The conveniences, the decorations of life are not studied in Siberia, or under a Nero. If fevere morality would at any time expect to eftabiifh a thorough reformation, I fear it mutt chufe inhofpitable climates, and abolith all atitude from the laws. A corporation of merchants would never have kept their oaths to Lycurgus of obferving his ftatutes 'till he returned. A good government, that indulges its fubjects in the exercife of their own thoughts, will fee a thoufand inventions fpringing up, refinements will follow, and much pleasure and fatis faction will be produced at leaft before that excefs arrives, which is fo justly faid to be the forerunner of ruin. But all this is in the common courfe of things, which tend to perfection, and then degenerate. He would be a very abfurd legiflator, who fhould pretend to fet bounds to his country's welfare, left it fhould perish by knowing no bounds. Poverty will ftint itself; riches will be left to their own difcretion; they depend upon trade, and to circumfcribe trade is to annihilate it. It is not rigid nor Roman to say it, but a people had better be unhappy by their own fault, than by that of their government. A Cenfor morum is not a much greater blefling than an Arbiter elegantiarum. The world, I believe, is not at all agreed that the aufterities of the Prefbyterians were preferable to the licentioufnefs under Charles II. I pretend to defend the one no more than the other; but I am fure that in the body politic, fymptoms that prognofticate ill, may indicate well. All I meaned to fay was, that the difpofition to improvements in this country is the confequence of its vigour. The eltablishment of a

fociety for the encouragement of arts will produce great benefits before they are perverted to mifchiefs. The bounties befstowed by that fociety, for facilitating the neceffaries of life to the poor, for encouraging the ufe of our own drugs and materials, or for naturalizing thofe of other countries are beftowed on noble principles and with patriot views. That fociety does not ne glect even the elegancies of life: Arts that are innocent in themselves, and beneficial to the country, either by adding value to our productions, or by drawing riches as they invite ftrangers to visit us, are worthy the attention of good citizens; and in all thofe lights that fociety acts upon a national and extensive plan.

The art, that is chiefly the fubject of these pages, is one of the leaft likely to be perverted: Painting has feldom been employed to any bad purpose. Pictures are but the fcenery of devotion. I question if Raphael himself could ever have made one convert, though he had exhaufted all, the expreffion of his eloquent pencil on a series of popish doctrines and miracles. Pictures cannot adapt themselves to the meanest capaci:ies, as unhappily the tongue can. make an apprentice a catholic or a methodift; but the apprentice would fee that a very bad picture of St. Francis was not like truth; and a very good picture would be above his feeling. Pictures may ferve as helps to religion; but are only an appendix to idolatry; for the people must be taught to believe in false gods and in the power of faints, before they will learn to worship their images. I do not doubt but if fome of the first reformers had been

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at liberty to fay exactly what they thought, and no more than they thought, they would have permitted one of the most ingenious arts implanted in the heart of man by the Supreme Being to be employed towards his praise. But Calvin by his tenure, as head of à fect, was obliged to go all lengths. The vulgar will not lift but for total contradictions: They are not ftruck by feeing religion fhaded only a little darker or a little lighter. It was at Conftantinople alone where the very fhopkeepers had fubtlety enough to fight for a letter more or lefs in a Greek adjective that expreffed an abstract idea. Happily at this time there is so total an extinction of all party-animofity both in religion and politics, that men are at liberty to propose whatever may be useful to their country, without its being imputed to them as a crime, and to invent what they mean fhould give pleasure without danger of difpleafing by the very attempt."

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His reflections on the hiftory of Architecture in England are extremely curious.

"Vertue and feveral other curious perfons have taken great pains to enlighten the obfcure ages of that fcience; they find no names of architects, nay little more, than what they might have known without inquiring; that our ancestors had buildings. Indeed Tom Hearne, Brown Willis, and fuch illuftrators did fometimes go upon more pofitive ground: They did now and then stumble upon an arch, a tower, nay a whole church, fo dark, fo ugly, fo

uncouth, that they were fure it could not have been built fince any idea of grace had been tranfported into the island. Yet with this inconteftible fecurity on their fide, they ftill had room for doubting; Danes, Saxons, Normans, were all ignorant enough to have claims to peculiar aglinefs in their fafbions. It was difficult to ascertain the periods when one ungracious form joftled out another: and this perplexity at last led them into fuch refinement, that the term Gothic Architecture, inflicted as a reproach on Our ancient buildings in general by our ancestors who revived the Grecian tafte, is now confidered but as a fpecies of modern elegance, by those who wish to diftinguish the Saxon ftyle from it. This Saxon ftyle begins to be defined by flat and round arches, by fome undulating zigzags on certain old fabrics, and by a very few other characteristics, all evidences of barbarous and ignorant times. I do not mean to fay fimply that the round arch is a proof of ignorance; but being fo natural, it is fimply, when unaccompanied by any graceful ornaments, a mark of a rude age--if attended by mishapen and heavy decorations, a certain mark of it. The pointed arch, that peculiar of Gothic architecture, was certainly intended as an im provement on the circular, and the men who had not the happiness of lighting on the fimplicity and proportion of the Greek orders, were however fo lucky as to strike out a thousand graces and effects, which rendered their buildings magnificent,

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yet genteel, vaft, yet light, venerable and picturefque. It is difficult for the noblett Grecian temple to convey half fo many impreffions to the mind, as a cathedral does of the best Gothic tafte--a proof of skill in the architects and of addrefs in the priests who erected them. The latter exhaufted their knowledge of the paffions in compofing edifices whofe pomp, mechanifm, vaults, tombs, painted windows, gloom and perfpectives infufed fuch fenfations of romantic devotion; and they were happy in finding artifts capable of executing fuch machinery. One must have taste to be fenfible of the beauties of Grecian architecture; one only wants paflions to feel Gothic. In St. Peter's one is convinced that it was built by great princes-In Westminster-abbey, one thinks not of the builder; the Jeligion of the place makes the first impreffion and though ftripped of its altars and fhrines, it is nearer converting one to popery than all the regular pageantry of Roman domes. Gothic churches infufe fuperftition; Grecian, admiration. The papal fee amaffed its wealth by Gothic cathedrals, and displays it in Grecian temples.

I certainly do not mean by this little contraft to make any comparifon between the rational beauties of regular architecture, and the unrestrained licentiouinefs of that which is called Gothic. Yet I am clear that the perfons who executed the latter, had much more knowledge of their art, more tafte, more genius, and more propriety than we chufe to imagine. There is a magic

hardinefs in the execution of fome of their works which would not have sustained themselves if dictated by mere caprice. There is a tradi tion that Sir Christopher Wren went once a year to furvey the roof of the chapel of King's college, and faid that if any man would fhew him where to place the first ftone, he would engage to build fuch another. That there is great grace in feveral places even in their clusters of flender pillars, and in the application of their ornaments, though the principles of the latter are fo confined that they may almost all be reduced to the trefoil, extended and varied, I fhall not appeal to the edifices themfelves-- It is fufficient to obferve, that Inigo Jones, Sir Chriftopher Wren and Kent, who certainly understood beauty, blundered + into the heaviest and clumfieft compofitions whenever they aimed at imita tions of the Gothic----Is an art defpicable in which a great master · cannot shine?

Confidering how fcrupulously our architects confine themselves to antique precedent, perhaps some deviations into Gothic may a little relieve them from that fervile imitation. I mean that they fhould ftudy both taftes, not blend them: that they fhould dare to invent in the one, fince they will hazard nothing in the other. When they have built a pediment and portico, the Sibyl's circular temple, and tacked the wings to a houfe by a colonade, they feem au bout de leur Latin. If half a dozen manfions were all that remained of old Rome, inftead of half a dozen temples, I

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do not doubt but our churches would resemble the private houses of Roman citizens. Our buildings muft be as Vitruvian, as writings in the days of Erafmus were obliged to be Ciceronian. Yet confined as our architects are to few models, they are far from having made all the ufe they might of those they poffefs. There are variations enough to be ftruck out to furnish new fcenes of fingular beauty. The application of loggias, arcades, terraffes and flights of steps, at different ftages of a building, particularly in fuch fituations as Whitehall to the river, would have a magnificent effect. It is true, our climate and the expence of building in England are great reftrictions on imagination; but when one talks of the extent of which architecture is capable, one muft fuppofe that pomp and beauty are the principal objects; one fpeaks of palaces and public buildings; not of fhops and fmall houfes---but I must reftrain this differtation, and come to the hiftoric part, which will lie in a small compaís.

Felibien took great pains to afcertain the revival of architecture, after the deftruction of the true tafte

by the inundation of the northern nations; but his difcoveries were by no means answerable to his labour. Of French builders he did find a few names, and here and there an Italian or German. Of English he owns he did not meet with the leaft trace; while at the fame time the founders of ancient buildings were every where recorded: fo careful have the monks (the only hiftorians of thofe times) been to celebrate bigotry and pals over the arts. But I own I take it for granted that these feeming omiffions are to be attributed to their want of perfpicuity rather than to neglect. As all the other arts were confined to cloyfters, fo undoubtedly was architecture too; and when we read that fuch a bishop or fuch an abbot built fuch and fuch an edifice, I am perfuaded that they often gave the plans as well as furnished the neceffary funds; but as thofe chroniclers fcarce ever specify when this was or was not the cafe, we muft not at this diftance of time pretend to conjecture what prelates were or were not capabe of directing their own foundations.”

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"That