stringed beads, her ear-drops, her brooches, her rings, the costly cameos and incised gems which she wore, since we have here all the innumerable knick-knacks which a curious and luxurious age produces. Indeed, it would not be difficult to construct a tolerably full and complete view of the social and domestic surroundings of the ancient Roman people from the discoveries of the last two or three years alone. But here research does not terminate. It would seem as if this old Rome was positively inexhaustible in its treasures of antique time. We find a tazza of terra-cotta lined with earth-corroded metal, which was disinterred 30 feet below some Etruscan masonry, all but prehistoric; and who shall say that we have yet reached the dawning stage of this undated city? And yet, so near are the ages to each other, and so faithfully are religious traditions preserved and transmitted, that in the same Etruscan department of this Museum we find ex voto offerings of hands and feet made in terracotta, to be left at favourite shrines where efficacious relief was supposed to have been found, just as at this day, in Roman Catholic countries, symbols in the form of pictures or other objects are placed at the shrines of saints for the same reason.

It may be added that a great number of marbles and other objects await the restorer's hand, and a place to display them. The pinacotheca of the Capitoline Museum has received a valuable addition in a very fine series of frescoes of the Muses, with Apollo as Musagetes. Each figure is on a separate panel, distinguished by a motto from the epigrams of Ausonius. These noble works have been removed from the old country palace of the Popes at Magliana, on a desolate part of the Campagna, near the Tiber, nine or ten miles from Rome, where they had for a long time been covered over with whitewash. They are ascribed to the pencil of Giovanni lo Spagna, a pupil of Perugino. They have, however, all the grace, force, and sweetness of the great master himself. It is a pity that the lower parts of these figures have suffered some damage in their former situation, through ignorance of their existence.

Whilst dwelling upon modern art-discoveries in Rome, that of the celebrated bronze Hercules of the Vatican must not be forgotten, though not amongst the most recent. This colossal statue was found concealed in a vault, formed of marble slabs, constructed on purpose for its reception on the site of the ancient theatre of Pompey, 20 or 30 feet below the present level. It was at first pronounced to be a work of Greek origin, but a more careful and critical examination of its modelling and proportions rendered this supposition untenable. It may with more probability be referred to a much later period of Roman workmanship, and

tha

that not altogether the best. The remains of a thick gilding partially cover its surface. It is curious and interesting from the circumstance that it was evidently one of the oracular or speaking statues which gave vocal answers to the prayers of the worshippers. At the back of the head there is an aperture which might admit a youth of fifteen years, and the neck, in order to increase the size of the passage, has been beaten so as not only to disfigure this part of the statue beyond all degrees of proportion, but even to burst the metal by too much attenuation. It was doubtless by this means that the statue had the reputation of a supernatural power of speech.

We may also notice, though we can do no more than notice, some fine wall paintings representing battle scenes, human sacrifices, &c., found in Etruscan tombs at Vulci, which have lately enriched the museum of the Collegio Romano. They are in a fine style of art, almost resembling Greek workmanship, though not of the very best.

What we have here given is, of course, only a sketch of what has been discovered. An innumerable quantity of smaller objects, of less remarkable or unrecognised remains, have been found; many which would have been conspicuously noticeable elsewhere, having been re-interred or destroyed without obtaining mention in official reports. Amongst other things vast deposits of human remains have been discovered in almost every part of Rome, sometimes imbedded in solid masses, sometimes separated in burial. Even in the densest and most frequented part of the city graveyards are buried, and thousands lie interred; so that explorers say, with Dante, in the Inferno,' that they would not have believed

'Che morte tanta n' avesse disfatta,'

that death could have destroyed so many human beings as they find in penetrating the soil. It is hardly a wonder that the old city should be unhealthy when the ground is turned up, and that researches and excavations can only be pursued with safety during the winter months.

Besides the discoveries in Rome, many more almost as interesting and important have been made in the surrounding country; at the large group of buildings, known as Roma Vecchia, on the Campagna; parts of the Via Latina; at Ostia; and at Palestrina, the ancient Præneste, on the southern spur of the Sabine Hills. As regards the two latter places, Ostia is being thoroughly excavated with the most valuable results, whilst Palestrina has revealed a wealth of treasures in the precious metals of the most exquisite and elaborate workmanship, some of which, with good reason, are referred to the early date of 700 B.C. The prospects

prospects of further discovery in Rome are also of the best promise; and it is possible that another generation may not have much to learn as to the topography of the ancient city.

Of the works at the head of our list, that of Mr. Burn, without professing much originality of research or investigation, is a scholar-like and painstaking account of all that is best worth knowing of the principal sites and monuments of ancient Rome and its neighbourhood. It will prove a valuable addition to the shelves of every scholar. Its careful references, copious index, and numerous fine engravings give value to the work, which is as ornamental as it is likely to prove useful.

Mr. Nichols' monograph of the Forum is well studied and carefully written. He has accumulated all the information on the subject given by ancient writers, and has investigated the inquiries of more recent times with much intelligence. His plans of the Forum as it formerly stood, and of the buildings by which it was surrounded, are singularly explicit and satisfactory. Indeed, his work may be considered exhaustive as far as present discovery goes.

Mr. Parker's volumes are purely archæological. They pass under notice almost all the important discoveries made in Rome of late years. They are abundantly and satisfactorily illustrated with plans and photographs reproduced by mechanical processes. Mr. Parker's energy as an explorer is well known, and we cannot but regret that his books do not do more justice to the valuable work he has accomplished. Their want of orderly arrangement is confusing and perplexing to the last degree. Ă verification of his statements is often required. His confused account of the origin of the Coliseum, confounding it with other structures, has not been unnoticed. We are often called upon to question his conclusions, as he gives us no clue to find out his reasons for them. It is frequently difficult to understand what he intends to state as actual fact, and what are his own speculations or inferences drawn therefrom; a very exact definition in this respect being particularly necessary in works of this kind. Mr. Parker's volumes contain a treasury of information on matters which nobody understands so well as himself, and we hope when he has completed his work that he will give it us in a revised and re-edited form, curtailing many repetitions, and expunging much dubious matter. It is, however, in the more substantial and important department of actual investigation and discovery that Mr. Parker has won his laurels. Whatever we may think of his central views-such as the credibility of traditional history, the condition of early Rome as a group of separate citadels, and the subsequent filling up of

the

the fosses between them, the infallible and exact indication of period by modes of construction—and it does not lie within our limits or object to discuss them here-there is no doubt that the rich fruits of his labours in the field of practical archæology will not allow his name to be forgotten. He is one of the first explorers whose aim has been purely to illustrate the structural history of Rome, and not to search for valuable objects; and if he had done nothing more than discover the Porta Capena and the Mamertine prisons, or had only furnished the world with his vast series of photographs, comprising almost every object of antiquity in and around Rome, he would have laid present and future archæologists and topographers under the greatest possible obligation to him.

Mr. Hemans' works deal chiefly with the literary aspects of archæology. They are invaluable for the information which they contain, and the historic light which they throw upon the various sites and objects of which he treats. The recent death of this ripe and indefatigable scholar leaves a blank in the field of Italian historic archæology which will not soon be filled up.

ART. III.—1. Letters of Humphrey Prideaux, sometime Dean of Norwich, to John Ellis, sometime Under-Secretary of State (1674-1722). Edited by E. M. Thompson. Printed for the Camden Society (1875).

2. Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to his Sister and Brother-in-law, Ann Coffin and Richard Coffin. Contained in the Fifth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. (1876.)

THE year 1674, when this remarkable series of letters begins,

may be called the turning-point of the reign of Charles II. During the fourteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the nation had passed from the extreme of Puritanism to a liberty, not to say a licence, of religious thought, which had brought many to the very verge of conversion to the Church of Rome. While the King himself was too indifferent to anything but his own pleasures to care for any religion at all, and trimmed between all creeds, dexterously employing the arguments used by one to confute the opinions of the others, the Duke of York, less adroit, but more honest, had, in 1669, openly avowed his adherence to Romanism, and had suffered for it accordingly. As to general politics, the Dutch, after a series of sea-fights, some of which brought war so near to the metropolis that the sound of De Ruyter's guns were heard in Vol. 144.-No. 287.

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London,

London, had been finally beaten in 1674, and a lasting peace concluded just before Prideaux began to correspond with Ellis. The year before, the Test Act had been passed, by which all persons holding office were compelled to take the Sacrament according to the mode of the English Church, and also to subscribe to a declaration against Transubstantiation; in consequence of which measures the Duke of York, Lord Clifford, and others, resigned their offices. The nation, in fact, was now alarmed at the progress made by Romanism; and, still Protestant to the backbone, was ready to fall into the snare spread for it a little later by Titus Oates, and to show itself as capable of being scared out of its propriety by the dread of Papal aggression as any generation of Englishmen either before or since. As to Ministers, Clarendon had been in power and favour, had been disgraced in 1667, deprived of the Chancellorship, impeached by the Commons, and compelled to retire to the Continent. To him succeeded the Cabal, in which the Duke of Buckingham, as Prime Minister; Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, at first Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Chancellor; and Arlington, were the chief spirits. They lasted till the beginning of 1674, when too much Romanists, that is to say some of them, for the nation, and too Protestant for the King, they were driven from office by the Parliament, and were succeeded by Osborne, soon to be created Earl of Darnley, one of the few honest, as well as able, ministers whom Charles II. possessed. Shaftesbury, who had been deprived of the Chancellorship before the fall of the Ministry, had been succeeded by Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, of whom we often hear in these letters as Prideaux's patron, while Shaftesbury returned to his old attitude of antagonism to the Crown, and became the leader of the Protestant Opposition.

After this rapid sketch of the position of affairs when these letters begin, we turn to the correspondents themselves. Humphrey Prideaux was born at Padstow on the 3rd of May, 1648. He came of an old Cornish family, and was the third son of his father, Edmund Prideaux, a gentleman of good position and influence in the country.' John Ellis, Prideaux's correspondent, was the eldest son of a father of the same name, the rector of Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire, a Puritan divine of some repute. John was the eldest of six sons, and was born in 1645. The common bond of union between the son of the Puritan divine and the son of a Cornish gentleman was the fact that they had both been trained at Westminster School under the rod of Busby, the great schoolmaster of the day, and had thence