Dadalus and Apollo. 119 And, lastly, Cuma is further distinguished by a relic, though a very disputable one, of a temple famed as the very one dedicated by Dædalus to Apollo, when, after flying through the air with his own made wings, here he first alighted. The first who sail'd in air.-'Tis sung by fame Inscribed to Phoebus. Dryden, 6th Eneid, v. 20. 120 Campo Santo. CHAPTER XXX. CAMPO SANTO-VIRGIL'S TOMB-CHURCH OF SA. MARIA PAR- MONS. LOUIS GAU THE Campo Santo is a singular, and shocking, exhibition. It is the great receptacle for all the dead poor, and for the deceased in the hospitals, &c. and presents a square court, in which are dug 365 deep cavities for the corpses, one of which is opened every day for the reception of all who are brought, and so on with the other pits in succession, to the end of the year. A Monk who, I presume, superintends, accompanied us, and, at our desire, we had the present day's grave opened, and to-morrow's, which of course had not been disturbed for a twelvemonth. All bodies brought hither-men, women, or infants, are totally stripped, and rudely tumbled down in a heap below.-Horrid, revolting, sight! thus to see so many naked corpses, livid, swoln, blotched, tumbled in rude heaps, and strange attitudes, one upon the other; and mingling too with the blood, and viscera, of those anatomized, and previously cut up! The next grave, on looking into it, showed nothing but dried bones-Corruption had fed itself, and nought remained! The horror of such a sight sickens all-yet it is a state of death, unconsciousness, annihilation. We read of the miseries of war, of the horrors of plague; of the wretchedness of famine; we can witness cruelties, and sufferings, heaped by barbarian man upon a generous, faithful, yet defenceless, dumb animal; but we pass on; and we forget what we read, and we regard not what we see. Yet show us the little miseries to which we ourselves may be subjected; the forgotten, mouldering, grave; the darksome vault where we may lie, and rot ;and then, though it be actually a state exempt from suffering, and a state of which we are unconscious; we start, and sicken, and shudder,because it touches ourselves! From hence we walked homeward, and enjoyed such a view as might well dispel all previous melancholy impressions. From the eminence where we stood, the entire city was spread before us; on our left, Vesuvius, its furrows of black ashes streaked with recent snows, and only one little fleecy cloud of curly smoke aspiring to the skies : Torre del Greco, Herculaneum, Pompeii, too, were there; while the broad, expansive, ocean filled up the remotest view, smoother than crystal glass, and studded with the distant, tranquil sail, or lesser fishing-boat, hardly seen from off the shore:-the faint hum of the busy, pleasure-hunting, city would occasionally steal upon the listening ear; and while the proud Castello dell' Uovo stood towering amid the ocean waters, the sun gradually sinking behind its battlements shed a bright orange glow on all the waves, diffusing a soft, and purply, tint upon the distant verdant hills, and on all the luxuriant, tranquil, scenery around. Virgil's Tomb.-After winding up to nearly the top of the Pausylipan Grotto, a door inscribed as the entrance to the Tomb of Virgil leads through vineyards, and orchards, to the sacred spot which once held the mortal remains of the immortal bard. On a stone, distinct from the tomb, is this inscription: Qui cineres? tumuli hæc vestigia? conditur olim Whose tomb? Whose ashes here repose? His tomb we raise Who, erst, did sing of warriors, flocks, and rural lays. Near to this inscription we enter a low, vaulted, brick, chamber where once reposed the urn that held the sacred ashes of Virgil. Now, all seems comparative ruin; not a vestige of the tomb remains; in place of the bay which once so appropriately shaded the grave of the poet, no other verdure appears save the ivy, and the shrubs, which creep through the open window while the sanctity due to the poetic dead is profaned by the ill-placed homage of scribbling so many names, unknown to fame, all around. Though much controversy has arisen as to the authenticity of this place of burial, yet, on the whole, it were reasonable to believe it the genuine spot which all may venerate. There are, moreover, some traditions as to the very sarcophagus which contained his bones (now, seemingly, irrepa rably lost) having once been indisputably on this spot. Much additional interest would, I think, be felt, if, instead of the epitaph quoted, recorded near his tomb, there were inscribed the comprehensive, and modest, distich written by the bard himself some few minutes before his death, beginning Mantua me genuit Proceeding along the coast, or Mergellina, we entered the church dedicated to Sa. Maria Partoriente, or more properly," Al santissimo parto della gran' Madre di Dio," built on the ruins of the favourite, and beautiful, villa of Sannazarius; celebrated in his poems; given to him in the 15th century by Frederic II, of Arragon, to whom the poet was secretary; and which was destroyed by Philibert of Nassau, Prince of Orange, during the |