1829.] Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Johnson and Goldsmith. 501 his disposition led him to society, rather than to solitude, and the crowded streets of a populous city had for him charms above the scenes which provoked the thought of Thomson or Pascal, or Sir Thomas Brown, or Des Cartes, and the thousand other names which the memory of the scholar may supply, the greater scenes of nature could not still be said, for him, to spread their charms in vain. His observant mind abundantly availed itself of their instructions, in moralizing upon the diversity of human aims and propensities; and in the tone of his sentiments, he may not unfrequently be said to think with another distinguished prelate, the celebrated Lowth, that "the whole course of nature, this immense universe of things, offers itself to human contemplation, and affords an infinite, a confused assemblage, as it were, of images, which, being collected as the materials of poetry, are selected and produced as occasion dictates." Johnson once exultingly observed, that he should be read on the banks of the Wolga, alluding to the circumstance of his "Rambler" being translated into the Russian language.Franklin's fame, and the celebrity of his discoveries, must be allowed to have filled a circle amongst civilized mankind more extended than perhaps that of Johnson, inasmuch as the learned both of the old and new world hailed his works in science, as many of them are of an originality of speculation, and a freedom of inquiry, only second to that which crowned the thinking of some æras in the Seventeenth century. Franklin possessed an acute and intelligent mind, fitted for the successful investigation of any sub "Des Cartes," says his eulogist M. Thomas," had a passion for profound solitude. The climate of France acted too powerfully on his warm imagination, and was injurious to that calm temperament favourable to philosophic pursuits. The atmosphere of Holland was in this respect favourable. During the twenty years that he resided in Holland, he often changed his abode, escaping from the reputation which followed him, and retiring from those whose curiosity was excited only to obtain a sight of him. He sometimes inhabited great cities, but in general he preferred towns or villages, and sometimes a complete isolated abode. At times he would dwell on the sea shore." ject to which its energies might be brought. His hints and suggestions on the various subjects of political economy and philosophy, betray a sagacity which few in an equal degree possess; in the science of electricity, his intellect appeared more peculiarly acute; and had the various queries propounded by Dr. Priestley, it may be said, relative to the phenomena belonging to that science, peculiarly engaged the energies of Franklin, it is probable that in many cases a satisfactory solution would have been the result. Johnson stood forward pre-eminently among his countrymen as the venerated champion of the high cause of Literature and Morals; whatever was estimable and attractive he upheld at once by the energy of his thought, and the beauties of his style; and in his voluminous writings it is not his least praise to say that he has maintained an undeviating regard to rectitude of principle which cannot lead astray, while it gratifies our hours sacred to literary retirement and to taste. As the champion of freedom, of the dearest rights of mankind, Franklin stands forward in the eyes of the scholar and the philanthropist. While he pleaded the cause of civilized mankind, he may be said to have laboured eminently to extend the compass of their knowledge, and add to the variety of their social blessings. Milton, on one occasion, says, whilst pleading for the freedom of "unlicensed printing," (of which, by the bye, had Milton witnessed the positive inconveniences which at some times subsequent to his own have resulted from it, he would probably have dilated on the subject with somewhat less enthusiasm,) good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." Whoever has studied Franklin in his political and philosophical works, will, it is probable, be free to own that the enlightening of mankind and the elevation of their character, at all times dictated his endeavours, and formed the sum of his multifarious writings. 66 a Whilst contemplating, then, the writings of each of these eminent men, we cannot suppose that either of them have written too much either for the purposes of mankind, or their own 502 Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Johnson and Goldsmith. [June, fame; and the complaint which has sometimes, not without reason, been made, that ALL the published works of every celebrated author are so far from being alike worth publication, that, on the other hand, some are merely tolerated under the author's great name, will not justly be iterated in their cases. "I have heard some," (says the learned and intelligent Sir Thomas Brown, the complexionality of whose mind and sentiment is well known to have been congenial with Johnson's,)" with sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero, and others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library of Alexandria. For my own part I think there be too many in the world, and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I with a few others recover the perished leaves of Solomon." The extravagance of this position is not so great as the learned reader might suppose. Original in his thinking, Sir Thomas Brown might be understood here to inculcate, that shining talents and a powerful understanding should in the eyes of intelligence rank far above all the treasured stores of the mere bibliomanist. Neither Franklin nor Johnson will be said, even by the tongue of hyper-criticism, to have fathered upon the world of literature either impertinence or dullness; but brilliancy of parts, good sense, and good taste, reign in most instances through their writings. It was once prettily said by Sterne, that "learning is the Dictionary of science, and Sense the grammar." In this DICTIONARY, ample and indefinite in extent, multitudes in all ages of literature have expatiated; and most ages, not excepting our own, while they have exhibited the diminished numbers who have amalgamated or refined their opinions in this grammar of good sense, may be thought, in view of the many, to afford some colour for the following passage in the "Religio Medici.""It is not a melancholy utinam of my own," says the author, "but the desires of better heads, that there were a general Synod, not to unite the incompatible differences of religion, but, for the benefit of learning, to reduce it as it lay at first to a few and solid authors, and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgment of scho lars, and to maintain the trade and mystery of typographers." "The unaffected of every country," says Goldsmith's "Citizen," "nearly resemble each other, and a page of our Confucius and your Tillotson have scarcely any material difference."—"It became," says the eloquent Dr. Lowth, while tracing the origin of imagination and of poetry, "the peculiar province of poetry to depict the great, the beautiful, the becoming, the virtuous; to embellish and recommend the precepts of religion and virtue; to transmit to posterity excellent and sublime actions and sayings, to celebrate the works of the Deity, His beneficence, His wisdom,-to record the memorials of the past, and the predictions of the future." In the works which they have respectively left for the instruction of mankind,-in the arbitration of our taste,-in the improvement of our philosophy, in the elevation of our moral thinking,-the two writers who have lately been the subjects of our remarks, stand eminently forward. As the modeller of the higher beauties of style, the unaffected advocate of letters, or, on the other hand, as the arduous and enlightened votary of experimental science, their common fame will survive the whisperings of faction, and the jealousies of criticism, and brighten, rather than sink, with the weight of accumulated years. Melksham. MR. URBAN, ÁLCIPHRON. May 5. HAVE lately been reading with considerable gratification as well as information, Mr. S. Turner's "History of England during the Middle Ages. I am disposed to put great confidence in his historical details, and to allow that he has thrown great light upon many points which were before obscure, or perhaps erroneously stated by previous historians. There is one passage, however, in which he appears to have fallen into an error; a trifling one, indeed, if it be one, but if it be so, it should not remain uncorrected in such a work. The passage is the following. In the 4th vol. (2d. ed. 1825, 8vo.) at p. 353, after having endeavoured to shew that the British History of Jeffry of Monmouth probably originated from the political views of Hen. I. and stated that Jeffry was but the Latin translator of the work; and that it was given by 1829.] Sir Walter Espec.-Leeds Family. him to the world, as "a very ancient British book brought out of Bretagne," by Walter, the Archdeacon of Oxford, the author says, "That it was not spoken of at the time of its appearance as Jeffry's history, and that it was considered as a book of superior authority to his, appears from the passage in Gaimar, which alludes to it. He says that his patroness Dame Custance la gentil, who caused him to write his 'estoire,' sent to Helmslac for the book of Walter, whom in this line he calls 'espac' or bishop. He then adds this particular information about it, which demands attention, as a further account of what was Jeffry's original, and as a supplement to his statement. Robert the great, of Gloucester, caused these gestes' to be translated according to the books of the Welch, which they had of the British Kings. Walter, the bishop, asked for it, when Robert sent it to him; then Walter, the bishop, lent it to Arnil, the son of Gilebert. Dame Custance borrowed it of her lord, whom she much loved. Geoffrai Gaimar wrote this book, and put in it the narrations which the Welch had left, which he had thus obtained, whether they were right or whether they were wrong; the good book of Cxford, which were Walter's the archdeacon." Now the error in this passage appears to me to be in the translation of the word "Espac," by "bishop,” by which the Archdeacon Walter seems to be improperly promoted in his profession. The fact seems to be that Dame Custance sent to Helmslac (afterwards Hamslak, now Helmsley Castle, in the North Riding of Yorkshire), to borrow the book of Sir Walter Espac, or L'Espec, the Lord of that place, who had received it from Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the patron of Jeffry, and the nobleman at whose instigation he had translated the work of this Walter; see Burton, who tells us that "In the reign of King Hen. I. flourished St. Bernard, abbot of Clareval, a man full of devotion, and chief of many monks, some of whom be sent into England about A.D. 1128, 28 H. I. who were honourably received by both King and Kingdom; and particularly by Sir Walter L'Espec, who, about A.D. 1131, allotted to some of them a solitary place in Blakemore, near Hamelac, now Helmsley, surrounded by steep hills, and covered with wood and ling, near the angles of three different vales, with each a rivulet running through it, that passing by where the Abbey was built, being called Rie, whence this vale took its name, and this religious house was thence called the abbey of Rie-val. Here William, the first abbot, one 503 of those monks sent by St. Bernard, a man of great virtue and excellent memory, began the building of the monastery, dedicating it to the Virgin Mary, which the said Walter L'Espec amply endowed." Of Samuel Leeds, of whom en quiry is made in your Magazine for January last, p. 2, the following inscription upon a table monument in the churchyard of Little Saxham, near Bury St. Edmunds, will furnish some information: H. S. E. Samuel Leeds, A.M. hujus ecclesiæ Pastor, filius natu maximus Edwardi Leeds, Scholæ Regiæ Buriens. Archididascali. Vir eruditus, perurbanus et modestus, sibi soli parcus, quo egenis pecunias largiori manu erogaret. Ducentas libras ad propagandam Christianam fidem in regionibus transmarinis hic legavit. Et cognatorum non immemor, quibus etiam legata reliquit, Gulielmum Croftes, Armig. (quicum familiarissime vixerat atque amicissime) supremis tabulis hæredem scripsit. Qui viro optimo, majora merito, hoc qualecunque et amoris et observantiæ monumentum p. Obiit. 11 April, 66 Mr. Leeds was 29 years Rector of Saxham Parva. His father was chosen master of the Grammar school at Bury, in 1663; and continued in that office for the long period of 40 years. He published Methodus Græcam Linguam docendi," 1699, 12mo. "Veteres Poetæ citati ad Petri Labbæi de ancipitum Græcarum Vocalium in prioribus syllabis mensurâ (ubi confirmanda esset) confirmandam sententiam." 1750. 8vo. "Eruditæ Pronunciationis Catholici Indices," 1701, 12mo. Of these two last more than one edition has since been published. "Nonnulli è Luciani Dialogis selecti," 1726, 8vo; with several other works adapted to the use of schools. He had another son, Edward, who was of Peter House, A.B. 1701, A.M. 1707; his brother Samuel having been of Queen's, A.B. 1701, A.M. 1705. Edward Leeds, the master of Bury School, dedicates his Veteres Poetæ citati, &c. to his two sons, Samuel and Edward. William Croftes, brother to Sir John Croftes, of Saxham, Bart. married the youngest daughter of Sir Matthew Decker, Bart. and was most probably the intimate friend, and the testamentary heir of the Rector of Saxham. Some of the descendants of Mr. Edward Leedes, the Master of Bury School, 504 On the Erection of Stonehenge. Ha boy in 1786, and again in 1791, a boy in 1786, and again in 1791, I was desirous to examine it more closely, after an absence of many years, in the course of which period I had seen numerous monuments of nature and of art; and having occasion to be within a short distance of Amesbury, I took advantage of that opportunity to visit again Stonehenge on the morning of December 18, 1828. The first impression which the view of Stonehenge may be said to create in the mind, is that of astonishment, that such large masses of stone should be placed in so extraordinary a position, upon a vast plain, over which the view is uninterrupted by either house or tree, or river, or hill, or rock; but it is this solitary and barren and wild appearance that causes this first impression of astonishment, and adds considerably to the apparent magnitude of this monument, in the absence of any thing which can be applied by the eye as a common measure to the stones which compose it. Upon a more close inspection of these stones from within their boundary, however, and upon an actual admeasurement of their dimensions, the delusion of their vastness soon ceases, and the mind dwells upon the probable object of their having been brought to that spot, and placed in so singular a manner. There had been a very important change since my last visit in 1791. On January 3, 1797, two of the largest upright stones, with their impost, fell; and it is so far remarkable, as being the only change which has taken place in this monument within the tradition of man. Of the one hundred and twentynine stones which composed this monument, there are not more than forty whose weight can exceed thirty tons each; and of the remainder, the far greater part do not exceed the weight of ten and twelve tons each. The actual dimensions of one of the the largest of these stones, and which formed one of the uprights of one of [June, the largest trilithons, was measured as follows, viz. length 23 feet, breadth 7 feet, thickness 3 feet. It must be evident, therefore, to any one who will give a little consideration to the means of moving heavy masses, that, however troublesome and tedious may have been the task of moving these stones to their present position, there could not have been any difficulty which might not have been easily overcome by the application of the most simple means, viz. the powers of the lever, the wedge, and of the inclined plane, and which must have been understood and practised in the use of building at the most remote_periods of antiquity, and in the earliest ages of man. There does not appear to be any necessity in the management of such an operation as this, for the use of the pulley, and consequently it is unnecessary in this place to hazard any conjecture as to the probability or otherwise of the knowledge of such power by the architects of Stonehenge. It is the commonly received opinion that the Druids were the architects of this monument, and that it was constructed for religious purposes; if such were the fact, it is not unreasonable to infer that some of the best instructed of their order were not wholly uninformed of the progress which the arts had made in the eastern parts of the world, and therefore that the mechanical art was not altogether unknown to them. But however that may be, and whether the architects were Druids or not, it must be evident that, whoever they were, they were of that influential authority, as to have all the resources of the country at their disposal, and it must be equally evident that the country possessed at that period, men, oxen, horses, and wheels, the lever and the wedge; and no further powers were necessary to enable the architects to move these masses of stone to their present position upon a widely extended plain. If it be asked from whence these stones were brought, as there are no stones of that description to be found any where within many miles of Stonehenge, the answer is, that the distance is immaterial as a question of diffi culty; it is merely a question of time; because, if it can be shown that the movement of such a mass of rock is 1829.] Remarks on the Erection of Stonehenge. not attended with much difficulty, the extension of that movement to 10 or 20 or more miles, is merely an affair of time; and it must be borne in mind that there are no local obstacles to impede the operation,-no morass, or river, or wood, or mountain, but a plain and gently undulated country for many miles,-a plain which must always have been an even surface, as it is upon chalk, and without water. But there are very large stone quarries within a distance of 20 miles, and from which quarries the stones have been taken for the building of Salisbury Cathedral, Wilton House, Longford Castle, and other large edifices in that neighbourhood. There are also several large stones, of a similar quality, though of smaller size, scattered in many parts of Salisbury Plain, and which are known by the term of grey wethers. It may not be uninteresting in this place, to mention a few instances of the movements of masses of stone, and of other substances by mechanical means, and which, as efforts of human skill and labour, will render comparatively trifling the efforts made by the architects of Stonehenge. Without doing more than naming the vast monuments of Egypt, it will be only necessary to state that the most enormous mass of solid weight which has been ever moved to any considerable distance (for it does not appear that any of the large Egyptian masses were moved far from their original quarry) is the rock on which now stands the equestrian statue of the Czar Peter at Petersburgh. This mass of rock was found in November 1768, and part of it was imbedded in a morass. It was seated at a distance of about eight English miles from the spot where the statue was to be placed; and before it could reach its destination, it was to pass over rising grounds, across swamps and boggy places, be transported over rivers, embarked on the Neva, unshipped, and then moved by land to the place appointed for it. The weight of this immense stone was computed to amount to three millions two hundred thousand pounds, or about fourteen hundred and thirty tons, while the largest stone at Stonehenge does not exceed the weight of thirty tons. GENT. MAG. June, 1829. 505 The largest obelisk supposed to be in the world, that which Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, caused to be transported from Alexandria to Rome, is in weight but 907,789lbs, or about four hundred and thirty tons. But to come at once to what is almost daily passing under our eyes in this Metropolis: we may see large blocks of marble of from twelve to twenty tons being moved from the river side to the Palace, and to other public buildings; and an eminent sculptor (Mr. Westmacott) has recently caused to be moved into his study a block of marble, of the weight of nineteen tons, and which was dragged by nineteen horses. The same eminent artist having cast a bronze statue of Achilles, caused the same to be moved a distance of about one mile to the spot where it is now placed in Hyde Park. The weight of this statue, including the iron work within the lower extremities for its fixture upon the pedestal, is about thirty-two tons (a greater weight than the largest stone at Stonehenge), and this weight was not only moved to its place without horses in the space of 32 hours, but the writer of this paper saw it suspended in the air before it was lowered to its place upon its pedestal. The artist constructed a simple platform or bed, 22 feet in length, and which he caused to be worked upon 9 inch rollers, to be drawn forward by engines, called crabs, fixed one hundred feet distant from each other, the engines, as the work approached them, being alternately advanced. Whoever has witnessed the power employed by means of the pulley and capstern, in the operation of heaving down a line of battle ship, will not have a high opinion of the power or skill necessary to raise and move a mass of stone of the weight of thirty tons to any distance. Upon a consideration of all these circumstances, and having them full upon my mind at the moment that I was surveying the monuments of Stonehenge, I left the place with this impression,-that, viewed as a monument of human skill, ingenuity, or labour, there is nothing remarkable or very difficult in its formation, or conveyance; but, viewed as a monument of antiquity, it possesses the highest in |