pleasure, which there had been during the previous day, is most striking and impressive. You almost fancy, that with the shades of midnight darkness, the breath of the pestilence, like the besom of destruction, swept over the place, sending all to their final repose; and where so lately there was nought but activity and life, leaving only a city of the dreamless dead. One does not then feel as when wandering through the streets of Pompeii, that the wheels of time have rolled back through a score of centuries, and that he himself has awaked amid the classic scenes and manners of ancient Rome. The emotions excited rather resemble those which one has, when reading in the wild and romantic tales of the Arabian Nights, of the changes wrought by the magic wands of the Genii, or the fabled lamp of Aladdin.

We travelled in Italian post carriages, a strange kind of vehicle, made like one of our coaches, with the addition of a seat for two in front, which is covered with a top like a chaise, and forward of this, a seat for the conductor. This dignitary has nothing to do with guiding the horses, but goes through the whole distance of one hundred and fifty miles perched up in his little box, and doing little else than sleep. At the stopping places, however, he looks to the baggage, orders the postilions about, and aids the police and soldiers in fleecing travellers. For this last act of official knavery, he receives as a reward a portion of the spoil. One of these villains, by sheer brazen-faced impudence, cheated us out of eight or ten dollars, which, however, was repaid to us by his employer, when we returned to Naples. Four poor old hacks of horses were attached to each carriage, those forward being two or three rods in advance of those behind, and tied to them by long ropes. The near horse of each span was mounted by a postilion, with huge jack-boots reaching above the knees, a low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, velvet breeches, and a quizzical looking coat, with scarlet cuffs and trimmings, the body of it ending just below the armpits, and the skirts so short, that he would not sit on them when mounted. In the right hand, they carried a short whip, with a long lash, which they cracked around their horses' ears most furiously. By doing this, and ever and anon beating their heads, they passed over their short stages of seven or eight miles at a good speed. Still I could not help thinking what a different affair from all this, is a stage concern in the United States. There, with carriages more comfortable, and which would carry a larger

number, one man would do the business of the conductor and his two postilions; and with such fine, level roads as there are in the south of Italy, four good horses might be kept much cheaper, and would travel the same distance in less time than eight poor ones now do. Such is the difference between the people of an old country and a new. The former resemble the Dutchman, who, when going to mill, put a stone in one end of the bag to balance the wheat in the other, and went by an old road through the mud, instead of a new one on dry ground, merely because his father before him had done so.

On leaving the suburbs of Naples, we entered a fertile region, covered with vineyards and waving fields of grain. The first town to which we came was Aversa, which was founded by the Normans during the time of their wild and knightly adventures in that region. It has an excellent asylum for the insane, which was founded by Murat. It accommodates five hundred patients, each of whom pays twelve dollars a month. The buildings are spacious and neat, and have a large garden and a handsome church connected with them. The patients are treated with great kindness and indulgence, and, in order to please the eye, the grates of every window are shaped and painted so as to represent flower-pots filled with flowers. It is not singular, that one who himself conducted so much like a madman as Murat, should be led by sympathy for those who had wholly lost their reason, to provide for their relief and comfort.

About fifteen miles from Naples, we entered modern Capua. It is surrounded by a strong wall, and also by a broad ditch, except where the walls are washed by the ancient Vulturnus. The Cathedral is neat, and has some pretensions to elegance; but, as in all the other towns between Naples and Rome, the beggars are so numerous and importunate as to be quite annoying. Ancient Capua is about a mile from the present city, and it is but recently that its buried ruins were partially uncovered. It was the capital of Campania, and had walls between five and six miles in circumference, with seven gates. The amphitheatre was similar, in form and size, to the Coliseum, at Rome, and, according to Cicero, would hold one hundred thousand spectators. The same author says, that there were usually forty thousand pupils in the gladiatorial school of Capua. Its public buildings vied in splendor with those of Rome and Carthage, and it had three

hundred thousand inhabitants. It was attacked and taken by the Romans, and greatly reduced, because it espoused the cause of Hannibal; but, in the time of Julius and Augustus Cæsar, regained its former magnificence. During the middle ages, the Goths, Vandals, and Lombards, entirely destroyed it, and, until recently, all traces of the site and the ruins of this once splendid city, were lost in entire oblivion. The plain on which Capua is situated, and which we crossed on our way to Rome, is very extensive and fertile. On each side the view was bounded by distant mountains, and all the intervening valley was richly laden with vineyards, and fields of grain and clover. It was at Capua that Hannibal and his army fixed themselves after the battle of Cannæ, and no one, who looks out upon the wide-spread and fertile plain around, is at any loss to perceive whence were derived those means of luxurious indulgence which produced such a corrupting and enervating influence on those once hardy and warlike soldiers.

Passing the broad plain of Capua, we came to the river Liris, the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Latium and Campania. Over this river the king of Naples has built a strong and elegant bridge, with high piers of hewn stone, over which pass long chains, on which the bridge rests. Near the point where we crossed the river are the ruins of Minturnæ, and the marsh in which the Roman Consul, Marius, was found, sunk in the mud, when fleeing from his enemies. Sad indeed was his downfall, and no wonder that after this the stern old General, when wandering amid the ruins of Carthage, felt a pleasure at the thought that, in its prostrate walls and broken columns, there was a sympathy with his own fallen greatness. From Mola, the ancient Formiæ, we saw the beautiful town and promontory of Gaeta, or Caieta, so named from the nurse of Æneas, who was buried there. Beyond this we passed the Mausoleum of Cicero, erected on the very spot where he was murdered, when, borne on a litter, he was attempting to reach the sea, then only a mile distant. The Mausoleum is a large ruinous structure of stone, two stories high, with a column within reaching to the roof. It was with feelings of no common interest that I gazed upon the spot where the blood of the greatest orator, philosopher, and theologian of ancient Rome, was shed, and from whence his right hand and his head were borne to the capital, and suspended in that very Forum which

so often had rung with the peals of his eloquence, and the thunder of applause which followed it. I speak of him as a theologian, because his treatise concerning the nature of the gods, his Tusculan Questions, and other works, fully entitle him to this appellation. His history and his writings present the melancholy spectacle of one possessing a great and gifted mind, eager in the pursuit of truth, but which, from being shrouded in that moral darkness which the corruption of the heart casts over the intellect, and guided by the dim light of nature alone, was able to gain but distant and imperfect views of those great facts and principles which give to erring man the only sure and certain safeguard of the soul. Had the Bible been but placed within his reach, we feel most sure that he would have embraced the religion which it teaches, the influence of which he peculiarly needed, to give the highest finish to his character. With all his noble greatness, he would have thus become far greater; and the Christian cannot but reflect with interest on what he might have been and done, had his vain, restless, and truckling ambition been exchanged for the humble, ardent, devoted, and consistent zeal and energy of such a man as Paul. Then not his country alone, but the world had been his debtor; while his splendid eloquence, instead of a vain oblation on the altar of selfaggrandizement and fame, had been at once a high and holy offering to God, and the means of untold blessings to his fellow-men.

After leaving Mola, on our way to Rome, as evening was approaching, we had a number of soldiers mounted on the back of our carriages, to defend us from robbers. Our party was so armed that we had not much to fear; still, the region is a dangerous one, and the wild mountain gorges and cliffs, near which the road passes, offer every facility for the sudden attack, and the safe and hasty retreat, of the numerous banditti there, whose deeds of violence have long been notorious. The last town in the kingdom of Naples is Fondi. It was pillaged and destroyed in 1535, by that daring and successful freebooter, Hariaden Barbarossa. This was owing to the failure of an attempt which he made to seize, by night, the beautiful Julia Gonzaga, Countess of Fondi, with a view of presenting her to the Grand Seignior. She, being roused from sleep by the clamors of her people, at the approach of the Turks, leaped out of a window and fled to the mountains.

Between Fondi and Terracina, is the narrow pass, where, in the second war with Carthage, Fabius Maximus attempted to prevent Hannibal's advance. Terracina, the ancient Anxur, occupies a narrow space between an abrupt mountain and the sea, or rather, Anxur was on the cliffs above the present town. Its situation is peculiarly romantic, and in the time of the Romans it was an important port. The form of the ancient harbour, made by Antoninus Pius, and the rings to which vessels were moored, may still be seen. Here, and in the neighbouring mountains, are the head-quarters of the banditti; and here, too, some years since, Cardinal Gonsalvo, the Pope's Secretary of State, held a conference with the leaders of the various bands of robbers. The result was, that many of the villains surrendered themselves, on condition of receiving a certain sum each day, being confined six months, and then pardoned and set at liberty. They were imprisoned at Rome, in the Castle of St. Angelo, where many visited them and made them presents. They were not however liberated at the stipulated time, and what has since been done with them, I know not.

On the coast beyond Terracina, is the promontory of Circe, of which Homer and Virgil relate so many fabled wonders. Still, though we often fixed our eyes upon it, we saw no voluptuous Goddess, wasting her days in joyous songs, reechoed by the resounding rocks; nor did we hear

-"re-bellowing to the main,

The roar of lions, that refuse the chain

The grunts of bristled boars and groans of bears,

And herds of howling wolves, that stun the sailor's ears."

Nor saw we aught of those

"whom Circe's power,

With words and wicked herbs, from human kind
Had altered, and in brutal shapes confined."

There is much truth and good sense concealed beneath this fable of Circe, the pleasure-loving Goddess, who, by luxury and dissipation, and decoctions drawn from poisonous herbs, changed into swine all who visited her voluptuous retreat. Under the veil of fiction it presents the fact, that the votaries of intemperance, sensuality, and pleasure, degrade and stupefy the mind, and reduce themselves to the level of the lowest and most offensive of the brute creation. Nor is it strange, that, when sailing by night, superstitious sailors