encrusted. You see how it is: a few men
and boys are lazily pursuing their work, in
the true Neapolitan style. When any very
distinguished foreigner—such as a Prince or
Grand Duke—comes on a visit to his august
and most clement Majesty, the Ferdinand for
the time being, this great fragment of antiquity
is paraded and marshalled in what may be
termed a grand field-day. In honour of the
illustrious visitor, and in his presence, the
excavation of a fresh house is set about.
Should the name of its former proprietor be
discovered, this name is, of course, retained;
should none such appear, that of the
illustrious visitor himself is affixed: the ruins are
thenceforth called " The House of Prince A,"
or " The House of the Grand Duchess Z," as
the case may be. As neither " The House of
Smith,"' nor " The House of Brown," figure
in the list, I should imagine that we are not
persons of sufficient importance to warrant
the assumption of our names for such a
purpose. Accordingly the workmen only
testify their sense of our presence by
suspending operations for awhile, and sending to
us one of their body, as a deputation, for
wine to drink.

But, stay—our watches point to four
o'clock; the workmen disperse to their
homes, and our guide warns us that the time
for departure has arrived. As we return
through the ruins of the stately Forum, let
me call your attention to these fragments of
columns lying on the ground—or rather
masses of stone, half-worked into the shape
of columns—the final catastrophe having
come on at a time when the Forum itself was
under repair. Do you see that last mark of
the chisel? Do you notice where the fluting
has been abruptly left off? Look at these
blocks of stone at the door of the edifice,
found in the very position in which they had
been placed there two thousand years ago,
together with (if our guide does not deceive
us) the skeleton of the horse and the remains
of the cart that were used to convey them.
They were unloading the materials for the
reconstruction of the building at the very
moment when the building itself was to be
destroyed, never to rise from its ashes; and
in that long line of roofless houses, that lie
outstretched like a panorama before us, people
were eating, and drinking, and marrying,
perhaps, and being given in marriage, like
our forefathers at the Deluge, like our
descendants at the last great day!

We are at the gate, where the skeleton of
the sentinel was found in his sentry-box.
Faithful to his duty to the last, the poor
fellow merited a better fate for his bones than
that they should be one day enclosed in a
glass-case, and exhibited in a museum. Passing
through this gate, we find ourselves in the
Street of Tombs—a narrow way, lined on both
sides with sepulchral monuments. At the
end of this street I see our carriage awaiting
us. An abortive attempt at cheating, and
much violent gesticulation on the part of our
guide; the same on the part of our driver; of
the man who gave the horses hay to eat; of
the boy who furnished them with water to
drink; of somebody from the inn where they
were put up who did nothing; many unscriptural,
and happily unintelligible expressions
on all sides; a final shout from the beggars;
a crack of the whip, and a rattling of the
wheels—and soon Pompeii is but a little
mound at the base of Vesuvius, seen across
the quiet and moonlit waters of the bay.

A RECOLLECTION OF SIR MARTIN SHEE.
ON THE LAST OCCASION OF HIS PRESIDING AT THE
FESTIVAL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ART.

IF in the fluttering magic of that tongue
Some trace of years, in which its accents grew
Sweetest amidst the beautiful, renew
A fond regret that spirits ever young
Should, as they verge on regions whence they sprung,
Pay, in expression's weaken'd force, their due
To that mortality through which alone
They speak to earth, our hearts attend its tone
With eagerness more rapt than when it flung
Abroad the vigorous thought with fancy's hue
Imbued; for, as from drooping flower, ripe seeds
Laden with loveliness for spring are blown,
The words that tremble as for Art it pleads
Shall glow in shapes another age shall own.

STONE PICTURES.

ONCE upon a time there was a Saint (still
flourishing in the Calendar), called Aloysius;
a Latinized connexion, I am induced to think,
of our old friend, St. Eloi, so famous for his
rebuke to the good king Dagobert, touching
the slovenliness of his toilette. After this
saint, was christened, towards the close of the
last century, the child of poor parents, in the
good old catholic, art-loving, beer-bibbing
Munich. This little Aloysius, growing up to
manhood, was known among his fellows as
Aloys Senefelder; and some of my readers
may have heard of him as the inventor of
Lithography.

Aloys Senefelder had the misfortune to
be one of the garret school of inventors.
His life was a struggle; and, although he
lived to see his invention spread over all
the world almost, he never achieved worldwide
fame; and died anything but a millionnaire.
Inventors are wiser now. They take
care to associate their names with their
discoveries. We cannot wear waterproof coats
without calling to mind Mr. Macintosh. We
must think of M. Daguerre a little, while
sitting to the urbane M. Claudet for our
portrait; and, down in a coal-mine, the sight of a
safety-lamp must surely call up some thoughts
of Sir Humphry Davy. Had poor Aloys
Senefelder (dead in Munich yonder, without
statue or testimonial) called his invention
Senefeldography, or the Aloysotype, he might
possibly have snatched some little modicum