662  Hayter’s Report upon the Hereulaneum Manuscripts. 
qui Campaniz non solum castella, verum 
etiam oppida vexare solitus: illa vero 
nocte ita invaluit, ut non moveri omnia, 
sed everti crederentur.” In this letter, 
as well as in the 16th of the same book, 
to the same friend, Pliny has proved 
himself to have “ Ommia vere prosecu- 
tum,” although, with great modesty, he 
remark, ‘* Aliud est Epistolam, aliud 
Historiam scribere.” 
Conformably to his faithful deseription, 
the excavated stratum is not Java, as has 
been often said, bat “ Pumices nigrique 
et ambusti, et fracti igne lapides,” to 
the depth of nearly seventy feet m many 
places. All the wood in Herculaneum 
was reduced to coals, and every thing 
combustible was not only injured by the 
extreme heat, but, as was the case with 
the manuscripts, was violently compres- 
sed, and contracted by the ponderous 
pressure of the volcanic materials. In 
oue of his best poetical efforts Statius 
justly says, : 
Pater exemtum terris ad sidera 
montem - 
Sustulit, et laté miseras dejecit in urbes. 
DISCOVERY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS, 
Charles IL. with his natural liberality 
and public spirit, gave his immediate 
orders for excavation. But, unfortu- 
nately, to the discredit of the sovereign 
himself, and to the injury of his great 
designs, a Spaniard (1 forget his name) 
was appointed director of the whole. 
This Spaniard united arrogance and ob- 
stinacy with the darkest want of know- 
ledge, and, therefore, bis whole super- 
intendency was acourse of practical lec- 
tures upon those qualities. Hence it is 
for the hterary world a complete zpzcesay, 
that all the manuscripts, now preserved, 
were not sacrificedin common with some 
others, which the director, and the 
equally ignorant, but clearly guiltless, 
laborers, mistook for pieces of charcoal, 
or burned timber, and which, in conse- 
quence, were remoyed, and applied by 
them, to the usual domestic purposes. 
In the course of their removal, however, 
same detached fragments happily fell 
from one, or two, of these devoted vo- 
lumes, and displayed upon their surface 
very distinguishable characters. Of this 
circumstance the laborers honestly in- 
formed the Spaniard, who, as the cha- 
racters were Greek, could not read them ; 
he was obliged, therefore, to consult that 
eminent scholar, the Canon’ Mazzochi, 
aboutthem. To the great joy of Mazzochi, 
who uamediately repaired to the “Scavi,” 
the laborers were still procuring mort 
manuscripts from two different, but 
small, rooms in the same house.* The 
wood of the shelves, upon which they 
had been placed in small boxes, was, 
together with the wood of the boxes 
themselves, strongly charred, or reduced 
to ashes. The manuscripts themselves} 
so providentially saved by the interven 
tion of Mazzochi, and gradually and care+ 
fully exeavated by the workmen, were 
not less than eighteen hundred, some in 
a Jess, some in « more, perfect state. 
It is curious, that these manuscripts} 
which are always called by the Italians 
“Papiri,” because the substance of each 
volume or roll was formed from the 
plant Papyrus, owe their preservation té 
the heat of those materials, which had 
buried them ; without this, their vegetable 
texture must have been destroyed by pu 
trefaction. But, although the greatest 
part of their bulk had thus resisted thé 
effects of ‘time, yet that bulk itself had 
been much ifjured. In many instances 
it was much impaired, sometimes obli- 
terated, or disfigured, or perforated, a 
mutilated, or broken, wholly, or in part, 
by that very heat, or by compression yn- 
der the heavy voleanic materials, or 
by the forcible introduction of very light 
dust, and some small stones, into its 
substance, especially in the more exte- 
rior folds of each volume, which, in ever¥ 
instance, haye. suffered some or all of 
those various injuries. The interior 
folds, where the Greek and Latin cha- 
racters (as the manuscripts are written 
in both those languages) are not totally 
annihilated by volcanic injuries, exhibit 
a high degree of preservation, and even 
a superficial lustre, both in their sub- 
stance, and in the remaining characters. 
The ancient ink had, luckily, a consider- 
able quantity of gum, but no acid; of 
this we had been informed by Pliny the 
Elder, who is inyaluable, as in so many 
other respects, so for his extreme accu- 
racy in every point, upon which his inde- 
fatigable researches could not be misled 
by others, or insuperably obstructed, or 
* This house is supposed, upon some 
foundation, to have been the residence of 
the great Piso family. Cicero, speaking 
of that residence, observes, that he could 
sce it from his villa, near Puteoli. This 
circumstance has been practically confirmed 
upon the spot where that villa stood, in di- 
recting the view towards that part of the 
voleanic mass, which is perpendicularly 
over the site of that residence, 
bafited 
