GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. VISITS TO MONASTERIES IN THE LEVANT. By the Hon. R. Curzon, Jun... Piozziana, No. IV.—Anecdotes, Criticisms, &c. by Mrs. H. L. Piozzi Yew Trees at Kingley Bottom, near Goodwood (with a Plate). The Old Custom Houses of Dover...... Carvings in the Holy Sepulchre Church, Northampton (with Engravings) Mr. D'Alton's Collections for the History of Ireland.... Spoliation of the Ornaments of Crowhurst Place, Surrey Foss's Lives of the Judges of England, 49; Dibdin's Life of Edward the Sixth, 52; Foundation and History of the Charter House, 53; Akerman's Trades- men's Tokens current in London, 55; Barnes's Se Gefylsta, 59; Evans's Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs, 60; Dimsdale's Edition of Mallet's Edwin and Emma, 62; Miscellaneous Reviews..... LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.-University of Oxford, 66; University of Cambridge, 67; St. Augustine's Coll. Canterbury-Royal Geographical Society-Royal Asiatic Society, 68; Royal Astronomical FINE ARTS.-Cartoons of Raffaele, 70; Panorama of Kashmir, &c. ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Society of Antiquaries ..... HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 74; Foreign Promotions and Preferments, 82; Births and Marriages OBITUARY: with Memoirs of the Duke of St. Alban's; Viscount Monck; Lord Wallscourt; Dr. Knox, Bishop of Limerick; Right Hon. Sir Edw. Knatchbull; Sir E. C. Hartopp, Bart.; Gen. the Hon. Sir Edward Paget; Gen. Sir Hector Maclean, K.C.B.; Gen. Sir Robert T. Wilson; Capt. Sir T. Bourchier, K.C.B.; Thos. Wentworth Beaumont, Esq.; E. M. Mundy, Esq. M.P.; Edmund Turner, Esq. M.P.; John Fielden, Esq.; John Collier, Esq.; Robert Vernon, Esq.; Miss Edgeworth; Miss Harriett Pigott; Harvey Eginton, Esq.; Mr. H. Timbrell; Rev. Stephen Isaacson, M.A.; Lt. Col. Sutcliffe; Mr. Miles; Mrs. Arkwright; Laurent Franconi; Embellished with Views of the ANCIENT YEWS at KINGLEY BOTTOM, Sussex; and 2 MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. WYATT, the architect employed to superintend the repairs of Greensted Church, has kindly favoured us with the following particulars relative to the western wall, to complete the description of the building given in our last Magazine, p. 608. Previously to the late repairs there were twelve planks or uprights remaining in the western wall, several having evidently been removed to make a doorway into the wooden tower attached to the west end at the beginning of the 17th century. These have been repaired and used again. There is in the tower one bell with this inscription, "William Sand made mee 1618." We have further to state that the description and remarks which we extracted from "The Builder," were derived from a paper by Mr. Wyatt, communicated to the Institute of British Architects on the 19th of February last. C. remarks, "In the Minor Correspondence (March, p. 226) information is asked respecting a Monumental Brass in the parish church of Brougham, in Westmerland, recording the death of a Henry Brougham, who is alleged to have died Sept. 1570, and who is said to have married Catharine, the daughter of Ralph Neville, Knt. Who this Henry Brough. am and Ralph Neville, Kut. were no one can even conjecture. It may save useless speculation when I inform you that the Brass in question is a modern antique, though the skill of the workman has done its best to give it the appearance of antiquity. It was laid down in 1847."Our Correspondent adds some personal observations, in which we think he must be mistaken; and some general comments upon the impropriety of tampering with the evidence of monumental inscriptions, in which we entirely concur with him. If the facts are correctly stated by our Correspondent, the ecclesiastical authorities should either cause the brass to be removed, or insist upon having some evidence of the time of its introduction into the church put upon the face of it. ROUNDHEAD asks for information relative to the origin of the name and family of "Hatsell." The first of the name of whom there is mention in private records was Captain Hatsell, M.P. for Plympton, co. Devon, during the middle of the 17th century. At the Restoration his property, Saltram, in that county, was it is believed forfeited. His son, Sir Henry Hatsell, married Dame Judith, widow of Sir J. Shirley (sister of Sir James Bateman, knt. of whose family information is also desired). Arms were confirmed to Sir Henry Hatsell, in 1708; the same, according to the entry in the books of the Heralds' College, as used by his ancestors, though not recorded. Burke, in his General Armoury, is incorrect so far as the double entry of the name, but one grant having been made in the above-mentioned year, and that to Sir Henry Hatsell. There is some similarity between these arms and those of "Hassell." HIPPEUS inquires, (writing from Dublin,) "in what particular department, or amongst what records, inquiries should be made for the names of the state officers and officers of the household of Edward the Fourth?"--We believe there are no complete lists in any printed books; but such officers as are not given in Beatson's Political Index, or (for Ireland) in Lascelles's Liber Hibernicus (a great book compiled for Government by the late Mr. Rowley Lascelles, but we believe never published), must be sought for in the Patent Rolls, or in Writs of the Privy Seal or Signet. In the Acts of Resumption passed in the two following reigns, to be found in the printed Rolls of Parliament, may also be discovered many of the public officers of the reign of Edward IV. The Register of Letters under the Privy Seal, in the reigns of Edward V. and Richard III. which is among the proposed works of the Camden Society, will prove a valuable authority for this period. H. C. C. thinks that there is no occasion to consider the name Putta to be a Latinized form of Puttoc. It is found in the appellation of a well-known village not far from London, viz. Puttan hyth, now Putney. Innumerable names, both of individuals and tribes, are traceable in the appellations of places, and by the nature of their position they show the incorrupt and vernacular form of the words in question. "Absoluta, de Christi Domini et Catholicæ ejus Ecclesiæ Sacramentis, Tractatio; Authore Henrico Bullingero. Cui adjecta est ejusdem Argumenti Epistola, per Johannem à Lasco, Baronem Poloniæ, antè quinquennium scripta. Londini, excudebat Stephanus Myerdmannus, An. 1551. Men. Apr." Contains 123 folios, 16mo. A copy was in Herbert's Collection. See Ames's Typ. Antiq. edit. Dibdin, 1819, vol. iv. p. 354. This rare tract has been sought for, without success, in the various libraries of Cambridge, Oxford, London, of several of our Cathedrals, at Zurich, Geneva, Basle, Berne, and many other places. The Rev. G. C. GORHAM (Vicar of St. Just, near Penzance,) would esteem it a favour if any person can inform him whether any copy is known to exist, and where. Herbert's Collection was sold piecemeal by a price catalogue, by his relative, Herbert, a bookseller in Great Russell-street, in or about 1797. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. Visits to Monasteries in the Levant. By the Hon. R. Curzon, Jun. INSTEAD of giving, according to our usual custom, a general summary of the contents and merits of this well-written and interesting volume, we have confined ourselves to that one portion of it which contains the author's visits to the convents of Meteora and Mount Athos in search of those literary treasures-books or manuscripts-which he hoped to meet with within the walls of those venerable abodes of former piety and learning. This formed indeed only one portion of the more general design of his travels, but is the one on which apparently he himself set a high value, and in the success of which all who silently accompany him in his narrative will feel the deepest interest. Perhaps, to those who look no further into books than to find a transient amusement, the light occupation of a weary hour, and the gratification of a vagrant curiosity, a more miscellaneous view of the contents of the volume would have been attractive; but travels on the borders of Egypt and the banks of the Nile have been plentifully given (thanks to the Oriental steamers) of late years by other hands. When men have tired of the task, ladies have taken up the pen. One has told us of her visit to the Pasha's harem, and another how she obtained a promise of the Pasha's beard. We have had numerous sketches of Bedouin Arabs and Abyssinian slave-girls; of Beys, Effendis, Sheiks without number; memorials of the Pyramids, and visits to the Natron lakes; pilgrimages to the tomb of Godfrey of Bouillon; legends of King Solomon and the Hoopoes; and many other like tales from strange lands, besides what of a more substantial nature is imparted in Guides and Hand-books; followed up by the most interesting and important portion of the whole, in the shape of gastronomie advice and culinary regulations. We do not mean to say that Mr. Curzon has not given us his full and adequate share of information on all such subjects, whether belonging to the dynasty of Ptolemy, or to that more sacred territory whose valleys are fed by the waters of Jordan, and on whose venerable hills still frown, though in ruins, the iron fortresses of Moab and of Ammon. But our space is short, our time confined. we could do, would be to make a few miscellaneous extracts on a casual variety of subjects, breaking up and disturbing the effect and unity of the whole, neither doing justice to the author, nor being of use to those who would profit by his labours, or follow his steps. So that we resolved to pass over, however reluctantly, in some parts in particular, the whole of the former portions of the work, and to confine ourselves to that which has been to us of great interest-the visit to the monasteries, and the account of the valuable manuscripts which he has rescued, though late, from the long neglect and obscurity in which they have lain, which he has taken from the hands of ignorance and sloth, and placed where they may be of equal service to the cause of piety and learning. To the scholar at least, and to the biblical scholar in particular, this short but singularly curious narrative will be of great interest; and when we recollect that an All ancient manuscript, one written in uncial letters, MAY be even a thousand years older than the earliest printed book existing, we can form some estimate of the value, and have a grateful sense of the zeal, activity, and even courage, which sometimes exposed the traveller to real perils, and which bore up with firmness and good humour against repeated disappointments. We do not indeed know to whom else we are indebted for so large and valuable an addition to our early manuscripts of the Gospels in the original language, and of other portions of the sacred text; and we also have been in no small degree gratified by much fuller and more complete descriptions of those monastic abodes from which they were drawn, than we before possessed. We have been pleased by new views of manners and habits of life and thought; we have been at last admitted into the "veterum penetralia monachorum," and obtained an insight into the existing character of that great and powerful Church which Constantine founded on the ruins of Pagan superstition, and which has so long been the spiritual rival of her who still holds, though with the trembling hand of age, her proud and unrelenting dominion over the western world. "The monasteries of the East are besides particularly interesting to the lovers of the picturesque, from the beautiful situations in which they are almost invariably placed. The monastery of Megaspelion, on the coast of the Gulph of Corinth, is built in the mouth of an enormous cave. The monasteries of Meteora and some of those on Mount Athos are remarkable from their positions on the tops of inaccessible rocks. Many of the convents in Syria, the islands of Cyprus, Candia, the Archipelago, and the Prince's Islands, in the sea of Marmora, are unrivalled for the beauty of the positions in which they stand. Many others in Bulgaria, Asia Minor, Sinope, and other places on the shores of the Black Sea, are most curious monuments of ancient and romantic times. There is one on the road to Persia, about one day's journey inland from Trebizond, which is built half way up the side of a perpendicular precipice. It is ensconced in several fissures of the rock, and various little gardens adjoining the buildings display the industry of the monks. These are laid out on shelves or terraces wherever the nature of the spot affords a ledge of sufficient width to support the soil. The different parts of the monastery are approached by stairs, and flights of steps cut in the face of the precipice, leading from one cranny to The author observes that the poverty of the Eastern Church and its early subjection to Mahometan rulers has been the means of preserving the monastic establishments in all the rude originality of their ancient forms. The buildings are much alike, resembling small villages, built without any symmetrical plan, around a church which is in the form of a Greek cross; the roof is covered either with one or five domes, and all is surrounded with a strong wall, built as a protective fortification. "I have been quietly dining in a monastery when shouts have been heard and shots have been fired against the |