cribed.
Antiquaries dart upon this prey with frenzy, measuring the tiniest
stone, discussing the smallest painting, and leaving not a single
frieze or panel without some comment, so that, after having read their
remarks, one fancies that everything is precious in this exhumed
curiosity-shop. These folks deceive themselves and they deceive us;
their feelings as virtuosos thoroughly exhaust themselves upon a theme
which is very attractive, very curious, 'tis true, but which calls for
less completely scientific hands to set it to music, the more so that in
Pompeii there is nothing grand, or massive, or difficult to comprehend.
Everything stands right forth to the gaze and explains itself as clearly
and sharply as the light of day.

Moreover, these houses have been despoiled. I might tell you of a pretty
picture or a rich mosaic in such-and-such a room. You would go thither
to look for it and not find it. The museum at Naples has it, and if it
be not there it is nowhere. Time, the atmosphere, and the sunlight have
destroyed it. Therefore, those who make out an inventory of these houses
for you are preparing you bitter disappointments.

The only way to get an idea of Pompeian art is not to examine all these
monuments separately, but to group them in one's mind, and then to pay
the museum an attentive visit. Thus we can put together a little ideal
city, an artistic Pompeii, which we are going to make the attempt to
explore.

Pompeii had two and even three forums. The third was a market; the
first, with which you are already acquainted, was a public square; the
other, which we are about to visit, is a sort of Acropolis, inclosed
like that of Athens, and placed upon the highest spot of ground in the
city. From a bench, still in its proper position at the extremity of
this forum, you may distinguish the valley of the Sarno, the shady
mountains that close its perspective, the cultivated checker-work of the
country side, green tufts of the woodlands, and then the gently curving
coast-line where Stabiae wound in and out, with the picturesque heights
of Sorrento, the deep blue of the sea, the transparent azure of the
heavens, the infinite limpidity of the distant horizon, the brilliant
clearness and the antique color. Those who have not beheld this scenery,
can only half comprehend its monuments, which would ever be out of
place beneath another sky.

It was in this bright sunlight that the Pompeian Acropolis, the
triangular For