matic representations, regarding which the reader may consult a work by Ficoroni, is well known, and is the sub ject of many of the pictures. The theatre, we repeat, was a favourite resort of the ancients ; and some ivory tickets of admission, with the author's name, and that of the piece, arc preserved from Herculaneum. Rope dancing is ex hibited on the pictures, wherein all the modern dexterity. of playing on musical instruments, pouring out liquids into cups, and other feats of address are shown. The most elegant and graceful of the Herculaneum pictures are per haps female dancers, suspended as it were among the clouds.
It is to be observed in general, with regard to the nu merous articles relative to this brief detail, that the quality of the statutes infinitely surpasses that of the pictures ; and that the vases, tripods, lamps, and candelabra, are frequently of the finest workmanship. Of many once com plete, only fragments at this day remain ; and while gold, silver, bronze, or clay, remain entire, iron has altogether wasted away.
After a vast collection of antiquities had been made, the king resolved on publishing a laborious and expensive work, containing engravings of those which appeared most curious. In the course of thirty-eight years, from 1754 to 1792, this was accomplished in nine folio volumes, in cluding the pictures, bronzes, lamps, and candelabra : The first is devoted to a catalogue, five to pictures, two to the bronzes, and one to the lucerne. No less than 738 pic tures are named in the catalogue, and the other articles are proportionally numerous. The work was, with royal munificence, presented to the principal public libraries in Europe ; but owing to the succession of the king of the Sicilies to the crown of Spain, it is seldom to be seen complete. At the same time, it has been affirmed, that some of the engravings of the pictures appear with a per fection and delicacy do not belong to the originals, although their general character be not lost.
In penetrating an apartment-of a villa in the neighbour hood of Herculaneum, a number of supposed pieces of charcoal were carried off, which, by accidental fracture, exposed the remains of letters, and proved so many an cient manuscripts. Here Camillo Paderni, the keeper of the museum, buried himself during twelve days, and succeeded in carrying away 337 manuscripts ; and, by subsequent careful research, the total number recovered now exceeds 1800. They were in various stages of decay ; some so much disfigured and obliterated, that nothing could be determined regarding their nature from the be ginning. However, the king instituted a society for in vestigating them completely. High expectations were formed by the European literati, of the knowledge which would be acquired respecting the history, the manners, and the customs of antiquity ; more especially as the mate rials themselves indubitably remounted to a period of more than 1600 years. The manuscripts consisted of rolls, scarcely a span in length, and two or three inches in thick ness, formed of pieces of Egyptian papyrus glued together. Some had a label in front, at one end of the roll, expos ing the name of the work, or the author, as it occupied its place in the library. But the substance of the invo lutions was so crushed together, the ink or pigment em ployed 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 impracti cable. 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 manuscripts without destruction, by means of a me chanical apparatus. The process was slow, but tolerably certain ; and the first manuscript put on the machine, be ing unrolled in the year 1754, proved to be a treatise in Greek capitals, written by Philodemus, an Epicurean Phi losopher, against music, with his name twice inscribed at the end, or interior of the roll. Similar means were adopt ed with other manuscripts, and they were partly success ful. Almost the whole 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 ordi nary pages, each containing from forty to seventy lines in different manuscripts, this being dependent on the size of the roll ; hut 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 Herculean pictures. Uncommon difficulties were experienced, from the decay of the substance, from frequent blanks and obliterations within, and from the ab sence 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 in duced 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 mu sic was published, with illustrations by Mazzocchi, a learn ed Italian, under the title Herculanensium voluminum viz supersunt, tomus 1. Napoli, 1793. It must have been anxiety for publication, not the desire of enlightening the world, that led to the selection of this volume, reputed a dull and controversial performance, which the most in genious commentary is incapable of enlivening. Cicero. notwithstanding, has called the author optimum et doctis simum ; Piso, the supposed owner of the manuscripts, 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 manuscripts, 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 employed, either from the difficulty, or want of interest in its prosecution ; and it was perhaps totally in terrupted by the political events which disturbed the peace of Europe. Mean time, six of the manuscripts were ' presented, along with other Herculaneum curiosities, to Bonaparte 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 vo lumes are said to have been sent, on some occasion, to the Prince of Wales.