There might certainly be collected great light from this reservoir of antiquities, if a man of learning had the inspection of it; if he directed the working, and would make a journal of the discoveries.  But I believe there is no judicious choice made of directors.  There is nothing of the kind known in the world; I mean a Roman city entire of that age, and that has not been corrupted with modern repairs. (196) Besides scrutinising this very carefully, I should be inclined to search for the remains of the other towns that were partners with this in the general ruin.  ’Tis certainly an advantage to the learned world, that this has been laid up so long.  Most of the discoveries in Rome were made in a barbarous age, where they only ransacked the ruins in quest of treasure, and had no regard to the form and being of the building; or to any circumstances that might give light to its use and history.  I shall finish this long account with a passage which Gray has observed in Statius, and which correctly pictures out this latent city:-

Haec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam
Littoribus, fractas ubi Vestius egerit iras,
Emula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. 
Mira fides! credetne viram ventura propago,
Cum segetes iterum, cum jam haec deserta virebunt,
Infra urbes populosque premi? 
SyLv. lib. iv. epist. 4.

Adieu, my dear West! and believe me yours ever.

(195) Some excavations were made at Herculaneum in 1709 by the Prince d’Elbeuf; but, thirty years elapsed after the prince had been forbidden to dig further, before any more notice was taken of them.  In December 1738 the King of the two Sicilies was at Portici, and gave orders for the prosecution of these subterranean labours.  There had been an excavation in the time of the Romans; and another so lately as 1689.  In a letter from Gray to his mother, he describes their visits to Herculaneum; but, not mentioning it by name, Mason supposed it had not then been discovered to be that city.  It is evident, from this observation of Walpole, that Mason’s opinion was unfounded.-E.

  (196) Pompei a was not then discovered.

155 Letter 24 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  R`e di Cofano, vulg.  Radicofani, July 5, 1740, N. S.

You will wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome:  why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old eminences are cross and obstinate, and will not choose one the Holy Ghost does not know when.  There is a horrid thing called the mallaria, that comes to Rome, every summer, and kills one, and I did not care for being killed so far from Christian burial.  We have been jolted to death; my servants let us come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare:  to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England.  Perhaps I may pick you out some little trifle there, but don’t depend