while this wish is accompanied by some perplexing uncertainty as to what their duty really is." Now, let us appeal to the experience of such persons. Is there not a little temptation to subserviency to the superstitious fear of obedience which they see around them, and of which perhaps they have, already, even for their slight efforts, been the victims? Is there not a little whisper of indolence, or cowardice, or prudence, as it would fain be called, dissuading them on all sides from doing that which they yet feel to be incumbent on them? Now these temptations should be opposed and checked, and these whisperings answered at least, if not silenced: we do not mean utterly, but that the tendency of our own heart is to listen and to yield; and therefore we want help on the other side to restore the balance. Now, it is this which Mr. Robertson's book might have given, and which it ought to have given. As it is (it is a grave thing to say, yet we are constrained to say it) it is a very forcible and vivid embodying of the temptations and whisperings to which we ought to listen with suspicion at best. It is such that a man will get up from the perusal of it, not determined to conform with prudence, but reconciled to the worse alternative, of prudently remaining as he is. But we shall be greatly misunderstood if we are thought to deny the necessity of wisdom and prudence in every step that we take. But when is it that this prudence is to be most prominently set forth? Not, surely, when all the clamour and odium are against ritual obedience, so that those who are purposed in their hearts to obey, want encouragement and sympathy. On whom is this prudence, not to say timidity, to be pressed? Surely on those too forward spirits who are as self-willed and self-opinionated, and perhaps even as superstitious (though this were difficult) in their observance, as the puritanical are in their fear of ritual and hatred of order. It is to such as these, and some such we confess there are, that the line of argument which Mr. Robertson adopts, or any line of argument which can tend to the same practical result, ought to be addressed; and not to those who are willing, but with prudence enough, and with caution and consideration, to commence or maintain an upward course. Nor will we deny that there are some who stickle for canons and rubrics with a temper as little worthy of the cause of ritual conformity, as that of its loudest opponents; in whom, in fact, self is still the mainspring of action, and to whom the prospect of an impending struggle ministers occasion rather of vanity than of humiliation. In reasoning with these, or rather in rebuking them, we should not indeed pursue the same line or tone which Mr. Robertson has adopted, which seems rather likely to irritate than to allay the bad elements of their character, and against which they will, without any great effort, reason triumphantly; but against the conceit, affectation, and coxcombry, which he fears, we will ever protest, not only as mean and frivolous in themselves, but as among the worst enemies of ritual conformity. * Page 2. 1. A Treatise on Roads. London: Longman & Co. 198 By Sir HENRY PARNELL, Bart. 1838. 2. English Pleasure Carriages. By W. B. ADAMS. London: Knight. 1837. 1 vol. 8vo. Pp. 315. "A ROAD," says Mr. M'Adam-who has been designated by professional joke-makers, "the Colossus of Roads,"" ought to be considered as an artificial flooring; forming a strong, smooth, solid surface, at once capable of carrying great weights, and over which carriages may pass without meeting any impediment." The very earliest roads may be said to have been formed involuntarily. Successive footsteps on the same track leave an impression behind them; yielding soils become indurated, and grassy meads become barren, along the line of march. According to traditional superstitions, the unwritten poetry of unlettered hinds,-even fairy footsteps, as they weave their sportive dance beneath the soft light of the unclouded moon, impress a mystic ring on the spot which has witnessed their cheerful revels. It is only under the influence of that impassioned desire which finds utterance in hyperbole, that even the classical queen of love ventures to commend the absolute lightness of her tread :— "Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire." But we must leave these gentle paths to those who love to thread the simple tracks which intersect our fields and meadows; or wind, with capricious yet delightful undulations, through our woods and coppices. Our present concern is with roads of a much more hard and utilitarian nature; with those artificial paths which are the intentional creations of the hand as well as the foot of man; who is scarcely less nomadic in his civilized than in his savage state. The hand must assist the foot, and the head the hand, before we can obtain those paths, which, by their hardness, width, and definiteness of direction, constitute roads, properly so called. 66 It would be difficult to exaggerate the social value of roads. "Let us travel," says the Abbé Raynal, over all the countries of the earth, and wherever we find no facilities for travelling from city to town, or from village to hamlet, we may pronounce the people barbarians." Although, indeed, in such cases, the "cities" and "towns" would themselves but little deserve these ambitious names, according to present notions: but would correspond, rather, to the description given by Cæsar of the earliest British towns, "A thick wood surrounded by a ditch and bank;" or, at best, to Strabo's more flattering description, "Woods of a broad circuit, in the midst of which they (the Britons) clear away a part of the trees, and build huts, in which they and their cattle live together." Accustomed to these means of easy and rapid transit, we can hardly picture to ourselves the condition of a country destitute of roads. Yet many years have not passed, since the northern and southern parts of our own island, in consequence of the absence of highways, were hardly less separated, than if the waters of ocean had rolled between, and made them as mutually insulated geographically, as they were isolated in regard of social and commercial relations. Nay, while a ship can plough its way through the pathless but yielding waters, the weary foot of man and beast forces itself, with toil and pain, and ever-growing difficulty, over the rugged surface of the stubborn earth, or wades through a treacherous morass, more toilsome and perilous than the hard irregular rock. At the period to which we refer, weeks were required for the passage of a conveyance. In many parts, wheel-carriages could not travel at all. Passengers and goods, and even articles so little able to bear any heavy expenses of transit, as grain, coal, manure, &c., were obliged to be transported on the backs of horses. A waggon, with but a moderate load, travelling only a few miles a day, required eight or ten horses to draw it over the soft and unequal ground. And it would be easy to multiply examples of the almost total absence of internal traffic, in numerous districts, in consequence of absence of roads, or the excessive badness. of such as happened to exist. "Around every market-place," says Dr. Anderson, "you may suppose a number of concentric circles to be drawn, within each of which articles become marketable, which were not so before, and thus become the sources of wealth and prosperity to many individuals. Diminish the expense of carriage but one farthing, and you widen the circles; you form as it were a new creation, not only of stones and earth and trees and plants, but of men also, and, what is more, of industry and happiness.' In a more detailed history of roads than our limits will allow us to sketch, some notice would properly be taken of the roads of ancient Greece; of Egypt, where, however, during its more prosperous periods, roads were in great measure sacrificed to canals conjoined with the navigation of the Nile; of Phoenicia, the land of commerce; of the fertile regions of Syria; of the vast empires of Assyria and Babylonia; of Persia, extending into India; and of all or most of which sufficient historical records, and some few actual memorials, still exist, to attest their importance, and to shed a faint gleam of archæological light upon their obscure histories. But with the exception of the wonderful Roman roads, there are but few remains of the roads of antiquity. And yet the Romans were but learners in an art which they afterwards carried to such an extraordinary degree of perfection; having derived their knowledge of road-making from the Carthaginians. This Tyrian colony, while, from their origin, they were essentially a commercial people, were remarkably attentive to agriculture; and as their nation advanced in prosperity, the wealthy citizens employed their surplus revenues in the cultivation and improvement of their estates. The country in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage, and indeed all that tract which formed its real territory, and which corresponds to the present state of Tunis, was thoroughly cultivated. "When Agathocles landed in Africa, (B.c. 308-7); and when Regulus, half a century later, and Scipio Africanus, half a century later still, and Scipio Emilianus, another half century after that, invaded the Carthaginian territory, their march lay through rich fields covered with herds of cattle, and irrigated by numerous streams; vineyards and olive-grounds were spread on every side; innumerable small towns and villages were strewed over the country; and as they drew near to Magna Carthago' herself, the neighbourhood was thickly studded with the country-seats of the wealthy citizens." In such a country, the art of road-making must have attained considerable maturity; and it is to the Carthaginians that we are indebted for the invention of paved roads. The Roman roads present an interesting subject of study. Several thousand miles of highway were constructed in Italy alone; while every country which this iron-handed people brought under their control, was more or less intersected by these channels of communication. Although originally constructed for military purposes only, they became, to a great extent, the arteries and veins, as it were, of the whole body politic, through all its gigantic limbs. They were, in many respects, very characteristic of the resolute spirit of the nation that planned and executed them. "Aut inveniam, aut fiam," was the maxim of the old Roman road. Like an arrow from a bow, like a bolt from a catapult, onward it went through the heart of every obstacle; now cleaving its straightforward course through the bowels of the earth, by means of tunnels, which were often of considerable length; now converting the marsh into a solid pathway; and again, spanning opposing rivers with bold bridges. So firm were they in their construction, that many of them have borne the traffic of nearly two thousand years without material injury. The strength of the Roman pavements is shown by the fact, related by a modern traveller, that although the substratum of one still in use has been completely washed away by a current of water sweeping beneath, the surface remains undisturbed, and is still so secure that carriages pass over it as over a bridge. The Roman roads were principally designed for military purposes and the immediate affairs of state. The roads constructed for this end were called Prætorian roads, being under the immediate government of the Prætors; and were strictly confined to their original purposes. For the purposes of commerce, and the ordinary intercourse of the Romans and strangers, Consular roads were constructed; and where military and commercial communications both took place between the same places, the two kinds of roads were found, often running side by side, as may be seen amongst ourselves, in the not unfrequent parallelism of roads, railroads, and canals. These roads usually bore the name of the consul under whom they were first made. Thus the Via Appia was so called, because constructed during the consulate of Appius. In addition to these two great classes of roads, there were the Via Vicinales, or bye-roads, which branched off from the Consular roads to places in their vicinity, or which lay between places lying out of the range of the great lines. The Prætorian roads were, for the most part, at least sixty feet wide; of which space the elevated centre occupied twenty feet, and each of the slopes twenty more. Only a part of this appears to have been paved. These roads were crossed, at right angles, by the Via Vicinales, or Via Patriæ, (that is, the neighbouring or country roads, or, as we should term them, the cross-roads,) and where four roads thus met, square gate-houses were erected, having arches opening upon each side. The Consular, or high-roads, claim from us a more detailed consideration. Many remains are still to be seen. The Via Appia, lying between Rome and Naples, and extending to the distance of 350 miles, had a causeway, (as we by corruption call it,) or pavement, twelve feet broad. This pavement was composed of square blocks of freestone, each, for the most part, a foot and a half in measure; and this road, now 1800 years old, is still, for several miles in uninterrupted succession, along many parts of its line, as sound as when it was first laid down. Not indeed that it is the smoothest of roads; but this it probably never was :— Minùs est gravis Appia tardis," says Horace, speaking of the Appian road in his day; and this was probably the character of most of the Consular roads. They were solid enough; but perhaps not even a modern corduroy road can surpass them in the property of jolting. These Consular roads were of considerable breadth; although not equal, in this respect, to our own roads, thirty feet being the ordinary width of the carriage-way of English high-roads, exclusive of the foot-paths on either side, for the use of passengers. Solidity, however, was the great quality aimed at by the Roman engineers. They first rammed the ground with small stones, fragments of bricks, and the like; then they spread upon it layers of flints, pebbles, or sand; and upon this carefully-prepared foundation, they would deposit, when necessary, a pavement of large stones, firmly set in cement; the stones being occasionally squared, but more commonly of irregular shapes, although in all cases accurately fitted to each other. For this purpose, many varieties of stone were used; but basalt seems to have been preferred, when it could be had. In many instances, basalt was employed when other materials might have been procured with less labour and expense. Where |