one could, at a glanee pronounce that they must resemble the originals.

The busts of a young lady of the Balbi family, found at Herculaneum, and the mother of Balbus from the same place, though far from offering specimens of female loveliness, are so full of truth and nature, that a physiognomist might pronounce on their respective dispositions; and hence they possess a charm for ine, not often found in more beautiful works of art.

There is no end to the pagan gods and goddesses in this museum. Minervas, Junos, and Venuses, are jostled by satyrs and fauns; and Jupiters, Apollos, Mercuries, and Cupids, are mingled among the less dignified river gods, Ganymedes, gladiators, and the more vile emperors; some of the countenances of the latter bearing the impress of the vices attributed to them. One might remain for hours in this museum, without feeling time pass heavily, so occupied is the mind by the diversity of objects that court the eye.

The works of the Greek sculptors soon make themselves felt; and even an amateur can quickly distinguish them from those of their Roman imitators. The climate of Greece must surely have had a powerful influence, not only on the persons of its inhabitants, but over the minds of its artists; or they never could have produced the chefs-d'œuvre they have bequeathed to us. The diet, too, must have had its operation, and I am inclined to think that, had fat beef and porter been the prevalent food and beverage of Greece, we should not behold the works that now delight us. Neither the models nor the sculptors would have been so spiritualised; for the minds of the latter would have become as heavy as the figures of the former.

I was amused by the observation of an English girl, of about ten years old; who exclaimed, on seeing a Neptune,

"Oh, dear mamma, only fancy, here is a Neptune, a real Neptune too, with a fork. How strange! I thought that Neptune belonged only to England. I imagined. there was but one Neptune.'

The sitting statue of Agrippina, is admirable. It is at once dignified and noble, though the expression of the face is sorrowful. There is no straining after theatrical effect, in the statues of antiquity; and the absence of this meretricious and frequent fault of modern sculptors, forms one of their greatest charins. The history of the mother of Nero is impressed on this image of her; and the effect produced on the mind by its contemplation, partakes of the melancholy character that appertains to it. In a statue of Nero, in his boyhood, one looks in vain for any indication of the passions, that, in maturity, rendered him a blot in human nature. The face is peculiarly handsome, and the character of the countenance is that of mildness. Yet even when this image of him was sculptured, the germs of the vices, which afterwards rendered him so fearful a monster, were in embryo; and the recollection of them impels the gazer to turn with horror from a face that otherwise might claim admiration; so faultless are its features, and so gentle is its expression. The Antinous of Naples is far inferior to that of Rome, offering merely physical beauty; while the other possesses a more elevated character.

13th.-Drove yesterday to Cumæ. A delicious day; the sea blue, and calm as the skies that canopied it. Saw the vestiges of the celebrated Villa of Cicero, consisting of a subterraneous place, said by some to have been a wine-cellar, and by others, to have been a bath. The Arco Felice, which we ascended with difficulty, commands a charming prospect of the different islands with which the lovely bay is studded; and which arise from the blue waters, as if fresh from the Creator's hands: their verdure scarcely less brilliant than the liquid mirror that reflects them. Fragments of ruins, overgrown by vegetation, intersect the route at every side. Some of them are exceedingly curious and picturesque, and add greatly to the beauty of the scenery; although this union of the ruins of antiquity, with a nature so vigorous and smiling as that which surrounds them, chastens the gaiety

to which so luxuriant a landscape would otherwise give birth.

One of the streets of the ancient Cuma may still be distinctly traced. Numberless birds were flitting from branch to branch, in the trees and hedges that have sprung up among its ruins; and their glad carols formed a contrast with the crumbling masses of stone scattered about, attesting the ruin and desolation of the place. The mind is divided between classical associations of the the past, and admiration for the beauty of the present scenery, while wandering through spots described by Pliny, and sung by Virgil; whose fictions seem invested with something of truth, when we behold the sites of the scenes which he represents. The ciceroni invariably confound the true and the fabulous together, in their accounts of the spots and ruins they attempt to illustrate, and this jumble of mythological and historical lore is sometimes amusing.

The Grot of the Sibyl at Cumæ, is situated under the hill on which once stood the temple of Apollo, described by Virgil in the Æneid as having been built by Dædalus, to commemorate the spot where he alighted.

"To the Cumean coast at length he came,
And, here alighting, built his costly frame
Inscribed to Phoebus; here he hung on high
The steerage of his wings that cut the sky."

It is asserted that a subterraneous passage, close to the lake Avernus, communicated with this grotto; but the earth has fallen in, and so filled the cavern, as to preclude its being explored more than eighty or a hundred yards; nor does it, that extent, offer any thing to repay the trouble of the explorer.

Near Cumæ, are the Elysian Fields, which are approached by a path through a very pretty vineyard. The Mare Mortuum is passed on this route, as are several interesting ruins of sepulchres, half covered with foliage, which have a beautiful effect. The solitude and repose that pervade Cumæ, where nought is heard but the distant murmur of the sea, and the lively carols of the birds; and where nought is seen but the bright verdure of this

fruitful soil, and the classical ruins that are mingled with it, have so soothing an effect on the mind, that one wishes the importunate cicerone, with his impertinent explanations, far away; that the liberty of a solitary ramble, unbroken by his clamorous descriptions, might be enjoyed. How striking is the silence of the ruined Cume, when compared with the accounts of its former state! Lucan, in the poem to Piso, refers to it in the lines

"Where the famed walls of fruitful Naples lie,
That may for multitudes with Cuma vie."

Those multitudes are swept away from the earth; and scarcely a vestige even of the tombs that held their ashes, is left to mark the spot, where they lived, joyed, sorrowed, and died, beneath a sky as blue and beautiful as the one that now I gaze on.

On pausing to view the Lucrine lake, our cicerone lamented that it is at present innoxious, its poisonous vapors having disappeared. Birds, he remarked with a deep sigh, no longer dropped dead when hovering near it, consequently the spot was not nearly so much frequented, as when the lake offered this interesting sight; people always, as he said, flocking to see that which is disagreeable, in preference to that which is beautiful. On my observing, it was probably to the destruction of the woods, which once encircled the lake, that it owed its redemption from the poisonous exhalations that formerly rendered an approach to it so dangerous, he gravely undertook to explain to me, that this supposition must be erroneous: for that it was well known in the neighborhood, that this cruel visitation of Providence was occasioned by the wickedness of a cicerone, some hundreds of years before, who, tempted by cupidity, led a stranger, whose purse he coveted, close to the banks of the lake, hoping to see him, like the birds, drop dead; when, to his astonishment and confusion, no symptom of illness appeared in the traveller. From that day the lake never sent forth a noxious vapor; and the wicked cicerone lost VOL. II.-14

the mighty gains he and his forefathers had amassed, by the crowds who were wont to visit this wonderful lake.

I ventured to suggest, that if the vapors could have destroyed the stranger, how was the cicerone to escape? But this little difficulty he quickly surmounted, by telling me that the cicerone was acquainted with an antidote, of which he always availed himself.

"What a happy life," continued he, "does the custode of the Grotto del Cane lead! He has nothing to do but open the door of the grotto, pull in the dog, hold it down until apparently dead, and then recover it again, and carlinis come showering into his hat in plenty; while I have to wander over many miles, showing ruins that few care about, and earning hardly enough to pay for the shoes I wear out. Ah!-yes, he of the grotto leads a happy life!"

It is now many days since my journal has been opened; for idleness, the besetting sin of this place, has taken possession of me. I shall journalise no more; but merely write down, whenever in the humor, what occurs, or what I see. O the dolce far niente of an Italian life! who can resist its influence?-not I, at least.

The streets of Naples present daily the appearance of a fête. The animation and gay, dresses of the lower classes of the people, and the crowds who flock about, convey this impression. Nowhere does the stream of life seem to flow so rapidly as here; not like the dense and turbid flood that rushes along Fleet Street and the Strand in London; but a current that sparkles while hurrying on. The lower classes of Naples observe no medium between the slumber of exhaustion and the fever of excitement; and, to my thinking, expend more of vitality in one day than the same class in our colder regions do in three. They are never calm or quiet. Their conversation, no matter on what topic, is carried on with an animation and gesticulation unknown to us. friendly salutations might, by a stranger, be mistaken for the commencement of a quarrel, so vehement and loud are their exclamations; and their disagreements are conducted with a fiery wrath which reminds one that they

Their