furface, renders it very fubject to agues, and other complaints injurious to the health of troops, which are now much reduced in number fince the general peace. The fort confifts of two batteries; one below, on the line of the river-wall, the other within the portal, which confifts of a maflive pile of fione building. By an infeription on the front of the gate, it was built in the end of the reign of Charles II. foon after fome Dutch entered the Medway. The fort is of brick. In this the batteries which furround it are raifed 16 or 18 feet above the other, on both of which are 100 or more pieces of cannon of 9 and 24 pounders. There are three magazines here, within the fort, which contain many thoufand barrels of gunpowder; two facing the gate as you enter, and one in the front of confiderable fize on the right of the gate, prefenting its circular face to the river. There are alfo ftorehoufes infide, and a small chapel, where fervice is performed twice a month. For the convenience of receiving and fhipping gunpowder, flores, and goods, there are two platforms or piers run out into the river to low-water mark. During floods and fpring-tides the area of this fort is overflowed for a feafon three or four feet deep. This happens but feldom, we may hope; but, not many winters ago, the garrifon could not pafs even from door to door with out a boat for fome weeks together. It appears, by an order aflixed to the ferry-houfe here by the late governor of Gravefend and Tilbury, Sir William Fawcett, K. B. about the year 1791, that the rates are nearly as follow: A fingle paffenger, 3d. Poor perfons belonging to the army and navy, free Coaches, &c. 9d. a wheel. Cattle, &c. per fcore or hundred. On Sundays fuch rates to be double. The ferry-boat on the Gravefend fide is let to the best bidder by the mayor and corporation of Gravefend, fubject to fuch ratesas are appointed by Govern ment to the ferry on the Effex fhore. The ferryman informed me, that the drains and fewers on this level are kept in very bad repair; and that the feawater flows in at every high tide and does not return, to the great injury of their cattle and stock. Sir William Fawcett was fucceeded, in 1796, by Major-general Thomas Mufgrave. His deputy is a gentleman now very ill; and the fort-major is Geor. Mackey, efq. who refides in the fort with a numerous family of young children by a fecond marriage, as his firft lady lies buried in Weft Tilbury church-yard. Of the dark ignorace of the peasantry of this county I had a good fpecimen. A party of rufticks had made a holiday, and come fix or eight miles down the country to fee the river and Gravefend, and the big boats, as they called them, alias fhips. The liquor they had fwallowed had thrown off the guard of thame,and beftowed contempt of ridicule with which one of their company admonifhed them. Their boorish admiration of what they faw-fuch as, af this great pond, as they called the Thames which had neither beginning nor end; and yet they thought it ran faft away from them, putting their hands into the water as the boat went on. These and fuch-like remarks brought reflec tions to my mind not very complimen tary to my new Effex acquaintances. And again; I faid, "these poor fellows probably were not taught to read. But they were taught to earn their levelihood; and feem well qualified for it, being strong and healthy. Yet their minds are chaos. Well; what then? their bodies are ftout: their master hires their body; he finds mind, and has the better bargain; for, the lefs they know, the more they work. Then, faid 1, look over our happy ifland, you will find a beautiful variety of character. In the more Northern portion, and even in other parts, where the mind is enabled to expand by learning and by example, the effects are thefe, that every Hufbandman is an Agriculturift, and every Fisherman is a Philofopher." (To be continued.) in Arabic, foine fragments only now remain; but an admirable Perfian tranflation was made in the tenth century of the Chriftian æra (a few years after the death of Tabari), and enriched with fo much curious additional matter, extracted from the antient records of the Jews, the Perfian Magi, or Fireworshippers, and the Muffulmans, that M. D'Herbelót prefers this version to the original. (See Bibl. Orient. art. Thabar). Morocco's corfairs, and were conveyed the original work, which was written prifoners to Morocco. The Emperor, being ftruck with the young lady's beauty, would only confent to her niother's release upon condition that the would confent to be his favourite wife, and become a Mahonetan. She bore him two fons; and as the principal Sultana living with him in the year 1777 was an Englishwoman, and the mother of two fous, it is reasonable to fuppofe that the was the fame lady, although the had been fuperfeded in the Emperor's affections by a French concubine. Some years ago, there was a trial in the court of Chancery relative io an efiate in which the Emprefs was interefied, in which trial the Emperor was made a party. This happened between the years 1745 and 1750. Alas! how miferable a victim was this lady to filial piety, brutal love, unjutt power, and unenviable royalty! Happier, far happier, the wife of the hufbandman in England, ftanding at er wath-tub or leating in the fields. Let all peevish difcontented wives in this kingdom compare their lot with this lady's, and be thankful. Some farther particulars connected with this novel-like hiftory may be found in Irin's Tour through the Defarts of Thebais, p. 386. HENRICUS. Mr. URBAN, Aug. 25. A CORRESPONDENT, who obferves the repeated complaints of a certain defeription of men, who, in order to be quite "free and eafy" in their tudies, demand a public library in this great metropolis, to which free accefs can be had at all feafonable hours," afks, whether they would have it like a coffee-houfe, where pamphlets are thumbed and dirtied till they are rendered utelets; or like a fubfcription Ebrary, many of the books of which are never returned, and whole fets of vainable books rendered ulelets; or whether there frould not be a very vigilant fuperintendant, to keep readers from purloining MSS. or autographs, books, or their plates? Sir William Oufeley is employed, during the leifure hours of his retirement in South Wales, on a tranflation of the Great Tarish, or Chronicle of Taburi, whom Mr. Ockley flyles the Liry of the Arabians, and to whose excellence Pococke, D'Herbelor, Erpenius. Dr. Hyde, and all the moft learned Orientalilis, have borne witnefs. Of Mr. Haiter, librarian to the Prince of Wales, is employed at Palermo in unfolding the papyrus volumes from Herculaneum, and has been fo fortunate as to difcover the treatife of Epicurus on the Nature of Things, which has hitherto been known only by name, and is confidered as the basis of the poem of Lucretius. This undertaking, performed at the expence of the Prince, does honour to him and to the English nation. Ten perfous are occu pied in unfolding this manufcript, which has been to many years ufelefs in the Museum of Portici. The volumes hitherto unfolded, at the expence of the King of Naples, are the following: 1. A Work of Philodemus on Mufic, which has been published by Mr. Rofiui. 2. Another work of Philodemus Περι κακίων και των αντι KIJMETNY JETON (on the Vices and their oppofite Virtues). Mr. Baffi, librarian of the King of Naples, was employed in tranflating it at the time when he fell a facrifice of the laft infurrection of the populace in Naples. 3. A third work by the fame Greek author, II-g Touativy, was unfolding in the year 1794. At that period ten volumes were unfolded, and perfons were ent were at that time no lefs than one thouployed in unfolding the eleventh. There fand five hundred volumes left in the Mufcum to be unfolded. Every year twenty volumes might be unfolded if inore aflittance were employed; but ployed by his Neapolitan majesty. only two perfons were at that time cm M. De Sacy has endeavoured to explain part of the trifold Egyptian infeription, copied by the French in Egypt before it was brought to London (lee our p. 726), in a printed letter addreffed to the minifier Chaptal. Another interpretation is foon expected from . Akerblad, a Swede, verfed in the Coptic language, and now at Paris. D. H. in D. H. in the inftance alluded to by Indagator, p. 598, has experienced the uncertainty of Corrigenda and Addenda, which frequently, as in the inftances here quoted, required fo much correction and addition, not to mention the perfonal incivility whereof fome were made the vehicle. We are, however, obliged to your correfpondent for pointing out this fource of information in the prefent cafe; and in return take this opportunity to inform him, from the Supplement to the Biographical Dictionary, 1767, 8vo, that Gilbert Weli's mother being a daughter of Sir Richard Temple, bart. implies a probability that Admiral Temple W. was another of her fons by Dr. W. who had been patronized by Bifhop Burnet, and of whom I fhould be glad to know a little more. Mr. Williams, vicar of Wellefburn, was, if I miltake not, cousin to Mr. Glover, author of Leonidas, &c. I have no objection to the epitaph on Sir Ralph Abercromby, p. 616, but that it is placed on an angle of the principal battery of the cattle of St. Elmo" perhaps, however, like the Lomb of fome general of antiquity, who directed it to be erected on a point of land oppofite to the coat of his enemies. Of Mr. Johnstone's houfe, mention ed in p. 421, plans and elevations may be feen in Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. 1. p. 77. Mr. Carter, in his Antient Architecture of England, pl. XXIV. has given a large correct view of the Woit front of St. Leonard's chapel at Stam-, ford, mentioned in your vol. LXXI. pp. 902, 1005. D. H. VITR GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. No. XIII. Mr. URBAN, Portfeu, Sept. 2. VITRUVIUS lays down the proportion of finished temples to be in length twice their width, as obferyed in laft number; his expreflion is, Ita erit. duplex longitudo operis ad Latitudinem:" but as this can never, in any regular difpofition, be obtained to an exaétnefs, that method which approaches the nearest to the defired proportion of double the width of the work for the length is to be adopted. To procure this, Vitruvius lays down the rule to double the front intercolumns for the number of thofe on the fide; and fays, they who have doubled the number of colimus in front for the number of the tide columns, feem to have erred. Now it is very true, that when the front intercolumns are dou bled without confidering the columus, the proportion is exact; but when the columns have their places among these fide intercolumus, they will be one lets than the double of the front columns, and destroy the exact proportion, the length being one diameter too fhort: and that column cannot be added without introducing another intercolumn, and this would make the fide, even in pycnotyle, 14 diameter too long; all this is evident, but in all this the fhafts of the columns are culculated without their bales, and of courfe, in this Ionic manner at least, the work is unfinished: but when they are completed with bales, their prójectures at each end of the fide length, add to it just one-half diameter, and to the front width add the fame; then, if we take the front width in this nished work, and double it along the finifhed fide, it is evident that the projectures of front bafes will be given twice in the length, and will extend one-half a diameter farther ou the a nifhed fide. And this caufes the fide to be only one diameter too long by doubling the number of froat columins; whereas by doubling the frous intercolumns there will be 14 too fhort ; therefore, as 1 is a lefs deviation from the defired proportion than 14, they who have doubled the colunas in pyenolyle do not kem to have erred as our Mafter thought: but in the fyftyle, as the odd intercolumn (by doubling the columns for the length) has half a diameter more, the excels is juft equal to the deficiency (by doubling the intercolumns of front.) And agata in dialyle, as the odd intercolumn is 14 more than pycnollyle, the excefs then by doubling the front columns will be 24; of course, doubling intercomas here is the beft method: in the areoftyle the excels will be 31. But in the reformed diallyle of Hermogenes, called defervedly eagle, the delirea proportion is approached to nearly, that by doubling the front columns for thofe on the fide, the excels will be only one-fourth of a diame er when the fidifhed work is meafured; and even in Vitruvins's way. calculating, without bales, only three-fourths of a diameter; whereas, by doubling the. number of intercolavins, and in his way of calculating, the deficiency wil be 24 diameters, and when the b.fes are plinths; and a plinth, according to him, is jutt a diameter and half, confequently the intercolumn is required to be two diameters. The ditriglyphon, indeed, requires juft two and three quarters for the intercolumn, when the freeze is (as it ought to be) 45 minutes high, and yet this is called diastyle; and when there are three triglyphs over each intercolumn, exactly four is required for the areoftyle intercolumn. Hence it is fair to conclude that to vary from 1 for pycnoftyle, 2 for fyftyle, and 2 and with central, 8 for euftyle, and that a liberty only can be taken in the unreformed diaftyle and in the doric manner, nor even in that. are added, just three diameters. This fo near approximation to what the Grecian architects thought to be fo defirable a proportion of temples, induced them, no doubt, to call this reform, the eufiyle, in which we fee the front columns must be doubled in the fide, either of diptere, periptere, or proftyle temples. Much praife, no doubt, was due to Hermogenes for the difcovery of this fpecies of intercolumniation, which is of univerfal ufe. But the fame cannot be faid of his invention of the pfeudo-diptere, as that is only useful in the idea of economy, are abufes in the Grecian architecture; and for temples on a fmall feale, viz. not more than 40 feet in front, wherein, fays Vitruvius, he leffened expence, and increafed convenience without deftroying the outward ftately appearance of the diptere, by removing 38 internal columns which included the two that flood between the angular _antæ, and their inconvenience was the narrowness of the intercolumns, the central one not being 5 feet, and the others little more than 3 feet, and between the plinths of the bafes not 3: the whole width of pronaos was not too wide for a commodious paffage to the cell, when these two colunms were gone. But when magnificence was confulted, as in the temple of the Ephefian Diana, there were not only thefe columns between the antæ, but others between them and the cell down the length of the pronaos, and the intercolumn in centre above 26 feet, whereas the whole of the pronaos in Hermogenes's temple was but about 15 feet; not fo much as the intercolumns on the fide of the Diana's, which were above 19 feet each. So that in very large temples the pfeudodiptere invention is fuperfluous as to convenience, and inadmiffible as to the propriety of found building on account of the epiftyles. Now, fince the fubject of intercolumniation has been neceffarily introduced, it is to be obferved that the antients were not very attentive to the exact fymmetries of one and a half, two and three diameters for intercolumns, yet it is no where proved that any praife is due for that neglect: and there are occafions that enforce the ftrict obfervance of fome of the fpecies at leaft; for the doric monotriglyphon must be just one and half; and Vitruvius exprefly fays that in fyftyle there must be one plinth of the baf for the space between the To this fubject belongs the invention of coupling columns: Perrault is quite an enthufiaft in favour of the practice, fays the antients would have adopted it had they thought of it; but furely then the Roman architects must have feen without thinking, when they could but behold coupled columns in the periftyle of the temple of Bacchus; but the probability is that they were not fo enamoured of fuch a difpofition as Perrault and fome other moderns, and only employed it when compelled, as in that temple, evidently to gain more ftrength for the fupport of ponderous arches. The authority of Sir C. Wren, who has coupled columus in the portico of St. Paul's, is no small recommendation of the novelty, especially in facade; but had Sir Chriftopher himfelf erected a diptere temple with the wings in fuch a difpofition of coupled columns, it must have been condemned by every beholder. And it is not a decided matter whether the antique difpofition would not have better become the portico of St. Paul's. Perrault was fo pleafed with the invention, that, for fear it fhould mifcarry under the vulgar name of coupled columns, he endeavoured to ftamp it with a Greek title, and would have it called pfeudopycnoftyle, and pfeudo-fyftyle, &c. borrowing from the pfeudo-diptere of Hermogenes; but the attempt was a mere preference of found before fenfe, for what notion can be formed of a facade falfely full of columns; falfe diptere, indeed, is both intelligible and admiffible, for it exhibited the appearance without the reality, by the removal of its lefs difcernible conftituents; but in coupling columns nothing is taken away, and yet the appearance de firoyed ftroyed, fo that pfeudo fhould be ap: plied not to the effect but to the invention itfelf, for it truly is a falfe difpofition. Mr URBAN, Sept. 2. YOUR correfpondent J. D. p. 719, has given me fo much fatisfaction in his account of Lord Winchelfea's common-place book, though I claim no relationship to the contributor to his collection from the neighbourhood of Marlborough, that I should be gratified by a few more extracts, or a perusal of the original. Nicola Francefco Havm was an Italian Cicerone from Rome, F. A. S. 1724, who published a Catalogue of fearce Italian books, as Baretti did in 1757; who fays he added the prices according to his "capricious evalua tion:" alfo two quartos on coins, and perhaps other works. Mr. Twining inferibed, 1723, "Avebury" to the Earl of Winchelfea. A MS note of Mr. J. Crevke, his Lordfhip's chaplain, Brit. Top vol. I. 671, makes the amount of Kemo's Museum 10901. Mr. Creyke was of St. John's college, Cambridge, B A 1708; M.A. 1712; F.A S. 1724. Perhaps the Mofaic work found near INNOVATION. No. LII. But it is time to proceed to the ufe of the module now obtained. In the Ionic and Corinthian ftyle the whole module is to be the diameter, and this is to be divided, according to Vitruvius, into halves, quarters, eighths, and fixteenthis, for the determining the fymmetries of the principal members, as bafes, capitals, epiftyles, &c. but to afcertain the fymmetries of fimaller members, as mouldings, fillets, modillions, &c. he divides the principals containing thefe into a number of parts, fome to one thing and fome to another, and fome to be fubdivided into fill finaller particles to be shared amongst other fmall members Perrault approves of this method, as more likely to imprefs the memory with the fize of them, when each is given as a part of its next integer, rather than by a number of minutes, whereof each is a part of a more remote integer; and this reafoning feems plaufible enough in reading; but will be found fallacious in practice. It is eafier, no doubt, to retain the idea of the fize of the THE PURSUITS OF ARCHITECTURAL plinth of a bafis, as a third of the height of that bale, than as 10 minutes high; but when we are told that the torus is not another third, but a certain number of parts of a divifion of the remaining two thirds; and that the fcotia again, with its aftragals, is to be a number of parts from a divifion of two or three of the laft-divided parts, &c. there will foon be generated in the mind a perplexing confusion of ideas as to the fize of any thing; befides a moft tirefome repetition of lines to be divided, fufficient to break the patience of the moft ftudious practitioner. Without hesitation, the invention of giving all fymmetries whatever by the diameter with its divifion into fixty minutes, fhall be adopted in thefe letters; and whoever thall follow the fame will never have reafon to regret the want of our mafter's method. All projectures fhall be given from the central line of the column. In next number the Ionic column comes under confideration, and firf the defeription of its bafe, wherein the advantage of calculating by minutes will be exemplified. PHILO-TECHNON. (To be continued.) GENT. MAG. September, 1802. TS an exceeding fmall edifice, and has many decorations worthy obfervation, particularly the columns and arches dividing the church into two ailes; they poflefs much elegance. The font likewife is to be noted from the fportive diverfity of femi-circular and hexagonal lines feen in its plan, &c. Architectural Innovation in this church may be faid to be a plague un known, as every part remains nearly in its priftine order not one receptacle for filth or rubbish to be met with, the utmoft neatnefs prevailed, and devotion, as of old times, had nothing unfeemly or unhallowed to draw attention from the fong of praife. We are not always fed to speak thus of our religious piles, I think? TETBURY. It has been a cufiom, and I believe it is not yet done away, with profeffional men, to cry out anything is Gothic" (that is, our antient styles of architecture); and certainly nothing can be more conducive towards fulfilling this "vulgar error," or give greater |