great cemetery of the city is the Campo Santo, a mile and a half from town, the road to which, though once to be trodden by all, is in a horrible state, scarcely passable with a coach. A few cypresses are scattered along its borders; but most of them have been levelled by the wind. In a city where so many lazzaroni are unemployed, hearses are seldom or never used, and the dead are borne out during the night, in rude troughs on the shoulders of men, without the least ceremony. The Campo Santo is entirely peculiar in its construction. In an area of many acres, enclosed by a high wall, pits sixteen feet square are sunk to the depth of twenty-four feet, divided from each other by stone walls of regular masonry, and covered at top with large flags of lava. These are 365 in number, corresponding with the days in the year. One of them is opened, in rotation, every morning at dawn for the reception of the dead brought out during the night. The average number collected daily is from fifteen to twenty-five-in August and September, much greater. A short prayer is muttered over them collectively, when the trap-door flies up by means of a lever, and they are tumbled in like so much lumber, without coffin or shroud. The lid drops and is hermetically sealed for the year, that the effluvia may not escape. One of the pits was opened for our examination. Sights were disclosed too horrid for description, and from which the feelings recoil with disgust. Swarms of

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cockroaches issued out and covered the pavement. glishman assured me, that he saw in one of the pits a black dog, which had leaped in after the body of his master, and that to no purpose he offered a handsome reward to the sexton, if he would rescue the faithful animal.

It was a subject of sincere satisfaction to learn, that none of our countrymen, who happen to die at Naples, are disposed of in this manner, which renders death doubly hideous, and presents forms, shocking beyond the reach of imagination. The cemetery for strangers is in a spacious garden, in a retired part of the city. It is enclosed by high walls, and the area, still under cultivation, is finely shaded with figtrees and pomegranates. The graves are ranged round the borders, and the ashes of the dead remain undisturbed. Their tablets of white marble are placed in the garden wall. Tombs of the English are numerous; but the names of only three or four Americans, all from the southern states, could be found. Eustace, an English clergyman and author

of "the Classical tour," died at Naples; but as he was a Catholic in his faith, his remains were suffered to be interred in the chapel of Crocelle, standing on the quay of Chiatamone, within sound of the murmurs of that bay, which he so much loved, and which notwithstanding all his faults, his eloquence certainly embellished. A stately though not elegant monument, ornamented with the image of a stork devouring a serpent, and with much too long a string of Latin verses, has been erected to his memory. An English lady was paying the tribute of her respect at the moment of our visit; and judging from her language, she was a warm friend of the deceased.

We went one day on a Tom Fool's errand: there are few travellers who have not been on many such. One of the guide-books (edition of 1825,) informed us, that the beautiful statues of Venus and Adonis, from the chisel of Canova, were to be seen at the Palazzo Berio. Away we hurried, and presented ourselves at the gates of the palace, when it was ascertained from the porter, that the two lovers had eloped, without leaving word whither they had gone. They had been sold, long, long ago-probably to buy macaroni, or a coach for the Corso. So we returned to our lodgings, chanting all the while, like the tattered processions encountered on our way, the chorus of the Greek elegy:

Αι, αι των Κυθέρειαν απωλετο καλος Αδωνις ;

"Alas! alas! Venus, the beautiful Adonis is no more!"

Rather in the way of sight-seeing, than with any high anticipations of amusement, we went the rounds of nearly all the theatres once, and to some of them, several times. There are something like half a dozen at Naples. The first, said to be the largest in the world, is the Opera House, or Royal Theatre, of St. Carlo; for in Italy saints preside over all sorts of establishments. All except the front of this enormous building was burnt down in the year 1816; but it has since risen with renovated and augmented splendour. His Majesty contributes annually $80,000 to its support, which he had much better appropriate to the purposes of feeding, clothing, and educating his wretched subjects, leaving public amusements to regulate themselves. But poverty and splendour characterize every thing in this city, from the monarch

himself down to the dirtiest trull, who dances barefooted through the Toledo, in ribbons and rags, with golden pendants dangling at her ears.

The front of San Carlo borders on grandeur, though it faces a narrow street, and is so crowded by other buildings, as not to appear to much advantage. Among its decorations are two very appropriate pieces of bas-relief, expressive of the powers of music :-the one represents Amphion giving motion to animate and inanimate matter, by the sound of his lyre-and the other, Orpheus charming Euridice back to earth from the regions of Tartarus. The entrance, corridors, and other appendages of the theatre are upon a large scale, and in good style. But the interior transcends all the rest in magnificence. Six ranges of boxes, with something like thirty in each tier, making nearly two hundred in all, rise in a semicircular form, and are covered with gilt bas-relief, cornucopiæ, and other embellishments of the most splendid descriptions. The ceiling is enriched with beautiful frescos, on a blue field. Directly in front of the stage, and occupying two tiers of boxes, is the seat appropriated to the king and royal family. It far surpasses in splendour any throne beyond the Alps, putting the Brunswicks and Bourbons to the blush! Its curtains are of crimson velvet, embossed with gold, with a colossal crown for a canopy, glittering with a thousand gems.

The parterre or pit alone is sufficiently spacious to accommodate twelve or fifteen hundred spectators, and the orches tra is on a scale proportioned to the other dimensions. On each side of the stage rise two immense Corinthian pillars, dazzling the eye with their gildings. The drop curtain is of green silk, richly embossed. Its lower border is an imitation of mosaic, exhibiting Venus enthroned-a Grecian Temple —and a procession of Cupids driving their chariots, to whch are yoked successively goats, serpents, swans, doves, tortoises, and hares, probably intended to illustrate the universal dominion of Love. The stage itself opens a vista of such length, as to have the desired effect in actually deceiving the eye, and producing all the enchantment of real scenery. Within such limits almost any distance, and any object may be represented. The theatre is lighted in such a manner, as to set off its brilliant decorations with the greatest possible effect. A superb chandelier, girt with numerous circles of lamps, is suspended from the centre of the ceiling, and wax

candles hung round the boxes add to the flood of light. We witnessed the grand illumination on the King's birth-day, when the effulgence of San Carlo, with all its gorgeous embellishments, and with its boxes filled with an audience in full dresses, became almost insupportable to the eye. No people understand getting up a show in better style than the Italians, whether it be religious or theatrical. Indeed there

is little difference between the two, and they devote half their lives to spectacles of some sort.

But the curtain rises, and let us look at a regiment of actors and actresses pouring in, squadron after squadron, in all the richness of oriental costumes. Plumes and helmets, swords and scimitars, thrones and tiaras glittering with the gold and purple of the East, burst suddenly upon the spectator; and amidst rounds of applause, the enchantment of Italian music, and the warblings of Italian voices, he finds little time for reflection, or for attending at all to the merits of the spectacle. His eye soon exhausts the glare of tinsel decorations; his ear soon becomes familiar with the measured links of harmony; and the very sweetness of the repast begins to pall upon the senses. Then it is for the first time, that the mind looks for something more substantial, some animating principle, to keep the attention awake. But it looks in vain. The reason why the Italians are pleased with the Opera seems to be, that they never arrive at this stage of reflection in their amusements. They neither ask nor wish any thing intellectual or literary in a drama-nothing beyond the gratification of the senses--nothing that requires thought, or that may disturb the conversation of the boxes.

On the first night of our attendance at San Carlo, the Opera was Semiramide, in which the General sings to his soldiers, and the Princess sings in her tears! Such absurdities soon produce indifference, and indifference, stupor. The trumpet voice of La Blache-the lumbering in of some new chariot --the tramp of a tower-bearing elephant-or the thunders of applause which greeted the heroine of the Cyprian band, who could stand longest on one leg and show most of the other, occasionally gave the attention a jog, and kept us from the impoliteness of nodding in the presence of so much nobility and fashion. On the second night, we went merely to witness the illumination and hear the music, which is always worth two carlins. But to a stranger, the Opera House, after the novelty of the show has vanished, is the most stupid of

all places. With the Italians, who go to the theatre, as they would go to a party to meet their friends and hold conversaziones, the case is very different. 'Their boxes are their houses, where they have all the conveniences of eating, drinking, and receiving company. The play is no more than a mere accompaniment of the social enjoyments of the evening.

To three of the other theatres, appropriated partly to ope ras and partly to plays, we went once; and to a fourth, the San Carlino, (as much a diminutive in size as it is in name, in comparison with San Carlo,) several visits were paid. It is so popular and so small, as to be opened twice a day to accommodate the crowd, who throng its portals. Who but the Italians would think of exposing painted faces and tinsel dresses to the glare of sunshine, or look for an audience in the hours of business? But they must be engaged in spectacles of some kind, from highest to lowest-from the archbishop who liquifies the blood of St. Gennaro in the Cathedral, or burns incense on the tawdry altars of the Toledo, down to the vilest harlequin that gathers a mob and caresses his living snakes,* on the Piazza del Castello. San Carlino is confessedly devoted to what all the other theatres are in reality-buffoonery! There is a leading character called Pulcinella, (corresponding to Punch among puppets,) who performs his part in the Neapolitan dialect, the Yorkshire or Gascon of Italy, and is considered the representative of the nation. His wit was in a great measure lost upon us, from an imperfect knowledge of his jargon; but the pantomime and the intelligible parts were sufficient to show the piece to be of the lowest and broadest humour. Several noblemen, an Admiral with three stars blazing upon his breast, and some of the priesthood, were among the audience. Every body rallies round Punch; and if the standard of General Pepe had enkindled half the enthusiasm, Naples might not now have been a degraded province of Austria, though the people apparently possess too little energy of character, and too much tameness of spirit ever to be free.

Thus have I finished the rounds of the most prominent features, which an overgrown, but a comparatively uninterest

* I have frequently seen these showmen coil full-grown serpents about their naked necks, put them into their bosoms, and play with their forked tongues-all, too, "free gratis for nothing," as the exhibition is in the streets. One of them got up a fight between two snakes and a lizard.