animal was chiefly offered to Jupiter, or probably from his great bulk. Ælian mentions a Bull led to the altar, of such a prodigious size, that ten men had much ado to master it. The Bull in our bass-relief is crowned with laurel leaves, has the horns decked with the bandelets, or sacred fillets, and a kind of stole with fringe, upon his back. The Bulls in the triumphal sacrifice expressed on the frieze of the Arch of Titus are decorated in the same manner. There is reason to think that our marble was one of the embellishments placed on the outside of some ancient temple.

Plate XVII. BASS-RELIEF FOUND IN THE ISLAND OF

PAROS.

There is great probability for thinking that this fragment formed part of a frieze belonging to some ancient temple. And as it was digged up in the Island of Paros, in the year 1785, the exquisite beauty of the workmanship inclines us to believe it to be a relic of the famous Temple of Ceres; the sculptures of which were by the hand of Praxiteles. It is impossible to conceive any thing more gracefully expressed than the young woman that is caressing two doves.

Plate XVIII. TRIPOD BELONGING TO THE MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES, AT ATHENS.

Of all the utensils that were in request among the ancients, the most curious was the Tripod.* Athenæus mentions

• We are surprised that no author ever considered that holy engine in its proper light. Whoever has a competent knowledge of the secret doctrine so much renowned in the heathen theology, will not think us unfounded in conjecturing, that the Tripod was a sacred symbol, implying one of the chief instructions in the mysteries of Orpheus. There can be no doubt but Plato derived from that source a noble

great and small Tripods, and does not seem to admit of any other distinction. The former were like that upon which sat the Priestess of Apollo, for the convenience of catching the prophetic exhalations; the others were termed votive, being set in the temples for pious purposes by private individuals. The votive Tripods were made to uphold a vase, the use of which probably, was to burn perfumes. Our Tripod is of that sort. We shall take occasion to observe, that according to Pausanias, the Greeks, after the battle of Platea, presented the oracle of Delphi with a golden vase supported by a Tripod, upon which there was the effigy, that is, the head, of a serpent of brass. In our Tripod there are three visages; the features of the one in the middle seem to discover a Silvanus ; nor have the others a much different appearance; the feet correspond with the subject, and are evidently shaped like those of a brute. It cannot be thought an improper supposition, that the Tripods mentioned by Homer were footed in the same manner; so, when he says that they walked to the assembly of the gods, we see the ground, as well as the plausibility of the fiction. The name of Lysicrates, set down under our Tripod, shows that the production of this piece of workmanship is to be traced to the time of Demosthenes; which is a proof that even in that age, the art of sculpture had attained a degree of uncommon elegance and refinement.

[To be continued.]

conception, which is to be found in the Timæus, as well as in one of his Epistles to Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. But a disquisition upon such a subject having no immediate relation to our actual province,it will be sufficient for us to remark, that the fable of the famous golden Tripod, taken out of the sea by some young men of Miletus, and transmitted by Turus to the wise men of Greece, offers an allegorical sense, by which it appears, that the idea veiled under the form of a Tripod, was looked upon as the foundation of all human wisdom.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN, written eleven hundred Years since, by that ancient and famous Author, GILDAS, surnamed the WISE; and for the excellency of the Work translated into English, &c. with a Picture of the Author prefixed, W. Marshal, Sculp. Printed by John Hancock, 12mo. 1652. Pages 327, besides the Introduction.

[From Oldys's British Librarian.]

This being the most ancient British historian extant, some particulars relating to the author, with the different editions and character of his work, we refer to the bottom of the page. But the subject matter of this Epistle to the Britons, and his method of handling it, may be best gathered from the arguments he briefly touches upon, under distinct heads in the following order.

1. Of the Island, its situation and extent; the number of its cities, the magnificence of its buildings, and fertility of its soil. 2. The disobedience of the people, both in religion and government; their monstrous idols before the introduction of Christianity, and their charac

* We shall not here trouble our reader with distinguishing two other persons of the same name with our Author, since none of their genuine works remain, at least in History. 'Tis enough to observe that this GILDAS, called Badonicus, because said to be born at Bath, for his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, was surnamed the WISE; that he was Monk of Bangor; flourished in the middle of the sixth century, and lived to about the end of the third part thereof, as may appear by this treatise De Excidio Britanniæ, the only one of his writing extant, as Archbishop Usher assures it to be. He wrote it in Latin, in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough; and the first edition of it, published by Polydore Virgil, in octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, was from an incorrect copy; reprinted at Basil, 1541; and

ter by Porphyry, for their detestable tyrants. Then he proposes to recount their sufferings under the Roman Emperors, not from the British Authors, they being destroyed by their foes, or transported by their exiles, but from foreign accounts. So passes to, 3. The subjection of the island, and how tamely she received the foreign yoke. 4. Of her Rebellion under Queen Boadicea; her neglect to secure her conquests by sea and land; and final overthrow; which introduced, 5. Her second subjection and dreadful slavery, till, 6. Her second relief by Christianity, which produced, 7. Her persecution under Dioclesian; and, 8. Many holy martyrs; as, Alban of Verulam, with Aaron and Julius of Carlisle, besides many others not here named; also of their triumphant state, till, 9. The Arian Heresy; and 10. The Usurpation and Tyranny of Maximus, followed by, 11. The Invasion of the Scots and Picts. 12. Their expulsion by the Romans; 13. The re-invasion by those neighbours; 14. And second deliverance by the Romans, who having taught the Britons to arm themselves, and fortify their country, take their last farewell. 15. Of the third wasteful

at London, 1548. This last edition, or another much about the same time, which John Josseline gave of it from another manuscript, is but little more perfect than that first, which was remitted into the Bibliotheca Patrum. But the latest and best, is in Dr. Gale's Collection of Ancient English Historians, S vol. folio, Oxford, 1684, who had the advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicholson observes. The Life of Gildas is written at large by Caradoc of Lancarvan, and by an anonymous author, published by John a Bosco, in Biblioth, Florent. Also more briefly in Bale, Pitts, and Fuller's Worthies; which last wonders, not without reason, that Gerard Vossius should attribute a comedy in Plautus to this our Gildas, upon such slender grounds as he there mentions. As to his character, Milton tells us, that Gildas is every way preferable in speaking of the British wars, to the Saxon Writers, and a good reason he gives for it because Gildas was nothing conceited of the British valour, whereas the Saxons ever magnified their own deeds. Vide Milton's Hist, of Brit. lib. 3.

:

spoil by the aforesaid enemy. 16. And by a devouring famine. 17. Of their pitiful but fruitless address to the Roman Consul, Agitius. 18. Of the brave resistance to which some of them were driven by necessity; and the victory they obtained against their enemies, by whom they were forsaken, though not by their iniquities. Therefore, 19. Of their vices, and the licentiousness which followed their peace and plenty: their choice of wicked princes, and the corruption of their pastors. 20. The sudden alarm of their inveterate enemies. 21. And new calamities by pestilence. 22. Of their councils to redress themselves. 23. And invitation of their far most cruel enemy, the Sarons, to aid them against the Northern Powers. 24. who totally waste and spoil the country. 25. The miserable state of the fugitive Britons; their gathering head under Aurelius Ambrosius: battle with and victory over the Saxons. 26. Of the last victory obtained by the Britons against them at the siege of the Mountain of Bath (or Badon hill) 44 years and 1 month after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of my nativity, says Gildas. In this article the most observable of all the rest, as being now entered into the times of his own knowledge, our author first bewails and sharply reproves the depravity of the British rulers in general; next gives particular characters of five of them, beginning with the tyrant Constantine, then living, his perfidiousness, the murders he committed under the habit of the saintly Amphabale, his adulteries and other impieties. Then proceeds to Aurelius Conanus, whom he reproaches in like manner. With equal severity he scourges Vortiper, a wicked son of a good king. Nor does he less chastise Cuneglasse, that Golden Butcher, as his name imports, and concludes with the like execrations against that Dragon of the Island, Maglocune, who surpassed many tyrants, as in power so in mischief. Here he subjoins the menaces denounced against these and such like wicked