lakes of Avernus and Acheron; and the green bowers of Elysium.

The town of Puzzoli, and its environs, present such a number of objects, worthy of the attention of the antiquarian, the natural philosopher, and the classic scholar, that to describe all with the minuteness they deserve, would sill volumes.

The Temple of Jupiter Serapls at Puzzoli, is accounted a very interesting monument of antiquity; being quite different from the Roman and Greek temples, and built in the manner of the Asiatics, probably by the Egyptian and Asiatic merchants settled at Puzzoli, which was the great emporium of Italy, until the Romans built Ostia and Antium.

Sylla having abdicated the Dictatorship, retired, and passed the remainder of his life in this city.

The ruins of Cicero's villa, near this city, are of such extent, as to give a high truly great are blessed with riches, it affords pleasure to every candid mind. Neither this villa near Puzzoli, that at Tusculum, nor any of his other country-seats, were the scenes of idleness or riot. They are distinguished by the names of the works he composed there; works which have always been the delight of the learned, and which, still more than the important services he rendered his country when in office, have contributed to immortalize his name.

The bay between Puzzoli and Baia is about a league in breadth. In crossing this in a boat, you fee the ruins called Ponte di Caligula, from their being thought the remains of a bridge which Caligula attempted to build across. They are by others, with more probability, thought to be the ruins of a mole built with arches. Having passed over this gulph, a new field of curiosities presents itself. The baths and prisons of Nero, the tomb of Agrippina, the temples of Venus, of Diana, and of Mercury, and the ruins of the ancient city of Cumæ; but nous coast,' nor even of the town of Baia. The whole of this beauteous bay, formerly the feat of pleasure, and, at one period, the most populous spot in Italy, is now very thinly inhabited; and the contrast is still stronger between the antient opulence and present poverty, than between the numbers of its antient and present inhabitants. It must be acknowledged, that we can hardly look around us, in any part of this world, without perceiving objects which, to a contemplative mind, convey reflections on the instability of grandeur, and the sad vicislitudes and reverses to which human affairs are liable; but here those objects are so numerous, and so striking, that they must make an impreffion on the most careless passenger.

LETTER LXVII.

Naples.

A s the Court are not at present at Casserta, we have not sean that place in all its splendour; we passed, however, one very agreeable day there, with Lady Hamilton and Sir Harry Featherston.

The palace at Casserta was begun in the year 1750 after a plan of Vanvitelli; the work is now carried on under the direction of his son. While tbe present King of Spain remained at Naples, there were generally about two thousand workmen employed; at present there are about five hundred. It will be finished in a few years, and will then, unquestionably, be one of the most spacious and magnificent palaces in Europe. It has been said, that London is too large a capital for the island of Great Britain;

of Casserta also seems out of proportion with the revenues of this kingdom. It is not, properly speaking, a head too large for the body; but rather an ornament, by much too expensive and bulky for either head or body. This palace is situated about sixteen miles north from Naples, on the plain where ancient Capua stood. It was thought prudent to found a building, on which such sums of money were to be lavished, at a considerable distance from Mount Vesuvius. It were to be wished, that the contents of the cabinet at Portici were removed from the same dangerous neighbourhood. That he might not be limited in ground for the gardens, may have been his Spanish Majesty's motive for choosing that his palace should be at a distance from Naples; and that it might not be exposed to insult from an enemy's fleet, was probably the reason that determined him to place it at a distance from the sea. This immense building is of a rectaneu