ment"-besides his classical learning, his knowledge of history and general store of information. Now we consider it perfectly idle for any one to write a book, who has nothing new to say, unless he possess some at least of these qualifications, or can array old things in a very attractive and striking light. We shall see by and by, how far these remarks may apply to the gentleman, whose work is under consideration.

The author's preface is extremely unpretending, and he informs us that the work was not designed for travellers, but for those who, having an acquaintance with the history of the antiquities of Italy, are willing "to enter a little into the examination of things in common life." This is well, but let us proceed with the facts. Our author left New-York on the 19th October, 1820-arrived there at Gibraltar on the 29th November; remained there about 12 days, and landed at Naples, after performing quarantine on the 15th January, 1821; employed 15 days in visiting Naples and its environs; 21 in Rome, and 4 in Florence. The tour extended to Genoa and Turin, and occupied about two months and six days. It appears also that the author was ignorant of the language of the country through which he passed ;-and without repeating the wise remark, that he who visits a country, of whose language he is ig norant, goeth not to travel, but to school, we may observe, that this qualification was a very material requisite in giving any delineations of " common life." It would be ungenerous to expect a great deal after this exposition, and the author's preface. Let us see how he has answered our anticipations, and fulfilled his own promises.

The writer, after giving a very lively, and we imagine very graphic account of the heterogeneous population of Gibraltar, proceeds to inspect the fortifications for which it is so famous. The account is well drawn up, and quite interesting: we cannot, however, give any extract sufficiently small to permit us to copy it. The village of San Roque was also visited, where you have a fine view of the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Though this place is only five miles from Gibraltar, our author is agreeably surprised on finding every thing decidedly Spanish. On the voyage to Naples, we are introduced to an Italian itinerant trader Signor Mattia, who is amusing enough for a while, but very soon grows intolerably stupid. His picture is, however, sketched with a good deal of talent, and we have no doubt of the likeness, having ourselves seen something very similar. He is very facetious and very eccentric, calls his countrymen great thieves, (in which opinion we have good reason to join him,) talks to his parrots, boasts his

intimacy with the King of Naples, swears by St. Antonio, and crosses himself, and promises his fellow passengers a sight of his cottage near Vesuvius, which, it appears, it was not afterwards convenient for him to visit, though he was then very near it. We think our readers will understand what sort of a gentleman this was; but be that as it may, he afforded no small amusement, while our author lay quarantined at Nisida; and we think he would have been a most useful person, if he had given rise to such accurate and just remarks as the following: Speaking of the lower class of the Neapolitan population, the author remarks:

"These are principally pale, ragged, and effeminate men, without much ostensible business, and apparently the surplus of a beggarly population. But they are, if possible, still more noisy than idle; and if they do five times less than ordinary men, they talk ten times more. A single word of raillery from the old man, is sufficient to raise their hasty spirits to the boiling point, and a most violent ebullition is the immediate result. But a cause of provocation is never long wanting among themselves: for scarcely a boat leaves the shore, without an insulting address from some quarter, which never fails to bring on a retort, and an engagement of tongues soon becomes universal. The recruits are as noisy and violent as the principals; fists are clenched, bodies thrown into contortions like violent spasms, and the most tremendous oaths poured out in torrents. At first we looked with dread at such signs of deadly rage, and expected blood and broken heads; but in an instant all became quiet, and proceeded as if nothing unusual had happened."

"Yet, when undisturbed by passion, the Neapolitans show a vivacity of mind, a propensity to humour and satire, and a natural ease of expression, above all other men I have ever seen. The most degraded of those around us, will often enter into a conversation with the greatest appearance of wit, fluency, and easy gesture. They never speak without making a motion of the limbs or body correspondent to their words, so that they may be said to speak two languages at once. A deaf and dumb person would often comprehend their meaning, by observing the innumerable and expressive signs with which they enforce their words; and they exceed the French in this particular, at least as much as the French exceed ourselves." P. 65.

The author is at last freed from the severity of the Mediterranean health-laws, and commences his observations in Naples. They must of necessity be extremely cursory; he relies implicitly on his guide, and takes every thing for granted; indeed, he had no time to think for himself, and has, of course, stated things decidedly incorrect. The most interesting part of the volume contains an account of his visit to Pompeii. To have seen that spot forms an era in life, and makes the beholder rich while memory shall last. We read books about the manners and domestic life of the Romans history informs us of their actions, and we estimate their character and principles accordingly. But here time

rolls back his scroll-we become cotemporaries with those who lived 1700 years ago we enter into their houses, we recline at their triclinia, we join them at their tables and in their utmost privacy, in the bath and the chamber-our eyes rest upon those beautiful forms, which ornament their halls, and excite the imagination—we hear the recitations of the theatre, and listen to the conjoined influence of poetry and music-we are present at their games-we enter the Amphitheatre-we take our seats with that anxious, that strange populace the games commence while we are looking on the bloody arena-we see the gladiator fall, and hear the deafening shout of barbarous delight. Our author felt the deep impression which such a view must fix forever, and was affected as every one is, with "the religion of the place." He saw it only once--for ourselves three visits did not dull the edge of curiosity. The tombs which yet preserve the ashes and names of many long lost to fame--the shops, the temples, the advertisements on the walls,-the sportive effusions of the populace on the corridors of the Amphitheatre--and all the nameless circumstances of private life, which are here disclosed to our view, might well occupy the contemplation of months. Our author writes on this subject with great feeling and indeed with eloquence. We should do him injustice, were we not to quote at least one passage.

"This house has been untenanted for ages: its last inhabitant was a Roman citizen, and he lived under the reign of the emperor Titus; a man who heard of the desolation of Judah, from captives taken fighting on the walls of Jerusalem, and the first glad news of christianity---perchance from the mouth of Paul himself. Perhaps he was one of those who believed the wondrous tale of the resurrection; and if so, however humble and poor, was capable of in-tructing the wits and the statesmen of Rome.

You remain speechless---for what can you say? You are in the cell of a magician, whose wand bears control over time, and rolls back past centuries, like clouds before the wind. A supernatural power is at work, producing effects which strike us with awe, and calling up the ghosts of antiquity, to frighten away our usual enjoyments. And seen from this place, how does the present world appear? A mass of the bones and ashes of men; a melancholy shore, which the waves of time have strewed with the wrecks of nations, and heaps of broken sceptres.

There is too much of distress in the scene. Let us pass on. Nay, stop! This is the place where men should meditate; here a monarch would find a reproof for his pride, and despise the tinsel of his crown: for here the voice of death would whisper, nay, scream in his ear, and remind him of his mean mortality. This is a book of history spread out before the world; and who can help but read? Here ruin stands; and while he points at antiquity, to show the spectres of past centuries, flitting away, and lost, and a thousand times forgotten, he raises the finger at the cities, the successors of departed Pompeii---at the world, the phantoms of to-day, and threatens them with a downfal as complete, and an oblivion as deep and

inevitable. Here months, years, and ages have sunk together in silence, like the waves of the ocean in a whole climate of calms: here time has left his glass unturned, for seventeen hundred years.

Beyond the gate of Pompeii, and on either side of the entrance, are the tombs: they occupy a long space; some are beautiful, as that of Mammia the priestess, of the Arria family, and of the Gladiator. Among these very tombs, and along the road, are placed circular seats for the public accommodation, and, as the inscriptions testify, they were often erected by private munificence. There was always something, to our feelings, very touching in this arrangement: here the Roman citizen, at the close of day, walked forth to contemplate that matchless bay, rendered more lovely by the warm tints of an Italian sky. A Roman contemplated these monuments of his ancestors with no gloomy sentiments. A sudden gust of affectionate remembrance, might sometimes find the lachrymatory in his hand, as he bent over the cinerary urn; but that past, he looked to his children, and cherishing every lofty sentiment in their young bosoms, bade them reward the cares of a Roman matron, and emulate the public virtues and devotion of those ancestors whose ashes were arrayed in honorable remembrance around the sepulchral vault. Such a system must have had a strong and powerful effect upon the character of a people; and we think is too ordinarily passed over in silence and neglect. If such was the impression afforded by such a scene-if such was the magnificence of the tombs of a small Roman colony, what must have been the moral interest, the sublimity, the glory of the Appian way, as it carried you into the precincts of imperial Rome, crowded on either side with the tombs of the Metellas, the Livias, the Scipios ?

Our author talks of a villa which has been baptized with the name of Cicero, and warms of course at the idea. There is no reason, beyond the vagary of some antiquarian dilettante, for supposing that building Cicero's villa-though he certainly had one here. Further on he tells you (page 117.) he saw the villa of Marcus Arrius Diomedes, Cicero's friend forsooth! that his skeleton was found with necklaces and coins in the hand. We know that that gossipping guide-book kindly told him this nonsense.-Now Cicero died forty years B. C. or about a hundred and nineteen years before the eruption which destroyed Pompeii. And we believe it will be admitted that our friend Diomedes, though living in a fine climate, had no immunity from ordinary wear and tear of the constitution, as Dr. Kitchener calls it. We are also entertained (page 104,) Vol. I. No. IV.

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with an account of the villa of Polybius, the historian. We are afraid our author's credulity has led him into a mistake. This writer was born full two hundred years B. C., and though he lived to a good old age, died about a hundred and twenty years before the destruction of Pompeii. To say the least, these are pretty strong presumptions against any such position. The street-scribes or public writers of letters, &c. attracted the attention of our traveller; and he adds, "they are a description of persons I believe found no where else." A very little reading would have shown him that they are to be found all over the Levant-that these persons are not only seated in the crowded lanes of Constantinople, but in the capacious plazas of Mexico. A similar remedy ought to have been applied to his remark, that the ruins at Pæstum are "the only specimens in existence, of the severe old Etruscan style," We are not quite sure that we understand what he means by the Etruscan style; but we can answer for it, that the columns are of the old Doric, and worthy to be compared with the Parthenon itself, or the celebrated temple at Girgenti, which all belong to the same imposing and magnificent order. But we must leave Naples, and sympathizing with our traveller in his fear of the robbers, we must follow him to the gate of St. Johns and finally see him installed in the Swiss Hotel. After a comforta ble night's rest, and some doubts whether he was in Rome-he rises on the 8th of February, and with a "traveller's guide" in one hand, and a "map of Rome" in the other, proceeds, with an Englishman whom he met on the road, to examine the Roman lions. This inspection continues for three weeks-which would afford time only, in our opinion, to get a general idea of the city, instead of that wondrously detailed (we cannot say, accurate) information which is eked out into more than 130 pages. We shall take the liberty of passing over all this-it may all be read for five pauls in the "itinerario istruttivo" of the immortal Vasi, who tells you, in his preface, that Rome is a magnificent and celebrated city,-"Roma,-città celebre e magnifica." Our author, however, does not always follow Vasi, for, (page 286) the equestrian bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius is called the "supposed statue of Constantine." This statue is as fully ascertained, as the authenticity of the fasti consulares, or the scite of the capitol. Again, (page 333) he calls Canova the "Apelles of modern times!" This is a discovery since our day; he has been called the rival of Phidias, but we were not aware that like another Michael Angelo, Canova had not only asserted his triumph over the lifeless marble,