red marble that covered the walls. From this Becker has, of course, drawn his chief you entered a small oval peristyle, and an ex-information respecting the Roman system cellent resort in unfavorable weather, for the of gardening, from the graceful communispaces between the pillars were closed up cations of Pliny. It is needless to remind with large panes of the clearest lapis specu- the reader that an English garden, in the laris, or talc, through which the eye discovered the pleasant verdure of the soft, mossy sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, offers carpet that covered the open space in the cen- the loveliest image of one in Italy in the tre, and was rendered ever flourishing by the time of Cicero. The Roman taste, howspray of the fountain. Just behind this was ever, possessed a harmony of adaptation to the regular court of the house, of an equally the climate, of which ours is entirely destiagreeable aspect, in which stood a large marble basin, surrounded by all sorts of shrubs tute. It sought to exclude the glare of and dwarf trees; on this court abutted a sunshine by every ingenuity of verdant grand eating-hall, built beyond the whole line tracery and screen; while in our damp of the house, through the long windows of and misty place of habitation, the more obwhich, reaching like doors to the ground, a vious plan would be, to open every bower view was obtained towards the Auruncan to its approach. The great object of the hills in front, and on the sides into the grace- Italian connoisseur consisted in relieving ful gardens; whilst in the rear a passage his eye with a luxuriant amplitude of opened through the carædium, peristyl, atrium, and colonnade, beyond the xystus, into the greenness. Accordingly, we find in Pliny's open air. The Cyzicenian saloon was border- charming villa in Tuscany, that one walk ed on the right by different chambers, which, was entirely surrounded with plane-trees; from their northerly aspect, presented a pleas- the ivy, twining round the trunk and ant abode in the heat of summer; and more branches, spread from tree to tree, and so to the east lay the regular sitting and sleep- connected them into one cool and leafy ing-rooms. The first were built outwards semicircularly, in order to catch the beams of wall; trunk and head being alike covered the morning light and retain those of the mid- with the same refreshing color. The pal day sun. The internal arrangements were lentes hedera of Virgil probably corressimple but comfortable, and in perfect accord- ponded with the silver-striped ivy of our ance with the green prospect around; for on own woods. The warmth and beauty of the marble basement were painted branches an Italian atmosphere enabled the tasteful reaching inwards as it were from the outside, designer to impart a cheerfulness and lustre, and upon them colored birds, so skilfully ex- almost unattainable in one of the old Engecuted that they appeared not to sit but to flutter. On one side only was this artificial lish gardens. Thus, in the Tuscan villa garden interrupted by a piece of furniture, of Pliny, the gloomy shade of a cypresscontaining a small library of the most choice grove, in which the avenue of ivy-grown books. The sleeping apartment was sepa- plane-trees appears to have terminated, was rated from it only by a small room, which would in winter be warmed by a hypocaustum, and thus communicate the warmth to the ad relieved by the intermixture of several inward circular walks, lying open to the joining rooms by means of pipes. The rest genial influence of the sun, and deliciously of this side was used as an abode for the scented with roses. We are obliged to slaves, although most of the rooms were suf- number with the anomalies of national ficiently neat for the reception of any friends taste the prevailing passion of the Romans who might come on a visit. On the opposite for cutting box-trees into different shapes. side, which enjoyed the full warmth of the Not the least curious feature, in this aberevening sun, were the bath-rooms and the sphæristerium, adapted not merely for the ration of horticultural reason, is its introgame of ball, but for nearly every description duction and popularity during the golden of corporeal exercises, and spacious enough to days of Augustan delicacy and taste. hold several different parties of players at the Poverty may, after all, be the proper exsame time. There Gallus, who was a friend planation of this eccentricity. The Roto bracing exercises, used to prepare himself mans had no Lee to enrich their scrolls for the bath, either by the game of trigon, at with the loveliest varieties of five hundred which he was expert, or by swinging the halteres; and for this purpose the room could roses;-no Loddige to dazzle their eyes be warmed in winter by means of pipes, with the colors of the camelia. which were conducted from the hypocaustum were compelled to supply by art what the of the bath under the floor and along the walls. horn of tropical beauty had never been Lastly, at both ends of the front colonnade, opened to bestow. The carving in trees, forming the entrance, rose turret-shaped build- however, seems to have been exquisitely ings, in the different stories of which were small chambers, or triclinia, affording an exgrotesque. Pliny descended into a sheltertensive view of the smiling plains." ed lawn from his terrace-walk, along a They "What are the casements lined with creeping The prouder sashes fronted with a range slope embellished by the figures of different ed for a second time in the autumn; and animals, in all the leafy vivaciousness of when in mild winter, the rosa pallida is box. A bear with a snake in his jaw seen to bloom in Germany in the open air seems to have been a favorite illustration. of Christmas, and even in January, why On this tree you read in large letters the name should not the same thing have been possiof the proprietor; on that, of the gardener. ble in a milder climate?" The country in Becker conjectures that the vacant spaces, the window-the rus in fenestra of Martial being set with flowers, were separated into-reminds one of the lines of Cowper :various formal enclosures, as in the French gardens of our own time. In this way he understands an obscure allusion of Pliny. The borders he supposes to have been raised in terrace-fashion, "in which case, the margin rising in the form of an arch (the torus of Pliny) was covered with evergreen or bears' foot." Another resemblance to French taste will be recognized in the abundant supply of water, in the employment of which the Roman landscape-gardener was singularly happy. There seems to have been in large establishments a slave, whose special task was the care of the different water-works, and who might be called the " fountain-overseer." Some of the inventions were very elegant. In a marble alcove at Pliny's Tuscan residence, which was shaded by vines, the water gushing out from several small pipes to adopt the words of his own description as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons reposing upon the seat, fell into a marble basin exquisitely polished, and so constructed that it was always full without ever flowing over. Pliny tells us, that this basin served him for a table; the larger dishes being placed round the margin, and the smaller ones floating about in the form of little vessels and water-fowl. too. The employment of glass to protect and quicken the growth and the maturity of flowers and fruits, seems to be naturally suggested by the cultivation of them in the open air. Cowper has elegantly said,― "Who loves a garden, loves a green-house Unconscious of a less propitious clime, There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug, While the winds whistle and the snows deThe springing myrtle with unwith'ring leaf Shines there and flourishes. The golden boast Of Portugal, and Western India there, The ruddier orange, and the paler lime, Peep through their polish'd foliage at the storm, And seem to smile at what they need not fear." scend. Pliny The rose and violet were the chief ornaments of the Roman garden. They are Martial, in a very pretty couplet, which the flowers which Virgil seems to have Becker quotes, alludes to this artificialpreserved with peculiar affection in the covering of the lily and rose. These exquisite crystal of his verse. But Becker green-houses filled also, however imperfectdenies that the classical Flora was so ly, the place of forcing-houses. meagre as many writers have asserted it to notices the specularia in which the melonbe. He enumerates the bulbous plants, beds of Tiberius were sheltered from the the crocus, the narcissus, several kinds of cold. Grapes were produced in a similar lilies, gladiolus, irides, and hyacinths. manner. We have used the phrase of He finds the earliest mention of green- forcing-house without intending to suggest houses in the first century, and lays his any comparison with the complicated expefinger upon numerous allusions to them in dients of modern science. The assistance the amusing epigrams of Martial. Flowers rendered to the flower or the plant seems were certainly forced in them; and the to have been of a negative character; notice of roses in December is to be ex-nothing is to be looked for like the subplained on this supposition. Not that the terranean wonders of Chatsworth, where winter rose of poets is always to be inter- the passages connected, with the flues of preted by the produce of artificial heat or the conservatory, are two miles in extent. "The roses of Pæstum bloom-Nor would Loudon have been able to reprotection. cognize a fancy-gardener in the ingenious | diction. The mother who shaped, or the topiarius, although one of the scenes in the wife who stimulated and directed, the imgrounds of the villa of Gallus might have furnished no unfavorable specimen of landscape-gardening: If we It pulse of her son or her husband, was the exception not the specimen of the class. There might have been many Gracchi, but history has scarcely given us a record of "Not far from hence was the most captivat- one Cornelia. Thus, in any Grecian story, ing spot in the garden, where tall, shady elms, it would be necessary to place the feminine entwined with luxuriant vines, enclosed a interest in the development of the filial or semicircular lawn, the green carpet of which was penetrated by a thousand shooting violets. brotherly and sisterly affections. On the farther side rose a gentle ascent, plant- seek to soften the gloom of Orestes, it ed with the most varied roses, that mingled must be with the smile of Electra. their balmy odors with the perfume of the would be very difficult, indeed, to make lilies blooming at its foot. Beyond this were love, in its popular sense, the hinge of the reared the dark summits of the neighboring fable. The Roman habits of feeling furmountains, while on the side of the hill a pel-nish the novelist with ampler opportunities. lucid stream bubbled down in headlong career, after escaping from the colossal arm of a nymph, who lay gracefully reclined on the verdant moss, dashed over a mass of rocks, and then with a gentle murmur vanished behind the green amphitheatre." This description is partly copied from an antique painting, and it might be taken for a transcript of one of the dark landscapes of Poussin. Becker has not used them-indeed he could not avail himself of this advantage. The historical outline of Gallus confines his pencil, and the Lycoris of the Roman is only the Aspasia of the Greek. Her appearances on the stage of Romance are not very important, but they are gracefully described; as, for example, in the excursion with Gallus: "On the shore of the Lucrine lake, whence His seventh scene, A Day in Baiæ," enables the author to introduce us to one these expeditions generally started, Gallus found, among many others, the boat hired for of the most delicious watering-places of him. It was the prettiest there, and had antiquity, and at the same time to em- Aphrodite herself designed it for her own use, bellish his scenery with the beautiful figure she would not have decorated it otherwise. of Lycoris, the friend of Gallus, then sup- The gay painting of the planks, the purple posed to be in the blooming ripeness of sails, the rigging entwined with garlands of womanhood, and whose name, with that of fresh leaves and roses, the merry music soundher lover, still lives in the muse of Ovid. ing from the prow, every thing, in short, invited to joy and pleasure. In the after part In one of the early essays of Mr. Sewell, of the skiff a purple awning was erected on of Exeter College, occurs a striking pas- tall thyrsus-staves, and under it stood a richlysage upon the influence of the female loaded table, offering all the enjoyments of a character on the virtues and happiness of most perfect prandium that the forum cupemankind. He discovers in it a principle of dinarium of Baie could supply. Lycoris action so versatile, multifarious, and univer- went the short distance to the lake in a lectica, whilst Gallus repaired thither on foot with sal, that, like the eye of a portrait, it turns up- two friends whom he had accidentally met. on us in every change of position; bearing The lady looked lovely as the goddess of flowers upon and shaping our instincts, our passions, as she alighted. Over her snow-white tunica our vanity, our tastes, and our necessities. were thrown the ample folds of an amethystThe cradle is a second place of birth, and colored palla; round her hair, which was most the child is again born from the infant. skilfully arranged, and fastened with an elegant gold pin in the shape of a winged amor, was Education is the gate through which entwined a chaplet of roses; a gorgeous and nation marches to its renown, and the key curiously twisted necklace adorned her fair neck. of the gate is in the hand of the mother. and from it depended a string of pearls also It was so even in Greece among the set in gold, while golden bracelets in the form choicer spirits of the time; and the mother of serpents, in whose eyes glittered fiery who told her son to bring home his shield rubies, encircled her well-rounded arms. Thus or be borne back upon it, was the eloquent led by Gallus, with her right foot first, in comrepresentative of her race. But it cannot pliance with the warning cry of the boatmen. she entered the festive boat. The light vessel be pretended that the female character had started merrily into the lake, where the occubeen elevated into this dignity in the cities pants of a hundred others exchanged greetings of Greece. It did not form an element in as they passed. They rocked for some hours the economy of national or domestic juris-on the tranquil mirror, during which the men a indulged with uncommon relish in fresh oysters from the lake, which they washed down with the noble Falernian wine." A few pose he arrays himself with peculiar care, and determines to go abroad into the city. The dressing-room of a Roman gentleman is a very amusing domestic interior: "The slave came with the tunica and fol gustus and the friendship of Virgil. The inscription of the tenth eclogue has bestowed immortality upon his name. particulars of his life may be gathered This is a sketch of the Roman fashions up from the narratives of Dio Cassius and very prettily colored. Böttiger is the great Suetonius; but the obscurity that envelopes authority on the subject, but Becker has his history cannot be dispersed. His fall collected some interesting fragments. The may be justly attributed to the intempergold pin in the hair of Lycoris was a ance of some of his political remarks, when bodkin or crisping-pin. A very curious the friend of the poet forgot the favorite of necklace, answering in many respects to the emperor. Becker represents the intelthe one described, was dug up at Pompeii; ligence of Augustus's displeasure breaking bracelets in the serpent shape, with ruby suddenly upon Gallus in his voluptuous eyes, have also been found in the same seclusion on the shores of the Mediterrawonderful city of the dead. But we ques-nean. Eagerly and in wrath he returns to tion if the serpent form ever supplied the Rome, and instead of seeking to propitiate jeweller with so ingenious a device as we the incensed Augustus, he resolves to brave remember to have observed in a small him in his own metropolis. For this purtimepiece at Blenheim, in which the sting of a serpent points immovably to the lapse of every minute. Surely no happier moral was ever suggested. With regard to the boat in which Lycoris is represented to have enjoyed her excursion, we shall only say that the ancients appear to have made vast improvements upon our wherry. In this respect, as in many others, they possessed the true prophetic eye of taste. The sparkling current of the Thames at Richmond is certainly as lovely as the Lucrine lake; yet who ever thought of sending Beauty and Love to glide over it with a purple sail, or embellished the prow with that burnished splendor which gilds the drawings of Turner? Perhaps Seneca's picture of the lake floating with roses realizes very nearly the warm and sunny surfaces of the English painter. We will just add, as amusingly illustrative of the extravagance of the Roman ladies in dress, that Pliny notices the request of Regulus to one Aurelia, to leave him a legacy of the clothes in which she had dressed herself to execute her will. There is a calculation of Arbuthnot, that a single gown of one particular fabric would cost 497. 12s. the pound avoirdupois. The milliner's bill for a Latin Widow Barnaby would have been a serious visitation, indeed; and might have made, as Alderman Cute would press it, a Consul look after his consols! ex He lowed by two others bearing the toga, already We do not follow the tale of Gallus with any more closeness, than may seem to be required by our design of offering a few vivid and accurate illustrations of the private life of the Romans. Born of humble and poor parents, he rose by the elastic It accorded with the inflamed temper of energy of his genius, to the favor of Au-Gallus to seek the busiest thoroughfare. Accordingly he bent his steps towards the "Stationed there down to "miss the mercer's plague," smil- ter, "And promising with smiles to call again." All these features of Roman life, and many others of similar expression, may be found in the satire of Martial. Here is the interior of an upholsterer's shop: "Expensive cedar tables, carefully covered and supported by strong pillars veneered with ivory; dinner-couches of bronze, richly adorned with silver and gold and inlaid with costly tortoise-shell; besides trapezophora of the most beautiful marble, with exquisitely worked griffins, seats of cedar-wood and ivory, candelabra and lamps of the most various forms, vases of all sorts, costly mirrors, and a hundred other objects, sufficient to furnish more than one house in magnificent style. Some one who hardly meant to be a purchaser was just getting the covers removed from some of the cedar tables by the attendant; but he found they were not spotted to his taste. A heraclinon of tortoise-shell seemed, however, to at tract him amazingly; but, after measuring it three or four times, he said, 'That it was, alas! a few inches too small for the cedar-table for which he had intended it."" ours, which Becker accounts for by the height of the tray that was placed upon it. An epigram of Martial informs us that our own custom of having the dishes handed round by a servant prevailed at Rome. This, however, is a digression. Returning to Gallus in his shopping excursion, we find him in the establishment of a jeweller, where cups of precious stones, Babylonian carpets, splendid bracelets, or silken dresses, tempted and bewildered the opulent purchaser. Becker has ascertained that the raw silk was manufactured at Rome, and that the most celebrated weavers lived in the Vicus Tuscus. The ninth scene introduces us to a splendid banquet in the house of Lentulus. We look upon the account of this entertainment as the most elaborate and vivid picture which the pen of Becker has given to us of Greek or Roman life. It breathes all the warmth and animation of personal observation. We are first led to observe the preliminary arrangements. In a saloon, looking to the north, superb sofas are placed round a cedar table; the lower parts of these sofas were decorated with white hangings embroidered with gold, while the pillows, yielding deliciously to the slightest pressure, were covered with purple. Silken cushions separated the guests, who were limited to six, one of the numbers which " Original Walker" justly deemed to be most agreeable. We are naturally struck with the vivid and elegant reminiscence of some supper with Augustus or Mecænas, which Virgil displays in his description of Dido's entertainment to the Trojan heroes, "Stratoque super discumbitur auro." and in the splendid goblet-gravem gemmis auroque-in which she pledges her distinThe marble trapezophora are understood guished visitors, we recognize one of the to have been a sort of table-frame; the hex- costly ornaments of a Roman sideboard in aclinon was connected with the dining-table. the magnificent days of the empire. The It is rather curious to find the early Roman decoration of the dining-room marks the custom of sitting at meals gradually becom- polished taste of the host. Satyrs celebrating refined into the oriental posture. The ing the vintage, in all the flush and abanoriginal name of the dinner-couch was donment of the season; a scene from Lutriclinium, which accommodated nine per- cania; and boughs, that almost seemed sons. Becker notices that the introduction to shake under the weight of the thrushes of round tables led to an alteration in the that perched upon them, were scattered mode of seating the guests. Semicircular about the apartment. It will be rememsofas, called from their shape sigma, being bered that in the selection of this bird, the substituted for the triclinia. The round artist was flattering the taste of Roman tables were small, and the sofas were festivity; the thrush being as popular a readapted to hold less than nine persons. move in the first century, as the blackcock The Roman table was much lower than in the nineteenth, The guests, having |