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. 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.

The

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 Heaven knows I have little power, but any one. 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

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 is 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.

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, I
know not how, to the hermitage in a state of intense
bodily suffering, the worst effect of which was spoil-
ing 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

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. I writing as from sepulchres, you from the habi 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

Net he Baths of ra, i fine, he isy after 1 we te a 20-m a "at a 7m→ for the me if weng he ry. W zale designtfni semuainance here with a Mr. and Mrs. Honner, the gentleman an Eagleiman, and he uty a barsmesse, all and wautiful, and more judiced, a the best wase of the wr. The and aesarskie br actentions of dese people made mur dirt stay at Venice very pleasant. I aw Leri Bymn, and really tartly new um acan: be as hanged sta the votiest and accessing nan I ever net He read me the first sato of his * Don Jian”—~ a thing in the style of Besna, but nám.tery better, and festucated to Southey, in ten ir a inzen stamme, more like a mixmare of wrnwood and veri pease than more. Venice is a wonderfuly fine city. The sprach to it over the agia, with its dimes and turrets patterng na kong ine over the bine waves, is one of the finest architectural delusos in the world. It seems to have-and literally it has—its foundatans in the sea. The slent streets are paved with water, and you hear nothing but the dashing of the oars, and the occasional cries of the gondouer. I heard nothing of Iso. The gondolas themselves are things of a most romantic and picturesque appearance; I can only compare them to moths of which a coffin might have been the chrysals. They are hung with black, and painted black, and carpeted with grey; they curl at the prow and stern, and at the former there is a nondescript beak of shining steel, which glitters at the end of its long black mass.

The Doge's palace, with its library, is a fine monument of aristocratic power. I saw the dungeons, where these scoundrels used to torment their victins. They are of three kinds-one adjoining the place of trial, where the prisoners destined to immediate execution were kept. I could not descend into them, because the day on which I visited it, was festa. Another under the leads of the palace, where the sufferers were roasted to death or madness by the ardours of an Italian sun: and others called the Pozzi-or wells, deep underneath, and communicating with those on the roof by secret passages-where the prisoners were confined sometimes half up to their middles in stinking water. When the French came here, they found only one old man in the dungeons, and he could not speak. But Venice, which was once a tyrant, is now the next worse thing, a slave; r in fact it ceased to be free, or worth our regret a nation, from the moment that the oligarchy

21% 3T 3e p 12: and Napies at w winter, and retu Benind as bere beautiful as these Arpa, where P. repensly preserv our garden is an habitation of owl family resided be We see before us t in which we see ti and the evening nificence of autu wonder for Naples.

I have been w finished the first ac to be called "Prot tell me what there supposed to have under this title. I ought to say th in a French transla: man, and the world it would seriously sideration, if it were to anything but m does he mean by som

I will write again in better spirits, and I hope. You saw th fourth canto about th did not whisper a w hope you acquit me carry delicacy so fa anything nympholeptic

LETTER XII.

To T. L. P. Esq.

Ferrara, Nov. 8th, 1818. MY DEAR P.-We left Este yesterday on our journey towards Naples. The roads were particularly bad; we have, therefore, accomplished only two days' journey, of eighteen and twenty-❘ four miles each, and you may imagine that our horses must be tolerably good ones, to drag our carriage, with five people and heavy luggage, through deep and clayey roads. The roads are, however, good during the rest of the way.

once the palace of a Venetian nobleman, and is now an excellent inn. To-morrow we are going to see the sights of Ferrara.

Nov. 9.

We have had heavy rain and thunder all night; and the former still continuing, we went in the carriage about the town. We went first to look at the cathedral, but the beggars very soon made us sound a retreat; so, whether, as it is said, there is a copy of a picture of Michael Angelo there or no, I cannot tell. At the public library we were more successful. This is, indeed, a magnificent establishment, containing, as they say, 160,000 volumes. We saw some illuminated manuscripts of church music, with the verses of the psalms interlined between the square notes, each of which consisted of the most delicate tracery, in colours inconceivably vivid. They belonged to the neighbouring convent of Certosa, and are three or four hundred years old; but their hues are as fresh as if they had been executed yesterday. The tomb of Ariosto occupies one end of the largest saloon of which the library is composed; it is formed of various marbles, surmounted by an expressive bust of the poet, and subscribed with a few Latin verses, in a less miserable taste than those usually employed for similar purposes. But the most interesting exhibitions here, are the writings, &c., of Ariosto and Tasso, which are preserved, and were concealed from the undistinguishing depredations of the French with pious care. There is the arm-chair of Ariosto, an old plain wooden piece of furniture, the hard seat of which was once occupied by, but has now survived its cushion, as it has its master. I could fancy Ariosto sitting in it; and the satires in his own handwriting which they unfold beside it, and the old bronze inkstand, loaded with figures, which belonged also to him, assists the willing delusion This inkstand has an antique, rather than an ancient appearance. Three nymphs lean forth from the circumference, and on the top of the lid stands a cupid, winged and looking up, with a torch in one hand, his bow in the other, and his quiver beside him. A medal was bound round the skeleton of Ariosto, with his likeness impressed upon it. I cannot say I think it had much native expression; but, perhaps, the artist was in fault. On the reverse is a hand, cutting with a pair of scissors the tongue from a serpent, upraised from the grass with this legend-Pro bono malum. What this reverse of the boasted Christian maxim means, or how it applies to Ariosto, either as a satirist or a serious writer, I cannot exactly tell. The cicerone attempted to explain, and it is to his commentary

The country is flat, but intersected by lines of
wood, trellised with vines, whose broad leaves are
now stamped with the redness of their decay.
Every here and there one sees people employed in
agricultural labours, and the plough, the harrow,
or the cart, drawn by long teams of milk-white or
dove-coloured oxen of immense size and exquisite
beauty. This, indeed, might be the country of
Pasiphaes. In one farm-yard I was shown sixty-
three of these lovely oxen, tied to their stalls, in
excellent condition. A farm-yard in this part of
Italy is somewhat different from one in England.
First, the house, which is large and high, with
strange-looking unpainted window-shutters, gene-
rally closed, and dreary beyond conception. The
farm-yard and out-buildings, however, are usually
in the neatest order. The threshing-floor is not
under cover, but like that described in the Georgics,
usually flattened by a broken column, and neither
the mole, nor the toad, nor the ant, can find on its
area a crevice for their dwelling. Around it, at
this season, are piled the stacks of the leaves and
stalks of Indian corn, which has lately been
threshed and dried upon its surface. At a little
distance are vast heaps of many-coloured zucche
or pumpkins, some of enormous size, piled as
winter food for the hogs. There are turkeys, too,
and fowls wandering about, and two or three dogs,
who bark with a sharp hylactism. The people who
are occupied with the care of these things seem
neither ill-clothed nor ill-fed, and the blunt incivi-
lity of their manners has an English air with it,
very discouraging to those who are accustomed to
the impudent and polished lying of the inhabitants
of the cities. I should judge the agricultural
resources of this country to be immense, since
it can wear so flourishing an appearance, in spite of
the enormous discouragements which the various
tyranny of the governments inflicts on it. I
ought to say that one of the farms belongs to a
Jew banker at Venice, another Shylock.-We
arrived late at the inn where I now write; it was