therefore, I will put an end to my letter; suffer me only to add, that I have faithfully related to you what I was either an eye-witness of myself, or received immediately after the accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth. You will choose out of this narrative such circumstances as shall be most suitable to your purpose; for there is a great difference between what is proper for a letter, and a history; between writing to a friend, and writing to the public. Farewell.'

All memorials of the devoted cities were lost; and discussions on the places they had once occupied were excited only by some obscure passages in the classical authors. Six successive eruptions had contributed to lay them still deeper under the surface. But, after sixteen centuries had elapsed, a peasant, in 1711, in digging a well beside his cottage, obtained some fragments of colored marble, which attracted attention. Regular excavations were made under the superintendance of Stendardo, a Neapolitan architect; and a statue of Hercules of Greek workmanship, and also a mutilated one of Cleopatra, were withdrawn from what was afterwards proved to be a temple in the centre of the ancient HERCULANEUM, to which, as it was first discovered, we shall first direct our attention.

Twenty or thirty years afterwards the king of the two Sicilies directed a complete search to be made among the remains of the subterraneous city, and the antiquities to be preserved. The precise extent of Herculaneum cannot be ascertained, though we know that it was a city of the second order. All the streets run in right lines; they are paved with blocks of lava; and there is for the most part an elevated foot-path along the sides for the convenience of pedestrians. The houses, whose exterior does not seem to have been ornamental or even regular, consist only of one story built of brick. The walls of some are covered with colored stucco, upon which are executed paintings in fresco. From the general appearance of the different edifices, we may safely conjecture that the volcanic matter consisted of very fine dust or ashes, which fell in repeated showers, until the city was totally buried under it. Indeed, it was so fine, that the most

Remarkably few skeletons have been found in this city, though many occur in the streets of Pompeii; but one appears near the threshold of a door, with a bag of money in its hand, as if in the attitude of escaping.

perfect impressions of the objects thus covered were imprinted on it; and, on their being now removed, the cavity may serve for a plaster or metallic cast. By this means innumerable articles were preserved entire, and scarcely displaced from their original position.

The remains of several public buildings have been discovered, which have possibly suffered from subsequent convulsions. Among these are two temples, one of them 150 feet by sixty, in which was found a statue of Jupiter. A more extensive edifice stood opposite to these, forming a rectangle of 228 feet by 132, supposed to have been appropriated for the courts of justice. The arches of a portico surrounding it were supported by columns; it was paved within with marble; the walls were painted in fresco; and bronze statues stood between forty-two columns under the roof.

The theatre was nearly entire; very little had been displaced; and we see in it one of the best specimens extant of the architecture of the ancients. It seems to have had two principal gates, with inscriptions over the architraves of each, besides seven entrances, called vomitoria, communicating with the benches. Many columns and pilasters, with labored entablatures, appeared in the proscenium, and some bronze and marble statues. The walls were covered with paintings in arabesque, and the floor paved with marble. Twenty-five rows of high and wide marble benches accommodated the audience; which, rising gradually above each other, gave a full and distinct view of the arena below. It would contain 10,000 persons, and was rich in antiquities. Statues occupying niches represented the muses; scenic masks were imitated on the entablatures; and inscriptions were engraved on different places. A metallic car was found with four bronze horses attached to it, nearly of the natural size; but all in a state of decay. A beautiful white marble statue of Venus, only eighteen inches high, in the attitude of the famous Venus de Medicis, was recovered; and in the immediate vicinity was found a colossal bronze statue of Vespasian, filled with lead, which twelve men were unable to move; and an inscription about twelve Neapolitan palms in length, as follows:PONTIF MAX "

A

vation.

Articles in vast variety were obtained from the houses, wherein the beams appeared as if converted to charcoal; but it is to be observed that all the remains of wood exhibit the same aspect to the very heart.

If the subjects recovered from Herculaneum be classed according to their value, the statues should be enumerated first. Of these some are

colossal, some of the natural size, and some in miniature; and the materials either clay, marble, or bronze. They represent divinities, heroes, or distinguished persons; and in the same substances, especially bronze, there are the figures of many animals. There are two statues seven feet high of Jupiter, and a woman in clay; and two of gladiators, about to combat, in bronze, are much admired. The same may be said of Nero in bronze, naked and armed as a Jupiter Tonans, with a thunderbolt in his hand. A Venus pudica of white marble, in miniature, is extremely beautiful, and also the statue of a female leaving the bath. In the year 1758 a fine bronze statue of a naked Mercury was discovered; and, in the course of the excavations beyond the confines of the city, a Silenus with a tiger was found, which had formerly adorned a fountain. Several fauns of bronze, with vases on their shoulders, were obtained in the vicinity of Silenus; and it is singular to observe that the younger figures have silver eyes, a disagreeable deformity sometimes adopted in marble statues. The figure and attitude of a drunken faun, stretched on a lion's hide, and supported by a skin of liquor, presents all the vacuity of thought and sensation of animal pleasure which accompany ebriety; another faun asleep, as large as life, presents a state of absolute repose. There is also a bronze equestrian statue of an armed Amazon, only sixteen inches high. There are many elegant statues of the goddesses and graces only eight or ten inches in height, and we likewise see some of the monstrous Egyptian divinities with which the Herculaneans were acquainted. Several fine busts, or simple heads of the ancient philosophers, as Zeno or Epicurus, stood in the houses, the name being inscribed below or on a pedestal. Bas reliefs likewise occurred, but few coins or medals. Gold coins of Augustus were found, and silver medallions, two or three inches in diameter, bearing uncertain devices.

The ancient pictures of Herculaneum are of the utmost interest, not only from the freshness and vividness of color, but from the nature of the subjects they represent. All are executed in fresco; they are exclusively on the walls, and generally on a black or red ground. It has been supposed, from passages in the classics, that the ancients used only four colors, white, black, yellow, and red; but here are added blue and green. Every different subject of antiquity is depicted here; deities, human figures, animals, landscapes, foreign and domestic, and a variety of grotesque beings. One of larger size found in a temple, and the most celebrated, represents Theseus vanquishing the minotaur, which lies stretched at his feet, with the head of a bull and the body of a man. A female, supposed to be Ariadne, and three children, form part of the group. This, along with a picture composed of several figures as large as life, of which Flora is the most conspicuous, adorned a temple of Hercules; each is six or seven feet high and five broad. Another represents Chiron teaching Achilles the lyre; and female centaurs are seen suckling their young. The interior of a shoe maker's shop is exposed on a smaller scale; a feast, baskets of fruit, a grasshopper driving a

parrot yoked to a car, a cupid guiding swans in the same manner, and many allegorical subjects are represented. The king, desirous of preserving these pictures, directed them to be sawn out of the walls, after which they were put in shallow frames and kept in the museum.

It is extraordinary that numbers of perishable substances should have resisted the corrosions of time. Many almonds in the shells, imprinted with all the lines and furrows characterising their ligneous envelope; figs; and some kinds of wild apples, and a sort of pine cone yet growing in the woods of Italy, the seeds of which are now used for culinary purposes, were dug out of the ruins of Herculaneum. Grain, such as barley, and also beans and peas, remained entire, of a black color, and offering resistance to pressure. The stones of peaches and apricots are common, thus denoting the frequency of two trees, reputed indigenous in America and Persia. But what is still more singular, a loaf, stamped with Roman characters, the baker's name, or the quality of the wheat, was taken from an oven, and was apparently converted to charcoal. After such an amazing lapse of time, liquids have been found approaching to a fluid state; and a phial of oil, conceived to be that of olives, is yet white, greasy to the touch, and emits the smell of rancid oil. An earthen vase was found in the cellars containing wine, which now resembles a lump of porous dark violetcolored glass. There is, however, great difficulty in comprehending how this change should have taken place, though the ancients used very thick wines. Eggs are also said to have been found whole and empty.

An entire set of kitchen furniture has been collected, which displays several utensils exactly similar to our own. The copper pans, instead of being tinned, are coated internally with silver, and these have not been attacked by verdigris. Here is a large brass caldron, three feet in diameter, and fourteen inches deep, an urn or boiler for hot water similar to those on our tables, having also a cylinder in the centre for a heater. There are pestles and mortars, and all kinds of implements for cutting out and figuring pastry; and in short a complete culinary apparatus. Utensils of finer quality, which had been employed at tables, have likewise been collected, as silver goblets and vases, silver spoons, and the remnants of knives. But from the absence of forks, both among the other remains and in pictures, it is probable that their invention and common use are to be dated several centuries later.

Several articles belonging to personal ornament and decoration occurred; and two silver bodkins, eight inches in length, with which the Roman ladies pinned up their hair, are preserved, the end of one appropriately sculptured with a Venus adjusting her tresses before a looking-glass, held by Cupid. Gold armlets, bracelets, necklaces, with pieces of plate gold suspended to them as a locket, are preserved. Small nets also with fine meshes, which some have supposed the ladies employed to tie up their hair; and others of coarser texture, which must have been used for other purposes. Very

few jewels are discovered, which favors the idea of the inhabitants having had time to escape. There was a wooden comb, with teeth on both sides, closer on one of them than on the opposite; and portions of gold lace fabricated from the pure metal. Sandals of laced cords are seen, and a folding parasol, absolutely similar to what we esteem a modern invention, was likewise discovered. We seem to have improved principally upon the Romans, in hardware and cutlery. Their locks and keys, scissors and needles, are very clumsy articles, and their seals, rings, and necklaces, look as if they had been made at the blacksmith's forge. The toilets of the ladies, too, were not so elegantly furnished with nick-nacks in those days. Their combs would scarcely compare with those which we use in our stables; and there is nothing that would be fit for a modern lady's dressing case.

The weight of the steel-yard is generally the head of an emperor. There is a sun-dial, the gnomon of which is the hinder part of a pig, with the tail sticking up to cast the shadow. The tesseræ, or tickets of admission to the theatres, are of ivory, one has the name of the poet Eschylus written on it in Greek charac

ters.

There is kept in the museum a case of surgeon's instruments complete, with pincers, spatulæ, and probes; also a box supposed to have contained unguents; and pieces of marble employed in braying pharmaceutical substances. A variety of carpenters' and masons' tools were found, much resembling our own; and bolts and nails all of bronze.

Different balances appear, of which the most common is analogous to the Roman steelyard; but those with flats for scales, though wanting the needle, are likewise seen. The weights are either of marble or metal, of all gradations up to thirty pounds; and from the marks exhibited by a set, well made of black marble, in a spherical shape, it is supposed the pound was divided into eight parts. There are pocket long measures, folding up like our common foot rule. The various implements for writing repeatedly occurred; and among the pictures is a female apparently listening to dictation. That the ancients were acquainted with the art of making glass is proved by the varieties discovered in these exfoliations. Considerable numbers of phials and bottles, chiefly of an elongated shape, are preserved; they are of unequal thickness, much heavier than glass of ordinary manufacture, and of a green color. Vessels of cut white glass have been found, and also white plate glass, which antiquaries suppose was used in fining chambers called camera vitreæ. Colored glass or artificial gems, engraved, frequently occur; and the paintings exhibit crystal vessels. The beauty and variety of the vases have attracted particular notice, and they serve as excellent models for the moderns; for all the skill of the ancient artists seems to have been exhausted in their execution. There is one preserved, four feet in diameter, of fine white marble; others are of earthenware or silver, and the majority of bronze or copper. Some are low, wide, and flat; others tall and narrow, plain,

fluted, or sculptured. Sacrificial vases were supported on tripods, whose construction seems to have been attended with equal care. Some of the latter are richly sculptured with real and imaginary figures of men and animals. One is ornamented with three lions' heads, and is sup ported by as many paws; another rests on three Priapeian satyrs of elegant workmanship. The god of the gardens seems to have been treated with peculiar regard by the Herculeans. He appears with all his attitudes of every possible variety, figure, and dimensions, in tripods, lamps, and household utensils. Several tripods are very ingeniously constructed, so that the fat may be closed or expanded by double sets of hinges. Endless diversity and infinite elegance are displayed in the lamps. Sometimes a lamp appears as a shell, sometimes as a bird; then a human figure or resembling a quadruped. The vases, lamps, and tripods, were particularly used in sacrifices, several of which are represented in the pictures; and, among others, are sacrifices to the Egyptian deities.

In regard to sports and pastimes, numerous remains render us familiar with those of the ancients. Here we find dice, with the same disposal of points on a cube; and dice boxes of bone or ivory, like those now used, besides some of a flattist shape. Several are false, being loaded on one side, and the manner of throwing the dice appears on a picture. No musical instruments were found at the sistrum, which we imperfectly understand; cymbals and flutes of bone or ivory are ye obtained. However, a concert is represented on a picture sixteen inches square, containing a lyrist, a player on a double flute, probably by mouth-piece, and a female apparently singing from a leaf of music; besides other two figure Several theatrical masks, of different fashis were found in clay and metal along with moulds for their formation.

It is to be observed in general, with regard to the numerous articles relative to this brief detail, that the quality of the statues infinitely e ceeds that of the pictures; and that the vases and tripods, lamps and candelabra, are frequently of the finest workmanship. Of many, once complete, only fragments at this day remain; while gold, silver, bronze, or clay remain entire iron has altogether wasted away.

and

After a vast collection of antiquities had been made, the king resolved on publishing a laber ous and expensive work, containing engraving of those which appeared most curious. In the course of thirty-eight years, from 1754 to 172, this was accomplished in nine folio volumes, cluding the pictures, bronzes, lamps, and cand labra. The first is devoted to a catalogue, fre to pictures, two to the bronzes, and one to the lucerne. No fewer than 739 pictures are named in the catalogue, and the other articles are p portionably numerous. The work was, with royal munificence, presented to the printral public libraries in Europe; but, owing to succession of the king of the Sicilies to the crow of Spain, it is seldom to be seen complete.

In penetrating an apartment of a villa, in the neighbourhood of Herculaneum, a number supposed pieces of charcoal were carried of.

which, by accidental fracture, exposed the remains of letters, and proved so many ancient MSS. Here Camillo Paderni, the keeper of the museum, buried himself during twelve days, and succeeded in carrying away 337 MSS.; and, by subsequent careful research, the total number recovered now considerably exceeds 1800. The MSS. consisted of rolls, scarcely a span in length, and two or three inches in thickness, formed of pieces of Egyptian papyrus glued together. Some had a label in front, at one end of the roll, exposing the name of the work or the author, as it occupied its place in the library. But the substance of the involutions was so crushed together, the ink or pigment employed for the character had faded to such a degree, that, united to the general injury which they had received from time, and the heat to which they had been exposed, the opening of them seemed at first sight to be impracticable. Accordingly, some snapped asunder like burnt wood, others flew into fragments, or they exposed nothing, The assistance of Piaggi, a monk, was obtained from the Vatican, who invented an ingenious method of unfolding the MSS. without destruction. He made a machine, with which, by the means of certain threads, which being gummed, stuck to the back part of the papyrus, where there was no writing, he began, by degrees, to pull, while with a sort of engraver's instrument he loosened one leaf from the other, and then made a sort of lining to the back of the papyrus, with exceedingly thin leaves of onion, and with some spirituous liquor, with which he wetted the papyrus, by little and little as he unfolded it. The process was slow, but tolerably certain; and the first MS. put on the machine, being unrolled in the year 1754, proved to be a treatise in Greek capitals, written by Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher, against music, with his name twice inscribed at the end, or interior of the roll. Similar means were adopted with other MSS., and they were partly successful. Almost the whole of the manuscripts are in Greek, very few having hitherto been found in Latin; and some of the rolls are forty or fifty feet in length. The entire surface of the roll is divided into successive columns, resembling our ordinary pages, each containing from forty to seventy lines in different MSS., this being dependent on the size of the roll; but each line is only about two inches long, and the column is no broader. In the original state, therefore, the reader held the roll before his eyes with one hand, while he unwound it with the other, as is represented by some of the Herculaneum pictures. Uncommon difficulties were experienced from the decay of the substance, from frequent blanks and obliterations within, and from the absence of punctuation. Four volumes, all by Philodemus, were successively unrolled; and, in 1760, Piaggi reached a fifth by another author, on botany. But the king was induced to order it to be withdrawn, and a sixth volume was put on the machine, where it remained thirty-six years. After twenty years preparation, the work on music was published, with illustrations by Mazzocchi, a learned Italian, under the title Herculanensium Voluminum quæ Supersunt, tomus 1.

Napoli, 1793. Cicero, notwithstanding, has called the author Optimum et Doctissimum; Piso, the supposed owner of the MSS., derived his philosophy from him, and he was well skilled in the polite literature of the period. In the course of forty years from the discovery of the MSS., which were gradually withdrawn, only eighteen were unfolded. The accession of Charles, indeed, to the crown of Spain, and the death of Mazzocchi, had enervated the Herculanean Society, which was renewed in 1787, by the marquis Caracioli, and the secretary of state thenceforward placed at its head. Yet the work advanced very tardily; few persons were em. ployed, either from the difficulty or want of in terest in its prosecution; and it was perhaps totally interrupted by the political events which disturbed the peace of Europe. Meantime six of the MSS. were presented, along with other Herculaneum curiosities, to Buonaparte in 1802, by the sovereign of the Sicilies, in whose reign, indeed, we believe that both Philodemus and the volume of Lucerne were published; and ten volumes are said to have been sent, on some occasion, to the prince of Wales.

At length a proposal was made on the part of this country to co-operate with the Neapolitan government on a subject so important to the diffusion of literature as that of elucidating the Herculaneum MSS.; and Mr. Hayter, chaplain to the prince of Wales, was appointed with a regular commission to superintend their subsequent development. A parliamentary grant of £1200 was next obtained to aid its prosecution; and Mr. Hayter, having commenced his operations under the most favorable auspices in 1802, employed thirteen persons in unrolling, deciphering, and transcribing. Some improvements seem to have been attempted in the evolution of the MSS. by a chemical process; but of those subjected to it, we are told the greatest part of each mass flew under this trial into useless atoms; besides, not a character was to be discovered upon any single piece: the dreadful odor drove us all from the museum.' Mr. Hayter continued his operations from 1802 to 1806, during which time he affirms that more than 200 papyri had been opened wholly or in part, and he calculated that the remainder would have been unrolled and copied within six years farther at latest. But as to the precise nature and description of these MSS., the accessions which literature has gained or would gain by the work, we are only informed that certain facsimiles of some books of Epicurus were engraved.

In 1806, during Mr. Hayter's operations, it became necessary to evacuate Naples; but the existing government acquainted him that the king had prohibited the removal of the MSS.; and in the flight of the court every thing was abandoned to the French, who seem to have continued the assistants in unrolling and deciphering as before. From the opposition which Mr. Hayter experienced, he could do nothing more than retire with some of the fac-similes to Palermo, where it appears he superintended engravings of them. Yet misunderstandings with the secretary of state prevented him from procuring

a complete copy of the whole, until the British ambassador interfered.

Ninety-four fac-simile copies were then obtained, partly engraved, it would seem, and partly in MSS. These were carried to England by Mr. Hayter on his final recal in 1809, and presented by the prince Regent to the university of Oxford. However, a very confused and indistinct account of the whole of this matter has reached the public, which compels us to be thus brief regarding the history of the Herculaneum MSS.

Perhaps it may ultimately be found that they are less worthy of notice than was anticipated, particularly if we are entitled to form any judgment regarding the rest from the inconsiderable portions that have already been published.

We shall now give a brief account of the smaller but more interesting of these two cities, Pompeii. At a mile from the Torre dele' Annonziata the traveller must quit the route of Salerno and turn to the right to come at the ruins of Pompeii. The first object is called the country house; thus named because it is situated without the walls of the town. This villa had two divisions, one higher than the other; columns, or rather square pillars, formed a covered gallery, which was continued round the court, and six other columns, destined probably to sustain a kind of portico. These columns or square pillars were covered with a yellowish stucco, and the pedestals were black and ornamented. The second division of the edifice was decorated with several columns, which formed a rich portico, of a proportion however sufficiently little. In general all the parts of this house were extremely close and narrow. Upon the road which passes before the door of entrance to this house, are the tracks of carriages. Near to the door have been found two skeletons; the one held a key in one hand, and in the other a purse filled with medals and precious stones. They believe that the other had carried a box, containing different valuable things found near him. Perhaps this was the master of the house and his slave, who, in running away, had taken the most precious objects, but who, when they arrived at the door, found it already encumbered with cinders, under which they have been buried. The court of the house formed a square of ninetyfour feet.

In entering the court one sees a covered portico supported by six columns; on two sides it was surrounded with trees, of which there are still seen trunks and branches. Before this portico was a basin, of which they have also found the pipes of lead on the spot. At the end of the gallery was a vault of stone, which appears to have served as a cellar because there have been found there several of those vessels in which the ancients preserved their wine. Near this, is a descent into a stone cellar, very dark, and covered with stucco; it is left absolutely whole, but has been blocked up with cinders. Near the staircase which leads to this cellar have been found seven skeletons of women, whom terror, in the moment of the volcanic eruption, had no doubt carried to shelter themselves in this

remote place, where they perished. They were all pressed, one near the other, in a corner near to the door, and in discovering their bones they have observed the image and form of their bodies, which were preserved in the cinders; they have there even discovered parts of their clothes. These impressions are seen still in the museum de Portici; they show there among others that of the breast of one of these women, which is so well preserved that there is the impression of a very delicate lace. There also is perceived the impression of rings, of bracelets, of necklaces, and of earrings, with which these women were adorned.

At the end of the gallery you descend by a staircase to the second division of the house, which contains several rooms more or less grand, and behind which was the garden, into which you descend also by a grand staircase. In al this part of the house they have not found a single place which can be regarded as a bedchamber, with the exception of a kind of alcove and circular wardrobe, having three windows into the garden. This second part of the house was the most elegant. Near to the chamber of which we have been speaking, and which may be regarded as a sleeping room, was the eating parlour, and at the side was the buttery, whence you enter into a room which appears to have served as a vestry, for there they have found clothes. Another smaller court, embellished with a basin, and columns of different propertions, was near the great road, and was the entrance to the great court of the interior, where was the door by which to go out upon this great road. Near the garden are the cold bath and the vapor bath.

The fragments of columns which were near the tomb of the arch-priestess Mammia show that formerly it was more elevated than it now is; upon a square base it had a circular building ornamented with columns and marble statues. By a door you enter into the first enclosure, that is to say, into the fore court of the sepulchr monument; the tomb, correctly speaking, s surrounded with a terrace; some steps conducted to the base of it, upon which one still finds columns. Thence an opening leads into the tomb, where there are several niches, of which the principal enclosed an urn, which probably cotained the ashes of Mammia. In the fore court were two open excavations; these were the en trance to two vaulted caverns, which could not have any other use than to serve for burying. Upon the wall of the sepulchral monument, and near the excavations which we have just men tioned, have been found masks of a colossal greatness; they appear not to have belonged to the tomb of Mammia, which is of a proportion much too small; they remind us of scenical masks; and many learned men have regarded this place as the burying place of the players of this town.

The entrance to Pompeii is small, and would not announce a town of great importance. On the two sides there are arcades and porticoes, which form the entrance to the ways, or paths, for the foot soldiers; they are continued on the side of the great road; but that of Pompeii is

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