appearance of a fantastic Gothic erection of yesterday.

The South side of the Nave and Aile being less exposed than the opposite one, instead of the compo is merely washed over with a dirty. white composition; and the Choir, which has long since been rebuilt with brick, and most required the application of the cement, remains in the same disgraceful state as formerly. The inside of the Church is in lit the better condition than the exterior. The windows have been despoiled of their original mullions and tracery; and in their stead are occupied by a clumsy imitation of the former ones, copied from a bad restoration of an older date in the West front (coeval

no doubt with the Tower) rather than from originals still remaining at the Eastern end of the Ailes. In the Clerestory the windows contain only plain mullions, without even the large quatrefoils that appear in the lower tier. In addition, the windows have been new glazed in the modern style. By this improvement, several coats of arms, in stained glass, which were to be seen before these repairs, are totally lost.

The walls and pillars are covered with a yellow wash, the peculiar co4ouring of garrets and stables; except the mouldings of the arches, the capitals to the columns, and different lines of the building, which are whitewashed.

The antient Stalls (though little care is bestowed in their preservation), I am happy to add, have escaped the varnish brush. But the Exeter Monument has not shared their good fate, having received a coarse coat of whitewash, greatly to the detriment of the curious and delicate sculpture of the canopy, and so thickly applied as to fill up the accumulated initials which the idle and mischievous had cut upon the effigies.

I am not aware whether this repair has been at the expence of the Chapter or the Precinct. If the latter, as, judging by the work I should pronounce it to be, the Antiquary will have great cause to lament the apathy of the Master and Brethren of the Hospital af St. Katherine, who, at a period which produced so many good revivals of this neglected style of Architecture, suffered their antient

XXXV. VENUS GENETRIX. The figures of Venus, with the surname of Genetrix, which we see upon the Imperial coins, present to us that Goddess, regarded by the Romans as the mother of their ancestors, precisely in the same altitude as this fine statue. She appears dressed in a transparent tunick, which is scarcely detached from the graceful contour of her timbs, and she holds in her hand the apple of Paris. Her ears are pierced; for it was usual to suspend valuable pendants from the ears of statues which represented Goddesses. This statue of Parian marble ornamented the Gardens of the Versailles. (Visconti, p. 16.) There is considerable difficulty on the subject of these Venuses. Cæsar first called her Venus Genetrix, as the common mother of his family, and Lessing thinks that she was represented as a Venus Victrix, but he observes, that many Venuses have been so denominated by the Restorers merely placing an apple in the hand. The best explanation of those accompanied with Cupid is, that they were in honour of the accouchemens of the Empresses. Armed Venuses are of Grecian antiquity.

XXXVI. COMMODUS. A Bust. The ferocious visage of this Emperor announces his character. (Visconti, p. 17.) It was in this reign, says Winckelman (Art. VI. 7) that the Arts began to decline. His portraits are very rare. One exceedingly five is at the Capitol: another at the Farnese Palace; a third in the Pio-Clementine

tients were accustomed to light fires in honour of the New Year, which they held to have originally com menced in fire. Nor is there, he asserts, any computation of time more antiently received than that which fixes the beginning of the year in June. These fires, he proceeds, were accompanied with vows and sacrifices for plenty and prosperity, with dances and leaping over the flames, and each person on his departure took a firebrand of greater or less magnitude, while the rest was scattered to the wind in order that it might disperse every evil as it dispersed the ashes.

The vigil of St. John the Baptist falling on this day, the Midsummer. Eve rites seem to have been carefully practised and handed down by our more immediate ancestors; for Stowe and his contemporaries particularly describe its observance. Bourne mentions it in 1725, and Borlase about 30 years later. As to the Universality of this custom through out the nations of Celtic origin, we know that in the North of England, in Ireland, and in Scotland, it is still retained. And may perhaps argue from its name Belleine-Bel's Beal's, or the Suu's fire-that it is coeval with the Aboriginals of our Island, who, as well as almost every other nation of Idolaters, paid homage to that glorious luminary. Traces of it appear in Sweden, where the houses are ornamented with boughs. Stowe says they ought to be greene birch, Long Fennell, St. John's Wort, Aspin, While Lillies, and such like, and the young people dance around a poll till morning, and even among the Vehosti, a Tartar tribe, subject to Russia, who assemble, as we are told, under a tree at night, and remain till morning on the festival of St. John, shrieking and singing and dancing round a great fire.

The best account of the attendant ceremonies is given by Googe, in 1570, io a translation which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

"Theu doth the joyfull feast of John the

Baptist take his turne,

When bonfires great, with lofty flame, in

every towne doe burne,

And young men round about with maydes

doe dannce in every street With garlands wrought of motherwort, or else of vervaine sweet,

And many other flowers faire, with violets

in their hands; [whosoever stands Where as they all doe fondly thinke that And thorow the flowers beholds the flame, his eyes shall feel no paine, When thus 'till night they daunced bave, they through the fire amain With striving minds doe run, and all their herbs they cast therein; And then with words devout, and prayers,

they solemnly begin,

Desiring God that all their illes may there confounded be;

Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from augues to be free."

Vide Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 317.

The vestiges of these rites are not quite obliterated in South Wales, and may perhaps be instanced as one amongst many proofs of resemblance between Welsh and Scottish customs. At Port-Einon, a small village in that insulated part of Glamorganshire, called Gower, culm is collected and hid against a fire on the 23d of June, as I had an opportunity of being witness to last year: on enquiry I found that the custom had been observed time immemorial. At Llangeneth, a neighbouring village, the festival of the Patron-saint, or Mabsant, i.e. holy man, falling on the 24th, the garlands and the poll, as well as the dances and bonfire, are still retained. This ceremonial is not wholly unknown in Pembrokeshire. It does not appear that it was necessary to light the fire invariably in the same spot, although a conspicuous situation was generally chosen. foundations of a small inclosure once used for this purpose, may still be traced in the turf about a furlong from the noted well at the secluded village of Newton in Glamorganshire. A few of the old people still remem ber convening there, and throwing a small cheese across through the flame on Midsummer's Eve. They report that the enclosure was afterwards used as a pound, though it seems too small for that purpose, and that the stones have been taken to mend the road that leads to the little barbour below.

The

Mr. URBAN,

THE

May 16. HE first decided protection granted Ito the Authors of this country for literary property appears to have been in the reign of Queen Anne; for though Queen Elizabeth permitted no book to be published without the permission of the persons appointed by the Crown, as Licensers of the press, and directed that only one license should be granted for the same work, this afforded but very slender protection to the Authors; since it is well known that the said Licensers were frequently tampered with, and prevailed upon to countenance every species of literary depredation which ingenuity of the age could suggest or practice.

The origin of Copy-right may, how ever, be traced to a much more remote period in Italy. The earliest instance of the positive protection of literary property occurred in 1514, during the pontificate of the accom plished Leo X. Having committed the five books of Tacitus (which he had purchased for 500 zechins of ADgelo Arcomboldo, who brought them from the Abbey of Corvey in Westphalia) to the care and editorship of the learned Beroaldo; in order to secure him the reward of his labours as editor and collator of the MSS. he denounced sentence of excommunication, besides the penalty of 200 ducats and forfeiture of the books, against any person who should reprint the work within ten years of its publication by Beroaldo, without his express permission.

Notwithstanding these serious injunctions, however, the work was pirated and drinted at Milan in the same year, by Alesandro Manuziano, who had established himself as a printer in opposition to Aldus Manuzio, and who contended with him in the publication of the writings of antiquity. He appears to have obtained the sheets of Beroaldo's Tacitus as they came from the press, and had probably nearly completed his impression before he was aware of the heavy penalties he was provoking. He was cited before the Pontiff to answer for his offence; but, owing to the interference of some powerful friends, he was excused the weightiest portion of his punishment, namely, excommunication; though it is a question whether he would not have deemed the curses of the Pope a much lighter

cause of complaint than the loss of his ducats. It is easy to conjecture what would be the sentiments of a modern publisher on such an occasion. A compromise was subsequently entered into between Manuziano and Beroaldo, and the former permitted under certain restrictions to vend bis spurious edition.

The Copyright Act, notwithstanding its improvements, is still susceptible of further modification. "Authors," says Mr. D'Israeli *, "continue poor, and booksellers become opulent-an extraordinary result! Booksellers are not agents for authors, but proprietors of their works; so that the perpetual revenues of Literature are solely in the possession of the trade."

Literary might be as profitable as landed property to its possessor, if properly secured; but, as M. D'Israeli very pertinently observes, "successful Authors are heirs to fortunes, but, by a strange singularity, are disinherited at their very birth; for on the publication of their works they cease to be their own property.' This is ordered somewhat differently in France, where the descendants of Racine and Corneille retain a claim to compensation from the proprietors of the French Theatres, whenever the Dramas of their immortal ancestors are performed. In that country par ticular encouragement has been given to literary men. It was there decreed, in the affair of Crebillon, that literary productions should not be liable to be seized by creditors.

I think it possible for a greater indulgence to be granted to Authors in England than has ever as yet been allowed them, without infringing upon the interests of the Commonwealth. And that the Copy-right Act, even in its present reformed state, is capable of being very materially improved, is a fact, of which all who think proper to deliberate calmly upon the matter must be aware.

I shall be pleased if these imperfect hints elicit remarks from any of your numerous Correspondents, on a subject of such vital importance to Literature as that to which they are directed; and shall gladly avail myself, at some future time, of such an opportunity for entering more at large into the discussion. A--c.

*"Calamities of Authors."

Mr.

O rescue from oblivion the pe

Tebing memorials of antient

piety and magnificence, ere yet entirely effaced by the overwhelming power of Time, or the yet more levelling arm of "Modern Improve ment," is a pleasing, though melancholy task, which, while it affords a legitimate source of innocent pleasure, must at the same time impress on the mind an awful, though salutary lesson.

The Quadrangular Tower, a draw ing of which accompanies this *, was pulled down about two years ago, to make way for the erection of a School for the education of Children on the System of Dr. Bell, and was for many years used as the Common Gaol of the Borough of Tewkesbury. It is conjectured to have been originally intended as a receptacle for the bells belonging to the Abbey, of which it was undoubtedly an appendage, though its site is now at some distance from, and apparently unconnected with it. But probably being found too weak to support the powerful vibration of the Bells, to which the extensive fissures on the North side are attributed, they were transferred to the central tower of the Abbey. To each of the four corners was affixed a winged figure, which has been supposed to represent demons in the act of flying away from the "Harmony of the Steeple," to which they are said to have an aversion, though this property is not enumerated in the list of good offices performed by bells in the following distich :

"Laudo deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum,

Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro."

Or in the inscription for Bells, mentioned by Weever in his "Funeral

Monuments:"

"Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango,

Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos."

Allow me to suggest, that the building drawn and engraved by Mr. Malcolm, in vol. LXXVII. ii. p. 489, was most probably intended to re

The Tower being accurately represented in the Wood-engraving in p. 526, it is unnecessary to copy this drawing. EDIT.

present the Mythe, in the parish of Tewkesbury, within half a mile of

the Town. The drawing was taken

at least 10 years ago; as about that time it underwent some material alterations in the exterior. It is vulgarly called King John's Castle, from an unfounded idea that that Monarch once inhabited it,

Mr. URBAN,

F. I. April 26. HAVE been much gratified by a perusal of the Translation of the Saxon Chronicle, reviewed by you in p. 336. Not having the original of the Saxon Chronicle by me, I cannot refer to it; but I suspect Miss Gurney has no autho rity for what appears to me an error, pp. 31. 635. "This year, &c. at Dorchester (Oxfordshire).”

In the late edition of Hutchins, vol. IV. p. 86, Birinus, an Italian monk, did the same anno 634 in Wessex, and fixed an Episcopal See at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, and the authorities quoted are in Saxon Chron. p. 230. Godwin de Præsul. p. 202, (not 329.) Dug. Mona. Bede Hist. I. 3. c. 7. (not 1. 5. c. 19.) W. of Malmsbury, Brompt. Leland. It has always been a doubt with me whether Birinus ever went into Oxfordshire. Bede says he arrived in the nation of the Geoisseans (West sex) and finding them all Pagans, he continued there, and the two Kings, Cynegils and Oswald, gave him the City called Dorcic. E. B.

On the Extent of the Historic Relation, in discovering and marshalling the Subjects of Human Knowledge. (Continued from p. 391.)

WB E must now define a word not usually defined in philosophical inquiries-1 mean FAITH. Faith

is the of the soul. This is a diseye tinct organ, act, or faculty of the mind as much so as reasoning, imagination, or belief of human occur. rences. A mau may lose the use of this faculty, as he may his eye-sight: or he may have it diseased and illaffected, just as he may any other sense, external or internal. Is it pos sible that some persons (like HUME for example) may, in this acceptation of the word, have been born blind? HUME could no more reason upon, or conceive, what religious

feeling.