TOPOGRAPHY. This term is applied to all those writings which have for their subjects the description of tracts of coun try, and the buildings on their surfaces. We often meet with passages in the works of ancient authors which are topo graphical, or in other words, descriptive of particular places but rarely or never with volumes dedicated wholly to this purpose. The scriptures have many of the former, particularly the account of Solomon's temple : Homer abounds with such in his Iliad and Odyssey ; and Virgil in his ./Eneid ; to which might be added subsequent writers, though not of equal celebrity. The two Plinys have favoured us with sketches of this nature, one of which, by the younger, we shall intro duce as a specimen. Speaking of his Tuscan villa, he says, " The face of the country is extremely beautiful. Imagine to yourself an amphitheatre of immense circumference, such as could be formed only by the hand of nature : a wide-ex tended plain is surrounded by mountains, whose summits are covered with tall, an cient woods, stocked with game for all kind of hunting ; the descent is planted with under-woods, among which are fre quently little risings, of a rich and deep soil, where a stone, if sought for, is scarce to be found : in fertility they yield not to the finest vales, and produce as good crops of corn, although not so early in the year. Below these, on the side of the mountain, is a continued range of vine yards, that extend themselves without in terruption far and near, at the foot of which is a sort of border of shrubs. From thence you have meadows and open fields: the arable grounds require large, oxen and the strongest ploughs ; the earth is so tough, and rises in such large clods when it is first broken up, that it cannot be reduced till it has been ploughed nine times : the meadows glitter with flowers, and produce the trefoil and other kinds of grass, always soft and tender, and ap pearing always new ; for they are excel lently well watered with never-failing springs ; yet where these springs are in greatest confluence, they make no marshes, the declivity of the land dis charging into the Tiber all the water that it does not drink in." - Had it been the custom at those very distant periods of time to write thus, fre quently, and had the art of printing been then invented, how much valuable infor mation would have reached us that is now irretrievably lost ; and with what pleasure should we have read descriptions of many important places, the scites of which are now only known by conjecture from some casual circumstance ! Numbers of beauti ful cities, for surpassing any existing at present in the magnificence of their pub lic structures, have . been deserted, through different causes, by their inhabit ants, and are yet splendid in their ruins : those offered every incitement for de scription, but have perished without ob taining this act of justice. Egypt, in par ticular, furnished the writer with the means of immortalizing his name as a topographer ; and it is a subject of severe regret, that we have not been gratified by an account of that country, when all the wonderful fragments scattered over its surface were connected by the chain of society, and perfect in themselves ; then, we have every reason to suppose, rich woods fringed the borders of their cities, and extensive gardens afforded equal pleasure and advantage to the in habitants : like a sublime picture, we should have been enabled to contrast its ancient softest tints with its present dreary wastes and gloomy ruins.
The French have ever been an enter prizing people, and very early turned their attention to travelling, and topo graphical description ; an interesting ac count of which may be found in Mr. Johnes's recent translation of " Bertrand de la Broquiere's Travels in Palestine," about the year 1432. The English nation did not entirely neglect this species of literature, in the earliest periods of their annals ; as several monks might be men tioned, who gave their brethren, in dif ferent parts of the country, manuscript accounts of the foundations of their mu masteries, and some slight description of them and their scites. We shall introduce the title of one of those, quoted by Mr. Malcolm, in his " History of St. Bartho lomew's Priory, London," in order to con vey to the reader an idea of their abilities in our language, about the time of henry III. or perhaps, rather earlier : " For, as mooche that the meritory and notable operacyons of famose goode and devoute faders yn God sholde be remembred, for instruction of afterciimers to theyr con solacion and encres of devotion ; thys ab brevyat tretesse steal compendiously ex presse and declare the wondreful, and, of celestial concel, gracious foundacion of our hoely placeys, called the priory of Seynt Bartholomew yn Smytbfyld, and of the hospital of olde tyme longyng to the same ; with other notabilities expediently to be knowyn ; and most specially the gloriouse and excellent myracles wroghte withyn them by the intercessions, suf frages, and merytys of the forsaycl be nynge, feythfill, and blessid of God, apos tyl Saner Bartholomy, ynto the laude of Almighty God, and agmcion of his infinite power. Ffyrst steal be shewyd who was flunder of owere hoely places, and howgh, by grace, he was ffyrst pryor of owr pri ory; and by howgh longe tyme that he contynued yn the same Thys churche, yn the honoure of most blessed Bartho-' lomew apostle, ffunded Bayer, of good remembraunce. And theryn to serve God (after the rewle of the most holy fa-' der Attstyn) aggregat togidir religiouse men. And to them was prelate sail* yere ; usynge the office and dignite of a priore." This aqcient topographer mentions that Rahere, the prior and founder of the priory, died in the reign of king Stephen, and was succeeded by Thomas, in the year 1144. The follow ing passage will prove that the, manu script was written immediately after the above period : "And yn what ordur he sette the fundament of this temple yn fewe worries lette us sheave, as they testi fied to us that sey him, herd him, and were presente yn his workys and dedis ; of the wldche sume have take ther slepe yn Cry iste, and same of them be zitte alyve, and wytnesseth of that that we shall after say." It may be perceived grom this speci men of early topography, that we had by no means arrived to the degree of excel lence which Pliny and his contemporaries attained in similar productions ; neither did we accomplish this very desirable point till within the last century. Those who have perused our best works, his torical and de;criptive, before the reign of George II. will find great accuracy and deep research ; but unfortunately we learn nothing of the nature and beauties of the surface of the earth, or of the pro portions and sculptures of our buildings, from the valuable works of Leland, Stowe, Speed, Camden, Dugdale, &c. indeed had not Hollar been employed by the latter, his splendid accounts of monasteries, and St. Paul's, would have given us no idea whatever of the richness of their forms and decorations.