r, it were
better to lay a course of flint or chaff between it and the lime, to
the end that the lime may not have so much force to hurt the board
underneath it. It were also well to put at the bottom a bed of round
pebbles.

[Illustration: APOLLO CHARMING NATURE.]

And here we must not forget another kind of these pavements which are
called Graecanica, the manner of which is this: Upon a floor well
beaten with rammers, is laid a bed of rubbish, or else broken
tile-shards, and then upon it a couch of charcoal, well beaten, and
driven close together, with sand, and lime, and small cinders, well
mixed together, to the thickness of half a foot, well leveled; and
this has the appearance of an earthen floor; but, if it be polished
with a hard smooth stone, the whole pavement will seem all black. As
for those pavements called lithostrota, which are made of divers
colored squares or dice, they came into use in Sylla's time, who made
one at Praeneste, in the temple of Fortune, which pavement remains to
be seen at this day.

It may be remarked here, that the Roman villa at Northleigh, in
Oxfordshire, examined and described by Mr. Hakewill, abounded with
beautiful pavements. The substratum of one of these, which had been
broken, was investigated, when it was found that the natural soil had
been removed to a depth of near seven feet, and the space filled up
with materials which bear a near resemblance to those which Pliny
recommends.

A specimen of the coarser sort of mosaic pavement is to be seen in the
Townley Gallery, in the British Museum.

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LITERATURE.

The perfection which the Greeks attained in literature and art is one
of the most striking features in the history of the people. Their
intellectual activity and their keen appreciation of the beautiful
constantly gave birth to new forms of creative genius. There was an
uninterrupted progress in the development of the Grecian mind from the
earliest dawn of the history of the people to the downfall of their
political independence, and each succeeding age saw the production of
some of those master works of genius which have been the models and
admiration of all subsequent time.

The poets were the popular writers of ancient Greece; prose writers
appear no earlier than the sixth century before the Christian era, at
which time the first literary prose essay was produced, for which
three contemporary authors cla