Volume I Part 32 (1/2)

[Page Head: ANTIQUE PAINTING]

April 29th, 1830 {p346}

On Tuesday again to the Museuood house, very ridiculous pictures of the royal families of Naples and Spain The duchess of Floridia's aparthtful; the roo upon a terrace covered with orange-trees, flowers, and shaded walks, and looks over the Bay

A few fine pictures, but not many There is a bath, built after one of those at Pompeii

From what I saw at the Museum, I see no reason to doubt that the ancients were as excellent in painting as in sculpture; there are sos taken from Pompeii Then we are not to believe that the best have been found, or that a provincial town contained the finest specimens of the art Painted on walls, they appear deficient in light and shade, but the drawing and expression, and soood There are so chariots, very like the Julio Romanos in the Lanti Villa at Rome, which indeed were borrowed from the ancient frescoes discovered in the Baths of titus The bronzes taken out of Herculaneu, because they display the whole domestic economy of the ancients, and their excellent taste in furniture, sacrificial instru particularly curious in the fact of their pots and pans being like our pots and pans, for if they were to boil and stew they could not well have performed those operations with a different kind of utensils However, all the people marvel at thes of a different organisation, and that everything that is not dissiical instrument which was lately found, exactly sio in France The lava would not touch bronze; the iron was always encrusted and spoilt, but the bronze things all look like new

May 2nd, 1830 {p347}

Went to the Lake of Agnano and the Grotto del Cane; very pretty lake, evidently the crater of a volcano; saw the dog perfor did not mind it a bit, and the old woht carlins for it The grotto is very hot and stearound, and when I put my face down the steail's Tomb, which is very picturesque, and from whence the common view of Naples is taken; there has been plenty of discussion whether it really is Virgil's tomb or not Forsyth sees at the authority for its being so, a sort of 'Who the Devil, I hu to know, is Donatus?' but there is tradition in its favour, the fact of Virgil having been buried here or hereabouts, and the honour being claimed by no other spot When there is probability it is unwise to be so very sceptical: take away names, and what are the places thee Head: RUINS ABOUT NAPLES]

Thursday {p348}

Went a long and most beautiful ride up to the Camaldoli, from which the view extends over sea and land to an immense distance in every direction

Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various views

The convent was once very rich, but the French stripped all the convents of their property, which they have never since recovered It is remarkably clean and spacious Eachtwo or three little rooether on particular days The old hteen, had been turned out by the French, but ca a monk He showed me a bust of the founder of their order (I think San Roo it was founded, he said, 'Perhaps 2,000' I said when I becao to that convent, when he asked very seriously if I was going to be a monk I said, 'Not just yet' 'Very well,' he said; 'you must pay 120 ducats, and you can come here' We went down a road cut for h shady lanes, groves, and vineyards (withby the old Roman road and Street of Tombs The _colu _ejus generis_ of any Went to the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, of which there are very curious relorious temple, reared to Jove, Whose very rubbish (like the pitied fall Of virtue, h now quite rased, Hurl'd down by wrath and lust of i Sweet hymns to Heaven, there the daw and crow, The ill-voiced raven, and still chattering pie Send out ungrateful sounds

MARSTON

To the ruins of the Amphitheatre, from the top of which there is one of the finest views I ever saw of the Bay of Baiae and the islands; and then to the Solfaterra The ruins scattered about Naples (those at Pozzuoli, for instance) are far more extensive than most of those at Rome, but partly 'carent quia vate sacro,'

and partly because there are no well-known naround is not so holy, and little is said or thought about them If these temples were at Rome, what an uproar they would cause! The Solfaterra is remarkable as a sort of link between the quick and the dead volcanoes; it is considered extinct, but the earth is hot, the sulphur strong, and at a particular spot, when a hole is made, it hisses and throws up little stones and ashes, and exhibits a sort of volcano in etation The road to Naples by the convent of the Jesuits and Chapel of St Januarius is the most beautiful I ever saw, particularly towards sunset, when the colouring is so rich and varied It lies over a crest co a prospect of the mountains on one side and the sea on the other

Quid mille revolvam Culmina visendique vices

May 3rd, 1830 {p349}

We sailed across the Bay to Resina, to see Herculaneum, the old and new excavations At the new there are only seven or eightSo much earth and cinders are ht excavate largely if they would spend h; at present they have only excavated one or two houses, but have found some bronzes and marbles The houses are laid open, just like those at Poe Head: ASCENT OF VESUVIUS]

The next day Morier, Watson, and I set off to ascend Vesuvius; we rode on donkeys from Salvatore's house to the bottom of the last ascent, which was rather less forh Another party went up at the same time: one man of that party, Watson, and I walked up alone; the others were all lugged up They take the bridles off the donkeys and put theoes before hi at every big stone, I reached the top in thirty-fiveto see the facility hich the creatures who attended us sprang up There was one felloith nothing on but a shi+rt and half a pair of breeches, alked the whole way from Resina with a basket on his head full of wine, bread, and oranges, and while ere slipping, and cla with immense difficulty he bounded up, with his basket on his head, as straight as an arrow all the ti us to drink e had not breath to answer I took three or four oranges, some bread, and a bottle of wine of him at the top, and when I asked Salvatore what I should pay hiave hinificent evening, and the sunset froht--

For the sun, Declined, was hastening noith prone career To the ocean's isles, and in th' ascending scale Of heaven the stars, that usher evening, rose

The view, too, all round is very grand; the towns round the Bay appear so clear, yet so minute I had formed to myself a very different idea of the crater, of which the dier than it appears The bottom of the crater is flat, covered with masses of lava and sulphur, but anybody may walk all about it At one end stands what looks like a little black hillock, fro, as it was from various crevices in different parts; that little hillock is the crater froly still, and only gave one low grumble and a very small emission of smoke and fire while ere there; it has never beendown the cinders; you have only to take care not to tu is i, particularly in that part which is like a great ocean of lava, and where the guides point out the courses of the different eruptions, all of which e just as it was dark; there was still a red tint round the western horizon, and the islands were dimly shadowed out, while the course of the Bay was hts Salvatore has especial care of the ed to make a daily report of its state, and he is as fond of it as a nurse of a favourite child, or a trainer at New anecdotes of old eruptions and phenomena, and of different travellers who have ascended it

Two years ago an English o from Resina[2] to the top in an hour and a half Salvatore ith hilishuide went the whole way on foot, and the best part of the ascent had to drag up his companion He said it nearly killed him, and he did not recover from it for several weeks; he is 53 years old, but a very handsoue of this exploit was not so painful as what he went through in carrying the Duke of Buckingham to the top; he was carried up in a chair by twelve ht was so enormous that his shoulder was afterwards swelled up nearly to his head When the Duke got down he gave a great dinner (on the ht with him to celebrate the exploit Salvatore said that he continues to write toremarkable occurs in the ot down to Resina about half-past nine, and at ten eain and sailed over to Castel-a-Mare, where we arrived at one o'clock