108 PEOSE HALIEtTTICS. 



is general quiet elsewhere. 'Tis a fine place for brush- 

 ing up recollections of the past ; many traces of ancient 

 manners and customs, not seen elsewhere, being stUl 

 perceptible, independent of the antiquities offered daily 

 for sale. Here are exhibited all those grotesque atti- 

 tudes so copiously illustrated on Nola vases ; here also, 

 in accordance with ancient usage, as represented on the 

 neighbouring frescoes and bas-reliefs, donkeys are led 

 into the market, held by the tail, reeling under heavy 

 panniers, and subjected to the cudgelling and ill-treat- 

 ment which has never gone out of fashion, from the days 

 of Balaam and Homer down to the present time. Look- 

 ing about a little, another lively appeal to the past offers 

 itself in the colossal out-of door caldron propped upon 

 stones, and bubbling up with hecatombs of simmering 

 snails, a red sea of dissolving tomatas, or a whole sack 

 of seething potatoes ; around maybe seen figures, kneel- 

 ing to feed the flames beneath; pouring in water, or 

 perhaps dragging out a pig to scrape. In such a vessel, 

 pictm-es — not contemporary — represent the martyrdom 

 of St. John in boiling oil, when he came out stronger 

 from the bath; and such also, substituting satyrs for 

 men, forms the subject of many an ancient engraved 

 gem or bas-relief. The very religion of the Cross is here 

 debased by association with ancient superstition; early 

 as it is, in yon idol-shop, see a modern Demetrius and 

 his craftsmen already busy, making to order saints by 

 the score for convents, street shrines, or prsesepes, and 

 placing the Virgin Mary on Diana's crescent to denote 

 the Immaculate Conception ! 



In the centre of a dirty little largo, something like 

 the confluence of the Seven Dials, where the sale of fish 

 is principally carried on, is one of those short ugly mo- 

 numents called Agugha, which . are so profusely stuck 

 over Naples ; architectural scarecrows, neither column, 

 pyramid, nor obelisk, but seemingly devices taken from 



