kindred dust: it was the remains of a maiden lady, who had attained a very great age; and having survived all her relations and acquain tances, left behind her few, if any, real mourners; the rising sigh, and starting tear, however, from the more serious and compassionate of those who attended, were indications of a grateful sensibility in the living, and a silent commendation of the deceased. "Death, in its most frequent shape, is an awful intruder, and his imperious dominion is always reluctantly submitted to; though his fiat is irresistible, and his arrival

certain.

"Those beauteous eyes, which once shot captivation at every glance, which beamed in loveliness incomparable, are closed in putrid night.' Those heavenly smiles, which raised into rapturous delight the admiration of a thousand lovers, are changed into the ghastliness of horror, and contracted with the pale rigidity of death! The sinews of strength are here relaxed, and the graceful form now moulders into dust.

"Hushed are all the passions of the mind! Ambition, which prompted to high aspirement; revenge, which lurked in secret hiding places, deeply intent on mischievous purposes; envy, whose rancorous fangs marked her own bosom with perpetual scars, has yielded to the grim tyrant's power! The gay expectancy, the ardour of desire, the accumulation of wealth, the juvenile prosspects, the mature schemes, the ancient prejudices, are frustrated and destroyed! The sanguine hopes of the hero are perished, and the mighty victor no longer glories in his strength, nor boasts his conquests!

"But sweet is the sleep of death to him who, by a patient endurance of earthly suf ferings, and a uniform perseverance in the ways of virtue, has secured to himself the favour of that blessed Mediator, who having in his own person overcome the sharpness of death,' hath made it the passage to everlasting mansions of happiness and joy."

The following traditional stories concerning two dragons, or snakes, will serve to illustrate the history of credulity, and show the partiality of man for the marvellous:

"The church belonging to this village stands near the bank of the river Lug, and the east end is decorated with a painting of a large green dragon. An ornament so unusual, and so seemingly unconnected with the nature and design of a place of worship, naturally excited our curiosity; which, after some inquiries, was gratified by the following story:

Ata remote period, very far beyond the memory of man, and very obscurely ascertained by tradition, there lived in the woody steep, not far from Mordeford, a monstrous serpent, with prodigious wings, which comANN. REV. VOL. I.

mitted various and alarming depredations among the cattle, and even the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The monster was wont to resort to a particular spot, for the purpose of allaying his thirst, and this was at the confluence of the Wye and the Lug. Many and great were the rewards which the good people of Mordeford offered to any one who should destroy the dragon; but it seems that no man was found of sufficient courage to engage in so perilous an adventure: at length a malefactor who had been condemned to die, undertook to kill the serpent, and relieve the Mordefordians from their daily and nightly fears; on condition of receiving his pardon, as the reward of his valour and prowess: the condition being accordingly granted, the hero concealed himself in a barrel at the water's edge, and lay in ambush for his dreadful foc. The wiles of the serpent being thus overcome, when he came to drink, as usual, the contest begun, and lasted for a considerable time; but at length terminated fatally to both parties, the monster being slain outright by fair fighting, and the man poisoned by the dragon's breath.

"This story is told with great seriousness, and confidently believed, in all its particulars, by hundreds, and perhaps by thousands, of persons, whose fathers and grandfathers have handed it down to them, without ever attempting to divest it of the absurdities which oppose its credibility.

They further tell you, that the figure on the wall of the church represents the exact size of the dragon, which must have been, at least, twelve feet long.

"Its head is depicted of a very large size, with a terrible aspect; a red mouth, and a forked tongue; the wings are elevated and expanded, and it is web-footed.

"We observed to the person who related this curious history, that it was extraordinary the nature of the weapons which the man used for the destruction of the monster should be unknown; and that it was rather an impolitic contrivance for the engagement to be left to the precarious issue of single combat, when the posse comitatus might have been easily assembled to subdue so dreadful a pest. But traditionary legends of this nature will not admit of much reasoning, nor stand the test of minute investigation.

"The ridiculous improbabilities with which they are interwoven, render it very difficult, and often impossible, to obtain any real knowledge of the fact on which they were originally founded. There is no doubt that all long established customs, and old legends, refer to some real event, however that event may be clouded with ignorance, or darkened by superstition; and it is possible that there may have been a monstrous variety of the serpent species among the thick woods before mentioned: but whether it was in reality so terrible, and in appearKk

ance so unusual, as it is represented, cannot be ascertained any more than the truth of the rest of the story can be proved.

"A trivial variation was made by a gentleman of Hereford in describing the dragon of Mordeford; namely, that it was an amphibious animal, left on the banks of the Lug, after a considerable flood: and, indeed, if it was really a snake, and of the size insisted upon, it might well have been conceived sufficiently frightful without the fork ed tongue, webbed feet, and expansive wings, which terror and credulity have added to the picture.

"The memorial of another dragon is presented in the palatinate of Durham; the representative of Sir Edward Blackett being obliged to render service to the bishop, at his first coming into the county, by presenting to his lordship a faulchion with which the ancestor of that family slew "a monstrous" reptile, a dragon, a worm, or a flying serpent; in memory of which act, the faulchion thus presented secures the possession of a large estate held by this remarkable tenure. Nor is this the only legend of a similar kind; for about the year 1614 a discourse was published, relating to a strange monstrous serpent or dragon (then) living in a wood, called St. Leonard's Forest, near Horsham, in Sussex; which was described to have been more than nine feet long, with balls at its sides, like foot-balls, which it was supposed would turn to wings. Something of this

nature is also mentioned as having been seen on Lexden Heath, in Essex. But the best authenticated tale of this kind, which I have happened to meet with, is preserved by Sir Robert Atkyns, and copied in Rudder's History of Gloucestershire in the following

words:

"In the parish of Deerhurst, near Tewkesbury, a serpent of a prodigious bigness was a great grievance to all the country, by poisoning the inhabitants, and killing their cattle. The inhabitants petitioned the king, and a proclamation was issued out, that whosoever should kill the serpent, should enjoy an estate in the parish, which then belonged to the crown. One John Smith, a labourer, engaged in the enterprize: he put a quantity of milk in a place to which the serpent resorted, who gorged the whole, agreeable to expectation, and lay down to sleep in the sun, with his scales ruffled up. Seeing him in that situation Smith advanced, and striking between the scales with his axe, took off his head. The Smiths enjoyed the estate when Sir Robert Atkyns compiled this account; and Mr. Lane, who married' a widow of that family, had then the axe in his possession."

From the specimens that we have se

lected, it will be no difficult matter for our readers to form a very correct idea of Mr. Lipscomb's abilities and manner of his present production. Where the as an author, and of the several merits diction of the writer possesses any strong prominence of feature, the toil of the reviewer is considerably lessened, as it requires no great depth of investigation to point out what any reader of com mon understanding will naturally dis cover from the perusal of a few pages of poetic, the sentimental, and the digres extract. Those who are partial to the sive turn of observation, in a literary travelling companion; or who prefer a fine flowery period, and a lofty phra seology, to the plain language of easy narrative, or laborious research, will doubtless make the tour of South Wales with Mr. L. in preference to any other guide for our parts, without troubling so confirmed a mannerist with any admonitory hints for the regulation of his future labo's in the field of literature, we shall here take our leave of him, without asperity, notwithstanding his vile opinion of reviewers; but, though we feel ourselves in perfect good hu humour to compliment him in the same mour at parting, we are not in any flowing language that he addresses to a river on his taking a "long and last adieu !" Thus says (or sings) our au thor, to the sweet stream of Llandovery:

"Farewell! thou limpid current! May no rude hand disturb thy peaceful course, nor destroy the beauties which surround thee!

and admiration of the traveller; the delight "Flow on, thou sweet stream! the joy of every eye which views thee; the beauteous offspring of unerring nature!

Flow on, thou sweet river! and ages hence, when the hand which now celebrates

thee shall have mouldered into dust, and have been long forgotten, may some brighter genius, attracted by the influence of thy charms, with more exalted panegyric record thy name.

66

My feeble pen, far, far, beneath thy merits, and unequal to thy praise, shrinks from the task which gratitude assigned it, and leaves to the rapturous and energetic expression of the poet, the soothing murmurs of thy crystal stream, the graceful elegance of thy devious course, and all the sylvan honours which adorn thy banks.”

IN this small volume about sixty pages are occupied with an account of Chatsworth and Keddleston, compiled we suppose from the housekeeper's inventory; of which the following is a specimen :

"THE FAMILY PAVILION.

ANTIROOM:

A good picture of fish.
Hercules and the Erymanthean boar.
Landscapes, and
Coloured prints.

The chimney-piece of marble, from the peak of Derbyshire."

The remainder of the book is partly borrowed from Pilkington's County History, and is partly original. We turned with some eagerness to the author's "new theory of the cause of the heat in the Matlock water, and of its petrifying powers," which, from the title page, we supposed to be the most curious and valuable part of the work; and were not a little surprised at the self-sufficiency and profound ignorance there exhibited, not merely of the abstruser points of geological science, but of the very rudiments of chemical knowledge. This notable discovery of Mr. Lipscomb's is set forth in the following terms:

"A new Theory of the Cause of Heat in Matlock Water, and of its petrifying Powers.

"1st. It is well known from the experiments of Dr. Percival and others, that a portion of saline matter is detected in these

waters.

"2ndly. It is equally well known that the acid of sea salt will dissolve lime in considerable quantity.

"May we be permitted to conjecture that the water of these springs being previously impregnated with salt, becomes saturated with lime in its passage through the strata (of limestone) before described, and is afterwards decomposed by the addition of pyrites dissolved in the rain water, which percolates through the supercumbent strata? For pyrites containing sulphur, the heat which takes place during the solution of pyrites will necessarily disengage a certain proportion of its acid and sulphuric acid will immediately unite with lime when held in solution by the weaker acids, and when united with it, fall down in what is chemically denominated calcareous sulphate; and heat is again generated during the process.

pp. 142.

"The following circumstances will ap pear to support this hypothesis:

"1st. That there is present in the Matlock water a much greater quantity of calca

reous matter than common water is known to be capable of holding in solution, without the assistance of an acid.

2dly. That muriate of iron, which would be necessarily formed by the marine acid uniting with the iron of the pyrites after the former had been disengaged from the lime by the sulphuric acid which had previously existed in combination with the pyrites, is perfectly soluble in water, but may be detected therein by the purple colour the infusion of galls, as in Dr. Pennington's which is communicated by the addition of experiment.

3dly. That on a chemical analysis of the calcareous encrustations deposited by the water, they have been found to contain a small portion of iron mixed with sulphate of lime and Dr. Short detected the presence of iron also, in the residuum procured by evaporating the water, as before mentioned.

servable at Matlock, and in similar springs, "In this manner all the phenomena obmay, I think, be reasonably accounted for, on principles well understood, and capable of the clearest demonstration; without resorting to mere hypothetical conjecture, which is both difficult to be comprehended, and incapable of proof.

above remarks were committed to paper, a "I must beg leave to add, that since the circumstance has been presented to my observation, which so strongly corroborates them, that it may be considered as little short of the demonstration resulting from a synthetical experiment.

"Having, at the suggestion of my learned and ingenious friend Dr. Bache, been induced to investigate the effects of carbonic acid upon lime water; by blowing through a small tube into a glass containing a portion of that liquid, carbonate of lime was speedily produced in considerable quantity: we then dropped in a little sulphuric acid, which occasioned the precipitate to be re-dissolved with great facility: and the liquid thus restored to its original transparency was suf fered to stand undisturbed for several days; at the end of which, the sides and edge of the glass were covered with a transparent crystallization exactly similar to the spar and stalactite found in the subterranean caverns near Matlock."

We must take the liberty, however, of objecting to this "demonstration,"

that sea salt, and the acid of sea salt, are different things; that lime water will not decompose sea salt; that pyrites is not soluble in water; and that sulphur will not "disengage a portion of its acid by being heated;" that muriate of iron is not contained in Matlock water; and

that the spars and stalactites in the ca verns of the neighbourhood are not sulphat but carbonat of lime.

The work is dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire, and the account of Ked. dleston is also preceded by a humble inscription to Lord Scarsdale.

excuse.

IN the "Picture" before us we discover a praise-worthy intention; and if that intention has not been fully, or properly, executed, we must admit the difficulty of the task to plead somewhat in Mr. Coxe's work, which this professes to abridge, comprises above 460 quarto pages of fair honest printing; the small volume before us only 168, in duodecimo. This great difference renders it impossible to include much of the former in the latter.

"This little book," says the author, "owes its origin to a few minutes made for the use of a friend, who was about to travel into Monmouthshire, which proved of great service in pointing out the objects most worthy observation. Judging from this essay that an abstract of Mr. Coxe's, interesting tour would be particularly agreeable to those who visit the county, and not unacceptable to the public in general, I applied to the author for permission to publish this abridgment, which he readily granted."

That the reverend tourist "readily granted" his permission is not to be wondered at, when we observe the many complimentary passages contained in the work. The name of Mr. Coxe occurs in almost every page; and is introduced to inform the reader what he did, where he went, what he saw, and what were his sensations.

"Mr. Coxe made several excursions," observes this lady, "in the romantic and picturesque environs of Abergavenny. The first excursion was to the summit of the

Sugar Loaf, which is the highest point of ground in Monmouthshire. The undulating outline of this elegant summit, is embossed in the middle with the cone, which assumes

different appearances. It looks like a piked ridge upon, the opposite side of the Usk; sometimes appears in a globular shape; but at a distance, and particularly at the south eastern side of the Skyrrid, assumes the form volcano." of a pyramid, and resembles the crater of a

We have quoted this passage as a specimen of the lady's language, and to show that she does not very rigidly ad here to the matter or text of the original tourist; for, upon comparing this with Mr. Coxe's account of his excursion, we find the above passage to be the lady's own description, which is neither very perspicuous nor correct. We presume that the word crater means the hollow volcano, not the external aspect. This bowl-like appearance of the mouth of a little volume professes to give some account of all the principal places, objects, and persons, in the county of Monmouth; and we gladly observe that related. But the brevity of the work many of these accounts are very well renders it useless to the topographer, or historian; and it wants a different ar rangement, and itineraries, to make it a pleasant guide for the tourist. Thus executed, we are rather at a loss to ascertain its utility, and were surprised that the author, or bookseller, should have deemed it necessary to publish it, especially when we recollect the profu sion of tours and histories that already exist relating to the county of Monmouth. As there is neither map nor index, the sum of five shillings is an extravagant price for such a small volume.