The exfodiation was prosecuted along the walls of the buildings, turning the corners, and entering by the doors and windows as they occurred. Two marble equestrian statues of the finest workmanship, which had been erected in honour of the two consuls, Balbi and son, were found op posite to the theatre: and in prosecuting the researches into the public edifices and private houses, or even through the streets, the workmen met with many worthy of ob servation. A well, now containing good water, was been surrounded by a parapet, and covered by an arch which had excluded the ashes. A capacious bath of a circular form was penetrated, and also repositories of the dead, still more ancient than the overthrow of Herculaneum. Frag ments of columns of various coloured marble, beautiful mo saic pavements entire, and mutilated statues, were abun dantly disseminated among the ruins. Some of the pave ment, representing figures, has been taken up and again disposed in its original order, in a spacious museum pre pared for the reception of the antiquities. The public edifices afforded a copious collection corresponding to their different uses ; but many were utterly destroyed, such as the statues in the building containing forty-two columns. Numerous sacrificial implements, however, such as pate rx, tripods, cups, and vases, were recovered in excellent preservation, and even some of the knives with which the victims are conjectured to have been slaughtered. Nume rous domestic utensils employed in the exercise of the arts, and contributing to the amusements of the existing generation, were all preserved.
When we reflect that 1600 years have elapsed since the destruction of this city, an interval which has been mark ed by numerous revolutions, both in the political and men tal state of Europe, a high degree of interest must be ex perienced in contemplating the venerable remains of anti quity recovered from the subterraneous city of Hercula neum. Pliny the Younger, in his letters, brings the Ro mans, thei• occultations, manners, and customs, before us. He pictures in feeling terms the death of his uncle, who perished in the same eruption as the city we now des cribe : and that event is brought to our immediate notice by those very things which it was the means of preserving. Among these we see the various articles which administer ed to the necessities and the pleasures of the inhabitants, the emblems of their religious sentiments, and the very manners and customs of domestic life.
Articles in vast variety were obtained from the houses, whet ein the beams appeared as if converted to charcoal ; but it is to be observed, that all the remains of wood exhi bit the same aspect to the very heart. They are not corn sumed or turned to ashes, owing probably to the exclusion of the external air by the showers of volcanic matter. It is singular, that while wood, which has remained during ages buried in the earth, or immersed in water, acquires addi tional consistence, this has entirely lost what it possessed. Pieces of thin and delicate texture have preserved their shape, but blocks of a large size are converted throughout to charcoal.
If the subjects recovered from Herculaneum be class ed according to their value, ;Ire statues should be enume rated first,both as being of the finest workmanship and of the most difficult execution. Some are colossal, some of the natu ral size, and some in miniature ; and the materials of their formation are either clay, marble, or bronze. They represent all different objects, divinities, heroes, or distinguished persons; and in the same substances, especially bronze, there are the figures of many animals. Sculpture, in its various branches, had attained a high degree of perfection among the ancients ; their religious prejudices and manners great ly contributed to the perfection of the art ; and we have ocular demonstration, that the reputation of their celebrat ed artists was not overrated. Paintings arc interesting, but the small portion of the object represented, renders them far less so than statues which afford complete imitations, and are thence to be ranked as the most precious relics of antiquity. Here there are two statues seven feet high of Jupiter, and a woman in clay ; and two of gladiators, in bronze, about to combat, are much admired. The same may be said of Nero in bronze, naked and armed as a Jupi ter tonans, with a thunderbolt in his hand. A Venuspudica of white marble in miniature, is extremely beautiful, and al so the statue of a female leaving the bath. In the year 1758, a fine bronze statue of a naked Mercury, supposed to have been the work of a Greek artist, was discovered : and in the course of the excavations extending-beyond the confines of the city, a Silenus, with a tiger,.sometimes his attribute, was found, which had formerly adorned a foun tain. Several fauns or other sylvans, with vases on their shoulders, were obtained in the vicinity of Silenus, which are of bronze; and it is singular to observe, that the younger figures have silver eyes, a disagreeable deformity some times adopted in marble statues. The figure and attitude of a drunken faun, stretched on a lion's skin, and supported by one full of liquor, presents all that vacuity of thought and sensation of animal pleasure which accompany eb•iety: another faun asleep, as large as life, presents a state of ab solute repose. We have named two fine equestrian statues of full size. There is also a bronze equestrian statue of an armed Amazon, only sixteen inches high. There are ma ny elegant statmes 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 Hercula mans 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 pe• dental. Bas-reliefs likewise occurred, but few coins or medals. Gold coins of Augustus were found, and silver me dallions, two or three inches in diameter, bearing uncertain devices.