1825.] REVIEW.-Sir R. C. Hoare's Monastic Remains. ready to contribute to his literary friends valuable documents from his own rich stores, as well as from those public depositories committed to his care. What seems to have induced Sir R. C. Hoare to have turned his attention to these Religious Establishments, was their contiguity to his beautiful domain at Stourhead, and the circumstance of the two latter be ing situated on his own estate. King Henry II. built a Religious House at Witham, and settled in it a Priory of Carthusian Monks. The mention of this austere monastic Order induces our Author to digress into the history of the Grande Chartreuse, and to quote the following Latin Ode of the poet Gray, recorded in the Album of that Monastery: "O tu severi Religio loci, "Twice (says Sir Richard Hoare), like our poet Gray, have I visited this truly pic turesque and sequestered retreat, and with sentiments and feelings similar to his own, but with a descriptive language far inferior; a pleasing memento, however, remains, in the many delineations I made from nature on this interesting spot." This will readily be acknowledged by those who have been favoured with a sight of the very numerous spirited drawings, executed by the worthy Baronet whilst on his continental tours. At the Dissolution the possessions of the Convent of Witham fell to the share of the Hopton family; and afterwards by marriage to the Wyndhams, Earls of Egremont. In 1763 the Earl of Egremont sold the Estate to Alderman Beckford, whose son took down the handsome house begun by Sir Wm. Wyndham (a view of which is given in this 533 work), and sold the estates to Dr. Trenchard and Mr. Webb of Salisbury; who resold it to the Duke of Somerset, the present possessor. Sir. Richard Hoare gives a long account of the Hopton and Wyndham families, accompanied by a pedigree of the Hop tons. The parish Church, with some trifling remains of the Monastery, are well engraved by G. Hollis, from a drawing by Mr. P. Crocker. At Bruton was an Abbey of Augustin Canons, founded by Algarus Earl of Cornwall, and after the Conquest endowed by Wm. de Mohun. At the Dissolution the Abbey was granted to Maurice de Berkeley, in whose family it continued till 1777, when it was purchased by H. Hoare, of Stourhead, esq. and Rich. Hoare, of Baron Elms, esq. and settled on its present possessor, Sir R. C. Hoare, bart. Bruton boasts a beautiful Church, well represented in an engraving by Hollis, after a drawing by J. Buckler, F. S. A. Under the head of Bruton Church are given many particulars of the Berkeley Family, Lords of Bruton, with a pedígree. Of the ancient Abbey not a single stone remains above ground; but there are several arms, devices, &c. dispersed about the town. The Hospital or Alms-house at Bruton was erected by the trustees of the will of Hugh Saxey, esq. a native of Bruton, who was Auditor of Public Accounts, temp. James I. The Hospital was originally endowed for the relief of a master, 7 men and 5 women; but the number is now increased to 10 men, 11 women, and 12 boys, and the charity appears to be well administered. The little Priory of Stavordale was endowed by Rd. Lovel, temp. Henry III. for Black Canons. It is situated in a retired dell adjoining New Park, and is interesting to the Antiquary, as exhibiting much of its ancient appearance. The remaining parts are the entire walls of the Church (now a farm-house), which by the different heights of the roof, shew some alterations subsequent to its original erection. External and internal views are given of this interesting building. The site of the Priory was purchased in 1785 by Richard Hoare, esq. and is now possessed by Sir R. C. Hoare, bart. Through the kindness of Mr. Caley, Sir R. C. Hoare has been so fortunate as to preserve well-executed engravings of 534 REVIEW.-Session of Parliament, 1925. of two Seals of Witham Priory, two Seals of the Prior of Bruton, one of Taunton Priory, and one of Stavordale Priory. 96. The Session of Parliament for 1825, exhibiting the state of Parties and Interests, the Debates and Enactments, and the whole Proceedings of both Houses of the British Legislature during that Period. 8vo. pp. 492. A WORK of this kind, if executed impartially, cannot fail of being useful and interesting; and, on the whole, we do not complain of the author, except in an Appendix, containing a list of the Members of Parliament, accompanied with comments, which, in our opinion, are ungentlemanly. One Member is styled feeble, another, a dull orator, another, pious, and so forth. Let the people judge for themselves by the speeches in the newspapers. Of the powers of the author, we have a specimen in the first chapter, where the subject is the influence of parties. Our author says (p. 3), "None but a Briton, and one who has lived long and studied them carefully, can at all understand them." Now we beg to observe, that there are national characteristics in thinking as well as in habits. The same things are viewed in a different light by Scotchmen, Irishmen, Welchmen, and Englishmen; and we have heard it said of a popular orator in the House, "that he is completely Scotch, that he has not a drop of English blood in his veins." The writer of the present work is evidently of a nation which puts would for could, &c. and in his essay makes a few mistakes. He makes the monied interest of very powerful influence in the two Houses. We affirm that there are not thirty Members in the Lower House, whose revenues arise from the funds or business. The returns under the Property Tax show the small weight of that and the commercial interest in the State; and our author is equally wrong with regard to appetency of places. Constituents expect their several Members to make some provisions for their families; and the latter, in order to retain their seats, are obliged to be im-portunate with the donors. Offices or pensions for themselves are not expected or desired by three-fourths at least of even the Ministerial Members; nor do men get into the House whose [Dec. fortunes are not already made, or in the way of being so, whether they sat in Parliament or not. But these are trifling deviations from fact. We turn, therefore, to a very curious paragraph, in which the author states, that the lawyers are in England what the Roman Catholic Priests are in Ireland. "Where the Roman Catholic Religion is in full and complete operation, and the priests, by influence of the strong terror of everlasting damnation, possess themselves of all men's secrets, it would be doing great. injustice to the extent of their influence to say, that a hundred or a thousand father confessors possessed no more power, no more capability of governing the world, or influencing its government, than a hundred or thousand confessing sons or daughters. Now, what the father-confessors are among people completely under the domination of the Catholic Church, legal meu of one description or another are in a country so completely under the domination of law as Britain; and where the law is absolutely necessary, not only to warn men against doing wrong, and to punish them when they do it; but even to show that men are safe in the doing of that which is perfectly legal,-when, in short, every engagement that is entered into, every bargain that is made, and the state of every man's affairs, whether prosperous or adverse, as well as the faults and follies of which men can be guilty, are known and intimately known to the lawyers, they become in effect (and a very powerful effect it is), the father confessors of men in every thing that relates to their connexions, their fortunes, their stability, and their prosperity in society." pp. 34, 35. A large portion of this work is devoted to the state of Ireland, and the Catholic Question. We make no doubt of the following fact, that want of employment is the leading cause of the miserable state of Ireland: "In one particular, the whole evidence and all the private inquiry that has been made in supplement to the evidence, tended to establish this fact, that the population of Ireland were not in misery, because they were disorderly; they were disorderly because they were in misery; and wherever permanent or temporary employment was afforded them, and they were allowed in any way to apply the reward of that labour to the increasing of their own comforts, they were very industrious and very honest." P. 48.. To this affirmation the Government engineers, charged with the expenditure of the Parliamentary grants, and the administrators of the Insurrection Act, bear ample testimony. Mr. 1 1825.] REVIEW.-Session of Parliament, 1825. "There is no certainty for an Irish peasant that he has an existence for another year, nor even for another day, but by getting possession of a portion of land, on which he can plant potatoes; and, therefore, the competition for land has attained an appearance something like the competition for provisions in a besieged town, or in a ship that is out at sea; and as there is no check to the demand which may be made by those who may possess the land, the land appears to have risen to prices far beyond what it is possible for the poor peasants to extract from it." P. 54. Now, whatever may be the objections, perhaps just, to the Poor Laws of England, we are satisfied that these laws grow out of a political necessity, and that such objections are only applicable to modes, not to principles. The Poor Laws act in check of sedition and rebellion; and operate to the benefit of the poor by preventing the rich from oppressing them, because the consequences of such oppression fall upon themselves. No English gentleman will permit an able-bodied pauper to be idle; and such persons knowing that they must work, exert their utmost efforts to do so for themselves instead of the parish, and in this way the Poor Rates themselves operate in check of pauperism. 535 Mr. Nimmo, the civil engineer, lute number, had decreased since the establishment of the Poor Laws, he goes on to states this: state, The poor of Ireland are in general left to obtain their subsistence by mendicity; and, according to the best information I have been able to procure on that head in various parts of the kingdom, the expenditure of every family on the begging poor, cannot be averaged at less than a penny per day, or half a stone of potatoes, which, for one million of families, would be per annum, at least, 1,500,000l. Admit that we include in this sum the result of public charities, hospitals, &c. but add to this the grand-jury presentments, which are for purposes mostly avoided by the Poor Rates of England, 750,000l. Independent of an indefinite sum levied in Great Britain every season, by emigrant poor from Ireland, we have raised in the country and on residents alone 2,250,000l. This is more than half the public revenue, double the tithes, a fourth of the land-rent, and at least a twentieth part of the entire consumption. The poor of England are supported by a rate upon property, which, when at the highest nominal amount, viz. 7,500,000l. was only one-eighth of the public revenue, oneseventh of the rent assessed to it, about one and a half times the tithe, and only onefourth of the income or consumption. I conclude, therefore, that in the present mode of management, the support of the poor in Ireland, in proportion to other burdens, or to the general income, is double the rate in England; but with this vast additional advantage in the English system, that the rate being under a regular administration, however defective, the attention of the landholder has been enforced to the necessity of training the youth to habits of industry and order, the giving employment to the adult poor, and the cherishing that accumulation of property among the lower ranks, which has in two centuries made England the most wealthy and comfortable country in the world, with an industrious and peaceful population. These measures having been neglected in Ireland, have left her steeped in poverty, with an excessive population unemployed, and consequently unprofitable, destitute of property, and living on the very brink of want. If by any regulation for the employment of the population of Ireland, the labour of each individual could be only made worth a penny per day, the amount annually would be double the revenue, and equal to the land rent. Were the minds of the people relieved by having a legal right to provision in time of distress, it would operate as a check to the subdivision of farms, and the exaetions of land-jobbers; the creation and investment of property, the fruit of industry, would go on progressively as in Britain; and if Ireland could be brought to the same state of industry and security as Scotland is now, the increased Now a relief for the poor upon the principle (we do not say the modes) of our Poor Rates, is the real desideratum with regard to Ireland, for that will put things, by its inevitable operation, in their proper places. Upon this point we have pertinaciously insisted, and are glad to find it supported by Mr. Nimmo's evidence, introduced by our author in the following manner. "The following extract from the evidence of the same witness contains a curious exposition of the system of Poor Laws, or rather want of Poor Laws, in Ireland. It is well worthy the attention of those who take an interest in that country. After stating that the expenditure for supporting the poor in Ireland, in idleness, at present is greater than with sufficient management it would cost to support them in industry; and also, that from Parliamentary documents and private inquiries which Mr. Nimmo had made upon the subject, he had come to the conclusion, that notwithstanding the complaints that are generally made against the English Poor Laws, not merely the relative number of poor in England, as compared with the number of the other classes, but their abso value 536 REVIEW.-Hansard's Typographia. Whoever reads the "State of Ireland" in this useful volume, will behold a horrible picture of harrowing misery. We do not treat the subject with levity, when we say that no mouse, rat, or other vermin in England, endures the wretchedness which human beings suffer in Ireland. Pigs can find masters, and cattle can find owners, because if they do eat, they can be eaten in repayment; but the labour of a poor man has a value, in our opinion, a thousand times more remunerative, and we doubt whether a cannibal who made a calculation between the return of profit made by his work, and that of fatting and eating him, would not see the great odds of advantage in the former. The spur of either employing the poor, or being obliged to support them, would soon set all to rights. In p. 317 we are sorry to see West India for East India Bill, and in p. 440, two years for twelve years. Verbal inaccuracies should be carefully avoided in works like this. 97. Typographia: an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of The Art of Printing; with practical Directions for conducting every Department in an Office: with a Description of Stereotype and Lithography. illustrated by Engravings, Biographical Notices, and Portraits. By Thomas Curson Hansard. Baldwin and Co. Royal 8vo. pp. 963. WE are here presented with a goodlysized tome by a thoroughly practical Printer, born and bred in the Printer's Chapel. It is formed on the basis of the previous works on the Typographic art by Moxon, Smith, and Luckombe, and more particularly on that of Stower, (an excellent work by the bye, which issued from the same premises in Paternoster-row, about twenty years ago), and has the undoubted merit of containing more information than any of [Dec. its predecessors; indeed, it embraces every thing that could be expected in such a work, up to the time of its publication. We do not mention Mr. Johnson's "Typographia," as the present work, we believe, was in considerable forwardness before Mr. Johnson's was published; and as we do not perceive that Mr. Hansard notices Mr. Johnson's in his preface, we presume he has not availed himself of its contents; for Mr. H. appears to act most honourably in acknowledging his literary obligations. The first article that attracts our attention is a biographical notice of that great patron of the press, the scientific Earl Stanhope, which we shall lay before our readers. "Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope, was born in 1753. His grandfather, and his father, were both of them warmly attached to the Whig party, and on all occasions constantly supported the liberal side of all public questions. The subject of this memoir was sent very young to Eton College, from which he was removed at the age of ten, for the purpose of accompanying his father's family to Geneva, in which place left to assume the title of Viscount Mahon, and in this state he passed ten years in that city, where his education was chiefly conducted under the inspection of M. Le Sage, well known as the author of a Theory of Gravity, and of various tracts connected with mineralogy, chemistry, and other departments of natural philosophy. During the young nobleman's residence in Switzerland, he made a considerable progress in scientific pursuit; and while still resident in Geneva, he obtained a prize from the Society of Arts and Sciences at Stockholm, for the best Essay on the Structures of the Pendulum. the elder son soon died. Charles was now "Although Lord Stanhope was chiefly known by his contemporaries as a politician, it is rather as a philosopher that he has made himself generally known to the world. Of his works, which relate to a strictly scientific object, his treatise on electricity seems to stand first, in which he endeavours to establish some new principles respecting the electric fluid. In this piece he attempts to prove the existence, and to explain the effect, of what he calls the returning stroke, namely, an action induced at a considerable distance from the principal discharge, depending upon the tendency of the fluid to equalize itself in all bodies. Since the publication of this hypothesis, some accidents from lightning have occurred, which seem the best accounted for by it, and which indeed cannot be easily explained upon any other principle. In this treatise, the great object 1825:] REVIEW. Hansard's Typographia. object of practical utility is not neglected: complish by practising the simple and well- "Another object which engrossed a considerable share of Lord Stanhope's attention was, the employment of steam for the propulsion of vessels. For a period of 20 years he continued his experiments, and is said to have spent large sums of money in prosecuting them. In the mean time Mr. Fulton had the same object in view; and although it is known that they both, at one period, frequently conversed on the topic of steam vessels, it is probable that no documents exist which can decide on the share which each of them had in this curious invention. "His Lordship also published a pamphlet on the means of preventing frauds on the gold coin; and afterwards, on bank notes; in both cases proceeding upon the obvious principle of employing very skilful workmen, whose performances would not be imitated by those who engage in attempts at forgery. He is farther well known for having suggested some important improvement in the construction of the Printing-press, by which a single stroke upon the centre of the machine is rendered equal to one of double the force at each end. "Lord Stanhope would never suffer any of his improvements in printing to become objects of patent or monoply. So extremely anxious was he upon this subject, that whenever he had any thing new in hand, which he found likely to succeed, his first step was, to take the precaution of entering a notice or caveat at the Patent Office, to prevent any one else taking advantage of his ideas, and obtaining a patent. These caveats he regularly renewed at the end of the limited period. "Lord Stanhope died in 1816, in his 64th year, exhibiting in the last scene of his life an uncommon degree of philosophical resignation." GENT. MAG, December, 1825. 537 Mr. Hansard has very discreetly discarded the pretended likenesses of some of our early English printers (usually to be found in works on Typography), such as Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, &c. and has directed his attention to the Typographers and Type. founders of later times, presenting us with portraits of the celebrated Baskerville (whose likeness appears for the first time in the present work), the two Bowyers, Nichols, the two Caslons, Dr. Wilson, Letter-founder of Glasgow, and Mr. Bulmer, late of the Shakspeare press. This last portrait we consider a failure, which we regret the more, as we think the one in Mr. Dibdin's work equally unsatisfactory. We hope this respected Typographer will present his numerous friends with a better likeness of himself. Another portrait we have to notice is that of Mr. Millar Ritchie, one of the first who carried on fine printing in London, but who practised the art without enriching himself, and is now an assistant to the author of this work. But the best likeness in the volume is decidedly that of the Author, drawn by A. Todd, R. A. and well engraved on wood by J. Lee, who has executed all the portraits, in a style hitherto unattempted. They are drawn on the block by Mr. W. Craig, engraved in a free cross-hatched manner by Mr. Lee, and, we may justly add, are printed by Mr. Hansard, in a way highly creditable to the respective artists. If we think some of the likenesses not so happy as they would probably have proved if engraved on copper, we think that the failure is inseparable from wood-engravings, when that style is applied to unsuitable subjects. The First Part of the work consists of the " History of the Art;" culled with care from the labours of Ames, Herbert Palmer, Nichols, and Horne; but above all, of DIBDIN, that "Colossus in Bibliography, who bestrides the Typrographic world with well-merited and conscious superiority." But as we have so lately gone over the same ground in our review of Mr. Johnson's labours (see vol. xciv. 341), we shall content ourselves with noticing the Chinese mode of printing, which was discovered about 50 years before the Christian æra; that is, from wooden blocks, the common origin of printing in all countries: In |