instances, were confined, formal, and dull, by lofty walls and clipped hedges.

In determining the situation for a new house, it may often be advisable to place it at a distance from other habitations, that the modern taste for freedom and extent may be gratified; but in accommodating plans of improvement to houses already built, it requires due consideration how far such taste should be indulged, otherwise we may be involved in difficulties and absurdities; for it is not uncommon to begin, by removing walls which conceal objects far more offensive than themselves.

"When additions or alterations are made to an old house, internal convenience and improvement should certainly be the first objects of consideration; yet the external apParance and character must not be neglected, This is a circumstance which our ancestors seem to have little regarded, for we frequently distinguish the dates of additions to buildings by the different styles of architecture; and hence it often happens, that a large old house consists of discordant parts mixed together, without any attempt at unity either in date or character of building. This was of less consequence, when each front, surrounded by its court or parterre, became a separate and entire object; but since modern gardening, by removing those separations, has enabled us to view a house at the angle, and at once to see two fronts in perspective, we become disgusted by any want of unity in the design.

The south front of Corsham is of the style called Queen Elizabeth's gothic, although rather of the date of King James. The north front is of Grecian architecture.

"The east front is in a correct, but heavy style of architecture; and to alter the old south front in conformity to it, would not only require the whole to be entirely rebuilt, but make an alteration of every room in that part of the house unavoidable. This not according with the intention of the proprietor of Corsham-house, the original south front becomes the most proper object for imitation,

A house of Grecian architecture, built in a town, and separated from it only by a epurt-yard, always implies the want of landed property; because, being evidently of recent erection, the taste of the present day would we placed the house in the midst of a lawn or park, if there had been sufficient land adjoining; while the mansions built in the Gothic characters of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and James, being generally annexed to towns o villages, far from impressing the mind with the want of territory, their size and grandeur, compared with other houses in the town, imply that the owner is not only the lord of the surrounding country, but of the town also.

"The valuable and celebrated collection of pictures at Corsham-house, in a modern Grecian edifice, might appear recent, and not the old inhabitants of an ancient mansion, belonging to a still more ancient family:

and although Grecian architecture may be more regular, there is a stateliness and grandeur in the lofty towers, the rich and splend d assemblage of turrets, battlements, and pinnacles, the bold depth of shadow produced by projecting buttresses, and the irregularity of outline in a large Gothic building, unknown to the most perfect Grecian editice.

"Gothic structures may be classed unde three heads, viz. the Castle Gothic, tie Church Gothic, or the House Gothic: let us consider which is the best adapted to the purposes of a dwelling.

The Castle Gothic, with few small apertures and large masses of wali, might be well calculated for defence, but the apartineats are rendered so gloomy, that it can only be made habitable by enlarging and increasing these apertures, and in some degree sacrificing the original character to modern comfort.

"The more elegant Church Gothic consists in very large apertures with small masses or piers: here the too great quantity of light requires to be subdued by painted glass; and however beautiful this may be in churches, or the chapels and balls of colleges, it is seldom applicable to a house, without such violence and mutilation, as to destroy its ge neral character; therefore, a Gothic house of this style would have too much the appear ance of a church; for, I believe, there are no large houses extant of earlier date than Henry VIII, or Elizabeth, all others being either the remains of baronial castles or conventual edifices.

"At the dissolution of the monasteries Ly Henry VIII, a new species of architecture was adopted, and most of the old mansions now remaining in England were either built or repaired, about the end of that reign, of in the reign of Queen Elizabeth: hence it has acquired in our days the name of Elizabeth's Gothic; and although in the laver part of that reign, and in the unsettled times which followed, bad taste had corrupted the original purity of its character, by introducing fragments of Grecian architecture in its orna ments, yet the general character and effect of those houses is perfectly Gothic; and the bold projections, the broad masses, the rienness of their windows, and the irregalar outline of their roofs, turrets, and tall chiminics, produce a play of light and shadow wonderfully picturesque, and, in a painter's eve, amply compensating for those occasional inaccuracies urged against them as specimens of regular architecture.

Although the old south front should be the standard of character for the new eleva tions of Corsham-house, yet I hold it not only justifiable, but judicious, in the imitation of any building, to omit whatever is spurious and foreign to its character, and supply the places of such incongruities from the purest example of the same are. For this reason, in the plans delivered, the Grecian mouldings are omitted, which the corrupt taste of King James's time had introduced

and the true Gothic mouldings of Elizabeth's reign are introduced.

The turrets, chimney shafts, and oriels, will be found in the examples of Burleigh, Blickling, Hampton Court, Hatfield, &c. or in most of the buildings of Henry the VIIIth

and Elizabeth. The centre of the north front, although of the same character, being in imitation of a building somewhat earlier than Elizabeth, together with the peculiarity of its form, it is necessary to describe why it has been adopted. Here another principle arises, viz. that in designing any Gothic building, it is presumed that some fragments exist of the style we propose to imitate, other wise it ceases to be an imitation.

"In pursuance of this principle, We looked for an instance of an octangular room projecting beyond the general line of the wall, in some building of that date. The chapel of Henry VIII, at Westminster, though not an octagon, was the only projecting regular polygon; this therefore be

came our model for the centre room of the north front, and this exainple not only furnished a precedent for a projecting room, but other parts of its composition peculiarly suited our situation."

This volume is ornamented with about

forty plates, one of which is a portrait of the author, and the others are chiefly aquatint-coloured prints, with strips of paper, or laps. Some of these are drawn with taste, and many of the proposed alterations appear to be very judicious. Upon the whole, we can safely recommend this volume to the attentive perusal of men of discrimination, who may derive both information and amusement from its contents; and if Mr. R. publishes again, we would recommend a little modesty and humility, in the full persuasion that it will by no means depreciate his works.

patron for Spenser's remains, than the earl of Essex, who, according to Camden's authority, rendered them the last honours. To us, it is clear, that Essex, and no other, is meant by the great Hart, a common way of spelling heart, as is obvious from the antithesis to head, and from the pathetic allusion to the disastrous fate of the gallant earl. But although we notice these trivial inaccuracies, they are such as must necessarily occur in a long treatise concerning a variety of obscure topics.

We now and then observe some specimens of Mr. Ritson's vein of satire, though the subject was sufficiently unfavourable for its display. In his aversion to churchmen, he descends to invective against poor Lydgate, whom he terms a voluminous prosaic and drivelling monk, his works stupid and disgusting productions, which by no means deserve the name of poetry, and himself a still more stupid and disgusting author, who disgraces the name and patronage of his master, Chaucer. Few Englishmen of the old stamp, will relish Mr. Ritson's character of queen Bess, and of her writings, which he terms most abominable compositions," the muses having favoured her just as much as Venus or Diana." In a subsequent passage, the said venerable and royal virgin is termed "a green-eyed monster, the illegitimate spawn of a bloody and lustful tyrant, who not only imprisoned that most beautiful and accomplished princess, (to whom she had hypocritically and seductively offered a refuge), for the eighteen best years of her life and reign, but upon

the falsest suggestions, and the grossest forgeries, with a savage and malignant cruelty, unparalleled even in the furies or gorgons of antiquity, deprived of crown and kingdom, and deliberately shed the sacred and precious blood of her nearest relation, and even the presumptive heir to her own realm, to which, in fact, she had a better title than herself," p. 366. What would an "old courtier of the queen" have said to such blasphemy?

We must not omit to notice that this work is written in a strange perverted kind of orthography, which Mr. Ritson, for reasons best known to himself, thought proper to adopt in his later publications. We can neither discover reason nor analogy in the peculiarities of writing mister for master, i for I, doubling the e in the termination of some words, and clipping off a 1 from that of others, any more than in making the small s face about and march before the large one, instead of following humbly in the rear, as in the usual mode of printing. But we need not exclaim against innovations, which in all probability will die with their inventor.

Mr. Ritson had prepared for the press, previous to his death, a catalogue of Scottish poets, intended as a companion to the Bibliographia Poetica; and we understand there is a design of giving it to the public. We now take leave of the laborious Ritson. With all his wayward humours and peculiarities, we venture to prophecy that the post which he held among our investigators of antiquity, will neither be speedily nor easily filled.

IN an advertisement prefixed to the fourth volume, the author appears to advert in terms of some dissatisfaction, to the account which was given in our last review (p. 537) of the former volume of his work. We beg leave to assure him that no part of that article was intended to be offensive to his feelings, and that it is our wish, cautiously to abstain from any expressions which can be justly considered as possessing that tendency.

With reference to the writers "de re rustica," we are still of opinion, that if it was proper to mention three inferior editions of the collection of those authors, it was proper to mention a greater num

ber; and that this arrangement would also have been preferable to any other, for this obvious reason, that, if the writers are classed separately, as they are usually printed together, the editions must either be assigned arbitrarily, some to one author, and others to another, or must improperly, and inconveniently be repeated under different heads. But enough on a topic of but little moment. We would, however, recommend the editor, in future volumes of his work, to write Palladius, and not Palladio, as it has hitherto appeared.

We are sorry if we have under-rated the difficulties with which the editor has

had to contend; we should have wished to have seen his work rather more accurate, but are very willing to admit his profession, when he says that he labours intensely to make the inaccuracies as few as possible; and we believe that on the whole the present volumes are more correct than that which preceded them.

Vol. ii. p.112. In a passage, perhaps extracted from Dr. Harwood, the merits of Rhodomannus and Dausqueius, in their notes on Q. Calaber, are not estimated with sufficient discrimination. The annotations of the former are, in fact, of great merit, and those of the latter, in a critical view, of much inferior value.

P. 117. The anonymous edition of Callimachus at London in 1741, is, we believe, by T. Bentley, nephew of Dr. Richard Bentley. The annotations of the latter on Callimachus, appeared nearly half a century before.

In p. 154, Heyne's third improved edition of Tibullus in 1798, may be added.

Vol. iii. p. 129. An edition of Dion Chrysostom is mentioned, of the date of 1476. We are aware that De Bure gives the same account; we are aware also of the danger in many cases, of opposing probabilities to statements of facts. That an edition, of a voluminous sophist, should have preceded by twelve years the publication of Homer, or any other considerable work of Greek literature, would however, be a singular phænomenon in the history of learning. If such a book exist, it was unknown to Reiske, Morelli, and other writers. If there is any foundation for the account, perhaps some single oration of Dion may have been pub