the tiles of a roofing, they projected over one another. As nothing but the shops have yet been cleared away, I could not see the apartments occupied by the merchants, and I continued to advance towards the forum, and in my way thither I saw a fountain of white marble, very badly erected, being almost in the centre of the street; and further on, a kind of raised step, which attracted my attention. I had always imagined that the Romans did not use carriages in their cities; some tracks of wheels which I had seen, led me to conjecture that I was mistaken, when this step, which being covered with rubbish, usually escapes observation, convinced me that the Romans did not make use of carriages in their cities, unless for the transporting of materials. The forum, of which nothing but the ruins now exist, is the size of marketplaces usually found in small towns, being of a long square form, and decorated with a colonnade of stuccoed brick. On one side appears what was called the Basilic, which was ornamented by a double range of columns, the bases only now remaining: at the extremity is a cell six feet high, and from 15 to 20 feet wide, surmounted by small columns formed after a bad taste, nor can I imagine why it is said that this building was used as an exchange, or a place of public assembly. At the other extremity of the forum, is a temple, or, at least, a cell, dedicated to Jupiter, to which you are conducted by a fine flight of white marble steps.

On quitting the temple of Jupiter, you pass beneath two arcades, which appear to conduct to another quarter of the city, where several houses without shops are seen, having no windows looking on the street, and such appears to me to have been their general construction. They had only the ground floor, or at most but one story above, the traces of which are rarely visible; the centre presented a court surrounded by columns, forming a gallery, refreshed by a square fountain, generally of marble; all the chambers, usually of small dimensions, looked upon a peristyle, receiving the light through the door, or sometimes from a window, one of which is said to have been found that was glazed. Under some of these peristyles, decorated by paintings, is sometimes seen an elevation in masonry, being the couch upon which the inhabitants reclined at meals. The rooms, from eight to nine feet wide, and ten to

twelve in height, are painted red, blue, or yellow, divided into large squares or lozenges, from the centres of which are detached figures, freely and elegantly designed. The bed-rooms are rendered conspicuous by paintings, more naked, and displaying more lascivious attitudes, some of which, according to modern ideas, would be deemed quite indecent. The kitchen, in which is an oven nearly similar to those constructed at present, is decorated by paintings applicable to the spot, representing game, fish, quarters of meat, &c. &c. In almost every dwelling are found two serpents, whimsically designed, regarding each other, and which are placed, as it is said, in the spot appropriated to the worship of Æsculapius. Of all these fresco paintings, the best preserved are those in red; the most beautiful have been taken away with the stucco, three or four lines in thickness, in order to be placed in the Museum at Portici, where they are to be seen framed.

It seems that if the ancients had no better painters than our great modern masters, they had not, at the same time, such detestable daubers as ours; all is pourtrayed with ease, indicating a perfect knowledge of those masterly touches of the pencil which are productive of the greatest effect; they excelled above all in depicting animals, in their most natural and respective positions. The pavement of the chambers is usually of Mosaic work, well executed, the finest specimens of which have been transported to the Portici Palace, but I think they have done wrong in placing them in the first story. This pavement is necessarily heavy, and the period will perhaps arrive when these precious remnants of antiquity will be buried under the ruins of the edifice.

If the dwellings are small, they are, generally speaking, very commodious. The mills are composed of a conic grey stone, very hard, though porous, upon which, by means of two wooden arms, another double cone was turned; or, to express myself more comprehensively, a double funnel, in the upper part of which the grain was deposited, and the flour fell, after being pulverised between the surface of the second and the pivot. As for bedsteads, they were similar to those now constructed in the country, being of iron, and very narrow; all the other articles of furnitureare of bronze, and extremely ponderous, one of the folding chairs,

the

which is in the Museum at Naples, weighs at least 40 pounds. In the same Museum are to be seen saucepans of every species, but small in size; cullinders, larding pins, utensils for making pastry, &c. &c. A species of portable grate, wherein coals were placed, arrested my attention; it is square, border being furnished with a canal, wherein water was heated, and the four angles having small towers, which, opening at the summits, served either to give vent to the steam, or to cook something. I was also shown keys, surgical instruments, horse- shoes, bits made like those now in use, together with numerous other curious instruments, but difficult to describe. I was surprised on beholding numerous pieces of ivory, collected in a box, all of different and whimsical forms, which were used at the ladies' toilettes. I might also describe a number of animals in bronze, together with the Penates, or household gods, and children's playthings of the same metal, as also a group in marble, which the director of the studies and Museum, caused me to inspect. It is of beautiful workmanship, representing a Satyr enamoured of his goat, a circumstance which his position fully identifies.

In many dwellings baths are found, and subterraneous excavations, which were used for cellars, wherein I saw liquor measures one foot in width, to three or four feet in length, and at the extremity of some few, were still found the materials used for colouring wine, dried up by time, the dust of which I tasted, in the hope that it might prove the celebrated wine of Falernum. Above the baths are small apartments, serving to temper the heat; the pipes which conveyed the vapour being still in perfect preservation, both for the hot and cold water.

Denominations are applied to several houses which do not always appear very appropriate; one of them, however, was certainly that of a baker. The court is filled with stone mills, and the extremity occupied by an oven, above which is sculptured in relief, and painted red, that object which is so difficult to express, and which was honoured by the ancients under the forms of their garden gods; around this is written hic habitat felicitas, and upon the portal of an adjoining mansion is another sculpture no less evident, of the same nature.

diately nominated him his secretary of state. The dignity of a cardinal's hat appeared to be at no great distance, and it was with infinite surprise that at the next election, his name was not found comprehended in the list. Casotti attributes his exclusion to the honourable cause of having been too strenuously recommended by some prince, an interference of which the severe and fastidious character of the Pope did not altogether approve. His election indeed had been strongly insisted upon even by the King of France. It is, however, probable he would not have been forgotten in the second promotion of the sacred college, had not his death taken place in the mean time at the age of fifty-three.

This author was universally allowed a very high rank among the first geniuses of the splendid and refined period in which he wrote. Tiraboschi observes, that in point of pure Tuscan elegance and richness of style, there are few that will bear a comparison with him, and that had he only produced his Galateo, it would have fully justified his admission among the most classical writers of the language.

It is well known that Torquato Tasso wrote an academical criticism, consisting of an entire treatise, upon one of his celebratad sonnets, commencing

"Questa vita mortal che in una o due
Brevi e notturn 'ore trapassa oscura
E fredda, involta havea fin qui la pura
Parte di me nell 'atri nubi sue."

The eloquence of his orations was such, that they were studied and imitated by the first public speakers and pleaders of his time. Though the style of his versification is neither the most harmonious nor the most impassioned of the Tuscan muse, it is amply redeemed by its grandeur of thought, and the truth and beauty of its images. Disdaining to confine himself to a mere imitation of Petrarch, who had been esteemed the only model of poetic composition, he dared to open for himself a new career; and sacrificing something of the sweetness and delicacy of style peculiar to that poet, he introduced an elevated and serious tone, which, though less graceful, is certainly more impressive. He ought not, however, to have despaired of reconciling the opposite qualities of strength and beauty, which if united would have rendered his name equal to that of Dante or Ariosto.

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His letters, written in Italian, are remarkable for force of sentiment, studied elegance, and correctness of expression. For this reason, however, they are not so pleasing, as greater ease and familiarity of manner in epistolary writing would have rendered them. In his Latin compositions, as well as in his imitations of the Greeks, he stands nearly unrivalled: while his lives of the two celebrated cardinals, Bembo and Contarini, are exquisite specimens of biographical composition.

He published an excellent translation of the orations of Thucydides, and the description of the Plague of Athens. But amidst the fame which he justly acquired by many noble and beautiful productions, he did not escape the deserved censure for the occasional freedoms and licentiousness introduced into his effusions of a lighter stamp. In his Capitolo del Forno, of which he admitted himself to be the author, there are passages which make us regret that it should ever have seen the light.

He was accused, like Tansillo, of having written an express treatise on Obscenity; and it was even said that he took an opportunity of writing it while employed as Nuncio from the Pope. On the other hand he is defended by the authority of Menage, and of the celebrated Magliabecchi, the last of whom demonstrates that the improper little epigram upon an ant, attri buted to Casa, is really the work of a Niccolo Secco. It was said by many that he was refused the honour of the purple on the score of this unlucky chapter upon an Oven. But this is scarcely probable; as, independent of other reasons, if such productions really disqualified him from receiving the honour of a hat, it would equally apply to the dignity of an Archbishop and the seriousness of an Apostolic Nuncio.

To put the most charitable construction, as we are bound to do, upon such a case, we may suppose that, like Tansillo, or our own T. Brown the younger, poor Casa thought to expiate the erotic offences of his youth, by writing the following treatise upon good manners; with which we now propose to edify our readers. It is pretty certain that the wildness of genius, and the exuberant feelings of love and admiration, with which, without excepting Shakespeare, the early productions of our very first geniuses abound, generally terminate about the close of their career in celebrating La Nascita

della

della Virgine, Le Lagrime Christi, Hebrew and Sacred Melodies, and numerous other peace offerings at the shrine of offended manners. Upon the whole, therefore, we think this excellent little essay upon good behaviour now before us, is rather a proof than otherwise of Giovanni's having written, at one time or other, something of a very contrary tendency. But, how far the censures of his arch critics are borne out by facts, we must leave to such moral censors and casuists in the art as Mr. Bowles. At present our readers need not be alarmed lest we should conjure up the sins of his youth, as it is our honest intention to give them only his redeeming work upon propriety of man ners, describing the peculiar excellencies to be acquired, and the errors to be shunned in the social intercourse of life. It is addressed in the person of an old and accomplished veteran, to a flippant and unpractised youth, in the following words, "GALATEO, OR PoLITE ETHICS."

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"As you are now, my dear boy, about to set out on that troublesome journey which I have well-nigh finished, as, indeed, you may perceive from these grey (or rather we presume powdered) hairs,-I propose, as one who has had some experience of the way, to give you some notion of the places you have to pass, the inconveniences of the road, the thousand intricacies that mislead, and the stumbling-blocks over which you may probably fall. By earnestly observing the advice Í am enabled to afford you, I trust that you may keep in the sure path, and not only save your soul alive," but, with a generous thirst of praise, reflect credit and honour upon the noble family from which you spring. Since your tender years will not yet admit either of very strong, or very subtle arguments, in the way of tuition, reserving them for a riper season, I shall begin with such as are more applicable, though by some considered light, rediculous, and frivolous. It is no joke, however, to know what is becoming in action and in speech, and to appear with a noble and pleasing presence in the company of others. If this be not a virtue, it is something so nearly resembling it, that though perhaps not comparable to the finer qualities of magnanimity, generosity, and resolution of character, a sweetness of temper and ease of manner are often of real value to their possessors. They are often also

not less useful, though less splendid than the former, as they are in every-day practice with those to whom we speak, and those among whom we visit and live. But justice, fortitude, and all the magnanimous virtues are of much rarer use and occurrence. The great man cannot always be exhibiting his magnificence, and the brave are seldom called upon to give proofs of valour: while superior and commanding spirits are of still more uncommon growth and rarely seen but in their works. However estimable for the strength and majesty they display, in number and frequency, we think the minor virtues redeem themselves, and become of equal importance with the great. Indeed, I have known men of no stamina or solidity of mind, by the mere force of a happy manner and appearance, not only loved and courted for their company, but thus accomplished, to have arrived at very high situations in the state. Leaving far behind them those of superior sense and learning, even gifted with extraordinary virtue, they have shewn the invincible power of graceful and noble manners in winning the good opinion of the world, and ingratiating themselves into the favour and protection of those they pleased. The more careless, rude, and uncultivated, on the other hand, are either hated or neglected, and often appear to merit the contempt and aversion we feel but dare not venture to express. Now, though there be no penal regulations respecting disobliging manners and a rough outside, being considered, in the eye of the law, a matter of trivial account and certainly it is not in the criminal list, we generally perceive that as it is left to nature, she takes care to visit the offence against SOCIETY with adequate punishment by depriving us of those pleasures we should otherwise meet with in the mutual kindness, the good will and admiration of those around us.

"If more enormous crimes are attended with more danger, they are scarcely more obnoxious and disagreeable to CIVIL SOCIETY, and do not stare us in the face so frequently as those of an equally savage kind-the offspring of rude and uncultivated nature.

"As mankind hold wild beasts in a kind of dread, having nothing of the same fear for gnats and flies, yet wè perceive they more frequently complain of the trouble and torment which the latter inflict in a small way: thus