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A Periodical Work, formed on the plan of the Gentleman's Magazine, and continued for the unprecedented period of a Century, if executed with due accuracy and attention, must prove of inestimable value. Scarcely a subject can be started, but, in the course of so long a time, has been discussed in its pages; nor is there an invention, or a discovery of importance to the improvement of science, or the advantage of mankind, during the last century, which has not increased the value of our work, by being recorded among its stores.

To the Antiquary our Volumes cannot but be peculiarly acceptable, as he will find therein materials sufficient to gratify the most ample curiosity. The memorials of families, the history and antiquities of parishes, and the laws and customs peculiar to particular districts, which he will find interspersed in our Volumes, are innumerable, and form the most legitimate materials for the Topographer.

Our Obituary continues to engage much of our attention; and the best proof of its merit is, that it is copied, with due acknowledgements, by the most standard biographical collections.

We turn to the world before us; and as "our wont is," we offer a few words on what is passing there.

We cannot conceal that there are symptoms of national distress, which may afflict the timid, and render the serious more thoughtful; but it is our sincere opinion that there is in the State-vessel a principle of buoyancy which, by divine aid, will enable her to bear onward in her course of glory; and we would apply in a general sense, what an eloquent modern writer has said of our country in a limited one:

"It is no preposterous exaggeration to affirm that the hope of the nations is now in the keeping of the English, whose eminence in whatever is most noble and useful,-whose extensive political power,-whose expansive commerce and colonization, whose spreading language and brilliant literature,—whose high and commanding spirit, conspire to fix upon them the gaze of mankind."

In speaking, indeed, of our beloved country, it is impossible to overlook her imposing attitude, both as it respects her domestic economy and her foreign relations. We see the mass of the population of England partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; we hope that the fruit is ripe, and that the signs of the time, evinced in the spirit of universal education, are auguries of good, and not portents of evil. In the mean time, with a vigilance which becomes a free press, and with a jealousy instinctively attaching to old institutions, we will mark the progress of events. Our prayer is that, as our knowledge advances, we may increase in virtue, and that the formidable weapon of power now fabricating, may ever be wielded by the energies of loyalty and true wisdom.

Dec. 31, 1829:

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JULY, 1829.

[PUBLISHED AUGUST 1, 1829.]

Printed by J. B. NICHOLS and SON, CICERO'S HEAD, 25, Parliament Street, Westminster;
where all Letters to the Editor are requested to be sent, PosT-PAID.

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MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.

It is a matter of no small gratification to the lovers of ancient ecclesiastical Architecture, and to the antiquary, to find that the conservators of this interesting Church have at length directed their attention to the preservation and beautifying of their edifice. Let us hope, however, that they will not disfigure, by making it too beautiful, and that their zeal may be tempered and directed by good taste. Few of the Cathedrals in England have been more deplorably neglected and injured than that of Chichester; not only were its columns, arches, and finer ornaments choked up and smothered by repeated coats of lime washing, but these were made white, yellow, black, &c. Stalls, partitions, galleries, &c. were in several situations to deform or obscure the finer parts of the building. It is reported that the officers of the Church have commenced the laudable task of removing all these extraneous objects, of clearing off and cleaning all the architectural members, and rendering the Church worthy of its destined purpose and of the present age. Mr. Britton intends shortly to elucidate the History and Architecture of this Edifice amongst his Series of the "Cathedral Antiquities of England."

W. remarks, "In your vol. XLIII. p. 271, in an account of Bruno Ryves's Mercurius Rusticus, Richard Royston, the Bookseller, is said to have followed the editions which came out in 1646, in the subsequent impression, so that his third edition, in 1685, has less in it than that of 1647. Having never seen any other edition than that printed in London, for Richard Green, Bookseller, at Cambridge, pray allow me to Inquire if the edition above-mentioned is a distinct work. Green's volume contains a Catalogue of Cathedrals, a brief Martyrology, with Querela Cantabrigiensis, Mercurius Belgicus, or Memorable Occurrences in 1642-3, 4, and 5; a Catalogue of Knights, &c. and tables of Contents, with a frontispiece, having the Rustic Mercury in the centre, surrounded by nine compartments, containing representations of battles and events in the Civil War. I wish, therefore, to ascertain if this be a transcript of the edition of 1647, or of the defective one of 1646, and to be informed of any additional articles inserted in Royston's Work. My volume has at the end of it a good head of Bruno Ryves, probably added by the Rev. Henry White of Lichfield, in whose collection it formerly was."

P. says, "Any information respecting the purchase of the manor of Byfield, in Northamptonshire, and of Archester, in the same county, with the manor of Sbarnebroke, in Bedfordshire, and lands at Coblecote, or Gublecote, in Hertfordshire, will be esteemed a favour. These lands, with other

considerable estates, were conveyed to Jane Tyrrell, widow and relict of Humphrey Tyrrell, Esq. third son of Sir William Tyrrell, Kat. of South Okingdou, in Essex, and George Tyrrell, Esq. their son, in or about the year 1550."

The same correspondent also submits the following queries to our readers :—

"What living in the diocese of Sarum given to Dean Humphreys by the Bishop of Winchester, was it to which Bishop Jewel, circ. 1580, refused to institute him?Where may be found any biographical account of Mr. Coare, of Newgate-street, the beneficent founder of an almshouse and charity-school?-What portraits of the celebrated Dr. Radcliffe, accredited as originals, (besides that in the Gallery at Oxford) are extant?"

Mr. W. WADD observes, "In the biographical accounts of Bonnel Thornton, it is stated that he published an additional canto to Garth's Dispensary, the Battle of the Whigs.' Can any of your learned correspondents tell me where I can find this canto? I should feel greatly obliged to any one to give me this information; and moreover, if they can further inform me, whether they know of a poetic answer to it, by the learned translator of Morgagne, Dr. Alexander."

W. B. would feel obliged by any information respecting the ancestors of the Irwins of Devonshire. About the year 1700, or perhaps a little earlier, three brothers, Johu, William, and Christopher Irwin, came into England from Scotland. John, it is thought, soon after returned unmarried. Christopher married, settled, and had a family in Devonshire, as was also the case with William, whose wife, Margaret, died Dec. 18, 1740, aged 61 years. Where William died is not known, but he is said to have died in Scotland, while on a visit to his friends. From what part of Scotland did these three brothers come, and to what family did they belong? A few years since, an advertisement appeared concerning the Irwins, either in a provincial, London, or Scots paper. If W. B. could be referred to the newspaper in which it appeared it would be esteemed a favour.

Since the Memoir of Sir Humphry Davy, in the present number, was printed, we have ascertained from Penzance that the late President was born in that town, Dec. 17, 1778, not 1779; and that he was christened in Penzance Chapel, his father being Robert Davy, and his mother Grace Millett.

Lieut.-Gen. Moutgomerie (p. 82 of the present number) died April 18.

E. L. is informed that the drawing of the pulpit be sent is engraved. He is requested to favour us with a description of it, his letter having been mislaid.

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nues consisted each of two rows, each composed of a hundred stones. The greater circle was of a hundred stones. The larger circles of the inner temples, each thirty. This cannot all have been accidental: and here lies a great part of the importance of establishing Stukeley's enumeration. But there is some reason also to think, that with the decimal arithmetic they had something mingled of the duodecimal, exactly as we have at present, who have names of the numbers up to twelve, before we begin to repeat the ten: for the inner circles of the two smaller temples, each consisted of twelve stones. If this was the effect of design, and the inference is just that the two arithmetics were familiar to the persons who constructed this temple, a much later date must, I think, be assigned to it than is commonly supposed.

III. I cannot regard this temple as at all different in specie, but only in extent, from other circular temples: and especially that at Arbor-Low, in Derbyshire. Arbor-Low, to be sure, is quite a miniature work when it is looked at in connection with Abury: but there is the same lofty mound of earth encompassing a circular area, and the same appearance within, of stones arranged in a circle corresponding with the lines of the vallum. But, suppose the people who constructed Arbor-Low, were designing to produce a similar work of far greater extent and magnificence, the design of producing greater extent and greater magnificence is all that is wanted to account for the additional appendages at Abury, without having recourse to the fiction of a serpent. For in the first place, what would more naturally suggest itself, when they had got the more spacious inclosure at Abury, than to place within it the two inner temples of smaller dimensions? and if more was wanted to render the place glorious and honourable, what more natural than that the two approaches should be along avenues corresponding in structure to the edifice itself?

But I am now getting upon debatable ground, while my intention was merely to describe what I saw, or what may be deduced with little chance of error: but especially to draw the attention of the public, and of the Wilt-hire antiquaries in particular, to the dilapidations which are goin

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but which I think they might, by their personal influence, at least for the present prevent. Few parts of Stukeley's writings are more interesting than those paragraphs in which he shows the successive depredations inade upon this temple in the last century, and names the persons who committed them. And I hope that all future"Tom Robinsons" will have their names and deeds handed down to posterity in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine. JOSEPH Hunter.

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Mr. URBAN,

July 14. FEEL obliged to your correspondent D. A. Y., in his remark on a passage in my "History of England during the Middle Ages," for pointing out that Walter Espac, mentioned by Geoffrai Gaiar, (as the person from whom, through the Lady Constance, he obtained the first translation of the British history, to use it in the composition of his poem,) was not Walter the Bishop, but Sir Walter Espac, whom Burton mentions in the passage quoted in your last number, p. 503. D.A. Y. is quite right; I have examined the old chroniclers as to this knight, and, as some of your readers whom the subject interests, may like to know how he is mentioned there, I will beg your leave to add the following particulars concerning him.

John, the Prior of Hagulstad, in his brief Historia, says of him: “In 1132 Walterus Espec, vir magnus et potens in conspectu regis et totius regni, received the monks of the Cistercian order sent by Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, and placed them in the solitude of Blachoumor, on the river Rie, from which the monastery was. called Rievalliz."-Twysd. X. Scrip. vol. i. p. 257.

Ethelred, a future abbot of this place, thus describes him :-" Walter Espec was there; an old man, full of days; active in mind, prudent in his counsels; mild in peace and provident in war; preserving always friendship with his companions and fidelity to his king. He was tall and large, with black hair and a profuse beard. He had an open and spacious forehead, large eyes, and a voice like a trumpet, but with great majesty of tone." The Abbot details his speech to animae his associates on the expedition o in which the Battle of the

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that of the flat side of a very long ellipse) is soon found to be of a circle of no very great diameter.

All these remain in the state in which they were seen by Sir Richard Hoare in 1812.

Enter the town, and turn to the right along the principal street, all within the inclosure, till we arrive at an opening through the mound, the road being continued towards the

moor.

[July,

prostrate stones, besides the two up-
rights, had lately been broken to
pieces, by tenants of Mr. Thring of
Wilton, of whom Mr. Naldy was one.
It was added that the tenant had re-
ceived permission from the owner;
but this may be a mistake. Such an
unparalleled remain may be in little
esteem with
"the dull swain,

Who treads on it daily, with his clouted

-but something better may be expected where the proprietorship resides.

There is, however, no replacing them as the Rocking-stone was replaced; for they were broken to pieces, and the new wall on the Swinden road is composed of the fragments.

The labourer employed in the work told me that the earth had been examined to the depth of a yard or more, at the foot of the cove stones, to see if there were any evidences of sacrifices having been performed there, but nothing peculiar was observed.

shoon:" From the opening by which we enter, to this opening, the mound is entire Sycamores and ashes have been planted on portions of it. At this extremity one or two stones belonging to the outer circle remain. On entering the field, of which the next portion of the mound is the boundary, two uprights of the outer circle immediately present themselves, like the former, and still conforming to the curvature of the mound; and on advancing a little further, two others belonging to the same circle are in sight. We also soon perceive two belonging to an inner circle, and on approaching these a most interesting sight presents itself; two uprights, taller than the rest, and standing much nearer together, at an angle of about 110 degrees. These are two of the three stones which formed the cove or cell of the Northern Temple. Their very appearance shows that they were originally something different from the rest. These have lately been placed in very imminent peril. The two just before-mentioned belonged to the circles by which the cove was surrounded; but in 1812, there were four of them, and it is only within the last two years that this number has been reduced. I saw the man who destroyed them. He was a labourer employed on Mr. Naldy's farm, and it was by Mr. Naldy's orders that they were broken to pieces. The reason was that they stood inconveniently to him in his husbandry arrangements; but this reason would press quite as strongly against the two cove-stones, for they stand in the midst of his hayricks, and may perhaps occasion some little inconvenience in the piling up or taking down the produce of the

farm.

But beside the destruction of two uprights, the same person acknowledged to having broken to pieces one which had fallen; and another person in the village told me that two of the

The road to Swinden is cut through the mound, and at the point of intersection one of the stones of the great circle is seen, and a little beyond it others. But here the mound is thickly planted and enclosed, so that there is not the means of walking along it, and so continues till we arrive at the next opening, which was the outlet towards the Beckhampton avenue. The remaining part of the mound, namely, that between the avenue gates, is in fine preservation, very bold and elevated; one or two stones of the outer circle are seen below, and from this part, and this only, there is a view of Silbury Hill to the South, the apex of which is above the line of the distant horizon, and of Tan Hill, a natural elevation in the distance.

One or two observations more I must beg permission to make.

1. The common people of Abury uniformly call these stones Sazzenstones. This orthography more correctly represents the sound than Sarsen-stones, which occurs in the "Ancient Wiltshire :" but whether the

term is applied exclusively to these, or is common to blocks of stone like these but in their native beds, I cannot say.

II. By whatever people this temple was erected, they were evidently people who were accustomed to the use of the decimal arithmetic. The ave

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