tively confidered the nature of London mobs in general; that, with many unprincipled rathaus who, for the moft part, form and head them, men who, while they loudly clamour of difirefs and grievance, feel very little indeed of what they complain, while their fecret views are devaftation and plunder, that with thefe fcoundrels are too often blended, efpecially in times like the prefent, many unfortunate perfons, who really and deeply feel the excruciating pangs of want, and are duped by thofe banditti into exceffes and outrages, of which they know not that the final refult can only be a dreadful increafe of the calamities under which they groan. With an aching art he reflected, that the mother, driven to madnels by the cries of her half-fanifhed offspring, in hopes of procuring them, the hardly cares by what defperate means, a morfel of bread to fave them from perifhing, rufhes from her cellar, the cave of defpair, to join the furious herd; and that to the fame unhappy coure is often irrefiftibly impelled the dittracted fon, to fupport his infirm parent on the bed of ficknefs, aggravated by the pangs of famine. A train of mifguided youth and other heedlefs vagabonds, objects rather of pity than vengeance, bring up the rear of this motley throng, Would any man, poflefling a spark of generofity or humanity, after previously knowing and weighing thefe facts, except in the laft dreadful extremity and when every gentler means had utterly failed, give orders to an irritated foldiery to pour their deftructive fire among this miferable herd, compofed of fuch heterogeneous ingredients? But fuppofing that one or two of thofe ruffians, who generally, however, have cunning enough to keep out of the way of danger, and leave the wretches duped by them to perish, were to drop by that fire, what compenfation would the death of fuch mifereants, or even a thoufand of them, afford for the mo ther tora from her gafping children, or the fou, his only fupport, rent from an agonizing parent! Thefe firictures are not written with a view to defend mobs or popular infurrections of any kind; but, in times evere and trying like the prefent, humanity will long paufe before it orders the fatal trigger to be pulled. Neither are thef pages int nded as a laboured panegyric on the gentleman juft men tioned. He wants it not; his character is recorded, with an adamantine pen, in the archives of his country, and is alfo engraved on the heart of every patriotic Briton. They are only incidentally connected with Mr. Combe as they have relation to a matter that happened in his mayoralty; but they alto contain a high additional proof of his wifdom and magnanimity. An infiance of coolnets and undaunted firmnets, in a very trying fituation, fuch as is feldom to be met with, was exhibited, during the late riots, by a private individual, which highly merits to be tranfinitted down to pott.rity. John Bolland, efq. a very eminent hop-merchant, and a gentleman of the most unfuilied honour and probity, not only in the tranfactions of common life, but in all his vait concerns in the mercantile world, is the proprietor of a large manfion and extensive warehoufes fituated in Mark-lane, near the central pot where that bufinefs is carned on. In the courfe of September aft, an immenfe mob, compofed, as mofi mobs are, of many unprincipled villains, mixed with a few mifguided and really diftreiled perfons, but all plead, ing alike the urgency of extreme want, made their way to the corn market, with intent, as they averred, to lower the price of corn, that is, in fact, to over-awe the fair trader by horrible oaths and menaces, and make him accept a price inferior to what he can afford, or elfe to plunder and difperfe his commodities, and barbaroufly abuse hitelf. About the period wheir their infolence was at its height, Major Plomer, of the Eaft London militia, happening to pafs that way during the un diftinguithing fury of the moment, and having been miltaken by the populace for what they were pleafed to fiyle a monopolizer, or foreftaller, became the object of their implacable refentnient, and was purfued by them, and pelted with dirt and ftones. Entreaties and remonfirances were ufed in vain with thefe infatuated diflurbers of the public tranquillity. A report was rapidly and induftrioully fpread among them, that the perfecuted object of their refentment was an opulent miller, who was willing enough to grind the face of the poor, but not the facks of hoarded corn that lay piled in his granaries. His firft retreatwas under a cartorway gonthat ftood in the fireet, but this defence proving infecure of the that time fafe at his country-houfe, or infecure, he next flew for fhelter, and The fury of the mob had now arifen to its greatest height: the ringleaders would not believe the miller (as they perfified in calling the Major) had made his efcape, and continued exercifing their brutal fury on the spot, till every pane of glafs in the front of the houfe was demolished. It was a circumfiance extremely fortunate that Mr. Bolland's lady, with her numerous and amiable young family, were at It happened that the worthy magiftrate in queftion was juft at that infiant going out, attended with his ufual fuite, in order to fuperintend, with his accustomed diligence, the tranfaction of public bafinefs at Guildhall? but, the moment he received the intelligence of Mr. Bolland's critical fituation, with a zeal and promptitude that did honour to his feelings both as a man and a magiftrate, he ordered his horfes heads to be turned towards Mark-lane, and, numerous body of peacewith a officers, hurried away to the refcue of his friend. Every pane of glafs in the front of the houfe being, by this time, demo lifhed; a fhower of dirt and fiones was pouring into the apartments through the broken cafements, and it was with with the utmost difficulty that the lordmayor and his immediate attendants, when they arrived, could force their way into the house, whence his lordfhip, ftill determined to abide by the excellent and patriotic maxim, which has diftinguifhed his mayoralty, not to call in the military while there remained the remoteft poffibility of reftoring tranquillity by means of the civil power, with great energy and fpirit harangued the populace from what were the drawing-room windows; expatiated on the enormity of their unprovoked allault upon the house and property of a moft refpectable and wor thy citizen; laid before them the certain and dreadful confequences of their perfeverance in that criminal line of conduct; and threatened to read the Riot act. This benevolent addrefs not having the immediate effect defired, a few of the more daring aggreffors were rufhed upon by the officers of the police in attendance, and fecured as proper examples for public juftice and in fulted clemency. Shortly after, the mob having immenfely increafed in numbers and audacity, the lord-mayor was compelled to defcend among them; and, things now wearing a formidable appearance, reluctantly read the Riot act. Sull it was not his intention to make ufe of the military but in the very laft extremity. A body of troops, confitting folely of citizens, armed to defend that city which their commerce fupports, were ftationed near at hand, and were now called forth to intimidate, rather than to inflict death upon, the infatuated mob. Thefe were marched to the fpot, and, by the energy of their exertions, without firing a mutket, prevailed in effectually di perling them. Thus, without the lofs of one human life, terminated an affair which had begun to affume the moth alarming afpect, and which a precipitate order to attack with the bayonet or with ball might have inflamed to a dreadful height, and been the occafion of deluging the freets of London with the blood of its citizens. What hap pened in the evening the fame day, when feverer meatures were obliged to be recurred to, does not come properly under confideration in this little sketch, intended merely to fhew, in Mr. Bolland's cool aud intrepid conduct, an example for others to follow under fimilar circumftances; and from the lord-mayor's, to prove that a temperate and firm ufe of authority will, we do not fay always, fince defperate cafes require defperate remedies, but generally, fucceed, where harsher mealures would only inflame the malady, and rend wider the wound which they were intended to heal. E GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. No. VIII. Mr. URBAN, Portfeu, Feb. 2. XPERIENCE proves that nothing pleates fo univerfally as the productions of thofe artists who have most precifely copied Nature. It was this that ftamped on the works of the antients that excellence which has become the admiration of fucceeding ages. For Nature, in her full and failing vigour, unfolds before us nothing deformed, nothing but what bepeaks the wifdom of its Divine Author, and gratifies the mind. Where have we, in reality, any production of the utmoti exertion of human genius that can be faid to have in it a new-in ented beauty? All that delights and feems new are the changes in pofitions of real and natural beauties; the propor tions of which may indeed be varied, but never violated without difguft. As in mufical productions, that which pleates is the variety given to the harmonious chords, that nature has eítablifhed in found, fuitable to the organ, of the human car; and, however va-. rioufly thefe chords may be interchanged, not one can be violated, but the ear, even in the multitude unacquainted with mutical proportion, will immediately difcover and feel dif guft at the falfe note it hears. Now, whether fome objects of fight have inthem a like quality that establishes a reciprocal concordance between them and the human eye, fimilar to that which is experienced between the ear and the natural proportions in found, is the queftion on which hangs the enfuing controverfy. The objects of the hearing we know by the enjoyment of mufic, where nature has bellowed what is called an ear and tafie, have a real and pofitive beauty: the question is, whether fome objects of fight have the fame? In deciding, this allowance mutt be made, as in mufic, for impediments in Nature's way. There can be but little doubt, but that the human eve rightly difpofed would acknowledge every beauty in the works of Nature, when men are not prevented by prepoffeffions of mind in favour of fome les natural, but rently proportioned and both equally beautiful, yet if the forehead were to be higher than half the face, or the eye no larger than a tooth, the diftortion would be monftrous, and all fymmetry difgraced. As Nature, then, fets bounds to her fymmetry, and is table in her forms of bending lines, the artift muft ftudy thefe, and imitate them, or he will not produce any pofitive beauty in his architectural or other defigns. The column, like a tree, is gracefully to diminish as it rifes to a height to receive its capital, which is enriched with fome of Nature's variety of leaves, and fuppports an entablature originally defigned for ufe, and its ufeful parts now beautified with imitations of natural leaves and flowers, interfperfed with mouldings that take both their name and form from the gentle flowing waters that undulate before Nature's foft breezes and fhew their graceful bendings against the fhore; apertures for light and niches judicioully difpofed beneath, crowned with Nature's arches exactly turned, not with points, but as fhe directs. but more found conceit. and thefe give the judgment a much greater bias than is commonly fufpected. A man under the influence of the first lafung impreffions imbibed in infancy, and the habits formed from erroneous principles of education, will think with conviction, speak with affection, and write with energy, in fupport of a favourite fyftem; in which another, bleffed with exemption from fuch prepotleffions, fees nothing but unnatural diftortions recommended only by arguments drawn from hypothetic premiles. It were abfurd, then, to conclude, that there is not in vifual objects prefented to us by Nature any thing pofitively beautiful; becaufe a lew, influenced by fuch prepoffetlions, main tain this kind of beauty to be only in their productions, which are feen to be oppofed to thofe of Nature. Now, as it is the figure and proportion that, in vifual objects, give birth to pofitive beauty, in copying thefe into the works of art, fuch as Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, all depends on attention to what Nature has invariably fixed, and what the fometimes feems to sport Now, Mr. Urban, full much mult with; for by this must be preferved that man's mind be indifpofed by dif that kind of harmonious agreement be torting habits, and his difcernment tween the human eye and the propor- ftrangely biaffed by prepoffeffion, that tionate forms under which her beauties does not fee that it is an excellence in are difcerned. Nature, then, feems to imitating thefe perfections in the works have established forms dependent on of Nature, which ftamps on architectu the circle for the difplay of her choiceft ral defigns that pofitive beauty which beauties. Thus we behold the fun, has arrefted the attention and excited the ftars, and planets, all in fpheric the admiration of all mankind, as often form; and the bending fky is every as the Grecian ftyle has been revived, where feen by every eye as Nature's through the courfe of more than twen ftupendous dome, rifing from its hori- ty ages paft; and in the prefent, when fon as from its fpring, and that fpring, difengaged from its difowned excelles, the earth itself. "Birds, by her inftruct- ftands without a rival, amidst the bufy ed, build their nefis all circular, and anxious exertions of thofe who, dethe very clouds let down their humid coyed from Nature's fchool, are atcollections in globular drops. The tempting to recommend the false tafia bodies of trees are in circular forms for unmeaning flights in what is com contracting themselves, but fiill within monly called Gothic architecture, lefs circles as they grow; and every which in fome of our cathedrals ftrike germen copies the model of the stock the beholder with amazement and with from which it fprouts. Thefe forms, awe; but this effect cannot be called as Nature's fixtures, the artist muft not pleafure arifing from a pofitive beauty attempt to change; but where Nature but by fuch as pervert the ufe of words. feems to fport, is in the variety of pro- For in the Gothic ftructures, even in portions and forms in her productions their finished ftate, we meet not with of animals, flowers, and beauteous imitations of natural productions; and leaves which are prefented to the artift of courfe whatever ftrong impreflion for imitation. Yet in thefe her fymme- they make on the mind, it can only be try has its limits, beyond which beauty conceived as a pleasure by those who, ceafes, and diftortion takes its place; from prepoffeflion and cherished habits, for though, in the human animal for fee in fuch works what they have been xample, two faces may be very diffe-accustomed to applaud. Meir are eatly led, fymmetry, other than those established, in a manner, by Nature herfelf. If a column diminishes as the eye is gradually directed to its fummit, and its apparent diameter is judged equal, without excels, to fupport the incum-. bents; there is then feen what Nature requires, and the contraction at top of the column being of 4, 5, or 6 minutes on each fide, is immaterial in any manner of height; and the projecture of the capital made 4 or 5 inimutes differing from the rule our Matter has given, its beauty may fill be as perfect.. And they, who, reafonably truck with the beauty of fome approved work of the antique, have been thence betrayed into an erroneous perfuafion, that every minute dimenfion of its feveral members could be no other than juft what they were, from the high opinion entertained of the architect's fkill that had produced fuch excellence, may foon be convinced that in truth this beauty refults not from thefe precife dimenfions, but from his fuccefsful imitation of natural productions; which is evinced beyond difpute when fome other work of acknowledged excellence is examined, wherein thefe minute proportions are altogether different; for, fince we cannot account for these variations, we are compelled to own that they were arbitrary in their firft invention. The architect's fuccefs, then, depends on a judicious difcrimination between mutable proportions and thofe fixed by Nature, on a due adherence to natural forms with their appropriate pofitions, all which is the bufinets of a graceful difpofition-of which in next number. led, by early impreflions in favour of a The experienced architect will guard against every kind of prepofleflion; and while he difcerns, from convincing reafons, this pofitive beauty in the Grecian fiyle, he at the fame time difcovers that it confifts not in any precife determination of minute measures in Yours, &c. PHILO-TECHNON. (To be continued.) Vol LXXI. p. 1-84, col. 2, 1. 26, for 225 r. 425; and p. 1087, col. 1. 1. 8, for 75 read 73. |
