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the motion to which is given by the bolt, H, forming a point of union between the levers, I I. When their ends are depressed by means of the crank, EGF, which is moved by the handle, A, communicating to the crank, BC, and the connecting rod, D, the platen or upper surface, N, is forcibly drawn down upon the types.

To maintain the relative position of the several levers, the balance-weight, S, is applied. TTT is the frame-work supporting the whole of the machinery. Such is as minute an account of Mr Ruthven's printing press as is necessary for general information. It is here proper to state some of the points of superiority which it has, very decidedly, over all other contrivances of the same kind. These may be very briefly detailed, as we have already pointed out the most glaring defects

which first solicited Mr Ruthven's attention.-1st, In the new patent press the types remain stationary. 2d, The platen is the size of the whole sheet. 3d, Time is saved by its being brought over from the side. 4th, There is nearly half an inch between the tympans and the platen while passing over the types, by which all blurring is avoided. 5th, Any degree of pressure (from an ounce to twenty tons) may be correctly and uniformly given at pleasure. 6th, The platen being drawn down by the two ends, and the resistance sustained against the under surface of the tablet, affords the most complete and uniform security to all the parts; while, contrary to every other example known to us of the application of pressure, the frame is wholly independent of, and unaffected by, the force employed. 7th, As com

plete parallelism between the two surfaces (viz. of the platen and coffin) is maintained by means of the two screws, O O, so a small piece of work may be done at either end without a supporting block at the opposite extremity. 8th, This press being entirely unattached, requires no levelling or staying; and one for demy royal requires a space of only forty-two inches square. 9th, The motions of the pressmen, though less severe, are sufficiently si milar to enable him, in the course of one or two hours, to work with equal facility as at the common press. 10th, The principles above described are equally applicable to presses of all sizes. Fig. 3. represents one of the size of a cubic foot, which is capable of printing off an octavo page with greater celerity than a larger press, and may be worked on a common table without being fixed. The advantages of foolscappresses of this construction will be found very important.

An ingenious application of the principles of this press has been made to copying manuscripts; for that purpose (although it may with perfect effect be done with the small printing presses) Mr Ruthven has contrived the press represented in fig. 4. which is made without the printing apparatus, and having, instead of the clutches, permanent pillars to connect the upper surface with the levers. The parallelism of the two surfaces is regulated by two graduated scales and indices at each end, as may be seen in the annexed figure.

We are persuaded, that when, in addition to the excellencies already described, the extreme simplicity of the new patent press, and its little liability to derangement, are taken into consideration, it will in a short time supersede every other printing machinery that has hitherto been in use.

M.

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Nothing can be more conducive to the promotion of the arts than publicity, which may be greatly accelerated through the medium of your publication, by the admission of discussions on the works of ancient and modern artists, explanations of their modes of representation, or descriptions of the implements or apparatus used by them for that purpose. To those desirous of information, you may thus furnish facilities of acquiring it; and to those willing to communicate the result of their experience, a reputable and easy channel to publicity. To the inexperienced, nothing is more discouraging than the difficulty with which practical information is to be obtained, with regard to the composition or management of the substances or implements to be employed in the arts in general. With this view, and trusting to a coincidence of opinion on your part, I beg leave to request the insertion of the following article on LITHOGRAPHY, or the art of engraving on stone, which I hope may be the means of calling forth other communications, either on the practice or criticism of the fine arts.

This art has been long and successfully practised on the Continent, and we believe Germany has the honour of its invention. It was introduced into this country by a person of the name of Andrè about fifteen years ago, who attempted the publication of a periodical work, containing specimens of it by some of the most eminent artists in London, but which has been discontinued. It was also used in the Quarter-Master General's office, for the purpose of printing military plans, &c. In this country, however, it has never reached that state of perfection to which it has arrived on the Continent, as may be seen by a comparison of the works of Spix on craniology (in the college library), Albert Durer's Missal, and the Bavarian Flora; all of which are printed at Munich, and also the Flora Monacensis, and the last number of the Journal des Scavans; and these also furnish a proof of what may yet be done in the detail of this extraordinary invention.

The great advantages which this art possesses over every other kind of engraving, are, first, that any person who can draw, can also execute the

engraving with the same ease with which he uses the pencil on paper; and, secondly, the circumstance of his being enabled to have any number of copies taken at less than half the expense of ordinary copperplate printing.

Nothing equal, it is true, to the tone, or minute elegance of the best line engraving can be produced, but an inspection of the works already mentioned, will show how admirably it is adapted to represent objects of a picturesque description, natural history, outlines, anatomical subjects, plans, &c. It is also applicable to the purpose of multiplying writings, as the subject can be written on the prepared paper, afterwards transferred to the stone, and then printed without delay, at no further expense than the printing. In this way all the proclamations of the state at Munich are made public.

Directions.-A slate of white lias (Bath stone), about one inch thick, must be made perfectly level, and polished with very fine sand. The subject is then drawn on the stone with a common pen, and a prepared liquid of the consistence of common ink, and with the same facility; after this the stone is washed over with diluted nitric acid, which slightly corrodes that part of the stone only which has not been drawn on with the pen. The liquid is made with gum lac, dissolved in ley of pure soda, with a little soap, and coloured with lamp black. The liquid upon the stone, after the design is drawn, must be allowed to dry for about four days, and then soaked in water till perfectly saturated; in this state (with the water on the surface), a common printing ball is dabbed over it as in type printing. This ink adheres to such parts as have been drawn upon, the other parts of the stone being wet, repel the printing ink; the impression is then taken, by passing it through a press with a single cylinder. When the print is wished to resemble a chalk drawing, the stone is left rather rough, by using a coarser sand to polish it; and instead of the ink and pen being used, a crayon made of the same materials (only with a larger quantity of the lamp black) is applied in the same manner as a pencil. There is another method by which it may be done, namely, by covering the stone over with a thin mixture of VOL. I.

gum water and lamp black, and after it is dry, the design is drawn with the point of an etching needle, in the same way as on copper, cutting through the covering of gum and black, till the surface of the stone is reached, and then rubbing the solution into the lines or scratches. This done, it must be allowed to dry for the above mentioned time, and then soaked as before in water, when the gum will dissolve, leaving the lines only; upon which the printing ink is applied, as before explained, and the impression taken.

Should this plan find a place in the Magazine, it is proposed to give, in some of your subsequent numbers, a short account of the history of the discovery, and of the methods used in common etching upon copper, together with some receipts for the preparation of the grounds, &c.

ANECDOTE OF THE HIGHLANDERS. IN 1745.

(Communicated by MARY LADY
CLERK to the Publisher.)

SIR, ACCORDING to your request this morning, I send you some account of the particulars that attended my birth,which I do with infinite pleasure, as it reflects great honour on the Highlanders (to whom I always feel the greatest gratitude), that at the time when their hearts were set on plunder, the fear of hurting a sick lady and child instantly stopped their intentions.

This incident occurred November 15, 1745. My father, Mr D'Acre, then an officer in his Majesty's militia, was a prisoner in the castle of Carlisle, at that time in the hands of Prince Charles. My mother (daughter of Sir George le Fleming, Bart. bishop of Carlisle) was living at Rose-Castle, six miles from Carlisle, where she was delivered of me.-She had given orders that I should immediately be privately baptized by the bishop's chaplain (his lordship not being at home), by the name of Rosemary D'Acre. At that moment a company of Highlanders appeared, headed by a Captain Macdonald; who, having heard there was much plate and valuables in the castle, came to plunder it. Upon the approach of the Highlanders, an old gray-headed servant ran out, and entreated Captain Macdonald not to pro

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ceed, as any noise or alarm might occasion the death of both lady and child. The captain inquired when the lady had been confined? "Within this hour," the servant answered :Captain Macdonald stopped. The servant added, " They are just going to christen the infant."-Macdonald, tak ing off his cockade, said, "Let her be christened with this cockade in her cap; it will be her protection now, and after, if any of our stragglers should come this way: We will await the ceremony in silence;"-which they accordingly did, and then went into the coach-yard, and were regaled with beef, cheese, ale, &c. They then went off, without the smallest disturbance.

My white cockade was safely preserved, and shewn to me from time to time, always reminding me to respect the Scotch, and the Highlanders in particular. I think I have obeyed the injunction, by spending my life in Scotland, and also by hoping at last to die there.

ROSEMARY CLERK.

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ON THE ORIGIN OF HOSPITALS FOR THE SICK.

THE Greeks had no name to express what we understand by the word hospital. Noroxio has a different meaning in the classical Greek writers, and is first used, as we now translate it, by St Jerome and St Isidore. At Athens, provision was made in the prytaneum for the maintenance of those who had been severely wounded in war, as well as for that of their wives and children; but there was no asylum for even these persons in case of sickness. Far less was any such accommodation within the reach of the poor citizens, or the mercenaries who always formed a large proportion of the Athenian force. At Lacedemon, where, according to the rule of Lycurgus, all the citizens eat in common, there was nevertheless no establishment which bore any resemblance to our hospitals. The Helots were abandoned in case of sickness; and a similar fate attended even the Ephori themselves, if they happened to have no private fortune. This neglect of the Athenian and Spartan legislatures was imitated by the other Grecian states. In the oath of Hippocrates, that illustrious physician swears, "that he will all his life visit the sick and give them his advice gratis." At that time the medical practitioners were both surgeons and apothecaries, so it would appear that Hippocrates furnished the sick in his neighbourhood with medicines without expect ing any reward.

Among the Romans, in like manner, we should seek in vain for any establishments intended to alleviate the sufferings of the indigent sick. Nothing of the sort is mentioned among the pious institutions of Numa; and Servius, who distributed the people into classes, never thought of the nume rous classes of poor, sick, and infirm. During the time of the republic there were frequent distributions of land, and divisions of the spoils taken from the enemies of the state, which ameliorated in some degree the lot of those who were called the capite censi, because they could offer nothing to the lour and their life. service of their country but their vaYet all these largesses and gratifications were distributed among those who enjoyed good health, and no establishments for the sick were erected either under

the republic or under the emperors. These last indeed erected baths and therme for the use of the poor, and also made public distributions of food; and in these respects their example was followed by the wealthy patricians, who affected to give every day to their poor clients what went by the name of the sportula. We see by the descriptions of Juvenal, that the poor and infirm dependants of these nobles had no other resource to look to; for, according to him, the most acute distempers could not prevent them drag ging their steps to the portico, and soliciting their share in the sportula. "Quid macies ægri veteris quem tempore longo

Torret quarta dies olimque domestica febris,

&c."

It is easy to see that no public asylum was open for their reception. Both Greeks and Romans, then the two most polished nations of antiquity, consecrated no retreats for the unfortunate. This was most probably the consequence of their constitutions and forms of government. Divided at all times into freemen and slaves, the legislatures of these two nations never bestowed much attention on the second of these great bodies of men-but always regarded them as of a different race, and, as it were, the dregs of humanity. A slave dangerously ill was left entirely to the care of his fellows in servitude; in many instances his master would not even be at the expense of burying his corpse, and allow ed it to be thrown out to the vultures. The Esquiline Mount, whitened, according to Horace, by the great number of bones left there in heaps by these birds of prey, is a sufficient proof how little care was taken of the funerals of the poor. These unhappy men, of whom there was always a great number even in the best days of Athens and Rome, had then no other resource in their calamities but private charity, the strength of their constitutions, or the crisis of nature.

The temple of Esculapius, in the island of the Tiber, was indeed a sort of hospital, although far from corresponding exactly to what we call by that name; at least, the law of the Emperor Claudius, which declares that slaves abandoned by their masters in the island of Esculapius, should be held free in case of their recovery, seems to intimate that there was in that place

a seigneurial hospital destined for their reception. But it is not till the establishment of Christianity that we can find any traces of those institutions, which are now so common in Christendom, for the accommodation of the infirm and the unfortunate. In spite of all the persecutions to which the first Christians were exposed, we find, that about the year 258, Laurentius, chief of the deacons, assembled a great number of poor and sick, who were supported by the alms of the church. But it was in the year 380 that the first regular hospital was built. St Jerome informs us, that Fabiola, a Roman matron of distinguished piety, founded, for the first time, a nosocomium, that is, as he himself explains it, 66 a house in the country for the reception of those unhappy sick and infirm persons who were before scattered among the places of public resort,-and for the purpose of furnishing them in a regular manner with nourishment, and those medicines of which they might stand in need." This establishment was situated at some distance from the city, and in a healthy part of the country.

When Constantine transferred the seat of the empire to Byzantium, he caused an hospitium to be erected for the use of those strangers and pilgrims who had by his time begun to visit the East from motives of religion. This edifice was constructed after the model of the house which Hircanus had built at Jerusalem, about 150 years before the commencement of our

era.

That prince sought, by the establishment to which I allude, to purify himself, in the eyes of the Jews, from the stain which he had contracted by the sacrilegious rifling of the tomb of David. The riches which he had procured in that impious manner, would, he flattered himself, be less unfavourably regarded, if he should share them with the poor pilgrims, whom zeal or curiosity drew in multitudes to the capital of Judea. This, according to Isidore, is the origin of the name doxov, i. e. hospital for strangers, which was given to this building. In the year of our Lord 550, the Emperor Justinian constructed, at Jerusalem, the celebrated hospital of St John, which was the cradle of the military order of the knights of Rhodes and Malta. His successors imitated his example with so much

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