for any ecclesiastical edifice in the kingdom.

The decorative part of the restoration is confided to Mr. Willement, and in the extensive works which are in progress from his designs we may expect to witness a revival of the ancient style of fresco painting, which will be extensively applied to the vaulted roof and walls. Every one who recollects the naked and cold appearance of the choir will fully appreciate the value of the decorations introduced by Mr. Willement, when the choir, completed and resplendent in vivid colours, shall first meet his eye. In addition, appropriate painted glass from Mr. Williment's designs will be introduced into the lancet windows at the east end, and in other parts of the choir.*

As an idea of the proposed restorations, it may be sufficient to observe, that the arches of communication between the round church and the choir have been opened, the effect of which is very striking. In the former portion of the building a circular window over the western doorway has been uncovered, which is found to be nccupied, by wheel-formed tracery, in design greatly resembling that at Barfreston, Kent, and helping to fix the true date of that curious structure. The marble columns of the church are to be polished after the removal of the successive washes which have for many years so greatly injured their appearance. The ancient level of the floor is to be restored, and the choir entirely fitted up to correspond with the architecture and age of the edifice. Ths organ will be placed in a separate chamber, built outside the main building, and communicating with the interior by one of the windows of the church, from which the glass has been removed. The external appearance of this chamber will be strictly in accordance with the architectural features of the church; and the ashler and mouldings will be constructed in Caen stone, imported for the occasion. A very fine piscina with several niches have been laid open in the choir by the removal of the wainscoting and

* At a future period we expect to be able to give a more detailed account of these works, with a particular description of the devices and other embellishments.

modern monuments. In addition, it is more than probable that the effigies of the knights in the round church will be arranged more appropriately.*

It is to be regretted that the chapel of St. Anne on the south side of the nave, so celebrated for its productive powers,† destroyed during the injurious alterations which the church sustained in 1827, has not been preserved, to share in the benefits of the present admirable restoration. E. 1. C.

We are happy to have to append to the preceding general notice of the repairs of the Temple Church the following communication from a distin. guished architect, whose well-known experience in ecclesiastical architecture has occasioned his opinion and cooperation to be solicited on this important occasion.

MR. URBAN,

Dec. 17.

HAVING been requested by the Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple to examine the whole fabric of their church, and make a full report to them of its condition, I commenced with the circular part, that being the most ancient, and was fortunate enough to discover, over the western doorway, a very beautiful circular window, in a fine state of preservation: : a drawing of which, from actual admeasurement, I herewith send for insertion in your valuable Magazine. (See the Plate.)

This window was probably closed up from view on the interior as well as the exterior about the year 1700, when the ordinary brick buildings which press like an unsightly incubus against the north side of this unique edifice were erected. This Anglo-Norman wheel window, formed of Caen stone, is composed of eight spokes, which are set at equal distances round the inner rim of the felly and the external rim of the nave; the wall in which it is inserted is three feet six inches thick. The window is doubly recessed on the exterior, to the depth

*See Gent. Mag. XC. part ii. p. 587 (where will be found some observations on the ancient position and mutations of these effigies).

+ Anecdotes and Traditions, published by the Camden Society, p. 110.

of ten and a half inches, and the edges chamfered. The external diameter is eight feet three inches. The internal finishing is a plain splay, two feet deep, the outer diameter of which is nine feet, and the inner seven feet six inches. The small romanesque columns composing the spokes of the wheel are three inches in diameter, and eight and a half diameters in height, including the base and capital; there is a groove for the glass on cach side of the columns, which is continued entirely round the circular indents and cusps. The construction of this beautiful window is a master piece of masonry. The indented felly consists of eight pieces of stone, which are kept in their true position by eight stone wedges, being one under the centre of the base of each column or spoke. The nave or centre of the wheel consists of two stones, and the tops and bottoms of the caps and bases of the spokes being portions of concentric circles, the whole would stand alone without any lateral support. The outer and inner wall arches are composed of small stones from four to eight inches in thickness and very neatly jointed. I beg leave here to impress upon architectural draughtsmen, particularly those concerned in Gothic works, the necessity of accurately ascertaining the modes of construction used by the ancient masons at different periods; it will stamp a value on their works, and be a sure stepping stone towards a correct revival of the architecture of the Middle Ages.

Circular windows were used at a very early period in civil as well as ecclesiastical buildings, and were continued through every variety of gothic architecture down to the time of Henry VII. and according to the pattern have been called Catharinewheel, Marigold, Rose, The masonic three in one, &c. Saint Catharine, who lived in the fourth century, is said to have been tortured upon an engine made of four wheels, joined together and stuck with sharp pointed spikes, that when the wheels were moved, her body might be torn to pieces; now, had the circular window been introduced in honour of this Saint, it is probable we should have had some rude imitation of this horrid machine, and more than proba

ble, that churches built and dedicated to this Saint would have had this emblem of her martyrdom invariably introduced; but such is not the case. I am therefore disposed to think, that, as the Norman architecture is undoubtedly a rude imitation of the Roman, this beautiful window might have suggested itself to an architect from seeing its effect on some of the wheels of the sculptured chariots which adorned the Roman buildings. I have a Roman bas-relief in my museum, representing a chariot, &c. the wheels of which are in very high relievo, and so closely imitated in some of our early circular windows, particularly that at the Temple Church, as to make it at least a very remarkable coincidence.

The circular window in the east front of the Church at Castle Hedingham, Essex, is very like the one at the Temple Church, but the situation of the bases and capitals of the spokes are curiously changed; the lower ones commencing with the bases attached to the inner rim of the felly, and the upper ones with the bases on the nave. Barfreston Church, Kent, has a very beautiful Norman circular window; and the east window of the Bishop's Palace at St. David's; the Chapterhouse, Margam Abbey; Bridgewater Church; and the west end of the remains of the great hall at the Bishop of Winchester's Palace, Southwark, are examples of a later period. The masonic three in one is very remarkable in this last specimen.

As it is my intention (D.v.) to send you some further account of the discoveries made in this most interesting Church, with notices of the restoration now in progress, under the able direction of Mr. Savage, the Architect to the two Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple, I shall conclude these remarks by expressing the deep interest which the lovers of our national architecture take in the works; and how much the renewal of gothic architecture will be indebted to these spirited Societies, and the members of their committee, for removing the clouds which have so long darkened the majesty of this august pile, and restoring to its legitimate character one of the finest examples of pointed architecture in the world.

Yours, &c. L. N. COTTINGHAM.

GARSINGTON SCHOOL, OXFORDSHIRE.

THE appearance of this School reminds us of some of the earliest freegrammar schools of former days; and we hope it is destined to serve as high a purpose, though chiefly intended to give a Christian education to the children of the poor within the precincts of the parish. It consists of two distinct Schools, one for each sex; with an intermediate arrangement of rooms, above and below, for the residence of a superior master and mistress to superintend the whole establishment. There is a spacious cellar under each School; five bedrooms, with corresponding rooms below; kitchen, scullery, and other of fices, arranged in the best and most convenient manner. Altogether it is of the collegiate or aularian character in point of style. It is finished by a bell-turret, of an octagon form, arising from the centre of the roof, with arched apertures at the sides for the conveyance of sound, surmounted by a cupola of an elegant ogee shape, terminating in a ball and cross. The ridge of the roof is also relieved, instead of being burthened, by two stacks of chimnies, four each; and the dormer windows, instead of being lath

and plaster excrescences stuck in the slated roof, as an after thought, (which, in fact, has been often the case in domestic architecture,) form a kind of parapet to the front walls; their pediments being finished with stone corresponding with the rest of the walls. The doorcases and windows are furnished with labels, or dripstones; but the archwork is in the plainest and best Tudor style, suitable to the object; being without foliation, though the arches are correctly struck from four centres. Bath and Box stone have been used for the quoins, doorcases, windows, and ornamental parts; the rest is from quarries in the parish and neighbourhood; with brick partitions and linings in the interior, chimneypieces of Painswick stone, and steps from the Haseley quarries.

The structure is raised on an elevated and healthy spot, commanding a more extensive and interesting view than most parts of Oxfordshire can produce; on the left, Newnham and Baldon, with the Roman station above Dorchester in the distance; on the right, the vale of the Thames, or Isis, with the towers and spires of Oxford within five miles; and the Wantage Hills in the back ground, bounding

the horizon almost twenty miles to the westward. On the opposite side ranges the long line of the Chiltern Hills.

This central spot was long known as Garsington Green; being an open common, affording too obvious a temptation to the lovers of bull-baiting and Sunday cricket. Being allotted at the time of the inclosure to W. Plumer Halsey, Esq. in lieu of right to soil of commons and waste grounds, the present proprietor of the North End manor, Thomas Plumer Halsey, Esq. of Temple Dinsley, Herts, demised the same by lease for 999 years, from 11th Oct. 1839, to the president, fellows, and scholars of Trinity college, Oxford, in trust, among other things, that the rector, for the time being, should, within two years from the said date, build a school, with a house for the master and mistress, that the children of the poor may therein be instructed in the tenets and principles of the church of England, as now established, &c.; the rector to have the appointment of the master and mistress, and the general superintendence of the school. Between five and six hundred pounds have been liberally subscribed for this purpose; but, as more than double that sum will be required for the fabric alone, it is hoped, that additional contributions may lead to the completion of the work in the spirit in which it has been begun and conducted.

MR. URBAN, Dorchester, Nov. 18. I NEED not tell you of the existence of an opinion among a class of utilitarians of this age, that in studying the dead languages, scholars learn nothing but words; and I cannot better state that opinion than by quoting from "Chambers's Edinburgh Journal for April 1840," a paragraph of "Wyse on Education,” upon which I would, by your kind permission, offer a few observations.

He says, "Of what advantage to a merchant, to the head of a manufactory, to a military man, or to any of the numerous classes, dependent on our public offices, the most complete knowledge of the ancient languages? It is a luxury but luxuries are but poor substitutes for necessaries; men cannot live on cakes, neither will erudition conduct through life. If they will read the ancient authors, let them read them in translation. It is not the best, but the best is attainable at too dear a rate. We live too fast in the present age to spend so much time in words. THINGS press upon us at every step, and an education dealing with THINGS, a real or reality education, as the Germans term it, is the education best fitted for the practical, the reality men, for the active classes of the community."

Now, the dead languages shew us an ancient, and, but for them, an unknown world: the history, institutions, religion and opinions, arts and

sciences, manners, habits, wisdom, and folly of nations which have long been swept from the face of the earth; and it is impossible to read the dead languages without learning more or less of these things, as can be shewn by a few examples.

Such a sentence as this-"quí efferetur vix reliquerit," (C. Nepos de Aristide) means, as long as a reader learns only words, "He left scarcely anything by which he might be carried out," and is therefore unintelligible till the reader knows one thing, which is, that the ancients buried without their cities; and consequently that qui efferetur, by which he might be carried out, means by which he might be buried; and when we read in the Greek Testament (Matt. 26, v. 20.) that Jesus

one

“ άνακειτο μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα,”
lay down with the twelve,

cannot understand the word ávakeITO, lay down, without learning something of the ancient custom of lying down, or reclining on triclinia at meals, that is, without learning a thing. The words biremis and triremis traced to their roots, teach us some thing of the construction of the ancient ships; as from toga and tunica we learn the character of the Roman dress. From such words as vinea, testudo, and aries; we understand something of ancient warfare, as we do of Roman writing and books, from such as tabula, stylus, and volumen. The distinctive terms Barevs, a constitutional king, and rupavvos, a king by conquest, shew us the unsteady state of ancient kingdoms from the frequent overthrow of lawful rulers by invaders; nor can we well comprehend the different meanings of vaòs, lepov, and Teμevos, without getting a clear idea of the sacred buildings of Greece. Truly, I should like to know how Mr. Wyse makes it out that a youth can read the Latin authors without gaining an accession to his knowledge of things, and that Horace, Liry, or Cæsar can be read without learning anything of Roman men and manners, laws, religion, or warfare. Adams thought otherwise when he collected the account of things called Roman Antiquities.

But the paragraph answers to all this reasoning, "if they will read the

ancient authors, let them read them in translation," a sentence which, I believe, a man who could read them otherwise would never utter; since scholars know it to be impossible to make English versions of ancient works which could give a reader that knowledge of things which is carried in the works themselves, since no languages but those which were formed to express those things can do so correctly. Most of the productions and operations of the useful arts, and the houses, furniture, shipping, and weapons of the ancient nations, as well as their manners and institutions, were different from anything that we have; so that we have not, in our tongues, any names for many of them; and in writing versions of Greek and Latin books, we must either use their original names as untranslatable, and therefore unintelligible to an English reader, without a knowledge of the things which they stand for; or we must substitute for them, as we commonly do, the English names of such things as are most like them, in which case the English reader cannot acquire any correct idea of them from his translation, which is, in fact, a misnamed translation of what cannot be translated at all. The word effero, for example, as applied to the dead, is translated to bury, and thus loses its reference to the necropolis

or

"city of the dead," without the "city of the living;" and avakeipai loses its reference to the reclining posture at meals from being rendered by the verb to sit. If we render Tupavvos by tyrant, we shall not give its true meaning; and if we call a tunica a coat, or a toga a cloak, we shall give an idea of a modern garment, such as a Roman could never dream of. A simple verbal translation of Horace would be as unintelligible to an English reader as the original.

It is said, I think, by an Arabic proverb, that a man, by learning a second language, becomes two; and this is metaphorically true. He, for example, who reads the Greek authors is so far a Greek as he is carried back in mind among the ancient inhabitants of Greece, identifies himself with them, lives under their laws, sees and learns their manners, beholds their productions, and witnesses their deeds; converses with them in their own