1831.3 Monlhbj Review of Literature. 683 



judgment, that justly claim for it a far more general notice than it will meet 

 with in an Encyclopaedia, which, though comparatively cheap, is yet too costly 

 to get into the hands of all who are able to estimate its value. The historical 

 portion is very happily executed ; and the successive steps in the progress of 

 the science through India, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, are sketched with spirit, 

 and founded on good specific facts. Nothing pleased us better in the whole 

 article (which is of considerable length) than the estimate which Mr. Hosking 

 has formed of Vitruvius. The man was evidently a coxcomb, and prated of 

 what he knew little or nothing. The nonsense about the Orders is very suc- 

 cessfully exposed, with all the fictions relative to the origin of the Doric, Ionic, 

 &c. His descriptions do not even correspond with the buildings from which he 

 professed to establish his rules and principles. The glance Mr. Hosking takes 

 of Pompeii — the only source of information relative to the domestic architecture 

 of the olden times, except the ruins which are occasionally dug into in other 

 places — is a very intelligent one, and well calculated to lower our notions of the 

 magnificence of the Romans, or at least of their accommodations and luxuries. 

 Our "Gothic" architecture Mr. Hosking styles " pointed" architecture, and derives 

 it wholly from the Saracens. The change of style is traceable in every country 

 of Europe to the same period ; and can therefore only be assigned to some com- 

 mon source, which had struck the natives of difl'erent countries, and prompted 

 them alike to imitate. It is due to the Crusades. The illustrative plates are 

 beautiful. 



The Seventeenth Century a Beacon to the Nineteenth. 



Originally this little book was published in 1747, and dedicated to Bishop 

 Hoadley, of Winchester. It was written by G. Coade, of Exeter, in reply to a 

 laudatory sermon preached on what the Calendar, from ecclesiastical influence, 

 styled, and still styles, King Charles's Martyrdom. It consists of a plain narra- 

 tive of facts — of all the royal falsehoods, subterfuges, and tyrannical measures, 

 in support of his own despotism — unaccompanied by any of the qualifying cir- 

 cumstances, which ancient fraud and modern ingenuity have supplied — and 

 with the view of proving to the preacher how ill his magnificent eulogium was 

 deserved. The present editor reprinted it about ten years ago, under the title of 

 " Charles the First Pourtrayed ;" and it is now again repablished by the same 

 undaunted individual, with another new heading, for the purpose of reading a 

 lesson to the opponents of Reform, and especially to the bishops. " Happy 

 will it be," says he, " if the fate of a Strafford or a Laud — the expulsion of 

 bishops from the senate, and the overthrow of the political power of the House 

 of Lords, two centuries since — prove a sufficient warning to deter the present 

 titled withholders of a nation's demand from goading that nation to similar 

 steps and to a similar career !" The writer does not see that if the reformers 

 v;pre the nation, they would have no difficulty whatever. The fact is, that parties 

 just now are very nearly balanced ; and one has as much, or as little, right to 

 call itself the nation as the other. 



Cabinet Cyclopedia, Vol. XXIV. — Manufactures in Metal. 



These volumes, published under Dr. Lardner's auspices, relative to the manu- 

 factures of the country, are full of interest, and among the most acceptable of 

 the set. Nine out often, even amoii'i the most intelligent portion of the people, 

 are utter strangers to the processes by which are produced the instruments which 

 facilitate half the daily actions of their lives. The present volume embraces the 

 manufactures of iron and steel only, and describes the present state of the more 

 important branches of both. Bridges, cannons, anchors, chains, screws, figure 

 in the first department — files, edge-tools, and saws, in the latter ; and the his- 

 tory of all, forms not the least inlcrcsliiig portion. 



Paine (Tom Paine, as he must still bo called, or nobody will recognize hihi) 

 has hitherto had the credit of being the first who suggested the practicability of 

 constructing iron bridges — certuiiily, in 17S7, he presented to the Academy of 



3 G 2 



