Was it what I expected? By no means. I had lately been reading "Pliny's Letters," and had a confused remembrance of a terror-striking volcano. But here it was, a quiet, respectable-looking mountain, taking its morning siesta in such a leisurely way as to suggest nothing more than a good bonfire, or a burning of dried grass and useless rubbish. The railway goes first to one point and then to another as we near Naples, and Vesuvius is shown at one time at our right and another time at our left, tall and well developed; nothing of the humpty-dumpty, and we resolve to go up it, according to our no-end-ofpromises to our friends at home to bring them something out of the crater's mouth. While we admire it, towering among the other mountains, like Saul among the people, the whistle sounds at a sudden turn, the Bay of Naples is before us-the loveliest bay, we have been told, in the world; and we glide into a handsome station, take a conveyance, and drive to the "Hôtel des Etrangers." And here began our troubles. Tired with 18 hours' riding we expected Cook's tickets would have had their usual talismanic influence. We had to "show our tickets" perhaps half a score of times since we left Paris; but the name "Cook" on the cover of the case in which they are held had generally been enough. In fact, we had joked about an empty case taking one over Europe, if it had "Cook" upon it; but mine host of the "Hôtel des Etrangers" told us at once that Cook-e or no Cook-e," he could not and would not take us in. And withal he was surly. He had got up before his breakfast, seen the cat on his way downstairs, had a stomach complaint, or made a bad debt. There was no help. We drove to another inn with a far better view of the bay and of Vesuvius; a more

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hospitable landlord, but with accommodation not equal to what we had hitherto enjoyed. Breakfast, soap and water, and the merry voices beneath our windows, soon put us in better temper, and after making a memorandum to recommend our friends not to visit the cross innkeeper at the "Hôtel des Etrangers "-to which we shall be strangers if ever we return to Naples-we set off to reconnoitre a city famed in the history of Europe, of Italy, and of Garibaldi.*

We are all in the best of health, but have no letters meeting us. Seven days without a line from home! Oh, for the wings-Yes-yes, I'm ready. They are calling out that the voiture, or whatever it is called in Italian, is at the door.

* We have received an ample apology from the proprietors of the hotel since our return.

LETTER XIII.

NAPLES.

NAPLES, April 6th, Evening.-My other letter this morning would tell you of our arrival at Naples. What do we know about Naples? had been the question before we arrived there. It was old, royal, rebellious, and more merry than wise in the opinion of many. It had been the capital of the Two Sicilieshad a population of nearly half a million-was built on a splendid bay-had Vesuvius on the coast as its neighbour, and also the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum-had castles-a palace-no end of flatroofed houses, very high, called palazzas-a college with 1,500 students-a ten to fifteen mile drive along the bay-a rage for driving which no other nation knows-lottery offices innumerable-heaps of maccaroni -crowds of lazzaroni-and had been called the "paradise of merry fools." Well, we have now had a search for ourselves, and find the beauties more and the faults less than we had anticipated. The streets are numerous, not very wide, but exceedingly lively. The Toledo, or Via Roma, is a good mile long, and from end to end there seem to be carriages, cabs, and carts, the latter long and light, and often holding 12, 14, and even more persons, hanging on to it in some fashion. You stare. One horse draw so many? Yes. There

NAPLES-ITS MUSEUM.

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are no macadam or boulder streets. All are paved with nice flat lava slabs, having grooves cut to prevent the horses sliding. These flat stones are everywheremile after mile; and thus, while walking is a convenience, riding is a luxurious indulgence which all may well covet. At one end of the Toledo is the Royal Palace, not far from the quay, a very fine building, with four interior courts, and a magnificent marble staircase. There is a fine square in front. But of all sights in Naples none can equal the Museum-once the Museo Borbonico. It was built 200 years ago as a university, but is now the resting place of a matchless collection of bronzes, paintings, gems, papyri, vases, statuary, and ten thousand household articles recovered from Pompeii. Here we went early in the day, and soon met our first Warringtonian from home, Mr. Parr with his bride, and had a cordial invitation to visit him at home near Florence. We look around us for hours, and what we see delights, amazes, astounds, and shocks us. Each feeling comes in its own order. We are delighted with hall after hall full of the sculptor's art in its moral purity; then we have it, in a chamber where women must not venture-and men had better not-in all the depravity of the most beastly nature. The sculptures are of the days of Pompeii. So are the frescoes. They are vile beyond conception. Were the "artists" alive now-a-days, vile as we may be, they would be hooted out of society for perpetuating scenes the human actors in which would be banished for life to the remotest of our penal settlements. Do I wonder why the Almighty rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? Nay, verily. Do I wonder why Pompeii perished in a night? Not now at any rate. If it had not, it would have led to the deep sarcasm of the

prophet being turned on the prophet's divine Master"He is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth!" Rome was corrupt beyond conception. Saint Paul's evidence in his Epistle to the Romans has been thought over-coloured. But if the Romans shared with the Pompeians in their sins, Paul was beneath the mark. The Pompeians have left graven in marble, painted on ever-enduring cement, or cast in bronze, the fullest proof that they were wholly given up to sins which may not be once named amongst us. They had gloried in their iniquity-dragged the fine arts into the slough of abominable filthiness, and given additional proof that the highest artistic attainments are compatible with sensuality of the most degrading kind.

Amongst the marbles in the Museum are many of fame. The death of Dirce, tied to the horns of a furious bull, is a chief one of the sculptures, and was found in the baths of Caracalla at Rome. It is a most successful display of all the parts of "the human form divine." The equestrian figure of Marcus Nonius, found in Herculaneum, is a study for hours of leisure, as is also that of his son. The very steeds were noble Romans. Everyone has heard of Hercules, and probably seen one; but the view of the one here, found in the baths of Caracalla, must excite emotions of wonder at the muscular development and well-formed head. What power in those limbs ! How merciless that club! May not the man with such an arm say his might hath gotten him the victory? The pictures of our prize-fighters show but puny men by the side of this Hercules. And here are a Flora, an Augustus, an Apollo in porphyry; a colossal figure of Atreus carrying on his shoulder, head downwards, one of the sons of his brother; a huge figure of the "Genius of