My Run to Naples and Pompeii

MY RUN

TO

Naples and Pompeii

A LECTURE

BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

DELIVERED AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON ,

ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 28th , 1873.

_________

London :
PASSMORE AND ALABASTER, 4, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS,
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS

PRICE TWOPENCE

THE superabundant abuse heaped upon this Lecture by certain unscrupulous writers, has caused an eager demand for it. Many who were present at its delivery, astounded at the mendacity of our slanderers, have asked for its publication. Hence we resolved to issue it. If we had not smitten the enemy severely a few days before, they would not have raised so ferocious a howl against us. It has fallen to our lot to denounce the union of Church and State; and, therefore, to weaken our influence we have been misrepresented, ridiculed, and libelled. Such a course of action is worthy of the cause which it hopes to aid: it can neither injure us, nor answer the end of those who follow it. Our Lecture was never intended for publication, it was meant for our congregation only, and it was prepared and delivered under great physical weakness: but as it is forced into print,—here it is.

MY RUN

NAPLES AND POMPEII

THE friend who has just spoken has congratulated me upon looking both healthy and happy. I trust I am gradually recovering health, but I cannot say that I am at all happy, except in the sight of so many affectionate friends; for, to deliver a lecture is to me the sternest of all toil. I look forward to it with great pain, and I look back upon it with dissatisfaction; yet, as it gives pleasure to many who aid me all the year round in my work, I cannot decline the service; and perhaps the feeling of being unutterably dissatisfied may do me good, on the principle that bitter medicines act as tonics. Expect but little from me, for I never claimed to have any gifts in the line of lecturing. I have, sometimes, wished I had, and yet such a wish may not be wise. My powers lie—and I am grateful for it—entirely in the direction of the simple preaching of the gospel of Christ. When I stand upon this platform with a gracious text before me, and all your faces listening—for the very eyes of my congregation usually listen to me as well as their ears—then I can preach. Who, indeed, could help preaching by God’s grace when so many prayers are being offered for him, and God’s Spirit helps his infirmities? I am not called to this particular work of lecturing, and therefore I have not the gifts. Whenever you see a goose flying you may say, “That is exactly like Mr. Spurgeon when he is delivering a lecture. He has his own element, and he can swim readily in it, and if he keeps to that element, all well and good; but if he soars into another, we cannot expect to see him succeed.”

On this occasion, however, I must offer yet further apologies—and as I seldom make any, I may be allowed a double quantity for once. I left this country unwell. I became much better; but I never was perfectly well during the whole time I was travelling. I was not therefore able to observe as I could have wished. In the next place, it rained very frequently while I was away. We had a fine day or two, but that appeared to be by accident; the rule was, “the rain it raineth every day.” You know enough about that, for, from the close of last September until now, you have endured the like downpour, with only now and then a pause, that Aquarius might take breath and go on drenching you again. Well, I had a fair share of all that drenching; and, what can a man see in a shower of rain? And what can I tell you but this—that wet weather is as uncomfortable in Venice as in London, and even more so, for you are losing beautiful sights; whereas, when it is fine, there is in London nothing to see, so it does not matter. If we were enveloped in one perpetual fog, so far as anything picturesque in our city is concerned, we should not be material losers. In addition to all this, I was laid by through intense pain. I endeavoured, when travelling, to gather a few notes of something to say to you; and I had stored them up in my memory, but being taken ill at Cannes , a long six weeks of intense anguish and pain has made me forget almost everything. I was surprised, having usually a good memory, to find that when I recovered from my illness, I scarcely remembered the names of my friends; and though, when I preached on the Sabbath day, I did not observe in my preaching any failure of memory, I was every day conscious of forgetting books, forgetting lines of thought, and forgetting where I had laid things, and so on. I have awakened from the bed of suffering as from a terrible dream, which has made me forget all the pleasant things that went before. Anything of freshness or sparkle that I might have given to a lecture is gone from me. I would not have lectured at all—I should never have thought of doing it—but that friends at home had announced this meeting, and, with their usual generosity, the ladies had subscribed to provide for the tea meeting. Being in this way placed under bonds of obligation, to go on with what I am not able to perform in a satisfactory manner, I will try my best, and leave myself to your sympathy. I feel that I am among friends, and that relieves me of a great deal of my regret. One friend kindly remarked to me just now, “If you will only just talk to us as you would do in our own parlours we shall be quite content.” I believe he spoke the truth, and therefore I am emboldened to go on.

One other thing I would like to say upon the general subject of lecturing on one’s travels. It is in general an absurd thing for a man to attempt to do. Even if you were quite up to the mark, nothing ever happens to you when you are travelling that is worth the telling. You get into a railway carriage, and you are whirled along till you get out again, and nothing occurs that can be told. One of my companions merrily suggested that when we reached Naples we might go out to Praestum, and that perhaps some brigands might get hold of us, and then we should be able to deliver a lecture with something novel in it. But, as the excursionists to that wonderful place are favoured with a body of troops as a guard, that proposition was not carried out, and so there are no adventures to tell. Everything is reduced to the common-place level of railway carriages, hotels, omnibuses, cabs, picture galleries, and so on, and I must be content to give a few incidents with lessons drawn from them.

The last time I tried to lecture to you I received a very severe rebuke from a learned writer for the press for not alluding to the statuary and pictures, for he declared that any person of ordinary education would have taken a great interest in such things, and, I will add, he would probably have sent you to sleep by prosing about them. I took little interest in a large proportion of the paintings, for after you have walked through say ten or twenty miles of galleries they become more than a little tedious, and you long to get out into the air and see real life and nature—at least I do. When you have seen the figure of a man in marble or plaster a thousand times over, it loses some of its novelty, and you would just as soon be out in the streets and see men in action. I am weary of nine out of ten of the pictures and statues exhibited, for they are either the same thing over and over again, or else productions which suggest no thought, convey no lesson, and embody no great idea.

There is a remarkable collection of pictures at Brussels , which struck me, however, not a little. I confess that my taste is very bad, and that the gallery I speak of has much about it that critics condemn, but still I was impressed by it, and whatever opinion anyone may form of the art there displayed, or the want of art, I will defy him to forget the singular pictures. It is called the Musée Wiertz. The sketches are the production of one man. He seems to have dashed away over acres of canvas, for many of the drawings are of enormous size; and he has executed them with a rough and ready hand, scarcely ever stopping to finish a painting, but rattling off his thoughts and leaving them in the rough. Some of his thoughts are playful and more amusing than artistic; but others are terrible, and fix a thought in the soul. I shall never forget his drawing of the “Coming Man.” He represents a right royal personage, who is taking into his gigantic hand triumphal arches, flags, eagles, cannon, bayonets, swords, tiaras, mitres, and all such stuff; and he is rubbing them into powder, and then blowing them away with the breath of his mouth. Truly, I believe this is what the Coming Man will do. He for whom we are looking will make an end of all the pomp and pageantry of war; and all those things which now oppress humanity shall be driven like chaff before the wind in the day of his coming. Though I do not suppose the artist had an eye to Christ our Lord, yet he has embodied a true idea concerning the Second Advent. He has also drawn an awful picture of the great Napoleon in hell—one of the most terrible, perhaps also hideous, things one has ever looked at. He is standing there with that stern, unfeeling look of his, seeming rather to be chiselled out of stone than to be of mortal flesh; and there are mothers holding up the limbs of their sons before him, and wives uplifting the heads and mangled bodies of their husbands, and trying to force upon him the flesh which his ambition caused the fiends of war to mangle. It is a dreadful picture, but it is likely to do good. Its teaching is that the men who delight in war ought not to be honoured but execrated by mankind: the man who dares to make war for ambition shall be punished with an immortality of curses; while the man who makes and preserves peace shall be honoured. Nations have been befooled for ages, and have set up aloft the memorials of manslayers. The red rag has driven mortals mad. Not we alone, but all nations have drunk of this intoxication; and war, the most gigantic of all crimes, and the most terrible of all ills, has come to be an honoured thing. I was glad to think that the artist, however horrible his sketch may be, was on the side of humanity. He has drawn a sweet little picture, the more dreadful for its sweetness, and called it, “Food for Cannon.” Sweet little children of two or three years of age are playing with flowers and merry in their games, and these are to grow up for the conscription and the field of blood. There is no need to say more of this singular museum, for Brussels is not a very long way off, and you can in a few hours see it all for yourselves; I mention it because it is an exception to the general monotony of paintings, and does teach something.

I beg humbly to complain of artists for harping so much on one string, and yet neglecting to be true to nature. For instance, who is to tell what the Virgin Mary may have been like? If we had been let alone and had never seen a pretended portrait of her, we should have imagined a supremely beautiful Jewess of the royal line of David, yet of humble estate; but she may be seen as a Frenchwoman, a Dutchwoman, a German, a Spaniard, an Italian, and worst of all, as black as soot, and yet her own nationality has not been represented. The fact is, that the artists were everlastingly making “Holy Families,” and yet were ashamed to draw them as of the seed of Israel . Their repetitions go to show that many artists had greater skill with their pencils than with their brains, or surely they would have thought of something fresh. I saw Susanna and the Two Elders, I cannot tell how many times in my travels; a very nice subject for public exhibition certainly! I should know those two elders anywhere, and be able to say, “Those are the apocryphal rascals!” The martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew is another choice subject for the Old Masters. Woe unto the man who speaks against the Old Masters! When an Old Master represents Saint Bartholomew with half his skin drawn off, and his muscles and nerves and blood-vessels all exposed, it is our duty to be charmed with the beautiful picture. The semi-miraculous conceptions of Gustave Dore are said by high authority to be execrable, but Saint Bartholomew and his bleeding anatomy—this, you ought to be enchanted with it. Well then, I am a heretic against such taste, and do not blush to own it. There again is Saint Sebastian, whom we saw stuck all over with arrows some twenty or more times: at one time the arrows were small and he looked like a pincushion, at another time he bristled like a porcupine; I was wearied with his likeness. At last at Rome we saw him dead in white marble, properly adorned with gilded arrows, and I was thankful. I said to my friends, “This is the last of Saint Sebastian,” but only the same afternoon one of them plucked me by the sleeve and said, “Here is something for you to see,” and lo! there was my old friend Saint Sebastian, tied to a tree to be made again a target. I have since been reading Butler’s “Lives of the Saints,” and I have discovered a possible reason for all this; for this excellent martyr escaped death from the archers, and though given up as dead he recovered to die bravely in another way. That there was great vitality in Saint Sebastian, all the picture galleries on the Continent bear witness.

Furthermore, I grumble that so much talent is thrown away on unworthy and uninstructive subjects. Why do we see so often groups of beer-boozers, or knights doing nothing, and nobodies in fine clothes. To me it seems as if a picture which I have seen at Antwerp was the type of many more: it was no doubt a masterly work of art, but it only represented a red cabbage, and do what you will with that subject a red cabbage it will remain. I wondered why a man of ability and skill should dedicate whole days to such a thing when he had the whole world to choose from. When paintings are gross and even licentious it were better, however, that they should have been red cabbages; and a great many others might have been so for any instruction that they give to anybody, or any sort of use they can be to the mind, heart, or taste of any living soul. I am exhibiting shameful taste I know, but I have been already found guilty of that on former occasions, and therefore I shall have no new crime laid to my door. Poor critic as I am, I enjoyed a laugh at a sculptor’s image of punishment. The artist has powerfully represented justice, and then, as vengeance should be slow, he has represented punishment with a wooden leg, and a very elegant wooden leg it is too.

Paintings there are, however, upon which you may gaze and gaze and gaze again, and always find something new. Such are sprinkled over every country, and time spent before them is better employed than in rushing up and down endless galleries. Among wonderful representations of nature I would mention Paul Potter’s Bull, at the Hague , which a man might see every hour of every day, and yet say, “That picture is perfectly inexhaustible.” Subjects when repeated become more instructive if grouped together, as, for instance, three Ecce Homos which I saw in Florence , and, more memorably still, three Mary Magdalenes. These last were by different hands, and I jotted down my ideas of them. The first picture of the penitent Magdalene was dressed in sackcloth, and had ashes cast upon her head, and I thought it “theatrical,” and considered how often penitence is acted, and how persons imagine that they are repentant before God when they have only assumed the tones and repeated the words supposed to be appropriate to repentance. Then I saw another Magdalene whose tears were plentiful, but they made her more lovely than she would have been without them, which she seemed to know, and she had evidently arranged her dress and her hair with the view to the display of her beauty; I thought, “Here is a divided heart; true penitence swallows up all things else. There is no thought in a broken heart beyond its sin and its need of a Saviour.” Then came the third painting, in which the one idea is contrition, holy grief, deep humiliation. Grief had absorbed her: she was only a living tear. She lived but to sorrow, because she had lived to sin. May we all have repentance such as that, and if faith be mingled with it all shall be well.

Have I not this time given you a sufficiency about pictures? and yet I dare say I shall be censured even more than before.

On leaving Brussels , we happened to travel by a train which also carried the Queen of Belgium. There was a carpet laid down through the station, and a number of very respectable ladies and gentlemen stood along the edge of that carpet, until presently the king and queen arrived. I, of course, was ready to join in the usual hurrah, but I was very much surprised to find that not a single sound was uttered. Every hat was taken off in the most courteous manner, and the deepest respect was manifested, but the hearty enthusiastic cheer of Englishmen was not heard. This just shows us that a Quaker by his silence may as acceptably show his loyalty to King Jesus as the Methodist when he shouts. I have no doubt that the Belgian is just as loyal as the Englishman, but he has another way of showing it. I am afraid that I shall never make a good, quiet Quaker; and I am glad, therefore, that my loyalty to my Lord is not forbidden to sound forth his praises with a loud voice.

We journeyed from Brussels to Cologne through the busy hives of working people, who are our worthy competitors in manufacturing industries. Cologne had all the greater interest because there had just been held in it that conference of “Old Catholics,” from which we trust great things may yet come. It was a very important gathering of men whose minds are beginning to move; they had at first said that they were Catholics up to the point in which the church stood when the Pope declared his infallibility, but they refused to accept that dogma. It was something—that they were Catholics who would stop somewhere, and were not prepared to go the whole hog of Popery, with all its bristles. But when they met in Cologne they had advanced further towards the true position, for they met as Catholics whose basis of belief was the Holy Scriptures and the decrees of the first general councils. We should have been glad if they could have left the councils alone, but since the first councils taught little or no error, their standing as Old Catholics when they met at Cologne was a very hopeful one. Now, I have nothing to say, and do not intend to say anything, about the bones of the eleven thousand virgins and the other precious relics of Cologne , but I rejoice that life has come so near to all that mass of corruption. We need say nothing of the eau de Cologne , or the Cologne odour, or the unfinished cathedral, or the rushing Rhone; but we will all rejoice that in the presence of clergymen and Nonconformist ministers from England , and Christians from other lands, eminent Catholics met to prove that they were men and not the dupes of a degrading superstition.

It rained, it rained, it rained, it rained, and continued still to rain! Hidden were the beauties of the Rhine and its vine-clad hills. At Mayence in the evening we sauntered across the bridge of boats when, for a brief space, the deluge ceased. Next morning on we pushed southward from Mayence to Munich , favoured with a lovely day, stolen from some other part of the year. Much of the way was dull enough, but when we began to ascend the mountains and follow the watercourses, then the traveller was amply repaid. The river gradually decreased to a brook, having formed many a pool and broad expanse of water, and leaped down many a cascade. I love those long unbroken solitudes, which seemed startled by the rushing train; the sight of hill and forest is refreshing to a weary brain. I take no little interest in that odd old-fashioned bird—the heron. He preaches to me the doctrine of perseverance. We saw many as we rode along, standing in the water, still and motionless as if they were stuffed birds. They will so stand hour after hour and never seem to move; and when, at last, a fish goes by, down goes that terrible bill, the fish is captured, and the fisher becomes again as motionless as before until he is satisfied. If a bird can continue thus watching for a little fish, we who are fishers for men ought to be willing to watch long for souls—ay, for months and years—if by any means we may save one of them. The bird teaches us solitary perseverance—perseverance where there is none to say to us. “It is well done that thou hast laboured so long.” Perseverance which stays itself upon God and looks for its recompense of reward from him only; this is what we need.

Munich , the capital of Bavaria , is indeed a fine city. Some one calls it “a golden saddle on a poor horse,” for the district all around is excessively dreary, while the city itself is fair to look upon, and its architecture has much about it of classical taste. There is a remarkable place called the Hall of Fame, situated upon a vast racecourse, in which there are statues of the great men of the country; and in front of it stands a colossal statue of Bavaria . The bronze statue is sixty feet high, apart from the pedestal on which it stands, and its interior can be ascended by an iron staircase. When I was once inside I felt content to hold a candle below while my young and enterprising friends climbed into the head of the great statue. I think they entered the nose, but I did not hear a sneeze, nor did I learn that the fair impersonation of Bavaria has been troubled with inflammation of the brain. When you are inside the statue you can form no notion of its beauty, and might go away complaining that it was a dreary affair; and yet it is not so. I wonder whether those profound theologians who penetrate every subject, and worry themselves to see the metaphysics of every question, have much of an idea of the glory and beauty of the gospel? I think I understood that statue of Bavaria when I was half a hundred yards off, and looked up at it wonderingly, as a little child would have done, and as it was meant to be looked at, far better than when I began to pry into the interior of its vast mass of bronze. And so when a penitent eye looks to the Saviour simply, in a childlike way, knowing him to be ready to forgive, it has a better idea of the true Christ than it could gather from all the disquisitions of the learned, or even from the much talked of Athanasian creed.

In a fine church called the Basilica of Munich, there is a movable pulpit which can be pushed backwards and forwards on rails, similar to a railway car. It would be a capital thing for a Church of England edifice. They could have it placed in one particular part for the Ritualist, and then they could shift it for the Evangelical, and move it again for the Broad Churchman. The Establishment seems to want some convenient arrangement for shifting its creeds, its catechism, and its articles, so as to accommodate the various sects within it. The movable pulpit is not patented, and is mentioned as a suggestion to meet a growing difficulty. For our part we are content with one form of faith from the first of January to the end of December; we have one definite doctrine to preach, and not three or four opposite schemes with which to puzzle and bewilder men’s souls.

In the Cathedral of Munich there is a remarkable spot to which I was taken, where, if you stand just there and nowhere else, you can only see one window in the whole building. If you were to stand in another place you could see seven or eight, but just there you see but one. Are there not friends of ours who persist in standing where they can see only one truth? All the other truths which light up God’s great cathedral of revelation they have not seen, and do not wish to hear of. Is it wise to shut your eyes to any part of the gospel? Is there not danger of exaggerating what we do see till it almost swells into an error, while other points, which are equally important, cease to benefit us?

A singular institution is found in Munich with regard to burial. The body is very soon taken from the house after death and placed in a suitable resting place, where wires or cords are attached to the fingers and hands, so that in case the death should not be real, the least motion would ring certain bells, and proper persons who are always ready, would use every means to restore the almost departed life. A gentleman told me that an apothecary in Munich had been laid out as dead, and to the intense surprise of his wife, and also I hope to her delight, he walked home in the middle of the night, knocked at the door and entered, to live there for years in excellent health. Though one speaks of the institution as singular, there is much about it which commends it to common sense. Every means should be taken to prevent any person from being buried alive; yet I have known that horrible thing to be done spiritually. Persons have been given up for hopeless who were not hopeless after all. I would recommend teachers— Ragged School teachers especially—never to bury any of the young incorrigibles till they are dead; and advise temperance men never to give up a drunkard till he is dead. Never say that a man is incapable of reformation, never believe that he cannot be saved, until the iron gates of death are shut upon him. Let that suffice for Munich .

From Munich we travelled to Botzen, in the Tyrol , over the Brenner, by night. There was no train during the day by which we could go over the pass, though we had hoped to see it. There was no starting except at eleven o’clock at night, and travelling till seven or eight in the morning. I do not thank the genius who invented travelling over the most delightful scenery in the dead of night. What do they suppose we go abroad for if we are to be carried over mountains in the dark? It would have been idle to imitate our American Cousin, who is said to have traversed the Simplon by night and to have held up the carriage lamp to see the scenery. We had not that option, for we could not have got out one of the railway lamps if we had tried. To hear the gospel and not to understand it is a far sadder case, it is travelling through the beauties of divine revelation in the dark.

At two or three in the morning, when some of us had dropped off into a gentle slumber, we were hauled out of the train and overhauled, to see if we were importing anything contraband into the Austrian empire. It is very awkward to be in a country where they do not speak an understandable language, but make a noise in which sounds like “Yah, yah,” and “Och, och,” are most abundant. It was called German, and I am told it is the most beautiful language conceivable, but, as I did not understand a word, the beauty of it was lost through my ignorance. I asked what I was to do, and where I was to go, and everybody said “Yah, yah,” and that was about all. Perhaps I ought to have learned German, but it has taken me a long time to master my own tongue, and I am afraid you will not allow me enough leisure to become proficient in another. I would, however, earnestly urge all young men to acquire German and French. They will be of use to them in a thousand ways.

The morning found us at Botzen—a lovely town among the Tyrolese Alps. I had been there before in fine weather; this time its beauties were veiled in clouds. There was no chance of going anywhere, except to the Cathedral, which is just across the road from the inn called the Kaiser Krone, where we stayed. We entered the large edifice in the evening, when the sun was just gone down, and a strange spectacle awaited us. The place was crowded, so far as I could see. There were bright lights upon the altar, but all the rest was in darkness, save where a few candles, held in the hands of the richer worshippers, shed a feeble ray. There were no lights provided by the church, but those who could afford it brought tapers with them. Perhaps one in twenty of the people had a candle, and the effect was very remarkable. I thought of you and this congregation, and I wondered how many there were of my people who carried light, and how many there were who were sitting in darkness. I reflected, that those who had light were a blessing to their neighbours, and, therefore, we should all strive to enlighten our fellowmen. The music ceased, the grand service was over, the candles at the altar were put out suddenly, the little boys in surplices all went away swinging their censers, the priests were all gone, and we thought the whole matter was over; but the congregation remained, and there followed a sort of prayer meeting after the service; I suppose that is very much what it amounted to. A poor man stood up in one of the pews and repeated certain prayers, and all the people followed. They had been silent before, when the performance at the altar was going on, but when the priests were gone, they joined earnestly in reverent worship. I know not how far it may have been spiritual worship: God alone knows that; but, to me, it seemed thoroughly earnest and hearty; and I liked it all the better because I hoped the people were going straight to God without priests to block the way. May God answer every sincere prayer which then rose to heaven.

I wish we had time to talk of the wonderful excursions which may be made from Botzen and which I enjoyed on a former occasion, but this time the weather confined our walks to the town. There I noted one little incident, which illustrates a Scriptural text. A man was breaking in a young bullock, with much difficulty, for it was “a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.” He was put side by side with another, but he did not like it at all, and the ox he was yoked with, though a very steady looking creature, was evidently troubled. He did not enjoy being “unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” I hope you see the lesson. Yet it was good for the bullock to be trained while young, even as “it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Let us rejoice if grace early prepared us for God’s service. I have seen two bullocks standing still in the street yoked together, and one of them has appeared to me to turn his great glistening eyes upon the other, and ask the question “shall we lie down?” and then they have mutely arranged matters and both have taken their ease; and then, after awhile, when one of them has wanted to rise, they have both risen at the same time. Now Paul speaks of a certain brother as “a true yoke-fellow,” and it is a great thing when we are yoked for life with those who have a kindred spirit,—a oneness of heart, a spiritual unity of soul; but it must be a dreadful thing indeed to be unequally yoked with one who is of another mind, especially in religion.

I learned also a lesson which I mention to you who are members of my congregation, because I believe you will practise it, as indeed you have done hitherto. Botzen stands on the side of a mountain, and streams from its two rivers rush down the sides of the streets. These little streams are covered over with wooden flaps, and when any good housewife has dirt or remains of vegetables to get rid of, she pulls up the flap and pops all her rubbish into it, and away it goes—the stream is so rapid that it is gone at once. When in any church there is a divine impetuosity of earnest piety, the faults and imperfections of the members will be covered by holy charity, carried away, and forgotten, and no ill memories will remain to pollute the sweetness of the fellowship.

I feel some satisfaction in making a parabolic use of water, for it was so excessively plentiful.

A very quiet Sabbath we spent at Botzen, holding our service of praise and prayer and breaking of bread in memory of our dying Lord. This last I hold to be the most blessed of Sabbath exercises, and I never omit it. In the afternoon we walked quietly up a hill which was dedicated as a Calvary , and all along the path were representations of the different scenes of the Saviour’s passion, from the garden to the cross. Two extremely aged women went up the ascent and bowed at every shrine till they reached the summit, where there were three great crosses, with our Lord and the two thieves upon them; there those ancient women knelt for some time. At the same hour, far down in the valley, you could see riflemen practising on the Sabbath afternoon, at the butts, and I thought it very significant:—the old womanhood of popish countries is superstitiously worshipping images, while the manliness of the land is practising with its rifle. It is so in Italy and Germany to a great extent. The Sabbath is disregarded by the very class that we desire to see giving its strength to the service of God, and the religion of the people is rather supported by the ignorant than by persons of intelligence and thought. May it never come to be so among us. May the continental Sunday never cross the Channel.

I must not however linger anywhere. Monday saw us travelling through rains and floods to Verona . River banks were broken, and floods were making havoc. So it was in most of our route, and the last few days of our journey home were especially remarkable for water. Almost all the way from Lyons to Paris there was scarcely a single mile of the road but what was like a narrow isthmus through two all but boundless seas. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, the whole country seemed to be swamped with water, and the houses stood as islands in the sea. To return, however, to the Tyrol and the road to Verona ; mist and cloud were above us, and flood and mud around us. It rained so hard in Verona city that nothing was visible to us except its huge fortifications, which we were glad to look upon as useless now, though once they served to keep Venice in bondage to the Austrians, whom the Venetians loathed. From Verona it is an easy ride to Venice , but in our case a dreary one. Thank God all Italy is now free, may it make a right use of its liberty. When in Venice a few years ago, a gondolier rowed us out beyond the Ledo to sea, and when far from observation he and our Italian courier showed us the colours of Italian liberty, which they wore concealed under their garments. I was glad on this occasion to engage the same man, and to remind him that he had no need to go out to sea this time to show his patriotism. None know right thoroughly the sweets of freedom but those who have wearied under the chain.

I believe that notwithstanding all its past ill fortune Venice will recover a measure of prosperity. It seems formed by nature to be a great port, and already the number of vessels frequenting it has increased. The mail steamers were lying there, and let us hope it prophesies revived trade for that fair bride of the sea.

You know all about Venice , and therefore there is no need to speak much of it. If I say anything it shall be this: having seen most of its churches three times, they strike me as being incomparable in their wealth of marbles and precious things; but I can scarcely conceive how these things can help devotion, they are far more likely to remind one of the lapidary’s shop, and to excite artistic inspection rather than worship. Simplicity, to me at least, world be far more helpful, and I trust with plain unadorned structures we shall always be content. It is very easy to adorn a church till it becomes a museum.

Venice is great in “antiquities,” and we saw some of these lifted into an antiquary’s from a gondola. “There,” said my guide, “they are taking home some new antiquities, just finished, with the last coat of varnish on them hardly dry.” I dare say they passed muster very well as antiquities go nowadays. There is the ancient religion of the Church of Rome, which received its last touch a few months ago when the Pope proclaimed himself infallible. There also is our own venerable Establishment, newly tinkered up by the Bennett judgment. We are told to go back to the Fathers, but why not to the Apostles? We are referred to the Councils, but why not to the New Testament itself? We are reminded of the doctrines of the Reformation, but why not of the teachings of Jesus Christ? If you seek antiquity do not look to these sham-antique churches, but go to the great Author and Finisher of our faith and learn of him.

There is a spot in the porch of St. Mark’s Cathedral which will ever be memorable, for there the Pope put his foot upon the neck of a great German emperor, saying, “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the dragon. The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot.” It is a very different spot from that place where the true head of the church said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;” and a very different spot from any whereon his present Holiness can put his foot, when instead of treading on lions and dragons he is daily groaning because lions and dragons are opening their mouths at him. Let us rejoice that the times are so totally changed that priests are no longer our lords. May Englishmen be wise enough never to put their necks down for them to tread upon again, as they surely will if they have the chance.

It may amuse you if I read a short bit, of what I wrote home from Venice, concerning the swarms of mosquitoes which infested the place even in the month of November; it will, at least, show that all seasons are not equally good for going abroad:—

“A mosquito is the most terrible of beasts. A lion delights in blood, but he does not suck it from living animals, and he does not carefully prolong their tortures. A viper poisons, but he is generally content with one use of his fangs, but these winged serpents bite in a dozen places in succession. My fingers and hands are covered with a series of burning mountains. The creatures are as nearly omnipresent as Satan, which means, that though a mosquito cannot be everywhere, yet no mortal can be sure that he is not near him, or tell where he is not. I do not quarrel with the designs of Providence , but there are great mysteries; and the existence of mosquitoes and Darbyites I must leave, as two inexplicable difficulties. Curtains are a delusion; pastiles are a snare; the creatures are irritated by such attempts to evade their demands, and punish you doubly. O Italy, I have shed my blood for thy sake, and feel a love of thee (or something else) burning in my veins. The sooner I am out of thee, O fair Venice , the better; for thou art deluging me by day, and devouring me by night! I wonder how my two compinions will rise? I shall go by-and-by and look for their remains. It is six o’clock. I have opened my windows, and fresh hordes of mosquitoes are pouring in eager and hungry, but I am up and dressed, and ready for them, and so there will be no more raw man at present for my enthusiastic friends, whose attachments I shall peremptorily decline.”

Between Venice and home we had abundant occasion to remark the “free rivers in a free state ,” as a Roman journal jocosely calls them. The amount of damage done must have been frightful. In some places we saw the vines, the trees, the fences, the hedges, and the soil itself carried away, and widespread devastation as the result. It has been a terrible time for Italy , and wealthy Englishmen will do well to aid the Inundations’ Fund. A country but lately raised from the dead and even now only struggling out of the grave in which despotism had buried it, deserves our sympathy in its troubles. When one sees how the forests are felled and the hills left bare, one does not wonder that there should be floods. Break Nature’s laws, take away any one link of the wonderful chain of God’s creation, and you are sure to suffer for it: and the Italians are suffering for having wastefully cut down the forests and having neglected to plant more trees, and it will take time to undo this mischief. Meanwhile a people who have made such advances as they have done in so short a time, will set all things right, and will soon be able to cope with any difficulties that Nature or Providence may put in their way; but they want help just now.

In Florence , of which I spoke to you last year, there is sure evidence that a change has come over the spirit of the scene when one hears of a statue of the famous Savonarola erected in a most prominent part of the city. He was the great antagonist of Rome before the days of Luther; and now, notwithstanding all the power of Popery, Savonarola is publicly honoured among Italians. I was glad also to see his bust on the Pincian Hill in Rome, where if he could have opened those marble eyes he would have looked right across the valley upon St. Peter’s, and if he could have spoken he would have said, “Proud pontiff, I am not here on sufferance as thou art: Italy loves me.”

If you ask what is the state of religion in Rome , I answer to the best of my knowledge, there is something to rejoice in, but there is also much to sorrow over. It seemed to me on this journey that the churches were very much more deserted than before. Perhaps it was owing to the season, but we went to the Lateran and to Santa Maria Maggiore, and in both of these we saw a priest performing Mass, assisted by a little boy, who held a censer. No one stood by, nor was any one in the church besides two or three visitors who were looking at the monuments and pictures. One man and a half can hardly be very useful at the business when there is no one to be edified, nor even a soul to look on. The dissolution of many monasteries and nunneries has made a vast difference to Rome , and cannot be without an influence for good. The Capuchin monk who showed us the ossary where they place the corpses of the brotherhood in their clothes, and afterwards pick their bones to pieces to make elegant ornaments for the ceiling of the corridor, seemed to take a dreary view of the future. We asked him if he thought his bones would ever beautify that elegant apartment, but he very seriously said that he thought there would be no more buried there, but that they would be obliged to carry them to the cemetery. Considering the claims of common decency and the public health, it is certainly time that this marvel of nature and art were carefully consigned to the grave. Many good people will, no doubt, be shocked to see that mass of rottenness buried in the earth; but revolted humanity demands the sacrifice.

It strikes me also that the wealth of the Romish church will one day prove her weakness. A gentleman who accosted us while we were inspecting some church treasures, said, “Don’t you think the Italians will want another loan shortly?” I said, “I think it very likely.” “Well,” he said, “doesn’t it seem probable that they will melt some of these concerns down?” I could not question the common sense of the remark. The Papal church has grown superlatively rich; she has decorated herself with gems, and gold, and silver; and the necessities of the Italian State may tempt the Parliament to lay its hands on other parts of her property besides that which has already been appropriated. I do not believe that it is to the real gain of any church to be very rich. Provided she gets from the God of Providence that which is necessary to carry on her worship, it may be that her being poor and needy may even add to her strength before God; and in proportion as her gold is little, her spirituality may be more easily maintained. John Bunyan was right when he said, “Gold and the gospel seldom do agree.”

In reference to Italy , we must not imagine that opposition to the Papacy means favour to Protestantism as a religion; the feeling against the Pope is rather political than religious. Our friend Mr. Wall told us that when preaching in a certain city, he found himself very greatly opposed by the priests, and on one occasion his little chapel was daubed all over with filth. Certain members of the Garibaldian Club being informed of this outrage, waited on the priest of the parish, and said to him, “Here is a Baptist preaching here, and someone or other has been fouling his Meeting Room. We do not say that you ordered it to be done, but we do say this, that if it is not cleaned, we will treat the parish church in the same way.” Mr. Wall’s room was, to his great surprise, purified and made as neat as he could desire, but he could not learn from the workman who had sent him, or who would pay him. Now we must not suppose that the Garibaldini had any love for Baptists or Protestants, but they loved liberty and fair play. It did my heart good to hear of Brother Wall preaching in a tent near the fine Piazza del Popolo, or Square of the People. Mr. Van Meter had a large tent given him, so large that he cannot find space to put it all up at once, and Mr. Wall uses a part of it, and frequently preaches in it to crowded congregations of persons anxious to hear the gospel. Mr. Van Meter, when I saw him at Rome , had opened three Sunday Schools, and another was to be started the very night I was there, in the centre street of the three streets which lead to St. Peter’s. I was sorry that I was not well enough to accept his invitation to be present. From neglecting to attend to certain municipal regulations, Mr. Van Meter’s Bible Schools have been closed by the Government until he has complied with the laws, but there can be no fear as to their being opened again. Meanwhile Waldensians, Wesleyans, and the Free Italian Church are fully engaged in preaching the word to the Italians. I have said nothing of the English Churches, but two parties of Episcopalians have churches there, and the Scotch Free Church has one also.

When they see ten or twelve Protestant Churches or Meeting Rooms in full operation in Rome , the lovers of the Inquisition and the old Papal despotism must think they have fallen upon very evil times. Not long ago, from a certain town I shall not mention, the principal officer of the district came to our Baptist friends, Messrs. Cote, Wall, and Van Meter, begging to have a Bible School and the preaching of the gospel in the town; this request has been complied with. To account for that, in a measure, it is fair to say that the gentleman was an earnest Liberal, and was greatly annoyed because the Jesuitical party had gained power in the district. He felt so disgusted at the manner in which the priests domineered over the people, that he and his party desired to learn if there was not something better to be had in the way of religion than that which was brought to them by the priests whom they abhorred. The gospel is now regularly preached in that town, and commands no little attention. Our own Baptist friends have founded several churches in Italian towns, and with God’s blessing, if well supported from sympathizers at home, will accomplish marvels. We rejoice to see our ancient fellow-sufferers, the Waldensians, coming so bravely to the front; nor less to know that Gavazzi and his friends are doing their share in exposing Papal abuses. The Wesleyans are also quite up to their work. I had the great privilege and pleasure of travelling for some days with my beloved friend, Dr. Jobson, who had been to Naples and other cities to lay foundation stones, open chapels, and see to matters in general connected with the Methodist Missions. Some of those princely givers who adorn the Wesleyan body had furnished funds for new buildings.

The brethren in Rome of all denominations are working together in much harmony. There is a Bible Society, to which all the ministers belong, whether they are Waldensians, or Baptists, or Wesleyans, or of the Free Church; and the Religious Tract Society has a depot there in an excellent position, for almost everybody who traverses Rome on business must pass it. Last February there was a fire at this depot, which was believed to have been the work of an incendiary. The fire had taken hold upon a store of wood in a room below the shop, but owing to the construction of the floor the flames did not penetrate to any part of the shop or cause any damage to the books. It was a great deliverance, and we would fain hope that it was not caused by malicious intent, although it is hard to say.

Last year I spoke of the Forum, the Baths of Titus and Caracalla, and all the other marvellous ruins of Rome , and therefore I must only say that we went to see again everything which we have described before, besides many other wonders. To show you how perfectly free one is in Rome, and how large a place the Coliseum is, of which I spoke last time, I may mention that a party of us sat down in that grand edifice and sang the hymn,

Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb?
And shall I blush to own his cause,
Or fear to speak his name.”

And when we had finished it we sang again,

“Jesus’ tremendous name
Puts all our foes to flight.
Jesus the meek, the angry Lamb,
A lion is in fight.”

Then we united in prayer, and I gave the friends a short sermon upon “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth,” remarking that it would have seemed impossible when Christians were devoured by lions on that spot, that all this should become a ruin; yet so it was; and it appears today as if colossal systems of error would never fall, yet fall they must before the power of the Holy Spirit. While we were thus engaged three or four gentlemen passed us with friendly greetings, but no one questioned our liberty to do as we pleased. You are as free in Rome as in London ; that which would have brought imprisonment and suffering upon you if you had tried it but a short time ago, is now protected by the law. Is it not strange that when Rome has shaken off her fetters, and when Popery, though it still lives, is abhorred by the great mass of Romans, the old rags of superstition are gathered up by Englishmen, and worn? and the fetters which the Romans have broken in disdain are now to be endured by Britons, who boast that they never will be slaves? Latimer said that he lit up a candle in England which never could be put out, but surely it needs God’s own power to keep it alight. Is it not sheer madness which makes men labour to bring back the darkness? Can it be that, after all the sufferings and deaths of so many holy men, Popery will return to England, riding in the chariot of England’s national church, and take possession of those very buildings which once were purged as by fire by earnest and vehement spirits? I pray God to make Englishmen Englishmen, and then they will remain Protestants, for if they were but true-hearted, as they used to be, they would never brook that the old superstition should curse them again.

On we went from Rome to Naples . “See Naples and die.” Well, we shall die after having seen it, certainly, but we felt more inclined to live there a little while. Many persons who have seen Naples have been so benefited by the clear air, and so charmed by the beauty of the scenery, that they have altered the proverb into “See Naples and live.” None of us would choose Naples as a constant residence, for though it is very beautiful, and the bay surpasses everything that the eye can light upon, it has many drawbacks. It is a noisy city, full of stir and life, and everybody makes all the noise he possibly can. If human voices are not enough, there is the cracking of whips, the rattling of carriages, the din of bells on the horses, and the grinding of barrel organs. How I wish that those instruments of torture were to be found nowhere else but in Naples . Some humane society should rescue poor afflicted manhood from the torment of hurdy-gurdies; we are ground enough by our daily toils, without the noise of this grinding

Everybody rides in Naples . You can hire a pair of horses for less than a shilling, hence nobody thinks of walking. But what horses! What masses of misery! Good ones there are of course, but of bad steeds the worst are there. Some of them seemed to me to be too far gone to be worth killing, and therefore they let them live on, drag carriages loaded and overloaded, and chew the refuse of the fields. The long roots of weeds, full of dirt and dust, appear to be a favourite kind of fodder. Neapolitans always drive as fast as four legs can go, and load their horses and mules as heavily as possible. To see a two-wheeled public stage piled up with living bodies, is a sight never to be forgotten; they sit on the shafts, hang on to the steps, and would, if they could, ride between the spokes of the wheels. It is a disgrace to the Italian government to allow such shameful cruelties to animals as may be seen everywhere in that city; half the horses ought not to work until their sore places are healed. Those people who are not riding are either selling things in the streets, or talking, singing, quarrelling, cleaning themselves and each other, or lying about the pavements, and begging off passers by. As for beggars they swarm, they make walking or even riding along the streets quite a trial of patience. There are three precepts of the Neapolitan lazzaroni:—First, never do today what you can put off till tomorrow; secondly, never do yourself what you can get anybody else to do; and, thirdly, never pay for anything if you can get it on credit. Those maxims are much more faithfully carried out in Naples than the moral law in England, and are almost as well practised as the famous Arabian motto among the Turks: “My son,” said Ibraim, “Never walk if you can ride; never stand if you can sit; never sit if you can lie down; and never leave any food for tomorrow which you can eat today.” May laziness never be numbered among our national vices, but already a reckless want of forethought and economy is the crying sin of our working classes, so that they cannot be out of work for a month without being reduced to beggary. How few among the masses think of providing for rainy days! We need John Ploughman among us again to remind us that “it is too late to spare when all is spent,” and “he who never looks forward will have to look back with tears in his eyes.”

We are told of the personal beauty of the Neapolitans. Well, they may be very handsome; but there is one thing which nobody can deny—that some of them are the ugliest mortals that ever lived. Are not the old women almost as wrinkled and mummified as King Pharaoh himself after three thousand years drying in a pyramid? In our own country grandmama makes a beautiful picture, but not so there.

Mr. Punch’s inimitable voice saluted us often in the streets, he seems to be an old friend of the Neapolitans, and to be quite as popular among the macaroni eaters as he is here. He was not content to be heard on the land, but rowed alongside the steamer bound for Capri , and sung us one of his most squeaky songs. Rome is a sepulchre compared with Naples , which is a beehive with an excessively large proportion of drones in it. Neither the brightness of the sun, the blueness of the sea, the softness of the air, nor the glory of the scenery, can remove the annoyance which is felt from being pestered with countless beggars. Very little food satisfies the lazzaroni, and to lie in the sun is their chief delight. In Naples everything that can be done out of doors is there performed, besides a good deal which ought not to require to be done indoors or out. The public writer is busy at his desk in the street, chickens are plucked on the doorstep, macaroni hangs out in the road to dry, and even cooking is done upon the pathways. Nobody should be dull in Naples , and indeed nobody seemed to be, except the priests and the poor old women—even the beggars are full of fun.

One of the interesting excursions we made from Naples was to the last lava torrent from Vesuvius. It poured down last April, I think; but it is still hot. On the surface it is cool, and you can walk over it, but there are places where you can gather hot stones which burn the hand, and all underneath there is a great heat. Workmen were laboriously digging out the road which the lava-torrent had completely buried. There were vineyards and gardens up to the very edge of the lava, and I marvelled that they seemed so little scorched. We passed parts of two houses through which the lava torrent had forced its way, dividing them in halves, and there are people living in the remaining halves, who are doing their best to be comfortable. Vesuvius is an awkward neighbour, and must materially affect the price of fire insurance, but a very large population flourishes upon his sides without fear of his eruptions. We passed through a town which is said to have been burned by showers of ashes, or destroyed by lava, some six times; like the Phoenix it rises from its ashes. Such is the love of country and home that men cling to the old spot even though a river of fire may have passed over it. Indeed, the lava, in the course of years, breaks up into such a rich soil, and yields such choice wine, that there is no room for wonder that the people return to cultivate it. Those things terrify us which are uncommon, but a volcano near at hand excites no fear; an eminent observer even lives near the summit, and continued there even during the last eruption. So, too, the terrors of the Lord lose their power to those who, having often heard them, have resolved to dwell at ease in their sins!

Another interesting excursion was to the Island of Capri , where, in the olden times, the Emperor Tiberius held his orgies. This evening a friend living on that island accosted me, telling me that he reads one of my sermons every Sunday, translating it into Italian for the good of others. I wish we had known of his existence on the day of our visit to the island, we would have availed ourselves of the hospitality of his house. As it was, we sat near the shore and watched Vesuvius, and never dreamed of sermon-readers on the rocks above.

Another delightful journey was to Puteoli, where Paul landed when he arrived in Italy as a prisoner bound for Rome . There yet remains a part of that same Appian way by which he was led to the capital, and with great joy I walked along it. All around that region there is much to interest you, for it is everywhere volcanic. Naples stands between two great volcanic regions. On one side is Vesuvius, on the other side the Solfatara, which is an almost extinct volcano. The crater of the Solfatara is overgrown with shrubs and trees, but you soon perceive that beneath the earth all is hollow, for when a man takes a great stone and dashes it upon the ground, the sound could only be produced by a vast hollow. The volcanic fires are not quenched, however, for at one vent steam and the vapour of sulphur are continually rushing forth, causing a great smell as of rotten eggs. This sulphurous vapour is said to be useful to persons afflicted with gout or rheumatism, who are brought there to lie in the steam and smell for a fixed time each day. If they can bear it they ought to recover, but I remember the remark of an old author, that some remedies are as bad as the disease. Very interesting it was to stand at the mouth of this volcano, and to hear the roar within like a thousand steam engines all anxious to blow off steam or burst themselves. The attendant with a long rake fetches out for you beautiful specimens of sulphur, which you pay for, crush up in order to take care of them, and then throw away, because you can get brimstone at home, and do not want to perfume your carpet bag with it. The Solfatara is a novel sight to those who are unacquainted with such things, a striking sight. Near to the Solfatara stands the amphitheatre of Puteoli, where St. Januarius was exposed to the wild beasts, but remained unhurt. He was afterwards decapitated, and, as the Neapolitans are taught, some of his blood was preserved in a vial, which blood liquefies when all things go well, but refuses to do so when the city has not pleased its priests! To us this sounds like monstrous imposture, but by many it is no more doubted than the rising of the sun! That Naples should have been preserved from destruction by Vesuvius, entirely through the power of this precious vial seems to us incredible, yet is the superstition current to this hour. What will not men believe in place of truth? Temples and public buildings in ruins are so plentiful near the amphitheatre, that few travellers can afford time to inspect each one.

In Puteoli are the remains of a vast pier, near to which was the great mole which Caligula built across the bay, a monument of folly and extravagance. Close to this is the spot pointed out as the landing-place of Paul. All around lies the remarkable district which Horace and Virgil have rendered classic. There is Avernus, so easy to descend, so difficult to leave—there is the cave of the Sibyl, and there are the Elysian fields. Avernus and other lakes probably fill up the craters of extinct volcanoes. One of these lakes has been used for the culture of oysters, but poisonous gases escaping from the internal cauldron of the earth rose through the bottom of the lake and killed the oysters. The water is again pure, and oysters can again be had, such as they are. Everywhere are tokens of volcanic action in former times. We saw the Monte Nuova, a mountain which was thrown up in a single night some centuries ago, and now remains as a vast pyramid covered with brushwood. There are signs that the land in that district has gone up and down several times. In the temple of Serapis , especially, you can see the marks of the shell-fish on the pillars, which must have been both under and above water several times. From the shore of the bay of Baiae; ruins are to be seen out at sea under water, and many more are visible from a boat.—A very large portion of the lovely region between Misenum and Sorrento has undergone destructions and overthrows; and when I think of that, and think of Pompeii and Herculaneum (of which I shall now speak in the close), I feel convinced that around that spot was repeated in a measure both the sin and judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, the ancient cities of the plain. This is no fancy, but is attested by historians. The region was, at the time of the great eruption which destroyed Herculaneum , the haunt of pleasure and of vice. I might say that it was the Brighton of Rome, for health and, fashion, but its sin went far beyond that which modern society would tolerate. Midnight orgies and daily dissoluteness made the bay of Baiae and neighbourhood famous, or rather infamous, even in those licentious times. The rich had villas there; and, amid luxury and pleasure, they passed several months of the year, not it would seem without corrupting themselves and others. If you go to Pompeii itself, you will see abundant proofs of the iniquity of mankind in the days of its overthrow. Sins which we dare not mention, and would labour to forget, were mixed up with the common life of the Romans of that age and place. Pompeii itself would seem to have been the city where pomps and vanities were all in all. No books have been found in it, and no abodes of the poor. Books were plentiful at Herculaneum , but not at Pompeii . The place seems to have given up even literature itself, and to have addicted itself to pleasure only. Many of the relics preserved in the museum at Naples are of such a nature that they lead us to endorse the saying of an American divine, who speaking of the burning of the Alexandrian library and the overthrow of Herculaneum and Pompeii, said, “The productions of genius were so defiled with uncleanness, that God, in introducing a new dispensation, determined to deliver the world from the pollution of the preceding age. As when all flesh had corrupted his way, he purified the world by the waters of the flood, so, when genius had covered the earth with images of sin, he overwhelmed the works of ancient civilization with a deluge of barbarism, and consigned the most splendid monuments of literature and art to almost universal oblivion. It was too bad to exist; and he swept it all away with the besom of destruction.”

But I feel that I should tire you by continuing longer; and certainly my own memory fails me; and, therefore, instead of speaking any more, I shall close by reading to you a letter which I wrote home to my wife, which she has kindly lent me. It is the best I can do for you in reference to the marvellous and long-buried city:

“ We have been to Pompeii . We rode there in a carriage and pair, and it took us three hours, almost all of it between long lines of houses, like one continuous street. We passed Herculaneum , but did not enter it, as Pompeii is much larger and far more interesting. Then we went through a town which has, I think, been seven times destroyed by Vesuvius, and is now crowded with people. There we saw the lava under the houses and by the side of them, hard as a rock. The roads are generally paved with great flags of lava stone. Though riding by the shore of the bay, we seldom saw the water, for even there were high walls. Why is it that whenever there is anything lovely to gaze upon, the owners of property are never easy till they have cut off the view? Worst of all, off the stones the white dust was suffocating, and made us all as if we had been for hours in a mill.

We reached Pompeii , however, and I can only say in a word, it outdoes all I have seen before, even in Rome . I walked on, on, on, from twelve o’clock to four without refreshment, lost in wonder amid the miles of streets of this buried city, now silent and open to the gazer’s eye. To convey an idea to you is impossible in a ream of paper. We entered at the Street of the Tombs, which was outside the gate. In it were houses, shops, taverns, a fountain, and several tombs. The house of Biomed we entered, and went “up stairs, down stairs, and into my lady’s chamber,” and then into the cellars where were still the wine bottles leaning against the wall in rows, the bottom, which tapers to a point, being stuck into the ground; the rows being set together and covered with dust, just as bottles are now buried in sawdust. In the cellars, which were immense, and like long tunnels, were found eighteen skeletons of women, who had fled there for shelter. The villa in the Pompeiian Court in the Crystal Palace will give you a good idea of the arrangement of this house, with its central garden, and basin for live fish. In the street outside were several places for seats in the shade, made in great semi-circles, so that a score could rest at once. Near the gate was the niche where the soldier was found who kept the gate while others fled. We could not think of going up and down all the streets, for it would need days to see all. The city was, I should think, a watering-place for the wealthy. No houses of poor persons have yet been found. The roadways were paved with great slabs of stone, which are worn deeply with cart wheels, or chariot wheels. Across the streets were huge stepping-stones, just wide enough to allow wheels to go on each side; but either they had no horses to the cars in these streets, or else they must have been trained to step over the stepping-stones. In some places there were horsing-blocks, and also holes in the kerb-stones to pass a rope through to tie up a horse.

The houses are many of them palaces, and contained great treasures of art, which are now in the museum at Naples , but enough is left in each case to show what they were. Frescoes remain in abundance, and grottoes, garden fountains, and cascades in marble, &c. It is a world of wonders. In one case a noble owner had let the corner of his house to a seller of warm wines, and you see his marble counter and the holes for warming his pots; stains of wine were on the counter when it was uncovered. We saw the back parlour of a drinking shop, with pictures of a non-teetotal character. There were several bakers’ shops; in these were hand-mills, formed of two stones, the upper one hollow, fitting on to a lower one of conical shape. In one of these shops we saw the oven, and a water jar near it, with mills, &c., and in the oven were found eighty-three loaves of bread. There were doctors’ and chemists’ shops, in which were found medicines, and pills being rolled! In the customhouse were standard weights and measures. Soap factories have their evaporating pans remaining. Oil vessels abound, and in one glass vessel oil was found, and still remains. Cookshops had in them all the stewpans, gridirons, and other appliances of the trade. We saw jewellers’ shops, artists’ studios, and grocers’ and drapers’ shops; there were streets of them, with their signs over the doors.

The baths impressed me much, for they had been newly built, and look as if they were opened yesterday. We saw a fine cold plunge bath, with a pipe high up for a douche. A dressing-room with niches for the combs, brushes, and pomades, all of which were there but are now in the Museum. There was also a great brazier of green bronze, with seats round it for the bathers to dry at; a warm bath and a vapour bath all perfect, and ready for use tomorrow.

The Forum was vast, and had in it the fronts of several magnificent temples; the remains reveal its former glory. The pedestals of the statues of the eminent men of the town remain with their names upon them. We saw the tragic and comic theatres, and the amphitheatre which held twenty thousand persons, in which the people were assembled when the eruption came, and from which they escaped, but had to flee to the fields and leave their homes for ever. In the Temple of Isis we saw the places where the priests were concealed when they made the goddess deliver her oracles; we saw the goddess in the Museum, with a pipe at the back of her head, which was fixed in the wall, and was the secret speaking tube. The priests of Isis were found dead at her shrine; one of them with an axe had cut through two walls to get out, but had not succeeded.

In a money-changer’s house we saw his skeleton, lying on its face with outstretched arms: much money was found near him. In the barracks were sixty-three persons, soldiers and officers’ wives. There we saw the stocks which had been used for refractory soldiers. In the street of Mercury, there is a triumphal arch, on which stood a statue of Nero, found nearly perfect. In the great Hall of Justice we found cells under the magistrates’ bench, and in these, three prisoners were found in one iron ring which went round all their waists. They were perhaps waiting to be brought up before the alderman for drinking, and expected to be fined five shillings and costs, but perished like their betters. Very few were destroyed out of so great a city, and these as they are found are preserved if anything remarkable can be seen in them.

I feel ashamed to write so badly on such a theme, but I can do no better; it is too vast a task for me, and I cannot recollect a tithe of it. We saw the diggings still going on, and the mounds of removed rubbish are like great railway embankments. No roofs remain, but the ends of spouts for the rain-water are there in great abundance, like dogs’ and lions’ heads, and other beautiful patterns. No stables are found, but the carts which stood at the inn doors have left their iron tires, the skeletons of the horses, and their bits, to bear witness to their former existence. Skeletons of dogs and cats are there, and in a pan was found a sucking pig all cut up ready for roasting. I saw a pot on a tripod or trivet, and when found water was in it! Before Pompeii was destroyed it had been shaken by earthquakes, and there you may see the lime and the other materials ready for the repairs:

Time and strength failing I must close abruptly, deeply regretting that I could do no better.”