The Hippodrome of the Hortus was no place for horse exercise, as the name would seem to imply, but an extensive ambulatory formed like a race course— "A covered road surrounded by plane trees, bound with creeping ivy, and wild vines ranging from branch to branch, which, clinging to their trunks, connected the trees together in the same manner that garlands were formed or wreaths of laurel disposed for a festival." p. 102. An inscription in a Roman garden, informed the walker, that when he had made five turns of the deambulatory he had completed a mile. IN. HOC. POMARIO. GESTATIONIS. ET REDITUM. QUINQUIESS. EFFICIT PASSUS MILLE. Of the hydraulics of the Hortus, Pliny gives us a pleasant account, when he tells us he often took his supper by the side of a polished marble basin, full of limpid water, but which never overflowed; that this fountain served him for a table, the larger dishes were placed round the margin, and smaller ones swam about, in the form of little vessels and water fowl. In the Spheristerium, the Romans prepared themselves for dinner or principal meal by violent exercise, which was succeeded by a bath.-p. 104. The exercises were tennis or quoits. Balnea, our author affirms, was applicable to private baths; Thermæ to the public.—p. 164. Mr. Moule closes his well-digested and entertaining little volume with some apposite remarks on Roman buildings in Britain. "A colony so fertile and abounding in beautiful situations, (he says) it can hardly be doubted, was, in course of time, inhabited by many Roman adventurers, who migrated hither with their families, and built villas or country seats, where they lived in some degree of elegance. The Romanized Britons also built houses, temples, courts, market places in their towns, and adorned them with porticos and baths, with mosaic pavements, and with every Roman improvement . . . but, as it is known that the form of the houses frequently varied to adapt them to the climate of the country in which they were built, the plans of the Roman villas in Britain can hardly be expected to agree in every particular with those in the immediate vicinity of the city of Rome."-p. 164. Mr. Moule notices the often cited assertion of Tacitus, that Agricola, having subdued the Britons in order that he might "by a taste of pleasures reconcile them to inactivity and repose, he first privately exhorted them, then publicly assisted them, to build temples, houses, and places of assembling."h A remarkable proof has presented itself to our observation of the wild state of the country when these disciples of the Roman builders began to adopt their art. Tiles have frequently been discovered marked with what have been considered the impressions of dog's feet, and antiquaries have been derided for the mention of so trivial a circumstance, proving little more than that the Romans kept dogs, and that they ran like modern dogs upon four legs. We have seen, however, some specimens of tiles impressed, not with the feet of dogs but of wolves, shewing that, while the RomanoBritons were busied in forming their bricks, the savage prowlers of the wild had passed over them yet unbaked, in their nightly rambles for their prey. Here, in an apparently insignificant circumstance, is matter on which the reflecting mind may amplify. She pictures to herself the Romans instructing the barbarous Celts in the useful arts, and circumscribing the limits of ferocious animals; thus asserting the charter of dominion granted to man over the animal creation in the beginning of all things.* 8 Quinquiens, as we read in Mr. Moule's volume, is, doubtless, a typographical error. Tacit. in vit. Agric. i See Archæologia, vol. XXII. pp. 32, 340. Gent. Mag. vol. xcix. pt. i. p. 402. * Genesis, chap. I. v. 26. To resume and conclude our remarks on this ingenious essay. It bears the stamp of classical reading, judgment, and good taste. The quotations from Latin writers are numerous and apposite. The unlearned reader will thank Mr. Moule that he has rejected all pedantic display, and cited the English translation; the learned would, perhaps, have been better satisfied, as the words of an original writer are a sort of oral testimony, if he had quoted them also. However, this would have considerably swelled the size of this elegant little manual of the economy of Roman Villas. The frontispiece, of a Roman room and furniture, is a pleasing composition, in which the frontispiece to the Pompeiana has been chiefly followed, with the exception of the heavy chair placed in the foreground, for the form of which, if there be authority, there is none we think for the perspective into which it is thrown. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. The Omnibus.-Our neighbours the French have the credit of introducing these convenient and economical vehicles into our streets; but, when minutely traced, their claim to the invention, as in many other cases of supposed invention, may admit of dispute. The following paragraph extracted from the Public Advertiser newspaper, January 18th, 1772, would imply that the idea at least originated in England. The vehicle alluded to was to carry the same number of persons, and at the same price, as at present. Hackney-coaches were then thought, it seems, a kind of nuisance in the streets; at present that objection is applied to the Omnibus; both are most useful in their way, and in the occasional annoyance which either may give us, we should not forget their benefits : "We hear that, in order to preserve the pavements, and prevent the multiplicity of Hackney-coaches crowding up the streets, a new-contrived coach will be built, to carry fourteen passengers from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange at sixpence each. 'Tis to be built on Mr. Jacobs' new principle, the hind-wheels seven feet high, the front six. This carriage will turn a corner with as much ease as any Hackneycoach can at present. The Commissioners, knowing the utility of such a machine, will immediately grant it a licence. 'Tis to set off at a minute at regulated hours." Archery.-A Gloucestershire Toxophilite, signing himself" One of the Sceptics," calls upon us to decide a dispute relative to the assertion, that when an Archer looses an arrow from a bow of 50lbs. he exerts a power equal to 100lbs. He disputes this point, and maintains that the draught exerted is equivalent to 50lbs. only. For the uninitiated to comprehend this query, it must be explained that the power of the bow is tried by an ingenious method, invented by the late Mr. Waring, viz. the bow being fixed on a certain point, suspending a weight to the string sufficient to draw an arrow of 27 inches length to its head. According to the weight necessary for this purpose the power of the bow is said to be, and the greater the power of course the further its cast. Now it will be evident on reflection, and is mathematically demonstrable, that the mere drawing power is not the only power exerted to bring the arrow's head up to the bow-there must be a power of equal resistance to keep the bow in its place during the act of drawing. This may be proved by fixing the bow itself to a weight, which, to hold it in one place, must be equal to the weight used for drawing the string. Thus, therefore, in shooting in a 50lbs. bow, the right hand draws 50lbs. and the left hand resists or supports the draught of 50lbs. or the arrow would never be drawn to the head. The aggregate power exerted is therefore 100lbs., divided, however, between the two arms, as has been said.-We refer the querist for confirmation of this opinion to the note at the foot of page 104 of that excellent work The English Bowman; and with every wish for the extended revival of the noble science of Archery (to which our pages have perhaps in some degree contributed), and for his own pleasure and proficiency therein, are forced to decide against him. Tottenham Cross.-ANTIQUARIUS, who inquires for the true history of Tottenham Cross, is referred to Robinson's History of Tottenham, 1818, p. 20. The current surmise, that it was one of Queen Eleanor's Crosses (which Dr. Robinson mentions) has evidently been suggested by the neighbouring Cross of Waltham, in the minds of some innocent cockneys who never saw any other Crosses save those two; although the near vicinity of Waltham Cross ought to have been a sufficient refutation of that idea to any reflecting person. A Correspondent will feel obliged to any of our Readers who can point out where the Lady's Magazine for 1761-2 (published by Wilkie), may be seen or purchased.— Also, the Public Ledger for the year 1761. The Correspondent who signs DE LICHENSCRIDAN is informed that, in the case of the early Bishops he mentions, Lawrence is their Christian and not their surname. RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. The Tragedy of Antigone, the Theban Princess. By Thomas May. 1631. 4to. THIS Play is not distinguished by any felicitous arrangement of incidents, any passages of sublimity, or any noble inventions of genius; but it is the work of a scholar; and, like the other productions of the same author, has a plain, temperate, and manly style, not devoid of poetical ornament, or classical conceptions. The soliloquy of Emon reminds us of a passage in the Comus of Milton. How well this sad and solitary place Suits with my thoughts! these unfrequented woods In that first golden age when Saturn reigned. The reason, however, for which we have called attention to this Play (which is not of common occurrence), was to point out the manner in which May, in common with other well-known poets, as Jonson and Middleton, has imitated the incantation of the Witches in Macbeth. These carcases, I say, are grown Their marrow's lost, their nurture's gone, That there the ghost, drawn up from hell's 2d Hag. But from this field of slaughter I As dead men's limbs wet in the rain, And speak a charm that may affright The 3d Hag, with a carcase. 3d Hag. By Creon's trembling watch I bore I brought him here, I grip'd him round. His vitals all are strong and whole Creon. You wise interpreters of Fate, that look 3d Hag. With just contempt down on that small allowance You have your wish. This carcase shall relate it;-do not fear To hear him speak. What herbs have you prepar'd? 1st Hag. I here have gather'd, all in one, The poisonous jelly of the moon, Mixt with sulphur of the night, Lizard's bane and aconite, Dew gather'd ere the morn arose, From night-shade, henbane, cypress-boughs; It is observable how little the imagination of later poets has been able to add to the exuberant and grotesque display of magical ingredients, which the rich fancy of Shakspeare accumulated; and how difficult it is to invent new forms or combinations of images, when nature and the materials of ordinary life are no longer our guide. Book Sales. THE LIBRARY OF J.M. THOMAS CALDECOTT, ESQ. BENCHER OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE." THE Bibliomania is alive again. The drowsy are beginning to shake off their sleep; the torpid to stretch their limbs; and the frigid to feel a warm glow affecting their very extremities. "The hunt is up," and the sovereigns are down-upon the auctioneer's table. Caxton, Wynken de Worde, and the minor fry of John Skot, Pepwell and Co. are fast quitting their chrysalis state, expanding their golden wings, and dazzling the cognoscenti by the coruscation of their movements. All was bustle and animation in Wellington-street from the 2d to the 7th of December inclusively, by the sale of the library of the above Octogenarian, the last of the old breed of Shakespeare-commentators of the school of Johnson and Steevens; † and yet, midst all the bijouterie of the limited library which Mr. Caldecott left behind him, not an early quarto of Shakespeare was to be found. The owner of the collection had bequeathed them to the Bodleian Library. Sold by auction by Mr. Sotheby and Son, Wellington-street, Strand, Dec. 2, 1833, and five following days. + Mr. Caldecott began to collect old English literature at an early period of his life, and became the possessor of many curious books which had been the property of William Herbert, the editor of the "Typographical Antiquities," and which he obtained from Vandeberg, an obscure bookseller near St. Margaret's church, Westminster. From that person also he purchased, for 48. and 58. each, the first editions of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," 1594, "Lucrece," 1594, and the Sonnets, 1609, which, bound in one volume, he has bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. Mr. Caldecott much enriched his collection from the libraries of James West, Thomas Pearson, Dr. Farmer, George Steevens, &c. and was for many years, under a feigned name, a frequent purchaser at sales, of much that was rare and curious. Of late years Mr. Caldecott rarely made his appearance in the auction-room. His figure and manner were at once striking. Extreme shortness of vision induced him always to carry a glass, which, in the studied absence of spectacles, was placed close to the eye. His head was slightly bent on one side during the use of this glass; and he seemed to be as lively and intent upon "men and things" before him as the youngest in the room. His critical epithets upon the old school of the Shakespearecommentators, were unsparing and vituperative; especially upon Steevens and Malone, denoting the former to be " an ass," and the latter "a fool." At length came out the nonpareil specimen of his own Shakespeare, in a volume comprising "As you like it," and "Hamlet." This labour of nearly half a century's meditation, no sooner made its appearance, than the mouse was recognized as the result of the mountain throes; and the parent was never induced to add to his still-born offspring. Mr. Caldecott's death is recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine for June last, p. 573. |