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Show 53 NoTE XXII.-PORTLAND VASE. Or !Jid Mortality rejoice mzd mourn 0' er the fine forms of Portland's m}jl:ic urn. CANTO II. I. 3T9· THE celebrated funeral vafe, long in poffdTion of the Barberini family, and lately purchaft:d by the Duke of Portland for a thouf.:lnd guineas, is about ten inches hioh and fix in diameter in the broadet1 part. The figures are of molt exquifite workman01ip in bas relief of white opake glaf:::, rai fed on a ground of deep blue glafs, which appears black except when keld againft the light. Mr. Wedgwood is of opinion from many circumi1anccs that the figures have been made by cutting away the external crull: of white opake glafs, in the manner the fineft cameo's have been prc>dueed, and that it mull thence have been the labour of a great many years. Some antiquarians have placed the time of its production many centuries before the chriftian :era; as fculpturewas faid to h:lVe been declining in ref peel: to its excellence in the time of Alexander the Great. See an account of the Barbcrini or Portland vafe by M. D'Hancarville, and by Mr. Wedgwood. Many opinions and conjetl:mcs have been publiOJcd concerning the figures on this celebrated vafe. Ha\'ing carefully examined one of Mr. Wedgwood's beautiful copies of this wonderful pJOdu~ion of art, I fhall add one more conjetlure to the number. Mr. W edgwood has wdl obferved that it does not fcem probable that the Portland vafe was purpofely made for the afhes of any particular perfon deceafed, becaufe many years mult have been neceffary for its produCtion. Hence it may be concluded, that the fubjetl: of its cmbellifhments is not private hillory but of a general nature. This fub-jeCl: appears to me to be well chofen, and the !tory to be finely told; and that it reprcfents what in ancient times engaged the attention of philofophers, poets, and heroe£, I mean a part of the Eleufinian mylleries. Thefe myfl:eries were invented in iEgypt, and afterwards transferred to Greece, and flouriOJcd more pantcularly at Athe ns, which was at the fame time the feat of the fine arts. They confiO:ed of fcen ical exhibitions rcprefcnting and inculcating the expeCtation of a future life after death, and on this account were encouraged by the government, infomuch that the Athenian laws punifhcd a difcovery of their ft:crets with death. Dr. Warburton has with great learning and ingenuity fhewn that the defcent of JEneas into hell, defcribed in the Sixth Book of Virgil, is a poetical account of the reprefentations of the future fl:ate in the Eleufinian myllcries. Divine Legation, Vol. I. p. 2 10. And though fome writers have differed in opinion from Dr. Warburton on this fubjcct, becaufe Virgil has introduced fome of his own heroes into the Elyfian fields, as Deiphobus, Palinurus, and Dido, in the fame manner as Homer h:.d done before him, yet it is agreed that the received notions about a future ftate were exhibited in thefe_ mylleries, and as thefe poets -cle'fcribcd thole received notions, they may be faid, .. as f~as thef~ religious doctrines were concerned, t~ have defcribed the mylleries, . |