Lord Dudley to the Bishop of Llandaff-Rome, and Remains of Ancient Art. above all, to cleanse away the Augean filth of this imperial city. He had already directed his attention to all these objects, and in a few years Rome would have assumed quite a new aspect, and, in my opinion at least, the loss of all that was taken away would have been more than compensated by the improvement of what remains. Consider, for instance, if you happen to have a plan of Rome, what an effect would have been produced, in one single instance, by throwing down the wretched houses that now come up to the colonnade of St. Peter's, and opening a magnificent street to the Castle of St. Angelo and the Tiber. But the whole spirit of improvement is gone, and indeed the power. The Pope is too poor to employ money in building. Indeed, if they don't give him back the March, he will hardly have enough to carry on his government even on its present frugal plan. 66 The mention of His Holiness puts me in mind that there are several English Catholics here: Milner represents the violent party, but those of moderate sentiments have prevailed. Milner is not at all in favor, and the Pope has declared plainly and without reserve in favor of the veto. He says the King of Prussia has it, and he sees no reason why the King of England should not have it. I wonder what effect this will have on the red-hot Irish. Will they pretend to be better Papists than the Pope? I know that in France they used to complain que le Roi n'etoit pas assez royaliste." What I have seen does not incline me to think very highly either of society or of learning at Rome. But then I have not seen a great deal. I fancy there are several pretty good Latin scholars here. In fact, it is the language both of the law and the religion of the place, and the Pope's correspondence is still carried on in it. No unfavorable specimen of pontificial Latin appeared the other day in a letter of His Holiness. * * * * Percy B. Shelley to T. L. P.-Pompeii. The winter here is a great deal better than it is in England, but still it is winter. The few last days have been particularly bad-thunder, lightning, rain, hail, and snow. But this is everywhere on our hemisphere the worst month of the year. I shall not stir till February, and then go to Naples. Our English society here is quite excellent. The Italian post is everywhere execrably irregular. I am quite persuaded that several letters to me must have been lost. I shall send this by a private hand as far as Paris, so that it will probably reach you. I see there has been an unusually active session before Christmas-my old friends the Whigs all alive again, and in Castlereagh's absence making minced-meat of Van & Co. I am not sorry for it. A government should never have things entirely its own way. Direct me at Perregeaux, or, if there is any difficulty of sending a foreign letter from Oxford, under cover, to John Benbow, Esq., Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn. Believe me, my dear Copleston, ever most sincerely yours, G. W. W. Since you last heard from me we have been to see Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return of spring weather, to visit, * Pompeii, says Lord Dudley, "may be considered as a town potted about seventeen hundred years ago for the use of the antiquarians of the present century. You may easily conceive how much one's notions of the state of things in the ancient world are helped by a mere glimpse of this singular remain. When, in the course of their labors, the workmen had got to any spot which seemed to be particularly interesting, notice was sent to the court, which generally attended to watch the result.” Percy B. Shelley to T. L. P.-Pompeii. first, Pæstum, and then the islands; after which we shall return to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of this city; I had no conception of any thing so perfect yet remaining. My idea of the mode of its destruction was this: first, an earthquake shattered it, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its columns; then a rain of light, small pumice-stones fell; then torrents of boiling water, mixed with ashes, filled up all its crevices. A wide, flat hill, from which the city was excavated, is now covered by thick woods, and you see the tombs and the theatres, the temples and the houses, surrounded by the uninhabited wilderness. We entered the town from the side towards the sea, and first saw two theatres; one more magnificent than the other, strewn with the ruins of the white marble which formed their seats and cornices, wrought with deep, bold sculpture. In the front, between the stage and the seats, is the circular space occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage is very narrow, but long, and divided from this space by a narrow enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for the orchestra. On each side are the consuls' boxes, and below, in the theatre at Herculaneum, were found two equestrian statues of admirable workmanship, occupying the same place as the great bronze lamps did at Drury Lane. The smallest of the theatres is said to have been comic, though I should doubt. From both you see, as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful beauty. You then pass through the ancient streets; they are very narrow, and the houses rather small, but all constructed on an admirable plan, especially for this climate. The rooms are built round a court, or sometimes two, according to the extent of the house. In the midst is a fountain, sometimes surrounded with a portico, supported on fluted columns of white stucco; the floor is Percy B. Shelley to T. L. P.-Pompeii. paved with mosaic, sometimes wrought in imitation of vine-leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, and more or less beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabitant. There were paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to decorate the royal museums. Little winged figures, and small ornaments of exquisite elegance, yet remain. There is an ideal life in the forms of these paintings of an incomparable loveliness, though most are evidently the work of very inferior artists. It seems as if, from the atmosphere of mental beauty which surrounded them, every human being caught a splendor not his own. In one house you see how the bed-rooms were managed: a small sofa was built up, where the cushions were placed; two pictures, one representing Diana and Endymion, the other Venus and Mars, decorate the chamber ; and a little niche, which contains the statue of a domestic god. The floor is composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper, and porphyry; it looks to the marble fountain and the snow-white columns, whose entablatures strew the floor of the portico they supported. The houses have only one story, and the apartments, though not large, are very lofty. A great advantage results from this, wholly unknown in our cities. The public buildings, whose ruins are now forests, as it were, of white fluted columns, and which then supported entablatures loaded with sculptures, were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses. This was the excellence of the ancients. Their private expenses were comparatively moderate: the dwelling of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with most beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants), it is wonderful to see the Percy B. Shelley to T. L. P.-Pompeii. number and the grandeur of their public buildings. Another advantage, too, is that, in the present case, the glorious scenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeians could contemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven; could see the moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with an atmosphere of golden vapor, between Inarime and Misenum. We next saw the temples. Of the temple of Æsculapius little remains but an altar of black stone, adorned with a cornice imitating the scales of a serpent. His statue, in terra-cotta, was found in the cell. The temple of Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a portico of fluted columns, and in the area around it are two altars, and many ceppi for statues, and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most exquisite proportion; its panels are adorned with figures in bas-relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most delicate and perfect that can be conceived. They are Egyptian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has harmonized all the unnatural extravagances of the original conception into the supernatural loveliness of his country's genius. They scarcely touch the ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes seem in the place of wings. The temple in the midst, raised on a high platform and approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some of which we saw in the museum at Portici. It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it. Thence, through other porticos and labyrinths of walls and columns (for I cannot hope to detail every thing to you), we came to the Forum. This is a large square, surrounded by |