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fhalt not suffer for me the chaftifements of heaven. Remain in this abode fanctify'd by virtue, where dwelleth the Divine Benediction. I will not render thee miferable. Forget me, Mahala-forget thy wretched husband. Abandon'd by God, I fhall wander without place of reft; but mayft thou be happy! mayft thou be bleft! No, Cain, if thou art miferable, I cannot here be happy, reply'd Mahala. I fly with thee-with thee I wander I will be defolate with thee I go with thee to the defart regions. Our children fhall go with us. I will there fhare thy mifery-I will try to affuage it—I will mix my tears of compaffion, with thy tears of penitence. I will kneel by thy fide. -My prayers fhall afcend to Heaven with thine. Our children proftrate round us, fhall join their voices with ours. God will not difdain the penitent finner. I fly with thee, Cain-Without ceafing we will pray-without ceafing we will mourn before God, till a ray of his grace illumines thy benighted foul, and juftifies our confidence in his mercy. Hope in God, Cain. He will hear the prayer of the penitent finner.

O thou! cry'd Cain, by what name fhall I call thee? Thou art to me as a gracious angel! A beam of Divine confolation has darted into the obfcurity of my foul! O Mahala! O my wife! now I dare embrace thee. Oh that I could make thee fenfible of what I feel! but words cannot exprefs my gratitude

cannot exprefs the tender emotions of my heart. At thefe words -he prefs'd her to his breaft; then fuddenly quitting her he embrac'd his children: but foon return'd to

his wife, and again clafp'd her to his heart.

Now, this tender mother, this heroic wife, footh'd her infants, and wip'd away their tears. She took her youngest child to her breast, another little one held by the hand of his father, while Eliel and Jofiah, full of life and gaiety, tripp'd before them. They left their cottage. Mahala with weeping eyes beheld the dwelling of her parents, and of Thirza. Be bleft, be bleft, faid fhe, O defolate family whom I abandon! Soon will I return from the place of our habitation, to fupplicate your bleffings for mee- for my dear, my penitent husband. I will follicit for him a pardon. She now wept as irrefolute, when inftantly exhalations, more balfamic than are breath'd from all the flowers of fpring, furrounded the fugitives, and the voice of an invifible angel from over their heads, faid, Go, generous wife, I will, in a dream, inform thy tender mother of thy heroic courage. I will tell her, thou art gone with thy penitent husband to implore mercy for him, from the Sovereign Judge.

They now walk'd by the light of the nocturnal ftar. They loft fight of the dwellings and advanc'd into the defart regions, where had never been imprinted the foot of man.”

The private life of the Romans. Tranflated from the French of Monfieur D'Arnay. Dodfley.

M

ONSIEUR D'ARNAY has chofen a fubject rather of curiofity than of any real importance, but, it must be contefied, a fubject of no inelegant curiofity. One cannot but be interested in every thing that regards a people,

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who

men

who make fo confiderable a figure in history as the Romans do. The various forms of government through which they paffed, the great men who appeared upon the ftage during each of thefe forms, the caufes which produced their greatnefs and their ruin, are an inexhaustible fund of inftruction to the general and the ftate fman, and poffibly the work before us will not therefore pleafe us the lefs, as it is a kind of leffer history, which does not fhew us the warrior or the statefman, or, if we do meet them, it is not in the affumed character of great men, but in their private capacity, as with heir robes of flate thrown off, in their domeftic enjoyments and private occupations. The author himf:lf has not always condefcended to fupport what he advances by any citation, but the tranflator has taken rains to justify him by many ufeful quotations, which make amends for fome inaccuracies in the tranflation. It will not perhaps be lefs pleafing in the fmaller than in the greater history, to observe the progrefs these people made from the loweft fimplicity to fuch an extravagant profufion of magnificence, as far, very far, exceeds all the attempts made by the richest and most oftentatious of modern princes. Speaking of the early times, he fays,

"The Romans, in the firft and happy ages of the republic, (I speak of thofe in the easiest circumstances) were all labourers, and all the labourers were foldiers.

In time of peace, the greatest part faw the city only every nine days. They came thither only to provide themselves with neceffaries, and to examine whether they fhould

approve or reject fuch regulations as the magiftrates caufed to be posted up at the Capitol and at the Forum, three days fucceffively before they prefented them to be confirmed.

The Romans were near four hundred and fixty years, without knowing any other divifion of the day than morning, noon, and night. The laws of the twelve tables even mention only fun-rife and funfet; it was not till fome years afterwards that an officer of the confuls proclaimed mid-day aloud, which the Romans then diftinguished only in fine weather, and by the height of the fun.

It was during the first Punic war that the firft dial was expofed to public view at Rome, and placed upon a column of the tribunal of harangues. Marcus Valerius Meffala brought it from Sicily after the taking of Catana, thirty years after Papirius, the year of Rome four hundred and feventy feven.

Although this dial, drawn for the meridian of Catana, which was different from that of Rome, could not fhow the hours juftly; yet, as imperfect as it was, the Romans conformed to it for the space of ninetynine years.

These forts of clocks were of ufe only in the day, and in clear weather. Scipio Nafica, five years after, in the year of Rome five hundred and ninety-five, first brought into ufe, and placed under cover a water-clock, which fhewed the hours equally by day and night. There were twelve in the day, and as many in the night, without diftinction of feafons.

So that in fummer the hours of the day were longer, and in winter

• This is what was called promulgare per trinum nundinum.

fhorter

fhorter than thofe of the night. The firft began at fun-rife; the fixth at mid-day; and the twelfth at fun-fet; from thence began the firft hour of the night, of which the fixth was at mid-night, and the twelfth at fun-rife.

Under the emperors, they began to perceive that this diftribution was not convenient. By little and little, they introduced the manner of counting the twenty-four hours, from mid-night to mid-night. It appears, that this custom had already obtained in the reign of Adrian. All the world knows, that it is generally received in Europe, except in Italy, where they reckon the day from fun-fet to fun-fet, and the whole twenty-four hours fucceffively.

They employed the firft hour of the day in the most effential duties of religion. The temples were open to all the world, and even often lighted before day, for the moft early. The worship they there paid the gods, confifted in adoring and invoking them by public and private prayers; in offering facrifices, incenfe, and perfumes; and in hymns, which the youth of both sexes, and of the first families, fung morning and evening to their praife, to the found of inftruments.

Yet they gave not to the gods alone these first hours of the morning; they also employed them in paying thofe reciprocal duties, received and authorized in the world. At Rome, as elsewhere, the little paid their court to the great, the people to the magiftrates, and the magiftrates to the rich.

To confider only the ordinary life of a citizen, it appears, that the greatest number employed the morning in the temples, the palaces of the great, in the forum, at the bar,

and in folliciting their affairs; and that they deftined the rest of the days to vifits and affemblies, to the walks and baths, to feafting and pleasures, to the care of health and exercifes; amongst others, to that of the hand-ball and tennis.

The whole concluded about the eighth or ninth hour, that is, about three in the afternoon; and then every one repaired in hafte to the public or private baths. It was natural that there fhould be more liberty in the private baths, where each was left to his own fancy: but, for the public baths, they were opened by ringing of a bell always at the fame hour; and those who came too late, ran the risk of bathing in cold water."

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He comes then to those times of magnificence, when the acts of private perfons outfhone any thing done by princes in our times.

"It was not till the year of Rome 441, that they brought water thither for the first time, by means of an aqueduct, built under the direction of the cenfor Appius Claudius, from whom that water was called Aqua Appia. Its fource was eight miles from Rome, in the territory of Tufculum, now Frefcati. Till that time, the Romans were contented with the water they drew from the Tiber, and from wells, from the fountains in the city, and those they found in the neighbour. hood.

The number of aqueducts increafed afterwards. Agrippa, while he was ædile under Auguftus, not only re-established the ancient aqueducts, which had fallen to decay, but built alfo a new one, to which he gave the name of Aqua Julia; it was fifteen miles in extent. To facilitate the ufe of the waters which

he brought to the city, he made feven hundred basons, an hundred and five fountains, one hundred and thirty refervoirs; and all these works were adorned with columns and ftatues; a destination much more fuitable, fay's Pliny, for those mafter-pieces of art, than being inclofed in the gardens and countryhoufes of private people.

Thefe aqueducts were built of brick, running under ground, or raised upon arches. They brought the water to Rome in pipes of caft metal, or lead, from the distance of thirty, forty, and fixty miles or more. These waters were collected in refervoirs called caftella."

He then gives an account of their baths.

"The first thing that presented itself in thefe baths, was a great bafon, called natatio and piscina, which took up all the north fide; in which they could not only bathe, but even swim very commodiously. Sometimes these great bafons were to be met with in the baths of private perfons, as in thofe of Cicero and the younger Pliny. The rich and the great had baths at home, and often very fuperb, commonly placed near the dining room; because it was the custom to bathe before the repaft, and even to offer it to friends and strangers who were invited.

-The edifices of the baths in the therma were commonly expofed to the fouth, and had a very extenfive front: the middle part was occupied by the ftove-room, or by a great furnace of mafon-work, called hypocauftum, which had to the right and left an apartment of four rooms, uniform on both fides, and disposed so as they could easily

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pafs from one to the other. These rooms, called in general balnearia, were the ftove, the hot bath, the cold bath, and the steam bath.

Thefe baths formed fo many vaft and fuperb halls. That of the hot bath was as large again as the others, because of the great concourse of people who frequented it, and the long ftay they made in it. The roofs of these halls were supported by pillars of marble, the pavement was mofaic. The walls, lined alfo with marble, were embellished with mafter-pieces of painting and fculpture: the galleries, the porticoes, the apartments which ferved for the wardrobe. Thofe for rubbing and perfuming; even the places where they kept the oils and perfumes, were equally adorned. Statues, pictures, and the precious metals, were lavished in these sumptuous edifices.

The veffels and utenfils were anfwerable to that magnificence. The baths were of marble, oriental granite, and porphyry; fome were fixed, fome moveable. Amongst

these last there were fome made on purpose to be fufpended, in which they joined the pleasure of bathing to that of being balanced, and, as it were, rocked by an easy motion.

If we go back to the first ages of Rome, we fhall find that the Romans lived moftly upon roots and milk, or upon a very coarse kind of pattage, called pulmentum, which ferved them for bread, and that they eat flesh only upon extraordinary occafions.

The time of dinner, as regular as that of fupper, was about the fixth hour of the day, or noon. Suetonius relates, that the emperor Claudius took fo much delight

in

in the combats of the gladiators with wild beafts, that he took his place in the morning, and remained there at

noon.

The hour of fupper was between the ninth and tenth hour of the day; or, as we should fay, between three and four in the afternoon. Sometimes it was followed by a kind of collation, called comefatio. The place where it was ferved up was anciently in atrio, that is to fay, in a veftibule, open in fome fort, and expofed to the view of all the world. Befides that the service was there eafier, a more private part of the house might have encouraged licentioufnefs and debauchery. In the fummer feason, they fometimes fupped under a fycamore, or fome other fhady

tree.

The tables of the Romans were at firft only of common and ordinary wood, fquare, and with four feet; they afterwards had them round and oval, fupported upon one foot, artfully wrought and fculp tured, fineered with the roots of the box and citron tree, with ivory and fhells, plates of gold and filver, and precious stones; they were uncovered, and at every courfe they took care to wipe them with a fpunge. It was not till the time of the emperors that the Romans

began to cover them with cloths: they had of them ftriped with gold and purple.

In the first ages they eat, feated upon fimple benches, after the example of Homer's heroes; or, as Varro expreffes it, after the examples of the Lacedæmonians and the Cretans. In time, they took up the cuftom of lying upon little beds at their meals; that cuftom they had from Afia. The ladies did not at first think it confiftent with their modefty to adopt that novelty: they long kept up the ancient manner, as more conformable to the modesty of the fex. Valerius Maximus tells us, that in the folemn feafts which they offered to the gods and goddeffes, thofe divinities were pleafed to fubmit to human customs; that Jupiter was laid upon a bed, Juno and Minerva feated upon chairs † ; but from the time of the firft Cæfars, till the year 320 of the Chriftian æra, the women followed the custom of the men, and like them lay along at table.

As for young people, who had not yet taken the viril robe, they kept them a long time under the ancient difcipline. They feated them at table, on the edge of the bed of their nearest relations.

They lay along upon thefe beds, with the upper part of the

† In great dangers, or after fome happy event, they ordained folemn feasts for the gods, to implore their affiftance, or by way of thanksgiving. They called that ceremony lectifternium, from lectos fternere, Priests called Septemviri Epulones, prefided at these feafts, and directed them. They placed a round table in the temples, feats and beds covered with tapestry, and cufhions, on which they put the ftatues of the gods and goddeffes who were invited to the feaft; and they were fuppofed to partake of it, though it was the Septemviri Epulones who had all the advantage of it. The beds on which were the ftatues of the gods, were called pulvinaria, and the feats of the goddeffes felle, whence alfo they gave thefe feafts the name of fellifternia, or follifernia. A plague which was feverely felt in Rome the year 356th of the city, gave rife to that ceremony, which in after times was frequently obferved. U 4

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