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little general commerce to set ingenuity at work. Italy imported largely both agricultural produce and manufactures in the shape of tribute from a conquered world, and probably exported part of her peculiar productions; but we are not aware that there is any ground for supposing that she manufactured goods for exportation to any extent."

We find a very remarkable means of contrasting ancient and modern customs and arts in this singular Pompeian discovery. In this as in many other of the ancient Roman shops and workrooms, which have been restored to light from the ruins of Pompeii, paintings, mosaics, marble troughs, pillars, &c., all speak of the luxury and refinement of the classic age. Yet in these practical elements of extended social comfort, to which so great importance is now attached, they appear totally deficient. It was a period, in fact, when the interests of the Patrician and the possessor of wealth were alone consulted, and popular rights and interests, such as we now understand them were totally unknown.

The same writer remarks: "There is only one other trade, so far as we are aware, with respect to the practises of which any knowledge has been gained from the excavations at Pompeii; that of fulling and scouring cloth. This art, owing to the difference of ancient and modern habits, was of much greater importance formerly than it now is. Wool was almost the only material used for dresses in the earlier times of Rome; silk being unknown till a late period, and linen garments being very little used. Wollen dresses, however, especially in the hot climate of Italy, must often have required a thorough purification; and on the manner in which this was done their beauty very much depended. And since the toga, the chief article of Roman costume, was woven in one piece, and was of course expensive, to make it look and wear as well as possible was very necessary to per

sons of small fortune. The method pursued has been described by Pliny and others; and is well illustrated in some paintings found upon the walls of a building, which evidently was a fullonica, or scouring-house. The building in question is entered from the street of the Mercuries, and is situated in the same district as the house of the Tragic Poet.

"The first operation was that of washing, which was done with water mixed with some detergent clay, or fuller's earth: soap does not appear to have been used. This was done in vats, where the cloths were trodden, and well worked by the feet of the scourer. A painting on the walls of the Fullonica, represents four persons thus employed. Their dress is tucked up, leaving the leg bare: it consists of two tunics, the under one being yellow, and the upper green. Three of them seem to have done their work, and to be wringing the articles on which they have been employed; the other, his hands resting on the wall on each side, is jumping, and busily working about the contents of his vat. When dry, the cloth was brushed and carded, to raise the nap,—at first with metal cards, afterwards with thistles. A plant called teazle is now largely cultivated in England for the same purpose. The cloth was then fumigated with sulphur, and bleached in the sun by throwing water repeatedly upon it, while spread out on gratings. In one painting the workman is represented as brushing or carding a tunic suspended over a rope. Another man carries a frame and pot, meant probably for fumigation and bleaching; the pot containing live coals and sulphur, and being placed under the frame; so that the cloths spread upon the latter would be fully exposed to the action of the pent-up vapour. The person who carries these things wears something on his head, which is said to be an olive garland; if so, that, and the owl sitting upon the frame, probably indicate that the esta

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,
Unless they chasten fancies that presume
Too high, or idle agitations lull!

Heaven out of view, our wishes, what are they?
Mere fibulæ, without a robe to clasp;
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls;
Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals!

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

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