Chapter II: Part 2

On arriving at Bellaggio, I take lodging in the Villa Serbelloni, one of the many magnificent residences which poverty has induced the Italian nobles to put into the hands of hotel-keepers. The house stands high up on the very end of the promontory, and adjoining it is an extensive park, on which the ruins of a robber's castle look down. The panorama which on a fine day spreads itself out before one who walks in these grounds is of singular beauty. The northern arm of the lake, wider and more regular than the others, opens up a long vista of headlands and bays and red-roofed villages as far as where Domaso peeps out from a grove of giant elms. Beyond, the view is bounded by the snow-covered Alps. Close at hand, near Varenna, the Fiume di Latte, a milk-white waterfall, leaps down from a height of a thousand feet. Towards Lecco huge walls of barren rock arise and wrap everything near them in sombre shadows. Towards Como the tranquil water is shut in by hills and low mountains, whose flowing lines blend gracefully together. Some of these slopes are dark with pines, some are gray with the olive, some are garlanded with vines which hang from tree to tree, while others are clothed in a rich green foliage, amid which glistens the golden fruit of the orange and the lemon. The banks are lined with bright gardens and noble parks and villas, whose lawns run down to the water's edge and are adorned with fountains, statues, masses of brilliant flowers and clumps of tall trees. Above is a sky of Italian blue, and below is a crystal mirror in which every charm of the landscape is repeated. The impression made by all this loveliness is increased by the air of happiness that pervades the spot. It is the haunt of the rich, the gay, the newly-married: music and song, laughter and mirthful talk, are the most familiar sounds. The smile of Nature seems here to warm men's hearts and drive away the cares they have brought with them.

It is on this site that Pliny the Younger is believed to have had the villa which he called Cothurnus or "Tragedy." The present building is several centuries old. Tradition relates that a certain countess, one of its first occupants, had a habit of throwing her lovers down the cliff when she was tired of them. Making this delightful abode my head-quarters, I spend a week, partly in agreeable sight-seeing and partly in still more agreeable idleness. I visit villas, towers, fossil-beds, and waterfalls,--in short, everything interesting and accessible,--now going on foot, now borne from point to point in one of the sharp-prowed row-boats which are in use here, and now taking the steamer up to Colico or down to Como and back....

Across the lake from here is the Villa Carlotta, called after its former owner, the princess Charlotte of Prussia. Stepping out of his boat, the visitor ascends the marble stairs which lead up from the shore. After a few steps across the garden he reaches the villa, passes through a porch fragrant with jasmine, and is at once ushered into a small room where are some of the finest works of modern sculpture. Canova's Mars and Venus and Palamedes are here, and they are most admirable, but they are surpassed in charm by the famous group in which Psyche is reclining and Cupid bending fondly over her. The best piece of the collection is the frieze that runs round the room. It is from the chisel of Thorwaldsen, and represents Alexander the Great's triumphal entry into Babylon. Full of the beauty of youth, the conqueror advances in his chariot; Victory comes to meet him; vanquished nations bring presents; while behind him follow his brave Greeks on horse and on foot, dragging along with them the prisoners and the booty. The subject was suggested by Napoleon, who intended the work for the Quirinal. It is in high relief, and in general effect resembles strongly the frieze with which Phidias encircled the Parthenon. It is a pity that these masterpieces are shown first, for after seeing them one does not fully enjoy the statues and paintings in the other rooms.

Two hours may be delightfully spent in making the journey by steamboat from Bellaggio to Como. Here the lake is so narrow and winding that it seems to be a river. At every moment bold mountain-spurs project into the water appearing to bar all passage, and one's curiosity is continually excited to find the outlet. The views shift and change with surprising quickness, for the boat stops at a dozen little towns on the way, and for this purpose keeps crossing and recrossing from shore to shore.

[Passing next to Lake Maggiore, the traveller takes a row-boat
down the latter in preference to waiting for the steamer.]

The four islands that we have passed on the way are known as the Borromean Islands, because they belong for the most part to the rich and powerful Borromeo family. The rare beauty of one of them makes it the wonder of the lake. It was towards the middle of the seventeenth century that Count Vitaliano Borromeo, finding himself the possessor of almost the whole of this island, which was then a barren rock, resolved to make it his residence, and to surround himself with gardens that should rival those of Armida. For more than twenty years architects, gardeners, sculptors, and painters labored to give material form to the count's fancies. A spacious palace was erected on one end of the island; on the other ten lofty terraces rose one above the other, like the hanging-gardens of Babylon. The rock was covered with good soil, and the choicest trees and shrubs were brought from every land. Only evergreens, however, were admitted into this Eden, for the count would have about him no sign of winter or death. In 1671 the work was finished. The island was called Isabella, after the count's mother,--a name which has since, by a happy corruption, become changed to Isola Bella.

It is on a sunny afternoon that I direct my bark towards the "Beautiful Island." I look on the landing-place with respect, for it is worn by the footsteps of six generations of travellers. The interior of the palace, which I visit first, is fitted up with princely magnificence and is rich in art-treasures. Mementos of kings and queens who accepted hospitality here are shown, and a bed in which Bonaparte once slept. There is a chapel where a priest daily says mass; a throne-room, as in the palaces of the Spanish grandees; and a gallery with numerous paintings. A whole suite of rooms is given up to the works of Peter Molyn, a Dutch artist, fitly nicknamed "Sir Tempest." This erratic man, having killed his wife to marry another woman, was condemned to death. He escaped from prison, however, found an asylum here, and in return for the protection of the Borromeo of that day he adorned his walls with more than fifty landscapes and pastoral scenes.

The garden betrays the epoch at which it was laid out. Prim parterres, where masses of brilliant flowers bloom all the year round, are enclosed by walks along which orange-trees and myrtles have been bent and trimmed into whimsical patterns. There are dark and winding alleys of cedars where at every turn some surprise is planned. Here is a grotto made of shells,--there an obelisk, or a mosaic column, or a horse of bronze, or a fountain of clear water in which the attendant tritons and nymphs would doubtless disport were they not petrified into marble. There is one lovely spot where, at the middle point of a rotunda, a large statue of Hercules stands finely out against a background of dark foliage. Other Olympians keep him company and calmly eye the visitor from their painted niches. Not far from there is a venerable laurel on which Bonaparte cut the word "Battaglia" a few days before the battle of Marengo. The B is still plainly visible.

Pines and firs planted thickly along the northern side of the island defend it from cold winds. In the sunny nooks of the terraces the delicate lemon-tree bears abundant fruit and the oleander grows to a size which it attains nowhere else in Europe. The tea-plant from China, the banana from Africa, and the sugar-cane from Mississippi flourish side by side; the camphor-tree distils its aromatic essence and the magnolia loads the air with perfume. The cactus and the aloe border walks over which the bamboo bends and throws its grateful shade. Turf and flowerbeds carpet each terrace, and a tapestry of ivy and flowering vines conceals the walls of the structure. From the summit a huge stone unicorn looks down upon his master's splendid domain. He overlooks also a corner of the island where his master's authority is not acknowledged. The small patch of land on which the Dolphin Hotel stands has for many centuries descended from father to son in a plebeian family, nor have the Borromeos ever been able to buy it. They have to endure the inn, therefore, as Frederick endured the mill at Sans-Souci and Napoleon the house he could not buy at Paris.

At last the moment comes when I must quit Stresa, not, however, before I have visited the remaining islands and other points of interest. The steamer puts off, and soon separates me from the landscape that has been my delight for three days,--the blue bay with its verdant banks, the softly-shaded hills which enclose it, the snow-covered chain of the Simplon in the background. As we approach the southern end of the lake a colossal bronze statue of San Carlo Borromeo on the summit of a hill near Arona comes into sight. From head to foot the saint measures little less than eighty feet, and the pedestal on which he stands adds to his height half as much more. His face is turned towards Arona, his native town, and one hand is extended to bless it. With my glass I descry a party of liliputian tourists engaged in examining this great Gulliver. Most of them are satisfied when they have reached the top of the pedestal and have ranged themselves in a row on one foot of the statue. Others, more daring, climb up by a ladder to the saint's knee, where they disappear through an aperture in the skirt of his robe. From this point the ascent continues inside of the statue, by means of iron bars, to the head, in which four persons can conveniently remain at once.

At Arona the railway-station and the wharf are near each other, and in a few minutes after I have landed an express-train starts and bears me away from the region of the Italian lakes. When we have passed the last houses of Arona and gained the open plain, the statue of the great Borromeo with his outstretched arm comes again for a few moments into view. Perhaps the uncertain light of evening and the jolting of the train deceive me, but I fancy that the good old saint is waving his hand in the familiar Italian way, as much as to say, "A rivederci!"

A DAY IN ROME.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

[The things worth seeing in the Eternal City are so many, and
crowd so closely upon each other, that the lover of the antique
finds himself almost overwhelmed by the rapid succession of
striking objects and historic ruins. It would seem that little
could be seen in a day's walk among these marvels of the past,
yet Taylor's observing eyes managed to take in a long series of
interesting objects, his graphic account of which is given below.]

One day's walk through Rome,--how shall I describe it? The Capitol, the Forum, St. Peter's, the Coliseum,--what few hours' ramble ever took in places so hallowed by poetry, history, and art? It was a golden leaf in my calendar of life. In thinking over it now, and drawing out the threads of recollection from the varied woof of thought I have woven to-day, I almost wonder how I dared so much at once; but within reach of them all, how was it possible to wait? Let me give a sketch of our day's ramble.

Hearing that it was better to visit the ruins by evening or moonlight (alas! there is no moon now) we started out to hunt St. Peter's. Going in the direction of the Corso, we passed the ruined front of the magnificent Temple of Antoninus, now used as the Papal Custom-House. We turned to the right on entering the Corso, expecting to have a view of the city from the hill at its southern end. It is a magnificent street, lined with palaces and splendid edifices of every kind, and always filled with crowds of carriages and people. On leaving it, however, we became bewildered among the narrow streets, passed through a market of vegetables, crowded with beggars and contadini, threaded many by-ways between dark old buildings, saw one or two antique fountains and many modern churches, and finally arrived at a hill.

We ascended many steps, and then descending a little towards the other side, saw suddenly below us the _Roman Forum_! I knew it at once; and those three Corinthian columns that stood near us, what could they be but the remains of the temple of Jupiter Stator? We stood on the Capitoline Hill; at the foot was the Arch of Septimius Severus, brown with age and shattered; near it stood the majestic front of the Temple of Fortune, its pillars of polished granite glistening in the sun as if they had been erected yesterday, while on the left the rank grass was waving from the arches and mighty walls of the palace of the Cæsars! In front ruin upon ruin lined the way for half a mile, where the Coliseum towered grandly through the blue morning mist, at the base of the Esquiline Hill!

Good heavens, what a scene! Grandeur such as the world never saw once rose through that blue atmosphere; splendor inconceivable, the spoils of a world, the triumphs of a thousand armies had passed over that earth; minds which for ages moved the ancient world had thought there, and words of power and glory from the lips of immortal men had been syllabled on that hallowed air. To call back all this on the very spot, while the wreck of what once was rose mouldering and desolate around, aroused a sublimity of thought and feeling too powerful for words.

Returning at hazard through the streets, we came suddenly upon the Column of Trajan, standing in an excavated square below the level of the city, amid a number of broken granite columns, which formed part of the Forum dedicated to him by Rome after the conquest of Dacia. The column is one hundred and thirty-two feet high, and entirely covered with bas reliefs representing his victories, winding about it in a spiral line to the top. The number of figures is computed at two thousand five hundred, and they were of such excellence that Raphael used many of them for his models. They are now much defaced, and the column is surmounted by a statue of some saint. The inscription on the pedestal has been erased, and the name of Sixtus V. substituted. Nothing can exceed the ridiculous vanity of the old popes in thus mutilating the finest monuments of ancient art. You cannot look upon any relic of antiquity in Rome but your eyes are assailed by the words "PONTIFEX MAXIMUS," in staring modern letters. Even the magnificent bronzes of the Pantheon were stripped to make the baldachin under the dome of St. Peter's.

Finding our way back again, we took a fresh start, happily in the right direction, and after walking some time, came out on the Tiber, at the Bridge of St. Angelo. The river rolled below in his muddy glory, and in front, on the opposite bank, stood "the pile which Hadrian reared on high," _now_ the Castle of St. Angelo. Knowing that St. Peter's was to be seen from this bridge. I looked about in search of it. There was only one dome in sight, large and of beautiful proportions. I said at once, "Surely that cannot be St. Peter's!" On looking again, however, I saw the top of a massive range of building near it, which corresponded so nearly with the pictures of the Vatican, that I was unwillingly forced to believe the mighty dome was really before me. I recognized it as one of those we saw from the Capitol, but it appeared so much smaller when viewed from a greater distance that I was quite deceived. On considering that we were still three-fourths of a mile from it, and that we could see its minutest parts distinctly, the illusion was explained.

Going directly down the _Borgo Vecchio_ towards it, it seemed a long time before we arrived at the square of St. Peter's; when at length we stood in front, with the majestic colonnade sweeping around, the fountains on each side sending up their showers of silvery spray, the mighty obelisk of Egyptian granite piercing the sky, and beyond, the great front and dome of the Cathedral, I confessed my unmingled admiration. It recalled to my mind the grandeur of ancient Rome, and mighty as her edifices must have been, I doubt if there were many views more overpowering than this. The facade of St. Peter's seemed close to us, but it was a third of a mile distant, and the people ascending the steps dwindled to pigmies.

I passed the obelisk, went up the long ascent, crossed the portico, pushed aside the heavy leathern curtain at the entrance, and stood in the great nave. I need not describe my feelings at the sight, but I will tell the dimensions, and you may then fancy what they were. Before me was a marble plain six hundred feet long, and under the cross four hundred and seventeen feet wide! One hundred and fifty feet above sprang a glorious arch, dazzling with inlaid gold, and in the centre of the cross there were four hundred feet of air between me and the top of the dome! The sunbeam stealing through the lofty window at one end of the transept made a bar of light on the blue air, hazy with incense, one-tenth of a mile long before it fell on the mosaics and gilded shrines of the other extremity. The grand cupola alone, including lantern and cross, is two hundred and eighty-five feet high, or sixty feet higher than the Bunker Hill Monument, and the four immense pillars on which it rests are each one hundred and thirty-seven feet in circumference. It seems as if human art had outdone itself in producing this temple,--the grandest which the world ever erected for the worship of the Living God! The awe felt in looking up at the giant arch of marble and gold did not humble me; on the contrary, I felt exalted, ennobled,--beings in the form I wore planned the glorious edifice, and it seemed that in godlike power and perseverance they were indeed but a "little lower than the angels." I felt that, if fallen, my race was still mighty and immortal.

The Vatican is only open twice a week, on days which are not _festas_; most fortunately, to-day happened to be one of these, and we took a _run_ through its endless halls. The extent and magnificence of the gallery of sculpture is perfectly amazing. The halls, which are filled to overflowing with the finest works of ancient art, would, if placed side by side, make a row more than two miles in length! You enter at once into a hall of marble, with a magnificent arched ceiling, a third of a mile long; the sides are covered for a great distance with inscriptions of every kind, divided into compartments according to the era of the empire to which they refer. One which I examined appeared to be a kind of index of the roads in Italy, with the towns on them; and we could decipher on that time-worn block the very route I had followed from Florence hither.

Then came the statues, and here I am bewildered how to describe them. Hundreds upon hundreds of figures,--statues of citizens, generals, emperors, and gods; fauns, satyrs, and nymphs, born of the loftiest dreams of grace; fauns on whose faces shone the very soul of humor, and heroes and divinities with an air of majesty worthy the "land of lost gods and godlike men!"

I am lost in astonishment at the perfection of art attained by the Greeks and Romans. There is scarcely a fourth of the beauty that has ever met my eye which is not to be found in this gallery. I should almost despair of such another blaze of glory on the world were it not for my devout belief that what has been done may be done again, and had I not faith that the dawn in which we live will bring another day equally glorious. And why should not America with the experience and added wisdom which three thousand years have slowly yielded to the old world, joined to the giant energy of her youth and freedom, re-bestow on the world the divine creations of art? Let Powers answer!

But let us step on to the hemicycle of the Belvedere, and view some works greater than any we have yet seen or even imagined. The adjoining gallery is filled with masterpieces of sculpture, but we will keep our eyes unwearied and merely glance along the rows. At length we reach a circular court with a fountain flinging up its waters in the centre. Before us is an open cabinet; there is a beautiful manly form within, but you would not for an instant take it for the Apollo. By the Gorgon head it holds aloft we recognize Canova's Perseus,--he has copied the form and attitude of the Apollo, but he could not breathe into it the same warming fire. It seemed to me particularly lifeless, and I greatly preferred his Boxers, who stand on either side of it. One, who has drawn back in the attitude of striking, looks as if he could fell an ox with a single blow of his powerful arm. The other is a more lithe and agile figure, and there is a quick fire in his countenance which might overbalance the massive strength of his opponent.

Another cabinet,--this is the far-famed Antinous. A countenance of perfect Grecian beauty, with a form such as we would imagine for one of Homer's heroes. His features are in repose, and there is something in their calm, settled expression strikingly like life.

Now we look on a scene of the deepest physical agony. Mark how every muscle of old Laocoon's body is distended to the utmost in the mighty struggle! What intensity of pain in the quivering distorted features! Every nerve which despair can call into action is excited in one giant effort, and a scream of anguish seems first to have quivered on those marble lips. The serpents have rolled their strangling coils around father and sons, but terror has taken away the strength of the latter, and they make but feeble resistance. After looking with indifference on the many casts of this group, I was the more moved by the magnificent original. It deserves all the admiration that has been heaped upon it.

I absolutely trembled on approaching the cabinet of the Apollo. I had built up in fancy a glorious ideal, drawn from all that bards have sung or artists have rhapsodized about its divine beauty,--I feared disappointment,--I dreaded to have my ideal displaced and my faith in the power of human genius overthrown by a form less perfect. However, with a feeling of desperate excitement I entered and looked upon it.

Now, what shall I say of it? How make you comprehend its immortal beauty? To what shall I liken its glorious perfection of form, or the fire that imbues the cold marble with the soul of a god? Not with sculpture, for it stands alone and above all other works of art,--nor with men, for it has a majesty more than human. I gazed on it, lost in wonder and joy,--joy that I could at last take into my mind a faultless ideal of godlike, exalted manhood. The figure appears actually to possess a spirit, and I looked on it not as on a piece of marble but a being of loftier mould, and half expected to see him step forward when the arrow reached its mark. I would give worlds to feel one moment the sculptor's mental triumph when his work was completed; that one exulting thrill must have repaid him for every ill he might have suffered on earth! With what divine inspiration has he wrought its faultless lines! There is a spirit in every limb which mere toil could not have given. It must have been caught in those lofty moments

"When each conception was a heavenly guest--
A ray of immortality--and stood,
Star-like, around, until they gathered to a god?"

We ran through a series of halls, roofed with golden stars on a deep blue midnight sky, and filled with porphyry vases, black marble gods, and mummies. Some of the statues shone with the matchless polish they had received from a Theban artisan before Athens was founded, and are, apparently, as fresh and perfect as when looked upon by the vassals of Sesostris. Notwithstanding their stiff, rough-hewn limbs, there were some figures of great beauty, and they gave me a much higher idea of Egyptian sculpture. In an adjoining hall, containing colossal busts of the gods, is a vase forty-one feet in circumference, of one solid block of red porphyry.

The "Transfiguration" is truly called the first picture in the world. The same glow of inspiration which created the Belvedere must have been required to paint the Saviour's aerial form. The three figures hover above the earth in a blaze of glory, seemingly independent of all material laws. The terrified Apostles on the mount, and the wondering group below, correspond in the grandeur of their expression to the awe and majesty of the scene. The only blemish in the sublime perfection of the picture is the introduction of the two small figures on the left hand, who, by the bye, were Cardinals, inserted there _by command_. Some travellers say the color is all lost, but I was agreeably surprised to find it well preserved. It is, undoubtedly, somewhat imperfect in this respect, as Raphael died before it was entirely finished; but "take it all in all," you may search the world in vain to find its equal.

[This ended the day's tour of observation. On a succeeding day
the traveller saw as many objects of interest; among them the
graves of Shelley and Keats. These, however, we must pass by, and
describe his visit to the ruins of the great Roman amphitheatre.]

Amid the excitement of continually changing scenes I have forgotten to mention our first visit to the Coliseum. The day after our arrival we set out with two English friends to see it by sunset. Passing by the glorious fountain of Trevi, we made our way to the Forum, and from thence took the road to the Coliseum, lined on both sides with remains of splendid edifices. The grass-grown ruins of the palace of the Cæsars stretched along on our right; on our left we passed in succession the granite front of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the three grand arches of the Temple of Peace, and the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome. We went under the ruined triumphal arch of Titus, with broken friezes representing the taking of Jerusalem, and the mighty walls of the Coliseum gradually rose before us. They grew in grandeur as we approached them, and when at length we stood in the centre, with the shattered arches and grassy walls rising above and beyond one another far around us, the red light of sunset giving them a soft and melancholy beauty, I was fain to confess that another form of grandeur had entered my mind of which before I knew not.

A majesty like that of nature clothes this wonderful edifice. Walls rise above walls, and arches above arches, from every side of the grand arena, like a sweep of craggy pinnacled mountains around an oval lake. The two outer circles have almost entirely disappeared, torn away by the rapacious nobles of Rome, during the middle ages, to build their palaces. When entire and filled with its hundred thousand spectators, it must have exceeded any pageant which the world can now produce. No wonder it was said,--

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the world!"

--a prediction which time has not verified. The world is now going forward prouder than ever, and though we thank Rome for the legacy she has left us, we would not wish the dust of her ruin to cumber our path....

Next to the Coliseum, the baths of Caracalla are the grandest remains at Rome. The building is a thousand feet square, and its massive walls look as if built by a race of giants. These Titan remains are covered with green shrubbery, and long trailing vines sweep over the cornice and wave down like tresses from the architrave and arch. In some of its grand halls the mosaic pavement is yet entire. The excavations are still carried on. From the number of statues already found, this would seem to have been one of the most gorgeous edifices of the olden time.

I have been now several days loitering and sketching among the ruins, and I feel as if I could willingly wander for months beside these mournful relics, and draw inspiration from the lofty yet melancholy lore they teach. There is a spirit haunting them real and undoubted. Every shattered column, every broken arch and mouldering wall, but calls up more vividly to mind the glory that has passed away. Each lonely pillar stands as proudly as if it still helped to bear up a great and glorious temple, and the air seems scarcely to have ceased vibrating with the clarions that heralded a conqueror's triumph....

In Rome there is no need that the imagination be excited to call up thrilling emotion or poetic revery; they are forced on the mind by the sublime spirit of the scene. The roused bard might here pour forth his thoughts in the wildest climaces, and I could believe he felt it all. This is like the Italy of my dreams,--that golden realm whose image has been nearly chased away by the earthly reality. I expected to find a land of light and beauty, where every step crushed a flower or displaced a sunbeam; where every air was poetic inspiration, and whose every scene filled the soul with romantic feelings. Nothing is left of my picture but the far-off mountains, robed in the sapphire veil of the Ausonian air, and these ruins, amid whose fallen glory sits triumphant the spirit of ancient song.

I have seen the flush of morn and eve rest on the Coliseum; I have seen the noonday sky framed in its broken loop-holes, like plates of polished sapphire; and last night, as the moon has grown into the zenith, I went to view it with her. Around the Forum all was silent and spectral; a sentinel challenged us at the Arch of Titus, under which we passed, and along the Cæsars' wall, which lay in shadow. Dead stillness brooded around the Coliseum; the pale, silvery lustre streamed through its arches and over the grassy walls, giving them a look of shadowy grandeur which day could not bestow. The scene will remain fresh in my memory forever.

POMPEII AND ITS DESTROYER.

ALFRED E. LEE.

[The ruins of Pompeii perhaps surpass in general interest any
other of the exhumed remains of man's ancient industry, and the
story of them has been very frequently told. For a good general
description we go to the "European Days and Ways" of Alfred E.
Lee, who also deals with Vesuvius as well as with its victim. He
tells us the whole history of the excavation, of which we can
but say here that up to 1860 not more than one-third of the town
was excavated, and that in 1863 the archæologist Fiorelli was
appointed to supervise the work, which has gone on steadily since.]

The ancient Pompeiians who gazed upon and admired the beauteous groves and pastures which covered the symmetrical cone up to the very rim of its smokeless, silent crater must have had but a faint idea of the real nature of their terrible neighbor. But in the year 63 they received a most impressive and--had it been heeded--timely warning of what they were to expect. A fearful earthquake shook down their temples, colonnades, and dwellings, giving awful premonition of the reawakening of the stupendous forces of nature, which had been slumbering for centuries. The city was a wreck, but it was immediately rebuilt, and was greatly improved by conforming its architecture more nearly than before to the style of imperial Rome. A reaction from the depressing effects of disaster was at high tide, and Pompeii was doubtless more splendid and more gay than ever, when, on the 24th of August, 79, it was overtaken by the supreme catastrophe, the details of which, in the absence of authentic narrative, have been supplied by the romance of Bulwer. First came a dense shower of ashes, which covered the town to the depth of three feet, impelling most of its inhabitants to fly from its precincts. This was followed by a delusive lull, during which many of the fugitives returned to seek their valuables, and perhaps to care for the sick and infirm who could not be readily removed. But directly the shower of ashes was succeeded by a heavy rain of red-hot cinders and pumice, called rapilii, from which there was no escape. This covered the town with another stratum, seven to eight feet thick, burning the wooden upper stories from the houses, and extinguishing the last vestige of animal life. On top of this the remorseless Cyclops shook down more showers of ashes and then fiery rapilii, until the superincumbent mass attained an average thickness of twenty feet, and the beautiful city of the Sarno was literally smothered,--buried alive, with scarcely a single trace of it above ground. For nearly seventeen centuries Pompeii, except as a name and memory, disappeared from history. In ancient times its ruins were ransacked, partly by the survivors of its wreck, in recovering their valuables and the dead bodies of their friends, and partly in the search for decorative materials with which to embellish temples and other buildings. In this way the city was stripped of nearly everything easily accessible which was worth carrying away. Subsequent Vesuvian eruptions covered it still more deeply, vegetation grew over it, and a village bearing its name rose upon the ground which covered its ancient site. During the Middle Ages the place was entirely unknown. In 1592 a subterranean aqueduct, which is in use to this day, was carried under it without leading to its discovery. In 1748 some statues and bronze utensils, discovered by a peasant, attracted the attention of the reigning king of Naples and Sicily, Charles III., who caused excavations to be made. At that time the theatre, amphitheatre, and other portions of the buried town were brought to light, discoveries which caused great surprise and enthusiasm throughout the civilized world....

The excavated portion of the city, together with its museum and library, are under the care of a corps of government guards, who, for a European wonder, are forbidden to accept gratuities. Quite agreeably to me, my visit fell on a holiday, when the guides were off duty, so that I was permitted to wander at will among the silent streets, unembarrassed by long and apocryphal verbal explanations. A previous visit had familiarized me with the principal streets, buildings, and localities, so that I had no difficulty in finding my way. Besides a considerable region which had been excavated since my first visit, eighteen months before, there were some important buildings which I had not then been able to inspect. Among these was the Villa Diomed, so conspicuous in Bulwer's romance. This villa--more properly speaking, the house of M. Arrius Diomedes--was one of the largest and most splendid of the Pompeiian residences, and, in addition to the usual conveniences and luxuries of an elegant mansion of that day, enclosed an interior court, or garden, one hundred and seven feet square, open to the sky, surrounded by a colonnade, and embellished by a central fountain. Beneath this court, on three sides, are long vaulted chambers, reached by stair-ways, and lighted by narrow apertures in the upper pavement. These cellars, now entirely cleared of rubbish, are believed to have been used in the summer season as family promenades. "In them," says Bulwer, "twenty skeletons (two of them babes, embracing) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust that had evidently been slowly wafted through the apertures until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, and candelabra for unavailing light, and wine, hardened in the amphoræ, for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast, and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom, of young and round proportions, the trace of the fated Julia! It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door and found it closed and blocked up by the scoriæ without, and in their attempts to force it had been suffocated with the atmosphere. In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house, the unfortunate Diomed, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably a slave." The impression of a girl's breast in the ashes, which Bulwer's fancy represents as the sole remaining trace of one of his heroines, is still preserved in the museum at Naples, and is as shapely and perfect as if the flesh of the fair young victim had been moulded but yesterday instead of eighteen hundred years ago. The bodies found in the Diomedan corridors had their heads wrapped up, and were half covered by the fine infiltrated ashes, in which was preserved even the imprint of the chemises worn by the women and children. The bodies had decayed, like those embedded in other parts of the town, but their forms had been moulded in the ashes with wonderful precision and distinctness.

In many cases such cavities, after the skeletons contained in them had been carefully removed, were filled with liquid plaster, which produced an accurate and durable image of the imprinted form. The museum at Pompeii contains a collection of such images, which impress upon the beholder, more vividly, perhaps, than any other objects, the horror and consternation of those awful days when the rain of volcanic ashes turned noon to night and overwhelmed the doomed city. One of these figures is that of a girl with a ring on her finger; another, that of a woman enceinte; a third, a man whose features are singularly distinct and natural. A group of three includes father, mother, and daughter, found lying near one another. The figure of a female shows even the folds of her drapery and the arrangement of her hair. The attitudes are generally those which follow a short and fierce death-struggle. Some of the victims seem to have fallen upon their faces and died suddenly in their flight. Others, who were perhaps asphyxiated by vapors, have the calm attitude of sleep, as though death had been but a pleasant dream.

Near the Great Theatre an open court with a peristyle of seventy-four columns is surrounded by a series of detached cells. This is supposed to have been a barrack for confinement of the gladiators who were chosen for the contests of the arena. Sixty-three skeletons found here are believed to have been those of soldiers who remained on duty during the eruption. In one of the chambers, used as a prison, the skeletons of two presumable criminals were found, together with the stocks and irons with which they were bound for punishment. The story that the people were assembled, in great numbers, to witness some spectacular entertainment at the time the volcano began to belch upon them its rain of ashes is probably a myth. The theatre had been badly wrecked by the earthquake of 63, and its restoration was yet far from complete when the eruption broke forth. The streets of Pompeii are generally narrow, not over twenty-four--some of them not over fourteen--feet in width, and are paved with blocks of lava, with high stepping-stones at intervals, for the convenience of foot-passengers in rainy weather. At the street corners public fountains are placed, from which the water poured through the decorative head of a god, a mask, or some similar ornament. Trade signs are rare, but political announcements are frequently seen, conspicuously printed in red letters. Phallic emblems, boldly cut in stone and built into the walls, surprise and shock us by their frequency, notwithstanding their innocently meant purpose as a means of protection against witchcraft. The architecture of the temples and other public buildings is a clumsy mixture of the Greek and Roman style, the columns being invariably laid up in brick or travertine, and covered with stucco. The dwellings, built of the same materials, or of travertine, have very little exterior adornment. Yet at the time of its catastrophe Pompeii must have been a highly decorated town. Marble was but little used architecturally, but the stucco which took its place was admirably adapted to decorative painting, and this means of ornamentation was lavishly employed.

The lower halves of the columns are generally painted red, with harmonizing colors on the capitals. Interior walls are also laid with bright, gay coloring, usually red or yellow. But the most attractive and striking of the mural decorations are the paintings, the wonderful variety and delicacy of which are only surpassed by the more astonishing wonder of their preservation. The subjects of these pictures are generally drawn from poetry or mythology, as, for instance, Theseus abandoning Ariadne, Ulysses relating his adventures to Penelope, Cupid holding a mirror up to Venus, Apollo and the Muses, Polyphemus receiving Galatea's letter from Cupid, Leda and the Swan, Diana surprised in her bath by Actæon, Achilles and Patroclus, and representations of Venus, Cupid, Bacchus, Silenus, Mercury, and the fauns in endless variety. A favorite subject was the beautiful youth Narcissus, son of the river-god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope. According to the Greek fable, this youth, seeing his image in a fountain, became enamoured of it, and, in punishment for his hardness of heart towards Echo and other nymphs, pined away and was changed to a flower. In consequence of its origin, this flower loves the borders of streams, and, bending on its fragile stem, seems to seek its own image in the waters, but soon fades and dies.

The larger and finer dwellings of Pompeii have generally been named from their supposed possessors, or from the works of art found in them. The House of the Tragic Poet, so called from the representation of a poet reading found in its tablinium, was one of the most elegant in Pompeii. From the pavement of its vestibule was taken a celebrated mosaic, now in the museum at Naples, representing a chained dog barking, with the legend "_cave canem_"--"beware of the dog." The periphery of the columns of the peristyle is fluted, except the lower third of the shaft, which is smooth and painted red. The walls of the interior are decorated with paintings, among which are Venus and Cupid fishing, Diana with Orion, and a representation of Leda and Tyndarus, which is very beautiful and remarkably well preserved. This house, which figures in Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii" as the home of Glaucus, was probably the dwelling of a goldsmith. One of the most palatial residences yet brought to light is the House of Pansa,--one hundred and twenty-four by three hundred and nineteen feet,--which finely illustrates, in its complete and well-preserved appointments, the plan of an aristocratic Pompeiian mansion of the imperial epoch. Entering from the street by a vestibule, in the floor of which the greeting, "_Salve_," was wrought in beautiful mosaic, we reach a large interior court (atrium), which, owing to the absence of glass or exterior openings, was necessary for the admission of light and air to the surrounding chambers. A reservoir for rain-water (impluvium) occupies the centre of the atrium. Passing from the atrium through a large apartment called the tablinium, we enter, towards the rear, the strictly domestic part of the house, which occupies more than half the space within its walls, and is also provided with an interior court. The family apartments open into this court, and derive from it their light and ventilation. It encloses a garden surrounded by a peristyle, and hence takes the name of peristylium. The front part of the house, surrounding the atrium, was that in which the proprietor transacted his business and held intercourse with the external world; the rear part, surrounding the peristylium, was devoted to domestic use exclusively. The roof, sloping inward, and open over the interior courts, discharged the rain which fell upon it into the impluvium. The images of the household gods usually occupied a place in the vestibule. The House of Sallust, so named from an epigraph on its outside wall, appears from later discoveries to have been the property of A. Cossius Libanus. This house was finished in gay colors and embellished with mural paintings, one of which--a representation of Actæon surprising Diana at her bath--is singularly well preserved. Other subjects treated are the rape of Europa (badly defaced), and Helle in the sea extending her arm to Phryxus. Opposite to the Actæon is a dainty chamber, arbitrarily named the venereum, surrounded by polygonal columns painted red. The impluvium was adorned with a bronze group--now in the museum at Palermo--representing Hercules contending with a stag. Out of the mouth of the stag, in this group, the waters of the fountain gushed. Some of the bedrooms of this house were floored with African marble.

The House of Meleager takes its name from one of its mural decorations illustrating the story of Meleager and Atalanta. Other frescos adorn its walls, representing the judgment of Paris, Mercury presenting a purse to Ceres, and a young satyr frightening a bacchante with a serpent. Its peristylium, sixty by seventy-three feet, is the finest yet found in Pompeii. The columns of the peristylium are covered with yellow stucco and its chambers are floored with mosaic. A colonnade rises on three sides of the dining-room, and one of twenty-four columns, red below and white above, supports the portico. A garden to the left of the atrium and in front of the portico is adorned by a pretty fountain. An exquisite bronze statuette of a dancing faun, now in the Naples museum, gave its present title to the most beautiful and also one of the largest houses in Pompeii. The discovery of this house was first made in 1830, in the presence of a son of the poet Goethe. A small pedestal, on which the statuette of the faun stood, is still seen in the marble-lined impluvium. In the mosaic floor of one of the rooms near by three doves are represented drawing a string of pearls from a casket. Mosaics in the dining-room represented Acratus (companion of Bacchus) riding on a lion, a cat devouring a partridge, and a group of crustaceans and fishes. The salutation, "_Have_," (welcome) is wrought with colored marble in the pavement of the vestibule before the main entrance. The walls are covered with stucco made of cement, in imitation of colored marble.

The atrium, thirty-five by thirty-eight feet, is finished in the Tuscan style, but the twenty-eight columns surrounding the peristylium are Ionic. In the rear of the mansion opens a garden, one hundred and five by one hundred and fifteen feet, enclosed with a peristyle of fifty-six Doric columns. Various articles in gold, silver, bronze, and terra-cotta were found in this house, and also some skeletons, one of which was that of a woman with a gold ring on her finger engraved with the name Cassia. But the most important discovery of all made in the House of the Faun was that of the magnificent mosaic of Alexander in the battle of Issus. "This work, which is almost the only ancient historical composition in existence, represents the battle at the moment when Alexander, whose helmet has fallen from his head, charges Darius with his cavalry and transfixes the general of the Persians, who has fallen from his wounded horse. The chariot of the Persian monarch is prepared for retreat, whilst in the foreground a Persian of rank, in order to insure the more speedy escape of the king, who is absorbed in thought at the sight of his expiring general, offers him his horse."--Baedeker.

Such are some of the principal mansions of Pompeii and the objects found in them. All of the most precious works of art which were or could be detached, including many exquisite little mural frescos, have been removed and deposited in the museum at Naples. The ruins and the museum explain each other, and taken together furnish the most complete and vivid illustration of ancient life in the world. No books, no pictures, can tell us so clearly and comprehensively how the people of that day and country lived as the remains of this buried city. Its dwellings, shops, streets, prisons, temples, theatres, and tombs disclose with amazing fulness and accuracy the pursuits, habits, follies, vices, and even the thoughts of its inhabitants, just as they were living and moving when caught, overwhelmed, and forever stilled in the full tide of their existence. Well-curbs worn by the sliding rope, stepping-stones hollowed by the march of eager multitudes, pavements scarred by the stamp of horses' hoofs, advertisements painted on public walls, shops and magazines containing the symbols and utensils of trade, fountains where the crystal torrent might have hushed but an hour ago its rippling voice, temples whose altars bear yet the marks of sacrificial fires, frescos whose color and outline are bright and delicate in spite of calamity and time, mosaic floors smooth and shining as if polished only yesterday by the dance of dainty feet,--these and a thousand more traces of the life of that ancient time help the imagination to re-people and restore the ruined city as it was in the day of its pride and splendor.

An inspection of the ruins of Pompeii deepens upon the mind its impressions of the sublimity and terror of Vesuvius. Physically speaking, the volcano is but a monstrous heap of ashes, stones, and scoriæ, hollow, or partially so, in the centre, and streaked with black, solidified lava-currents on the outside. From the crater, whirling volumes of steam and smoke constantly issue, each rotary gush representing an interior explosion, usually heard only on the summit. In the varying states of the atmosphere this monstrous volume of vapor rises in columnar form for thousands of feet, and is then borne far to seaward, or landward, by the upper currents of the air; or it falls in a dense, sulphurous, shapeless cloud, which envelops and conceals the upper part of the mountain. In the latter condition of things I made my first ascent; in the former my second. On the first occasion we went up from Portici and down to Pompeii; on the second, the route was reversed.