The great staircase of the palace of Caserta is much the finest thing of its kind in Europe. It is noble, beautiful, sufficiently light, and admirably proportioned as well as ornamented. The staterooms are good, though not more than half finished. But what palace in Europe _is_ finished? There may be a few, but I suspect that most are not. The Louvre is half a waste, the Pitti has its uncovered arches mouldering with time, and this of Caserta has not more than half of the best rooms in a state fit to be used: still there are enough for so small a kingdom, and more than are furnished. The palace on the exterior is a parallelogram, of seven or eight hundred feet, by five or six hundred. Internally, it has a beautiful distribution of courts, clustered round a central nucleus, which nucleus contains the celebrated staircase. The staircase is on the plan of that in the City Hall, New York, or a single flight at the bottom, which is divided into two after the landing. From Caserta we proceeded to Capua, where we passed the night. Some ruins of no great moment, that are immediately on the highway, are thought to point out the site of ancient Capua, the modern town being about a mile distant. The latter is a mean dirty town, and certainly was not the place that detained Hannibal so long.—By the way, this much-talked-of delay was probably no more than the common expedient of falling back from a wasted to a fertile country to recruit, and, in all probability, was quite as much owing to exhaustion, as to a demoralization of another kind. It is far more likely that his army corrupted Capua, than that Capua corrupted his army. The only specimen we had of Capuan luxury was a guitar at supper. Finding we had lived in Florence, the musician gave us a song in honour of “_Firenze, bella città_.” The guide-books say this word, Firenze, means a red lily in the Etruscan dialect, and it is certain that there is a lily in its arms. The arms of the Medici are literally _pills_,—three _pills_, which were emblazoned all over the place. It is a pity these pills are not a little more active, activity being all that Tuscany wants.