The Litchfield County post., 1827-04-12
From BldclssOOOd's Magasiae.
 POMPEH.

 peii :-that it was a listlp Greek town of toierable commerce m us early day that the sea that once washed its walls, subse- uuently left in the midst of one of those delicious plains made by nature for the dissolution of all industry in the Italian dweIler, and for the common place of po- etry in all the northern abusers of the pen; that it was ravaged by every. barbarian, who in turn was called cOnqueror on the Italian soil, and was excessively the pil- lage of the Carthag4nian and of Roman, until at last the Augustan age saw it little quieted into the centre of a colony, and man, finding nothing more to rob, attempt ed to rob no more.
 When man had ceased his molestation, nature commenced hers and this unfor- tunate little city was, by curious fate, to be extinguished and preserved, to perish from the face of the Roman Empire, and to live when Rome was nest of monks and Mummers, and her empire torn into fragments for Turk, Russian, Austrian, and Prussian, and the whole host of bar barian names that were once as the dust of her feet. In the year of the Christian era 63, an earthquake showed the city on what tenure her lease was held. Whole streets were thrown down, and the eviden- ces of nasty repair are still to be de- tected.
 From this period, occasional warnings were given in slight shocks until in the year 79, Vesuvius poured out all his old accumulation of terrors at once, and on the clearing away of the cloud of fire and ash- es which covered Campania for four days, Pompeii, with all it's multitude, was gone. The Romans seem to have been as fond of Villas as fevery soul of them had made fof- tunes in Cheapside, and the whole south ern coast was covered with summer pala- ces of those lords of the world. Versuvi~ us is now formidable foundation for s house whose inhabitants may not wish 10 be sucked into furnace ten thousand fa'h- oms deep, or roasted sub acre opsrto, but it was then asleep, and had never flung up spark or stone from time immemorial. To those who look upon it now n its terrors, grim, blasted, and lifting up it's sooty fore- head among the piles of perpetual smoak that are to be enlightened only by its bursts of fire, the very throne of Pluto and Vul- can together, no force of fancy may pic- ture what it was when the Roman built his palaces and pavilion on its side. A pyra- mid of three thousand feet high, painted O. yer with garden, forest, vineyard and or- ned with colonades, and turrets, and gol- den roofs, and marble porticos, with the eternal azure of the Companion sky for it's canopy, and the Mediterranean at its feet, glittering in the colours of sunshine noon and evening, like au infinite Turkey car- pet let down from the steps of throne all this was turned into cinders, lava, and hot water, on If we can trust to chronolo- cyl the first day of November, Anno Dom- ini 70, in the first year of the Emperor Titus The whole story is told in the younger Pliney's letters: or, if the illus trious of one who thought himself born for describer, bio Cassius, be sought, it will be found that this eruption was worthy the work it had to do, and was a handsome recompense for the long slumber of the volcano. The continent, throughout its whole southern range, probably felt this vigorous awakening. Rome was covered with the ashes, of which Northern Africa, Egypt and Asia Minor had their share. The sun was turned into blood and dark ness, and the people thought that the de- struction of the world was come.
 At the close of the eruption, Vesuyius stood forth the naked giant that he is at this hour-the palaces and the gardens are all dust and air-the sky was stained with that cloud which sits like crown of wrath upon his brow-the plain at his foot, where Herculaneum and Pompeii spread circus es and temples, like children's toys, was covered over with sand charcoal and smoke -and the whole was left for mighty mor- al against the danger of trusting to the sleep of volcano.
 All was then at an end with the cities below; tho population were burnt, and had no more need of houses the Roman nobles had no passions for combustion, and kept aloof; the winds and rains, robbers and the mOlaria, were the sole tenants of the land; and in this way rolled fifteen hundred years over the bones of the vint- ners, sailors, and snug citizens of the Ve- suvian cities. But their time was to come; and their beds were to be perforated by French and Neapolitan pick-axes, and to be visited by English feet, and sketched, and written about, and Autographed, till all the world wished they never had been