tions that fully established their fame, and pointed them out as the fittest models for succeeding artists. Mr Chambers knew how to distinguish and to combine all the excellencies of those great men, and his intuitive good taste and sound judgment led him also to examine into the merits of those French architects, whose productions have since been so much esteemed and applauded, among whom Claude Perrault and Jules Mansard held the most distinguished rank. At Paris he studied under the celebrated Clerisseau, and acquired from him a freedom of pencil in which few excelled him."

On his return to England, he was fortunate enough to obtain the patronage of Lord Bute, who introduced him as architectural drawingmaster to the heir-apparent. His first work was a villa for Lord Besborough at Rochampton in Surrey, the portico in particular of which was greatly admired.

Such a work

In 1759, he published a treatise on civil architecture. was eminently a desideratum in English literature, and, being ably executed, was received with great favour. In 1765, he published an account of his improvements on the Royal gardens at Kew, which did less for his reputation than the preceding work. These improvements were in the Chinese style, and consequently little adapted to English tastes and gardening. The king of Sweden, however, was graciously pleased to confer on him the order of the Polar star in return for a present of the finished drawings of the gardens.

In 1772, Sir William published a 'Dissertation,' the object of which was to recommend the oriental style of gardening to the taste of the British public. In his introduction Sir William was pleased to handle Capability Brown, as he was called-a man of infinitely greater taste in landscape-gardening-very rudely. Brown did not retaliate himself; but was amply revenged by the appearance of an Heroic Epistle' addressed to his rival, and now known to have been the conjunct work of Horace Walpole, and Mason the poet. It commences thus::

"Knight of the Polar Star, by fortune placed

To shine the cynosure of British taste;
Whose orb collects in one refulgent view
The scatter'd glories of Chinese vertù ;

And spreads their lustre in so broad a blaze,

That kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze !

O let the muse attend thy march sublime,

And with thy prose caparison her rhyme;

Teach her, like thee, to gild her splendid song

With scenes of Yuen-Ming, and sayings of Li-Tsong."

It must be acknowledged, says Mr Cunningham, that the lofty and cumbrous language of Sir William's Dissertation is imitated with much skill in the Epistle, and that the poet has aptly caparisoned his rhyme from the turgid sentences of the architect. "In their lofty woods," says Chambers, "serpents and lizards, of many beautiful sorts, crawl upon the ground, and innumerable monkeys, cats, and parrots clamber upon the trees. In their lakes are many islands, some small, some large, amongst which are seen stalking along, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the dromedary, the ostrich, and the giant baboon. They keep in these enchanted scenes a surprising variety of monstrous birds, reptiles, and animals, which are tamed by art, and guarded by enormous