splendor, but not as erst, when the reflected luster from her marbles dazzled like the glory of his own true beam.

6. There, in their gloomy boldness, stand her palaces, but the song of carousal is hushed forever. You may behold the places of her fountains, but you will hear no murmur; they are as the water courses of the desert. There too, are her gardens, but the barrenness of long antiquity is theirs. You may stand in her amphitheater, and you shall read utter desolation on its bare and dilapidated walls.

7. Pompeii! moldering relict of a former world! Strange redemption from the sepulcher! How vivid are the classic memories that cluster around thee! Thy loneliness is rife with tongues; for the shadows of the mighty are thy sojourners! Man walks thy desolated and forsaken streets, and is lost in his dreams of other days.

8. He converses with the genius of the past, and the Roman stands as freshly recalled as before the billow of lava had stiffened above him. A Pliny, a Sallust, a Trajan, are in his musing, and he visits their very homes. Venerable and eternal city! The storied urn to a nation's memory! A disentombed and risen witness for the dead! Every stone of thee is consecrated and immortal. Rome was; Thebes was; Sparta was; thou wast, and art still. No Goth or Vandal' thundered at thy gates or reveled in thy spoil.

9. Man marred not thy magnificence. Thou wert scathed by the finger of Him, who alone knew the depths of thy violence and crime. Babylon of Italy! thy doom was not revealed to thee. No prophet was there, when thy towers were tottering and the ashy darkness obscured thy horizon, to construe the warning. The wrath of God was upon thee heavily; in the volcano was the "hiding of his power," and like thine ancient sisters of the plain, thy judgment was sealed in fire.

a Plin'-y; a celebrated Roman naturalist and philosopher. b Sal'-lust; a Roman histo rian. c Tră-jan; a Roman emperor. d Thebes (Thēbz); a vast ancient city whose ruins are in in the southern part of modern Egypt. e Spar'-ta; an ancient city, situated in the southern part of modern Greece. f The Vandais were an ancient people who lived in the north part of Germany.

LESSON XVII.

HERCULANEUM.

1. A GREAT city, situated amidst all that nature could create of beauty and of profusion, or art collect of science and magnificence, the growth of many ages, the residence of enlightened multitudes, the scene of splendor, and festivity, and happiness, in one moment withered as by a spell; its palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens, "glowing with eternal spring,” and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of all life's blessings, obliterated from their very place in creation - not by war, or famine, or disease, or any of the natural causes of destruction to which earth had been accustomed, but in a single night, as if by magic, and amid the conflagration, as it were of nature itself, presented a subject, on which the wildest imagination might grow weary without even equalling the grand and terrible reality.

2. The eruption of Vesuvius, by which Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed, has been chiefly described to us in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, giving an account of his uncle's fate, and the situation of the writer and his mother. The elder Pliny had just returned from the bath and had retired to his study, when a small speck or cloud, which seemed to ascend from Mount Vesuvius, attracted his attention. This cloud gradually increased, and at length assumed the shape of a pine tree, the trunk, of earth and vapor, and the leaves, "red cinders."

3. Pliny ordered his galley, and urged by his philosophic spirit, went forward to inspect the phenomenon. In a short time, however, philosophy gave way to humanity, and he zealously and adventurously employed his galley in saving the inhabitants of the various beautiful villas which studded that enchanting coast. Among others, he went to the assistance of his friend Pomponianus, who was then at Stabiæ.

a These cities were overwhelmed in A. D. 79, and opened, the former in A. D. 1713, and the latter in 1748; having been buried more than sixteen hundred years. b Pliny the Younger; a statesman and orator, nephew of Pliny the Elder. c Tacitus; a Roman historian. d Pom-po-ni-á-nus; a Roman of no great distinction. e Sta'biæ; an an cient city of some note, situated near mount Vesuvius in Italy.

4. The storm of fire, and the tempest of the earth, increased; and the wretched inhabitants were obliged, by the continual rocking of their houses, to rush out into the fields with pillows tied down by napkins upon their heads, as their sole defence against the shower of stones which fell on them. This, in the course of nature, was in the middle of the day; but a deeper darkness than that of a winter night had closed around the ill-fated inmates of Herculaneum. This artificial darkness continued for three days and nights, and when, at length, the sun again appeared over the spot where Herculaneum stood, his rays fell upon an ocean of lava!

5. There was neither tree nor shrub, nor field, nor house, nor living creature; nor visible remnant of what human hands had reared; there was nothing to be seen, but one black extended surface still streaming with mephitic vapor, and heaved into calcined waves by the operation of fire and the undulations of the earthquake! Pliny was found dead upon the seashore, stretched upon a cloth which had been spread for him, where it was conjectured he had perished early, his corpulent and apoplectic habit rendering him an easy prey to the suffocating atmosphere.

LESSON XVIII.

SCENE IN THE BURNING OF ROME BY NERO."

CROLY.

1. STILL we spurred on, but our jaded horses at length sunk under us; and leaving them to find their way into the fields, we struggled forward on foot. The air had hitherto been calm, but now, gusts began to rise, thunder growled, and the signs of tempest thickened on. We gained an untouched quarter of the city, and had explored our weary passage up to the gates of a large patrician palace, when we were startled by a broad sheet of flame rushing through the sky. The storm was come in its rage.

a An imaginary description of what may have taken place at the burning of Rome. b Nero; a Roman emperor of great cruelty.

2. The range of public magazines of wood, cordage, tar, and oil, in the valley between the Cœlian and Palatine hills, had at length been involved in the conflagration. All that we had seen before was darkness to the fierce splendor of this burning. The tempest tore off the roofs, and swept them like floating islands of fire through the sky. The most distant quarters on which they fell were instantly wrapped in flame. One broad mass, whirling from an immense height, broke upon the palace before us.

3. A cry of terror was heard within; the gates were flung open, and a crowd of domestics and persons of both sexes, attired for a banquet, poured out into the streets. The palace was wrapped in flames. My guide then, for the first time, lost his self-possession. He staggered towards me with the appearance of a man who had received a spear-head in his bosom. I caught him before he fell; but his head sunk, his knees bent under him, and his white lips quivered with unintelligible sounds. I could distinguish only the words "gone, gone forever!"

4. The flame had already seized upon the principal floors of the palace; and the volumes of smoke that poured through every window and entrance, rendered the attempt to save those still within, a work of extreme hazard. But ladders were rapidly placed, ropes were flung, and the activity of the attendants and retainers was boldly exerted, till all were presumed to have been saved, and the building was left to burn.

5. My overwhelmed guide was lying on the ground, when a sudden scream was heard, and a figure, in the robes and with the rosy crown of the banquet, strange contrast to her fearful situation, was seen flying from window to window in the upper part of the mansion. It was supposed that she had fainted in the first terror, and been forgotten. The height, the fierceness of the flame, which now completely mastered resistance, the volumes of smoke that suffocated every man who approached, made the chance of saving this unfortunate being utterly desperate in the opinion of the multitude.

a Cœlian hill (Se'-le-an); one of the seven hills on which Rome was built.

6. My spirits shuddered at the horrors of this desertion. I looked round at my companion; he was kneeling in helpless agony, with his hands lifted up to heaven. Another scream, wilder than ever, pierced my senses. I seized an ax from one of the domestics, caught a ladder from another, and in a paroxysm of hope, fear, and pity, scaled the burning wall. A shout from below followed me. I entered at the first window that I could reach. All before me was cloud. I rushed on, struggled, stumbled over furniture and fragments of all kinds, fell, rose again, found myself trampling upon precious things, plate and crystal, and still, ax in hand, forced my way.

7. I at length reached the banqueting-room. The figure had vanished. A strange superstition of childhood, a thought that I might have been lured by some spirit of evil into the place of ruin, suddenly came over me. I stopped to gather my faculties. I leaned against one of the pillars; it was hot; the floor shook and crackled under my tread, the walls heaved, the flame hissed below, and over head roared the whirlwind, and burst the thunder-peal.

8. My brain was fevered. The immense golden lamps still burning; the long tables disordered, yet glittering with the costly ornaments of patrician luxury; the scattered Tyrian couches; the scarlet canopy that covered the whole range of the tables, and gave the hall the aspect of an imperial pavilion partially torn down in the confusion of the flight, all assumed to me a horrid and bewildered splendor. The smoke was already rising through the crevices of the floor; the smell of flame was on my robes; a huge volume of yellow vapor slowly wreathed and arched round the chair at the head of the banquet.

9. I could have imagined a fearful lord of the feast under that cloudy veil! Every thing round me was marked with preternatural fear, magnificence and ruin. A low groan broke my reverie. I heard the voice of one in despair. I heard the broken words, "O, bitter fruit of disobedience! O, my mother, shall I never see your face again? For one crime I

a Tyr-i-an; relating to Tyre; purple. The Tyrians excelled in dyeing purple.