favourite poet, I might sing of houses from their rudest to their most elegant state, as he has sung the sofa in his delightful Task. Deprived of the poetic eye, which, in the finest frenzy, rolls from earth to heaven, we submit, that the origin of all regular buildings may be plausibly deduced from the construction of the meanest huts. These were, at first, probably made of a conic figure, like a pitched tent, which is the simplest in structure, and which, afterward, from its inconve niency, would be changed into the cubic form, covered with sticks, and branches, and turfs, or stones across. When the rude builder began to erect more stately edifices of stone, he would imitate, from necessity, those parts which had composed the primitive huts. Thus, the upright trees, with stones at each end, were the origin of columns, bases, and capitals; and the beams, joists, and rafters, which formed the covering, gave rise to architraves, friezes, and cornices. Although the first buildings would be rough and uncouth, because the artificers of those remote ages possessed neither skill, experience nor tools; yet, when, by practice, certain rules had been established, and many new instruments invented, the art would rapidly advance towards perfection, and a variety of style, and different manners of building, would be discovered. Necessity has not unfitly been said to be the mother of invention; and it is evident, that the masonic art advanced rapidly; for we find, that Cain builded a city about two hundred and thirty years after the creation of the world, (when Cain was only about one hundred and thirty-three, if he offered his sacrifice at thirty-three, for then Jesus Christ offered himself,) and called it Enoch, after the name of a son then born to him. This city, we presume, must have been far inferior to Glasgow in the year 1300, when Sir William Wallace routed the English there; and inferior also to Edinburgh at that period. Still more inferior to Glasgow, when Ringan Gilhaize passed through it, as is well described by Galt, about 1560; and far more inferior to Edinburgh, when Mr. Veitch attempted to enter it the night before the battle of Pentland, on 27th November, 1666. Shortly, however, as this city was built after the creation of the world, it has been computed by Saurin, inaccurately, we think, that there might be four hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-four men and women, indepen dent of children, upon the earth. Numerous, strong, and ele gant must have been the buildings that Adam and Eve wit nessed raised by their descendants, before they left that world which they had ruined and peopled. Jabal, the first grazier and tent-maker, Jubal, the first musician, and Tubal Cain, or

Vulcan, as some think, the first smith on record, also descended from Cain. We are told little else about the men before the flood but some of their ages, compared with which ours are, indeed, but as an handbreadth and a span.

After Enoch was translated, and one hundred and twenty years of special warning, during which the ark was a-building, was given, the flood came and swept away the world of the ungodly; but the useful arts and sciences to which they had given birth, would be partly transmitted by Noah and his sons. They would not find the same difficulty which Adam had to build a habitation. Nimrod is the first mentioned after the deluge (Gen. x. 9-11) who erected, not a hut, nor a house, but a kingdom; and laid the foundation of two mighty empires, the Assyrian and Babylonian. Architecture soon found its way into Egypt, the cradle of the sciences and arts. From thence it was carried into Greece; and there arrived at a perfection, in order and elegance, that has never been surpassed. Here the first four orders of masonry-the Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian-were invented and perfected. This was not done at once, like a Newcastle keel, which never has been altered or improved since first invented; but by slow and imperceptible degrees. The Romans added a fifth, called the Composite; and their number has, so far as we know, never been increased. The Saxon, the Norman, and the Saracenic, or Gothic, are compounded mostly, if not entirely, of these. The Jews have, by some of the enemies of God and man, been reckoned a rude and ignorant people; but it is a singular fact, that Solomon, without being aided by the learning of the Chal

deans, the fathers of mankind, the Egyptians, or Greeks, reared a temple, which, we apprehend, contained all the orders of masonry, and, we presume, excelled every house, in elegance and splendour, which human genius has ever planned, or human art and industry erected. We have an unconquerable partiality to everything even most remotely allied to Scripture; but if it should happen, that the temple at Jerusalem did not excel every temple in external and internal symmetry and grandeur, we are perfectly certain, that there never was, nor will be, a house where the Deity so exclusively dwelt, and so gloriously manifested Himself. Glorious things, indeed, are spoken of Zion; and in the temple, rebuilt, indeed, but not equally splendid, nor containing all that was in the first, though on the same site, the Eternal Son of God, the Architect of the universe, for a season worshipped and taught. This made the glory of the latter house greater than the glory of the former, though the ancient men, who had seen the first house, when they saw the foundation of the second house laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Without leaving reference to the Sacred Records, (Acts xix. 24-41,) we may mention the temple of Diana at Ephesus, which was a work of the greatest magnificence. Two hundred and twenty years were spent in finishing it, though all Asia Minor was employed. It was supported by 127 pillars, sixty feet high, each of which was raised by as many kings. The church of St. Peter at Rome, and of St. Paul in London, are buildings which astonish every beholder. The walls of Babylon, of which mention is made in Isaiah xlv. 1-4, according to Prideaux, taken from Herodotus, who saw and described them, were 350 feet in height, and eighty-seven feet in thickness, and sixty miles in circumference, forming an exact square, with twenty-five gates of brass in each square. The temple of Belus, or Baal, some say a mile, others 600 feet, in height, which Nebuchadnezzer enriched with the sacred vessels of the temple at Jerusalem, (2 Chron. xxxvi. 7; Dan. i. 2,) and which the great Bochart and others say, was the tower of Babel enlarged and deco rated; and the hanging gardens at Babylon, built by Semiramis, were also prodigious efforts of the skill and labour of man. It was while surveying this wonderful city, that the Babylonian monarch made the proud and independent speech which brought him to graze with the beasts of the field. The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? That great city, Nineveh, deserves not to be forgotten, of which Jehovah thus speaks,

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left? Time would fail me to attempt the very mention of the wonders of Egypt, independent of its astonishing pyramids. Still more impracticable would it be merely to glance at Athens, where Paul found an altar inscribed to the unknown God, and where are still to be seen the ruins of the Parthenon, or temple of Minerva, the temple of Theseus, and of Jupiter Olympius; or to glance at Corinth, with its numerous edifices, to the chiefly converted inhabitants of which Paul wrote two long epistles; or to take a bird's-eye view of Sparta, or Lacedemon, where there is not now a vestige of the works of its brave inhabitants,-three hundred of whom dared to oppose the vast army of Xerxes, consisting, as some report, of more than five millions of men,— reviewing whom, their commander burst into tears, when he thought, that in less than one hundred years, they would be all numbered with the dead. I cannot, however, leave this classic, this once Christian country, without expressing my astonishment, and almost venting, even in the chair of peace, my indignation, that the nations of Europe, and especially free, and highly-favoured, and exalted Britain, should have looked on with the most stoical apathy, and the chilling coldness of death, while the remains of a once free and brave people have been butchered, and almost extirpated, by a horde of ruthless barbarians, and most unrelenting infidels. We seem more favourably inclined (March 1829) to Turks and Roman Catholics, than to Protestants, or professing Christians. To us may not unfitly be accommodated that Scripture, If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and tho e that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall He not render to every man according to his works? We are also totally precluded from looking at even the ruins of imperial Rome, for ages the mistress of the world; but much more from even naming her once almost unparalleled fabrics. Into her extensive lap, the stores of the sciences, and the arts of the east and west were poured. Passing the wall called Graham's dyke, first marked out by the stations of Agricola, general to Nero, so excellently described by Tacitus,-to one of which stations, between Cadder church and Kelvin. water was conveyed in cemented tyles from the Roman well, beautifully inclosed by dressed and dove-tailed flags on the palace farm; (the_wall was built by Lollus Urbicus, lieutenant to Antoninus Pius,

and finished by Severus, between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, A.D. 194; and the other, built by the Emperor Adrian, A.D. 116, from the Frith of Solway to the estuary of the Tyne,)-allow me just to mention the wall of China, built about 2000 years ago, which is twenty-five feet in height, and twenty-four in breadth, and 1500 miles in length, carried over the summits of mountains above a mile (5225 feet) in height, and through the deepest valleys, and over the broadest and most rapid rivers; and, in many places, is doubled and trebled, to command important passes; and as almost every hundred yards has a tower or bastion, forty-eight feet high, and about fifty wide. In addition to this stupendous work of masonry, I shall merely add that of the Escurial, or Royal Palace of Spain, which is the largest and most magnificent in Europe, containing 11,000 windows, 14,000 doors, 800 columns, and several thousand apartments, some of which are very large-the whole building occupied the space of twenty two years. Every one of these houses, and palaces, and walls, were built by some men. There are other works of human invention. There is a species of building that men have erected for containing their bodies after their spirits have left this world, and which, in Scripture, is very, yea, most emphatically called, their long home, and the house appointed for all living. One of these, the mausoleum, or sepulchre of Mausolus, King of Caria, was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built by his queen, Artemisia, of the purest marble; and yet the workmanship of it was much more valuable than the marble. It was sixty-three feet long, from north to south, almost 411 feet in compass, and twenty-five cubits, that is, about thirty-five feet high, and surrounded with thirty-six columns, that were beautiful in the highest degree. The Pyramids of Egypt were supposed to be of the same nature; three of which, remarkable for their height, still remain. The largest of the three, called the Great Pyramid, forms a square, each side of whose base is 660 feet. The cir cumference is 2640 feet. The basis covers eleven acres of ground. The perpendicular height is about 450 feet, or, if measured obliquely, 700. The summit, which, viewed from below, appears a point, was a platform, each side of which was eighteen feet long. The stones with which this enormous edifice was built, were thirty feet in length. 100,000 workmen were constantly employed in carrying on this amazing structure. Thirty years were spent in erecting this immense fabric. The sum expended for food to the workmen, amounted to 1600 talents, which, comparing the money in those days