Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

(And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books, and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge.

MILTON.

OUR worthy friend the Chairman is so much respected by the other members, and shews on all occasions so much good sense and forbearance in examining the opinions of others, and in stating his own, that (in our various discussions) he is seldom in the minority. He sometimes, indeed, indulges in a little raillery at the expense of an opponent, but it is always in the way of pleasantry, and with good nature.

:

There is, however, one subject, often introduced at our meetings, upon which he cannot get a single member to agree with him he is very much averse to public libraries, and will have it that they are productive of very little benefit, and the source of many bad consequences.

:

the stock of knowledge, it has a tendency to
dissipate the attention, and induce habits of
literary idleness. The many superficial pedants
who make so much show in the world, and who
seem to know something of almost every book
that has been written, and whom our friend de-
known in circulating libraries.
nominates title-page-men, are generally well

it, Sir, I will tell you, that I am a painter, and my friend, who is in the gallery on the left, and who is commishas signified to me by a sign, the attitude in which he sioned by a beautiful young lady to take your portrait, the circumstance, and actually perceiving a man in the wishes to take you." M. de l'Etorrière, flattered by gallery, who regarded him attentively, and who, he

The other members concur in many of the Chairman's remarks, but they do not admit his conclusion. They think that circulating libra-imagined, had a pencil in his hand, took great pains ries are in many respects particularly useful. They concede the existence of some disadvantages; but to be free from all objections is not the privilege of human institutions.

Many persons whose days are passed in the
drudgery of trade or commerce, find reading to
be a very agreeable relaxation. They therefore
take up a book in the evening as a recreation,
and divert themselves with it when their minds,
harrassed by the labours and anxieties of the
day, are unfitted for regular study.
To persons
of this description, a public library has many
recommendations. It enables them, in particu-
lar, to consult many publications at a trifling
expense. It places within their reach that in-
nocent means of filling up their leisure hours,
for the want of which they might otherwise
have been the victims of more criminal pro-
pensities.

Circulating libraries have some claims even
upon the regular student. When they contain
good works, which is always the case under the
direction of a sensible committee, they furnish
the means of making those references for which
every studious person has sometimes occasion.

One of the members, in alluding to the benefits which these libraries confer, men ioned the But the Chairman will not admit the validity of opportunities they supply to studious females. this argument. He thinks that it goes very far to support his own opinion. Females seldom find any thing in circulating libraries to improve either their intellect or their morals. On the contrary, they often injure both by the publications which are contained in these establishments. Novels and romances, the usual works which females take out of circulating libraries, have, unhappily, a powerful tendency to produce those airs and conceits which impair so much that natural grace and sweetness of manner, to which the sex owe so many of their

attractions.

These are the lights in which the subject is at present viewed in the Club. Of the value of the President's reasons, and those of his opponents, as far as our limits would admit of our stating them, our readers may now form their own opinions.

One of his arguments, which is to be found in which Cicero in particular has insisted a good the writings of many of the ancients, and upon deal, is, that though we ought to study much, it is unwise to read many books. The old gentleman illustrates this position by a variety of instances and contends that if the caution was necessary formerly, it must be particularly so at present, as the number of books, many of them of rather an attractive nature, has become very great. If we refer to the practice of any very distinguished author, we shall find, our friend believes, that his reading has not usually been very various. Demosthenes, the greatest orator the world has yet produced, was proverbially devoted to one author, and, Newton, as distinguished for his mathematical productions, was remarkable for the few books which he had read even on his favourite sciences. Our friend thinks he can in this way account for the usual case of a person's making more real progress in learning while he is an advanced school-boy, than in an equal time during any subsequent period of his life. In the former instance, the student is obliged to make himself familiarly acquainted with a few well chosen authors; in the latter, he is apt to "skim over the surface" of many, and to devote himself to none. More," says our friend, " depends upon the mode of study than upon the degree of it. One man may acquire as much in two hours as another learns in a week. Method, which is of importance in every thing, is particularly so in study." Our friend, who is now and then found to push his arguments a little too far, and, in that way, to give his opponents an unnecessary advantage, calls the present times the age of reviewing, and ascribes the circumstance, in a considerable degree, to the influence of circulating libraries. VANITY. The Marquis de L'Etorrière, an officer in The reading of a circulating library cannot, a french regiment of the Guards, and one of the bandhe contends, be called study. So far from im-assembled in the church of the Quinze-Vingts, at the somest men in Paris, being one day among the crowd proving the faculties of the inind and increasing morning mass, felt some one press against him on one

66

VARIETIES.

T. J.

Library at Copenhagen, inquired whether any English
ENGLISH WORKS.---A Gentleman visiting the Royal
works had lately been admitted. This, Sir,' answered

the librarian, producing a shell which had entered the
library at the time of the bombardment, is the last
English work we have received.'

assume.

every time he was required, to place himself in the attitude that he supposed the painter wished him to Some minutes after, the man who had accosted him returned his acknowledgements for the politeness with which his request had been attended to, and slipped among the crowd; and the Marquis, on putting his purse, watch, snuff-box, and all the jewels he had his hand into his pocket soon after, found himself minus had about him.

It is said that Mr. Gifford, whose delicate health for some time past has retarded the publication of the forth-coming number of the Quarterly Review, purposes continuing in the Editorship of that Work for at least great part of the matter ready for the two uumbers six months longer. We understand he has at present a which will appear in that time (besides the one now in the press,) and thinks he shall then, after having experienced the effects of the balmy season of the year, be able to decide whether he may proceed with his labours, or ought to relinquish them.

but whether to make a tour through Persia, or to try Belzoni leaves town on Monday on a new journey; to trace the route of Mango Park, is not certain.

FIDELITY OF A DOG.---The following anecdote as related by BONAPARTE, is taken from the Journal of LAS CASES." In the deep silence of a beautiful moon-light night," said the Emperor, a dog, leaping hiding place, howling piteously. He alternately licked suddenly from beneath the clothes of his dead master, rushed upon us, and then immediately returned to his his master's hand, and ran towaads us; thus, at once soliciting aid and seeking revenge. my own particular turn of mind at the moment," conWhether owing to tinued the Emperor, itself, I know not; but, certainly, no incident on any "the time, the place, or the action field of battle ever produced so deep an impression on me. I involuntarily stopped to contemplate the scene. This man, thought I, perhaps, has friends in the all except his dog! What a lesson Nature here precamp or in his company; and here be lies forsaken by sents through the medium of an animal! pressions! I had, without emotion, ordered battles strange being is man! and how mysterious are his imwhich were to decide the fate of the army; I had beheld, with tearless eyes, the execution of those. operations, by which numbers of my countrymen were sacrificed; and here my feelings were roused by the mournful howling of a dog! Certainly at that moment I should have been easily moved by a suppliant enemy : I could very well imagine Achilles surrendering up the body of Hector at the sight of Priam's tears.'

"

What a

HANDEL.---Handel being questioued as to his ideas replied in his imperfect English, "I did think I did and feelings when composing the Hallelujah Chorus, see all heaven before me, and the great God himself;" and, indeed, we may well suppose that they must have been ideas little less sublime, that furnished sounds so. grand in their combinations.

A PHYSICIAN'S FEE.---Sir Richard Jebb used to tel a story of himself, which made even rapacity comical. He was attending a nobleman, from whom he had a right to expect a fee of five guineas---he re

FRUIT. In the time of Henry the Seventh, fruit script signed by himself, it appears that apples were seems to have been very scarce. In an original manupaid for, not less than one or two shillings a-piece; ceived only three. Suspecting some trick on the part

30

WEEKLY DIARY.

JANUARY.

REMARKABLE DAYS.

SATURDAY 25.-Conversion of St. Paul. Saint Paul suffered martyrdom under the general persecution of Nero. Being a Roman citizen, he could not be crucified by the Roman laws, as his colleague St. Peter was; he was, therefore, beheaded-hence the usual representation of him with a sword in his hand.

A singular custom was observed on this day in St. Paul's Cathedral, until the reign of Elizabeth. Sir William de Baud, who was Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, in the year 1375, obtained liberty to inclose within his parish at Corrington, in Essex, twelve or twenty-two acres of land, of the Dean of St. Paul's, in consideration of presenting them with a fat buck and doe yearly, on the days of the Conversion and commemoration of St. Paul. On these days, the buck and the doe were brought by one or more servants at the hour of the procession, and through the midst thereof, and offered | at the high altar of St. Paul's Cathedral: after which the persons that brought the buck, received of the Dean and Chapter, by the hands of their Chamberlain, twelve pence sterling for their entertainment; but nothing when they brought the doe. The buck being brought to the steps of the altar, the Dean and Chapter, apparelled in copes, and proper vestments, with garlands of roses on their heads, sent the body of the buck to be baked, and had the head and horns fixed on a pole before the cross, in their procession round about the church, till they issued at the west door, where the keeper that brought it blowed the death of the buck, and then the horns that were about the city answered him in like manner; for which they had each, of the Dean and Chapter, three and fourpence in money, and their dinner; and, the keeper, during his stay, meat, drink, and lodging, and five shillings in money at his going away; together with a loaf of bread, having in it the picture of St. Paul.'

SUNDAY, 26-Septuagesima Sunday. The institution of this and the two following Sundays cannot be traced higher than the beginning of the sixth or the close of the fifth century. When the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima (seventieth, sixtieth, and fiftieth), were first applied to denote these three Sundays, the season of Lent had generally been extended to a fast of six weeks, that is, thirty-six days, not reckoning the Sundays, which were always celebrated as festivals. At this time, also, the Sunday which we call the first Sunday in Lent, was styled simply Quadragesima, or the fortieth, meaning, no doubt, the fortieth day before Easter. Quadragesima was also the name given to the season of Lent, and denoted the quadragesimal or forty days' fast. When the three weeks before Quadragesima ceased to be considered as weeks after the Theophany (or Epiphany), and were appointed to be observed as a time of preparation for Lent, it was perfectly conformalile to the ordinary mode of computation to reckon backwards, and, for the sake of even and round numbers, to count by decades.'-(Shepherd.)

CRITICISM.

COCK ROBIN.-(Concluded.)

the impassioned question and the eager reply are the
true features of the pathetic, we have the testimonies
of Longinus and Boileau, the first of ancient and
modern critics.

Nor must we omit to notice the artful employment of
diminutives, as, my little eye, my little dish,' &c.
throughout the poem. Nothing so much gives the air
of tenderness or softness to the elegy as this class of
nouns. Our poet, doubtless, had studied the beanties
of the elder Italian school or the higher examples of
Catullus had already pointed out
the Roman bards.
the path-witness his verses on Lesbia's Robin (the
ancestor of the hero of our present tale), when the
winged favorite, like his descendant, had paid the debt

of nature

O factum male, o miselle passer,
Tua nunc opera, meæ puellæ
Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.
Brandenrumtius, a learned monk of the 14th con-
tury, has quarreled with the stanza :

Who'll toll the bell ?
I, says the Bull,
Because I can pull.

To introduce thus an apathetic animal among the characters in this poem, he observes, destroys the symmetry of the piece, which is in other respects confined to the smaller orders of the winged and finny kinds; but, for my part, I am satisfied, after great research, that the poet is misunderstood--and that the word ' bull' is used (as with Cowpert and others) per ellipsin vel synecdochen, for the bull-finch, who would doubtless be competent to toll the bell employed on the melancholy occasion.

displeasure have been increased, had he lived in these

He would

the Linnet, the editor observes, Here's the Linnet
with a light, although it is not night.' But that the
reading of these passages, which I have already given,
is correct, will appear from several considerations
sufficiently obvious. Indeed if the funeral were not to
be solemnized in the night, can it be supposed that a
torch would have been at all required?
Again, I perceive at the close of the genuine poem,
the addition of no less than three unauthenticated and
The editor, it must be confessed,
fabricated stanzas.
has not been deficient in one species of ingenuity: he
has invoked the aid of the sister art; and has attempt -
ed to enrich, by the delineations of the pencil, the
We are, however, not to be
efforts of his muse
cajoled with drawings, however happy, nor dazzled
with coloring however vivid. Any, the least distin-
guishing palate, can detect, in the following verses,
the want of that flavor-that gusto-which belong to
the original poem :—

Who will fill the grave 1
I, said the Hawk, so brave,
Let me fill the grave.
Who will read his will?
I, said the Daw,
Because I am in the law,
And I will read bis will.
Who will write his epitaph?
I, said the Hare,

With the utmost care,

Poor Cock Robin is no more.

In explanation of some remarks which have been made, it seems proper to notice that each of these stanzas is accompanied by an appropriate drawing, subscribed with significant designations, such as

Behold the Hawk engaged,
Filling of Robin's grave.
This is the Jack-Daw,
Who is in the law
With spectacles and claw,
A reading of the will.

I should feel less displeased with the editor were the liberty taken with the poet the least objectionable part of his conduct, It is impossible, however, to shut one's eyes against the insinuation iutended to be conveyed against the members of a learned profession, under the vile emblem of a Daw. What degree of animosity (I would ask) could have led the editor to furnish that mean fowl with spectacles, and to make so pointed an illusion to his claw? Who does not here perceive a malign, but (I trust) impotent, attempt to

If Brandenrumfius, however, felt dissatisfied at the introduction among the dramatis personæ of a Bull (in the mistaken sense of the word), how justly would his times, and perused the last edition of our poet. Besides many injurious alterations in the text, to which I shall presently more particularly address myself, be would have perceived with horror a vital stab at the sense and meaning of the fourth stanza. there have read, nay more, he would have seen, with rage, in the copper-plate designs which accompany the edition, not Scarabaeus Popinalis of Linnæus (the Black Kitchen-Beetle), plying his work with the busy hum (in fancy's ear) of cheerfulness; but the SCARABEUS PAROCHIALIS, (or, the BLUE PARISH BEADLE!) an order of animals bitherto unnoticed by our naturalists. With what anger would he have gazed on the huge admonish the editor to a reform. Let him remember, biped, seated on a tomb-stone, in all the unmeaning that while I possess even the stump of a pen, I will pomp of corpalency and a cocked hat, sewing somewield it to the overthrow of attempts which seek to thing similar in appearance to a common pocket-hand-disturb the manes of a departed bird—and at the same time to undermine one of the pillars of our political

kerchief!

charge noisy garrulity-prying curiosity-and a grasping propensity, on some limbs of an honorable vocation?

system.

Borne on the

Having adverted to these unauthorised alterations, I feel myself compelled to observe at length on a subject, Here will I pause.-Let us now for a moment return which I must confess has excited in me feelings of great to the agonized group of fowls, who amid the shades of regret, not unmixed with some emotions of indigna-night stretch their wings and ope their bills in bitter tion. The inexcusable liberties which some editors have taken with the works of our elder poets, have long been matter of reprobation among the learned. The evil spirit of unbridled emendation, which did not respect the sacred remains of Shakespeare, has at length ventured to fix his harpy claws on the labors of

the author of the Cocco-Robiniad.

I have now before me an edition (professing to be the latest and the best) of this excellent work; and I note, with grief, the introduction of this verse into the body of the poem :

Who'll carry him to the grave?
I, said the Kite,

If 'tis not in the night,

And I'll carry him to the grave.

This is clearly an interpolation; but which might have been better tolerated had not the sense of other passages been injured to make room (as it were) for this. In order to preserve the third line, the editor has wholly destroyed the beauty of the preceding stanza, and added a couplet to the following one. The Lark is made to say, if it be not in the dark,' thus converting her unequivocal promise into a conditional assent,

sorrow, and prepare to seal the tomb.
pinions of fancy, let us hover round the sacred spot;
and while the notes of woe are heard, and the deep
knell dies on the gale, let us mingle our tributary tears
with the floods of sorrow that bedew the eorse of ill-
fated Robin!

SINGULAR BIOGRAPHY. Brief Memoir of the Life of the Rev. R. Walker. (CONTIUNED FROM OUR LAST.) We concluded our last by saying that there was in our former sketch something so extraordinary as to require further explanatory details.

We will begin with his industry. Eight hours in each day, during five days in the week, and half of Saturday, except when the labours of husbandry were urgent, he was occupied in teaching. His seats were within the rails of the Altar; the communion table was his desk; and, like Shenstone's school-mistress, the master

expressive of the meanest selfishness. And respecting employed himself at his spinning-wheel, while

• De passere mortuo Lesbia-infinem.

+ See his lines on Mrs. Throckmerton's Bull-finch:-
It left poor Bully's beak.

t See The death and barial of Cock Robin. Edit. 1816. W

IN the language in which the sentiments are clothed, the poet will be found at least equal to himself. That Darton.

the children were repeating their lessons by his side. Every evening, after school time, if not more profitably engaged, he continued the same kind of labour, exchanging for the benefit of

he affectingly said, "from wanting the necessa-
education, and the means of raising them in
ries of life," but affording them an unstinted
society.

bearer, entered the chapel, not many yards from the lowly Parsonage.

exercise, the small wheel, for the large one at which the spinner steps to and fro. Thus was the wheel constantly in readiness to prevent the waste of a moment's time. Nor was his industry with the pen, when occasion called for it, less eager. Intrusted with the management of public and private affairs, he acted in his rustic neighbourhood as scrivener, writing petitions, wills, extracts, &c. with pecuniary gain to him self, and to the great benefit of his employers.cluded that no one could thus, as it were, have But, Robert Walker was not a man of times

How could the powers of intellect thrive, or its graces be displayed, in the midst of circumstances apparently so unfavourable, and where to the direct cultivation of the mind, so small a portion of time was allotted? It may be con

At a small distance from his cottage a mill had been erected for spinning yarn; and so much had been effected by the power of machinery before his death, that its operations could not escape his notice, and, doubtless, did excite touching reflections upon the comparatively insignificant results of his own manual industry. and circumstances: had he lived at a later pe

riod, the principle of duty would have produced application as unremitting, and the same energy would have been displayed, but, in many instances, the effect would have been amazingly different.

What a contrast does the life of this obscure

ly-seated, aud unremunerated parish priest present to the generality of his brethren of modern days!

Not every man is born to be a Vicar of Bowden; nor is every Vicar like this " Village

Preacher!"

ERECTION OF THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF EGYPT.

The

obelisks were made to rest across the stream upon the opposite banks; vessels loaded with bricks were brought under; the cargo was then taken out, and, the vessels rising, elevated the obelisks. The method employed of moving columns and large stones, was by affixing strong iron axles in each end, and inserting them in broad wheels of solid construction. Such was the

These labours (at all times considerable,) at one period of the year, viz. between Christmas and converted his body into a machine of industry, Candlemas, when money transactions are settled for the humblest uses, and kept his thoughts so in this country, were often so intense that he constantly occupied upon secular concerns, withpassed great part of the night, and sometimes out grievous injury to the most precious part of whole nights at his desk. His garden also was his nature. But, in this extraordinary man, tilled by his own hands: he had a right of pas- his conversation was remarkable, not only for things in their nature adverse, were reconciled: turage upon the mountains for a few sheep and a couple of cows, which required his attendance; being chaste and pure, but for the degree in with this pastoral occupation, he joined the which it was fervent and eloquent; and his writlabours of husbandry upon a small scale, rentten style was correct, simple, and animated. ing a few acres of land in addition to his own Nor did his affections suffer in the least. The glebe: and the humblest drudgery which the stranger who passed that unfrequented vale was cultivation of these fields required, was perform-fed and refreshed, and "the poor and the needy, ed by himself. He also assisted his neighbours he never sent empty away." He tenderly perin making hay, and shearing their flocks; and in formed all the duties of his pastoral office; the the performance of this latter service he was sick were visited, and the feelings of humanity eminently dexterous. They, in return, complifound exercise among the distresses of his neigh-formed such stupendous masses has often been a subject How the Egyptians and Early Ancients moved and mented him with a present of a hay-cock, or a bours, and in their worldly embarrassments, his fleece, less as a recompense for these services talents for business, his disinterestedness and tion, how Archimedes made his grand experiments, or of doubt and admiration, perhaps for want of considerathan as a general acknowledgment. impartiality, (virtues seldom separated in his how the immense concerns of our dock-yards are conThe sabbath was in a strict sense kept holy : conscience from religious obligations) were re- ducted. The principles of mechanics are few and Sunday evenings were devoted to reading the markably efficacious. As in his practice there simple. Plumb-lines, and wheels and axles, are menscriptures and family prayer. The principal was no guile, so in his faith there was nothing tioned in contemporary writings. Denon says, that festivals of the church were also duly observed; hollow: while his humble congregation were the Egyptians began by elevating masses, in which but every other day, through every week in the listening to the moral precepts and christian they marked out their architectural lines; and it is year, he was incessantly occupied in work of exhortations which he delivered from the pulpit, certain that at the temple of Hermonthis, the sculphands or mind, not allowing a moment for it may be presumed that peculiar effect would tare of the capitals has not been finished, so that the recreation, except on Saturday afternoons, when attend his labours, when they reflected that he pillars were worked after they were put up. The he indulged himself with a news-paper, or someobelisks are described by Pliny as having been brought called upon them to do no more than by his own times with a magazine.-The frugality and tem-actions, he daily set them an example. The to Thebes from the quarries by means of a canal. perance established in his house were as admirable as the industry. Nothing to which the name of luxury could be given was there known. In the latter part of his life, indeed, when tea had been brought into almost general use, it was provided for visitors, and for such of his family as returned occasionally to his roof, and had been accustomed to this refreshment elsewhere, but neither he nor his wife ever partook of it The raiment worn by his family was comely and decent, but as simple as their diet; the home- and frame of the Established Church. We have He was zealously attached to the doctrines spun materials were made up into apparel, by already seen him congratulating himself that he their own hands. At the decease of this thrifty had no dissenter in his cure. pair, their cottage contained a large store of this prejudice was blameable need not be deterIn what degree woollen and linen cloth, woven from thread of mined;-certain it is, that he was desirous, not their own spinning.-The pew in which his only to live in peace, but in love with all men. family used to sit, remained a few years ago He was placable and charitable in his judgments; neatly lined with cloth spun by the pastor's own and, however correct, and rigourous as to himhands and, no other instance is known of his self, he was ever ready to forgive the trespasses conformity to the delicate accommodations of of others, and to soften the censure that was modern times.-The fuel of his house (like that cast upon their frailties. It would be unpardonof his neighbours,) consisted of peat procured able to omit, that, in the maintenance of his from the mosses by his own labour. The lights virtues he received due support from the Partner by which their winter's evening work was per- of his long life. She was equally strict in atformed were by his manufacture, being made of tending to her share of their joint cares, nor the pith of rushes dipped in any unctuous sub- less diligent in her appropriate occupations. A stance that the house afforded; white candles, person who had been their servant in the latter as tallow ones are here called, were reserved to part of their lives, concluded the panegyric of honour the Christmas festivals, and were pro- her mistress, by saying, duced upon no other occasion. Once a month, cellent than her husband; she was good to the Ishe was no less exduring the proper season, a sheep was drawn poor, she was good to every thing." He surfrom his small mountain flock, and killed for vived this virtuous companion but a short time. the use of the family: and a cow, towards the When she died he ordered her body to be carried close of the year, was salted and dried for win-to the grave by three of her daughters, and one ter provision: and the Lide was tanned to fur-grand-daughter; and when the corpse was lifted, nish them with shoe-leather. By these various he insisted upon lending his aid; and feeling resources this venerable clergyman reared a about, (for he was then almost blind,) he took numerous family, not only preserving them, as hold of a napkin fixed to the coffin, and, as a

afternoon service was less numerously attended
than that of the morning, but by a more serious
auditory, the lesson from the New Testament
being accompanied by Burkett's commentary.
Not only on Sunday evenings, but every even-
ing, while the rest of the household were at
work, some one read a portion of the Bible
aloud; and in this manner the whole was re-
peatedly gone through.

plan of Ctesiphon and Methagenes, of which Vitruvius
gives the account. Such a wheel also appears affixed
to the end of an obelisk in Montfaucon's plate. Hero-
dotus writes, that Cleopas, the son of Rasimita, left
stones might be moved by short beams and proper en-
steps outside the pyramid, in order that very large
gines. The short beam seems to point out the carches-
ium, or crane of Vitruvius. Very large stone beams
are said to have been placed upon high columns in this
manner. Under the centre of the beam they put two
cross pieces, mutually contiguous. They then affixed
other.
baskets of sand at one end till the weight raised the
placed a stay or support. They then applied the weights
Under the beam thus raised from its bed, they
to the opposite end, newly lifted, till it tilted up the
they proceeded till the stone was reared into its proper
other extremity; and so putting another elevator under,
position. It is said, that the stones for the pyramids
adds, that bridges were made of unbaked bricks, till
were brought along artificial causeways; and Pliny

the work was concluded, and then the bricks were
distributed for the formation of private houses. M.
de Laystorié thinks that the scaffolding of the ancients'
now be very conveniently adopted. Stones were sold
was formed of ropes, and that such a method might
ing them (for the saw is seen on Egyptian monuments)
ready hewn, and Pliny mentions the process of saw-
by the aid of sand, and this process and very form of
the saw are still preserved. In ancient representations,
upright posts, or capstans, are erected, around which
winds a rope, fastened to the block, and the capstan
cellinus, speaking of the erection of the obelisk at
Constantinople, says, that there was a wood of ma-
is turned by long horizontal levers. Ammianus Mar-
chinery, consisting of lofty beams or masts, with which
were connected vast and long ropes as thick as net-