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not, at first, believe, or picture to ourselves, that this came
rolling in, and drowned the city; and that all that is not
here, has been cut away, by the axe, like solid stone. But
this perceived and understood, the horror and oppression
of its presence are indescribable.

Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless
chambers of both cities, or carefully removed to the mu-
seum at Naples, are as fresh and plain, as if they had
been executed yesterday. Here, are subjects of still life,
as provisions, dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like;
familiar classical stories, or mythological fables, always
forcibly and plainly told; conceits of cupids, quarrelling,
sporting, working at trades; theatrical rehearsals; poets
reading their productions to their friends; inscriptions
chalked upon the walls; political squibs, advertisements,
rough drawings by schoolboys; everything to people and
restore the ancient cities, in the fancy of their wondering
visitor. Furniture, too, you see, of every kind - lamps,
tables, couches; vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking;
workmen's tools, surgical instruments, tickets for the the-
atre, pieces of money, personal ornaments, bunches of
keys found clenched in the grasp of skeletons, helmets
of guards and warriors; little household bells, yet musical
with their old domestic tones.

The least among these objects, lends its aid to swell
the interest of Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect
fascination. The looking, from either ruined city, into
the neighbouring grounds overgrown with beautiful vines
and luxuriant trees; and remembering that house upon

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