No articles of ancient manufacture are more common than lamps. They are
found in every variety of form and size, in clay and in metal, from the
most cheap to the most costly description. We have the testimony of
the celebrated antiquary Winkelmann to the interest of this subject:
"I place among the most curious utensils, found at Herculaneum, the
lamps, in which the ancients sought to display elegance, and even
magnificence. Lamps of every sort will be found in the museum at
Portici, both in clay and bronze, but especially the latter; and as
the ornaments of the ancients have generally some reference to some
particular things, we often meet with rather remarkable subjects."
A considerable number of these articles will be found in the British
Museum, but they are chiefly of the commoner sort. All the works,
however, descriptive of Herculaneum and Pompeii, present us with
specimens of the richer and more remarkable class, which attract
admiration both by the beauty of the workmanship, and the whimsical
variety of their designs. We may enumerate a few which occur in a work
now before us, "Antiquités d'Herculanum," in which we find a Silenus,
with the usual peculiarities of figure ascribed to the jolly god rather
exaggerated, and an owl sitting upon his head between two huge horns,
which support stands for lamps. Another represents a flower-stalk,
growing out of a circular plinth, with snail-shells hanging from it by
small chains, which held the oil and wick. The trunk of a tree, with
lamps suspended between the branches. Another, a naked boy, beautifully
wrought, with a lamp hanging from one hand, and an instrument for
trimming it from the other, the lamp itself representing a theatrical
mask. Beside him is a twisted column, surmounted by the head of a Faun,
or Bacchanal, which has a lid in its crown, and seems intended as a
reservoir of oil. The boy and pillar are both placed on a square
plateau, raised upon lions' claws. But, beautiful as those lamps are,
the light which they gave must have been weak and unsteady, and little