I have given you this description of the country, in order not to interrupt by it the account of its antiquities, to which I will now proceed. I had formed the most sanguine expectations of the beauty of the edifices, and I was not disappointed. First-rate productions never disappoint us, if we have formed a tolerably precise idea of what we are to see. It is the expectation, not of the object, but of being surprised and delighted, without any distinct notion of why this is to happen, which is disappointed; and indeed the state of mind seems almost to ensure that feeling, since it most readily takes place with those whose previous habits have not led them to feel much interest in the objects they are about to visit. At Rome we see abundance of antiquities scattered about the streets, or collected in museums, or still standing in their original situations; and many of these are very beautiful both in design and workmanship. About Naples too, there is an abundance of ancient fragments, but for the most part, what remain on the ground are mere walls and vaults of coarse stone, too imperfect to exhibit design, and entirely without anything that may be called architecture; one may ramble for hours among ruins without meeting with even a fragment of a column, or a bit of marble. The temple at Pozzuoli forms an exception, but there, though you have many of the parts, you have very little of the effect of the architecture. The same is in some degree true of Pompei, arising from the total deficiency of the superior parts, yet Pompei, as far as it goes, is an admirable school of architecture, exhibiting the manner in which the ancients, at least the Italian Greeks, applied their style of building to private habitations. But there is nothing at Pompei of the higher and more perfect style; and in general we find the execution very indifferent, and in some instances miserably bad, even in their temples. From Naples to Corfu, we meet with, I may almost say, no antiquities. In the Ionian islands we may seek out with difficulty a few remaining portions of a wall, a bit or two of a cornice, and one or two inscriptions. At Patras they shew a single Corinthian capital of indifferent workmanship; and in the road thence to Corinth, there is nothing to be met with but one or two insignificant scraps of wall. At the time therefore of our arrival at Corinth, we had experienced a long abstinence from the principal object of our pursuit, and we were pleased merely with the sight of the fragments of marble which are abundantly scattered over the fields in the neighbourhood of that city, and still more with one or two pieces of Corinthian shafts in the town, and with the six Doric columns still erect, which have formed part of a temple. At Cenchrea we were too late to see anything, and too impatient to get to Athens, to stop to look about us at the Piræus. From that port we could just see the top of the temple of Minerva in the Acropolis, a