Italian woman, who is said to have fallen in love with a certain bishop, whose name has escaped me; and he, gallant man, to show the heinousness of her passion, directed the artist to clap her head upon the shoulders of the fallen Spirit! Thus have we arrived at the western extremity of the town, which some writers have pretended to say is twenty miles in circuit. But it would be just as rational to talk of the circumference of a lobster, with his legs inclusive; for it is spread over the hills, without walls, in an irregular form, and with long faubourgs branching out in all directions. In the rapid survey of its prominent features, it will have been seen, that few antiquities have been mentioned. The truth is, that Naples itself contains none, except what are found in the Museum. Though its foundation reaches back into the fabulous ages, the footsteps of the Siren Parthenope, amidst so many physical and moral convulsions, have been washed from the strand and obliterated from the hills. Even the site of the old city, before its destruction by the jealousy of the Cumæans, is not certainly known. Its first settlers were of Grecian origin, as its name imports; and some traces of their manners and customs are said to be still found among the peasantry. It does not appear to have attained to much magnitude or importance till the age of Augustus; and in the revolutions of modern Italy, its history is not very interesting, having done little else than change masters, without the display of any of those heroic virtues, which characterized the Republics of the north. Napoleon used to say, that the Neapolitans were the only people, out of whom he could not make soldiers. LETTER LXIII. OF NAPLES CONTINUED-CHURCHES--CATHEDRAL-MIRACLE May, 1826.-With the exception of its charming scenery, its climate, and its interesting environs, Naples presente much fewer attractions to the traveller, than either Florence or Rome. The style of architecture is generally in bad taste, from the King's Palaces downward; and the churches will bear no comparison, either externally or internally, with 20 VOL. II. of whom carries a lighted candle, chanting all the while. A line of servants on each side hold the hats of the priests, flanked by another line of boys catching the grease of the candles. The royal family join in the parade. A band of Austrian soldiers always precedes and closes these religious proce to keep the order! Some one of the throng as gazing to see the queen pass 1 which has befallen me in all decidedly the most interestee curious specimens of the design and execution. One iour after his crucifixion, in over the corpse, cut from to me not only a novelty, in form, feature, and attikes the spectator with adthat its folds actually apdeath, and so transparent e expression of the face. lar workmanship. One of ly covered with a marble and wrought in a most exelf is bad, being too gross Modesty a general fault in ists, even to their Venuses, of the originals. Some of ning statue "the victim of net, by aid of the Genius of el be correct, the Virtue is appears in the questionable ting a sly look at the victim a portion of the net with one g to the globe, to express the hoemaker who keeps the keys aps a descendant of the one elles, gave it as his decided an angel-probably so chriso qualify him for his present ution, this group is not infeany sepulchral monuments culpture. al Academy of the Arts, is clivities on either hand. In the walls of the buildings, along the narrow, dirty, beggarly streets, specimens of substantial masonry are seen, said to be older than the foundations of Rome itself. Our coach was here so beset with swarms of mendicants, that it was absolutely necessary to close the windows, to avoid their importunate cries, which could not have been hushed without exhausting our purses. Such is the distress of a population in a country apparently teeming with plenty. The hills are crowned with olives, and the vales produce corn and wine in abundance. But between the oppressions of the government and the indolence of the subject, the peasantry are more degraded and wretched than even the inhabitants of the papal dominions. Just before sunset we paused opposite an old tower on the right of the road, and three labourers, at work in a field near the base, informed us that it was the Mausoleum of Cicero. Such an object was not to be passed unnoticed. One of the peasants led the way, and kindly lent us a helping hand in climbing up the exterior of its crumbling walls. It is two stories high, of a rude construction, the basement being composed of blocks of Travertine, and the upper story of brick and mortar, intermingled with stone. The interior is hollow, with niches for statues, and a column rising in the centre, apparently to support the shattered roof, which is tottering to its fall, and richly mantled with shrubs and wild flowers. It is supposed to stand upon the very spot where the great Roman orator was overtaken and assassinated by Herennius, an emissary of Antony, while the former was endeavouring to escape in a litter, from his Formian Villa to the sea shore, at the distance of a mile. From the Mausoleum of Cicero, a most magnificent sunset view opened upon us towards the south, embracing a range of mountains extending along the shore of the Mediterranean to the bay of Naples, with the top of Vesuvius in the distance the blue expanse of the sea washing a long line of coast-and the lofty promontory of Gaeta, projecting out several miles at the western extremity of the bay. This bold headland immortalized in both Greek and Roman song, exceeds in picturesque beauty any thing I have seen even in Italy, the land of enchantment as it regards distant views. An artist of the finest fancy could not select and group objects to more advantage, than they have been fortuitously combined by the hand of nature and art, in the midst of a ་ population destitute of taste, who have not wittingly contributed an iota to the embellishment of their landscapes. From the extreme point of Gaeta, the shore sweeps with a bold and graceful curve to Mola, a distance of four or five miles to the east. The old town extends from the end of the cape half way round the bay, the white buildings rising from the edge of the water up the declivity. On the summit of the promontory are seen the antique castle of colossal dimensions, and the mausoleum of Lucius Plancus, the friend of Horace and the founder of Lyons. To the north the woody tops of mountains form a wild and rural back-ground. Such are a few of the elements of a picture, which, brightened by skies and waters rivelling each other in the splendour of their hues, and embellished by the fresh luxuriance of spring, wholly baffles the powers of description. It seemed so much like enchantment, and formed such a fine image to be preserved unbroken in the mind, that we did not in this instance give chase to the rainbow, till its tints vanished amidst beggars and their dirty habitations. In our ride of a mile or two from the Mausoleum of Cicero to the little town of Mola di Gaeta, situated upon the very margin of the sea, the ruins of the ancient town of Formia were seen strewed along the road. We took lodgings for the night at a large and comfortable hotel, called La Villa di Cicerone, said to occupy the site of Cicero's house, though the tradition does not appear to be very well grounded. At any rate, its location is enchanting. The declivity between the court-yard and the sea is covered with magnificent groves of the citron and orange. Most of the trees were laden with golden fruit, while the blossoms of others filled the air with fragrance. The landlord unlocked the gates of this garden of the Hesperides, and bade us welcome to any portion of its contents. We however did not avail ourselves of his liberality, but permitted the bending branches and rich clusters to hang unmolested, too beautiful to the eye to be profaned by the grosser senses. Below the terrace of the garden, the ruins of the ancient Villa are scattered along the rocks on the beach, and even extending for some distance into the bay, a few feet beneath the surface of the water. Descending from the wall by a ladder, we examined by twilight, (with the aid of a young moon hanging her silver horn above Mount Cæcubus,) the remains of baths, porches, and subterranean arches, still in a VOL. II. 19 |