34 all the gods, both those who move visibly round the Theogeny. Theogony. also to be #gioburaros aud aurorians, the oldest and selfperfect, and therefore a being of superior order to the other divinities who were generated together with the elements over which they were conceived to preside. With the theology of Homer our readers of all descriptions are so well acquainted, that we need not swell the article with quotations, to prove that the father of epic poetry held Jove to be the father of gods and men. But the doctrine of the poets was the creed of the vulgar Greeks and Romans; and therefore we may conclude, that those nations, though they worshipped gods and lords innumerable, admitted but one, or at the most two (D), self-existent principles; the one good and the other evil. It does not indeed appear, that in the system of vulgar paganism the subordinate gods were accountable to their chief for any part of their conduct, except when they transgressed the limits of the provinces assigned them. Venus might conduct the amours of heaven and earth in whatever manner she pleased; unaccount- Minerva might communicate or with-hold wisdom from any individual with or without reason; and we find, that in Homer's battles the gods were permitted to separate into parties, and to support the Greeks or Trojans according as they favoured the one or the other nation. Jove indeed sometimes called them to order; but his interference was thought partial, and an instance of tyrannical force rather than of just authority. The vulgar Greeks, therefore, although they admitted but one, or at most two, self-existent principles, did not consider the inferior divinities as mediators between them and the supreme, but as gods to whom their worship was on certain occasions to be ultimately directed. though each was by the vulgar consi dered as able in his own province. 35 Creed of The creed of the philosophers seems to have been the philoso- different. Such of them as were theists, and believed phers and in the administration of Providence, admitted of but one God, to whom worship was ultimately due; and they adored the subordinate divinities as his children and ministers, by whom the course of Providence was carried on. With respect to the origin of those divinities, Timæus. Plato is very explicit; where he tells us *, that “when use Quest lib. i. c. 29. et Deorum, Dissert. 1. "I will now more plainly declare my sense ‡ by this passim. similitude: Imagine a great and powerful kingdom or principality, in which all agree freely and with one consent to direct their actions according to the will and command of one supreme king, the oldest and the best; and then suppose the bounds and limits of this empire not to be the river Halys, nor the Hellespont, nor the Meotian lake, nor the shores of the ocean; but heaven above, and the earth beneath. Here then let that great king sit immoveable, prescribing to all his subjects laws, in the observance of which consist their safety and happiness: the partakers of his empire being many, both visible and invisible gods; some of which that are nearest, and immediately attending on him, are in the highest regal dignity, feasting as it were at the same table; others again are their ministers and attendants; and a third sort are inferior to them both: and thus you see how the order and chain of this government descends down by steps and degrees from the supreme god to the earth and men." In this passage we have a plain acknowledgement of one supreme God, the sovereign of the universe, and of three inferior orders of gods, who were his ministers in the government of the world and it is worthy of observation, that the same writer calls these intelligences θεους, θεου παιδας και φίλους, gods, the sons and friends of gods. He likewise affirms, that all ranks of men, and all nations on earth, whether barbarous or civilized, held the same opinions respecting one supreme Numen and the generation of the other gods. "If there were a meeting (says he *) called of all * Ibid. these : (D) Plutarch is commonly supposed, and we think justly supposed, to have been a believer in two self-existent principles, a good and an evil. His own opinion, whatever it was, he declares (de Iside et Osiride) to have been most ancient and universal, and derived from theologers and lawgivers, by poets and philosophers." Though the first author of it be unknown, yet (says he) it hath been so firmly believed everywhere, that traces of it are to be found in the sacrifices and mysteries both of the barbarians and the Greeks. There is a confused mixture of good and evil in every thing, and nothing is produced by nature pure. Wherefore it is not one only dispenser of things, who, as it were, out of several vessels distributeth these several liquors of good and evil, mingling them together, and dashing them as he pleases; but there are two distinct and contrary powers or principles in the world, one of them always leading, as it were, to the right hand, but the other tugging the contrary way. For if nothing can be made without a cause, and that which is good cannot be the cause of evil, there must needs be a distinct principle in nature for the production of evil as well as good." That this is palpable manicheism (see MANICHEISM), appears to us so very evident as to admit of no debate. It appeared in the same light to the learned Cudworth; but that author labours to prove that Plutarch mistook the sense of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Plato. when he attributed to them the same opinions which were held by himself. Mosheim, on the other hand, has put it beyond a doubt, that whatever was Plutarch's belief respecting the origin of evil, and the existence of two independent principles, it was taken implicitly from the writings of Plato. But the pious chancellor of Gottingen, actuated by the same motives with Cudworth, wishes to persuade his readers, that by Plato and Plutarch nothing active was understood by their evil principle, but only that tendency to confusion which was then deemed inseparable from matter. something more was meant seems undeniable: for immediately after the words which we have quoted, Plutarch proceeds to affirm that the wisest men declare og uvai dvo nabawię avlilexvous, that there are two gods, as it were, of contrary trades or crafts, of which one is the author of all good and the other of all evil. See Mosheim. ed. Cudworth. System. Intellect. lib. i. cap. 4. § 13. But that Theogony, these several professions, a painter, a statuary, a poet, and a philosopher, and all of them were required to declare their sense concerning the God; do you think that the painter would say one thing, the statuary another, the poet a third, and the philosopher a fourth? No; nor the Scythian neither; nor the Greek, nor the Hyperborean. In other things we find men speaking very discordantly, all men as it were differing from all. But amidst this war, contention, and discord, you may find everywhere, throughout the whole world, one uniform law and opinion, that there is ONE GOD, THE KING AND FATHER OF ALL, and many gods, the SONS OF GOD, who reign with God. These things both the Greek and Barbarian affirm, both the inhabitants of the continent and of the sea-coast, both the wise and the unwise." 36 Indian Bra mins. This account of philosophical polytheism receives no small support from the Asiatic Researches of Sir William Jones. "It must always be remembered (says that accomplished scholar), that the learned Indians, as they are instructed by their own books, acknowledge Plate only one supreme Being, whom they call BRAHME, or EccIIV. THE GREAT ONE, in the neuter gender. They believe 37 his essence to be infinitely removed from the comprehension of any mind but his own; and they suppose him to manifest his power by the operation of his divine spirit, whom they name VISHNOU the pervader, and NE'RA'YAN or moving on the waters, both in the masculine gender; whence he is often denominated the first male. When they consider the divine power as exerted in creating or giving existence to that which existed not before, they call the deity BRAHMA'; when they view him in the light of destroyer, or rather changer of forms, they give him a thousand names, of which SIVA, IsWARA, and MAHADEVA, are the most common; and when they consider him as the preserver of created things, they give him the name of VISHNOU. As the soul of the world, or the pervading mind, so finely described by Virgil, we see Jove represented by several Roman poets; and with great sublimity by Lucan in the well-known speech of Cato concerning the Ammonian oracle, "Jupiter is wherever we look, wherever we move.' This is precisely the Indian idea of VISHNOU: for since the power of preserving created things by a superintending providence belongs eminently to the godhead, they hold that power to exist transcendently in the preserving member of the triad, whom they suppose to be EVERYWHERE ALWAYS, not in substance, but in spirit and energy." This supreme god BRAH ME, in his triple form, is the only self-existent divinity acknowledged by the philosophical Hindoos. The other divinities GENESA, INDRA, CUVERA, &c. are all looked upon either as his creatures or his children; and of course are worshipped only with inferior adoration. Why the philosoIt was upon this principle of the generation of the phers wor- gods, and of their acting as ministers to the supreme shipped the inferior divinities. Numen, that all the philosophers of Greece, who were Theogony. not atheists, worshipped many divinities, though they either openly condemned or secretly despised the traditions of the poets respecting the amours and villanies of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and the rest of the tribe. It was the same principle sincerely admitted, and not an ill-timed jest, as has been absurdly supposed, that made Socrates, after he had swallowed the poison, request his friend to offer a votive cock for him to Esculapius. But a theogony was not peculiar to the Greeks, Romans, and the Hindoos; it made part of every system of polytheism. Even the Egyptians themselves, the grossest of all idolaters, believed in one self-existing God, from whom all their other divinities descended by generation. This appears probable from the writings of Horus Apollo, Jamblicus, Porphyry, and many other ancient authors; but if the inscription on the gates of the temple of Neith in Sais, as we have it from Plutarch and Proclus, be genuine, it will admit of no doubt. This famous inscription, according to the last of these writers, was to this purpose: "I a am whatever is, whatever shall be, and whatever hath been. My veil no man hath removed. The offspring which I brought forth was the sun (E).” The Persian magi, as we have seen, believed in two self existent principles, a good and an evil: but if Diogenes Laertius deserves to be credited, they held that fire, earth, and water, which they called gods, were generated of these two. It was observed in the beginning of this article, that the first object of idolatrous worship was probably the sun, and that this species of idolatry took its rise in Chaldea or Persia. But when it became the practice of eastern monarchs to conceal themselves wholly from their people, the custom, as implying dignity, was supposed to prevail as well in heaven as on earth; and Zoroaster, the reformer of the Persian theology, taught*, that "Ormuzd was as far removed from * Plutarch, the sun as the sun is removed from the earth." Accord de Iside et ing to this modification of magianism, the sun was one Osiride. of the generated gods, and held the office of prime minister or vicegerent to the invisible fountain of light and good. Still, however, a self-existent principle of evil was admitted; but though he could not be destroyed or annihilated by any power, it was believed that he would at last be completely vanquished by Ormuzd and his ministers, and rendered thenceforward incapable of producing any mischief. From this short view of polytheism, as we find it delineated by the best writers of antiquity, we think ourselves warranted to conclude, that the whole pagan world believed in but one, or at most two, SELF-EXISTENT GODS, from whom they conceived all the other divinities to have descended in a manner analogous to human generation. It appears, however, that the vulgar pagans considered each divinity as supreme and unaccountable within his own province, and therefore intitled to worship, which rested ultimately in himself. The Ꭲ 2 philosophers, (Ε) Τα ονλα, και τα επόμενα και τα γεγονότα, εγω ειμι. Τον εμον χιτώνα ουδείς απεκάλυψεν. Ον εγω καρπων, ήλιος ενενέλα. The antiquity of this inscription is admitted by Cudworth, denied by Mosheim, and doubted by Jablonkski. The reader who wishes to know their arguments may consult Mosheim's edition of the Intellectual System, and Jablonski's Pantheon Egyptiorum. lytheists less cul Theogony. philosophers, on the other hand, seem to have viewed the inferior gods as accountable for every part of their 38 conduct to him who was their sire and sovereign, and to Vulgar po- have paid to them only that inferior kind of devotion which the church of Rome pays to departed saints. The pable than vulgar pagans were sunk in the grossest ignorance, from the philoso- which statesmen, priests, and poets, exerted their utmost phers. influence to keep them from emerging; for it was a maxim which, however absurd, was universally received, that "there were many things true in religion*, which it was not convenient for the vulgar to know; and some * Varro apud D. August. de Civ. Dei. things which, though false, it was yet expedient that Theogony. they should believe. The polytheism and idolatry of the vulgar, therefore, was their misfortune rather than their fault. But the philosophers were wholly "without excuse *; because that when they knew God, they * Rom. i. glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but 20, 21, 22. became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart 25. was darkened. Professing themselves wise, they became fools, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God blessed for ever." POL apo POLYTRICHUM, a genus of plants belonging to the cryptogamia class. See BOTANY Index. The anthera is operculated, and placed upon a very small physis or articulation; the calyptra villous; the star of the female is on a distinct individual. There are 16 species; the most remarkable of which, natives of Britain, is the commune, or great golden maiden-hair, frequently to be met with in bogs and wet places. It grows in patches; the stalks erect, generally single and un-. branched, from three inches to a foot or even a yard high. The leaves are numerous, stiff, lanceolate, acute, growing round the stalk without order, and, if viewed. with a microscope, appear to have their edges finely serrated. There are two varieties of this moss: the first has much shorter stalks than the preceding, and often branched; the leaves stiffer, erect, and more crowded; in other respects the same. The other has a stalk scarcely more than half an inch high, terminated with a cluster of linear, erect, rigid leaves, for the most part entire on the edges, and tipped each with a white hair. The filament is about an inch high, and the capsule quadrangular. The female flower, or gem, is of a bright red colour. The first kind, when it grows long enough for the purpose, is sometimes used in England and Holland to make brooms or brushes. Of the female sort the Laplanders, when obliged to sleep in desert places, frequently make a speedy and convenient bed, in the following manner: Where the moss grows thick together, they mark out, with a knife, a piece of ground, about two yards square, or of the size of a common blanket; then beginning at one corner, they gently sever the turf from the ground, and as the roots of the moss are closely interwoven and matted together, they by degrees strip off the whole circumscribed turf in one entire piece; afterwards they mark and draw up another piece, exactly corresponding with the first; then, shaking them both with their hands, they lay one upon the ground, with the moss uppermost, instead of a matress, and the other over it, with the moss downwards, instead of a rug; and between the two pieces they enjoy a comfortable sleep. POLYX ÆNUS, or POLY ANUS, See POLYENUS, POLYXO, a priestess of Apollo's temple in Lemnos, She was likewise nurse to Queen Hypsipyle. It was by her advice that the Lemnian women murdered all their РОМ husbands. There was another Polyxo, a native of Ar- Polyzo gos, who married Tlepolemus son of Hercules. She followed him to Rhodes after the murder of his uncle Li- Pomfret cymnius; and when he departed for the Trojan war with the rest of the Greek princes, she became the sole mistress of the kingdom. After the Trojan war, Helen fled from Peloponnesus to Rhodes, where Polyxo reigned. Polyxo detained her; and to punish her as being the cause of a war in which Tlepolemus had perished, she ordered her to be hanged on a tree by her female servants, disguised in the habit of Furies. POMACEÆ, (pomum, “an apple,”) the name of the 36th order in Linnæus's Fragments of a Natural Method, the genera of which have a pulpy esculent fruit, of the apple, berry, and a cherry kind. See Botany, Natural Orders. POMATUM, an unguent generally used in dressing the hair. It is also employed as a medicine. POMEGRANATE. See PUNICA, BOTANY Index. POMERANIA, a province in Germany, in the circle of Upper Saxony, having formerly the title of a duchy. It is bounded on the north by the Baltic sea, on the east by Prussia and Poland, on the south by the marquisate of Brandenburg, and on the west by the duchy of Mecklenburg; and is about 250 miles in length, and in some places 75 miles and in others 50 in breadth. It is watered by several rivers, the most considerable of which are the Oder, the Pene, the Rega, the Persant, the Wipper, the Stolp, the Lupo, and the Lobo. The air is cold; but the soil abounds in pastures, and produces corn, of which a great deal is exported. It is a flat country, containing many lakes, woods, and forests, and has several good harbours. It is divided into the Hither and Farther Pomerania. The small part of this province held by Sweden, was given to Denmark in exchange for Norway, and by Denmark was ceded to Prussia, in 1814. POMFRET, JOHN, an English poet, son of the rector of Luton in Bedfordshire, was born in 1667, and educated at Cambridge; after which he took orders, and was presented to the living of Malden in Bedfordshire. About 1703 he went to London for institution to a larger and very considerable living; but was stopped some time by Compton, then bishop of London, on account of these four lines of his poem, entitled the Choice: "And The parentheses in these lines were so maliciously represented, that the good bishop was made to believe that Pomfret preferred a mistress to a wife. But he was soon convinced that this representation was the mere effect of malice, as Pomfret at that time was actually married. The opposition, however, which his slanderers had made to him had its effect; for, being by this obliged to stay in London longer than he intended, he catched the smallpox, and died of it, aged 35. He published a volume of his poems in 1699, with a very modest and sensible preface. Two pieces of his were published after his death by his friend Philalethes; one intitled Reason, and written in 1700, when the disputes about the Trinity ran high; the other Dies Novissima, or the Last Epiphany," a Pindaric ode. His versification is not unmusical; but there is not the force in his writings which is necessary to constitute a poet. A dissenting teacher of his name, and who published some rhimes upon spiritual subjects, occasioned fanaticism to be imputed to him; but his friend Philalethes has justly cleared him from the imputation. Pomfret had a very strong mixture of devotion in him, but no fanaticism. "The Choice (says Dr Johnson) exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice. In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous, or intangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and he who pleases many must have merit." POMME, or POMMETTE, in Heraldry, is a cross with one or more balls or knobs at each of the ends. POMMEL, or PUMMEL, in the Manege, a piece of brass or other matter at the top and in the middle of the saddle-bow. POMMERULLIA, a genus of plants belonging to the triandria class, and in the natural method ranking under the 4th order, Gramina. See BOTANY Inder. POMOERIUM, in Roman antiquity, was, according to Livy, that space of ground, both within and without the walls, which the augurs, at the first building of cities, solemnly consecrated, and on which no edifices were allowed to be raised. Plutarch gives this account of the ceremony of drawing the pomoerium: "They dug a trench, and threw into it the first-fruits of all things, either good by custom, or necessary by nature; and every man taking a small turf of earth of the country from whence he came, they cast them in promiscuously. Then making this trench their centre, they described the city in a circle round it. After this, the founder yoking a bull and a cow together, ploughed a deep furrow, with a brazen ploughshare, round the bounds. The attendants took care that all the clods fell inwards, i. e. toward the city. This furrow they called Pomærium, and built the wall upon it."-Plutarch, in this account, is to be Pomarium understood as speaking of Rome. 0 POMERIUM Proferre, signifies to extend or enlarge, Pompeii. a city, which could not be done by any, but those who had taken away some part of an enemy's country in war. But this qualification was sometimes dispensed with. Pomarium is quasi pone mania, " behind the walls." POMONA, in fabulous history, the tutelar deity of orchards and fruit-trees. See VERTUMNUS. POMPEII (anc. geog.) a town of Campania near Herculaneum, and destroyed along with it by the great eruption of Vesuvius in the time of Titus. See HERCULANEUM. It is about 15 miles from Naples, and six or seven from Portici-So much has been said and written on the discovery of this place, as makes it unnecessary for us to say much: we shall therefore only give a short extract on the subject from an anonymous work lately published, apparently of considerable merit. “On entering the city (says our author*), the first object is a * Compapretty square, with arcades, after the present manner of rative Sketch of Italy. This was, as it is imagined, the quarter of the England soldiers; numbers of military weapons being found here. and Italy, "A narrow, but long street, with several shops on with Diseach side, is now perfectly cleared of its rubbish, and in quisitions good preservation. Each house has a court. In some on Nationof them are paintings al fresco, principally in chiaro- tages. scuro; and their colours not the least injured by time. The few colours which the ancients knew were extracted only from minerals; and this may be a sufficient reason for their freshness. The street is paved with irregu lar stones of a foot and a half or two feet long, like the Appian way. "In discovering this city, it was at first doubted whe ther it were actually Pompeii: but the name inscribed over the gateway put it beyond all doubt. The skeletons found were innumerable. It is said that many had spades in their hands, endeavouring, probably at first, to clear away the torrent of ashes with which they were deluged. Indeed the satisfaction which is felt at the view of ancient habitations, is much allayed by inevitable reflections on this frightful scene of desolation, though at the distance of so many centuries. "An ancient villa is also seen entire at a little distance from Pompeii. The house is really elegant and spacious, but only two stories high. The pavement of the chambers is composed of tesselated marble, and, when polished, displays the design perfectly well.There is some at the museum of Portici brought from this place, which the eye would really mistake for painting. Under the house is a fine triangular cellar, of which each part is 100 feet long, well filled with amphora. The skeletons of 29 persons were found here, supposed to have fled to it for safety. Each house is filled with ashes: they have almost penetrated through every crevice; and it is incredible how such a volume of them could have been thrown out by Vesuvius with sufficient force to have reached so far." It has been observed by some travellers that spoons were found among the ruins of Pompeii, but no forks, from which it is concluded, that table utensils of the latter descrip tion were not known to the Romans at that period. Forks, it is supposed, were invented at Constantinople, and were not in use in Italy till about the year 1000 of the Christian era. In al Advan mer explosion, yet no extant memorial of recorded it. Pompeii. In concluding our account of Herculaneum, it was stated that the means attempted for unrolling the manuscripts found among the ruins, had been unsuccessful, and that the plan had been dropped. It will not, we presume, be a little gratitying to the admirers of ancient literature, to be informed that this difficult labour has been resumed under the auspices of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and that six volumes of Papyri presented to his Royal Highness by the king of Naples have reached Londo... In the year 18 o the Rev. Mr Hayter, an excellent scholar, with a liberal provision from the prince, and with permission of the king of Naples, went to Italy for the purpose of unrolling and transcribing the Papyri. The following narrative extracted from a letter addressed to his royal patron by Mr Hayter, will, we doubt not, be interesting to our readers: "The numerous settlements (says the author) of the Greeks in Italy received the name of Magna Græcia, because their mother country was of a size considerably less than that in which they were planted: among these were nearly all the cities in the province of Campania, including Naples, the capital of his Sicilian majesty, and also Herculaneum, and Pompeii, which are supposed to boast a foundation coeval with Hercules himself, three thousand and fifty years ago, or twelve hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. This province, more than any other part of Magna Græcia, was always celebrated ́for the studious and successful cultivation of the arts and sciences. The two cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii ranked next to that of Naples in every respect, as places of considerable note; they had their public theatres, with every other attendant of great population, splendour, opulence, and general prosperity. These, in common with all the rest of Campania, became the elegant and favourite resort of the Romans, for the different purposes of health, luxury, repose, and erudition. "In the ninth year of Nero's reign, these two cities experienced a most formidable shock from an earthquake, which overthrew a great part of them. Nor had they recovered altogether from the effects of this calamity by their own exertions, and the aid of imperial munificence, when a second calamity, of a different nature, but equally unexpected, consigned them both at once to the most complete oblivion. This calamity was the great eruption of Vesuvius, which happened on the 24th day of August, two full months from the accession of the emperor Titus Vespasian. Herculaneum was buried under a mass of lava, and volcanic matter, to the depth of 24 feet. Pompeii, being more distant from the mountain, was overwhelmed principally with a shower of ashes, nor in any place more than half the depth of the other city. But the fate of both was sudden and inevitable; and yet it appears that almost all of the inhabitants, and, what is an equally surprising circumstance, more of the Herculaneans than the Pompeians, escaped. By the few skeletons which have been found in either place, the relation of Dio Cassius, who states the destruction of the people while assembled at the theatre, is proved to be totally erroneous. It be proper to remark, that may before this eruption the whole of Vesuvius was in a state of cultivation and fertility, from the top to the bottom; and though the form and soil of the mountain in one particular spot seemed to denote the traces of some for "Neither of these two cities was discovered again till a long period of sixteen hundred and thirty-four years had elapsed. It was in the year 1713, that some labourers, in sinking a well, struck their tools against a statue, which was on a bench in the theatre of Herculaneum. Forty years afterwards Pompeii was excavated with much less difficulty, as the incumbent stratum was neither so hard nor so deep as that of the former city. "The number of the manuscripts saved from both those cities is said to be about 500; but, if I am rightly informed by those whose official situation must give them a competent knowledge of the subject, your royal highness, by facilitating the developement of these volumes, will probably be the means of further excavation, and of rescuing from their interment an infinite quantity of others. About thirty years ago, his Sicilian majesty ordered the developement, the transcription, and the printing of the volumes which had then been saved, to be undertaken. This operation was accordingly begun, and has never been discontinued till the late invasion of the French. But its mode, however excellent, was extremely slow; it has been performed by a single person, with a single frame only, under the direction of the marquis del Vasto, chamberlain to the king, and president of the royal academy. "The frame consists of several taper and oblong pieces of wood, with parallel threads of silk that run on each side, the length of each piece: when the frame is laid on any volume, each piece of wood must be fixed precisely over each line of the page, while the respective threads being worked beneath each line, and assisted by the corresponding piece of wood above, raise the line upwards, and disclose the characters to view. "The operation seems ingenious, and well adapted to the purpose it was, I believe, invented by a capuchin at Naples. The fruits of it are said to be two publications only; one on music, by the celebrated Philodemus, who was a cotemporary of Cicero: and the other on cookery. The first is in his majesty's library, at the queen's palace. Through the obliging politeness of Mr Barnard, the king's librarian. I have had the advantage of perusing it. Indeed I hope your royal highness will not disapprove my acknowledging in this place the very warm and respectful interest which both this gentleman and the right honourable the president of the Royal Society have expressed for the furtherance of your royal highness's great and good design. Meanwhile, by this specimen of Philodemus, I am convinced that, if the frames should be multiplied to the proposed extent, seve ral pages of thirty different manuscripts might be disclosed and transcribed within the space of one week. "But the very period at which the manuscripts were buried, serves to point out to your royal highness that you may expect the recovery of either the whole, or at least parts, of the best writers of antiquity, hitherto deemed irrecoverable. All of these, in truth, had written before that period, if we except Tacitus, whose inestimable works were unfortunately not composed till twenty years afterwards during the reign of Trajan. "Nor can it be imagined for a moment, that among five or six hundred manuscripts, already excavated, and especially |