money, but I do not see how this can be accurately known, for many sumptuous offerings and gratuitous labours of artists were not taken into account. One source of enormous outlay latterly has been the copies in mosaic from the old masters. To execute a picture of ten feet by six, if a Raffaelle or Guido, requires from three to five years, and costs ten thousand "scudi." The material is not now marble, as of old, but a hard porcelain.

The morning we visited the Fabbrica, our guide pointed to shelves containing sixteen thousand different shades in the usual colours.

The front gates of the "subterranean grotto" are not opened; but a side-door admits you into the circular passage beneath, on which abut the shrines and chapels. St. Peter's remains and a part of St. Paul's are collected, as Roman Catholics aver, in an inner cassa, shielded by a tabernacle with folding-doors; the two leaves bearing their effigies in equal honour. The wainscots around bear paintings in rude fresco and various mosaics, the work of the primitive Christians. Elsewhere lie huge mausoleums in rough granite: one of these holds the body of Adrian IV. (Nicolas Breakspear), the only English pope.

The most solemn sight revealed by the torches is some uneven, mixed pavement, in a plot of otherwise bare ground, under which sleep the martyrs! This has never been disturbed. An oratory, a basilica, and the present cathedral have successively risen over it. The church monuments, with the exception of M. Angelo's "Pietà" and Canova's Lions and "Genius of Death" at Rezzonico's tomb, I believe disappoint everybody: gigantic groups, colossal figures, vehement action - but nothing worthy of the place or the architecture.

A government order having been obtained, we started, a few mornings since, to ascend to the ball. This document is from the state office, signed by the minister of the interior, who in the formula washes his hands of all blood-guiltiness if you should fall from any of the altitudes and dash out your brains, a comfortable prestige for those who are given to be nervous. The first stair, which mounts some 200 feet perpendicular to the attic, is a spiral slope which laden mules can traverse. All here is clean and white as dimity. Arrived on the roof of the attic, you find a colony of workmen and their houses, the statues of the Saviour and Twelve Apostles, and around you a superb prospect.

These colossal figures viewed close are rude enough: St. Matthew's thumb is an awkward bit of stone, a foot long; this gives the just effect from below: the second stair, somewhat narrower, lands you above the capitals of the pillars from which the dome springs. Here we walked round the circular, balustraded gallery, and again corrected the impressions of distance. Cherubs' dove-like eyes were found to be rough uneven bricks; and mosaics, which seem exquisite from the pavement, were like a road commencing macadamization. The pavement of the church itself had dwindled to the resemblance of a chess-board, and the Baldacchino (90 feet high) seemned a child's cradle. Yet another stair, and a long one, winding between the two shells of the cupola: it is narrow of course, but as wide as some garret-stairs. When we emerged from this, we were 400 feet above the pavement, and the great fresco at the crown of the vault lay a little under our feet. From one of the "candlestick" portals we gazed on a scene difficult to describe. Rome was reduced to compressed domes, and jagged lines formed by the palace-roofs: here and there an overgrown gable or crested ruin towered above the horizontal masses, like the

hull of the Dreadnought among our Thames lighters. Some of the shadows projected were very fine. The Tiber apparently motionless lay curled on the umber-tinted Campagna, the Latian and Sabine hills swept the sky in undulating lines of blue, Soracte heaved a dark serrated ridge, and, seaward, Ostia might be discerned crouching on the water's edge. Some fifty steps lead from hence to the metal ladder which admits you at a round orifice into the ball. Within this singular retreat you may amuse yourself with tapping the hollow shell, and listening to the music of the spheres. The diameter is some 8 or 9 feet, and you can perch very comfortably on the cross bars. People may think the above dimensions scanty for a drawing-room; I can only say the ball is as roomy as some of the cabins in our magnificent accommodation" steamers. After this we descended from our altitudes as safely as the benevolent minister of the Holy See could wish.

NAPLES.

January 7, 1845.

YESTERDAY we turned our backs on dirty Capua, and got the first sniff of the sca-breeze, and the first hearty stare at Vesuvius, from this beautiful city. On our road nothing struck me more than the Pontine Marshes at sunset, all glowing with umber and orange tints. tints. We halted for an hour at Cicero's Formian Villa to see the "lions," which are very poor. The marble which once lined these tufo galleries is gone, and in trying to make out the plan of the "atria" you get your feet wet with the oozy spring, and your coat sanded by the wall. But the sapphire heaven is bright as ever, and in an orchard which skirts the bay we ate some blood-red oranges off the tree ripe and delicious. This, in January!

The first news here is, that we've got a Scotch landlady, a good old soul who rents a "palazzo" in the Chiaja, but talks about "the bush aboon Traquair."

Napoli per bellezza!" says the country proverb, and stupendously beautiful it is. A city