A friend, whom I met at the same house, took me to see the archbishop of Tarento yesterday. This venerable man, it is well known, lost his gown for his participation in the cause of the Carbonari (the revolutionary conspirators of Italy.) He has always played a conspicuous part in the politics of his time, and now, at the age of ninety, unlike the usual fate of meddlers in troubled waters, he is a healthy, happy, venerated old man, surrounded in his palace with all that luxury can give him. The lady who presented me, took the privilege of intimate friendship to call at an unusual hour, and we found the old churchman in his slippers, over his breakfast, with two immense tortoise-shell cats, upon stools, watching his hand for bits of bread, and purring most affectionately. He looks like one of Titian's pictures. His face is a wreck of commanding features, and his eye seems less to have lost its fire, than to slumber in its deep socket. His hair is snowy white-his forehead of prodigious breadth and height-and his skin has that calm, settled, and yet healthy paleness, which carries with it the history of a whole life of temperance and thought.

The old man rose from his chair with a smile, and came forward with a stoop and a feeble step, and took my two hands, as my friend mentioned my name, and looked me in the face very earnestly. "Your country," said he, in Italian, “has sprung into existence like Minerva, full grown and armed. We look for the result." He went on with some comments upon the dangers of republics, and then sent me to look at a portrait of Queen Giovanna, of Naples, by Leonardo da Vinci, while he sat down to talk with the lady who brought me. His secretary accompanied me as a cicerone. Five or six rooms, communicating with each other, were filled with choice pictures, every one a gift from some

distinguished individual. The present king of France has sent him his portrait; Queen Adelaide has sent a splendid set of Sèvres china, with the portraits of her family; the queen of Belgium had presented him with her miniature and that of Leopold; the king and queen of Naples had half-furnished his house; and so the catalogue went on. It seemed as if the whole continent had united to honor the old man. While I was looking at a curious mosaic portrait of a cat, presented to him on the death of the original, by some prince whose name I have forgotten, he came to us, and said he had just learned that my pursuits were literary, and would present me with his own last work. He opened the drawer of a small bureau and produced a manuscript of some ten This," said he, "is an pages, written in a feeble hand. enumeration from memory of what I have not seen for many years, the classic spots about our beautiful city of Naples, and their associations. I have written it in the last month to wile away the time, and call up again the pleasure I have received many times in my life in visiting them." I put the curious document in my bosom with many thanks, and we kissed the We found his car

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hand of the good old priest and left him.

riage, with three or four servants in handsome livery, waiting for We had intruded a little on the hour him in the court below.

for his morning ride.

I found his account of the environs merely a simple catalogue, with here and there a classic quotation from a Greek or Latin author, referring to them. I keep the MS. as a curious memento of one of the noblest relics I have seen of an age gone by.

LETTER IV.

The Fashionable World of Naples at the Races-Brilliant Show of Equipages-The King and his Brother-Rank and Character of the Jockeys-Description of the Race-sThe Public Burial Ground at Naples-Korrid and inhuman Spectacles-The Lazzaroni-The Museum at Naples-Ancient Relics from Pompeii--Forks not used by the Ancients-The Lamp lit at the time of our Saviour-The antique Chair of Sallust--The Villa of Cicero-The Balbi Family-Bacchus on the Shoulders of a Faun-Gallery of Dians, Cupids, Joves, Mercuries, and Apollos, Statue of Aristides, etc.

I HAVE been all day at "the races." The king of Naples, who has a great admiration for everything English, has abandoned the Italian custom of running horses without riders through the crowded street, and has laid out a magnificent course on the summit of a broad hill overlooking the city on the east. Here he astonishes his subjects with ridden races, and it was to see one of the best of the season, that the whole fashionable world of Naples poured out to the campo this morning. The show of equipages was very brilliant, the dashing liveries of the various ambassadors, and the court and nobles of the kingdom, showing on the bright green-sward to great effect. I never saw a more even piece of turf, and it was fresh in the just-born vegetation of spring. The carriages were drawn up in two lines, nearly half round the course, and for an hour or two before the races, the king and his brother, Prince Carlo, rode up and down between with the royal suite, splendidly mounted, the monarch himself

upon a fiery gray blood-horse, of uncommon power and beauty. The director was an Aragonese nobleman, cousin to the king, and as perfect a specimen of the Spanish cavalier as ever figured in the pages of romance. He was mounted on a Turkish horse, snow-white, and the finest animal I ever saw; and he carried all eyes with him, as he dashed up and down, like a meteor. I like to see a fine specimen of a man, as I do a fine picture, or an excellent horse, and I think I never saw a prettier spectacle of its kind, than this wild steed from the Balkan and his handsome rider.

The king is tall, very fat, but very erect, of a light complexion, and a good horseman, riding always in the English style, trotting and rising in his stirrup. (He is about twenty-three, and so surprisingly like a friend of mine in Albany, that the people would raise their hats to them indiscriminately, I am sure.) Prince Charles is smaller and less kingly in his appearance, dresses carelessly and ill, and is surrounded always in public with half a dozen young Englishmen. He is said to have been refused lately by the niece of the wealthiest English nobleman in Italy, a very beautiful girl of eighteen, who was on the ground to-day in a chariot and four.

The horses were led up and down-a delicate, fine-limbed sorrel mare, and a dark chestnut horse, compact and wiry-both English. The bets were arranged, the riders weighed, and, at the beat of a bell, off they went like arrows. Oh what a beautiful sight! The course was about a mile round, and marked with red flags at short distances; and as the two flying creatures described the bright green circle, spread out like greyhounds, and running with an ease and grace that seemed entirely without effort, the king dashed across the field followed by the whole court; the

Turkish steed of Don Giovanni restrained with difficulty in the rear, and leaping high in the air at every bound, his nostrils expanded, and his head thrown up with the peculiar action of his race, while his snow-white mane and tail flew with every hair free to the wind. I had, myself, a small bet upon the sorrel. It was nothing-a pair of gloves with a lady-but as the horses came round, the sorrel a whip's length ahead, and both shot by like the wind, scarce touching the earth apparently, and so even in their speed that the rider in blue might have kept his hand on the other's back, the excitement became breathless. Away they went again, past the starting post, pattering, pattering on with their slender hoofs, the sorrel still keeping her ground, and a thousand bright lips wishing the graceful creature success. Half way round the blue jacket began to whip. The sorrel still held her way, and I felt my gloves to be beyond peril. The royal cortége within the ring spurred across at the top of their speed to the starting post. The horses came on-their nostrils open and panting, bounding upon the way with the same measured leaps a little longer and more eager than before; the rider of the sorrel leaning over the neck of his horse with a loose rein, and his whip hanging untouched from his wrist. Twenty leaps more! With every one the rider of the chestnut gave the fine animal a blow. The sorrel sprang desperately on, every nerve strained to the jump, but at the instant that they passed the carriage in which I stood, the chestnut was developing his wiry frame in tremendous leaps, and had already gained on his opponent the length of his head. They were lost in the crowd that broke instantly into the course behind them, and in a moment after a small red flag was waved from the stand. My favorite had lost! The next race was ridden by a young Scotch nobleman, and