mberless precious things were
found there, in the presence of the son of Goethe. The owner was a
wine-merchant.(?)

The house of the Quaestor, or of Castor and Pollux.--Large safes of very
thick and very hard wood, lined with copper and ornamented with
arabesques, perhaps the public money-chests, hence this was probably the
residence of the quaestor who had charge of the public funds; a
Corinthian atrium; fine paintings--the _Bacchante_ the _Medea_, the
_Children of Niobe_, etc. Rich development of the courtyards.

The house of the Poet.--Homeric paintings; celebrated mosaics; the dog
at the doorsill, with the inscription _Cave Canem_; the _Choragus
causing the recitation of a piece_. All these are at the museum.

The house of Sallust.--A fine bronze group; Hercules pursuing a deer
(taken to the Museum at Palermo); a pretty stucco relievo in one of the
bedchambers; Three couches of masonry in the triclinium; a decent and
modest _venereum_ that ladies may visit. There is seen an Acteon
surprising Diana in the bath, the stag's antlers growing on his forehead
and the hounds tearing him. The two scenes connect in the same picture,
as in the paintings of the middle ages. Was this a warning to rash
people? This venereum contained a bedchamber, a triclinium and a
lararium, or small marble niche in which the household god was
enshrined.

[Illustration: The House of Lucretius.]

The house of Marcus Lucretius.--Very curious. A peristyle forming a sort
of platform, occupied with baubles, which they have had the good taste
to leave there; a miniature fountain, little tiers of seats, a small
conduit, a small fish-tank, grotesque little figures in bronze,
statuettes and images of all sorts,--Bacchus and Bacchantes, Fauns and
Satyrs, one of which, with its arm raised above its head, is charming.
Another in the form of a Hermes holds a kid in its arms; the she-goat
trying to get a glimpse of her little one, is raising her fore-feet as
though to clamber up on the spoiler. These odds and ends make up a
pretty collection of toys, a shelf, as it were, on an ancient what-not
of knick-knacks.

Then, there are the Adonis and the Hermaphrodite in the house of Adonis;
the sacrarium or domestic chapel in the house of the Mosaic Columns; the
wild beasts adorning the house of the Hunt; above all, the fresh
excavations, where the paintings retain their undiminished brilliance.
But if all these houses are to be visited, they are not to be des