596 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[Nov. 



following in this division, Brogniart, 

 who, from their quantity of respiration 

 and organs of motion, distributed the 

 Reptilia into four orders the Tortoises, 

 where the heart has two auricles, and 

 the body is supported by four legs, and 

 is enveloped in two shields or plates 

 joined by the ribs and sternum the 

 JLizards, where the heart has also two 

 auricles, and the body is sustained on 

 four and sometimes two legs, and cover- 

 ed with scales the Serpents, where 

 likewise the heart has two auricles, but 

 the body no legs and the Batracians, 

 with but one auricle, and a naked body. 

 The quantity of respiration in animals, 

 according to Cuvier, is not fixed, like 

 that of mammifera and birds, but varies 

 with the proportion which the diameter 

 of the pulmonary artery bears to that 

 of the aorta. Thus tortoises and lizards 

 respire considerably more than frogs. 

 Hence proceed differences of energy and 

 sensibility, and greater than can exist 

 in quadrupeds and birds. Accordingly 

 reptiles exhibit forms, movements, and 

 properties, much more various ; and it 

 is in them that Nature has furnished 

 more fantastic shapes, and more modi- 

 fied the general plan which she has fol- 

 lowed for vertebrated animals, and espe- 

 cially for the viviparous classes. 



A Dictionary of the Architecture and 

 Archaeology of the Middle Ages. Part I. 

 one of four. By John Britton, F.S.A., 

 $c Mr. Britton's well-earned cele- 

 brity in the department of Cathedral 

 Antiquities, is a security for a compe- 

 tent and faithful execution of a work of 

 this kind. His long and intimate com- 

 munion with the subject, which he loves 

 to illustrate, and the technicalities of 

 language connected with it, have tho- 

 roughly familiarized him with their ge- 

 nuine and specific usages, and give him 

 a kind of authority in any attempt to fix 

 and explain their application. The work 

 very beautifully got up is entitled, 

 A Dictionary of the Architecture and 

 Archaeology of the Middle Ages, but 

 comprises also the terms used by old 

 and modern authors in treating of archi- 

 tecture and other antiquities, accompa- 

 nied with etymologies, definitions, de- 

 scriptions, and historical elucidations. 

 To justify the undertaking if any jus- 

 tification were requisite ne says, " Pre- 

 cision in language is only attainable by 

 slow degrees ; and until a correct lexi- 

 con in architecture be formed, and gene- 

 rally, if not universally, recognized, 

 writers will be likely to use both inac- 

 curate and in-apposite terms. A cur- 

 sory perusal of any one treatise on the 

 architecture of the middle ages will 

 verify these assertions, lleference to 

 the' various encyclopaedias and other 

 dictionaries, will farther shew the want 



of a work expressly devoted to this sub- 

 ject." We may refer to the word am- 

 phitheatre, in the portion before us, as 

 a good specimen of the writer's manner, 

 and the kind of information the reader 

 will meet with. Towards the conclu- 

 sion, he observes "wherever the Ro- 

 mans settled in colonies, they construct- 

 ed amphitheatres of turf, termed cas- 

 trenses. There is one at Cirencester, 

 called by the country people the bull- 

 ring; and another, at Silchester, is en- 

 graved in Strutt's Chronicles of Eng- 

 land, Vol. I., plate 8. At Dorchester is 

 also one, considered the finest specimen 

 remaining in England." 



Herman's Elements of the Doctrine of 

 Metres, abridged and translated by the 

 Rev. John Seager, Rector of Welch Bick- 

 nor, Monmouthshire. Every body at all 

 acquainted with Herman must have 

 found his metaphysics as repulsive as 

 his peremptory manner, nor can any one 

 doubt but he has laid down laws and 

 discovered distinctions, of which the 

 poets themselves the inventors and ar- 

 biters never dreamt. But his meta- 

 physical grounds are of all absurd things 

 the absurdest the least tenable and 

 Mr. Seager would have shewn his good 

 sense by cutting them out entirely. Her- 

 man's original book is, we believe, by 

 most persons past all reading, and he 

 himself, from some misgiving of the 

 kind, wisely epitomised it. This epi- 

 tome the indefatigable rector of Welch 

 Bicknor has in almost every point fol- 

 lowed, not only out of deference to the 

 author, who must know best, it seems 

 to have been thought, how to abridge 

 his own book, but because the said epi- 

 tome is confessedly superior to the ori- 

 ginal it had the benefit of the author's 

 second thoughts. As we have thought, 

 and perhaps said of some others of Mr. 

 Seager's abridgments, he might safely 

 have applied, when his hand was in, a 

 greater compressing force. Here is 

 more, far more, than any consulter of 

 translations and epitomes can require ; 

 and as to others, naturally, they will go 

 to original sources. Something better 

 than Seale's miserable book was doubt- 

 less wanted, and even perhaps than 

 Tate's, but Herman's is not the book 

 for English schools or colleges. We are 

 no enemies to metrical studies they 

 lead, we are confident, to a nicer esti- 

 mate of equivalent phrases to a closer 

 and more critical acquaintance with the 

 language; but the point of utility is 

 soon reached ; and stringing longs and 

 shorts the work of boys and girls 

 soon becomes a pitiful substitute for the 

 manly search into the sense and senti- 

 ment of the writer. 



Sketches and Anecdotes of Horses, by 

 Captain Brown, Captain Brown's for- 



