clear and uninterrupted promenade of 24 feet in width being afforded up the centre of the nave. There are also two smaller walks provided at each side of the nave, with frequent communications with the centre walk, and the respective courts.

The ornamental basins, with the fountains and bridges, will now arrest attention. These basins are formed of a patent stone manufactured by Messrs. Buckwell and Co., of London, and called by them "granitic-breccia." The mode of its formation is exceedingly ingenious, rapid, and economical. A mixture of Portland cement and small broken pieces of stone is rammed down between two iron slabs of the form and size required, by "rammers" weighing 68 lbs. each, the materials being slightly damped. When the space between the slabs is filled up, the iron sides are lowered, the materials resting upon the "foundation piece" retain the form of the slab, and are raised up and conveyed to the place required. After remaining for about fourteen days, the slabs become as hard as the hardest of granite, and are perfectly impervious to wet. Those manufactured for the basins were 8 feet by 5, and 3 inches thick, each slab weighing rather more than a ton weight. Not less than 40,000 square feet of the "breccia" were employed, the whole weighing more than 1,000 tons, and the saving to the company by the use of the material, as compared with stone, was not less than 1,500l. to 2,000l. So hard and enduring is this substance, that a large piece of the pavement laid down with it in King William Street, City, has been affected by the traffic much less than the ordinary stone.

These fountains were designed by M. Monti, and have been cast in metal from the models furnished by that gentleman. The female figures represent the four quarters of the globe, and near them are dolphins and water plants. The figures are well moulded, and the grouping is artistic and appropriate. Passing by mounds of rustic work covered with creeping plants, and surrounded by floral walks, the visitor passes by the suite of four royal reception rooms-one of which is appropriated to Her Majesty, the second to Prince Albert, a third to the maids of honour, and a fourth to the gentlemen and equerries in waiting-to the wings of the building. Here a collection of raw produce at present but imperfectly arranged-will be examined and refreshments supplied with liberality and economy, under the superintendence of the directors. Descending the steps, we arrive on the lower terrace walk; and well satisfied and instructed, and, perhaps, not a little fatigued, our "Guide" will conduct the visitor, disregarding the tempta tions to linger in the grounds, along the terrace to the covered way which conducts to the railway station, where, with a cordial wish that he may succeed in elbowing his way among the crowd of intending travellers, and that he may ultimately reach in safety and comfort the bosom of his family, we conclude our first day's duties as cicerone, and, for the present, part company with our readers.

THE idea of reproducing an accurate representation of a Pompeian house is among the happiest and most successful of the measures adopted to make the Crystal Palace the means of blending instruction with recreation. While the general form and decoration of

such a building cannot but excite the curiosity of uninformed visitors, they will not the less fail to win the attention of the artist, and satisfy the inquiry of those more learned students who have not yet had an opportunity of visiting for themselves the sublime remains of antiquity which yet exist in classic lands. The visitor will be supposed to commence his second visit to the Crystal Palace by an examination of this beautiful restoration. Leaving the railway station, he will enter the building at the south end, at the point marked in the plan; and passing through a portion of the natural history and ethnological collection, to be hereafter visited, and crossing the ornamental basin by the second bridge, he will enter the Pompeian house at the entrance facing the nave, shown in the ground plan.

It is to Mr. Digby Wyatt, ably assisted by Signor G. Abbati, of Naples, that the visitor is indebted for the opportunity of inspecting an accurate representation of the house of a Roman citizen in the first century of the Christian era, during the reign of Titus, the tenth Roman emperor and the conqueror of Jerusalem. Pompeii and Herculaneum were at that period two small towns on the Bay of Naples, about 130 miles from imperial Rome, and near the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The visitor will not expect to find in these small watering places-the Worthing or Hastings of the old Romans-any of that magnificence which characterised the palaces and mansions of the nobles in the city of Rome. The restoration in the Crystal Palace represents no particular house, but it may be taken as a representation of the best style of Pompeian decoration and architecture, as found in the house of Pansa, the tragic poet, and in other buildings discovered in the buried city.

It was on the 24th of August, A.D. 79, that the population of Herculaneum and Pompeii, amounting in each to about 5,000 souls, alarmed by the smoke and flames, showers of ashes, and streams of molten lava which issued from the crater of Vesuvius, and the thick darkness, broken only by rapidly succeeding flashes of lightning, which overspread the city, hurried, wild and haggard, now towards the sea, and now back to the shore, amid falling showers of burning ashes, in order to escape impending destruction. "The whole elements of civilisation were broken up. Ever and anon by the flickering lights you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sudden gains. If in the darkness wife was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing, in all the various and complicated machinery of social life, was left, save the primal. law of self-preservation."* Herculaneum, lying nearer to the mountain than Pompeii, was covered with the stream of boiling, seething lava, beneath which it still lies buried. Pompeii was reserved for another fate. An eye-witness, of no less celebrity than

"The Last Days of Pompeii," by Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

Pliny the younger, shall tell in his own words the sad story. After having detailed the circumstances of the death of his uncle, Pliny says, "Though it was now morning, the light was exceedingly faint and languid; the buildings all around us tottered; and though we (himself and his mother) stood upon open ground, there was no remaining there without certain and great danger: we therefore resolved to quit the town. Having got to a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots which we had ordered to be drawn out were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain, at least, that the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the other side a black and dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapour, darted out a long train of fire, resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger. The ashes now began to fall upon us. I turned my head, and observed behind us a thick smoke, which came rolling after us like a torrent. We had scarcely stepped out of the path when darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up and all the lights extinct. Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the cries of men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die from the very fear of dying, some lifting their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods and the world together. The fire fell at a distance from us, then again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the heap. At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud of smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun appeared, though very faintly, as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes seemed changed, being covered over with white ashes, as with a deep snow." Seventeen centuries had passed away, and Pompeii still lay entombed in its own ashes. The excavations that have, during the last century, been carried on, have revealed in the deserted houses walls still fresh with colour, as in the restored building in which the visitor now stands; they have brought to light the household arrangements of a people who have passed for ever from the world; there is the furniture of the saloons, the fragments of the last feast, the treasures, the coins, the jewels, the weapons, the statues finished and unfinished, and the bones and skeletons of those whom fear, duty, or avarice, detained until escape was impossible. The sentinel has been found at his post, the lady with her

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jewels at her toilet, the miser lying beside his treasure, or still clutching his bag of coins, the priest in his temple, the mother with her child, the prisoner in his chains, and in one vault there were found twenty skeletons of people who had sought vainly in its subterranean shelter safety from the fine ashy dust which formed their tomb. Signor Abbate, by whom, under Mr. Digby Wyatt, the charming decorations of the Pompeian house were superintended, has been for the last twenty-six years an inhabitant of this buried city; he has lived within its walls, studied all its paintings and treasures of art, and is acquainted with every fragment of stone and stucco in the place. His principal occupation of late years has been that of tracing from the walls of Pompeii the actual paintings as they have been discovered. Signor Abbate came to this country almost with the authority of one risen from the dead; and his long experience in the entombed city claims for his opinions the greatest possible interest. Some time since, this talented artist embodied his views on the interesting subject of the dwellings of Pompeii, and the style and character of their decoration. An extract from his able paper will be perused with interest by the visitor at his fireside, and will also be useful in explaining the uses and construction of the restored Pompeian house.

"It should be borne in mind that the dwellings of Pompeii are by no means adequate to present a complete idea of the magnificence of Imperial Rome, or of the sumptuous habitations of those who were regarded as the conquerors of the world; since Pompeii was no more than a city of the third rank. When, however, we perceive in the dwellings of this small city the admirable distribution of the various apartments-the purposes to which they were respectively devoted the abundant supply of the luxuries and elegancies of life-the love of order, and the exuberance of art which they display-we cannot but remain impressed with wonder: and how much would that wonder be increased, should we endeavour to form a notion of the great capitals of the country, and of the residences of its consuls and emperors!

"In all the domestic buildings of Pompeii, there exists a general similarity of arrangement. They have frequently more than one entrance; and the external walls are covered with a hard and brilliant stucco, often coloured with lively tints over a certain portion of the height of the façade. There is little doubt that the greater portion of the houses had originally two floors, the uppermost of which had small windows, and was terminated with a flat or terrace roof. Internally, the houses are chiefly distinguished from modern dwellings by being divided into two portions, in conformity with the manners of the period; such division consisting in a separation of the public from the private portion of the house, and involving, to a certain extent, the separation of the sexes.

At a period when the application of the intellect to commerce and industry was believed to be unworthy of freemen, and when life was essentially public, it was but natural that a portion of