• The many picturesque beauties with which Blackheath abounds, it is observed, will render this print as respectable an acquifition to the connoiffeur as to the antiquary. The richness of the foreground, the steep ascent of the hills, which gradually rise above each other, and the view of the river, give a striking idea of that noble fimplicity of nature, which art has in vain attempted to reach. London is feen in the distance, where the eye may distinctly trace St. Paul's, the Tower, Westminster-abbey, and many parish churches, forming a most picturesque group of buildings, and exhibiting to the spectator the extent and dignity of the Old City, in its then contracted state, compared with its present splendor. This drawing was made by Thomas Wyck, who died anno 1682. His works are well known, and this view may be numbered among the most capital of his performances. It was communicated by Paul Sandby, Esq; in whose possession it now is.'

A view of St. James's palace and Westminster-abbey from the village of Charing, ' is faid to have been engraved from an ancient view supposed to be drawn by Hollar; and appears to have been taken fomewhere about what is now the East side of St. James's street.' The Writer gives a short account of St. James's palace, and we are rather surprised that he should add nothing concerning the village of Charing. Entertaining as these volumes are, we find a defect of attention to some things by which they might have been improved. The massacre at Stonehenge, by Hengift, the History of King Leyr, and his Three Daughters, are said to be extracted from the ancient Hiftory of Great Britain; but this is hardly fufficient to fatisfy the generality of readers, who will naturally wish to know from whence the accounts are taken, or what dependence is to be placed on them. -In some articles, teo, we have thought there has not been all the exactness as to dates, which a work of this kind requires.

To the account of plates in the first volume which we have already given, we are now to add, The Scowls in the Woods of Thomas Bathurst, Esq; in Gloucestershire; A View, Plan, and Section of the Roman Bath, at Lidney Park, Gloucestershire; Edward the Black Prince, from the original Picture in the Poffeffion of the Hon. George Onflow; Another View of Tintern Abbey, from an original; The Font in Orford Chapel, Suffolk; Thomas De Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, from the original Picture in the Poffeffion of Mr. George Onflow; The Bridge of Bridgenorth, Shropshire; Weston in Warwickshire, the Seat of William Sheldon, Esq; Long Meg and her Daughters; John Evans, the ill-favoured Astrologer of Wales (illfavoured indeed!) from the original Drawing in the Collection of Lord Cardiff; Netley Abbey, Hampshire; The Tomb of Henry the Fifth, Earl of Westmoreland, and his Wives; Dr. Simon Forman, Aftrologer, from the original Drawing in the

Collection

Collection of Lord Mount Stuart; beside some miscellaneous prints.

Netley Abbey has been recommended to the attention of the Public by a poem which it occafioned some years ago.

• The pleasing melancholy, observes this Writer, inspired by contemplating the mouldering towers and ivy-mantled walls of ancient buildings, is univerfally felt and acknowledged, by observers, of every fort and disposition; but these scenes receive a double solemnity, when the remains are of the religious kind, such as churches and monafteries.

Religious ruins not only strike pious persons with that reveren. tial awe, which the thoughts of their original destination must always command, but as places of sepulture excite ideas equally applicable to all ranks and opinions, from the monarch to the beggar, whether believers or sceptics, it being impoffible to walk over a spot of ground, every yard of which covers the remains of a human being, once like ourselves, without the intrusion of the awful memento, that we must foon, very foon, occupy a like narrow tenement of clay; a confideration which will, for a moment, overcloud the most cheerful temper, and abstract from trifting pursuits, at least for a while, those of the most disipated turn, and oblige them to bestow some thoughts on that inevitable moment, when they are to depart hence.

6

Netley Abbey, an infide view of which is here given, stands eminently diftinguished among the monaftic ruins of this country, for its peculiar fitness to excite those solemn ideas just mentioned. For this it is indebted not only to the elegance of its construction, its fize and extent, but also to the profusion of ivy with which it is overgrown, and which half closes its figured windows, serving by its fober colour to fet off the more lively green of a variety of plants and shrubs, which have spontaneously grown up within its walls, and out of the huge fragments fallen from its fretted roof, so as to form a fort of grove in the body of the church, which, by limiting the coup d'oeil of the spectator, husbands out the beauties of the scene, and, in appearance, trebles its real magnitude.

،

Among these ruins, several of the different offices of the monaftery are diftinguishable, particularly the Abbot's kitchen, in which opens a vault, faid by the person who shews the place to communicate with the adjacent castle. The historians of the spot, likewise, commonly point out the place where a facrilegious mason met that fate with which he had been threatened by dreams and visions; that is, was crushed to death by the fall of part of a window, he was attempting to take down, having first demolished the roof. - This monattery was founded about the year 1239. For the sake of its materials, it has been dilapidated and plundered by different persons, till within these few years; Mr. Dummer, the present proprietor, has caused it to be shut up, and a key to be left with a neighbouring cottager, who picks up a maintenance by shewing it to the parties that come by water, from Southampton, to drink tea among these ruins; an expedition the Editor of this work recommends to all perfons of taste. The river runs within an hundred yards of the Abbey, which stands on an eminence surrounded by woods.'

The second volume of the Repertory opens with an elegant print of White Knights, Berkshire, the Seat of Sir Henry Englefield, Bart. The account of it is communicated by Governor Pownal, but is too long to admit of infertion, We are told ' it was one of the first examples of the ferme ornèe. It is a real farm, under the highest degree of culture, dressed the mean while in every ornament which nature in her best country garb can wear; while other feats of greater extent and more enlarged design, have each some one striking feature for which they are admired, this place, an harmonized affemblage of pleasing parts, has the fingular merit of being a one whole, and becomes as such a model to this fashionable taste of a country feat.' We are rather surprised, that while we have a long and entertaining description of this feat in its present form, there should not be fome brief account of the time of its ancient structure and use, which certainly comports with the design of this work.

an

It may be an amusement to many of our Readers to peruse Order of Council, describing the dress of a page in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, said to be copied from the original in the library of Thomas Astle, Esq.

• These are to praye and requier you to make psent serch within your ward & charges psently to macke hew & cry for a yong ftripling of the age of xxii yeres, the coler of his aparell as foloweth: One doblet of yelow million fustion th'one half therof buttoned with peche colour buttons, & th'other halfe laced downwards one payer of peche color hose laced with smale tawnye lace a graye hat with a copper edge-rounde aboute it with a bande pcell of the same hatt a payer of watched * stockings. Likewise he hath twoe clokes th'one of veffey collor garded with twoe gards of black clothe & twisted lace of carnation colour & lyned with crymfon bayes & th'other is a red shipp ruffet colour striped about the cape & downe the fore face twisted with two rows of twisted lace ruffet & gold buttons afore and uppon the sholdier being of the clothe itselfe det with the faid twisted lace & and the buttons of ruffet filke & gold. This youthes name is Gilbert Edwodd & page to St Valentine Browne Knight who is run awaye this fowerth day of January with theis parcells following, viz. A chaine of wyer worke golde with a button of the fame & a tmalle ringe of golde at it two flagging chaines of golde th'one being marked with theis letters v. & b. uppon the locke, & th'other with a little broken jewell at it, one carkanet of pearle and jafynitts therto hangeing, a jewell like a marimade of gold enameled the tayle therof being set with diamonds the bellye of the made with a ruby & the shilde a diamond the cheine of golde whereon it hangeth is fet with smale diamonds & rubyes & certeyne money in golde and white money.

Burgblye Warwick
Hunjdone Howard

Blue.

To all Conftables Bayliffs & Hedboroughs,
& to all other the Quene's Officers what-
soever to whome the same belongeth &
apperteyneth.
Valentine Browne.

Concerning Concerning the print given in the first volume, of Edward the Black Prince, we find the following just remark, which ought to be here inferted: To a person skilled in painting, this portrait will feem both much out of drawing, and extremely flat; these faults the engraver could easily have corrected, but in pictures of this kind, the exactness of the copy, even in defects, constitutes the greatest value of the piece. Ancient portraits serve not only to hand down some resemblance of the perfon represented, but also the state of the arts at the time of their execution. Amendments would undoubtedly frustrate information in both these articles.'

4

The last extract which we shall at present lay before our Readers, is the Copy of Sir John Lesley's Letter to Sir Thomas Riddle, of Gateshead, upon the siege of Newcastle, by the Scots, in the year 1640.

• Sir Thomas,

• Between me and God, it maks my heart bleed bleud, to fee the warks gae thro' soe trim a garden as yours. I hae been twa times wi' my coufin the General, & fae shall I fax time mare afore the wark gae that gate, but gin a' this be dune Sir Thomas, yee maun macke the twenty pound thretty, & I maun hae the tag'd tail'd a trooper that stands in the staw, & the little wee trim gaeing thing that stands in the neuk o'th ha' chirping and chiming at the noun tide of the day, and forty bows of beer to faw the mains witha'; and as I am a Chevalier of fortune, & a limb of the house of Rothes, as the muckle maun kist in Edinburg, auld kirk can weel witness for these aught hundred years bygaine, nought shall skaith your house within or without, to the validome of a twapenny chicken. JOHN LESSLEY, Major-general & Captain over fax score & twa men & fome mare; Crowner of Cumberland, Northumberland, Murrayland & Fife; Baillie of Kirkaldie; Governor of Burnt Island, & the Bass; Laird of Libertine, Tilly and Wolly; Siller Tacker of Stirling, Constable of Leith, & Sir John Lessley, Knight to the Boot of a' that.'

' I am your humble servant,

One might be apt to suppose that this letter had been formed in ridicule of the Major-general. The editor should have taken care to acquaint us from whence it is communicated, and how far its authenticity is to be relied on.

Farther extracts from this work we propose to lay before our Readers in the next Number of our Review.

• Horse.

• Low lands.

b Clock.

f Eight.

Scotland. For a description, see Pennant's Tour.

h Col

(17)

ART. III. A Difcourse delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, Dec. 10, 1778. By the Prefident. 4to.

T

3 s.

Cadell. 1779

HE defign of the President, in this performance, is to explain the original principles on which the rules of painting are founded; to give the young artist an enlarged and liberal view of his studies; and to recommend to his attention an acquaintance with the paffions and affections of the mind, from which all rules arise, and to which they are ultimately to be referred. The Author acknowledges that poetry has a more extenfive influence over the mind than her fifter art. Poetry operates by raising our curiofity,, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event fufpended, and furprifing at last with an unexpected catastrophe.'

The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by painting is done at one blow; curiofity has received at once all the fatisfaction it can ever have. There are, however, other intellectual qualities and dispositions which the painter can fatisfy and affect as powerfully as the poet; among these we may reckon our love of novelty, variety, and contrast; these qualities, on examination, will be found to refer to a certain activity and restlessness, which has a pleasure and delight in being exercised and put in motion; art therefore only adminifters to those wants and defires of the mind.

The Author proceeds to explain more particularly in what manner the qualities of novelty, variety, and contraft, are agreeable to the mind, and how far they ought to be employed in works of art. As there is a principle of activity, so there is also a love of indolence in man, which is averse to every exceffive exertion. This disposition, which must likewise be qualified by the painter, ought to limit the extent which he allows to the active principles. He must not, by a predilection for novelty, exclude the pleasure arifing from the fight of what is agreeable to old habits and customs; variety must not destroy the gratification derived from uniformity and repetition; and contrast ought not to be carried to such a length as would fatigue the senses by a violent and perpetual oppofition.

The Author's observations on this abstract, but important fubject, are just and ingenious; but the nature of his undertaking did not admit of his giving them their full extent. Those of our Readers who defire to see the same subject treated at greater length, may confult an ingenious French work, entitled, "The Theory of agreeable Sensations *;" in which this doctrine is