JOURNEY TO NAPLES.

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About this time I had the pleasure to become acquaintedwith Mr. (now Sir Robert) Smirke, who made considerablesojourn at Rome for the study of architecture.

In the spring of 1804 Mr. Smirke and myself undertookthe journey from Rome to Naples on foot. We decided ontaking, not the usual post road, but that of the mountains,great part of which is described by Horace, in his journeyfrom Rome to Brundusium , a sea port at the eastern ex-tremity of the kingdom of Naples , a celebrated station forthe Roman navy, and the usual place of embarkation forGreece, Asia, and Egypt . We took a carriage to Tivoli,which was rather out of the way, but Smirke was desirous ofmaking accurate drawings and measurements of the beautifultemples of Vesta, the Sibyl, the Villa of Mecsenas, and otherantiquities which render that town so attractive to travellers.

After passing three or four days at Tivoli, we proceededto Preneste, of which place I have already spoken. We thentook the mountain path to Cori, which from its elevated site,overlooks the plains of Veletri and the Pontine marshes.Here we were delighted to find two ancient temples, in avery high state of preservation and in the purest style ofarchitecture. The one is dedicated to Castor and Pollux ,the other to Hercules. It is not to my purpose to describethese antiquities. I suppose they must be mentioned by some ofthose travellers who have not always kept to the beaten track.

These lower ranges of the Appennines, over which wetravelled, are calcarious, but we meet with many craters ofextinct volcanoes. Immense masses of tuffic lava are hereand there discernible, but their positions with relation tothe calcarious rocks and mountains, clearly indicate theiranterior, or rather alternating formation. This tuffo isdifferent from that which we may say constitutes the sur-face about Rome and Naples . The latter is of a rather