440 A LOST ART, OR THE POTTEK OF POMPEIA. 



uncommon beauty and symmetry ; her eyes were closed, but a smile 

 lingered on her still roseate mouth ; and auburn hair was braided o'er 

 her brow. In her hand she held a scroll, on which was written, (( For 

 Caius, and mine oath !" At her feet knelt a skeleton, in ghastly con- 

 trast with her life-like grace, though there was much expression in its 

 attitude ; for the head was upturned, as if life's last look had been 

 fixed upon this idol, on whose lap lay a stylus, and a roll of fragments, 

 they were decyphered, and may serve to explain this affecting spec- 

 tacle. 



" Without strength, genius, learning, birth, friends, fortune, power- 

 less of fair means, too honest for foul ones, dead to vanity, averse to 

 strife, loving a scene to which I owe but my birth, a maid who can 

 never be mine, what have I to hope ? Yet to tell those who neglect 

 or insult me, fancying that I am content, nor fit for a better fate, how 

 deeply I scorn their oppression to have them in my power, and use it 

 but to serve them this were revenge ! To be free from menial toil, 

 to hold communion with the glorious dead, to ascertain the force of 

 mine own mind, this were life ! To breathe my worship before Junia 

 for ever, this were felicity ! Wondrous dreams, why do ye torture an 

 unoffending worm ?" 



She knows all, she pities, yet would not approve, but that we hear 

 her blighted one is false and base. She hath written for release ; her 

 father would adopt me, we would give up all his store to this cen- 

 turion. I could labour for the old man, for Junia, for our babe, 

 should we be parents. She says she would work too ; but, though she 

 knows it not, this is said with so goddess-like an air, that it overwhelms 

 me. What were fame or gold to us ? 



He loves not, yet will not yield her. Our father is stricken to the 

 heart. Our priests say there is no help ; our citizens that if we 

 offend the Gods, (they mean the emperor's minion, who will, at best, 

 seize all we have) they can, in no way, employ or aid us. I shuddered 

 lest Junia should ever toil ; must she even taste want because of her 

 love for me ? We have sworn not to quit the place of our nativity. 

 Yet here we shall soon have no friends. 



He comes to claim her. It is known that he saved her father's life ; 

 it is not known that in sport, by chance, or for his own purpose he did 

 it. The old man is dead. We feel that this centurion's cold wanton- 

 ness of power, his reliance on a faith in others which he himself derides, 

 shortened our good sire's days ; but dare we say so, while we are poor, 

 and he in prosperity ? Why rejoiced I that he loved not. Oh, if he 

 had, though, to our sorrow, he must have suffered more, he would 

 have been too proudly kind to wed her ; but then I should have felt 

 myself an ungenerous wretch. Junia too, even in gaining happiness, 

 would have lost some portion of her worth. 



My beloved hath just said unto me, and with a smiling countenance, 

 " Caius, take comfort ! stealing through thy house, while thou wert 

 absent, I have been where thou hast not, to the well of which no man 

 drinketh; and the fall of a leaf upon that water revealed to me how I 



