INTRODUCTION. Ixi 



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

 It has been of very little ufe 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 ftill left me in abfolute defpair about 

 obtaining a quadrant, and confequently gave me very little 

 fatisfaetion, but in fome meafure confirmed me in my refo- 

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

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

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

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

 necefTary to go to Egypt. 



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

 genious accounts 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: 

 Hate of prefervation. I thought fomething more might be 

 learnt as to the firft proportions of their columns, and 

 the conflruction of their plans. Dendera, the ancient 

 Tentyra, ieemed 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 fy(lem 3 

 bat from the models themlelves, which I myfelf had mea- 

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

 further confirmed, that tafle for ancient architecture, found- 

 ed 



