Atkins, Sarah: Relics of antiquity, exhibited in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum: with an account of the destruction and recovery of those celebrated cities (London: St. Harris, St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1825)

128 Latin poem, on
printed, in order to enable the reader to form a
tolerable idea of the state of preservation in
which the manuscripts were generally found, and
to shew how far they were legible.
It is printed on four sheets of large folio, and
was kindly presented to me, for inspection, by
the celebrated director of the library, Juan An-
dres. The manuscript is in double columns:
the capital letters are very well formed, and not
so angular as they generally appear in inscrip-
tions. The words are separated by simple points.
This fragment forms an important acquisition for
Latin palaeography, as the only manuscripts we
possess in that language are long posterior to the
time of the destruction of Herculaneum. It is
easy, on examining these manuscripts, to per-
ceive the difference between the ordinary manner
of writing, and that which was employed on
monumental inscriptions. The impression is
exactly similar to the original, and the dottings
correctly point out the extent and form of each
hiatus. The passages which are left, but which
they have not been able to decipher, are under-
lined. These verses are, unfortunately, so muti-
lated, that it is hardly possible to understand
their meaning. The poem, however, is in hex-
ameter verse, and treats of the Alexandrian war.