I soon perceived how many difficulties and inconveniences attended the process of unrolling them.

"In proportion as the roll is opened, a designer faithfully copies each line: this labour is revised by a learned man, who translates it into Latin on the spot, and whatever passages can be made out, are engraved on copper. When I visited this establishment, they were employed in transcribing some new fragments of Philodemus. The celebrated philologist, CARLO RosSINI, bishop of Pozzuola, has undertaken to explain, comment upon, and publish them. The following are the words which they were then endeavouring to decypher.

σε Πολυκραίες περι αλοία παραφρονησεως οι δ' επιγράφουσι προς τους αλοίως καλοθρασυνομένους των εν τοις πολλοις δοξαζομενων.

"The old government did much, but yet too little, respecting the manuscripts of Herculaneum; and M. Heinse was right in saying, that it was an unfortunate circumstance that this discovery was not made in the time of Robert, of Cosmo, or of Lorenzo de Medicis. What rewards would not those illustrious protec tors of letters have granted to a Polizione, a Ficini, or a Lascarisse, for such praiseworthy labours; and what pleasure those learned Hellenists would have taken in accomplishing the views of such patrons.

"I was assured that the same saloon contained nearly seventeen hundred manuscripts, of which about three hundred had been unrolled. It is difficult to believe this last assertion, unless we comprise in the number, those, the development of which has been attempted without success. Most of these works are without the authors' names. The only known authors who have hitherto been met with amongst these masses are, Demetrius, Epicurus, Philodemus, and Polystratus, one of the disciples of Epicurus, whom Diogenes Laertius makes the immediate successor of Hermachos, or Hermarchos. He is the same whom Valerius Maximus associates with the Epicurean Hippokleides, and he represents them as two models of friendship, exactly similar in their manners, sentiments, and also remarkable for the same period of birth and death.

"Besides the fourth book of Philodemus on music, which has appeared, we now see the first two of his work on rhetoric, bearing this title, Φιλόδημον περι ρητορικής Α. Β., and another by the same author: περι κακίων και των αντικείμήνων αρείων. I did not hear the name of Kolotes mentioned. But they have mislaid the work known by the name Davis, which Piaggio began to unrol in the year 1762, and which, in the opinion of the abbé Galiani, related to botany. It is probably lost. It would be desirable to know what were the contents of the ten rolls, that were presented to the prince of Wales?

"The learned world may congratulate itself on the efforts that are made to hasten the results of these labours. I had the advantage of seeing, at the last visit I paid to the establishment, the celebrated director of the library, Juan Andrès, who was born in Valentia, and the bishop of Pozzuoli, whom I lately mentioned. They informed me that the second volume of the text of the works of Epicurus, which contains his Natural Philosophy, was printed, and was only waiting for the Preface. They expressed their hopes that it would be published before the edition. of the Commentaries upon it. M. Juan Andrès also showed me, at his house, the text of a Latin poem, the only one which has yet been discovered. It is printed on four sheets of large folio, with this inscription. Geo. Batt. Malesci dis. Bart. oratü inc. The manuscript is in double columns: the capital letters are very well formed, and not so angular as they generally appear in inscriptions. The words are separated by simple points. This fragment will be an important acquisition for Latin palæography, as the only manuscripts we possess in that languauge are long posterior to the time of the destruction of Herculaneum. It will be easy, on seeing these manuscripts, to perceive the difference between the ordinary manner of writing, and that which was employed on monumental inscriptions. The impression is exactly similar to the original, and the dottings correctly point out the extent and form of each gap or hiatus. The passages which are left, but which they have not been able to decypher, are underlined. These verses are, unfortunately, so mutilated, that it is hardly possible to understand their meaning. The poem, how

ever, is in hexameter verse, and treats of the Alexandrine war. It evidently contains a description of the death of Cleopatra. On the four sheets which M. Andrès kindly presented to me, there are sixty-one verses, contained in the eight columns, but most of them mutilated. These sheets do not contain the whole of the poem; indeed I was told that a much greater number remained to be printed. In the second verse of the first column, we read the name of CESAR. In the third of the second column, PELVSIA, and CESAR. The eighth verse of the same column has these words: VINDICAT .... MVLAM. ROMAM. COTE....NDEM.

"The poem, as I have said, evidently describes the Alexandrine war: these verses relate to the time of the arrival of Augustus in Egypt. Antony kills himself, and Cleopatra, by like. wise committing suicide, avoids the disgrace of slavery. Even by consulting Plutarch and Dion, it is scarcely possible to supply the rest of the subject; for they only describe the principal facts. In the first columns, the poet speaks of the arrival of Octavianus and his army. He advances towards Alexandria, while the main body of the army proceeds by the Hippodrome. Antony attacks the cavalry of Octavianus with success, and causes his fleet to advance. On the second charge he is betrayed, and his fleet is dispersed. This was the signal for his overthrow: and to this event the following verses of the fourth column appear to relate:

Qualis, ad instantis acies cum bella parantur,

Signa tubae classesque, simul terrestribus armis,
Est facies ea visa loci; cum saeva coirent

Instrumenta necis, multo congesta paratu,

Omne vagabatur leti genus, omne timoris.

"In his despair, Antony calls for Octavianus, that he may be witness to his deplorable end. (Ut)-præberetque sue spectacula tristria mortis!

"Then follows the description of the dismay and confusion which prevail among the queen's courtiers, several of whom kill themselves in different ways.

"After a long hiatus, we find in the seventh column the attempts which Proculeius made, by order of Octavianus, to induce Cleopatra to surrender at discretion.

"Octavianus enters Alexandria, which city cannot be said to have been besieged. Meanwhile night comes on, and the poem does not describe the last moments of Cleopatra."

M. Morgenstern has promised to give some further illustra tions of this poem, in the Travels which he intends to publish. He thinks there may be perceived, in the above extracts, the spirit of the composition: the author evinces the genius of the rhetorician; and he cannot but be viewed as a contemporary or emulator of Lucan and Petronius.

ACCOUNT OF A SCARCE AND CURIOUS LETTER OF COLUMBUS, LATELY PUBLISHED BY THE CHEVALIER MORELLI, OF THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT VENICE.,

COLUMBUS addressed this long letter to the king and queen of Spain on the seventh of July, 1503, at which time he was at Jamaica, where he had arrived on his fourth voyage to the West Indies. It contains an account of the events of his passage. He sailed from Cadiz on the ninth of May, 1502, and, passing the Canaries, arrived at Dominica, at which Isle his misfortunes commenced. "When I reached this island," says he," I addressed a packet of letters to your majesty, in which I earnestly requested a ship and some money; one of the vessels I had with me was no longer sea-worthy. Your majesty knows whether or not my letter reached you; in your majesty's answer you forbid me from remaining on shore, or even from debarking." This news it seems, caused despair amongst the companions of Columbus. "The danger was great (continues he) and I still remembered the night when, the ships having been dispersed, we had nothing to expect but death: each man looked his companion in the face and gave himself up as lost! And who is he, not even excepting Job, who would not have died of despair: when, under my circumstances, I was forbidden to find, for my son, my brother, my friends, and myself, a refuge in that very

land, and in those very ports, where, by divine grace, I had arrived, after unparalleled fatigues? (Sudanda Sangue.")

Columbus continued his route towards Jamaica, where he was surprised by the violent currents (occasioned by the trade-winds) and, after eighty-eight days' suffering from storms and tempests, the wind dropped on the 12th of September. But, during these events, Columbus felt as much for the misfortunes of others as for himself, and particularly on account of the terrible experiment made by his son, scarcely thirteen years old, and his own brother, who had unwillingly followed him in his perilous voyages: "For I am so unfortunate (says Columbus) that after twenty years of services and dangers, I have done no good for myself, I have not a single place of shelter in all Castile, nor any other means of procuring food and rest than by living at an inn, and even there I have seldom the means of paying my expenses. I had also another cause for vexation (says he) in the case of my son, Don Diego, whom I left in Spain an orphan, without fortune or employment." On this point it appears Columbus relied on the liberality of the king.

He arrived at a country called Cariac, where he learned that there were gold mines in the province of Ciamba: he took with him two of the natives, who conducted him to another country, named Carambara, the inhabitants of which went naked, and wore from the neck a gold mirror, which they would neither sell nor exchange. They told him, in the language of the country, of many other places, situated on the coast, where there were considerable gold mines: the last of these was Beragna, twenty-five leagues distant; he set off to discover these mines, accompanied by his two guides, who entertained him by talking of the profusion of gold they contained, which was so great, they said, that he ought to be satisfied if he could obtain even the tenth part of it. He verified the truth of their assertions, and returned well satisfied.

He was succesively driven into the ports of Bastimentos, Retrete, and Postogrone, where he procured provisions, and afterwards sailed towards Beragna, where he arrived on the day of the Epiphany; he reconnoitered the island, and, after meeting