means of silken threads fixed to the goldbeaters' skin, and machinery adapted to the purpose, the portion of the manuscript thus secured is rolled off. The skin is again applied to another portion, which is rolled off in the same manner, and as this work proceeds, the whole is gradually and gently rolled upon another wooden cylinder. From this cylinder, the manuscript thus lined with goldbeaters' skin is finally unrolled, and then spread out, and transcribed. There are various inconveniences in this process. In the first place it requires a month's time to unrol a portion of the manuscript a span wide; and it may from this easily be calculated, how tedious an operation it must be to decypher a large roll. Besides this, holes have, in many cases, been produced in the folds of the paper, by the operation of time and the moisture contained in them. These, on account of the thinness of the paper, cannot be discerned by the eye; and when the goldbeaters' skin is laid on with glue over such a hole, it takes up, of course, the portion of the fold lying next under it. The same error is repeated when the work reaches the new chasm, occasioned by this last violence, and thus an inextricable confusion takes place, and is propagated through the whole. In addition to all this, the adhesive solution applied to fasten the goldbeaters' skin to the roll, though it possesses the necessary quality of loosening the folds from each other, is found also to loosen the different strips of paper mentioned above; in which way new difficulty and confusion are introduced. Notwithstanding all these obstacles, the work of Philodemus on music was unrolled and decyphered. After learning by what a tedious and imperfect process this must be effected, we cannot but wonder, that it was accomplished so well; at the same time, that the insignificance of the writing itself has done not a little to damp the zeal with which the business of unrolling the MSS was pursued. Had the lost books of Polybius, Diodorus, or Dionysius, the history of Theopompus, the lost plays of Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or Aristophanes, or the comedies of Menander, to say nothing of Roman literature,-had any of these been fortunately among the manuscripts unrolled, there would have been no bounds to the interest that would have been excited, and no effort would have been thought too great in the pursuit of the work. Still, however, it is hard to think, that no valuable author is among the MSS. The conjecture of Winckelman is, as we have said, refuted by the subsequent discovery

of other writers besides Philodemus; and when we consider the dearness and scarcity of books in ancient t mes, we cannot think that any person, who had the means and disposition to acquire a library of nearly two thousand volumes, should have possessed among them none of the works of the masters.-It would be hard, even in our days, in the marvellous multiplication of worthless writings by the press, and the eagerness with which they are sought for, it would be hard to find a library of two thousand volumes, which contained nothing, that would be more valuable to posterity eighteen hundred years hence, after such a wreck of our literature, as that of antiquity has suffered, than the works of Philodemus are to us. There is, we venture to say, among us no collection of novels and romances, no library of political pamphlets, no apparatus in polemical divinity, into which some volume of Goldsmith or Addison has not found, or rather lost, its way. Nay we have a pleasing confidence, that were our circulating libraries, our boksellers' shops, and our publishers' offices, to be overwhelmed at once like Herculaneum, some redeeming fragment of the masters of the English literature would be discovered hereafter in the ruins, to show posterity we were not utterly given up to ordinary fugitive writings, to newspapers, to journals and reviews, and all the light reading of the day.

The disordered state of the Neapolitan finances, the unsettled condition of things produced by the political revolution, and perhaps the want of spirit in those on whom the duty devolved, occasioned a great sluggishness and inactivity in the prosecution of this work. Representations to this effect were made to the prince of Wales, in England, at the beginning of the present century, and his royal highness, in consequence, with great liberality, proposed to the Neapolitan government to defray the expenses of unrolling, decyphering, and publishing the manuscripts. This offer was accepted by the court of Naples; and it was thought necessary to select a person to superintend the enterprise. The event has proved, we believe, that an unfortunate choice was made, and that the liberal designs of the prince would have been most effectually carried into execution, by simply applying the stimulus of English patronage and pay, to the experience and fidelity of the academicians of Portici. Mr Hayter, however, an English gentleman, was selected for the place, on the reputation of his classical scholarship; and a less fortunate choice, judging from

the sequel, could not well have been made. This gentleman arrived in Naples in 1802, with credentials, which procured him a nomination as one of the directors for unrolling the manuscripts.

An account of this gentleman's labors may be found in the Herculanensia of Sir W. Drummond and Mr Walpole, and in two letters addressed by himself to his princely patron. With the Herculanensia we are acquainted, only through the medium of the learned and instructive review of it, in the third volume of the Quarterly Review; the first article of which is a notice of this work, with a fac simile of the fragment on Epicurus, unrolled by Mr Hayter, and published by Sir W. Drummond, with an English translation of the fragment. The two letters of Mr Hayter, or certainly one, we remember to have read some years since, but have them not at hand. Of the EIGHTY manuscripts, which he professes to have rendered legible, we believe this short fragment of Epicurus is all that the world has seen. Neither Mr Hayter, if our memory serves us, nor the authors of the Herculanensia, from aught that appears in the excellent notice of their labors in the Quarterly Review, condescend to inform us of the authors of these eighty books, nor what accession is made by them to our stores of ancient literature. From the ominous silence or obscurity which reigns on this head, we are apprehensive that these attempts on the eighty manuscripts were abortive. That the papyri were but partially unrolled, or very imperfectly decyphered, and that instead of eighty manuscripts being made legible' by the labors of Mr Hayter, the real truth is, that eighty have been mutilated and ruined by him. Such, in fact, we were informed by an English gentleman of high respectability, concerned in subsequent negotiations on this subject, was the case, and that it had been discovered that nothing valuable was to be expected from Mr Hayter's labors.

In this state of things another project was started, and being brought forward under high scientific patronage, arrested the attention of the public. The author of this project was Dr Sickler, rector of a school at Saxe Hildburghausen, in Germany. As this project excited much attention at the time, and led to an expensive experiment, under the patronage of the British parliament, we shall lay before our readers the report of the academy of sciences at Göttingen, to which Dr Sickler submitted the project. This report is contained in a notice in

the Literary Gazette of Göttingen for December 1814, which notice is as follows:

At a public meeting of the royal society, on the 9th November, Mr Heeren submitted to the society a statement of Dr Sickler, director of the Gymnasium at Saxe-Hildburghausen, (well known for several esteemed antiquarian writings, and for his excellent topographical map of the country about Rome,) upon a subject very important for classical literature, viz.- an improved method of unrolling the manuscripts found at Herculaneum. Dr Sickler wished to subject his method to a thorough investigation; and to this end-and because, from very weighty considerations he could not as yet make it publicly known,-petitioned that a committee of the royal society might be appointed, to which the particulars of his process, and experiments made by himself on charred paper, should be submitted. Messrs Blumenbach, Hausmann and Heeren were nominated as this committee, and their report follows.

It must previously be observed, that Dr Sickler, during six years which he spent in Italy, was three times at Naples, and had opportunity there, not only to make himself particularly acquainted with the method hitherto pursued, and its defects, but also, as far as the rules of the museum admitted, to subject his own to the test of experiment. According to the statement of the overseer of the museum, there are not less than 1400 rolls there preserved, wholly or mostly unrolled. They are nearly all of the same length, but of very unequal thickness; from which it follows, of course, that the works written upon them are of various comprehension. With respect to their contents, very hasty hypotheses have been adopted, which experience itself has shown to be incorrect. It can no longer be doubted, that they are writings of very various nature, in Greek and Latin, in prose and poetry, since a work upon music, a work of Epicurus upon nature, and a Latin poem, have been found; and in others, subjects from geography and natural history are evidently treated. Little as we may be able to anticipate, what may be the result of farther disclosures, there is every reason to think that several of the most important works in classical literature are here concealed; and the expectation of finding there the comedies of Menander, or the lost books of Polybius, though uncertain, is by no means chimerical.'-Here follows a mention of the steps hitherto taken, of the method of Antonio Piaggi, and the mission of Mr Hayter, of which the result was not then known, as we have already related them.] The notice proceeds. To an improved method it was accordingly necessary, first, to discover a preparation, which could be applied upon the side of the charred paper, and would penetrate New Series, No. 10.

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the papyrus, without injuring it, or rendering it hard by drying too suddenly; secondly, to find a material with which the papyrus, by the aid of the preparation, could be lined upon the outside, yet without tearing; and, lastly, to make some improvements in the other parts of the machinery, to facilitate the unrolling. Dr Sickler considers, that he has hit upon a method, which fulfils these conditions, and as a proof of this, has communicated to the society specimens of paper written upon, and reduced to coal, which, after being lined in the way proposed by him, are unrolled and transcribed. The following is the official opinion pronounced by the committee of the royal society upon this method." The method proposed by Dr Sickler, for unrolling the Herculanean MSS, is essentially different from that which has hitherto been pursued without success; and appears to unite the different qualifications requisite, viz. those of unfolding the charred rolls in a connected and legible condition, and in a short time. The adhesive mixture, which Dr S. has proposed, is of a nature to attach itself equally well to the charred papyrus, and to the substance with which they are to be lined. It dries slowly, so that it is not necessary to precipitate the work of unfolding, and should any portion of an underfold, by cause of a hole in the one above, attach itself to the lining, this mixture will admit of its being easily separated. The body, to which the manuscript is to be transferred to render it legible, is indeed very yielding, so as to accommodate itself to rolls that are shrivelled and bent, but is, at the same time, substantial and firm. The machinery proposed is simple, and presents the advantage, that the charred roll is preserved in the state of the greatest possible tranquillity, and that every motion is avoided which might tear the delicate mass; at the same time, it places the manuscript in a position best calculated to facilitate the reading of it. From these premises, the committee consider it highly probable, that the method proposed would be attended with success, especially as, upon being applied to papers written upon and reduced to coal, it is found entirely competent to unfolding them in a legible condition. Still, however, a perfect conviction of its applicability can only be produced by experiments upon the charred rolls themselves, by occasion of which, no doubt, various improvements would suggest themselves, adapted to the particular condition of each MS., which could not be provided for in advance."-The notice proceeds." It is naturally the wish of Dr Sickler to have an opportunity of making a fair experiment of his method upon one of those rolls, which have reached London and Paris in the way of presents from Naples, and the royal society, when it considers the importance of the event in case of success, and the probability of succeeding, cannot but express the wish, that such an opportunity might be given to Dr Sickler.”