a celebrated funeral vase which was long in possession of the Barberini family; but which was lately purchased for 1000 guineas by the duke of Portland, from whom it has derived its present name. Its height is about ten inches, and its diameter where broadest six. There are a variety of figures upon it of most exquisite workmanship, in bas relief of white opalescent glass, raised on a ground of deep blue glass, which appears black except when held against the light. It appears to have been the work of many years, and there are antiquarians who date its production several centuries before the Christian era; since, as has been said, sculpture was declining in excellence in the time of Alexander the Great.

Respecting the purpose of this vase, and what the figures on it were meant to represent, there have been a variety of conjectures, which it was not our business to enumerate. We think with Dr Darwin* that it was not *Loves of made for the ashes of any particular person deceased; the Plants, and therefore that the subject of its embellishments is not a private history, but of a general nature. But we are not sure that he is right in conjecturing it to represent a part of the Eleusinian mysteries; because that conjecture depends on Warburton's explanation of the fifth book of the Æneid, which does not now command that respect which it did when it was first proposed. We shall therefore give a short account of the several figures, without noticing any of the theories or conjectures that have been made about them.

In one compartment three exquisite figures are placed on a ruined column, the capital of which is fallen, and lies at their feet among other disjointed stones; they fit under a tree on loose piles of stone. The middle figure is a female in a reclining and dying attitude, with an inverted torch in her left hand, the elbow of which supports her as the limbs, while the right hand is raised and thrown over the drooping head. The figure on her right hand is a man, and that on the left a woman, both supporting themselves on their arms, and apparently thinking intensely. Their backs are to the dying figure, and their faces are turned to her, but without an attempt to assist her. On another compartment of the vase is a figure coming through a portal, and going down with great timidity into a darker region, where he is received by a beautiful female, who stretches forth her hand to help him; between her knees is a large and playful fer- pent. She sits with her feet towards an aged figure, having one foot sunk into the earth, and the other raised on a column, with his chin resting on his hand. Above the female figure is a Cupid preceding the first figure, and beckoning him to advance. This first figure holds a cloak or garment, which he seems anxious to bring with him, but which adheres to the side of the portal through which he has passed. In this compartment there are two trees, one of which bends over the female figure and the other over the aged one. On the bottom of the vase there is another figure on a larger scale than the one we have already mentioned, but not so well finished nor so elevated. This figure points with its finger to its mouth. The dress appears to be curious and cumbersome, and above there is the foliage of a tree. On the head of the figure there is a Phrygian cap: it is not easy to say whether this figure be male or female. On the handles of the vase are represented two aged heads with the ears of a quadruped, and from the middle of the forehead rises a kind of tree without leaves: these figures are in all probability mere ornaments, and have no connection with the rest of the figures, or the story represented on the vase.