plants; a large and handsome
street, containing many fine houses, adjoins it on one side. I also
rode to the Vomero, on which are erected the king's pleasure-palace
and a small convent. A glorious prospect here unfolds itself:
Naples with its bay, Puzzoli, and a number of beautiful islands, the
lake Agnaro, the extinct craters of Solfatara, Baiae, Vesuvius with
its chain of mountains, and the stupendous ocean, lie grouped, in
varied forms and gorgeously blending colours, before the gaze of the
astonished spectator. This is the place of which the Neapolitans
say, with some justice, "Hither should men come, and gaze, and die!"

Still the prospects from St. Rosalia's Mount, and from the royal
palace Favorita at Palermo, had pleased me better; for there the
beauties of nature are more crowded together, are nearer to the
spectator: he can obtain a more complete view of them, while in
varied gorgeousness they do not yield the palm even to the fairy
pictures of Naples.

I more than once spent half a day in the Academy "degli Studii," for
in this place much was to be seen. The entrance to the building is
indescribably beautiful; both the portico and the handsome
staircases are ornamented with statues and busts executed in most
artistic style. A door on the right leads us to a hall in which the
paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum are displayed; several of
these relics have no small pretensions to beauty, and the colours of
almost all are still wonderfully bright and fresh. In the great
hall at the end of the courtyard we find on one side the Farnese
Hercules, and on the other the Bull, both works of the Athenian
Glycon. These two antiques, particularly the latter, have been in a
great measure restored.

The gallery of great bronzes is considered the first in the world,
for here we find united the finest works of ancient times. So many
beautiful creations of art were here brought together, that if I
attempted a description of them I should not know where to begin.

Opposite the gallery of bronzes is that allotted to the marbles,
among which a beautiful Venus stands prominently forth.

In the gallery of Flora, a statue of the same goddess, called the
Farnese, is also the principal attraction.

A statue of Apollo playing on the lyre, of porphyry, is the greatest
masterpiece in the hall of coloured marbles; while in the gallery of
the Muses a basin of Athenian porphyry occupies the first place.

In the Adonis r