Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/431



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HISTORY OF THE USEFUL AND POLITE ARTS. (Continued from page 269.)

the Britons invaded by the Romans, they had nothing among them answering to our ideas of a city or town. Their dwellings, like those of the ancient Germans, were scattered about the country, and generally situated on the brink of some rivulet, for the sake of water, and on the skirt of some wood or forest, for the convenience of hunting and pasture. Where these inviting circumstances were most conspicuous, the chiefs fixed their residence; their friends and followers built their houses as near to them as they could, and this naturally produced an ancient British town. The Romans, however, on their arrival, not only built a prodigious number of solid, convenient, and magnificent edifices for their own accommodation, but instructed and encouraged the natives of the island to follow their example. The consequence was, that from about the year 80 of the Christian era to the middle of the fourth century, architecture and all the arts immediately connected with it, flourished in Britain; and the same taste for erecting solid, convenient, and beautiful buildings, which had so long prevailed in Italy, was introduced into this country. Every part of it abounded with well-built towns, villages, forts, and stations; and this spirit of building so much improved the taste and increased the number of British builders, that, in the third century, this island was ''No. VI. Vol. I.'' Zz