The artists repository and drawing magazine: exhibiting the principles of the polite arts in their various branches (3.1789)

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slraitest trees, and explores the recesses of the
woods. The sturdy youth obey the counsels of
age, their unremitting industry, at length, at-
tains its purposes, and they congratulate them-
selves on having vanquished their difficulties
and deposited the uprights ; these support the
beams of the roof; the intersaces they fill with
the smaller boughs, and plaster with tenacious
clay. Thus mankind stiil are beholden to the
tree for a dwelling, and of a tree sorm their
habitation. Who would suppose this the ori-
gin of extensive cities, and os royal palaces ?
yet such was the commencement of Nineveh,
of Babylon, of Rome, and to some such be-
ginning is our opulent metropolis indebted for
its existence.
The progress of Art is like that of the searce
noticed sountain, which slently glides along
the banks a humble water-course; by degrees
it becomes a brook, and increases to a rivulet;
capable now of utility, it rises into consequence,
spreads into a rapid river, diffuses conveni-
ence and wealth around its banks, and receives a
thousand blessings as it rolls to the ocean.
It is not my intention to notice the varieties
of Architecture which obtain in different na-
tions ; it is of small consequence to us, on this
occasion, to know that the Samoiedes dwell
S 2 under-