superior to that of common street-lamps, with which indeed they are
identical in principle. The wick was merely a few twisted threads, drawn
through a hole in the upper surface of the oil-vessel; and there was no
glass to steady the light, and prevent its varying with every breeze
that blew.

Still, though the Romans had not advanced so far in art as to apply
glass-chimneys and hollow circular wicks to their lamps, they had
experienced the inconvenience of going home at night through a city
ill-paved, ill-watched, and ill-lighted, and, accordingly, soon invented
lanterns to meet the want. These we learn from Martial, who has several
epigrams upon this subject, were made of horn or bladder;--no mention,
we believe, occurs, of glass being thus employed. The rich were preceded
by a slave bearing their lantern. This, Cicero mentions, as being the
habit of Catiline upon his midnight expeditions; and when M. Antony was
accused of a disgraceful intrigue, his lantern-bearer was tortured, to
extort a confession whither he had conducted his master.[4] One of these
machines, of considerable ingenuity and beauty of workmanship, was found
in Herculaneum in 1760, and another, almost exactly the same, at
Pompeii, a few years after.

One of the most elegant articles of furniture in ancient use was the
candelabrum, by which we mean those tall and slender stands which served
to support a lamp, but were independent of and unconnected with it.
These, in their original and simple form, were probably mere reeds, or
straight sticks, fixed upon a foot by peasants, to raise their light
to a convenient height; at least, such a theory of their origin is
agreeable to what we are told of the rustic manners of the early Romans,
and it is in some degree countenanced by the fashion in which many of
the ancient candelabra are made. Sometimes the stem is represented as