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of one of these ancient cities, and soon after to that of the other. Excavations were subsequently made, and considerable portions of both cities have been exposed to view. The lighter material by which Pompeii was overwhelmed has caused the labor of excavating that city to be less than that of exploring Herculaneum, and consequently Pompeii has been excavated to the greater extent. Many of the curiosities which have been dug from the ruins of these cities have been deposited in the museums of Naples and Portici.* A late accomplished traveler has given the following account of his visit to these curiosities:

4. "I have devoted a week to the museum at Naples. It is a world! Anything like a full description of it would tire even an antiquary. It is one of those things (and there are many in Europe) that fortunately compel travel. You must come abroad to get an idea of it.

5. "The first day, I buried myself among the curiosities found at Pompeii. After walking through the chambers and streets where they were found, I came to them naturally with an intense interest. I had visited a disentombed city, buried for seventeen centuries; had trodden in their wheel-tracks, -had wandered through their dining-rooms, their chambers, their baths, their theaters, their market-places.

6. "And here were gathered, in one place, their pictures, their statues, their cooking-utensils, their_ornaments, the very food as it was found on their tables! I am puzzled, in looking over my note-book, to know what to mention. The catalogue fills a printed volume.

7. "A curious corner in one of the cases was that containing the articles found on the toilet of the wealthiest Pompeian's wife. Here were pots of rouge,† ivory pins, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, small silver mirrors, combs, ear-pickers, etc., etc. In the next case were two loaves of bread, found in a baker's oven, and stamped with his name.

8. "Two large cases of precious gems, cameos ‡ and intaglios of all descriptions, stand in the center of this room (among which, by the way, the most exquisitely done are two which one cannot look at without a blush). Another

*The c in this word has the sound of ch. Portici is built directly over Herculaneum, and the danger of undermining it has stopped the excavations of the ancient city.

A red substance, used for painting the cheeks.

A kind of stone, used to represent painting without colors. § A precious stone, with a head or an inscription upon it.

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case is filled with eatables, found upon the tables, fisli-bones, honey-comb, grain, fruits, etc. In the repository for ancient glass are several cinerary* urns, in which the ashes of the dead are perfectly preserved; and numerous small glass lachrymatories,† in which the tears of the survivors were deposited in the tombs.

9. "The brazen furniture of Pompeii, the lamps particularly, are of the most curious and beautiful models. Trees, to which the lamps were suspended like fruit, vines, statues holding them in their hands, and numerous other contrivances, were among them, exceeding far in beauty any similar furniture of our time. It appears that the ancients did not know the use of the fork, as every other article of table service except this has been found here.

10. "To conceive the interest attached to the thousand things in this museum, one must imagine a modern city - Boston for example-completely buried by an unexpected and terrific convulsion of nature. Its inhabitants mostly escape, but, from various causes, leave their city entombed; and in a hundred years the grass grows over it, and its very locality is forgotten.

11. "Near two thousand years elapse, and then a peasant, digging in the field, strikes upon some of its ruins; and it is unearthed, just as it stands at this moment, with all its utensils, books, pictures, houses and streets, in untouched preservation. What a subject for speculation! What food for curiosity! What a living and breathing chapter of history were this!

12. Far more interesting is Pompeii. For the age in which it flourished and the characters who trod its streets are among the most remarkable in history. This brazen lamp,' shown to me to-day as a curiosity, was lit every evening in the time of Christ. The handsome chambers through which I wandered a day or two ago, and from which were brought this antique chair, were the home of Sallust, ‡ and doubtless had been honored by the visits of Cicero (whose villa, half excavated, is near by), and by all the poets and scholars and statesmen of his time.

13. "One might speculate endlessly thus! And it is that

* Pertaining to ashes.

† A vessel to hold tears.

A Latin historian, who lived about fifty years before the commencement of the Christian era.

Cicero was a distinguished Roman orator, whose works have been admired in all ages. He lived at the same time with Sallust.

which makes these lands of forgotten empires so delightful to the traveler. His mind is fed by the very air. He needs no amusements, no company, no books, except the history of the place.

14. "The spot is peopled wherever he may stray; and the common necessities of life seem to pluck him from a farreaching dream, in which he had summoned back receding ages, and was communing face to face with philosophers and poets and emperors, like a magician before his mirror. Pompeii and Herculaneum seem to me visions. I cannot shake inyself and wake to their reality. My mind refuses to go back so far. Seventeen hundred years!"

15. "Pompeii! disentombed Pompeii! Here
Before me in her pall of ashes spread -
Wrenched from the gulf of ages - she whose bier
Was the unboweled mountain, lifts her head,
Sad but not silent! Thrilling in my ear
She tells her tale of horror, till the dread
And sudden drama mustering through the air
Seems to rehearse the day of her despair!

16. "
'Joyful she feasted 'neath her olive-tree,
Then rose to dance and play ;' and if a cloud
O'ershadowed her thronged circus, who could see
The impending deluge brooding in its shroud?
On went the games! mirth and festivity

Increased

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- prevailed: till rendingly and loud
The earth and sky with consentaneous roar
Denounced her doom - that time should be no more

17. "Shook to its center, the convulsive soil
Closed round the flying; Sarno's tortured tide
O'erleapt its channel, eager for its spoil!
Thick darkness fell, and, wasting fast and wide,
Wrath opened her dread floodgates! Brief the toil
And terror of resistance; art supplied
No subterfuge! The pillared crypt,* and cave,
That proffered shelter, proved a living grave!

18. "Within the circus, tribunal and shrine,
Shrieking they perished; there the usurer sank
Grasping his gold; the bacchant at his wine;
The gambler at his dice! age, grade, nor rank,
Nor all they loved, revered, or deemed divine,
Found help or rescue; unredeemed they drank
Their cup of horror to the dregs, and fell

With Heaven's avenging thunders for their knell ! "+

Crypt is literally a hiding-place, any secret retreat, or subterranean cell or cave.

These lines are from a poem called The Heliotrope, by Dr. W. Beattie, published in 1833. James Beattie, the author of The Minstrel, died in 1803. Herculaneum and Pompeii seem to have met with a doom

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LESSON XXVIII.

Religious Sects. Cause of the Opprobrium heaped on the Puritans. MACAULAY.

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1. BEFORE the civil wars, even those who most disliked the opinions and manners of the Puritan were forced to admit that his moral conduct was generally, in essentials, blameless; but this praise was now no longer bestowed, and, unfortunately, was no longer deserved.

2. The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to lose it as soon as they become powerful; and the reason is obvious. It is seldom that a man enrolls himself in a proscribed body from any but conscientious motives. Such a body, therefore, is composed, with scarcely an exception, of sincere persons.

3. The most rigid discipline that can be enforced within a religious society is a very feeble instrument of purification, when compared with a little sharp persecution from without. We may be certain that very few persons, not seriously impressed by religious convictions, applied for baptism while Diocletian was vexing the church, or joined themselves to Protestant congregations at the risk of being burned by Bonner.*

4. But, when a sect becomes powerful, when its favor is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest members in all the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, no watchfulness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, can prevent the intrusion of such false brethren. The tares and the wheat must grow together.

5. Soon the world begins to find out that the godly are not better than other men, and argues, with some justice, that, if not better, they must be much worse. In no long time, all those signs which were formerly regarded as characteristic of a saint are regarded as characteristic of a knave. Thus it

scarce less dreadful than that of more ancient Sodom; and if we may judge of the morals and manners of the inhabitants by the grossly licentious specimens of art which modern research has rescued from the remains of these devoted cities, we cannot gainsay the justice of their doom. The most beautiful specimens of sculpture that have been found in the ruins of Pompeii are subjects that have no name for decent ears. *Bonner was a bishop of the church during the reign of Queen Mary, who signalized himself by his vindictive and persecuting spirit.

was with the English non-conformists. They had been oppressed, and oppression had kept them a pure body.

6. They became supreme in the state. No man could hope to rise to eminence and command, but by their favor. Their favor was to be gained only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions adopted by Barebones' parliament, the most intensely Puritanical of all our political assemblies, was that no person should be admitted into the public service till the house should be satisfied of his real godliness.

7. What were then considered as the signs of real godliness, the sad-colored dress, the sour look, the straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with quaint texts, the abhorrence of comedies, cards, and hawking,—were easily counterfeited by men to whom all religions were the same.

8. The sincere Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multitude, not merely of men of the world, but of the very worst sort of men of the world. For the most notorious libertine who had fought under the royal standard might justly be thought virtuous when compared with some of those who, while they talked about sweet experiences and comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice of fraud, rapacity and secret debauchery.

9. The nation, with a rashness which we may justly regret, but at which we cannot wonder, formed its estimate of the whole party from these hypocrites. The theology, the manners, the dialect of the Puritan, were thus associated in the public mind with the darkest and meanest vices.

10. As soon as the Restoration had made it safe to avow enmity to the party which had so long been predominant in the state, a general outcry against Puritanism rose from every corner of the kingdom, and was often swollen by the voices of those very dissemblers whose villany had brought disgrace on the Puritan name.

Music.-CONGREVE.

MUSIC has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And as with living souls have been informed,
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

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