the capitals are Norman; the inter-columniations, though narrow, yet nearly one-third wider than those of the most massy Saxon; the arches, which surmount them, are grooved and moulded with an evident relation to the columns. One feature of the pure Norman is wanting in this, though a building of much higher dignity than those churches in which it is often found. Even on the great west door of the church, there are no basso relievos or other enrichments of sculpture, but though the entrance is deep and complex, and has had detached single shafts beneath each of its members, there appears to have been a studied abstinence from every thing gaudy and ornamental. Yet the architect, who designed Kirkstall, had within three miles a model to resort to, which would have suggested a great variety of elaborate enrichments in the highest perfection of recent masonry. I mean the church of Addle. The north-east door out of the cloister into the church has been more laboured than the rest, and has a free and well cut cabled ornament about the capitals. The central column of the original chapter-house has been surrounded by slender detached columns of which the bases yet appear one of the earliest (perhaps the very earliest) specimens of a style, which became universal in England about a century later, and disappeared as suddenly as it had become fashionable. In the vaulted apartments south of the chapter-house we have the most convincing proofs that the Norman, through its immediate predecessor the Saxon, was merely a debased copy of Roman architecture. The proportions of the single-shaft cylindrical columns have a very Doric air, though a classical architect would not have sprung arches or vaultings from cylinders. These apartments, which are now accessible only on the east, originally opened into the cloister-court, from which the varied perspective, the broken masses of alternate light and shade diversifying the gloom, must have been admirably adapted to the solemnity of the monastic life. In the annexed engraving, this effect (with whatever success) has been attempted to be restored. Correct measurements of the several apartments have been made, their several projections accurately laid down, and the original effect, on the supposition that their arched door-ways once more received a portion of light from the cloisters on the west, as well as their narrow apertures to the east, has been restored, as far as possible, according to the rules of perspective.

The great kitchen of Kirkstall, together with a suite of apartments extending eastward from the south-east corner of the quadrangle towards the foundations of the abbot's lodgings, is of much later date than the 'rest; and an imprudent superstructure on the original tower, which rose but little above the acute angled roof of the church, overweighted one of the four great columns at the intersection, which after giving warning for several years of its approaching fall, was suddenly crushed by the vast superincumbent pile on Wednesday night, January 27. 1779, and brought down in its ruin more than two sides of the tower. Considered merely as a ruin, the effect of the church was certainly REV. JULY, 1818.

U

improved

improved by this catastrophe; but the visible detachment of the end of the north transept, and above all of the great east window from the adjoining walls, which might, yet. be prevented from encreasing by the application of buttresses, threatens, if neglected, to reduce this noble remain to a state of yawning dilapidation, which will be deplored when it is too late.

It is a trifling circumstance, but not undeserving of mention as a trait of ancient manners, that within a few days after the fall of the tower the writer of this account discovered imbedded in the mortar of the fallen fragments several little smoking-pipes, such as were used in the reign of James the First for tobacco; a proof of a fact which has not been recorded, that prior to the introduction of that plant from America the practice of inhaling the smoke of some indigenous vegetable prevailed in England.

Some depredations we know were beginning to be committed don❝Christal-abbey," for public purposes, at Leeds, as early as the reign of Elizabeth: but its distance of three miles from the town, and the introduction of brick when it began rapidly to increase in buildings, have happily prevented it from being converted into a quarry of stone ready hewn, in which case a few heaps of rubbish or inequalities of surface, a wrought moulding, or a mass of groutwork, might alone have indicated the place where the gloom of these ancient cells, the variety of chapels, and remnants of the abbey shattered by the encroachments of ivy, and surrounded by many a sturdy tree, the lofty towers, and long perspectives of the church detain" every man of taste and feeling, as they detained Mr. Gray," for many delightful hours."

Our last quotation shall be the passage which gives the etymology of Halifax, with a description of the situation of the town and parish:

Last of the dependencies on the Saxon parish of Dewsbury is Halifax, a tract of nearly seventeen miles in length, which ter minates the vale of East Calder. This is a singularly compounded name, half Saxon and half Norman; which not having been understood, has occasioned the invention of an idle fable to explain it. It appears, however, to have been no fable that in the deep valley, then embosomed in woods, where the parish church now stands, was an hermitage dedicated to St. John the Baptist; the imagined sanctity of which attracted a great concourse of pilgrims in every direction. Four ways by which the modern town of Halifax is entered still distinctly point at the parish church as >their common centre, though at one extremity of the place. These were the roads by which the pilgrims approached the object of their devotion, and hence the name, Halifax, or holy ways, for fax in Norman French is an old plural noun, denoting highways. Thus Carfax in Oxford (a case exactly in point) is the four roads; and Fairfax, whatever may be pretended to the contrary, is neither more nor less than the fair roads, I know

but

but of one other instance in which the latter syllable of this compound occurs, and that is Balifax or Bala-fax; meaning the roads to the outlet of a loch, in Ireland.

This hermitage, however, the approaches to which must have received their name very soon after the Conquest, became at a very short period afterward, the parent of a parish-church, to which was attached a wild, and almost unpeopled, district of vast extent. The inconveniences of superstition have, in this instance, been felt during seven centuries; for the church which, after a vast increase of population, continued for half its duration, to the present time, without the aid of more than two chapels, is situated almost in a corner of the parish; and the genius of commerce itself, which usually despises ancient prejudice, and attends to its own convenience alone, has in this instance been made to bend to the ancient religion of the place. The respective situations of a great trading town and of a sequestered hermitage might appear to be little adapted to each other, and an early separation might have been expected between them; yet so it is, that within two miles of a fine open valley, the great line of communication between the eastern and western seas, and on a navigable stream, the principal town of this extensive and populous district, after every improvement which wealth and skill could apply in the diversion of roads, can only be approached by ascending or descending a precipice. Nature and common sense would have pointed out Elland as the proper site for the capital of the parish of Halifax. The whole district now composing this great parish may be considered as one valley with its numerous collateral forks, bounded at very unequal and constantly varying distances, by two high and barren ridges of moorstone. The general appearance of the bottoms is pleasing and picturesque. Scarcely a foot of level ground appears, excepting the alluvial lands, which are unusually fertile. The sides of the hills immediately above are hung with woods of native oak, which delights in the clefts and crevices of sandstone, though it rarely attains, in such situations, the bulk and majesty of form which it acquires in deeper soils. So various is the course of the principal valley, that the eye is never fatigued by resting on one uniform and protracted expanse, but delights in sudden and unexpected turns, producing new and still changing beauties. Above these are long and widely extended slopes, where art, and expense which manufactures alone could have afforded, have triumphed over what otherwise would have been deemed unconquerable barrenness, and produced a verdure not unequal to that of native fertility. Above all, appear the purple ridges of the mountains, defying all the power of man, and destined for ever to contrast the original face of savage nature with the effects of toil and industry. On the brows of these hills frowns many a sturdy block of freestone, sometimes, perhaps, worn away by storms to a narrow and moveable point, which the fondness of antiquarian fancy has decreed to be druidical. To such purposes it is certainly possible that they may have been adapted: those wonderful architects did not waste their unknown

and astonishing powers where nature had prepared the way, and where a little excavation, or the removal of a slight preponderance, would suffice to produce a moveable fulcrum and a perceptible balance. The powers which erected Stonehenge would in such instances be suspended, and the effect would be the same. Still, where the hand of man is not distinctly visible, where it is possible that nature, or time, or accident, may have produced the same appearances, positive evidence is required to prove that they have been employed by the first ministers of superstition to astonish and overawe the first rude inhabitants of the country. From the boundary of Lancashire to the valley which separates the townships of Halifax and Ovenden from North Owram, the whole basis of the parish is gritstone. Immediately to the east of this valley, argillaceous strata, with their general concomitants, stone and iron, once more appear; and to this cause, together with the copiousness and rapid descent of its numerous brooks, the parish of Halifax is indebted for its wealth and population. Unequal surfaces, rapid streams, and plentiful fuel, are the soul of manufactures."

Fifty-four large engravings, and 18 vignettes, most of them very handsomely executed, decorate this volume; which is also embellished with numerous ornamental capital letters Were we to reason à priori, we should be disposed to think that fine paper, large margins, elegant typography, and expensive decorations, would not be most appropriate for books of this nature, inasmuch as they are intended to be chiefly books of reference, and the information which they contain, being for the most part of local interest, is therefore not calculated for general perusal but, when we see them edited in so superior a style, we are led to conclude that they are accommodated to the taste of the times: for surely the proprietors would not run the risk of so much expence, unless they were satisfied that the publications would be the more in request on account of their splendid appearance.

ART. VIII. Narrative of an Expedition to explore the River Zaire, by Captain Tuckey, &c.

[Article concluded from our last Number.]

ESUMING our report of this interesting but melancholy

R detail, we have now to direct our attention, first, to

PROFESSOR SMITH'S JOURNAL.

The previous studies and attainments of this Norwegian naturalist, his botanical rambles among the mountains of his native country, of Scotland, of the Canary Islands, &c. and his unwearied and undiminished ardour of research, eminently qualified him for the station to which he was appointed in this

ill-fated expedition: with respect to which, it seems unavoidable to remark that the tender adieus of his scientific fellowtraveller, Von Buch, and of his other friends in England, may be said to give a pathetic and ominous tone to the very commencement of his diary. As to the incidents and observations recorded while the ships passed down Channel, they are such as would naturally attract the attention of an inquisitive foreigner; and the latitude of the Canáries renewed recollections of happy hours that were never to return. The amount of marine animals hitherto observed was limited to a number of porpoises, two large birds, (whose species, in the distance at which they were seen, could not be ascertained,) -some Medusa, supposed to belong to the genus Pellucida, a small Whale, to which two or three species of Lepas adhered, a small Turtle, and a small Cancer, conjectured to be the Fulgens of Sir Joseph Banks. About the tropic of Cancer, Holothuria physalis, a minute eatable Velilla, and a luminous Medusa with four tentacula, were very frequent.

As the expedition touched at St. Jago, some opportunity was afforded to the naturalists for exploring the surrounding country, which presents manifest indications of volcanic agency; and the interesting vegetation of these regions, which is well portrayed, compensated for the misadventures under which it was contemplated. The Professor's catalogue of the plants that he observed is arranged according to their geographical distribution, and comprizes two new species of Boerhavia, Herniaria illicebroides, Zygophyllum stellulatum, Lavendula apiifolia, Polycarpea glauca, and other novelties.

From St. Jago to the African coast, the occurrences noticed are neither very numerous nor particularly interesting. Dark clouds, with heavy rain and lightning, prevailed about the peak of Fogo. When the squall had subsided, a southerly wind, which blew from the third till. the tenth of May, carried the vessels far into the Bay of Guinea; where innumerable shoals of fish, especially Albicores and Bonitos, were swimming in all directions. On the 23d of May the line was crossed, with the usual grotesque ceremonies.

• We continued to steer towards the west till the 26th, but the wind veering more and more to the eastward, it was resolved to try the other course along the coast. The sea is here uncom monly abundant in fish. The whole surface is often put in motion by the flying-fishes, when chased by others. Their number is immense. Shoals of them constantly surrounded the vessel, and at night they give out a white light, resembling that of the moon, U 3 when