and still contain a considerable quan tity of good fresh water. The arches which form the roofs of the cisterns, are covered with earth a considerable depth, which appeared to me to have preserved them in their very perfect state. The cisterns are at least a quarter of a mile south from the principal ruins of the city.

There are the remains of a noble amphitheatre, about two hundred yards in circumference, taking its extent from the highest seats in the galleries; it is of an oval shape, the principal entrances into it, are one at each end, at the bottom, or ground floor of the building; these two entrances have been very broad. There are sixteen other entrances for the spectators, eight on each side, perfectly uniform, and from each entrance there is a staircase to ascend into the galleries. From the bottom, or ground floor of the amphitheatre, to the lowest seats in the galleries, is about thirty feet perpendicular solid wall, quite smooth; the whole has been built with hewn stone, generally of a large size, harder than our lime-stone, and of a yellowish colour.

Near the amphitheatre are the remains of several large marble columns, standing in rows, at equal distances. There appears to have been an immense pile of building standing on the highest ground: I conceived it must have been the citadel. Within this building there is a bath of semi-circular form, and almost perfect; the whole of the bath is beautifully inlaid with Msaic work; in which are drawn several female figures, swimining in various attitudes, as perfectly as in any painting; being done with various coloured marbles, they do not seem in the least to have lost their

I

colour. There are several aquatic fowls, drawn in the same style, abone the human figures; the whole are coloured so as to resemble nature. was much mortified that I could not take away any of those figures entire, having no instruments to cut them out, and it is very difficult to make any impression upon the mosaic-work being so strongly cemented together; it has been so very highly finished, that I could not distinguish it as mosaic-work, without a very narrow examination.

Near the bath are

the ruins of many very elegant buildings, which I imagined to have been temples, or some other public works: one of the most perfect has two rows of pillars in the inside, and a gallery still entire, by which I walked rou the whole of the building on the outside. This temple is an oblog, about forty yards in length, an trance at each end at presest f has no roof over the centre of the building, being only covered on ea side, as far as the two rows of piller, I observed particularly in this bui ing, that all the masonry was very handsome, highly finished, and of the massy structure that I have often observed amongst other anciess ruins; the pillars, and the whole t the building are quite plain, without any carved ornaments.

Very near this temple is an inmense heavy pile of building, whic: seems to have been a place of cr siderable strength; the stones w which it has been built are ve of them large, I am persuaded many would weigh three tons. They of this building is arched over: upe a careful examination of this bea pile, it appeared to me to have bee a prison. There is a very large b which seems to have been upon ground-floor, and into this ball the:

the

commission of many crimes, and had become in all respects an object of ecclesiastical censure, we accordingly find the pious Tertullian, with many other fathers of the church, vehemently declaiming against it; and St. Augustine, in one of his sermons, menaces severe punishment against all who should encourage it; but the anathemas of these holy men appear to have no effect in checking these impious fooleries, for they were continued without interruption even to the middle ages, the religious and other manuscripts of which, particularly those of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, furnish many allusions to them, depicted in their margins. The late ingenious Mr. Strutt, whose indefatigable but ill-rewarded services will be duly appreciated by every real antiquary, has preserved a memorial of these representations, but not aware of their precise significa tion, he has included them in the general mass of ancient mummeries. These festivities, which prevailed at the opening of the new year, were, it is to be hoped, originally confined to the laity; but it is certain that they were very soon imitated by the clergy. In the ninth century the acts of the eighth general council of Constantinople, indistinctly refer to some ecclesiastical mockeries, that seem to have relation to the beforementioned excesses. During the twelfth century, a festival remained, called "Libertas Decembrica," which in some degree resembled the Roman Saturnalia, inasmuch as the archbishops and bishops degraded themselves by playing at dice and other games, and dancing with the inferior clergy in the monasteries and episcopal houses.

In France a very singular ceremony crept into the church about this time, under the name of "La Fête des. Foudiacres ;" or the feast of subdeacons. The learned M. Ducange conjectures that this expression did not indicate that the subdeacons were exclusively the actors in this farce, but that it is to be literally expounded, diacres faouls, or drunken clerks, from their bacchanalian excesses; an opinion, which with great reverence to so high an authority, I cannot help regarding as very apocryphal. It is more ge nerally known under the title of the Feast of Fools, on which occasion in the cathedrals, a mock bishop or archbishop was elected. Sometimes he was called an abbot, and in those churches that were more immediately under the papal jurisdiction, a pope. There was no unity of time in this election, for it is found to have been celebrated, according to variety of place, on Christmas-day, St. Stephen's, St. John's, and the Innocents' Days; the Circumcision, the Epiphany, and on some of the octaves of those festivals. An ancient ceremonial for the church of Viviers states, that the abbot was elected on the 17th of December. It is necessary to observe, that an episcopus stultorum had been already elected on the Innocents' day of the preceding year, but he enjoyed his offi. cial rights only during the three. days of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Innocents'. At Auxerre the ceremony took place on the 18th of July.

In the celebrated Bedford Missal, now in the possession of Mr. Edwards, there is a calendar, in which, under the month of February, the following inscription occurs, Comment a Fevrier on souloit faire 3S3

la

One

la feste aux fols et aux mors.” might be supposed at first sight to imagine that the Feast of Fools is here alluded to as celebrated in this month; but as the fabrication of this calendar uniformly refers to feasts and ceremonies in use among the ancients, it is evident that in this instance he applies the above expression to the Quirinalia, which were also termed feria stultorum, between which and the Feast of Fools in question, there is not the slightest connection. The illumination that belongs to this line, represents several men feasting in a church-yard, who have been supposed by an eminent antiquary, in his account of this invaluable manuscript, to wear fools' caps; but this will be found, on attentive examination of the figures, to be a mistake, probably originating from a part of the above motto. The subject of it refers to another ancient festival, on the 21st of Feb. viz. the feraliu, or feast of the dead, insti. tuted by Numa, in honour of the manes, and sometimes called parentália. It is to be supposed that similar variations would arise in the manner of celebrating this indecorous violation of every thing that was sacred and solemn, yet the principal incidents were at least uniform, and these were, a ludicrous paraphrase of the service of the mass, performed by persons with blackened faces, disguised in masquerade habits of women, of fools, and of brute 'animals, exhibiting, in this respect, evident traces of the Veluta and Cervula, already noticed. The bishop, or abbot, was arrayed in mock pontificals, partly borrowed from the dresses of jesters and buffoons, and after his election carried in

procession through the streets, in 1 triumphal car, filled with ordure, with which he bespattered the sper. tators. His attendants threw them selves into all kinds of indicest attitudes, saluting the people in the grossest and most lascivious languag Sometimes they danced in the ct. t in the churches, and chaunted diss lute songs. They even profaned altars by converting them tables for their provisions, carcusg in the most riotous manner, crowning their impious orgies wit playing at dice and other game Nor should it be omitted to sa that the ceremony of bung incense was likewise ridiculed the smoke of old shoes, which that burned for this purpose. In shor, the excesses of these fools and mas men may very well warrant th expression of a writer on the subjec who has emphatically called th the abomination of desolation.

The en rmities of this idle cere

mony became at length so excey # that it might well be expected sur effort would be made to curb a counteract, if not wholly to abc4 it.

Accordingly, many of the councils issued their decrees agai them, but as it should seem to ve? little purpose; so deeply route were they become in the minds the lower orders of the clergy, a of the common people every where who always joined in and suppo them. Mons. Du Tillot, a wre who has given many curious par culars relating to this ceremors, but whose treatise is on the wh very confused and immethodica. from his indiscriminate admission et extraneous inatter, has cited severs ecclesiastical decrees for its abolition Ducange supposes it to have been

altegette: