limits*: it has since taken ample revenge, and recovered much more than it ever lost.

From being a place of resort for a season, Baiæ now grew up to a permanent city; whoever found himself disqualified by age, or infirmity, for sustaining any longer an active part on the political theatre; whoever, from an indolent disposition, sought a place where the pleasures of a town were combined with the sweets of a rural life; whoever wished to withdraw from the dangerous neighbourhood of a court, and the baneful eye of informers; flocked hither, to enjoy life untainted with fear and trouble. Such affluence of wealthy inhabitants rendered Baiæ as much a miracle of art as it was before of nature; its splendour may be inferred from its innumerable ruins, heaps of marbles, mosaics, stucco, and other precious fragments of taste.

It flourished in full glory down to the days of Theodoric the Goth; but the destruction of these enchanted palaces followed quickly upon the irruption of the northern conquerors, who overturned the Roman system, sacked and burnt all before them, and destroyed or dispersed the whole race of nobility. Loss of fortune left the Romans neither the means, nor indeed the thought, of supporting such expensive establishments, which can only be enjoyed in perfection during peace and prosperity. No sooner had opulence withdrawn her hand, than the unbridled sea rushed back upon its old domain; moles and buttresses were torn asunder and washed away; whole promontories, with the proud towers that once crowned their brows, were undermined and tumbled headlong into the deep, where, many feet below the surface, pavements of streets, foundations of houses, and masses of walls, may still be descried. Internal commotions of the earth contributed also largely to this general devastation; mephitic vapours and stagnated waters have con. verted this favourite seat of health into the den of pestilence, at least during the estival heats; yet Baiæ in its ruined state, and stripped of all its ornaments, still presents many beautiful and striking subjects for the pencil.

As we rowed under the lofty headlands, a Cicerone, whom I had met with at Baiæ, pointed to vaults and terraces, and allotted them

Marisque Baiis obstrepentis urges

Summovere littora.-HoR.

respectively to the residence of some illustrious personage of anti. quity. The sands abound with fragments rolled from the ruins, and some men employ themselves in the summer time in dragging the bottom of the sea with small baskets: they wash the sand in several waters, and seldom fail of bringing up a cornelian or medal that repays them for their time and labour.

From the highest point that forms the bay, a large castle com mands the road, where foreign ships of war usually ride at anchor, the harbour of Naples not being spacious enough for the reception of a fleet: here they enjoy good shelter, watering, and victualling: but in summer risk the health of their crews, on account of the unwholesomeness of the air.

At the bottom of the bay, and at the foot of the steep rocks which serve as a foundation to the ruins called Nero's house, are some dark caves of great depth, leading to the hottest of all vapour baths: nobody can remain long in them, or indeed penetrate to the end, without an extraordinary degree of strength and resolution. The springs at the bottom of the grotto are so hot as to boil an egg hard almost instantaneously. These caverns seem to be the spot where Nature has opened the readiest access to the very focus of a volcano, which has been within the two last centuries most outrageous in its operations; for to them must be attributed the overturning of the adjacent country, and the total alteration of its surface, by the birth of Monte Nuovo, which now blocks up the valley of Averno. In 1538, after previous notice by repeated quakings, the convulsed earth burst asunder, and made way for a deluge of hot ashes and flames, which being shot up to an immense height into the darkened atmosphere, fell down again all around, and formed a circular

* These baths, thirty in number, are said, but how truly I know not, to have been adorned with Greek inscriptions, and statues denoting by their expressions and attitudes, what particular part of the human frame was affected and relieved from its pains by each particular bath. Parrino, in his Theatre of Viceroys, informs us, that three physicians of Salerno, apprehensive of the ruin the surprising efficacy and reputation of these waters would bring upon their college, came hither in the dead of night, mutilated the figures, defaced the letters, and, as far as their time would allow, disturbed the course of the springs but the historian adds very gravely, that Hygeia, ever watchful over the health of Naples, revenged this bararous outrage, by conjuring up a storm that buried the three doctors in the sea, before they could reach their home, or triumph in the success of their villainy.

mound four miles in circumference, and one thousand feet high, with a large cup in the middle. Immediately after the explosion, the wind rose furiously, and wafted the lighter particles over the country, burning and blasting all vegetation in its progress: wherever these ashes, impregnated with poison, adhered to the grass, death became the immediate lot of all beasts that brouzed upon it. The terrors occasioned by this phenomenon threatened the abandonment of the whole district; scarcely a family durst remain even within sight of this horrid heap, which had overwhelmed a large town, filled up a lake, and buried under it a very extensive tract of cultivated lands. To encourage people to return to this neighbourhood, Don Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of Naples, built a villa, and fixed his residence at Puzzuoli; his example, and time, that soother of woe, overcame the general consternation. When men are obliged to apply to daily labour for sustenance, and their minds are of course exclusively occupied by the idea of present necessities, the images of past disasters are easily obliterated, and, therefore, in a few years Don Pedro saw this district repeopled.

Part of Monte Nuovo is cultivated; but the larger portion of its declivity is wildly overgrown with prickly broom, and rank weeds that emit a very foetid sulphureous smell. The crater is shallow, its inside clad with shrubs, and the little area at the bottom planted with fig and mulberry trees; a most striking specimen of the amazing vicissitudes that take place in this extraordinary country. I saw no traces of lava or melted matter, and few stones within.

Near the foot of this mountain the subterraneous fires act with such immediate power, that even the sand at the bottom of the sea is heated to an intolerable degree.

A long neck of land prevents the waves from washing into a sedgy pool, the poor remnant of the Lucrine lake, once so renowned for the abundance and flavour of its shell-fish, of which large beds lined the shallows, while a deep channel in the middle afforded riding and anchorage for vessels, and a passage into the inner bason of Avernus; a small canal now serves to discharge the superabundant waters. I suppose, that originally the Lucrine was only a marsh overflowed by the sea, till Hercules gave it extent and depth, by rising a mound across, and damming out the salt water; that afterwards Augustus formed the Julian port, by raising this wear to a sufficient level, and thereby procuring depth of water for a navy to float in. [Swinburne's Travels.]

5. The Lake Avernus.

A SHADY walk conducted me, between Monte Nuovo and a thicket of reeds, to the banks of Avernus. This lake is circular, and hemmed in by an amphitheatre of hills on every side, except the break by which I approach it; distinctive marks of a volcanic

crater.

The landscape, though confined, is extremely pleasing; the darkblue surface of these unruffled waters, said to be three hundred and sixty feet deep, strongly reflects the tapering groves that cover its sloping inclosure: shoals of wild fowl swim about, and kingsfishers shootalong under the banks; a large octagon temple in ruins advances majestically to the brink; its marble ornaments have long been removed, but its form and size still render it a noble object. It was, probably, dedicated to the infernal gods, to whose worship these solemn scenes were formerly consecrated. Black aged groves

stretched their boughs over the watery abyss, aud with impenetra ble foliage excluded almost every ray of wholesome light; mephitic vapours from the hot bowels of the earth, being denied free passage to the upper atmosphere, floated along the surface in poisonous mists. These circumstances produced horrors fit for such gloomy deities; a colony of Cimmerians, as well suited to the rites as the place itself, cut dwellings in the bosom of the surrounding hills, and officiated as priests of Tartarus. Superstition, always delighting in dark ideas, early and eagerly seized upon this spot, and hither she led her trembling votaries to celebrate her dismal orgies; here she evoked the manes of departed heroes-here she offered sacrifices to the gods of hell, and attempted to dive into the secrets of futurity. Poets enlarged upon the popular theme, and painted its awful scenery with the strongest colours of their art. Homer brings Ulysses to Avernus, as to the mouth of the infernal abodes; and in imitation of the Grecian bard, Virgil conducts his hero to the same ground. 'The holiness of these shades remained unimpeached for many ages: Hannibal marched his army to offer incense at this altar; but, I believe, he was led to this act of devotion rather by the hopes of surprizing the garrison of Puteoli, than by his piety.

After a long reign of undisturbed gloom and celebrity, a sudden glare of light was let-in upon Avernus: the horrors were dispelled, and with them vanished the sancity of the lake; the axe of Agrippa brought its forest to the ground, disturbed its sleepy waters with

ships, and gave room for all its malignapt effluvia to escape. The virulence of these exhalations is described by ancient authors as very extraordinary; modern writers, who know the place in a cleared state only, charge these accounts with exaggeration; but I think them entitled to more respect, for even now the air is feverish and dangerous, as the jaundiced faces of the vine-dressers, who have succeeded the Sibyls and the Cimmerians in the possession of the temple, most ruefully testify.

Boccaccio reiates, that, during his residence at the Neapolitan court, the surface of this lake was suddenly covered with dead fish, black and singed, as if killed by some subaqueous eruption of fire, At present it abounds with tench; the Lucrine with eels. The change of fortune in these lakes is singular: In the splendid days of imperial Rome, the Lucrine was the chosen spot for the brilliant parties of pleasure of a voluptuous court; they are described by Seneca as the highest refinement of extravagance and luxury; now, a slimy bed of rushes covers the scattered pools of this once-beautiful sheet of water, and the dusky Avernus is now clear and serene, offering a most alluring surface and charming scene for similar amuse

ments.

Opposite the tempie I entered a cave usually styled the Sibyl's Grotto; it seems more likely to have been the mouth of a communication between Cuma and Avernus, than the abode of a prophetess; especially as the Sibyl is positively said by historians to have dwelt in a cavern under the Cumean citadel, A most acute and indefatigable unraveller of antiquarian clews thinks it was part of the canal that Nero childishly projected from the mouth of the Tiber to the Julian port; a scheme that was crushed in its infancy.

On every hill, in every vale of the environs, appear the ruins of extensive villas, once embellished with all the elegancies of combined art, now traced only by half buried mouldering walls, and some marbie fragments, left as it were to vouch for the taste and costliness with which they were constructed. In the last period of the commonwealth, aud during the gaudy æra of the Cæsars, almost every person of exaited rank had a house in this country, which the sagacious antiquaries of Puzzuoli point out to you, without doubt or besitation. One ruin among the rest has a superior claim to our attention, and, in a great measure, pleads our excuse for yielding such easy belief to the suspicious authority that stamps it with a name: here, we are told, Cicero had his Academy, where he penned