"Sometimes he will be a little more principal painters, are distinct and ad- | style into any analysis of its contents. | word, 'tis so, says he, exactly so, not taking mirable treatises on the art itself. We Suffice it to say, that no production of his eyes however from the papers till the may instance the life of Raffaelle, one Madame de Stael's can be read with moment when he can adroitly give another and to this of the most instructive and intelligent greater interest; not merely as a fine turn to the conversation; resource he has been obliged to recur so essays on the style of that "Prince of literary composition, but as a delightful often that it has become entirely familiar to Painters," as well as an interesting effusion of genuine filial love. In such him." memoir; and, in general, we find not a production the enthusiasm of sensionly a history of its professors, but ability is sanctified; and in the glowing adventurous; and if a debate arises in his history of painting, and a critical exa- tribute of affectionate eulogy paid to the company upon the period when some mination of all the questions which de- memory of a father, all that criticism event of antiquity happened, or upon the distance between two large towns, and semand the study of artists and the at- might cavil at in any other form, veral different opinions on the question are tention of connoisseurs. passes not only without reproach, but supported with equal pertinacity, one with admiration. History indeed will maintaining, for instance, that it was the not copy for its gallery M. Necker's year 300 before our era, another, that it portrait from his daughter's sketch; but was the year 200, one that the distance it is nevertheless an animated picture, between the towns was 2000 leagues, anoand well deserves a place in every pri-riod at the year 250, the distance at 2200 ther that it was 2400, he will fix the pevate cabinet.-There it may beam and leagues: this is a medium he ventures to recal to recollection both the father take without having any notion whatever and child, refuting the curiously ex- upon the subject, only he feels confident pressed idea of the former, on the ob- that he cannot be very wide of the mark. livion after death,-" Imagine that you But with such fortunate opportunities to have seen the crowd which assists at display his knowledge he is not often favoured. It is more easy for him to termiyour interment, and all is over" Pursuing the only course by which we could arrive at a right decision, we have compared the lives of a few of the eminent painters, with such memorials of them as are contained in preceding publications, and have no hesitation in saying that the present work is out of all comparison superior to every thing which has gone before it. Besides the article on Raffaelle, already noticed, we found those on N. Poussin, Guido, Domenichino, Rubens, Vanlyck, Velasquez, Murillo, &c. &c. &c. of the very highest class of merit to which such subjects can aspire. a The miscellaneous matter contained ́ in this volume is peculiarly attractive. It displays a philosophical mind, great As the nature of these volumes pre- talent, much observation of the world, cludes us from quotation, we shall sum an intimate acquaintance with mankind, up all by giving them our hearty and a penetration into character, and In great happy faculty for communicating the unqualified approbation. things they are great, and in minute writers intelligence to others. From things particular. To all the good qua- a multitude of admirably expressed lities of a dictionary, they superadd an thoughts, we shall select a few specienlightened view of their whole sub-mens in support of our judgment. ject-matter; and the means of that artist, or lover of the arts, must be inconveniently limited, who does not place such a treasure on his shelves. Memoirs of the Private Life of my Father, by the Baroness de Stael Holstein; to which are added Miscellanies by M. Necker, 8vo. pp. 416. To this life by Madame de Stacl of her father there is prefixed a short introduction from the pen of M. Benjamin de Constant, which is sufficiently French stance. nate a controversy on any axiom laid down, since he has always some commonplace remark or assertion ready at hand, suited to the occasion. Sometimes he takes his revenge; and if he happens to have been reading in the morning," in the way of his business, any paper or papers, through tical knowledge, he does not rest till he which he has acquired some piece of statisgives the conversation such a turn as will enable him to bring it out. Woe, then, to any one who thinks he shall pay his court to him by making many inquiries upon the "OLD MEN. Old men lead a very pain-subject, or who offers some slight objecful life while they are still in a state to feel tion, that he may ask for an explanaevery thing, to appreciate every thing. The tion;-our man of ignorance is already at smiling prospect of the future is theirs no the full length of his tether, he answers longer, and when they would talk of the only by monosyllables, and becomes evipast no one will listen to them. Every one dently out of humour." dashes into the scuffles of the world, runs towards the field of battle whence they have salute them as they pass." returned,'tis much if they condescend to The following characteristic picture will be recognised by every reader who mingles in society. "THE SHIFTS OF IGNORANCE IN PLACES OF IMPORTANCE. The conduct of a man in The following is an affecting testimony to Louis XVI. "AN ILLUSTRIOUS VICTIM.-Oh, Louis! Excellent Prince, and the best of men, never shall any thing come from my pen in which I, as an evidence worthy of credit, do not bear testimony to thy virtues, in which I do not appeal in thy defence to the only stable judgment, the human passions! What an impious sacri if ever there was one-innocent victim, of fice! in its turn, and panegyrical in its sub-public life, occupied in concealing his igno-judgment of posterity.-Innocent Victim! The warmth with which it rance, is an absolute system of tactics. It speaks is however honourable to his is curious to remark his studied silence feelings; and Madame de Stael's post-when the conversation turns upon a subject humous work could not have been which he is conscious he ought to know well, and of which he is equally conscious prefaced by a more suitable exorthat he knows nothing; to see how he dium. slinks away when this conversation approaches too near him, and the looks of the circle around seem to express that they are all expectation to hear his opinion. He goes up in an absent way to the chimney-piece, takes up some papers that lie there, and begins to look them over with profound attention, while, nevertheless, if he hears any thing said on which he may venture with confidence to put in a The memoir of M. Necker occupies little more than one third of the volume, and as the chief incidents which it records of that minister, who acted so prominent a part in the early scenes of the French Revolution, are generally well known, we shall not be seduced even by the beauties of his daughter's "THE DESPOT.-A despot can never arrive at any sure knowledge of the public opinion, for no one will venture to tell him an unpleasant truth. He seems always ready to say, like the emperor of Mogul to his partner at whist, Play hearts, or your head shall be struck off? "AFFLICTIONS OF THE SOUL.- -There is something so majectic in the afflictions of the soul, that we have been able to introduce madness upon the stage without any degradation from the dignity of either. Let us but figure to ourselves an afflicted mother, who after the loss of a beloved daughter, never could divest herself of this mania; whenever she mentioned her daughter's name, she could not forbear adding the date of her death: My daughter, who died on the 15th of February 1781. This simple but affecting recapitulation would finish by making every one shudder who heard it." at intervals talked of it coolly; but did by the undertaker of his family at their expense. There was a new contrivance for sinking the stage under him, which did not play well; and he suffered a little by the delay, but was dead in four minutes. The mob was decent, and admired him, and almost pitied him.- - - - -With all his madOn the 19th April, the trial, whichness he was not mad enough to be struck with his aunt Huntingdon's sermons. The lasted three days, is thus described : Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion, though Whitfield prayed for him, and preached about him." "At first I thought Lord Ferrers shocked, but in general he behaved ra"THE FASHION.-The authority of tionally and coolly; though it was a strange fashion is of a very singular nature. contradiction to see a man trying, by his The ordonnances which emanate from it own sense, to prove himself out of his are promulgated without noise, yet they senses. It was more shocking to see his are heard all the world over, and obeyed two brothers brought to prove the lunacy more scrupulously than laws written, and in their own blood, in order to save their published by sound of trumpet. The fashion brother's life. Both are almost as ill-lookis a king without guards, without a throne, ing men as the earl; one of them is a without a palace, and yet is always spoken clergyman, suspended by the Bishop of of as if it were a visible power; it is that London for being a Methodist; the other the idea is constantly present to the mind a wild vagabond, whom they call in the of every body, that it governs by faith, country, ragged and dangerous. After and that it inflicts on miscreants who dare Lord Ferrers was condemned, he made to spurn its jurisdiction, the most formian excuse for pleading madness, to which dable of all punishments in the opinion of he said he was forced by his family. He is society, that of ridicule. Thus by a whim-respited till Monday fortnight, and will then sical pre-eminence, the Fashion is obeyed, be hanged, I believe in the Tower; and to although it is a master whose opinions and the mortification of the peerage, is to be tastes change at every moment-it is a so- anatomized, conformably to the late act vereign universally respected, though it is for murder. Many peers were absent; the fashion to be laughing at it conti- Lord Foley and Lord Jersey attended only nually."on the first day; and Lord Huntingdon, Having extracted enough to shew and my nephew Orford, (in compliment the nature of M. Necker's Miscellanies, to his mother,) as related to the prisoner, we have merely to add that this agree-criminal more literally tried by his peers, withdrew without voting. But never was a able volume concludes with two things very good in themselves and of very opposite kinds-An Essay upon the Corn Laws,' and The Consequences of a Single Fault,' a Novel. The latter possesses great interest. Horace Walpole's Letters, from Having already devoted three Numbers "You have heard, I suppose, a horrid story of another kind, of Lord Ferrers' murdering his steward in the most barbarous and deliberate manner. He sent away all his servants but one, and, like that heroic murderess, queen Christina, carried the poor man through a gallery and several rooms, locking them after him, and then bid the man kneel down, for he was determined to kill him. The poor creature flung himself at his feet, but in vain,-was shot, and lived twelve hours. Mad as this action was from the consequences, there was no frenzy in his behaviour; he got drunk, and for the three persons who interested them- There are points both in the circumstances of this extraordinary case, and the reflections to which it leads, which seem peculiarly applicable to recent murders and suicides. Is it really true that in Britain, madness is a system rather than a disease?-We have not room for a curious account of a visit to the Cock-lane ghost, in which Mr. Walpole accompanied the Duke of York and several noble Ladies as well as Lords. Our author had sense enough to laugh at this imposture. But the portions of this work which strike us as particularly worthy of attention, are those which contain the remarks of this acute and worldlyversed observer on the first indications of that state of society in France, and of that new philosophy, which have blood and horror. been consummated under our eyes in Mr. Walpole visited France in 1765, and in several letters he thus speaks of what he saw and noticed at that period: "Instead of laughing (at Harlequin) I sit silently reflecting how every thing loses charms when one's own youth does not lend it gilding! When we are divested of that eagerness and illusion, with which our youth presents objects to us, we are but the caput mortuum of pleasure. "May 6th. The extraordinary history of Lord Ferrers is closed: he was executed yesterday. Madness, that in other countries is a disorder, is here a systematic character it does not hinder people from forming a plan of conduct, and from even dying agreeably to it. You remember how the last Rateliffe died with the utmost pro- "Grave as these ideas are, they do not priety; so did this horrid lunatic coolly and unfit me for French company. The presensibly. His own and his wife's relations sent tone is serious enough in conscience. had asserted that he would tremble at last. Unluckily the subjects of their conversaNo such thing, he shamed heroes. He tion are duller to me than my own thoughts, bore the solemnity of a pompous and tedi- which may be tinged with melancholy reous procession of above two hours, from flections, but I doubt from my constituThe French the Tower to Tyburn, with as much tran- tion will never be insipid. quillity as if he was only going to his own affect philosophy, literature, and freeburial, not to his own execution. He even thinking; the first never did, and_never talked on indifferent subjects in the pas-will possess me; of the two others I have sage; and if the sheriffs and the chaplains long been tired. Free-thinking is for had not thought that they had parts to act one's self, surely not for society; besides, too, and had not consequently engaged one has settled one's way of thinking, or him in most particular conversation, he knows it cannot be settled, and for others, did not seem to think it necessary to talk I do not see why there is not as much bion the occasion: he went in his wedding-gotry in attempting conversions from any clothes, marking the only remaining i-religion as to it. I dined to-day with a pression on his mind. The ceremony he was in a hurry to have over: he wasstopped at the gallows by the vast crowd, but got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but seven minutes on the scaffold, which was hung with black, and prepared | dozen sçavants, and though all the servants were waiting, the conversation was much more unrestrained, even on the Old Testament, than I would suffer, at my own table in England, if a single footman were present.” 'Midst such desolate pomp his heart grew chill, And the throb of his pulse was a moment still And right too, for these servants in volumes we ever perused; and have France afterwards rewarded their mas-only to add, that a Key to all the blanks All was so ominous, awful, and drear, ters, for the corruption of their princi- has been published since the appear-It looked that the dead assembled there, ples, by cutting their throats, and drag-ance of the Work. ging them to the scaffold. But we continue our extracts. "Jesuits, Methodists, philosophers, politicians, the hypocrite Rousseau, the scoffer Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, the Humes, the Lyttletons, the Grenvilles, the atheist Tyrant of Prussia, and the mountebank of history, Mr. Pitt, all are to me but impostors in their various ways. Fame or interest are their objects; and after all their parade, I think a ploughman who sows, reads his almanack, and be lieves the stars but so many farthing candles created to prevent his falling into a ditch as he goes home at night, a wiser and more rational being, and I am sure an honester, than any of them. Oh! I am sick of visions and systems, that shove one another aside, and come over again, like the figures in a moving picture." DE COURCI, and other Poems, by James And met, unseen by mortal gaze, It will be seen that the great Scotish minstrel is our author's model, and the instances of incorrectness which occur in the above example, will shew how far inferior he is to his prototype. We would not rashly deny the influence of a name, for we are inclined to suspect that the "Christian and patronymic appellations" of our author must have had some effect in prompting Of the poems entitled Commemorahim to the idle trade of poesy. His tive Addresses, and delivered a la Fitzproductions are respectable in style and gerald at several public Charities, we can benevolent in purpose; but we cannot only say that they share the common lot discover those high and distinctive of all such productions. We never yet marks of genius which force the stern- saw one which preserved or merited to est critics to exclaim, "He was born a preserve an existence beyond the fleetpoet!" The true Parnassus is a ruggeding hour, and the occasion for which it and peaked mountain; with Mr. Thom- was composed. The particularity of son it is a level plain, and if, in com- subject invariably precludes the chance The following amusing anecdote is pliment to his talent, we should be in- of poetic excellence :-a great effect is related in the next letter. It is induced to exalt it into a table-land, still obtained in the first instance over an French, but will bear an English trans- it would not justify exaggerated praises assembly with minds attuned to the or hyperbolical eulogy. We wish to writer's purpose, and then oblivion engive kind, but we must give honest sues. In every attainable respect opinions. Mr. Thomson has been successful, and we wish we could think that every effusion of the Muse had done a thousandth part of the good, which we doubt not each of these addresses has done. lation : "The Canton of Berne ordered all the impressions of Helvetius's "SPIRIT" (Esprit) and Voltaire's " VIRGIN" (Pucelle) to be seized. The officer of justice employed by them came into the council and said, Great Lords, after every possible research, we can find in the whole city only a very few of Spirit, and not one Virgin!" Having fallen again into the lighter reading, we proceed to copy some lines by Mr. Walpole, on Lady Mary Coke having St. Anthony's fire in her cheek: No rouge you wear, nor can a dart "I will conclude my letter with a most charming trait of Madame de Mailly, which cannot be misplaced in such a chapter of royal concubines. Going to St. Sulpice, after she had lost the king's heart, a person present desired the crowd to make way for her. Some brutal young officer said “ Comment! pour cette Catin la!" She turned to them, and, with the most charming modesty, said, "Messieurs, puisque vous me connoissez, priez Dieu pour moi." With this affecting story we take our leave of one of the most amusing There is then considerable merit in the tale of De Courci; there is a laudable feeling' in all the addresses written for public occasions, charities, &c. some of which we have heard recited by the author; there is often a poetic vein in the miscellaneous pieces. The Miscellaneous Poems are either amatory or serious; and in all we think a loyal and patriotic mind, and a kind heart, observable. We conclude with one selection, which may serve as a criterion for the rest. beam ROSABELLE. Sinking red in the fathomless deep; The pale watch-lights of heaven shed their rays o'er the stream, De Courci is founded on the wellknown story of the visitor to a castle in Provence being disturbed in the night by a chained spectre, who turns out to be the father of the castle's lord, for many years kept in solitary confine- Each mountain was tinged with the Sun's latest ment by his unnatural son, and who confesses that he had himself, when young, murdered his own parent. The interest of this shocking tale is very well maintained, and we extract the description of the visitor's bed and chamber as one of the best specimens we can give of the writer's manner. "He turned to the bed, and its fashioned date Bespoke the remains of departed state; Its canopied dome the air had shaken, For long had its tenant that rest forsaken, For a sleep more sound and more free from sorrow, Disturb'd by no dreaming, and waked by no And Nature seemed lulled into sleep. Save the whisper that breath'd in a lover's fare- Sebastian and Rosabelle parted for ever! For country and kindred he rushed to the strife, And laurels encircled his tomb :- Seemed again to repeat his eternal adieu! When at Fate's stern command two fond hearts doom'd to sever, Sebastian and Rosabelle parted for ever. A Key to Moore's Almanack for 1818, &c. &c. pp. 36. What, only a shilling for a key to Moores' Almanack!-We would give ten to understand it; i.e. to be able to make any thing like sense of its profound astrological predictions! Alas, we look in vain "the day before and day after" for the snow, and the hail, and the wind, and the rain, and the sunshine, and the storm; they come not: and when it should thunder, it is calm; when it should burn, it freezes. The variable climate of Britain is the d-- and all for meteorological prognostications. We have nothing like monsoons and trade-winds. The conjuror to whom we are indebted for this publication, does not ask an entire belief in the planetary powers. He thinks it possible that a girl of eighteen may fall in love independently of the setting of Venus as an evening asterisk, or the rising of Saturn over her house; that a robber may cut throats in a dark night, though neither Mars nor Mercury are visible; and that an intelligent gentleman, viz. himself, dita professor of astronomy and the mathematics, and a resident member of the University of Oxford," may write a treatise to prove the importance of astrology in the nineteenth century, and no one fancy that the full moon was predominant! That any man, capable of expressing his ideas in connected language, should in these days sit down to argue how much influence this Zodiacal sign, or that starry appearance of the firmament, at the hour of one's birth, has upon human actions, is a problem not easily solved, unless on poetical authority The dog-star rages, nay 'tis past a doubt, But the author is given ont to be the same whose sensible remarks on the appointment of Easter we noticed a few weeks since. He therein proved, that all time was erroneously computed; and now he wants to substantiate not only the accuracy of schemes of nativity in general, but the especial correctness of those calculated upon horoscopes, the time of which is not ascertainable! We are convinced that it is quite the same, and leave this sage magician to his occult studies, in search of matter more instructive. ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. BUONAPARTE'S BEES. ARMS OF FRANCE. To the Editor of the Literary Gazette. THE article in one of the Numbers of your Journal, on Buonaparte's Bees, having E. L. been translated into a foreign Literary Journal, has occasioned the following Letter to be written to the Editor, which I translate for your use. The introduction of bees in the Imperial Arms of Buonaparte, has given rise to many inquiries and conjectures. The general belief is, that the bees were the arms of the ancient kingdom of the Franks, and that the lilies have arisen from a bad imitation by later artists. However this may be, it appears to me that the following notice is not quite uninteresting. When I examined, in June 1814, the manuscripts and antiquities in the small but remarkable neatly painted book of arms upon parchcity library of Lucerne, I found an old, very ment, concerning the age of which I could get no information, and which, besides the arms of the first princely houses of Europe, contains many of the oldest, partly extinct, German and Swiss noble families. Upon the first page of this book are three representations of the French arms. The first two are marked Original Arms of the Kings of France;-the third, The Present. In the two first there are, instead of three lilies, in the same position, three toads. In the first, probably the oldest arms, these toads (crapands) are represented with anatomical precision ;—in the second, as it pears to me, less correctly, so that this more careless drawing represents the transition to the third or present arms. Considering the great pains, the careful execution, and the minuteness of the details, it cannot be immagined that the transformation of the lilies into toads is to be ascribed to a silly joke of the painter; it rather seems that these three arms were drawn by the painter for the purpose of clearly shewing the transition from the most ancient arms to the present. menclature of chemistry had conceived it necessary to give it a new name, because they said the word heat was ambiguous, and was sometimes used to express the sensation occasioned by heat, as well as the cause, and therefore they had introduced the term caloric, to denote the latter. Mr. B. was by no means convinced of the necessity of this alteration; if any such existed, why not adopt new terins for light, electricity, &c. ? which words were used not only in common conversation, but in scientific language to express both cause and effect, without any inconvenience or confusion, that he was aware of, having resulted. The introducsity did not exist, appeared to him highly tion of new terins, where an absolute necesinjurious to science; because it led to a kind of Babylonish confusion of language, which sometimes made men, possessing great knowledge of the subject, almost unMr. Brande intelligible to each other. then proceeded to shew the effect of heat in separating the particles of, or expanding solids, liquids and gases, and illustrated his propositions by numerous experiments. In noticing the expansion of liquids by heat, and their contraction by cold, he said there was one exception to this general law, and that exception existed in the case of water; if water were heated, it would, like other apliquids, expand, and if cooled it would contract, but only to a certain degree. If water, for instance, were reduced from the temperature of sixty to fifty, it would, like other liquids, contract; if from fifty to forty, it would obey the same law; but if reduced below forty, instead of contracting, like. other liquids, it would expand, and continue to do so until it became solid. This deviation from the general law was most beneficial in its effects, because if water, as it gave out its heat, continued to contract, the natural consequence would be, that when our lakes, ponds and rivers were frozen, they would become one solid body of ice, and the fish must all be necessarily destroyed. But when the atmosphere was at a temperature of thirty-two, the surface of the water, by expanding and parting with its heat, became converted into ice, while the lower parts of the water remained (except in extreme cases) at temperature in which fish lived without a temperature of little less than forty, a difficulty.* Water, Mr. B. observed, was a bad conductor of heat, so bad a one indeed that it was supposed by Count Rumford to be absolutely a non-conductor; but in this supposition he was not correct. When water was placed over a fire it did not become heated by its own power of conducting the heat through itself, but from the change of the position of its particles, for when those at the bottom became heated, they from their levity rose to the top, and gave place to others, which in SPANGENBERG, Dr. and Professor. LEARNED SOCIETIES. CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 20.-Lord Viscount Normanby and the Hon. John James Perceval, of Trinity College, were on Wednesday last admitted Honorary Masters of Arts. of St. John's College, was admitted Master On the same day, Charles Tennyson, Esq. of Arts; John Brown, of Trinity College, Bachelor in Civil Law; and Charles Edward Kendal, of Trinity College, Bachelor of Arts. ARTS AND SCIENCES. THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. On Saturday last Mr. Brande gave his third lecture on chemistry. Having in the former lecture treated upon the subject of chemical attraction, he now proceeded to investigate the causes of the opposite effect, Is not this doctrine somewhat at variance viz. the separation of the particles of bodies. with the acknowledged fact, a fact indeed enOf these causes, the first, the most power-larged upon by Mr. Brande in the subsequent ful in its operation, and the most universal in its agency was, as he stated, heat. He observed that the framers of the new no quently the lighter particles of water, always rise part of his lecture, that the warmer, and conse to the surface?-Ed. their turn became also heated, and so on, until every particle of the water obtained heat by being brought in contact with the heated bottom of the vessel on the fire. But if the heat were applied to the top instead of the bottom of a vessel containing water, the heat would certainly in time be conveyed to the bottom; but so very slowly that, as he before observed, it escaped the observation of Count Rumford. The reason of this was obvious; when the particles of the water at the top became heated, their levity was increased, and consequently they could not descend and displace others; the water therefore could not become heated by a change in the position of the particles, as was the case when the heat was applied to the bottom of a vessel, because the ob. vious effect of the application of heat at the top was to keep all the particles in their places. | circle, the radius of which is equal to half THE ALISMA PLANTAGO. By recent accounts from Russia and Ger- About the 15th of last December, two young cows were bitten by a mad dog; one in particular was wounded in a severe way. The Alisma-Plantago was immediately apWe cannot pretend, in the small space plied as a remedy. M. de Saint-Do sucwhich it is in our power to allot to this sub-ceeded in administering to the cow which had ject, to detail or even to allude to all the been most severely bitten, a certain quanpoints which Mr. B. explained and eluci- tity of the dried root; the other, which dated in the course of this lecture:-he could only be brought to swallow a very described the operation of heat upon pendu- small dose, died of the hydrophobia a few lums, by the dilation or contraction of the days after. The former animal has not, up metal or substance of which they were made, to the present moment, manifested any and pointed out the means which had been symptoms of disease. adopted to remove or at least to diminish that inconvenience; and he explained the principle of thermometers, common as well as differential, &c. He concluded with some observations on the manner of heating and ventilating apartments and large buildings, and entered into a minute detail of the plan which had been adopted for that purpose at Covent Garden theatre, which appeared to him highly ingenious, and perfectly calculated to effect the object proposed. The lecture room was, as usual, crowded. MECHANICS. MOVEABLE AXLE FOR CARRIAGES.-A Bavarian of the name of Lankensperger having invented an axle of this description, has transmitted his model to Mr. Ackerman, who has secured it by a patent. It seems to us to possess many and great advantages; in allowing the carriage to turn within a very limited space; in diminishing the draught, by permitting a shorter build; in lessening the risk of overturning; in giving greater strength and simplicity to the axle; and in adding to the lightness and beauty of the carriage altogether. These improvements are attested from the experience of a number of carriages built at Munich, and which have run for more than twelve months. Without plates we find it impossible to describe the alterations made, but as there are many carriages constructing on the new principle in London, the plan will soon be practically placed before the public. The chief feature is a sway-bar parallel to the fore-axle, which by means of hinges, produces a motion shortening the turn of the fore-wheels more than one half, since instead of performing that arc of a THE FINE ARTS. ARTISTS' GENERAL BENEVOLENT Our Readers will have remarked, it expedient to eat and drink together who come. We should be ashamed to This experiment seems calculated to remove every doubt respecting the advan- offer grave or pathetic appeals in betages arising from the use of the Alisma-half of this Institution. It speaks for Plantago, as a cure for hydrophobia among the human species. PRUSSIC ACID. The Annales de Chimie et de Physique con- On another occasion, a few atoms of acid were applied to the eye of a dog; the effects were similar to those already described, and almost equally sudden. itself-it is "for the Relief of decayed Artists in the United Kingdom, and their Widows and Orphans." These names must reach every heart; and a Briton's heart and purse strings always draw together. THE BRITISH INSTITUTION. No. 4. The extremity of a narrow glass tube, lightly steeped in a phial containing a few M. A. Shee, R.A. drops of pure Prussic Acid, was introduced The latter picture has great energy both into the mouth of a stout dog: the tube had no sooner touched the tongue of the of character and pencil; it is vigorous, animal, than he made two or three violent clear, and possesses a rich tone of colourand precipitate inspirations, and instantly ing. We think, however, it has too much fell lifeless. It was impossible to discover of the individuality of portrait, for a subany trace of irritability in his muscular loco-ject so generalized in the catalogue title, and thence leading us to expect one of motive organs. Guido's Doctors of the Church, rather than a likeness limited in every way, except in the mechanical execution of its creator. We turn with greater pleasure to its companion, No. CCXXVII. which is of so opIn the posite a kind, that we might call these a pair of pictures from contrast. placid innocence of this Peasant Girl, we observe the soul at rest: equally free from Finally, pure Prussic Acid, prepared ac- doubt and disputation, she seems the symbol cording to the process of M. Gay-Lussac, is of purity, carrying the assurance of a quiet undoubtedly the most active and most Spirit into the advance of years.-We make promptly mortal of all known poisons. For- no apology for remarks of this sort; it is tunately, the preparation of this poison is the best effect of art to provoke the mind difficult. Even when obtained, it is almost to such contemplations as seem to give a impossible to preserve it. The ordinary reality to picture, and interest the beholder temperature of the atmosphere discomposes in the future destiny of that which has no it, and deprives it of its poisonous qualities. | existence but in the illusion of the moment, A drop of acid, mixed with four drops of alcohol, were injected into the jugular vein of a third dog; the animal" instantly fell dead, as though he had been struck with a bullet or a thunder-bolt." |