the
King's chase and full of wild boars--is one of the most beautiful
and curious places about Naples. Milton's description of the
approach to Eden applies exactly to Astroni; if ever he saw it it
is likely that he meant to describe it--

To the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides,
With thicket overgrown, grotesque, and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view.

It is an immense crater of a volcano, the amphitheatre quite
unbroken, and larger than that of Vesuvius, but covered with
wood, and the bottom with very fine trees of various sorts and
with fern--very wild and picturesque. There are several little
hillocks, supposed to have been small craters; but although it is
proved that this was a volcano from the lava under the soil and
from its shape, there is no mention of it as an active volcano,
and nobody can tell how many thousand years ago it was in
operation. The King, with his usual good taste, is cutting down
the finest trees, and has made a ride round the bottom, which he
has planted with poplars in a double row, spoiling as much as he
can all the beauty of the place. They dined in a shady arbour,
made on purpose with branches of trees bound together, and on
beds of fern, were very merry, pelting each other with oranges
and cherries, and dealing about an abundance of manual jests.

_Evening._--I have taken my last ride and last look at Naples,
and am surprised at the sorrow I feel at quitting it, as I fear,
for ever. Rode again to Astroni with Morier, and walked through
the wood and tried to scale one of the sides of the mountain, but
lost the path, and could only get half-way up; it is the most
beautiful place about Naples. Came back by the Strada Nuova, and
saw for the last time that delicious Bay with its coast and its
islands, which are as deeply imprinted on my memory as if I had
passed my life among them. To-night I have stood once more by the
shore, and could almost have cried to think I should never see it
again--

The smooth, surface of this summer sea--

nor breathe this delicious ai