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derstood at all, or is ridiculed for his barbarous pronunciation; and yet a native of Persia, going to India, can be always understood by the Indians who speak Persian.

LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE EDITOR OF
THE CALEDONIAN MERCURY.
SIR,

As there have been few contests, in our city, in which the public took so deep an interest, as in that which seated Dr Murray in the Chair of Oriental Languages, there have been few events, that have excited more general sorrow, than the melancholy termination of his short but illustrious career. Though the very brief period, however, during which his health allowed him to discharge his academic duties, did not comprehend even a single session, he yet lived long enough to shew the importance of eminent talents in the Chair which he filled; -and, though the zeal which he kindled may fade, when there is no longer a genius like his own to keep the flame alive, it has been at least a proof, that, by a genius like his, such a zeal be kindled and preserved; and that, to continue to diffuse the knowledge of Oriental Languages and Literature, nothing more is necessary than a series of able Professors, to whom their pupils may look with reverence, and share the enthusiasm which their teachers feel.

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The Professor of Oriental Languages is no longer to be considered as a mere teacher of Hebrew. A wide field is about to open to him— and a field which, for a long period, must continually become wider and wider; connecting, in some degree,, with the talents that may fill his Chair, the commercial and other general relations of a large portion of the British empire. The probable opening of a freer communication with the East, cannot fail to render the acquisition of the languages of India, Persia, and the other countries of a world which is still almost new

to European commerce, an object of far more general importance-and how many are there, who may not be able to go through the long and expensive education of the College at Hertford, who, under an able teacher here, might acquire, at much less expence, the same knowledge of languages, and enjoy at the same time the benefit of all that liberal education which our University affords. But even though these most important advantages, that might arise from the presence in this city of an able teacher of the living languages of the East, were to be wholly laid out of view, and though that language alone were to be considered, to which the attention of our future divines is especially directed, can any lover of our Church, or of Christianity itself, regard it as of little moment, whether an adequate provision be made, not for teaching the mere elements of Hebrew, but for diffusing the love, and with the love, the intimate and critical knowledge, of that venerable language. Under such a teacher as Dr Murray, there could be no doubt, that a new race of divines would soon have freed the Church from a reproach, under which, with all its very great merits in other respects, it has too long laboured-the reproach of almost universal ignorance of the language, in which the greater part of that sacred volume was written, which it is the principal office of our professional theologians to explain.

But Dr Murray is now lost to us : and it is almost too much to hope that a philological genius can be found, worthy of being his successor. Such was my own feeling; and such too, I am convinced, was the feeling of every one, who lamented the loss which the public suffered in his death. It was with no slight pleasure, there fore, that I first perused the two letters, of which I now request your insertion. They are copied from a tract published in the year 1809, by

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an eminent prelate, the Bishop of St David's, with the laudable view of recommending the study of those languages, which belong to the department of the vacant professorship. The narrative, contained in them, will not be less interesting to your readers, when they learn, that the obscure linguist, whose passion and whose struggles for knowledge, with so few advantages to aid him, and so many difficulties to overcome, are there pictured in so lively a manner, is no longer obscure-that the reputation of his talents obtained for him the friendship of the most eminent Orientalists in our island, and a confidential situation with the Ambassador to Persia, Sir Gore Ousley-the very honourable situation, as I have been informed, of first interpreter to the Embassy-and that he returned to Europe a few months ago, with all the accesions of Oriental knowledge, which a mind like his, in such favourable circumstances, could not fail to acquire.

(To be continued.)

answering to the description given by Linnæus of his Trichiurus lepturus, or the Gymnogaster. The fish had been dead some time, and the lower jaw had dropt off. The next specimen was more than four times the size of the former, measuring about thirteen feet in length. The people were so much surprized at finding an eel-shaped animal of such magnitude, that they yoked a cart, and carried the fish to Fochabers, for the inspection of the Duke of Gordon. The sides, where deepest, did not measure one foot; and the greatest thickness was two inches and a half; so that the body had a very compressed appearance. The head was shattered; but the fish had been very lately alive, being quite fresh. A cut of it was boiled at the Castle, and found to taste very like the wolf-fish. Descriptions of these fishes, we understand, were drawn up by Mr James Hoy at Gordon Castle, and transmitted to the Linnean Society, in whose Transactions, no doubt, they will appear. It seems not unlikely that the last mentioned, or large fish, may prove to be a new species of Trichiurus. The mere dif

Monthly Memoranda in Natural His- ference in size is not indeed to be

tory.

May. THE wet and cold weather, which, in this place, never fails to result from continued easterly wind, prevailed during the first part of the month; and vegetation was not much farther advanced than in the beginning of April. After the 20th, the wind blew from the west, and suddenly produced fine summer weather. Trichuiri. Two very rare fishes pretty evidently of the genus Trich, jurus of Linnæus, have of late been cast ashore at Port Gordon in Aberdeenshire. The first specimen was about three feet long, of a silvery white colour, the tail ending in three or four soft spines or bristles (whence the name is derived,) and in general

taken as characteristic; tho' it would be rather an odd circumstance to find

a fish which has been generally described by naturalists as little more than three feet long, of the extraurdinary length of thirteen feet. There were, however, some other marks of distinction, such as the sides being stripped with dark-coloured longitudinal bars, the bristles at the tail being indistinct, &c.; but the important specific characters depending on the head and the teeth cannot be ascertained till another specimen occur.

The gymnogaster is considered as a native of the large rivers of South America. It is possible that a few wanderers may occasionally get into the Gulf Stream, and, by the influence of this great current, be induced

to

to cross the Atlantic; but there can be no doubt that the large fish here described had been alive on the east coast of Scotland, and had recently met with its death by striking against the rocks it may therefore be placed in our Fauna as an interesting addition to the list of occasional visi

tants.

CANONMILLS, 2 28th May 1813.

dually got rid of its hydrogen gas without being corrupted. The same experiment made with hydro-carbonated gas coming from animal putrefaction presented another result. The water became turbid, it contained flakes of a substance truly animal, which was precipitated on being allowed to rest, and the liquid was putrified. Thus, although the gas was N. the same to the eyes of the experi

Memoirs of the Progress of Manufactures, Chemistry, Science, and the Fine Arts.

THE

IE plan for heating the WestChurch of Aberdeen by steam, given by Mr Robertson Buchanan, civil engineer, has been executed, and gives perfect satisfaction. The fire is put under the boiler on Saturday evening, and continues until the congregation meet at the afternoon sermon. The steam-heat keeps the church from 46 to 48 Fahr. and the presence of the congregation raises it to 50 or 55.-The printing-office of the Glasgow Chronicle, and some o. ther work-shops and manufactories in that neighbourhood, have been heated in the same manner.

It is recommended as the result of experience, that, in planting wall-fruittrees, the natural earth be removed, to the depth and width of four feet, and that there be substituted in its place some fine garden soil, and road scrapings, and other good compost.

Messis Thenard and Depuytren, within these two or three years, made an experiment which has thrown considerable light on the existence of miasmata. They agitated distilled water with hydrocarbonated gas extricated from mineral substances. This water, exposed to the air and allowed to stand, was not disturbed, and gra

menter, the latter contained manifestly miasmata, which gave rise to the flakes observed, and to the putrefaction of the water. M. Moscati, an eminent Italian physician, has made similar and equally interesting experiments. Having observed that the cultivation of rice, in the humid rice grounds of Tuscany, was annually attended with epidemic diseases and adynamic fevers, he conceived the idea of ascertaining the nature of the vapours which rose from the ground where rice was cultivated with this view he suspended, at some distance from the ground, hollow spheres filled with ice. The vapours were condensed on the spheres in the form of hoar frost. He collected this substance in flasks, in which it melted, and, at first, presented a clear liquid. Speedily it was filled with small flakes, which, when collected and analysed, presented all the characters of an animal matter. The liquid in a short time putrified. M. Moscati made the same experiment in an hospital, by suspending the glass spheres over several sick persons: it was attended with the same phænomena and the same results. These experi ments ought to be repeated and followed up: they might be varied, multiplied, and compared, with a view to elucidate the theory of contagion, which takes place without immediate contact. In this way we might also examine the alteration which miasmata undergo, when the nitric or muriatic fumigations are resorted to.

Documents

Documents relative to the Investigation of judicial inquiry. She trusted that

into the conduct of her Royal Highness the PRINCESS of WALES. DEFENCE OF THE PRINCESS. THE defence of the Princess of Wales is contained in a letter to his Majesty. It is of very great length, such as would fill several numbers of our publication. This we are afraid would, by many of our readers, be thought rather too much. It has appeared to us possible, how ever, to include all that would interest the public curiosity in a moderate compass, and within the limits of one number. A few additional documents in our next will then conclude the subject. We have here given an abstract of the introductory and argumentative parts, and have exhibited all the more essential passages in the Princess's own words.

After stating that the report of the commissioners most fully cleared her of the charge of high treason, by the foul crime of adultery,-there remained imputations, strongly sanctioned by that report, stating that the circumstances detailed against her must be credited, till they were decisively contradicted. These were entertained on testimony so little worthy of belief, betraying the malice in which it originated, that it was with no little astonishment that she perceived the commissioners had acted upon it. It was extraordinary that they should entertain charges amounting to no legal offence, even if clearly proved, and still more so, that they did not employ the attention that was necessary to detect the villany of the foul conspiracy, which was evidently formed against her life and honour. Above all, that they should have thought themselves justified in reporting on such evidence, without hearing one word on her behalf, to his Majesty, from whom there could be no appeal to the laws, because the arges could not be made the ground May 1813,

his Majesty would not attribute her warmth, in speaking of the manner of this prosecution, to any want of duty or respect to the throne, but to her own sense of dignity, and to the just feelings which she entertained for the honour of the royal family of which she was a member.

For more than two years she had been told of insinuations against her honour-that her neighbour's servants had been under secret examinationsand dark intimations were given to her of some mischief hatching for the destruction of her peace, if not aiming at her life. On the 7th of June 1806, the Duke of Kent communicated to her that a formal investigation was ac tually commenced into her conduct; and she instantly heard that two at tornies (one the solicitor of Sir John Douglas,) were arrived at her house, to execute warrants to take half of her household servants away, for the purpose of examination. It now appeared that the design was a charge of the crime of high treason, in the infamous crime of adultery, by which an attack was made directly on her life. The first feeling of her heart prompted her to request his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent to remain with her till her servants werę gone, that he might bear witness that she held no conversation with any of them previous to their departure; which he accordingly did. This at least may serve to shew that there was no alarm on her part, arising from any consciousness of guilt, or that she had any need of putting her servants on their guard, much less of giving them instructions. The inquiry went on for two months from this, without her receiving the least communication on the subject, or knowing what dark fatal machinations might be going on. At length the report, though dated the 14th July, did reach her upon the 11th August. She could not, in a situation

of

of such peril to her life and honour, trust to her own judgement, and therefore she consulted legal men in forming her defence. They advised her, that the body of the charges was not complete, as the declarations upon which the King's warrant originated had not accompanied the examinations and report, and that the whole had not been officially authenticated. By a representation to his Majesty these omissions were rectified. Ón the 29th August she received the declarations (including the Duke of Kent's) and on the 3d September the papers were authenticated.

After this introduction the technical objections to the warrant, tribunal, and form of proceeding follow. She was ready to acknowledge that her honour was of more importance to the state than that of any other woman; that her conduct, therefore, might be fitly subjected, when necessary, to a severer scrutiny than that of others; but it could not follow, because her character might be of more importance, that it might be attacked with more impunity. For two years she had been slandered in the most ignominious way-insinuations thrown out against her in her neighbourhood-spies placed on her conduct-the servants in the neighbouring families tampered with, and that by the Earl of Moira, as would appear by the deposition of Jonathan Partridge, porter to Lord Eardley. She humbly trusted, that before any other proceeding should be gone into, it would be considered as fit that it should be by another more known and regular tribunal, and in a manner more consonant with the forms of British judicature.

She now proceeded to observe on the evidence adduced: and, first, of the testimony of Lady Douglas. The first observation that must strike every one, was the folly of gratuitously and uselessly confessing, to a person, almost a stranger, a secret of such

vital importance as that of pregnan cy, if it had been really so. Lady Douglas had, in fact, courted her acquaintance by the most humble attentions, and she was not a person who, either by her manners or acquirements, could engage any part of her confidence. The Princess proceeds to examine her declaration, made on the 3d December 1805, though it was not communicated to his Majesty till the month of May, and though she did not feel herself called upon to enter into any refutation of an evidence that was totally discredited, yet, in justice to her own feelings, she must shew how inconsistent, vague, and futile it was in every part; and accordingly the Princess goes through it passage by passage. The other declarations were made by persons of a character and description, which, one would have thought, would of itself have deprived them of all credit. Such informations such ex parte evi dence, were themselves sufficient to make the commissioners hesitatebut to report upon them to his Majesty, with all the weight and autherity of their high names, she was per fectly at a loss to account for. The evidence was described as containing matters of "great impropriety and indecency of behaviour, and other particulars in themselves extremely suspicious, and still more so, when connected with the assertions already mentioned."-And they go on to say, "that particularly what passed between her Royal Highness and Captain Manby must be credited until they receive some decisive contradiction; and, if true, are justly entitled to the most serious consideration." Now, what did the whole rest. upon? Hearsays, rumours, suspicions,

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and the reports of very doubtful persons. All the witnesses, except Mrs Lisle, were witnesses of the informer's. For Mrs Lisle, she bad great respect; but all the rest were placed by the Prince about her; and

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