already been educated in this house; their portraits may be seen there, with inscriptions giving their names, date of birth, their province, the time of their arrival at Naples, of their departure for China, and of their death, when the latter is known, as well as the persecutions or martyrdom that several have suffered. This interesting seminary might aid the study of a people and a literature successfully cultivated in our day, if the pupils were taken at a more advanced age, and were better educated before leaving Macao; but it seems on the decline, there being only six Chinese at present. The little museum is composed of Chinese curiosities, such as porcelain, silk robes, paintings, etc., and a large map of the Celestial Empire.

On the charming hill of Misadois, the highest point of Capo di Monte, stands the Observatory, an elegant and solid structure by S. Stefano Gasse. Astronomy has been studied at Naples for many centuries, from the monks of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Pandolfo and Pietro Diacono, and Flavio Gioja, the inventor of the compass, to Fontana, in the seventeenth century; to Cassella, whose premature death occurred in 1808, in consequence of fatigue from watching the path of the comet of 1807; to Federico Zuccari, of the family of the two celebrated painters, and to the illustrious P. Piazzi, who died a few years since, while director-general of the observatories of the kingdom, having previously been director of the one at Palermo. We are indebted to the P. Piazzi for the discovery of the planet Ceres. He had refused to be made a cardinal. Another instance of modesty and good taste heightens his glory still further: having been informed that a gold medal was about to be struck in his honour, Piazzi requested that the value might be devoted to the purchase of instruments for his observatory.

The catacombs of Saint Januarius, less famous than those of Rome, appeared to me very superior in their kind. The antique tombs, the Greek inscriptions discovered there prove the ancient civifisation of that country; but these palaces of death crumble away like the abodes of men, and the unencumbered space is already of far less extent than in the days of Mabillon.

The Seraglio or Reale Albergo, a vast poor-house, founded by Charles III., was

a grand conception; it is at once a school, a workshop, and a hospital. Perhaps the combination of these different establishments is an obstacle to good management. Neither does the military discipline followed in the Seraglio to restrain its vagabond and numerous inmates, seem very likely to effect, by its absolute regulations, their moral and intellectual improvement. The officers also appear too subaltern and too little above the people they are charged to superintend. A deaf and dumb school on the system of the abbé de l'Épée, is dependant on the Albergo. But the instructor must have less to do than in any other country: grimaces are the mother tongue of the Neapolitan, and with him, may very well aid or even supply the language of signs. If the vocabulary of these grimaces were published, every body would be surprised to see what they express, and with a rapidity, a precision, if one may so say, that speech cannot attain. A foreigner asked a man of the lower orders where he might find a casino situated on the top of Capo di Monte; the Neapolitan made no other answer than by raising his lower lip; he repeated this grimace, which was really very intelligible, until the stranger, provoked at his silence, at last observed it.

The Botanical garden, created in 1818 in an advantageous position, and confided to the judicious management of S. Tenore, offers an agreeable promenade : the number of species is already ten thousand, among which there are many that our northern gardens could not preserve.

The

The Instituto del Miracolo, founded by Queen Caroline Murat, in the old convent of that name, on the plan of the house of education at Saint Denis, has obtained the approbation of the most severe and experienced judges. French governess was justly maintained in her office, and she has since been invited to Madrid by Queen Christina, a princess of Naples, who has placed her at the head of a similar establishment. The houses of this kind at Milan and Florence were also superintended by French women. The Salesian ladies of Venice are emigrant French nuns. Our influence in Italy, though interrupted by political measures, is still visible in the manners and customs. The grace and judgment of French women engrafted

on Italian imagination amalgamate well, and have already produced more than one amiable model.

Farther on is the fine avenue leading to the old Champ de Mars created by the French, which was a suitable adjunct for a great and frequently agitated capital, but it has unfortunately been reduced, under the pretext of restoring the land to cultivation, as if that were scarce in such a country.

On this side is the hill of Santa Maria del Pianto, called also the Mount of Lautrec, because that general once encamped there. Historians state that our army perished from privations, excessive heat and the plague, without mentioning the exhalations of the soil, which perhaps contributed more to its destruction, if we may judge by a contemporary fact. The French soldier who occupied the throne of Naples, a brave compatriot of Lautrec, and greatly resembling him, after reviewing his troops on this side, was so charmed with the situation, that be determined to encamp

I

there at night with his soldiers; on the morrow he was very ill, and his men too, many of whom died. The grotto of Lautrec is still shown, where he was obscurely interred in 1528, until the duke of Sessa, having discovered bis corpse, erected to him the noble mausoleum in the church of Santa Maria la Nova. '

Between the hills of Capo di Monte and Capo di Chino is a secluded valley, in which, on a rising ground and amidst pines, stands the picturesque convent of Santa Maria de' Monti, with its oriental dome. But the principal ornament of this vale is the wreck of the superb aqueduct reddened by time, and called from its colour Ponti rossi (red bridges). a work of Augustus, which carried the waters of the Lebeto to the port of Misenum, a distance of thirty-five miles from Naples; though shattered by earthquakes, crowded, overtopped, enveloped by vegetation, and its arcades are the resort of the goatherd and his flock, it still attests the power of the imperial people.

CHAPTER I.

Vomero.-Camaldulites.-Lake d'Agnano.-Grotta del Cane.- Solfatara.- Pozzuoli. Cathedral.Temple of Serapis.-Port.-Amphitheatre.-Tombs. -Cicero's Villa.-Lakes Lucrinus and Avernus.Temples of Venus, Mercury, Diana.-Nero's Baths. -Piscina Mirabile.-Cento Camerelle.-Cuma.

Misenum.-Grotta della Dragonaria.

The Vomero, over which the road to the Camaldulite convent passes, seems to be the crater of an ancient volcano in which arise several small hills covered with the strongest, most varied, and confused vegetation, presenting a singular and enchanting aspect. The convent has

"Lautrec," says Brautome, "étoit brave, bardi, valllant, et excellent pour combattre en guerre et

long beards, their gowns and hoods of white woollen, are themselves picturesque. It is true that they seem to have little suspicion of it, and the traveller, struck with what is poetical in their institution, is sometimes grievously disappointed on conversing with them. The church has a few good paintings, among them a Last Supper, by Stan

frapper comme sourd; mais pour gouverner un état Il n'y étoit bou." See ante, ch. ix.

zioni. Part of the estates belonging to this convent were purchased, under the French administration, by S. Ricciardi, formerly minister of justice, a magistrate distinguished for his independence and great information, who has taken the title of Count de Camaldoli,and has converted the property into a very pleasant villa, which has been well sung by two good Italian poets of the present day.

The lake of Agnano has nothing curious now, except its wild and gloomy site; for the phenomenon of its water boiling without heat, a pretty just image of some kinds of enthusiasm, has ceased to exist.

Like every body else, I went to see the celebrated grotta del Cane: in travelling there are some things that must be seen, though little interesting. This grotto, much less curious than the neighbouring Vapour baths of San Germano, or the numerous and less spacious grottos of the same kind at Latera, in the Roman states, is not open as formerly; it is let to a peasant who keeps the key and is paid for showing it, being generally there with a dog intended for the experiment. The life of this poor animal is thus past in continual swoons, which, at least, are not pretended, an advantage they have over many in fashionable life.

The Solfatara is a fine antique volcanic ruin. This plain of sulphur, white, hot, smoking, hollow, and sonorous, has an extraordinary aspect one is almost tempted to pierce its thin and fragile crust, to fathom the fiery abyss it covers. Among the fêtes celebrated at Naples by the magnificence of Alfonso, on the arrival of the emperor Frederick III. in 1452, the most surprising was a hunt by torchlight in the enclosure of the Solfatara, where the arrangement of the lights in that natural circus, the number of animals, the music and the brilliant costumes of the hunters, seemed to realise the prodigies of magic.

Pozzuoli, with its languishing population, is the only inhabited point on this coast, which was once covered with brilliant villas, sumptuous edifices, and called by Cicero Puteolana et Cumana regna. Then all Rome crowded to the waters of Puteoli, the Spa or Baden of

La villa di Camaldoll al Vomero, polimetro del car. A. M. Ricci, 1827. La villa di Camaldoli, stanze, Naples, 1833, by Signora Maria Giuseppa Guacci. * Epist. ad All. lib. xiv. 18.

antiquity. This was one of those brilliant companies of bathers, which so much confounded the vanity of the Roman orator on his return from Sicily, when, as he landed on the quay now called la Malva, he expected to receive the honours of his countrymen, who were ignorant of his questorship, or supposed it at Syracuse instead of Lilybeum. 3 Of all the splendour of Puteoli a few ruins alone remain.

The ancient temple consecrated to Augustus by the Roman knight Calpurnius, a monument of Roman opulence and degradation, of which only the inscription and some few columns still subsist, is the cathedral dedicated to Saint Proculus, the companion of Saint Januarius.

In the square, a fine pedestal of white marble, ornamented with fourteen figures representing towns of Asia Minor overthrown by an earthquake and rebuilt by Tiberius, seems to have supported a statue of the emperor, which remains buried under the buildings of the modern town. 4 Another statue of a senator, still on its pedestal, retains its inscription.

The port of Pozzuoli was one of the most magnificent in Italy, and its merchants, like those of London now, were reputed the richest in the world. The mole was repaired by Adrian and Antoninus Pius, but the epoch of its foundation is unknown; of its twenty-five arches, thirteen only are standing: the last, a prodigious construction, plunges sixty palms beneath the sea. The bridge, a stupid work of Caligula's, in imitation of the Via Appia, which served for his triumphal passage from Pozzuoli to Baiæ, rested on this superb mole.

Its fine barracks and tower are the old palace of the viceroy, Pedro of Toledo, who was instrumental in repeopling Pozzuoli, when nearly deserted after the dreadful earthquake of 1538; he restored its lost waters, and executed other useful works. The temple of Jupiter Serapis, a magnificent wreck of Roman grandeur, shows the splendour of the art in Adrian's reign. The roof was of white marble, and some parts of it are still in

existence; the beautiful columns and the pavement are under water. This mixture of water and ruins is tolerably picturesque, but very unhealthy, and a great obstacle to archeological research. The shells incrusted on some of the still erect columns of cipoline marble, prove that the sea has risen twenty-two palms (of ten English inches each) above its present height; it would thus have submerged the whole town and surrounding country, beyond the entrance of the gulf of Posilipo; which is little likely, and men of science have differently explained the phenomenon. The architect Niccolini, president of the Borbonica society of Naples, charged in 1828 with the draining of this little marsh, gives a reasonable explanation of the trace of water at that height: he supposes that during the earthquake of 1538, which filled up part of lake Lucrine, engulphed the great village of Tripergola, and produced in three days the hill of Montenuovo, a part of the water was driven out of the lake and remained some time on the site of the temple of Scrapis. This mystical and popular religion, which, after being banished from Rome several times, was near usurping the honours of the Capitol even in Cicero's days, a real pantheism, was the last of the antique religions that resisted christianity.

The amphitheatre called the Coliseum, though ruined by earthquakes and choked with luxuriant and picturesque vegetation, has not totally lost its ancient form; it would hold forty thousand persons. Augustus attended the games celebrated in his honour there. The Labyrinth, a vast subterranean edifice, was probably the reservoir for the water of the naumachia given in the theatre.

To the north of Pozzuoli, on the superb Campanian road, are some antique tombs in good preservation, extending more than two miles. They were shown to me by wretches so miserable that one might take them for spectres, inhabitants of the tombs, who were shortly to return into them.

The villa of Cicero, built on the plan of the Academy of Athens, which be praised in his letters, and called by the

It appears that Montenuovo is now gradually sinking; it would be curious to observe and minute this variation.

name of Academia, was then by the seaside; and the Roman orator could angle from his terrace while meditating bis Academics. Adrian, who died at Baiæ, was buried in this house, and his successor, the pious Antoninus, determined to convert his tomb into a temple. The lakes Lucrine and Avernus, which Augustus connected with the sea, were convulsed by the earthquake of 1538, which greatly changed the mythological and Virgilian aspect of these places; they still, however, retain their ancient names, but have fallen far beneath their fabulous destination; the Elysian Fields are now a good vineyard, and the Avarus Acheron, under the unmelodious name of Fusaro, is used for soaking hemp, and supplies excellent oysters. The Avernus, the Styx, the Acheron, likewise existed in Egypt and Greece: it seems that the ancients transported their poetical machinery with them, as well as their institutions and laws.

To the west of lake Lucrine and the south of Avernus was Cicero's other villa called the Cumean, in which he began his Republic; a villa differing from the one he possessed at Pozzuoli, and both so charming that he knew not which to prefer.2

The pretended grotto of the Sibyl is not a very agreeable place to visit; it is necessary to procure torches, and to descend on the back of a guide into a long, dark, and muddy cavern. The use of these caves seems uncertain, though they are found in most great edifices of antiquity, and local examination does not throw much light on the subject. Perhaps these galleries of Roman architecture, ornamented with basso-relievos blackened by the torches of ciceroni, were used as places of retirement and baths in the great beats.

The ruins of the three edifices called the temples of Venus Genitrix, Mercury, and Diana Lucifera, may be more reasonably supposed to belong to some of the therma, with which the magnificence and voluptuousness of the Romans had covered these shores. The baths of Nero are more likely to be authentic. These baths have inspired M. Casimir Delavigne with some of his finest verses:

a Epist. ad Att., lib. xiv. 13.