“If, from the town, you turn your eyes to the east, you see the rich plains leading to Mount Vesuvius and Portici. If you look to the west, you have the grotto of Pausilippo, the mountain on which Virgil’s tomb is placed, the fields leading to Puzzoli, and the coast of Baia. On the north, are the fertile hills, gradually rising from the shore to the Campagna Felice. On the south is the bay, confined by the two promontaries of Misenum and Minerva; the view being terminated by the island of Procida, Ischia, and Caprea; and as you ascend to the castle of St. Elmo, which is situated on a mountain of the same name, you have all these objects under your eye at once, with the addition of a great part of the Campagna. “Independent of its happy situation, Naples is a very beautiful city. The style of architecture it may be confessed, is superior to what prevails at Rome; but though Naples cannot vie with that city, in the number of palaces, or in the grandeur or magnificence of the churches, the private houses, in general, are better built, and more uniformly convenient; the streets are broader, and better paved. No street in Rome equals in beauty the Strada di Toledo at Naples; and still less can any of them be compared with those beautiful streets which open to the bay. This is the native country of the Zephyrs; here the excessive heat of the sun is often tempered with sea breezes, and with gales, wafting the perfumes of the Campagna Felice. “The houses in general are five or six stories high, and flat at the top; on which are placed numbers of flower vases, or fruit-trees, in boxes of earth, producing a very gay and agreeable effect. “The garrison stationed at the fortress of St. Elmo have the entire command of the town, and could lay it in ashes at pleasure, being built on the mountain of the same name. A little lower on the same mountain is a convent of Carthusians. The situation of this convent is as advantageous and beautiful as can be imagined; and much expense has been lavished to render the building, the apartments, and the gardens, equal to the situation.” On the morning which succeeded my arrival, (Saturday, March 5th), after engaging a _servitore de piazza_, and delivering some letters of introduction, I had the good fortune to arrange with one gentleman, Dr. K⸺, whom I called upon with the latter view, to be accommodated with apartments in his house; and farther, we agreed to mess together, whenever it suited our convenience to dine at home; under which arrangement, we continued to live in all possible harmony, during the remainder of my stay in Naples. As the doctor dined out on the following day, I preferred taking my repast at a trattoria’s, called the Villa de Paregi, and had the unexpected pleasure of being placed between two gentlemen, brothers, whom I had known at Nice. Unfortunately, they were quitting Naples that evening: I spent, however, a couple of hours very agreeably with them, at their lodgings.