1829.] REVIEW.-Wood's Letters of an Architect. marks, or for giving any analysis of the very numerous and valuable contents of this work. We shall therefore confire ourselves to one very curious subject, viz. CYCLOPEAN MASONRY. It is well known that there are understood to be four successive styles, viz. : 1. Large blocks of all forms and sizes. The interstices filled with small stones, seen at Tyrins, anterior to the time of Homer, and contemporary with Abraham. 2. The polygonal, where the stones fit to each other, a style disused about the time of Alexander. 3. The third kind consists of large regularly formed stones laid upon each other, but not in courses. 4. The fourth is in courses. Such is the general character of the four styles; but the position maintained by Mr. Woods is, that though there exist these distinctions of style, yet "that they do not distinctly characterize different periods" (ii. 63); but his statements are so opposite to the generally received opinions, that we shall here give them in his own words. "The date of 1800 years before Christ is boldly claimed for some of the Cyclopean walls; of which construction, it is said, that there are 108 citadels in Italy, and the thorough going Italian antiquary, though he is contented to admit that the oldest were not erected more than 2760 years before the Christian æra, yet will not admit that any of them can be more recent than the foundation of Rome. They were, according to him, introduced into Italy by Saturn, but their earliest use in the Temple of Hercules at Tyre was 2760 years before Christ. Leaving these suppositions, we may be justified in considering the walls in question as the earliest remains of buildings in Italy. They are built with great irregular blocks of stone, made even on the face, or nearly so, not squared, nor laid in regular courses, but the inequalities are fitted to each other as much as possible, and the interstices filled up with smaller stones. In what is probably the earliest style of all, no tool seems to have been applied to the stone, but the rude masses are merely heaped on one another, taking care in the position of each successive block to place it where it would most nearly fit into the work, and probably keeping the smoothest side outwards, to form the face of the wall; but the work is always rude and uneven. In the second style, the tool has been used more or less, in order to make the great stones fit with some degree of accuracy; and in both these one may easily conceive the use of the 237 leaden rule, described by Herodotus, which being bent to the internal angle, left on the top of the wall, would be applied to the external angles of the stone intended to be placed in it. In the third sort of Cyclopean walls lines nearly horizontal are decidedly more numerous than those in any other direction, and here and there are some appearances of level courses. These in later times predominated more and more, till in the fourth and last style, the only irregularity is found in the unequal thickness of the stones of the same course, connected sometimes by the introduction of a sloping line, or more often by a notch, to let the larger stone into the course above or below. Though I believe this to have been the geimagine them as distinctly characterizing neral progress of the art, yet you must not different periods; on the contrary, there is hardly any considerable wall of Cyclopean masonry which does not exhibit in different parts two of these methods; and sometimes three are found, without any appearance that they have been restorations of different periods; we may, however, observe that the second style is most common in Latium, the fourth in Tuscany, the third is perhaps about equally diffused in both countries. At all times these blocks were used without cement, and all that I have hitherto seen are mere terrace walls against a hill, and exhibiting in consequence one face only; but I am told of instances where both sides are seen, and that in such cases, two walls are built back to back, without any attention to the regularity or evenness of what was to be the internal part, and without any filling in. No arches, that is, no system of wedges, mutually supporting each other, is to be found, though such an arrangement would seem to grow more easily out of these inclined lines, than from regular courses of stones; but where there are openings (of which I have seen none hitherto), there is a very large stone worked square, and laid horizontally to cover it; and in one instance, at Arpino (perhaps because the builders could not meet with a stone large enough to cover the opening), the size of the aperture is reduced by advancing courses into the form of a pointed arch. There is indeed a real arch at Piesole, which by some has been supposed to be part of the Cyclopean construction, but both the arch and the fragment on which it rests, are obviously of a date much posterior. There are many remains of Cyclopean walls both at Tivoli and Palestrina, and as, according to Virgil, Tibur and Præneste were founded about the times that Æneas landed at Italy, this epoch has been assigned to their construction; but it must be confessed that the argument is not altogether conclusive. It is held essential to Cyclopean walls, that there should be no cement, and, à fortiori, no rubble work employed in their composition; 298 REVIEW.-Wood's Letters of an Architect. but in this neighbourhood, at what is called the villa of Brutus, there is a wall of Cyclopean masonry, resting for its whole length, and apparently backed in its whole extent by a wall of rubble. This Cyclopean wall has been faced by another of opus reticulatum, so common in the time of Augustus, and which may be seen in almost all the villas about Tivoli. It seems that the Romans did not like the appearance of these large irregular blocks, and covered them with a masonry of small fragments more suited to their taste. These circumstances render it probable that none of these walls are so late as the time of the Emperors, but we have no proof that they were not in use a century before that period. "There are some of these walls in the villa attributed to Ventidius Bassus, which appears to rest on a rubble-work, held together by cement; but without digging, I could not be quite certain. We continued our walk considerably further, and found at Vetriano other considerable fragments of Cyclopean walls, but always built to support the earth behind them, and to support terraces. The stones are worked with some approach to horizontal courses, and the wall strengthened by buttresses. There are breaks enough to show that it is backed by emplecton, or rubble-work, for its whole extent, and this emplecton is perfectly rude, and without any appearance of having been laid by hand, so that it destroys a theory I had formed, which pretended to distinguish the rubble-work connected with the Cyclopean walls from that of a later period. Nearer to Tivoli there is another considerable Cyclopean wall, which is distinctly rusticated, and has large and solid buttresses." ii. pp. 62-64. The mode of constructing these walls by means of the pliant bending rule of lead, described by Herodotus, was, Mr. Woods supposes, this: The strip of lead was bent round the end of the stone just laid, and then applied to the extremity of another stone best suited to fit, which stone was lastly pushed up to its fellow. The manner is thus described by Mr. Woods. "I visited the ruins of Tyrins. The walls are of the rudest Cyclopean masonry, the stones seem to have been selected to fit their intended situations, and not to have been touched with a tool, and this was probably effected by the use of the Phoenician rule mentioned by Herodotus. A strip of lead was bent into the angle intended to be filled up, and then the same strip reversed was applied to the stones collected for use. In one instance, however, on the east side, we find a stone with a sunk face and two holes in it, and a circular sinking below. Besides these walls, we may observe here a sort of [March, gallery covered by the advance of the successive courses of stone; but after all, the great interest of the place is, that you see the very walls admired by Homer 2500 years ago. The figure of Tyrins has been compared to that of a ship, but there is more imagination than truth in the resemblance." ii. 298. Here we differ from our author, for in the plan taken from Sir Will. Gell, and engraved in Fosbroke's Foreign Topography, there certainly is an assimilation to a ship. At Epidaurus (now Pidhairo) our author saw remains of the Cyclopean wall, which defended the ancient town. The stones are well fitted together, and sometimes notched [in the manner of dove-tailing, or rather like pieces of dissected mapst,] into the adjoining ones; one part shows two faces, and the interval is now filled up with dirt. ii. 296. In the later period of the style, if we may suppose the walls and grotto belowmentioned to be coeval, there is an evident recognition of the arch, constructed upon the modern wedge principle. Mr. Woods, speaking of Cor tona, says, "The principal antiquities are the walls of the city of Cyclopean masonry, not of the earliest style; but of that where the stones lie for the most part in courses nearly horizontal; and a small sepulchral chamber, a little below the town, called the grotto of Pythagoras. It is built of large blocks of sandstone; the door-way remains, and the rebate for the door, and two holes in the sill and lintel for the pivot on which it turned. It is arched over, the arch being composed of four, or perhaps five stones, each of which is the whole length of the edifice, and rests upon a rudely semicircular stone at cach end. These archstones are really wedgeshaped in the sections, though in this case such a form would not be necessary for their support; but the builders, whoever they were, were without doubt acquainted with the principle of the arch, though perhaps afraid to confide much to it." ii. 106. At Rhamnus is a temple of Cyclopean masonry; it is supposed to have been lined with wood, and some of the nails of this lining have been found. ii. 292. At Agia Marina, near Sycourio, our author saw a little bit of Cyclopean * In this work are concentrated the several accounts of Cyclopean masonry by Sir Will. Gell, Mr. Dodwell, Col. Squire, &c. According to the plates. 1829.] REVIEW.-Twelve Years' Military Adventure. masonry, which might be taken for a pyramid, but for an irregularity on the south side. It was probably a tomb. ii. 297. But the most curious circumstance of all, is a Cyclopean house (or one formed out of Cyclopean walls), still existing. At Cefalu, our author met with a house called the "House of Diana," a fragment, which his guide said, was the "Old Cathedral." "It is of Cyclopean masonry, with two rooms and a passage between them: it exhibits three doorways, and appears to have been a dwelling-house, and if so, is probably quite unique. We have city-walls and terrace-walls of this construction, and a temple at Rhamnus, but no other buildings, that I know of, any where else." ii. 356. In this latter opinion Mr. Woods is mistaken. The style is at the base polygonal (the second and a common style), and the upper layers long parallelograms. The door-way, with its pilasters and cornice, is of the usual Grecian architecture. In short, the house is a dwelling plainly made out of an old Cyclopean fragment. But here we must beg to offer an opinion, that as to distinction of the styles by æra, there is one too much. We admit, that the first style, as at Tyrins, the second or polygonal, as at Larissa, &c. &c., and the third of cubic blocks, as at Mycenae, are unquestionably Cyclopean, with only this adjunct, that both the two last styles may be contemporaneous. As to the large oblong layers, especially used for supporting terraces by the Romans (see our author, ii. 398, 302), they may have been used in Cyclopean æras, but most assuredly in far later times. We have visited a Roman camp in this kingdom, upon the summit of a lofty hill, where the ground being rock, it was impossible to excavate a foss, and upon that account a rude wall, composed of long layers of huge parallelograms, intermixed with smaller stones, was reared by way of rampart, and interior soil wheeled up to it in order to make an inclined plane. Thus the vallum was scarped outside, and within it was an easy slope. The field is ploughed, and the stones remain for twenty feet on the inner side to this day. Their square ends show that they were formed by art; and there are smaller stones, perfect parallelograms. Indeed, it was so natural and easy, where stones abounded (and the architecture is al 239 ways accordant to the materials of the country), to lay the blocks horizontally and lengthways, where the stones easily broke into such layers, that we cannot conceive the style alluded to to be peculiarly Cyclopean, or discriminative of any æra. (To be continued.) Twelve Years' Adventure in three quarters of the Globe: or Memoirs of an Officer, who served in the Armies of His Majesty, and of the East India Company, between the Years 1802 and 1814, in which are contained the Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in India, and his last in Spain and the South of France. 2 vols. 8vo. MILITARY men, in general, go early into life. Their Universities or finishing school is the world, their books are men, and their tutors are their own minds. Placed in a perpetual intercourse with persons of all nations, habits, dispositions, and characters, there ensues a necessary obligation to please, and take the world as it is, or otherwise, because they cannot select, they can have no comfort in society. They have, without study, nature itself, not abstract dogmas laid before them; and they see not only genera, but species, not species but individuals, not descripts only, but also non-descripts. Their ruling passions are pleasure and ambition; pleasure to enjoy life while they may, and ambition to improve their situation if they can. That comprehensive article of war, insisting upon "gentlemanly conduct," is moreover a proper restraint upon bodies of men who are bound to be together every day for months, it may be for years; and professional ferocity is thus seasonably controuled. From these causes officers, if they turn authors, often become, because they do not write secundem artem, original, new, and interesting. They do not pedantize, but they convince, satisfy, and occasionally even delight. We have mixed frequently in society with officers, and been instructed in latent knowledge by every one of them. We therefore assume a right of saying, that we never saw two volumes of more pleasant reading than those before us. There is description as interesting as painting, sentiment as inpressive as simple nature, and powerful reason as unsophisticated as common sense. No study is necessary to admire, to feel, or to comprehend. 240 REVIEW.-Twelve Years' Military Adventure. Bare intuition is sufficient. To use a homely figure, the perusal of the book is like walking with a sweetheart, that sort of travelling in which a man never wishes to come to his journey's end. The author informs us, that after having been at Winchester school, and been deemed an "incorrigible blockhead," he was sent into the army, and sailed for India. The Company who dined at the Captain's table, a party of twenty-five, Matthews might take off better for the stage, but no Chesterfield better for a philosophical man-ofthe-world description. "Of the above heterogeneous mass, the majority, as may be conjectured, were ultraTweeders, a people who, with souls too big for their native land, claim the privilege of levying contributions on all the world, and of securing a Benjamin's portion of the loaves and fishes, in whatever region they are to be found. To counterbalance these, there was but one Irishman. Och! and that was enough! Another like him would have been the death of us (as Matthews says); for he kept the cuddy table in a roar throughout the voyage. Then we had one or two of your rattling, noisy, good-humoured, never-look-in-a-book chaps, such as without a spark of imagination or wit, but with the most unprovokable and provoking good temper, joined to an inexhaustible fund of animal spirits, pass in the world for extremely pleasant fellows, but who, in my opinion, are the greatest plagues in existence. We could boast also of fessed practical jokers, dry matter-of-facters, prosers, and ever ready laughers; but, what was better than all, a few good listeners." pro "Nor was our Society without its Bobadil; and many a marvellous tale of tigers, elephants, Cobra de Capellos, Mysoreans, Mahrattas, fire-eaters, and sword-eaters, have we youngsters listened to with open mouths, till repetition had rendered them too stale even for a sea-stomach. That there were some sensible, well-informed men among so many may be supposed; and that there was a black sheep or two in the flock cannot be denied. One of the latter was a most plausible, smooth-tongued hypocrite, and the other the most impudent cut-andcome-again fellow I ever encountered. Happily for us, however, two things were wanting. There was neither a mischief-maker, nor a professed duellist, so that we contrived to get to the end of our voyage without there being any balance on the score of honour to be settled with powder and ball. Alas! of these my first companions in the voyage of life, above three-fourths are already gone to their long home; some have died a soldier's natural death on the field of battle; some have fallen victims to the [March, climate; some few still toil on their way; some few, like myself, have preferred poverty with half a liver, to riches without any; and some few, and those few indeed, have gained the object of their ambitionfortune; but not one perhaps with health to enjoy it, or the sense to know how to spend it." i. 23. This is a melancholy, but just prospective view of the waste of life, and the disappointment of ambition. Our author next lands at Madras, and is lodged in a bed which he calls a chop-house for musquitoes, the curtains only serving to exclude the vulgar herd, the old hands taking care to secure a birth within. He then chooses the engineer department, and takes up his quarters in the Fort. This residence gives him an opportunity of making remarks upon the state of society in India, and among these he says, concerning the matrimonial market, that the first ball after the arrival of a fleet from Europe, may be considered as a fair-day, at which the new-comers are put up to sale; girls with any pretensions to beauty being sure of soon going off, the others descending lower and lower, till they acquire a husband. From Madras, our author goes with a Committee of Survey to the ceded districts, part of the conquered dominions of Tippoo. In the course of this service, he observes of the Hill-forts situate upon insulated hills, and like Old Sarum, and many of the Greek and British acropoles, that though they are apparently formidable, they seldom are so in reality, because the works are so exposed, that if you can get sufficiently near to raise a battery against them, they are easily breached, while the irregularity in the sides of the hills affords facilities for forming lodgments close up to the walls. Active duty commences, and the various coincidences are narrated with circumstantial minuteness and instructive illustration; among others, the famous battle of Assaye, but it is too long for extract. After the victory, "A surgeon, whose bandages had been exhausted by the number of patients, espying one of the enemy's horsemen lying, as he supposed, dead on the ground, with a fine long girdle of cotton cloth round his waist, seized the end of it, and rolling over the body, began to loose the folds. Just as he had nearly accomplished his purpose, up sprang the dead man, and away ran the doctor, both taking to their heels on oppo 1829.] REVIEW.-Lawson's Life of Abp. Laud. site tacks, to the infinite amusement of the bystanders. The surgeon afterwards went by the name of the resurrection doctor'." It might be supposed that the day after a battle was a melancholy one, from reflections upon the loss of relatives and friends, but the happiness of 241 condescending conduct of the French Laud. (Continued from p. 151.) having escaped unhurt, the glory gain- Lawson's Life and Times of Archbishop ed, the feeling of security on account of the enemy being beaten and disheartened, and the promotion to be expected through the vacancies, make a camp, even after a bloody victory, any thing but a scene of mourning and tribulation. i. 184. At the battle of Argaum, our author notices a masterly piece of generalship by General Wellesley (now the Duke of Wellington), in recovering a corps which had fallen into confusion; and explains the advantage of the men lying down, viz. because they are a smaller object for the fire of the enemy, than when standing up; and because, from not having the means of using their legs, they are kept steady in their position, from which the dread of the enemy's shot might tempt them to waver. After the mutiny at Vellore, several of the principal conspirators were executed; some by being blown away In allusion to this, our from guns. author says, WHEN the Puritans in 1626 refused the supplies to the King, then engaged in a war instigated by themselves, and prompted fanatics to change "thy kingdom come," in the Lord's prayer, to thy commonwealth come" (see p. 350), their seditious designs were palpable; and when the King, goaded by his necessities as it were by overpowering disease, had resort to forced loans, through the Bishops and Clergy, it is equally evident that he was unconstitutional. The acquiescence of the Clergy to this measure revived, it seems, the famous doctrine of 'passive obedience" (see p. 342). Dr. Johnson, however, says, that positions subject to numerous limitations, are very exceptionable; and, indeed, under all trust-concerns, passive obedience is impossible, because, where duty is violated on the part of the trustee, obedience then terminates. We are sorry, "It is a curious fact, and well attested therefore, that Mr. Lawson has wasted by many persons present, that a number of so much erudition (as occurs in pp. 350 kites (a bird of prey very common in India) actually accompanied the melancholy party -363) in defence of so untenable a notion. The real fact is, that fanain their progress to the place of execution, as if they knew what was going on, and ticism, through mistaken lenity, was enabled to rear its head against authothen kept hovering over the guns, from which the culprits were to be blown away, rity, and the latter struggled in vain to flapping their wings and shrieking, as if in support itself. Any such result during the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tuanticipation of their bloody feast, till the fatal fash, which scattered the fragments of dors was suppressed in limine by speedy bodies in the air; when, pouncing on their decapitation of the agitators. The prey, they positively caught in their talons Throne carried real awe with it in many pieces of the quivering flesh before those days; fanatics might agitate, but they could reach the ground.' they and their followers had nothing to expect from so doing, but speedy transmission to another world, or emigration. James, however, in hopes of effecting his purpose by conciliation, cut off no heads, and so unwarily caused his innocent and unfortunate son to have his own cut off instead. Notwithstanding James and Charles were far better than their enemies, for we know from the murders of Chas. I. down to that of Archbishop Sharp (leaving out intermediate instances), that fanatics have few scruples about i. 309. Our author is of opinion that certain reforms are necessary in regard to the native troops. The frequent drills, parades, and roll-calls, though absolutely necessary to preserve the Europeans, whose habits were any thing deany but temperate or quiescent, in gree of order, harass the sober and domestic Sepoy, who is fond of his ease. The European officers also carry themselves too high with the native officers. i. 325. It appears too, from the kind and |