The elegant and picturesque Gilpin has chosen to denominate this pavement "a piece of miserable workmanship," which can only be owing to the manner in which he injudiciously viewed it. By placing the light in a proper position, the spectator will observe that the effect of the whole piece gives the idea of good design, shade, and relief; and will be clearly convinced that it could not have been wrought by a hand which had not made considerable progress in the art of painting, as is evident from the rounding of the arm of the female, the foreshortening of the stag's horn, and the animated expression of each countenance. The tesserae are of various sizes, mostly square, but where a narrow line of light was required, as in the strait Grecian nose of the female, they are small and long. They appear to be a composition, and are of three or four distinct shades, the darkest a brown approaching to black, the next a warm or red brown, and the lightest, which forms the ground work, an ochery white. The admirers of this art, so much practised by the Romans as a decoration of their magnificent buildings, an art which has survived so long as to have obtained an established manufactory in modern Rome, will ascertain the pavement in question to be one of the first specimens of antient mosaic, and will, with gratified attention, here behold form and shade called up from that unmanageable material, a piece of baked earth. The commonly received opinion of these pavements having been the floors of baths, as founded on the circumstance of their being discovered three or four feet under the surface of the earth, is not conclusive; for the soil has been raised by accidental accumulation; and had not this been the case, the depth of three or four feet would not have been sufficient for a Bath as it could not have allowed room for submersion. Neither does the vault with a floor and walls of tesselated work, and pipes in the roof, discovered near Leicester in the reign of James the first, the memory alone of which is preserved by our indefatigable topographer, Mr. Nichols, render such an opinion in any respect more certain; but that some of them were floors of sitting rooms may be justly inferred, from the flues constructed under them for the purpose of conveying heat.