scarcely disgrace a Rafaele. You may see them now transplanted to the
Neapolitan Museum: they are still the admiration of connoisseurs--they
depict the parting of Achilles and Briseis. Who does not acknowledge
the force, the vigour, the beauty, employed in delineating the forms and
faces of Achilles and the immortal slave!

On one side the atrium, a small staircase admitted to the apartments for
the slaves on the second floor; there also were two or three small
bedrooms, the walls of which portrayed the rape of Europa, the battle of
the Amazons, etc.

You now enter the tablinum, across which, at either end, hung rich
draperies of Tyrian purple, half withdrawn. On the walls was depicted a
poet reading his verses to his friends; and in the pavement was inserted
a small and most exquisite mosaic, typical of the instructions given by
the director of the stage to his comedians.

You passed through this saloon and entered the peristyle; and here (as I
have said before was usually the case with the smaller houses of
Pompeii) the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned
this court hung festoons of garlands: the centre, supplying the place of
a garden, bloomed with the rarest flowers placed in vases of white
marble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left hand of this
small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of those small
chapels placed at the side of roads in Catholic countries, and dedicated
to the Penates; before it stood a bronzed tripod: to the left of the
colonnade were two small cubicula, or bedrooms; to the right was the
triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled.

This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples 'The Chamber of