of things; that what is prefented to his fenfe and obfervation is nothing more than a fet of phænomena which teach him nothing refpecting the ultimate and effential properties of the material world; that his ideas of time and space are only modes of thought, which, as to their proper archetypes, he is accustomed, perhaps erroneoufly, to refer to fimilar modes of external existence, and that confequently the hypothefis of BERKELEY cannot be proved to be falfe; I fhall yet offer one prefumptive argument against that hypothefis, in which though it is very likely I have been anticipated, I do not know whither to refer to it. If it be an authentic canon in the philofophicnl code that no more natural caufes are to be received than are fufficient to explain the phenomena, and that (to ufe Mr. CAPEL LOFFT's words,) "in forming any hypothefis to account for phenomena, all unneceffary complexity is to be avoided." it is not lefs reafonable to fuppofe that the author of nature has mnade nothing in vain. Now, in the phantafmagoria of BERKELEY it is difficult, or rather it is impoffible to explain the final caufe of thofe complicated and exquifitely arranged ideas, called the organs of fenfe. Suppofing thefe organs as well as the other works of nature to be

however inexplicable realities, yet ftill ). realities, we readily perceive their admirable co-adaptation, and the fitnefs of the whole contrivance to connect what paffes in the mind of man with what appears to exift without him: but on Berkeley's hypothefis all this ideal organization is ufeless: without the intervention of any part of it we could have equally contemplated and enjoyed

The boundless store Of charms which nature to her votary yields, The warbling woodland, the refounding fhore; The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields, All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the fong of even, All that the mountain's fheltering bofom fhields,

And all the dread magnificence of heaven*."

Whatever the Enquirer or Mr. CAPEL LOFFT may think of the force of this argument, 1 beg leave, Mr. Editor, to offer to them the affurance of my refpectful confideration, and to subscribe myself

Your most obedient Servant,

Chichester, Ajil 30, 1803.

* Minstrel, B. 7 stanza 9.

HYLAS.

For the Monthly Magazine.

EXTRACTS from MR. COLE'S MANU SCRIPTS, LATELY OPENED in t BRITISH MUSEUM.

[Mr. Cole received his education at Can

bridge, where he formed an early int macy with Horace Walpole, Gray, a Mafon. In 1750 he was collated to t rectory of Hornfey in the neighbourhood London, which he held but a year: ref ing the chief part of his life at his parfo age of Milton in Cambridgfhire. At 1 death in 1782, he bequeathed his lar collection of manufcripts, confifting of H rochial Surveys, Hiftorical Anecdotes, & to the British Museum, with an injuncti that they should not be opened TI

TWENTY YEARS AFTER HIS DECEAS

The time of their concealment expired the beginning of the prefent year; they are now open for the infpection of curious. From many private anecdo which they contain, a judgment of the c lector may eafily be formed. He was man of a temper jealous and capricious the extreme: but as an antiquary corr and indefatigable. The collections for county and univerfity of Cambridge fo a principal feature of the whole: but has interfperfed them with reflections his friends, that are fometimes contradic and fometimes explainedaway in subsequ memorandums.]

LORD ORFORD to the REV. MR. CO relating to Lord Offory's Cross at Am bill, in Bedfordshire, the defign which originated with himself, and afterwards improved by MR. ESSEX JUST write you a line, dear

box of papers, which is come very f to acknowledge the receipt of and to give you a thousand thanks the trouble you have taken. As you p mife me another letter, I will wait to anf it.

At prefent I will only beg ano favour, and with lefs fhame as it is o kind you will like to grant. I have la been at Lord Offory's, at Ampthill. Y know Catherine of Arragon lived f time there. Nothing remains of the castle, any marks of refidence but a very smal of her garden. I proposed to Lord Of to erect a crofs to her memory on the f and he will. I with therefore you co from your collections, or books, or mory, pick out an authentic form. crois, of a better appearance than common run. It must be raised on or three fteps, and if they were octag would it not be handfomer? Her a mult be hung like an order, upen Here is fomething of my idea.

a

times you have walls of bare brick; but almost throughout, you fee above and about you, pillars of marble or ftucco crushed or broken, or lying in all forts of directions. Sometimes you have plainly the outfides of walls of buildings that have apparently fallen inwards; and fometimes the infides of buildings that have fallen outwards; and fometimes have apparently both the infides and outsides of buildings that stand upright; and many of them would, I dare fay, be found to be entie, as several of them have in part been found to be.

To make an end of this general defcription, you have all the way fuch a confulion of brick and tiles, and mortar and mar ble cornishes, and friezes and other members and ornaments, together with fucco and beams and rafters, and even what feem to have been the trees that stood in the town, and blocks and billets for fuel, together with the earth and matter that appears to have overwhelmed the place, all fo blended and crushed, and, as it were, fo mixed together, that it is far eafier to conceive than to defcribe. The ruin in general is not to be expreffed.

Having given your lordship this general account, I will now run over the most remarkable particulars I faw, juft as they occur to me without pretending to order for as I have hinted already, it was impoffible for me to know in what order they stand in refpect of each other.

I faw the outside of a rotund, which may have been a temple; it is crowned with a dove; it may be about thirty foot in diameter; but I forbear to fay any thing of measures; for they will allow of none to be taken. Near it I faw the lower part of a Corinthian column upon the loftieft proportioned brick-pedeftal I ever obferved, and thereabouts fome very folid buildings. I foon after pafled over what, by the length we faw of it, appears to have been a very vaft mofaic pavement. We foon afterwards perceived ourfelves to be got into the infide of a dwelling boule the rooms appear to have been but fmall; they are lined with fucco, and painted with a ground of deep red; adorned with compartments either of white or light yellow, and fome other colours: cur lights were not good enough to make us diftinguish. In these compartments were grotefque paintings of hids, beafts, masks, teftcons, and the like.

Soon afterwards, with fome difficulty, and by creeping up a very narrow hole of

loofe earth, we got into an upper apartment of another house. The floor was of ftucco, and the earth and rubbish was cleared away from under a great part of it and found a room lined and adorned in the fame manner, and in the fame colours, and with the fame ground of deep red as the fides.

This room may have been about ten or eleven feet high; but the danger of our fituation would not permit us to do otherwife than to get out of it as foon as we could.

Shortly afterwards we were carried, rather afcending as we went, into what feems to have been a principal room of fome great houfe. At the end of it, which is to be feen, there were three large Boufets in the wall, all three mott admirably painted, partly in gretefque, and partly in perspective, reprefenting temples, houfes, gaidens, and the like, executed with the greatest freedom, judgment, and variety, and very much enlivened with the lighteft and molt airy ornaments; as is the whole of the room, as far as can be feen; not excepting the roof, which feems to have been a floping one: and all the lines of the compartments of the painting of it feem to tend to fome ornament that muft have been in the middle or centre at the top. What the height of this room may have been is hard to fay; for by the boufers it appears that there is a good depth to be dug out to get at the floor. I muft not omit, that between the painted compartments of this room there is continually a palm tree, reprefented in to very picturefque a manner, that I think it is one of the most pleasing ornaments I ever faw. What may be the length and breadth of this room is not to be guefled at; for they have not cleared away above, I think, five foot of the end of it I have been giving an account of.

We afterwards paffed through fome ordinary rooms belonging to the fame nurfe; and through the infide of fome other houses, feemingly of lefs note. Of thefe infides in general I fhall only fay that they are almolt always painted of a deep red, fometimes plain, and fometimes adorned with figures, &c.

It feemed to me twice or thrice, as we paffed along, that we turned the corners of ftree:s. Twice I thought we paled fronts of houses; and once particularly we paffed by the front, as it feemed, of fome very large public edifice, with very broad fluted pilafters of stucco..

But nothing is more extraordinary relating to this place, than what is demonftra

tively evident to have been the catastrophe

of it.

That it was partly deftroyed by an eruption of the mountain can never be doubted; and in the following manner: Firft it was fet on fire by burning matter from the mountain, and by the time it was well in flames, it was overwhelmed, and the fire was fmothered.

I

Your Lordship will be convinced of this, by what I am going to observe. have taken notice, that there are every where great quantities of beams and rafters, and trees, and billets of wood, fcattered up and down. All these are burnt to as fine and perfeЯ a charcoal as ever I faw, and as any body ever made use of. The very largelt beams are burnt to the heart, though they have perfectly preferved their form: infomuch, that in all of them I examined, I could perceive every ftroke of the axe or tool they were hewn or fhaped with.

been at all the cafe. In whatever manner the fate of this town was brought upon it, it seems to have been as dreadful a one as could have been inflicted by Nature.

I will trouble you with but one other obfervation about it, which is, that the inhabitants feem to have had some difinal warning to forfake it; for in the digging of above a mile an half, which they compute the feveral windings and turnings at, they have as yet found but one dead body. In my next I will give you an account of the paintings and ftatues they have taken up for the king's ufe, and add what may have slipped from my memory at prefent. In the mean time I beg you would excuse this indigested heap of writing,

I beg leave to prefent my duty to my Lady Clifford, and to affure you that I am moft perfectly your Lordship's inoft obedient and most devored fervant,

GEORGE SHELVOCKE, Jun. (To be continued.)

For the Monthly Magazine. LETTER from a FOREIGN GENTLEMAN in ROME, relative to LORD ELGIN'S COLLECTION of GRECIAN ANTIQUES, and of LORD HAMILTON's late TRAVELS in GREECE.

therto discovered.

That this deftruction was effected by two fuch violent accidents fuddenly upon the back of each other, may be more natural than to fuppofe that it was burnt by the fame matter that overwhelmed it; for if that had been the cafe, I don't know how the paintings could have been preserved fo fresh as they are, or indeed at all: nor can it be conceived, that there fhould not appear fome marks of burning in the brick, the marble, the fucco, and the reft. Now there is as yet no fuch thing to be observed; nor does there appear to be any fort of combustible fubitance mixed with the earth or rubbish. Both above and below, it seems to have been buried in common earth; which could naturally have no share in the burning of the town. This may make it to be believed, that it was rather buried by fome extraordinary effects of an earthquake which happened at the fame time, than by burning matter thrown out of the mountain. That it was fet on fire by burning matter from the mountain, cannot well be doubted: but that it was buried by the burning matter from the mountain appears not to have

civilized and cultivated fociety, an important fubject of inquiry, which could not fail to be productive of a variety of interefting refults. How much on this fabject might be collected from the annals of ancient and modern times! But it is a thankless labour. Even in ancient times, Themistocles was ill-rewarded for his pains, when he would have restored to her priftine ftation the beautiful bronze Hydrophora, (Water-carrier) which the Perfians had taken away from Athens, and placed in the temple of Cybele at Sardis. (See Plutarch's Life of Themistocles, chap. 31.) Still, however, there is fome merit in collecting the feattered accounts relative to this fubject; and Dr. Sickler, a German literato, already advantage. only known in the literary world, by a Hiftory of the Culture of Fruit-trees, and who is now refiding in Paris, the prefent central depofit of all conquered works of art, has fhewn, in his Gefchickte der Wegnahme und Abführung vorzüglicher Kunstwerke aus den eroberten Ländern durch die Sieger, (or Hiftory of the Deportation of the most valuable Works

of