There is one house or villa without the walls, on a much larger scale than any of the others. In a large cellar, or vaulted gallery, belonging to this house, there are a number of amphoræ, or earthen vessels, arranged along the walls; most of them filled with a kind of red substance, supposed to have been wine. This cellar is sunk about two-thirds below the surface of the ground, and is lighted by small narrow windows. I have called it gallery, because it is about twelve feet in width, and is the whole length of two adjoining sides of the square which the villa forms. It was used not only as a repository for wine, but also as a cool retreat for the family during excessive hot weather. Some of this unfortunate family sought shelter in this place from the destructive shower which overwhelmed the town. Eight skeletons, four being those of children, were found here; where they must have met a more cruel and lingering death, than that which they shunned. In one room, the body of a man was found; with an ax in the hand; it is probable he had been endeavouring to cut a passage into the open air; he had broken and pierced the wall, but had expired before he could clear away the surrounding rubbish. Few skeletons were found in the streets, but a considerable number in the houses. Before the decisive shower fell, which smothered the inhabitants of this ill fated city, perhaps such quantities of ashes and cinders were occasionally falling, as frightened, and obliged them to keep within doors. It is impossible to view those skeletons, and reflect on this dreadful catastrophe, without horror and compassion. We cannot think of the inhabitants of a whole town being destroyed at once, without imagining that their fate has been uncommonly severe. But are not the inhabitants of all the towns then existing, of whom we think without any emotion of pity, as completely dead as those of Pompeia? And could we take them one by one, and consider the nature of their deaths, and the circumstances attending that of each individual; some destroyed by painful bodily diseases, some by the torture of the executioner, some bowed to the grave by the weight of accumulated sorrow, and the slow anguish of a broken heart, after having suffered the pangs of dissolution, over and over again, in the death of those they loved, after having beheld the dying agonies of their children; could all this, I say, be appraised, calculated, and compared, the balance of suffering might not be found with the inhabitants of Pompeia, but rather with those of the contemporary cities, who, perhaps at that time, as we do now, lamented its severe fate. LETTER LX. Naples.