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Some burnt leaves of manuscripts, which have been found at Herculaneum, and Pompei, and which scholars at Portici are employed to decipher, are all that remain to give us information of those unhappy victims, whom the Volcano, that thunder-bolt of earth, has destroyed.
They visited Pompei together, the most curious ruin of antiquity. At Rome, seldom any thing is found but the remains of public monuments, and these monuments only retrace the political history of past ages; but at Pompei it is the private life of the ancients which offers itself to the view, such as it was.
We travelled post, and in three days we got to Munich, where I went to lodge at the sign of the "Stag." There I found two young Venetians of the Cantarini family, who had been there some time in company with Count Pompei, a Veronese; but not knowing them, and having no longer any need of depending on recluses for my daily bread, I did not care to pay my respects to them.
COSIMO. You have made me to esteme this arte of warfare almoste as nothyng, and I have supposed it the moste excellentes, and moste honourableste that hath been used: so that if you declare me it not better, I cannot remaine satisfied: For that when it is thesame, that you saie, I knowe not, whereof groweth the glorie of Cesar, of Pompei, of Scipio, of Marcello, and of so many Romaine Capitaines, whiche by fame are celebrated as Goddes.
But in passing near those ashes, which art has succeeded in reanimating, we are afraid to breathe lest a breath should carry away that dust where noble ideas are perhaps still imprinted. The public edifices in the city itself of Pompei, which was one of the least important of Italy, are yet tolerably fine. The luxury of the ancients had almost ever some object of public interest for its aim.
It is forgetfulness alone that debases the soul; but it may find an asylum in the past, when barren circumstances deprive actions of their aim. On leaving Pompei and returning to Portici, Corinne and Lord Nelville were surrounded by the inhabitants, who cried to them loudly to come and see the mountain; so they call Vesuvius. Is it necessary to name it?
The younger patriots, or Young Corsica, as we should say now, perhaps, were represented by their delegate and leader Salicetti, who was chosen as plenipotentiary in Buttafuoco's place, and by Multedo, Gentili, and Pompei as members of the directory. For the moment, however, Paoli was Corsica, and such petty politics was significant only as indicating the survival of counter-currents.
He tells us that "Pompei's dwellings are surprising by their specific littleness," and explains that "Pompei inhabitants, for the habitudes of the climate could allow, lived almost always to the open sky," just as the Naples inhabitants do now. "They got home only to rest a little, to fulfill life wants, to be protected by bad weather.
He said everybody has Roman baths and Pompei baths and he was going to go them one better, so he has an Egyptian bath, the pool itself like the inside of an ancient temple, long vista of great big green columns and a big idol at the end, and the pool all in green marble with lights underneath the water and among the columns, and the water itself just heat of air, so you can't tell where the water leaves off and the air above it begins, hardly, and feel as though you were swimming in air through a green twilight.
Though it treats of the tragical facts with seriousness, it is not with equal gravity that one reads that sixteen years before the Vesuvian eruption "the region had been shaken by strong sismic movements, which induced Pompei inhabitants to forsake precipitately their habitations.
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