tators are thoroughly disgusted; as they have vigorously combated almost every one of the measures by which government has blessed so many nations; and as they do not now appear to be in any respect better men than they have hitherto been supposed to be; we think it fair to conclude, that, had they been in power this last winter, they would have contented themselves with doing little more than consolidating their party interests, and feeding the public with delusive hopes. No reliance being, according to them, to be placed on professions, we can reason only from experience, and experience warrants no conclusions but those to which we have come.

If these be just, and if the facts previously alleged be real ones, the gentlemen who assume so much, will, in spite of every art and every manoeuvre, fail in their grand object of rendering themselves popular But, if not popular, they will be unsuccessful, when Mr. Brougham's day of appeal, not to the commissioners of taxes, but to the great body of British electors, shall arrive: if unsuccessful then, they will be unable to force their way into the cabinet of their sovereign; and, baffled in that quarter, what will they do, and what will they be? They will, as on all past occasions, do the best they can for themselves: and they will be busy at the club and in parliament, slighted at court, distrusted as now in the country, and in all other clubs, courts, and countries spoken of as the men who, while they defended jacobinism and extolled the virtues of Napoleon Buonaparte, implored government to withdraw the British armies from the Peninsula, and suffer sovereigns and their people to fight and fall as the will of a tyrant might ordain.

We pause here, though only for awhile. The call to economise and retrench, will always be heard; because, although there is not, as we firmly believe, one gentleman in parliament who is not friendly to economy and retrenchment, more or less modified, the time never can come when all parties, willing to concede and accommodate, shall say we are now satisfied. There appears, indeed, to be no desire in any quarter to behold a season of such acquiescence and satisfaction. Ministers say, by the mouth of Lord Castlereagh, that the practice of the constitution requires the existence of parties; and the opposition, deeply infected with whig superstitions, is not likely, at any period of the present age, to be entrusted with the management of affairs, and will therefore go on croaking, and carping, and catching at every NO.XIV.-VOL.II.-Aug.Rev.

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straw, for the purpose of throwing a temporary odium on those who thwart them. It really is worthy of remark, how seldom, since the period of our revolution, the crown has thought itself safe in confiding the reins of government to the Whig party-without seeing a Lord North, or a Lord Grenville, or some other eminent coalitionist, placed among them to check their extravagance and moderate their ex

cesses.

As for the retrenchments in which so much progress has already been made, they must necessarily go on for years, (let us be prophets, and say-till some time in 1820,) affording many melancholy proofs, in the interim, of the perversity and bitterness of party spirit. During the sessions of those years, the efforts of such as are at once accredited patriots and orators, will be incessant-crimination and recrimination will become the order of each succeeding day. All the better. We who are not parliament men—the whole of this commercial nation, indeed, addicted as they are, like the ancient Gauls, to the inordinate love of news-will, in the absence of wars and rumours of wars, staud in much need of amusement; and what so desirable as details of conflicts in which no blood is shed-in which the assailants gain no ground, and the assaulted lose nothing.

In other respects, the combatants will be allowed an occasional respite. What they call the reform of parliament, has always been a dernier resort, and will be taken up only when other ground-work for speeches and motions shall be greatly narrowed;-not that extreme impotence felt by oppositionists, who are eager for a change of situation, may not be expected to tempt to any sort of enterprise.

The emancipation of the Catholics (another gross misnomer) will be viewed differently by the party. They will make the discussion of that question as much an annual affair, as that of the Mutiny Act is known to be. It ought to be so; nothing appearing more necessary for the tranquillity of Ireland, than the passing of a bill every year for the stricter and better discipline of the Catholics and their advocates-among whom, by the way, we certainly do not include either Lord Donoughmore or Mr. Grattan; but only the plotting priests and mercenary barristers of the sister kingdom. We add, and it is all that we can add this month, that the argument in behalf of the Catholics, founded on their numbers, weighs not for, but very much against conceding to them their unbounded claims. The great powers

of Europe did not consider Buonaparte's being at the head of thirty millions of devoted servants and slaves, as a cogent reason for the perpetuation of his power: and the Protestants of the United Kingdom are not the more inclined to witness a renewal of the operation of faggots and firebrands, because they may, for the sake of a grand effect, be put into the hands of two or three millions of people at once! However these things may eventually be, we have a pleasure which we shall try to communicate to our readers by and by, in knowing that the success of our government with the Pope, in persuading him to reduce the frightful authority of the Inquisi tion, has been complete. If his Holiness has also been prevailed upon to spurn the portion of allegiance which so many of the king's Irish subjects wish to transfer to him, there will be an additional cause for rejoicing on both sides the water.

All the preceding topics we shall in due time resume; and with them shall discuss those of Weights and Measures, of the Agricultural Distresses of the Country, of Tithes, of Saving Banks and the Interest on Money, of Mendicity, and of Houses for the reception of Insane Persons.

**The Conductors of the AUGUSTAN REVIEW requset scientific and literary men, and also Editors and Publishers, to favor them with authentic information relative to inventions, discoveries, and improvements in Arts and Sciences; Notices of works preparing for publication, and of those recently published; which will be thankfully received, and communicated to the public in the subsequent Number, if sent to the publisher (post paid) before the 20th of the month.

INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, AND IMPROVEMENTS, IN ARTS AND SCIENCES.

Anhydrite.

M. STROMEYER has lately a specimen of Anhydrite brought from Ilefeld, in the Harz, and obtained the following results.

Water, with a trace of common salt... 2.914

Barometer Tubes.

Great difficulty has hitherto existed relative to making barome. trical experiments in mountainous or remote countries, owing to the fragility of the materials of which the tubes are made. From this cause, the tubes have often been broken, after much labour in making the attempt had occurred, and the whole has ended in disappointment. To remedy this inconvenience, PROFESSOR PLAYFAIR has lately turned his attention to the subject, and has in consequence read a paper on Barometrical Tubes to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In this communication, he proposes to have the tubes made of iron, and carefully bored. But as these, on account of their want of transparency, cannot be used in the usual manner, he advises that the mercury should be poured in at the place of observation; and when the tube is full, the end is to be stopped with the finger, and the whole inverted into a cup of mercury. When the tube has been suspended in this position a sufficient time for the ascillations to cease, the finger is to be gently replaced, and the tube again inverted, when the quantity of mercury remaining in the tube could be easily ascertained, by means of a float with a graduated stem, and would furnish the proper data for the calculation. This method the professor thinks would afford an approximation of sufficient accuracy for all prac. tical purposes.

Blowpipe.

The blowpipe is an instrument of great use to the operative chemist; but all those hitherto constructed have been regarded as defective in convenience, either from being too bulky or too complxe in their parts, and consequently liable to be easily deranged. To remedy these defects, it occurred to H. J. BROOKE, Esq. that the elasticity of the air itself might be employed to produce a c nued and uniform set, if forced into a fixed receiver. He, there. fore, had an instrument made upon this principle, and it has been found fully to answer his expectations. The following is Mr. NEWMAN'S (the maker) description of the instrument.

"The instrument consists of a strong plate-copper box perfectly air-tight, three inches in width and height, and four in length, a condensing syringe to force the air into the box, and a stop-cock and a jet at one end of it, to regulate the stream thrown out. The piston-rod of the condenser works through collars of leather in the cap, which has an aperture in the side, and a screw connected with a stop-cock, which may again communicate with a jar, bladder, or gazometer, containing oxygen, hydrogen, or other gasses. This communication being made, and the condenser marked, any air that is required may be thrown into the box, and propelled through the jet on the flame. The whole