blishment was under the patronage of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of the loom. Below is a female examining the work which a younger girl has done upon a piece of yellow cloth. A golden net upon her head, a necklace and bracelets, denote a person of higher rank than one of the mere work-people of the establishment: it probably is either the mistress herself, or a customer inquiring into the quality of the work which has been done for her." Among other curious representations, contained in these pictorial adornments of the Pompeian Fuller's workshop, is a double screw press, used evidently for pressing the cloth, and showing that the Romans were familiar with the mechanical power of the screw. Many such interesting illustrations of the arts and customs of classic ages, have been recovered by means of the intelligent observation of these common decorations of the houses and shops of this long buried city. But indeed the same practical character runs throughout the whole system of Roman ornamentation. One of the most common classes of Roman domestic pottery consists of a fine red glazed ware, decorated with embossed figures and ornaments, and usually styled Samian ware. These relics of the Roman arts have been found not only in Italy, but whereever the Romans conquered and colonized other countries. In Spain, France, Germany, and also very abundantly both in England and Scotland. To these therefore we may not unaptly direct the readers attention as relics no less directly associated with the ancient ruins of Europe, than are the cuneiform bricks and pottery of Babylon, or the inscribed procelain seals and mummy-figures of Egypt, with those of Asia and Africa. CHAPTER III. ROMAN AND ROMANO-BRITISH WARE. How profitless the relics that we cull, Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome, Heaven out of view, our wishes, what are they? WORDSWORTH. AMONG the more fragile relics of various early ages, which most frequently reward the researches of the anti quary, none are so common as those of sepulchral and domestic earthenware. In the British Museum, we have specimens of the fictile vessels of the Greeks and Romans, and the ruder cinerary urns of our own British ancestry, probably many centuries before the galleys of Cæsar first bore the Roman legions to our shores. We possess also very fine examples of ancient vases, the work of that elder civilization which has left such enduring traces of its progress along the banks of the river Nile; and an exceedingly varied and beautiful collection of the Etruscan pottery of ancient Italy. With these also are examples of the modern earthenware of India, and of Mexico and Peru. The most careless student of antiquities can hardly fail to be struck with the marked character with which the nationality of their makers is impressed on even the rudest of these specimens of earthenware. Similar collections of ancient fictilia are preserved in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum. Among the examples in the latter curious collection, are some very beautiful specimens of undoubted RomanoBritish pottery, the product of native kilns, constructed under the guidance or in imitation of the example of the Roman conquerors. But there is another species of Roman pottery of frequent occurrence in Britain, as well as on other scenes of Roman conquest and colonization, of which many specimens exist in public collections. The places of manufacture of this beautiful ware still remain open to question. It consists of the fine red glazed pottery of the Romans now most usually termed "Samian Ware." It is exceedingly abundant throughout the whole range of Roman London. It is also occasionally, though less commonly met with in various parts both of England and Scotland. A considerable quantity, for example, though in a very fragmentary state, was discovered near the site of the wall of Antoninus, in the neighbourhood of Kirkintulloch, Dumbartonshire, during the construction of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. Along with these a very perfect Roman inscribed slab, and other remains of the invaders, served to confirm still more undoubtedly-if needs be-the Roman origin of these fragile relics of an elder time. A peculiar interest attaches to the Romano-British period, in these historical investigations, connected with our own country, from its connection with the earliest rudiments of modern civilization, and its relation to the first undoubted historical narrative of our island and its inhabitants. To the investigators of the last generation, indeed, this proved so seductive, that they scarcely deigned to acknowledge any other branch of antiquity as worthy of their investigation. It accorded with the spirit of the age. Generalization was at once easier and more acceptable than analysis. The pseudo-geologist, with his miscellaneous collections of fossil fauna, minerals and shells, had the Mosaic deluge with which he was ever ready to drown the inquirer, who demanded a cui bono for all his patient accumulations, and even so your old antiquary had his Roman invasion, which amply sufficed to account for every tumulus, kist-vaen, celt, or torque, that excited his veneration by its rarity and age. Now, however, that we are learning to read a still older history by means of archæology, and no longer deem it necessary annually to call up Agricola and Galgacus, and fight over again the old battle of Mons Grampius on a new Kaim of Kimprunes, we are in danger of as greatly under estimating the value of Roman antiquities as they were before overrated. There is so much to attract us in the dim mystery and the remoteness of the eras to which Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities pertain, that we are apt, at the least, to treat the Romans as Prior's learned lady did: who Kindly talked at least three hours, To cut things short, came down to Adam; From whence, as fast as she was able, She drowns the World, and builds up Babel: The most marked character of the Roman, in comparison with the remoter periods, which relate to British relics of native origin, is its definiteness. We deal with inscriptions, votive altars, coins, medals, and other intelligible evidences, whose chronology scarcely admits of dispute, while in many cases we are able to appeal to the writings of contemporary historians, some of whom themselves visited our shores, and reared the monuments we anew investigate. This definiteness of character distinguishes even the pottery of the Roman period from the cinerary urns, and other fictile vessels that preserve to us Z the ruder evidences of human art, which were displayed by our British ancestry, ere the first Roman beheld the white cliffs of Albion. In the Celtic and early British pottery, found in native tumuli, we find indeed the rude sun-dried urn, the half-baked, hand-made vase, destitute of ornament or any symmetrical beauty, and lastly the well turned vase, with its variety of chevron and other incised ornaments, each indicating different periods, and a progress both in refinement and mechanical skill. But when we turn our attention to the fictile ware, fabricated under the influence of Roman civilization, we find it not only characterized by a more refined taste and by greater elegance both in form and details, but in very many cases it bears the maker's name, accompanied by marks or other characteristics, leading us to infer both the probable date and place of manufacture. It is a well established fact, that extensive potteries existed in various parts of England of the Romano-British period. Several have been discovered with the potter's kilns complete, the furnaces sufficiently perfect to show the mode of burning, and with numerous fragments, and some few whole specimens of the pottery manufactured in them. Mr. Akerman, in his Archaeological Index, gives an account of several discovered near Peterborough, extending for several miles along the banks of the Neu, and its tributary streams. The mode of constructing the kilns, and the process of packing and firing them is detailed with great minuteness in a communication by Mr. Artis, in the second volume of the Journal of the British Archæological Association. The most extensive Anglo-Roman pottery yet discovered, however, is at Upchurch, in Kent. A long and straggling creek of the river Medway makes its way through a marsh to the village of Upchurch, and here an immense quantity of Roman pottery of various kinds has been discovered. So fertile is this marsh in fictile relics of Roman art, that |