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raneous passage two hundred paces in length, exceeds all bounds, when it is confidered that it was worked upon the place where it remains. What difficulties must have been furmounted, in order to transport a weight of many hundred milliers, across the almost impracticable roads of the mountain?

Human facrifices are continually represented.

Excavation of the fubterraneous City of Pompeii; from Mariana Starke's Letters from Italy.

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OMPEII

was buried under aflies and pumice-ftones thrown out from Vefuvius, A. D. 79; and accidentally discovered by fome peafants, A. D. 1750, as they were digging in a vineyard near the river Sarno. The excavation of this interefting city was attended with less trouble and expense than that of Herculaneum, it being buried only twelve or fifteen feet under athes and pumice-stone.

On quitting your carriage you go down a fmall defcent to the foldiers barracks, nearly an oblong-square, with a portico round it, supported by brick pillars ftuccoed and painted, with feveral figures in armour engraved upon them, supposed to have been done by the Roman foldiers. The rooms within the portico are of various dimenfions, fome of the largest being about fifteen feet fquare; and in one of these (probably a prifon) iron stocks were found, with skeletons standing in them. This part of the city contains fragments of an ancient doric temple, evidently of an anterior date, and in its appearance, far more fimply majeftic than the rest of the yet

excavated buildings: within this temple is an altar, and without-fide, near the entrance, another. The building in general feems to have been composed of a fort of tufo formed by depofitions from water, and the same with that of which the temples at Pæftum are built.Nearly adjoining to the doric temple, is an open theatre originally lined throughout with beautiful white marble: that part which held the spectators is of a femi-circular form, and on either fide, near the stage, is a confular-feat: the orchestra is enclosed with two straight walls, and divides the fiage from the spectators: the flage is very wide, but so shallow, that lit tle or no scenery could have been used; it had three entrances all in front, and behind were the greenroom, &c. That part where the spectators sat, is built on the fide of a hill, according to the custom of the Greeks, and on the top of this hill were covered colonades for the spectators to retire into when it rained-these colonades probably served at other times for a public walk, as they commanded a fire view of Capri, Stabia, &c. The different classes of people ascended this theatre by different ftair-cafes and lobbies, all of which feem to have been very convenient. Nearly adjoining to the juft-described theatre is another, not quite fo large, thoughin most respects similar.except that it is said to have been covered, but whether with an awning or a roof, does not appear. The temple of Isis is in higher prefervation than many other of the ruins, and especially worth notice; for, to contemplate those altars from whence fo many oracles have iffired, to trace the very hiding-place into which the priests

priests squeezed themselves when they spoke for the statue of the god defs, nay, to discover the secret stairs by which they ascended into the fanctum fanctorum; in short, to examine the construction of a temple evidently built long before Pompeii was destroyed, is surely a most interesting speculation. Instruments for facrifice, candelabres, &c. with the skeletons of priests, thought to have been feasting at the time of the eruption, were found here. It appears that this temple had been destroyed by an earthquake previous to the general overthrow of the city, feveral stumps of columns, which ich feem originally to have fupported the buildings, being still difcernible: this earthquake is mentioned by Seneca; it happened in the year 63. The pillars now standing are composed of brick stuccoed and painted, the capitals are the fame-the whole building likewife is stuccoed, painted, and beautifully polished within and without; the floor is Mosaic. The houses already excavated are, generally speaking, on a small scale; most of them, however, were evidently nothing more than shops, and the habitations of shopkeepers. Some few which seem to have belonged to persons of a higher class are adorned with a handsome portico in front, supported by doric columns, a large entrance, or hall, with a fountain in its centre, and on the fides, bedrooms which appear to have had little or no light except what came from the hall. In one house, which seems to have been three stories high, there are three halls, and three fountains; indeed, wherever there is one of these courts, or halls, there

never fails to be a fountain in the middle of it. The pillars of every portico are composed of brick ftuccoed and painted-the rooms are stuccoed, painted, and beautifully vanished the roofs arched, with terraces on the top-the floors Mofaic, and scarce two of them alike. The windows were generally closed with wooden shutters; some few, however, had glass, which seems to have been thick, and not transparent-others had isinglass split into thin plates. The paintings in the shops and very small houses seem nearly as elegant as in the large ones. The houses usually pointed out to travellers contain-First house-a lion on the door-fill, in Mofaic-a fountain in the middle of the yard. Second house-various paintings, namely, a woman feated, reading a scroll-a landscape-comic and tragic masks -a pretty bed-room, with paintings on the walls, representing Venus attired by the graces, ces, and Venus and Adonis-here, likewife, is a painting of a white stag fastened to a column, and an altar adorned with trophies emblematical of his death. Third house-two snakes, emblems of longevity, done in Mosaic at the entrance. Fourth house -SALVE “ welcome," in Mofaic on the threshold, and a curious labyrinth, or table for playing at an ancient game, in the centre of one of the floors *-paintings reprefenting an altar, with a cock prepared for facrifice, and inftruments for facrifice lying by-a figure of Afculapius, and another of Mars-a lady dressing her hair-fighting gladiators-a dancing Bacchante-a fine bull's head-fith-flowers-poultry

• The two just-named Mofaics seem to indicate that this house was an inn.

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-and Cupid playing on the tibia.In one of the houses likewife is a painting of a Grecian temple, adorned with twenty fluted doric pillars. One of the shops (in appearance a foap-boiler's) had soap found in it-another shop evidently was a coffee-house, and the marks of the cups still remain upon the marble dresser. Without fide of another shop are Hebrew characters (not written with vowel-points) and other oriental characters, which do not feem to be Hebrew. The iron-work of a calash, apparently like those used at present in Naples, was found in the court of a house. The city-gate is highly interesting; here is the centry-box for the guard-a femi-circular feat in which the Romans used to affemble and converse and a couple of tombs-all in great measure perfect -near one of the tombs is a court containing a ftone, on which the bodies of the dead were burnt; and on the walls of this court are large frightful earthern masks with weeping faces. The tomb contains one * large and feveral small niches for urns; the large one is supposed to have been for the head of the family. The excavated villa is more entire than any of the ruins yet laid open, several rooms, the garden and the cellar, being quite in their original state; the last contains wine-vessels cemented to the wall by the cinders which overwhelmed the city, and likewile filled with them. The paintings still remaining in this villa are beautiful-the hot and cold baths almost entire the kitchen entire also in short, by examining these apartments, you precifely afcertain the plan and manner of ornamenting a Roman country-house, which seems to dif

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fer very little from modern Italian villas, except that the frucco is infinitely finer than any we now fee, as likewife are the colours and varnish laid over them. Pompeii was built and paved with lava; carriage wheels have worn traces in the pavement, atid these traces are only four feet wide; nevertheless so narrow are the streets already excavated that there is barely room fufficient for two carriages to pass each other; the streets have raised footways on each fide three feet broad. Perhaps the whole world does not exhibit so awful a spectacle as Pompeii; and when it was first discovered, when skeletons were found heaped together in the streets and houses, when all the utenfils and even the very bread of the poor fuffocated inhabitants, were difcemible, what a speculation must this ill-fated city have furnished to a thinking mind! To vifit it even now is absolutely to live with the ancient Romans: and when welee houses, shops, furniture, fountains, streets, carriages, and implements of husbandry, exactly fimilar to those of the present day, we are apt to conclude that customs and manners have undergone but little variation for the last two thousand years.The custom of consulting augurs, and that of hiring persons to weep at funerals, are still kept up in the mountainous and fecluded parts of Tuscany; and I have frequently feen the Tuscan cattle, when deltined for flaughter, adorned with chaplets of flowers, preciselyas the ancients used to adorn their victims for facrifice. The Roman butchers, likewise, still wear the drefs, and use the knife of heathen faerificing priests. The old Roman custom of not eating above one regular meala day, day, and that about the ninth hour of Italy, (three o'clock with us) is kept up by many of the Italians: and during the month of May it is common to fee shepherds dressed as in ancient times tike Pan, Satyrs, &c. I do not, however, mean to infer from what I have faid, that modern Italians equal the ancients in works of art; for, in this respect, there seems as much difference between the present race and their forefathers, as there was between the ancient Romans and their teachers, the Greeks.

Not more than from forty to fifty skeletons have yet been found in Pompeii-one third of the town only, however, is yet uncovered; but the excavations are going on daily; and a new street, with a noble portico, have very lately been laid open.

Particulars concerning Tobacco, digejted in a chronological Order; from Profeffor Beckmann's Introduction to Technology.

「N 1496, Romanus Pane, a

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nish monk, whom Columbus, on his second departure from America, had left in that country, published the first account of tobacco, with which he became acquainted in St. Domingo. He gave it the names of Cohoba, Cohobba, Gioia.

In 1535, the negroes had already habituated themselves to the use of tobacco, and cultivated it in the plantations of their masters. Europeans likewife already smoked it., In 1559, Jean Nicot, envoy from France at the court of Portugal, fuft tranfmitted thence to Paris, to queen Catharine de Medicis, feed of the tobacco plant. And VOL. XLII.

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from this circumstance it acquired the name Nicotiana. When tobacco began to be used in France it was called "Herbe du Grand Prieur," from the then grand prieur, of the house of Lorraine, who was very fond of it. It was likewife once known by the name of "Herbe de St. Croix," after cardinal Profper St. Croix, who, on his return from Portugal, where he had been nuncio from the pope, introduced into Italy the custom of using to bacco.

In 1565, Conrad Gesner became acquainted with tobacco. At that time several botanists already cultivated the plant in their gardens.

In 1570, they still smoked in Holland out of conical tubes com posed of palm leaves plaited together.

In 1575, first appeared a figure of the plant, André Thevet's "Cofmographie."

In 1585, the English first saw pipes made of clay among the native Indians of Virginia, which was at that time difcovered by Richard Grenville. It appears, likewife, that the English soon after fabricated the first clay tobacco. pipes in Europe.

In the beginning of the feventeenth century they began to cultivate tobacco in the East Indies.

In 1604, Jamesthe first of England endeavoured, by means of heavy imposts, to abolish the use of tobacco, which he held to be a noxious weed.

In 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known at Constantinople. To render the custom ridiculous, a Turk, who had been found smoking, was conducted about the streets with a pipe transfixed through his nofe. For a long time after the

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Turks purchased tobacco, and that the refuse, from the English. It was late before they learned to cultivate the plant themselves.

In 1615, it appears that tobacco began to be sown about Amersfort, in Holland.

In 1616, they began to cultivate tobacco in Virginia; the feeds had probably been carried thither from Tobago.

In 1619, king James the sust wrote his "Mifocapno" against the ufe of tobacco; and ordered that no planter in Virginia should cultivate more than 100 pounds.

In it the prohibition to smoke tobacco stands under the rubrick"Thou shalt not commit adultery!" The prohibition was renewed in 1675; and the tribunal particularly instituted to put it in execution, "Chamive du Tabac," continued till the middle of the present century.

In 1670, and in the following years, the smoking of tobacco was punished in the canton of Glarus by a pecuniary fine of one crown Swifs money.

In 1676, two Jews årst attempted the cultivation of tobacco in the margraviate of Brandenburgh; but

In 1620, fome English companies introduced the custom of which, however, was not brought fmoking tobacco, in Zittau, in Germany.

In 1620, Robert Konigsmann, a merchant, brought the first tobaccoplant from England to Strasburgh.

In 1624, pope Urban VIII. published a decree of excommunication against all who should take fnuff in the church, because then already fome Spanish ecclefiaftics ufed it during the celebration of

mafs.

In 1631, fmoking of tobacco was firft introduced into Mifnia by the Swedish troops.

In 1634, Imoking was forbidden in Rufia, under the pain of having the nofe cut off.

In 1653, they began to fmoke tobacco in the canton of Apenzell, in Switzerland. At first, the children van after those who smoked in the ftreets. The council likewife cited the smokers before them, and punished them; and ordered the innkeepers to inform against fuch as should fmoke in their houses.

In 1661, the police regulation of Bern was made, which was divided according to the ten commandments.

to bear till 1681.

In 1686, tobacco first planted in the canton of Bafil.

In 1689, Jacob Francis Vicarius, an Austrian physician, invented the tubes for tobacco-pipes, which have capfules containing bits of fporge; however, about the year 1670, already pipes were used with glass globules appended to them, to col lect the oily moisture exfuding from

the tobacco.

In 1690, pope Innocent XII. excommunicated all who should be guilty of using fnuff or tobac co in the church of St. Peter, at Rome.

In 1697, great quantities of tobacco already produced in the palar tinate and in Hessia.

In 1719, the fenate of Strasburgh prohibited the culture of tobacco, from an apprehenfion left it should prove injurious, by diminishing the growing of corn.

In 1724, pope Benedict XIV, revoked the bull of excommunication published by Innocent, because i himself had acquired the habit of taking snuff

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