In all probability, it was not a fimple fubftance; but might be a mixture of the refinous produce tions of the country, with the pitch of that tree which they had in the greateft plenty.

The Anutap Te Keope of Heradetus, and the Kipix of Diodorus Siculust, was moft probably the tar of the cedar; it is the fubftance faid by these authors to be ufed for embalming; Galent mentions its power of preferving bodies; and Diofcorides calls it Νεκράζωη. Pliny, fpeaking of the cedar, fays, that the tar was forced out of it by fire, and that in Syria it was called cedrium, cujus tanta vis eft, ut in Egypto corpora bo→ minum defunétorum eo perfufa fer

ventur.

Some branches of the cedar were produced from the phyfic garden at Chelfea; and, being treated in the manner defcribed by Pliny, yielded tar and pitch, which had no aromatic imell, and feemed, in many refpects, fimilar to the produce of the fir-tree. There muft undoubtedly, therefore, have been fome other refinous matter mixed with the cedrium.

The pitch of this mummy was carefully diftilled; but gave no other produce than what might be expected from a refinous body; the caput mortuum, when burned

and elixated, yielded a fixed alkali; to this may be attributed the moisture, which the pitch, that was in contact with the spine and thofe other parts which were molt burned, contracted on being broken and exposed to the air; for this pitch had an alkaline taste, and had been more than melted; having been burned to a caput mortuum.

A great variety of experiments were made on this pitchy matter; the refult of them all tended to prove, that it had not the leaft refemblance to asphaltus; but was certainly a vegetable refinous fubftance.

Monfieur Rouelle, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1750, has given us a very elaborate and ingenious treatile on embalming, wherein he has chemically analyfed the pitch of fix different mummies.

From his obfervations; from what Pietro della Valle**, and Joannes Nardius++ at the end of his edition of Lucretius, have writ ten on this head; from what Dr.. Middleton‡‡ observed in the mummy which was opened at Cambridge; from the memoirs of count Caylus, in the 23d vol. of Acad. des injcript. Belles Lettres; and from this present examination; it appears, that various methods of

embalming were practifed among the Egyptians; and that they ufed different materials for this purpose: and though Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus have given us reafon to expect to find the bodies in a much more perfect flate, than we ever do meet with them; yet, on the other hand, it is evident, from the foot of this mummy which we examined, and from the account monf. Rouelle and count Caylus have given us in the above-mentioned memoirs, that all the fleshy parts were not always previously destroyed.

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· Διος Γονον Αιγίοχοιο. flomer, V. Iliad.

EADER, I now lead thee to

that celebrated trunk of Alercules, of whofe exalted beauties every praife falls fhort; I introduce thee to a performance the fublimeft in its kind, and the moft perfect offspring of art among thole that have elcaped the havock of time. But how thall I defcribe a fatue deflitute of all thofe parts which nature makes the chief 1tandards of beauty, and the interpreters of the foul? As of a mighty oak, that, felled by the axe, has loft all its lofty branches, nothing

remains but the trunk: thes mangled is the figure of our here, without head, arms, breaft, or legs.

The firft look perhaps will fhew thee nothing but a huge deformed block: but if thou art able to penetrate the mysteries of art, attention will open all her glories to thine eye; thou shalt fee Alcides the hero transfufed into the mar. ble.

Where the poets ceased, the artifts began: they leave him as foon as, matched with the goddess of eternal youth, he mixes with the gods; but the artist fhews us his deified form, and, as it were, an immortal frame, in which humanity is only left to make vifible that ftrength and ease, by which the hero had become conqueror of the world.

In the mighty out-lines of this body I fee the unfubdued force of him who crufhed the giants in the Phlegraan plains, whilft the undulating contour reminds me, at the fame time, of that elaftic flexibility, that winged hafte, from which all the various transformations of Achelous could not ef

cape.

There appears in every part of this body, as in fo many pictures, every particular feat of the hero. As from the usefulness of the dit ferent parts of a building, we judge of the judicious plan of the architect; to here, from the harmonious variety of powers, which the artift ftamped on every diffe rent part, we may form an idea of his extenfive views.

I cannot behold the few remains of the thoulders, without remembering, that their expanded ftrength, like two mountains, was

faid to have fupported the zodiac. With what grandeur does the cheft rife! how magnificent is its vault ed orb! fuch was the cheft on which iAntæus and Geryon, though three bodied, were crushed: no cheft of an Olympian Pancratiaft; no chett of a Spartan victor, though fprung from heroes, could rife with such magnificence.

Aik those who know the height of mortal beauty, if they have ever feen a fide comparable to his left one? The elasticity of the mufcles is admirably balanced between reft and motion: by them the body must have been enabled to execute whatever it attempted. As when from the first movings of the fea, a gentle horror glides over its fmooth furface, and undulating, as they rife, the waves play, absorb. ed in each other and again refunded: thus waving, thus foftly undulating flows each mufcle into the next, and a third that rifes between them, diffolves itself amidst their gentle conflict, and, as it were, efcapes our eye.

Fain would I ftop here, to fix in our fancy a permanent idea of this fide-but there are no limits to with-hold the communication of fill emerging beauties. Confider the thighs, whofe fulness informs us that the hero never tottered, was never forced to stoop.

At this moment my foul flies over all the numerous tracts of earth which Hercules wandered over, nor rests till arriyed at the goal of his career, the monumental pillars where his foot repofed.

Such is the power of the thighs, whofe never-wearied vigour and more than human length bore the hero through a hundred nations to immortality.But

a glance on the back revokes my rambling fancy; there new won-: ders arife. I look like one, who, after having admired the auguft front of a temple, is conducted to: its top, where he is furprised at a dome, which his eyes can hardly .command.

Here I fee the chief fyftem of the bones, the origin of the mufcles, the cause of their motion and fituation, and their affemblage, as if I beheld from the top of a mountain a country, over which nature has poured her various beauties; as fmiling hills here foftly defcend into the lower vale, and there rife again, now confined and now enlarged with fuch a pleafing va riety here likewife arife hills of muscles, circumfcribed by inferior ones, which like the windings of Mæander fenfibly affect us even before they ftrike the eye.

If you think it inconceivable how any part of the body but the head can be endowed with the power of thought; then learn here how the creative hand of the artist could animate matter. The back bending, as with intenfe meditation, gives me the idea of a head bufied with the cheerful remembrance of its aftonishing achievements; and with it, as it rifes majeftic and fage before my awed eye, all the other destroyed parts prefent themfelves before me. An ef fufion of images pours from what is left, and immediately fupplies the walle.

The might of the Boulders deferibes to me thofe arms, that trangled the lion on Citharon's top; bound Cerberus, and dragged him from his poft. The thighs and knees fhew me thofe legs, that knew no reft and unfatigued outtripped

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ftripped aud catched the brazenfooted ftag.

By a myfterious art, our mind, through all these feats of the hero's force, is led to the perfections of his foul; a monument which you in vain look for among the poets; they fing the power of his arms alone. But here not even a hint is left of violence or lafcivious love: from the calm repofe of the parts, the grand and fettled foul appears; the man who became the emblem of virtue; who, from his love of juftice alone, faced every obvious danger; who reftored fecurity to the earth, and peace to its inhabitants.

This eminent and noble form of perfect nature is, we might fay. wrapt up in immortality-of which the fhape is but the recipient; a higher fpirit seems to have occupied the place of the mortal parts; 'tis no longer that frame which still has monfters to face, and fiends to fubdue: 'tis that, which on Oeta's brow, purified from the dregs of mortality, has recovered its primitive fplendor, the likenels of his fupreme father.

Thus perfect neither Hylas faw him, nor Iolas: 'twas Hebe, goddefs of immortal youth, that received him thus, to bestow on his godlike effence her never-fading bloom. In her arms he partook of the ambrofia of the gods; of which his body, void of the groffer nourishments of man, feems replete, not overstocked.

O could I fee this image in that primitive grandeur, that beauty with which it appeared to the artilt--to fay what he thought what we should think; my great part after his were then to de

fcribe it! but wishes are vain: and as Pfyche faw the fatal charms of her lover only to bewail his flight; fo I fee only the fhadow of this Hercules, to bewail him irreparably loft!

Him art bemoans with me: for this work, which the might have oppofed to the greatest discoveries of wit or meditation, and proud of whofe fuperior merits the might even now, as in her golden days, have looked down on the homages of mankind; this very work, and perhaps the laft, which the united strength of her forces produced-this work the fees now cruelly mangled, and, with many hundred others, almost destroyed. But from these melancholy reflections her genius turns, to teach us, from what remains, the ways that lead to perfection.

fwept the coast of Africa; and Mr. Winckleman obferves, that being nearly on a level with the fea, the water must have been raised, and not the ground funk, as appears by the buildings ftill remaining in their original pofition. The cities that fuffered a common fate with Herculaneum were Refina, or Retina, Pompeii, and Stabia.

It is his opinion, that Herculaneum was not buried under the lava, or a torrent of fire, produced by the liquefaction of ftones of various kinds, but that it was firft covered with athes, and then with water; that the athes were fo hot as to burn the timber upon the ground into charcoal, and that the city being first buried in thefe athes, and afterwards flooded by an inundation, was at length covered by the lava, which formed a kind of cruft over all; which did not happen either to Pompeii or Stabia, to which the lava did not reach, and which are therefore covered only with a kind of light afhes, fuch as is found under the lava at Herculaneum.

As very few dead bodies have been found among the ruins, it is probable that the inhabitants had time to efcape; and, as few move ables of value have been found, the whole confifting of fome gold medals, and engraved ftones, it is alfo probable, that they had fufficient time to carry off their effects.

By the fubftances dug up at Pompeii it appears to have fuffered by former eruptions of the volcano, for the city that is buried by one eruption feems to have been built upon the burnt earth and

About the meaning of this infcription the learned are not agreed; fome think it relates to the baths of Septimus Severus, others of Alexander Severus; but however this be, it proves to a demonftration, that the Romans dug at Herculaneum, and that the excavations were afterwards forgotten.

The modern difcovery of Herculaneum was occafioned by the finking a well in the year 1706 for the prince d'Elbeuf, at a little dif tance from his houfe; the work having been carried on to the natural mould, they found, under the athes of Vesuvius, three large ftatues of women covered with drapery, which were claimed by the Auftrian viceroy, and placed at Vienna, in the garden of Prince Eugene. After his death they were purchafed by the king of Poland. We are told that they were deftroyed in the late war.

The difcovery of these ftatues put a stop to the digging, which was not renewed for more than

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