Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/194

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192
Literary and Scientific Intelligence.
[May

cuanha. It appears that these gentlemen have succeeded in separating the principal substance to which the good effects of ipecacuanha in medicine are owing, from those adjuncts which give it that odour and taste so disagreeable to invalids. They have named this principal substance hemetine. A great number of experiments and observations have been made, which fully confirm the truth of the discovery.

The recent sale of the library of the late Count Macarthy affords a standard for judging of the force of the bibliomania in France. Among articles which fetched the highest prices were the following:—

Psalmorum Codex, Mogunt. 1457, fol. sold for 12,000 francs.

Psalmorum Codex, Mogunt. 1459, fol. 3350 fr.

G. Durandi Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, Mogunt. 1459, fol. 2000 fr.

Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, fol. 1320 fr. (The same copy sold in 1769 for 1600 fr.)

Historia Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, per figuras, fol. 1560 fr. (Sold in 1769 for 352 fr.)

Ciceronis Qfficiorum, libri iii. Mogunt. 1465, sm. fol. 801 fr.

Ciceronis Officiorum, libri iii. Mogunt. 1466, sm. fol. 1190 fr.

Gul. Ficheti Rhetorica, 4to. (One of the first books printed at Paris about 1470.) 501 fr.

Biblia in Lingua Vulgare, 1471, 2 vols fol. 1199 fr. (Sold at the Duke de la Vallière's sale, in 1784, for 720 fr.)

Quinctiliani Instit. Orator. Venet. 1471, fol. 1515 fr.

Virgilii Opera, 1472, fol. 2440 fr.

Anthologia Græca, 4to, Florent. 1494. 1000 fr.

Apollonia Rhodia Argonauticon, libri iv. 4to, Florent. 1496. 1755 fr.

La Bible Historiée, traduite du Latin de Pierre Comestor, par Guyard Desmoulins, Paris, fol. with 410 miniatures. 1202 fr.

Missale Mozarab. fol. Toleti, 1500, et Breviarum Mozarab. ib. 1502, fol. 1020 fr.

Euripidis Opera, studio Jos. Barnes, Cantab. 1694, fol. 1800 fr.

Xenophontis Opera, Oxon. 1703, 5 tom, in 6 vols 8vo, large paper. 1960 fr.

Xenophontis Cyropædia, Oxon. 1727, fol. et Xenophontis de Cyri Expeditione, libri vii. Oxon. 1735, fol. large paper. 2550 fr.

Thuani Historiæ, Lond. 1733, 7 tom fol. bound in 14 vols, large paper. 1225 fr.


GERMANY.

Professor Kanngiesser of Breslaw has announced an extensive work, in Latin, on archaiology, in which he promises some important discoveries in that science.

Goëthe has produced the fourth volume of his Life, which he is publishing under the whimsical title of Truth and Fiction.

Professor Berzelius has just discovered a new earth, to which he has given the name thorite, from the Scandinavian god Thor.

ITALY.

M. Niebuhr, the Prussian envoy at Rome, has discovered, in the Vatican Library, the fragment yet wanting in Cicero's Oration pro Marco Rabirio, and a fragment of the Oration pro Plancio. These two fragments were discovered in the same MS. from which Amaduzzi has already extracted an unpublished fragment of Livy. The learned Prussian envoy has also found some passages of the Works of Seneca.

There is reason to hope that the researches, which are actively continued at Pompeji, will soon lead to important discoveries. The works in the interior of the Forum of that ancient town, have already begun to lay open a peristyle of six columns, which must doubtless have belonged to some temple. The number of labourers has been increased. The portico around the arena of the amphitheatre is already completely cleared; and Padiglione, an able artist, has received directions to make a model of that monument on a small scale.

By more recent accounts we learn, that magnificent monuments of ancient splendour still continue to be discovered in searching the ruins of Pompeji. Behind the temple lately noticed, a public building has been found, built at right angles, 260 Neapolitan palms long, and 120 broad, and surrounded in the interior by a portico of 50 columns. It is ornamented with beautiful paintings, some of which are very valuable; among others one which represents a warrior precipitated from a car drawn by fiery horses. The pavement is of Mosaic, formed in part of small white and coloured stones, and in part of large slabs of marble of various colours. Several inscriptions have been traced that ascertained the use of this monument. One of them indicates, that the right, luminum obstruendorum (a right established by the Roman laws, preventing, in certain cases, neighbouring proprietors from having lights or prospects over the contiguous estates), had been purchased at the price of several thousand sesterces. This discovery has afforded new riches to sculpture—several statues have been found. A Venus, five palms high, and a Hermophrodite, may be placed among the finest specimens of the Greek chisel that have come down to us. Several distinguished artists think, that in this Venus they have discovered one worthy to dispute pre-eminence with the Venus de Medicis. This opinion, inspired, perhaps, by the pleasure of the discovery, may be before long discussed, as these precious monuments of sculpture are to be transported to the Musée Bourbon. In the same place have been found two arms of bronze, adorned with bracelets. The Chevalier Ardite, who directs the search, hopes to be enabled, in a short time, to expose the whole extent of Pompeji, which will probably be a mine fruitful in objects of the fine arts.

Andrea Mustoxidi, a young native of