sort of turban, which occurs in many images of this God, and in some portraits of antient Physicians. The features, beard, and hair, though resembling those of Jupiter, have not bis majestic character. (Visconti, p. 5.) The fine Hygeia in the collection of Mr. Hope, which the Author of these Remarks illustrated, has a bandage round the head. The assimilation of features to Jupiter is presumed to have been founded upon the antient opinion, that the son more often resembled the grandfather than the father. The finest known head of Esculapius is at the Villa Albani. XII. PHEDRA AND HIPPOLITUS. A bas-relief. This marble once formed the face of a tomb. The story is represented in two acts. On the left, the son of Theseus rejects the seductions of Phedra and her Nurse. The Temple of Diana, in the back-ground, alludes to the love of Hippolitus for the chase and the purity of his manners. On the right, the same hero is hunting the wild boar of Philius, of which Seneca, the Tragedian, has made mention. (Visconti, p.5.) Bas-reliefs thus deDominated are common; but, as it was the Nurse, not Phedra, who made the declaration, (See Monum. ined. ii. 102. Pitt. Ercol. 7. iii. tav. 15. Bartollant. tav. 6), and there have been numerous wrong appropriations of marbles to this story, it may be said of Visconti's account, without wholly rejecting it, that it is not clearly beyond doubt a Phedra and Hippolitus, though supported by the high name of Visconti. XIII. THE INDIAN BACCHUS. A Colossal Bust. The mythological Conqueror of the Indies. (Visconti, p. 5.) These figures are quite common; and occur on all sorts of monuments. Bacchus (says Mythology) let his beard grow during his Indian expedition, and therefore was so represented, when it was intended to depict him as Conqueror. The figure was intended to combine the ideal beauty of manhood with youth. The bearded Bacchus of the Hamilton Vases (vol. i.) is among the best. XIV. VASE, in form of a CRATERA, adorned with masks, Sileni and Fauns, and other Bacchic emblems of excellent execution. It is engraved by Piranesi. (Vases, pl. 24.) It is placed upon an hexagonal altar, of which the three largest faces are concavo, and the three smaller alternating. Upon one of the first is a priest, crowned, and in Greek costume, making offerings upon a small altar, placed between two laurels. It is probably a quindecimvir; for this was the appellation given by the Romans to a college of fifteen priests, who preserved the Sibylline oracles, and were attached to the worship of Apollo. They wore a Greek costume. The tripod of this God, surmounted by its cover (cor-' tina), upon which is a raven, was one of the attributes of the same priesthood. The crown of wheat-ears is a symbol of the Fratres Arvales. These two priesthoods were probably united in the same personage. This altar is remarkable for delicacy and richness of execution, as well as perfect conservation. (Visconti, p. 6.) The Sibylline Books were certainly in the custody of the Quindecimviri; but there is an attribution of the symbols of Apollo, and the Fratres Arvales, apparently forced in to furnish a plausible account. Possibly the altar commemorates a Vow to Apollo by one of the Fratres Arvales. XV. THE SAUROCTONOS. A Statue. Praxiteles worked, in bronze, a young Apollo shooting au arrow at a lizard rampant, whence the appellation, according to Pliny, of Sauroctonos, or lizard-killer. Many imitations of this celebrated statue have reached our æra. None is more eutire than this. It is of Parian marble. It came, as well as the whole Borghese collection, from Rome to this Museum. (Visconti, p. 7.) Winckelman contends, that all these statues denote Apollo impuber in boyhood; and they have the symbol of youth, legs cros sed. See Hist. de l'Art. VI. 2. See too Monum. Ant. Ined. No. 4, for one of the Villa Borghese Sauroctonoi; for there were two in that collection. XVI. THE DANCERS. Bas-relief. Five young women, holding each other by the hand, dance around a temple of Corinthian architecture. They give an idea of those choirs, where the chaunting of hymns and the dance were united to embellish the feasts of Paganism. (Visconti, p. 7.) Temples of the Corinthian order were appropriated to Venus, Flora, Proserpine, and the Water-Nymphs, because the elegance of the foliage, flowers, and volutes, which accompa nied this style, barmonized with the tender and delicate beauty of these Goddesses. 1820.] Antient Sculptures.-Antient Oak at Nannau. Goddesses. Whenever a new worship was established, a particular dance was invented and appropriated to it. Orpheus, who was a real person, travelled into Egypt, and brought from thence, among the then barbarous Greeks, this, with other superstitious customs. Such dances were called sacred, and there were particular figures appropriated for the dances of the Bona Dea, the Saturnalia, and the first of May, or Floralia, to which, from the dancing round in a circle, this bas-relief appears to allude; as now retained around the May Pole. XVII. OFFERINGS. A Bas-Relief. Two females, of the same style and sculpture as the last, are represented in the act of adorning, with garlands, an altar in the form of a candelabrum, which burns before a Temple, whilst a third is offering the first fruits of the season. The Satyrs, sculptured upon the base of the candelabrum, make us conclude that these offerings were dedicated to Bacchus. This basrelief, as well as its appendage, has been engraved in the Admiranda. Thus Visconti, p. 8. The custom of using flowers, as emblems of rejoicing, is antient, beyond correct knowledge of the origin but, as this bas-relief is similar to that engraved in Montfaucon (iii. 198. ed. Humphreys), it is sufficient to state, that the Temple is probably a Porticus of the House. The allusion to the Bacchanalia, privately celebrated, is manifest. XVIII. THE GENIUS OF ETERNAL REPOSE. A Statue. This Genius standing, crowned with flowers, the arms elevated and laid upon the head, and the back leaning against a firtree, seems to express by his attitude the repose of the dead, or eternal sleep. The bas-reliefs of tombs often offer similar figures, but this is the only one en ronde bosse, which has reached our age. The bas-relief fitted into the pedestal represents Bacchus. (Visconti, p. 8.) The arms behind the head always denote repose, and the Antients never represented Death by skeletons. The Genii of Sleep were commonly represented with crossed legs and inverted torches. Upon modern tombs, as on the antient, in Boissard (p. V. p. 115) two occur. one signifies simply nocturnal sleep; and the other, eternal; in allusion to the twia brethren, Sleep and Death. 199 Luckily, they are not understood, or the Pagan discordancy to Christian doctrine would be disgusting. It is very dubious, however, whether this statue does refer to Eternal Sleep; because the statue is erect, crowned with flowers, and leans against a pine; the leaves of which characterized Pans, Agipans, and followers of Bacchus. (See Caylus, iii. p. 339.) We have drunken Bacchuses crowned, standing, but with the hand behind the head, to denote that they were overcome with sleepiness, through intoxication, in Beger and Maffei; and Montfaucon (i. 229) quotes an inscription in Gruter, in bonour of Bacchus and Sleep, the preserver of human life. Besides, this statue has none of the usual characteristicks of Genius. These are all the Sculptures which occupy the Vestibule and Arcade of Eutry. Mr. URBAN, Stourhead, March 11. AVING noticed at page 11 of Hyour Magazine for January, an account of the celebrated oak-tree which once stood on the demesne of Sir Robert Vaughan, at Nannau, I beg leave to correct some misstatements in that account, and to relate a curious anecdote. In the mouth of July 1813, I was on a visit to the worthy knight of Merionethshire, when attracted by the very venerable appearance of this tree, and interested by the historical anecdote attached to it by Mr. Pennant; I made a correct drawing of it, in one of the hottest days I ever remember, and on the 27th of July. I departed from the hopsitable mansion of Nannau, early in the morning of the 28th arrived unfortunately a few hours too soon, for at breakfast time the sad news of the downfall of this aged oak was brought to the house, and there was scarcely a breath of air during the whole night to occasion the disaster. It grew within the kitchen-garden wall, and adjoining to it. Wishing to record the memory of this interesting object, I allowed Mr. George Cuitt of Chester, an artist so celebrated for his superior excellence in etching, to copy it-he has succeeded fully in his deline ation of it, and the etching is to be procured of Colnaghi, Cockspurstreet, at the price of a few shillings. I have since had a beautiful drawing executed in water colours from the original design, by Mr. Nicholson; and the kindness of Sir Robert Vaughan has enabled me to procure a suitable illustration of it, in an appropriate frame carved from the wood of the same tree. IN Mr. URBAN, Firsby, March 18. Na late volume of your Maga zine*, a correspondent finding in Bishop Warburton's papers some receipts of rents due to him as Rector of Firsby, in Lincolnshire, would be obliged to the Rector or any neighbouring Clergyman, to inform him whether the Bishop ever was Rector of Firsby, and if he was, when he was instituted to the living and how long he held it. That he was Rector of Firsby, and for many years, is an undoubted fact. But with respect to the time of his institution to the living, or his resignation of it, I am sorry to say, I cannot give your Correspondent any satisfactory accounts. There are many letters from the Bishop in his own hand-writing, in the possession of a lady very advanced in years, in this neighbourhood, whose father was his agent for a considerable period of his incumbency. I looked over these letters in the hope that they might enable me to give the particular information wanted, and any other notices likely to prove acceptable. But they are all very short, and relate almost solely to the business of receiving and remitting his rents. The first of them was written in the year 1745, and the last in 1755, in which last year it is probable he resigned the living; and as the lady abovementioned informed me, in favour of a Mr. Hoyle a relation of his. They are nearly all of them franked by R. Allen, and are dated either from Prior Park, or Bedford-row, London. The remittances are desired to be sent to Mr. Knapton, Bookseller, Ludgatestreet. In a postscript to one of his letters, he speaks of the consternation the people in his neighbourhood *Vol. LXXXVI. Part ii. p. 487. were in, in consequence of the advance of the rebels. In another, though not of the same date, he mentions his having to go up to London to preach at Lincoln's Inn. He seems to have been more inattentive to the temporalities of his living than I was prepared to expect. He tells his agent Mr. Wright (on whom he is perpetually bestowing the most lavish encomiums for his fidelity and industry, and who in truth was a very respectable character) that his former agent and tenants had not only withheld the rent of the glebe from him, but that they had actually bought and sold it one amongst another, and that it was only in consequence of their having quarrelled in dividing the spoils that he came to hear of their villainy. To the spiritual concerns of the parish he seems to have been sufficiently attentive. He repeatedly enjoins Mr. Wright, to whom he entrusted the important task of finding him a Curate whenever one is wanted, to take care that he is of a sober virtuous character, and resident in the parish. On one occasion, it would appear, there had been some small interval of time when, from the want of a Curate, the duty of the parish had not been regularly performed, and that in consequence he received a letter from a person in no wise concerned, complaiming of the matter. With the Bishop's answer, as it is short, and written in that forcible style which characterizes all his writings, I shall conclude this letter: "Sir, "You talk as if you wrote by the direction of I can't tell what gentlemen and clergy.-I cannot think that any who bear either of those names would be so impertinent as to concern themselves in a matter which belongs only to me and my parish. "However, long before your letter came, I wrote to Mr. Wright that I must have a resident Curate of good and irreproachable character. And 1 make no doubt from his care and integrity, but that he will procure one as soon as possible.-You seem to be in a great hurry, but a worthy unexceptionable Curate is not to be got at the shortest warning for residence. "Yours, &c. W. WARBURton. "To Mr. Whyte." THE RECTOR OF FIRSBY. |