This house, the most interesting, and by far the most extensive of the private buildings yet discovered, is the Suburban Villa as it is called from its position a little way without the gates, in the Street of the Tombs, which led to, or formed part of, the suburb called Augustus Felix. It is worthy of remark, that the plan of this edifice is in close accord with the descriptions of country houses given us by Vitruvius and others -- a circumstance which tends strongly to confirm the belief already ex. pressed, that the houses of the city are built upon the Roman, system of arrangement, although the Greek taste may predominate in their decoration.

We will commence by extracting the most important passages in Pliny the Younger's description of his Laurentine villa, that the reader may have some general notion of the subject, some standard with which to compare that which we are about to describe.

"My villa is large enough for convenience, though not splendid. The first apartment which presents itself is a plain, yet not mean, atrium; then comes a portico, in shape like the letter 0, which surrounds a small, but pleasant area. This is an excellent retreat in bad weather, being sheltered by glazed windows, and still more effectually by an overhanging roof. Opposite the center of this portico is a pleasant cavaedium, after which comes a handsome triclinium, which projects upon the beach, so that when the southwest wind urges the sea, the last broken waves just dash against its walls.

On every side of this room are folding doors, or windows equally large, so that from the three sides there is a view, as it were, of three seas at once, while backwards the eye wanders through the apartments already described, the cavaedium, portico, and atrium, to woods and distant mountains. To the left are several apartments, including a bed-chamber, and room fitted up as a' library, which, jets out in an elliptic form, and, by its several windows, admits the sun during its whole course. These apartments 1 make my winter abode. The rest of this side of the house is allotted to my slaves and freedmen, yet it is for the most part neat enough to receive my friends.

To the right of the triclinium is a very elegant chamber, and another, which you may call either a very large chamber (cubiculam), or moderate- sized eating-room (coenalio), which commands a full prospect both of the sun and sea. Passing hence, through three or four other chambers, you enter the cella frigidaria of the baths, in which there are two basins projecting from opposite walls, abundantly large enough to swim in, if you feel inclined to do so t in the first instance. Then come the anointing-room, the hypocaust, or furnace, and two small rooms; next the warm bath, which commands an admirable view of the sea. Not far off is the sphoeristerium, a room devoted to in-door exercises and games, exposed to the hottest sun of the declining day.

Beside it is a triclinium, where the noise of the sea is never heard but in a storm, and then faintly, looking out upon the garden and the gestatio, or place for taking the air in a carriage or litter which encompasses it. The gestatio is hedged with box, and with rosemary where the box is wanting; for box grows well where it is sheltered by buildings, but withers when exposed in an open situation to the wind, and especially within reach of spray from the sea.

To the inner circle of the gestatio is joined a shady walk of vines, soft and tender even to the naked feet. The garden is full of mulberries and figs, the soil being especially suited to the former. Within the circuit of the gestatio there is also a cryptoportico, for extent comparable to public buildings, having windows on one side looking to the sea, on the other to the garden.

In front of it is a xystus, fragrant with violets, where the sun's heat is increased by reflection from the cryptoportico, which, at the same time, breaks the northeast wind. At either end of it is a suite of apartments, in which, in truth, I place my chief delight."*

* Plin. Ep. l1b. ii. 17. We've very much shortened the original, leaving out the description of, at least, one upper floor, and other particulars which did not appear necessary to the illustration of our subject.

Such was one of several villas described by Pliny. The directions given by Vitruvius for building country houses are very short. "The same principles," he says, "are to be observed in country houses as in town houses, except that in the latter the atrium lies next to the door, but in pseudo-urban houses the peristyles come first, then atria surrounded by paved porticoes, looking upon courts for gymnastic exercises and walking" (paloestras el ambulationes). **

** Vitruvius, vi. 8.

It will appear that the distribution of the Suburban Villa was entirely in accordance with these rules.

The house is built upon the side of the hill, in such a manner that the ground falls away, not only in the line of the street, across the breadth of the house, but also from the front to the back, so that the doorway itself being elevated from five to six feet above the roadway, there is room at the back of the house for an extensive and magnificent suite of rooms between the level of the peristyle and the surface of the earth.

These two levels are represented on the same plan, being distinguished by a difference in the shading. The darker parts show the walls of the upper floor, the lighter ones indicate the distribution of the lower. A further distinction is made in the references, which are by figures to the upper floor, and by letters to the lower. There are besides subterraneous vaults and galleries not expressed in the plan.