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sion in this article are, 1st, In what manner were the people of this country, who are now idle, formerly employed? The substance of the answer is, that foreign trade was "the source from which employment flowed to all classes of her industrious inhabitants."-2d, By what means were they deprived of this employment? The answer is, that this commerce was suddenly pent up, partly by a train of ill-concerted measures at home, and partly by the policy of the enemy abroad, within the narrow bounds of the British territory. "We sought to ruin the enemy's trade, and we have succeeded in ruining our own." -And 3d, Whether there is any probability that it (employment) ever will be regained? This is the most important question. "We have no proof," the Reviewer says, "that the consumption of our manufactures, either in Europe or in America, has fallen off." Our error has been in overstocking these markets; but the goods will be consumed, and trade revive. The most important of the other causes of the distress which prevails are, the decline of agriculture, and the increase of taxation.

6. The Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder. Edited by GEORGE FREDERICK NOTT, D.D.F.S.A. late Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. For one of these quartos, that which contains the works of the Earl of Surrey, the Reviewers are inclined to make every allowance, and to muster up every thing favourable; but Sir Thomas Wyatt "was in no true sense of the word a poet;" and as their object is to consider poets and poetry, they take leave of him at once. This article contains a summary of the Life of the Earl of Surrey, and a critique on his poetry. "We see not the slightest ground," say the Reviewers, " for depriving Chaucer, in any one respect, of his title of Father of English Poetry," and " we are heartily ready to allow, that Surrey well deserves that of the eldest son, however much he was surpassed by the brothers that immediately followed him."

7. Narrative of a Journey in Egypt, and the Country beyond the Cataracts. By THOMAS LEGH, Esq. M.P.-The Reviewers speak well of this work.After accompanying Mr Legh on his journey, and extracting a very interesting part of the narrative, they con

clude with some account of the Wahabees of Arabia, chiefly taken from the Travels of Ali Bey.

8. The Statesman's Manual; or the Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight; a Lay Sermon, addressed to the higher classes of Society; with an Appendix. By S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq.-This article abounds in ridicule and metaphor as well as in argument. If any one delights in seeing a poor author cut up, he must be amply gratified by this indignant and scornful performance.

9. Letters from St Helena. By WILLIAM WARDEN, Surgeon on board the Northumberland.-The Reviewers point out some mistakes in Mr Warden's historical recollections, but observe, "that there is an air of plainness and sincerity in his account of what he saw and heard, that recommends it strongly to the confidence of his readers." Only a small portion of the article is devoted to Mr Warden's book. The greater part is occupied "with a short and general view of the public and political life of Napoleon, with such facts and anecdotes interspersed, as have been furnished to us, on good authority, from persons familiarly connected with him at different periods of his fortune, or obtained from some of our countrymen, who saw and conversed with him during his residence in the isle of Elba." This delectable compilation would have done honour to M. Bertrand himself. It is distinguished throughout by an exaggerated representation of what is praise-worthy in the character and conduct of Napoleon, and, what is infinitely worse, by a palpable anxiety to apologize for his greatest enormities.

10. Della Patria di Cristoforo Colombo. Dissertazione pubblicato nelle Memorie dell' Accademia Imperiale delle Scienze di Torino. Restampata con Quinte, Documenti, Lettere diverse, &c. and Regionamento nel Quale si conforma l'Opinion Generale intorno alla Patria di Cristoforo Colombo,-Presentato all' Accademia delle Scienze, Lettere, e Arti di Genova,-Nell' Adunanza del di 16. Decembre 1312, dagli Accademici Serra, Carrega e Piaggio.-The object of the first of these works is to prove that Columbus was a Piedmontese, and of the latter, that, as has been generally held, he was a Genoese. The Reviewers are of this last opinion. To this discussion is

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subjoined a most interesting letter, written by Columbus upon his return from the first voyage in which he discovered the New World, and despatched from Lisbon, where he landed, to one of the Spanish king's council. It has been almost entirely overlooked by historians.

11. Statements respecting the East India College, with an appeal to facts, in refutation of the charges lately brought against it in the Court of Proprietors. By the Rev. T. R. MALTHUS, &c.Mr Malthus and the Reviewers, alter et idem perhaps, agree in thinking that some sort of instruction is really desirable for the future Judges and Magistrates of India, and this indeed is a point tolerably well proved, though not till after a good deal of time and labour has been employed about it. But whether the College at Hertford be the very best institution for the purpose is not quite so clear. The arguments in defence of it are of too general a nature, and the "disturbances" on which the objection to it rests, too slightly noticed, to enable the public to come to any decided opinion, without having access to information of a more definite and tangible character.

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No 31.

1. Narrative of a Journey in Egypt and the Country beyond the Cataracts. By THOMAS LEGH, Esq. M.P.—“ On the present occasion," say the Review

ers,

"we have nothing to find fault with but the omissions." Mr Legh may rejoice that he has escaped so well from the ordeal of these opposite Courts of Criticism.

2. Counsellor PHILLIPS's Poems and Speeches.-Mr Phillips's sins against good taste are not a little aggravated in the eyes of these Reviewers by his political opinions.

3. A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, and on the Moral Attributes of the Creator, with particular reference to the Jewish History, and to the consistency of the principle of Population with the Wisdom and Goodness of the Deity. By JOHN BIRD SUMNER, M.A.-Mr Burnett, a gentleman of Aberdeenshire, bequeathed a sum to be set apart till it should accumulate to £1600, which was then to be given to the authors of the two best Essays on the subject of Mr Sumner's book,to the first in merit £1200, and to the

second £400. The second prize was assigned to Mr Sumner, of whose Treatise the Reviewers present a pretty full, and apparently an impartial, examination in this interesting article. Their observations on the principle of population lead to conclusions very different from those of Mr Malthus, and are, we hope, better supported by history and experience.

4. A Voyage round the World, from 1806 to 1802; in which Japan, Kamschatka, the Aleutian Islands, and the Sandwich Islands, were visited, &c. By ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.-Campbell is a poor young sailor, who had lost both feet, and was found by Mr Smith, the Editor of the volume, in one of the steam-boats that ply on the Clyde, playing on the violin for the amusement of the passengers. "The hope that an account of his voyage might be of service to an unfortunate and deserving man, and not unacceptable to those who take pleasure in contemplating the progress of mankind in the arts of civilization, gave rise to the present publication. The book itself contains much that is curious, and adds not a little to our still very imperfect knowledge of the remote regions visited by the author.

By ANDREW BECKET.-An article full 5. Shakspeare's Himself again! &c. of irony and banter, apparently a well deserved chastisement of this unfor

tunate commentator.

6. Tracts on Saving Banks.-There is a great deal of information about those banks collected in this article, but the Reviewer is two zealous and too sanguine to perceive the inconveniences which must be felt from adopting the plans of Mr Duncan; and, while he bestows well-merited praise on the benevolent exertions of this gentleman, we think that he hardly does justice to some of the other fellow labourers.

7. Cowper's Poems and Life.-The third volume of the poems, edited by John Johnson, LL.D., the first work embraced by this Review, is considered as decidedly inferior to its predecesSors. The other two treatises are memoirs, said to be written by Cowper himself, and never before published. From what we see of them here, the only subject of regret is, that they should ever have been published at all. The article contains a general character of Cowper's poetry and letters.

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 Capi taine 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, Canto III.; and the Prisoner of Chillon, and other Poems. By LORD BYRON. -If the heart of Lord Byron be not

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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 eccentricities 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 By ron's political opinions, of course, meet with no favour; but his sins of omis sion, 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 By ron, 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.

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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 Warden is 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 char coal, 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 spe cimens 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 country. 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 formula, by which the tints, and the direction of the axis of the particles of light, may in every case be calculated 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 afterwards, he froze a large body of water in three mi

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