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from the time that Herculaneum was first discovered, and in the tenth year of the excavations of that place under Charles III. which were still prosecuted, when some extensive ruins were dug up by some peasants, that the site of Pompeii was decided, and excavations undertaken by the government.

Pompeii, city of the forgotten, thy busy thousands are vanished, thy houses are dismantled, thy amphitheatre is overgrown with grass, thy tombs are rifled, thy temples ruined; and the very ashes that lay deep in the double security of the sepulchre and the piled mountain, have been distributed to enrich museums, or dispersed upon the winds. Thou seemest like one risen from the dead, a shadow of the past, a vision of the future. There is an eloquence in thy silent streets that far exceeds that of human tongues; it tells a mournful and an awful tale, of man's glory and littleness, of his brief hour of pride and bustle, and of the long, long ages of dishonour and of oblivion that await him! Little new can be said of Pompeii, and, to judge by the annual crowds of English that flock to it, it will soon be almost as well known at home as any of our London lions; a few things have been discovered lately, but very few: the labours were almost entirely stopped during the constitution, and but an inconsiderable number of hands have been employed since: at the time we were there a large edifice had been late ly excavated, to which the Antiquity Director General, the Cavaliere Ardito (who is at times very ardito, bold, in these matters) had not yet given a name; it is a large square, apparently with a portico on each side, in an elevated chamber, probably an ædicula: two pretty good statues in niches have been discovered uninjured, and some paintings on the walls under the porticos, equal to any thing of the sort found at Pompeii, are now exposed to view. The puppet-show proportions and smallness of the temple of Isis, as a whole, are strangely at variance with the reported popularity of that goddess's worship. How did the mul

titudes that are said to have thronged her festivals find entrance here? A branch of the Sarno, seen darkly and silently gliding on under the temple of Isis, is very striking; did it not run anciently in the same channel? In the temple there is an ancient passage that leads down to the stream, and also the frame of a well, which seems to be ancient; indeed it does not seem to us a far-fetched conjecture to suppose that this channel, said to be the work of Nicola di Alagna, count of Sarno, was merely cleared out and repaired by him, and that it is in fact a work of the ancient inhabitants of the place.* Plain evidences of the tremendous earthquake which, in the year A.D. 63, viz. sixteen years before the final sepulture, almost laid the city in ruins, are visible at every step; and some of the edifices seem to have been building for the first time when they were buried.

The stage of the theatres seems miserably shallow and cramped; and as the two only entrances to it are in front of the audience, there could have been but little theatrical illusion, and no stage effect or pomp; nor storms, or sieges, or conflagrations, or regiments of horse, or real elephants, could have astonished the eye here. But as for illusion it was certainly little studied when actors wore large unnatural masks, and a statue of a consul, pro-consul, or other personage, frowned over the stage in a niche full in front of the audience.

The greater part of Pompeii is built of lava, the ancient product of the same volcano, whose latter results buried and concealed it for so many ages.

The next day we left the Torre dell' Annunziata on foot, about six o'clock; the morning was delightful, the air was thin and clear, and the smoke hung low on the slopes of Vesuvius. About eight o'clock we passed through the town, or large scattered village of Scafati, and crossed the "Mitis Sarnus," a fine piece of pure water: its channel is very neatly kept: there are a good many mills here, for the most part

This channel was to supply the town of La Torre with water; it was opened towards the middle of the fifteenth century, under Alfonso I. In all cases it must have gone through Pompeii.

employed in grinding creta (pipeclay) to make porcellana fina, an article which in humble English is called crockery-ware. After leaving the Sarno we began to descry numerous ruins of castles on precipitous heights, formerly the retreat of the Saracens, who long struggled with the Lombards for these fertile regions; as we advanced the mountains closed in the plain, which winds beautifully among them, being all the way well cultivated and exceedingly fertile; a true scene of Campania Felix,-and how beautiful is the ancient, the fruitful Campania !

Ausonum tellus generosa salve,
Urbium mater, numero nepotum
In dies felix, genitrixque frugum

Ubere læto.

Te canam flava Cereris venustam Spiceo serto, segetumque ditem, Prata qua Sarnum rigat usque Liris

Flumine leni.

Ant. Sanfelicii Carmina Juvenilia. We walked through Pagani, a long borgo, where we observed nothing but great preparations for eating, and the pertinacity and insolence of a troop of beggars that followed howling after us; in about another quarter of an hour we reached Nocera de' Pagani, a borgo larger than Pagani; here also we saw striking preparations for the Easter feast; the butchers' shops were decorated with small lambs, quarters of beef, &c. covered with gildings; and by the door of two or three of them stood a bullock with a gay chaplet of flowers round his neck, waiting with enviable indifference the moment of his destruction, in form and expression precisely like the animal we have frequently seen on ancient relievi, being conducted by a set of grim-looking fellows with large hammers in their hands to the more magnificent finale of a temple sacrifice. We saw large piles of eggs stained with a pink colour, and heaps of loaves stuck with whole eggs, and made to imitate the crown of thorns; and hams, sausages, and other good things, met our eyes at every glance. It is real ly curious to see with what earnestness these people emancipate themselves from the penance of Lent; Easter Sunday is a day of gorging, "chump, chew, and swallow" is the word, and they eat as though they were eating for wagers. As we were

On

hastening through the town, attracting attention by our picturesque pedestrian equipments, we met a Neapolitan friend, who kindly invited us to stay and dine at his country-house, a short distance from Nocera. our way he took us to an ancient temple, now the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which stands about a mile from Nocera, and about half that distance to the left of the Salerno road, near a village called Le Taverne. Few travellers go out of their way for it; and to speak of it, as we saw it, it certainly does not much merit a sacrifice of convenience, and has little to justify the inflated description of Romanelli. The flooring of this small temple is twelve or fifteen feet below the present surface of the soil; in consequence it is not unfrequently flooded, and thus hastened on in its progress to ruin. The form is circular and the roof a dome; a conca or large marble basin that offers nothing particular, and that scarcely seems to be ancient, stands in the midst, and occupies one-third of the whole temple; a double row of columns, one row almost touching the other, runs midway between the conca and the walls; of these columns fifteen are of the Corinthian order, without bases: eight pillars, about ten feet high, which supported a little dome, were round the elevated edge of the conca, but only four broken ones are now standing. In the workmanship of the columns there is nothing fine: Romanelli says the materials are alabaster, granite, and giallo antico; they are thickly crusted with green mould; but, as far as could be ascertained by a little scratching with our penknives, we should judge them to be of no such valuable stuff. This temple suffered a change common to innumerable of its fellows, and altars and figures of saints still occupy the niches of the ancient Gods; the accidents, however, to which it was exposed, drove the priests to seek a drier spot, and they consequently built a little church, that is attached to the temple, but at a level that exempts it from inundation. The temple, the ancient hallowed abode of purity, is now a foul cemetery: two moveable stone flags give access to the vaults underneath; one of these is inscribed pro mulieribus, the other pro sacerdo

tibus as if the worthy gentlemen of the cassock were anxious to keep aloof, even in death, from the contagious vicinity of women. On the side of the conca, the scene of ablution and the typical purification, was lying the Sporta de' morti, a kind of butcher's tray in form, broken and dirty, for carrying dead bodies on.

From the temple we proceeded to our friend's house, at a place called Peccoraro, passing on our way through two villages; there we had a good dinner, and found a curious little book, descriptive of the country, written towards the end of the 16th century, by a certain Monsignore Lunadoro, Bishop of Nocera. The reverend prelate speaks with justifiable warmth of the beauty, the fertility, and cultivation of the Nocera valley; he expatiates with delight on his two or three villas, and affirms that no prelate in Italy can be better lodged: but what tickled us was a curious story of an inundation of the valley, which had such an effect on the women, that none of them bore children for two years after. The holy celibataire evinces laudable dread and horror at this pause in population, but does not attempt to explain the phenomenon. The valley of Nocera is closed in by mountains, except on the side towards Naples, where Vesuvius is seen in the distance; the mountains of La Cava are on the east, Monte Albino on the south, and Monte Sussolano on the north; two fine streams assist its fertility, and a number of ruined castles on the peaks of the mountains give romantic features to its enclosures. From Peccoraro, we soon regained the high road, and began ascending to the town of La Cava. As we advanced, we saw many tall thin towers on the mountain sides; some of these we had seen from Peccoraro, and our friend had explained their use. In the months of September and October, when the palombe or wild pigeons are on their course to other latitudes, they pass in flocks through this defile; then experienced men ascend these towers with slings, and large white stones; wide nets are spread among trees near at hand; and watchmen are stationed on the higher points of the mountains, to give notice of the approach of the flights of birds to the slingers, which

they do by blowing a cow-horn; when the birds are near the tower, the slingers hurl one of the white stones in the air, before them, directing it so as to fall by the nets; the birds, on seeing the stone falling, plunge after it, and are thus taken in flights. The people are so expert, and this odd manner of bird-catching is so efficacious, that sometimes two hundred brace are taken at one tower in the course of a day.

Villages, convents, castles, and hermitages, variegate the heights in the neighbourhood of La Cava. This town is situated at the mouth of the ravine, at the highest point to which the road ascends; it chiefly consists of a long wide street; arcades project from the houses all the way along, and a number of shops, coffeehouses, &c. give it the appearance of a thriving place. Here too every thing was prophesying the near approach of good eating. We were pestered by a set of bawling vetturini who did not approve of our walking on foot: coachmen and gentry of that class are troublesome insolent fellows in every land under the welkin: we remember how frequently in England, when on a pedestrian trip, our reveries have been interrupted with a "Won't you get up, gem'men?"— "Won't ye take a lift?" of some passing Jehu; but in this country the rogues are more pertinacious, they will not take a refusal, and here at La Cava they were more tormenting than we had ever seen them before; perhaps this was the effect of the stupidity for which the Cavaioli are renowned-they are the butt of the wits of all the neighbouring towns, and the absurd stories current at their expense are innumerable.

On issuing from the town, we again quitted the high road, to visit the celebrated monastery of La Trinità della Cava, to which the town owed its birth, or its importance. A pleasant winding road to the right, that ascends considerably among the mountains, brought us before the narrow simple brick façade of this magnificent establishment. It is nestled among wooded heights; its great length runs along the edge of a ravine, into which several little cascades fall and froth: shading mountains, cool waving trees, falling waters, and the saline breeze from

the bay of Salerno, render it a most delicious summer abode. The interior of the monastery is vast and im posing; fine flights of stairs, lofty corridors of immense length, suites of elegant apartments, large halls painted and carved, and every thing within, seems at variance with the mean front, which however could not be made larger, as a rock on one side, and the precipice on the other, prescribe its width. The extreme cleanliness of the place, and the polite refined manners of the Benedictines, delighted us much: the Superior, the Abate Maznacani, preserves at a very advanced age all the vivacity of youth; he spoke like a man of considerable learning, and like a gentleman, and gave few indications of the confined spirit of a monastery. The monks, who only amount to twenty, are all men of good families; each has an apart ment of three or four rooms, and a private servant to wait upon him; the fraternity directs a clerical seminary, and the students are well lodged on the first floor of the building. This monastery, after that of Monte Casino, is the most respectable Benedictine establishment in the kingdom; its very considerable wealth of course subjected it to suppression under the French government. Ferdinand, on his return in 1815, restored it, and allotted the society a pension of 15,000 ducats per annum; a very scanty equivalent for what had been taken from it. In the apartment of the Abate a few pictures remain, but none of first order: one or two Carlo Dolces served to strengthen our opinion of his being one of the most barley-sugar painters of the Italian schools. The library contains a very

valuable collection of Lombard codices, of grants, letters, and other valuable documents of the middle ages. With the assistance of the librarian, we transcribed the two following delightful morceaux; see to what a state the language of Cicero and Virgil had fallen in the ninth century, and understand the whole of the Emperor of the East's, if you

can!

Lettera dell' Imperatore d'Oriente

a Carlo Magnor. Augustus Imperator Patricii, Carolus salutat. Mando scias quoniam tibi aureas

centum millia. Rursum si ad me venerit dabo tibi mille millia aureas-et tota ex topaseon coronam, insuper sex millia de terra Asia milliaria quin etiam super omnes Patricios meos ti collocabo Legionem Vulgarum unam et Persarum alteram, Arde Europam, Subiciatque tibi Asiæ regnæ menorum tertiam, quin etiàm Normannos omnia. Vale prime consul.

(Risposta)

Augusto Imperator Carolus.

Grates referrimus multas vobis de tot muneribus quod mihi promittistis. Sed ho norem vobis nullum fecistis, quando Consulem, me scripsistis. Quoniam licet honorem et terram habeas majorem centumpliciter quantum est Asia, quantum Europam et Africam, tamen caput mundi adventum sciatis ad vos non veniam nisi Roma est, quam teneo. De mio autem quia mando tibi centum canes. quando resurgunt mortui. Valete et scias,

We hastened on our way from the monastery, warned by the approach of evening. The rest of our walk presented a succession of beautiful pictures, which were from time to time enlivened by large troops of peasants retiring to their homes to enjoy the Easter feast; they had their sugar-loaf hats wreathed with branches of olive; they carried their zappe over their shoulders, and for the most part went along singing. A short distance from La Čava there is a pleasant little manufacturing village, buried in a hollow to the right of the road: a narrow high arched little aqueduct strides over the ravine; a babbling stream that is curiously parted off by diverging stone channels to drive mills and bleach cloth, runs in the bottom; the houses are exceedingly neat; and a number of tall poplars, and paths winding up the hills, give verdure and variety to the scene. As we advanced, and the sun declined, the scenery was enchanting: heights rose above heights behind La Cava, some green and tufted with trees, others covered with shrubs and brown herb

age, and others again stony and bare, their tops covered with snowall sorts of light playing on them, and all sorts of colour from dark shade to sunny brightness, from purple to golden yellow. To our right hand, serpentine roads led up to romantic villages-high on the mountain, to our left, were wooded declivities, on which frolicsome goats were

shaking their clattering bells, and between the opening mountains we caught before us a refreshing glimpse of the blue sea. At length we reached Vietri, a large flourishing town that straggles down to the sea shore, to a convenient little port, where three or four polaccas were moored. Near the Marina exist several vestiges of ancient buildings: in an excavation made in 1675, a beautiful pavement was found, long streets were uncovered, and several marble urns dug up, and in more recent excavations the remains of ancient aqueducts, pieces of columns, and ruined edifices, have been discovered.* According to Romanelli and others, this was the site of the ancient city of Marcina, founded by the Etrurians during their occupation of these territories, and, in fact, its situation agrees perfectly with that assigned by Strabo to the ancient town. Vietri is at the end of the defile; beyond it the road slopes along precipices over the sea; the whole bay of Salerno then opens gloriously to the eye; we saw the Lucanian ridge of mountains ending in the classical cape of Leucosia; our eyes wandered over the wide desert plains of Paestum, and near at hand caught the white populous town of Salerno, stretched along the beach, and backed by a ruined castle on a hill above. The sun, however, had now set, and we hurried on: we entered Salerno before seven o'clock, and soon enjoyed in our humble inn the sweets of refreshment and repose, with a zest that pedestrian travellers alone can know.

As we were making our way to our locanda, streams of people were floating through the streets, going from church to church per vedere li Sepolcri. It is the custom to erect these puppet-shows a day or two before Good Friday; in Naples, the Royal family goes on foot to visit some of the more distinguished, and all the population (such as can, dressed in black) swarm to gaze at them. From noon on Holy Thursday, till noon on the next day, no carriages are permitted to move in the town, the soldiers carry their arms reversed, and several other studied means are adopted for pro

ducing an effect. We followed a crowd into one of the Salernitan churches: the high altar was festooned with white drapery, and was blazing with countless wax-lights; a small chapel at the side of the high altar was by painting and drapery made to represent the interior of a sepulchre, and figures of papier maché dressed, painted, and gilt, represented the personages of the solemn drama. We saw little to harmonize with the awfulness and mystery of the occasion, and were soon glad to retreat from dazzling candles, singing priests, and a crowding and not over quiet multitude.

The following day (Good Friday) we remained at Salerno: we spent part of the morning in the cathedral, of which, we suppose, we must say a few words. Around the court yard before the church is a colonnade of different and discordant ancient pillars, which are doubly sacrificed under brick arches; in the middle of the square is a large granite tazza, sixty-six palms in circumference, now converted into the basin of a bubbling fountain; it is not, however, faithful to the last, for age or violence has made a long crack in the porphyry, through which the water continually leaks, and forms a shallow puddle in the court. Under the arcades are several old sarcophagi with rude relievi. The interior of the cathedral is spacious, but not grand; there is a great deal of gaiety, tasteless mosaic; there are several Sarcophagi with very heathenish sculpture, yet they have all been impressed into orthodox service, and one of them seems to have been the "last home" of a doughty Christian, as it is covered by a marble lid that is sculptured, with the figure of a warrior lying on his back, whose cross-hilted sword reaches to his toes, which two little animals, meant for dogs, seem to be eating. We observed one or two other effigies similar to this; we could not make out the inscription, but think they may represent Templars, or some other holy men of war. In the afternoon we ascended to the castle, which is such a picturesque object, seen from below; the town reaches a good way up the hill, which is steep. On our way

• Baron Antonini's Lucania.

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