The next Effay is on the correction of fluents found by defcending feries. Though the finding of fluents by defcending feries has been offen mentioned by the writers on fluxions, yet it appears not to have been brought into practice, in the folution of problems, even in the treatises of Emerfon and Simpfon. This neglect of the defcending feries is the more remarkable as their convergency, by the powers of the flowing quantity, always begins when the convergency of the ascending feries, by the powers of the fame quantity, ceafes. In this Eflay the author evinces that fluents taken in defcending feries commonly want a correction; which being applied, thofe feries become no lefs useful than afcending ones.

The fixth Effay treats of the transformation of certain feries to others of fwifter convergency. It appears that the series obtained by this method of transformation always come out by pairs, of fuch peculiar relation to each other, that the terms of one being computed, those of the other may be eafily derived from them; the advantage of which, in numerical calculations, is very obvious. We likewife find that the method of transformation explained by Mr. Hellins, is applicable to all feries of which the terms are any geometrical progreffion whatever, divided by any geometrical progreffion.

The feventh and laft Effay treats of the force of ofcillating bodies on their centres of fufpenfion. This fubject was firft offered to the author's confideration while he was in the Royal Obfervatory at Greenwich, when fome new clocks were fet up there, to be used in the aftronomical obfervations. It had been found by experiment, that clocks kept time better when they were in ftrong cafes firmly fixed against a wall, than when in common cafes flightly fixed to the wainscot of a room, or only refting on a floor. And as it was part of his business to keep an account of the going of these new clocks, the pendulums of which were much heavier than common, he was induced to inquire with what force the pendulums acted on their centres of fufpenfion, in a horizontal direction. It appears, from the last two problems in this Effay, that the force of bells, when rung in peal, muft be great on their axes of motion, and confequently on the frames and walls that refift it. This subject, therefore, we think with Mr. Hellins, deserves more attention than has been hitherto paid to it,

We learn, from an advertisement, that the author has by him materials for another volume; among which are new theorems for extracting the fquare and cube roots; an eafy method of finding products and quotients to eleven or twelve places of figures, by means of a common table of logarithms to feven places only; and fome farther improvements in algebra and fluxions. As Mr. Hellins's inquiries evidently tend to enlarge the knowledge of mathematies

mathematics by useful problems, they cannot fail of proving highly acceptable to all who cultivate those sciences.

ART. V. Archeologia; or, Mifcellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Vol. VIII. 4to. Il. Is. White. London, 1787.

[ Continued. ]

* XVIII*. Some Obfervations on the Invention of Cards, and their • Introduction into England. By Mr. Gough.'

WI

E have already dwelt fo long upon the history of cards, that we cannot infift much upon the prefent memoire. Nor need we. The whole is a vast collection of miscellaneous matter, that seems to have hardly any one purpose in view. And we fhall only notice a couple of paffages.

If, in order to prove the antiquity of cards, we recur to the edicts prohibiting the use of them; we find the first record of this kind among the French, to be dated Jan. 22, 1397, an • ordinance of the Prevot de Paris, forbidding the manufacturing part of the people, from playing at tennis, bowls, dice, • cards, and quilles. John I. King of Castille, in an edict dated < ten years before (1387), forbad dice and cards in his domi⚫nions.' And Abbe Rivé, who attributes the invention to the Spaniards, finds them prohibited in the ftatutes of a new order, called the order of the band, instituted by Alphonfus XI. • about 1332.'

.

• The French cards,' fays Mr. Gough, appear to have had the fame figures as our modern ones, the carreaux or diamonds, cœurs or hearts, trefles or clubs, and piques or spades.' The French therefore and the English agree, in differing from the Spanish, and in having hearts for pieces of money, and diamonds or fquares for cups. But, while we accord with the Spaniards, in calling one of our fuits clubs, and another spades; the French have denominated them trefles and piques. Yet, what is more remarkable, we retain the English name for the Spanish fymbol of one, and even the Spanish name for the Spanish fymbol of the other; when we have difcarded the Spanish fymbols of both, and have concurred with the French in affuming the prefent. And the French appellations for thefe, happily serve to fhew us what they are; the club being a real trefle or clovergrafs, and the fpade the real head of a pique or halberd, We have taken the new fymbols, but preferved the old names. played at cards, long before we adopted the new fymbols, We were so much in the habit from our long use of cards, of denominating the vifible club and fword before us, a fpade and a club; that, even when they were fuperfeded by the pique and

We

the

the trefle, we still adhered to our old appellations. The modes of speaking, and the forms of converfation, were fo deeply imprinted upon our tongues and minds, that even ocular infpection could not correct them. And our fathers have thus left us a forcible addition of evidence, for the great antiquity of cardplaying among us.

1

XIX. Obfervations on our ancient Churches. By the Rev. Mr. Ledwich, F. S. A.-Vicar of Aghabor in Ireland, we believe, and now publishing the Antiquities of Ireland in Numbers.

This is a difquifition fo novel, fingular, and learned, that we cannot but give our readers an abstract of it, and some remarks upon it.

The Roman ftile of architecture, he thinks, was not introduced into Britain by the Romans; though Tacitus expressly affures us, that Agricola taught the Britons to build houses, temples, and market-places. This is furely to oppofe prefumption to evidence. And the reafon affigned for this prefumption, that not a trace of such edifices exifts' at prefent; is as ridiculous as the other is extravagant. All the Roman arts of building were introduced into Britain with the buildings by the Romans.

The Saxons, he fays, in their own country, worshipped their gods in ftone-circles, or amid the gloom of ponderous trilithons; and there are abundant proofs of their doing the fame here.' Mr. Ledwich here confounds the Saxons and the Britons. The ftone-circles allude to thofe at Roll-right, Abury, &c.; and the ponderous trilithons' point directly at Stone-henge. And the whole is in direct oppofition to the evidence of Bede, who thus defcribes the only temple of the Saxons that is noticed in our own ifland. Suggero, Rex,' fays the priest now turned Chriftian, ut templa et altaria, quæ fine fructu utilitatis facravimus, ocius anathemati et igni contra'damus.' The king asked, Quis aras et fana idolorum cum feptis quibus erant circumdata, primus profanare deberet.' The prieft offers himself, and fets out for the purpose. Nec diftulit ille, mox ut propriabat ad fanum, profanare illud, injectâ in eo lanceâ quam tenebat; multumque gavifus de agnitione ' veri Dei cultûs, juffit fociis deftruere ac fuccendere fanum cum • omnibus feptis fuis.' And this temple was plainly a regular and covered building, like the other temples of the times; and no ways diftinguifhed in general from the churches in the days of Bede, but by its idolatrous ufe and its encircling mounds. Locus ille quondam idolorum,' adds Bede, vocatur hodie • Godmunddingaham,”

* Godmunddingaham,' now Godmundham, or the mound-house of the gods *.

Thus ftumbling in the outfet, Mr. Ledwich proceeds to point out the introduction of Roman architecture, by the converted Saxons. But then this was merely the ftyle of thofe churches, • that acknowledged the doctrines and fovereignty of the Ro man pontiff. They had-crypts under them for reliques; they were supported by arches and columns; thefe arches and co lumns were adorned with the images of faints and legendary ftories; their shape was-cruciform; they had oratories in the ailes; and they were glazed. This was the Roman ftyle, as precifely delineated by Bede, Eddius, and Richard Prior of Hexham, and contradiftinguished from the ‹ British.' Churches built on this model, as that of Hexham C was, were executed by artists brought from Rome, Italy, and France: what reason then can there be for calling them Saxon? Many learned antiquaries have lately relinquished this appellation, and call them Roman; but they have not explained what they understood by a Roman work. It is not enough that the arch is femicircular, and the form and proportion of the column regular; the feuillage fhould be alfo Roman, to entitle it to this diftinction. The former by chance may be right, but the latter is not lefs characteristic. The Saxon may poffibly be a • corruption of the Roman ftyle, but there are strong inducements to think it had a very different origin.' All this may be true; but we fee not the confiftency of parts with parts, or the ruling aim of the whole.

Mr. Ledwich goes to deduce one part of the Saxon ftyle, the ornaments, from-the Eaft. In a Syriac M. S. of 586 he finds them all. They were derived from the Jews to the Chriftians, he argues, and from the Romans to the Saxons. • Such

then,' he infers, is the evidence, of the origin of the Saxon feuillage,'. But he purfues the fubject, and discovers other ornaments to come from-Egypt. In the undercroft of Canterbury cathedral, which he fays is univerfally allowed-, amid all the conflagrations and repairs it [the cathedral] underwent,' to have remained unalterably the fame;' he notes the prevalence of Egyptian hieroglyphical figures,' on the capitals. He finds the lurus or cat of Egypt, when it may be the cat of any other country; a hawk killing a ferpent, common to all countries; an ideal quadruped, killing fome noxious bird or * ferpent;' agladiator or criminal engaged with a lion,' a man with a monstrous tail engaged with fome wild beast, and no

* Hift. 11. 13.

more

more Egyptian than it is Tramontane; a horfeman with a cap and trowie,' no Egyptian; a fheep, to which the Egyptian Soutes and Thebans paid divine honours,' certainly not a fheep, and most probably a horse; an equeftrian figure, common on Roman coins,' and therefore no Egyptian, a pure • Egyptian figure, a double-headed Anubis beftriding a doubleheaded crocodile ;' a double-headed figure without any appearance of the latrator Anubis' in it, beftriding an animal that has no appearance of the rictus crocodili' at either of its mouths; a man fitting on the head of another,' and holding in one hand a fish and in the other a cup,' a fymbol fo little Egyptian, that Mr. Ledwich can only find the fish' to have been facred in Egypt; a double-headed monfter,' which even Mr. Ledwich cannot make Egyptian, and which holds, like the preceding one, a fish and a cup in its hands; a bird deftroying a crocodile, or perhaps fome ferpent of the lizard kind,' not Egyptian in Mr. Ledwich's view of it, and an unintelligible something in every other man's; a fatyr refting on two deer,' no Egyptian; two birds on a Roman mafque,' no Egyptians 3 a grotesque-playing on a violin,' and another grotesque"blowing a trumpet,' neither of them Egyptian. We have thus noticed all the figures that Mr. Ledwich has explained, though not all that he has delineated. That these are Egyptian hieroglyphical figures,' he adds, we may appeal to Porphyry, to Tertullian, Min. Felix, Pignorius, Montfaucon, and Chefflet." But, that they are not, we appeal to the eyes and commonfenfe of his readers and of ours.

Mr. Ledwich, however advances to trace thefe, Egyptian ornaments, from Egypt into the northern nations. The Egyptian mythology had crept among the Romans, had spread among their provincials, and had been communicated to their northern conquerors. This reafoning,' he remarks, gives the folution of the appearance of hieroglyphics, on ancient northern 6 monuments.' Thus the Britons, who had imbibed from the Romans a tafte for hieroglyphics in the capitals of their buildings, must have imparted it to their conquerors the Saxons. The Britons muft equally with the Gauls have been infected with this tafte, by their common masters the Romans. When "every part of Europe, Afia, and Africa, was-deeply infected*;" when enough has been faid of thefe capitals,' evento found a conjecture that this crypt was an Ireum, or Roman chapel facred to Ifis, +;' the Britons were fure to be infected. And yet we have been told before, that the architecture of the

6

*P. 183.

† P. 879-180.

Britons,