Give me leave to add further, that I find, by my journal, that upon viewing this figure, I took notice of a dissimilitude in the heads of it: but as it did not then occur to me, that they were ever expressed in any other form than the canine, I did not examine minutely into the difference: but, upon recollection, I am now inclined to think, that that monster might have the heads of three several animals in this piece, as he has in another, given us by [51]Montfaucon: which mode of exhibiting him was (according to that learned [52]antiquary) invented by the Egyptians; a circumstance not to be wondered at in a people, whose imagination teemed so plentifully with monstrous ideas of all kinds, as theirs is known to have done.
To the same original we may refer the serpent twisting round Cerberus in this monument; as we see two of the same species encircling his heads and body in that mentioned above[53]. As I know no particular relation, that the serpent bears to Serapis, considered as Pluto, I can regard it here only as a sacred symbol in the theology of the ancient Egyptians; and, as such, properly attributed to an attendant of one of their chief divinities.
I shall trouble you but with one more observation upon this article, viz. that (if I may trust my memory for a particular omitted in my notes) this is the statue, which being the principal one found in an ancient magnificent building discovered about seven years ago at [54]Pozzuoli (in conjunction with other circumstances) occasioned it to be called The Temple of Serapis. As this place seemed greatly to merit the attention of the curious in antiquity, we procured a plan of it, drawn by a native, who has free access to it and (if I thought it would be acceptable to that learned Society, of which I have the honour to be a member) the said plan should wait upon them, accompanied with some observations upon it by,
SIR,
Your most obedient,
humble Servant
John Nixon.
London. Feb. 24. 1757.
P.S. A long room is designed to be fitted up in the King's palace at Portici, for the reception of all the antiquities found at Herculaneum, &c. This apartment will be lighted by thirteen windows on the side towards the Cortile, and adorned with forty columns, partly of verde antique, partly of alabaster with brownish veins, and other beautiful marbles, found in divers parts of the King's dominions. Between every two of these columns will be placed a group, statue, or bust. The compartments in the walls will contain the ancient paintings. The other curiosities are to be deposited in cases made for that purpose; and the pavement will consist intirely of the finest pieces of Mosaic work, that have been found in Herculaneum, or any places within the Neapolitan state.
XIV. An Account of the Effects of a Storm of Thunder and Lightning, in the Parishes of Looe and Lanreath, in the County of Cornwall, on the 27th Day of June, 1756. Communicated to the Rev. Jeremiah Milles, D.D. F.R.S. in two Letters, one from the Rev. Mr. Dyer, Minister of Looe, and the other from the Rev. Mr. Milles, Vicar of Duloe, in Cornwall.
Read Feb. 24, 1757.
ON Sunday the 27th of June last it grew on a sudden as dark as a winter evening: soon after, the lightning began to flash, and the thunder to roar. The claps were near, and extremely loud; and the lightning was more like darting flames of fire, than flames of enkindled vapour. Happily no damage was done to the town of Looe, which lies very low; but at Bucklawren, a village situated on the top of a hill, about two miles from hence, a farm-house was shattered in a most surprising manner. The house fronts the south. The windows of the hall and parlour, and of the chambers over them, which are in the front of the house, are sashed. The dairy window is the only one on the west side of the house. The chimnies are on the north side; and at the south-west corner there is a row of old elms on a line with the front, the nearest of which is ten feet distant from the house. The lightning seems to have had a direction from the south-west to the north-east. It first struck the bevilled roof of the south-west corner, near the eaves of the house; made a large breach, and tore up the floor of the garret, near the place where it entered, and descended by the west wall, in oblique lines, into the chamber over the parlour; but not having sufficient vent that way, it darted in a line from S.W. to N.E. against the north wall of the garret, where meeting with resistance, it broke down the floor near the north wall many feet wide, and carrying the ceiling of the parlour-chamber before it, ran down by the wall of that room in direct lines. Where it descended on the west and north walls it made large and deep furrows in the plaister, and even tore out the stones and mortar. A large splinter was struck off from the bed-post contiguous to the north wall, and the bed was set on fire. The chimney-piece was broken into many parts; the window-frame was moved out of the wall, every pane of glass was broken, the under sash was torn in pieces, and a large piece of the chimney-board was thrown out of the window against an opposite garden wall, about 20 feet from the house. As the lightning shot thro' the window, it found a small cavity between the wall and the slating with which the wall is covered, where it burst off the slates as far as it continued in a direct line downward, and threw them at a great distance from the house. Notwithstanding this dreadful havock, the force of the lightning was not spent; the window gave it not a sufficient discharge. From the chamber over the parlour, it descended by the north wall to the room under it, which is wainscotted, tore off the cornice the whole breadth of the room, and some mouldings from the wainscot; broke the glasses and Delft ware in the beauffet; shivered the shelves of a bottle-room; and, ripping off a small stock-lock from the door, burst it open, and made its way chiefly thro' the window, the frame of which was moved from the wall, and the glass shattered to pieces. Near the bottle-room there was a hole struck in the partition-wainscotting, which divides the parlour from the hall, about eight inches long and an inch broad: through this crevice the lightning entered the hall, which serves at present for a kitchen, and meeting with some pewter in its way, it flung it from the shelf about the room; threw down a large iron bar, that stood in a corner and which seemed to have a trembling and desultory motion; carried the tongs into the chimney, and threw a tea-kettle, that stood there, into the middle of the floor; moved a large brass pot out of its place, which was under a table; and then darted thro' the windows, carrying away a pane of glass intire out of the upper sash to the distance of many feet. The mistress of the house and her son were sitting at this window. They were the only persons in the house, and providentially received no hurt. Some part of the lightning found a way between the door and door-case of the hall. The door is pannelled: and the lightning, in passing thro', penetrated into a close mortise, and split off a large splinter from the outside of the door, close to the tenon. In its course it left a smoaky tinge on the wall and timber, like that of fired gunpowder. A sulphureous smell remained in the house many hours. Another (or probably a part of the same) flash of lightning struck the dairy window, melted the lead, and burnt the glass where it penetrated, and set the window-frame on fire. From thence it darted in a line from S.W. to N.E. downward, made a large hole in a plaistered partition near the floor into the barn, shattered a large paving rag-stone in pieces, and tearing up the ground, I suppose, sunk into the earth. The elms were affected with the lightning, particularly that nearest the house, from the top of which to the root appeared large furrows in the moss, which grew on the bark, in some places in an irregular spiral, but for the most part in a perpendicular line; and from the root of it the ground was torn up in furrows, as if done with a plough-share, about six feet long, the furrows gradually lessening according to their distance from the tree. All this was done instantaneously. How amazingly swift, subtle, and powerful is the force of lightning! I am,
Reverend Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
James Dyer.