Show v Becent recently ly discovered medallions lovers of literature will be ba interested ak ia I 1 lz 1 ij w of 0 the buried city of pompeii of two medallions dal lions representing respectively horace and virgil the death of horace occurred eight years before the christian t ian era and ai id that of virgil ten years earlier while the date of the destruction of pompeii by the eruption of vesuvius is A D 79 hence the portraits are not contemporary though thon ii they cannot be placed very long after the age 0 of the poets but although they are e in that respect on only I 1 y fancy portraits 31 gaston boissier sier has pointed out to the french academic des inscriptions that they have a distinct resemblance blance to the miniatures of horace and virgil given in the manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Pompe iian medallions are only of a very mediocre character when regarded solely from an artistic standpoint this very fact strengthens the idea of a continuous artistic tradition trad itiN Os as 0 to o the bodily presentment of tho the two poets the pom artist and the monastic caba no connection but they may easily have derived their figures from a common source another point of interest is to see the popular criticism within less than a after their death linking together horace and virgil how enduring their balao ame is way may be realized if we l that now after the lapse of nineteen centuries they have more leaders and admirers than at any preceding period it is to be b e feared that fewox few of the literary reputations of modern ages will wit withstand histand so successfully atho the cankered tooth of time manchester guardian |