ful excavator of its treasures, exhibited in Pall Mall a valuable Etruscan collection, arranged in apartments which presented a fac-simile of the tomb in which the principal objects had been discovered. To this admirable exhibition Mrs. Gray betook herself, at the recommendation of the late Bishop of Lichfield; we, in religious observance of a practice attributed to the late Lord Stowell, of visiting every show in London which can be seen for a shilling. Assuredly an honester shilling's-worth was never given to the public than that of Mr. Campanari, not even in the similar case of Belzoni's Egyptian sepulchre. Mr. Campanari's chambers, furnished as they were, and with the coloured designs of the original tufo wall accurately imitated, was, in our opinion, pre-eminent among the contrivances which London has produced in our time for the amusement of ordinary men or Stowells. it did not answer as a speculation, it was not the fault of one competent above his fellows to give the stamp of value by his praise, for we well remember the warmth with which Mr. Rogers recommended it to his acquaintance. We are happy to think that the collection was purchased for the British Museum; but we should be much happier if, not having room for Mrs. Hamilton Gray's lively description of it, we had not reason to make room for the following extract, which relates to the subsequent disposal of the objects so purchased.

If

I may in this place mention the loss which the public are sustaining in not being able still to visit those things which I have described [namely, the paintings on the walls]. After having not only missed them all ourselves, but having visited scenes that appeared to us still more worthy of representation, we went on our return to England to the British Museum, wishing to feast our eyes once more upon the glorious relics of a nation passed away. What was our disappointment to wander through the rooms the first day, and see no appearance of any collection from Campanari!-the very few objects which we did recognise, bronzes and scarabæi, being so mingled with Greek and Roman remains as to be undistinguishable without very close observation and a previous knowledge of their peculiar style. . . The second day of our visit to this very noble and rich institution, we considered beforehand where the monuments of Etruria, if placed at all, must naturally be found; and we decided that they must come between Egypt, the eldest of nations, and Greece, her best known child. Here we accordingly sought, and in a large disorderly-looking hall, leading from Egypt to the Elgin marbles, we espied what we were seeking. Ranged along the wall, in melancholy confusion and neglect, without a place in the catalogue, or any indication to the curious of what they were, lay in silence our Etruscan friends. They looked indeed as if they felt that they were in a strange country, cold, comfortless, and far from home. The fantastic vaults of Campanari, with their elevated beds and mysterious

gloom

gloom, his gay painted tombs and variety of ornament, were no more to be seen. It were a sin to have destroyed Campanari's beautiful show, if we are to have no better substitute than what we saw when we visited the British Museum in September, 1839.'-p. 11.

A sin indeed! Mrs. Gray's narrative of her tour to the Museum seems to us to afford a strong instance of that fatality which hangs over the well-meant efforts of Mr. Bull, when, quitting for a moment the manufacture of cotton-twist, he takes a fit of extravagance and virtu.

The immediate effect of Mrs. Gray's visit to Campanari's original exhibition was her journey to Italy, productive of the volume under our notice. For a visit to the sepulchres of Etruria themselves she wisely prepared herself by conversations with the learned, and an active course of museums in Pisa and Rome. The following description of what she saw in the collection of Gen. Galassi, at Rome, affords a tolerable notion of the nature and variety of the treasures which have lately rewarded the labour of excavation. The tomb called the Regulini Galassi had lately been opened at Cervetri, and Mrs. Gray thus speaks of its

contents:

If we had been surprised at Campanari's we were petrified at the General's. Here we saw an immense breastplate of gold, which had been fastened on each shoulder by a most delicately-wrought gold fibula, with chains like those now made at Trichinopoli. The breastplate was stamped with a variety of arabesques and small patterns, as usual in the Egyptian style. The head had been crowned with fillets and circular ornaments of pure gold, and a rich mantle had covered the body, flowered with the same material. In this grave had also been found a quantity of arms, &c. A bier of bronze, as perfect as if made

a year ago; a tripod with a vessel containing some strange looking lumps of a resinous substance, which on being burnt proved to be perfumes, so intensely strong that those who tried them were obliged to leave the room. There were wheels of a car, on which the bier had been brought into the sepulchre. . But the wonder of all these treasures was a sort of inkstand of terra-cotta, which had served as a schoolmaster's A B C. On it were the Etruscan letters, first in alphabet and then in syllables; and both the letters and the syllables are the same as the oldest form of the Greek. It was deciphered by Dr. Lipsius, and is the key to all we at present know, and will be the basis of all we are ever likely to know of the Etruscan tongue.'-p. 24. Mrs. Gray pursues various conjectures as to this curious relic, and goes on to say :

In a memorandum made immediately on quitting the General's house, I have noted that upon this inkstand were four alphabets engraved, and after each the syllables; thus, ba, be, bi, &c.; that one of these is in the oldest or archaic form of the Greek alphabetic letters; and that

hence

hence connexion is likely to be traced and demonstrated between the Egyptian, Etruscan, and Pelasgic.'

This collection has lately been added to the Gregorian of the Vatican, which, formed by the present Pope since his accession, already, as Mrs. Gray justly states, bids fair to surpass the Museo Borbonico of Naples. The Pope's Etruscan repositories, so rich in fragile and pilferable objects, are wisely subjected to stricter regulations for their exhibition than are attached to the rest of the Vatican, but special permission is liberally accorded on proper application; and few travellers who have read Mrs. Gray's volume will omit to obtain it. Among the collections visited and noted by Mrs. Gray at Rome we may also mention the museum of Cavaliere Palin, as embracing a wider range than others, and bringing into juxta-position the antiquities of the East in general-that of Signor Campana, rich in sarcophagi and coins-and the Kircherian collection of the Jesuits' college, which surpasses all others in numismatic treasures.

After a course of training in these repositories, Mrs. Gray launches on her main expedition. The table of her contents includes some six of the twelve principal cities of the ancient Etruscan league, the sites of which now form points of principal antiquarian interest in Tuscany and the Papal States. She does not visit, nor, except by incidental reference, extend her observations to the more southern portion of Italy. The Etruscan antiquities of Campania have forced themselves into more general observation than those of the older and principal sites of the confederation. As works of art, and in respect of beauty of design, the vases of the Museo Borbonico have long been famous, and Mrs. Gray has done well to devote her energies to Central Etruria, the seat of their earlier empire, and which, as might be expected, contains more samples of their progress in art before the purely national style was softened down by Greek admixture.

Few recent discoveries have been more interesting than those which have brought about the identification of the site of Veii, the city from whose fall we date the destruction of the Etruscan confederation. It is easily accessible from Rome, and has become the object of frequent excursions to Anglo-Roman equestrians. Many of these visit it probably rather on the ground of its associations with a familiar passage of Roman history than as an Etruscan city; some for the picturesque beauty of its environs, and more perhaps for the animal pleasure of a gallop over miles of continuous turf. In the two latter respects we can vouch for its pre-eminent attractions, and at the recollection of them the 'præteritos referat si Jupiter annos' rises to our lips. At Veii Mrs. Gray witnessed, by invitation of Mr. Capranesi, a principal dealer in antiquities

antiquities in Rome, the operation of a scavo. We subjoin her summary-as, though the results were trifling, for the tomb had been plundered before, her observations will admit of application to similar proceedings in most parts of Italy.

'The name of the site of our scavo, as the Italians call an excavation, was Pozzo Michele, or Michael's Well. We all agreed that it had been previously opened, because the vases showed that it had been tenanted, and the absence of bones or ashes that it had been spoiled; but we might have known by another sign that it had fallen a prey to previous antiquaries, or treasure-hunters-from its having no doors. Every Etruscan unviolated tomb as yet discovered is most artificially closed by one or two immense stone leaves, turning on pivots, and resembling those of the tombs of the kings near Jerusalem. After we had completely rifled this tomb, it would probably the next day be filled up to restore the ground for sheep-grazing, and in a fortnight it would look as green and undisturbed as the day before we opened it. In fifty years time the men who opened it and those who saw it opened will be no more; Capranesi's excavations will be forgotten or doubted, and some new projector and antiquity-hunter will very possibly re-open this grave to find that it has been already spoiled. Thus it happens with many magnificent Roman sepulchres in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. I believe that no excavations whatever were undertaken till the French began to disinter the ancient Forum. Yet even during this short period half the opened tombs are forgotten, and now are reexcavating by English noblemen and gentlemen, who spend their money to be disappointed. In Etruria the ground opened is as yet well known, because, with scarcely an exception, it is either in the hands of a few dealers, of eminent collectors like Campana, or the Prince of Canino; but when this generation shall have passed away, what is there to preserve the memory of the ground which they hired, searched, and filled in again? and who is to say what was found in any particular tomb, and what bronzes or sculpture, what vases or terra cotta vessels, what scarabæi engravings or gold ornaments, are contemporary, and were found together? Any of the first-rate dealers will tell you at once that such a vase, or marble, or bronze came from Veii Etruscan or Veii Roman, from Cere, Volci, Viterbo, &c., but what tomb they came from, and what other objects were found with them, even they are usually unable to tell you.'

One need not be much surprised at all this, since the tombs have as yet been investigated by persons with whom the marketable value of their contents was the first if not the sole consideration. We must add that the Archæological Society of Rome does its best to prevent and repair the mischief by procuring plans, copies of paintings, &c.; and the Tuscan government seems in this, as in other respects, to extend a careful and salutary supervision over the proceedings of its subjects.

Mrs. Gray takes the occasion of her Veii excavations to specify

VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXIV.

2 c

briefly

briefly the main distinctions between the Roman and Etruscan practices of sepulture-which much simplify the task of modern antiquarians; for though some of the older Roman tombs, such as that of Scipio, have Etruscan features, the difference is always considerable. A Roman tomb contains no painted vases, no chariots, biers of bronze, perfumes, nor armour. The ashes of the burnt corpse, perhaps some coins, and small lacrymatories of glass or clay, are the principal objects to be expected. In an Etruscan tomb, coins and glass are rare; vases and offerings of various kinds are most usual, and a ledge or shelf for their deposit running round the interior, is almost invariable; bronze nails are found in many, from which such objects had been suspended; and these nails are occasionally exhibited by priestly cicerones as instruments of Christian martyrdom. In the case of an eminent defunct-a lucumo, or warrior-prince and priest, his last restingplace was stocked with a large assortment of the symbols and instruments of his various professions and dignities. The corpse has in most cases mouldered away, and the rich garment has perished with the form it shrouded, but the gold with which its texture was interwoven and reticulated remains; and though the vertebræ and articulations are dust, the serpent-armlet of elastic gold and the diadem of oak, or ivy, or bay or fern leaves, and the heavy and flexible torques, all of the same precious and indestructible material, have dropped through the interstices of the bronze bier to the soil below. More usually, perhaps, these accompaniments of the corpse are found in a sarcophagus, the lid of which exhibits a full length and evidently faithful recumbent portrait of the deceased. The attitude of some of these likenesses reminds the English visiter of the monuments of his country's cathedrals; and the curious position in which one leg is often tucked up under the other bears an accidental resemblance to the cross-legged Templars so common in our old rural churches. We can conceive few moments of man's life more to be envied than that of the enthusiastic explorer when the light of day first follows the stroke of the pickaxe into one of these receptacles, fresh and unplundered.

Campanari said that he was excavating as usual in a rough but quiet-looking spot, when suddenly he heard a great crash, the earth fell in, and he found himself standing in the centre of twelve figures, all with their raised and ornamented heads staring at him, and wondering why he came to give them such disturbance. He said he really felt frightened for a time, and inclined to run away, for whichever side he looked there were the red and fiery faces, and the peculiarly stern expression of their reproachful figures. Their bodies were all covered with earth, and their heads only above the soil; and they looked like