LETTER XIII.

Pompeii.

The Mode of living easily discovered.

No Trace of

domestic Comfort. - Substitutes of Bed-rooms.

Forum.-Proposal for an English Scavo.-Strong Impressions.Grand Duke of Tuscany.-Anecdote of the King of Naples.

Naples, November, 1841.

THE Sun of Naples has shone upon us, and we have, in company with a very pleasant party, passed our promised day at Pompeii, lounging amidst its wonders, and dining in the Forum, as if it had been May, instead of November.

...

If it could have been possible to have enclosed a little portion of this exhumed city. . . . not one of its mighty temples, but one of its very small dwellings.. . . . . if it could have been possible to do this, so as to have protected it from injury of all kinds from without, leaving, as much as could be, in statu quo every thing found within it. . . . the domestic utensils, the ladies' ornaments, the statues

. . . and in short the household goods of all sorts, it would have made a very precious addition to the treasures of Pompeii. But if for some reason, which I do not very well conceive, this could not be done, then every thing is exactly as it should

be .... all the minuter details of this ghostly history being carefully deposited in the museum ; whilst all that can be preserved of its walls and its pavements is guarded on the spot where they stand with an attention that may secure for ages what is left. ... provided Vesuvius does not again stretch out his red right arm far enough to destroy it.

In nothing has my ignorance led me wider astray in every idea I had formed beforehand, than in the case of Pompeii. I had fancied a (comparatively speaking) small excavation, to which we were probably to descend by steps. But, instead of this, a gate was opened to us which led into an enclosure on a level with the road without.... and on first entering this, my impatient spirit experienced a grievous disappointment. There were fragments of walls; but they were pretty nearly like the beginning of creation, -without form and void. I had presently, however, the satisfaction of observing that the man who was about to accompany us as guide seemed to prepare himself for a long walk. He told us, when he saw the preparations for dinner taken from the carriage, that the favourite place for dining was at a considerable distance, and that we must engage a couple of men to convey the baskets thither adding, that we should reach it in about a couple of hours, which he presumed would be as early as we should wish to dine. To

VOL. II.

Q

all this we agreed; and I began to take comfort from the conviction that we could not be led about for two hours amidst Roman ruins, without seeing something better worth looking at than the first glance had shown us.

My alarm indeed, lest there should not be enough to see, was exceedingly unfounded; for of all the walks I ever took, this was decidedly the most pregnant in interest . . . . and till somebody or other will be kind enough to make a scavo to the extent of another mile or two, I can never hope for such another. If I wanted a practical lesson to guard me from the folly of attempting to convey to you any idea of this extraordinary place by description, I should find it in the result of the abortive effort I made, before coming here, to learn something about it myself by reading. All I gained by it was the filling my head with a multitude of notions as far unlike as possible to all I found, and having nothing to recommend them save their vagueness, which certainly prevented the false impressions from being very profound.

I

may tell you en grand, however, that the sort of excitement produced by being able to wander thus through streets, and into dwellings, whose latest inhabitants were antique Romans, is strangely delightful, and the whole spectacle infinitely more redolent of all we have read of this proud, voluptuous, artificial race, than I had expected to find it. similar ar

It is so easy too, from the

very

rangement of all the dwellings, however different in size and stateliness, to follow their manner and style of existence. Before the first two hours' walk was ended I felt possessed of an immensity of classic knowledge, not of words, but of things. No wonder the race are so rarely represented as having any of those dear domestic qualities which make even the littlenesses of human life amiable!.... The very smallest of their dwellings shows much more preparation for public receiving, and display, than for home comforts; and as for the quiet, I might almost call it the sacred retreat, that all classes possessing the decencies of life enjoy in modern days, namely, the portion of a dwelling called a bed-room, it evidently came not into their calculation of necessities. In place of these we see cells,-decorated indeed, but still cells,—having no ventilation, or light either, save by means of the door, and greatly more resembling the state rooms of a packet boat than any thing else. How many negatives does this single circumstance carry with it!.... How many hours of solitary refinement, impossible to find elsewhere, do women pass in their boudoir or their bed-rooms! The young especially, before they have become mistress of a mansion, in which they may have power to select any other retreat that they may call their "own" par excellence, how could they enjoy the solitary reading that makes so immensely important a part of female education!.... I could not help picturing to myself

228

"my

POMPEII.

a family of daughters, packed round the court allotted for the purpose, and peeping out of their cubicule at each other. We should make a miserably bad exchange, methinks, were we to give up ladies' chamber" for a few fine temples and a majestic forum. . . . But pretty must it have been, exceedingly, when the social hour arrived, and the guests, assembled in the cool triclinium, enjoyed, even in the narrow streets of a close-packed city, all the freshness of flowers and of fountains, the grace of statues, and the gay brilliance of fresco decorations.

I wonder where the ladies were during the lazy, lounging, epicurean suppers? Oh!.... if the king of Naples would but have the exceeding kindness to order a scavo of half a mile square, and let the English pay for it and manage it, I feel confident that in the course of about six months after the permission was given we should have, first, a very perfect, uninjurious, and skilful clearing away of all that covers and encumbers the treasures we want to get at.. next, that we should see every individual article, both great and small, carefully deposited (the rubbish surrounding it being removed) exactly in the spot and the position in which the lava first, and then the English workmen, found it and lastly, we should see, rising above exactly the richest spot of our purchased half mile, a large and lofty edifice in wood and stone, with as many windows in the roof and walls as a grape-house