The same persons accompanied me in many journeys by land and water to
different parts of the Phlegraean fields, and we enjoyed in a most
delightful season, the beginning of May, the beauties of the glorious
country which encloses the Bay of Naples, so rich, so ornamented with the
gifts of nature, so interesting from the monuments it contains and the
recollections it awakens. One excursion, the last we made in southern
Italy, the most important both from the extraordinary personage with whom
it made me acquainted and his influence upon my future life, merits a
particular detail which I shall now deliver to paper.

It was on the 16th of May, 18-- that we left Naples at three in the
morning for the purpose of visiting the remains of the temples of Paestum,
and having provided relays of horses we found ourselves at about half-
past one o'clock descending the hill of Eboli towards the plain which
contains these stupendous monuments of antiquity. Were my existence to
be prolonged through ten centuries, I think I could never forget the
pleasure I received on that delicious spot. We alighted from our
carriage to take some refreshment, and we reposed upon the herbage under
the shade of a magnificent pine contemplating the view around and below
us. On the right were the green hills covered with trees stretching
towards Salerno; beyond them were the marble cliffs which form the
southern extremity of the Bay of Sorento; immediately below our feet was
a rich and cultivated country filled with vineyards and abounding in
villas, in the gardens of which were seen the olive and the cypress tree
connected as if to memorialise how near to each other are life and death,
joy and sorrow; the distant mountains stretching beyond the plain of
Paestum were in the full luxuriance of vernal vegetation; and in the
extreme distance, as if in the midst of a desert, we saw the white
temples glittering in the sunshine. The blue Tyrrhene sea filled up the
outline of this scene, which, though so beautiful, was not calm; there