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From the London Monthly Repository.

ACCOUNT OF THE NEW GALLERY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

(Continued from page 210, vol. ix.)

THE fifth room is entirely appropriated to Roman sepulchral antiquities, so very curious and well adapted in their several catacombs and niches, that were the architecture rather more grave, the spectator might almost fancy himself in a Roman family mausoleum. This effect is heightened by the centre of the floor being composed of a real Roman tesselated pavement, discovered in digging the foundation of the new buildings at the Bank of England, and presented by the directors. This room is of excellent proportions, vaulted, and lighted from a dome; the ceiling is supported by antæ of the Doric order. The contents consist principally of cinerary and sepulchral urns and monumental inscriptions, each deposited after the ancient manner in a catacomb. No. 13 is a remarkable sarcophagus, of good workmanship, representing the lamentation of a family over the corpse of a relative. Nos. 21 and 24 are both Etruscan cinerary urns in terra cotta. The basso-relievos on the fronts of both represent the Grecian hero Echetles fighting with a ploughshare at the battle of Marathon, and on each of the covers is a recumbent female figure. On the upper part of the latter urn is an Etruscan inscription in red letters. The next room is appropriated to Greek and Roman sculptures; as medallions, sarcophagi, basso-relievos, fragments, shields, altars, busts, &c. Among these may be remarked the following: No. 10, a fine fragment of a magnificent sarcophagus, representing an elderly man with a manuscript roll in his hand, which he is reading, and a Muse standing before him holding a mask; No. 21, an altar of Roman workmanship, ornamented with Egyptian figures, which for singularity is unequalled in the collection; No. 32, a fine basso-relievo, representing Priam supplicating Achilles to deliver to him the dead body of his son Hector; several sepulchral urns and Greek funeral monuments of invaluable worth, particularly one to Deucocles (62), containing a basso-relievo and eight elegiac verses in Greek; a fine statue of the infant Bac

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chus, represented as a boy about five years old, his head crowned with a wreath of ivy, and his body partly covered with a goat-skin. No. 64 is a striking instance of the aid which the arts afford to history. It is the front of a votive altar, with an inscription for the safe return of Septimius Severus and his family from some expedition. Some parts of the inscription are effaced; these appear to have recorded the name of his son Geta, which, by a severe edict of his brother Caracalla, was ordered to be erased in every inscription throughout the empire. These two brothers jointly succeeded their father, but Caracalla, jealous of the superior qualifications of Geta, stabbed him in the arms of their mother, and issued the abovementioned edict, as if to obliterate the memory of his existence. No. 81 is an earthen vase, which has two handles at the neck, and terminates in a point at the bottom like an amphora. Its value is enhanced by the circumstance of its hav ing been found in the baths of Titus with about seventy others, all containing the fine African sand, with which, when mixed with oil, the athletæ rubbed their bodies before they exercised. No. 88 is a singular group of an Egyptian tumbler standing on his hands with his feet upwards, on the back of a young tame crocodile. We here find a head of the notorious Messalina (94); and a highly characteristic head of Jupiter Serapis, on which the paint with which the face was anciently coloured is still discernible. No. 100, with which this room finishes, is an exquisitely fine basso-relievo, formerly one of the ornamental pannels on the triangular base of a candelabrum. It represents a female bacchante dressed in floating drapery, through which the beautiful forms of her body are perfectly apparent. With one hand, raised above her head, she holds a knife, and at the same time secures a portion of her robe, which is blown behind her; with the other, which is held downwards, she carries the hind quarters of a kid.

The seventh room is also devoted to Roman antiquities, the majority of which have been discovered in England. No. 1 is a beautiful group representing a Faun struggling with a nymph; the size is smaller than life. Their limbs are entwined with the greatest skill, and evince the most perfect knowledge of the art in the sculptor. The passions of anger in the one, and fear of disappointment in the other, are well expressed: Nos. 2, 3, 5, and 6, are pigs of lead found in different parts of England, two of them inscribed with the names

of the emperors Domitian and Hadrian. No. 8 is a puteal or cover to a well, three feet high and three feet in diameter. It is a cylinder of marble, placed over the central diameter of a well, and ornamented with beautiful basso-relievos; on the outside representing Fauns, bacchanals, and nymphs. The inside is worn in several places by the ropes that pulled up the buckets.

The eighth room, appropriated to Egyptian antiquities, contains two Egyptian mummies, with their coffins. One of these, sent to England by Edward Wortley Montagu, and presented to the Museum by his Majesty, is supposed to be one of the finest specimens in Europe. Some of the coloured glass beads with which it was ornamented yet remain. The face of the second was gilt, and the other parts of the body ornamented with paintings. Here is also a small square coffin, the lid and sides of which are covered with paintings, containing the mummy of a child. In one of the coffins is a conical vessel of baked clay, inclosing an embalmed ibis. Opposite the entrance to this room, against the wall, is a frame containing the bones of another embalmed ibis. Underneath is a manuscript taken from a mummy; it is written on papyrus in the Egyptian language. Near it are the fragments of another manuscript of the same kind; and on the right of the door is a frame containing an Egyptian painting, taken from the breast of a mummy.

The ninth room is principally devoted to the Egyptian antiquities which were collected by the French, and fell, on their expulsion from Alexandria, into the possession of the British army. Among these we remark,-No. 1. a large Egyptian scarcophagus of breccia, brought from the mosque of St. Athanasius at Alexandria, covered both within and without with hieroglyphics; another sarcophagus of black granite (2), covered in like manner with hieroglyphics, which was brought from Cairo, and was used by the Turks as a cistern, called by them the Lover's Fountain; the celebrated Rosetta stone (23), containing three inscriptions of the same import, one in hieroglyphics, another in the vernacular language of Egypt, and another in Greek, recording the services which Ptolemy V. had rendered their country.

The tenth room comprehends Greek and Roman sculptured marbles. In this collection we observe a subject which is calculated to excite either envy or exultation, or perhaps both,

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in our modern fashionables. It is a small female head (23), the hair of which is formed of a distinct piece of marble, and is fitted to the head in the manner of a wig. No. 34 is the statue of a discobolus already noticed, which is represented at the moment of the delivery of the discus. It is an ancient copy in marble of the celebrated bronze statue by Myro. In the bust of Minerva (85), the head only is antique: the helmet and the bust, which are of bronze, are, with some variations, copied from an ancient bust of the goddess, formerly in the Vatican, but now at Paris.

The eleventh room is occupied by coins and medals. This collection, the basis of which was formed by the cabinets of Sir Hans Sloane and Sir Robert Cotton, has been since enlarged by many valuable purchases and donations, but principally by a part of the munificent bequest of the Rev. Mr. Cracherode, valued at the sum of 6000l. It is comprised under the heads of ancient coins, modern coins, and medals. The first consists of Greek and Roman coins. The former are arranged in geographical order, and include all those struck with Greek characters in Greece or elsewhere, by kings, states, or cities, which were independent of the Romans. With these are also classed the coins of free states and cities which used either the Etruscan, Roman, Punic, Spanish, or other characters. The Roman coins are placed, as far as can be ascertained, in chronological order. They consist of the as and its divisions, family or consular coins, imperial coins struck in Rome, imperial coins struck in Egypt, imperial coins struck with Greek characters in different states and cities subject to the Romans, imperial coins struck in the Roman colonies, imperial coins struck with Roman characters.-The second head comprehends modern coins, consisting of Saxon, English, Anglo-Gallic, Scotch, and Irish coins, and likewise those of foreign nations. In this class the coins of each country are separately arranged. The third head, comprising medals struck in this and other countries, are classed in the same manner as the coins.

In the twelfth, an elegant and spacious room up stairs, are deposited Sir William Hamilton's valuable and elegant collection of vases, penates or household gods, vessels and utensils of every description, by far too numerous to be particularised here. Many of these were recovered from the subterranean city of Herculaneum, of which so ample and so able an

account has been given in our preceding numbers by the writer of the Letters from Italy. In the cases in which these precious remains are preserved, we remark also two of the bricks which have given rise to so much discussion among the learned. They have each an inscription in unknown characters, and were taken out of the ruins of a large city, supposed to have been Babylon, near the town of Hillah, on the river Euphrates.

The thirteenth room is appropriated to the extensive collection of prints and drawings, the most important part of which was bequeathed by the Rev. Mr. Cracherode.

The contents of this last room, as well as those of the coins and medals, can be inspected only by a few persons at a time, and by particular permission. The rest are subject to the same regulations in regard to the admission of strangers as the other part of the Museum; and one day in the week, Friday, is set apart for artists, who, on the recommendation of the Royal Academy, are allowed to draw from the antique mar bles, or other objects on which they may choose to exercise their talents.

From the London Monthly Magazine.

SICILIAN LITERATURE, FROM 1790 To 1803.

In the flourishing times of Greece and Rome, Sicily held a distinguished place in the republick of letters. In reflecting on what this island once was, our eyes survey it with the same sentiment of melancholy and of regret which so painfully affects us when contemplating the ruins of the ancient Palmyra. But let us not invoke the shades of those who are no more, and forget the former splendour of this island, that we may consider it only in its present state.

The dawn of a glorious day appeared in Sicily at the period when Francesco de Aquino, Prince of Caramanico, assumed the reigns of government in quality of viceroy. The Sicilian is not accustomed to consider the means adopted by the representatives of the sovereign, in the exercise of their functions; it is sufficient for him if they are actuated by the will to do good. Caramanico not only possessed this happy will, but likewise all the means of executing it with success. A young advocate, named Cazelli, accompanied the Prince in

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