little fiddle, affectedly, that he might tell James, by her youthful difpofition, how unlikely he was to come to the throne he fo much thirfted after. Hentzner, who vifited this palace in 1598, informs us that her royal library was well ftored with Greek, Italian, Latin, and French books. Among others, was a little one in her own hand-writing, addreffed to her father. She wrote a moft exceeding fair hand, witnefs the beautiful little prayer book, fold at the late dutchefs of Portland's fale for L. 106, written in five languages, two in English, and one in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian. At the beginning was a miniature of her lover the Duc d'Anjou, at the end one of herself, both by Hilliard by the first she artfully infinuated that he was the primary object of her devotions. His mother, Catherine de Medicis, had been told by an aftrologer, that all her fons were to become monarchs. Anjou vifited England, and was received with every species of coquetry. On the first of January, 1581, in the tilt yard of this palace, the moft fumptuous tournament ever celebrated, was held here in honour to the commiffioners fent from France to propofe the marriage. A banqueting-house, moft fuperbly ornamented, was erected at the expence of above a thousand feven hundred pounds. "The gal"lerie adjoining to her majefties "houfe at Whitehall," fays the minute Holinfhed, "whereat hir per"fon fhould be placed, was called, "and not without cause, the caftell "or fortreffe of perfect beautie !” Her majefty, at the time aged fortyeight, received every flattery that the charms of fifteen could clame. "This "fortreffe of perfect beautie was af" failed by Defire, and his four fofter "children." The combatants on both fides were perfons of the first rank: a regular fummons was first fent to the poffeffor of the caftell, with the delectable fong of which this is part :- "Yeeld, yeeld, o! yeeld, you that this fort doo hold, Which ended, two canons were Black Friars. well, ftood the great houfe of Black Friars, or Dominicans; founded by the intereft and exhortations of Robert Kilwarby, archbishop of Canterbury, about 1276; when Gregory Rockfley, and the barons of London, prefented him with the ground. Edward I. and his queen Elianor became great benefactors; by the affiftance of whom, the archbishop built the monastery, and a large church richly ornamented. This obtained every immunity which any religious house had. Its precinct was very large, had four gates, and contained a number of fhops; the inhabitants of which were fubject only to the king, the fuperior of the houfe, and their Within the walls, oppofite to Bride- own juftices. It alfo became a fanc tuary tuary for debtors, and even malefactors; a privilege which is preferved even long after the fuppreffion of religious houses. To make way for this foundation, two lanes were pulled down, and part of the city wall; which laft was rebuilt immediately by a charter grant ed by Edward I. for that purpofe. The caftle of Montfichet, alfo fell a facrifice to this house. It was built by Gilbert de Montfichet a follower of the Conqueror: and, growing ruinous, by gift of the king the materials were used for the building of the church, on the fite of this ancient tower. The church became a fafhionable place of interment of people of rank; and to be buried in the habit of the order was thought to be a fure preservative against the attacks of the devil. Among other illuftrious perfonages was Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, and his wife Margaret, fit:r to Alexander II. king of Scotland; the heart of queen Elianor lord Fanhope; that patron of learning John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, beheaded in 1470; James Touchet, earl of Audley, beheaded in 1497; Sir Thomas Brandon, knight of the Garter William Courtney, earl of Devonshire; and much other great and noble duft. In the fame church were also held feveral parliaments. The remarkable one of 1450, in the reign of Henry VI. was adjourned from Weftminfter to this place; here the weak monarch vainly endeavoured to divert the ftorm raifed by his fubjects against the favourite of his queen, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk; and by a poor expedient, a fimulated exile, drove him to inftant death. Here in 1524, Henry VIII. held another, in order to opprefs his fubjects with an aid of eight hundred thousand pounds, to carry on his imprudent wars. The virtue of the Conimons refifted the demand, and gave him only a moderate tax. This was called the Black parliament, as it began among the Black Monks, at Westminster; and ended among the Black Friars. Here cardinal Campeggio, and cardinal Wolfey, fat, in 1529, as judges and legates, on the question of divorce between Henry and the ill-fated princefs Catherine of Arragon; Henry and his queen at that time refiding in the palace of Bridewell, ready to attend the farcical citations of that court. And in this place Wolfey himself fell from all his greatnefs; for here began the parliament which gave the fentence of premunire,_the last stroke to all his profperity. With all the great events which honoured this house, its revenues, at the diffolution, were only one hundred pounds fifteen fhillings and five pence. Bishop Fisher held it in commendam; and in 1538, with fifteen brethren, furrendered it to the king. Edward VI. afterwards granted it to Sir Thomas Cawarden. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the Black Friars became a place much inhabited by people of fathion. Among others, lord Herbert, fou of William, fourth earl of Worcester, had a houfe here, which queen Elizabeth, in 1600, honoured with her prefence, on occafion of his nuptials with the daughter and hierefs of John lord Ruffel, son of Francis earl of Bedford. The queen was met at the water-fide by the bride, and carried to her houfe in a lectica by fix knights; her majesty dined there, and fupped in the fame neighbourhood, with lord Cobham; where there was "memorable make of 8 ladies, and 66 a a ftraunge dawnce new invented. "Their attire is this: each hath a "fkirt of cloth of filver; a rich wast 66 coat wrought with filkes, and gold "and filver; a mantell of carnacion "taffete, caft under the arme; and "their haire loofe about their should "Fitton went to the queen, and woed "her dawnce: her majefty (the "love of Effex rankling in her breast) "afked what she was? Affection, the "faid: Affection! faid the queen, "Affection is falfe. Yet her majef"tie rofe up and dawnced." At this time the queen was fixty: furely, as Mr Walpole obferved, it was a period as natural for her to be in love !---I must not forget, that in her paffage from the bride's to lord Cobham's, the went through the houfe of Doctor Puddin, and was prefented by the doctor with a fan. The Count de Tillier, ambassador of France, in the latter end of the reign of James I. refided here. During his refidence in England, the dreadful accident, called the Fatal Velpers, happened near his houfe. A celebrated preacher of the order of the Jefuits, father Drury, gave a fermon to a large audience of British fubjects, in a fpacious room up three pair of ftairs. In the midst of the difcourfe the floor fell, and ninety four perfons, befides the preacher, perithed. Of the Ruins of Thebes. From Bruce's Travels. Thebes but four prodigious temples, all of them in appearance more ancient, but neither fo entire, nor fo magnificent, as thofe of Dendera. The temples at Medinet Tabu are the most elegant of thefe. The hieroglyphics are cut to the depth of half-a-foot, in fome places, but we have ftill the fame figures, or rather a lefs variety, than at Dendera. The hieroglyphics are of four forts; first, such as have only the contour marked, and, as it were, fcratched only in the ftone. The fecond are hollowed; and in the middle of that fpace rifes from the figure in relief, fo that the prominent part of the figure is equal to the flat, unwrought furface of the ftone, and feems to have a frame round it, defigned to defend the hieroglyphic from mutilation, The third fort is in relief, or baffo elievo, as it is called, where the figure is left bare and expofed, without being funk in, or defended, by any compartment cut round it in the ftone. The fourth are thofe mentioned in the beginning of this defcription, the outlines of the figure being cut very deep in the ftone. All the hieroglyphics, but the laft are pained red, blue, and green, as at Dendera, and with no other colours. Notwithstanding all this variety in the manner of executing the hieroglyphical figures, and the prodigious multitude which I have feen in the feveral buildings, I never could make the number of different hieroglyphics amount to more than five hundred and fourteen, and of these there were certainly many, which were not really different, but from the ill execu tion of the fculpture only appeared fo. From this I conclude, certainly, that it can be no entire language which hieroglyphics are meant to contain, for no language could be comprehended in five hundred words, and it is probable that thefe hieroglyphics are not alphabetical, or fingle letters only, for five hundred letters would make too large an alphabet. The Chinefe indeed have many more letters in ufe, but have no alphabet: but who is it that underftands the Chinefe? There are three different characters which, I observe, have been in ufe at the fame time in Egypt, Hieroglyphics, the Mummy character, and and the Ethiopic. These are all three found, as I have seen, on the fame mummy, and therefore were certainly used at the fame time. The laft only I believe was a language. The mountains immediately above or behind Thebes, are hollowed out into numberless caverns, the first habitations of the Ethiopian colony which built the city. I imagine they continued long in thefe habitations, for I do not think the temples were ever intended but for public and folemn ufes, and in none of these ancient cities did I ever fee a wall or foundation, or any thing like a private house; ali are temples and tombs, if temples and tombs in those times were not the fame thing. But veftiges of houfes there are none, whatever Diodorus Siculus may fay, build ing with ftone was too expenfive for individuals; the houfes probably were all of clay, thatched with palm branches, as they are at this day. This is one reason why fo few ruins of the immenfe number of cities we hear of remain. Thebes, according to Homer, had a hundred gates. We cannot, however, discover yet the foundation of any wall that it had; and as for the horsemen and chariots it is faid to have fent out, all the Thebaid fown with wheat would not have maintained one-half of them. Thebes, at leaft the ruins of the temples, called Medinet Tabu, are built in a long ftretch of about a mile broad, moft parfimonioufly chofen at the fandy foot of the mountains. The Horti Penfiles, or hanging gardens, were furely formed upon the fides of thefe hills, then fupplied with water by mechanical devices. The utmoft is done to fpare the plain, and with great reafon; for all the fpace of ground this ancient city has had to maintain its myriads of horfes and men, is a plain of three quarters of a mile broad, between the town and the river, upon which plain the wa ter rifes to the height of four, and five feet, as we may judge by the marks on the ftatues Shamy and Taamy. All this pretended popu loufnefs of ancient Thebes I there. fore believe fabulous. It is a circumftance very remark. able, in building the firft temples, that, where the fide-walls are folid, that is, not fupported by pillars, fome of these have their angles and faces perpendicular, others inclined in a very confiderable angle to the hori zon. Thole temples, whofe walls are inclined, you may judge by the many hieroglyphics and ornaments, are of the firft ages, or the greatest antiquity. From which I am difpofed to think, that fingular construction was a remnant of the partiality of the builders for their first domiciles; an imitation of the flope, or inclination of the fides of mountains, and that this inclination of flat surfaces to each other in building, gave afterwards the first idea of Pyramids. A number of robbers, who much resemble our gypfies, live in the holes of the mountains above Thebes, They are all out-laws, punished with death if elsewhere found. Ofman Bey, an ancient governor of Girge, unable to suffer any longer the diforders committed by thefe people, ordered a quantity of dried faggots to be brought together, and, with his foldiers, took poffeffion of the face of the mountain, where the greatest number of thefe wretches were: He then ordered all their caves to be filled with this dry brushwood, to which he fet fire, fo that most of them were deftroyed; but they have fince recruited their numbers, without changing their manners. About half a mile north of El Gourni, are the magnificent, ftupendous fepulchres, of Thebes. The mountains of the Thebaid come clofe behind the town; they are not run in upon one another like ridges, but ftand infulated upon their bales : fo that that you can get round each of them. A hundred of thefe, it is faid, are excavated into fepulchral, and a variety of other apartments. I went through feven of them with a great deal of fatigue. It is a folitary place; and my guides, either from a natural impatience and diftaste that these people have at fuch employments, or, that their fears of the banditti that live in the caverns of the mountains were real, importuned me to return to the boat, even before I had begun my fearch, or got into the mountains where are the many large apartments of which I was in queft. In the first one of thefe I entered is the prodigious farcophagus, fome fay of Menes, others of Ofimandyas; poffibly of neither. It is fixteen feet high, ten long, and fix broad, of one piece of red-granite; and, as fuch, is, I fuppofe, the finest vafe in the world. Its cover is ftill upon it, (broken on one fide,) and it has a figure in relief on the outside. It is not probably the tomb of Ofimandyas, because, Diodorus fays, that it was ten ftadia from the tomb of the kings; whereas this is one among them. There have been fome ornaments at the outer-pillars, or outer-entry, which have been broken and thrown down. Thence you defcend through an inclined paffage, I fuppofe, about twenty feet broad; I fpeak only by guefs, for I did not measure. The fide-walls, as well as the roof of this paffage, are covered with a coat of ftucco, of a finer and more equal grain, or furface, than any I ever faw in Europe. I found my black-lead little more worn by it than by writing upon paper. Upon the left-hand fide is the crocodile feizing upon the apis, and plunging him into the water. On the right-hand is the fcarabæus thebaicus, or the thebaic beetle, the first animal that is feen alive after the Nile retires from the land; and therefore thought to be an emb'em of the refurVOL. XI. No. 66. 3 G rection. My own conjecture is, that the apis was the emblem of the arable land of Egypt; the crocodile, the ty phon, or cacodæmon, the type of an overabundant Nile; that the fcarabæus was the land which had been overflowed, and from which the wa -ter had foon retired, and has nothing to do with the refurrection or immortality, neither of which at that time were in contemplation. Farther forward, on the right-hand of the entry, the pannels. of compartments, were ftill formed in stucco, but, in place of figures in relief, they were painted in frefco. I dare fay this was the cafe on the left-hand of the paffage, as well as the right. But the firft difcovery was fo unexpected, and I had flattered myself that I fhould be fo far mafter of my own time, as to fee the whole at my leifure, that I was rivetted, as it were, to the fpot by the first fight of these paintings, and I could proceed no further. In one pannel were feveral musical inftruments ftrowed upon the ground, chiefly of the hautboy kind, with a mouth-piece of reed. There were alfo fome fimple pipes or flutes. With them were feveral jars apparently of potter - ware, which, having their mouths covered with parchment or fkin, and being braced on their fides like a drum, were probably the inftrument called the tabor, or tabret, beat upon by the hands, coupled in earliest ages with the harp, and preferved ftill in Abyffinia, though its companion, the last-mentioned inftrument, is no longer known there. In three following pannels were painted, in fresco, three harps, which merited the utmost attention, whether we confider the elegance of thefe inftruments in their form, and the detail of their parts as they are here clearly expreffed, or confine ourselves to the reflection that neceffarily follows, to how great perfection mufic muft have arrived, before an artist could |