the Reign of Henry VIII. 1S9 



but as thofe chroniclers fcarce ever fpecify 

 when this was or was not the cafe, we mud 

 not at this diftance of time pretend to con- 

 jeclure what prelates were or were not ca- 

 pable of directing their own foundations. 



Felibien is fo impartial an author, that 

 he does not even rejedt the fables with 

 which our own writers have replenilhed the 

 chafms in our hiilory. He quotes Matthew 

 of Weftminfter for the flourifhing condition 

 of architedlure in* Britain at a time when in- 

 deed neither that nor any other fcience 

 flourifhed here — King Arthur, fay they, * 

 caufed many churches and confiderable edi- 

 fices to be ere^fled here. It would in 

 truth have been an a6l of injuftice to us to 

 omit this vifion, in a man who on the au- 

 thority of Agathias, relates that the em- 

 peror Juflinian had in his fervice one An- 

 themius, fo able a mathematician that he 

 could make artificial earthquakes, and ac- 

 tually did revenge himfelf by fuch an ex- 

 periment on one Zeno a rhetorician. The 

 machinery was extremely fimple, and yet I 

 queftion whether the greateft mathemati- 



* Felib. vol. v. p, 165. 



cian 



