and consequent neglect of exercise, in the fifty-first year of his age. He died May 14, 1761, at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, whether he had retired by the advice of his physicians. In a building called Prince Rupert's Tower, near the entrance of the Laboratory, his relict died at the very advanced age of an hundred and two years.

The new MILITARY ACADEMY is situated about a mile from Woolwich, on the upper part of the Common. It is built in the castellated form, and consists in front, of a centre and two wings, united by corridores, with a range of building behind, containing the hall, servants' offices, &c. The centre forms a quadrangle, with octagonal towers in the angles, and contains four teaching-rooms, the master's desks being placed in towers on an elevated floor. In the wings are the apartments for the cadets and chief officers; the latter being in the middle of the wings, which possess a certain degree of elevation: here are also octangular turrets at the angles. The whole structure is embattled, and built with brick, whitened over. Its length is somewhat more than six hundred feet. This academy was first opened on the twelfth of August, 1806, when the number of cadets was one hundred and twenty-eight. The expence of this edifice is estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Wyatt was the architect.

From the great augmentation which has taken place in the regiment of artillery, proportionate additions have been necessarily made in the artillery barracks, which is now become a structure of very large dimensions. It consists of six ranges of brick buildings, united by a centre of stone, with Doric columns, surmounted with the royal arms and military trophies. There are also four buildings of inferior height, connecting each range, whose fronts are of stone, with Doric colonnades and ballustrades. The new riding-school, built after a design of an ancient temple, is one hundred and fifty-feet in length, to which its breadth and height bear a suitable proportion. On the eastern side of the barracks are the military hospitals, with their com

prehensive accommodations. Various buildings have also been erected on different parts of the common for the use of the artillery, with a guard-house, and a veterinary hospital. On the west side of the barracks there is a piece of water, where experiments with gun-boats, &c. are occasionally made.

The whole military and civil establishment at Woolwich, is under the immediate superintendance and controul of the master-general and board of ordnance.

Such is the stupendous and magnificent apparatus for forging the thunders of Great Britain; and such the school of science which is to instruct Britons how to wield them to the dismay of its enemies, in every part of the globe.

ERITH,

WITH BELVIDERE.

ERITH is a small village on the banks of the Thames, below Woolwich, in Kent, and at the distance of about fourteen miles from London. Its name is supposed by Lambard, to be derived from the Saxon words Orre-hythe, or the old Haven, of which, indeed, there can be little doubt, as other places in similar situations on the banks of this river have the same termination, and which bears the same meaning. In certain ancient records it appears to have been. written Illiesnes, and in Domesday book Loisnes; and afterwards, by an easy transition, Lesnes; but it was, probably, no more than a manor in Erith parish, and might, for some time, at least, have assumed the leading name from the wellknown abbey of regular canons, sometimes called Westwood, which stood on the demesne of the manor of Lesnes. Its situation was about a mile and three quarters to the west of Erith church, in the road leading to Plumstead and Erith.

This religious house was founded by Richard de Lucy, one of the grand justiciaries of this kingdom, in the reign of King Henry the Second. He was a gentleman of distinguished eminence, as a statesman and a lawyer, in which respective characters he diplayed an active fidelity to his Sovereign, and a strict regard to the interests of the nation The Genius of Popery, which was the religion of his country, and indeed of Europe, so far worked upon his imagination and his mind, as to induce him to establish this monastic institution, and to settle on it very considerable endowments. It was begun by him but a very few years. previous to his death; and, on its completion, he retired from the world, and became the Abbot of his own foundation.

The King, who was very anxious to retain the counsel, and preserve the assistance of such an able and experienced servant, employed his utmost endeavours to dissuade him