The last occupier of our lodgings—a young Englishman, who was confined to his bed by illness -had occasion to send a bill to his banker's to be cashed; on which errand he employed the servant of Monsignore. As it has been imputed to Italian bankers that they sometimes mis-count dollars, he took the precaution to examine immediately the contents of his bag. Finding that there was a deficiency of twenty dollars, he summoned the servant, and being unable to get any explanation, he was preparing a note to the banker to institute an inquiry, when the man confessed that his master had stopped him, upon his return, and taken twenty dollars out of the bag;-trusting, as it seems, to the proverbial carelessness of our countrymen. If a bishop will do this, what might we not expect from the poorer classes of society? and yet I must confess I have never met with any such dishonesty in the lower orders, except amongst the pick-pockets in the Strada Toledo.

In an arbitrary government like that of Naples, a stranger is surprised by the freedom of speech which prevails on political subjects. The people seem full of discontent. In the coffee-houses, restaurateurs, nay, even in the streets, you hear

VOL. I.

the most bitter invectives against the government and tirades against the royal family.

One would imagine, from such general complainings, that the government was in dangerbut all seems to evaporate in talk; and indeed Gen. Church (an Englishman) at the head of a body of 5,000 foreign troops, is engaged in stopping the mouths of the more determined reformers; which may probably explain the secret of the stability of the present system.

It must be owned that the people have some grounds for complaint; for the King has not only retained all the imposts which Murat, under the pressure of war, found it necessary to levy, but he has also revived many of the ways and means of the old regime. The property-tax alone amounts to twenty-five per cent.; and there is a sort of excise, by which every roll that is eaten by the beggar in the streets, is made to contribute a portion to the government purse.

The military, both horse and foot, make a very respectable appearance. To the eye, they are as fine soldiers as any in Europe; and the grenadiers of the King's guard, dressed in the uniform of our own guards, might be admired even in Hyde Park.

But it appears that they do not like fighting. The Austrian general Nugent married a Neapolitan princess, and is now commander in chief of that very army which, under Murat, ran away from him like a flock of sheep.

It is the fashion to consider soldiers as mere machines, and to maintain that discipline will make soldiers of any men whatever. This may be true as a general rule ;—but may not a slavish submission to a despotic government for a long period of years, and confirmed habits of effeminate indolence, on the part of any people, produce an hereditary taint in their blood-gradually making what was habit in the parent, constitution in the offspring-and so deteriorate the breed, that no immediate management or discipline shall be able to endue such a race with the qualities necessary to constitute a soldier? If this maxim need illustration, I would appeal to the conduct of the Neapolitan army in Murat's last campaign.

CHAPTER VII.

Virgil's Tomb-Pozzuoli — Baix- Monte Nuovo-Avernus -Tomb of Scipio-Solfatara-Grotta del Cane-Sirocco Wind-Gaming-tables- Quay-Burial of the DeadPortici Museum Murat-Vesuvius- Herculaneum

Lazzaroni-Opera.

March 1st. THE summer sun of to-day brings me again out of my hiding-place.—Explored the Grotto of Posilipo; and the Tomb of Virgil-as it is called; though there is little doubt that the poet was buried on the other side of the bay. On a marble slab which is inserted in the rock opposite the entrance of the sepulchre, is the following inscription:

Eustace, in his account, gives us Virgil's own couplet of Mantua me genuit, &c., but the real inscription is as I have transcribed it. How this came to be substituted for Virgil's, may be difficult to explain;-but being there, it is more difficult to understand why Eustace should give

an inscription that does not exist, when the true one was staring him in the face.*

This tomb ought to yield a good revenue to the proprietor. The English pilgrims are the most numerous. A bay-tree once grew out of the top of it; but the keeper told me that the English had pulled off the leaves, as long as any remained; in the same spirit, I suppose, which induced the ladies in England to pull the hairs out of the tail of Platoff's horse. It has been since cut up altogether, and not a root is left to mark the spot.

Beautiful drive along the coast, on the Strada Nuova. This road was the work of Murat, who has done a vast deal to improve and embellish

* Some fatality seems to hang over this inscription, which I have never yet seen printed correctly;—and which indeed is scarcely worth recording. In correcting the first impression of my work, I was induced to alter the hasty transcript I had made on the spot, in deference to a friend in whose accuracy I had more faith than in my own. It turns out however after all that my original note was correct, and therefore the true reading is now restored, as well as the punctuation, which might easily escape notice without careful observation. The last line is perhaps not the least important of the three, as serving to fix the date of this semi-barbarous distich.