the father's calculation proved but too prophetical.

36. In the year 1707, John Needs, a Winchester scholar, foretold the death of Mr. Carman, chaplain to the college, Dr. Mew, bishop of Winchester, and himself, within that year, to several of his school-fellows, among others, to George Lavington: this exposed him much to raillery in the school, and he was ludicrously stiled Prophet Needs. Mr. Carman died about the time he mentioned; for this event, however, he had little credit, it being said that the death of an old man might reasonably be expected. Within the time prefixed, bishop Mew also died by a strange accident. He was subject to fainting fits, from which he was soon recovered by smelling to spirits of hartshorn: being seized with a fit while a gentleman was with him, perceiving its approach, he pointed eagerly to a phial in the window; the visitor took it, and in his haste poured the contents down the bishop's throat, which instantly suffocated him : this incident was accounted for in the same manner as the other.

As the time approached which Needs had prefixed for his own dissolution, of which he named even the day and the hour, he sickened, apparently declined, and kept his chamber, where he was frequently visited, and prayed with, by Mr. Fletcher, second master of the school, and father to the late bishop of Kildare. He reasoned and argued with the youth but in vain; with great calmness and composure he resolutely persisted in affirming, that the event would verify his prediction. On the day he had fixed, the house clock being put forward, struck the hour before the time; he saw through this deception, and told those that were with him, that when the church clock struck, he should expire : he did so.

Mr. Fletcher left a memorandum in writing to the above purport; and bishop Trimuel, about the year 1722, having heard this story at Winchester, wrote to New College, of which Mr. Lavington was then fellow, for further information.

His answer was, "That John Needs had indeed foretold that the bishop of Winchester (Mew) and old Carman should die that year, but then they being very old men, he had foretold for two or three years before that they should die in that number of years: as to foretelling the time of his own death, I believe he was punctually right." Dr. Lavington gave the same account to his friends after he was bishop of Exeter.

CHAP. XI.

Of the magnificent Buildings and admirable Works of the Ancients, and those of later

Times.

AUGUSTUS Cæsar had several ways adorned and fortified the city of Rome, and (as much as in him lay) put it in a condition of defence and security for aftertimes: whereupon he gloried, that he found Rome of brick, but he left it of marble. Certainly nothing makes more for the just glory of a prince, than to leave his dominions in a better state than he received them. The vast expences of some of the following princes had been more truly commendable, and their mighty works more really glorious, had they therein consulted more of the public good, and less of their own ostentation.

1. Immediately after the universal deluge, Nimrod the son of Chus, the son of Cham, persuaded the people to secure themselves from the like after-claps, by building some stupendous edifice, which might resist the fury of a second deluge. The counsel was generally embraced, Heber only and his family (as the tradition goes) contradicting such an unlaw. ful attempt. The major part prevailing the tower of Babel began to rear a-head of majesty five thousand one hundred and forty-six paces from the ground, having the circumference of its circular basis equal to ite height. The passage to go up went wilding about the outside, and was of an exceeding great breadth; there being not only room for horses, carts,

and

one thousand five hundred towers, each of them two hundred feet high. It was called Tetrapolis, as being divided (as it were) into four cities, Nineveh, Resena, Forum, and Cale.

7. The pyramids of Egypt are many in number, but three of them the most celebrated; the principal of all is situated on the south of the city of Memphis, and on the western banks of Nilus. It is accounted the chief of the world's seven wonders; its base is square at the bottom, and is supposed to take up eight acres of ground. Every square is three hundred single paces in length; it is ascended by two hundred and twenty-five steps, each step above three feet high, and a breadth proportionable, growing by degrees narrower and narrower,till we come to the top, and at the top consisting of but three stones only, yet large enough for sixty men to stand upon. No stone (in the whole) is so little as to be drawn by any of our carriages, yet they were brought thither from the Arabian mountains; how brought, and by what engine mounted, is an equal wonder. It was built for the sepulchre of Cheops, an Egyptian king, who employed in it day by day (twenty years together) no fewer than three hundred and sixty-six thousand men continually working on it; the charges which they put him to (in no other food than garlick, radishes, and onions) being computed at a thousand and eight hundred talents. Diodorus Siculus saith of this pyramid, "That it stands an hundred and twenty furlongs from Memphis, and forty-five furlongs from Nilus. It hath now stood near three thousand years, and is at this day the admiration of all travellers who visit that part of the world.

8. Wales anti-ntly extended itself east-ward to the river Severn, till, by the puissance of Offa, the great king of the Mercians, the Welsh or Britons were driven out of the plain country beyond that river, and forced to be take themselves to the mountains, where he caused them to be shut up and divi

ded from England with an huge ditch, called in Welsh Claudhoffa, that is, "Offa's Dike;" which dike beginning at the influx of the Wey into the Severn, not far from Chepstow, extendeth eightyfour miles in length, even as far as Chester, where the Dee is mingled with the sea. Concerning this ditch, there was a law made by Harold, that if any Welshman was found with a weapon on this side of it, he should have his right hand cut off by the king's officers.

9. The bridge of Caligula was a new and unheard-of spectacle; it reached from Putzol to Bauli, three miles and a quar ter: he built it upon ships in a few days, and in emulation of Xerxes. Over this he marched with the senate and soldiery in a triumphant manner, and in the view of the people. Upon this he feasted, and passed the night in dalliance and gaming. A marvellous and great work indeed, but such as the vanity thereof deprived it of commendation; for to what end was it raised but to be demolished?" Thus sported he," saith Seneca," with the power of the empire, and all in imitation of a foreign, frantic, unfortunate, and proud king."

10. The capitol of Rome, seated on the Tarpein rock, seemed to contend with Heaven for height; and no doubt but the length and breadth were every way answerable. The excessive charge that Domitian was at in the building of it, Martial (after his flattering manaci) hath wittily described, and which I may thus translate:

So much has Cæsar to the gods decreed,
That should he call it in, or payment aced;
Though Jove himself shoul barter Heav'n
away,

This mighty debt he never could repay.

We may (in part) give a guess at the riches and ornaments of it by this, that there were spent only upon its gilding above twelve thousand talents; it WAS all gilded over, not the inner roof only, but the outward covering, which was of brass or copper, and the doors of it were

Sueton. 1. 4. c.19. p. 175

YOL. II.

overlaid with thick plates of gold, which remained till the reign of Honorius. 11. Suetonius thus describes that house of Nero's which Nero himself carica Domum Auream, "The golden house." In the porch was set a Colossus, shaped like himself, of one hundred and twenty feet high. The spaciousness of the house was such, that it had in it three galleries, each of them a mile long, a standing pool like a sea, beset with buildings in the manner of a city; fields in which were arable grounds, pastures, vineyards, and woods, with a various multitude of wild and tame beasts of all kinds. In the other parts thereof all things were covered with gold, and distinguished with precious stones, or mother-of-pearl. The supping rooms were roofed with ivory planks that were moveable, for the casting down of flowers, and had pipes in them, for the sprinkling of ointments. The roof of the principal supping-room was round, which, like the heavens, perpetually day and night' wheeled about. This house, when he had it thus finished and dedicated, he so far approved of it, that he said he had begun to live like a man.

12. Ptolomæus Philopater built a ship (saith Pancirollus)that the like was never seen before or since. It was two hundred and eighty cubits in length, fiftytwo cubits in height from the bottom to the upper decks. It had four hundred bak or seats of roves, four hundred mariners, and four thousand rowers; and on the decks it could contain three thousand soldiers. There were also gardens and orchards on the top of it, as Plutarch, relates in the life of Demetrius.

13. China is bounded on the north with Altay, and the eastern Tartars, from which it is separated by a continual ein of hills, and where that chain is bcken off, with a great wail extended four hundred leagues in length, built as they say by Zaiton, the hundred and Seventeenth king thereof; it is twelve

yards high, and twelve yards thick, and was twenty-seven years crecting by the continual labour of 70,050,000 men.

The

14. M. Scaurus (the son-in-law to Sylla) when he was ædile, caused a wonderful piece of work to be made, exceeding all that had ever been by man's hand it was a theatre; the stage had three heights one above another, wherein were three hundred and sixty columns of marble; the middle was of glass, an excessive superfluity never heard of before or after. As for the uppermost part, the boards, planks, and floors were gilded. The columns beneath were thirty-eight feet high, and beneath these columns there stood of statues and images of brass to the number of three thousand. theatre itself was able to receive eighty thousand persons to sit weil and at case. The furniture of this theatre, in rich hangings, which were of cloth of gold, painted tablets, the most exquisite that could be found, players apparel, and other stuff meet to adorn the stage, was in such abundance, that their being car ried back to his house of pleasure at Tusculum, the surplus thereof his servanta and slaves there (upon indignation for this waste and monstrous superfluity of their master) set the said country-house on fire, and burnt as much as caine to an hundred millions of sesterces. Yet was this magnificent piece of building (by the testimony of Pliny) but a temporary theatre, and intended only for a month's duration.

15. The Temple of Peace was built by Vespasian three hundred feet in length, and in breadth two hundred; so that Herodian deservedly calls it the greatest and fairest of all the works in the city of Rome, and the most sumptuous in ornaments of silver and gold. Josephus writes that upon this temple were bestowed all the rarities which (before) men travelled through the world to see; ard Pliny saith, "Of all the choice pieces I have spoken of in the city, the most excellent are laid up, and dedicated by

Vespasian in the temple of Peace, which were before in the golden house of Nero.

16. The ampitheatre, begun by Vespasian but finished by Tirus, was most famous; the height of which was such (saith Ammianus) that the eye of man could hardly reach it. "It was reared," said Cassiodore, "with rivers of treasure poured out." The steps alone were sufficient and easy seats for eighty-seven thousand persons. Martial prefers it before all the rare and great works at Rome; it stood in the place where Nero's ponds were situated.

17. The Escurial or monastery of Saint Laurence, in New Castile, was built by Philip the Second; "A building, saith Quade, “ of that magnificence, that no building in times past or the present is comparable to it. The front towards the west is adorned with three stately gates, the middlemost whereof leadeth into a most magnificent temple, a monastery (in which are one hundred and fifty monks of the order of Saint Jerome) and a college. The gate on the right hand openeth into divers offices belonging to the monastery; that on the left hand, into schools, and out-honses belonging to the college. At the four corners there are four turrets of excellent workmanship, and for height majestical. Towards the north is the king's palace; on the south part, divers beautiful and sumptuous galleries; and on the east side sundry gardens, and walks very pleasing and delectable. It containeth in all eleven several quadrangles, every one encloistered; and is indeed so fine a structure, that a voyage into Spain were well employed, were it only to see it and

return.

18. The aqueduct, vaulted sinks, and drains of Tarquinius Priscus, king of the Romans, were the greatest works of all his other which he devised, by undermining and cutting through the seven hills whereupon Rome is seated, and making the city hang, as it were, in the air, between heaven and earth (like unto

:

the city of Thebes in Egypt), so that a man might pass under the streets and hon es with boats. And if this was wonderful of men in those days, how would they be astonished now, to see how M. Agrippa in his ædileship (after he had been consul) caused seven rivers to meet together under the city in one main channel, and to run with such a swift stream and current, that they take all before them, whatsoever there is in the way, and carry it down into the Tyber; and being sometimes increased with sudden showers and land-floods, they shake the paving above them, they drive against the sides of the walls about them; sometimes also they receive the Tyber water into them, when it riseth extraordinarily so that a man may perceive the stream of two contrary waters charge one another with great force and violence under ground; and yet, for all this, these water-works aforesaid yield not a jot, but abide firm and fast, without any sensible decay occasioned thereby! Moreover, these streams sometimes carry down huge and hey pi ces of stones within them, and mighty loads are drawn over them continually; yet these arched conduits neither settle nor stop under the one, nor are damaged by the other. Many a house falleth of itself upon them, many are made to fall by frequent fires, and sometimes terrible earthquakes shake the whole carth about them; yet for all the injuries, they have continued since the days of Tarquinius Priscus inexpugnable, and that is almost eight hundred years.

19 Of all the aqueducts that ever were before this time, those which were begun by Caligula, and finished by Clandius his successor, surpassed in sump. tuousness, forthey commanded two fountains, Curtius and Ceruleus, whose heads were forty miles distant; and these the carried with such a force before them, an to such a height, that they mounted up to the highest hills in Rome, and serv them that dwelt thereupon. This work cost three hundred millions of sesterces.

Plin, Nat. Hist. 1. 34 c. 8. p. 503.-16.) Cosm. p. 271.-(18.) Plin. Nat Hist. 1, 37, 2T 2

Certain