But, in the midst of all this, there is at bottom a natural cleverness and aptitude, which shows us what such a nation might become if the government devoted its powers to their mental and moral improvement. As there is little education, one finds more originality of character than of wit; but the distinguished men of this country, such as the Abbé Galiani and Caraccioli, possessed, it is said, both pleasantry and reflection--rare union, without which either pedantry or frivolity must prevent men from knowing the true value of things. In some respects the Neapolitans are quite uncivilized; but their vulgarity is not like that of others; their very grossness strikes the imagination. We feel that the African shore is near us. There is something Numidian in the wild cries we hear from all sides. The brown faces, and dresses of red or purple stuff, whose strong colors catch the eye, those ragged cloaks, draped so artistically give something picturesque to the populace, in whom, elsewhere we can but mark the steps of civilization. A certain taste for ornament is here found, contrasted with a total want of all that is useful. The shops are decked with fruit and flowers; some of them have a holy day look, that belongs neither to private plenty nor public felicity; but solely to vivacious fancy, which fain would feast the eye at any rate. The mild clime permits all kinds of laborers to work in the streets. Tailors there make clothes, and cooks pastry--these household tasks performed out of doors much augment the action of the scene. Songs, dances, and noisy sports accompany this spectacle. There never was a country in which the difference between amusement and happiness might be more clearly felt; yet leave the interior for the quays, look on the sea, and Vesuvius, and you forget all that you know of the natives. Oswald and Corinne reached Naples while the eruption still lasted. By day it sent forth but a black smoke, which might be confounded with the clouds; but in the evening, going to the balcony of their abode, they received a most unexpected shock. A flood of fire rolled down to the seas, its flaming waves imitating the rapid succession and indefatigable movement of the ocean's billows. It might be said that nature, though dividing herself into different elements, preserved some traces of her single and primitive design. This phenomenon really makes the heart palpitate. We are so familiarized with the works of heaven, that we scarcely notice them with any new sensation in our prosaic realms; But the wonder which the universe ought to inspire, is suddenly renewed at the sight of a miracle like this; our whole being is agitated by its Maker's power, from which our social connections have turned our thoughts so long; we feel that man is not the world's chief mystery; that a strength independent of his own at once threatens and protects him by a law to him unknown. Oswald and Corinne promised