Capo di Monte.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

PALACE OF CAPO DI MONTE-L'ALBERGO DEI POVERI-EXCURSION TO PÆSTUM-NOCERA-SALERNO-CATHEDRAL, AND BAY

THE SILARIS PÆSTUM

HISTORY-TEMPLES

ROSES-PALACE OF LA FAVORITA-DITTO OF PORTICI, AND MADAME MURAT- -MUSEUM-PAINTINGS, AND RELICS, OF POMPEII- MUSEO BORBONNICO-ETRUSCAN VASES, &c.BUCEPHALUS PALACE OF NAPLES CASERTA-AQUEDUCT-SILK MANUFACTORY-PALACE-CARNIVAL OF NAPLES-REVIEW-FAREWELL TO NAPLES.

SCULPTURES

HAVING been favoured with tickets from the Duke of Sangro to visit the royal palaces of Caserti, Portici, Capo di Monte, Naples, &c. the first we explored was Capo di Monte, a palace whose chief recommendation is its elevated situation, and commanding, yet distinct and beautiful

views.

This edifice is said to have been designed, and executed, by one of those mortals, commonly termed an Universal Genius; and the want of sufficient architectural forethought is evinced by the perpetual necessity of fortifying the superstructure by subterranean works, owing to the discovery, when too late, that the pile was based upon hollow ground; and for which reason the palace remains to this hour unfinished.

In England it is not unusual to colour bricks in

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Palace of Capo di Monte.

imitation of stone; but here the stone is washed red in imitation of brick. This is one singularity; the next to be observed is a picture of the Queen of Charles III. father of the present sovereign. His Majesty is mounted on a noble animal, and is properly equipped for the chase; so likewise is his royal consort on the opposite wall; but dressed completely as a man, and as such straddling her horse! The only discoverable distinctions of her feminine Majesty are her flowing ringlets, and taper leg, and in this guise was she accustomed always to go a hunting.

This passion for the chase seems hereditary:→ His present Majesty, Ferdinand IV, is so fond of the sports of the field as to have procured a dis pensation from the Pope, or leave to shoot on Sundays; and I observed hung up in his parlour here a set of common English Fox Hunting coloured prints.

Some admirable paintings by Camuccini in this palace are, perhaps, the only objects particularly worthy of regal regard; there is a bad, whole length, portrait of the king's favourite wife, though not Queen, not being of royal blood, La Princi« pessa Partana: by birth a Sicilian; or as she is here frequently styled the Duchess of Florida.

Naples may be distinguished for its licentiousness, but so is it likewise for its charitable institu

L'Albergo dei Poveri.

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tions. To-day, I visited one of the largest of the kind, L'Albergo dei Poveri, and I willingly bear testimony to the munificence which supports, and to the sense which pervades this benevolent foundation. It contains, at present, about 1900 old, young, and poor, though it is not confined, exclusively, to the very poorest, since many decayed families are happy to get their children admitted into an institution where they may be gratuitously taught any art, or trade, suitable to their turn of mind.

I inspected the various schools contained in this building; in that for reading, writing, and arithmetic, the priest who presided explained to me the entire system of tuition, and which approaches very much to our Lancasterian mode.

There are also schools for Drawing, Music, Ma thematics, Languages; many departments for various trades, with a very extensive coral manufactory, chiefly for the women. The ages, and sexes, are classed; and their dormitories are the very neatest I have seen. Whatever any one can earn beyond a certain sum becomes their own.

In the evening to his Excellency's farewell soirée; who is about to assume the functions of our Embassador at Spain; and to be replaced at Naples by Mr. Hamilton.

February. Set off at daybreak for Pæstum,

distant about fifty-five miles, and, passing through Portici, Nocera was the first town of notice that we reached. Its ancient history is brief and melancholy. Known in the days of Annibal as Nuceria, it resisted to the utmost of its powers the successful Carthaginian, but was ultimately starved, plundered, and burnt. (Livy, sec. xv. book xxiii.) fame demum in deditionem accepit.

And again

Nuceriæ præda militi data est; urbs direpta, atque incensa.

La Cava, with its endless porticoes, came next; and we halted at Salerno before mid-day.

The extreme beauty of this place determined us to stay here for the remainder of the day, and the first object we went to see was its very ancient Cathedral. The Mosaics with which it is partially adorned were brought from the temples of Pæstum ; and the two most striking objects in the church are its antique Pulpits, or Ambones. All travellers would visit this church from respect for these relics of antiquity, though none, I think, will linger there longer from admiration of any other beauty.

This duty done, we scrambled down the cliff to the beach to enjoy the varied, and never satiating, prospects of nature. of nature. Salerno is on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea; was the country of the Picentini; and once was famous for its medical school.

In the graceful curve of its shore it somewhat resembles Naples, but bounded by a more contracted line, and rather oval form, the eye takes in at one glance the entire town; house over house upon its pendant hills down to the sands of the boundless ocean; the rocks, and cliffs, verdant even to the water's edge.

Our room at the inn commanded the whole expanse, and in the month of February we dined in the open air, having moved our table to the balcony to feast upon the scenery around, the boundless, and tranquil, ocean, with the magnificence of a setting sun amid such prospects.

The Promontory of Sorrentum, on the west, famed for its Campanian grape, stretches into the ocean, forming one boundary of Salerno; halfway up the acclivity hangs the little town of Vietri, its whitened villas embedded in the verdant hills; and behind this promontory was the setting sun, on whose glorious orb we gazed as it illumined the wide ocean with its golden beams, diffusing purply mists, and shadows, on all the hills around till it sank tranquilly from view, and till the moon arose to shed a colder, chaster, light. It was a scene reminding me of our great lyric bard's description,

Where the sun loves to pause

With so fond a delay,

That the night only draws

A thin veil o'er the day. Moore's Melodies.