MY DEAR FRIEND,

WE lost no time in seeing the wonders of this extraordinary country. Our first object was to follow Æneas to the Cuman Shore, and on our way thither, it was but just to pay our oblations at Virgil's Tomb. This celebrated monument is close to the top of the Grotto of Pausilippe, on the left of the east entrance. The inside is a square of twelve feet, with three niches for urns on the east and west sides, two niches and a door, through which you enter, on the south, and the same on the north. The roof is arched, and about nine feet high. The outside was originally octagonal, but the angles being worn away, it is now circular, and at a distance looks like the remains of a small tower. The materials are of the common kind, and I did not observe any marble near it, except two modern inscriptions.

Formerly the tomb was surrounded with laurels, but as every idle visitor took a leaf, there is not a sprig left. We could not help exclaiming against such sacrilege; but our guide endeavoured to comfort us, by saying that the Marquis Salcitro had ordered a new set to be planted.

The Grotto of Pausilippe is at the west end of the suburbs of Naples. It is a public road cut through the mountain, near half a mile in length, and wide enough for two carriages to drive abreast. Its height is very irregular, in some parts eighty feet, and at others only five-and-twenty. In the day time you may see from one end to the other, by the help of two large apertures, cut diagonally from the center of the grotto to the surface of the mount; but at night we were obliged to use torches, which, when any number of vehicles are driving together, have a most beautiful effect. The bottom, like all Naples, is paved with square pieces of lava. Its exact date has not been ascertained. The common people insist that it was done by inchantment, as a proof of which they allege that no stones were found near the entrance. It would be to no purpose to tell them, that those who perforated the mount, very naturally made use of the stone in building the town.

But after all, the difficulty in accomplishing this passage was by no means so great as one would at first imagine, for the stone is so soft, that until it has been for some time exposed to the air, you may crumble it to dust. Neither, in my opinion, is this celebrated excavation equal to the batteries, magazines, and communications, formed in the solid rock of Gibraltar by Mr. Inch, under the direction of General Eliott, and continued with astonishing success by Major-General O'Hara.

After passing the Grotto we drove to Puzzoli. The road is remarkably pleasant, great part of it runs between groves of poplars, planted in regular order, to sustain the vines, in the style of our hop gardens. The vines are loaded with grapes, and, encircling the trees, form a variety of beautiful festoons from one tree to another in every direction. The ground beneath is either covered with grass, or laid out for corn.

Turning a little out of the way to the right, we came to Lago D'Agnano, formerly a volcano, now a romantick, beautiful lake. Close to it is a little cave called Grotto del Cane, from a vapour that rises in it so obnoxious to dogs, that it kills them in a few minutes, and doubtless it would have the same effect on man, or any other animal, whose head was held near the ground.

Between Lago D'Agnano and Puzzoli, on the side of another extinguished volcano, called the Solfaterra, we saw the Piscatelli, or Boiling Springs, of whose wonderful effect, in turning lava and pumice stone into clay and into soil, I had the same evening the satisfaction of hearing a philosophical account from Sir William Hamilton, with which he has already favoured the public.

We hired a boat at Puzzoli, and after rowing about two miles across part of the celebrated Bay of Baia, with Virgil in my pocket, landed close to the Lucrine Lake, at the foot of Monte Nuovo. This mountain, which is several hundred yards in height, and above a mile in circumference, was thrown up by the Lucrine Lake in a violent earthquake in the year 1538. However strange this may appear, such phenomena are by no means uncommon in Italy. The lake was of course much reduced by this eruption, and now only covers three or four acres. It is about ten yards from the sea, and has a sluice to communicate with it.

After a short walk in a pleasant vineyard, we entered the Sibyl's Cave, a road cut through a mountain in the style of the Grotto of Pausilippe, but on a smaller scale. The passage from the cave to her palace is only wide enough for one person. After descending ten or twelve yards, we came to her baths, four small chambers with water still in them. We were carried through on men's backs, with candles in our hands, and ascending a little on the opposite side, came to the door of her palace; but it is so choaked up with rubbish, that we were obliged to return without finding an entrance; and passing through her cave and a wild shrubbery on the west of it, we arrived at Lake Avernus, and on the opposite banks saw the grove where Æneas was to find the golden bough.

The lake seems to have lost the noxious qualities Virgil ascribed to it; but this, I imagine, is owing to most of the high trees with which it was closely surrounded being cut down, and little but brushwood left. The temple is at a small distance on the right of the lake; we wanted to go to it, but our Cicerone persuaded us that it would be better to delay seeing that and the entrance into Hell, until we had been at Cuma.

We therefore repassed the Sibyl's Cave, and returning to the Lucrine Lake, again embarked, and proceeded along the shore to the foot of Nero's Palace, where the sand under the sea water is so hot, that we could scarcely touch it. The effect of subterraneous fire.

The baths are above. These are several large chambers, divided into different apartments for the men and women, with two subterranean passages leading to the water, which unite at the distance of two hundred yards from the spring. Here the heat is so excessive and insupportable, that it is supposed no longer necessary to continue the separate passages, since even should persons of different sexes advance thus far, there is no danger of their being noticed by each other, for to get here cost us great pain; and all our clothes, in a few seconds, were wet through with perspiration.

This is what they call bathing, for nobody can bear the water. One of our guides, for a pecuniary reward, brought a little in a bucket, and boiled some eggs in it, which were afterwards served at our table in a shady spot on the adjoining classic ground; and we crowned this grateful repast with the health of a favorite fair, in a smiling bumper of real Falernian, from the very vineyards which have been celebrated by Horace. The wine was remarkably good, and the heavenly toast gave it a still higher flavour. I am convinced that it would have found its way to England, had not the Italians lost the art of preserving it. One must therefore either drink it new or sour.

About two miles from Nero's Baths, we were shewn the Temple of Diana, a large dome, one half of which was destroyed by an earthquake, the other remains. The Temple of Mercury is on the opposite side of a modern bridge. The dome is still entire, and is seventy feet in diameter. It has a similar effect to the whispering gallery at St. Paul's. Part of the roof is lined with common mosaic. The walls of the different out-offices are still standing, and the court has been lately planted with lemon and orange trees, which, in time, will add greatly to the beauty of its appearance. This spot seems to have been particularly sacred, for not an hundred yards further is a large octagon tower, the remains of a Temple of Venus Genetrix, but no other vestige of it is left.

Here we again embarked, and after rowing some little way along the shore, landed and walked to the top of a hill, from which we had a view of the Elysian Fields, and of Lake Acheron below us. The lake is changed, like Avernus, but the Elysian Fields are still a beautiful wilderness. On our way we passed several ancient burying-places, and a variety of other ruins--ruins in the truest sense of the word, for the whole is an heap of rubbish.

A little beyond this is the famous reservoir constructed for the use of the Roman Navy. The roof is supported by forty-eight square pillars, with a proportional number of arches, something in the style of the Nun's Cistern at Gibraltar, but on a scale so much more grand, that it would contain above an hundred times the quantity of water.

From thence we proceeded through a vineyard to an amazing subterraneous building, supposed to have been Nero's prisons. The gallery is about twelve feet high, and nine wide. We were told that it proceeds in a right line from the entrance to the sea, and is divided into near an hundred apartments; but as it is full of stones, and as the air is said to be prodigiously hurtful, we could not prevail on our guide to descend to any distance in this direction, but, turning to the left, we entered a range of apartments in the form of a cross, which we supposed were for the officers, as the partition walls are only carried to within two feet of the arch. In the inmost fourteen bronze lamps were found. The niches they stood in still remain. On striking the ground, it returned a hollow sound, as if there was a range of prisons beneath.

As soon as we returned to day-light, we descended to the sea-side, to the tomb of Agrippina. It is an arched vault, fifteen feet long, and nine wide, almost filled up with rubbish. The walls are covered with elegant basso-relievo miniature figures, in small squares, remarkably neat and beautiful; one represents a female deity, with extended wings, soaring in the air; two others are women reclining on a couch, but so choaked up with smoke and soot from the torches, that it is impossible to determine who they are: the workmanship, however, one easily perceives, exhibits the hand of a capital master, who has displayed so much taste, beauty and harmony, that we are almost tempted to forget Agrippina's crimes; and, in pitying her fate, we redouble our horror at the inhuman parricide who sent her to her tomb.

It is not known by whom this monument was erected; and I think it not improbable, that it might have been ordered by Nero himself, since he is reported to have said, that, had he known how beautiful his mother was, he never would have destroyed her.

Having now seen every thing on the coast of Baia, we returned to Puzzoli, and, to our inexpressible concern, found that it was too late to continue our excursion to Cuma.

Puzzoli abounds with antiquities; but the temple of Jupiter Serapis is the only one we had time to see. This was one of the most noble structures yet brought to light; and we can never sufficiently lament, that it has not been preserved in the state in which it was found.

The court is a square of one hundred and twenty feet, and was surrounded by a magnificent colonnade, which, together with the roof and pavement, were of beautiful marble. It contained many elegant statues, and every other religious ornament; but the King was seized with such an avidity for these treasures, that he had them all removed to his different palaces, with the exception of four columns only, which are left, as a sample, before the entrance of the inner temple, each eighteen feet in circumference, and forty in height. The temple itself was again stopped up with rubbish, after all its ornaments were taken away.

In the center of the court, an altar was raised for sacrifice; but, as it was composed of the finest materials, it was crushed by the earthquake that buried the temple. The base still remains, with the ring to which the victim was tied, and the vessels for holding its blood.