kept, generically described, diftinguishing fat from lean, and to whom they belong. The quantity of corn fown, and the quantity reaped by each farmer respectively, fpecifying the particular grain. The quantity of corn, and of what fort, fent to market from time to time, and the quantity kept in hand. The number of farmers in each parifh, the rents of each man's poffeffions, with the names of the landlords and tenants. An account of the advanced rents of each farm for the last twentyfive years, and the different periods at which they were augmented. The number of families, how many fouls each contain, diftinguishing their fex and age, how they are maintained, and what manufactories are carried on in each parish.

The Egyptians had a law, obliging every man to give an account once a year, to the magiftrate, where he lived; how he was fuftained and what he contributed to the public weal. If fuch an account was demanded, and faithfully returned from the people in London, what frightful! what shameful! and what piteous fcenes would be difclofed! and no doubt many iniquities prevented, and miferies removed, from their being revealed-The poors rate, and the number of paupers in each parish, diftinguifhing their age, fex, and condition of health. From fuch a return, your Majefty will be much alarmed; you will there fee that your fubjects in England are taxed with three millions a year, to maintain a number of people, rendered useless from the prefent mode of parochial management! When the ftate of the kingdom is thus laid open, your Majefty will be able to reform the innumerable abuses, which, though known in part, are ftill encouraged, or at leaft fuffered from inattention; you will be a competent judge yourself how the poor may be employed, to eafe the load which their mifconduct, or misfortunes, have heaped upon the induftrious, Facts thus faithfully, and uniformly related, will furnish your Majefty with ideas, which may be digefted, and combined into forms, pleafing to your fubjects, and beneficial to the common-wealth. Thefe, with many, many other accounts, the inquifitive mind will fuggeft as neceffary to the perfection of this national engagement.

From fuch an open council, inviting the thoughts, and foliciting the affiftance, of every good citizen, your Majefty would be informed of the true state of your nation, with regard to its natural revenue; and your fubjects inftructed to manage with integrity thofe loans which Nature has fo partially diftributed in this country. Virtue finding eafier accefs, you will no longer be a stranger in your dominions: you will have the groans of your people faithfully explained, when speedy and effectual measures may be adopted, and purfued, to filence the affliction. By the light of fovereign truth you will REV. July, 1775.

D

pierce

pierce the deep receffes of the heart, and develope thofe folds which avarice has so skilfully entwifted; then, when the mine is open, you can fee how the veins run, and direct your operations as the objects prefent themselves. Thus, by feeing with your own eyes, and hearing with your own ears, truth will introduce you behind the fcenes, and reveal novelties that will aftonifh your Majefty; you will there fee the machinery of the Bucolical Drama, and the various actors, who have exhibited the moft tragical parts in it.

In the reign of Charles the good, earl of Flanders, a great famine happened in his dominions; upon which fome very rich men, among whom whom was Bertoff the chancellor, thinking to reap advantage from the mifery of the times, bought up all the corn they could find in the land, with a defign to fell it out again at an extraordinary price. The earl, abhorring fo deteftable an avarice, by his authority, caused the corn to be feized, and fold it to the people at a reasonable rate-Mark the fequel, men who are fteeled against the lamentations of the poor, have hearts tempered for the moft atrocious undertakings: Bertoff and his affociates were fo incenfed at the injury which juftice had done them, that they affaffinated the earl, at his devotions, in the church, on Afhwednesday, in the year 1127. But the horrid mifcreants fuffered in proportion to the heinoufnefs of their crime, for human invention was racked to torture them. The like gradation of wickedness will be the fame, in men of the fame infernal complexion; and we have Bertoffs in this country, who only want an opportunity to difplay their unnatural propenfities.'

From the foregoing extracts, our readers will be enabled, in fome degree, to eftimate the merits of Mr. D.'s production. His great point is to engage the king's attention to the important bufinefs of agriculture and husbandry, as objects peculiarly worthy the regard and encouragement of wife and good princes; and to convince his majefty of this truth, he cites the examples of the greatest monarchs, legiflators, and ftatefmen, in former ages, and in the moft flourishing countries, of which he gives a very particular, and even an amufing deduction, from the earliest times. In a word, we may recommend these letters as the production of learned and philofophic leifure, and as exhibiting proofs of the writer's liberal turn of mind, his laudable affection for his native country, and his honeft concern for the honour and happiness of a prince whom he looks upon as a truly amiable and meritorious character.

ART.

ART. X. The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam; Efquires, N. II. Containing part of the Defigns of Lord Mans field's Villa at Kenwood, in the County of Middlesex. Folio. Imperial Paper. 11. 13. Becket. 1774.

IN

N the 49th vol. of our Review, p. 451, et feq. we gave some account of the firft number of this elegant and fplendid publication; and we then obferved, that there is an air of grandeur, as well as beauty, in thany of the plans exhibited by thefe celebrated artifts; joined to a freedomh of invention, which is the great characteristic of genius.

In the abovementioned article, we also gave an abstract of the preliminary difcourfe prefixed by Meffrs. Adam, to their firft number; in which they have given the publie a series of just and pertinent remarks on the prefent ftate of architecture in this country: and we concluded with a brief descrip tion of the engravings contained in that publication, viz. part of the defigns of Sion-Houfe, a magnificent feat of the duke of Northumberland, near Isleworth, in Middlesex.

Encouraged, as our ingenious artists gratefully acknowledge they have been, by the moft flattering approbation' of their firft number, from men of tafte both at home and abroad,' they now resume + their task with greater confidence, by publishing the plans, elevations, and fections of the beautiful villa of lord Mansfield, the friend of every elegant art, and ufeful science.'

It might, perhaps, have been expected, by fome purchafers, that the remaining designs of Sion-Houfe fhould have appeared in the fecond number. The only apology offered for this deviation from what may feem to have been the natural order and arrangement in the mode of publication, is this: We have,' fay our artists, referved the remaining defigns of Sion for fome future number; as we are perfuaded, that by giving specimens of fome of our other works, we fhould add greater variety to our undertaking, without diminishing its utility. Poffibly there may be, alfo, a fmall degree of innocent policy in this deviation; but whether we are right in out conjecture, or not, we mean to convey to cenfure by the remark.

As, in this work, the Authors aim not only at affording entertainment to the connoiffeur, but with alfo to convey inAtruction to the artift,' they propofe, from time to time, to make fuch obfervations as naturally arife from the fubjects before them, but they, very judiciously, premife, that ' fhould

Vulgarly called Canewood, or Caenwood, + Preface to No. II.

they differ in any of thefe obfervations from the opinion of either ancient or modern authors, they do not mean to engage in any controverfy, being only defirous of submitting their ideas to the confideration of the public.'At the fame time they scruple not to affirm, that whatever they venture either to publish, or to recommend, it is the refult of much experience, and of a careful fearch into the pureft fources of antiquity.'

Architecture,' they obferve, has not, like fome other arts, an immediate ftandard in Nature, to which the artist can always refer, and which would enable the skilful inftantly to decide, with refpect to the degree of excellence attained in any work. In architecture, it must be formed and improved by a correct tafte, and diligent ftudy of the beauties exhibited by great mafters in their productions; and it is only by profound meditation upon thefe, that one becomes capable of diftinguishing between what is graceful and what is inelegant; between that which poffeffes and that which is deftitute of harmony,'-To this may be added, thofe qualifications of a complete architect, which are alone to be fought for in GENIUS, and which are justly enumerated by the great Vitruvius: to whom we refer.

With refpect to the difputes among modern architects, our Authors have obferved that they are extremely frivolous; and that, in particular, there is nothing in which they have differed more than in regard to their rules for the diminution of columns. This, however, it is here remarked, is a subject of greater importance than those which frequently engage their attention. The column is not only one of the nobleft and moft graceful pieces of decoration, but in all round bodies, efpecially fuch as ftand infulated, there is a delicacy of proportion to be obferved, that thofe of another form, and in other fituations, do not require. Without entering into any critical difquifitions concerning the opinions of either the ancients or moderns with refpect to this point, we fhall only observe, that our conftant practice has been, to diminish our columns from the bafe to the capital, by means of the inftrument used by Nicomedes for defcribing the first conchoid, which we think has exceeded in elegance any other method hitherto employed. But as this inftrument and the manner of ufing it, has already been explained by fome modern Authors, we thould not here have ventured to mention it, had it not been to recommend it as preferable to all others.'

Having mentioned the diminution and proportion of columns, Mefffs. Adam are naturally led to make fome obfervations with regard to their capitals; an object of great distinction and delicacy in the detail of architecture.*

In the first place, fay our Authors, we acknowledge only three orders; the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian; for as to the Tufcan, it is, in fact, no more than a bad and im perfect Doric; and the Compofite, or Roman order, in our opinion, is a very difagreeable and awkward mixture of the Corinthian and the Ionic, without either grace or beauty. We do not, however, mean to condemn the composing of capitals; a liberty which has often been taken by the ancients' with great fuccefs; and in a former part of this work, we have exhibited an attempt of our own, in this way; and shall, during the courfe of it, have other opportunities of the fame kind.'

As this is a very curious branch of the architectural art, and what must have been, more or less, attended to, by every one who has ever beheld an ornamented building with the smallest degree of taste or distinction, we shall lay before our readers the farther obfervations that occur on the fubject, in the performance before us.

The Doric capital, when properly adorned, is capable of great elegance: but where rich decoration is required, in order to give it all its grace, the neck, or space between the aftragal and the annulets fhould be made of much greater height than the common proportion defcribed by Palladio and many other moderns; and that neck should be enriched in the various ways which we fhall have occafion to reprefent in the Course of our work.

The Corinthian capital itself does not, in our opinion, admit of more dignity and magnificence, than a rich lonic with its volutes fquare in the front.-Angular volutes, as in the temples of concord and manly fortitude at Rome, and in the temple of Ereatheus at Athens, have always appeared to us lefs folid, lefs grave, and lefs graceful; and, in our opinion, they have been injudiciously adopted by Michael Angelo, Sca mozzi, and many other architects. Their reafon for this was, in order to avoid the irregularity of appearance in this capital, when viewed in profile, which differs fo very much from its afpect in front. But notwithstanding this difference, the profile itself, as well as the front, are susceptible of fuch beauties, that we are inclinable to hazard fome defects, rather than to facrifice the elegant refult of the whole compofition-There may, indeed, be fome cafes where fuch irregularity in the capital might be attended with great inconvenience, as in a

One example of this kind is to be feen in the capital of the pilafters to the fouth front of lord Mansfield's houfe, given at large, in the fourth plate of the prefent number. D 3

fquare