THE view on approaching Naples from the sea,its magnificent bay, and its sweeping amphitheatre of a glowing land on which nature and art have alike lavished their profusest treasures, has more the startling aspect of a vision than of mere reality, such is the air of enchantment that seems to invest every object, and throw fresh brilliancy into every prospect, near or remote. Castles, convents, spires, temples and palaces, glowing gardens, green sunny isles, and romantic shores, the syren retreats of the world's masters, of the sword or of the lyre, open around you on all sides; while the most vivid colours, attractive forms, and fervid spirit of life and animation, filling the imagination and dazzling the sight, seem no where to proclaim that here, in the bosom of scenes like these, is the mighty cemetery

* Un pezzo di cielo cadatu in terra.

SANNAZARO.

of cities and of kings. Nature, in all her beauty and majesty, is still as lavish of her flowers and fruits; still asserts her everlasting reign through the far solitudes of her hills and lakes and woods, and blooms again over the ruins of the wild,-the sole immortal queen surviving the triumphs of Death and Time. It is man only and his works that are the sport of destiny:-a tradition, a relic, and a tomb, and their brief history is told.

One of the most conspicuous objects that first arrests the eye is the castle of St. Elmo, towering from its rock-based eminence over the city and the sea. It is close to the Carthusian monastery, and was erected by Charles V., to hold in awe the subject town in quiet submission to Spanish sway. Nearer and more ancient, rises Castle Vovo, so called from its oval form, and said to have been built by William III. of Normandy, upon a rock in the sea. The third is Castle Nuovo, the work of Charles of Anjou, who aspired to the Neapolitan crown. It is situated near the mole, and being on a level with the town and sea, commands a view of both. Formerly these castles stood bristling with cannon, the great and final argument of kings; and it has been quaintly observed, by an old traveller, "that such a wanton courser as Naples is not to be ridden with snaffles; it hath often plunged under the King of Spain, but could never fling him quite out of the saddle, merce a gli tre castelli." On the sweep of the left shore is seen the Chiaja, and public gardens opening to the Strada Nuova, and near which so many English now reside. Beyond these lies the