'Tell me, ye Westminster Electors, Whom cunning state-empirics please, * * * * * When such mad follies meet our eye, !--p. 241. This extract will serve to shew the nature of the Modern Instances,' as the author calls them, which, instead of the old moral, he has tacked to the end of his fables. The illustrations are generally of a political nature, and amongst these perhaps the application of the fable of The Two Bitches to the case of England and America is one of the happiest; that which pleases us least is the application of the Viper and the File to the author of a juvenile tirade long since forgiven and forgotten by the object of it. The example of France recurs too often; once or twice is well enough, but a good thing may be repeated till it becomes as tiresome as the perpetual ὁ μύθος δηλοι of our old school acquaintance #sop. As a specimen of the Notes, we subjoin the following strictures upon "the family of the Fudges,' which we think more justifiable than the attack noticed above. However its malignity may excite disgust, it is impossible not to smile at the whimsicality of the "Fudge Family at Paris," published under the name of Thomas Brown, jun. Beneficent nature is said often to place antidotes to the poison of noxious animals in the composition of the creature itself. Thus in the prese ut instance, the superlative dulness of PHELIM O'CONNOR very happily counteracts the effect of the sprightly effusions of ESQUIRE PHILIP, MISS BIDDY and MASTER BOBBY FUDGE. We may moreover learn from this publication, that the the liberty of the press is not entirely extinguished in England, notwithstanding the withering hand Of bigot power upon this hapless land." for we have never heard of the attorney general making any advances towards an acquaintance with this witty family, or with that sombre ill starred gentleman, the domestic tutor, whose asterisks, added to his most lamentable effusions, express such unutterable things. 'Conscious rectitude can suffer such assailants to pass by unnoticed; but how would "the calm and easy grandeur of the Imperial bird" have borne a similar provocation? This question is best answered by the single monosyllable, PALM! A stanza of Horace will best express the feelings of an able, firm and upright minister, attacked by licentious petulance, who neither fears the malice, or [nor] wants the aid of such auxiliaries. which may be thus translated for the benefit of such town or country gentlemen whose classical learning is grown rusty, and who may not have Smart or Francis at their elbow: At thee, pert profligate Toм BROWN, Of M— himself despises.'-pp. 163, 164. Four of the Fables in the present selection are, it seems, from the pen of a friend.' As upon recurring to our extracts we find that we have pitched upon two fables, in the same metre; we will endeavour to make room for a third, in which there is some variety of measure, and which will at the same time serve as a specimen of the talents of the author's coadjutor. THE MURRAIN. A dire disease, which Heaven in wrath More grievous far than war or dearth, In one short word,-the plague, with dreadful ravage, Assail'd all animals both tame and savage, * If If some died not, they scarcely lived, Nor hens nor geese the fox allure, Whose conscience had receiv'd a puncture, And state to all in what his trust is. 66 My fellow sufferers and friends" (The royal speech in form begins) "Let all, then, secret crimes unfold, * As his majesty's confession is rather prosy, we shall take the liberty of cutting it short. He acknowledges a strong fancy for mutton,' and admits that he has occasionally made a bonne bouche,' of the shepherd himself, whose guilt, like that of his flock, seems to have consisted in running away.' This for the brutes;-then, for the man,- I'm glad your majesty raǹ faster. This is truly humorous and characteristic. After a few words more in condemnation of the poor shepherd, who, to the crime of attempting to save his life, is stated to have added that of holding crooked rule over his charge,' The fox sat down: loud cheers resound, And hear, hear, hear! was echoed round. The tiger and the bear follow; but as they are beasts of rank, and confess nothing but a few peccadilloes akin to those of the lion, they are absolved as a matter of course: Can crime exist in such high station? And fair occasion urg'd to revel- A general roar of indignation This is a spirited version. The three others, by the same hand, are equally good; though the style and the finishing are sometimes a little too laboured and overloaded. Upon the whole this is an entertaining volume. The author has new dyed the stuff of La Fontaine, preserving much of the beauty and lustre of the original tint, and he has worked in some fresh flowers of his own, in order to adapt his pattern to the taste of the present times. ART. VIII.-The Gas Blow-pipe, or Art of Fusion, by burning the Gaseous Constituents of Water: giving the History of the Philosophical Apparatus so denominated; the Proofs of Analogy in its operations to the Nature of Volcanoes; together with an Appendix, containing an Account of Experiments with this Blow-Pipe. By Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Berlin, &c. 8vo. pp. 109. London. 1819. IF F the converse of the proposition μέγα βίβλιον, μέγα κακόν, were true, we might welcome this little tract, as the production of a writer who, in this instance, at least, has endeavoured, in the words of Addison, to practise in the chemical method, and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops.'-But, alas! it has been cast among the chemists, to whom it is more particularly addressed, as the apple of discord was cast among the gods, and set them together by the ears! The opinion of Macquer, that 'There does not exist in nature any substance which may be considered as essentially and vigorously infusible,'* is as old as the time of Theophrastus.+ When that eloquent philosopher delivered lectures in the Lyceum at Athens, as the successor of Aristotle, the number of his auditors amounted to two thousand; and that they were instructed in many facts considered as of modern discovery, may be seen by reference to the very small part of his writings which has descended to our time. His observations shew that he had attended as carefully to the changes which bodies sustain in consequence of the action of heat as if he had been acquainted with the use of the common blow-pipe. He notices an opinion which had been maintained in Greece, that all stones, excepting marble, were fusible, and holds this to be true of the greater number; and it is a very remarkable confirmation of the exception he made respecting the carbonate of lime, that-after a lapse of above two thousand years, with all the aid afforded by the advancement of science— if a chemist were asked what substance more than any other resists the action of heat, he would adduce the purest carbonate of lime, in the example of Iceland spar, the fusion of which can hardly be effected even by the gas blow-pipe. An ardent and insatiable curiosity in chemists has in every age prompted them to augment, by every means in their power, the * Macquer, Dictionnaire de Chimie, article Apyre. † Theophrastus. Παρι των λίθων, βιβλιον. κ'. p. 8. L. Bat. 1647. † Οἱ δὲ καὶ ὅλως λέγεσι πάντας τηκεσθαι, πλὴν τῷ μαρμάρες. κ. τ. λ.-Theophrast. ubi supra. |