to enter into an alliance with the state of Venice, and to that end to fend ambaffadors to thofe feveral places, did propofe the choice of thefe employments to Sir Henry Wotton; who, confidering the fmallnefs of his own eftate (which he never took care to augment), and knowing the courts of great princes to be fumptuous, and neceffarily expenfive, inclined moft to that of Venice, as being a place of more retirement, and beft fuiting with his genius, who did ever love to join with bufinefs, study, and a trial of natural experiments; for both which fruitful Italy, that darling of Nature, and cherisher of all arts, is justly famed in all parts of the Chriftian world.

Sir Henry having, after fome fhort time and confideration, refolved upon Venice, and a large allowance being made by the King for his voyage thither, and a fettled maintenance during his ftay there, he left England, nobly accompanied through France to Venice by gentlemen of the beft families and breeding that this nation afforded. They were too many to name; but thefe two, for the following reasons, may not be omitted. Sir Albertus Morton, his nephew, who went his fecretary; and William Bedel, a man of choice learning, and fanctified wifdom, who went his chaplain, And though his dear friend Dr. Donne (then a private gentleman) was not one of the number that did perfonally attend him in this voyage, yet a letter fent by him to Sir Henry Wotton, the morning before he left England, may teftify he wanted not his friend's best wifhes to attend him.'

He was fent thrice as ambaffador from England to the Venetian senate, and occafionally, in his way thither, to the Emperor, and other princes and ftates of Germany. Having been always careless of money, and liberal even to the borders of profufion, in his manner of living, he fell into poverty; fo that the provostship of Eton was as convenient for his circumstances as agreeable to his inclination.

To readers of the prefent day the moft fplendid characters in this biographical collection are Dr. Donne and Sir Henry Wotton. In the laft age, the preference would have been given, by moft of the church of England, to the learned, judicious, grave, and pious Hooker. They are all of them men worthy to be held in remembrance by pofterity, as patterns of virtue, and as men of talents, though thofe talents were not employed in all, nor even in very many inftances, on the fubjects of the present day. To the English hiftorian and antiquary thefe lives of Walton, with the notes of the editor Mr. Zouch, prefent a rich repaft in the various anecdotes and allufions to times and perfons with which they are familiarly acquainted.

ART.

1

ART. IV. Memoirs of the Literary and Philofophical Society of Manchefter. Vol. III. and IV.

WE

[ Concluded from our laft Number. ]

E have already given the contents, with fome fpecimens, of Vol. IV. Part I. of these Memoirs. Of Part II. the contents are thefe:

The Laws of Motion of a Cylinder, compelled by the repeated Strokes of a falling Block to penetrate an Obitacle, the Refiftance of which is an invariable Force. By Mr. John Gouch.-Communicated by Dr. Holme.

Sketch of the Hiftory of Sugar, in the early Times and through the Middle Ages. By William Falconer, M. D. F. R. S. &c. &c.-Communicated by Dr. Percival.

March 12, 1790.

Read

Copy of a Letter from Thomas Beddoes, M. D. Physician at Bristol Hot Wells, to Mr. Thomas Henry, F. R. S. &c.

Some Obfervations on the Flints of Chalk-Beds. In a Letter from Thomas Beddoes, M. D. Phyfician at Bristol Hot Wells, to Mr. Thomas Henry, F. R. S. &c.

Experiments and Obfervations on the Vegetation of Seeds. By Mr. John Gouch.-Communicated by Dr. Holme.

On Plica Polonica. By Mr. Frederic Hoffman, Surgeon to the Pruffian Army.-Communicated by Dr. Ferriar.

On the Combuftion of Dead Bodies, as formerly practised in Scotland. By Alexander Copland, Efq.

Obfervations on the Advantages of planting Waste Lands. By Thomas Richardfon, Efq.

The Inverfe Method of Central Forces.-Communicated by Dr. Holme.

Conjectures on the Ufe of the ancient Terraffed Works in the North of England. By John Ferriar, M. D. Read December 12, 1792.

Mifcellaneous Obfervations on Canine and Spontaneous Hydrophobia. To which is prefixed, the Hiftory of a Cafe of Hydrophobia occurring Twelve Years after the Bite of a fuppofed Mad Dog. By Samuel Argent Bardfley, M. D. M. R. M. S. Edin. and C. M. S. Lond.

Farther Experiments and Obfervations on the Vegetation of Seeds. By Mr. John Gouch.-Communicated by Dr. Holme.

An Attempt to explain the Nature and Origin of the ancient Carved Pillars and Obelisks now extant in Great Britain. By Mr. Thomas Barrit.

Meteorological Obfervations, collected and arranged by Thomas Garnette, M.D. &c. &c.-Communicated by Dr. Percival. ENG. REV. VOL. XXVIII, NOV. 1796.

G g

The

The letter from Dr. Beddoes to Mr. Henry communicates a fimilar cafe to those related by Mr. Willis in the Manchefter Memoirs, Vol. IV. Part I. This is in the true philofophical fpirit of investigation. The love of fame may induce men of observation to publish original discoveries of their own. To mark and defcribe fuch phenomena as ferve to confirm the conjectures of others, or, by multiplying facts of the fame kind, to lay a foundation for abftraction or induction, merits particular commendation.

Mr. Richardfon's obfervations place the advantages of planting wafte lands in a very clear light.

Dr. Ferriar's Conjectures on the Ufe of the ancient Terraffed Works in the North of England, will afford not a little of ingenious amusement to the antiquarian.

In the northern counties of this kingdom the fides of hills are, in many places, divided by regular traces. Such works are firft obfervable in Weftmoreland and Cumberland: in Northumberland they are very numerous. It is uncertain whether they exift in Scotland; for the filence of antiquarians, who are generally bad judges of earthen works, affords no proof to the contrary. Probably the fa

mous

* Dr. Ferriar, the Manchefter Society, and all antiquarians, are here informed, that there is a very striking exemplification of the terraces that form the fubject of this effay, on the fouthern aspect of the hill of Moncrieff, near Perth in Scotland, where the hill tapers, near Kilmonth, off from a lofty and precipitous front, towards the conflux of the Tay and the Erne. The eftuary of the Tay forms one of the greateft inlets into Scotland, on the east, as that of the Clyde does on the weft. The Firth of Forth, interjected between both, indents the country as far up as Alloa, near Stirling; which town is nearly equidiftant from Greenock and Glasgow on the Clyde, and Dundee and Perth on the Tay. These three eftuaries thus form, as it were, a chain of ports and pofts, where the land may be invaded, and, if invaded, muft be defended. It is, accordingly, on this chain, the boundary line between Pictland, or, the lowlands of Scotland, and the ancient Caledonia, that the grand scenes of action between the Romans and Caledonians; the Caledonians and the Picts; and, afterwares, the Caledonians and Picts united under the appellation of Scots, and the English; are fituated. From AGRICOLA to the Duke of Cumberland in 1745, every invading general penetrated, or attempted to penetrate, into the middle and the northern regions of Scotland, by the way of Stirling, and the country opened by the Forth; while fleets and flying parties hovered and scoured the banks of the Tay and the Clyde. The importance of the terraced heights of Kilmonth, therefore, as a military ftation, needs not to be illuftrated. But, whether they be of Roman or Scandinavian origin, may, perhaps, admit of fome doubt.-On the fouth of the Moncrieff

mous parallel roads of Glenco, defcribed in the Appendix to Mr. Pennant's Tour, are terraces of this kind, as they abound in the avenues of hilly and difficult countries. The extent of thefe works is very different; in fome places there are not more than three or four

rows

hill, and its declivity at Kilmonth, flows the Ern, through a rich and beautiful valley, about two miles in breadth-the fouthern fide of the valley being bounded by the Ochill hills, ftretching, in a parallel line with the Grampians, in a direction from fouth-weft to north-east, from the Clyde to the Firth of Tay, at the mouth of which they die away in the ocean. At the root of the Ochill hills, at the entrance of one of their gauts or paffes, oppofite, nearly, to the terraces of Kilmonth, and about two miles from the conflux of the Tay and the Erne, flands ABERNE THEY, Once the capital of what may be called the Pictish empire in Scotland; and, on the fummits of the Ochills, for a space of eight or ten miles from that conflux, here and there we defcry the remains of Danish encampments, and of vitrified towers; as, particularly, on the fummit of Law Hill, at the mouth of the Glen of Abernethey.-We fhall only obferve, that those terraces ftrike the eye of the obfervant traveller, as he approaches to the town of Perth by the way of the bridge of Erne. They are on fo magnificent a fcale, that the country people can hardly believe them to be the works of art; but, at the fame time, on fo regular a conftruction, that they can hardly fuppofe them to have been formed by the hand of nature, which, in the formation of all hills and valleys, affects fuch a wonderful variety. They therefore afcribe them, as they do all ancient flructures of great frength and magnitude, to the PEICHS or PEIGHS; a race of mortals of fmall ftature, but of wonderful ftrength of body, as well as great knowledge in arts; and even endowed with fupernatural power and fagacity. We understand, from the writings of POLWHELE and others, that the PEIGHS have alfo an existence in the fabulous and traditionary history of Cornwall. Facts thus brought together in one view, from one extremity of the island to another, produce light, not by collifion, but by coalefcence. And, for this reafon, we prefent the SCOTCH PEICHS, PEIGHS, or PEICHTS, to the Cornish and Welth gentlemen, as we alfo do the terraces on the hill of Moncrieff to Dr. Ferriar, and the other members of the Manchester Society.

It is wonderful that this appearance efcaped the attention of Mr. Pennant, who visited the hill of Moncrieff, which he celebrates on account of its variegated and extenfive profpect. The advanced pofition of fuch a hill on fo great an inlet into the country as the Firth of Tay, might well have fuggefted the probability that it must be marked with fome traces of encampment and fortification. And this idea, with a confequent exploration, would certainly have occurred to another traveller from England, had he happened to have visited the beautiful, lofty, and admirably fituated hill of Moncrieff. The traveller to whom we allude, is, Mr, NɛWTE, of Tiverton, Devonshire,

rows of terraces, capable altogether of containing an hundred men ; but in others, the terraces mount almoft to the fummits of lofty hills, and would lodge a confiderable body of troops. At the battle of Humbledon, the Scottish army is faid to have been posted on one of thefe works, which is the most extenfive I remember to have obferved.

That fuch terraces were intended for military purposes, can hardly be doubted; but in what age, or with what particular view they were formed, has never yet been determined.

Mr. Wallis, in his Antiquities of Northumberland, fuppofes them to have been ftations for parading the militia; but it is improbable that, in rude times, fo much exertion fhould have been employed, in places not eafily acceffible, for a purpose to which a level furface was much better adapted. On the contrary, their pofition, on commanding fituations, fecured by precipices, or difficult eminences on both flanks, or covered by advanced works of the fame kind, but of a fmaller fize, points them out as lines of defence. I believe they are chiefly to be traced on the moft acceffible parts of a high country, or rifing from the brink of a river, to defend the paffage. By what people they were raised, it is very difficult to conjecture. They differ, in every particular, from the British works defcribed by Cæfar, and are probably of more recent date, for they indicate the access of the invaders to the interior and stronger part of the country. And no traces of the British dry walls appear in them, although stone is plentiful on the very ground where they are formed. They resemble, in fome places, the Danish field works; but their greater extent, and pofition with respect to the fea and low country, for they chiefly point to the east and fouth, render it improbable that they are of Danish origin. I was once inclined to think that they were conftructed to oppofe the progrefs of that people, becaufe confiderable terraces are vifible, on the floping eminences of fome fields near Bambrough Castle, in Northumberland, which, among a great variety of entrenchments, contain fome beautiful femicircular redoubts, with triple ramparts. But, in a fhort ramble to the Lakes, in fpring 1791, the view of ORTON SCARR, or Rock, between Kendal and Appleby, and of the neighbouring country, induced me to believe, that, if this kind of defence were employed against the Danes, it had been, however, of earlier origin.'

Having defcribed ORTON SCARR, or Rock, and the remains of military works thereon, and alfo CASTLE How, with a

Devonshire, who has viewed and defcribed the topography of Scotland and the northern counties of England, with the eye of a natu ralift and of a military geographer, and whofe ingenious Tour, highly decorated with numerous and excellent engravings, by HEATH and other capital artifts, will probably find its way into the library of every gentleman who is interefted in the natural, moral, and polical ftate of thofe parts of the united kingdom.

saftellum,