er to visit them. The consequence is that no
performer of any consideration or talent is engaged to sing at Rome, except
one or two by chance at the time of the Carnaval. In amends for this you
have a good deal of music at the houses of individuals who hold
_conversazioni_ or assemblies; in which society would flag very much but
for the music, which prevents many a yawn, and which is useful and
indispensable in Italy to make the evening pass, as cards are in England.

I intend to stop several days here on my return from Naples, for which
place I shall start the day after to-morrow having engaged a place in a
_vettura_ for two and half _louis d'or_ and to be _spesato_. I am not to be
deterred from my journey by the many stories of robberies and
assassinations which are said to occur so frequently on that road.

By the bye, talking of robberies and murders, a man was executed the day
before yesterday on the _Piazza del Popolo_ for a triple murder. I saw the
guillotine, which is now the usual mode of punishment, fixed on the centre
of the _Piazza_ and the criminal escorted there by a body of troops; but I
did not stop to witness the decapitation, having no taste for that sort of
_pleasuring_. This man richly deserved his punishment.

[84] These lines are from Voltaire's _Henriade_, a poem which no Frenchman
reads nowadays, but that Major Frye could quote from memory. The
correct reading of the first verse is: _Des pretres fortunes_, etc.
(_Henriade_, canto iv. ed. Kehl, vol. x, p. 97.)--ED.

[85] Horace, _Sat_., 1, 9, 4.--ED.

[86] Lady Elizabeth Hervey, second wife of William, fifth Duke of
Devonshire (1809); died March, 1824.--ED.

[87] A singular slip of the pen; Frye must have known that the equestrian
statue is a Roman work--ED.

[88] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xxxiii, 2, 4.--ED.

[89] See Lucian, _Imag._, iv; _Amores_, xv, xvi.--ED.

[90] Major Frye's description is incorrect in many particulars, on which it
seemed unnecessary to draw attention.--ED.

[91] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, XI, 67, 6.

[92] That colossal marble statue was given to the Duke of Wellington by
Louis XVIII, and is still to be seen in London, at Apsley House.--ED.

CHAPTER XI

From Rome to Naples--Albano--Velletri--The Marshes--Terracina--Mola di
Gaeta--Capua--The streets of Naples--Monuments and Museums--Visit to
Pompeii and ascent to Vesuvius--Dangerous ventures--Puzzuoli and
Baiae--Theatres at N