, and the honour being claimed by no other
spot. When there is probability it is unwise to be so very
sceptical: take away names, and what are the places themselves?
Here not much, at Rome nothing.

[Page Head: RUINS ABOUT NAPLES]

Thursday. {p.348}

Went a long and most beautiful ride up to the Camaldoli, from
which the view extends over sea and land to an immense distance
in every direction.

Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various views.

The convent was once very rich, but the French stripped all the
convents of their property, which they have never since
recovered. It is remarkably clean and spacious. Each monk has a
house of his own containing two or three little rooms, and a
little garden, and they only eat together on particular days. The
old man who took us about said he had been there since he was
eighteen, had been turned out by the French, but came back as
soon as he could, and had never regretted becoming a monk. He
showed me a bust of the founder of their order (I think San
Romualdo), and when I asked him how many years ago it was
founded, he said, 'Perhaps 2,000.' I said when I became a monk I
would go to that convent, when he asked very seriously if I was
going to be a monk. I said, 'Not just yet.' 'Very well,' he said;
'you must pay 120 ducats, and you can come here.' We went down a
road cut for miles in the mountain, very narrow and steep,
through shady lanes, groves, and vineyards (with magnificent
views), through Pianura to Pozzuoli, entering by the old Roman
road and Street of Tombs. The _columbaria_ in the Street of Tombs
are the best worth seeing _ejus generis_ of any. Went to the
Temple of Jupiter Serapis, of which there are very curious
remains.

Hard by the reverent ruins
Of a once glorious temple, reared to Jove,
Whose very rubbish (like the pitied fall
Of virtue, most unfortunate) yet bears
A deathless majesty, though now quite rased,
Hurl'd down by wrath and lust of impious kings,
So that where holy Flamens wont to sing
Sweet hymns to Heaven, there the daw and crow,
The ill-voiced raven, and still chattering pie
Send out ungrateful sounds.
MARSTON.

To the ruins of the Amphitheatre, from the top of which there is
one of the finest views I ever saw of the Bay of