level; which is the cafe; for all that portion of the circle, from the infide of the wall, was as level as any other part of the field; and as walls, I apprehend, are not of a very ancient date here (if the above be a fact) I cannot help concluding, that the monuments must have been erected in fome or other of the wars of the houfes of York or Lancaster, or later; but this is only conjecture, and must be fubmitted to the judgment of the more curious, or those who may have heard of, or feen fome fimilar ones; for my part, in my reading, I have not met with any thing at all like it. The feveral coffins were about two feet high, and the two complete ones about seven feet fix inches long, each, and the others had the flat stone nearly the fame length; but the covering extended only as far as the breast. Account of a fkeleton of uncommon dimenfions, lately found in the county of Durham. A fee SIR, Few weeks ago a gentleman from Durham was brought to me, who fhewed me fome large teeth, and two Roman coins. The teeth, he faid, he took out of the jaw of a gigantic skeleton of a man, and the coins were found in the grave near it. The account he gives is in fubftance as follows: Upon Fullwell-hills, near Muncremouth in the county of Durham, and within a measured mile of the fea, there are quarries of lime which he rents of the proprietor. In the year 1759, he removed a ridge of limestone and rubbish, upon one of thefe quarxies, which he was digging in fearch of ftone that was there very good; (the ridge was about 25 yards in length from east to west, its perpendicular height was about a yard and an half, its breadth at the top was near fix yards, and the fides were floping like the ruins of a rampart.) In the middle of this bank was found the skeleton of a human body, which measured nine feet fix inches in length, the fhinbone measuring two feet three inches from the knee to the ancle; the head lay to the weft, and was defended from the fuperincumbent earth by four large flat ftones, which the relator, a man of great probity, who was prefent when the skeleton was measured, and who himself took the teeth out of the jaw, faw removed. The coins were found on the fouth fide of the skeleton, near the right-hand. Yours, &c. THE South-downs near this place abound very much with thofe lafting monuments of antiquity, the Barrows or Tumuli of our ancestors, either British, Roman, or Danish, or perhaps all of them, the chiefeft part of which are of a bell fashion, with a fink in the middle; fome are double, fome fingle, others treble; fome few there are of the the long kind, one in particular at Aldfrifton is 55 yards long, with three finks, one at each end, and one in the middle, with a deep ditch on each fide, from whence the earth was thrown that compofes it. A gentleman tleman at Aldfriston had the curiofity to have one of the circular ones opened a few weeks fince, and accordingly begun on the fouthfide, and at a few feet in, found the skeleton of a man lying on his fide in a contracted form, with his head to the weft; the bones were very firm and hard, owing to the nature of the ground on which they lay, which was a bed of chalk. During the courfe of digging was found ten knives of different make, iron fpikes, charcoal, a thin piece of yellow metal, bones of brute animals, &c. In the middle, under a pyramid of flints, was found an urn holding about a gallon, full of burnt bones and afhes; it was carefully placed on the chalk rock, with about four feet of earth over it, was of unbaked clay, and had fome rude ornaments on the verge of it. Mr. Lucas of Aldfrifton is in poffeffion of it, with the knives, &c. ly decayed; and on removing what remained, we found a fkeleton pretty entire. On the right fide ftood a fmall filver chalice, covered with the paten. A piece of filk, or linen, (we could not tell which)* was bound round the ftem or pillar of the chalice. Among the duft we found a fair gold ring, with a large, but not very good faphire; the whole as fresh as if just brought from the jeweller's. On the left-fide lay the remains of a wooden crofier, which scarce retains enough of its original form to determine what it had been. Tradition, (for we have nothing elfe to depend on, the infcription having been long fince effaced) informs us, that the exuvia were thofe of Thomas de Bitton, bishop of Exeter, who was buried about the year 1306, in the reign of Edward II. The bones were very refpectfully covered up again, but the ring and chalice are referved Yours, &c. for the infpection of the curious STEPHEN VINE. in the repofitory of our archives. Yours, A. B. State of the city of Rome, and its environs, in regard to its air and inhabitants, at feveral periods fince the declenfion of the Roman empire. From Mr. Condamine's Tour to Italy. THE Campagna of Rome, for merly fo well peopled and filled with delightful palaces, is at prefent defert, and the air there reputed pernicious. We fcarce meet now with a few villages, or hamlets, in an extent of ground which once contained twenty-five cities or towns; I fpeak of the › Country country inhabited by the Volfci, of which Velitræ, now Velletri, was the capital. It is the fame with all the environs of Rome : they are uninhabited, efpecially during the hot months, except a few elevated places, fuch as Tivoli, Frascati, Albano, &c. I endeavoured to inform myself with respect to an opinion fo generally propagated, of the pretended mortal danger of expofing one's felf to the air of the Campagna of Rome in hot weather; and I am convinced that this danger is not greater than that which we run in every other country that is moift and marshy. What they alledge for the most part concerning the air of Rome and its environs, is very little more than an old judice; very juft indeed in its principles, but which it is time to reftrain within its proper bounds, by examining its original and foundation. pre It was after the invafion of the Goths in the fifth and fixth centuries that this corruption of the air began to manifeft itself. The bed of the Tiber being covered by the accumulated ruins of the edifices of ancient Rome, could not but raife itfelf confiderably. But what permits us not to doubt of this fact is, that the ancient and well preferved pavement of the Pantheon and its portico, is overflowed every winter; that the wa ter even rifes there fometimes to the height of eight or ten feet; and that it is not poffible to fuppofe that the ancient Romans fhould have built a temple in a place fo low as to be covered with the waters of the Tiber on the leaft inundation. It is evident then that the level of the bed of VOL. VI. this river is raifed feveral feet; which could not have happened without forming there a kind of dikes or bars. The choaking up of its canal neceffarily occafioned the overflow and reflux of its waters in fuch places as till then had had not been fubject to inundations: to thefe overflowings of the Tiber were added all the waters that efcaped out of the ancient aqueducts, the ruins of which are ftill to be feen, and which were entirely broken and deftroyed by Totila. What need therefore of any thing more to infect the air, in a hot climate, than the exhalations of fuch a mass of stagnating waters, deprived of any discharge, and become the receptacle of a thousand impurities, as well as the grave of feveral millions both of men and animals? The evil could not but increafe from the fame caufes, while Rome was exposed to the inc urfions and devastations of the Lombards, the Normans, and the Saracens, which lafted for feveral centuries. The air was become fo infectious there at the beginning of the thirteenth century, that pope Innocent III. wrote that few people at Rome arrived to the age of forty years, and that nothing was more uncommon there than to see a person of fixty. A very fhort time after the popes transferred the feat of their refidence to Avignon: during the feventy-two years they remained there Rome became a defert, the monafteries in it were converted into ftables; and Gregory XI. on his return to Rome, in 1376, hardly : counted there thirty thousand inhabitants. At his death, began the troubles of the great schifm in the weft, which continued for up vours their opinion; others fuppofe it to be a victory, and think they have difcovered another figure of the fame kind upon an Etrufcan vafe; the vafe upon which it is reprefented, they fuppofe alludes to the facred libations and the facrifices offered by way of thankfgiving for a victory. The blood which is fhed in the obtaining of a victory, makes it abfolutely neceffary to wash before any facred function is performed; and the practice of washing before facrifice was more fcrupuloully practifed by the ancients on fuch occafions than on any other. The other figure is agreed to be a victory by all parties; the right hand holds a buckler, and the left a crown of oak-leaves, enriched with gold, that is, painted of a golden colour. This wreath was called by the Romans a civic crown, and beftowed upon thofe who had pre preferved the life of a citizen, by killing an enemy; under the emperors, this crown was frequently decreed to princes, ob cives ferva tos. 5. Two pieces that reprefent two religious ceremonies in ufe among the Egyptians; thefe are very curious: in the first of them there is a quadrangular altar with a Hame afcending from it, and two Ibifes upon the pedestal; the altar is furrounded by 11 figures, of different fexes, ages, and dreffes: on the right fide is a woman kneel ing, holding a fiftrum in one hand, and in the other a plate of fruit; her head is crowned with a wreath, that seems to confift of a branch of palm, the leaves of which are placed fo as to form rays, in the manner described by Apuleius, when he speaks of initiation into the myfteries of Ifis. Behind this figure is that of a girl, with a vafe in her hand, and a basket upon her head; by her fide are two women, one of which is naked to the girdle, and has her head clofe fhaved, holding a branch in her left-hand, and a fiftrum in her right; the other has difhevelled hair, but her action cannot be diftinguished. On the left-fide of the altar there is an old man kneeling; he is bald and half naked, and his hands are extended as in an attitude of prayer; behind this figure is that of a woman holding a flower in one hand, and in the other an inftrument very little different from the common fiftrum; alfo a man, who is either founding a trumpet or playing on a flute; and a man holding in one hand a kind of crotalum, confifting of a circle furnished with little bells, and croffed diametrically by a small bar; in his left-hand he holds a chain, confifting of four links, each gradually lefs than another; five fteps, two columns and an epiftylium, form the entrance of the temple, in the front of which ftands the altar, and in the middle beyond the altar, upon a ground little raifed, there are fix other perfons; two women playing upon a fiftrum, and accompanied by a third with a tabor; the fourth woman holds up the fore-finger of her right-hand, as if to enjoin filence, and a girl befide her feems to be in motion with her hands as if playing upon fome inftrument which cannot be diftinguifhed; the fixth figure is that of a man with a bufhy beard, crowned with a wreath, and dreffed in a kind of clofe jacket, which leaves his arms, his feet, his legs and thighs naked. IT appears by feveral pieces in this volume, that the ancient painters were not more exact in the representation of the dreffes and ornaments of their figures, nor even in their representation of natural objects, than the moderns: with refpect to the architecture reprefented in the pictures found in Herculaneum, the rules of art are violated in the groffeft manner; there are columns of an enormous height, with respect to their dia meter, fo as to have the appearance of walking ticks; and the landscapes, of which there are feveral in this volume, are difgraced with a variety of objects not existing in nature, but merely in the capricious fancy of the artist: at leaft if they are natural objects, they are fo wantonly and unfkilfully reprefented, that the fpectator is at a lofs to know what they are. Among the most remarkable pieces in this volume, are the following: 1. An hermaphrodite, holding in the left-hand a leaf reprefenting that of a laurel in its fhape, but much larger if the rules of propor tion are obferved. It has however been generally fuppofed by the literati who have seen it, to have been intended to represent a laurel leaf, and they obferve that the fame is generally found in the hands of the hermaphroditical figures which are so common an ornament in the baths, both of men and women; they suppose that it ferved as a kind of fan, and was a fymbol of effeminacy. The fcholiaft of Ariftophanes tells us, that it was common for lovers to carry leaves in their hands, upon which they wrote the names of their miftreffes; and it was alfo common to ftigmatize effeminate perfons by the name of bay-bearers The colour of the leaf represented in this picture is reddish, which has been urged as an objection to its being a laurel; but it has been alledged, on the other fide, that Pliny mentions a laurel of that colour: in another picture, however, a leaf of the fame fize and fhape is reprefented of a yellowish colour, and fome have thought it was intended for the leaf of an aquatic plant, called nymphea; this, plant is mentioned by Pliny, and he attributes feveral qualities to it which feem to bear fome relation to thofe of hermaphrodites. Some antiquarians have taken this leaf, or at least, an inftrument that refembles it, found in the hands of fome ftatues, as a sprinkler for the luftral water... 2. Two winged figures; one of them has a collar and bracelets of pearls, and holds in the left-hand a bafon, over which the right-hand holds a vafe with a cover that terminates in a fphynx. Some fuppofe this figure to reprefent Hebe, and the first appearance of it fa M 2 yours |