INTRODUCTION. ] x i 



caufe of its irregularity. It remains with me in flam quo. 

 It has been of very little ule to me, and never will be of 

 much more to any perfon elfe. The price is, I am fure, ten 

 times more than it ought to be in any light I can confider 

 it. 



All thefe letters dill left me in abfolute defpair about 

 obtaining a quadrant, and consequently gave me very little 

 fa refaction, but in fome meafure confirmed me in my refo- 

 lution already taken, to go from Sidon to Egypt; as I had 

 then fecn the greater! part of the good architecture in the 

 world, in all its degrees of perfection down to its decline, I 

 wilhed now only to fee it in its origin, and for this it was 

 necefTaiy to go to Egypt. 



Norden, Pococke, and many others, had given very in- 

 genious accounrs of Egyptian architecture in general, of the 

 difpofition and fize of their temples, magnificence of their 

 materials, their hieroglyphics, and the various kinds of 

 them, of their gilding, of their painting, and their prefent 

 ftateof prefervation. I thought Something more might be 

 learnt as to the firft proportions of their columns, and 

 the conftruction of their plans. Dendera, the ancient 

 Tentyra, feemed by their accounts to offer a fair field for 

 this. 



I had already collected together a great many obfervations 

 on the progrefs of Greek and Roman architecture in differ- 

 ent ages, drawn not from books or connected with fyftem, 

 but from the models themfelves, which I myfelf had mea- 

 fured, I had been long of the opinion, in which I am full 

 further confirmed, that tafle for ancient architecture, found- 

 ed 



