rank grass, are here luxuriantly covered with vines. The bay of Naples takes the appearance of a large lake, and Vesuvius, the bold and rugged promontory of Sorrento, and the high summit of Ischia, form a delightful contrast to the milder beauties of the near landscape. We did not get back till ten o’clock in the evening, and could not at that time enter the harbour, as no boats are admitted at night, but we landed at a part called Santa Lucia, which suited us better.

I walked a day or two after this to the Camaldoli, a convent on the summit of a hill, which rises above all the places I have just been describing. The roads about Naples are generally in close lanes between the walls of the vineyards, and the country is full of little villages; but as I began to ascend the hill, the walls were exchanged for high, sandy banks, sprinkled with bushes of chesnut. The more level ground is covered with vineyards to a considerable elevation, but extensive woods cover the higher part of the hill, and descend into the deep ravines which intersect it. From the garden of the monastery, the prospect is wonderfully fine, comprehending the whole bay of Naples, with the surrounding islands and mountains, the ridges of the Apennines, and the coast, as far as Monte Circello, sixty miles distant; yet there was an appearance of haziness in the atmosphere. The lake of Agnano seemed to be just below me. The fathers complain that the steeping hemp and flax in that lake renders the air unwholesome; yet it is two miles off, and the elevation of the convent must exceed 1,000 feet. Many winding ravines penetrate into this hill, which afford a solitary walk at a small distance from the city, and there are many little patches of wood, besides that which spreads over the summit of the hill, which afford a pleasant shade, and are interesting to the botanist by the variety of plants to be found there. Yet in spite of the glorious views from some points, and the romantic home scenes in others, the country about Naples is not generally an agreeable one for foot rambles. It is too uniformly covered, and I long at times for a quiet path, through pleasant meadows, to a country church. Perhaps one of the greatest defects I find here is, that there are no country churches; not that there are no churches in the country; on the contrary, they are numerous, but they all partake of what in persons we call shabby genteel; rags and lace: always a wish of display. Sometimes they are fine buildings, and sometimes occupy noble situations, with a platform in front, whence you have a magnificent prospect. But they are never calculated to excite those ideas of retiring, unobtrusive piety, which give so great a charm to our English ones. I believe too, I miss the churchyards.

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Then the villages are not collections of neat cottages, each with its little garden, and its trim hedge, but of large, shabby, forlorn-looking houses, disposed on each side of a narrow, crooked street, always uneven, often stony, the remains of a former pavement, and where high, stone walls shut out all view from the traveller.

I have been once to Pompei, but I do not intend to enter into any particulars of that place, till I have obtained permission to make drawings there, and have seen it more at leisure. I will, however, give you some account of my excursion. The first object on the road is Portici, where the kings of Naples have erected a palace, and where there is a museum, consisting almost exclusively of paintings discovered at Herculaneum, Stabia, and Pompei; the other articles having now been mostly removed to Naples.^[25] Some of them are very beautifully designed, and many of the ornaments are highly elegant. The figures in general are spirited and graceful, but the drawing is by no means exact in the detail.

In the old part of the palace, the apartments are very tawdry; one room is entirely lined with porcelain, with representations of figures and landscapes; the effect is ugliness, but those fitted up by Murat for himself and his queen are very beautiful.

At Herculaneum nothing is shown but the Theatre, and that by torch-light, as it is entirely subterraneous, and the whole consequently cannot be displayed at once; but we trace the disposition as well as we can, as we reach the different parts separately, by means of passages cut in the rock. This is not a lava, but a hard tufo, formed by the concretion of the small substances thrown out by the volcano, and afterwards apparently consolidated by water. It has very accurately adapted itself to the form of the walls and vaults of the ancient city. Not only have the excavations ceased, but some parts which were dug out have been filled up again for fear of injury to the town, and particularly to the palace above.

After leaving Portici, the road is not good, but we pass through Torre del Greco and Torre dell’ Annunziata, in our way to Pompei. The former place is intersected by the streams of lava which have so often destroyed it. They present a tolerably even surface on the whole extent, but excessively rough and broken in the detail, which you see when you are on it, but at a little distance the eye passes over these inequalities, and the whole has the appearance of a field of rich soil, cross ploughed, with the clods unbroken, and still perfectly naked. The tower of the principal church is half buried, and in two or three other churches the ancient doorway has been filled up, and the present entrance is by a descending flight of steps, through what was originally the large front window. Torre dell’ Annunziata is famous for its manufacture of maccaroni.

Pompei lies quite beyond Vesuvius, and recollecting its catastrophe, we are surprised at its distance from the mountain. We are not suffered (unless a permission to draw have been previously obtained) to go about without a guide, and these take you in regular succession to the soldiers’ quarters, the theatres, the amphitheatre, the forum, with its surrounding temples and public buildings, to several private houses, to the street of the tombs, and the villa of Marcus Arrius Diomed. The whole having been covered with earth, many of the walls look as if they were new. We see almost everywhere ancient columns of stone covered by later work in stucco; the first design and execution being much superior to the more recent; a circumstance not to have been expected, as the eruption which destroyed the city took place in the reign of Titus, when the fine arts are usually supposed to have been in a state of high perfection. An earthquake had considerably damaged the city sixteen years before the fatal eruption which overwhelmed it, and we still readily trace the half finished restorations. This helps us in many cases to a precise date, which we could not otherwise have obtained. The names of the inhabitants remain written on the walls just by the door, but where the termination is observed, it is always in the accusative case, a circumstance which has puzzled the antiquaries. The profession is judged from the indications observed within. In one house surgeon’s instruments were discovered, and it is remarkable, that the room where these were found, has a large window open to the sky, and not under a portico, which is the case with almost all the other openings in the interior of the houses at Pompei: in another, wine-jars, still tinged with the fur of the wine; in another, cups, and marks of these having been placed wet on the marble-covered counter, has given occasion to believe that the place was one where hot liquors were sold, something in the nature of a modern coffee-house; in another was the iron-work of a carriage, with the impression of the wood on the earth, and sometimes bits of charcoal. We spent five hours in merely looking about us, and as it appeared at the time rather hastily than otherwise. It brings antiquity home to us, and produces a feeling of intimacy and sympathy with it, which nothing else can give.

Another excursion not to be neglected in the neighbourhood of Naples is to Caserta. Two architectural friends accompanied me on this occasion, and we first visited the Ponte della Maddalena, an aqueduct, as you know, across a deep valley, made in order to convey water to the foolish cascade at Caserta. I believe the water does further service, but this seems the principal object for maintaining it at so great an elevation.

We slept at Caserta, and the next morning, the 1st of October, went to old Capua, where there are remains of a gateway, and of an amphitheatre, of many tombs, and probably of some villas. The gateway, as was usual at the entrance of cities, is of two arches, that those who entered might not interrupt such as were going out. There are three niches, and evident signs of a marble covering. The outside of the city-gates was a place of meeting for the inhabitants, and a large portion of ornament was therefore justly bestowed upon them.

After satisfying our curiosity at old Capua, we returned to Caserta and visited the palace, an enormous pile of building, but with no effect externally corresponding to its vast size. The interior corridor is however very fine, and the staircase and the landing from it still more so, but it is vexatious to reflect that much of the marble used here was pillaged from the temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli. The apartments are not in general very handsomely finished, but some of them are beautiful. In particular the king’s cabinet, with porphyry styles, and green panels with black and gold borders, pleased me very much.

The gardens are not beautiful, and a feeling of dissatisfaction is produced, when we see the enormous expense of the aqueduct, employed to produce an ugly and ill-placed cascade. The palace itself is placed too low, for though the ground rises gradually towards it for a great distance, the slope is not of itself perceptible; and if it had been erected on part of the still gentle, but sensible ascent behind the present edifice, the situation would have been admirable, both for the appearance of the building, and the pleasantness of the views from it.