Most of the houses are built on the same plan, and have one small room from the passage, which is conjectured to have been the shop, with a window to the street, and a place which seems to have been contrived for shewing the goods to the greatest advantage. The nature of the traffic carried on at one particular house, is indicated by a figure in alto relievo of a very expressive kind, immediately above the door.
It is to be wished they would cover one of the best houses with a roof, as nearly resembling that which originally belonged to it as they could imagine, with a complete assortment of the antique furniture of the kitchen and each particular room. Such a house fitted up with accuracy and judgment, with all its utensils and ornaments properly arranged, would be an object of universal curiosity, and would swell the heart of the antiquarian with veneration and delight. Only imagine, my dear Sir, what those gentlemen must feel, when they see the venerable habitations of the ancients in their present mournful condition, neglected, despised, abandoned to the peltings of rain, and all the injuries of the weather! those precious walls, which, were it possible to transport them to the various countries of the world, would be bought with avidity, and placed in the gardens of Princes! How must the bosoms of all true virtuosos glow with indignation, when they behold the mansions of the ancient Romans stripped of their ornaments, dishonoured, and exposed, like a parcel of ragged galley slaves, in the most indecent manner, with hardly any covering to their nakedness; while a little paltry brick house, coming the Lord knows how, from a country which men of taste have always despised, has been received with hospitality, dressed in a fine coat of the richest marble, adorned with jewels and precious stones, and treated with every mark of honourable distinction!
In another part of the town of Pompeia, there is a rectangular building, with a colonade, towards the court, something in the style of the Royal Exchange at London, but smaller. This has every appearance of a barrack and guard room; the pillars are of brick, covered with shining stucco, elegantly fluted; the scrawlings and drawings still visible on the walls, are such as we might naturally expect on the walls of a guard room, where soldiers are the designers, and swords the engraving tools. They consist of gladiators fighting, some with each other, some with wild beasts; the games of the circus, as chariot races, wrestling, and the like; a few figures in caricatura, designed probably by some of the soldiers, in ridicule of their companions, or perhaps of their officers; and there are abundance of names inscribed on various parts of the wall, according to the universal custom of the humblest candidates for fame in all ages and countries. It may be safely asserted, that none of those who have endeavoured to transmit their names to posterity in this manner, have succeeded so well as the soldiers of the garrison of Pompeia.