we
should, no doubt, be invited to leave "Campania the happy" at a day's
notice; whereas our comfort is, that this day three months it is quite
possible that it will have been read in Bengal!

We are now in the middle of the Bay of Naples; the spot from which
panoramas have been so often sketched on that noble elevation, the deck
of a lofty ship, swinging on her cables. What numberless sites of
unparallelled interest are hence visible to the newly arrived and
insatiable stranger! _Misenum, Baiae, Puteoli, Gaurus, Vesuvius,
Herculaneum, Pompeii_! But the office of the cicerone here cannot--alas
for Britain!--be confined to the old classics, or the mere indication of
places whose very _names_ are things to _conjure with_! In America, we
converse with nature only, whose voice is in her woods and waterfalls;
but, in our threadbare Europe, all _sites_ are _historical_, and chiefly
in one sad sense--for Waterloo only brings up the rear of fields
illustrated by the wholesale destruction of mankind! In the position
which we now occupy, volumes might be written--ay, and _have been
written_.

Look at that proud, impregnable Castle of St Elmo, culminating over all
Naples! Look at those sea-washed fortresses which guard the entrance of
her harbour! The garrisons of those strong places having, in the year
1799, from the turn of public affairs, judged it expedient to capitulate
to Ferdinand and his allies, on conditions which should leave their
honour without blemish, and assure their own safety and that of the
city; and this capitulation having been solemnly accepted and ratified
by _Cardinal Ruffo, as the king's legate and plenipotentiary_, by the
late _Sir Edward Foote_, as acting commodore of the British force, and
by the representatives of _two European governments_, officially
residing in the revolutionized city, and the surrender of the forts
having accordingly taken place, it came to pass, in an evil hour, that
Lord Nelson, entering the bay as commander-_in-chief_, took upon himself
the odious responsibility of rescinding the British guarantee, and of
supporting Ferdinand, powerless but through him, in his refusal to hold
himself bound by a convention made _by his own viceroy_!--thus
delivering over the defenceless city to its own implacable sovereign.
Then came a political persecution unknown in the annals of mankind;
till, _hebetes lasso lictore secures_, even Naples could bear no more!
The noblest blood and the most dis