to keep his bed. After many strange occurrences in which Puck was the manager, and unhappy Alfred the sufferer, the latter became a reclaimed man, and having been rewarded for his reforms by the hand of Marian, the doctor's daughter, he thought of Puck ever afterwards as his greatest benefactor.

We come now to the fourth and concluding frolic, in which an heiress, instead of an heir, constitutes the chief interest of the piece. Emily Monkton, the heroine, is pestered with the addresses of three professed lovers at once, but to none does she afford the slightest encouragement save to the Lord of the Fens, of whose probable success with the young lady, her guardian used to speak with perfect freedom to the two other rivals. "By my faith, Sirs," he would say "you are two in a hopeful way: just borrow my spectacles for a few minutes, and you will see that the Lord of the Fens has won my girl's heart, and will win her hand too, before the leaves are green again, or fair face, or smooth tongue, hold not their usual price with woman."

A hunting day was pitched on, at which the whole of the three lovers and the precious object of their rivalship formed a part. Emily's horse failed completely by his exertions, and what with the necessity of waiting behind the hunters, and sending for a fresh horse, it accidentally chanced that the Lord of the Fens and family were left together in a solitary field. Now it is only fair to the reader, to inform him, that this Lord of the Fens is no other than our old mischief-maker Puck in a false garb. He makes love to Emily, and the only objection she seems to entertain against him is, that it is her money alone he seeks. "But," rejoins Puck, "if I can prove that I care not for wealth, and woo only the kind heart and fair creatures?" Emily replied " You may as easily make this oak put on its summer foliage, now that winter has just stript the leaf from it." Puck instantly drew from his bosom a small blood red cross.

"From his bosom he drew a small blood-red cross, shaped like those of the Maltese Knights, but gleaming at one end, when held forth, with a phosphoric spark, blue and cold as the light of the glow-worm. As it felt the air the little flame shot forth with a tongue of fire, lengthening and lengthening till it reached the opposite oak and played about its trunk and branches, though without scorching them. Upon this every bough was gently agitated, and sent forth a humming sound like the murmurs of the Eolian harp when the breeze has lightly touched it. As the vibration deepened, the branches put out buds, the buds unfolded into leaves, and the birds, deceived by this show of summer, flocked from all quarters singing and chirping to nestle amongst the foliage."-Vol. III. p. 77.

The scene fascinated Emily, and she forthwith consented to be the bride, as she thought, of the Lord of the Fens. Puck told her that in obedience to the laws of his order, he must leave her for a twelvemonth but that at the end of that period he would come to

claim her as his bride beneath the very oak where they then stood. The hunters, meantime returned, and Emily with her friends, joined the retiring party. On the way, the conversation turned on the reported proceedings of Friar Puck, who was said to employ at an ancient building at St. Leonards, about that time, a parcel of goblins in threshing corn. Emily suggested that an opportunity was now given to all young gallants to win the golden spurs by their valour, and she added, that for two young adventurers such as her two suitors, it would be by no means a bad beginning in the career of glory were they to spend seven nights at St. Leonards amidst the ghostly company. The proposition was warmly accepted by the lovers, and they both expressed their determination to make the experiment. A farmer who had joined the party, however, made a wager of fifty gold carolusses that neither of the gentles would sleep seven nights at St. Leonards.

The elder of the rivals, Cornelius, repaired the same night to the appointed rendezvous of the goblins, and laid down within its precincts in his boat cloak. The night was a terrible one for Cornelius, for the goblins got around him and belaboured him. However, one result followed: the goblins left him a bag of gold carolusses to the amount of one hundred and fifty. He resolved to continue the experiment, for he was really a lover of money. On the seventh morning, he proceeded to the house of the uncle of Emily to relate his triumph, but found the whole of the family in great confusion, in consequence of its being found that six bags of gold carolusses had been robbed from the house. Cornelius, whose thirst for gain knew no bounds, saw at once that this was the actual money which had come to his possession: he retired to his home, buried the bags which he had received each night beneath an elm tree. The moment the gold was put down, it took to making a violent groaning: a crowd soon collected, the tree was dug up, the treasure found, and Cornelius was compelled to fly the country. The elm is called to this day, the groaning elm of Bardsley. The second rival who ventured on a similar proceeding amongst the goblins, was just as unsuccessful, finding it necessary also to leave the country.

Emily looked forward with anxiety to the return of the day when she was to meet her lord beneath the oak. On her approach to the spot, the tree is found withered, but forthwith it resumes all its luxurious blossoms; Puck the sprite appears, claims her as his wife, carries her to an enchanted island, where most unluckily she drinks the waters of immortality. They prove fatal to her, and on her death, Puck flies back to his native fairy land, and furnishes as the grand conclusion of his terrestrial investigations, that " What best pleases a woman, is to have her sovereign will."

ART. III.-Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered with reference to Natural Theology. By William Prout, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the College of Physicians. 1 vol. 8vo. London: Pickering,

1834.

DR. Prout has had the most difficult of the tasks assigned to the writers of the Bridgewater Treatises; for, in the first place, whilst almost all his colleagues had merely to gather materials already employed in the same sort of structures which they had meditated, the present author had no guide whatever to direct him. In the next place, many branches of the subject which belongs especially to his department, have been entered upon at such length by some of the other authors of those Treatises, that Dr. Prout must occasionally be in some perplexity in his efforts to be original.

The object which this author had to accomplish in undertaking the present work, was to contribute an additional illustration from the inorganic or dead kingdom of nature, of providential design, and to show that in the whole of the circumstances peculiar to that kingdom there were to be found those adaptations of means to an end, which demonstrated, that the means were expressly destined to produce the end. On a survey of the whole question as to the capability of the visible creation, to offer proofs that its arrangements have been conducted upon a deliberate and wise plan, in other words, by design, it is found that these proofs are suscepceptible of being divided into three classes. The first class consists of such objects as those respecting which reasoning man coincides with the reasoning evinced by the Creator in his works; as for example, in those in which man is able to trace to a certain extent, the end intended by the Creator by some given object. In the second class, we have a series of objects, in which we see only the preliminaries and the results, the means being altogether hidden from us, as in the phenomena of chemistry. The third series of objects are those in which both design and the means of attaining an end are mysteries beyond our reach, but our reasoning must convince us that the objects themselves are the effect of design. The planets and stars are fair specimens of this last class: we are acquainted exactly with their size, with their motions, and how long they take each other to move, like ourselves, round the sun. But there our certain knowledge ceases. We cannot tell for what

purpose these planets exist, or whether they have inhabitants or not; but we can very well see that they are all regulated in perfect harmony with the laws which are so familiar to ourselves, and that, therefore, they must be productions coming from the same origin, and controled by the same influence as we are.

It will be seen from these explanations that the task which Dr. Prout has undertaken, belongs to that class in which the power of investigation is limited, but still though we may not see every part of the machinery by which those results are caused by those preli

minaries, both of which we can see and appreciate, yet so far as we examine that part exposed to our view, we can perceive quite enough to satisfy our minds that all the consequences of all these causes are just as much the effect of design, as those other consequences which we are able more minutely to trace to their causes. The features of the phenomena of chemistry, meteorology, and of the function of digestion, which are capable of supplying the indications alluded to, are admirably developed in the present able volume, to which we now invite the attention of the reader.

After a preliminary exposition of some general principles relating to the subject, the author commences with a reference to the elemental state of matter. Matter, he says, is capable of infinite division, and in fact, the molecules of which it is the aggregate, are so inconceivably small, that no expression can be found to describe their minuteness. Indeed, we are not aware at all of the extent, to which matter may be divided; all we know is, that the molecules cannot exceed a certain magnitude. Matter then being made up of aggregates of molecules, it presents itself to our view, under three different forms; namely, in a solid state, in a liquid state, and in a gaseous or aeriform state. The solid form of matter is the crystallized state, and this is produced by an aggregation or a clinging together of molecules. By what power then is this cohesion produced, for it could not possibly be merely the effect of the attraction of the molecules? Dr. Prout, proceeds to show the nature of this combining power. It consists partly in mutual attraction, the molecules adhering, by particular parts of their surfaces from the natural endowment of those parts; and the attraction is effected by two forces, which act on a very broad scale throughout nature. They are called Electricity and Magnetism. These properties are successively described by Dr. Prout, whose extensive experiments, have enabled him to throw an important light on many of the most highly interesting principles connected with man's residence on the globe.

The author then proceeds to consider matter as it is presented in a liquid state. This modification is the effect of heat, the principles of which are dwelt on by Dr. Prout, who treats them with profound knowledge, and a degree of order the most lucid. He then commences the investigation of matter in the gaseous form, and enters at much length, and with the same powerful aids as before, the inquiry into the properties of the gases, and into those peculiar properties of heat which are immediately connected with those of the gases. Here we have a very full and elaborate account of the mode in which heat is propagated, and Dr. Prout takes an opportunity of adding to the number of these modes so as to contribute a very material improvement to our Meteorological Nomenclature. Light is the subject of the next section, and in a brief but remarkably clear and intelligible manner, the author expounds even the most abstruse and complicated portions of this difficult science.

In speaking of the sources of light and heat, Dr. Prout has the following passage in which a degree of comprehension is given to the definition, which we believe to be entirely new.

"The principal and obvious sources of heat and light are the sun, electricity, mechanical action, change of physical condition, change of chemical condition, and organic action.

"The sun is the most obvious and unvarying source from which both heat and light are communicated to our earth. The nature of the sun, however, and the mode in which that wonderful supply of heat and light is maintained are quite unknown to us, and will probably always remain so. Electricity is another source of heat and light which are developed at the moment of the equilibrium of the two energies; and some of the most intense degrees of heat and light that have been produced, have sprung from a galvanic apparatus. The sudden condensation of air is likewise a source from which heat and light are often both extricated, on principles that it will not perhaps be difficult to understand from what has been stated. The extrication of heat by percussion and condensation appear to be limited, but its extrication by friction seems to be boundless ; that is to say, so long as friction is kept up, will heat continue to be extricated, but whence the heat is derived does not appear to be capable of satisfactory explanation, unless we suppose a perpetual decomposition and recomposition to take place, which is not improbable. Another fertile source from which heat is derived, is the physical change of condition which bodies are constantly undergoing in nature, as for example, the conversion of gases into liquids, of liquids into solids, &c. by taking advantage of which conversions we can accumulate heat at will, as for instance by the condensation of steam. When there physical changes, however, are associated with chemical changes, as is very often the case, the most striking effects are produced. Of this kind are all the phenomena of combustion, the most common source of artificial heat; and which consists of nothing more than the rapid chemical union of certain bodies with others, and generally with the principle termed oxygen. Nearly allied to chemical action, and perhaps identical with it, is the extrication of heat by organic changes, or what is termed animal heat; a subject we shall have to consider in a future part of this volume.". pp. 80, 81.

Such is a summary view of the phenomena and laws which the great Author of nature has laid down for his own guidance in the construction of the world, and to such rules after the lapse of a period, which cannot be expressed, because it is greater than the mind can conceive, does He strictly adhere, and thus we find in the distribution of heat, and the dispersion of light, in regulating on the one hand, a climate of the extent of Europe, and on the other, the clothing of the humblest bud, the same beautiful adaptation of means to end. Nothing, we must say, can be more untimely and more inconsistent with the reader's thoughts in the perusal of these pages, than the occasional reference which Dr. Prout makes to the "dryness," as he calls it, of his subject. Even at the moment when intensely curious for each succeeding word, as we peruse one of his