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Le Bulletin Polymathique.

X.

'Ah! why have I not been con- to be liberal beyond the power of demned to the abodes of impenitence gold, gave orders that sculpture and crime! My torments would should transmit its remembrance to then have been less cruel, for I posterity. should not have suffered singly, and the devouring flames would have at least made my punishment visible ! Oh, had I been placed in a comet which only once in a thousand years is brought back to the regions of light and life; the expectations of these periodical returns would have sustained my courage in the terrible intervals of obscurity and changed eternity into time.'

For the Emerald.

DESULTORY SELECTIONS,

AND ORIGINAL REMARKS.

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ITALIAN LITERATURE.

THE interval comprehended between the dawn of learning, after a long night of ignorance and barbarism, to the time forms a period highly interesting to the when it attained its meridian splendour, literary enquirer. To Italy we are in. debted for this revival of knowledge and taste, as the nurse of every science, the country which produced and cherished a long list of scholars and poets, who con

"I now lost sight of the last star. the last ray of light was completely extinguished. While in proportion to my removal from habitable worlds despair still increased, this heartrending idea gave completion to my misery-When millions of years should transport me beyond the in-tributed to the restoration of letters, and fluence of any being, except that Power which fills immensity, I should continue ingulphed in that abyss of obscurity into which I should be still further plunged forever and ever.....The effort I then made to extend my hands towards the regions of existence was so great that I awoke.

revived the glorious days of Augustus. The labours of Roscoe and Tenhove, have disseminated in this country a taste for Italian literature. But we think that mach yet remains to be done. The 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, abounded in learned men of every description, many of whom are at present scarcely known but by name, but whose works merit our attention by the excellence of their subjects, and the purity of their language.

in darkness, Italy alone retained in its bosom, poets, historians, and scholars.

"It is thus that I learnt by itsWhile the rest of Europe was involved privation to love society. Generosity has become my ruling passion. I have need to communicate happiness to enjoy it myself; for in the hideous solitude to which I believed myself condemned, the society of one whom in the pride of prosperity I should have sternly repulsed would have been more precious to me than the gold of Africa or the diamonds of Golconda."

After this relation Carazan became silent, lifting his eyes to heaven in an exstacy of gratitude and devotion, The multitude was struck with the lesson and penetrated with the example. The Caliph to whom the event was made known desiring

New or improved translations of Guicciardini, Muratori, Giannone, Bembo, Fra Paolo, and Denina are obvious desiderata in our language. There are also many detached portions. of Italian history that would amply repay in interest the labour bestowed on them: such as a History of the Visconti Sovereigns of Milan, on the plan of Mr. Roscoe, a continuation of that gentle-. man's work to the extinction of the house of Medici, and a philosophical history of the temporal sovereignty of the Popes from Leo X. to the present time.

THE VOICE.

T.

Caius Gracchus, the orator, a man by nature blunt, rude in be

haviour, and withal over-earnest and violent in his manner of pleading, had a little flute or pipe made on purpose, such as musicians are wont to rule and guide the voice gently with, according to every note as they would themselves, teaching their scholars thereby to have a tunable voice. Now when at any time Gracchus pleaded at the bar he had one of his servants standing behind him with such a pipe, who observing when his master was a little out of tune, would sound a more mild and pleasant note unto him, whereby he reclaimed and called him back from that loud exclaiming and vociferation which he used, and gently took down that rough and swelling accent of his voice,

A recent little work entitled MEMORATIVES, has the following apothegms, some of which deserve considerable attention.

Evil thoughts are the devil's harbingers; for he lodgeth not but where they provide entertainment.

Mishap is the touchstone of friend. ship; and adversity the trial of friends. Labour in youth, gives strong hope of rest in old age.

Carefulness and diligence are the keys of certainty.

Let thy wit be thy friend, thy mind thy companion, thy tongue thy servant. Who may do all that he will, will do that which he should not.

Let thy speech be the shadow of thy

deed.

Courtesy is the true character of a good mind.

By being silent, thou shalt both know other men's imperfections, and conceal thine own.

Charity and humility purchase im. mortality.

The young man may die quickly, but the old man cannot live long.

The chief purposes of wisdom are to be mindful of things past, careful of things present, provident of things to

come.

ANECDOTE OF VOLTAIRE.

The late Empress of Russia once sent this celebrated genius a little ivory box of her own making. Voltaire, unwilling to be behind in etiquette,got his neice to instruct him in the art of knitting stockings, and actually finished the greatest part of a pair of white silk, when he became completely tired. In this state, however, he sent them to the Empress, with a charming poetical epistle, retold her, that as she had presented plete with gallantry, in which he him with a piece of man's workmanship wrought by a woman, he held it his duty to crave her accep tance of a piece of woman's work in return, from the hands of a man.

A Gentleman and his wife were reduced from a life of splendour and luxury (by unavoidable losses of the former in trade) to a more moderate, and, as it proved, a more happy way of living. He had been for many years either extremely captious and unkind, or morose and gloomy, and it was a lively reply of his affectionate partner that caused a change in his temper and behaviour, more than a counterbalance, in her eyes, for their pecuniary misfortune. "Wife," said he, one morning, "my affairs are em. barrassed, and it is absolutely necessary that I should curtail my establishment. I should like to have your opinion as to the reduction." He spoke this in a amiable woman, taking advantage of more gentle tone than usual; and the what appeared a favourable opportunity and tenderly squeezing his hand, said, approached him with an engaging smile, "My dear husband, I shall be perfectly. happy if you will get rid of the sulky, and let us retain the sociable."

"A nobleman, coming down in the summer to his country seat, was talk ing familiarly with his butler. And how have you been,' said he, since we left you? Why, my lord,' replied he,

I have been pretty well lately; but for near two months in the winter, I had a very dreadful ague at your lordship's service.""

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O! let my bosom own thy soft control! And, while to thee I tune the fervid strings,

Reply to an inquiry after a just standard of Female Beauty.

Ask not of me th' essential form

That high-priz'd beauty bears ♦ Who shall describe the secret charm That every breast ensnares? Require the answer from your heart, For there the magic's found; 'Tis your own taste that points the dart, And bids our beauty wound.

On a young man much accustomed to hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction, poetic prose, or in plain English-lying.

"On Tuesday next," says Tom to Ned, "I'll dine with thee, and take a bed;"

What tho' they glow not with a Pe-"You may believe him," William cries,

trarch's fire ?

Still let me find beneath thy placid wings

Some friendly shelter from misfortune's ire!

And bid the artless muse, as wild she sings, Each sorrowing breast with heav'nly hope inspire;

THE RETORT COURTEOUS.

Robert complain'd in bitter terms one day, [way; That Frank had ta'en his character a"I take your character!" said Frank, "why zounds !

"I would not have it for ten thousand pounds!"

In West Greenland the women are subjected to carry heavy loads even from their younger years; their dress is chiefly skins, and they perform the offices of butcher, cook, currier,-make also cloaths, shoes, boots, build and repair their houses and tents as far as regards the masonry; the men only doing the carpenter's work.

In Sweden the women go to plough, row on the water, serve Bricklayers, and do all the common drudgeries in husbandry.

The women in Poland have a watchful eye over their daughters, and, in the district of Samogitia particularly,

make them wear little bells before and behind to give notice where they are, and what they are about.

"For where Tom dines he always lies.

There is frequently considerable wit and ingenuity discovered in the play called WHAT IS IT LIKE The following is a specimen.

Miss Mordaunt. Shall we play at what is my thought like ?-First, I will think of something which you must none of you know till you have all men. tioned something which you guess it to resemble; then I shall tell you my thought, and you must each give a reason why my thought is like yours. Whoever makes the best guess has a right to chase the next game. Now, Colonel Fairfax, what is my thoughtlike? Colonel Fairfax. It is like-it is like an old coat.

Miss Mordaunt. Lady Belmont what say you?

Lady Belmont. Why, I will say a coffin.
Sir Henry Rushwood. A Swiss.
Mrs. Meade. A supper ticket.
Dr. Abington. A plaister.
Lord Belmont. The Irish Parliament.
Lady C. Howard. A lady's toilette.
Mr. Ovey. A picture, like a man ta-
king a walk.

Miss Abington. A pin.
Captain Colclough. Dancing.
Mr. Frederick. Garrick.
Mrs. Ovey. A novel.
Mr. Conolly. Gunpowder.

Miss Mordaunt, My thought is PATRIOTISM. Now, Colonel, why is pat riotism like an old coat. Not, I should suppose, because it has been worn out.

Colonel Fairfax. Indeed you have found out a much better reason for difference than I am afraid I shall find out for resemblance. I was going to say, patriotism is like an old coat, because it is out of fashion.

Miss Mordaunt. Very well, Colonel. Lady Belmont, you compare patriotism to a coffin. Now as patriotism is only a jest, it seems very difficult to trace in the absurd any connexion with the grave.

Lady Belmont. And yet patriotism is like a coffin in this respect, that it is generally the last refuge.

Miss Mordaunt. Such a sarcasm from your ladyship's gentle lips! Sir Henry Rushwood, the eloquent and the severe, patriotism is the qualification of a Swiss, now tell me why it is his likeness.

Sir Henry Rushwood. Because with all its roughness and austerity, with all its zeal for liberty, it will fight for any party that chooses to be at the trouble and expense of bribing it.

Miss Mordaunt. Oh you scorpion! Mrs. Meade, why is it like a supper ticket?

Mrs. Meade: Because it leads to the loaves and fishes; but I am afraid that reason is not convincing in these times, when it is so lean and hungry. Indeed the moment it is fed, it loses its original nature, and forfeits the very name of patriotism.

Miss Mordaunt. Nay, I am supreme judge now, and will hear no such melancholy pleas against the soundness of your reason. Dr. Abington, have you the skill to heal the bruises that every body has been inflicting upon poor patriotism, who has been standing still like a game-cock on Shrove-Tuesday, as a mark for all the cudgels of malice and wit? You told us of a plaister.

Dr. Abington. Why, indeed, patriotism is in the body politic, a little like what some kinds of plaisters are in the body natural; for it irritates where it is

meant to cure.

Miss Mordaunt. Nay, patriotism shall come no more to you for a cure. Lord Belmont, why is it like the Irish Parliament? Is there any analogy between Parliaments and patriotism?

Lord Belmont. Between patriotism and the Irish Parliament there is for both are now no more.

Miss Mordaunt. So there is an end of poor patriotism, my patient. Dr. Ab

|ington refuses to cure it, and you kill it at once. But I defy you all By my mag. ic power I restore it to life, and it shal run the gaunlet through the seat of its enemies.-Lady Caroline, can you tel in what respect it is like a lady's toilette Lady Caroline. Why, yes? it is so full of patches and paint, you know.

Miss Mordaunt. Hush, do not betray the secrets of our prison-house.-Mr. Ovey, what was your thought?

Mr. Ovey. A picture; and indeed patriotism, like painting, is seldom without colour, or without design.

Miss Mordaunt. It seems, indeed, the perfection of art. My dear Miss Abington, you thought of a pin; and as punning seems all the fashion this evening, I must say I shall expect a point in your explication.

Sir Henry Rushwood. Whatever it was Miss Abington's intention to explain, you have saved her some trouble by making a point of it.

Miss Abington. I think both a pin and patriotism may serve sometimes to conceal a hole.

Miss Mordaunt. Captain Colclough, I wait for you. Patriotism, like dancing, is all fiddle-di-dee.

Captain Colclough. Indeed, Miss Mordaunt, as to dancing, you are wrong in toto. The real reason is because they both make a man warm.

Sir Henry Rushwood. Honestly spoken, Captain, and like an Irishman.

Miss Mordaunt. Mr. Frederick, the ball is in your hands. Why is it like Garrick?

Mr.Frederick. Because it is in its nature versatile; and besides, in its outward appearance, it is sometimes Tragedy and sometimes Comedy.

Miss Mordaunt.. Yes; and sometimes off, and sometimes on. But, Mrs. Ovey, I must call on you for your clue.

Mrs. Ovey. Nothing can be plainer than the likeness between patriotism and a novel: the one is a story, and so

is the other.

Miss Mordaunt. Now for the last, Mr. Conolly, my client, patriotism looks to you as its last resort. You compared it to gunpowder. Is it for the brilliancy of its fire, or the might of its effects?

Mr. Conolly. Why, patriotism, in its birth, life, and death, is nothing but gunpowder. It begins in flash, goes on in noise, and ends in smoke!

Miss Mordaunt. When the tourna

nent was finished, say the romances, he fair lady who sat upon the throne, was entitled to bestow the prize on the ictorious knight. I am the lady; and ou, Mr. Conolly, I consecrate as my avoured and victorious knight.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

Miss Owenson, whose Novice of St. Dominick, and Wild Irish Girl, have roved the title of her genius to the tention of the public, is about to exhibnew claims to respect in a volume of riginal poetry, which will speedily be ablished, under the of the Lay of an rish Harp.

Mr. Pratt has just published, in Lonon, a work of the novel kind, called Great and Little Folks."

J. Pierson, Esq. read the Croonian ecture on Muscular Motion to the RoySociety this winter. It occupied the reater part of two evenings, in the ourse of which the lecturer entered into 1 elaborate detail concerning the heat ad pulsations of animals in different titudes, in order to ascertain their efct on their muscles. As an instance:

this climate the pulse of horses beats ¿times in a minute, that of cows, 48, d that of men about 72; in Lapland, nd other high northern latitudes, the iman pulse does not beat more than

om 45 to 50 times in a minute. Mr. P. is made numerous experiments on e muscles, in all which he found the uscular irritability completely des oyed by plunging them in water at the mpetature of 96 degrees; electricity, ter such immersions, sometimes gave ght symptoms of excitability, but no man effort could ever again restore e muscular fibre to its proper tone and your. Cold produced similar effects the muscular fibre, by instantly desying its irritability. Hence the nessity of great caution in applying rm water to the surface of bodies rently immersed in water in cases of spended respiration, as heat may be ually as bad as cold with regard to effects on the muscular fibre, which Mr. P. is considered in some degree organ of life. Blood he regards as sential to life only as a stimulus to scular irritability, and the abstracn of blood occasions death through want of its stimulating powers to the

muscles. The stomach he considers as the most important organ of the human frame, and its irritability is so excessive that a blow on it will instantly destroy life, though the heart can support a wound some days.

Sir John Carr's Travels in Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia, have been translated into German, by M. Zimmerman, and published at Rudolstadt, in two elegant volumes octavo.

A late admeasurement of a degree of latitude, by some Swedish astronomers in Lapland, makes it 1,114,774 metres, or 57,200 toises. The degree measured by Maupertuis in 1736, was 57,422 toises more than the new, and probably more correct, admeasurement.

M. Hultz, a Prussian astronomer, published an opinion, in August last that the sun at that time was undergo ing some considerable change. This opinion was founded on a number of the spots occupying one-fifth part of its diameter in their length, and one-nineteenth in their breadth. These spots varied in their form, and were perceptibly changed in the course of two or three hours.

the press an Ethical Treatise on the PasDr. Cogan, of Bath, is preparing for sions. The first part, which will appear in the course of the spring, will treat of the agency of the passions in the pursuit of well-being; of the intellectual pow ers, as directories in the pursuit; and of of which the human species is susceptithe nature and sources of that well-being

ble.

Mr. Davis, author of Travels in Amer

ica, has nearly ready for publication, in one volume octavo, Memoirs of the Life of Chatterton the Poet.

Mr. Dallas has a new romance in the

press, under the title of The Knights.

Mr. Arthur Young, the father of ag ricultural science in England after many experiments and observations on the subject, affirms that sea-salt acts as a very powerful manure, especially when added to dung. He says also, that very considerable benefit has been found from the application of sea-water to vegetables, and that, when mixed with dung or compost dunghills, possesses. a septic power that promotes putrefaction.

it

A translation of Dante, by Mr. How ard, is in the press,

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