licate marble, sparkles with every variety of colour. But perhaps all this is mere show. The teeth which are contained in the little box of Mastiche have no real occasion for tooth powder, dentifrice, or pearl essence. These are easily placed with all their beauty in the hollow jaws, and no powder or brush can do any good to the few and ragged remnants of the aboriginal stumps. The truth is, that the invention of ivory teeth and golden sprigs is as old as the twelve tables.*

Martial often speaks in a manner which proves the universality of the use of false teeth in his times; for instance, in the following, when he introduces the tooth-powder as speaking;

Quid mecum est tibi? me Puella sumat,
Emptos non voleo polire dentes.

The goddess Fashion had in these times not only as many worshippers, but was adored by them with the same incense and morning offerings as now. To many a Sabina of that day a portrait-painter might have made the same excuse which Lord Chesterfield has put in the mouth of Liotard, "I never copy any body's work but my own and God Almighty's."+

Let us hear the address of Martial to one of his own countrywomen: Cum sis ipsa domi mediâque ornere Suburâ Fiant absentes et tibi Galla Comæ Nec dentes aliter quam Serica nocte reponas, Et jaceas centum condita pyxidibus. Nec tecum facies tua dormiat, innuis illo Quod tibi prolatum est mane, supercilio. Sixteen centuries later, La Bruyere speaks much in the same way of his countrywomen: "I have collected the voices of the men, and they were almost all of my opinion, that it is almost as odious a thing to see a woman with white lead on her face, as with false teeth in her gums, or waxen plumpers in her cheeks. They protested, that before God and man, no part of this deceit and treachery could be laid to their charge."

Cicero de legg. ii. 24. It is forbidden to bury gold with the dead, but where an express exception is made concerning those who were buried with false teeth fastened with gold in this way.

+ The World, No 105.
Caractères, vol. i. p. 153.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRESSING-BOX OF ASTERIA, A ROMAN LADY OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, FOUND IN THE YEAR 1794.

"COULD we but see one of the rougeboxes in the Museum of Portici ! Has no dressing-box been found among all their excavations? Learned men used to be buried with a copy of Homer or Cicero under their heads-did no fair and luxurious Domina ever take her toilette apparatus with her to her grave?" So we can easily imagine one of our fair readers to express herself, after perusing the first scene of our Sabina.

By a happy accident, there was discovered, some years ago, the complete toilette of a Roman lady of the first rank, in a tomb of the imperial city. It is true, that the age of this precious monument is some few centuries later than that of our Sabina; and it is also true, that our Herculanean lady can scarcely be supposed to have rivalled the magnificent equipage of the consular lady Asteria; but, nevertheless, we may gain at least some light from examining that interesting relic of antiquity. But first a few words on the mode of its discovery.

In the spring of 1794, some labourers digging for a well in the garden of a monastery, not far from the Saburra, at the foot of the Equiline hill, canie upon a large subterranean chamber filled with crumbled ruins, from which, after some time, they succeeded in extricating a chest filled with a variety of ancient articles of dress. At first, however, this discovery was looked upon as so unimportant, that government, although legally entitled to all things so dug up, made over the prize, without difficulty, to the persons in whose garden it had been found. These sold the whole to a German connoisseur, the Baron von Schellersheim, then residing in Rome, who was indefatigable in picking up all antique rarities discovered during his stay; and who, upon a closer investigation, had no difficulty in finding, that he had thus got into his pos session one of the most precious remains of Roman antiquity which had ever been dug from the earth, both by reason of its materials and its workmanship. He shortly after shewed

his prize to the learned Abbate Visconti, at that time inspector of the Museum Po-Clementinum, who made its value known to the world by a letter addressed to the Prelate Jomaglia. The whole of the articles found with this casket are of massy silver, and their total weight amounts to one thousand and twenty-nine ounces. The whole pieces of wrought silver of antiquity (coin excepted) which have as yet been discerned, would scarcely equal the weight of this single treasure; an moreover, a very great proportion of ts component parts are silver-gilt. The other important remains of this kind which have been found have all been in single pieces, such as, the silver shield found in the Rhone not far from Avignon; another shield found in the Arve, near Genf; a third shield, which has been described in the 9th volume of the Memoires de Litterature; the great silver key at the Vatican, and the Aldaburian Patera, which has been described by the Abbate Braschi. But however great the metallic weight of some of these single pieces may be, no one of them can be put into any kind of comparison with this casket and its contents, by any one who has the smallest tincture of true antiquarian learning. Here are to be seen at once, almost all the articles in use in the toilette of a distinguished Roman lady of the fourth century; the history of luxury and fashions possesses no monument which can be compared with it.

The most remarkable piece is the silver toilette, or dressing-box itself, two feet in length, a foot and a half in breadth, and one foot in height. The form, the workmanship, the figures upon its exterior, are all of the most elaborate and exquisite kind. The quadrangular box consists of two equal parts, of which the one forms the box, properly speaking, and the other the lid. The box is thickest at the place where these join; from that point upwards and downwards it is shaped in a pyramidal fashion; and it terminates both above and below in a small oblong tablet. The earlier taste of antiquity would have rejected this form as too artificial; but it is to be seen in several lids of urns, &c. of the age of Constantine, among others, in the two urns supposed to have contained the ashes of St Helena

and Constantia. As to the destination of this box there can remain no doubt, after the slightest examination of the relievos and inscriptions with which it is covered. Upon the tablet, at the top, which may be supposed to be the most honourable place, there is a halflength relievo of a man and a woman. The lady stands on the right of her husband, and holds in her hand a half unfolded roll. This is often to be seen on old monuments where a marriage is the subject of representation, and the roll has been supposed by some of the most erudite antiquarians, to be the marriage-contract. It is probable that the box itself was the wedding gift of the bridegroom to his bride. The head-dress of the lady is elevated to a great height, with curls and ringlets after the fashion commonly met with in the coins of the age of the Empress Helena. The bridegroom has a short curled beard, like the heads in the coins of Maximus, Julius, and Eugenius.— Over his shoulders he has a mantle, (the chlamys) which is fastened, as usual, above the right arm, with a clasp of considerable size. The two busts are surrounded with a common border of sufficiently intelligible description. It is a garland of myrtle twigs, held at either extremity by a flying genius-a symbol of the unity of the pair.

Three of the four declining sides of the lid are adorned with beautiful representations of the goddess of love. One of these is particularly charming, wherein Venus is pictured as making her progress over the calm waves, attended by a group of Tritons and a whole procession of Cupids. One of the Tritons leans forward, and presents to the goddess an oval mirror; a group often seen, with some little variation, on ancient gems and medals.

ed to military dress, had, in the 3d and 4th The chlamys, originally entirely confincenturies, almost superseded the use of the proper toga. The clasps were continually increasing in size, and in elaborate workmanship. See Rhodius, de acia c. 5. p. 56 and Smetius, Antiquitates Neomag. p. 86.

The Venus Marina, a favourite subject both of sculptors and painters. A fine De Nupt. Hon. et Mar. seems to have passage in the beautiful poem of Claudian, been composed with reference to some such representation as the present. See v. 151, &c.

Next to the pyxis itself, the most remarkable piece is a silver capsula, which, from the chains appended to it, appears to have been carried about on the arm. It is one foot in height, and is, at the base, one foot and two or three inches broad. It is a regular polygon of sixteen sides, which corners are all rounded off into a circle where the lid is inserted. The first glance is sufficient to suggest the resemblance which this bears to the receptacles of book-rolls which are often to be seen on ancient monuments, for example, at the feet of the Muses, or wrapped in the folds of the toga; although in general the form of these is either square, or, in the decline of taste, cylindrical or circular. The capsula was used by the Romans, in travelling, for the accommodation of a small library; and in their own apartments, for the purpose of preserving books of an unusual value. The figures in relievo, on the sixteen sides of this capsula, harmonize very well with this idea of its destination. These are the nine Muses, eight of them around the capsula, each alternate surface being occupied by a garland of flowers. The ninth Muse is on the flat summit of the whole, Erato, it is probable, the Muse that united love and poetry, and therefore the fittest to preside over the dressingtable of a beauty. The other Muses are indeed distinguished by their appropriate emblemata.

On one of the intermediate spaces there is a lock and bolt, for the security of the precious rolls. But why all this learned apparatus at the toilette of a Roman lady? Might the whole capsula not be meant for holding loveletters and billets-doux? For this no such formal preparation had been necessary. The safest place for such deposits was in the girdle, or below the bosom-band (the strophium), close to the heart. But there were learned ladies among the Romans as well as among ourselves; and why might not Asteria be a Blue Stocking? We have Ovid's authority, that the Roman ladies were as fond of Menander as ever the French Bas Bleus were of their Florian or Picard. Even of romances, at that time called Milesian tales, there was no dearth.-But luckily there is no need for so much conjecture. The capsula's contents have been preserved, as well as itself.

We have all read of the astonishment of a young heir, who, in tumbling over the library of his grandfather, shook from the centre of one of the fathers a purse of beautiful louis d'or. Our fair readers will guess what was the astonishment of the worthy antiquarian, Baron von Schellersheim, who lifted the lid of his capsula librorum with the expectation of drawing forth some precious fragments of Menander or Sapho, and found nothing but five salve-boxes and essence-vials. In the midst of the capsula there is a copper tablet with five openings, one of a larger, and four around it of a smaller size. In these openings, originally, no doubt, intended for MSS., were found the receptacles of pomatums and lotions. Alexander threw out the balsams from the casket of Darius, and inserted the Iliad in their stead: our Asteria followed quite a different course; with her the books gave place to the essences. But our readers must not be too severe on Asteria. We have ourselves seen modern books, and pretty books too, which, on examination, turned out to be snuff-boxes-or counterboxes; and Prince Potenikin, it is well known, had a number of booksthe chief objects of his attentionwhich were filled with Russian bank assignats.* We remember to have read of the surprise of a German traveller, who opened a large and splendid quarto in the apartment of a French lady, and found it to contain-the very reverse of what occupied the capsula of Asteria.

Besides these two principal pieces, there are a variety of lesser articles appertaining to the Trousseau, or, as the Roman jurisconsults would have called it, the Mundus Muliebris of Asteria; several small silver paterae and ewers, with ciphers on them; one beautiful little vase covered with Arabesques, without doubt for nard or incense; several small toilette-spoons for dropping out essences, or tasting sweetmeats or liqueurs. There is also a silver hollow hand for holding a taper; for the ancients always preferred natural forms to artificial, and hands of this kind are seen on all kinds of monuments,what a contrast to some of our clumsy

and tasteless inventions. The last piece is a human head of silver, belonging to the awning of a litter, and four sitting figures of exquisite beauty, with screw-ends-for ornamenting the extremities of the poles, by which Asteria's palanquin was carried.

All this was within the chest. Close by it there were found, at the same time, two little pieces, whose form and execution prove them to have belonged to a more elegant age than that of Asteria. The first is a bronze vessel, the only thing of that metal in the whole collection. It is an ewer, in the form of a female head, having a double row of pearls round the forehead, and the hair interwoven with bandlets. Nothing is more common than vessels of this kind in this beautiful form. The swelling above the head is borrowed from the Caryatides, and forms commonly the neck of the vessel. It is worthy of notice, that the eyes, and other small ornaments of this vessel, are of silver inlaid on the bronze,-a fashion very common even in the case of the marble statues of antiquity, although not exactly reconcileable with our ideas of simplicity.*

But the most beautiful of all is unquestionably a large silver patera, in the midst of which there is an exquisite representation of Venus rising from the sea-the Venus Anadyomene.

" Æquoreo madidas quæ premit imbre comas."+

The very handle of this patera is a dorned with a most graceful carving of Adonis, the lover of Venus, represented en heros, with his lance, but having, in token of his passion for the chace, a favourite dog at his feet.

What might not our goldsmiths, porcelain manufacturers, and decoration-artists, learn even from the smallest, and apparently least important, parts of antique workmanship? What use might they not make of those natural forms, those heads, hands, paws, serpents, &c. so endlessly, and yet so gracefully, introduced by the artists of

the Greeks?

• The Colossal Pallas of Phidias had precious stones in the eyes. See Plin. xxxiii. 3. 20.

See also Visconti Busti di Museo Pio-clementino, vol. vi. p. 11. and the Monumens Antiques du Musée Napoleon, lib. ix. p. 16. The custom was of oriental or Egyptian origin.

+Ovid, ex. Pont. iv. 1. 29.

THESE are the memoirs of an unfortunate veteran of the stage, who is now concluding a long life of unsuccessful labour by an old age of penury and wretchedness. The theatrical talents of Mr Everard, it appears, were never sufficient to maintain him in the first walks of his profession; and he has ever been one of those obscure but useful performers, on whom devolves most of the drudgery of the stage, but little of the applause. The work (as the memoirs of actors generally are) is extremely entertaining, and contains much amusing anecdote and green-room scandal. There is no profession so much separated from the pursuits of the rest of the world as that of an actor. What is our pleasure is their business; and the public, who are generally kept before the curtain, are always glad to get a peep behind it. We love to mingle with those whom we have hitherto seen only in an assumed character, and for a time to behold them in their own. We can assure those, therefore, who wish to become acquainted with all the petty arts, bickerings, and jealousies of the green-room, that they will have their curiosity amply gratified by the perusal of the present volume.

If autobiography is excusable in any man, it is surely so in a case like the present, where the unfortunate narrator only resorts to it as a last endeavour to derive from his past misfortunes something which may enable him to sink in peace and comfort to the grave. At the advanced age Mr Everard has now attained, this is all he can expect, and what we most sincerely trust he will be enabled to obtain.

It is not our intention to enter on a review of the present work, which, however, is sufficiently creditable both to his principles and his talents. We shall, however, give a summary view of his unfortunate career, and extract from it a few theatrical anecdotes, from

Memoirs of an Unfortunate Son of Thespis; being a Sketch of the Life of Edward Cape Everard, Comedian, Twentythree Years of the Theatre-Royal, DruryLane, London, and Pupil of the late David Garrick, Esq.; with Reflections, Remarks, and Anecdotes. Written by Himself. Royal 18mo. pp. 274. Edinburgh. 1818.