from the place where they took up the pedestal; for they say there were other great pieces of marble near it, and several of them inscribed, but that nobody would be at the charges of bringing them to light. The pedestal itself lay neglected in an open field when I saw it. I shall not be particular on the ruins of the amphitheatre, the ancient reservoirs of water, the Sibyls' grotto, the Centum camera, the sepulchre of Agrippina, Nero's mother, with several other antiquities of less note, that lie in the neighbourhood of this bay, and have been often described by many others. I must confess, after having surveyed the antiquities about Naples and Rome, I cannot but think that our admiration of them does not so much arise out of their great

ness as uncommonness.

There are indeed many extraordinary ruins, but I believe a traveller would not be so much astonished at them, did he find any works of the same kind in his own country. Amphitheatres, triumphal arches, baths, grottos, catacombs, rotundas, highways paved for so great a length, bridges of such an amazing height, subterraneous buildings, for the reception of rain and snowwater, are most of them at present out of fashion, and only to be met with among the antiquities of Italy. We are therefore immediately surprised when we see any considerable sums laid out in any thing of this nature, though at the same time there is many a Gothic cathedral in England, that has cost more pains and money than several of these celebrated works. - Among the ruins of the old heathen temples they showed me what they call the chamber of Venus, which stands a little behind her temple. It is wholly dark, and has several figures on the ceiling wrought in stucco, that seem to represent lust and strength by the emblems of naked Jupiters and Gladiators, Tritons and Centaurs, &c. so that one would guess it has formerly been the scene of many lewd mysteries. On the other side of Naples are the catacombs. These must have been full of stench and loathsomeness, if the dead bo

dies that lay in them were left to rot in open niches, as an eminent author of our own country imagines. But upon examining them, I find they were each of them stopped up: without doubt, as soon as the corpse was laid in it. For at the mouth of the niche one always finds the rock cut into little channels, to fasten the board or marble that was to close it up, and I think I did not see one which had not still some mortar sticking in it. In some I found pieces of tiles that exactly tallied with the channel, and in others a little wall of bricks, that sometimes stopped up above a quarter of the niche, the rest having been broken down. St. Proculus's sepulchre seems to have a kind of mosaic work on its covering, for I observed at one end of it several little pieces of marble ranged together after that manner. It is probable they were adorned, more or less, according to the quality of the dead. One would, indeed, wonder to find such a multitude of niches unstopped, and I cannot imagine any body should take the pains to do it, who was not in quest of some supposed treasure.

Baja was the winter retreat of the old Romans, that being the proper season to enjoy the Bajani Soles, and the Mollis Lucrinus; as, on the contrary, Tibur, Tusculum, Preneste, Alba, Cajetta, Mons Circeius, Anxur, and the like airy mountains and promontories, were their retirements during the. heats of summer.

Dum nos blanda tenent jucundi stagna Lucrini,
Et quæ pumiceis fontibus antra calent,
Tu colis Argivi regnum Faustine colini *
Quo te bis decimus ducit ab urbe lapis.
Horrida sed fervent Nemeæi pectora monstri:
Nec satis est Bajas igne calere suo.
Ergo sacri fontes, et littora sacra valete,
Nympharum pariter, Nereidumque domus
Hurculeos colles gelidâ vos vincite brumâ,
Nunc Tiburtinis cedite frigoribus.

MAR. lib. 1. ep. 116.

While near the Lucrine lake, consum'd to death,
I draw the sultry air, and gasp for breath,

Where steams of sulphur raise a stifling heat,
And through the pores of the warm pumice sweat;
You taste the cooling breeze, where nearer home
The twentieth pillar marks the mile from Rome:
And now the Sun to the bright Lion turns,
And Baja with redoubled fury burns;

Then briny seas and tasteful springs farewell,

Where fountain-nymphs confus'd with Nereids dwell,
In winter you may all the world despise,

But now 'tis Tivoli that bears the prize.

The natural curiosities about Naples are as numerous and extraordinary as the artificial. I shall set them down, as I have done the other, without any regard to their situation. The grotto del Cani is famous for the poisonous steams which float within a foot of its surface. The sides of the grotto are marked green, as high as the malignity of the vapour reaches. The common experiments are as follow: a dog, that has his nose held in the vapour, loses all signs of life in a very little time; but if carried into the open air, or thrown into a neighbouring lake, he immediately recovers, if he is not quite gone. A torch, snuff and all, goes out in a moment when dipped into the vapour. A pistol cannot take fire in it. I split a reed, and laid in the channel of it a train of gunpowder, so that one end of the reed was above the vapour, and the other at the bottom of it; and I found, though the steam was strong enough to hinder a pistol from taking fire in it, and to quench a lighted torch, that it could not intercept the train of fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to the very end. This experiment I repeated twice or thrice, to see if I could quite dissipate the vapour, which I did in so great a measure, that one might easily let off a pistol in it. I observed how long a dog was expiring the first time, and after his recovery, and found no sensible difference. A viper bore it nine minutes the first time we put it in, and ten the second. When we brought it out after the first trial, it took such a vast quantity of air into its lungs, that it swelled almost

twice as big as before; and it was perhaps on this stock of air that it lived a minute longer the second time. Dr. Connor made a discourse in one of the academies at Rome upon the subject of this grotto, which he has since printed in England. He attributes the death of animals, and the extinction of lights, to a great rarefaction of the air, caused by the heat and eruption of the steams. But how is it possible for these steams, though in never so great quantity, to resist the pressure of the whole atmosphere? And for the heat, it is but very inconsiderable. However, to satisfy myself, I placed a thin vial, well stopped up with wax, within the smoke of the vapour, which would certainly have burst in an air rarefied enough to kill a dog, or quench a torch, but nothing followed upon it. However, to take away all farther doubt, I borrowed a weather-glass, and so' fixed it in the grotto, that the stagnum was wholly covered with the vapour, but I could not perceive the quicksilver sunk after half an hour's standing in it. This vapour is generally supposed to be sulphureous, though I can see no reason for such a supposition. He that dips his hand in it, finds no smell that it leaves upon it; and though I put a whole bundle of lighted brimstone matches to the smoke, they all went out in an instant, as if immersed in water. Whatever is the composition of the vapour, let it have but one quality of being very gluey or viscous, and I believe it will mechanically solve all the phænomena of the grotto. Its unctuousness will make it heavy, and unfit for mounting higher than it does, unless the heat of the earth, which is just strong enough to agitate, and bear it up at a little distance from the surface, were much greater than it is to rarefy and scatter it. It will be too gross and thick to keep the lungs in play for any time, so that animals will die in it sooner or later, as their blood circulates slower or faster. Fire will live in it no longer than in water, because it wraps itself in the same manner about the flame, and, by its continuity, hinders any quantity of

air or nitre from coming to its succour. The parts of it, however, are not so compact as those of liquors, nor therefore tenacious enough to intercept the fire that has once caught a train of gunpowder, for which reason they may be quite broken and dispersed by the repetition of this experiment. There is an unctuous clammy vapour that arises from the stum of grapes, when they lie mashed together in the vat, which puts out a light when dipped into it, and perhaps would take away the breath of weaker animals, were it put to the trial.

It would be endless to reckon up the different baths, to be met with in a country that so much abounds in sulphur. There is scarce a disease which has not one adapted to it. A stranger is generally led into that they call Cicero's Bath, and several voyage-writers pretend there is a cold vapour arising from the bottom of it, which refreshes those who stoop into it. It is true the heat is much more supportable to one that stoops, than to one that stands upright, because the steams of sulphur gather in the hollow of the arch about a man's head, and are therefore much thicker and warmer in that part than at the bottom. The three lakes of Agnano, Avernus, and the Lucrin, have now nothing in them particular. The Monte Novo was thrown out by an eruption of fire, that happened in the place where now the mountain stands. The Sulfatara is very surprising to one who has not seen Mount Vesuvio. But there is nothing about Naples, nor, indeed, in any part of Italy, which deserves our admiration so much as this mountain. I must confess the idea I had of it did not answer the real image of the place when I came to see it; I shall therefore give the description of it as it then lay.

This mountain stands at about six English miles distance from Naples, though by reason of its height, it seems much nearer to those who survey it from the town. In our way to it we passed by what was one of those rivers of burning matter, that ran from it in a