over that the good taste which reigned
everywhere, and the freshness of the colors, must have rendered the
effect of the whole most agreeable.

27. This chamber seems to have been used as a wardrobe, where the
numerous garments of the opulent masters of this dwelling were kept
under presses, to give them a lustre. This conjecture is founded upon
the remains of calcined stuffs, and the fragments of wardrobes and
carbonized plank found in the course of excavation.

28. Great gallery, lighted by windows which looked upon the two
terraces, 34, separated by the large hall, 33. This gallery furnished
an agreeable promenade, when the weather did not permit the enjoyment
of the external porticoes or terraces.

29, 29. These two small apartments, which were open to the gallery,
and probably were closed by glass, may very well have been, one a
library, the other a reading-room, since the place in which books were
kept was not usually the place in which they were read; being small
and confined, suitable to the comparatively small number of volumes
which an ancient library generally contained, and also to the limited
space within which a considerable number of rolls of papyrus might be
placed.

A bust, painted on the wall of one of them, confirms this supposition,
for it is known that the ancients were fond of keeping the portraits
of eminent men before their eyes, and especially of placing those of
literary men in their libraries.

30. The form of this hall is suitable to a triclinium, and its
situation, protected from the immediate action of the sun's rays,
would seem to mark it as a summer triclinium. Still the guests enjoyed
the view of the country and of the sea, by means of a door opening
upon the terrace. In front of the little chamber, 31, is a square
opening for the staircase, which descends to the point B upon the
floor below. It is to be remarked, that at the entrance of each
division of the building there is a lodge for a slave. No doubt each
suite of rooms had its peculiar keeper. The chamber, 10, seems to have
been reserved for the keeper of the peristyle; the apartment, 15,
belonged to the slave of the bed-chamber, who watched the apartment of
his master; a recess under the staircase, 35, was, without doubt, the
place of the atriensis, or attendant on the atrium, when the hall, 8,
was open, to give admission to the interior of the house; and when
this hall was closed, he attended in the chamber, 12, which comma