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variety of murder by steel, lead, and poison, was perpetratedwith almost impunity. In the city of Naples alone, therewere 30,000 thieves ; a proportion almost as great as thatenjoyed by London at the present time! The BarbaryPirates were ever and anon landing on the coast, andcarrying off men, women, and children into hopelesscaptivity.

Commerce and inland trade and barter were at the lowestebb. The only good high road was that to Rome . Thesums exacted for public works were diverted to otherpurposes. No new erections were made, but of churchesand convents. The ports choked up, rivers overflowingthe forests and wastes increased for the purposes of theroyal chase ; the pasturage migratory ; agriculturedegraded and oppressed ; the people miserable and decreas-ing. Inexplicable as the fact may appear, it is, however,true, that amidst so great a mass of social suffering anddegradation, science and letters at Naples , were thenflourishing, in an extraordinary degree. Aulisio, Giannoni,Argento, Gravina, Capasso, Cirillo, Vico, &c., born at theclose of the seventeenth century, flourished during the firstlustre of the following. But to be brief—such, and manymore, were the dreadful evils and abuses which Tanucciundertook, and with success, to remedy. He formed treatiesof commerce with England, France, Holland, Spain ,Portugal, Sweden, and Denmark ; and in virtue of a specialtreaty with the Ottoman Porte , added to the naval influenceof Spain , a stop was put to the outrages of the BarbaryPirates. He sent commercial consuls to every foreignport visited by Neapolitatn raders, he founded a Tribunal ofCommerce , enacted new and severe bankrupt laws, renderednecessary by the enormous frauds which injured credit;he established a regular system of quarantine, with wellconstructed and convenient Lazarettos ; established a school