scribes it, it is no wonder that not only the lattice-work and fhutters of the windows were blown down, and by that means the windows made more lightfome; but that holes fhould be made too in the clay walls, which Sceparnio jocofely dignified with the appellation of windows. His mafter even compares them to the holes of a fieve'. Though then Plautus painted with very ftrong and coarfe colours, his representation of the effects of a violent ftorm of wind on an houfe in Cyrene, on the fea-fhore, however ludicrous, is not at all unnatural, but perfectly conformable to the description of Irwin's hotel at Cofire. The editor of the Dauphin edition takes no notice of this difficulty, arifing from the mention of reeds in the cafe of an Eastern house, unless Patrick has curtailed his notes; and he makes the light thrown into the house to refer to the blowing off the tiles, or covering of the roof, inftead of referring that ex preffion to the carrying away of the fhutters, or perhaps the lattice-work from the windows, both of which, it is very well known, are commonly used in the houses of thofe coun tries. The making the windows more lightfome will appear in a still stronger light, if it should A&t. i. 2. * Illuftrioris fecit.] Id eft, fecit ædes clariores, dejectis tegulis. be be supposed they were closed with some semitransparent substance. This fuppofition is by no means necessary, but might, poffibly, be meant by Sceparnio. Thus Niebuhr, in the 2d tome of his voyages in the countries near Arabia, gives this account of the houses of Bombay, which he visited in his Eastern tour'. "The English (there) make use of glass in "their windows; where there is no glafs they use very thin fhells, enchased in wood "work, in rows, which make those apart"ments very obfcure. However thefe win"dows are better in the time of rain, than "lattices of wood or iron, or fhutters, as the "firft do not entirely keep out the rain, and "the last prevent the light entering into the apartments." N° V. I had occafion, in a preceding volume, juft to touch on the vats ufed in the Eaft for making their cheese; I would here fet down Dr. Shaw's account of them more diftinctly, as affording a proper comment on a paffage of Tibullus, of which the Doctor has taken no notice, though he has frequently referred to claffic writers in other cafes. The paffage of Tibullus is in the 3d elegy of his 2d book. "Ipfe Deus folitus ftabulis expellere vaccas, Have any of the editors of Tibullus furnifhed fo inftructive a note on thefe lines, as the following paragraph from Dr. Shaw's Travels'? Here the Sheep and the goats "contribute alfo to the dairies, particularly "in the making of cheese. Inftead of run"net, especially in the fummer season, they "turn the milk with the flowers of the great"beaded thifile, or wild artichoke; and put 86 ting the curds afterwards into Jmall bajkets "made with rushes, or with the dwarf palm, "they bind them up close, and prefs them. The cheese-vat of Barbary, and that of Tibullus, feem to be perfectly the fame; and Dr. Shaw at the fame time fhows, that the Roman poet has very properly used the plural, when he spoke of their way of coagulating milk, fince they use a greater variety than our dairy-women do-not only runnet, but the flowers of the wild artichoke, to which may be added churn-milk, which, according to de la Roque, is used by the Bedouin Arabs. N° VI. There was a fort of cups ufed by the ancient Romans, called murrine, which were reckoned extremely precious by them: fo much so, that the modefty of Auguftus was rendered indifputable, according to Suetonius', by his retaining only one murrine cup at the taking Alexandria in Ægypt, of all the royal utenfils there, and his foon after melting down all the veffels of gold, even thofe of most common use. The editor of the Dauphin edition of Suetonius, has given us a note of confiderable length upon this paffage. In it he tells us, that Pliny believed the murra, out of which these cups were formed, was a stone, which he ranked among the other precious ftones; that Seneca and Martial feem to have been of the fame opinion but that Jofeph Scaliger was induced, by a paffage of Propertius, to believe that the murra was the matter of which our porcelain veffels are formed. The doubt seems to remain ftill in the minds of the learned, who appear to be rather inclined to the notion entertained by Pliny: for Ainfworth, in his very accurate Dictionary, explains the word murra in these terms: "A ftone of divers colours, "clear as crystal, of which they made cups "to drink in, or, as fome, porcelain dishes. " The paffage in Propertius, which led Scaliger to believe porcelain was meant, is as follows: "Seu quæ palmiferæ mittunt venalia Theba, Lib. iv. El. 5, v. 25, 26. Four things are evidently supposed by Propertius in the laft line-that these murrine. veffels were earthen ware, or the production of pottery; that they were extremely precious; that this valuable matter was generally, if not always, fo far as he knew, formed into cups; and that he believed them to have been made in Parthia. of One thing that have inclined many may the learned to fuppofe these murrine cups were not porcelain, may have been, it's being much more commonly called china, or china ware: being fenfible that the knowledge that the Romans had of the remote countries of the Eaft did not reach to China, or near that country; and fuppofing that, 'till very lately, the art of making porcelain was no where known but in the Chinese empire. Propertius however fuppofes, thefe murrine cups were made by the potters of Parthia. Sir John Chardin has informed us accordingly, that very fine porcelain was made in Perfia, in the last century; and, as he elsewhere tells us the Perfians are not very ready at adopting modern arts', we have reason to be Voyages, tome 2, chap. 17. C 2 lieve |