1821.] New Church at Mitcham, Surrey. mouldings, is a narrow belt or moulding, at a distance from the border with corbel heads (of which more hereafter), utterly at variance with every antient design. These are the principal defects in the architecture, which is, however, rendered still more ridiculous by some attempts at sculpture-the corbel heads I have just spoken of: the subjects they are intended to represent are inexplicable; the majority are: "All monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables, yet have feign'd a fear conceiv'd." The East window has two corbels, one the head of a Queen, with projecting eye-balls, which seem to burst their sockets with fright and terror at the hideous object on the other side, a large distorted mask, for whom or what intended I cannot even surmise. Among those appertaining to the aile windows, is a dog, an assassin, a human face with ass's ears, and a tongue of equal magnitude hanging out of its mouth; those that have any pretence to the human form are dressed in costume of no age, antient or modern; and other faces, especially at the West end, have an extraordinary proportion of mouth and teeth. But perhaps none are equal to a pair in the upper story of the vestry, which, on account of the singularity of the association, deserve to be noticed as, perhaps, the greatest absurdity ever invented for embellishments of a Church. The first of these heads is furnished with a grotesque countenance, large ears, and a conspicuous pair of horns, and is intended, no doubt, for the eter nal Enemy of Mankind, whilst the second, strange to tell, is a mitred Bishop. The first time I believe the head of the Devil has formed an embellishment of a Christian Churchwhy it is coupled with that of the Diocesan, is equally as unaccountable as the existence of the other incongruities introduced into this building. -Such a caricature might be tolerated in a Presbyterian country, and may amuse some of our Dissenters at home, but Churchmen should never suffer such ludicrous subjects to disgrace a sacred edifice. The interior, though it possesses none of the inconsistent ornaments 19 of the outside, is not a step nearer perfection; and towards the East end is broken into so many parts, that it appears as if formed of several portions irregularly patched together at distinct periods. The arches of the nave are acutely pointed, and adorned with a few torus's of the size of wands, unaccompanied by the hollow, which in antient architecture adds such a degree of boldness to the other mouldings; and their poverty and nakedness is rendered more conspicuous by the absence of sweeping cornices. The piers which support them have each twelve attached columns in four clusters, the cluster internally being carried up to the vaulting of the clerestory: as in the other parts there is a great deficiency of ornament, here more is crowded together than either the size of the piers or the style of the building required, and shews only a poor attempt at cathedral architecture, of which the diminutive columns, more resembling sticks, placed upright, with two rings on their top capitals, convey a very inadequate idea. One division of the South aile is occupied by the tower, whose plain walls assimilate with the meanness of the whole. Opposite to this clumsy intruder is a heavy obtuse arch, formed into numerous mouldings, and resting upon an enormous pier, covered with perpendicular mouldings another attempt to introduce the member of a Cathedral into a Parish Church, where its gigantic size serves only to render the slender forms of its neighbours still more observable. The chancel is in two stories, the lower having a series of acutely pointed arches, resting on columns equal in design to the nave, opening into a small Chapel on the North side: and the upper several simple lancet-formed recesses, without pillars, mouldings, or any other ornament, which appear like so many stopped-up windows. The altar is made into divisions, for commandments, &c. by pointed arches, and surmounted by a cornice of a fantastic design. The chapel, which opens to the chancel and aile by pointed arches, at first sight appears not inelegant, but upon a Dearer view, the detail of its coJumns and arches, in the style of the nave, destroys every idea of beauty, and makes the spectator wish for a 20 New Church at Mitcham, Surrey. [July, plain wall to hide such deformities. it in some other part of this popu The ceiling of the nave and chancel is a highly-pointed cove, with a sort of moulding or fillet running over the surface, very different from the groining of all antient roofs, upon which it is evidently intended for an improvement; indeed the ceiling can scarcely be said to be groined, its plaster materials being merely cut and carved into a whimsical appearance of ornament of that kind, which may deceive the inattentive observer; but a glance, from a spectator at all conversant with the buildings of antiquity, will at once detect the imposture. The intersections are loaded with bosses, or rather lumps of plaster, disposed with as little taste as any other ornaments in the Church. The ailes resemble the nave. But the porches, vestry, and chapels, like the Western avenue, have small mouldings placed on their ceilings, disposed in different forms, but which being evidently not intended for groined work, it would not be worth enquiring what carpenter's pencil gave the design, or from whence he obtained his authority. With all these defects, I think, Mr. Urban, you will not consider this assertion too bold, that in this building, professedly in the pointed style, not a pillar, moulding, pinnacle, or any member which appertains to that style, except the pointed arches, and they are not very accurately or elegantly formed, can be traced to originals in any edifice erected in this land prior to the Sixteenth Century, and what is still more lamentable, not a single beauty meets the eye of the antiquary to console him for surveying such a mass of deformities, excepting that the monuments of the old Church, valuable memorials to the topographer, seem to have been removed to the present. I saw none of antient date; such were, no doubt, usually considered unworthy of preservation. The wood-work is not yet finished; there is little doubt but it will be of a piece of the edifice, which will at least have the merit of being a uniform piece of carpenter's Gothic. But the feelings of the antiquary are the more outraged by an antient Church having been sacrificed to make way for this fantastic erection. If the parish had determined upon a new Church, there was room enough for lous village, where, by being built in a more chaste style, it might have done honour to them, instead of being a monument to be regretted by the village; though perhaps before the writer of this shall quit his Antiquarian pursuits, the parish may be really under the necessity of erecting another Church in the room of this summerhouse edifice. When that period happeus, he trusts they will make choice of a more judicious design, and not again suffer the national architecture to be disgraced by such an edifice as the present Church. Yours, &c. E. I. C. Mr. URBAN, May 4. Geneath of the Rev. SaN Mag. vol. LXII. you remuel Blackall, Rector of Loughborough; and Mr. Nichols, in his "His900, particularly notices him, as "postory of Leicestershire," vol. III. p. sessing considerable abilities, blended and adds, that "he was universally rewith remarkably placid manners ;" pected." The disorder which proved fatal to him was the gout in his head, for which he had been at the Hot Wells near Bristol. He was buried at Sidmouth, in Devonshire. I send you a copy of the inscription to his Church-yard, which I am induced to memory on a table monument in the do, as the Ledger stone has been split by the weather, and is in danger of going fast to decay. W. L. "Underneath lie the remains of SAMUEL BLACKALL, B. D. rector of Loughborough, in Leicestershire, sometime Fellow of Emanuel College, in Cambridge, second son of Theophilus Blackall, B. D. late Chancellor, grandson of Offspring Blackall, D. D. formerly Lord Bishop of this Diocese; who died at Bristol Hot Wells, May 6th, 1792, aged 54. He had a wish to be buried in this place, in which he had taken great delight when living." EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A RECENT LITERARY TRAVELLER No. I. GENEVA. is now three days since I arrived at this place. To attempt to give any thing like a regular, and detailed account of the attractions of the part of the country mid which Geneva is situated, would oblige 1821.] Journal of a Literary Traveller.---Geneva. oblige me to make a very voluminous communication of this letter; and as they have been discussed by many individuals far better qualified than I am to enter upon their history, I shall content myself with cursorily noticing such matters as appear to me particularly deserving of remark. Geneva is partly built upon a hill, at an elevation of about 100 feet above the surface of its lake, which extends from it, in the form of a crescent, and to which it seems to form an Amphitheatre. The blue and limpid waters of the Rhonefor they are here of singular transparency-divide the town, somewhat unequally, into two parts. In the 17th century Geneva was fortified under the direction of Agrippa d'Aubigné, a warrior, historian, and theologian, whose remains are entombed in the Cathedral, at the ex pense of the Government, with the exception of the Bastion of Hesse, towards the erection of which the Landgrave of Hesse presented the state of the Canton with 10,000 crowns. The Cathedral is a splendid piece of architecture; and its dome is similar to that of St. Peter's at Rome, which you have seen, and I have only read of. In the time of the earlier inhabitants of this portion of Switzerland a Temple dedicated to the Sun occupied its site. Among the illustrious men whose monuments are contained in the Cathedral, are the Duke de Rohan who was banished by Cardinal de Richlieu, and his son Tancred. The view from the belfry is most magnificent. The waveless lake, blue as the heavens which it reflects, glittering, with the arrowy light diffused over it by the rays of the golden sun,-looks from thence like a vast mirror, given by God to Nature, that she may thereby become acquainted with her own loveliness and perfection. On its sloping shores, covered with vines, and thrown, as it were, upon the eye by the black and stupendous mountains which tower from behind them, are scattered various villages and gentlemen's seats; and above all, in wild and splendid desolation, rises the time-working and eternal Montblanc ! - with its cloud-wrapt summit of everlasting A German writer has not 21 unaptly termed it the King of the Mountains; it is, indeed, the Monarch of the scene, and appears like a mighty and magestically-gigantic Enchanter to have evoked the chain of hills by which it is surrounded, that it may stand forth in solitary grandeur, and shrink them into nothingness with its superiority! There is a manufactory at Geneva for clocks and watches, which is said to furnish employment to 5000 of the poor people of both sexes; besides which, there is one for the fabrication of velvet-and that of the Professor Pictet for shawls of silk and cotton, a specimen of which I send you. As far as my judgment extends in such matters, they would seem very much to resemble those of India: the colours, unlike the flimsy Parisian manufactures, are woven in the woof, and not painted after the web is complete. The bydraulic engine invented by Monsieur Pictet, is constructed so as to feed all the fountains in the town, at the rate of 400 quarts in a minute. There appear to be some admirable mechanics at Geneva. Musical snuffboxes, birds, &c. are exported from hence to all parts of the Continent. I went to the Academy for the Encouragement of the Arts and Sciences, the first day after my arrival, and the principal Conservateur having signified a sort of delicate firstsight-attachment to an embossed London-made ring, which I happened to have on my watch chain, I proposed exchanging it with him for some piece of musical machinery. A bargain was soon struck, of which I forward you the proceeds, a bird of Paradise, that twitters most sweetly, Ah! Perdina! and the Copenhagen and Queen of Prussia's waltzes. You must turn the claws inward, alternately, when you wish to change the air, and open the bill to increase the tone. The finest collection of natural curiosities is that of Theodore de Saussure, the son of the celebrated Naturalist of that name, who accomplished the ascent of Montblanc. There are other mineral collections at the houses of Messrs. Tollot de Boissy, and Le Luc. A Dr. Jurine has also a fine museum of the various fossils of St. Gothard, and in conjunction with M. Berger, an ornithological and entomological 22. Account of Geneva.---Royal Jesters. tomological cabinet. Collections of the insects of the Alps are to be purchased at various prices, according to their extent. One of the rooms of the Academy at Geneva contains some fine sculptures, models in wax, antiques and paintings. Among the Artists to whom Geneva has given birth, Arlaud is by far the most celebrated. He is said to have destroyed, in a fit of remorse, a beautiful but improper picture of Leda, much admired by the Parisian academicians. Some fragments of it are preserved in the Library here; the head among the rest. One urm is at Paris, and one leg in London. As a work of art, it is perhaps to be regretted that it was destroyed; but for my own part, I think it would have been no very great calamity to posterity, if some other artists of note had been seized with similar compunctious visitings; -we should then have been spared the pain of seeing even the altars of the churches on the Continent profaned and polluted with the indelicate productions of their pencils. Among the illustrious men who have made this neighbourhood their place of abode, may be instanced, Spon, Rousseau, Bonnet, Le Sage, Gibbon, Voltaire, Lenebier, Pictet, Prevost, Mallet, Neckar, and Huber the blind Naturalist. Madam De Stael, the celebrated Corinna, also resided on the banks of the lake at Chateau Coppet. The surface of the Lake of Geneva is situated, according to M. Pictet, 1134 feet above the German Ocean. In length, it is said to be about 18 leagues; it is fifteen leagues from Geneva to Vevay, although the boatmen sometimes accomplish the voyage in four hours. Vevay is the last town upon its shores, with the exception of Villeneuve. The celebrated Castle of Chillon, rendered memorable by the confinement of Bonnevard, the Genevese patriot, within its dungeons for six years, rises from the Lake, about five miles beyond Vevay. Near this place the Lake is said to be 1000 feet in depth. At Geneva its breadth is not more than from three to four hundred feet; but between Rolle and Thenon, it is computed at three leagues and a quarter. Its whole expause contains about 26 square leagues. This information I gained from a [July, boatman we had engaged to go with us upon the Lake, and I have since found it to be correct. The water is of a deep blue, derived, as I conjecture, from the soil beneath; for the Reuss is of a bright green, and reflection from surrounding objects could not possibly occasion this difference of hue. The lower part of the town of Geneva is an island, caused by the river Rhine, which, as I have already observed, issues as it were through the city, with ceaseless and rapid rush from the Lake. The Rhine, about a mile from its embouchure at Geneva, receives the waters of the Arve, or rather meets them; and so strong is the current of both streams, that the concussion occasions a reflux for almost half a mile; nay, on the part of the Rhine, sometimes within a hundred yards of Geneva, a perfect phlethegon is created where the union takes place. Leman is looked upon as one of the finest pieces of water in Europe. Voltaire has celebrated it in some tolerable verses in bis "Epitre au Lac de Geneve." I have also met with a very elegant Address to it in English, in the quatrain stanza, in an Album at the Bibliotheque Publique, which I have set Clark to transcribe, and which will accompany this. (To be concluded in our next.) Mr. URBAN, PERMIT 66 July 3. me to offer the following incident, as calculated for your Progress of Anecdotal Literature,” as it relates to a period unnoticed by your Censor. Hume, in his History of the Reign of Edward II. mentions that he had seen a French manuscript, containing some disbursements of that King, and among others, the payment of a crown to a person for making his Majesty laugh. To judge by the events of this reign (he observes), such ought to have been no easy task. Whether this man held the situation of Jester to King Edward (which is not improbable), we have no means of ascertaining. The following list, extracted from your papers passim, may give at one view a series of Jesters, as far as they can be correctly ascertained: JOHN SCOGAN, flor. 1480. 1821.] Royal Jesters.--- Curious old Plates. WILLIAM SOMMERS, temp. Henry VIII. JOHN PACE, Ditto. JOHN HEYWOOD, died 1572. I observe in your account of Anecdotes, some extracts from the "Banquet of Jests," 1639; and although unwilling to swell the number, submit the following to the notice of your Readers: "No. 150.-Stratford upon Avon.-One travelling through Stratford upon Avon, a towne most remarkable for the birth of famous William Shakspeare, and walking in the church to doe his devotion, espied a thing there worthy of observation, which was a tomb-stone, laid more than three hundred yeares ago, on which was engraven an epitaph to this purpose: I, Thomas such a one, and Elizabeth my wife, here under lie buried; and know, Reader, I. R. C. and I. Christoph. 2. are alive at this houre to witnesse it." P. 120. This passage serves to confirm what reputation the memory of Shakspeare enjoyed at that time. It is generally supposed, I believe, that his works experienced unmerited neglect after his death. Future biographers may refer to this anecdote as one of the "testimonia veterum" in favour of our great dramatic Bard. Yours, &c. THER LATHBURIENSIS. Mr. URBAN, July 4. HERE has lately come into my possession two plates of earthen ware, which, from their lightness, appear to be old Delft. They are round, and 9 inches in diameter, and the concavity nearly the same with that of a common table plate, but without any flat exterior border; the colour white, with a tinge of pink. Upon the upper surface of the plate, are three concentric circles, the outermost at an inch and a half, the innermost at two inches from the rim, and all of a light blue colour. * See vol. LXXXIII. i. p. 28. 23 Between the outermost circle and the rim, there is a border, formed by two circles, which are joined by small semicircular lines, having the convex sides turned towards and cutting each other. Within the inmost circle, there is a naked human figure, with wings, of a reddish brown colour, spread, and in the attitude of flight; the legs from the knees being turned backwards, nearly in a right angle. The arms are extended, and in each hand there is a small branch or twig. The hair of the head is bushy, of a bright yellow colour. Neither the face, of which both eyes are visible, nor the body, which is much en bon point, The discover any marks of the sex. length of the figure, measuring from the beel round the knee, is about 5 inches. The body and face are white, shaded with blue, and round the out. line of the figure there is a broad line of a darker blue colour. If, through the channel of your useful Magazine, any explanation can be procured respecting these plates, you will greatly oblige Mr. URBAN, A CONSTANT READER. July 5. HAVING observed ant sunte us account of the present state of the Island of Tristan de Acunha, in a Periodical Publication for April, I am induced, for the sake of commercial and geographical information, to communicate to you the actual State of that Islaud, which may be considered as a supplement to the description which I transmitted to your Magazine a few years since*. I have reason to think that this Island is at present uninhabited. A singular fatality attended the two American adventurers who took possession of it about eleven years since. The principal person, Captain Jonathan Lambert, was drowned whilst fishing off the Island, and his companion, Captaint Benjamin Franklin + This gentleman was godson to the celebrated Printer and Legislator the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and originally commanded a ship in the Levant trade, which was wrecked near Mogadore on the Barbary coast, when he and his crew were made prisoners by the Moors, and reduced to a state of slavery, in which condition he remained nearly four years; and at length was ransomed by the American Consul for 4000 piasters. By this misfortune he was reduced to a state of indigence, having lost all his property, and in hopes of bettering his fortune, in conjunction with Lambert, he took possession of Tristan de Acunha. During his residence at Rio de Janeiro, he pur chased |