OUR YOUTH'S DEPARTMENT. THE RUINS OF POMPEII. IN a former number we have presented our young friends with an account of the dreadful eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in the year 79, and of the cities buried beneath its rivers of red-hot lava and its deluge of ashes. It so happens that some of these buried cities have again been exposed to the light of day. In the year 1713, while some labourers were digging a well, they struck upon a statue, and, on further digging, they found that they had discovered the ancient city of Herculaneum; and about forty years after the city of Pompeii was discovered, and its ruins laid bare. Our engraving represents the appearance of the city since the ashes and earth were cleared away. A few years ago this ancient city was visited by Mr. Ware. an American tourist, and he gives the following description of its remains: "To Pompeii I made a solitary visit, and being alone on the road or among the melancholy ruins of the destroyed city, I at least secured silence and repose. The silence at Pompeii was absolute; only once or twice did I see a human being in all those lonely streets-a lady with two little boys, and three or four English sailors, those were all, otherwise everything solitary and still. The weather being later than autumnal, there was not to be heard so much as the chirping of a cricket or insect's hum. It all looked as one would suppose; and the only thing I was surprised by was the number and extent of the houses and the streets. I was three or four hours walking about and among those deserted ways, yet I could have entered but a small proportion of the dwellings or streets on either side; and those I did enter I was compelled to examine more hastily than was either agreeable or profitable. The great subject of regret in visiting these relics of a former world is, that the objects of more especial interest in household furniture, kitchen apparatus, and art, have all been removed from the spots where they were found, except in a single instance, and now are to be seen only in museums. It adds extremely to the instruction and pleasure of visiting an ancient sepulchre or disinterred dwelling to know that all remains just where it was found; and just where it had been placed by the old Roman dweller in the house, by the owner or builder of the tomb. That was the case in descending into an old Etruscan tomb near Perugia: the funeral ornaments of marble had never been disturbed, they stood where the hands of affection had first placed them, perhaps 3,000 years ago. The bronze lamp, a mere time-eaten fragment of a lamp, still hung where it had been placed at the last interment. That also was the case in parts of the Catacombs, and in the Columbaria in Rome. Perhaps in the case of Pompeii it would have been impossible to preserve the objects found there, without a wall being built around the whole city, with guards in addition to protect them from thefts, and without roofs being constructed to shelter them from the weather. Still, had it been considered an object, many very interesting remains might have been as safe in the dwellings of Pompeii as in the halls of museums; and with what an addition to the instruction and gratification of every visitor! One house, however, the last one excavated, had been left with all its marbles, mosaic pavements, and pictures, just as they were found. Bronzes alone had been removed, on account of injury from the atmosphere. This house was laid open about three years ago. It is completely floored with mosaic pavements of pretty patterns, and all the walls adorned with pictures, arabesques, &c., such as may be seen in Gell's Pompeii. One room had evidently been built and prepared in order to please some little child-a sort of great baby-house. At the upper part of it is a diminutive fountain, ornamented with mosaics and shell-work; then just beneath the aperture for the water there are four or five diminutive steps of marble, the water being designed to make a succession of falls, down from step to step, whence it was to collect into a large basin in the centre. Then all around this central basin are various animals, ducks, dogs, rabbits, &c., all of marble also, and, besides, several small statues, all as if intended to afford pleasure to little children. What would this room have been had all these and like objects been removed? These seemed to remain wholly undisturbed. Had everything been permitted to remain, one cannot but think their own sanctity would have protected them. Who could steal in Pompeii? The English sailors, even, were as solemn as the scene. Here were to be seen the lead pipes for conducting aqueduct water about the houses, with their brass cocks still in place; the stairs leading down to the kitchen and the kitchen fire-place; the vaults for oil and wine; and the earthen vessels as they had been found and left, filled full of the ashes which so mysteriously penetrated to every part of every house, and, by the cracks and crannies, into every closet, room, cellar, vase, and jar, and packed all solid with itself. The way, however. in which that happened must have been either by the ashes having been accompanied by water, as it first fell, or afterwards forced in by the pressure of successive rains. "The streets of Pompeii were, as you may remember, all narrow, not more than fifteen feet wide, and few less than that, | the widest thirty; with raised sidewalks about two or three feet wide, raised as much as a foot, or a foot and a half, above the carriage-way-higher than with us. In these usages the descendants of the Pompeians in the modern Italian cities have failed unwisely to imitate them-which are all without sidewalks. The pavements are of the same large, every-way shaped flat stones which are found in the ancient streets Rome. The shops are small, which is still characteristic of Italian towns and cities. Many of the dwelling-houses of the better sort are very extensive, as those called houses of Diomed, Sallust, Pansa, &c. That of Diomed is of three stories, or flats; the lowest consisting of subterranean arches fifty feet, perhaps, each way; and, overhead, a square court, which served as a garden, with a large basin of water in the middle, and, around, chambers and rooms for common use. It was interesting to see the baker's establishment, the stone mill for grinding his grain, and the oven, which might be used to-day as well as ever. So the shop for selling wine, with its five or six earthen amphora set in the brick counter, with a marble facing, on which are visible still the circulari marks of drinking vessels. In the corner of one of the rooms is shown the remnant of a broken square of glass still sticking in its place. Glass windows to dwelling-houses seem not to have been common. The fragment which I saw was thick and smooth, and looked more like our heaviest plate-glass than our common kinds. Its transparency had been obscured by time, or by having been ground, or, like so much modern plate-glass, from having been badly compounded. But, besides this, I find on inquiry that in one of the baths & window was discovered, nearly three feet square, of a single pane, the glass two-fifths of an inch thick, and ground on one side, to prevent persons on a neighbouring roof from looking in. Another window of large size was found, the single pane set in a bronze frame secured by screws of the same metal, so that it might be removed at pleasure—or it might have been only the usual way of setting. "In regard to the common use of glass for windows, however, it is to be remembered that in the climate of Naples it could be considered hardly at any time as necessary for the exclusion of cold; and accordingly, if it were a substance more costly than with us, or if the manufacture of only the heavier and more expensive kinds was understood, it would have been employed with comparative infrequency, which may explain why more was not found. Shutters of wood for warmth, or fixed windows of linen cloth, would have been used instead. Glass, except for a couple of months in the year, is hardly more needed in Naples than in our West India islands. the way "In a word, there is scarce anything in common use, in of a common convenience now, and here, which was not in use among the Romans of Pompeii in the 79th year of our era. Doors were found to have been made of wood, as with us; the wood more commonly used, the fir; they were hung, not upon our butt-hinges-though I do not know that even they have not yet been found among other things-but more usually, at any rate, they revolved upon pivots, like our barn-doors: they were fastened with bolts hung by chains, and at night closed with shutters. Bedsteads were found, sometimes of wood, at other times of iron; implements of a thousand kinds, of brass, iron, and earthenware, for both common and religious uses-trumpets, bells, gridirons, colanlers, saucepans of bronze, some lined with silver; kettles, adles, moulds for jelly and pastry; urns for keeping water lot, on the principle of the modern tea-urn; lanterns with torn lights; spits, and every various article for kitchen use, vith almost the single and singular exception of forkshains, bolts, locks, and scourges; portable fire-places, with a ontrivance for keeping water hot, dice, some found loaded; complete toilet, with combs, thimbles, rings, &c.; paint for he cheeks, with the proper brushes for laying it on; cosmetics, ar-rings, but no diamonds; almonds, dates, nuts, grapes, figs, hestnuts, loaves of bread with the name of the baker stamped pon them, iron stoves, apothecaries' drugs of all sortsmong other things a box of pills gilded; surgeons' instruents of all kinds, much such as are used at the present day; lay-bills, quack advertisements, notices of sights and shows osted up at the corners of the streets, according to Johnson, 1 'monstrous bad Latin;' opera-tickets on ivory, bits for orses, cruppers and stirrups, candelabra, and lamps of the lost graceful, delicate, and ingenious designs, and which 0-day serve as models for articles of the kind in present use. These, and other objects of a similar kind, more than ould easily be enumerated, crowd the halls and the shelves of he two museums at Portici and Naples." 66 |