NAPLES BAT AND PISH-MAEKBT. 95 



the Mue grotto and palace of Tiberius^ and the lovely 

 shores of Ischia, present themselves; and next, that 

 sweet Procidaj which the Latin poet so ingenuously pre- 

 fers to the din and dirt of Suburra — 'ego vel Prochy- 

 tam prsepono Suburrse' — as we Londoners agree to pre- 

 fer Windsor and Richmond Park to Wapping^ White- 

 chapel, or the Fleet. Once more leaving these islands 

 for the mainland of the opposite horn, we gaze away 

 for many a league towards Mola, on the road to Rome ; 

 then, after hovering a little over the Cape of Misenum, 

 traverse back by the Baise and PuzzuoH coasts to Naples ; 

 and taking the whole sweep of the city, from Mergellina 

 to Porticij complete the round of this panoramic fairy- 

 land, by following the smoky column of the Nocera 

 train in the direction of Benevento and the Caudine 

 forks as far as the gates of Pompeii. The loveliness of 

 this scenery is enhanced when the season and hour are 

 well chosen (sunset is the hour, and autumn the sea- 

 son); the sky, as the sun is rapidly descending in the 

 aerial light, gradually mellows, and changes hue, till his 

 large disk, touching the waters, flashes over their sur- 

 face, rosy twilight commences, and continues to deepen 

 till the apotheosis of the God of Day is complete ; then 

 night, as at a signal given, instantly rushes over the 

 deep — 'ruit oceano nox' — night, but not darkness at 

 Naples ; for anon a moon begins to rise above the Sor- 

 rentine hiUs with an orb as large as the departed sun, 

 looking more like some new luminary emerging from 

 the interior of the mountain, than the small, dim planet 

 of our colder sky — 



That pale-faced maiden, 

 With white fire laden, 

 Whom northerns call the moon. 



Presently she clears the ridge, and sailing high in air, 

 tracks a broad yellow road across the noiseless deep, 

 dispersing a mild effulgence over cliff and island. Next, . 



