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pu it ha fed charters of denization. Davies on Ireland .—From 
mere fuccefs nothing can be concluded in favour of any 
nation upon whom it is bellowed. At.terbury. 
Scotland hath foifons to fill up your will 
Of your mere own. S/iakrJpeare's Macbeth. 
I have engag’d myfelf to a dear friend, 
Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy, 
To feed my means. Shahefpeare's Merchant of Venice. 
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin’d, 
To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind. Pope. 
Let eaftern tyrants from the light of heaven 
Seclude their bofom-fiaves, meanly poffefs’d 
Of a mere, lifelefs, violated form. Thomfon's Spring. 
MERE, f. [mepe, Sax.] A pool; commonly a large 
pool or lake: as, Winander mere .— Meres ftored both 
with fiih and fowl. Camden.—A boundary.—The millayer 
of a jnere-ltone is to blame: but it is the unjuft judge that 
is the capital remover of land-marks, who defineth arnifs of 
land. Bacon. 
MERE, a town of Norway, in the government of Dron- 
theim : fixty-eight miles north-eaft of Drontheim. 
MERE, a fmall market-town and parifti, in the county 
of Wilts. The parifti is of an angular fltape, and is 
bounded on two fides by the counties of Somerfet and 
Dorfet. Hence it is fuppofed to have derived its name ; 
were, in the Saxon language, fignifying a boundary or 
land-mark. The appearance of the town is that of a drag¬ 
gling village, the houfes being ill-arranged and very in¬ 
differently built. In the middle of it Hands a fmall crofs 
ormarket-lioule, where a weekly market is held onThurf- 
days, and two fairs, May 6 and Sept. 9, for cattle, pigs, 
cheefe, and pedlary. A manufactory of bed-ticking and 
dowlas is carried on at VVolverton, in this parifti, chiefly 
by the women. The church is an extenfive edifice, or¬ 
namented at one end by a handfome tower : the living is 
vicarial, and in the gift of the dean of Salilbury. In the 
parfonage-houfe was born Francis Potter, one of the moll 
Angular mechanical geniufes of his age. 
On an eminence Hill called Caftle-hill, immediately ad¬ 
joining the town, formerly Hood a caltle ; but few traces of 
its walls can now be difeovered. Some encampments ap¬ 
pear in this neighbourhood; one of which, called by Le- 
land “ Whitefliole-hill,” is furrounded by a double trench, 
and was probably occupied by the Daniih army, previous 
to fome engagement with the celebrated Alfred. 
About two miles north-weft of Mere is the parifti of 
Stourton, in which is a noble feat, named Stourhead, the 
feat of fir R. C. Hoare, bart. This gentleman has diftin- 
guilhed liimfelf in the literary annals of the prefent age, 
by the publication of fome interefting and handfome 
works on the topography and antiquities of Great Britain. 
One of thefe, entitled “ The Hiitory of Ancient Wilt- 
Ihire,” contains much new and curious information re- 
ipedting the charafteriftics of encampments, barrows, 
ftonehenge, &c. and a particular account of fome lingular 
excavations, called Penn-pitts, in this neighbourhood. 
Stourhead is juftly noted among the handfome feats of 
this county. 
The houfe is built of Hone, in an oblong form, from a 
defign of Colin Campbell, the architect of Wanllead in 
Effex. It confifts of a grand floor between a ruftic bafe- 
ment and an attic llory, and contains fome fine rooms and 
elegant apartments. The principal entrance is by a dou¬ 
ble flight of Hone-Heps into a very handfome hall, of more 
than thirty feet fquare, adorned with pictures, buftos, Ha¬ 
tties, See. from thence crofting the Hair-cafe veftibule, you 
enter the faloon, a very noble and pleafing room, fixty feet 
in length, and of a proportionate breadth and height: it 
is lighted by three large windows at the end, and contains 
only one door, which is oppofite the centre window. On 
each fide the hall and faloon is a range of very handfome 
rooms, confifting of an eating-room, library, gallery, and 
bed-chamber apartments. The whole is furnilhed in a 
very handfome manner; and is replete with curiofities and 
valuable pictures, fome of which are matchlefs, and of the 
bell mailers : the piflures hang by two hinges at one fide, 
which gives an opportunity of examining them in a pro¬ 
per light. This houfe, while it poffeffes a proportionate 
grandeur, is a model for the comfort and convenient dif- 
pofition of its apartments, arrangement of its offices, See. 
From the principal front there is a very pleafing diver- 
fified profpefl. Turning through agate to the right of 
the houfe is a large lawn, whereon is a ftatue of the 
Belvidere Apollo, at the end whereof a winding fliady 
walk leads to a very noble avenue of fir-trees, terminated 
by a handfome obeiilk ; leaving this walk, and defend¬ 
ing a ftiort way through a wood, you arrive at a lar^e 
tent, fixed to the ipot, and made in the form of an eaftern 
pavilion. This point commands a view of the lake, the 
Pantheon, hanging wood, the Temple of the Sun, See. 
which form a feene of the molt poliffied beauty. Defend¬ 
ing from hence to the fide of the lake, and crofting an arm 
of it by a wooden bridge, confifting of one very extenfive 
and lofty arch, from a defign of Palladio, you enter the 
bottom of the hanging wood, where Hones, roots, &c. 
mark the paflage to the Grotto, whofe pebble floor and 
ivy-mantled roof denote it to be the grotto of Nature. It 
receives its light from a circular aperture in the roof, from 
whence the wild plants fufpend their dropping tendrils, 
and form an arch in the wall, through which the eye 
catches a part of the lake. In a recefs in the grotto is a 
marble bafon, which is ufed as a cold bath, and is fupplied 
by a beautiful dropping ftpring, that dillils its flender 
ftreams around the marble ftatue of a fleeping nymph, 
placed in the interior part of the recefs. In the front of 
the bath, on its marble margin, the following lines of 
Mr. Pope are inf ribed : 
Nymph of the grot, thefe facred ftreams I keep, 
And to the murmur of thefe waters fleep : 
Ah ! fpare my (lumbers, gently tread the cave ; 
And drink in filence, or in filence lave. 
Almoft adjoining is another fmaller grot of the fame kind, 
charadteriftically adorned, in which a river-god is feen re¬ 
clining upon an urn, w'hich is actually the fountain of the 
river Stour, whofe water iflues from thence in a clear and 
copious ftream, that falls immediately into the lake. From 
this delicious fpot, afending by Heps of rugged Hone, 
you pafs through a ikirt of the wood above the grotto ; 
and, defending on the other fide to the verdant banks of 
the lake, you approach the building called the Pantheon, 
from the portico wdiereof you look back, over the lake, to 
a finely-wooded brow, on whofe declivity the tent already 
mentioned is placed. This building is erefted on the 
model of the" Pantheon at Rome, and therefore bears its 
name ; and, except the Temple of Concord at Stow, is 
the moll fuperb garden-building in Great Britain. It 
contains a rotunda of about thirty-fix feet in diameter, 
lighted from its dome, and adorned with ftatues placed 
in niches, over which are charadterillic baflo-relievos. 
But the principal objeft in this room is a modern one of 
Hercules, by Rylbrack, and allowed to be the chef d'ceuvre 
of that celebrated art ill. 
Proceeding to the right from this beautiful ftrudlure, 
the eye is furprifed with a magnificent cafeade, which falls 
in very fine breaks into a ftiaggy valley on the outlide of 
the garden, and is fupplied by the overflux of the lake, 
which, by this means, never overflows its banks, and, 
from the fiupply of the river, never finks beneath them, 
but prelerves a continual fullnefs. Palling onwards 
through a fmall Ihrubbery, you afeend a rude flight of 
Heps, irregularly detached from each other, which con¬ 
duct you through various cells of ore, minerals, Hone, and 
luch rude materials ; which form a paflage into another 
part of the improvements, divided by a common road, 
and receiving their communication from this rude but 
well- 
