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information concerning abutment piers? He found it prudent not to agitate the question, as the gentlemen in the report alluded to, did in getting over the 11th question of the select committee of the House of Commons. Sir, I believe in a great measure I repeat your own sentiments, in stating that the Emerson theory does not in any way take into consider ation the arch, but applies to a wall with a hole in it, composed of materials united by cement, either wholly or round the curve:* whether an arch of any thickness is to be placed in this holet remains to be explained. Through The whole of the Principles of Bridges, except in the last ten lines of the last page, the word voussoir is not mentioned; and then, in the dictionary, merely to state that there are such things. Dr. Jutton's definition of an arch, viz. (6 an opening of a bridge through which, or under which, the water passes;" establishes the opinion which is universally held of the theory, that nothing more is required than a curved intrados, or mathematical arch, or arch of no thickness. Hence it is a mis-nomer to call the Emerson theory, a theory of the equilibration of arches: it is literally, when applied to bridges, a theory of the form of the fat mould, &c. on the extradosses of the arches of bridges. If Mr. Mylne's practice, in regard to the voussoirs, be just, and Mr. Atwood, and the French philosophers, are not deplorably ignorant, the Emerson theorists have to begin again upon a new series of intradosses for their walls.

Lapicida will be obliged; he is not de rous of having an account of the amo of a college, that being the only part the history left out. Lapicida always been of opinion, however t lives of some few of the “old fellows” the universities may have deviated fro the stoic regimen, that they never forg to maintain the characters of gentleme The Lapicidæ, and the Lignicidæ, are obstinate race: no persuasion can indu them to adopt what is diametrically o posite to experience and practice; an they presume to assert, in opposition the learning of the schools, that they ca discover what is false, though they cann exactly define what is true. The publ cation on arches, &c. was not referred t through friendship to the author, Philo-veritas insinuates; but now sti more so, as the dire Philo-veritati acumen, without having any know ledge of it, has already devoted i to those purposes from which the repu tation of the Monthly Magazine wi preserve his own farrago. Lapicida ha 'seen the article" Bridge" in the New Cy clopædia, in which he finds the following notable passage:-" "A mere arch con structed in this way, viz. according to De la Hire, Belidor, Varignon, Parent, other French philosophers, and Mr. Atwood, would remain in equilibrio as long as the constituent voussoirs had liberty to slide without friction down the respective Inclined planes on which they lay:", and among other extraordinary lights thrown upon their theory, "that the voussoirs of such arches must be cut to different oblique angles." He then ejaculates: "But even this is not all! architects contrive to have the butting side of their wedges (voussoirs) so rough, as to occasion a great deal of friction between them." These architects must have been the workmen who told Philo veritas that arches sink at their haunches, or it must be a new precept established on purpose for the Emerson * See the diagrams, and explanation, in theory. Lapicida cannot but suspect, when he observes the industry which has And if or any th ckness, whether equally been displayed in the historical part of thick throughout, or whether the intrados of this article, and the number of bridges the Emerson wall is the extrados of an arch which are brought into view, that the of equilibration, to be guessed by the mason? I How is it that the wonder of this former part was intended as a body of theory, viz. the curve for a horizontal extra practical evidence to confute the Emerdos, approaches so near to a semi circle, and son theory, and that the theoretical differs so materially from an ellipse; and the account was intended, ironically, to furproperties approach so nearly to those of an ther that object. LAPICIDA. ell pse, and differ so materially from those of a semi-circle? Are not the details as curious as the results in the 5th Prop. Principles of Bridges?

it

The defenders of the Emerson theory, may be apprehended, are unacquainted that the word extrados, as applied to arches, has but one meaning: it is probable their errors may have arisen originally from a misconception which they now think proper to maintain. If Philoveritas will condescend to clear up any of the inconsistencies of the true theory,

Emerson's Mechanics.

The authorities in favour of the Emer

son theory, will remind many of your readers of the story of Elizabeth, Betsey, and Bess.

For

For the Monthly Magazine. WALKS in BERKSHIRE. By MR. JAMES NORRIS BREWER. No. IV.-Containing a Visit to the antient Vindonum of the Romans.

(Concluded from vol. 29, page 527.) T would be trite to expatiate on the Inoutions with which the traveller approaches the desolate site, and mouldering outlines, of a once populous, gay, and formidable city. On this occasion, perhaps, most men are subject to the same course of ideas, and are agitated by similar feelings of regret, despondency, and wonder. Through labyrinths of woodland and ill-beaten roads, now familiar only to the hind, though once traversed by throngs of the polished conquerors of England, and their dependants, I trod, with increasing ardor, and believed the object of our expedition yet distant, when my companion suddenly arrested my progress, by exclaiming, "We are there!" It was even so. On this rough road, where scarce a dozen feet tread during the whole of a summer's day, and amid these wild and tangled branches, which almost forbid the traveller's approach, we were close beside the potent, the august city, from which Constantius issued his edicts to a trembling and subdued people.

Silchester (which is really in the county of Hants, though immediately on the confines of Berkshire) is supposed to have been the Vindonum of the Romans. The occurrence of a supposition on this subject must appear sur prising when we consider the former extent of the city, but such is the effect of ages on a merc record of stone and mortar, that the original appellation is, in fact, conjectural, though the most in genious and industrious antiquaries concur in believing the Roman Vindonum to have occupied this site.

Following the lead of this probable conjecture, we find that the city was built by Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, and that the founder sowed corn on the intended ground-plot of his city,* with a view of shielding the future

What a strange propensity mankind possess to enlarge on the particulars of a story as it passes through their hands! Modern writers on the subject of this antient city, assert that the emperor Constantius scattered grain completely round the traces of the walls, as an omen of their perpetuity. But Ninnius, on whose authority the anec dote solely rests, says, in explicit language, that Constantius merely sowed three grains

inhabitants from the miseries of poverty and degradation. If so, a propitiatory offering has seldom been made with less success.

While the Roman empire continued to derive strength from a simplicity and purity of internal arrangement, Vindonum maintained its consequence, and was deemed one of the chief provincial cities constructed and inhabited by the masters of the world. But the Romans, though so enterprising and military a people, were unable to exist in their British provinces without the support of the parent country. They made a faint effort to establish in Vindonum au independent authority, but the endeavour was futile, and the "barbarous Britons" took a triumphant possession of the city, so strongly fortified and so long tenanted by their invaders. The Britons termed their new acquisition Caer Segont (the city of the Segontians,) and this was the spot selected for the inauguration of the chivalrous and mighty king Arthur. But the prosperity of the city while under British dominion A fresh horde of sanwas short-lived.

guinary visitors, under the banners of
Saxony, poured on the afflicted islanders,
and Caer Segont was one of the first
strong-holds against which they directed
While defended by those
their arms.
who laid the foundation, the walls of
Vindonum proved impregnable. But
the aboriginal Britons (fond as are their
descendants of the boast of freedom)
seem to have been born for slavery.
Useless were the mighty towers and
embattled gateways of the Romans.
The Saxons prevailed; and, as a token
of their victory, they razed the city to
the ground, dismantled its fortifications,
and tried to level entirely the massive
walls formed by Constantius; but even
the destruction of these was too severe a
task for their industry and patience,
although the Romans were equally ex-
posed to danger and interruption when
they heaped together the ponderous
quarry of materials, and embattled the
outlines of the city. Since the ravages
of the Saxons, all hints at population
have abandoned the devoted spot; and
the shepherd and his dog, or the casual
stranger, led thither by curiosity and

of corn on the ground whereon the city was
built." Seldom have three grains of seed
produced such an abundant crop as these,
when assisted by the manure of a modern
annotator's ingenuity.

Fity,

pity, possess uncontested power over the districts once defended with streams of Roman and of British blood.

as

I have described the first view of the majestic fragments of Vindonum bursting on the traveller while he threads the mazes of obscure and embowered lanes. The prospect is truly impressive and surprising. We see a wall, in some places still nearly twenty feet high, and through the whole boundary of the city twenty-four feet in thickness, half-veiled by towering oaks which have taken root even in the firm cement of the ponderous wall itself. The slow process of vegetation, which has tinted the stone with green, and created a little forest in the place once occupied by battlements and coping, is very nearly the whole alteration that has been effected since the hour in which the Saxons ravaged the city, and reduced the pride of its fortified barrier to a mere monument of the instability of local grandeur.

The Romans were judiciously attached (as the situation of antient Rome might suffice to prove,) to an elevated site for their most important cities. In attention to this habitual predilection, Vindonum was placed on the apex of a cluster of hills, whose summits appear to have been rendered artificially level for the accommodation of the military settlers. The city was built in the form of a parallelogram 2600 by 2000 feet, and was entirely surrounded by a wall of the thickness mentioned above, and of a very considerable height, though its precise degree of elevation cannot now be ascertained. Four gateways opened to the city, the situations of which are still distinctly marked, and show that the entrances were placed exactly at the four cardinal points. The foundation of the walls consists of regular layers of large flat stones, and the walls are composed of rubble-stone, flints, and pebbles, held together by a bed of strong cement. The stones and flints are not arranged with any uniformity of method, but are variously placed in the cement, at different parts of the wall.

Still, for an indeterminate distance, a similarity of arrangement appears to have been preserved, as if certain specified proportions of the structure had been allotted to the task of a particular band of artificers, and each band had its peculiar plan of workmanship.

The extent of the wall is nearly two English miles, and round the whole was

1

a deep ditch, or fosse, a great part of which is now filled with the ruins of the walls. Beyond the ditch was constructed the external vallum, which may still be easily traced, and which is, ir many places, fifteen or sixteen feet high. On the western side of the walls is an embankment, thrown up in a semi-circular form, with a ditch beyond it. This bank is of a considerable height, and was evidently constructed for the defence of the city.

On the north-east, at some small distance from the city wall, are the remains of an amphitheatre, which are now used as a yard for the cattle of a neighbouring farmer!

A street, thirty feet in width, extends from each gate to the opposite entrance, and the traces of various subordinate passages are still to be observed towards the approach of harvest in dry seasons, when the corn (probably from the circumstance of the pavement of the streets still remaining entire, on which lie heaped the materials of the houses razed by the Saxons) fails, and the examiner may clearly ascertain the width and direction of each smaller avenue once trodden by the Roman inhabitants.

From the very retired character of the neighbourhood, the walls have escaped with singular good fortune from all other dilapidations than such slow hints at fragility as are the inevitable consequences of a lengthened age. The whole of the remains appear now in the same state as when visited by Camden. That most industrious antiquary mentions an aperture or passage, underneath the southern wall, through which he could scarcely pass, in consequence of the heaps of rubbish which incumbered the former private avenue of the garrison. This passage (called Onion's hole) presents exactly the same aspect at the present day. Indeed, it would almost appear that the various generations of the moderns have concurred in treating these ruins with tenderness and respect; for, between two and three hundred years back, a church and farm-house (both mentioned by Camden as recent erections) were con structed near the eastern entrance. These are both remaining, and I found them to be composed of brick. Now, as such immense quantities of useful materials were contained close at hand, in the fragments of the Roman walls, it seems difficult to discover any other motive for the founder of these buildings preferring

preferring the use of brick, which must have been procured at much trouble and Expense, than a respectful regard for the mancholy, yet august; memorials of a rate and interesting period.

But if on the one band, it would appear that the relics have been treat d with forbearance, it is most certain that on the other, they have not been inves tigated with due zeal and perseverance. Canden mentions an inscription found here, which was conveyed to London, and placed in the garden of lord Burleigh. And since the time of Camden, the foundation of a large structure supposed to have been a temple, was discovered near the middle of the city, within a spacious square, formed partly by the intersection of the two principal streets. Roman coins are continually thrown to the surface, by the least cursory deviation of the plough, and found by the peasants, who term them (in allusion to a fancied giant) Onion's pennies. But all these assurances of the soil within the walls containing a vast hoard of antiquarian treasures, are insufficient to stimulate the proprietor of the spot to an activity of research; and he is contented to let the ground (about 100 acres) to a farmer, possessed of very little more feeling than the clod over which he drives his horses.*

Recollecting the great value which the Romans placed on water, and how very

one written at the time of the giants in the Greek language.

It is also a current opinion, that the city was impervious to all modes of assault, except the danger of conflagration; and that brands, accordingly, were fastened to birds, who settled on the city, and spread a flame throughout its buildings. A very credulous antiquary might almost believe that this latter circumstance has some connexion with traditionary fact, and that the strength of the out-works had really repelled every endeavor of the Saxons, until they cast torches over the walls, and added the horrors of conflagration to the fury of their external attack.

The modern name of Vindonum (Silchester,) Camden supposes to signify "the great city." But it appears, from later critics, that the word Sil or Sel, was understood to mean a hill, or elevation. It would, therefore, seem more likely that the compound term Silchester, was intended to express "the high city," or "the city on the hill;" a form of desig nation supported, as we have seen, by the local circumstances of antient Vindonum.

For the Monthly Magazine. JOURNAL of a WINTER TOUR through several of the MIDLAND COUNTIES of ENGLAND, performed in 1810. (Concluded from p. 546, vol. 29.) RODE the following morning, the

scrupulous they were as to the purity weather being fine, although the

and salubrious qualities of that used at their tables, I searched, with some interest, into the character of the rivulets on the confines of Vindonum, and found that the city had, in fact, been supplied by a spring of most inviting delicacy, which still pours its clear and bubbling

torrent into the incumbered fosse.

Respecting so vast (and to them incomprehensible) a ruin, it may be supposed that the natives entertain fabulous and extravagant opinions. They, indeed, suppose that the city was inhabited during its prosperity by giants: and a person, who thought himself more intelligent than his neighbours, informed me that these giants were of Hebrew origin, and that there was no history extant which mentioned the city, except

At the door of the farm-house, a horseblock is constructed of a portion of the shaft of a Roman column, on the top of which is placed the mutilated fragment of a capital. Both of these were discovered near that central square which is supposed to have been the site of a temple.

MONTHLY MAG. No. 202,

ground was yet covered with snow, from Rippon to Hack-fall, a distance of seven miles. The many minute and poetical descriptions which have been given of this celebrated pleasure-ground, would have induced me to omit mentioning it altogether, had I not happened to visit it under a novel and not uninteresting aspect. The feathered tribes had all fled to warmer climates; the little temples were shut up and deserted; there were no traces of pleasure-parties; and in many places the trees were stript of all their honors. But the water-falls were swelled by the snows; many firs covered the sides of the mountains; and the whole wore an air of solitude far from displeasing. The tops of the laurels, and other evergreens, that shaded the walks, bore a thick outward coating of snow; but there was no appearance of winter underneath: and the clusters of red berries, which hung from their branches all capped with crystal, recalled to my the lines of our bard: C

mind

< For

"For every shrub, and every blade of grass, And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass;

In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns shew,

While through the ice the crimson berries glow;

The thick-sprung reeds which watery marshes
yield,

Seemed polished lances in a hostile field;
The stag in limpid currents, with surprise,
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise ;
The spreading oak, the beech, and tow'ring
pine,

Glazed over, in the freezing æther shine;
The frighted birds the rattling branches
shun,

Which wave and glitter in the distant sun."

nosa might have been just as suitable. The whole is wretched. I would not give the crag a mile below Knaresborough, for five hundred such trumpery produc tions. I must mention in justice, that the little bronze figure of the Venus of Medicis, placed in the banqueting-house, is the most elegant imitation of that cele brated statue. I have ever seen in England.

Turning away in disgust from the boasted beauties of Studleigh, we soon arrive at a real beauty-the venerable ruin of Fountaine's Abbey. This is unquestionably the finest ruin in England. It stands in a sequestered valley, near to which a modest river steals along between woods and rocks. Nothing has fallen to ruin in Fountaine's Abbey, excepting the roof and some of the windows. The chancel, the choir, the cloisters, the dormitory, the kitchen, the refectory, the chapter-house, and the charnel-house, are all nearly entire; and in some places the plaister remains on the walls, painted so as to resemble large red stones nicely joined together. Fountaine's Abbey is a Gothic building: it was formerly enriched with ample revenues; and the Percy family, many of whom are here buried, were considered as its chief benefactors. It was founded in 1132 by Thurstan, archbishop of York; and an inscription over one of the gates mentions its having been finished in the year 1202, seventy years from its foundation: the length of the aisle is three hundred and sixty feet, and the cloister garden is entire.

A general idea of Hack-fall, which has been said to combine the beauties of Matlock and the Leasowes, may be obtained, by conceiving a rivulet falling in cascades down a narrow dell, betwixt two steep hills richly covered with wood, and interspersed with temples and ruins. From the top of one of these eminences may be seen a wide view of the North Riding of Yorkshire, bounded by distant hills. Hack-fall lies about four or five miles from the beautiful seat of its proprietor, Studleigh Park, which I entered at the northern gate, close to the house. After riding about half a mile through a lawn, I descended to a fine sheet of water, on the borders of which, even winter wore the look of spring. Studleigh Park is certainly highly cultivated; nature has done much, and art-more, in contributing towards its beauty. There are fine sloping hills covered with wood, and interspersed with temples; banquetinghouses, cold baths, and seats planted to catch noble prospects: and below are timooth lakes, and imitations of the best remains of ancient sculpture. Never theless, I cannot help differing from all travellers, by decidedly condemning the taste of it to be vile. Here all is art, and no nature; the principal sheet of water is divided into three compartments, resemoling a moon, and a crescent on each side of it. In the exact centre of these are dripping figures of Galen, Esculapius, and Niobe: corresponding figures are placed opposite to the half-moons on the banks-the Dying Gladiator, and the Wrestlers; while this abominable piece of Dogget-work, is supplied with water from a broad ribbon of a cascade not better than a mill-dam. Opposite, on the other side, is a temple of Piety, containing of all things in the world, a bust of Nero :-a bust of Spi

Riding on from Fountaine's Abbey, I passed through Ripley and Lower Harrowgate; and stopping all night at a small inn four miles beyond the latter place, arrived next morning in Leeds.

After resting some days, I again took horse, and travelled through Wakefield, which I have described in a former tour to Barnsley, a wretched ugly little town, where I got a bad breakfast. Sandal Castle lies in the way within a mile of Wakefield, well known to be celebrated for a famous battle between the White From Barnsley, I and Red Roses. proceeded to Wentworth Castle, where I was led through the picture-gallery, though in a great hurry, by the house. keeper, who had more important busi ness in hand-the making of jellies and blamanges.

Wentworth Castle is a family seat of the Stafford family, and stands nobly on the summit of a hill The grounds covered with old trees.

aro

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