forming them-tessellata et sectilia pavimenta—with which it has been supposed he floored his prætorium wherever he pitched his camp. How this species of decoration has come in modern times to receive the name of Mosaic-work is matter of dispute-though the term is commonly supposed to be a corruption of Museum or Musivum, which Pliny and other later Roman writers seem to speak of as a kind of ornamental pavement, or rather ceiling-so called, it is conjectured, because it may have been originally used in caves or grottos consecrated to the Muses. It may be observed, however, that the tessellated pavements of the ancients have little pretension to rank with the Mosaic pictures of modern times, in which, by the aid of a vast variety of colours, almost as perfect a gradation of shades is effected as could be produced by the pencil. The Roman tessellated pavements in general present only the simplest patterns, such as a scroll border with an indifferently drawn human or animal figure in the centre ; and most of them are composed of not more than two or three different colours. In some rare instances, however, the tints are considerably more numerous. The most magnificent specimen yet discovered in London was found in December 1803, in Leadenhall Street, immediately in front of the easternmost columns of the portico of the India House. It lay at the depth of only nine feet and a half below the street, which therefore had not been raised at this spot nearly so high above the Roman level as in most other parts of the city. Unfortunately, the line of an old sewer which ran across the street had cut away above a third of the pavement on the east side; but the central compartment, a square of eleven feet, remained nearly entire, as well as the greater part of the border. Altogether, the apartment of which it had been the floor appeared to have been a room of more than twenty feet square. The device occupying the centre was a figure of Bacchus, reclining on the back of a tiger, holding his thyrsus erect in his left hand, while a small two-handed drinking-cup hung from his right; a wreath of vine-leaves circling his forehead-a purple and green mantle falling from his right shoulder, and gathered round his waist—with a sandal on his extended left foot, the lacing of which reached to the calf of the leg. This design was surrounded by three circular borders; the first exhibiting, on a party-coloured field composed of dark grey, light grey, and red ribands, a serpent with a black back and white belly; the second, a series of white cornucopiæ indented in black; the third and outermost, a succession of concave squares. In two of the angular spaces between this last circle and the circumscribing rectangular border were double-handed drinking-cups; in the other two, delineations of some unknown plant; both figures wrought in dark grey, red, and black, on a white ground. The square border surrounding the whole consisted of two distinct belts one described as bearing "some resemblance to a bandeau of oak, in dark and light grey, red, and white, on a black ground;" the other exhibiting "eight lozenge figures, with ends in the form of hatchets, in black on a white ground, enclosing circles of black, on each of which was the common ornament, a true lovers' knot." Beyond this was a margin at least five feet broad, formed of plain red tiles, each an inch square. We annex such a copy as a woodcut can produce of this elaborate design, taken from a coloured print published soon after its disinterment by Mr. Thomas Fisher, accompanied with the description to which we have been indebted for the above particulars. "In this beautiful specimen of Roman Mosaic," says Mr Fisher," the drawing, colouring, and

shadows are all effected with considerable skill and ingenuity by the use of about twenty separate tints, composed of tessella of different materials, the major part of which are baked earths; but the more brilliant colours of green and purple, which form the drapery, are glass. These tessella are of different sizes and figures, adapted to the situations they occupy in the design. They are placed in rows either straight or curved, as occasion demanded, each tessella presenting to those around it a flat side: the interstices of mortar being thus very narrow, and the bearing of the pieces against each other uniform, the work in general possessed much strength, and was very probably, when uninjured by damp, nearly as firm to the foot as solid stone. The tessellæ used in forming the ornamented borders were in general somewhat larger than those in the figures, being cubes of half an inch." This Leadenhall Street tessellated pavement, which lay on a bed of lime and brick-dust, an inch in thickness, was taken up at the charge of the East India Company, but was broken to pieces in the process; the fragments of it, however, were deposited in the Company's Library.

In 1805, in the course of digging the foundations for an extension of the buildings of the Bank of England, another tessellated pavement was found in Lothbury, near the south-east angle of the area now enclosed by the walls of the Bank. It lay at the depth of about eleven feet below the surface. Of this too Mr. Fisher published a coloured engraving and a description; and, having been taken up without sustaining any injury under the direction of the late Mr. Soane, the architect, it was presented by the Directors of the Bank to the British

Museum, where it may still be seen. But it is not to be compared to the Leadenhall Street specimen either in design or workmanship. Its dimensions are only four feet each way, and it occupied the centre of a floor of eleven feet square. The central figure seems designed to represent four expanded leaves; the rectangular border is similar to the innermost of the two stripes forming the double border of the other pavement. Mr. Fisher states, that," on examining the fragments of the marginal pavement which had been taken up with it, evident marks of fire were observed on the face of them; and to one piece adhered some ashes of burnt wood, and a small piece not quite burnt."

Other tessellated pavements are recorded to have been discovered in Bush Lane, Cannon Street, in 1666; near St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, in 1681; at Crutched Friars in 1787; behind the old Navy Pay Office in Broad Street, in Northumberland Alley, Fenchurch Street, and in Long Lane, Smithfield, about the beginning of the present century; near the Church of St. Dunstan's in the East in 1824; in East Cheap in 1831; at St. Clement's Church, and in Lothbury, opposite to Founders' Court, in 1834; in Crosby Square in 1836; behind Winchester House in Southwark in 1650; in various places on both sides of the Borough High Street at different times from 1818 to 1831; and in a few other localities. But in few or none of these instances has either the pavement itself been preserved or even any description of it. Within these few weeks what appeared to a somewhat hurried and not very close view to be a very perfect and rather elegant specimen was brought to light in pulling down the French Protestant Church in Threadneedle Street, at the depth apparently of nine or ten feet under where the floor of the church had been, immediately within and a little to the left of the principal entry. This, we understood, it was intended to have carefully taken up, and it will probably be deposited in some public museum or private collection. But it was more interesting to look down upon it there where it lay on the very spot which it had occupied for certainly more than fourteen centuries-where the eye of admiration had first rested upon it, and it had borne the actual tread of Roman feet, mingling in the dance or other social assemblage, in the palmy days of that buried civilization, when what was now a darksome pit dug in the earth had made part of an airy, glittering domicile, full of light and life. The colours, among which a deep yellow or tawny predominated, looked wonderfully fresh and glowing-thus still more strongly forcing upon the imagination the presence of the past.

Of the other Roman antiquities recently discovered in London, the most numerous, various, and interesting are those that were found in 1834, 1835, and 1836, in the course of the operations connected with the opening of the magnificent new thoroughfare leading across the heart of the City from London Bridge to the line of the old wall at Moorgate; an account of which has been given in an able and learned paper in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society by Mr. Charles Roach Smith.* Beginning his survey from the neighbourhood of the bridge, Mr. Smith states that on either side of the line of King William Street, "at a depth ranging from fourteen to twenty feet, the evidences of Roman habitations became numerous. Walls built with rough unhewn pieces of chalk (cemented by the firm mortar peculiar to Roman edifices), and containing in many instances * Observations on the Roman Remains found in various parts of London in the years 1834, 1835, 1836. In Archæologia, vol. xxvii. pp. 140-153.

an admixture of flints, were from time to time made visible." Adjoining to St. Clement's Church, in St. Clement's Lane, East Cheap, was found the tessellated pavement noticed above, which is described as corresponding to the one found a few years before in East Cheap, and similar to that afterwards discovered opposite to Founders' Court, in Lothbury. Near St. Clement's Church also were dug up many vessels of the common brown and black earthenware; six small earthen lamps; a great quantity of the finer pottery called Samian ware, both figured and plain; some rings of base metal; and a few coins-these last much decayed, from the unfavourable quality of the soil. They were mostly second-brass of Claudius, Vespasian, and Domitian, mixed with base denarii of Severus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus, and Julia Mammæa, such as are found in all parts of London. Along the line of Princes Street, bounding the Bank of England on the west, where, as we noticed in a former paper,* the Roman stratum descended to much beyond the usual depth, the Roman remains found are stated to have been more various and of a more interesting kind than had been met with in any other part of London. Among the articles which Mr. Smith enumerates as having been picked up by the labourers are, a pair of small brass scales, fibulæ, styli, needles in brass and bone, coins, a sharpening steel, several knives, one with a bone handle, and many vessels of Samian ware. In Lothbury, between Founders' Court, where they came upon the fragment of the tessellated pavement, and St. Margaret's Church, at about ten or twelve feet deep, they met with "a vast number of iron instruments, such as chisels, crowbars, hammers, &c., all in a very corroded state”—the store, probably, of some dealer in such articles, or perhaps the tools of a body of workmen, left behind them in haste, and forgotten in the confusions of the last days of the Roman dominion. At a greater depth, beyond the church, and at the east corner of the Bank, were turned up a leathern sandal, thickly studded with nails on the sole, quantities of red and black pottery, a coin of Antoninus Pius, having Britannia on the reverse, and many middle-brass coins of Domitian. From Lothbury to London Wall were found brass coins of Claudius, Vespasian, and Trajan, spatulæ of various kinds, styli, needles, a gold ring, an engraved cornelian, a pair of brass tweezers with an earpick attached by a ring, a hair-pin five inches long, with an eye about an inch from the point, and the other end flattened to about the size of a shilling, and embellished with sculpture -besides pottery of different kinds. But the most curious discovery here made was on the west side of the new line of street, near the public-house called the Swan's Nest in Coleman Street, where they came upon a well or pit containing a store of earthen vessels of various patterns and capacities, carefully planked over with thick boards: the vases were not in disorder, but lay imbedded in the mud and sand, which had found its way into the pit, regularly packed on their sides: those preserved held from a quart to two gallons, but some that were broken in taking out were much larger. The well, the mouth of which measured nearly three feet square, was boarded nearly all the way down with planks from about an inch and a half to two inches thick; and at the bottom were found a coin of the usurper Allectus, a boat-hook, and a bucket handle. Allectus, it may be remembered, was defeated and slain by the Præfect Asclepiodotus, in the year 297. At Honey Lane, under some Saxon remains, were found a few more Roman coins, one of

* See No. IX. p. 167.

which was of Trajan, and another of Allectus. In Bread Street, besides some richly figured Samian vases, and some of the circular earthen pans which have commonly been held to be mortaria, or triturating instruments, but which Mr. Smith conceives to have more probably been used for cooking in, were obtained some specimens of what are called " paintings from the walls of Roman dwellings," but which seem to have been in fact merely coloured designs with which the walls were embellished, in something of the same style with the patterns on our modern paper-hangings. Even as such, however, they were objects of the highest curiosity. Unfortunately, they were greatly injured. "They exhibit," says Mr. Smith, "great freshness of colours when first brought to the air, and washed free from dirt, but soon vary and fade, so as in a short time to afford but a faint idea of their original beauty. The prevalent colours on the specimens I obtained were yellow, white, red, and green: some have a border of white circles, and some alternate borders of white and green on a red ground, while others exhibited traces of flowers or fanciful designs." Such designs, however, can hardly be considered as belonging to the same class with the varied and spirited delineations exhibited by the frescos in many of the houses of Pompeii-which are really pictures in the highest and truest sense.

Some of the most interesting of the Roman antiquities recently found have been obtained from the bed of the Thames; for water, in its effectual exclusion of the great corroder, the common atmospheric air, is in some respects a still better preserver than a thick covering of earth, which, if it protects the articles deposited in it from some dangers and injurious influences, acts upon many of them with peculiar powers of its own almost as virulent and destructive. There is in the British Museum a silver Harpocrates, about two inches and a half in height, which was found in the bed of the river in 1825, and presented to the Museum by Messrs. Rundle and Bridge, of Ludgate Hill. It is supposed to have been worn as an amulet, or by a priest as his ensign of office, being suspended by a chain of gold, very delicately wrought, which crosses the image in front, and passes through a strong rivet at the back. Many imperial coins were also found, and so deposited, it has been stated, across the bed of the river, as to afford a strong confirmation to the opinion that there must have been a passage over the Thames by a bridge in the time of the Romans. And since the completion of the new bridge, a number of bronzes were found in January 1837 in its neighbourhood by some men employed in ballast-heaving, of which Mr. Smith has given an interesting account in another paper in the Archæologia. One of them represents a priest of Cybele; another the God Mercury; the third appears to be a fragment of a Jupiter; the fourth, which is also mutilated, is an Apollo, of remarkable beauty; the fifth, representing Atys, is of coarser workmanship than the others-it was found at Barnes among gravel taken from the spot where the others had been found. Mr. Smith conceives that the Mercury, the Apollo, and the Atys, were probably the penates of some opulent Roman family residing in London-and that they were not lost, but thrown into the Thames, after they had been intentionally mutilated—the injuries they have received being apparently such as could hardly have been the effect of accident. Such iconoclastic procedures were common with the early converts to

* Archæologia, vol. xxviii. pp. 38—46.