carved into ivory. The Chinese garden is followed by a clear sketch of the great wall, which, commencing with the large stone bulwark to the east of Pekin, terminates near the little city of Chwangtan. The foundation of the wall, according to Sir George Staunton, is composed of large stones, which project two feet beyond the superstructure, which is of tempered earth or clay, cased with brickwork. This fortification of a great nation, extending fifteen hundred miles, may well be called one of the wonders of the world. Yet the remark of Gibbon, that it has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people, carries with it a philosophical moral. Some of our readers may have forgotten the enthusiasm which this famous wall once awakened in the mind of Johnson, even in the tranquil period of his sixty-ninth year. He expressed to Boswell a fervent desire to visit the wall of China; and his companion, catching some of the fire, exclaimed that the necessary care of his children alone prevented him from setting out on the journey. Johnson fanned the flame. "Sir, by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected on them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China. I am serious, sir." The assurance of the doctor's gravity was certainly required.

The fantastic richness of a Burmese temple is happily transferred to paper by the graver of Brooke, who has also succeeded in delineating the grander architecture of Egypt. His Egyptian hall, with its mysterious hieroglyphic tracery, is very vivid and truth-like. And here we may notice a remark of the poet Gray, in a letter to his friend Dr. Wharton, that the Egyptian style was apparently the mother of the Greek. "There is (says Gray) such a similitude between the Egyptian ruins and those of Persepolis, that Diodorus affirmed the old buildings of Persia to have been reared by Egyptian artists." Nor must we withhold the same praise from Mr. Le Keux, who has engraved the specimens of Greek temples, and more particularly our glorious cathedrals, with exquisite grace and precision. The Greek Museum, a miscellaneous collection of architectural features, is a triumph of art; every line is clear and harmonious. In passing from the architecture of the Greeks to that of the Romans, we seem to perceive, at the same time, the difference of their genius and of their disposition. In the first, all is elegance, refinement, and ease; in the second, all is energy, massiveness, and strength. The mouldings of their columns alone might exemplify the remark—

"Here pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies;

And here the proud triumphal arches rise."

The following criticism of Mr. Wightwick appears to be just, and well expressed: "The ingenious restoration of the Roman Forum, by Cockerell, will inform you, at a glance, that the imperial city was not less rich in prostyle and peripteral temples, on the Greek plan, than Athens itself. The main distinction between the two cases was this-the Greeks more especially affected the grave majesty of the Doric portico; the Romans, the florid splendour of the Corinthian; and, it must be acknowledged, in this Order, and this Order only, did they excel. The capitals and entablature of Jupiter Stator, and several other examples, might be particularized, among very many that are worthy of adoption. The Roman versions, however, of the Doric and Ionic, are sad specimens of degenerated feeling. The masculine character of the one, and the refined grace of the other, as they are seen in the Parthenon and Erectheion on the Athenian Acropolis, are totally wanting in the few remaining examples of Rome; and as to the Composite and Tuscan Orders, which have been pedantically added to the original three, all that need be said of them is a word in ridicule of any such distinction. The Composite is, in fact, the Corinthian capital, with its angular volutes enlarged and its smaller ones omitted; and the Tuscan is merely a simplification of the Roman Doric, adapted for occasional use in cottage or village architecture, but not worthy of taking standard rank with the three Orders.

"Rome, then, may be said to have successfully emulated Greece in her Corinthian temples, and to have exhibited her chief triumph in the arch and the cupola. In the immense ruins of her palaces, baths, triumphal arches, and monumental columns, we read the evidences of private luxury and public ostentation; while an analysis of her buildings in detail will afford equal proof, that she rather employed the arts as servants than honoured them as queens. Contemplate the Parthenon at a distance, and you are arrested by its simple grandeur; approach nearer, and you are fascinated with the individual grace of its leading parts; look closely into it, and you find every moulding, however minute, and every enrichment, however secondary, expressing— we may almost say breathing-a sentiment of beauty. Contemplate the Pantheon, as a whole; you are struck by the depth and columnar richness of its noble portico, and astounded by the expanse of its lofty vault. Look more critically at its component features, and at the manner in which they are combined; you find several of them faulty in themselves, and carelessly

connected. Examine minutely the decorative details, and you discover them to be well executed, but inferior imitations of Greek originals. The exquisite contours of the Greek mouldings, and the studied elegance of their enrichments, have been alluded to as expressive of careful thought and delicate sentiment. The contours and decoration of the Roman mouldings, on the contrary, express little save the compasses and chisel of the mason, and a regard for general effect upon the part of the architect. In many instances the result is admirable; and in one instance the example of Jupiter Stator-pre-eminently so. Still we must, in conclusion, assert, that the buildings of Rome manifest rather the ostentation of display than the love of art; and that, however we may emulate the pictorial splendour of the city of Augustus, we must still worship the spirit of the beautiful in the temples of Pericles."

The

However delightful to our own feelings to follow Mr. Wightwick into his illustrations of Christian architecture, it is necessary for us to abstain. We have hitherto been considering the progress of architecture under the influence of Paganism, and we may well turn with an eager eye to contemplate it in the rays of a purer and a brighter sunshine. "The new religion (it is justly observed by Mr. Wightwick) had not only to make, but to unmake; not only to contrive, but to reconstruct." dazzling blazonry of the courts of Jupiter, or of Diana, still beamed before the converted heathen. We discover the struggling remembrance of profane art in the composition of the Constantinal arch. Long years of peril, of sorrow, and of darkness, were to roll by, before the genius of Gothic architecture was to arise from his slumber; before York was to be sanctified, to the most heedless eye, by its magnificent minster; or Cambridge decorated by its most beautiful of chapels; or the dreary waste of fens round Ely to be illuminated by the magnificent pile of its cathedral. It is good for us, whenever we walk in these holy aisles,

'While the dim windows cast a solemn light,'

to remember those illustrious and devoted servants of truth, into 'Whose labours we have entered.""

We regret that we cannot linger upon the cathedrals, or the exquisite illustrations which embellish that portion of "The Palace of Architecture." We will only write down an observation of Horace Walpole, which occurs to us at the moment, and seems worthy of remembrance: "One must have taste to be sensible of the beauties of Grecian architecture; one only wants passions

to feel Gothic. In St. Peter's, one is convinced that it was built by great princes. In Westminster Abbey one thinks not of the builder." The distinction, briefly stated as it is, is worth a volume of essays. We will add one remark of Wightwick, which appears to deserve attention. Alluding to his sketch of a Norman-Gothic church, he says, "The genius of Greek architecture was purely horizontal. Pagan Rome preserved the same feeling; and though Constantine banished the entablature from the columns, he still preserved the conterminous horizontal cornice of the heathen temples. In the Gothic specimen, however, you see the horizontal giving way to the vertical. An aspiring feeling for altitude is evidently beginning to displace the habit of expanse. The mathematics of art are being supplanted by the poetry of nature and the sentiment, revealed amidst the stillness of the oak grove, supersedes the rules of the academy."

And here we terminate our hasty and rapid observations upon “The Palace of Architecture." It is, we think, in the light of an illustrated volume that its principal value is to be sought. It contains two hundred and eleven illustrations; some exquisitely full and suggestive; others slight and explanatory; all elegant and well executed. Perhaps they might be detached from the text and sold in a portfolio. We make the suggestion from no feeling of disrespect to Mr. Wightwick, who writes with enthusiasm and taste. But the succulence of his style overgrows and obscures the knowledge which he desires to impart. Nor can we approve of the frequent extravagance of his manner, or of the conversational tone of many of his remarks. The volume is splendidly decorated and beautifully printed; and we regret to be obliged to modify, in any degree, the expression of our admiration. The reader, who turns to it with a desire of information, will not often be disappointed; the extracts we have given will show that Mr. Wightwick is familiarly acquainted with his art, and that when he fails, it is not from ignorance, but from vivacity. We should have preferred to receive more of instruction, and less of romance. With this slight restriction, we recommend "The Palace of Architecture" very sincerely to our readers.

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ART. VII.-History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ, President of the Theological School of Geneva, and Member of the "Société Evangélique." 2 vols. Second edition. London, 1840.

2. Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland, and of the influence which the Scriptural Doctrines have exercised on that Country, in literary, moral, and political respects. By COUNT VALERIAN KRASINSKY. 2 vols. London.

3. A History of the Reformation on the Continent. By GEORGE WADDINGTON, D. D., Dean of Durham, and Author of a History of the Church. In 3 vols. London, 1841.

WE are somewhat tardy in our review of the second of the above works, because, in simple truth, its title awakened so much reflection on a great change which is taking place on the continent of Europe. Our mind has become more and more impressed with the connection that subsists between the subject here treated of, and what is going on at the present time; nor have we been able to disjoin the idea of Reformation on the continent from the future destinies of Europe, as we are called upon to weigh them in relation with what is doing deliberately and safely in Germany-energetically and more rapidly in Spain, at the present moment. It will be difficult for the attentive observer, who patiently waits for the visible manifestation of the workings of God's providence, and who has been led to look at His work in the world as a whole; who is disposed to embrace in one glance the ages past, together with the present elements, and to apply the teaching of past events to future probable results; it is difficult, we say, not to feel persuaded that the question of an Apostolic and truly CATHOLIC EPISCOPACY, in opposition to the Romish corruptions, will ere very long become THE GREAT QUESTION IN EUROPE.

The political framework of society seems now to be settled; we mean, that the institutions which, through so much blood and intestine warfare, have established themselves with more or less of similarity throughout the greatest portion of south-western Europe, might seem, so to speak, to call for a period of breathing time, on the part of the populations, in order to get elaborated and adapted to their respective wants and characters, to their relative positions and exigences. So that no very new modification of the members of the great European family