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 A great number of labourers aided by Austrian and Neapolitan soldiers, are employed in clearing the roads. The heavy rains which are expected at this season will do much, but I fear that the country round the Torre del Annunziata will not be speedily restored to the industry of man.

The distance at which the fine ashes have fallen is astonishing ; the master of an English vessel, which came in last Saturday, gathered them on the deck the Wednesday evening preceding, when he was off the Tuscan coast, at least two hundred miles from Naples.

discovery of the ancient city of Herculaneum, justly excited the curiosity of all men of letters, on account of the numerous lights which the curiosities found herein might be expected to throw upon the history of the ancient arts, &c. These expectations were well founded; for the pictures, in particular, which were found there, may convey to us a good idea of the state of painting among the ancients.

Herculaneum was situated between Naples and Pompeii, near the sea, on the banks of the Sarno, and at the foot of