Rare monkish Manuscripts for Hearne alone, And Books for Mead, and Butterflies for Sloane. Think we all these are for himself? no more I t Than his fine Wife, alas! or finer Whore. For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many Taftes he wanted. What brought Sir Vifto's ill got wealth to waste? 15 Some Dæmon whisper'd, " Visto! have a Taste." Heav'n vifits with a Tafte the wealthy fool, And needs no Rod but Ripley with a Rule. NOTES. attribute here affigned thefe Gods of old renown, is not in difparagement of their worth, but in high commendation of their genuine pretenfions. SCRIBL. VER. 10. And Books for Mead, and Butterflies for Sloane.] Two eminent Phyficians; the one had an excellent Library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiofities; both men of great learning and humanity. P. VER. 12. Than his fine Wife, alas! or finer Whore.] By the Author's manner of putting together these two different Utenfils of falfe Magnificence, it appears, that properly fpeaking, neither the Wife nor the Whore is the real object of modern Tafte, but the finery only: And whoever wears it, whether the Wife or the Whore, it matters not; any further than that the latter is thought to deserve it beft, as appears by her having most of it; and fo indeed becomes, by accident, the more fashionable Thing of the two. SCRIBL. VER. 17. Heav'n vifits with a Tofte the wealthy fool,] The prefent rage of Tafte, in this overflow of general Luxury, may be very properly represented by a defolating peftilence, alluded to in the word vifit. VER. 18. Ripley] This man was a carpenter, employed by a first Minifter, who raised him to an Architect, without See! fportive fate, to punish aukward pride, Bids Bubo build, and fends him fuch a Guide: A ftanding fermon, at each year's expence, That never Coxcomb reach'd Magnificence! 21 You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of Ufe. Yet fhall (my Lord) your juft, your noble rules 25 Fill half the land with Imitating-Fools; VARIATIONS. After Ver. 22. in the MS. Must Bishops, Lawyers, Statesmen have the skill NOTES. any genius in the art; and after fome wretched proofs of his infufficiency in public Buildings, made him Comptroller of the Board of works. P. VER. 19. See! sportive fate, to punish aukward pride,] Pride is one of the greatest mischiefs, as well as higheft abfurdities of our nature; and therefore, as appears both from profane and facred Hiftory, has ever been the more peculiar object of divine vengeance. But aukward Pride intimates fuch abilities in its owner, as eafes us of the apprehenfion of much mischief from it; fo that the Poet fuppofes fuch a one fecure from the ferious refentment of Heaven, though it may permit fate or fortune to bring him into the public contempt and ridicule, which his natural badness of heart fo well deferves. VER. 23. The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Defigns of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio. P. Who random drawings from your sheets fhall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain Church with old Theatric ftate, Turn Arcs of triumph to a Garden-gate; 3° NOTES. VER. 28. And of one beauty many blunders make ;] Because the road to Tafte, like that to Truth, is but one; and those to Error and Abfurdity a thousand. VER. 29. Load fome vain Church with old Theatric ftate,] In which there is a complication of abfurdities, arifing both from their different natures and forms: For the one being for religi cus fervice, and the other only for civil amufement, it is impoffible that the profuse and lafcivious ornaments of the latter fhould become the modefty and fanctity of the other. Nor will any examples of this vanity of drefs in the facred buildings of antiquity juftify this imitation; for those ornaments might be very fuitable to a Temple of Bacchus, or Venus, which would ill become the fobriety and purity of the Christ ian Religion. Befides, it should be confidered, that the ufual form of a Theatre would only permit the architectonic ornaments to be placed on the outward face; whereas those of a Church may be as commodiously, and are more properly put within; particularly in great and clofe pent-up Cities, where the inceffant driving of the fmoke, in a little time corrodes and deftroys all outward ornaments of this kind; efpecially if the members, as is the common tafte, be fmall and little. Our Gothic ancestors had juster and manlier notions than these modern mimics of Greek and Roman magnificence: which, because the thing does honour to their genius, I fhall endeavour to explain. All our ancient Churches are called, without diftinction, Gothic; but erroneously. They are of two forts; the one built in the Saxon times; the other during our Norman race of kings. Several Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of the firft fort are yet remaining, either Reverse your Ornaments; and hang them all On fome patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall; NOTES. in whole or in part; of which this was the Original: When the Saxon kings became Chriftian, their piety (which was the piety of the times) confifted in building Churches at home, and performing pilgrimages to the Holy Land: and these fpiritual Exercises affifted and fupported one another. For the most venerable as well as most elegant models of religious edifices were then in Palestine. From these our Saxon Builders took the whole of their ideas, as may be seen by comparing the drawings which travellers have given us of the churches yet standing in that country, with the Saxon remains of what we find at home; and particularly in that famenefs of ftyle in the later religious edifices of the Knights Templars, (profeffedly built upon the model of the church of the holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem) with the earlier remains of our Saxon Edifices. Now the architecture of the Holy Land was Grecian, but greatly fallen from its ancient elegance. Our Saxon performance was indeed a bad copy of it; and as much inferior to the works of St. Helene, as her's were to the Grecian models fhe had followed: Yet ftill the footsteps of ancient art appeared in the circular arches, the entire columns, the divifion of the entablature, into a fort of Architrave, Frize, and Corniche, and a folidity equally diffufed over the whole mafs This, by way of diftinction, I would call the SAXON Architecture. But our Norman works had a very different original. When the Goths had conquered Spain, and the genial warmth of the climate, and the religion of the old inhabitants, had ripened their wits, and inflamed their mistaken piety (both kept in exercise by the neighbourhood of the Saracens, thro' emulation of their fcience and averfion to their fuperftition) they ftruck out a new fpecies of Architecture unknown to Greece and Rome; upon original principles, and ideas much nobler than what had given birth even to claffical magnificence. For this northern people having been accustomed, Then clap four flices of Pilafter on't, That, lac'd with bits of ruftic, makes a Front. NOTES. during the gloom of paganifm, to worship the Deity in GROVES (a practice common to all nations) when their new religion required covered edifices, they ingeniously projected to make them resemble Groves, as nearly as the distance of Architecture would permit; at once indulging their old prejudices, and providing for their prefent conveniences, by a cool receptacle, in a fultry climate. And with what skill and fuccefs they executed the project by the affiftance of Sarazen Architects, whose exotic style of building very luckily fuited their purpose, appears from hence, That no attentive obferver ever viewed a regular Avenue of well grown trees, intermixing their branches over head, but it prefently put him in mind of the long Vifto through a Gothic Cathedral; or ever entered one of the larger and more elegant Edifices of this kind, but it reprefented to his imagination an Avenue of trees. And this alone is what can be truly called the GOTHIC ftyle of Building. Under this idea, of fo extraordinary a fpecies of Architecture, all the irregular tranfgreffions against art, all the monftrous offences against nature, difappear; every thing has its reafon, every thing is in order, and an harmonious Whole arifes from the ftudious application of means, proper and proportioned to the end. For could the Arches be otherwife than pointed when the Workman was to imitate that curve which branches make by their interfection with one another? Or could the Columns be otherwife than split into diftinct shafts, when they were to represent the Stems of a clump of Trees? On the fame principle they formed the fpreading ramification of the ftone-work in the windows, and the ftained glafs in the interftices; the one being to reprefent the branches, and the other the leaves, of an opening Grove; and both concurred to preferve that gloomy light which infpires religious reverence and dread. Lastly, we fee the reafon of their ftudied averfion to apparent folidity in |