2

nose at Shapcot's again, and matters went on swimmingly in favour of Blaise. One night Ally stole out with some other maids to sing

New moon! True moon-tell unto me,

Who my love and husband shall be.'

I was standing at her elbow when she concluded. She stuck the heart of one of Bob's game-cocks, that had been killed in battle, with new pins, placed it under her pillow in a stocking which had been thrice washed in fountain water, and bleached as often in moonlight: that night she confessed I was the subject of her dreams. The charm worked in favour of Blaise. She went to see the sun and moon jig together in the brook on Easter morning, with her true love's face laughing at the fun. She glimpsed the peak of my mitre in the waters, and shrieking fell-into my arms! If she loitered in the church-yard at nightfall to chaunt—

Hemp seed I set, and hemp seed I sow,

Let my bonny boy come hither to mow,'

I was accidentally passing that way with a scythe or a bill on my shoulder, after assisting her brothers a-field. Could she but love me? Or was she to fight fate? When each of us present at a merrymeeting threw a lock of hair on the fire (I need scarce say that the owner of the lock that frizzles without flaming is doomed to die within the year) she grew pale as a lily when mine created no blaze. Then I was sure she loved me! It was a bit of my palfrey's mane, but I could not bring the colour to her cheek again, nor would she be easy until she plucked a curl from my brow, and it threw up a lusty flame when she cast it on the burning log. Then she moaned for my beast, and he, poor palfrey, has lived five months of his allotted time. I look forward with grief to the hour of our parting; but die he must at the year's end-that's fated. We played at shord and pancake last Shrovetide, Ally was lady of the door, and caught me as I was dropping my bit of crockery on the threshold. Nevertheless she did not black my cheeks with the frying pan, as by the law of custom she was entitled to do, but gave me a kiss and a cake, as if I had succeeded in laying down my shord, and escaping without detection. In fact, we are now as fond as two turtles, and to-morrow Alice will be made the bride of the roving waddler. Long may she live to vex the eye of his worship by her beauty, and to cheer my heart by her loving tones! My cot by Exmoor is fitted for her reception, and I shall hereafter limit my wanderings to a day's tramp; but never while I am able, and she is willing, will I discontinue my profitable and merry occupation of gathering ashes for the soap folks. The hill-side shall still ring with my song-the metal be fashioned in my moulder-the wood-ash darken these the robes of my good old father-and young and old from village and homestead, crowd forth to greet and employ their boon-friend, their comforter, and champion,-Bishop Blaise, the ash-waddler." A.

ANGLO-GALLIC SONG.

The Exposition at the Louvre.

BEHOLD how each Gallic improver, in science, mechanics, and arts,
As he roams the Bazaar of the Louvre, snuffs, shrugs up his shoulders, and

starts;

Mon Dieu!-c'est superbe-magnifique !-les Anglois eux-mêmes diront cela— O Ciel! comme c'est charmant-unique!-L'Angleterre est mise hors de

combat

And its oh! what will become of her? Dear! what will she do?
England has no manufactures to rival the wonders we view.
Here is a patent marmite pour perfectionner pumpion soup-
The Gods on Olympus complete-tout en sucre-a classical group;
Quatre flacons de produits chimiques-a clarified waxen bougie,
A Niobe after the Greek, and the Grotto of Pan—en bisquit.
And its oh! &c.

Voilà des chapeaux sanitaires with a jalousie cut in the hold,

To let in a current of air, and give hot-headed people a cold;

Six irons with which boots are heel'd, so no modern Achilles miscarries, For he now gets his tendon and shield where the Greek got an arrowfrom Paris.

And its oh! &c.

A ham and a head of wild boar in a permanent jelly suspended,
Cinq modèles de chaises inodores pour un cabinet d'aisance intended;

The elixir term'd odontalgique, which can stubbornest tooth-aches controul, Et les poupées parlantes which can squeak "papa! and mamma!”—comme c'est drole!

And its oh! &c.

For heads without ringlets or laurel, Regnier fashions wigs like a wreath, While Desirabode cuts out of coral false gums and unperishing teeth; Here's a lady in wax large as life, with all the blonde lace she can stick to, And an actual Paris-made knife which will cut-O mirabile dictu!

And its oh! &c.

A gross of green spectacles-nails-a stick of diaphanous wax,

A Faunus-one Pan and two pails-account-books with springs in their backs;

A spit, wheel, and flyer, all forged in France, with a jack-chain complete; A bladder with eatables gorged-a portrait of Louis Dixhuit.

And its oh! &c.

Pour vous dire en detail toutes les choses there's no time, so we'll lump as we pass,

Caps, corkscrews, cheese, cucumbers, clothes; glue, gingerbread, ginghams, and glass;

Pianos, pipes, pipkins, pots, pattens; rouge, rat-traps, rings, ratafie, rice, Salt, sofas, shawls, sugar-loaves, satins; dolls, dredgers, delf, dimity, dice. And its oh! &c.

Through the fifty-two rooms on a floor, now you've seen all the sights in

your tour,

Et si vous en voulez encore vous les verrez là bas, dans la cour;—
Oui, pour leur commerce de la mer, c'est fini-enfin, c'en est fait,
Et la Grande Nation, il est clair, a ecrasé les pauvres Anglois.

And its oh! what will become of her? Dear, what will she do?
England has no manufactures to rival the wonders we view.

H.

THE PHYSICIAN.-NO. XI.

Of the Nature and Dietetic Use of Water.

WATER-DRINKERS imagine that they are drinking a perfectly pure element; but the enquiries and experiments of natural philosophers have demonstrated, that every drop of water is a world in miniature, in which all the four elements and all the three kingdoms of Nature are combined. Woodward, who took particular pains to examine our English waters, found none of them free from extraneous matters. Boerhaave called the water which the clouds send down to us the ley of the atmosphere, because it is intermixed with so many foreign matters which it envelopes in its descent through the air: nay the very water that has been purified by art still contains a large proportion of such matters. Distill, or filter water as often as you please, and it will nevertheless in time turn putrid in the sun, and by its bubbles, scum, sediment, and taste, afford evidence of its impurity.

Let not the reader suppose that I deal in exaggeration, when I term every drop of water a world in miniature, a compound of all the four elements, and all the three kingdoms of Nature: for I can prove the accuracy of this definition in every point.

Besides water itself, as the primary element, all water contains a variety of earthy particles. Pure water, when distilled, yields an earth; and Boyle found, that after it had been distilled two hundred times, it still contained this kind of matter. We know from experiments, that a tea-spoonful of water, ground in the cleanest glass mortar, becomes turbid in a few minutes, and in half an hour quite thick, and as it were a solid body. Pott conjectured that this earth proceeded from the friction of the glass, because he found that it was vitrified by a high degree of heat: this notion, however, is refuted by Eller; and not only did Wallerius find the earth of water ground in mortars of iron or other metals of precisely the same nature as that from glass-mortars; but the presence of earth in water may be proved by other experiments, to which this objection of the friction of the glass will not apply. A few drops of oil of tartar dropped into water, will instantly detect its earthy particles. Woodward says, that we need only let water stand a few days in a clean closely-covered glass, and abundance of earthy particles will not fail to appear. If we, moreover, consider how much earthy matter water every where meets with in the air and in the ground, which it partly takes up and carries away with it, and partly dissolves, we cannot for a moment doubt its presence in water. In the ancient Roman aqueducts were deposited thick incrustations of tuff-stone or marble-dust, which in time became quite solid: and I shrewdly suspect that there are very few tea-kettles in constant use in In short, our immense metropolis, but exhibit the same phenomenon. all rain, river, and spring-water, if left to stand any time, deposits an earthy sediment.

Among the earthy matters in water, I include every thing that belongs to the mineral kingdom: a calcareous earth, a selenitic matter, nay even real iron are found in it. Water contains also several species of salts. In rain and snow-water we discover an acid, arising from common salt and nitre. Pliny, of old, regarded snow-water as more

fertilizing than any other on account of its salts; and for the same reason Bartholin ascribed to it certain medicinal qualities. It is also owing to the presence of particular salts that washerwomen find rain and snow-water fitter for their purpose than spring-water; and as it has been ascertained that water, like all salts, crystallizes under a certain invariable angle, since the icy particles always form under an angle of sixty degrees, we might almost be tempted to consider water in general as a species of salt, if the other properties of the salts did but coincide with this. In spring-water we find real sea-salt and nitre: and it is a remarkable fact, that water can absorb all these salts without occupying on that account a greater space. The warmer water is, the more salt it is capable of holding in solution; boiling water will dissolve nearly its own weight of salt; while freezing water, on the contrary, deposits ever so small a portion of salt that it may have taken up.

This, however, is not all. Water contains also inflammable or sulphureous particles, which manifest themselves in its sediment, in its putrefaction, and in many chemical experiments which are recorded by the best writers. It must not be imagined that I here allude to the mineral waters only, some of which actually take fire. Common putrid water frequently inflames in the ame smanner; and moreover, the existence of caloric, or fiery particles, in water, cannot be doubted; for without them it would not be a fluid but a solid body. As soon as water is deprived of all its caloric, it contracts, becomes more ponderous, and acquires the solidity of stone. Muschenbroeck and Eller found that heat expands water about a twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth part; and that in passing from the freezing point to the degree of heat at which it begins to boil, it becomes about a sixty-fifth part lighter. As then it is the caloric or fiery particles alone which keep the particles of water so slightly connected that they form a fluid body; the presence of caloric in all water must be incontestable. On this account Boerhaave called water a sort of glass, which melts at the thirty-third degree of heat, and the vapours of which are wholly composed of small glass globules.

That water contains air, is a point which no one will dispute. It has been observed that this air is expelled from the intervals between its particles, at a heat of 150 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer; but that it does not begin to boil under 212 degrees. As water, deprived of its air, occupies no smaller space than before, the air, like the dissolved salts, cannot take up any perceptible space in water, but must insinuate itself into the minutest interstices. Hence probably it is, that the intermixture of air with water takes place so slowly; for if water that has been deprived of all its air, is exposed to the atmosphere, it takes several days, and even weeks, before the air again combines with it and to this end no shaking or agitation is required. This has been fully demonstrated by the most careful experiments of many eminent natural philosophers, as Mariotte, Boerhaave, Muschenbroeck, Nollet, and Hamberger; and Eller has calculated that the natural proportion of air contained by common water, amounts to a hundred-and-fiftieth part.

:

As then common water comprehends earth, salts, caloric, and air, it is evident that all the four elements are combined in every drop. But,

methinks, I hear the inquisitive reader exclaim, how do you make out the three kingdoms of Nature?

The mineral kingdomn I have already introduced. Earth, lime, chalk, selenitic matter, sea-salt, nitre, inflammable matters, caloric, iron, are all associated in a drop of water. We now want nothing but vegetable and animal matter.

All water must contain a vegetable principle, because all vegetables are solely and alone generated and nourished by it. That the earth contributes nothing to this effect, is almost incontestable. Many natural philosophers have found by accurate experiments, that a vessel full of mould, after a large tree has grown in it, loses none of its original weight; and hence it follows, that the water used in watering it, must have exclusively operated the developement, growth, and nourishment of the tree. This observation is very old, and has merely been confirmed by the moderns. As then it is inferred, that the earth contributes nothing to the principle of vegetables, philosophers have also proved that water, considered per se, is not transformed into the substances of plants, or converted into a solid body, but that it is only the vehicle of the vegetable particles, and merely conveys them to the plants. Woodward, who thoroughly investigated this subject, has demonstrated that water itself, nourishes plants no more than earth, but that it is only the vehicle of the vegetable matter; and it is in this way that we must understand the principles of the philosophers, of Thales, Seneca, Cicero, Van Helmont, and others, when they regard water as the primary element of all things, or assert with Palissy, that without water nothing can say -I exist. As then water is capable of communicating to all vegetables that by which they become what they are, it must be considered as the parent of the whole vegetable kingdom, and every drop of it must comprehend the elements of thousands of different plants.

The animal kingdom alone now remains: and this, too, inhabits the water. I shall say nothing of the fish, and the large aquatic insects that dwell in it by millions; for the very smallest drops of water have their inhabitants, which may be discovered with suitable optical instruments. Every body knows also how soon animalculæ are generated in stagnant water. In long voyages, the water on board ships becomes putrid, perhaps three or four times, and then contains innumerable small worms, which, when they have accomplished the period of their existence, die, and then the water again becomes drinkable. Soon afterwards, other species of similar animalculæ are generated, and the water again becomes foul. If we would preserve it from this impurity, or destroy the worms which infest it, we must have recourse to the assistance of art; and either burn sulphur in the vessels before they are filled, or drop into the water a few drops of vitriolic acid, which kills the animalculæ. There are good grounds for suspecting that the generation of these worms in water is chiefly owing to heat, and to the influence of air; for it is remarked in ships, that those butts which are placed in the warmest situations, generate worms the soonest; and that water, which is inaccessible to air, keeps perfectly sweet for many years. Clavius kept water sweet for twenty years in a retort, the neck of which was closed up by its accidental melting, without perceiving