breeding casts over all who possess it! It is the true polish that softens asperities, and renders society agreeable. Mr. Cradock is very good-looking, very well-informed, exceedingly clever, and very amusing when he chooses to be so. He talks well on most subjects, and is dextrous in handling an argument, or pointing an epigram, or bon-mot. He enters society, as an experienced gladiator enters the arena where he is to combat, prepared to use all the weapons, in the use of which he has acquired a proficiency. If he fail, it will not be from want of address, but from the want of a due estimate of the powers of his opponents; an error peculiar to the clever, and the young.

May. Mr. George Howard, the elder son of Lord Morpeth, has been staying a few days with us. He is a very superior young man, with a highly cultivated mind, and a fine understanding. He has all the steadiness of age, without any of its acerbity; and all the frankness of youth, without any portion of its indiscretion or self-conceit. It would be diffi cult to find a more rational or a more agreeable companion, or one who is more calculated to captivate good-will and command respect.

SALERNO. We have made a delightful excursion to Pæstum, which has more than realised our expectations. The route, which passes by the Soldiers' quarters at Pompeii, offers nothing very interesting, until two or three miles beyond that ruined city; when the country assumes a most rich and varied aspect, presenting the most beautiful views. In no part of Italy have I seen such scenery as on this route, uniting all the charms of woods, rocks, and mountains, with dilapidated castles, watch-towers, churches, and convents, so admirably placed as to appear as if erected as ornaments in the enchanting landscapes. In one part may be seen the ruins of a fortress, crowning a mountain which lifts its bleak front on high; while all beneath it is glowing with the richest vegetation; and at another turn of the road, the spires of a convent are seen rising amidst woods, whose umbrageous foliage forms a fine contrast to their snowy white.

We stopped some time at Nocera, the Nuceria of the ancients, called Nocera di Pagani, from its having been taken by the Saracens. Its chief attraction is the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, supposed by some to have been an ancient temple

converted to this pious use; while others imagine it to have been a public bath. Like most of the fragments of antiquity, the uncertainty of its original destination, has furnished a wide field for the conjectures and disputes of antiquaries; who only seem to have agreed on one point, and that is never to coincide in their opinions; each setting up an hypothesis of his own, and denouncing that of all others. The reason for supposing the building to have originally been a bath is, that in the centre, which is of a circular shape, there is a large octagon basin surrounded by eight small marble columns; and this basin is asserted to have served as a bath. Those who maintain the opinion that the building was a temple, declare that this basin was designed for baptism, and that this was probably one of the primitive Christian churches. But as Sir Roger de Coverley used to remark, "much may be said on both sides;" and much has been said, leaving the supporters of the different opinions still wedded to their own. The columns in the church are of oriental alabaster, and verd-antique; and the workmanship offers incontestible proof of the grandeur of the ancient Nuceria, when they were erected. The

other parts of the edifice bear marks of having been the work of a later age; and the decline of taste may be traced in them.

At a short distance from Nocera, we saw the ruins of the castle, from which the haughty Urban VI. fulminated his excommunication against the army of Naples, which besieged him in 1378, headed by Otho, Duke of Brunswick, fourth husband of Jane, the first queen of Naples.

From Nocera to La Cava, the same beautiful scenery presents itself, and the latter town is superior to most of a similar extent in the Neapolitan dominion, being well built and clean. The principal street has arcades on each side, which adds much to the beauty of its appearance, and the inhabitants have an air of tidiness and comfort. was among the wild and romantic scenery in the vicinity of La Cava, that Salvator Rosa and Poussin studied nature in her grandest and most picturesque forms, and several of the subjects of their pictures may be here discovered.

It

The entrance to Salerno olers one of the finest views that can be imagined. Placed at the foot of the mountains of Gragnano, which are considered among the highest of the Apennines, and bathed by

the blue waves of the Mediterranean, its beautiful Gulf may be said to rival the Bay of Naples, to which it bears a striking resemblance. The ruins of an ancient fortress, crowning the summit of a steep and rocky mountain, of a pyramidical form, which towers on high as a barrier, to protect the town beneath it, adds much to the beauty of the scene; as do three other ancient castles, placed on separate and less elevated mountains in the vicinity, which forms a fine back-ground to the picture. No one who has seen the delicious scenery which this spot presents, can wonder at its having been sung by almost all the poets of the Augustan age; for it still preserves sufficient charms to justify their admiration. At Cuma and Baiæ, we look in vain for the originals of those pictures given us by the poets, and for those scenes whose attractions drew the luxurious Romans to their shores. All is changed; for Nature, more cruel than Time, has by her revolutions effaced much, if not all, their charms, converting those once lovely scenes into dreary wastes, exhaling pestilential gales around.

Salerno, after the war with Hannibal, having been rebuilt by the Romans, was raised to the rank of a Roman colony, and the Emperor appointed