&c. Over these are four rooms, of 18 feet by 15, for the Turnkeys to sleep in; and at the top of all is a spacious lead-flat, where criminals are executed. After passing through the lodge, an avenue paved with Yorkshire stone leads to the keeper's house, which is in the centre of the prison, and from which the several court-yards are inspected.

For master's side debtors there is a court-yard paved with flag-stone, 75 feet by 30, enclosed by handsome iron palisades, so that a thorough air is admitted; and arcades paved in the same manner, 31 feet by 26, under which to walk in wet weather. Close to these is a day-room, 27 feet by 20, with a fire-place; aud they have likewise sixteen sleeping-rooms, each 14 feet 6 by 9 feet 3, with an iron grated and glazed window. For these they pay as per table, which is printed and stuck up on the master's side, for the inspection of all persons whatever.

Common side debtors have also a court-yard, with arcades, a day-room, and 12 sleeping-rooms, the same as those on the master's side: But they sleep in hammocks, and find their own bedding.

:

Women debtors have a court-yard, about 20 feet square; a day room, 18 feet square; and four sleeping-rooms, the same size as the men's, with wooden bedsteads to which they also find their own bedding, and pay nothing. The men felons are of four classes; each of which has a spacious courtyard, neatly paved with Yorkshire stone, and in size about 87 feet by 30, for the prisoners to take air and exercise in fine weather; or, if it be otherwise, they walk under arcades paved with flag stone; of about 48 feat by 27 also a day room for each class, 27 feet by 20, to dress their victuals in. Each felon has a cell 8 feet 3 by 6 feet 9; with iron-grated window 4 feet by 2, a wooden inside shutter, a circular ventilator, 18 inches diameter, in the middle of each cell, a wooden inside door and an iron grated one to each. They are furnished with an elm-plank bedstead, only 22 inches wide, a flock bed, and pillow, two blankets and a rug: the bedding is shraken and rolled up, and the cells are cleaned every morning.

Here are likewise four day-rooms, with boarded floors, occasionally used for convicts under sentence of death;

each about 26 feet by 18, with a fireplace, a table, and benches, and 3 windows, 6 feet by 3, iron-barred and glazed.

The women felons have also a court-yard about 70 feet by 30, with arcades, day-room,cells, furniture, and accommodations, the same as the men felons. Convicts here under sentence of transportation do not receive the King's Allowance of 2s. 6d. per week. The lobbies of this prison are ali well ventilated, and 6 feet three inches wide.

Pumps are fixed in all the courtyards; Thames water is laid on, and at the top of the four corners of the gaol is a reservoir, each containing about 800 gallons of water, supplied from a well by a forcing pump.

Here are four spacious airy rooms, each 25 feet by 16, in a detached building, set apart as infirmaries, fitted up with flock beds, blankets, pillows, and rugs; and adjoining to them 'are court-yards 30 feet squaae, for convalescents to walk in. Also two rooms for nurses, another for the surgeon, and a fourth with a warm bath.

TheChapel is a very neat structure, where the prisoners are seated in their different classes; and all are required to attend Divine Service who receive the county allowance.

There are in this excellent prison no less than four cold baths, one warm bath, and an oven for purifying infected or offensive clothing. Of sleepingcells there are on the ground floor 15; first story 82; and second story 80. Total 177. Debtors committed hither from the King's Bench for any offence, pay no fees now whatever, as formerly was the custom.

There is in the gaol a list of Ten Legacies and Donations. Some of the charities are for debtors expressly; the others are not so distinguished; but debtors have them all. In the title of the paper it is said "The gaol was formerly called the White Lion Prison." The common seal of the prison is a lion rampant. One of the legacies was bequeathed by Eleanor Gwynn, from which are sent to this prison, once in eight weeks, sixty-five penny loaves.

Whatever money is collected in Chapel, at what are called the condemned sermons, is paid into the hands of the chaplain, and by him laid out

for

for the benefit of the prisoners, in coals, meat, and other necessaries, at

his discretion.

It once was customary for the executioner to demand, and by some means or other to procure six shillings and eight pence, from the criminal, on his way to execution. This inhuman practice was discontinued on the 16th July 1799.

Excellent rules and orders are made for the government of this gaol, which are fixed up in four different parts of it. The magistrates visit the prison in regular monthly rotation: their remarks are entered in a book; and every time the Committee meets, the surgeon also enters in his book the state of health in which he finds the prisoners.

All of them are discharged in a morning, after breakfast, and have from one to five shillings given them, according to their distance from home.

The Lent assizes for the county of Surrey are always held at Kingston, and during that time the prisoners of this gaol are confined at the Stock House, and the house of Correction. The Summer Assizes are once in two years at Guildford, and the prisoners then kept at the Bridewell there.

Every other summer they are held at Croydon, and during the time were confined, heretofore, in stables, which are now properly converted into a large room suitable for the purpose.

The Act for preservation of Health, and the Clauses against Spirituous Liquors, are conspicuously hung up; and the whole prison is remarkably clean.

The Bridewell or House of Correc tion, formerly situate in St. George's Fields, is now enclosed within the boundary wall of the County Gaol. Keeper, John Spreadbury. Salary £50. and a share in the prisoners' earnings, as hereafter mentioned. He is under the controul of the gaoler, but receives his Salary from the county, and the magistrates only have the power to dismiss him. Fees

for those male prisoners who are employed in picking oakum and knotting yarn. Each prisoner has a cell 8 feet 3 inches by 6 feet 9, with an irongrated window 4 feet by 2, a wooden inside shutter, circular ventilator 18 inches diameter, double door, and bedsteads and bedding provided, taken care of, and cell cleaned every morning, the same in all respects as those in the county gaol for the felons.

The women prisoners have one spacious and airy court-yard, of about 27 feet by 23, together with a workshop, cells, bedding, &c. the same, and their employment also, as the men prisoners.

The following is an account of the receipt and net profit of the prisoners' EARNINGS, from Michaelmas 1802 to Michaelmas 1803 : Earnings...................₤121 Expences attending the

Deduct one third as allowance to the Superintendant

Nett profit to balance

33 9 0

During the above year the average number of prisoners was 45. Thirty pounds of the balance were, as before, laid out in coals and meat by the Rev. Secretary, and the remainder in sundry articles for their use, under the direction of the visiting Committee.

For the following years to Michaelmas 1807, I have similar accounts; but the two statements here given

may

may suffice, as the distribution was similar, and nearly equal to the foregoing.

Every prisoner committed to hard labour in this Bridewell, receives one third of his or her earnings, the keep er one-third, and the other third goes to the county. Every other description of prisoners receives one-half of the earnings, the keeper one-quarter, and the county has the rest.

When the Sessions are held at Ryegate, the prisoners sent from hence are confined there generally for two days in THE CAGE, which has a strong room below, about 20 feet by 12 for the men, and above it are two rooms about 12 feet square, one for men and the other for women; they have loose straw only to sleep on.

My dear Friend, I avail myself with pleasure of this opportunity to pay my acknowledgements to the Right Honourable Lord Leslie, to Sir Thomas Turton, Bart. M. P. for the Borough of Southwark, and to the Visiting Magistrates who did you and myself the honour to accompany us over every part of this well-regulated Gaol. The cleanliness and good order that prevail through

out it, I have not failed to notice in

my publications on Prisons and imprisoned Debtors; and to it most probably may be ascribed its singular healthiness; twelve persons only having died by illness since the 3d August, 1798, when it was first inhabited, although the average number of prisoners in it is, and has been annually, from 150 to 200. I am, dear Sir,

Yours truly, JAMES NEILD.
To Dr. Lelisom, London.

voured to call the public attention to it in various works, perhaps, even to the extreme of folly! But Bishop Horsley, after having professed to pay particular attention to the subject, says, "I shall now venture to conclude, notwithstanding the great authorities the other way, that the phrase of Our Lord's coming, wherever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish War, as well as in most other passages of the New Testament, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment." See his Sermons, vol. I. p. 56. This opinion of the learned Bishop, the Edinburgh Reviewer thinks he has supported with complete success and to give all possible weight to his opinion, he has expressly said that, in his proper science of Theology, he will not venture to suppose the Bishop had a superior. And he has farther said of his Sermons, that even ordinary Readers may derive more advantage from them than from any volumes of Sermons which have issued from the See also press for the last fifty years. the British Critic and the Christian how to express, in language sufficientObserver, who have scarcely known ly strong, their admiration of their superior excellence.

I am, I trust, very far from wishing to depreciate the real merit of Bishop Horsley, or of his Sermons; but his criticism upon the subject in which I am more immediately concerned, appear to me to have no claim whatever to the title of profound. On the contrary, I will venture to assert that they are wholly unworthy of his great name, and have a tendency, most materially, to injure the cause of Christianity. Who, for instance, but the Bishop, could have imagined that when Our Lord said-there are some standing here, Matt. xvi. 28. he meant one individual only, and that individual Judas the Traitor? Who but he could have put any other con struction upon the phrase tasting of death in this passage, thau that of dying? Or who, besides himself, could have deduced the awful doctrine of the eternity of hell torments from a verse in which there is not the most distant allusion to it? How much more natural would it have been for

GENT. MAG. May, 1811;

Lord's

Lord's original language that the king dom of heaven was ut hand, for an explanation of this passage; more especially as it is firmly supported by its connexion with a conversation which Our Lord had just had with his disciples upon the opinion which was held concerning him?

As it appears that the Bishop totally mistook the meaning of this verse, so there is abundant evidence that he was likewise greatly mistaken in his interpretation of the question of the disciples, and of Our Lord's language in consequence of his prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. The phrase of Our Lord's coming, he says, wherever it occurs, in his prediction of the Jewish War, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, at the general judgment. With respect to the question of his Disciples-What shall be the sign of thy coming? there is nothing in their sentiments or conduct at this period, which will justify the putting such a meaning upon it. As the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem was totally incompatible with all their ideas of the nature of the Messiah's character, nothing could have been more natural than for the Disciples to apply to Jesus for information how such a prediction could be reconciled with their expectations of his being the Messiah. And that Our Lord understood this to be the great object of their question, is demonstrable from his immediately proceeding to caution them against looking out for others who might assume the Character of the Messiah, and from his again and again repeating his caution to them upon this head. His anxiety to support their expectations of his coming as the Messiah, also appears conspicuous from his telling them, after having mentioned various signs of the destruction predicted, that as the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. But lest this should not be sufficient fully to convey his meaning, Our Lord proceeds to give them the following very explicit and direct information upon the subject in the form of parable: Now learn a parable, or instruction, from the fig-tree. When its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so like

wise ye, when ye shall see all these things-all the things he had been predicting-know that it-or, as St. Luke has it, know that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

Here again--if Our Lord's original language, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, had been attended to, a most easy and natural interpretation of the phrase the Kingdom of God, in the Parable, would have presented itself, and it must have been perceived that it was a direct answer to the question of the Disciples--what shall be the sign of thy coming? If this was not the meaning of the question of the Disciples and of Our Lord's answer to it, there would appear to he no consistency or bond of connexion between the several parts of the Gospel history, and in fact nothing which would enable any one to judge with precision of their meaning. But who is there who does not see, upon the slightest inspection of the Gospel history, that it was the grand object of the whole of it, to establish the truth of Our Lord's original declaration that the Kingdom of Heaven, or of the Messiah, was at hand? Who does not see the extreme propriety of the question of the Disciples, when, by the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, Our Lord had, in their opinion, been annihilating the very foundation of all their expectations that he was the Messiah? Who, in short, does not, under such circumstances, see the absolute necessity of his repeating his declaration that it was at hand, notwithstanding his prediction? If this is not genuine historical evidence, and that too of the highest kind, I know not what is !

But there is, it seems, another question which Bishop Horsley considered as decisive; that the question of the Disciples-what shall be the sign of thy coming? means his coming at the general judgment; for they further ask-What shall be the sign of the end of the world? Expositors, in deed, the Bishop says, suppose that, by the end of the World, the Apos tles meant the end of that particular age, during which the Jewish Church and State were destined to last; he ridicules this interpretation, as a puerile refinement of verbal criticism, founded upon what they call the idioms of the Jewish language, which, however, he says, are no idioms of

but

the

the inspired peamen, but the idioms of Rabbinical Divines; a set of despicable writers, who strive to conceal their poverty of meaning by the affected obscurity of a mystic style. But St. Paul was no Jewish Rabbin, and yet he says - Now once in the end of the World, or age, as the original certainly ought to have been translated, Christ hath appeared, to take away sin. In another place he says the ends of the world, or age, are come. And where, in fact, should we expect to find Jewish idioms, but in Jewish writers? The New Testament abounds in them, and so far, at least, prove the credibility of their narratives. In a word, as a reference to our Lord's original language, and to the consequent controversy whether Jesus was the Messiah, compels us, by all the rules of sound criticism, to understand the question of the Disciples what shall be the sign of thy coming? of his coming as the Messiah, and not as the Judge of the World; so by the same reference we may conclude with equal certainty that the enquiry concerning the end of the World, or age, relates to the conclusion of the Mosaic age or when that of the Messiah

would commence. It was equally as natural to ask when he should come, as what would be the signs of his coming? If such a reference did not afford means of ascertaining with precision what is to be understood by these questions, the Gospel history would, in my humble opinion, be essentially detective. But that it is not so, this slight view of the subject must, I think, convince every dispassionate enquirer; and if he wishes to have a full view of this subject, I must refer him to my Triumphs of Christianity over Infidelity-to my 'Letters illustrative of the Gospel History' or to my last publication in reply to Bishops Newton, Porteus, and Horsley, and Sir Henry Moncrief Wellwood,

I have, it may be observed, taken no notice of any passage in the Epistles where the phrase the coming of Christ but I have, in a distinct treatise, I think satisfactorily, shewn that when St, Paul says, Thess. ii. 1, Now concerning the coming of Christ,' he did not allude to his coming at the general judgment, but to the destruction of Jerusalem. When St. Peter again says We have not followed cunningly-devised fables when we

made known to you the power and coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. it is demonstrably evident that he referred to his first coming as the Messiah, and as a proof that they had not followed cunningly devised fubles.-Bishop Horsley had a fine opportunity of enquiring into the meaning of this passage, in his four Sermons upon the surewordof Prophecy; but it is remarkable that he does not appear to have taken the smallest notice of it, though it was, most evidently, the foundation of the Apostle's subsequent reasoning. I must add, that I have no doubt that when the same Apostle mentions the scoffers as saying-Where is the pro-" mise of his coming? he uses the phrase in the sense of Christ's coming as the Messiah. In fine, the Epistles and Gospels appear to me to harmonize most admirably upon the subject of the coming of Christ, and very naturally; for, till Jerusalem was destroyed, the controversy concerning the nature of the Messiah's character could not, with any propriety, be said to have been finally settled. With what propriety then does the Apostle Paul say, Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, that Jesus is the

Christ? If we take this as our guide in the study of the New Testament, it will contribute more to the knowledge of it than can be afforded by any or all the Commentators put together. I have laboured long to inculcate the importance of this system - but I know too well that nothing is so difficult as to produce a general conviction of any truth, however clearly it may be proposed. But I have so far performed my part. The rest must be left to the gradual operation of time and reflection. N. NISBETT.

ARCHITECTURAL INNOVATION,
No. CLIV.

As" on "An Historical Sur S I adventured to give "Revey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France,"by the late Rev.G.D.Whittington, commencing vol. LXXIX. p. 523; it may be conjectured that I should not be wholly silent on an an swer just submitted to the Publick, intituled, "A Treatise on the Eccle siastical Antiquities of England during the Middle Ages," by the Rev. J. Milner, D. D. At my onset of comment on the production of the Adulator of the French, after professing

to