Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/405

Rh handsome children, with a resemblance of their august papa.

Splendid fireworks have been given three evenings in succession, in honor of San Gennaro. The Neapolitans are masters of this art. Pity only it is, that so much art and so much money are spent so often upon these empty pleasures, which are no longer pleasures to the population of Naples. It has evidently had enough of them.

September 24th.—Two days spent in the Museo Borbonico, have left with me this residuum: that which is peculiar in this interesting museum consists in treasures preserved from the cities buried in the ashes of Vesuvius—Pompeii, Herculaneum, Staba, St. Agatha, and others, partly from the habitations of the living there, partly from the graves of the dead. One room is especially devoted to a number of small curiosities found in Pompeii. Amongst these, one sees bread, eggs, plums, figs, meal, spices, and many other things found in our shops. All these articles are still recognizable, although they have become hard and black; there is also the purse of Diomedes, coin, and various female ornaments. In other rooms are preserved cooking utensils, lamps, and many articles of furniture from private dwellings, nearly all of them ornamental and of good workmanship.

The fresco-paintings, from the buried and excavated cities, the principal of which were collected here, all bear witness to the strong concentration of mind upon the life of the day and the hour. The enjoyment and the beautifying of this is shown to be the chief thing, and very naturally so, when the life