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different genius of poetry and painting, and that what may pleafe in the former, may give difguft if reprefented by the latter. It is indeed true, that many images really fublime or beautiful in poetry, cannot be transferred to painting; but the caule of this feems to be, the much more confined scope and range of the latter art, and efpecially its inability to reprefent motion, or progreffive change. It is likewife incapable of giving adequate ideas of vaft magnitude; and of that indefinite form and outline, which frequently is a striking circumftance in vifions of the fancy. Yet when a figure is attempted to be distinctly drawn, with determinate lineaments, relembled to known objects, I cannot but think, that the effect produced by transferring these ideas to the canvass is, on the whole, a proper teft of their accuracy and confiftency. Images that will not bear this proof, will, in general, as little bear the fober examination of a mind accustomed to reflexion; and this, in fact, is the reason why monftrous and extravagant conceptions in poetry do not long retain their value, but are difcarded with the other amufements of puerility.

Statius gives a light sketch of Fame flying before the chariot of the God of War,

breathed on by his fteeds, and urged by the whip of the charioteer, and the ipear of the god himself, to utter falfe and true reports. (Theb. iii. 425.)

Ovid, in perfonifying Fame, has attempted no defcription of the being herfelf, but has employed much fancy in defcribing her palace or manfion, fituated between heaven and earth, and properly fitted up to be the receptacle of rumours of all kinds, which are thence tranfmitted with every mixture and aggravation. (Metam. xii.)

It is obfervable, that, in all these instances, by the Latin word fama is meant what we call rumour or common fame, rather than celebrity. Pope does not feem to have been fufficiently attentive to this circumftance, when, in his very poetical Temple of Fame, after he has been employing the term in the modern, not in the ancient, fenfe, he yet copies the old mythological defcription of the form of the goddefs, with her thousand tongues, eyes and ears. This is the more improper, as in the latter part of his allegory, the fcene is changed to the proper boufe of Rumour, or of the Fame of Ovid. J. A.

[To be continued.]

VARIETIES,

LITERARY and PHILOSOPHICAL;

Including Notices of Works in Hand, Domeftic and Foreign.
Authentic Communications for this Article will always be thankfully received.

[R. WALKER, of Dublin, is em-
MIK
ployed upon an "Efay on the
Revival of the Drama, in Italy." To
this he means to fubjoin a fupplement
to his memoir, containing vertions of
fuch of the fpecimens as are not already
tranflated, together with corrections and
additions to the memoir. The whole will
be printed upon the fame paper and in the
fame type as the memoir, that it may be
bound up with, or bound to match it.

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The fecond and concluding volume of Mr. NEUMAN'S Tranflation of "the DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT LIANCOURT's Travels in North America," is in the prefs, and will be publifhed early in September. This part which has recently been published at Paris, contains his Tour through the States of New York, the Jerfeys, Penlylvania, Maryland and Virginia, with original maps, ftatistical tables, &c. and perfects the most interefting and authentic account which has ever appeared of North America.

Dr. BAILLIE will very foon publish the fecond fafciculus of a feries of engravings, accompanied with explanations, which are intended to illuftrate, the morbid anatomy of fome of the most important parts of the human body; this fafciculus comprehending the chief morbid appearances of the lungs, and of the parts intimately connected with them.

SONNINI'S "Travels in Upper and Lover Egypt," are announced for publication in London. This work cannot fail to excite a general intereft throughout France, not only on account of the well known abilities of the author, but from the circumftance of his having penetrated farther into Upper Egypt than any other European traveller; while his local knowledge of, and long refidence in, a country fo imperfectly known, have enabled him to throw new light on the celebrated expedition of Buonaparte.

Mr. BENSLEY is now printing, in a very fuperior manner, "The Wreath;" compofed

compofed of felections from Sappho, Theocritus, Bion, and Mofchus; accompanied by a profe tranflation, with notes. To which are added, valuable obfervations on Shakespeare, and an attempt to prove his complete knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; alfo a comparison be. tween Horace and Lucian. The author's name is Du Bois.

Among the new chemical books we have to notice the "Elementary Treatife on Chemistry," tranflated from the German, in two vols. 8vo, of the late celebrated Dr. GREN, Profeffor at Halle, which is now in the prefs. All the phenomena are in this work explained,`according to the antiphlogiftic fyftem; and it contains all the facts relating to this fcience, down to the year 1796.

Mr. NEMNICH, of Hamburgh, has circulated propofals for publifhing by fubfcription an entire new work, entitled, Nomenclator Pathologicus Decemlinguis;" being a collection of the names of all the various difeafes which afflict the human frame, in the Latin, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguefe, Dutch, German, Danish, and Swedish languages. The " Original Poems," of Mr. TнoMAS SANDERSON, will fpeedily be printed at Carlisle, by fubfcription.

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The "Walpoliana,” part of which has conferred value on the pages of the Monthly Magazine, will fpeedily be publifhed in two elegant little volumes. The articles are none of them felected from published works of Mr. WALPOLE, but were preferved from his actual converfations with the Editor, and by the implied approbation of Mr. W. himself, who furnished many of the articles in his own hand writing. Fae Similes of Mr. GRAY and Mr. WALPOLE, with a portrait of the latter gentleman, will be fub. joined.

M. WURZER gives an account of the economical employment of the nitric acid, in Pickel's manufactory at Wurzburg, where the manner of re-oxygenating this acid, decompofed by copper, attracted the whole of his attention. The nitrous gas difengaged by the folutions is introduced into receivers containing water and fhavings of copper. This gas is re-oxygenated by its contact with atmospheric air, diffolved by the water, and again decompofed by the copper.

M. HEBER affirms that he has been enabled to obtain a very efficacious tincture of antimony, by mixing with alcohol liquid tartar digefted on vitrified antimony. To this article a French editor fubjoins the following curious remark:

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"When we fee remedies fo violent, and at the fame time fo uncertain in their preparation, daily introduced under new forms, and admitted into the Materia Medica, we cannot form a very favourable opinion of the philofophy which has hitherto enlightened that fcience."

Profeffor BERGMAN, of Leyden, has discovered a teft for afcertaining whether cotton be adulterated with an admixture of wool, by fubmitting it to the action of oxygenated muriatic acid, which bleaches the cotton, while it gives a yellow tinge to the wool. The Profeffor has, by fimilar means,, been enabled to diftingui with accuracy the medullary fubftance of the brain from that of the nerves; and to trace the latter even to their most remote origin.

LEONHARDI, the German editor of Macquer's Chemical Dictionary, has lately published an effay "On the Reconciliation between the Theories of Phlogiflon and Oxygen." Van Mons remarks on this occafion, "that this is a puerile attempt at a mixed theory, behind which the German chemifts have entrenched themselves after their defeat." Citizen Van Mons ought to make himself better acquainted with the latest chemical productions of Gren, Richter, Göttling and Hermbftaedt, in the original, and he will, we doubt not, there learn that this defeat is not greater than that of which one hypothefis may boat over another.

A work has been lately published at Paris, intitled, "The Correspondence of Voltaire and of Cardinal de Bernis, from 1761 to 1777, as copied from their Origi nal Letters, with Notes, &c." The editor is citizen BOURGOING, ci-devant minifer of the Republic at Madrid, and now affociate member of the National Inftitute. The authenticity of the letters cannot be contefted, as the manufcripts are in the poffeffion of M. the chevalier AZARA, ambassador of Spain to the French Repub lic; who, it appears, was the friend and teftamentary executor of the cardinal. In fact, the reader will eafily difcern in them the imprefs of the well known character of Bernis, as well as Voltaire's turn of wit in the epiftolary kind. Of ninety letters in this collection, two only have been printed before, in the "Correfpondance générale de Voltaire;" and there are now printed again, to preferve the correfpondence of those two celebrated men entire.*

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The National Mufeum of Natural Hif tory has juft terminated its annual diftribution of trees, dwarf-trees, fhrubs and feeds, indigenous and exotic, to the different central fchools of the Republic, to the gardens of rural economy, medicine, and botany, belonging to the free focieties of agriculture, the civil and military hofpitals, &c. to individual naturalifts in the Republic and the Colonies, and to foreign focieties and individuals correfponding with the Museum. It appears from this diftribution, prefented to the minifter of interior, that the National Garden has furnished 4433 live vegetables, and compofing 3013 fpecies; as alfo upwards of 44,060 packets of feeds of the laft crop. Each fpecies of feed contained on a label affixed to it the Linnean Latin name, the French name, a defignation of the nature of the vegetable, with inftructions when to fow it, &c. Thefe trees and feeds have been selected from among the vegetables of the twelve following di vifions: ft, The cereal plants lately brought from Belgium, Italy, the borders of the Rhine, &c.; 2d, different forts of leguminous herbs, roots, &c. from foreign countries, to the number of 162; 3d, 8 fpecies or varieties of plants, fufceptible of furnishing a wholefome fodder for cattle, on which it may be neceflary to try experiments in different foils, &c.; 4th, 57 fpecies of medicinal plants; 5th, 37 fpecies of plants proper for the arts of fpinning, dying, weaving, &c.; 6th, 125 fpecies, varieties, and different races of picturefque plants and ornamental flowers, proper to purify the air, and perfume the habitations of man; 7th, trees, fhrubs, &c. almost all foreign, but naturalifed in France, proper to be planted on lands confidered as fteril, or in gardens, by the highways, &c.; 8th, 307 different fpecies of feeds, ftrangers in Europe, collected in the Iles of Trinity, St. Thomas, and Porto Rico, and brought by citizen BAUDIN; 9th, 150 fpecies of feeds, collected by citizens BRUGUIERES and OLIVIER,

characters of minister to the king at the court of Rome, and protector of the churches of

France. Previous to this he had been am

baffador at Venice, minifter of foreign affairs, difgraced according to cuftom, then exiled, afterwards recalled and made archbishop of Alby. By the French Revolution he was deprived of all his ecclefiaftical revenues in France, and reduced to his archbishopric of Albano in Italy, the income of which was fo moderate that he accepted a penfion from the court of Spain, granted at the request of M. the chevalier Azara.

in their voyage to the Levant, Syria, &c. This divifion confifts of plants useful in difeafes, excellent fruits, and vegetables. very rare in Europe, the species of which are determined and known by botanists; 10th, 18 fpecies of feeds fent from French Guiana, by citizen MARTIN, director of the plantations and of the spiceries in that colony, among which are the palm tree which produces fago, the nut of Bancoul, an almond good for eating, and different fpecies of fuperfine cottons; 11th, affortnients of 512 general fpecies of feeds,. selected from almost all the claffes, orders, and families, to form a feries particularly adapted for instruction in the fcience of botany; 12th, and lastly, the demands of the correfponding profeffors and cultivators, fpecified on lifts or catalogues, have been fupplied out of the fund of feeds, annually gathered in the gardens of the Mufeum, to the number of 4300 fpecies different from thofe noted in the preceding divifions.

We fome months fince announced the important discovery by Mr. ACHARD, of Berlin, of a method of making fugar from white beet-root; we are now enabled to add further particulars refpecting this interefting process. The difcovery is already brought to a high degree of perfection in Pruffia; moift fugar, refined fugar, molaffes, &c. being now obtained in large quantities, and at a fifth of the expence of India fugars, from the white beet! The best kind of root is that in which the fkin is of a reddifa colour, and the flesh white. The foil fhould be thoroughly cleaned from weeds, &c. and manured at least a year before it is fown. It fhould be ploughed three times; first, at the beginning of autumn, fecondly, and thirdly orlaftly, between the middle and the end of the month of April. Immediately after the third ploughing, it fhould be carefully harrowed. Afterwards, a kind of rake, the teeth of which are from nine to twelve inches diftant from each other, is to be drawn acrofs the land, fo as to form lines upon it; which lines are to be crossed by others, made by the fame inftrument. At the points where thefe lines crofs The harvest begins at the end of Sepeach other the feed is to be planted. tember, when the roots must be taken up with great care, that they may not be broken. The leaves and ftalk of the plant are then to be cut off. The first operation in the making of the fugar from the roots, confifts in wafhing and cleaning them. They must afterwards be fliced, by means of a machine, or ground in a

fort

a

fort of mill, confifting of a cylinder furnifhed with points, like a rafp, which turns round in a box. The roots are put into this box, and prefled, by means of a weight, against the cylinder, which, upon being turned round, foon reduces them to a kind of pulp. After the roots have been thus ground or fliced, the juice is preffed out of them by means of a prefs. When this is done, a fmall quantity of water may be poured on the remains of the roots, and they may be again fubmitted to the action of the prefs. The juice, thus preffed out, is to be boiled, in proper kettles or caldrons, over gentle fire, till it is brought to the confiftence of a thin fyrup. Thefe caldrons must have flat bottoms, and must be fixed in brick work, in fuch manner that the heat may be applied only to the bottoms of them. The juice must be repeatedly fkimmed whilft boiling. When it has acquired the above-mentioned confiftence, it must be carefully feparated from a kind of mucilage which adheres to the bottom of the caldron. This liquor, after being ftrained, is to be poured into a fecond caldron, and again boiled, till it is brought to a proper confiftence for cryftallization. This confiftence cannot well be defcribed, but experience will foon point it out. The fyrup is then to be put into fhallow tin pans, for the fugar to cryftallize. Thefe pans, fhould be about the fize of a large heet of paper, and the fyrup in them fhould not be above two or three inches in depth. They should be placed upon a kind of stage, in a room heated pretty highly by a ftove; and the ftage fhould be fo contrived that the heat may have accefs to every part of them. At the end of a fortnight or three weeks, the fugar will be feparated, in the form of fmall cryftals, like grains of fand. When this cryftallization has taken place, the whole is to be poured into linen bags, and preffed the fugar remains in the bags. The ftrained liquor may be again boiled to a proper confiftence, and once more fet to cryftallize, in the heated room; by this means, more fugar will be obtained. Twenty-four measures of roots, each of which weighs about ninety pounds (in all 2160 pounds) produce one hundred pounds of raw fugar; that is, twenty pounds of roots produce nearly one pound of fugar. One hundred pounds of raw fugar give fifty-five pounds of refined fugar, and twenty-five pounds of melaffes. It is computed that one German fquare mile, or fixteen English fquare miles, of

land, properly cultivated, will produce white beet fufficient to furnish the whole Pruffian dominions with fugar. No part of the plant is ufelefs: the leaves, ftalks, and the remains of the roots are good food for cattle.

A ufeful pafte to ftop holes in iron culinary utenfils has been lately invented by Katelyn.-To fix parts of yellow Potter's clay, add one part of steel filings, and a fufficient quantity of linfeed-oil, and make the paffe of the confiftence of glazier's putty, with which the holes are to be filled.

M. VAUQUELIN, in a Letter to Brugnatelli, ftates that he has lately discovered a new metal contained in the red-lead of Siberia.

A curious memoir has lately appeared in the 86th Number of the "Annales de Chimie," on the irritability manifefted by the ftamina of the flowers of the forrelthorn, by M. DESCEMET. He conceives that this irritability, by which the ftamina, in confequence of being touched, incline nearly two lines, is defined by nature to promote the act of generation.

Dr. CARRADORI, having made feveral curious experiments on the refpiration of frogs and fifles, fays, he is fully convinced that frogs are obliged to refpire to preferve their life. He obferves, that thefe animals, if kept under water, lived much longer when the veffels into which they were put were left open, than when they were clofely thut, and that the duration of their lives was long or fhort, in proportion to the extent of the water in which they were caught. On being placed under water which had a thin furface of oil, they lived but a very fhort time. When put into pure oil, they lived about 40 minutes.

Dr. CARRADORI, in a letter to M. Lafti, on the Digeftive Faculties of Nocturnal Animals of Prey, fuppofes it no longer doubtful, that birds of prey digeft vegetables. It appears from his experiments, that these animals fupport themielves very well on this kind of food, although it appears contrary to their nature. CARRADORI by this means explodes the erroneous opinion, that the gastric juice of thefe birds was homogeneous with animal fubftances. What is here eftablished by the experiments of Dr.CARRADORI, that carnivorous animals derive nourishment from the produce of plants, now appears very probable from the difcovery, made by Fourcroy, of the existence of gluten, albumen, and jelly in vegetables.

The

The administrators of the French National Museum of Natural History have fent to Perpignan a hundred and fifty plants of pitt-aloes from the Antilles, in order to establish on the dry mountains of that country a culture ufeful to the arts of Spinning,

A French privateer having found in an English' veffel a collection of bulbs of liliaceous plants, coming from Botany Bay and Port Jackfon, has tranfinitted them to citizen GRELIER, of the Council of Antients, who has given them to the Mufeum. Thefe bulbs, to the number of twenty different fpecies, have been planted in one of the hot-houfes, where they are now fhooting forth their firft leaves: it is prefumed that most of them belong to new genera.

"The Effays of Montaigne," one of the moft fentimental and poignant of French books, has been fo disfigured in the printing, that more than fix thoufand capital faults have been found in the beft edition. The laborious and learned citizen NAIGEON has been employed many years in re-establishing the text, and rectifying falfe quotations; and this incomparable work was about to be ftereotyped by Dr. DOT, when they learned that the Minifter of the Interior had formerly feen and collated at Bourdeaux an original manufcript of the Effays, with corrections and marginal additions in the hand of Montaigne. This manufcript likewife contains fome very bold matter, which Mademoiselle de Gournay, the friend of Montaigne, durft not publish. DIDOT has intreated the minifter to fend for this valuable manufcript, in order to enrich his fterectype edition with all the additional corrections it may offer. In confequence of this requeft and of the wifh formed by the minifter himself, the Commillary of the Direc. tory at the central administration of the department of Gironde has been charged to make fearch for the manufcript. Be fore the revolution it was in the library of the Feuillans monks of Bourdeaux, who poffeffed in their church the afhes of the author. It has been lately found again in the hands of the secretary of the ci-devant academy of the fame city; and the commiffary of the Directory, with becoming zeal, caufed it to be placed (8th lat Pluviofe) in the library of the central fchool, whither it is to be returned after it fhall have ferved, under the infpection of the minifter, to the edition of Pierre Didot. This edition will be employed to rectify all thofe which have preceded it, and may ferve as a model to thofe which are to MONTHLY MAG. No. XLVIII.

follow. It is to be wifhed, however, adds a French journalist, that the characters to be employed in this work may be larger and the lines at a greater distance than in the first stereotypes made by him, the characters of which are too small for the eyes of the generality.

Notwithstanding the reverfes of the French in Italy, it is confirmed that a large convoy of the monuments of the arts which remained at Rome, have arrived on the coafts of the fouthern departments, and that they were inftantly expedited for Lyons. This convoy confifts of statues, bufts, paintings, medals, cameos, books, and manufcripts. The agent charged to fuperintend this convoy, traverfed Tuscany and Liguria in the midft of the greatest dangers, but furmounted all obftacles. Of the monuments declared French property at Rome, there remained hardly any thing but coloffal ftatues, which, becaufe of their weight, could not be transported by land carriage.

It appears alfo, that the Madonna Della Sedia of Raphael, which ornamented the palace Pitti at Florence, has been expedited for France, as well as the famous manufcript of Virgil, which was in the library of San Lorenzo. This manufcript has been depofited in the hands of the cen tral commiffary of the maritime Alps, who is about to forward it to Paris.

The National Institute has given an example of the dimunitions to be made in regard to the expences of the year vIII. Thofe of this establishment had been laid for the year vII. at 414,000 francs. The Inftitute, confulting with the Minifter of the Interior, has demanded for the year vIII, only 272,000 francs; that is 142,000 lefs than last year. It has retrenched, among other expences, that of travels, affign ing as a motive that "it would conduce ftill further to the prefervation and glory of the fciences and the arts to drive back into their antient limits the Turks and Ruffians," whom it brands as " impla cable enemies of philofophy, of the arts, of the fciences and of all liberal ideas."

The adminiftration of the department of the Seine and Oife had nominated Commiffaries to make experiments relative to a procefs indicated by citizen LAMBRY, to prevent the dropping off of grapes. This procefs confifts in making a circular incifion in the wood, and in cutting away a ring of the bark about the length of two millimetres. It refults from the procefs verbal of the commiffaries, in whofe prefence the experiments were made at Brunoy, that the fuccefs of this method 4 C

admits

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