Scarce had he finished, when with speckled pride,
A serpent from the tomb began to glide;
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled;
Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold;
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass.
More various colors through his body run,
Than Iris, when her bow imbibes the sun.
Betwixt the rising altars, and around,
The rolling monster shot along the ground.
With harmless play amidst the bowls he passed,
And with his lolling tongue assayed the taste;
Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest
Within the hollow tomb retired to rest.
The pious prince, surprised at what he viewed,
The funeral honors with more zeal renewed;
Doubtful if this the place's genius were,
Or guardian of his father's sepulchre.

We may conjecture from the paintings, which bear a marked resemblance
to one another, that these snakes were of considerable size, and of
the same species, probably that called AEsculapius, which was brought
from Epidaurus to Rome with the worship of the god, and, as we are
told by Pliny, was commonly fed in the houses of Rome. These sacred
animals made war on the rats and mice, and thus kept down one species
of vermin; but as they bore a charmed life, and no one laid violent
hands on them, they multiplied so fast, that, like the monkeys of
Benares, they became an intolerable nuisance. The frequent fires at
Rome were the only things that kept them under.

Passing through the tablinum, we enter the portico of the xystus, or
garden, a spot small in extent, but full of ornament and of beauty,
though not that sort of beauty which the notion of a garden suggests
to us. It is not larger than a city garden, the object of our
continual ridicule; yet while the latter is ornamented only with one
or two scraggy poplars, and a few gooseberry-bushes with many more
thorns than leaves, the former is elegantly decorated by the hand of
art, and set apart as the favorite retreat of festive pleasure. True
it is that the climate of Italy suits out-of-door amusements better
than our own, and that Pompeii was not exposed to that plague of soot
which soon turns marble goddesses into chimney-sweepers. The portico
is composed of columns, fluted and corded, the lower portion of them
painted blue, without pedestals, yet approaching to the Roman rather
than to the Grecian Doric. The entablatur