and it was as easy to impress a whole line as two words, and a page as a whole line. Had they gone but these two easy steps further, it would have been just what the Chinese printing is now.

The ancient poets seem to use laurus indifferently, for the larger or less laurels (or bays). Strictly speaking, lauro, or lauro regio, signifies the former in Italian; and alloro, the latter: but our poets too use lauro indifferently for both.-Crudeli.

The Italian noblemen have been so fond of getting the old Roman mile-stones to set before the entrance into their houses, and the collectors of antiquities so wrong-headed, that between them they have not left two standing together in their old places, all over Italy, to determine exactly how much a Roman mile was. The taking the first mile-stone from its proper spot to place it in the capitol, has something of the same Gothicism or ignorance in it too.—Mr.

Impressurus ovi tua nomina; nam tibi lites
Afferet ingentes lectus possessor in arvo.

Calphurnius. Ecl. v. 85.

Holdsworth, author of the Muscipula, then

at Florence.

The three most celebrated triumphal arches in Italy are all either Trajan's, or ornamented from Trajan's.-The same. [He had been speaking of those at Ancona and Benevento, and that of Constantine at Rome.]

The Amphitheatre of Vespasian is raised four story high, and is adorned all round on the outside with four different degrees of pillars; Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. It is an oblong of 820 Roman palms by 700; and the height of it is 222. There were places in it for eighty-seven thousand persons. They formerly ascended by three steps to it, but they are now hid by the raising of the ground. There was no cement used in the whole building; but the stones are cramped with lead and pieces of iron. Mr. Holdsworth.

Each book of Virgil's Georgics is in a different style, or has a different colouring from all the rest. That of the first is plain,

S

of the second various, of the third grand, and of the fourth pleasing*.-The same.

Columella's Treatise on Agriculture is by much the best comment on Virgil's Georgics. The same.

Solstitia, when used alone, is always used of the summer solstice, by the ancients.The same.

Bruma was not used by the ancients for the whole winter, but for one day only of it; the shortest day, or the winter solstice. -The same.

In Queen Elizabeth's time, and a good deal later, people went from hence (England) to Italy for manners, as they do now to France. Ascham has a very severe letter on it, and there are many passages re

* In Spence's Anecdotes are a great number of other observations on Virgil from Mr. Holdsworth, which are all found almost in the same words, in his quarto volume on Virgil, published by Spence, in 1768. The book, though full of very curious remarks, never sold, in consequence of which I lately purchased a copy of it elegantly bound for nine shillings.— M.

lating to it in Shakspeare and several others of our old dramatic writers.-Mr. Pope.

It is idle to say that letters should be written in an easy, familiar style. That, like most other general rules, will not hold: the style in letters, as in all other things, should be adapted to the subject. Many of Voiture's letters on gay subjects are excellent; and so are Cicero's, and several of Pliny's, and Seneca's, on serious ones. I do not think so ill even of Balzac, as you seem to do; there are certainly a great many good things in his letters, though he is too apt to run into affectation and bombast. The Bishop of Rochester's Letter is on a grave subject, and therefore should be grave.-Mr. Pope. [On my having said that a friend of mine thought that letter of the Bishop's too stiff.]

The noble collection of pictures in the Palais Royal at Paris cost the Regent above a million of Louis-d'ors* or guineas; in

* The showman here, or Mr. Spence, has made a small mistake. If we read livres instead of Louis-d'ors, we shall be much nearer the truth. A million of livres

particular, the St. Joseph, little Jesus, and Virgin, cost fifteen thousand livres (or 625 guineas); the St. John, Jesus, and Virgin, thirty thousand livres; and the St. John in the Wilderness, fifty thousand.-The Officer who showed us the Palace.

This picture of a Muleteer was drawn by Correggio, and served a great while as a sign to a little public-house by the road side. It has all the marks in the upper corner of its having been doubled in for that purpose. The man who kept the house had been a muleteer, and had on some occasion obliged Correggio a good deal on the road. He set him up, and painted his sign for him. The persons who were sent into Italy to collect pictures for the Regent, met with this sign, and bought it of the inn-keeper: it cost 500 guineas.-The

same.

1737. We have two millions of religious (taking in men and women of all sorts),

is about forty-eight thousand pounds. Perhaps, the collection might have cost fifty or sixty thousand pounds sterling. The other sum is incredible.-M.