1811s] 
have been interrupted, and thus his 
escape rendered impossible, had he con- 
tinued longer in his chamber. It was 
therefore thought proper to awaken 
him, He got up, and went to Vompo- 
nianus and the rest of hiscompany, who 
were not unconcerned enough to. think 
of going to bed, 
was filled with ashes, and the buuding 
was so much shaken with repeated shocks 
of earthquakes, that it appeared torn 
from its foundation, and the walls threat. _ 
ened every moment to fall in, and to 
crush them under its ruins. 
On the other hand, the calcined stones» 
. and cinders fell in large showers in the 
open fields, and threatened destruction: 
they were thus threatened with the most 
imminent danger from within and from 
without. In this alarming predicament 
they consulted together what was best ta 
be done. After maturely weighing the 
different hazards to which they were ex- 
posed, they resolved fer the feds, as the - 
least dangerous situation of the two; 
they therefore sailied forth at break 
of day. They covered their heads with 
pillows bound with napkins, and this was 
their whole defence against the storms 
of stones which fell around them, They 
were now, although in the midst of day, 
involved in nocturnal darkness, and were 
unable to distinguish one another in this 
frightfulgloom. This darkness was, how- 
€ver, i some degree dissipated hy torches 
and other lights of various kinds, such 
as repeated flashes and eruptions from 
the burning mountain. 
They thought proper to make towards 
the shore, to observe if they'might safely 
put out to sea; but they found the waves 
still ran extremely high and boisterous. 
Pliny, almost stifled with the suffocating 
vapours, threw himself on the ground 
and called for a draught of cold water, 
which he eagerly swallowed, when imme- 
diately the fames,and a strong sulphureous 
smell which was the forerunner ef them, 
dispersed the rest of the company ; all of 
whom were eager to consult their per- 
sonal safety by flight, the care of each 
individual being, in this extremity, con- 
eentrated in Himself. Pliny likewise 
made an attempt to escape, He raised 
hunself up with the assistance of two of 
his servants; but he instantly fell down 
dead, suffocated, as his nephew justly 
conjectures, by the gross and noxious 
vapours which he breathed. His cuon- 
stitution, as it appears, was not natu- 
rally robust, and he probably undermined 
it by his constant and intense applica. 
Montury Mae, No, 207, 
Memoirs of Caius Plinwus Secundus the Elder. 
The court of the house ~ 
o3l 
tion to study. The younger Pliny in- 
forms us “that bis lungs were weak, and 
that he was frequently subject to a diitie 
culty of breathing.*” On the third day 
subsequent to this melancholy accident, 
his body was found entire, and without 
any marks of vivlence upon it, exactly 
in the same posture in which he fell, 
and looking more like a man asleep than 
dead.¢ It was in this tremendous erup- 
tion that the city of Herculaneam was 
overwhelmed, the ruins of which have 
heen discovered about the middle of the 
last century at the distance of sixty feet 
below the surface ; and what is still more 
remarkable, forty feet below the bed of 
the sea. 
Pliny was born in the tenth year of 
Tiberius, and of Rome the sevén hun- 
dred and seventy-fifth, in the consulship 
i Neo AAV Seaslne  C 2, 
* © Innitens servulis duobus assurrexeraty. 
et statim concidit, ut ego culligo, cracsiore 
caligine speritu. obstructo, clausoque sto- 
macho; oui illi natura tnvaliduset frequenter 
interestuans erat.” : 
+ After this awthentic account of the | 
closing scene of Pliny’s life, extracted from 
the narrative of his kinsman, who was an 
eye-witness of the fatal catastrophe, it is 
scarcely necessary to mention or to refute 
the erroneous termination of his career, xe- 
corded in a Life of him supposed: to have 
been written by Suetonius. ‘this biographer 
oleerves ** Periit'clade Campaniz;” and ther 
proceeds te inform us, ** vi pulveris‘ec faville 
Oppressus est; vel, ut quidem existimant, a 
Se€fvo suo occisus, quum deficiens zstu, ur 
mecem sibi maturaret, oraverit.’—‘* He pea 
rished in the destruction of - Campania. 
He was overwhelmed by the dust and 
ashes; of, aS sowie imagine, was killed by 
his own servant, whom he had intreated to 
kill him with the utmost dispatch, because 
he found himself sinking under the excessive 
heat. The Lifein whichthis mis-statement js 
detailed, could not possibly have been written by 
Suetonius.”” This biographer was the intimate 
friend of the younger Pliny, many of whose 
letters are addressed to him. To the fate of 
this friend’s uncle, he could not consequently 
have been a stranger, znd he must of course 
have been incapable of falling into such an 
error respecting his death. But that this 
Life is improperly attributed to Suetonius, is 
obvious from another consideration, Tt cdm- 
mences with an egregious error: ‘* Plinius 
Secundus Novocermensis’—=Plinius Secun- 
dus, a native of Novocomum:* absolutely 
mistaking the nephew for the uncle, since 
the only question concerning the birth-place 
of the latter, is whether he was born at Rome 
or at Verona. 
* Now Coma, in the or-devant Duchy of 
Milan. 
SY 
of 
