so far as they go, are announced in an article full of the low and imperfect conception of the episcopal office which has too long prevailed at the India House. The authorities of that noble Establishment have often shown themselves second to no other statesmen in breadth of political views, and in courage to carry their conclusions into action. They have freed themselves, also, from many terrors and prejudices which once clouded their sagacity in matters of religion. When will they apply their wonted intelligence to realize the manifold advantages of a genuine Episcopate, in developing energies to which statesmen can never be indifferent, though governments and armies can neither elicit nor direct them?]

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ART. III.--Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. By GEORGE DENNIS. London: John Murray. 1848.

IN these days of Handbooks' and easy travelling, classical inquiries are every year gaining popularity: and topics which half a century ago were confined to the antiquarian or the scholar, have now little reason to complain of the want of public sympathy, if presented in a tolerably attractive form. A happy effort of enterprise redeemed from the sleep of ages Herculaneum and Pompeii: and the genius of Bulwer, faithful to antiquity without pedantry, soon filled with glowing images of the past the tenantless mansions of the Cities of the Dead. Instantly the theme of his story fascinated the public eye. Several years afterwards the discovery of the Etruscan tombs opened a new page in the history of nations. The wonderful immunity from decay enjoyed, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, by these brilliant sepulchral portraitures of ancient civilization, entranced that numerous class of our fellow-countrymen whom every summer sends to roam over the fair domains of Tuscany and the Papal States.

We must preface that it is not our intention to delay the reader with any disquisition upon that hitherto insoluble enigma, the origin of the Etruscan race. The existing materials for such a discussion have already been exhausted in two elaborate essays in the Quarterly Review: and, since Mr. Dennis's publication, no fresh light has been thrown upon the language, the only satisfactory key to the extraction of the people. Not, however, from any want of antiquarian zeal. Independently of the three classic tongues, the Ethiopic, the Egyptian, the Arabic, the Coptic, the Chinese, the Celtic, the Basque, the Anglo-Saxon, the Teutonic and the Runic have been ransacked in vain. We have, however, every expectation of enlightenment from a chapter on Etruria,' promised by the Chevalier Bunsen, in his forthcoming work upon the Philosophy of Languages. The latest results of comparative philology upon this mysterious question will be there collectively reviewed; including, we believe, the results of Dr. Freund's recent mission from the Berlin Academy of Science to Rhætia, in the course of which he discovered from 1,000 to 1,500 words irreducible to Celtic, Germanic, or Romaic roots. The adoption of this branch of research by a scholar of European celebrity will be hailed as a happy augury of success by the lovers of Etruscan

antiquity; and we shall hope to present to our readers the fruits of his Excellency's learned labours, as soon as they issue from the press.

Mrs. Hamilton Gray's contributions to the study of Etruscan Archæology undoubtedly deserved their popularity. That lady had the merit of introducing Etruria to the notice of English travellers, and of lending fascination, by the graces of a lively and imaginative style, to a subject unattractive to the general reader. But the value of her labours to the learned world was impaired by numerous defects, both positive and negative, which it has been the task of a subsequent author to remedy and supply. Want of sound scholarship and research threw her unreservedly open to the strong Transalpine prejudices of the Italian literati, to whose bigoted dictates she passively surrendered; her inquiries, too, were partial in their scope: many sites of high interest she left untouched: to say nothing of the later discoveries at Veii, Vetulonia, and Sovana, which we shall presently describe, and which invest Mr. Dennis's pages with attractions of their own. Many of her descriptions were written, not from notes registered on the spot, but from memory, by her own fireside, and can plead no exemption from inaccuracy,' the usual fate of such performances. Unfamiliar, too, with classical usages and manners, she is frequently by no means a reliable interpreter of scenes depicted on the walls of those venerable tombs. An instance of this occurs in her delineation of the Grotta Querciola at Tarquinii, where, in spite of the evident amorous abandon of a fair Etruscan reclining on the festive couch, marking the hetara to the scholar's eye, Mrs. Gray discerns in the figure only an afflicted mother consoled by her remaining son.'

Mr. Dennis's pretensions to fill the vacant field are assuredly of no ordinary character. Long distinguished as a contributor to the journals of the Archæological Institute at Rome, he has combined with deep classical and antiquarian lore a gallant spirit of adventurous enterprise, and a warm sensibility to the beauties of Italian scenery, which cannot fail to recommend his brilliant panoramas to all the votaries of Nature in that glorious land. Unlike his fellow-countrymen, who rarely depart, in search of antiquities, from high-roads and beaten tracks, he emulates the classic zeal which proved fatal to Müller in Boeotia: often, as he tells us, reclining on the top of a tomb, with his body hanging half over its face, clinging for support to some projection of the rock, or some friendly bough, while he endea

Witness the plate portraying the paintings in the Grotta del Triclinio at Tarquinii, very indifferent in fidelity of outline, and incorrect in colour throughout.

vours to feel his way through some inscription or relief: spending whole weeks among the tombs of Tarquinii, and plunging, without even the luxury of a guide, into the lone and devious wilds of the Maremma, unappalled alike by its reputed pestilential air, and the prospect of sleepless nights and the coarsest fare in some villanous osteria. In his work-the fruit of several Italian tours between the years 1842 and 1847-he had at first projected the unambitious design of a Guide to those who would become personally acquainted with the extant remains of Etruscan civilization. But the reader will not regret that, in the course of execution, the author soon overstepped the modest limits of a Handbook, thereby converting his volumes into a valuable repository of classical and antiquarian knowledge; while his original aim has been redeemed by specific information on routes and conveyances, and the relative merit of inns, always depreciated in cheapness and comfort wherever the main stream of English travellers has flowed. His promised volumes on Sicily, if characterised by a similar spirit, must needs prove an acceptable supplement to the meagre lucubrations of Capt. Smith and St. Non on that unexplored yet not uninteresting region.

Independently, then, of those more recent discoveries which might fairly claim some notice at our hands, apology, we trust, can scarcely be needful for the subject of the following pages. And we shall gladly embrace the opportunity to touch upon a few salient problems of Etruscan institutions, both social and religious, which have not, perhaps, as yet met with all the attention they deserve: to indicate the actual state of knowledge and research in this province of ancient lore: and to point to the numerous veins in the vast classical mine, still fruitful in the promise of virgin ore to antiquarian enterprise and learning.

If one circumstance pleads more strongly than another in favour of the adoption of those researches by our own countrymen, it is the mercenary Vandalism so prevalent in Italy, wherever the fate of antiquities is concerned.

If,' says Mr. Denuis, a relic of antiquity be convertible into cash, whether by sale or by exhibition, it meets with due attention; but when this is not the case, nobody cares to preserve it-the very terms in which it is mentioned are those of contempt-it is il pontaccio, or le maraccia, and worth nothing: though, if it can be turned to any account, however base, the most hoary antiquity will avail it nought. Stones are torn from the spots they have occupied eighteen or twenty centuries, where they served as corroborations of history, as elucidations of national customs, as evidences of long-extinct civilization, and as landmarks to the antiquary— they are torn thence for conversion to some vile purpose of domestic or general convenience. Surely governments which profess to reverence memorials of the past should put a stop to such barbarous spoliations and perversions, or the ancient ways will ere long be untraceable, save by the

Itineraries of Antoninus or Theodosius, or by the records of modern archæologists.'-Vol. i. p. 77.

We cannot, of course, expect to enlist in antiquarian and classical pursuits those among the English visitors to the Eternal City who seem determined to transplant the pleasures of Melton and Ascot to the Italian soil: whose fondest triumph it is to startle the august and solemn scene with their races and foxhunts, awakening unwonted clamours among the sepulchres of the Appian Way, and the ruined aqueducts of the Campagna. But there are not wanting among us spirits kindred to those of Layard, Fellowes, Curzon, Gell: spirits bent on venturous enterprise and exciting discovery and only deterred by the fallacious, yet far from uncommon belief, that Italy is a country so thoroughly beaten by travellers, that it no longer offers a fair hope of novelty in research.

'Yet the truth is,' says our author, 'that vast districts of the peninsula, especially the Tuscan, Řoman, and Neapolitan States, are to the archæologist a terra incognita. Every monument on the high roads is familiar, even to the fireside traveller; but how little is known of the bye-ways! Of the swarms of travellers who yearly traverse the country between Florence and Rome, not one in a hundred leaves the beaten track to visit objects of antiquity. Now and then an excursion is made to Chiusi; or a few may run from Civita Vecchia to Corneto, to visit the painted tombs: but not a tithe of that small number continue their route to Vulci or Toscanellastill fewer to Cosa. Parties occasionally make a picnic to the site of Veii; but, considering the proximity to Rome, the convenience of transit, and the intense interest of the spot, the number is very limited.

'The wide district on the frontiers of the Tuscan and Roman States is so rarely trodden by the foot of a traveller, even of an antiquary, that it can be no matter of surprise that relics of ancient art should exist there, utterly unknown to the world; gazed at only with stupid astonishment by the peasantry, or else more stupidly unheeded. In a country almost depopulated by malaria, inhabited only by shepherds and husbandmen, the most striking monuments may remain for ages unnoticed. Thus it was with the magnificent temples of Pæstum. Though they had reared their mighty columns to the sunbeams for at least three-and-twenty centuries, isolated in an open plain where they were visible for many a league, and standing on the sea-shore, where they must have served for ages as a landmark to the mariner; yet their very existence had been forgotten by the world, till in the middle of the last century a Neapolitan painter discovered them afresh, rescuing them from an oblivion of fifteen hundred years.'—Vol. i, p. 481.

But surely the valuable discoveries at Veii, Vetulonia, and Sovana, all made since Mrs. Gray's visit to Etruria,-to which we will now invite the reader's attention, will supply a powerful incentive to fresh investigation.

The greater part of the land around Veii, once the mightiest of Etruscan cities, belongs to the Queen of Sardinia, who lets it out in the season to excavators, mostly dealers in antiquities at