with a pencil and tablets in her hand, which they call Sappho. The story of the picture is often plain, as in that of Orestes, Pylades, and Iphigenia, in the temple of Diana. Thus, too, we cannot mistake the representation of a schoolmaster's room, where an unhappy culprit is horsed on the back of one of his fellows-precisely as the same discipline is administered in many parts of England at present.

We have also a specimen of their taste in caricature. A little delicate chariot, that might have been made by the fairies' coachmaker, is drawn by a parrot, and driven by a grasshopper. This is said to be a satirical representation of Nero's absurd pretensions as a Singer and a Driver; for Suetonius tells us he made his debut on the Neapolitan theatre:-" Et prodiit Neapoli primum : ibidem sæpius et per complures cantavit dies.”

We adjourned afterwards to the royal palace, which was fitted up by Murat. Every thing remains in the state he left it, except that the family pictures of himself, and his wife, and her two brothers, Napoleon and Joseph, have been taken down from their high places, and thrust into a garret, amongst the common lumber." He is represented in a fancy dress, which is almost ridi

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culously fantastic, with ear-rings in his ears, but, though a fine handsome man, I doubt whether he has not a little the air of Tom Errand in Beau Clincher's clothes. Madame Murat's room and adjoining bath are strikingly elegant and luxu❤ rious. In her dressing-room is a small library; in which I observed that the majority of the books were translations of English authors;—Gibbon, Fielding, Hume, Thomson, Coxe's House of Austria, Mrs. Radcliffe, and a long train of novels. In Joachim's room, almost every article of furniture is ornamented with the head of his favourite Henry IV.-the royal model which he is said to have proposed to himself—but he was not fortunate enough to meet with a Sully for his minister; and he lived to learn that the "divinity which used to hedge a King," was to be no protection to him, though he had won a crown by his valour, and worn it with the consent and acknowledgment of all Europe. That man must have the feelings of humanity strangely perverted by political enmities, who can read the story of his ignominious death without pity.

The leading feature in his character seems to have been, that gallant generous bravery so becoming a soldier, which he displayed on all occa

sions. In his very last retreat, he is said to have risked his life, to save the son of one of his nobility, who wanted the courage to do it himself. They were crossing the river, under the fire of the Austrians; the horse of the young man was wounded, and his situation appeared hopeless. Joachim, moved by the distress of the father, plunged into the stream, and brought the son in safety to the bank, where the father had remained a helpless spectator of the whole transaction. But peace be to his ashes.-I am no advocate for the scum, to which the fermentation of the French Revolution has given such undue elevation; but there are always exceptions;—and Joachim, however he might be tainted with the original sin of the school in which he was bred, had deserved too well of mankind, by his own conduct in power, not to merit more compassion than he found, in the hour of his adversity.

In the gardens of Portici is a Fort, built to teach the present King the art of fortification, during his childhood; and in the upper apartment is a curious mechanical table, which is made to furnish a dinner, without the attendance of do-mestics.

In the centre of the table is a trap-door. The

dinner is sent up by pulleys from the kitchen below. Each person has six bell-handles attached to his place, which ring in the kitchen, inscribed with the articles most in request at dinner. These are hoisted up by invisible agents something after the fashion of the entertainment in Beauty and the Beast;-or, to compare it with something less romantic, and nearer home, Mr. O.'s establishment at Lanark, where dinner is served up by steam! A double chain, arranged like the ropes of a drawwell, sends up the dinner on one side, and carries down the dirty plates, &c. on the other.

22d. Easter Sunday.-Grand holiday.-A feast at Portici, which reminded me of Greenwich fair. The dress of the peasantry gaudy and glittering;-crimson satin gowns, covered with tinsel. Excursion to Vesuvius.-My surgeon warned me against this ascent, but I was resolved to go. To leave Naples, without seeing Vesuvius, would be worse than to die at Naples, after seeing Ve- ́ suvius. The ascent was laborious enough, but no part of the labour fell upon my shoulders, When we arrived at the foot of the perpendicular steep, where it was necessary to leave our mules; while my companions toiled up on foot, I got into an easy arm-chair, and was carried on the shoulders

of eight stout fellows, to my own great astonishment, and to the greater amusement of my friends, who expected every moment to see us all roll over together. I certainly should not have thought the thing practicable, if I had not tried it; for the ascent is as steep as it is well possible to be; the surface however is rugged; and this enabled the men to keep their footing. It was not the pleasantest ride in the world; for, without pretending to any extraordinary sensibility, there is something disagreeable in overcoming difficulties by the sweat of other men's brows, even if they are well paid for it. The men however seemed to enjoy it exceedingly.

When you arrive at the top, it is an awful sight, more like the infernal regions, than any thing that human imagination could suggest. As you approach the great crater, the crust upon which you tread becomes so hot, that you cannot stand long on the same place your progress is literally

per ignes suppositos cineri doloso;”—if you push your stick an inch below the surface, it takes fire, and you may light paper by thrusting it into any of the cracks of the crust. The craters of the late eruption were still vomiting forth flames and smoke, and when we threw down large stones into these