• Britons,' in the very time of the Romans, feems to have been of the fimpleft wooden materials; that this Bede, Ufher, and Spelman teftify; and that it is in vain then to look for thefe fculptural ornaments' among them, which more peculiarly belong to ftone edifices* We fufpected Mr. Ledwich before to be contradicting himself. We here feel the contradictorinefs. It is fubftantial and maffy. Nor is this all. The Britons, whofe architecture feems to have been of the fimpleft wooden materials,' had however, as we are contrarily told juft afterwards, fome poor ftone-fabrics, like those ⚫ of St. Martin and St. Pancras at Canterbury +.' Though

'tis to foreigners we are indebted-for thofe fculptures, which • fo profufely adorn our capitals and arches ;' yet here we find reafon to found a conjecture, that the Britons had an Ireum, ⚫or Roman chapel dedicated to Ifis,' with Egyptian hieroglyphical figures' on the arches. And though we were previously informed, the ftone-fabrics' of the Britons had no crypts under them;' yet now we fee a conjecture concerning the undercroft at Canterbury, that this crypt was an Ireum.' --Mr. Ledwich next gives us a new specimen of the Danish ftyle. This is taken from a finall ftone-roofed crypt," under the ruins of the church of Glendaloch in Ireland.

The • northern nations,' we are told before, from vicinity or in⚫tercourse had been long converfant with the fuperftition of Rome;' where a new principle of vicinity is introduced, for the Egyptian hieroglyphics paffing from the Roman builders, to nations who could not be faid to build at all. 'So exactly did their ideas affimilate on these heads, that Wormius declares one egg does not more clofely refemble another, than the • Egyptian and Danish hieroglyphics. Yet, to our aftonishment, we find in this fpecimen of the Danish ftyle;' that there are no traces of Saxon feuillage,' and that the sculptures are expreffive of the most favage and uncultivated state of fociety **.*

We are grieved to make these remarks on an author, whom we refpect for his learning, his taste, and his fpirit. And we are happy in being able to point out with the most unqualified praife, the concluding part of this effay; in the observations on the Gothic ftyle, or that of building with pointed arches." This mode is fhewn not to be derived from the Saracens, as Sir C. Wren fuppofed, and Bishop Warburton, Mr. T. Warton, and others have united with him in fuppofing. No fuch

'Saracenic works exift in Spain or Sicily, or in any other place to which the Arabian power extended *.' Nor is it to be derived from the Goths. In the Gothic age, A. D. 514; and under a Gothic prince, Theodoric;' from his orders for repairing the edifices at Rome it appears, that the Greek and Roman ftyles, and their moft correct modules, were admired, ' and nothing held in estimation but the antique; an evidence for ⚫ ever fufficient, to overthrow every hypothelis on this head +.' The pointed arch was known and used by the Romans. Adrian built a city in Egypt, out of refpect to the memory of Antinous. · Pere Bernat made drawings of its ruins, which are in 'the third tome of Montfaucon's Antiquities.. Among them is the pointed arch, not perfectly Gothic, but that called contrafted. Another contrafted arch appears in the Syrian M. S. In Horley are Roman fepulchral stones with pointed arches .' Yet this arch funk into disuse among the Romans, and was revived about A.D. 1000 §.' Mr. Ledwich finds the 'ftrait' arch used in the ninth and tenth centuries; from the churches ' on the coins of Berengarius, King of Italy, and Lewis the Pious; and thofe in the Menologium Græcum, Urbini, 1727.' But, on a coin of Edward the Confeffor, in Camden, is a pointed arch.' This Mr. Ledwich thinks Edward faw on the continent, and imitated in the island; from his known attachment 'to the Normans, among whom he was educated.' Mr. Ledwich alfo notices the fanctuary at Westminster, the supposed work of Edward, to have had pointed arches ;' and the 'church at Kirkdale, mentioned by Mr. Brooke,' to have also the pointed arch, and' to be of the age of the Confeffor." He obferves additionally from Glaber Rudolph, a Benedictine monk and contemporary; that fome architectural novelty feems 'to have made its appearance at this period.' We think this teftimony, innovari ecclefiarum bafilicas,' peculiarly appofite and forcible. And I fubmit it with great deference to the 'judgment of the Society,' concludes Mr. Ledwich, whether the novum genus ædificandi of William of Malmesbury, applied to the architecture of the Conqueror's reign, does not imply fomething more than extent and magnificence; and whether, to complete the idea of a new style, we ought not to take in 'the pointed arch and Gothic ornaments .' We have examined the paffage in Malmesbury, and concur with Mr. Ledwich in opinion; the novum ædificandi genus having no relation to the extent and magnificence' of buildings noted before,

thefe being confined to private houses, and that applied to monafteries and churches; and Malmesbury's new kind of building for fuch edifices, being fixed by Rudolph's innovations in building churches, to a new style of architecture for them, and equally to those in France and Italy as in Britain.

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We also recommend the following remark to our readers, as fettling very judiciously the point between our two rival hiftorians of mufic. Sir John Hawkins gives us the Giuftiniani Apollo, playing on a violin with a bow: the body of the in'ftrument is fomewhat rounder than ours. This ftatue, Dr. Burney informs us, has been proved by Winkelman and "Mengs to be modern: he thinks the violin and bow, which appear on an antique ewer and bafon dug up at Soiffons, the oldeft hitherto difcovered. Le Beuf, he adds, fuppofes them to be as antient, as the year 752. To the fentiments of these ' eminent scholars and antiquaries I fhould moft readily subfcribe,-could I reconcile them with Venantius Fortunatus. • This writer flourished about the middle of the fixth century, ' and mentions the Chrotta Britanna or British Crwth. From the drawing of this inftrument in the third volume of the Archæologia, it is plain it was of the fidicinal kind; and the tranfition from this to the violin is easy *.'

XX. A Circumflantial Detail of the Battle of Lincoln, ‹ A. D. 1217. By the Rev. Samuel Pegge."

This is an account, of which we can but fay, that it seems to be as accurate as it is particular. We only remark, that the king's party, in their progrefs to Lincoln, rendezvoused at Newark, on Monday in Whitfun week, with white croffes on their breafts,' and ftayed there thre confeffing themselves, and receiving the facrament."

XXI. Some Account of the Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire.
By Hayman Rooke, Efq.'

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This account, attended by two fets of views for different parts of thefe rocks, is very curious. But we can stay only to mark one or two points in it. One is a rocking ftone, the bottom of which evidently appears to have been cut away, to form two knobs, on which it refts, and moves with great ease." Another is one of three rocking-ftones, which, on examining, appeared to have been fhaped to a small knob at the

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* P. 179.

bottom,

'bottom, to give it motion; though my guide, who was seventy years old, born on the moors, and well acquainted with thefe rocks, affured me that ftone had never been known to rock. The aftonishing increase of the motion with the little force I gave it, made me very apprehenfive the equilibrium might be deftroyed; but, on examining it, I found it was fo nicely balanced, that there was no danger of its falling. The con'ftruction of this equipoised ftone, must have been by artists 'well skilled in the powers of mechanics. It is indeed the 'most extraordinary rocking-ftone I ever met with; and it is ' somewhat as extraordinary, that it should never have been dif' covered before, and that it should now move so easily, after so many ages of reft.' In a third rock, where a road appears · plainly to have been leading to a hole,' within this is a round hole, perforated quite through the rock;' in which aperture a man-is heard diftinctly on the north fide of the rock, where the hole is not vifible. The voice on the outside is as dif'tinctly conveyed to the perfon in the aperture, as was several times tried.' And, upon another rock, is a very fingular figure,' feemingly the buft of fome perfon, cut in the folid 'rock in high relief.'

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XXII. Doubts and Conjectures concerning the Reafon commonly affigned, for inferting or omitting the Words Ecclefia and Prefbyter in Domesday-Book. By the Rev. Samuel Denne,'

In this effay the author argues, and we think with reason on his fide, that there were more parish-churches in England, than are noticed in Domesday.

• XXIII. Obfervations on the Origin of Printing. By Ralph Willett, Efq. F. A. R. S.'

In the difpute which has arifen concerning this origin, Harlem, Mentz, and Strafburg, have refpectively claimed the honour. Mr. Willet is in favour of Mentz. And we think he hath produced strong arguments for his opinion.

'XXIV. An Account of the Caves of Cannara, Ambola, and Elephanta, in the Eaft-Indies; in a Letter from Hector Macneil, Esq. then at Bombay.

In this account we are furprised, we are pleased; but we are not taught. This arifes from what the author juftly calls the 'curiously inexplicable' nature of the fubject. He defcribes the caves. And then, for reafons feemingly good in themselves, and yet acknowledged by him to be not quite fatisfactory, he afcribes them to the Gentoos of the country. G 2

ARTA

ART. VI. Introduction to the Knowledge of Germany; containing Inquiries into the Difpofition and Manners, peculiar Habits and Customs, of the diftinet Glaffes of Society; Particularities and Anecdotes of their divers Courts, and remarkable Perfonages; a View of their Literature and Learning, Improvements in Arts and Sciences, religious Opinions and fingular Notions, different Governments, Politics, and Revolutions. With a Variety of other Refearches, tending to afford a complete Idea of that Country and its Inhabitants during the latter Ages, and at the present Time, 8vo. 4s. boards. Hookham. London, 1789.

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HIS author fets out with reciting the opinions of Tacitus, Bouhours, and Dacier, concerning the capacity of the Germans, and the northern people of Europe. He obferves that Tacitus, in his account of their ancestors, seems to undervalue their intellectual merit; and that both Bouhours and Dacier have denied them admittance into the province of wit. But the latter of these writers has given the like exclufion to all the nations lying north of France, the English themselves not excepted. The truth is,' as the author now before us obferves,

That whatever ignorance or levity may have fuggefted, the Germans, for feveral ages, and especially fince the extinction of their. civil feuds a century ago, have made a very confpicuous figure in the republic of letters. Of late years they have confiderably improved their own tongue, which is bold, manly, and copious. In paftoral and epic poetry they have produced compofitions of prime merit. The James of a Brocks, a Kleift, a Klopftock, and a Geffner, are abundantly fufficient, without adducing any others, to refcue them from an imputation of a defect of genius. The tranflation of many of their works into the languages of the principal nations in Europe, and the applaufe with which they are univerfally read, are inconteftible proofs of their fuperior excellence.

The force and energy of the German compofitions in profe is allowed by all who have perufed them. The emphatical diction of their prayers and fermons is particularly remarkable. This is a circumftance which even fome Frenchmen of note, well converfant in the German language, have been impartial enough to acknowledge. What was still more, they have even confeffed that the ftyle and expreffions of the French were not equal, in point of weight and sublimity, to thofe of the German.

In fonnets, madrigals, epigrams, and other minute parts of poetry, the Germans have not indeed been hitherto very productive; but this they need not lament, when it is reflected how little fuch performances contribute to a great reputation.

• Neither have they shone in the drama, with that splendour which they might have done had they exerted themselves to bring it to that degree of perfection of which it is evidently fufceptible in their

language.