every
season of the year, and even on a winter's afternoon the air often
shimmers with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is the use of an
umbrella so necessary or desirable as at Pompeii.

What an ideal spot for the founding of a city! That is our first
impression, as we glance across the broad sunlit enclosure on to the
empurpled slopes of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns of
the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind us, we know, is the azure
Bay with Capri and the Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so
that we stand between sea and mountain to north and south, whilst we have
the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to westward, and to the east the rich
valley of the Sarno, thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us--Life; it will be our duty
and pleasure to re-invest as far as possible this empty space before us
with the semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and out of its
colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in imagination its shapeless ruins,
so that we may obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in early
Imperial days.

[Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII]

Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long bare stretch flanked
by broken walls and strewn with shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an
immense double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample protection
against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong pavement whereon are set
numerous statues of emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty
positions of honour above the heads of the surging throng below. Imagine
that group of shattered pillars, which obstructs our full view of the
distant cone of Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple, covered
with polychrome decoration, not in the best of taste according to our
modern ideas of art, but gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of
the south. Rebuild, in the mind's eye, the Basilica and the temple of
Apollo on the left, and straight before us, as we look forward from our
coign of vantage at the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius and Agrippina to form our
foreground. If we can construct by stress of fancy some such setting of
classical architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding and graceful
in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian Forum with the masses of
humanity that once mingled here. For we have t