and fifteenth of the fame month. To one or more of these letters, anfwers were published; in which it was contended, that at Florence there is a bridge that croffes the river Arno, of an elliptical form: but the argument drawn from thence, Johnson had refuted in his first letter, by obferving, that the ftability thereof is fo much doubted, that carts are not permitted to pafs over it, and that it has ftood two hundred years without imitation. Thefe, and many other arguments, as alfo the opinion of that excellent mathematician Mr.Thomas Simpson, were not of fufficient weight with the committee for building the bridge to recommend the femicircular arch; Mr. Mylne's defign was preferred, and the arches are elliptical.

I have already remarked, that Johnson was unfkilled in the fcience of architecture, and I might have added, that he was a stranger to the very rudiments of it. He could not elfe have failed to notice in the edifice here fpoken of, one of the moft egregious errors that ever difgraced a ftructure of its kind; columns difproportionate in the ratio between their heights and their diameters. The proportion of a column is taken from that of the human figure, which, at a medium, is in a man fefquioctave of the head, and in a woman fefquinonal. The computa. tion of columns by modules or diameters comes to much the fame, and, according to Palladio, gives, to one of the Doric order, the mafculine proportion of eight of those measures, and, to one of the lonic, the feminine of nine.

Proportions, thus adjufled by nature, admit of no deviation; whenever that is attempted, deformity enfues, as is to be feen in the inftance before us,

where we behold a range of Ionic columns, level, it is true, at their bafes, but rifing from their due proportion at the extremities, in gradation, like the pipes in the front of an organ, to the central arch, where, instead of the proportion of a column, they affume that of a candle *.

It will perhaps be faid, that the great elevation of the centre-arch required this prepofterous elongation of the columns. To this it may be answered, that proportion is not to be wrefted to bye-purposes, and that where beautiful forms cannot be introduced, they must be given up, and ornament yield place to convenience. It is faid, that the idea of columns ftanding on the piers of a bridge was suggested by a defign of Piranefi, extant among his works, but without an affertion that he affumed the licence here reprobated. Should he in any inftance be found to have done fo, the example of a genius, fo wildly magnificent as his, will weigh but little against the practice of Palladio, Scamozzi, Vignola, and, let me add, the earl of Pembroke, the architect of Westminfter bridge, who, in all fuch emergencies as that infifted on, evaded the neceffity of violating the rules of their art, by rejecting incongruous decorations, and trufted to the applaufe they fhould acquire by uniting levity and convenience with ftability.

'There are, it must be acknowledged, perfons who are as blind to fymmetry and the beauty of forms, as

*Columns thus difproportionate, but in a lefs degree, are alfo to be feen in the portico of the admiralty office, defigned by Ripley, who, from a carpenter that kept a shop, and also a coffee-house, in Wood-treet, Cheapfide, by marrying a fervant of a minister obtained a feat at the Board of Works.

others

others are deaf to the harmony of according founds, who deny that there are any criteria by which we can difcriminate beauty from deformity in one fubject, and confonance from diffonance in the other, and who affert, that tafte is capricious and has no ftandard, and that fancy is its own arbiter. Let fuch enjoy their ignorance, while we are engaged in an investigation of the principles into which the pleasures of the eye and ear are refolvable. The refult of fuch an enquiry will be a thorough conviction, that all of what we understand by the terms fymmetry and harmony has its foundation in mathematical ratios and proportions, that exist in all the modifications of matter, and are but emanations of that Power, which has ordered all things in number, weight, and measure *.

I forbear to remark the leffer errors in the conftruction of this edifice, fuch as the unwarrantable mutilation of the key-ftones over the arches, and the injudicious pofition of the entablature of the baluftrade: thofe I have pointed out may ferve to fhew, that the great encouragements given of late to the arts of defign, have hitherto failed to call forth a genius in any degree comparable to those of former ages, Jones and Sir Chriftopher Wren; and that the citizens of London, in the meridian of its glory, having, with a view to eternize the memory of a favourite minifter, erected an edifice, in which beauty and fymmetry are in vain fought for, and called it by

Of these the principal are the equal 1 to 1, the fefquialteral 2 to 3, the fefquitertian 3 to 4, and the duple 1 to 2, answering to the unifon, the diapente, the diateffaron, and the diapafon, the sweetest concords in mufic.

his name *, have thereby perpetuated their own dif grace, and fubjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.

Neither the writing of his Raffelas, nor the event of his mother's death, nor the bridge-controversy, flopped the hand of Johnfon, nor interrupted the publication of the Idler; but the fale of the Univerfal Chronicle, the vehicle that contained it, was in fome degree obftructed by the practices of thofe literary depredators, who fubfift by the labours of others, and whofe conduct, with respect to the Idler, the following paper, evidently drawn up by Johnson, will explain.

London, January 5, 1759. Advertisement. The proprietors of the paper, entituled The Idler,' having found that thofe effays are inferted in the newspapers and magazines with fo little regard to juftice or decency, that the Univerfal Chronicle, in which they firft appear, is not always mentioned, think it neceffary to declare to the publishers of thofe collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already feen effays, ' for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most fhameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at leaft for the prefent, alienated from them, before they could themfelves be faid to enjoy it. But they

*It is called Pitt's bridge, and the buildings adjacent to it, Chatham-place. Thirty years have not paffed fince the finishing it, and the whole edifice is become fo ruinous, that the charge of repairing it is estimated at 10,000l. fo that it is highly probable that the paffage over it will foon be fubjected to a toll.

4

'would

would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been fhewn. The paft is without remedy, and shall be without refentment. But those who have been thus busy with their fickles in the fields of their I neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever fhall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which juftice prefcribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prefcriptions of honourable trade. We fhall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide 'margin and diffufe typography, contract them into a narrow space, and fell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confi cations, ⚫ for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes; we fhall, therefore, when our loffes are repaid, give what profit fhall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the fupport of penitent prostitutes, than proftitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor fhame.'

He continued this paper to the extent of one hundred and three numbers, and on Saturday the fifth day of April 1760, clofed it with an effay, containing a folemn and very affecting contemplation on the words this is the laft, in various fignifications. The concluding paragraph feems to have been written under the preffure of that melancholy, which almost inceffantly afflicted him, heightened, perhaps, by the approach of a feafon of the year, to Chriftians the most folemn. The reflections, contained in it, are very feri

ous,