tleman at Aldfrifton had the curiofity to have one of the circular ones opened a few weeks fince, and accordingly begun on the fouthfide, and at a few feet in, found the skeleton of a man lying on his fide in a contracted form, with his head to the weft; the bones were very firm and hard, owing to the nature of the ground on which they lay, which was a bed of chalk. During the course of digging was found ten knives of different make, iron fpikes, charcoal, a thin piece of yellow metal, bones of brute animals, &c. In the middle, under a pyramid of flints, was found an urn holding about a gallon, full of burnt bones and afhes; it was carefully placed on the chalk rock, with about four feet of earth over it, was of unbaked clay, and had fome rude ornaments on the verge of it. Mr. Lucas of Aldfrifton is in poffeffion of it, with the knives, &c.

Yours, &c.

STEPHEN VINE.

ly decayed; and on removing what remained, we found a skeleton pretty entire. On the right fide ftood a fmall filver chalice, covered with the paten. A piece of filk, or linen, (we could not tell which) was bound round the ftem or pillar of the chalice. Among the duft we found a fair gold ring, with a large, but not very good faphire; the whole as fresh as if just brought from the jeweller's. On the left-fide lay the remains of a wooden crofier, which scarce retains enough of its original form to determine what it had been. Tradition, (for we have nothing elfe to depend on, the infcription having been long fince effaced) informs us, that the exuvia were thofe of Thomas de Bitton, bishop of Exeter, who was buried about the year 1306, in the reign of Edward II. The bones were very refpectfully covered up again, but the ring and chalice are reserved for the inspection of the curious in the repofitory of our archives. Yours, A. B.

State of the city of Rome, and its environs, in regard to its air and inhabitants, at feveral periods fince the declenfion of the Roman empire. From Mr. Condamine's Tour to Italy.

THE Campagna of Rome, for

merly fo well peopled and filled with delightful palaces, is at prefent defert, and the air there reputed pernicious. We scarce meet now with a few villages, or hamlets, in an extent of ground which once contained twenty-five cities or towns; I fpeak of the

Country

country inhabited by the Volfci, of which Velitræ, now Velletri, was the capital. It is the fame with all the environs of Rome: they are uninhabited, especially during the hot months, except a few elevated places, fuch as Tivoli, Frascati, Albano, &c.

I endeavoured to inform myfelf with respect to an opinion fo generally propagated, of the pretended mortal danger of expofing one's felf to the air of the Campagna of Rome in hot weather; and I am convinced that this danger is not greater than that which we run in every other country that is moist and marshy. What they alledge for the most part concerning the air of Rome and its environs, is very little more than an old prejudice; very juft indeed in its principles, but which it is time to reftrain within its proper bounds, by examining its original and founda

tion.

It was after the invafion of the Goths in the fifth and fixth centuries that this corruption of the air began to manifeft itself. The bed of the Tiber being covered by the accumulated ruins of the edifices of ancient Rome, could not but raise itself confiderably. But what permits us not to doubt of this fact is, that the ancient and well preferved pavement of the Pantheon and its portico, is overAlowed every winter; that the water even rifes there fometimes to the height of eight or ten feet; and that it is not poffible to fuppofe that the ancient Romans hould have built a temple in a place fo low as to be covered with the waters of the Tiber on the leaft inundation. It is evident then that the level of the bed of VOL. VI.

this river is raised several feet which could not have happened without forming there a kind of dikes or bars. The choaking up of its canal neceffarily occafioned the overflow and reflux of its waters in fuch places as till then had had not been fubject to inunda tions: to thefe overflowings of the Tiber were added all the waters that escaped out of the ancient aqueducts, the ruins of which are ftill to be seen, and which were entirely broken and deftroyed by Totila. What need therefore of any thing more to infect the air, in a hot climate, than the exhalations of fuch a mafs of ftagnating waters, deprived of any difcharge, and become the receptacle of a thousand impurities, as well as the grave of feveral millions both of men and animals? The evil could not but increase from the fame caufes, while Rome was exposed to the inc urfions and devaftations of the Lombards, the Normans, and the Saracens, which lafted for feveral centuries. The air was become fo infectious there at the beginning of the thirteenth century, that pope Innocent III. wrote that few people at Rome arrived to the age of forty years, and that nothing was more uncommon there than to fee a perfon of fixty. A very fhort time after the popes

transferred the feat of their refidence to Avignon: during the fe-. venty-two years they remained there Rome became a defert, the mona fteries in it were converted into ftables; and Gregory XI. on his return to Rome, in 1376, hardly counted there thirty thousand inhabitants. At his death, began the troubles of the great fchifm in the weft, which continued for up

wards of fifty years. Martin V. in whom this fchifm ended in the year 1429, and his firft fucceffors, were able to make but feeble efforts against fo inveterate an evil. It was not till the beginning of the fixteenth century that Leo X. under whom Rome began to refume her wonted fplendor, gave himself fome trouble about re-establishing the falubrity of the air; but the city being shortly after befieged twice fucceffively by the emperor Charles the fifth, faw itself plunged again into all its old calamities; and from eighty-five thousand inhabitants, which it contained under Leo X. it was reduced under Clement VIII. to thirty-two thoufand. In fhort, it is only fince the time of Pius V. and Sextus V. at the end of the fixteenth century, that the popes have conftantly employed the neceffary methods for purifying the air of Rome, and its environs, by procuring proper difcharges for the waters, drying up the humid and marthy grounds, and covering the banks of the Tiber, and other places reputed uninhabitable, with fuperb edifices. Since that time a perfon may dwell at Rome, and go in or out of it at all feasons of the year. At the beginning, however, of the prefent century, they were ftill afraid to lie out of the city in fummer, when they had refided there; as they were alfo to return to it, when once they had quitted it. They never

ventured to fleep at Rome, even in broad day, in any other house than their own. They are greatly relaxed at present from these ancient fcruples: I have feen cardinals, in the months of July and Auguft, go from Rome to lie at Frascati, Tivoli, Albano, &c. and return the next or the following days to the city, without any detriment to their health: I have myself tried all thefe experiments, without fuffering the least inconvenience from them: we have even seen in the last war in Italy, two armies encamped under the walls of Rome, at the time when the heats were moft violent. Yet notwithstanding all this, the greater part of the country people dare not ftill venture to lie during that feafon of the year, nor even as much as fleep in a carriage, in any part of the territory comprehended under the name of the Campagna of Rome.

M. Lancifi and M. Leprotti, phyficians to the popes Clement XI. and XII. as well as M. Lapit, have ftrenuously combated, both by reafon and experience, the abufe of this old prejudice, but it is only by infenfible degrees that the truth begins to prevail. It muft alfo be confeffed that the experiments made for proving an air that is reputed mortal not to be fo, are neceffarily very few, and no lefs foreign from the end propofed.

Having in a former volume (vol. III. p. 162,) given fome account of the firft volume of gravings from the paintings and drawings difcovered among the ruins of Herculaneum, we think it incumbent upon us, now that the second volume of that magnificent work has been published, to give our readers fome account of it likewife, as far as it relates to the fame fubject.

Some account of the Second volume of gravings from the paintings and drawings found among the ruins of Herculaneum.

Τ

IT appears by feveral pieces in this volume, that the ancient painters were not more exact in the representation of the dreffes and ornaments of their figures, nor even in their representation of natural objects, than the moderns; with respect to the architecture reprefented in the pictures found in Herculaneum, the rules of art are violated in the groffeft manner; there are columns of an enormous height, with respect to their diameter, fo as to have the appearance of walking sticks; and the landscapes, of which there are feveral in this volume, are difgraced with a variety of objects not exifting in nature, but merely in the capricious fancy of the artift: at leaft if they are natural objects, they are fo wantonly and unfkilfully reprefented, that the fpectator is at a lofs to know what they are.

Among the most remarkable pieces in this volume, are the folJowing:

1. An hermaphrodite, holding in the left-hand a leaf reprefenting that of a laurel in its shape, but much larger if the rules of propor

tion are obferved. It has however been generally fuppofed by the literati who have feen it, to have been intended to reprefent a laurel leaf, and they obferve that the fame is generally found in the hands of the hermaphroditical figures which are fo common an ornament in the baths, both of men and women; they fuppofe that it ferved as a kind of fan, and was a fymbol of effeminacy. The fcholiaft of Ariftophanes tells us, that it was common for lovers to carry leaves in their hands, upon which they wrote the names of their miftreffes; and it was alfo common to ftigmatize effeminate perfons by the name of bay-bearers. The colour of the leaf represented in this picture is reddish, which has been urged as an objection to its being a laurel; but it has been alledged, on the other fide, that Pliny mentions a laurel of that colour: in another picture, however, a leaf of the fame fize and fhape is reprefented of a yellowish colour, and fome have thought it was intended for the leaf of an aquatic plant, called nymphea; this plant is mentioned by Pliny, and he attributes feveral qualities to it which feem to bear fome relation to thofe of hermaphrodites. Some antiquarians have taken this leaf, or at least, an inftrument that refembles it, found in the hands of some statues, as a sprinkler for the luftral water,

2. Two winged figures; one of them has a collar and bracelets of pearls, and holds in the left-hand a bafon, aver which the right-hand holds a vafe with a cover that ter, minates in a fphynx. Some fuppofe this figure to reprefent Hebe, and the firft appearance of it fa M 2

vours their opinion; others fuppofe it to be a victory, and think they have difcovered another figure of the fame kind upon an Etrufcan vafe; the vafe upon which it is reprefented, they fuppofe alludes to the facred libations and the facrifices offered by way of thankfgiving for a victory. The blood which is fhed in the obtaining of a victory, makes it abfolutely neceffary to wash before any facred function is performed; and the practice of washing before facrifice was more fcrupuloufly practifed by the ancients on fuch occafions than on any other. The other figure is agreed to be a victory by all parties; the right hand holds a buckler, and the left a crown of oak-leaves, enriched with gold, that is, painted of a golden colour. This wreath was called by the Romans a civic crown, and beftowed upon those who had preferved the life of a citizen, by killing an enemy; under the emperors, this crown was frequently decreed to princes, ob cives ferva

tos.

5. Two pieces that reprefent two religious ceremonies in ufe among the Egyptians; thefe are very curious: in the first of them there is a quadrangular altar with a flame afcending from it, and two Ibifes upon the pedeftal; the altar is furrounded by 11 figures, of different fexes, ages, and dreffes: on the right fide is a woman kneeling, holding a fiftrum in one hand, and in the other a plate of fruit; her head is crowned with a wreath, that feems to confift of a branch of palm, the leaves of which are placed fo as to form rays, in the manner defcribed by Apuleius, when he fpeaks of initiation into

the myfteries of Ifis. Behind this figure is that of a girl, with a vafe in her hand, and a bafket upon her head; by her fide are two women, one of which is naked to the girdle, and has her head clofe fhaved, holding a branch in her left-hand, and a fiftrum in her right; the other has difhevelled hair, but her action cannot be diftinguished. On the left-fide of the altar there is an old man kneeling; he is bald and half naked, and his hands are extended as in an attitude of prayer; behind this figure is that of a woman holding a flower in one hand, and in the other an inftrument very little different from the common fiftrum ; alfo a man, who is either founding a trumpet or playing on a flute; and a man holding in one hand a kind of crotalum, confifting of a circle furnished with little bells, and croffed diametrically by a small bar; in his left-hand he holds a chain, confifting of four links, each gradually lefs than another; five fteps, two columns and an epiftylium, form the entrance of the temple, in the front of which ftands the altar, and in the middle beyond the altar, upon a ground a little raised, there are fix other perfons; two women playing upon a fiftrum, and accompanied by a third with a tabor; the fourth woman holds man holds up the fore-finger of her right-hand, as if to enjoin filence, and a girl befide her feems to be in motion with her hands as if playing upon fome inftrument which cannot be diftinguished; the fixth figure is that of a man with a bushy beard, crowned with a wreath, and dreffed in a kind of clofe jacket, which leaves his arms, his feet, his legs and thighs

naked.