THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE: LONDON GAZETTE Statesman Packet-Lond. Chr. Albion--C. Chron. Eng. Chron.--Inq. Cour.d'Angleterre Cour. de Londres 11 Weekly Papers 17 Sunday Papers Hue & Cry Police Lit. Adv.-Lit. Gaz. Bath 3-Bristol 5 Berwick-Boston Birmin, 3, Blackb. Brighton-Bury Camb.2-Chath. Carli.2--Chester 2 Miscellaneous Correspondence. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Questions, &c. 194 .223 .............231 Cumb.2-Doncast. Derb.-Dorchest. Durham-Essex Exeter 2, Glouc. 2 Halifax-Hants 2 Lichfield, Liver.6 Maidst.--Manch.9 Portsea-Pottery Preston-Plym. 2 Reading-Salisb. Salop-Sheffield2 Sherborne, Sussex Shrewsbury Staff.-Stamf. 2 Wolverh. Worc. 2 Review of New Publications. Memoirs, &c. of John Evelyn, Esq. F. R.S. 233 Dr. Hooke's Sermon, 234.--Harold the Exile236 Aonian Hours, 238.-Oakwood Hall.......240 Turner's Prolusions, 242.-Song to David 243 Bird's Vale of Stanghden.-Rustic's Lay 244 Junius.-White's Letters from a Father...245 Hadleigh described. Whistlecraft's Poem 247 English Finance.-Carey's Latin Prosody 248 The Fudger fudged.-Crowe's Zoophilus..249 Let. to Farmers.-Enthusiasm of Methodists 250 Life of Dean Nickolls.-The Authoress, &c. ib. LITERATURE, ANTIQUITIES, ARTS, &c. 251-254 SELECT POETRY...... .....255 Historical Chronicle. Embellished with Views of St. MARTIN'S, or CARFAX CHURCH, Oxford; By SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. Printed by JoHN NICHOLS and SON, at CICERO'S HEAD, Red Lion Passage, Fleet-street, London; where all Letters to the Editor are particularly desired to be addressed, POST-PAID. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. We thank T. B. for his friendly hint; but the Work he alludes to, is too far advanced in the Press for his plan to be adopted. J. B. says that "Bio. Dev. (Part I. p. 619,) is mistaken in respect to Davis's Streights. They divide Greenland from North America, and surely cannot be in the North of Europe. From Bio. Dev.'s other observations, I should be glad to see the work he has in contemplation executed." G. H. W. observes, "Your Heraldic Correspondents have not as yet undertaken to explain how the arms of a Lady (heiress to her mother, but not to her father) are to be borne by her issue. The children cannot of course quarter the arms of the Lady's father; and if they quarter the arms of the Lady's mother only, it would seem to be wrong heraldry, as implying the Lady's surname to be that of her mother.-Should the son of a created Peeress in her own right be styled the second Peer, or first Peer of the family? There seems to be objections to both modes. A man can hardly be called the first Peer, where his immediate female ancestor enjoyed and transmitted nobility to him; and yet, in point of verbal accuracy, it may be contended that he was the first Peer-his mother being a Peeress." J. J. asks, "whether the celebrated Letter of Lord Somers to King William, respecting the business of the Partition Treaty (noticed by Mr. Chalmers, amongst his Lordship's ' Works,') was ever published? He has searched for it in vain, through the contemporary Historians." His kind offer of a copy of it for this Magazine (if not too long for insertion), is thankfully accepted. C. K. would be obliged "by being informed what was the issue of Lord Altham, and who succeeded to his title and estates. He married, in 1702, Mary, a natural daughter of the Duke of Buckingham. His Lordship died in Dublin, in 1726, and left large estates in England and Ireland. Lady Altham died in London, in 1729." [She was mother, it was contended, to the unfortunate James Annesley, who claimed the titles and estates against the late Earl of Anglesea. On this curious trial see vols. XI. to XIV.-EDIT.] T. C. (p. 98) is informed, that Sir Humphry Lynde's two Tracts, concerning which he inquires, have been reprinted at the expence of the Society for the Defence of the Church. E. assures "An Inquirer," (p. 2, b.) that the book he mentions is not the book supposed to have been written by Bishop Gibson; the title of his copy of that book is, "The Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Impartially collected from the best Historians and several original Manuscripts. The 5th edition, with Additions. London: printed for J. Brotherton, and T. Cox, Cornhill. 1743. Price, bound, 3s." A Letter sticks in the book, from an old friend of our Correspondent, who married a lineal descendant of His Highness, in which he says that "it seems to me a very good account of his public life." A SUBSCRIBER to Dr. YATES's "History of Bury St. Edmund's," wishes to be informed, whether he has any intention of proceeding with the second Volume of that' Work, and thus redeeming his pledge to the Public. A CORRESPONDENT enquires, whether Mr. Dibdin means to publish a third edi tion of his "Introduction to the Knowledge of the different Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics," a book much called for; as the second edition is now become extremely scarce, so as with difficulty to be procured even at a considerably advanced price. An OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT for more than thirty years past, having been unsuccessful in his endeavours to procure a copy of an "Essay on Duelling," published in London some years ago, will be obliged to any person who will inform him where he is likely to meet with one.He is happy to observe, that when the circumstances of Duelling taking place, is noticed in this Magazine, the sinful prac tice is marked in terms of disapprobation, which it is to be lamented all Journalists of the present times do not. A CONSTANT READER says, " I shall be much obliged if your ingenious Correspondent A. J. K. who has favoured us with his erudite remarks on Bow Church, and St. Martin's-le-Grand, will be so good as to inform me where the Scala Chron. (from which he has given an extract) may be found, as I had been long apprehensive the work had perished at the destruction of the Monastic Libraries, and that all which remained were a few fragments preserved by Leland, to none of which the quotation given seems to appertain." X. XI. 5538, and VERITATIS Amator, in our next. ERRATA.-P. 99, b. 1. 3, for perspicuity, read perspicacity.-P. 135, I. 16, for attacked, read attached.-P. 136, note, 1. 2, for Allebrogum, read Allobrogum, THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, For SEPTEMBER, 1819. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. Extract of a Letter to LORD LOVELL, from Italy, in the year 1739-40. HAVE now nothing else left in answer to your Lordship's, except it be to give you the best account I can of the Subterraneous Town in the neighbourhood of Naples, which I staid in much longer than I should have done, to be able to do it. By the only book I have had to consult about what place it may for merly have been, which is Ortelius's Thesaurus, I find it was formerly called Herculaneum, which is said to have stood just where this subterraneous Town, as they call it, is now; that is, either on the very spot where the town called Torre di Greco now is, or very near it, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. What is now seen of it is not above half an English mile from thence, as I take it; and as it was in all likelihood a large place, it may, upon further discovery, be found to extend itself to Torre di Greco, and even beyond it. Before 1 give such a description of these remains as I am able, it may be first necessary to acquaint you that, for fear of accidents, the passages they have dug out, which have been quite at a venture, are seldom higher or broader than are necessary for a man of my size to pass along conveniently. This is the cause that you have but an imperfect view of things in gene. ral; and as these narrow passages are quite a labyrinth, there is no guessing at whereabouts you are, after two or three turnings. At the further end of Portici, towards Torre di Greco, you descend by about 50 stone steps, which convey you over the wall of a Theatre, lined with white marble, which, if the earth and rub bish were cleared out of it, would, I believe, be found to be very entire; by what is seen of it, I do not ima gine it to have been much bigger than one of our ordinary Theatres in London; and that it was a Theatre, and not an Amphitheatre, appears by a part of the scene which is to be plainly distinguished. It is, I think, of stucco, and adorned with compart ments of grotesque work, of which, and grotesque painting, there is a great deal scattered up and down in the several parts of the town. When you have left the Theatre you enter into narrow passages, where, on one hand of you (for you seldom or ne ver see any particular object to be distinguished on each hand of yon at once, because of the narrowness of the passages), you have walls lined or crusted over sometimes with marble, sometimes with stucco, and some times you have walls of bare brick; but almost throughout you see above and about you pillars of marble, or stucco, crushed or broken, or lying in all sorts of directions; sometimes you have plainly the outsides of walls of buildings, that have apparently fallen inwards, and sometimes the insides of buildings that have apparently fallen outwards; and sometimes you have apparently both the insides and outsides of buildings, that stand upright, and many of them would, I dare say, be found to be entire, as se veral have in part been found to be. To make an end of this general description, you have all the way such a confusion of bricks and tiles and mortar, and marble in cornishes and friezes, and other members and ornaments, together with stucco and beams and rafters, and even what seem to have been the trees that stood in the Town, and blocks and billets for fuel, together with the earth and matter that appear to have overwhelmed the place; all so blended and crushed, and as it were mixed to gether, gether, that it is far easier to conceive, than to describe it. The ruin in general is not to be expressed. Having given your Lordship this general account, I will now run over the most remarkable particulars I saw, just as they occur to me, without pretending to order; for, as I bave hinted already, it was impossible for me to know in what order they stand in respect to each other. I saw the inside of a rotund, which may have been a temple; it is crowned with a dome; it may be about 30 feet in diameter; but I forbear to say any thing of measures, for they will allow of none to be taken. Near it I saw the lower part of a Corinthian column, upon the loftiest proportioned brick pedestal I ever observed; and thereabouts some very solid brick buildings. I soon afterwards passed over what, by the length we saw of it, appears to have been a very vast Mosaic pavement. We soon afterwards perceived ourselves to be got into the inside of a house. The rooms appear to have been but small; they are lined with stucco, and painted with a ground of deep red, adorned with compartments either of white or a light yellow, and of some other colours our lights were not good enough to make us distinguish. In these compartments were grotesque paintings of birds, beasts, masks, festoons, and the like. Soon afterwards, with some difficulty, and by creeping up a very narrow hole of loose earth, we got into an upper apart ment of another house; the floor was of stucco, and the earth and rubbish was cleared away from under a great part of it. We ventured upon it, and found a room lined and adorned in the manner I have described the last, only it was rather richer; the cieling is painted just in the same manner, and in the same colour, and with the same ground of deep red as the sides. This room might have been about 10 or 11 feet high. But the danger of our situation would not permit us to do otherwise than to get out of it as soon as we could. Shortly afterwards we were carried, rather ascending as we went, into what seems to have been a principal room of some great house. At the end of it which is to be seen, there are three large buffets in the wall, all three most admirably painted, partly in grotesque, and partly in perspective, representing But nothing is more extraordinary First Your Lordship will be convinced of this by what I am going to observe: I have taken notice that there are every where great quantities of beams, rafters, trees, and billets of wood, scattered up and down; all these are burnt to as fine and perfect a char coal coal as ever I saw, or as any body ever made use of. The very largest of the beams are burnt to the heart, though they have perfectly preserved their form; insomuch that, in all of them I examined, I could perceive the very stroke of the axe or toot they were hewn and shaped with. That the town was burnt, is as plain as that it was overwhelmed. Now, if it had continued to burn for any time, all the beams and rafters would have been reduced to ashes, or have been quite defaced; whereas, by the fire being suddenly smothered, they became true and perfect charcoal, as they are. This seems to be the case of that part of it which is hitherto discovered. That this destruction was effected by two such violent accidents suddenly upon the back of each other, may be more natural than to suppose that it was burnt by the same matter as overwhelmed it; for if that had been the case, I cannot perceive how the paintings could have been preserved so fresh as they are, or indeed at all; nor can it be conceived that there should not appear some marks of burning upon the wall, the marble, the stucco, and the rest; for there is, as yet, no such thing to be observed: nor does there appear to be any sort of combustible substance mixed with the earth or rubbish. Both above and below it seems to have been buried in common earth, which could naturally have no share in the burning of the town. This may make it to be believed it was rather buried by some extraordinary efforts of an earthquake, which happened at the same time, than by burning matter thrown out of the mountain. That it was set on fire by burning matter from the mountain, cannot well be doubted; but that it was buried by the burning matter from the mountain, appears to be not at all the case. In whatsoever manner the fate of this town was brought upon it, it seems to have been as dreadful a one as could be inflicted in nature. I will trouble you with but one other observation about it, which is, that the inhabitants seem to have had some dismal warning to forsake it; for, in the digging of above a mile and a half, at which they compute the several turnings and windings, they have as yet found but one dead body. In my next, I will give you an account of the paintings and statues they have taken up for the King's use, and add what may have slipped out of memory at present. In the mean time, I beg you would excuse this undigested heap of writing. I beg leave to present my duty to my Lady Clifford, and to assure you that I am most perfectly Your Lordship's most obedient and most devoted servant, GEO. SHELVOCKE, JUD. Mr. Coke writes by this same post. YOUR Mr. URBAN, Sept. 2. YOUR Correspondent M. in your Magazine for March 1819 (p. 198, 199,) who is an encourager of Mr. Bellamy's undertaking, says, that Mr. Bellamy has been "oftener ridiculed, than refuted." But he acknowledges, that " if indeed it could be proved, that he was the ignoraut aud vain-glorious pedant his opponents would fain induce us to believe, it might, perhaps, be pardonable not to throw away time in seriously refuting' by argument what would be better, and, perhaps, more efficaciously done by contempt and ridicule." Ridicule, I cannot help thinking, is improperly applied to the serious and very mischievous consequences attending so rash an experiment on the Scriptures, as that which Mr. Bellamy has called on the publick to support by their approbation and patronage; and tơ such attempts to vilify and degrade our most valuable and justly venerated Translation of the Scriptures, in order to make way for a new, barbarous, obscure, and most ungrammatical Version. The proof of Mr. Bellamy's ignorance and incompetency, which M. calls for, has been effectually made out, first by the Quarterly Review before the date of M.'s letter; and since, by Mr. Whittaker, in his “Enquiry into the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures," as M. may see in the one hundred and thirty-four errors in his notes on the single book of Genesis, against the first principles of Hebrew grammar, of which Mr. Whittaker in his Appendix has convicted him. In this Enquiry and Remarks on the New Version, he has shewn, that "Mr. Bellamy is wholly incompetent to give an opinion on questions of this nature, and to decide the most trifling point of gram matical |