LANGLEY, Batty & Thomas.

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The Builder's Jewel: Or the Youth's Instructor, and Workman's Remembrancer. Second edition of this articulation of Batty Langley's classically inspired gothic style, printed five years after the first edition and pocket-size for the use of tradesman. The diagrammatic plates illustrate forms of columns, doors, porticos, windows, pediments, and roof supports, and the final plate shows a cross-section of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral.The work was frequently reprinted in the coming decades, going through a total of 22 editions up to 1808, although Langley's popularizing of his ideas did not meet with universal acclaim. Never one to hold back, Horace Walpole opined that "all that his [Langley's] books achieved, has been to teach carpenters to massacre that venerable species, and to give occasion to those who know nothing of the matter" (p. 50).The Builder's Jewel is also known for its frontispiece, which reflects Langley's connections to freemasonry by incorporating multiple masonic symbols and carrying a date of AL 5741 (1741 in the masonic calendar).

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