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Ces temples du plaisir par la mort habités,

Ces portiques, ces bains prolongés sous les ondes, Ont vu Néron, caché dans leurs grottes profondes, Condamner Agrippine au sein des voluptés.

and to avoid complicity in the base proceedings of their senate; a noble and wise exile, a retirement wittily but wrong

Au bruit des flots, roulant sur cette voûte humide, fully blamed by Seneca: Nunquam aliter

Il veillait, agité d'un espoir parricide;

I jetait à Narcisse un regard satisfait,

Quand, muet d'épouvante et tremblant de colère,
Il apprit que ces flots, fnstruments du forfait,
Se seulevant d'horreur, lui rejetalent sa mère.

These burning grottos are still vapour baths of extraordinary effect. The cicerone, perfectly unawares to me, rushed in naked, and shortly after came out burning hot, streaming with perspiration, and uttering a kind of moaning noise that quite disturbed me; happily he soon recovered all his sang-froid

and claimed the reward of his customary experiment.

The colony of Cumæ, led by Hippocles Cumæus from Chalcis in the island of Eubea, was, according to Strabo, the oldest monument of the passage of the Greeks in Italy. Virgil gives it the same origin: geography and history are here in unison with poetry. The last king of Rome, Tarquin, expelled by an aristocratic revolution, according to an ingenious Neapolitan writer, ended his days at Cumæ, after making or instigating war against the Roman people for twenty years. The celebrated Sibyl, whose memory is predominant at Cumæ, probably had her grotto in the tortuous picturesque excavation, encumbered with broken rocks and of difficult access. This sybil, who, after burning several copies of the book of Oracles, exacted of the same king a price equal to that she had asked for many, already anticipated the mania of book-hunters, amateurs of medals, etc.; and indeed she ought to have asked more. It was at Cuma that Petronius, when arrested, opened his veins, and disserted on pleasure with his friends to his last hour; and there, too, he placed the impure residence of his Trimalcion, in whom Voltaire, for very good reasons, cannot recognise a man of talent, of Nero's age and rank.

On the road from Cuma to Misenum, alla Torre della Gaveta, are the remains of a sumptuous villa, in which the senator Servilius Vatia had secluded himself towards the end of his days, to escape the eye of Sejanus and Tiberius,

'Delfico, Pensieri su l' istoria, p. 171.

2 See, in the Siecle de Louis XIV., the Catalogue of

hanc villam Vatiæ vivo præteribam, quam ut dicerem : Vatia hic situs est,3 which, at each proscription, made people say of Vatia that he alone knew how to live: 0 Vatia, solus scis vivere.

The Arco felice, almost entire, which, by its nobleness rather than proportions, attests the magnificence of the Romans, was the ancient gate of Cumæ. This once famous, but now deserted city has nothing remarkable save its numerous its broken walls, Greek, Roman, and of and shapeless fragments of antiquities, the middle ages, and the delightful view that expands around its volcanic heights.

The lake of Licola is a monument of Nero's prodigious works, called by Tacitus cupitor incredibilium, who wanted to make a canal from Ostia to lake

Avernus. The works could not be executed, and the waters remained in the preparatory excavations, which are still called Nero's ditch.

The unhealthy coast of Baia and its melancholy-looking castle, a hospital for a few invalided gunners, would hardly be taken for that delightful shore which Horace celebrated as the most delicious in the universe:

Nullus in orbe sinus Bajis prælucet amœnis.

Cicero thought his visit to Baiæ required an apology, and the house he bought in the environs injured him in the minds of some grave senators. Seneca named Baiæ the resort of all the vices, diversorium vitiorum; and Propertius thought Cynthia compromised her reputation by sojourning there :

Tu modo corruptas quam primum desere Bajas,

Marius, Pompey, and Cæsar, bad each a villa at Baiæ: in that of Cæsar died the young Marcellus, whom Livia was suspected of poisoning. The beautiful villa of Calpurnius Piso was the focus of the great and unfortunate conspiracy against Nero, to which Lucan, who had basely flattered him, acceded more from the irritated self-love of a poet than from

French writers, art. Nodot, and the Pyrrhonisme de l'histoire, ch. xiv. 3 Epist. LV.

patriotism. Nero's train, when he | Misenum was also the seat of pleasure: went to the waters of Baiæ, consisted of a thousand carriages and two thousand mules shod with silver. The most splendid of the ancient villas of Baiæ seems to have been the one built by Alexander Severus for his mother the empress Julia Mammea, who, with all her virtues, was inclined to avarice, and would never have built such a costly place herself. Of all the epithets that the historians and poets of antiquity have lavished on these shores, they now deserve only one, that of tepida (tepid).

On the coast of Bauli stood the house of Hortensius, called the Fishery, famous for its murenæ, which were extolled by Cicero, Varro, and Pliny the elder; some of its remains are still visible near the beach. The ruin called the Tomb of Agrippina was perhaps a theatre, being in the form of one. It was along the road to Misenum, beside Cæsar's villa, that the dependants of Agrippina, according to Tacitus, erected a small tomb (levem tumulum) to her memory, but not till after Nero's death.

The Cento camerelle (the hundred little chambers), some of which seem to have served as reservoirs for rain water, are called Nero's prisons; for crime has given a sort of popularity to his name in this country. The villa of Cæsar must have been near this point.

The celebrated Piscina Mirabile, an ancient reservoir that supplied the fleet stationed at Misenum with water, is the finest monument of this district, and the only one in good preservation. This elegant and solid construction, whether it belonged to Lucullus, Agrippa, or Claudius, equally exhibits the strength and grandeur of Roman fabrics.

The port of Misenum, begun by Cæsar and finished by Augustus, was the principal Roman station on the Mediterranean. Pliny the elder had the command of a fleet there when he started on his fatal expedition to explore Vesuvius, so much were science and the love of knowledge allied, at Rome, with the most important and the highest functions. This magnificent port, in part filled up, has taken the name of Mare morto, which well accords with it now.

Lucanum propriæ causæ accendebant, quod famam carminum ejus premebat Nero, prohibueratque ostentare, vanus adsimulatione. An. xv. 49.

Nero had a house there, and the ruins are still visible of that of Lucullus, in which the prefect of the pretorian band. Macro, smothered Tiberius, who had made him his favourite. Among the grottos and caverns which undermine this territory, the Grotta della Dragonaria is an object of curiosity; it is an immense reservoir formed of five galleries of unequal length, with twelve pillars to support the roof, perhaps erected by Nero to bring the thermal waters of | Baiæ into his house.

CHAPTER II.

Ischia.-View.-Baths.-Vittoria Colonna,

My voyage to Ischia was only a day's passage in a steamboat; but I breathed the delicious air of that island, and contemplated its marvellous panorama, reckoned one of the finest in Italy, and even of all the coasts and isles of the Mediterranean. The tone of the inhabitants seemed to me still more sonorous than that of the Neapolitans. On the approach of the boats, they rushed into the water, took the travellers on their shoulders, in order to let them the asses, which they drove before them with incredible shoutings and expedition. The superb Epomeus, an extinct volcano, said to be older than Vesuvius, looks like a peak of the Alps stricken with the rays of a Neapolitan sun. Its base is mined by deep romantic ravines, shaded by lofty chesnuts; and on the lower hills which sink down to the sea, grow the vines which produce the excellent white wine of Ischia. The last eruption of Epomeus took place in 1302; but the lava seems as of yesterday, and its black and parched furrows contrast with the strength and brightness of the vegetation below.

On the hill della Sentinella, one of the most enchanting points of view in the island, was a pretty house let to some foreign ladies, where I had the honour to dine in excellent company, This house belonged to the brother of the head physician of the baths del Monte della Misericordia, an important thermal establishment. The mineral waters of Ischia, which were known to the ancients, are very salutary, particularly for wounds, and a hot bath of

ferruginous sand is reputed efficacious against cutaneous diseases.

The national costume of the peasants is rich and very elegant, the ladies even adhere to it; this dress is different in every place, but the silk handkerchief of bright colours, rolled up like a turban, is nearly universal.

We had passed by the isle of Procida, the girls of which now only wear their Greek dresses on Sundays and festivals, like the Scotch highlanders, their selfstyled Roman costume. These girls ran down to the shore to see the steamer, an instrument of modern commerce and industry, which strongly contrasted with the poetical costumes of antiquity.

The isle of Nisida, now the lazaretto of Naples, witnessed the parting of Brutus and Porcia. Ischia, in modern times, became the retreat of another worthy Roman, Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescario, the inconsolable widow of the conqueror of Pavia, to whom her contemporaries gave the title of divine, a woman illustrious for her virtues, her beauty, the superiority of her poetical talents, and who became the holy muse of Michael Angelo and the Beatrice of that Dante of the arts."

CHAPTER III.

Portici Il Granatello.-La Favorita.- Pavement. - Backert.

The lively, industrious, and crowded coast of Portici, a kind of noisy, dusty quay, lined with pretty casinos, and a royal residence, forms a true contrast with the deserted strand of Pozzuoli. The palace is admirably situated; its celebrated museum has been removed to the Studj; but it possesses some works by good French painters of the modern school, portraits by Gérard, excellent Capuchins by Granet, and elegant paintings by M. de Forbin. The antique mosaics, with which several rooms are floored, make the inspection of apart

The comparison of Porcia and Vittoria Colonna has been elegantly expressed in the Latin verses of Ariosto,who had already celebrated the marchioness In the Orlando (can. XXXVII., st. wvi, seq.):

Non vivam sine te, ml Brute, exterrita dixit Portia, et ardentes sorbuit ore faces; Avale, te extincto, dixit Victoria, vivam Perpetuo mætas sic dolitura dies.

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ments less insipid than usual. The gardens are agreeable: some fine oaks of the English garden have taken root in the lava, and seem the image of two strong minds which, when they agree, are indestructible and inseparable.

The little fort of the Granatello, almost facing the palace, is worth a visit for its view of the sea and the aspects of Vesuvius from thence.

At Resina is the palace of La Favorita. belonging to the prince of Salerno; its gardens with their large trellises, in my opinion, have been too much vaunted. Its real wonder is the floor of the oval room proceeding from the palace of Tiberius at Caprea. We do not know whether the ideal of antiquity extends even over its vices; but the mosaic of Caprea, instead of causing disgust, only inspires curiosity. Madame de Genlis has given a vivid description of the disagreeable feelings she experienced when, on entering the Palais Royal, she found herself a momentary occupant of the regent's small apartments, which stil! retained their mirrored alcove, and all their old boudoir magnificence; the floor of Caprea is yet more defiled, nevertheless, on seeing the diversely coloured marble of which it is composed, one can only admire the beauty of such a performance. The same kind of handicraft, so splendid and so suitable for palaces, is still practiced in Italy; at the hotel of the French embassy at Naples there is a clever and recent imitation of the floor of La Favorita.

The apartments have several Views, from among the best of the celebrated landscape-painter Hackert, who died about ten years ago. He was painter to the king of Naples, who paid him six ducats for each square foot of his paintings: the selfish artist has consequently made the sky two or three times larger than it ought to be; and the same fault exists in all the works he executed on these strange conditions. It was of this artist that Ålexis Orloff had ordered by

Utraque romana est, sed in hoc Victoria major : Nulla dolere potest mortua, viva dolet.

It is known that Michael Angelo made several drawings for Vittoria which were cited by Vasari as admirable works; he corresponded with her, and she inspired him with ten fine sonnets and several madrigals full of sentiment and passion.

Catherine's command, four painting representing the principal feats of the war in the Morea, and particularly the burning of the Turkish fleet at Tchesme. Hackert having declared that he did not know how to express a ship blown up, Orloff fired the finest of his fleet, at the risk of destroying the numerous and richly laden vessels in the road of Leghorn. These four pictures are in the ball of audience of Petershoff; they are said not to exceed mediocrity.

CHAPTER IV.

Vesuvius.-Road.-Hermits.- Eruptions.- Benefits

of Vesuvius.

There are certain usages of travellers, which, though long-established, are none the more reasonable on that account. For instance, it is considered indispensable for every man who goes to Vesuvius to sacrifice his night's repose, set off at ten o'clock, and climb the mountain with torches, for the purpose of seeing the rising sun from the Hermitage. But Vesuvius is surrounded on the east by lofty mountains which greatly diminish the effect of this marvellous sunrise, as the sun cannot be seen till broad daylight. The setting, on the contrary, is incomparably gorgeous; the majestic orb embraces the whole unbrok

en horizon, and plunges into the sea with all his fires. By the reflected light of this declining sun, the huge mass of Vesuvius was tinted of a fine violet hue. The rising of the moon, which I enjoyed on my descent, completed this magnificent spectacle; for I had started right simply about the middle of a most genial day, and consequently lost the honours of the nocturnal expedition of fashionable

travellers.

The pretended hermits are not worthy of all the respect with which they inspire some pensive travellers: their hospitality is anything but gratuitous; they never were priests, and are in fact nothing more than two interested peasants, with a boy, keeping a public house at the Three Elms. Their dwelling, let like any other tenement, has even in times past been re

puted one of those gallant and secret rendezvous, in the vicinity of large towns. About fifty years since, one of these hermits, who died at an advanced age, was an old footman of madame de Pompa

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dour, by whom he had been discharged for a serious breach of duty. The destiny of this disgraced companion of madame Duhausset, who has left no Memoirs, was odd enough in its way; after having assisted at the petits soupers of Louis XV., he prepared the frugal repast of the traveller, and he was recognised by the manners of Versailles which be retained. These hermits, like the publican of Chamouny, have a book to receive the stray thoughts of travellers; but Vesuvius, like Mount Blanc, has produced scarcely anything but trash. The aspect of even the grandest reality is most frequently sterile, if it be not completed and embellished by imagination and memory, and it requires, ere it can yield inspiration, that sort of distance.

Before the eruption of the year 63, which occurred sixteen years before the one consigned to everlasting remembrance by the death of Pliny the elder and the two letters of Pliny the younger to Tacitus, the eruptions of Vesuvius seem to have been less frequent and destructive. Under Augustus, the least elevated summit was covered with trees and vines. The principal eruptions, since the last-mentioned, of which the Cav. Arditi, in a dissertation read to the Borbonica Society, pretends to fix the hour, minute, and second, happened in 203, in 472, when the ashes were blown to Constantinople; in 512, 685, 993, 1036, the first of the modern eruptions accompanied with lava; in 1049, 1138, 1306, 1500, and in 1631, the most violent since that of 79. Despite the disasters of these different eruptions and the terror this volcanic earth, furrowed with lightning like the heavens, must inspire, the outbreakings of Vesuvius have not the utterly destructive effects of the inundations, avalanches, and other dreadful plagues of the North: the pave ment of the city is supplied by the lava, the brilliant scoria of which, tinted with azure, ultramarine, yellow, and orange, articles that are sold abroad. The asbes are transformed into jewels and fancy it has vomited forth produce excellent Christi, so ingeniously sung by Chiafruit and the nice wine of Lacryma

brera :

Chi fu de' contadini il si indiscreto,
Cha sbigottir la gente

Diede nome dolente

Al vin, che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?

Lacrima dunque appellerassi un riso, Parto di nobllissima vendemmia ?

It was remarked, after the eruptions of 1794, 1796, and 1822, that several spots previously barren had become extremely fertile from this shower of ashes. A numerous population obtains the means of existence from Vesuvius; it may be likened to an immense furnace created

by nature on the shores of sea, which is its moving power: la montagna, therefore, as it is commonly called at Naples, is more loved than dreaded by the Neapolitan; he makes it his pride and glory: it is the most majestic decoration of his fine amphitheatre; he would be grieved if it could disappear, and the inhabitants of Resina, Torre del Greco, and La Nunziata, have rebuilt their houses on the identical spot from which they were swept away. In fine, Vesuvius, even in the midst of its greatest fury, seems to have engulfed Pompeii only to preserve it miraculously for the curiosity and admiration of posterity.

CHAPTER V.

Herculaneum-Theatre.- Pompeil.- Excavations. -Villa of Diomedes.-Road of the Tombs.-Walls. -Streets.-Acteon's House.-Shops.-The baker's, Pansa's, and the dramatic poet's house. - Thermæ. -Fullonica.-House of the Faun.- Great mosaic. -Forum.-Public treasury.- Prisons.-Basilic.Pantheon.-Square of the Tragic theatre.-Theatre.-Price of seats.-Amphitheatre.

Herculaneum, though on the road to Pompeii, should be visited last; as it can only be examined by torchlight, being buried more than sixty feet under a very hard lava, without this precaution, one would hardly be able to comprehend either the form of the galleries in its theatre, the least injured of antiquity, which must have held about ten thousand spectators, or the plan of its magnificent villa. Without the prelude, the initiation of Pompeii, the black cavern of Herculaneun would appear but a kind of deserted mine, with no signs of living man. A prince of Elbeuf, Emmanuel de Lorraine, who married at Naples and settled at Portici, was the discoverer of Herculaneum. We have seen that one of the finest palaces in Italy, at Verona, was built by a bishop of Bayeux; these names

'See ante, book v. ch. xxv.

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from Normandy seem strangely allied with the splendid monuments of ancient calls one of the most terrible examples and modern Italy. Herculaneum reof the abuse of erudition; I allude to the case of the Roman prelate Bajardi, a famous antiquarian, who pretended to be a descendant of Bayard: being called upon by the king of Naples to give a ca

talogue of the objects discovered and preserved at Portici, he obtained permission, ings, to put at the beginning of the great while they were waiting for the engravwhich he published in seven thick quarto commentary a preface, the beginning of lemy informs us, he had not even entered volumes; and then, as the abbé Barthéon the subject.

Antiquity, at Pompeii, ceases to be the vague, remote, uncertain antiquity of books, commentators, and antiquarians; it is real, living, antiquity in propria it may be felt, seen, and touched. The persona, if the expression be allowable:

new and learned barbarism of the museums is here more offensive and fatal than elsewhere had the discovered objects been left in their places, and the simple precautions necessary for preserving them attended to, they would have formed the most wonderful museum on earth. It may be further stated that only a fifth part of the city is cleared, and it will be necessary, if all moveables continue to be taken away, to build another city to contain them. However, if the excavations proceed at the present rate, there is time enough on hand : from the most accurate calculations, it appears that the complete exhumation would require an outlay of 694,589 ducats (115,7641.); and the total sum allowed every year for works and repairs is only 6000 ducats (1,000l.). Thus, if it has already required a hundred and twenty years to effect the discovery of the fifth we possess, four hundred and eighty years must elapse before the whole of Pompeii can be seen.

When Sulpitius, seeking to console Cicero for the death of his daughter Tullia by the example of human vicissitudes, speaks to him of those carcases of cities that he saw when returning from Asia, how little did he imagine that his figurative expression would one day be as justly applicable to the town which was the delight of his friend, Tusculanum et Pompejanum valde me delectant,

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