As for the prejudice of the Silence of the Ancient Authors in this matter, 'tis easily removed, and to be regretted at the same time that the Authors of all Ages, too much neglect the customs of their own time. Writing for the satisfaction of their Cotemporaries, they think it impertinent to Trouble them with the Account of what they see Transacted every Day. By this means the Ancient Customs, with the Time, and Reasons of their disuse, are lost with Respect to us, and ours with the same Circumstances may come to be so with relation to Posterity. As the Authors are pleas'd to adopt them for their Children, one wou'd wonder greater care is not taken not to entail visible occasions of complaint on them; nay, one wou'd wonder more, to see these Gentlemen so little ambitious of a future reputation, when they may infallibly assure it themselves, without resigning the present, by transmitting the knowledge of things, the knowledge of which may in a small series of Years become otherwise irretrievable; they cannot but observe every Day what esteem is placed on those Authors, to whom we are forced to go, to find in them what cannot be found elsewhere, to compare with the others, in whom nothing is to be found, but what Men of Reason are able to find at home. Upon the whole, the Catacombs I humbly conceive were the Burying-places of the Ancient _Romans_; at length the manner of Burning, which they received from the _Græcians_, coming by degrees to prevail universally, they fell under a total neglect. This is the State in which the Primitive Christians must be suppos'd to have found them; 'tis not to be imagin'd they could have made any use of them, at a time when 'twas the daily practice to lay up even the depositions of the Slaves in them; so that either the Christians made no use of them at all, or they never were the burying Place of the Slaves. Now as these are Suppositions that naturally destroy one another, one would count it more safe to follow the faint light of a glimmering tradition, than abandon ones self to the Conduct of an _Ignis fatuus_, that for ought a Man knows is actually misleading him, so I beg leave to call the Testimony of _Festus Pompeius_, that may rather be apply'd to any other thing than to the Galleries of the Catacombs, carry'd under ground, they say 20 Miles from the City in some places, and no Body knows how far in others, and to that vast number of Chambers that go off them. Thus therefore the Christians finding them in a state of neglect laid up the Bodies of their Dead in them; and perhaps when the Persecution was hot, conceal'd themselves and kept little separate Assemblies in their Chambers. At last the Empire turning Christians, they fell again in the old state of neglect, in which they continu'd till upon the reading of I have forgot what Author that makes mention of them, they came to be look'd into and search'd. What I have writ relates to the Catacombs of _Rome_, those of _Naples_ are a quite other thing, of