Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

8. A Sketch of the British fur Trade in North America, with Observations relative to the North-west Company of Montreal; by the EARL of SELKIRK and Voyage de la Mer Atlantique a' Ocean Pacifique par le Nord-ouest dans la Mer Glaciale; par le Capitaine Laurent Ferrer Maldonado l'an 1588. Nouvellement traduit, &c.Lord Selkirk, some years ago, attempt ed to divert the tide of emigration from the Highlands of Scotland to the United States, and turn it to Prince Edward's Island, within the territories of Great Britain. More lately, his views of colonization seem to have become more extensive; and having purchased about a third part of the stock of the Hudson's Bay Company, he obtained from their governors a grant of a wide extent of country, held, or supposed to be held, under their charter, of which he proceeded to take possession. The settlers on this tract have been molested, it appears, by the servants of the North-west Company, between which and the Hudson's Bay Company there had long subsisted a deadly feud; and some very extraordinary proceedings are understood to have taken place on both sides. According to Lord Selkirk, the fur trade is not in the best hands, nor carried on in a very honourable manner. The North-west Company is pointedly accused, indeed, of great violence and injustice, for which, as the law at present stands, it is extremely difficult, or altogether impossible, to call its servants to account. Of the Hudson's Bay Company, the Reviewers do not think so well as Lord Selkirk does.-The rest of this article, and that which is of a far deeper interest, relates to the North-west passage. The relation of Maldonado's voyage is held to be a clumsy and audacious forgery. The Reviewers firmly believe, however, that a navigable passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, round the northern coast of America, does exist, and may be of no difficult execution. In support of this opinion, they proceed to examine the various unsuccessful attempts that have been made at different periods. No human being, they say, has yet approached the coast of America on the eastern side, from 664° to 72°, and here it is thought the passage may be found. 9. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canfo III.; and the Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems. By LORD BYRON. -If the heart of Lord Byron be not

dead to every emotion of pleasure and gratitude, this article must stir up these feelings in no common degree. The Reviewer displays throughout, not only the powers of a poet and of a critic of the highest order, but the delicacy and solicitude of a friend, without, however, shutting his eyes to the ec centricities and misjudged exhibitions of this lugubrious and indignant misanthrope. There are one or two digressions in it somewhat curious, for they may be thought to identify the Reviewer,-upon much the same grounds as Childe Harold has been supposed to speak the sentiments of Lord Byron. In the first, he disputes the proposition, that rapidity of composition and publication endangers the fame of an author of great talents. A little after it is stated, as an axiom, that " every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct view of the landscape, sentiment, or action, which he intends to describe to the reader." Lord Byron's political opinions, of course, meet with no favour; but his sins of omission, as well as commission, though pointed out in forcible language, do not call forth those expressions of contumely and bitterness, which so often disgrace the subalterns in political hostilities. There is something very serious, or, so different are peoples' tastes, perhaps amusing, at the conclusion of this article. It is impossible not to see in it the goodness of the writer's heart, though we make no doubt that others may pretend to discover also a slight infusion of amiable simplicity. For our own parts, we cannot help suspecting that there is a reasonable portion of affectation in some of Lord Byron's dolorous verses; and that to treat him like a spoilt child will not have much efficacy in removing the complaint. If any one should hereafter think it necessary, in order to establish his superiority of talent, to begin with distinguishing himself in the circles of vice and folly, despising the restraints to which ordinary mortals have agreed to submit, he may be led to doubt of the certainty of this mode of proving his claim, when he is assured, that the moral and religious regimen, here prescribed to Lord Byron, has been very faithfully observed, both in the private and public life of Several of the most distinguished writers of the present age.

10. Warden's Letters-" Mr. Warden's pretences and falsehoods," say the Reviewers, "if not detected on the spot, and at the moment when the means of detection happen to be at hand, might hereafter tend to deceive other writers, and poison the sources of history." The motive of the Reviewers is therefore a very laudable one, and the detection' will no doubt be very satisfactory to a certain class of read

ers.

But the historian! Sources of history! If the historian and philosopher should sit down to this, and the corresponding article in the Edinburgh Review, about a hundred years hence, what must he think of the political parties, and of the state of literature, in Britain in the year 1816? Mr War den is 66 a blundering, presumptuous, and falsifying scribbler;" and the proof is, that he actually brought the materials of this book from St Helena in the shape of notes, instead of having really despatched letters from sea, and from St Helena, to a correspondent in England!

11. Parliamentary Reform.-That part of this article which corresponds with its title, contains sentiments, about the justness of which there will be little difference of opinion among

well informed men. None but the most ignorant can expect, and none but the most wrongheaded, or unprincipled, will teach the people to expect any relief, under the present distresses of the country, from universal suffrage and annual parliaments. But the Reviewer does not confine himself to topics in the discussion of which he would have carried along with him the approbation of all those whose approbation is of any value. Unfortunately, we think, for the cause of which he is so able an advocate, he has introduced a great deal of extraneous matter, concerning which men of the clearest heads and purest intentions cannot be brought to agree. He has also counteracted the effects which the soundness of his judgment, and the powers of his eloquence, might have otherwise produced upon misguided or unthinking reformers, by indulging in a strain of violent exaggeration and reproach. So wide a departure from the Roman poet's maxim of suaviter in modo, fortiter in re, brings him too near to the style of the orators and authors whom he so justly exposes, and is inconsistent with the respect which so able a writer owes to himself and to his readers.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

DR CLARKE, the celebrated traveller, who is now professor of mineralogy at Cambridge, has lately been employed in the performance of some very curious and important experiments with a blowpipe, of a power far exceeding that of any similar instrument which has formerly been used. This instrument is in reality the invention of Mr Brooke,—although, when Dr Clarke employed it in his first experiments, he appears to have considered it as the invention of Mr Newman, who was the only artist employed in making it, and from whose hands Dr Clarke had probably received it. This mistake, however, the doctor has now been careful to correct.-The instrument consists essentially of a close box, in which air is condensed by means of a syringe. From this box, the air which in the experiments of Dr Clarke consisted of two volumes hydrogen, and one volume oxygen gas, highly condensed, is allowed to rush upon the flame of a lamp or candle; and by the powerful heat thus produced, Dr Clarke found that every substance which he tried, excepting charcoal and plumbago, were capable of being fused. All the most refractory stones, the earths, namely, lime, barytes, strontian, magnesia, alumina, and

silica, were melted into glass, slag, or enamel. Dr Clarke has since stated, however, that plumbago has also yielded to the power of this instrument; and from the following quotation from the doctor's communica tion, in the Annals of Philosophy for March, it will be seen that he considers charcoal itself as not decidedly refractory when the fusing power is in all its perfection:-"As far," says the doctor," as mineral substances are concerned, the char acter of infusibility is forever annihilated. Every mineral substance, not excepting plumbago, has been fused. There remains therefore, only one substance, namely charcoal, to maintain this character; and if I have leisure for a subsequent dissertation, I trust I shall be able to shew, that charcoal itself exhibits some characteristics of a fusible body."-The most remarkable, however, of all the results obtained during these brilliant experiments, was the reduction of barytes and strontian to their metallic bases :-to these the doctor has since added a long list of other metallic salts and ores, which he has been able to reduce to their pure metallic state, and of which specimens have repeatedly been transmitted for the inspection of the most illustrious scien

tific characters whom this country contains, -The instrument itself, by means of which all those important results have been obtained, has also received some improvements from the hand of the doctor, by which not only greater safety is obtained in the use of it, but a very considerable degree both of power and of facility has been added to the energy which it originally possessed; while the splendid scientific results which its employment has developed, have also been accompanied by some of the most brilliant phenomena which chemistry has to exhibit. The combustion of iron has been particularly mentioned as actually exhibiting a shower of fire. The general result of my observations," says the author, "has excited in my mind a hope that the means I have used will be employed upon a more extended scale to aid the manufactures of this coun. try. By increasing the capacity of the reservoir, and the condensing power of the apparatus, the diameter of the jet may be also enlarged; and the consequence will be, that a power of fusion the most extraordinary, as a work of art, which the world ever witnessed, may be employed with the utmost economy both of space and expenditure, and with the most certain safety." -We hope these splendid anticipations will soon be realized: and, upon the whole, we cannot help expressing our satisfaction that the employment of this powerful instrument, in the developement of such striking results, has fallen to the lot of a gentleman who has already rendered such essential service to the literature of his country, and whom, from the evidence afforded by his works (for we have not the honour of any more intimate acquaintance with him), we are really disposed to regard as not only one of the most accomplished scholars, but one of the best men also, which this country contains.

The Lockhart Papers are announced for publication, consisting of memoirs concerning the affairs of Scotland, from Queen Anne's accession to the commencement of the Union; with commentaries, containing an account of public affairs from the Union to the queen's death. All these papers were composed by, and are chiefly in the handwriting of, George Lockhart, Esq. of Carnwath, who was a very able and distinguished member of the Scottish and British Parliaments, and an unshaken disinterested partizan of the fallen family of Stuart. They contain also a register of letters between the son of James II. generally called the Chevalier de St George, or the old Pretender, and George Lockhart; with an account of public affairs from 1716 to 1728; and journals, memoirs, and circumstantial details, in detached pieces, of the young Pretender's expedition to Scotland in 1745; his progress, defeat, and extraordinary adventures and escape after the battle of Culloden in 1746, by Highland officers in his army. All these manuscripts are in the possession of Anthony Aufrere of Hoveton

in Norfolk, Esq. who married Matilda, only surviving daughter of General James Lockhart of Lee and Carnwath, Count of the Holy Roman empire, grandson of the author of the Memoirs. This work will be comprised in two quarto volumes, of six or seven hundred pages each; it admirably connects with the Stuart and Culloden papers, and is calculated to excite and reward the attention of all lovers of national history and political anecdote.

A paper has been read to the Royal Society by Dr Brewster, containing the results of a very extensive and ingenious series of experiments on the action of regularly crystallized bodies upon light. From these experiments Dr Brewster has determined all the laws by which the phenomena are regulated, and has been enabled to compose formulæ, by which the tints, and the direction of the axis of the particles of light, may in every case be calculat ed a priori. The law of double refraction investigated by La Place, and the laws of the polarising force deduced by M. Biot, are shewn to be merely simple cases of laws of much greater extent and generality, being applicable only to a few crystals, while those investigated by Dr Brewster are applicable to the vast variety of crystallized bodies which exist in nature.

We understand that Professor Leslie has very lately made an important addition to his curious and beautiful discovery of artificial congelation. He had found by his early experiments, that decayed whinstone, or friable mould, reduced to a gross powder and dried thoroughly, will exert a power of absorbing moisture, scarcely inferior to that of sulphuric acid itself. But circumstances having lately drawn his attention to this subject, he caused some mouldering fragments of porphyritic trap, gathered from the sides of that magnificent road now forming round the Calton Hill, to be pounded and dried carefully before the fire in a bachelor's oven. This powder, being thrown into a wine-decanter fitted with a glass stopper, was afterwards carried to the College; and, at a lecture a few days since in the Natural Philosophy Class (which he has been teaching this session in the absence of Professor Playfair in Italy), he shewed the influence of its absorbing power on his hygrometer, which, enclosed within a small receiver of an air-pump, fell from 90° to 320°, the wetted bulb being, consequently, cooled about 60° of Fahrenheit's scale. The professor, therefore, proposed on the instant to employ the powder to freeze a small body of water. He poured the powder into a saucer about 7 inches wide, and placed a shallow cup of porous earthen-ware, 3 inches in diameter, at the height of half an inch above, and covered the whole with a low receiver. On exhausting this receiver till the gage stood at 2-10ths of an inch, the water in a very few minutes ran into a cake of ice With the same powder an hour afterward he froze a large body of water in three m

nutes; and he will, no doubt, push these ingenious and interesting experiments much farther. It appears that such earth will absorb the hundredth part of its weight of moisture without having its power sensibly impaired, and is even capable of absorbing as much as the tenth part. It can hence easily be made to freeze the eighth part of its weight of water, and might even repeat the process again. In hot countries, the powder will, after each process, recover its power by drying in the sun. Ice may therefore be procured in the tropical climates, and even at sea, with very little trouble, and no sort of risk or inconvenience.

In the Bath Literary and Philosophical Society, the Rev. Mr Wright has described a very ingenious method of working a ship's pump by mechanical means, when the crew are too few in number to attend to that duty, and particularly in a heavy gale. It was used by Capt. Leslie in June last, during a voyage from Stockholm to America, when the crew were exhausted with pumping, and the ship was sinking. He fixed a spar aloft, one end of which was ten or twelve feet above the top of his pumps, and the other extremity projected over the stern; to each end of the spar he fastened a block: he then fastened a rope to the spears of his pump, and after passing it through both pulleys along the spar, dropped it into the sea astern : to this end he fastened a cask of 110 gallons measurement, and containing 60 or 70 gallons of water, which answered as a balance weight and the motion of the ship made the machinery work. When the stern of the ship descended, or any agitation of the water raised the cask, the pump-spears descended, and the contrary motion raised the spear, and the water flowed out. The ship was thus cleared in four hours.

At a meeting of the commissioners appointed to manage the yearly grant of £10,000, voted by Parliament for finishing the college of Edinburgh, the plan of Mr W. Playfair being adopted, the prize of 100 guineas was adjudged to that gentleman. According to Mr Playfair's plan, the exterior of the building, as originally planned by Adams, is to be retained with very little al teration; but there will be a total departure from the internal arrangements. The southern side of the quadrangle is to be occupied almost entirely by the library, which will be 190 feet long, and one of the most elegant rooms in the kingdom. The western side is to be appropriated to the museum, and the other two sides are to be occupied chiefly as class rooms.

A new mode of giving additional strength to iron and steel, is proposed by Mr Daniell. His plan is to twist metal in the same manner as strength and compactness are given to hemp and flax.

The trigonometrical survey of Great Britain, under the direction of the Ordnance Board, proceeds without interruption. The maps of three-fifths of England and Wales are already completed. In the course of

the summer, the British surveyors are to be joined by two eminent French academicians, with a view of connecting the trigonometrical surveys of the two countries, and thus not only attaining a greater degree of geographical accuracy, but obtaining, perhaps, a more satisfactory solution of the problem respecting the true figure of the earth. The French gentlemen appointed to assist Colonel Mudge and Captain Colby are, M. Biot and M. Mathieu of the Institute of France, whose principal object is, to measure the length of the pendulum at Greenwich, Edinburgh, and the Orkneys.

A new and ingenious instrument, called the Colorigrade, has lately been constructed by M. Biot, for giving names to different colours, according to the place which they occupy in Newton's scale. By this means colours may be described accurately and scientifically.

A new species of resin from India, has been analysed by J. F. Daniell, Esq, F.R.S. It consists of

[blocks in formation]

It forms a very admirable varnish, which is not only highly transparent, but bears the heat of the warmest climate without cracking or changing colour.

Mr Pond, the astronomer royal, has discovered in the stars Aquilæ & Lyræ, and « Cygni, a constant parallax of half a second; but he is disposed to ascribe it to some other cause than that of the ordinary parallax. Dr Brinkley of Dublin found the parallax to be two seconds.

A stone is said to have been lately found. at Pompeii, on which the linear measures of the Romans are engraved.

The Congo sloop of war is arrived at Deptford. Several large cases, containing the natural productions of Africa, collected in the late expedition to the Congo, have been sent to Sir Joseph Banks, for the purpose of being assorted in their respective classes: many of them are of a kind hitherto unknown, and the whole will shortly be submitted to the inspection of the public.

Mr Murray has succeeded in fusing two emeralds into one uniform mass; also two sapphires into one, by the compressed mixture of the gaseous constituents of water in the oxihydrogen blow pipe.

Mr Locateli, the celebrated mathematician of Milan, has invented a new piece of mechanism (says a Paris paper), by means of which vessels may ascend rivers without the assistance of a steam-engine. The first experiment, which was made on a small boat, completely succeeded. The inventor asserts, that his plan is applicable even to a man of war, and that it will secure her from the danger of shipwreck. The strength of a single man, or at most that of a horse, is sufficient to put this machine in motion.

WORKS PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION.

LONDON.

THE Journal of the late Captain Tuckey, on a Voyage of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, to explore the Source of the Zaire, or Congo with a Survey of that river beyond the cataracts-will soon be published by authority.

The Plays and Poems of James Shirley, now first collected and chronologically arranged, and the text carefully collated and restored, with occasional Notes, and a Biographical and Critical Essay, are preparing for publication; by William Gifford, Esq.; handsomely printed by Bulmer, in 6 vols 8vo. uniformly with Massinger and Ben Jonson.

Specimens of the British Poets, with Biographical and Critical Notices, and an Introductory Essay on British Poetry, are preparing for press; by Thomas Campbell, Esq. author of the Pleasures of Hope, &c. In 4 vols post 8vo.

Mr A. J. Valpy has in the press a new edition of the Greek Septuagint, in one large vol. 8vo. The text is taken from the Oxford edition of Bos, without contractions.Also, a new edition of Homer's Iliad, from the text of Heyne, with English notes, including many from Heyne and Clarke; one vol. 8vo. And Catullus, with English notes; by T. Forster, Esq. Jun. 12mo.

A work of Biblical Criticism on the Books of the Old Testament, and Translations of Sacred Songs, with Notes critical and explanatory, will soon appear; by Samuel Horsley, LL.D. F.R.S. F.A.S. late lord bishop of Asaph.

In the course of this month will be published, a Treatise touching the Libertie of a Christian Man; written in Latin, by Dr Martyne Luther, and translated by James Bell; imprinted by R. Newberry and H. Bynneman, 1579; dedicated to Lady Anne, Countesse of Warwicke;" with the celebrated Epistle from M. Luther to Pope Leo X. edited by W. B. Collyer, D.D. F.A.S. and dedicated (by permission) to the Duke of Sussex.

Mr Joseph Lancaster has printed proposals for publishing, by subscription, in one volume octavo, a Matter-of-fact Account of many singular and providential Events, which have occurred in his public and private Life.

J. E. Bicheno, Esq. will soon publish an Inquiry into the Nature of Benevolence, principally with a view to elucidate the moral and political Principles of the Poor Laws.

Mr W. Savage, printer, of London, has issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, with specimens, in colours, engraved on wood; containing instructions for forming black and coloured printing inks for producing fine press-work-and for printing in colours.

A new edition of Dr Thomson's System of Chemistry is in the press, and will speedily be published. The work will be entirely remodelled, and will be comprised in four octavo volumes.

The second edition of Mr Murray's Elements of Chemical Science is in the press, and will be forthwith published. This edition will contain a succinct and lucid view of those important and beautiful discoveries which have illuminated the rapid and brilliant march of chemistry.

Dr Spurzheim's new work, entitled, Observations on the Deranged Manifestations of the Mind, or Insanity, is in the press.

In a few weeks will be published, a new work, entitled, Boarding-school Correspondence, or a Series of Letters between a Mother and her Daughter at School; a joint production of Mrs Taylor, author of " Maternal Solicitude,' "Practical Hints to Young Females," &c. and of Miss Taylor, author of "Display," Essays in Rhyme,"

&c.

99.66

The Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, chiefly drawn from his private correspondence and the family documents preserved at Blenheim, as well as from other authentic sources, never before published, are preparing with all speed by Wm Coxe, archdeacon of Wilts.

An Account of the Island of Java; by Thomas Stamford Raffles, Esq. late lieutenant-governor there. With a map and numerous plates, by Daniel.

Pompeiana, or Observations on the Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments, of Pompeii; by Sir W. Gell and J. P. Gandy, Esq. with numerous engravings, are in the press.

Mr Mill's long expected History of British India is now in the press, and will be published in three 4to volumes.

Journey through Asia Minor, Armenia, and Koordistan, in the years 1813 and 1814; with Remarks on the Marches of Alexander, and the retreat of the Ten Thousand; by John Macdonald Kenneir, Esq. 4to.

Early this present month will be published, a Narrative of a Voyage to Hudson's Bay, in his Majesty's ship Rosamond; containing some account of the North Eastern Coast of America, and of the Tribes inhabiting that remote region; illustrated with plates; by Lieut. Edward Chappell, R.N.

A work on the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, is preparing by David Ricardo, Esq.

An Authentic Narrative is preparing of the Loss of the American brig Commerce, wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the month of August 1815; with an Account of the sufferings and captivity of her surviving officers and crew, on the great

« PoprzedniaDalej »