with a reservoir in the centre for receiving
the rain. A boy, expressly appointed for the
purpose, rushes forward with a kind of
broom, and brushing aside what I had
conceived to be merely the dust beneath our
feet, shows us a richly tessellated pavement
below. This courtyard was indeed the
principal apartment of the house, and the one in
which the master was accustomed to receive
his inferior visitors. On three sides of it, is a
covered-in walk or colonnade, and opening
into this colonnade are several rooms,
generally used as the sleeping-apartments of the
guests. I conceive these sleeping-apartments,
and, indeed, the bed-chambers of the Romans
generally, to be among the most curious
evidences of their civilisation. Fancy being
tucked up in a narrow, stifling closet on the
ground-floor, with no window in it, and,
indeed, no light of any sort save what was
derived from a door opening upon a colonnade!
A hundred questions rise to the
mind in connection with these gloomy dens.
Why were the walls painted of so glaring a
red colour, and ornamented with devices, in
an obscurity which makes them all assume
the appearance of a sea-piece by Turner?
How did the Roman ladies see to make use
of their looking-glasses ? Did any one, after
all, sleep in these places ? And, if so, was
there not to be found a large body of sensible
and straightforward Romans, who, wrapping
themselves round in their togas, after selecting
some nice dry spot at the foot of Vesuvius,
passed the night in the open air, in preference
to being imprisoned in the best bed-room of
the best house in Pompeii?

Yonder small apartment at the end of the
courtyard which we have just been traversing
may be said to have corresponded with the
modern library or " study." Here were kept
the books, cabinets of gems, family records,
and such like articles. Small as it may appear,
it was, in truth, quite large enough for the
purpose to which it was destined. A few
rolls of manuscript would have furnished a
library over which a Roman Robins might
have exhausted his powers of literary description;
and as for the family documents, you
might have searched among them in vain for
the voluminous Releases to Trustees, Transfers
of Mortgages, Assignments of Equitable
Interests, and other light legal compositions
of a more civilised age.

We are in a second courtyard similar to
the first—the Peristyle—with a small patch
of ground, dignified by the name of " garden,"
in the centre, and rooms opening into it on
either side. The apartment at the bottom
is the dining-room. How diminutive, how
contemptible it appears to the modern eye;
what a chill its proportions would strike into
the breast of a diner-out from Brooks's or
Boodle's! You could hardly have squeezed
more than nine people into it! Precisely so
—more than nine people seldom were squeezed
into it. Amongst the foolish barbarians,
whose relics we are now contemplating, there
was a kind of ridiculous idea prevalent that,
for a comfortable dinner party, that number
was quite sufficient.

There remains but the kitchen, and our
survey of the house is concluded. It is
situated at the end of the peristyle, at the
extreme rear of the house, and is of a size
corresponding with the dining-room to which
it is subservient. There is nothing for us to
see in it now but the four bare walls, as all
the objects it contained have been transported,
in common with all the other objects of value
found in the town, to the Museum of Naples.
You can see, however, that the walls have
been painted, apparently with the figures of
the Lares, or domestic gods, under whose
divine protection all matters of a culinary
nature were placed.

As we wend our way back through these
empty and silent halls—empty as the men of
fashion who once disported here, and a great
deal more silent—can we help reflecting upon
the singular changes brought about by Time?
Two thousand years ago, how many people
would have sacrificed the ten best years of
their lives to be admitted into this very
mansion! how many were bowing and cringing
for an invitation to supper within the
envied portals of Glaucus, or Sallust, or
Diomed! Could these proud owners and
their guests but have foreseen to what snobs
those portals would one day be opened, I
wonder whether they would have taken such
pains to decorate them with paintings and
statuary? And in those future ages, when
Mr. Macaulay's New Zealander is to
contemplate the ruins of London (including, as
we may suppose, the remains of the still
unfinished Houses of Parliament), will our
descendant, in like manner, stalk uninvited
through those tall and mysterious mansions,
which you and I pass by with fear and
trembling, or only read of in the "Morning
Post ? " The splendid galleries which we
enter by means of tickets our posterity may
perhaps comfortably spit over, like the
American gentleman whom we have left
behind us; they may pursue each other
round the colossal fragments of the Marble
Arch, armed with flasks of the liquid then in
use, like the two Oxford students.

They have taken us to the place where
the excavations are going on. Considering
the length of time which has elapsed since
the finding of this city (the discovery was
accidentally made by some peasants working
in a vineyard), and the importance of the
subject generally, the progress which has
been made is not so great as might have
been expected. It is considered that about
two-thirds of Pompeii still remain covered
up; and this notwithstanding that the
material in which it is embedded is composed
of dust and ashes, which, of course, do not
present the same difficulties as lava, in which
the neighbouring town of Herculaneum is