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other; and this is the ground of the effect which we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults with which many of them are justly charged. For this purpose Vanbrugh appears to have had recourse to some principles of the Gothic architecture; which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, is more so to our imagination, with which the artist is more concerned than with absolute truth."

Gilpin's remarks on the architecture of Blenheim-house are worth quoting. "The heaviness and enormity of Blenheim castle," says he, "have been greatly criticised; perhaps too severely. We may be too much bigotted to Greek and Roman architecture. It was adapted often to local convenience. Under an Italian sun, for instance, it was of great importance to exclude warmth, and give a current to air. The portico was well adapted to this purpose. A slavish imitation also of antique ornaments may be carried into absurdity. When we see the skulls of oxen adorning a heathen temple, we acknowledge their propriety. But it is rather unnatural to introduce them in a Christian church, where sacrifice would be an offence. We are fettered also too much by orders and proportions. The ancients themselves paid no such close attention to them. Our modern code was collected by average calculations from their works; by Sansovine particularly, and Palladio. But if these modern legislators of the art had been obliged to produce precedents, they could not have found any two buildings among the remains of ancient Rome, which were exactly of the same proportions. I would not, by any means, wish to shake off the wholesome restraint of those laws of art which have been made rules, because they were first reasons. All I mean is, to apologise for Vanbrugh. For though it may be difficult to please in any other form of architecture than what we see in daily use; yet in an art which has not nature for its model, the mind recoils with disdain at the idea of an exclusive system. The Greeks did not imagine, that when they had invented a good thing, the faculty was exhausted, and incapable of producing another. Where should we have admired, at this day, the beauty of the Ionic order, if, after the Doric had been invented, it had been considered as the ne plus ultra of art; and every deviation from its proportions reprobated as barbarous innovations? Vanbrugh's attempt, therefore, seems to have been an effort of genius: and if we can keep the imagination apart from the five orders, we must allow that he has created a magnificent whole; which is invested with an air of grandeur seldom seen in a more regular style of building. Its very defects, except a few that are too glaring to be overlooked, give it an appearance of something beyond common; and as it is surrounded with great objects, the eye is struck with the whole, and takes the parts upon trust. What made Vanbrugh ridiculous, was his applying to small houses a style of architecture which could not possibly succeed but in a large one. In a small house, where the grandeur of a whole cannot be attempted, the eye is at leisure to contemplate parts, and meets with frequent occasion of disgust."

Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland.'

William Croft.

DIED A. D. 1727.

THE limits of our work necessarily preclude us from noticing many names of considerable eminence in science and literature, especially in the department of music. We could with pleasure have enlarged our brief notices of such men as Purcell, Aldrich, and Blow; and devoted separate articles to other names, such as the elder Hall, organist of Hereford, who died in 1707, whose anthems are still much esteemed; Jeremiah Clark, an excellent church composer; and John Weldon, who confined himself almost entirely to the composition of church music To these names might be added those of the Eccleses, Dr Tudway, Britton the small-coal man, Weldon, Isham, and many others.

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The subject of the present memoir was a native of Nether Eatington in Warwickshire. He was educated in the royal chapel under Dr Blow, and in 1707 became organist of the chapel royal. The next year he succeeded his master as organist of St Peter's, Westminster. In 1715 he was created doctor in music by the university of Oxford. His exercise for the degree was published, under the title of Musicus Apparatus Academicus.' In 1724, Dr Croft published his 'Musica Sacra, or Select Anthems in score.' This noble work consists of two volumes, the first containing the burial service, which Purcell had begun but did not live to finish. In the preface, Croft says of this work, that it is the first essay in music-printing of the kind, that is, in score, and engraven or stamped on plates, and that, for want of some such contrivance, all the music hitherto published in England had proved very incorrect and defective.' The Musica Sacra' contains a number of thanksgiving anthems, composed by Croft on the occasion of different victories obtained by the English arms during the reign of Queen Anne. One of the finest of these is that of 1708, 'Sing unto the Lord.' Among his other anthems, the most admired are, O Lord, rebuke me not,' 'God is gone up,' and 'O Lord, thou hast searched me out.'

The practice of music-printing from copper plates seems to have been begun in Italy about the middle of the 17th century.

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Sir Isaac Newton.

BORN A. D. 1642.-DIED A. D. 1727.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON, the father of the physical philosophy of modern times, and the greatest mathematical genius that ever lived, was the son of Isaac Newton, lord of the manor of Woolsthorpe, in the parish of Colsterworth in Lincolnshire, and of his wife, Hannah Ayscough. He was born on the 25th of December, 1642, (O. S.) at the manorhouse of Woolsthorpe, which lies embosomed among hills, a short distance to the west of the great northern road from London, and about six miles south from the town of Grantham. In the Gentleman's Magazine' for 1778, vol. xlviii. p. 64, is given an engraving, professing to represent the house in which Newton first saw the light: and in the same publication for 1781, vol. li. p. 414, we are presented with a plan of the interior of the same edifice, in which one of the rooms, occupying one-half of the upper story, to the left of the door, is marked as that in which this event actually took place. But as we shall have occasion to notice again below-the house from which these drawings have been taken, and which is still standing, was not built till some

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years after Newton's birth. He was an only and a posthumous child, his father having died at the age of 36, about three months before he came into the world. A writer of the name of Thomas Maude, author of a poem entitled Wensley Dale, or Rural Contemplations,' published in 1772, who professes to give the world some original anecdotes respecting the infancy and boyhood of Newton, tells us that his father was a weak and extravagant man;" but we cannot put much confidence in this information, inasmuch as the relater seems to know so little of the true history of the person whose character he thus describes, as to charge him with neglecting the education of his son, who, as we have just seen, was not born till nearly a quarter of a year after his decease. The estate which Newton inherited from his father was worth about £30 per annum, as we are informed by a letter from Dr Stukeley to Dr Mead, dated 26th June, 1727, a part of which was published in the Gentleman's Magazine' for 1772, vol. xlii. p. 520, and which has since been printed in a complete form in Mr Turnor's splendid volume, entitled Collections for the History of the Town and Soke of Grantham.' As this work, which was published in 1806, is extremely scarce, we may here mention that the portion of its contents relating to Newton is to be found reprinted nearly entire in the fourth volume of the late Mr Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth century.' Newton-Stukeley in this letter also informs us -inherited, besides his paternal acres, another property at Sustem, in the same neighbourhood, of larger extent, and worth about £50 per annum. This came to him from his mother's family. As for the Newtons, Stukeley's account is "that they had held the manor of Woolsthorpe ever since the time of Elizabeth, having purchased it from one of the Cecils." Mr Conduitt, who supplied Fontenelle with the materials from which the latter composed his Eloge on the English philosopher, asserts that Newton's father was descended from the eldest branch

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