storms of thunder and lightning, was the least likely to cultivate this mode of divination. In January, February, and March, is the Egyptian season of rain and tempest; during the rest of the year violent tempests are of comparatively rare occurrence. We are not aware that this science entered into their range of knowledge; but it formed the chief and the distinguishing branch of the Etruscan discipline; and in few countries would it be more necessary to propitiate the Jupiter Elicius-by whose powerful influence the lightning fell harmless in the days of the holy Numa; but the rite being unlawfully performed, struck the royal palace, and consumed the impious Tullus Hostilius. In Italy, particularly in the district of the Apennines, the diviner would find perpetual opportunities of exercising his mysterious art. Micali has himself made the observation, that the ancients have already noticed how much the physical formation of Italy, placed between two seas, renders it peculiarly liable to the generation of thunderstorms, and how much more frequent they are, in fact, there than in other countries.'-(vol. ii. p. 201.) Whether or not the Etruscans, as has been conjectured on good grounds, understood the principle of conductors; still, in an atmosphere so continually pregnant with the electric fluid, this was one of the signs from heaven which the sacerdotal order would have most constantly at their command; and whether science or imposture, or both, no where would the fulguratores be more frequently summoned to their awful and imposing office of interpreting, of guiding, or of averting the ominous and destructive thunderbolt. It is certainly conceivable that a sacerdotal order, originally derived from Egypt, might adapt its superstitious terrors to the local circumstances of a new country; yet, on the other hand, where the relationship is only conjectured from certain slight and trivial points of resemblance, it is impossible not to be struck with slight, and in themselves perhaps unimportant, points of dissimilitude.

3. The civil polity of ancient Etruria bears no resemblance to that of Egypt, except in the predominant power of the hereditary sacerdotal order, common to all the Oriental, the Pelasgic, and Celtic tribes. On the other hand, the establishment and maintenance of the division of lands by a religious ceremonial might be considered as not improbably derived from the geometrical science of the Egyptian priesthood.

4. The manners of a nation thus advanced to civilization by an influential foreign caste would retain more of the original native character, than either the religion, the laws, or the arts. Manners depend on the habits and pursuits of the people, and the habits

*See, among other works, Eusebe Salverte, des Sciences Occultes, e. xxiv.

and

and pursuits are almost entirely formed from local circumstances, and the degree of civilization-whether the people are a pastoral, or an agricultural, or a commercial race, inhabitants of the mountains or of the plain: so that, unless in the maintenance of some peculiar usages, there is no bond of similitude between kindred nations so soon entirely effaced, even in some instances among colonists who keep up a close connexion with the mother country. 5. The arts, on the other hand, often retain a strong national character, impressed by the dominant part of a mingled nation; and in the case of the Etruscans, the origin of their fine arts has, in fact, been the curious problem which has constantly re-awakened the mysterious interest concerning this ancient people. All the recent discoveries tend more and more to show the close and early connexion with Greece-either with Greece properly so called, or with the flourishing Grecian colonies of southern Italy. The graceful legends of the Greek mythology are traced in characters too distinct to be mistaken on by far the greater number of the urns and fictile vases, which,were once supposed only to belong to the Campanian and southern cities, Nola, Capua, and others, but which are now discovered in such vast numbers on the sites of the old Etruscan cities to the north of the Tiber. The question then is, not whether Etruria, at a very early period, did not borrow from Greece the exquisite grace of form, the beautiful mythic tale, the whole race of gods and heroes to embellish her works of art; but whether the art itself was originally derived from Greecewhether, as Micali asserts, there is, or is not, a class of vases and other antiquities, manifestly of an earlier and ruder style, which belong to an exclusively Etruscan period, with symbols, and mythic or allegoric representations of Oriental or Egyptian character, and earlier than the influence of the Grecian taste. Rosellini's work shows clearly that, in point of the beauty of shape, the Egyptians had attained an elegance and perfection scarcely to be expected from their other works of art. Whoever has been so fortunate as to see the volume of illustrations in the Florentine work upon Egypt, which contains the vases and other fictile vessels, cannot but be struck, not only with their extreme beauty, but with their similarity, in their most graceful shapes, to the most finished Etruscan works. The ornaments, too, the scrolls and arabesques, and other fanciful embellishments, are as various, as rich, and as elegant as can be imagined; but the finer art of design, the deliueation of the human figure, the grouping, the drapery, the form, all this is wanting on the Egyptian vases, and makes its appearance on the Etruscan, with the mythology and the herolegends of Greece. But, after all, if the historical traditions of the naval power and the extensive commercial relations-we may

add

add, the successful piracies-of the Etrurians, which we know to be as old as the poems of Hesiod, deserve-and there is no reason for withholding-our belief-it must be impossible to decide how far the objects of art, which may be found in the cities of a luxurious people, were their own native productions, or introduced by commerce; still less how far the manufacture of such articles may have been the invention of native artists or of foreigners-of the slaves which a naval people commanding all the circumjacent seas (Tuppnvoi baharTongaтOUνTES, Diod. v. 13), rivalling the navigators of Phoenicia and Carthage, would have swept into their harbours from every shore of the Mediterranean. It is perhaps not sufficiently considered, that a nation which, according to the expression of Cato (ap. Servium in Æn. xi. 57), held the dominion of the greater part of Italy (ii. 563), and possessed the whole country to the Sicilian sea-which had the shame or the glory of endangering the whole navigation of the Mediterranean by their piracies-must in fact have commanded the artisans of all the neighbouring countries. The conclusion comes round then to this, that Etruria was not likely to have been a powerful maritime and commercial nation without having made very considerable previous progress in civilization; but, on the other hand, her foreign relations through commerce, and, it may be, piracy, render it more difficult to ascertain which of her arts or usages were of native growth or imported from foreign countries. The vast and durable cemeteries themselves remain almost the only monuments which must have been wrought by the labour of the inhabitants of the country, of whatever extraction these may have been; it is possible that all the rest of the curious but more portable articles, the sphinxes, the scarabei, the vases with Egyptian work, might actually have been of Egyptian manufacture, and introduced into Italy by the traders or the plunderers of the high and palmy' state of Etruria. Still, when they are found in cemeteries of Egyptian construction, they may fairly be considered as somewhat strengthening the bypothesis of the Egyptian origin of the Etrurian civilization.*

But from whatever quarter it was derived, Signor Micali strongly insists on a native Etruscan school of art. In sculpture many works are mentioned by ancient authors as belonging to the Tuscan school. But for this branch of Tuscan art, as far as regards sculpture and painting, since it bears greater resemblance to the early Grecian style, the Æginetan, and is not of the very

*We have only just received the fourth volume of Rosellini's Egyptian work, from which we make the following extract, relating to the similarity in the manner of painting, as traced in Egypt and Etruria:- The pictures of the Etruscans, both at Chiusi and Tarquinia, are, like those of the Egyptians, painted with unmingled and uniform colours. Those of the Tarquinian hypogea, recently discovered, were executed in a manner wonderfully resembling that practised in Egypt.'

remotest

remotest age, we must content ourselves with a reference to the volumes before us, and confine our notice to the origin of the fictile vases

Of greater importance to the history of religion, of usages, and of arts are the earthen vases with figures and paintings which, in the most various shapes, and in almost countless numbers, are drawn from the sepulchres throughout Italy. The most ancient of these, and of genuine Etrurian manufacture, are the vessels of black clay, of the natural colour, and unbaked, but dried in such a manner as to give them sufficient solidity, and a kind of dull brightness of surface approaching to leaden. The most remarkable of these have works of design stamped upon them in the lowest relief, either on the body, the handles, or the feet of the vase, of which the symbolic representations refer entirely to religion, and chiefly to the doctrine of the Erebus. Offerings to the deities who act as infernal judges; winged genii, formerly the guardian spirits during life, which mingle themselves up with these judgments; processions of the initiated; the symbols of initiation and consecration; games and sacred ceremonies; finally, all other things which, without doubt, allude to the mysteries and to the future life. The great god of departed souls, otherwise Bacchus, that is, Tinia, according to the Etruscan mythology, is frequently represented as a ferocious monster, with the Gorgon's head and large tusks, with the tongue lolling out, horrible and fearful to behold. This monstrous image, which has a principal place in the funeral monuments of Etruria, is peculiarly fit to alarm the sacrilegious violator of the tomb. Very many other figures, either of animals, or fantastic monsters, or beings of biform nature, which are represented on vases of this kind, are so many emblems and symbols of the worship of the infernal Bacchus, and of the mysterious dualism which always appears under these strange forms.

The obscene symbol of the later Bacchanalian, worship never appears in these earliest works. Nor is this alone a good proof of great antiquity, but it is confirmed by the style itself of these little images, the artisans of which had certainly no Hellenism: in fact, the mode of workmanship is in every respect like the Egyptian, and indicates the first steps of art. Of the same kind are those cinerary vases of Canopic form, with human heads of both sexes, which are found in the same primeval sepulchres, sometimes with the arms and hands stretched out in the attitude of supplication, sometimes folded to the breast.... Not less ancient, nor less foreign to the genuine Hellenic system of mythology, must be considered the reddish-coloured vases in terracotta, with paintings representing almost entirely certain generations of animals, both quadrupeds and birds, mingled with monstrous images of winged sphinxes and other symbolical figures of biform nature. From these symbols, vases of this kind are vulgarly, though most improperly, called Egyptian. They are found in the very ancient sepulchres .... In general they have the peculiar form of balsamari (vessels to contain liquid scents) of an extraordinary size; nor can it be doubted

that

that vessels of this kind have served solely for the religious ceremonies of sepulture. On these are represented the same symbolic figures of Oriental or Egyptian origin which are seen on the earthenware vases of black clay above mentioned, and on the most ancient bronzes. Bacchus appears sometimes transformed, like Osiris, into a subterranean deity; sometimes as the good genius, the hostile adversary and conqueror of the evil wrought by the contrary principle; sometimes under the same likeness in which, in the Oriental cylinders, appears the winged Ized-in a Babylonian dress, in the act of pressing with each of his hands the neck of an ostrich, the bird of Ahriman.'

If these conclusions of Signor Micali, as to the very great antiquity of these different works of art, be correct-and, to judge from his engravings, as well as from his arguments, there is much in their favour-they are of great importance, not merely as regards the question of the Etrurian civilization, but also the antiquity and universality of the mysterious doctrines of the East.

As to the Hellenic period of Etrurian art, we think it right to extract our author's opinion on the result of the recent excavations at Vulci, to which we have before alluded :

The extraordinary discoveries made within the few last years in the territory of the ancient Vulci, of an immense number of this kind of vases, has re-awakened the important question agitated beforeviz. whether they are to be considered the manufacture of the country or of Greece? The object for which the different parties contend is not less honourable than the vigour of genius displayed in the contention. But even patriotism, a noble passion when restrained within just bounds, must give place to truth; and I hope that, after a deliberate examination, on the spot, of some thousands of these vases, I may now be permitted to deliver my opinion without regard to any party.

To satisfy the desires of the greedy collector, one day, one single hour, is sometimes sufficient to excavate from the sepulchres a considerable number of vessels, which have been buried for centuries. In casting one's eye over many such vases, brought to light in the utmost confusion, and principally in the Necropolis of Vulei-where they are found more entire, in better state of preservation, and more remarkable for the elegance of their paintings-one is forced to acknowledge that they show, by the most conclusive marks of distinction, that they are not of the same age; in short, there is immediately recognized a great variety of manufacture, as well as regards the work of the potter as that of the painter, such, on the whole, as manifestly proves a wide diversity of age, of school, and of art. It is impossible to doubt that, among the number of vases found in this place, many are decidedly Greek; but it seems equally certain that a great part of them are Etruscan, or at least made in the country, because the workman, here as elsewhere, worked in clay with the same method, and according to an established system of ideas. The vast number of vases which are found every day in the cemeteries, and which are discovered throughout Etruria, in Etruscan sepulchres, and with the names of honourable

families