HERBERT HERCULANEUM. 



701 



/tis memoirs, which show him to be vain, punctilios 

 and fanciful, but open, generous, brave, and disin 

 terested. The De f'eritate was followed by a wor 

 entitled De Religione Gentilium, Errorumque apu 

 tos Causis (or an Inquiry into those Causes wliic 

 misled the Priests and Sages of Antiquity). Soo 

 after his death, was published his Life and Reign o 

 Henry VIII., which is rather a panegyric on tha 

 prince, than a fair representation. The Englis 

 style of lord Herbert is strong, manly, and free fron 

 the quaint pedantry of the age. A collection of hi 

 poems, published by his son, in 1665, displays littl 

 poetical merit. His entertaining memoirs, writtei 

 by himself, remained in manuscript until first printec 

 by lord Orford, at Strawberry-hill, in 1764. 



HERBERT, GEORGE, younger brother of the sub 

 ject of the last article, was uorn at Montgomery 

 castle, April 3, 1593, and received his educatioi 

 at Westminster school, and Trinity college, Cam 

 bridge. His talents attracted the notice of Jame 

 I., but the death of his majesty, in 1625, put an enc 

 to his prospects of promotion, and, in conjunctioi 

 with other motives, induced him to take orders 

 h\ the church of England. In 1630, he took priest's 

 orders, and was presented to the rectory of Bemer 

 ton, near Salisbury, in Wiltshire. He died in 1633 

 His friend, Nicholas Ferrar, published, from Herbert's 

 manuscript, The Temple ; sacred Poems and private 

 Ejaculations (Cambridge, 1663). The poetry o 

 Herbert, in common with that of Donne and Cowley, 

 is deformed by point and antithesis, and obscured by 

 metaphysical allusion ; but some of his minor pieces, 

 in spite of their defects, are extremely beautiful, 

 and may be said to bear the stamp of genius. His 

 life, by Isaac Walton, has been often published. 



HERCULANEUM, or HERCULANUM, a city, 

 11,000 paces distant from Naples, was so completely 

 buried by a stream of lava and a shower of ashes, in 

 an eruption of mount Vesuvius, during the reign of 

 Titus, A. D. 79, that the site of the city was no 

 longer visible. The neighbouring Pompeii, on the 

 river Sarno, one of the most populous and commer- 

 cial cities of this coast, and Stabiae, which stood on 

 the site of the modern Gragnano, together with Op- 

 lontia and Teglanum, experienced the same fate. 

 Earlier excavations were already forgotten, when 

 three female statues (now in the Dresden museum) 

 were found in digging a well, by the direction of 

 prince Elbeuf, at Portici, a village situated on the 

 spot of the ancient Herculaneuin. After this dis- 

 covery, farther excavation was prohibited by the 

 government, and nothing more was thought of the 

 matter till Charles, king of Spain, father of Ferdi- 

 nand IV., having taken possession of the conquered 

 Naples, chose Portici for his spring residence. Now 

 (1738) the well was dug deeper, and traces of build- 

 ings were found. The theatre of Herculaneum was 

 the first discovery. It is to be regretted that the 

 ignorance of the superintendent, the Spanish engineer, 

 Rooco Gioachino Alcubierre, was the cause of the 

 loss of many fine remains. A Swiss engineer, Charles 

 Weber, having received the superintendence of the 

 work, a better method was adopted, and to this in- 

 telligent man, who was succeeded by the equally 

 skilful La Vega, we are indebted for the arrange- 

 ments which were afterwards made. In 1750, Stabia? 

 and Pompeii were explored. The latter place, being 

 covered with ashes rather than lava, was more easily 

 examined. Here were discovered the extensive 

 ruins of an amphitheatre. In the cellar of a villa, 

 twenty-seven female skeletons were found near a 

 door, and the impression of the breast of one of these 

 unfortunate persons in a once soft and subsequently 

 hardened mass of ashes. Ornaments for the neck 

 and arms were lying around. Here, also, near the 



lower door of a villa, were found two skeletons, one 

 of which held a key in one hand, and, in the other, 

 a bag with coins and cameos. Near them were 

 silver and bronze vessels. It was supposed that one 

 was the master and the other the slave, and that they 

 were suffocated, under the mass of ashes, while 

 endeavouring to find the passage out. It is proba- 

 ble, however, that most of the inhabitants of this city 

 had time to save themselves by flight. For the an- 

 tiquary and archaeologist, antiquity seems here to 

 revive, and awakens sensations which Schiller has so 

 beautifully described in the poem Pompeii and Her- 

 culaneum. The ancient streets and buildings are 

 again thrown open, and in them we see, as it were, 

 the domestic life of the ancients. We had never 

 before had such an opportunity of becomingacquainted 

 with the disposition of the houses of the ancients, and 

 with their utensils. These discoveries are especially 

 important to literature and art, since a great treasure 

 of manuscripts and works of art has been found. 



In 1759, 1696 papyrus rolls were discovered in a 

 villa of the ancient Herculaneum. The expectations 

 of the learned world from these literary treasures 

 have not yet been fulfilled, since the work of exam- 

 ining the manuscripts has been carried on very 

 slowly ; but still it is of some importance that we 

 have become better acquainted with the material of 

 the ancient manuscripts, and perhaps the difficult 

 business of unrolling these remains of ancient times 

 will at length be rewarded with the discovery of some 

 work of importance. The rolls were of a cylindrical 

 form, and so much charred as to have the appearance 

 of tobacco rolls. Antonio Piaggio invented a simple, 

 but ingenious machine, to unroll the manuscripts, 

 previously strengthened by goldbeater's skin, by 

 means of silk threads attached to their exterior edge. 

 The uses of this machine were, however, very 

 limited ; and various other experiments on the manu- 

 scripts, which were for the most part not only reduced 

 to a coal, but almost entirely dissolved by the mois- 

 ture which had penetrated them, afforded no satisfac- 

 ;ory results. According to an examination instituted 

 by Sir Humphrey Davy, in Naples, in 1819, 407 of 

 the 1696 rolls had been unrolled, of which only 88 

 were found legible ; 24 had been sent as presents to 

 weign princes, and, of the remaining 1265, only 

 "rom 80 to 120 were in a state which promised any 

 chance of success, according to the chemical method 

 nvented by him. (See Journal of the Royal Institu- 

 ion, April, 1819,) The authors of the works hitherto 

 discovered are Epicurus, Philodemos, Demetrius, 

 ^olystratus, Colotes, Phaedrus, Phanas. There have 

 )een published Herculanensium I'oluminum quce 

 supersunt (torn. i. and ii., Naples, 1793 1809, folio); 

 Dissertationes Isagogtcte ad Herculan. J'oll. Expla- 

 lationcm (pars i., Naples, 1797). In 1824, the uni- 

 ersity of Oxford published Herculanensium Voll. 

 Cartes dttee, containing fragments from the papyri at 

 Oxford. It is to be regretted that the fourth book 

 f Philodemos, upon music, which is printed, is only 

 , worthless declamation on its uses. The second 

 volume of the work first mentioned contains the 

 natural philosophy of Epicurus. Scotti and Carlo 

 lossini have been engaged in the interpretation and 

 ublication of these works. 



The knowledge of ancient art has gained more by 

 he discoveries made here than literature. How- 

 many statues, bass-reliefs and other works of sculp- 

 ure have been found in these buried cities ! The 

 aintings on the walls discovered here, among winch 

 re Andromeda and Perseus, Diana and Endymion, 

 lie education of Bacchus, and the celebrated Alilo- 

 randine wedding (see Aldobrandini) , are of particu- 

 ar importance, whether we consider their subjects 

 r composition, the drawing or colouring. The 



