M'Culloch. The chronology of this science will rather curiously illustrate the slowness with which the most important truths and principles are apt, in the first instance, to take root; and the rapidity with which, after making a certain progress, they sometimes spread. Political Economy is now all in all. There seems even to be some danger that we should fall into the superstitious extravagance (for all beliefs become superstitions, when pushed to the bigotted extent of proscribing whatever is beyond their pale) of supposing that there is no other subject worthy of the attention of the human mind. "If there is one sign of the times," says the Reviewer, "upon which, more than any other, we should be justified in resting our hopes of the future progression of the human race in the career of improvement, that sign undoubtedly is, the demand which is now manifesting itself, on the part of the public, for instruction in the science of Political Economy." Of this science, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was the first prolific germ. Political Economy, as the subject is now understood in Europe, may be said to have originated with this Glasgow Professor of Moral Philosophy-who digressed, in his collegiate chair, from The Theory of Moral Sentiments, to the practical considerations of the sources of national prosperity; and Chas. J. Fox had the honour of being the first, by a laudatory quotation in the House of Commons, to bring that invaluable work into public notice. And yet illustration; and neither the author nor the Reviewer seems to have been negligent in availing himself of these resources. We suspect that the subject is much more agreeable to the palate of the former, than would be his own prescriptions; how acceptable soever to his palm, may be the fees which these latter produce. But, as this is the solitary instance in which we find an article on the same subject in two of the rival Reviews, we must notice them together, and make the Quarterly and the Westminster join with us in a critical reel to the tune of In vino veritas: and as “good wine, if well used, is a good familiar creature," and apt to make people sociable, we may not, perhaps, on this occasion, even with such partners, "find strange discord mock the music of the dance." They do not, of course, treat the subject in the same way, or direct their commendations or censures exactly to the same points; timent between them. Both speak of but there is no actual opposition of senthe work, upon the whole, very favourably. The subject is evidently a favourite with them both; and each of them The Westminster, indeed, invites us to makes of it a very interesting article. the deeper potations pours nearly twice the quantity into its critical cup; least, equal conviviality. It is a little but the Quarterly pledges us with, at curious-their usual propensities (or professions rather) considered,—that the Westminster should be more classical, the Quarterly, more chemical, in its com1776,mentary: that the former should comBon-vivant, mingling the streams of mence in the true spirit of an Horatian Helicon with his Falernian, at every draught;-in short, treating Dr. Henderson's illustrations of the classics as the most entertaining, if not absolutely the most important, part of his book; blaming him whenever he has missed an opportunity of amplifying such illustrations, and stepping in, with his own classical stores, to supply deficiencies; while the Quarterly, though he sets out comes, with Dr. McCulloch by his side, with disclaiming such intention, bea sort of chemico-political economist; talism of primary and secondary ferenters into the theory and experimenmentations; displays his judgment in "A long interval elapsed after the publication of the Wealth of Nations, in without any thing worth mentioning being contributed to the science. In 1798, appeared Malthus's Essay upon the Principle of Population; in 1802, Mr. Say's work; in 1815, two Essays upon the Nature of Rent; and, in 1817, Mr. Ricardo's profound work upon the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation; and finally, in 1821, Mr. Mills's Elements of Political Economy." ART. VII. The History of Ancient and Modern Wines. By ALEXANDER HENDERSON, M. D. We know not whether it will be attributed to our having some liking to a smack of the grape, or to whatever cause the psychologists, &c. may charitably think fit to assign it; -but, long as this article is (and the Reviewer has assigned to it no less than fifty pages,) there is no one in this whole number in which we have followed him with more satisfaction. The fact is, that the subject itself is susceptible of much learned, and much very amusive The Art of Making Wines," and discusses the practicability, and demonstrates the undesirableness, of turning English wheat-fields into vineyards. (To be continued.) 1825.] [141] ORIGINAL POETRY. EPIC FRAGMENTS-No. VII. NOBILITY. SEEK you for homage to a puff of name— Your virtues of some thousand years agone, That budded, bloom'd and perish'd, ere the hour Of your great-grandsire's birth: or, it may be, The vices rather of the great first-nam'd, That from his dunghill sprang, and cast his slough; The swine-herd limbs in bandit mail array'd— The terror of the woodland and the glen!Till deeds of rapine, treachery and blood Had given him lands, and blazon'd o'er his shield With hieroglyphic monsters-wolf or pardAnd, while they stamp'd their record on the coat Which you still wear so proudly, with the dye But Virtue, by high intellect inform'd, THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG. KINGS cannot wrong-for in the wrongous act SUFFERING INNOCENCE. THE ELOPEMENT:- "WHAT, if the warder come?"—"What then? Why, let the drawbridge down again!'. 'Brace, then, thy kirtle, twine thy locks, And trust the steep descending rocks: I well can swim-I'll cross the lake, Where the moonbeams light on the waters make : I'll seek-I'll loose-the castle-boat, Your father's choice, for the bridal bed, The guerdon of skill in the cause of love; But wait for the love-light in which they would shine! The banquet of bridal come share, love, with The danger is past, and the boat is ashore. Nay, sigh not, sweet lady! and look not aback : The flight-loving water betrays not our track. The heather-bloom hails us secure on the land, My home and my merry men wait thy command! Tremble not, fear thee not! firm in thy seat! He is sure in the foot, as in course he is fleet. My tapestried hall and the goblets shall shine, And the song of the bridal give zest to the HORACE-Book II. Ode 9. TO VALGIUS. THE heavy clouds not always pour down rain, Where lofty oaks in Gargan forests grow, And the Geloni, in their narrow'd plain, J. M.D. With branches bedeck'd, the last sheaf from the fields Hath merrily vanish'd—the horn No longer at twilight its melody yields,* Seems to sigh o'er the fall of its prey. Till our stores with abundance o'erflow. Nor sheds on thy beauties a blight. When the tyrant, envelop'd in clouds, shall descend, And his storms round our dwellings shall howl ERE Winter, stern Winter, dismantles thy Then, faithless boy! his freight forsakes, bowers, And leaves them to the fatal tide! C. B. W. THE WONERSH WALL. WHY towers yon prison-wall some seven yards high, Baron of Grantley, round thy snug domain? Hark! from the neighbouring spire, the bells reply Grantley to wife a blooming bride has ta’en. SPIRIT OF PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOVERY, AND OF THE VARIOUS SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. T HE Variolaria Communis Faginea, or lichen, which commonly 'infests the bark of diseased and old beach trees, has been found, by M. H. Braconnot, capable of yielding 234 per cent, of chrystallized oxalate of lime: various other lichens, on which he experimented, afforded almost as large proportions of this salt: on which he remarks, in the Ann. de Chim., " The oxalate of lime, is to these and analagous cryptogamous plants, what carbonate of lime is to coralines, and phosphate of lime to the bony structure of more perfect animals.” Bi-carburet of Hydrogen, a new substance, has been discovered and separated by Mr. Faraday, from a colourless fluid, lighter than water, which, in considerable quantities, forms in the bottoms of the vessels in which the Portable Oil-Gas Company compress the gas for filling their lamps. The new substance, in its liquid form, between 429 and 86° Fahr., is composed of two atoms of carbon and one of hydrogen. When in the state of vapour, six atoms of carbon and three of hydrogen are present to form one volume, of thirtynine times the specific gravity of hydrogen. Below 42° of temperature, it is a solid body, forming dendritical transparent crystals: at 0°, it has the whiteness and hardness, nearly, of loaf-sugar. Emetic Tartar, as usually sold by the druggists, in powder, is found to be adulterated to the extent of ten per cent. at the least, with tartrate of lime, and super-tartrate of potash: and medical practitioners are earnestly recommended to use only the crystals of emetic tartar, in preparing antimonial wine, or other medicines. The Breeding and Fattening of Sea-Fish in Fresh-Waters, alluded to in our 58th vol. p. 239, and which we shall further notice, continues to be pursued with ardour and perfect success by Mr. Arnold, in the island of Guernsey; who, in a pond of about four acres, on the coast, has no less than thirty-seven species of sea-fish, which Dr. M'Culloch enumerates; including turbot, cod, mackarel, plaice, flounder, sole, herring, sprat, prawn, shrimp, oyster, muscle, &c. No kind of sea-fish which has been introduced into this pond, appears to have died, or suffered deterioration, in consequence of its change of element. (As to the salmon, see p. 440 of our last vol.) This pond, having been embanked from the sea, is, during all the winter months, so copiously supplied by a brook, as to be perfectly fresh. During some periods in the spring and autumn, owing to the decrease of the brook, and to leaks through the embankment, at high water, the pond becomes brackish; and, during a part of most summers, it is almost salt: and yet, none of the great quantity and variety of fish therein seem, Dr. M'C. says, to suffer inconvenience from these changes! These and numerous other facts, recently established, ought, at once, to put an end to the idle and mischievous speculations carrying on by the anti-Smithian geologists, concerning temporary fresh-water lakes, in which they pretend that several of the strata of England were formed-merely because these strata entomb some fish, of the same genera (an artificial and conventional classification) with fish of other species, which are usually found in the sea! but which, as we see here, may not always have occupied salt-water. The ENCKE PLANET, improperly as we conceive, denominated a comet by many astronomers, as observed in our 56th vol. p. 343, had often, previous to the verifying of its return in an orbit, in May 1822, according to M. Encke's prediction, been observed by astronomers, and its place set down in their catalogues, as a fixed star; the collating of these early observations with later and present ones, in order to perfect the theory of the movements of this small planet, has appeared to M. C. Rumker of sufficient importance, to induce him to search for and collect - twentythree of these observations of the Encke, whilst mistakenly considered as a star; reducing the right ascension and declination in each of these observations, to the beginning of January 1823, as a common epoch. Brande's Journal No. 37. Light and Heat, according to the observations of Mr. Baden Powel, in Brande's Journal, No. 37, (see also our last vol. p. 439, and present vol. p. 47), exhibit, in their relations to each other, the closest conformity with the phenomena presented by the changes of the ordinary forms of matter when light is absorbed, and enters into combination with other matter, heat is given out on the other hand, light is not generated or evolved, without the application of a certain degree of heat: all bodies, at some temperature, become luminous, and when they arrive at that point, a portion of the heat is employed in giving the form of light to some matter belonging to, or in combination with, the body, by becoming latent in it. The Velocity of Sound has anew been determined, by experiments made in the Netherlands, on a base of 57,990-5 English feet in length, by Doctors G. Moll and A. Van Beck, whose mean result is 1,089-7 feet per second, as the velocity of sonorous pulses, in dry air, at the freezing temperature, 32° Fahr. The German Spa Waters are prepared at ⚫Brighton, on a large scale, according to processes invented and improved by M. Berzelius and Dr. Struve: these factitious waters, in every respect, represent those of Carlsbadt, Ems, Marienbadt, Eger, Pyrmont and Spa; as also those of Seltzer, Gellnan and Seidschutz, and are recommended, in their appropriate cases, by the faculty of Brighton. The Curved Top Surface of a Fluid within a Capillary Tube, which M. Laplace and other mathematicians, had considered essentially operative in producing the elevation or depression of such fluid, above that in which the small open tube may be inserted, has lately been shewn experimentally, by M. Gillerson (in the Bib. Univ. v. 27), to be an accessory circumstance; such curved surface having no direct infiuence on the elevation or depression of the fluid. By attending carefully to the top of the mercury in a barometer-tube, at those periods when the mercury, having obtained the highest state, begins to lower; or, when the same having attained the lowest state, begins to rise; it will be evident, we think, that the cohesive friction, which takes place between the mercury and its containing glass tube, is the cause of retaining the top-edges of the mercury, either higher or lower than the central parts of the mercurial surface, accordingly as the column thereof is rising or falling: there being an intermediate state, as to rising and falling, when the surface is flat and level. The Absorption of Moisture, by Charcoal of different Woods, weighed whilst very hot, and again after seven days exposure to a very damp atmosphere, has been found by Mr. T. Griffith to be as follows, by 100 parts of charcoal, by weight, in each case; viz., from The Durability of Freestone, about to be exposed to moisture or frost, in the outsides of walls or buildings, after being raised from any new quarry or untried bed of rock, in a particular place (the same individual bed of stone, as indicated by its contained organic remains, and by the super-position and sub-position of other known beds, seldom continuing uniform in its durable and other properties, throughout its whole extent), may, in the course of a few days, be ascertained, Mr. Brande says, by saturating a small block of the stone with a solution of sulphate of soda, and then by drying it, to cause the salt to crystallize, in the superficial parts of the stone; in imitation of the disintegrating effects of crystals of water or ice, in the exposed superficial parts of stone buildings. In the Ann. des Mines vol. 9, as also in Brande's Journ. No. 37, the processes for trying blocks of stone by this test, are minutely described. We are far, however, from considering Mr. Brande's as a sufficient test of durability, in any untried stone, to warrant its extensive use, externally, in buildings; it rarely happens, builder's outside uses, whereof the ancient that any beds of stone are proper for the use of such stone cannot be discovered, and the durability of the same seen in some old walls, not very far from the intended site of a new quarry; or, what is still more satisfactory, cliffs, or naturally exposed surfaces, of the identical bed fixed on be found in some bank, ravine, or waterfor opening a quarry therein, may mostly course, not far from the intended quarry. The Importance of Steam Power to the success of manufacturing districts will appear from the following particulars, collected by Mr. Cleland, as to the engines employed in and near Glasgow, viz. Average Number Total Horse of Horse- Power Engines. Power. per Engine. In Manufactories .. 176....2,970..16:9 Steam-Boats.. .... 68.... 1,926 ..33.2 Green Carbonate of Copper has, probably, only been found in thin veins, in a large quarry of magnesian limestone, at Newton Kyme, near Tadcaster; and at a small village, called Farnham, 2 miles N. W. of Knaresborough. Optical Deception.-Dr. Roget thus explains the curious appearance of carriagewheels, rolling along the ground, viewed through the intervals of vertical bars, as of a palisade, or venetian blind; when the spokes of the wheels appear to have a degree of curvature, which is influenced by several circumstances, presently to be no |