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inventum est corpus humanum adhuc integrum et incorruptum; in cujus concavitate liber erat literis hieroglyphicis notatus cum phiala aurea plena nescio quo liquore oleagiuoso."

That all this is perfectly correct, appears from two curious facts recorded by Suetonius, which throw some light upon this obscure subject. He says, that while the new colonists were throwing down the very ancient sepulchres of Capua, in the time of Cæsar, in order to build their villas, and proceeded more earnestly, "quod aliquantum vasculorum operis antiqui scrutitantes reperiebant," a brass plate was found in a monument ascribed to Capys, founder of Capua, on which was written in Greek words and letters, a vaticination, that when the bones of Capys were uncovered, a descendant of lulus [Jul. Cæsar] should be killed by his own relatives, and his death be afterwards avenged by great slaughters throughout Italy. (Suet. in Cæsar, c. 81.) The Delphin editor observes, from Virgil and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that this Capys was a companion, and very probably a relative, of Eneas. (p. 82.) Another instance (which by the way shows the origin of the bard's pointing out the tomb of Arthur at Glastonbury to Henry the Second), is as follows.-At Tegea in Arcadia, by the instinct of soothsayers, (instinctu vaticinantium), vases of antique work were excavated in a consecrated place, and “in them an image like Vespasian." (Suet. Vespas. c. vii.) As to the inscriptions or tablets, Mr. Dodwell says, that lamina of lead containing imprecations of enemies, are found both in Grecian and Etruscan tombs; but that the Etruscan vases have no resemblance to those of Greece. (i. 453, 459.) He also mentions a Greek tomb with eight vases. At the head and feet of the skeleton were placed, at each, one; and three upon each side. (id. 438.) He shows from Homer and Aristophanes, that these lecythi were placed with the dead, and probably contained the ointment and wine, with which libations were made upon the body. (id. 438, 452.) It is, however, certain that the dead were presumed to be very thirsty (a superstition of Egyptian origin), and that vases were placed with them, under the presumption that they would drink of the contents. (Enc. of Antiq. i. 66.)

To return to the subjects of the paintings.-We wish that Mr. Christie had searched the inscriptions in Spon, Gruter, Reinesius, &c. for one which certified the deceased to have been initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries; for such inscriptions do occur with regard to the adepts in other mysteries; and it is certain that the Eleusinian were only introduced into Italy in the reign of Hadrian; that Claudius had attempted previously to do so, and that Nero had been rejected as a candidate through his impiety. (See Suetonius and the Augustan History.) We do not, however, deny Mr. Christie's hypothesis, because we have seen symbols of these mysteries, as mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus, upon these vases; and from Tertullian (p. 289), mentioning the Phallus in the Adyta, we think that the Indian Lingam was the archetype, and that there is to be sought the primary origin of the Eleusinian mysteries. Tumblers were usual at funerals; and in Mr. Christie's first plate we see an Indian dancing girl; the conformation too of the figures in general is so slender, as to resemble the forms of these Asiatics. Dr. Clarke thinks that the Myrrhine vases were only porcelain ; it is clear that Propertius makes them fictile. (L. iv. El. 5.)

Seu quæ palmiferæ mittunt venalia Thebæ,
Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis.

From this passage, we make no doubt of the Greeks and Etruscans having derived the art of making their beautiful pottery from Asia or Africa. If so, they may have derived from thence some also of the subjects, for Mr. Christie finds the following analogy between certain festivals in Hiudostan and the Eleusinian mysteries. Speaking of the illuminations during the Dewali, which falls soon after the autumnal equinox, he says,

"As the Sun about that time goes down into the lower hemisphere, these illuminations anticipate the return of his light; and this festival is accordingly held in honour of the dead, to whom, as at Eleusis, was indicated a similar return from the shades.

Even that autumnal feast, the Mullaum in

Boolan, and the correspondent Durga Poojah of the Hindoos, though now appearing to present a moral scenic exhibition, it may be presumed had once at least a different meaning. The first of these, we are informed, is celebrated during ten days. What then forbids our comparing its spirit and

meaning with the Eleusinian mysteries which lasted nearly an equal number? The Durga Poojah, we are told, consists in the display of a gaudy scene, with Durga and various figures in alto relief, loaded with tinsel and other ornaments. At the close of the exhibition, it is conducted to the Ganges, to the waves of which it is committed with due solemnity. Who does not here discover a counterpart to the ornamented statue of the goddess in the temple

at Eleusis, frottée avec soin, ornée avec gout, et revêtue de ses plus beaux habits,' as described by the Baron de Ste. Croix? Whence we may possibly be furnished with a solution of that expression, upon which Meursius exercised his ingenuity with much felicity, AAAAE MTETAI, To the sea, O Mystæ,' which gave the name to a particular day of the Mysteries." P. 42.

We meet with other corroborations of the Asiatic origin of these beautiful

vases.

Mr. Christie says,

"The missionary Paolino, struck with the apparent correspondence of many Indian ceremonies with others, which he had formerly noticed upon the Greek vases, declared, that a satisfactory explanation of the latter could not be given, until they were compared with the manners of the orientals.”—Travels, p. 255, Engl. ed. 8vo. We believe Paolino; for it is a remarkable fact, that the mystic words xoy oμra, which closed the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, are Sanscrit words. This is clearly shown in p. 56.

To add further information concerning the oriental character of these paintings, another circumstance is cspecially noted by Mr. Christie. Upon these vases, scarfs or fillets are very common symbols.

"In the very entertaining narrative of Captain Turner's embassy to Tibet, we are informed, that between people of every rank and station in life, the presenting a silken scarf constantly forms an essential part of the ceremonial of salutation. If persons of equal rank meet, an exchange takes place; if a superior is approached, he holds out his hand to receive the scarf, and a similar one is thrown across the shoulders of the inferior by the hand of an attendant at the moment of his dismission." PP. 91, 92.

Thibet is not far from China; and Dr. Clarke says, that in Greece, as in China, the professions being hereditary, the patterns of the paintings were taken from pieces of paper laid upon the clay, and that the work of the artist was therefore mechanical only.

(Enc. of Antiq. i. 199.) In short, we believe that the Etruscan and Greek vases were painted upon this plan, for they look as if they were outlined by a stamp, and in fact were no other than ancient china. If they had been painted by hand, an inequality and

difference of character and workmanship must, we think, have been inevitable. Pliny tells us, that some of the first sculptors and painters made designs for pottery; hardly for one piece only; but if the professional potters were so able of themselves, why should this resource be adopted? They copied in sculpture, why not in painting?

But the Etruscan vases ought to be called Greek vases. So says Denon, because the Etruscans were a colony of Greeks. But we protest against this misnomer, because it leads to very wrong opinions, and because it is somewhat like calling the modern English Anglo-Saxons or British, whereas neither in arts, manners, pedigree, &c. are we any other than a mixed breed. Mr. Dodwell, who, however, has written the best book on Greece, says, in a passage before quoted, that there is no resemblance between Greek and Etruscan vases. Why, then, because a French tailor has made in London an English coat, are we to call it a French coat? wheu it is notorious that he has made it in the English fashion.

But we must approach to a close. Mr. Christie has with great ingenuity allegorised the subject, and we do not be correct. It is, in short, a most eledeny that he may in certain instances But that he gant and able work. places us in a most cruel dilemma,— that he calls upon us to compromise principle, is evident from his own words. It has ever been a rule with us to think that contemporaries can best explain contemporary things. But in page 90, Mr. Christie denies (without quoting any authority) the explanation given by Diodorus of the fawn's skin worn by Bacchus, and in p. 95, says, that in the same allegorical way, "would he dispose of most of those subjects on vases, which Antiquaries have termed Homeric." P. 95.

This is to declare war against the ancients and Winckelman. For instance, in the gems of Stosch, we have Love enveloped in drapery, walking softly, and holding a lantern in his

hand. Mr. Christie has engraved a paste copy of this gem (pl. iii.) and calls it the infant Dioscurus hooded, and bearing the Bacchus under the form of a lantern to the lower regions, (p. 54.) Again, in Plate vii. Love appears standing on an amphora, floating on the sea. He manages a sail, which is swelled by the wind. Winckelman refers it to Ovid's description of successful sailing down the sea of Love. Mr. Christie says that the return of Bacchus is here neatly expressed by a winged genius upon the amphora, which is wafted along by means of a pointed sail. P. 55.

Now we certainly prefer the explanation of Ovid, but we should be acting unjustly to Mr. Christie, if we did not allow the astronomical allegory of Bacchus, as founded by Dupuis de Lisieux, upon the Dionysiacs of Nonnus, to have ancient authorities for its support, and that there was a Bacchus 'Auerns, or Adoneus, mentioned by Macrobius and Ausonius, which had a relation to the Sun, and was an analogy invented by the Egyptians. In truth, there were no less than thirty Bacchuses of different denominations, many of them with distinct mythologies; but Herodotus (1. 2, c. 42) says that the Greeks, in adopting the Egyptian divinities, gave the name of Bacchus to Osiris, Όσιριν Διονυσον είναι Ay, and Diodorus Siculus (1. i. c. 11) makes the same assertion. We also know that the ancients themselves have given different symbolical meanings to the same thing, and that Strabo and Pausanias did not understand various paintings and bas-reliefs, until they had been interpreted to them upon the spot. Upon these grounds we are so prejudiced as to think that of the antient allegories, only a very few can now be intelligible, and that those require every particular to be as minutely proved by ancient authorities, as a claim to a peerage before the House of Lords. We most willingly allow every credit to the ingenuity and sagacity of Mr. Christie; but it is not our fault that he assumes his positions, and that most of the ancient vases must remain unintelligible, unless this privilege be allowed. We do not give credit to all the elucidations of Winckelman, Millin, D'Hancarville, &c. &c. because we believe these eminent men to have undertaken an impossibility; we say impossibility, because

many subjects of these paintings are apparently taken from Indian, Egyp tian, and Etruscan mythology, which is neither known or to be known, except in parts. If, therefore, Mr. Christie succeeds in some instances, and fails in others, no man living can do more.

Leaving this unpleasant part of the subject, we shall close with an extract, which shows the origin of a very curious superstition, viz. that of Si meon Stylites and his imitators, who passed their lives upon the tops of pillars.

"The ancient temple at Hierapolis in Syria is reported [by Lucían de Deâ Syria] to have stood upon an eminence in the middle of the city, the base of which eminence was inclosed by a double wall. Near the gates to the north were erected two phalli (of the enormous height of thirty fathoms), one of which a man ascended twice every year, swarming (sic) it by a climbing the palm-trees of their country. chain, as was practised by the Arabs in Arrived at the top, he coiled his clothes, so as to form a nest or seat, and having let down another chain, which he carried with him, and drawn up by the means of it food and necessaries, he remained upon the Phallus seven days. Seated aloft, he prayed for all Syria, but while he prayed he rang a bell." P. 99.

Here then we have also the origin of the holy bells carried about by the Irish, British, and early Anglo-Saxon saints.

In an Appendix Mr. Christie has given a classification of vases in the Linnæan manner. The idea that the pericarpia or seed-vessels of plants first suggested the forms of vases, is due to Mr. Fosbroke (Enc. of Antiq. i. 196), and we are glad to see that Mr. Christie has proved its accuracy by showing the ease of adapting it to the botanical nomenclature.

The Plates are numerous and capitally executed. Upon one of them (plate X.) we were surprised to see a presumed Mercury in a modern swallow-tailed coat, not reaching to the knees, and padded or swelling upon the neck and shoulders, but with armholes instead of sleeves, and covering the forepart of the body. It was a travelling dress.

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23. The Story of a Vanderer, founded upon his Recollections of Incidents in Russian or Cossack Scenes. 8vo. pp. 293. THESE Tales, which are of a me

lancholy kind, and are conversant with a barbarous state of society, show in a striking light the great miseries to which existence is subject, under arbitrary and unconstitutional Governments. For whatever may be the virtue of the Sovereign, he is inevitably subject to a misrepresentation of things and persons, and must ever be so, unless he could be omniscient. It is the peculiar good fortune of the English, that the Government has no controul over the private life of individuals, and no power of determining the guilt or innocence of the accused. So far from its being a desirable thing in the Sovereign or his agents to possess any other than a political power in public matters, the very necessity of reference in private affairs to the supreme authority must be, to any one but a troublesome officious tyrant, a very irksome, in fact unnecessary, part of his office; for it is better done by law, a Judge and Jury. According to the accounts of Russia here stated, the dominion is or was too extensive for the support of even police, and Government was obliged to permit gangs of banditti to increase, till they had power sufficient to require a regular army to subdue them; and thus a civil war became, to a certain extent, a necessary evil. Such is the account given of the Zaparogian Cossacks (page 84) ferocious gangs, whose avowed object was war and plunder (p. 89); and "these same men, who in the leisure of the camp were the grossest of all sensualists, spending every interval of repose in gluttony and drunkenness, became sober and vigilant soldiers the moment they were detached on any marauding expedition."

The author seems to have been a nervous sensitive character, placed in countries which require the iron feelings and habits of a soldier, and his fine sentiments are as much out of place, as the song of a nightingale among carousing boors. The book, however, is a very useful one, as it shows us the vast blessing of a Constitutional Government and civilized habits.

24. Seyer's Memoirs of Bristol. (Concluded from vol. xcvi. ii. 523.) WE shall now give the literary character of Mr. Seyer's work. It is evidently written on the plan of Whitaker's

Manchester; and contains minute and elaborate investigations of the local antiquities, and, generally speaking, excellent commentaries upon them. It must be exceedingly interesting to the inhabitants of Bristol. The authorities are manuscript calendars and printed historical works. The national records, and the manuscripts in the British Museum (with only one or two exceptions), have been disregarded, perhaps because Mr. Seyer means to include them in a third volume, which he has announced. We hope that he will do so, because we have some acquaintance with these documents, and know that without them no local history can be pronounced authentic_or complete; but in what manner they can possibly be exhibited to advantage, xcept by that Archæological Science which Mr. Seyer holds in disregard, we know not. From what we have heard, his superciliousness is about to produce a rival, in Mr. Evans.

Whitaker, a man of strong intellect (lawyer-like used), but a pedant, has made a plausible romance of the History of Manchester, by ascribing the refinements of the Romanized Britons to those of the Celtick æra; and arraigning, as imbecils, writers who did not make similar mistakes. He was a turkey-cock, strutted, spread his tail, and gobbled at us domestic poultry of antiquaries, for presuming to pick up barley-corns of history in his august presence. Mr. Seyer imitates his archetype in never quoting a modern antiquary, and in speaking, we believe in more than one place, of" the dreams of Antiquaries," as if many of them had not been as good dreamers as Joseph, and as certain expounders of them. Had Mr. Seyer not scorned these dreamers, he would not have rendered (i. 228) the term Nutritus by scholar, but in its precise sense (see Ducange); neither would he have published such a passage as this (i. 343), that Fitz Osborne built the Castle of Eastbridge Hotel (Hotel in Domesday book!) at Gloucester, whereas the right reading is Estrigoil, or Chepstow, though it is mixed up with the account of Gloucester, in the Survey, through the following cause. Domesday-book was transcribed in London from loose notes, collected in the country, and the scribes, not having a geographical knowledge of the counties, have often erroneously classed places together, and even separated returns relating to the same

manor (see Owen and Blakeway's Shrewsbury, i. 302). In the Liber Niger, published by Hearne, we have (i. 160) Godrich Castle in Herefordshire, and military tenures of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, classified under the return of the Abbot of Winchcombe.-In fact, there neither is, nor can be, any natural connection between Archæology and intellectual imbecility; nor is Archæology any other than a minute knowledge of history; in fact, to use the words of Archdeacon Owen and the Rev. Mr. Blakeway, who have written a most valuable History of Shrewsbury,

"The facts adduced by Antiquaries are the milestones of history, landmarks in the progress of social life, collected to vindicate the study of Antiquities, and redeem it from the sneer of the supercilious sciolist." i. 308.

We have only spoken thus in defence of our profession, to which Mr. Seyer has (from charity we suppose) rendered much service by some very valuable descriptions of ancient earthworks. These we have not room to notice; but one puzzle we cannot pass by. Adjacent to a considerable British fortress, is an earthwork called Banwell Camp, though containing only three quarters of an acre.

"It is a small plot of ground nearly square, surrounded with a rampart of earth only three feet high, and a slight ditch; it is about 55 yards long from West to East, and 45 yards broad from North to South. The entrance is on the East. In the area is a raised ridge about two feet high, and four or five feet wide, formed in shape of a cross, edged on all sides by a slight ditch or trench, scarcely half a foot deep. In the middle of the cross is an excavation, apparently the mouth of an old well." P. 85.

We have seen another print of it in Sir R. C. Hoare's Ancient Wilts (ii. 43). Now a raised ridge only four or five feet wide, could not be intended for a place of residence, barn, or church, or if ever built upon, for more than passages. That the whole fortification was, however, meant to refer to the well, we doubt not, because the place is called Banwell. If Ban be derived from Bane (Interfector), some murder or murderer may have been connected with its history; perhaps the cruciform ridge may have been intended to denote a pagan assassination of a British Christian Saint; or as Bane also means deGENT. MAG. February, 1827.

struction, the word may imply an idolatrous use of the well, and spiritual destruction thereby, a superstition prohibited in the Laws of Ina, &c.; and the cruciform ridge have then been thrown up to show Christian re-consecration, or have an expiatory or prohibitory object. Neither of these explanations we dare to call satisfactory, though the best we can give. The spade might produce far better.

Many of our readers know, that the site of the place, on the borders of the Wiccii, where Augustine preached to the Britons, has been long contested. Mr. Seyer places it at Bristol, and we shall give his account of it, because it is introduced with a preface, perfectly à la Whitaker, and is a very successful imitation.

"I undertake to convince the reader, that not Jordan only, but Austin himself, preached here, and that his celebrated con ference with the British Bishops, was holden on our College green; and I suppose, that the monastery afterwards built there received its name as a memorial of that transaction. And this I say, without partiality for him, whom we call Saint Augustin, but induced by historical evidence alone.

"The original Author who mentions this conference is Bede *. He says, that it was A.D. 603, in a place which to this day is called, in the language of the English, Augustinaes uc [i. e. Augustine's Oak], at the confines of the Huiccii and the West Saxons. Alfred's translation of the passage is, on Ahære stowe, che mon nemneth Agustinus Ac on Hurina gemare and West Sexna.' Austin died in 605. Now the place of conference is supposed by all our Antiquaries to be in Worcestershire; assuming that the Wiccii or Huiccii lived in Worcestershire alone, and that the West Saxon kingdom extended to the same county, neither of which assumptions is true. With regard to the latter, Gloucestershire was will be proved below; and therefore the not a part of the West Saxon kingdom, as

confines of the West Saxons could not touch Worcestershire at all. And secondly, the Gloucestershire men were Wiccii, as well as the Worcestershire men; and therefore Austin's Oak must be at some place, where the Wiccii in Gloucestershire touch the West Saxons in Wiltshire or Somersetshire, and all along that line. I know no place, the name of which has any relation to this conference, except St. Augustine's Green in Bristol, nor any place, where a number of Bishops from South Wales would so conveniently meet as in Bristol. And

Hist. ii. 2.

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