THE
Repository
OF
ARTS, LITERATURE, COMMERCE,
Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics,
For JUNE, 1809.
The Sixth Number.
The suffrage of the wise,
The praise that’s worth ambition, is attain’d
By sense alone, and dignity of mind.
HISTORY OF THE USEFUL AND POLITE ARTS.
(Continued from page 269.)
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN BRITAIN.
When the Britons invaded
by the Romans, they had nothing
among them answering to our ideas
of a city or town. Their dwellings,
like those of the ancient Germans,
were scattered about the country,
and generally situated on the brink
of some rivulet, for the sake of water,
and on the skirt of some wood or
forest, for the convenience of
hunting and pasture. Where these
inviting circumstances were most
conspicuous, the chiefs fixed their
residence; their friends and followers
built their houses as near to them
as they could, and this naturally
produced an ancient British town.
The Romans, however, on their
arrival, not only built a prodigious
number of solid, convenient, and
magnificent edifices for their own
accommodation, but instructed and
encouraged the natives of the island
to follow their example. The
consequence was, that from about the
year 80 of the Christian era to the
middle of the fourth century,
architecture and all the arts immediately
connected with it, flourished in
Britain; and the same taste for erecting
solid, convenient, and beautiful
buildings, which had so long
prevailed in Italy, was introduced into
this country. Every part of it
abounded with well-built towns,
villages, forts, and stations; and
this spirit of building so much
improved the taste and increased the
number of British builders, that, in
the third century, this island was
No. VI. Vol. I. Zz
