It cannot be denied that considerable taste and genius were displayed in the formation of the design, and for the sake of which its preservation was an object of solicitude; but this idea can be fostered no longer : its departed splendour can be only imagined, or faintly pictured, by works dedicated to the preservation, as far as printing and engraving can effect, of the features of the once glorious pile.

In the present publication, the history of the structure is continued to its close by the destruction of a great part of the Abbey, by the fall of the tower, and the subsequent dispersion of the estate connected with the mansion.

The embellishments consist of eleven plates, which display the architecture in plans and sections, and show the fine picturesque effect which the edifice possessed when perfect, by means of perspective views from different points. One of the plates, added by the kindness of Sir R. C. Hoare, presents the appearance of the structure at the period when the fall of the tower had reduced a great portion of the building to a heap of ruins.

The present owner, J. Benett, esq. M.P. for Wilts, is gradually converting the existing remains of the building into a residence; but it appears that the work, even of this partial reconstruction, proceeds but very slowly; and that, in truth, very little hope can be entertained that Fonthill will recover more than a very faint shadow of its former splendour.

Two of the engravings are from drawings by J. Martin, esq. whose pencil seems destined appropriately to illustrate a creation of fancy like Fonthill. The sections are made by Mr. Porden, the architect; and the remainder of the views are from drawings by Cattermole and Buckler.

A series of fifteen vignettes on wood display several minor but very interesting portions of the Abbey and its localities. An ancient gateway traditionally called "Jones's lodge," and attributed with great probability to Inigo Jones, is a relic of the ancient mansion of the Cottingtons, which was burnt in 1775; and all that remains of the splendid mansion which succeeded it, is a pavilion, still large enough for a gentleman's residence,

A view of the Church of Fonthill Gifford, erected in lieu of the one so sacrilegiously destroyed by Alderman Beckford, shows the modern erection to be a cold and mean structure.

The shield of Mr. Beckford, with its elaborate quarterings, reminds us of the numerous and splendid heraldic decorations of the Abbey, one of its best features, proving that in this respect a sound taste had been exercised in the selection of so appropriate an embellishment to a Gothic building. A sample of the splendid contents of the Abbey is given in the vignette in page 29; in which a shrine and various examples of elegant and costly workmanship, in gold and precious stones, are beautifully grouped together.

"The present publication," says Mr. Nichols, "adds another link to the History of the Abbey of Fonthill, as recorded in the works of Sir R. C. Hoare, and Messrs. Butler, Rutter, and Storer." It is painful to reflect that this link is the concluding one. The illustrative letter-press is compiled from the accounts by Mr. Britton and Mr. Rutter, and the plates will form excellent additional illustrations to Mr. Britton's work, and to the important one of Sir Richard Colt Hoare on "Modern Wiltshire." To those readers who do not possess either of those costly publications, the present compilation will be a cheap, and, at the same time, a comprehensive account of the once famed Abbey, and will prove to all possessors an excellent remembrance of a structure which in its brief day made no small noise in the world.

Memoir of John Carpenter, Town-clerk of London. Compiled from original Manuscripts and other authentic sources. By Thomas Brewer, of the Town-clerk's Office. [Not published.] IN the reign of Henry the Sixth, certain estates were devised to the Corporation of London by the subject of this Memoir, for the purpose of educating, clothing, and maintaining four poor boys. In process of time the lands increased so greatly in value as to be sufficient to enable the Corporation to endow the school which is now in progress of erection, with the

annual sum of 9001. The good effects of the parliamentary enquiry into the application of charity funds, have been particularly apparent in the instance of this benefaction. Until the year 1827, the annual expenditure in furthering the object of Carpenter's benevolent donation, was only 197. 10s. An attempt was then seriously made to increase the benefits of the charity, which has eventually been completed by the establishment of a new school, to be styled "the City of London School;" and the erection of an extensive building, on the site of Honeylane market, for the uses of the new foundation. It was contemplated to unite with the Carpenter estates the funds of the dissolved London Workhouse; but this part of the undertaking was not sanctioned by Parliament, and the school has therefore to depend on its own resources, aided by a subscription of 2,000l. from the Corporation, and other donations from individuals. The establishment is, in compliance with the modern notions of religious liberality, to be a "school for all;" but at the same time religion is not to be neglected in the course of education, so entirely as it is in the London " University."

It is rather singular that the will of John Carpenter, under which the Corporation is presumed to hold this bequest, is not to be found; but as it probably related solely to freehold estates, it was not proved in any of the ecclesiastical courts. The lands were not amalgamated with the property of the Corporation, but a separate account of them was always kept; and it must be a matter of congratulation to see them at length appropriated to a foundation so important; a result so little contemplated by the founder, but one which is decidedly in accordance with his wish to diffuse to the utmost extent the benefits of education. Inde. pendent of the character of a benefactor, Carpenter is well known in civic history. He was not only skilled in that knowledge of the laws and customs of the city, which, as town-clerk, it was his duty to possess, but he deserves to be ranked among the patrons of the fine arts, since it was at his expense and under his patronage that the famous "Machabre," or Dance of Death, was

painted in St. Paul's cloister, and which it will be recollected was illustrated by the verses of Lydgate.

The opinion of his moral worth, and the high estimation in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, is shewn by the fact of his having been appointed executor to the celebrated Whityngton, as well as to two other citizens, the execution of which offices involved the performance of various charitable trusts and a consequent heavy responsibility.

In his office he has immortalized his name by a compilation of a large volume on matters relating to this city. It is still deemed of the highest authority, and has been used with such effect, that its original name (Liber Albus) has given way to another more indicative of the state into which it has arrived, from the effects of constant reference, being now called" Liber Niger."

The change of name is attributed by Mr. Brewer to the ensuing ancient verses, written on the first leaf, and evidently at a very early period.

Qui Liber Albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo,

Factus et est unctis pollicibusque niger; Dum tamen est extans, istum describite librum,

Ne semel amisso postea nullus erit: Quod si nullus erit (nonnulla est nostraque culpa)

Hei! pretii summi perdita gemma vale!

These lines have been rendered into

English verse at the request of the compiler, by his friend Mr. Josiah Temple, of Guildhall, as follows:This Book, which once was white, has

black become,

Mark'd through and through by many a greasy thumb;

Copy its leaves while yet you have the

power,

Which may be lost if left beyond this hour; For if through fault of ours the book be lost,

Farewell! a gem is gone of greatest cost! -(page 11.)

The advice was not lost, and a copy of the work was made by Richard Smith, Comptroller of the Chamber in the reign of Elizabeth, and which transcript now bears the former name of the original.

The tract before us was compiled for the information of the Commit.

tee appointed by the Corporation to carry into effect the establishment of the City of London School, and is printed by their desire. Mr. Brewer has done great justice to the task assigned him, having gleaned with considerable research and assiduity, from the vast collections to be found in that storehouse of civic anti

quity, the Town-clerk's Office, all that he could discover relative to this excellent citizen. By the addition of materials collected from other sources, a tract of sixty-two pages has been produced, which will be an useful addition to the stock of civic history. It is embellished by a neat wood-cut of the building, and issuing as it does from the well-known press of Mr. Arthur Taylor, it is unnecessary to add a word on the excellence of the typography.

The History, Antiquities, and Topography of the County of Sussex. By Thomas Walker Horsfield, F.S.A. 2 vols. large 4to.-Baxter, Lewes. THE late John Fuller, Esq. of Parliamentary eccentricity, better remembered by our readers as Jack Fuller, who gave Mr. Hayley's MSS. to the British Museum, at one time contemplated the publication of a History of Sussex at his own expense, which often, we know, in these venal days, is synonymous with own authorship; but future generations were saved the solving the problematical query, "Could Jack Fuller write a County History?" for he urged Mr. Baxter, the publisher of the present work, to the execution of his purpose, and he, the publisher, employed as his cook for this topographical banquet the gentleman whose name precedes Mr. Baxter's in the title-page, and whose designation we have given as above. Our preliminary observations will not fall harshly on his ear, seeing he has had the candour to hint in the preface that it would have been impossible for him to have undertaken the present work but for certain materials which he found at hand, ready prepared. It is at the same time but fair to point out those ingredients of the dish which

:

Mr. Horsfield claims as his own he tells us that his intimate acquaintance with Eastern Sussex has enabled him

to contribute materially to the history and topography of many places, and that the particulars of several were entirely written by him. Nor can we in candour refuse the meed of approbation to him who first concentrates into one focus, with systematic arrangement and illustration, whatever has been partially effected towards a County History.

"The most remarkable feature in the

surface and scenery of Sussex, is occasioned by the intervention of the bold, yet graceful, masses of chalk formation, denominated the Downs. These smooth and open hills, celebrated for their velvet covering, rounded summits, and hollow coombes, rise from the Marsh of Peversey into the threatening promontory of Beachy Head, and enter Hampshire between West Harting and Stansted. Their length with- in Sussex is about fifty-three miles; their greatest breadth seven; mean breadth four and half: their average altitude is stated by White to be about 500 feet.*

"The Weald.-The great forest which in the Saxon times occupied a considerable portion of Kent and Surrey, and the whole of Sussex with the exception of the Downs and the maritime district already noted, was named of the Saxon word, weald, signifying a woody country: by the Britons it was called Coit Andred, from its exceeding greatness [the editor does not oblige us with the derivation], being, as we are expressly told in the Saxon Chronicle, Anno 893, 120 miles or longer from east to west, and 30 miles broad."

P. 4.

"The forest ridge forms the elevated district occupying the north-eastern part of the county, and stretching, with certain intervals, in a north-westerly direction along the borders of Surrey."

This forest ridge was evidently the ' natural wall of the Weald.

The section on the Geology and Mineralogy of the County, contributed by Gideon Mantell, Esq. F.G.S. (first printed for the most part in Mr. Cartwright's History of the Rape of Bramber,' and here reprinted,) must be read with the deepest interest. These are the antiquities of the structure of our mother earth-the indelible records of the changes and convulsions to which she has been exposed-the monuments of the earthquake's power, shaking the solid pillars of the land,

*White's Selbourne.. Vol. 1.

and cleaving its foundations to their base of the mighty floods rolling the massive rocks as petty shards awayof the volcano's fires melting the mountain and exalting the valley to the clouds-of those countless ages of Creation's birth, when yet

'o'er all the face of earth, Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with warm Prolific humour soft'ning all her globe,' and which formed, perhaps, the first of those six grand divisions or days of the Almighty's work, whose very minutes were with us an age.

It is very remarkable that this elevation of temperature supposed by Milton to have brought the genial powers of the earth into operation, may be inferred, from geological evidence, to have pervaded even our northern clime.

Of the organic remains of the chalk formation of Sussex, we are told that they have evidently been deposited in the basin of an extensive profound ocean, whose waters teemed with countless forms of animal existence, by far the greater part of which, if not the whole, differ essentially from any known recent species. In this county alone, which but a few years since was supposed to be destitute of, or very poor in fossil remains, we have collected upwards of 300 species of fishes, shells, zoophytes, &c. all of which are decidedly marine." "The fishes, in some examples, preserve even the form in which they died, ap. pearing as if they had been suddenly suffocated by a soft pulpy mass which had consolidated around them, and preserved their figures from alteration. The cornea or transparent membrane in front of the eye, the tongue, the fins, even the air-bladder, and the contents of the intestines, remain in some examples." "Almost every flint must have had some organic body as its nucleus; some of the pebbles, when divided and polished, exhibit the most beautiful anatomical preparations of the enclosed animal imaginable." p. 17.

"The Wealden formation consists of alternations of clay, shale, sand, sandstone, and limestone, containing freshwater shells, terrestrial plants, and the teeth and bones of reptiles and fishes. The state in which the organic remains occur, manifesting that they have been subject to the action of river currents,

but not to attrition from the waves of the ocean." "The Sussex marble, so strikingly characteristic of the Weald clay, occurs in layers that vary from a few inches to a foot or more in thickness, and are separated from each other by seams of clay or of coarse friable limestone. The compact varieties are sub-crystalline, and susceptible of a high polish, exhibiting sections of the enclosed univalves, of which the marble is almost wholly composed. The shells belong to the genus Paludina, the recent species of which inhabit fresh water, and they are associated with the shelly remains of a minute crustaceous animal that also abounds in a fresh-water limestone in France." p. 18.

The principal quarries of this stone, we are informed, are in the parish of Kirdford near Petworth, and it has been generally called Petworth marble. The author adds, that some of the small pillars in Chichester Cathedral, various monumental slabs, &c. are formed of this stone throughout the County. We could show him that the County of Sussex by no means limited its use, but that it is to be found in almost every ancient church in the southern, and perhaps other districts, particularly in those erected in the thirteenth century. In parts of the structure of the old London Bridge it was much employed, and specimens of it from that building are exposed to sale in the shops in Southwark, turned into snuff-boxes, dial-cases, seals, &c.

At least five species of Saurian reptiles have been found in Tilgate forest; of these extraordinary creatures of the ancient world, the Iguanadon is decidedly the most wonderful.

"The name of this fossil animal is derived from the close resemblance which its teeth bear to those of the Iguana or Guana of the West Indies; the bones also which have been found in Tilgate forest, correspond more closely with those of that animal than of any other living creature; but notwithstanding the resemblance in structure, this fossil exceeds by twenty times that of the recent animal. The teeth of the Iguanadon are very peculiar, resembling, when worn, those of the Rhinoceros and other herbivorous mammalia, and proving that, unlike all the recent reptiles, the original had the power of grinding its food; it was decidedly herbivorous, and the vegetable remains with which its relics are associated, are precisely of that kind which would seem to require such masticating apparatus. Bones

of the extremities, vertebræ, &c. corresponding in magnitude with the teeth, have also been found, but no traces of the jaws. A careful comparison of the fossil bones with the skeleton of the recent Guana, gives the following colossal proportions to the Iguanadon :

Length of the animal from the snout to

the tip of the tail, 70 feet.

Height from the ground to the top of the head, 9 feet.

Length of the tail, 524 feet. Circumference of the body, 144 feet. Length of the thigh and leg, 8 feet 2 in.

"The above calculation is made from the average size of various parts of the skeleton; but some bones are so enormous, as to prove that individuals must have attained the marvellous length of 100 feet!" p. 22.

The Hylæosaurus, i. e. Wealden Lizard, found in a quarry near Tilgate forest 1832, had "a row of enormous angular spinous bones, which in the original reptile were situated along the back and constituted a serrated dermal fringe." Whether the country were an island or continent through which the waters flowed that deposited the strata of the Weald may not be determined; but that it was diversified by hill and valley and enjoyed a much higher temperature than any part of modern Europe is more than probable :

"If we attempt," says Mr. Mantell, "to pourtray the animals of this ancient county, our description will possess more of the character of a romance than of a legitimate deduction from established facts. Turtles of various kinds must have been seen on the banks of its rivers and lakes; and groups of enormous crocodiles basking in the fens and shallows. The enormous Megalosaurus (great fossil lizard, found in the sandstone and grit of Tilgate forest) and the yet more gigantic Iguanadon, to which the groves of palms and arborescent ferns would have been mere beds of reeds, must have been of such prodigious magnitude that the existing animal creation presents us with no fit objects of comparison." p. 23.

Our author is inclined to place the site of Anderida at Seaford, about which ancient Civitas perdita so much has been said and conjectured by topographical writers. The Saxon Chronicle, under 490, says "This year Ella and Cissa besieged Andredescester, and slew all the inhabitants, so that not one Briton was left there." This utter destruction effaced even the memory of the

spot from the land, and Anderida has become as locomotive at the antiquary's command as any other doubtful station of the Roman colonists. We think, however, there is little doubt but Camden and Dr. Harris are right when they place this much-sought fortress at Newenden in Kent-a harbour ruined by geological changes of the Rother, dividing at this place by its waters Kent and Sussex.

Important vestiges of military works existed at this spot (of which we do not however speak from local knowledge). Hasted says, the manor was called in ancient deeds Andred; and Harris tells us of a hill called Anderdown, at the place; of which Dunum, or Dinas Andred, is evidently the derivative. Neither etymologically nor locally can Pevensey (the Anderida of Somner,) although a Roman fort, compete with this, for it does not lie sufficiently in connection with the Weald to claim such distinction. suspect that the station was called by the Britons, Dinas Newydd Andred-whence, Newenden: and we know how frequently the adjunct Newydd, was appended to rising colonies by the Britons;-hence Newydd Mach, Noviomagus, &c.—But we are digressing from our author.

We

The following discovery may interest the collectors of Roman sepulchral vessels. It is copied by the Editor from Mr. Dallaway's History of the Rape of Arundel, p. 80, where is a good engraving of the sepulchre, omitted by Mr. Horsfield.

Near the northern boundary of Walberton parish is Avisford-house and estate; in 1817, in a field near the house holes were made with a crowbar in the earth for the purpose of setting up hurdles to enclose sheep, which bar met with repeated resistance at about six inches deep.

"This circumstance induced the man, with assistance, to clear away the surface, when they perceived a stone, similar to the gritstone found near Petworth; it 8 inches, and 8 inches thick, forming the measured in length 4 feet, breadth 1 foot covering of a solid chest or coffer; which being taken off, the inside proved to be nearly hollowed out in an oblong square, nearly four feet in length, and eighteen inches deep; the sides of the coffer were four inches in thickness; the objects