the first who shook off the feudal yoke, and though in Naples they have long enjoyed the privilege of municipal jurisdiction, yet the external splendour of the nobles, and the authority they still exercise over the peasants, impose upon the minds of the lazzaroni: and however bold and resentful they may be of injuries offered by others, they bear the insolence of the nobility as passively as peasants fixed to the soil. A coxcomb of a volanti, tricked out in his fantastical dress, or any of the liveried slaves of the great, make no ceremony of treating these poor fellows with all the insolence and insensibility natural to their masters; and for no visible reason, but because he is dressed in lace, and the others in rags. Instead of calling to them to make way, when the noise in the streets' prevents the common people from hearing the approach of the carriage, a stroke across the shoulders with the cane o£ the running footman, is the

nfnnl warmincr fhf»v re>rp\vp. Mntliincr cause; such as a scarcity of bread: every other grievance they bear as if it were their charter. When we consider thirty thousand human creatures without beds or habitations, wandering almost naked in search of food through the streets of a well-built city; when we think of the opportunities they have of being together, of comparing their own destitute situation with the affluence of others, one cannot help being astonished at their patience.

Let the Prince be distinguished by splendour and magnificence; let the great and the rich have their luxuries; but, in the name of humanity, let the poor, who are willing to labour, have food in abundance to satisfy the cravings of nature, and raiment to defend them from the inclemencies of the weather!

If their governors, whether from weakness or neglect, do not supply them with these, they certainly have a right to help themselves. Every law of equity and : LETTER LX.

Naples,

T Have made several visits to the museum at Portici, principally, as you may believe, to view the antiquities dug out of Herculaneum and Pompeia. The work publishing by Government, ornamented with engravings of the chief articles of this curious collection, will, in all probability, be continued for many years, as mew articles, worthy of the sculptor's art, are daily discovered, and as a vast mine of curiosities is supposed to be concealed in the unopened streets of Pompeia. Among the ancient paintings, those which ornamented the theatre of Herculaneum are more elegant than any that have hitherto been found at great labour and address, and are .nowpreserved in glass cases; the colours, we are told, were much brighter before ihey were drawn out of their subterraneous abode, and exposed to the open air; they are, however, still wonderfully lively: the subjects are understood at the first glance by those who are acquainted with the Grecian history and mythology. There is a Chiron teaching Achilles to play on the lyre, Ariadne deserted, the Judgment of Paris, some Bacchantes and Fauns; the largest piece represents Theseus's victory over the Minotaur. It consists of seven or eight figures very well grouped, but a Frieze, with a dancing woman, on a black ground, not above ten inches long, is thought the best.

We ought not, however, to judge of the progress which the ancients had made in the art of painting, by the degree of perfection which appears in those pictures^ It is not probable that the best paintings of ancient Greece or Italy were Hercula

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were there, it would not follow that those which have been discovered are of that class. If a stranger were to enter at random a few houses in London, and fee some tolerably good pictures there, he could not with propriety conclude that the best of them were the very best in London. The paintings brought from Herculaneum are perfect proofs that the ancients had made that progress in the art, which those pictures indicate; but do not form even a presumption, that they had not made a much greater. It is almost demonstrable that these paintings are not of their best. The same school which formed the sculptor to correctness, would form the painter to equal correctness in his drawings, however deficient he might be in all the other parts of his art. Their best statues are correct in their proportions, and elegant in their forms: These paintings are not correct in their proportions, and are comparatively inelegant in their forms.

Among the statues, the drunken Faun

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