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To confirm his pretensions, Dr Sickler presented the public with a specimen of a papyrus, which he had unrolled, on occasion of his visit to Naples. How he came possessed of it does not appear. He does not say, that it was either given or lent to him, and the other way of getting possession of things has fallen into disuse since the age of chivalry.' We would not have thrown out this awkward suggestion, but for the apocryphal character of the fragment itself, which led several respectable English gentlemen to do the doctor the justice of believing, that, instead of pilfering the fragment at Naples, he fabricated it at home. To give our readers an opportunity of judging for themselves, we have placed the fragment in a note.*

Notwithstanding the suspicions entertained by several of the best scholars, that Dr Sickler's pretensions came in questionable shape, the recommendation of so respectable a body as the society at Göttingen, speaking by the organ of a committee of most competent judges, was sufficient to procure for Dr Sickler an opportunity of making an experiment in London. To that city he was requested to repair; and a committee was raised to superintend the experiment, which he should make on some rolls, that were submitted to him by order of parliament; being a part of those which, at a former period, had been presented to the British government by the Neapolitan. Sir Joseph Bankes, Sir H. Davy, and other distinguished literary and scientific characters, were of the committee, and every thing was liberally provided, that the experiment might proceed to advantage. After laboring six months, the doctor succeeded in unrolling four manuscripts, and decyphering one word 'Azóλavos from which he conjectured, with some plausibility, that the MS. where that word was found, was a poem. poem it certainly was, or some other work in the Greek language. By this time, the cost of the experiment, including the allowance liberally made by parliament to Dr Sickler, to indemnify him for the expenses of removing himself and family

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As published by Dr Sickler, it is entitled, Fac Simile einer Herculanischen MS. Rolle.' Then follows the actual fac simile about 23 inches broad, and 4 long, and under it is written, legible copy of the above fragments.' Ζῶα δὲ κατ' ἐκεῖνην τὴν χώραν ἐστι, καὶ τόπος τις κοῖλος, πρὸς μεσημβρίαν πληθύων παντοίων τοῖς μεγέθεσιν ὀφέων ὧν ἕνιας μὲν πέντε καὶ δέκα πῆχεας εἶναι οἱ περὶ ναιετάοντες λεγουσι, ὡς χωρὶς κινδύνων θηρεύουσι, τροφὴν ἀιεῖ ἑτοιμὴν παρέχουσας. τῷ δὲ ἐθνεῖ τούτῳ χώρα παρήκει κατὰ τάς τῶν ποτάμων παραλίας καλὴν, καὶ πρὸς νόμην ἀγα. θῆ, τῇ δὲ προειρημένη παράλια νῆσοι τέσσαρες ἐπικεῖνται πετηρεφεις μὲν καὶ μέλαιναι τὴν ὄψιν στῆλων δὲ παμμεγεθων ύλην αυτόφυτον ἀποφαινοῦσαι ἐρεψαι δρος και παρακεῖται το τῶν κυκλόπων, ὀνομασμένον ὑπὸ τὰς ρίζας ὁμοίως κατὰ τὴν κορυφὴν πέτρας ἔχον.

to London, had amounted to £1000; four manuscripts had been released from the possibility of being tortured by future decypherers; and it was thought proper to put a stop to the undertaking.

Since the failure of this experiment, we understand that Sir H. Davy, while at Naples three years since, made some partial attempts on the papyri, which were attended with success; but that he expressed the opinion, that little was to be expected, in the way of facilitating the process, as hitherto practised by the academicians at Portici. For our own parts, on examining these rolls at Naples, and observing the state to which they are reduced, instead of wondering that no more has been done, we are filled with admiration with what has been effected. Nor do we despair of yet seeing some valuable accession to our stores of ancient literature from this quarter.

The books of Epicurus, now first published in the volume, of which we have given the title at the head of this article, though certainly not what we should have most desired, are no contemptible relic. Nothing of this philosopher was till now extant, beyond the detached quotations made from him by other ancient writers; and we cannot peruse without interest the first writings thus recovered to us of one of the most celebrated philosophers of antiquity. The space we have already taken up prevents our going more deeply into the notice of this work; nor would it perhaps amuse our readers. We shall close our article with one remark on the perversity of human things, of which the fate of these books of Epicurus furnishes one among many illustrations. It is well known that the walls of the Egyptian temples, the sides of the obelisks and the sarcophagi, and the rolls of papyrus found within the bandages of the mummies, are filled with hieroglyphical characters; the record, no doubt, of a mass of historical and biographical knowledge, but altogether lost to the world, from an ignorance of the hieroglyphical character. When we thus compare the fate of writings on tablets of freestone and granite, perfectly preserved but perfectly unintelligible, with the fate of many other literary remains of antiquity, we behold a remarkable instance, how little the result can always be prophesied from the premises. The law of Moses was written on perishable materials, probably linen; and had so nearly perished, that one copy only was extant, and that was buried in the decaying ruins of the

temple.* This book, however, written in the dialect of a small province, and so nearly lost, is now in all the tongues of civilized, and in very many of the tongues of uncivilized man. The poems of Homer were probably never written by their author; but sung about the Grecian islands and the Ionian coasts by a wandering bard, contemporary with the flourishing age of Egypt. They are now in all the schools of America, Europe, and European India. The works of Aristotle written on parchment were buried shortly after his death, to preserve them from the rapacity of the kings of Pergamus. One hundred and sixty years they lay forgotten in the ground, exposed to dampness and mildew. They are now in all our libraries. The text of the Roman law, the institutions and pandects of Justinian, existed in their entire form but in one copy, in an Italian trading town, Amalfi, while at the present day justice is administered from that text, in all the continental courts of Europe. In the declining ages, parchment was so dear, that one writing was effaced to make way for another. The finest productions of Grecian and Roman wit, nay the scriptures themselves, were often thus obliterated, to make way for the epistles of a church father and the legends of a saint. Modern ingenuity has found out methods of restoring the ancient writing, after it had thus been scratched out and written over. But more curious, we think, than all these, is the fact certified to us by the subject of our present article. More than seventeen hundred years ago, a stream of fiery lava covered the town of Herculaneum in some places to a depth of seventy feet. When we think of the destructive power of such a mass of molten rocks, so long as it remains in a state of fusion, and the condition of paper manuscripts, over which it has flowed to a depth of forty and fifty feet; and reflect that manuscripts so buried have now, after seventeen centuries, been dug up, unfolded, and printed, we have, perhaps, the most astonishing fact in literary history; and contrasting it with the mute records, which have braved in vain the storms of ages, on the obelisks and the temples at Carnac and Luxor, one of the most remarkable examples of the perversity of human things.

* 2. Chron. xxxiv. 14, and the corresponding passage in the book of Kings. ↑ See North American Review, vol. xii, p. 385, &c.

ART. XVI.—1. A Review of the plan of Education in South Carolina. Columbia, S. C. 1821.

2. Address to the Graduates of the South Carolina College; December 1821. By Thomas Cooper, M. D. President of the College.

It is remarked by Dr. Ramsay, that the settlement of Carolina' was nearly coeval with the institution of the royal society of London, and began at a time when Addison, Boerhave, Barrow, Fenelon, Hall, Locke, Milton, Newton, Rollin, Sydney, Sydenham, Sloane, Tillotson, Watts, and many other sons of intellect, were living and enlightening the world with the beams of knowledge. Though few, if any, of the early settlers of the province were learned men, yet they brought with them general ideas of European literature.' The doctor appears to intimate, in this array of great names, that some light may have been reflected from them on the infant settlement of Carolina. It is however only by the licentia historica, if there be such a figure, that all these luminaries can be made contemporaries. Of the labors of one of them, from whom, as the formal legislator of that colony, something might have been expected, the author of the seasonable pamphlet before us, expresses himself in the following decided manner.

One will not be surprised, when he has read the number of stupid and illiberal things contained in Locke's Constitution for South Carolina, (for instance, such as prohibiting the existence of lawyers, and of commentaries and reports on legal subjects-compelling a man to worship some god publicly, or be driven from society and the protection of the law-giving absolute power to the master over his negro slaves, &c. which show a great want of philosophy as well as Christianity,) that he should have made no provision whatever, in his government, for education. I rejoice that our ancestors expelled it with contempt and indignation, as the unworthy offspring of a writer on the mind and republics. He apologised for one clause, and I think he might have included twenty. p. 11.

Indeed, Carolina was not indebted for the first efficient efforts made in that province, for the promotion of literature, to any of the shining luminaries mentioned in Dr Ramsay's catalogue; but to a man, whose name most of our readers will probably hear now for the first time-a Dr BRAY -by whose liberality chiefly it was, that libraries were early

established in Charleston, and the other parishes into which the province was then divided. In 1700, the legislature took these libraries into its own care, and appointed commissioners to loan out the books. Following up this salutary beginning, in 1710 and 1712, the legislature founded a free school in Charleston, on a pretty large scale, and schools in the other parishes, on a less extensive plan. The preceptor of the free school was to receive £100, and the country masters £10, per annum, to be paid out of the public treasury.' Donations were also made by private individuals to found academies in different parts of the state. Our author thus mentions one of them :

The academy at Childbury with its little cupola, situated near Strawberry-ferry on Cooper river, is now in ruins, and is the habitation of owls and bats. Just by, is a romantic little church, with its grave-yard and solemn grove of live oaks, from whose large and spreading branches masses of grey moss hang, with almost architectural arrangement, picturing to the fancy of the classical enthusiast gothic arches, festoons, and all the variety of tapestry and ornaments; and where the writer has often seen the prowling fox, loitering in the dusk of evening, with his mewing whine, awaiting nightfall, when he may prey upon the poultry of the neighbouring tavern, where the reader, should he ever travel for the gratification of romantic night-thoughts, church-yard walks, and good lodging, may be gratified in them all.'-p. 10.

Nothwithstanding this liberality, both of the legislature and of private lovers of literature, the colony still lacked the means of affording such an education as would place the natives on a level with emigrants reared in the European colleges; and none of the British provinces,' says Ramsay, in proportion to their numbers, sent so many of their sons to Europe for education as South Carolina.' This disadvantage continued to be more and more felt, until, in the year 1769, a bill was introduced into the legislature, to found a provincial college. Such, however, was the prevalence of aristocratical prejudice,—such the fear, that, by facilitating the acquisition of a liberal education, the conditions of men would be equalized,-that the project entirely failed. The revolution purified the atmosphere of this kind of influence; and, as soon as peace was fairly established, in 1785, the legislature, it should seem, were determined to make up for the discomfiture of 1769, and instituted three colleges on the same day,-one in Charleston, one in

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