Chap. 4.]

By Vigging a Well.

29

ing among them. Even tlie skeletons of some of the inhabitants werefound ; one, near the threshold of his door, with a bag of money in hishand, and apparently in the act of escaping.

The light which this important discovery reflected upon numerous sub-jects connected with the ancients, has greatly eclipsed all previous sour-ces of Information; and as regards some of the arts of the Romans, theinformation thus obtained, may be considered almost as full and satisfactory,as if one of their mechanics had risen from the dead and described them.

Among the early discoveries made in this city of Hercules, (it havingbeen founded by, or in honorof him, 1250, B. C.) not the least interestingis one of its public Wells; which having been covered by an arch andsurrounded by a curb, the ashes were excluded. Phil. Trans, xlvii,151. This well was found in a high state of preservation—it still con-tains excellent water, and is in the same condition as when the last fe-males retired from it, bearing vases of its water to their dwellings, andprobably on the evening that preceded the calamity, which drove themfrom it for ever.

Forty years after the discovery of Herculaneum , another city over-whelmed at the same time, was “ destined to be the partner of its disinter-ment, as well as of its burial.” This was Pompeii , the very name ofwhich had been almost forgotten. As it lay at a greater distance fromYesuvius than Herculaneum , the stream of lavanever reached it. It wasinhumed by showers of ashes, pumice and stones, which formed a bed ofvariable depth from twelve to twenty feet, and which is easily removed;whereas the former city was entombed in ashes and lava to the depth offrom seventy to a hundred feet. With the exception of the upper storiesof the houses, which were either consumed by red hot stones ejected fromthe volcano, or crushed by the weight of the matter collected on theirroofs, we behold in Pompeii a flourishing city nearly in the state in whichit existed eighteen centuries ago ! The buildings unaltered by newerfashions; the paintings undimmed by the leaden touch of time ; householdfumiture left in the confusion of use; articles even of intrinsic valueabandoned in the hnrry of escape, yet safe from the robber, or scatteredabout as they feil from the trembling hand which could not stoop or pausefor the most valuable possessions; and in some instances the bones of theinhabitants, bearing sad testimony to the suddenness and completeness ofthe calamity which overwhelmed them. Pompeii , i, 5. Lib. EntertainingKnowledge. In the prison, skeletons of unfortunate men were discov-ered, their leg bones being enclosed in shackles, and are so preserved inthe museum at Portici .

I noticed, says M. Simond, a striking memorial of this mighty eruption,in the Forum opposite to the temple of Jupiter; a new altar of whitemarble exquisitely beautiful, and apparently just out of the hands of thesculptor, had been erected there ; an enclosure was building all around ;the mortar just dashed against the side of the wall, was but half spreadout; you saw the long sliding stroke of the trowel about to return andobliterate its own track—but it never did return; the hand of the work-man was suddenly arrested ; and, after the lapse of 1800 years, the wholelooks so fresh, that you would almost swear the mason was only gone tohis dinner, and about to come back immediately to finish his work!We can scarcely conceive it possible for an event connected with the artsof former ages, ever to happen in future times, equal in interest to the re-surrection of these Roman towns, unless it be the reappearance of thePhenician cities of the plain.

From the facility of removing the materials at Pompeii , much greater