Our lovers commenced their route by the ruins of Pompeii. Both were silent, for the decisive moment now drew nigh; and the vague hope so long enjoyed, so accordant with the clime, was about to give place to yet unknown reality. Pompeii is the most curious ruin of antiquity. In Rome, one hardly finds any wrecks, save those of public works, associated with the political changes of bygone centuries. In Pompeii, you retrace the private life of the ancients. The volcano which buried it in ashes preserved it from decay. No edifices, exposed to the air, could thus have lasted. Pictures and bronzes keep their primal beauty, while all domestic implements remain in overawing perfection. The amphoras are still decked for the morrow's festival. The flour that was to have been kneaded into cakes is yet there: the remains of a female are adorned for this interrupted fête, her fleshless arm no longer filling the jewelled bracelet that yet hangs about it. Nowhere else can one behold such proofs of death's abrupt invasion. The track of wheels is visible in the streets; and the stone-work of the wells bears the marks of the cords that had worn away their edges by degrees. On the walls of the guard-room are seen the ill-formed letters and rudely-sketched figures which the soldiers had scrawled to beguile their time, while time himself was striding to devour them. When, from the midst of the cross-roads, you see all sides of the town, nearly as it existed of yore, you seem to expect that some one will come from these masterless dwellings: this appearance of life renders the eternal silence of the place still more appalling. Most of the houses are built of lava--and fresh lava destroyed them. The epochs of the world are counted from fall to fall. The thoughts of human beings, toiling by the light that consumed them, fills the breast with melancholy. How long it is since man first lived, suffered, and died! Where can we find the thoughts of the departed? do they still float around these ruins? or are they gathered forever to the heaven of immortality? A few scorched manuscripts, which were partly unrolled at Portici, are all that is left us of these victims to earthquake and volcano. But in drawing near such relics we dread to breathe, lest we should scatter with their dust the noble ideas perhaps impressed on it. The public buildings, even of Pompeii, which was one of the smallest Italian towns, are very handsome. The splendor of the ancients seemed always intended for the general good. Their private houses are small, and decked but by a taste for the fine arts. Their interiors possess agreeable pictures and tasteful mosaic pavements; on many of them, near the door-sill, is inlet the word _Salve_. This salutation was not surely one of simple politeness, but an invitation to hospitality. The rooms are remarkably narrow, with no windows towards the street, nearly all of them opening into a portico, or the marble court round which