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The four first lines will probably satisfy his curiosity to see them.

This architecture, phoenix of our age,
(All Europe can't shew her equipage,)

Is Mars his mistress, which retains the store
Of Mars his arms, being Mars his paramour.'

From the 60th to the 512th page, the history of the Company is chronologically continued, in chapters; but with so many digressions, and with so much of public history interwoven, that, between the characters of kings and ministers, the descriptions of party violence, the recital of common transactions, and the preaching of common place, we several times forgot the object of the work.

At P. 169, we have the following character of queen Anne:

She was esteemed in private life a pattern of conjugal affection, and a prudent, though indulgent, mother. In public affairs she was too much governed by her ministers, which subdued her to their schemes, or sentiments, as each of them alternately prevailed: her reign was the eventful period of conquest and of glory, in which the British arms acquired a lustre, which the trump of fame has recorded with a blast, that will ever vibrate on the ear of listening and succeeding posterities; while the renown of the queen will be tarnished by her disgrace of the chief actor of her glory, in which she suffered the intrigues of her cabinet to outweigh the gratitude of her country for the highest honours she had accepted at the hands of the duke of Marlborough.' And, at P. 176, an elegant instance of the art of sinking, in prose.

It has already been observed, that the same contest which lives in the superior circles of society never fails to spread into all the subordinate departments: as a stone cast upon the surface of a lake ruffles the spot on which it falls, and wider and wider circles extend themselves, till they are lost in the extremities of the distant shores, happily too remote from the centre to feel much of the shock by which it has been agitated. The Artillery Company, which had always been of sufficient importance to receive the notice and patronage of the court, was not situated at a distance too remote from the varying interests which governed it, to escape the various occasions by which the respective parties rose or fell; and thus a renewal of the struggles already described has again threatened to awaken its members at their ensuing annual election. The court, therefore, having prudently renewed a strict adherence to the resolutions formed on the last contest, checked the alarm, and secured the present officers in their situations.

After one more extract, as a specimen of the general manner in which the history is written, we shall present our

readers with a brief view of the rise and progress of the Company; detached from all incumbrance of letters, patents, addresses, or panegyrics upon individuals. Leaving our readers to decide, whether it is either so varied or important as to require an octavo volume to blazon its merits to the world. A pamphlet of fifty pages would have been more likely to meet both purchasers and readers.

1748. In the month of April the gunpowder-room was built.

Captain William Howes, a watch-maker, was admitted a member of the honorary court of assistants for his offer of putting up a clock in the armoury with two dials; and in July a poor's box was introduced into the court room, for the benefit of such poor persons as the court should think fit to favour from its contents, having regard first to any poor members or their widows: small sums on admissions, and fines for disobedience, alike formed the contribution to this receptacle of benevolence; and a book was opened for entries of its contents whenever examined, and for the sums which it yielded for charitable purposes.

The court conceived the propriety of instituting an office of chaplain; and the Company having received several important services from Major Carrington, conferred that station on his son, the Rev. James Carrington, rector of Clayworth, in Northamptonshire, and prebendary of Exeter, and presented him at the same time with the freedom of the Company.

The articles of the definitive treaty of peace were signed by the respective plenipotentiaries at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the 7th of October, and immediately after the exchange of the ratification the armies broke up. When the king presented the treaty to parliament on opening their session in November, he declared that he had made the most effectual provision for the rights and interests of his own subjects, and procured for his allies the best conditions which, in the present situation of affairs, could be obtained; that he had found a general good disposition in all parties to bring the negotiation to a happy conclusion, and that his people might promise themselves a long enjoyment of the blessings of peace.

The treaty was canvassed with the usual freedom and pertinacity exercised on such subjects; but it at length received the general approbation; and in England it became not the less palatable from the clause by which France was to deny any longer an asylum to Charles Edward, the young pretender, or his family, who was therefore obliged to seek refuge at Fribourg, in the dominion of the Cantons of Switzerland.

'Britain immediately felt the blegings of peace in the return of her commerce and manufacture, which flourished to an extent never before known in the island; but the advantages were unhappily tarnished by their consequent luxuries.

The artillery Company having lost an active president by the death of Sir John Baylis, promoted their vice-president, Sir Edward Bellamy, to that post, who had been lord mayor in 1735; raised Sir John

Thompson, the treasurer, who had been lord mayor in 1737, to his rank; and elected Sir Joseph Hankey to the office of treasurer. One of their first steps after this promotion was to join in the general congratulations to the king upon the conclusion of the peace.

They had now sufficient leisure to look into the more immediate affairs of the Company, which they found considerably advanced by the late additions to their list of members; and directed a search and arrangement to be made of their charters and authorities.

1749. Previous to the annual election, precautions were taken to secure correct votes, by adopting a plan which has been since, and is now conducted, on such occasions, to general satisfaction. A committee was appointed to examine the qualification of each member previous to his entering the court-room, for which he received a ticket. Sir John Thompson and Sir Joseph Hankey were promoted to the rank of president and vice-president, and William Baker, esq. to that of treasurer. These three gentlemen were aldermen of London, and colonels; and it seems to have been the general practice to choose into these offices men holding those stations, In the following June, it was determined that a gift of 201. in money, or in value, should be a qualifica tion for a seat in the honorary court of assistants, whose cooperation, under certain limitations, with the annually elected court, was much respected and desired." P. 216.

The history of the Artillery Company, briefly given, is as follows: It originated but a short time previous to the Spanish invasion, among a few gallant citizens, some of whom had served with credit in the Low Countries. At that memorable period several of them had commissions in the camp at Tilbury. But when the tumult of the times subsided their association fell to decay; and we hear little more of them till, in 1605, they received a patent of encouragement from James the First: in 1611 they increased their number to 6000; and on the 20th of December 1633, received another patent from the hands of Charles the First. In their original place of exercise, the Old Artillery ground, the parliament inlisted their first forces against the king, The Company, it seems, joined the tumultuary army of the day, and are, perhaps, included in the observations of lord Clarendon, in regard to the battle of Newbury,

The London trained bands and auxiliary regiments, of whose inexperience of danger, or of any kind of service beyond the easy practice of their postures in the Artillery Garden, men had till then too cheap an estimation, behaved themselves to wonder, and were in truth the preservation of that army that day; for they stood as a bulwark and rampire to defend the rest, and when their wings of horse were scattered and dispersed, kept their ground so steadily, that though Prince Rupert himself led up the choice horse to charge them, and endured their storm of small shot, he could make no impression upon their stand of pikes, but was forced to wheel about; of so

sovereign benefit and use is that steadiness, order, and dexterity in the use of their arms, which had been so much neglected.' P. 70.

During the civil wars they appear to have lost the whole furniture of their armoury, consisting of five hundred sets of arms of extraordinary beauty: and their captain, who probably possessed more avarice than military ardour, irrecoverably detained the chief part of their other moveable possessions. From this period their history affords but little to interest the general reader. In 1657, they sold their old ar moury in the Artillery garden, having, some years previous, used a field in the neighbourhood of Finsbury as their general place of exercise. Here, in 1734, they built their prearmoury.

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Except in the period of the great rebellion, their attachment to their sovereign has been steady. Since 1658 they have usually attended the lord mayor's show; have generally presented addresses to the throne on all extraordinary occasions; and, as a military body, have more than once afforded strength to administration.

To speak honestly as critics, we cannot but consider Mr. Highmore as a poor proficient in historical research. As a volunteer, he seems attached to his country with the greatest enthusiasm. And while we indulge one hope, that his legal productions may gain him more credit than the work before us, he will allow us to express another-that the Artillery Company may find a more judicious chronicler.

In our critique on this article, censorious as it may appear, we have endeavoured to discharge our duty to the public. Mr. Highmore seems by no means destitute of talent, but he has applied it injudiciously; and we heartily wish that, on some future occasion, an opportunity may offer of bestowing praise instead of censure. That the annals drawn from the archives of the Company are accurate we make no doubt industry has been evidently exerted in the accumulation of facts; and had Mr. H. attended to the poet's rule, he would no doubt have lessened the bulk of his production.

ART. XI.-Modern London; being the History and Present State of the British Metropolis. Illustrated with numerous Copper Plates. 4to. 31. 3s. Boards. Phillips. 1804.

THE earliest account of our metropolis was written in Latin by William Fitzstephen, who died so long ago as 1191. The works of others who wrote subsequently, to the time of Stowe, are lost and it is to the black-letter labours of this

last historian that we are principally indebted for our knowledge of London. His editors, however, were too minute, and the history itself too extended, either to be read with pleasure or purchased at a small expence. Mr. Pennant, in 1790, culled those parts which seemed likely to excite the greatest interest; added every information that numberless walks and enquiries, during a great portion of his life, had suggested; condensed his materials as much as possible; and, to use his own expression, stuffed another Iliad in a nut-shell. But Mr. Pennant's labours were printed in a desultory form; and seemed rather a col ection of detached anecdotes than a systematic history of London. A work, then, was still wanting, adapted to the views of general readers: such a one as might exhibit those facts which concern the actual present state of the metropons; gather the more interesting matter of its ancient history in a closer form; preserve to posterity the costume of the present period; and, by exhibiting London as it is, adares itself to foreigners in a popular and inviting form. Such, in few words, is the work before us. The Picture of London, whose success has been evinced by numerous editions, served as the skeleton on which it was formed; such parts as seemed only to conduce to temporary views were omitted: and a regular history of the metropolis, compiled from the best authors and original manuscripts, prefixed. In addition to this, most of the busy haunts of the inhabitants, whether for the gratification of ambition, avarice, or pleasure, have been exactly pourtrayed, in views, that convey at once. correct ideas of places which interest from their celebrity, and of scenes which characterize the manners of the people. The history prefixed, we are told in the advertisement, was compiled by a distinguished antiquary, who, were we not otherwise informed, from a note in the second page, aukwardly introduced as a quotation from Pennant's London, we should have taken for a Welshman. In this, as no faithful accounts of the same object can substantially vary, the writer has occasionally availed himself of the most valuable remarks that have been made by others; although the frequent corrections, and additions in almost every page, entitle him to an exclusive property in all he has adopted. The opening is perhaps as favourable a specimen as we can quote.

If Londinium, as is usually asserted, was the name given to our metropolis by the Romans, our antiquaries have in vain ransacked their Celtic dictionaries for its etymology. But the situation of this city, as Mr. Pennant observes, was just such as the people would select according to the rule established among the ancient Britons: it

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