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Remarks on the present Provision for the Poor.

compare great things with small, when the members of the Legislature meet night after night, and know their proceedings will be published, they find it incumbent to debate. A Member wishes to ingratiate himself with his Constituents, and with the greatest sincerity and patriotism, to promote their interests; and, perhaps, has weight and influence sufficient to get a Committee appointed to consider them; who, in their turn, in justification of themselves, and to meet the expectations of the public, report what they have done. Scarcely any interest in the kingdom, agricultural, commercial, or manufacturing, great or small, general or local, but applies to the Legislature for protection and relief; as if Parliament could order the seasons, or create markets, and industry, and prudence. This mistaken dependence upon Legislation has led to much tampering with affairs of traffic, which generally prospers best unimpeded by the interference of authority, and has tended to abridge the liberties as well of the people, as of Judges and Juries, who are no longer left to act and decide according to plain notions of common sense and natural justice, but are cramped and fettered on all occasions by minute technicalities more suited to the meridian of China than of England.

As evidence of the truth of what is here stated, might be quoted, the proceedings of the Committee on the Poor Laws, appointed under a most respectable Chairman, which, from the temper and wisdom of the members, led to no great or sudden change, or material practical conclusion, except the institution of select vestries, a safe, temperate, and expedient mea

sure.

The French have a proverb, "C'est mieux de ne rien faire, que faire des riens;" in other words (if I have not forgotten my Latin), " præstat otiosum esse quam nihil agere." After the extraordinary excitement of the people of this country for many years, by war, by commerce, by new political and new metaphysical doctrines, no art seems more desirable to be cultivated than that of learning, upon occasion, to do nothing. The residence of gentlemen of fortune upon their estates, who are willing to keep up a good-humoured, hospitable so

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ciety with their neighbours, and personally encourage the homely interests and rural pastimes of their inferiors, is one of the greatest and most gratifying benefits they can confer.

If I am right, in stating the grievance of the Poor-rate not to be so heavy as it is sometimes represented, and not likely to be essentially relieved by an alteration of the laws, the question of the remedies to be adopted in this case will be of more easy decision. Any person, moderately conversant with the subject, must be aware that it will be difficult to strike out a new proposition, one which has not only been suggested, but in some way or other actually put in practice. In one district a house of industry, at a vast expense, has been erected, which has turned out merely a place of punishment and confinement: in one town there is a small poor-house, and the inhabitants wish to enlarge it, that they may offer such an asylum as will deter applicants for relief: in another town there is a large poorhouse, half-empty; for experience bas proved that the poor are more cheaply maintained at their own homes. Io this place the poor are farmed; in a second there is an assistant-overseer with a salary, in a third a select vestry. Under every change the rate has kept steadily increasing.

Whatever poets and patriots may sing and say, the annals of the poor are neither short nor simple; but the reverse. Their stories are long, tedious, and confused; they are just as much attached to their own interests as the rich, and are extremely cunning in finding it out, and pertinacious in pursuing it. I humbly recommend every reformer of the poor. laws to serve the office of overseer for a year or two in a populous parish; and am much mistaken if he will not leave off with the conviction, that the present laws, upon the whole, are good and necessary, and only re quire a proper, faithful, exact, and diligent administration. Whatever systems may be exhibited in good set terms on paper, as to the relation of cause and effect between a legal provision and the propagation of pauperism, I believe to be in a great mea sure a refinement of opinion, for which there is small foundation in facts. The poor, if sick or infirm, should be maintained. FAR-NIENTE.

Mr.

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Rievaulx Abbey.-St. Dunstan's in the East.

Mr. URBAN, Bermondsey, Feb. 1. O the accurate description of Rievaulx Abbey, which has already appeared in your Magazine*, I can presume to add only a few remarks to introduce the accompanying Engraving (see Plate I.) of a view of those very beautiful remains.

Some extensive excavations of the high and uneven ground Westward of the great arch leading to the choir, having lately taken place by permis sion of the owner, Charles Duncombe, of Duncombe Park, Esq. the basements of the piers that once supported the arches in the nave, have been discovered, and remain, I be lieve, exposed to view.

Very few of our Abbey Churches exceeded that at Rievaulx in extent, and perhaps not one in magnificence. The Choir remains a noble specimen of its architecture, which is in the Pointed Style of the 13th century. This beautiful fabric is attached to transepts in the Norman style, as it was practised towards the conclusion of the 11th century, and with which the nave doubtless once corresponded.

It is more than probable that the original Choir, or that portion of the Church Eastward of the intersection of the great cross-ailes, was small in its dimensions, as the length of the Nave was very considerable. This proportion is a characteristic of the Norinan style. When the Pointed Arch was established, extensive alterations were made in many of the great Churches for the purpose of introducing the new style in the greatest splendour of which it was then capable. I cannot call to mind a more magnificent, or perhaps a more antient specimen of the united styles, and united proportions, just spoken of, than that which occurs in Fountains Abbey, a particular description of which has lately appeared in Vol. LXXXVIII. ii. 319, 582; XC. ii. 210.

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less picturesque form than the one at Fountains, is equally grand.

The height, length, and breadth, accord in an admirable manner; the subdivisions of the sides are justly proportioned, and the arches belonging to the different arcades are most elegantly formed. The mouldings which compose. all the numerous arches are profuse, but sculptured ornaments are sparingly introduced; both these remain in the most perfect state of preservation, and exhibit carvings, the delicacy and beauty of which are almost unrivalled.

At the East end of the Choir are two tiers of triple lancet windows, the internal arches of which rest on slender columns, and are handsomely ornamented. A roof of stone once covered the Choir, but only its clustered springers are now remaining on the side pillars.

The whole area of the Choir is covered with grass, and in 1811 a great portion of the South side was covered with ivy. I. C. B.

Mr. URBAN, March 2. THE causes which operated to Thas hasten the decline of English Ecclesiastical Architecture have never been satisfactorily explained. The last traces of Pointed Architecture were lost in the coarse and incongruous style which prevailed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Till the time of Inigo Jones, no extraordinary efforts were made to establish a chaste order of Architecture, and no attempts seem ever to have been exerted towards restoring the pointed arch in Sacred buildings. On the contrary, its form, proportions, and ornaments were represented by Sir Christopher Wren as barbarous, inconsistent, and inelegant; and when the dreadful fire of London, which injured the roof and other portions of the magnificent Cathedral, opened the way for the exercise of his hitherto unpractised talents, he eagerly condemned the whole of that stupendous and interesting fabric, with all its monuments, to

The Choir of Rievaulx Abbey, though of a less antient date, and, (to use a common expression) of a * See vol. LXXX. i. 105.—We are informed that the author of the Letter, to which we now refer, is William Gray, esq. to whom we are indebted for several other valuable communications.

EDIT.

+ The custom of fixing the Altar of a Church towards the East, has, in this instance, been unavoidably departed from. The valley in which Rievaulx Abbey is stationed, is so very narrow, that all its buildings could not have been properly arranged, if the Church had not been placed in its present slant direction. The Altar faces the North; but to avoid confusion in the description, this singularity has not been attended to. GANT. MAG. April, 1821. destruction;

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New Church of St. Dunstan in the East.

destruction; apparently to gratify his vanity in the erection of certainly one of the most beautiful buildings, after the Roman manner, in the world. Since Sir Christopher Wren's time, several Architects of minor celebrity have started up, who, following the example of their great master, have endeavoured to degrade one style to prop up another, which never has generally flourished in England; and which, if we may judge from the works of the present day, never will become permanent, or flourish long uninterrupted. It is evident that no style of Architecture suits a Sacred building so well as the Pointed; and however indifferently the imitations of antiquity may be executed, their appearance is always more solemn and appropriate than the gay models of

Greece and Rome.

The new Church of St. Dunstan in the East is, as your acute Correspondent "E. 1. C." (p. 38) observes, among the best specimens (and bad indeed are the very best) of imitation. Its numerous defects result principally from a want of taste in the selection of models, and experience in the styles of Pointed Architecture. As your Readers, Mr. Urban, have been already favoured with an accurate description of the various members composing this Church, I shall now point out those inaccuracies in its architecture and its furniture which have passed unobserved, or have been only slightly noticed by "E.1.C."

It requires a greater share of skill and judgment than seems to be possessed by those persons who conducted the plans of this Church, to select suitable and consistent specimens for the formation of a design which shall represent the work of one determi nate period. I will instance the omission of battlements on the exterior, the eminent propriety of which will not perhaps be doubted by those who have travelled further than a dozen miles from the metropolis to seek for examples of ancient Architecture worthy of imitation. I may pos sibly be reminded that examples of the absence of battlements occur in many Churches built in the 14th century. The Architecture of William of Wykeham, at Winchester and Oxford, are two remarkable exceptions; but the omission of battlements is more agreeable to the bold simplicity

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of their external design, than to the splendid poverty in that of St. Dun stan's Church.

The disproportion in the breadth of the triple ailes is apparent, and so contrary to the rules usually fol lowed in Pointed Architecture, that I am induced to believe the architect erected the walls of this Church on the foundations of the structure built by Sir Christopher Wren. Both ex ternally and internally the defects resulting from this voluntary expedient (voluntary it must surely have been, because the sum of money granted by the Parishioners was sufficient to defray the cost of rooting up the old foundation) are conspicuous, and very injurious to the order and beauty which the general design of this Church would otherwise have pos sessed. From no position on the pavement can the clerestory windows be seen; and the removal of the intervening houses towards Thames-street, would not admit of their distinct appearance over the parapet of the side ailes, which is common in antient Churches.

I shall further observe of the exterior, that the shallow architraves of all the windows, and the slender cornices and copings of the ailes and buttresses, bespeak an insubstantial appearance, and forcibly remind us of the paste-board fabrics sometimes seen in the window of a watchmaker's-shop, rather than represent the members and ornaments of an useful edifice, exposed to the storms and changes of the elements. The pannels in the parapet at the East end are unnecessary, and the corbels supporting the weather cornice of the window beneath too large.

The principal entrance to the Church is equivocal. Besides a door-way in the South side, there are two porches on the North side; placed 'one at each extremity of the aile. In opposition to the invariable rule of antiquity, the door-ways open in the Eastern sides of these Porches; and the most Eastern porch being the principal entrance to the Church, you are compelled to turn your back towards the altar, a part, the sacred purposes of which, and the splendour of its decoration, once claimed the first notice, and therefore opposed the spectator at his admission into the sacred fane.

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