Show I 1 i 0 1 1 t love lovely pt literature will trill tie be interested in the recent disco discovery in a small houst of the buried efty city of pompeii of two medallions dal lions s representing respectively horace and virgil the death of horace hon ce occurred tight eight years lefore before the chri i tian era and that of virgil ten years yean earlier while the date of the destruct de tion of pompeii by the eruption of vesuvius is A A D 79 1 hence 1 ta x portraits are not conov contemporary 11 though they cannot be placed very long after the age of the pc peek acet et but although they are in that respect only fancy portraits M gaston a boi sier has haa pointed out to the french ac emla emie des inscriptions that they haru baro r 1 bisti distinct it ct te semblance to the i of horace and virgil given in the nian mw scripts of the twelfth and centuries the Pom Pompe peilan iian medallions are only LZ L Z a very mediocre character when s sd ed solely from an artistic stand poh t this very fact strengthens the idea 0 continuous artistic tradition as to thi bodily presentment of the two poets the Pompe iian artist and the monastic scribe could have had no direct connection but bat they may easily have derived their figures from a common source an another other point of int interest I 1 erest is to see the popular criticism within less than a century after their death linking together horace and virgil how enduring their fame is may bo realized if we wa remember that now after the lapse 0 of f nineteen centuries they have more readers and admirers than at any preceding period it is to be feared that few of the literary reputations of modem ages wi will 11 withstand so successfully th tho cankered tooth of time manchester guardian |