After a life wonderfully preserved from the unsparing cruelty of ecclesiastical power, by the protection of Edward III. his memory was affectionately revered, and, as printing had not been discovered, his writings were scarce, and earnestly sought. He was the first who translated the New Testament into English, and which fearfully alarmed the establishment, as well as the people who were attached to the "good old customs" of the church.

DOOMSDAY BOOK.

"It was not for an age, but for all time."

How many read of Doomsday Book, without knowing what it is, or enquiring into what it means; let us then inform them, that it is a valuable record of antiquity, in which the estates of this kingdom are registered, begun in 1080, by order of William the Conqueror, and compiled in less than six years, written on 380 double pages of vellum, in one hand; and it is, without doubt, the most important and interesting document possessed by any nation in Europe; it is also remarkable, that on searching this book, we find such a similarity in the orthography of names of towns upwards of seven centuries ago, and the present period: for instance, the following towns in Sussex. Brighthelmstone Worthing Preston.

Bristelmetune
Wordinges
Prestetune

It was called Doomsday Book, because it was intended to carry down to the latest posterity, circumstances and events of former times. That it has thus far given an earnest of its deserving the title, all historians agree. Such, reader, is the celebrated Doomsday Book, one of those records so peculiar to the land of the venerable Bede, and the immortal Newton.

CAXTON PRESS.

The Caxton Press, derives its name from William Caxton, a mercer of London, who introduced the art of printing into England, A. D. 1471.

PRINTING.

"The storied pyramid, the laurel'd bust,

The trophied arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song,
(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,)
Till to astonish'd realms Papyru taught
To paint in mystic colours sound and thought,
With wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of time."

In "The Doome, warning all Men to the Judgment, by Stephen Batman, 1581," a black letter quarto volume, it is set down among "the straunge prodigies happened in the worlde, with divers figures of revelations, tending to mannes stayed conversion towardes God, whereof the work is composed, that in 1450, "The noble science of printing was aboute thys tyme founde in Germany, at Magunce, (a famous citie in Germanie, called Mentz), by Cuthembergers, a knight, or rather John Faustus, as sayeth Doctor Cooper, in his chronicle; one Conradus, an almaine, broughte it into Rome; William Caxton, of London, mercer, broughte it into England, about 1471; in Henrie the Sixth, the seaven and thirtith of his raign, in Westminster, was the first printing."

John Guttemberg, sen. is affirmed to have produced the first printed

book, in 1442, although John Guttemberg, jun. is the commonly reputed inventor of the art. John Faust, or Fust, was its promoter, and Peter Schoeffer its improver.

AUTHORS.

"Hard is the task a letter'd fame to raise,

And poor, alas! the recompence it pays.'

La Bruyere, many years ago, observed, that " 'tis as much a trade to make a book as a clock;" cest un metier que de fair un livre, comme de faire une pendule. But, since his day, many vast improvements have been made. Solomon said, that "of making many books there is no end;" and Seneca complained, that "as the Romans had more than enough of other things, so they had also of books and book-making. But Solomon and Seneca lived in an age when books were considered as a luxury, and not a necessary of life. The case is now altered; and though, perhaps, as Doctor Johnson observed, no man gets a belly-full of knowledge," every one has a mouthful. What would Solomon say now, could he see our monthly catalogues, or be told that upwards of a dozen critical machines were kept constantly at work, merely to weigh and stamp publications.

This necessarily leads us to that class of industrious, and very often lettered men, denominated authors, and to the origin of authorism. As we are indebted to the Egyptians for almost every art and science, so are we for authorism.

The bark of trees, prepared in sheets, was the first material on which their characters, or hierogliphics were made. This was called liber; the papirus, or paper, was not discovered till ages after. After they had made their characters which were to hand down to after-time the subject they were interested in, the liber, or prepared bark, was folded up into rolls, these had a label to each, with characters likewise thereon, explanatory of the subject within: these were the first books, consequently, we may suppose authorism to derive its origin from the period (an uncertain one in data) when this system was first adopted. As the progress of this art is, however, more fully noticed in another article, we will come at once to modern authorism, leaving the Solomons, the Ciceros, and the Plutarchs to others, more capable of discussing their merits.

In the days of Cicero, a book was the joint production of only two artizans; to wit, the author and scribe. In the present day, an author furnishes only the raw material, which being worked up by an amanuensis* into the form of a manuscript, is put into the hands of an editor, who removes superfluities, supplies deficiencies, and illustrates obscurities. From him it goes directly to the publisher, who delivers it to the printer, who gives it to the compositor, who hands it over to the pressman, who by the assistance of machinery, produces it in print.

The printer's devil then carries it in sheets to the publisher, who sends it to the book-binder, from whom it finally returns a finished manufacture.

The poor author of modern times, is of all lieges the most pitiable; his very bread is as bitter herbs to him, and his merit, if he has any, is enjoyed by his mercenary publisher.

"Hard is his case who writes for daily bread,

And pillows on a couch of care, a restless head."

* Poor authors are obliged to be their own amanuensis!-Ed.

ARCHITECTURE.

"But what are the pigmy efforts of man, compared with the Great Architect of the Universe."

When mankind had no other shelter from the dews of night, or the burning sun of noon-day, but what could be derived from the trees of the forest, how anxious must they have been to improve their condition, and how solicitous to discover some mode of fortifying their miserable huts against the vicissitudes of the season! It is therefore, not unlikely, that baked clay, in the form of bricks, was made use of for this important purpose, in an early state of society, This application of clay is, indeed, known to have been very ancient. The Tower of Babel, 2,247 years before Christ, was built with bricks; and when the Children of Israel sojourned in Egypt, 600 years afterwards, their task masters employed them chiefly in this kind of manufactory.*

Architecture may be said, however, to be in a measure co-eval with the Creation, that is, in its rude state. In the Sacred Scriptures, we are told, that Cain, the second man, and the first born of human beings, "builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son,-Enoch." Whether this city consisted of a series of huts, constructed of branches and twigs of trees, like the wigwams of the American Indians, or of tents made by covering a pole with the skins of animals, we know not. Vitruvius, a cele. brated architect in the age of Augustus, who wrote more than eighteen centuries ago, considered that men took their idea of huts from birdnests, and constructed them of a conic figure; but finding this form inconvenient, on account of its inclined sides, gave them afterwards a cubical form. Four large upright beams, on which were placed four horizontally, he considers the ground-work of the building, the intervals being filled with branches interwoven, and covered with clay. The Egyptians, who, according to Scripture, were the first makers of bricks, gave an impetus to the improvement of architecture; next the Romans, and then the Greeks; then

"Palaces and lofty domes arose,

These for devotion, and for pleasure those."

In the Grecian style, less wealth, but more taste prevailed, and where, indeed, architecture may be said to have been cradled, since it is to the Greeks that we owe its true proportions, as exemplified in the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian Orders, which we derive from them.

FIVE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE.

The Greeks are entitled to the honour of having first combined elegance and symmetry, with utility and convenience, in building; and by them and the Romans were the Five Orders, into which architecture is generally divided, carried to perfection. These orders, as Mr. Alison, in his "Principles of Tastes," well observes, "have different characters from several causes, and chiefly from the different quantity of matter in their entablatures. The Tuscan is distinguished by its severity; the Doric by its simplicity; the lonic

"And the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and bricks."-Exodus I. 13, 14. See also, Chap. V. verses 6, 19.

by its elegance; the Corinthian and Composite by their lightness and gaiety. To these characters their several ornaments are suited with consummate taste. Change these ornaments, give to the Tuscan the Corinthian Capital, or to the Corinthian the Tuscan, and every person would feel not only a disappointment from this unexpected composition, but a sentiment also of impropriety from the appropriation of a grave or sober ornament to a subject of splendour, and of a rich or gaudy ornament to a subject of severity."

Tuscan.

The Tuscan Order had its name and origin in Tuscany, first inhabited by a colony from Lydia, whence it is likely the order is but the simplified Doric. On account of its strong and massive proportions, it is called the Rustic Order, and is chiefly used in edifices of that character, composed of few parts, devoid of ornament, and capable of supporting the heaviest weights. The Tuscan Order will always live where strength and solidity are required. The Etruscan architecture is nearly allied to the Grecian, but possesses an inferior degree of elegance. The Trajan Colúmn at Rome, of this order, is less remarkable for the beauty of its proportions, than the admirable pillar with which it is decorated.

Doric.

The Doric Order, so called from Dorus, who built a magnificent temple in the city of Argos, and dedicated it to Juno, is grave, robust, and of masculine appearance, whence it is figuratively termed the Herculean Order. The Doric possesses nearly the same character for strength as the Tuscan, but is enlivened with ornaments in the frize and capital. In various ancient remains of this order, the proportions of the columns are different.

Ion, who built a temple to Apollo, in Asia, taking his idea from the structure of man, gave six times the diameter of the base for the height of the column. Of this order, is the Temple of Theseus, at Athens, built ten years after the battle of Marathon, and at this day almost entire.

Ionic.

The Jonic Order derived its origin from the people of Ionia. The column is more slender than the Doric, but more graceful. Its ornaments are elegant, and in a style between the richness of the Corinthian, and the plainness of the Tuscan, simple, graceful, and majestic ; whence it has been compared to a female, rather decently than richly decorated. When Hermogenes built the Temple of Bacchus, at Teos, he rejected the Doric after the marbles had been prepared, and in its stead adopted the Ionic. The Temples of Diana, at Ephesus, of Apollo, at Miletus, and of the Delphic Oracle, were of this order.

Corinthian.

This is the finest of all the orders, and was first adopted at Corinth, from whence it derives its name. Scamozzi calls it the Virginal Order, expressive of the delicacy, tenderness, and beauty of the whole composition. The most perfect model of the Corinthian Order, is generally allowed to be in the three columns in the Campo Vaccino at Rome, the remains of the Temple of Jupitor Stator.

The leaves of a species of Acanthus, (says an ingenious caterer of the literary world), accidently growing round a basket covered

with a tile, gave occasion to the capital of this beautiful order in architecture: an Athenian old woman happened to place a basket, with a tile laid over it, which covered the root of an Acanthus ; that plant shooting up the following spring, encompassed the basket all around, till meeting with the tile, it curled back in a kind of scroll. Callimachus, an ingenious sculptor, passing by, took the hint, and instantly executed a capital on this plan, representing the tile by the Abacus, the leaves by the Volutes, and the basket by the vase or body of the capital. Abacus is the uppermost member of a column, serving as a kind of crowning both to the capital and the whole column. Vitruvius, and others after him, who gave the history of the orders, tells us, the Abacus was originally intended to represent a square tile over an urn, or rather, over a basket.

Composite.

The Composite Order was invented by the Romans, and partakes of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders, but principally of the latter, particularly in the leaves of the capitals. This order shows, that the Greeks had in the four original orders, exhausted all the principles of grandeur, and that, to frame a fifth, they must necessarily combine the former.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN

B. Christ.

STRUCTURES.

2247. The Tower of Babel built by Noah's Posterity, in the Plains of Shinah.

1718. Sparta built.

1575. Pyramids of Egypt built.

1556. Cecrops founds Athens. Vide Athens.

1546. Scamander, from Crete, founds Troy, which was burned by the Greeks, on the 11th of June, 1184.

1252. The city of Tyre built.

1233. Carthage founded by a Colony of Tyrians. 1176. Salamis, in Cyprus, built by Teucer.

1152. Ascanius builds the City of Alba Longa.

1141. The Temple of Ephesus destroyed by the Amazons. 1124. Thebes built by the Boetians.

1012. Solomon begins the Temple of Jerusalem; 974, plundered by Sesac, king of Egypt; 586, destroyed by fire; 515, rebuilt; 170, plundered by Antiochus; 19, rebuilt by Herod. A.D. 70, Jerusalem destroyed; 130, rebuilt, and a temple dedicated to Jupiter; 1023, the temple plundered by the Caliph of Egypt; 1031, began to be rebuilt by Romanus; 1187, Jerusalem finally destroyed by Saladin.

992. Solomon's Palace finished.

986. Samas and Utica built.

974. Jerusalem taken, and the temple plundered by Sesac, king of Egypt.

869. The City of Carthage supposed to be built by Dido; destroyed by P. Scipio, 146; rebuilt by order of the Roman senate, 123. 801. Capua, in Campania, built.

753. Rome built; plundered by Alaric, A. D. 410.

732. Syracuse supposed to be built about this time by a Colony of Corinthians, under Archias.

708. Ecbatana built by Dejoces.

707. The Parthians, on being expelled from Sparta, build Tarentum.