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very narrow, being but three feet wide. This agrees with the breadth of the principal road, which is but ten or twelve feet, though it is lengthened to a distance of fifteen or sixteen fathoms. In the ancient ground of the road may still be seen very obvious traces of tracks of different carriages, with four feet distance between the wheels. At the entrance is raised a square pedestal, which appears to have supported a pretty large column.

In following this principal street the form of different shops may still be recognised, notwithstanding the ravages caused by time and the earthquake. To judge from a kind of balustrade or wire lattice, which is seen at one of them, it was the shop of a dealer in perfumes and spirituous liquors; below, there is a kind of pipe or excavation in marble, but it would be difficult to assign the use of it.

'There is often an emblem, over the door of a house, that determines the profession of its former owner.-The word 'Salve,' on one, seems to denote that it was an inn, as we have, in our days, the sign of "The Salutation.' In the outer brick-work of another is carved the phallus, a known object of religious adoration, in many countries, probably a symbol of creative power. The same device is found on the stucco of the inner court of another house, with this intimation: Hic habitat felicitas; a sufficient explanation perhaps of the character of its inhab

itants.

The volcanic matter covering Pompeii being little more than an accumulation of ashes, far different from the solid lava that covers Herculaneum, about a fourth part of the former has been cleared, and the traveller finds himself in the midst of ancient buildings. It appears probable that many of the shops with which this street is bordered were taverns, in which they gave at the same time to eat, and in which they prepared warm drinks. In these buildings they have found only the most necessary utensils; but all were very well worked; there were lamps, candelabras, vessels, and kitchen utensils, weights, statues, different vessels of all sizes, in earth, in bronze, and in glass: many fragments of glass windows; small idols, women's trinkets in gold and silver; mirrors, wax tablets for writing, surgical and musical instruments; colors of all kinds; medals in gold, silver, and bronze; children's playthings, toothpicks, paint-boxes, even eatables, corn, fruits of different sorts, &c. They have found there neither statues nor busts of a great size; the best paintings have not been found so much at Pompeii as at Herculaneum.

The temple of Isis is without doubt the most remarkable of the ruins discovered at Pompeii. The columns with which it was surrounded are almost entirely preserved. The half of those which ornamented the peristyle have been broken, as the capitals and the pediment. The temple itself is almost entirely built with bricks, and on the outside covered with a very solid stucco. The orders are of a small proportion, which diminishes the effect the edifice would have had if it had been of a more imposing architecture. They have found in this temple all the instruments belonging to the religious ce

remonies, and even the skeletons of priests, who had been surprised there, and surrounded by the showers of cinders in the middle of the occupations of their ministry. They show also their vestments, the cinders and coals upon the altars, the candelabras, many lamps, cisterns, vessels to hold the holy water, the pateræ employed in libations, a kind of kettles to preserve the intestines of the victims in; cushions upon which they placed the statue of the goddess Isis, when they offered sacrifices to her; the attributes of the divinity, with which the temple is every where ornamented, &c. Many of these vessels have the figure of an ilex, of an hippopotamus, or a lotus. The walls of the temple were ornamented with paintings relative to the worship of Isis; there have been found there, among others, the figures of priests in their habits; their vestment was of white linen, the heads of the officiating priests were shaven, and their feet were covered with a fine and light lace. It appears that, in the sanctuary of this foreign divinity, they granted also places to other divinities, for there have been found there statues of Bacchus, Venus, and Priapus. All that were transportable of these different objects have been placed in the museum de Portici. The temple had the form of a long square, and was not covered. A covered gallery supported by columns surrounded the temple; it served for a shelter in case of bad weather. In the middle was raised a small chapel, to which you are led by some steps, and which appears to have been the sanctuary of the goddess. At the bottom was probably the place where they assembled those initiated, and on the side is another cell, in which the three statues of Venus, Bacchus, and Priapus, were united in one niche. The principal entrance to the temple was on the side of the street of Pompeii; and on each side of the entrance was an altar, before a figure of the goddess, wrought in basso relievo. The grand altar upon which they sacrificed was three feet and a half high; and there have been found there ashes and bones partly broken and burnt. The principal door of the interior sanctuary consisted of two wings; they have found there still the brass hinges which have been carried to the museum de Portici. There has been found the skeleton of a priest upon this pavement near a marble table; it appears that this priest had been surprised by the volcanic eruption at the moment he was going to eat fish, for in digging they have still found the relics dispersed, and some vessels which were used to prepare this sort of food. We know, from Plutarch, that the priests of Isis might not live upon any thing but fish. The statue of the goddess in white marble was found in this sanctuary. It was placed upon a square base; and is of a very agreeable style. Near it has been found a stone table, covered with hieroglyphics: the great altar on which they sacrificed is also of an elegant form. There are still to be found there different ornaments, different fragments of columns which decorated the sanctuary, masks of baked earth, which served, at the same time, as ornaments, and to collect the rain waters. Probably the roof of the gallery was ornamented with similar masks; the open mouth served to give efflux to

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In the quarter of the soldiery have been found almost all the walls, and nearly all the columns, entire. The form of this edifice is that of a long square, and it is surrounded by columns, and a covered gallery. This gallery communicated with several chambers or cells, which probably served as lodging rooms for the soldiers. The interior court, in length about twenty-three toises, and breadth seventeen, served probably for military exercises. The columns are of the Doric order they have no base; they are in height eleven feet, and their diameter is eighteen inches. The gallery between the colonnade and the wall is thirteen feet seven inches wide. It served for a promenade, and, at the same time, to shelter the cells, in each of which were lodged, probably, four soldiers; for in each there are four suits of armour. These cells were not of equal dimensions: all were very small, covered with stucco, ornamented with arabesque paintings and Mosaic pavements. They were shut by means of a folding door, which opened on the inside. They received the light only by the door, and perhaps sometimes by an opening contrived in the ceiling. Among the armour which has been found there, there is, according to M. Hamilton, a helmet upon which is engraved the siege of Troy. These helmets were nearly similar to those of our ancient warriors in the times of chivalry, and were furnished with vizors. There is still found there a trumpet of brass, of a form rather singular; six ivory pipes, fixed to the lower part, unite in one single mouth-piece: they have no holes to vary the tones, but the difference of their diameters would produce different sounds, which, joined to the sound of the trumpet, must have formed a military music, very noisy, although a little monotonous. The bronze chain which was attached to it has served, no doubt, to hang it upon the shoulder. The neatness of these chambers, the paintings with which they were ornamented, the mosaic which formed their pavement, contrasts very much with the darkness which must have reigned there: but it appears that the soldiers, as well as the greater part of the inhabitants of Pompeii, passed almost the whole of their time upon the terraces and in the galleries, and returned to their chambers only to sleep, or, at the most, to take some repast. There are there also larger chambers, which are considered as the abode of the commander; because at a little distance have been found the supposed skeletons of some slaves, and of a horse loaded with clothes, stuffs, and valuable effects, which they endeavoured probably to save. At some steps further there was a peristyle ornamented with columns, with fine capitals; probably this was the side door. Very near another door leads, by means of four steps, to a place which was equally sur

rounded with a covered gallery, supported by Ionic columns.

To the right is the entrance of a little theatre, which is believed to have been covered; the steps only are seen, the rest is covered wrth ruins. Some travellers think that this edifice was an odeon. To the left of the door of the soldiers' quarter there are five little divisions, chambers, or cells, in one of which has been found a handmill; and one of the others appears to have served as a prison to the soldiers that they had put in irons. They have found there several skeletons, which appear to have belonged to the unhappy soldiers who, at the time of the eruption, were confined here in prison, without the possibility of saving themselves. Their feet were placed upon a block of wood, and underneath passed an iron which held them, and which was fixed to the block by solid nails.

The construction of the houses of Pompeii shows that this town must have been built upon a very unequal surface: it appears that it had subterranean communications with Vesuvius: for, at the present time, a cellar, which has been found under the terrace of a small house, is filled in such a manner with suffocating ef fluvia that it is necessary to use every precn tion on entering it. When this cellar was dis covered there was found there the skeleton of a woman, stretched out by the side of a large vase, near a stove which heated, at the same time, two bathing rooms and a dark rotunda, lighed only by an opening contrived in the roof. This place is equally remarkable to the naturalist and the antiquary. The vase, by the side of which the skeleton is stretched upon a heap of cinders is three feet and a half in diameter, and appears to have served for a bathing tub. The place where the skeleton is found, and its position, evince that the person has been suddenly thrown down, which was, without doubt, the effect of an asphixy produced by the noxious effluvia. It is owing to the counsels and solicitations of M Hamilton that travellers find this skeleton stud in the place and position it was discovered in; it is certain that it makes here a much liveder impression than if it had been transported to the cabinet of Portici.

For further information on this subject see Antichità d'Ercolano, 9 vols. in folio; Bayard Prodromo delle Antichità d'Ercolano; Note del Scoprimento dell' antica Citta d'Ercolano: Vinuti Descrizione delle prime Scoperte dell' antica Citta d'Ercolano; Murr de Papyris Ileculanensibus; Drummond and Walpole, Herc lanensia; Hayter's Letter and Report on the Herculaneum Manuscripts; Philosophical Tran actions for 1751, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756; and Sir W. Hamilton, Campi Phlegræi, p. 58. Like wise refer to the interesting article on the same subject in Dr. Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclo pædia; La Lettre de Winckelmann au Conte de Brühl; La Relation des nouvelles Deconvertes faites à Herculanum, by the same author; also his Six Letters, written in Italian, and addressed to M. Bianconi:-A French translation of these three works was published in Paris, in 1784, by M. Jansen. Fougeroux de Bondarov, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, has published

Recherches sur les Ruines d'Herculanum et sur les Lumières qui peuvent en résulter, relativement à l'Etat présent des Sciences et des Arts, avec un Traité sur la Fabrique des Mosaïques, 12mo., Paris, 1770. Henri Math. August. Cramer put forth, at Halle, in 1773, Détails pour servir à l'Histoire des Découvertes d' Herculanum, avec une Préface de J. J. Rambach. Added to these, a little German work on the Ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, 8vo., Gotha, 1791, with plates, gives an interesting notice of these discoveries.

POMPEY, surnamed the Great, or Cneius Pompeius Magnus, one of the greatest generals of ancient Rome, was the son of Cneius Pompeius Strabo, and Lucilia. He early distinguished himself in the field of battle, and fought with bravery and success under his father, whose courage and military prudence he imitated. In the beginning of his career, the beauty of his person gained him many admirers; and, by displaying his oratory at the bar, he obtained unbounded applause. During the civil war, between Marius and Sylla, he joined the party of the latter; and, though then only twenty-three years of age, raised three legions for him. In his twenty-sixth year he conquered Sicily, then in the power of Marius; and in forty days recovered all the territories of Africa. This rapid success astonished the Romans, and surprised even Sylla himself, who complimented him with the title of Great, and gave him a triumph, though at first he refused it. After Sylla's death, he supported himself against the remains of the Marian faction under Lepidus, and defeated them. He put an end to the war against. Sertorius in Spain, and obtained a second triumph, A. A. C. 73. Soon after he was made consul, when he restored the tribunitial power to its original dignity; and in forty days cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, where they had committed dreadful depredations for many years, and had almost destroyed the naval power of Rome. He next conquered two of the most formidable enemies of Rome, Mithridates VII, of Pontus, and Tigranes, king of Armenia. After conquering the Albanians, Iberians, and some other nations scarcely known to the Romans, he received homage from twelve kings at once, and, entering Syria, pushed his conquests as far as the Red Sea; subdued part of Arabia, made Judæa a Roman province, and returned to Italy with all the pomp of an eastern conqueror. The Romans dreaded his approach, knowing his power, lest the bloody proscriptions of Marius and Sylla should be renewed. But he soon dispelled their fears, disbanded his army, and entered Rome as a private citizen. This modest behaviour increased his popularity immensely, and he was decreed another triumph: on which occasion he added 20,000 talents to the public treasury, and 55,000,000 of drachmæ to the national revenue. He soon after formed the first triumvirate, by uniting his interest with that of Cæsar and Crassus; which he strengthened still farther by marrying Julia, Cæsar's daughter. But this powerful confederacy, which divided the then known world amongst them, was soon broken: Julia died, Crassus was killed, and a

civil broke out between Pompey and Cæsar, wherein the latter was victorious. See PHARSALIA and ROME.

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Pompey fled to Egypt, intending to take refuge with Ptolemy Auletes, whom he had placed on the throne. He landed at the harbour of Pelusium; and, on quitting his wife Cornelia and his son, repeated the two verses of Sophocles: The free man who seeks an asylum at the court of a king will meet with slavery and chains.' He there found death. Scarcely had he landed on the shore, when Theodore, the rhetorician of the isle of Chio, Septimius the courtier, and Achillas the eunuch, who commanded his troops, wishing for a victim to present to his conqueror, stabbed him with their swords. At the sight of the assassins, Pompey covered his face with his mantle, and died like a Roman. They cut off his head, and embalmed it, to offer it to Cæsar, leaving his body naked on the shore. Philip, his freed man, collecting together, under favor of the night, the wreck of a boat, and stripping off his own cloak to cover the sad remains of his master, burnt them according to the custom. An old soldier, who had served under Pompey's colors, came to mingle his tears with those of Philip, and to assist him in performing the last offices to the manes of his general.

POMPEY (Cneius and Sextus), sons of Pompey the Great, commanded a powerful army, when they lost their illustrious father. Julius Cæsar pursued them into Spain, and defeated them at the battle of Munda, in which Cneius was slain, 45 B. C. Sextus made himself master of Sicily; but being defeated by Augustus and Lepidus, he fled to Asia with only seven ships, the remains of his fleet, which consisted of more than 350; and thence, unable to continue the war, he was obliged to retire to Lesbos, where renewing the war by raising an army, and seizing on some considerable cities, Marcus Titius, in the interest of Marc Antony, gave him battle, defeated him, took him prisoner, and basely put him to death, anno 35 B. C. See ROME.

POMPEY'S PILLAR. See ALEXANDRIA.
POM'PHOLYX, n. s.

Pompholy is a white, light, and very friable substance, found in crusts adhering to the domes of the furnaces, and to the covers of the large crucibles, in which brass is made either from a mixture of copper and lapis calaminaris, or of copper and zinc.

Hill.

POMPIGNAN (J. J. Le Franc), marquis of, a French poet, born at Montauban, in 1709. His tragedy of Dido is much admired, and his translation of Virgil's Georgics is an elegant performance.

POMPILIUS (Numa), See NUMA. POMPILUS, in ichthyology, a species of coryphaena.

POMPION. See CUCURBITA.

POMPONATIUS (Peter), an eminent Italian philosopher, born at Mantua in 1462. He was of so small a stature that he was little better than a dwarf; yet he possessed an exalted genius, and was considered as one of the greatest philosophers of his age. He taught philosophy, first at Padua, and afterwards at Bologna, with

the highest reputation. His book de Immortalitate Animæ, published in 1516, made a great noise. He maintained that the immortality of the soul could not be proved by philosophical reasons; but solemnly declared his belief of it as an article of faith. This did not, however, prevent his adversaries from treating him as an atheist; and the monks procured his book, although he wrote several apologies for it, to be burnt at Venice. His sentiments upon incantations were also thought very dangerous. He shows in his book on this subject that he believed nothing of magic and sorcery; but lays a prodigious stress on occult virtues in certain men, by which they produced miraculous effects. Paul Jovius says that he died in 1525, aged sixty-three. He was three times married; and had but one daughter, to whom he left a large sum of money. He used to apply himself to the solution of difficulties so very intensely that he frequently forgot to eat, drink, or sleep.

POMPONIUS ATTICUS. See ATTICUS. POMPONIUS LETUS (Julius), an eminent Italian writer of the fifteenth century. He wrote an abridgment of the Lives of the Cæsars, and several other works.

POMPOSO, in music, in a distinguished, energetic, and full-toned manner of execution. Pompous style, figures of noisy sounds, signifying nothing. Galimatias pompeux.

POMUM, an apple; a species of seed-vessel, composed of a succulent fleshy pulp; in the middle of which is generally found a membranous capsule, with a number of cells, or cavities, for containing the seeds. Seed vessels of this kind have no external opening or valve. At the end opposite to the foot-stalk is frequently a small cavity, called by the gardeners the eye of the fruit, and by botanists umbilicus, the navel, from its resemblance to the navel in animals, Gourd, cucumber, melon, pomegranate, pear, and apple, furnish instances of the fruit or seedvessel in question.

POND, or

Lat. pondero, ponPON'DER, v. a. & v. n. dus. Literally to PON DERAL, adj. weigh; weigh menPON'DERABLE, tally; consider: PONDERATION, n. s. think; muse; taking PONDEROSITY, on: ponderal is, esPON'DEROUS, adj. timated by weight: PON'DEROUSNESS, n. s. J ponderable is, capable of being weighed: ponderation is the art of weighing ponderosity and ponderousness mean weight; gravity: ponderous, heavy; weighty; momentous; impressive; important.

Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in

her heart.

Luke ii. 19.

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and the quantity of perspired matter, found by ponWhile we perspire we absorb the outward air, deration, is only the difference between that and the air imbibed.

Id.

Because all the parts of an undistributed fluid are of equal gravity, or gradually placed according to the difference of it, any concretion that can be supposed to be naturally made in such a fluid must be all over of a similar gravity, or have the more ponderous parts nearer to its basis. Bentley.

POND, n. s. Sax. pindan, to shut up. A small pool or lake of water; a basin; water not running or emitting any stream.

In the midst of all the place was a fair pond, whose shaking crystal was a perfect mirror to all the other beauties, so that it bare shew of two gardens.

Sidney.

Through bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool, There swallowed up.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Had marine bodies been found in only one place, it might have been suspected that the sea was, what the Caspian is, a great pond or lake, confined to one part. Woodward.

His building is a town,

His pond an ocean, his parterre a down. Pope. POND. In the Transactions of the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, London, vol. viii. 1790, there is a short account of a machine for draining ponds, without disturbing the

mud. It was communicated to the society, together with a drawing and model of the machine, by lieutenant-colonel Dansey. The model was made from the description of a machine used by a gentleman near Taunton for many years before, for supplying a cascade in his pleasure-grounds. The colonel's regiment was then lying at Windsor; and, thinking that the invention might be useful to supply the grand cascade at Virginia with water, he made the model, and presented it to king George III. who approved of it; in consequence of which, a penstock on that principle was constructed from the model of one of the ponds in the neighbourhood. The colonel thinks the machine may be useful in the hands of men of science, and applicable to silk, cotton, and other mills, where a steady and uniform velocity of water is wanted; which might be regulated at pleasure, occasioning no current to disturb the mud or fish, as the stream constantly runs from the surface. He says he has often made the experiment by the model in a tub of water. We must refer to the above volume of the Society's Transactions for a figure of the machine. Fish-ponds are no small improvement of watery and boggy lands, many of which are fit for no other use. In making a pond, its head should be at the lowest part of the ground, that the trench of the flood-gate or sluice, having a good fall, may not be too long in emptying. The best way of making the head secure is to drive in two or three rows of stakes about six feet long, at about four feet distance from each other, the whole length of the pond head, whereof the first row should be rammed at least about four feet deep. If the bottom is false, the foundation may be laid with quick-lime; which, slaking, will make it as hard as a stone. Some lay a layer of lime, and another of earth dug out of the pond, among the piles and stakes; and, when these are well covered, drive in others as they see occasion, ramming in the earth as before, till the pond-head be of the height designed. The dam should be made sloping on each side, leaving a waste to carry off the over-abundance of water in times of floods or rains; and, as to the depth of the pond, the deepest part need not exceed six feet, rising gradually in shoals towards the sides, for the fish to sun themselves, and lay their spawn. Gravelly and sandy bottoms, especially the latter, are best for breeding; and a fat soil with a white fat water, as the washings of hills, commons, streets, sinks, &c., is best for fattening all sorts of fish. For storing a pond, carp and to be preferred for their quick growth, and great increase, as breeding five or six times a-year. A pond of an acre, if it be a feeding and not a breeding one, will every year feed 200 carp of three years old, 300 of two years old, and 400 of a year old. Carp delight in ponds that have marle or clay bottoms, with plenty of weeds and grass, whereon they feed in the hot months. Ponds should be drained every three or four years, and the fish sorted. In breeding ones, the smaller ones are to be taken out, to store other ponds with; leaving a good stock of females, at least eight or nine years old, as they never breed before that age. In feeding ponds, it is best to keep them pretty nearly of a size. VOL. XVII.

PONDICHERRY, or PUDUCHERI, a city on the sea coast of the Carnatic, once capital of the French possessions, and the most splendid European settlement in India. It stands on a sandy plain not far from the sea-shore, producing only palm-trees, millet, and few herbs; but during the south-west monsoon, which is the season of naval warfare, it is to windward, an advantage of which the French experienced the benefit during the wars of the last century.

Pondicherry has few advantages as a commercial town, and when it ceased to be the capital of the French possessions fell into decay. In 1758 the French government, confiding in the great force sent out under M. Lally, ordered him to destroy and dismantle all the British fortifications that might fall into his power; a heavy retribution followed when Pondicherry was taken by colonel Coote, in 1761. On this occasion the fortifications were levelled, and the ditch filled up.

It has been observed that the French power in India, though of short duration, was remarkably brilliant while it lasted. It may be said to have commenced under the government of M. Dupleix in 1749, and was extinguished by the surrender of this place in 1761: the beginning of the colony has a much earlier date, and has been thus given by Dr. Hamilton. In 1601 the French first adventured to India in two ships fitted out from St. Maloes, under the command of the Sieur Bardalieur, which were wrecked next year among the Maldives Isles. In 1604 Henry IV. incorporated the first French East India Company. In 1672 the French, under M. Martin, purchased from the king of Visiapoor (Bejapoor) this village with a small tract adjacent, where he effected a settlement which soon became populous. In 1693 the Dutch took Pondicherry, which they retained until the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, when they were obliged to restore it with the fortifications greatly improved. In August 1748 admiral Boscawen besieged Pondicherry with an army of 3720 Europeans, 300 topasses, and 2000 sepoys; and, on the 6th of October, was compelled to raise the siege, having lost in the course of it 1065 Europeans. The French garrison consisted of 1800 Europeans and 3000 sepoys. M. Dupleix acted as governor during this siege, having been appointed in 1742; in 1754 he was removed from the government.

Lally landed here on the 28th of February 1758, when an active war ensued between the French and British forces, which ended in the total ruin of the former. Pondicherry surrendered to the British army under colonel Coote on the 16th of January 1761, after a long and strict blockade. The total number of European military taken in the town, including services attached to the troops, was 2072; the civil inhabits were 381; the artillery fit for service were 500 pieces of cannon, and 100 mortars and howitzers. The ammunition, arms, weapons, and military stores, were in equal abundance. At the peace of 1763 it was restored to the French East India Company, with the fortifications in a very dilapidated condition; but by great exer2 Y

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