a single observation of its springs, is exceedingly vague, and may be very incorrect, especially when it is remembered that a single degree of Fahrenheit increases or diminishes the result no less than 270 feet. To illustrate these observations, I shall apply them to a particular case, which has been appealed to as a proof of the accuracy of the method on which I am now animadverting. It was found that the temperature of the Crawley spring on the Pentland hills, where it first issues from the ground, was 46°.2, being 2°.1 below the standard temperature of the latitude at the level of the sea. Multiplying this difference by 270, the result is 567 feet for the elevation of the spring, being only 3 feet more than the real height, as found by levelling. This was, no doubt, a surprising coincidence, but if the tempe rature of the spring was observed only at one particular season, it was impossible to say that its true mean temperature was 46°.2, and another observation might have given a very different result. If we allow 2° for the annual variation of its temperature, which is more likely to be below than above the truth, it may, at a certain period of the year, be 44°.2, or 48°.2, if 46°.2 was either of the extremes; and if 46°.2 be its true mean temperature, then its actual temperature would at one season be 45°.2, and at another 47°.2. Supposing the latter to be the case, which is the view most favourable to the argument of your correspondent, and that the observation had been made at or near either of the extremes, then the result in the one case would have been 297, and in the other 837 feet for the ele vation of the place. If 46°.2 was ascertained to be the uniform temperature of the spring, or the mean of a number of observations, I am ready to admit that it demonstrates the practicability of finding a very near approximation to the elevation of a place by means of its springs, but still it does not remove the objection already stated against assuming the temperature found by a single observation, as the true mean temperature, or supposing that by this method it is possible to determine, with any thing like accuracy, the elevation of places whose springs are not examined frequently, and at different seasons of the year. To diminish labour in any department of science, is certainly desirable, but there is something rather imposing than useful in those attempts to do so, in which accuracy is sacrificed to simplicity. I shall now submit to your readers an abstract of observations, from which they will perceive that the method of finding the mean temperature by the average of the daily extremes, however tedious it may be, is not so inaccurate, or so far inferior to the method which your correspondent recommends, as he seems to think. The temperature of the well and spring water, in each year, was taken three times every month, and the table exhibits the mean result of the whole. Owing to an accident that happened to my registering thermometer, I am unable to state the mean of the daily extremes for 1814, but I have reason to believe that it was about 45.4. It was certainly lower than that of 1815, as appeared from the means of other observations made at 10 o'clock, morning and evening, and this fact sufficiently shews that water, even at the depth of 25 feet, is sensibly affected in the course of the year by any variation in the mean temperature of the atmosphere. To ascertain the true mean temperature of a spring, therefore, a series of observations is necessary, and that too for more than a single year. R. G. January 30th, 1819. MB HAZLITT'S LECTURES ON THE Far LECTURE FOURTH.-On Wycherly, Essayists. We resume our remarks on Mr Hazlitt's Lectures, which assuredly do not decrease in interest on a further acquaintance with them. Congreve's comedies are, perhaps, the finest specimens of classical English wit that can be produced; and we are well pleased to see them worthily spoken of by a critic so able and so eloquent as the lecturer, of whose works we are now writing. The spirit of Congreve's dialogues never goes down, but, on the contrary, it acquires fresh strength and elasticity the more it is exercised. The characters in these inimitable comedies play a game of repartee and elegant raillery, which is kept alive with all the ardour, vigour, and gaiety of children at forfeits. They speak in epigrams, and the last speaker is sure to have said the liveliest thing. The great charm of Congreve lies not so much in his characters as in their conversation, for he could not abstain from enriching the meanest servant, the valet, or the waiting-maid, with those jewels of wit which belonged more properly to their masters and mistresses. The polished gems of the mind are not usually lavished upon the poor and the dependant, any more than the ornaments of the person are given by a lady to her maid. The latter comes in for the forsaken petticoats and disinherited tuckers ; but she is not troubled with pearls and diamonds, or overburthened with rubies and amethysts. All the characters in Congreve would tell for more, if they were not so opulent in wit and fine fancies. The splendour of their language dazzles the eyes and dazes the senses, and they become "dark with excessive light." Of Congreve our lecturer thus writes: Congreve is the most distinct Whose jewels in his crisped hair, The play of Love for Love is one -a sort of his science, and borne to the brink of madness by hosts of perplexing and vexatious planets. We know of nothing richer than his exclamation, when he is contemplating the insanity of Valentine, and writing down the wild rhapsodies of the supposed lunatic. He says that "what most men call mad, I call inspired." Munden represents this forlorn Man of Fate to perfection, and, in the confusion of his dress, the awfulness of his gait, and the intensity of his face, he calls up Old Foresight "in his habit as he lived." Mrs Frail and Mrs Foresight are two entertaining wicked women; and their mutual exposures and reproaches are truly edifying. There are more Frails and Foresights in the world than the world is aware of. The Double Dealer and the Old Bachelor are very slightly spoken of by Mr Hazlitt,-with much less care, we think, than they deserve. We have not room, or we should be tempted to make up for this neglect, by a minute detail of their beauties. The Way of the World,-but Mr Hazlitt should be heard on this delightful play. The Way of the World was the author's last and most carefully finished performance. It is an essence almost too fine; and the sense of pleasure evaporates in an aspiration after something that seems too exquisite ever to have been realized. After inhaling the spirit of Congreve's wit, and tasting "love's thrice reputed nectar," in his works, the head grows giddy in turning from the highest point of rapture to the ordinary business of life; and we can with difficulty recal the truant Fancy to those objects which we are fain to take up with here, for better, for worse. What can be more enchanting than Millamant and her morning thoughts, her doux sommeils? What more provoking than her reproach to her lover, who proposes to rise early,) "Ah! idle creature?" The meeting of these two lovers, after the abrupt dismissal of Sir Wilful, is the height of careless and voluptuous elegance, as if they moved in air, and drank a finer spirit of humanity. Millamant. Like Phoebus sung the no less amorous boy. Mirabell. Like Daphne she, as lovely and 25 coy. Millamant is the perfect model of the accomplished fine lady, -- and in herself seems all delight, She is the ideal heroine of the comedy of high life, who arrives at the height of indifference to every thing from the height of satisfaction,-to whom plea sure is as familiar as the air she draws, elegance worn as a part of her dress, wit the habitual language which she hears and speaks,-love a matter of course, and who has nothing to hope or to fear, her own caprice being the only law to herself, and to rule those about her, her words seem composed of amorous sighs,-her looks are glanced at prostrate admirers or envious rivals. If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see That heart, that others bleed for, bleed for me. She refines on her pleasures to satiety, and is almost stifled in the incense that is offered to her person, her wit, her beauty, and her fortune. Secure of triumph, her slaves tremble at her frowns, her charms are so irresistible, that her conquests give her neither surprise nor concern. We are not sorry to see her tamed down at last, from her pride of love and beauty, into a wife. She is good-natured and generous, with all her temptations to the contrary; and her behaviour to Mirabell reconciles us to her treatment of Witwould and Petulant, and of her country admirer, Sir Wilful.” After this follows a most admirable contrast of the heroine of artificial comedy with that of nature. The lecturer says, that we think as much of Millamant's dress as of her person; but that of Perdita and Rosalind our ideas take a better turn. The poet has painted them differently, in co lours which "nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on;-with health, with innocence, wild wit, invention ever new,' with pure red and white like the wilding's blossoms, with warbled wood notes like the feathered choirs, with thoughts fluttering on the wings of imagination, and hearts panting and breathless with eager delight. The interest we feel is in themselves,-the admiration they excite is for themselves." Millamang is, indeed, by far the finest piece of fashionable workmanship that mortal hand ever wrought. She is as gay and light as a life of youthful triumphs can make her. All the court beauties were nothing to her; but she had the good luck to be painted by Congreve, and not by Sir Peter Lely. It is not fair to speak of Congreve's tragedy, or of his poems; the first is heavy, dull, and monotonous, the last are meagre and insipid. Wycherly is next mentioned by Mr Hazlitt, and meets with "honour due." The character of Peggy, originally drawn by him, is full of spirit and nature. The name of this joyous Hoyden recalls to our memories the image of one, who never made one heart unhappy but her own,-whose voice was the soul of humour and kindness, and whose arch humour and happy looks can never, never be forgotten. We need hardly mention the name of Mrs Jordan. Perhaps of all the actresses that ever made comedy comic, she was the sprightliest, the most natural, the best! We speak of her with mingled emotions of mirth and sorrow;-of mirth, because her name was the watchword of it,-of sorrow, because she is lost to us for ever. Mrs Jordan seemed as if she could never help her merriment. It was a part of her. It danced in her black eyes, and was continually meddling with her features, and at times burst from her in a rich gush of laughter. Like the courage of Acres, it oozed from the palms of her hands. From her heart it sprung at once to her lip, and played with every word as it was uttered. We shall never again see an actress of so unconscious a vivacity. Of Vanbrugh, the following character is given in the lectures. It is better than any thing we could give: Vanbrugh comes next, and holds his own fully with the best. He is no writer at all, as to mere author ship, but he makes up for it by a prodigious fund of comic invention. and ludicrous combination, bordering somewhat on caricature. Though he did not borrow from him, he was much more like Moliere, in genius, than Wycherly, who professedly imitated him. He had none of Congreve's wit or refinement, and as little of Wycherly's serious manner and studied insight into the springs of character, but his exhibition of it in dramatic contrast and unlooked for VOL. IV. situations, where the different parties play upon one another's failings, and into one another's hand, keeping up the jest like a game at battledore and shuttlecock, and urging it to the utmost verge of breathless extravagance in the mere eagerness of the fray, is beyond that of any other of our writers. His fable is not so profoundly laid, nor his characters so well digested as Wycherly's, who, in these respects, bore some resemblance to Fielding. Vanbrugh does not lay the same deliberate train from the outset to the conclusion, so that the whole hangs together, and tends inevitably, from the combination of different agents and circumstances, to the same decisive point; but he works out scene after scene on the spur of the occasion, and from the immediate hold they take of his imagination at the moment, without any previous bias or ultimate purpose, much more powerfully, with more nerve, and in a richer vein of original invention. His fancy warms and burnishes out, as if he were engaged in the real scene of action, and felt all his faculties suddenly called out to meet the emergency. He had more nature than art: What he does best, he does because he cannot help it. He has a masterly eye to the advantages which certain accidental situations of character present to him on the spot, and executes the most difficult and rapid theatrical movements at a moment's warning." Mr Hazlitt contrasts Farquhar with Vanbrugh. The passage is extremely good. 66 But we have every sort of good will towards Farquhar's heroes, who have as many peccadillos to answer for, and play as many rogue's tricks, but are honest fellows at bottom. I know little other difference between these two capital writers and copyists of nature, than that Farquhar's nature is the better nature of the two. We seem to like both the author and his favourites. He has humour, character, and invention, in common with the other, with a more unaffected gaiety and spirit of enjoyment, which overflows and sparkles in this author. He makes us laugh from pleasure oftener than from malice. He somewhere prides himself in having introduced on the stage the class of comic heroes here spoken of, which has since become a standard character, and T which represents the warm-hearted The fifth lecture is on the periodical essayists, and when it is recollected that, under this title, the names of Steele, Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith, &c. are included, it will be seen how rich in subject the present lecture is. After some excellent remarks on this style of writing, Mr Hazlitt gives a very able character of Montaigne, who was the father of the essayists. He then comes to the Tatler, of which he thus speaks: "The first of these papers that was attempted in this country was set up by Steele in the beginning of the last century, and of all our periodical essayists, the Tatler (for that was the name he assumed) has always ap peared to me the most amusing and agreeable. Montaigne, whom I have proposed to consider as the father of this kind of personal authorship among the moderns, in which the read er is admitted behind the curtain, and sits down with the writer in his gown and slippers, was a most magnanimous and undisguised egotist; but Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. was the more disinterested gossip of the two. The French author is contented to describe the peculiarities of his own mind and person, which he does with a copious and unsparing hand. The English journalist good naturedly lets you into the secret both of his own affairs and those of others. A young lady, on the other side of Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass for half a day together, but Mr Bickerstaff takes due notice of it; and he has the first intelligence of the symptoms of the belle passion appearing in any young gentleman at the west end of the town. The departures and arrivals of widows, with handsome jointures, either to bury their grief in the country, or to procure a second husband in town, are punctually recorded in his pages. He is well acquainted with the celebrated beauties of the preceding age at the court of Charles II. and the old gentleman (as he feigns himself) often grows romantic in recounting "the disastrous strokes which his youth suffered" from the glances of their bright eyes and their unaccountable caprices. In particular, he dwells with secret satisfaction on the recollection of one of his mistresses who left him for a richer rival, and whose constant reproach to her husband, on occasion of any quarrel between them, was, I, that might have married the famous Mr Bickerstaff, to be treated in this manner!" The club at the Trumpet consists of a set of persons almost as well worth knowing as himself. The cavalcade of the jus tice of the peace, the knight of the shire, the country squire, and the young gentleman his nephew, who came to wait on him at his chambers, in such form and ceremony, seem not to have settled their order of precedence to this hour; and I should hope that the upholsterer and his companions, who used to sun themselves in the Green Park, and who broke their rest and fortunes to maintain the balance of power in Europe, stand as fair a chance for immortality as some modern politicians. Mr Bickerstaff himself is a gentleman and a scholar, a humourist and a man of the world, with a great deal of nice easy naiveté |