190 



THE POMPEIAN COURT AT SYDENHAM PALACE. 



[1854. 



Peninsula from the large gap below Privat's to the Light House point, 

 and they regret extremely to have to report to the Council, that the 

 whole of that barrier, which has formed, and has hitherto protected 

 our noble harbour', is in a most insecure and unsatisfactory state. 

 That part of it lying between the gap before referred to and Privat's 

 Hotel, has been so far reduced in width, that it may be considered a 

 matter of some doubt whether in the event of a succession of heavy 

 easterly storms in the spring, it would continue to resist the encroach- 

 ments of the Lake, or whether the greater part of it would not be 

 swept away. 



" That part of the Peninsula lying at the westward of Privat's, 

 although comparatively of a much greater average width, and pos- 

 sessing one decided advantage over the eastern part, in the numerous 

 trees growing upou it, (which serve that most important purpose of 

 fixing and retaining the light and shifting soil,) is yet by no means 

 secure. Although no actual breach has been made through any part 

 of it, there were no less than four places between Privat's and the 

 light house, where the water of the Lake, forced up probably by a 

 heavy south-easterly wind, had flowed across into the Bay, carrying 

 with it the fine sand, and leaving nothing but the coarse gravel and 

 shingle behind. 



"Under these circumstances, your Committee were unanimously of 

 opinion that it would be unwise to permit sand to be taken from 

 any part of the main ridge of the Peninsula ; but being at the same 

 time anxious that no restrictions not absolutely required for the safety 

 of the harbour, should be imposed upon the supply of an article so 

 necessary for building purposes, they directed Mr. Sheppard, who 

 attended them on the part of Sir. Howard, the City Surveyor, to stake 

 out a large piece of ground lying a little to the North East of the Light 

 House, bordering on one of the numerous indentures which occur in 

 the Western end of the Peninsula, formed by the small ponds running 

 up between the spurs and projecting points of land, which jut out into 

 that part of the Bay. 



" By digging sand from these points no injury could accrue to the 

 Harbour, and your Committee would therefore recommend that per- 

 mission should be given by the Council to dig sand from the part so 

 staked out. At the same time they would advise that the permission 

 now granted should only be considered as temporary, and not binding 

 on the Council beyond the present year, as the critical state of the 

 whole Peninsula calls for the immediate adoption of some well digested 

 plan for the preservation of that narrow belt of land, upon the safety 

 of which the Harbour of Toronto may be said to depend for its very 

 existence. 



(Signed,) " G. W. ALLAN, 



Chairman." 



Tlie Pompeian Court at t3ae Syileialiam Palace* 



Every dweller in our great city will remember with delight those 

 appointments so often made and so pleasantly kept in the fairy courts 

 of the great edifice in Hyde Park a year or two ago, — when the 

 trysting-place, as fancy or caprice suggested, was at the Crystal 

 Fountain, under the tent of the Arab, in the court of Granada, by the 

 Polar shores or at the source of the Ganges. Memories, almost magical 

 in their variety and novelty, cling about those places, so often visited 

 and revisited ; and to the end of life, and far beyond the days of 

 living men, these memories will hang about the world as strange and 

 beautiful traditions, — the fanciful and poetic draperies of solid fact and 

 prosaic purpose. Something like the old conditions may revive at 

 Sydenham, Courts are there rising rapidly from the earth, — less sig- 

 nificant, perhaps, in their moral meanings, but in form, embellish- 

 ment, and contents far more rich and beautiful than the old. It may 

 be well that, as reporters. to our readers on the state of Art, — whether 

 it be as to revival, novelty, or mere experiment, — we should render of 

 these doings or misdoings some account. 



The Pompeian Court is to most people a novelty. Stepping into it, 

 the visitor steps, as it were, bodily iuto the first century of the Chris- 

 tian era. We are at once with Tacitus and the two Plinys. The 

 water is idly plashing in the marble basin, — the master of the house 

 appears to have retired for his mid-day sleep, as the dweller on the 

 Bay of Naples does at the present day, — the slaves are probably 

 cooking in the further corner, — and the rich, indolent, southern life 



is around us on every side. The illusion is perfect. Fancy can al- 

 most hear the voice of the great^ waters heaving through the summer 

 silence, — and in the blight and golden splendour of the interior deco- 

 ration the very spirit of Imperial Borne looks down in mingled luxury 

 and passion from the walls. 



What grace — what luxury — what artistic beauty visible everywhere ! 

 Yet Pompeii at its best was only the Worthing or the Dawlish of 

 Italy. 



Need we remind our readers that about seventy-nine years after the 

 birth of Christ, — in the reign of the tenth Boman Emperor, Titus, the 

 destroyer of Jerusalem, — Pompeii and Herculaneum, two small towns 

 on the sea-shore near the foot of Vesuvius, and distant about 130 

 miles from Borne, were destroyed by an eruption ? Herculaneum, 

 the nearest to Vesuvius, was completly covered with the boiling lava ; 

 but Pompeii, the more distant, being only buried by the dust and 

 stones, was, about a hundred years ago, explored, and the excavations 

 have since been constantly pursued. Most valuable antiquities are 

 discovered in the former place, as might be expected from the sudden- 

 ness of its destruction. 



As only about sixty bodies have been found in Pompeii, it is 

 supposed that nearly all of its 5,000 or 6,000 inhabitants had time to 

 escape with their chief valuables ; but fear, duty or avarice detained 

 some few until it was too late to escape!* The sentinel has been 

 found at the gate, — the lady at her toilette, — the miser clutching his 

 bag, — the mother with her child, — and the prisoner in his chains. 



The houses at Pompeii were small, the little city lying not far dis- 

 tant from those places of fashionable resort, Baios and Cumse, the 

 Bath and Cheltenham of the Boman nobles. The house here re- 

 produced is as large as any yet found in the exhumed city, and is 

 formed of the best portions of several houses. In comparison with 

 the larger dwellings of the period which it represents, it is a Clap- 

 ham cottage by the side of Buckingham Palace. The kitchen, here no 

 larger than a cupboard, was sometimes 400 feet long in Boman 

 houses ; the entire space occupied is that of a villa in St. John's Wood, 

 — while Nero's Golden Palace had triple galleries, each a mile in length. 

 The rich marbles of Egypt and Nuniidia, the spoils of Grecian Sculp- 

 ture, and the paintings of Athens and Corinth were reserved for the 

 mansions of the Seven Hills, for Capua, or for Verona. 



In general aspect and arrangement, the Pompeian house will remind 

 the Eastern traveller of the houses of Cairo or Damascus. Plain and 

 almost rude without, with few windows and those opening into a 

 narrow street, narrowed that it may be overshadowed, it gives no 

 promise of the splendour within. Opening the door and passing the 

 porter's little cell, you enter a small quadrangle, to be paved with 

 mosaic, with a fountain (and hereafter a statue) in the middle open to 

 the sky and surrounded by the sleeping-rooms, recesses, and various 

 apartments ; and passing on through an open room or its side passages, 

 you enter the inner quadrangle, with its garden, also open to the sun 

 and its roof supported by sixteen piBars, and round which are disposed 

 the dining-rooms, baths, and kitchen ; and this, rejecting technicali- 

 ties, is the whole of the ground plan. 



It will at once be seen that this house, although unrivaBed in inter- 

 est, can only be taken as one species of Boman habitation, and that 

 not of the richest. In some patrician's houses there were kept 400 

 slaves, the most trivial daily duty, as in Hindostan, becoming a de- 

 partment in itself. Even in Pompeii many of these houses appear to 

 have had at least one story and terraces above the flat roof of the 

 cloisters below ; Juvenal speaks of houses at Borne of ten stories, 

 originating, as in the old town of Edinburgh, from the want of space 

 within the walls, which it was difficult, if not impossible to enlarge. 



The walls and ceilings are exquisitely painted, chiefly, as was 

 natural in a place on the shores of the sea, with subjects drawn from 

 the ocean or the mountain. We have no flood of life streaming along 

 the walls, as in a Grecian frieze; no "leaf-fringed legend," as on an 

 Etruscan vase ; but, in their stead, flying Cupids, dolphins, sea-buBs, 

 Tritons and sea-Centaurs, with paws branching into sea-weed. In the 

 centre pannel of a recess to the right of the entrance there is a small 

 painting of Perseus rescuing Andromeda, a favourite subject at Pom- 

 peii. The monster, " a most delicate monster, " evidently a smaU 

 species of shark, lies at the maiden's feet. The background is weB 

 chosen, and with much successfully-attempted atmosphere. In one 

 compartment we see a slave bringing a seated bather a flesh-scraper. 

 The style of decoration is light and summary, almost flimsy, — rich 

 blues, deep reds, and black predominate as the grounds. In another 



