point of view for which they were originally destined. But independent even of this advantage, and stripped as it is of almost all its moveable ornaments, Pompeii possesses a secret power that captivates and fixes, I had almost said, melts the soul. In other times and in other places, one single edifice, a temple, a theatre, a tomb, that had escaped the wreck of ages would have enchanted us; nay, an arch, the remnant of a wall, even one solitary column was beheld with veneration; but to discover a single ancient house, the abode of a Roman in his privacy, the scene of his domestic hours, was an object of fond but hopeless longing. Here, not a temple, nor a theatre, nor a column, nor a house, but a whole city rises before us untouched, unaltered, the very same as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when inhabited by Romans. We range through the same streets, tread the very same pavement, behold the same walls, enter the same doors, and repose in the same apartments. We are surrounded by the same objects, and out of the same windows contemplate the same scenery. While you are wandering through the abandoned rooms you may, without any great effort of imagination, expect to meet some of the former inhabitants, or perhaps the master of the house himself, and almost feel like intruders who dread the appearance of any of the family. In the streets you are afraid of turning a corner lest you should jostle a passenger; and on entering a house, the least sound startles, as if the proprietor was coming out of the back apartments. The traveller may long indulge the illusion, for not a voice, is heard, not even the sound of a foot to disturb the loneliness of the place, or interrupt his reflections. All around is silence, not the silence of solitude and repose, but of death and devastation, the silence of a great city without one single inhabitant. Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. En. 11. Immediately above the buildings, the ground rises, not into a cliff casting gloom, as the sides of a grave, on the hollow below, but as a gentle swell formed by nature to shelter the houses at its base. It is clothed with corn, poplars, mulberries, and vines in their most luxuriant graces, waving from tree to tree, still covering the greater part of the city with vegetation, and forming with the dark brown masses half buried below, a singular and most affecting contrast. This scene of a city, raised as it were from the grave, where it had lain forgotten during the long night of eighteen centuries, when once beheld must remain for ever pictured on the imagination, and whenever it presents itself to the fancy, it comes, like the recollection of an awful apparition, accompanied by thoughts and emotions solemn and melancholy. Among the modern works that adorn the territory or rather the vicinity of Naples, the two noblest are the aqueduct and palace of Caserta. Both lie north of Naples; the former is farthest, the road is over a delicious plain to Acerra, a very ancient town, remarkable however for nothing but its attachment to the Romans, even after the battle of Canne, and in the presence of Hannibal*. Some miles farther we passed Sessola, + Livy xx111. 17. It is perhaps better known for the fertility of its soil extolled by Virgil, or rather for the harmony of the verses which terminates in its name. Talem dives arat Capua et vicina Vesevo Georg. it. The inhabitants seem to have secured themselves by embankments against the now a village, once Suessula a city, noticed frequently in Livy for a Roman camp long stationary on the hills above it: we shortly after skirted Maddaloni, and entered the valley to which it gives its name. This valley is formed by Mount Tifata on one side, and on the other by Monte Gazzano, which is in fact a branch of the former. It is long and deep; its sides are rugged, and its appearance is wild and solitary. In the midst of this lonely dell the traveller is surprized to behold an immense bridge formed of a triple row of lofty arches, crossing with gigantic strides from one side to the other. This bridge forms part of the celebrated aqueduct of Caserta; it is near two thousand feet in length, and two hundred in height, and conveys a whole river of the purest water across the valley. The stream itself is collected in the neighborhood of Mount Taburnus, and carried sometimes through mountains, and sometimes over vallies to the palace; but though the work may in many places have been more difficult, it is no where more magnificent than in this valley. In length, elevation, and effect it surpasses all similar edifices of modern construction, and may indeed vie with some of the noblest Roman monuments. The first row consists of nineteen arches, the second of twentyseven, and the third of forty-three. The stream is about four feet wide, and three and a half deep. From a reservoir on the top of Gazzano it is precipitated down the declivity to the plain, where collected in a long strait canal it loses its rapidity and mischievous swells of the Clanius (now Chiagno, and sometimes Lagno) alluded to in the last line. beauty, and assumes the appearance of an old-fashioned stagnant pool*. From the hill we descended along the side of the aqueduct to the gardens, extensive and regular, and if we except a part in the English style, uninteresting. We then entered the palace, one of the noblest edifices of the kind in Europe for magnitude and elevation. It is a vast quadrangle, near eight hundred feet in length, six hundred in breadth, and in height, one hundred and twenty. It is divided into four great courts; a portico, supported by a hundred pillars, and wide enough for carriages to pass, extends from the grand entrance to the opposite side. An octagonal hall in the centre of the edifice opens on the portico and at the same time on the courts, and the principal staircase.. The staircase is about twenty feet wide, consists of at least one hundred steps, each of one piece of marble, and ends in an octagon vestibule supported by twenty-four marble pillars. From these pillars rise arcades, which cover the entrances into the grand apartments; that opposite the staircase is the chapel, which is * The arches of the upper row in this aqueduct are the highest, and those of the under the lowest, an arrangement contrary to ancient practice, and certainly not pleasing to the eye; but whether it may be considered as a defect or not, I will not presume to determine. It is to be regretted that an edifice of such magnitude and solidity is of brick with a sort of pumice stone intermingled; it ought to have been coated with marble in the Roman manner. The difference which it might have made in the expense could not have been a matter of importance in a country where marble is so common. The architect was Vanvitelli, a man of great, and, as may well be supposed, of merited reputation. The inscriptions on the middle arch under which the road goes are long, and as usual pompous, and therefore misplaced. Such a work requires no eulogium. well proportioned and highly decorated. Its form is ancient, terminating in a semicircular recess, for the altar. The royal gallery is over the entrance and in front of the altar; it is on the same level as the side galleries, and with them forms a most beautiful colonnade, supported by four-andtwenty pillars of the finest marble. This chapel is on the same plan as that of Versailles, but in size, proportion, materials, and ornaments far superior, and may be considered, when united with the staircase, as the noblest part of the palace. The other apartments do not seem to correspond with it in grandeur; and of the whole edifice of Caserta, it may be said, that notwithstanding the advantages of magnitude and regularity, it is deficient in effect, because it wants greatness of manner. The whole is on a great scale, and so ought the component parts to have been, but the reverse is the case. Though the building be more than a hundred feet in height, yet the columns that adorn the front are not more than fifty. Again, the length of the front is near eight hundred feet, the colonnade therefore that adorns it ought to have been extremely prominent; on the contrary, it has very little relief, and indeed scarcely seems to project from the wall behind it. The interior portico is six hundred feet in length, yet the pillars that support it are not twenty in height; it has therefore the appearance of a long low gallery. Whether these defects are to be ascribed to the interference of the king himself (Don Carlos of Spain) who is supposed to have given the general plan, and may be suspected of having sometimes entered into the details of execution; or whether they result from the original design, we know |