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What can be more gross and offensive than the oil which, to this day, we burn in our lamps, or the tallow which emits its fetid smell from our candles! What can be more clumsy and coarse than those contrivances, as we commonly meet with them! What more primitive-more barbaric-or more unscientific!

In this view I was exceedingly gratified by the experiments of WINSOR, and I am yet at a loss to comprehend how his excellent system miscarried, after the beautiful demonstrations which he afforded the public in Pall Mall. He may have calculated, with the over sanguine feelings of genius, on the commercial advantages of his plans, and may consequently have disappointed some of the speculators that flocked about him ; but in this intellectual age and country, such a design ought to be supported by the spirit of philosophy and patriotism, and not to depend on selfish views for its introduction. It was a design worthy of the support of a whole people-worthy of the countenance of governmentand worthy also of one of those countless millions voted away every year by Parliament, to effect some purposes which a future age may better value, but of the benefits of which, the present age is completely in the dark!

If, when the process and combustion were imperfect, a certain degree of smoke sometimes escaped from the tubes of the gas lights, as it does from tallow candles, this was a subject for the study of our great chemists, who would, in my opinion, at least, have been in this way quite as usefully employed as in chemical conjuring, in producing metals which nobody values; at the same time, too, that those gentlemen knew full well, that no other metal is wanted in England but gold!

My attention has been excited to this subject by a visit lately paid me by a patriotic native of Nova Scotia, who, having never been in England, described himself as much annoyed by the smell and smoke emitted from our tallow candles. On inquiry, I found that in his family and province, he and his neighbours burn only wax. Yes, wax!-startle not reader,-in a beggarly province of Nova Scotia, the farmers and labourers burn none but wax candles! He informed me that in the uncleared woods there grow abundance of the Myrica Cerifera, wax-bearing myrica, or, vulgarly, the candle-berry myrtle. With these wax-berries, he says, they make excellent wax candles, fragrant instead of noisome, in their odour, economical in their consumption, and clean and agreeable in their use. He admitted, however, that the manufacture is not perfected, that the wax, which is of a green colour, would be improved by being bleached and that some common processes of purification would greatly improve it.. He says, that this myrtle delights in moist situations, that it would thrive well in

England, and that every county might grow, on sites now useless, wax enough for all the candles which it consumes!

Is not this then an object worthy of the Society of Arts and Board of Agriculture? Is there any pursuit in which, by possibility, they can be more advantageously engaged? It is certainly worth as much attention as an improvement in a pair of snuffers, or as plans for raising rents by consolidating farms!

The Monthly Magazine at least will, I hope, bestow some attention upon it: will encourage communications from Nova Scotia, and other parts of America, where this tree flourishes ; will record experiments made upon it in England; and give these wax candles a fair chance of naturalization in the native country of arts, sciences, and improvements!

COMMON SENSE.

P. S. The writer is perfectly aware, that Myrica Gale grows in great abundance in North Britain, and has been occasionally applied to the purpose of candle making; he has heard also of experiments in Devonshire of the same nature; but these facts serve only to support his hypothesis in favour of the general introductor of this vegetable wax. A gentleman who has made them in Devonshire assures him their fragrance is delightful, their light brilliant, and their economy great.*

We learn, by a public advertisement, that Messrs. Robert Bell, and Co. of Hull, have actually begun to make and vend such candles on very moderate terms. It seems too, that these berries are known in Africa, and that a few years since Colonel Edwards presented some wax lights to the late Lord Melville, made from the vegetable wax of Africa.

HORACE IN LONDON.

EPODE II.

RURAL FELICITY.

Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, &c. "HAPPY the man who leaves off trade,"

(Thus to himself Paul Poplin said,)
"No care his mind engages;
Fix'd on a gently rising hill,
At Somers-town or Pentonville,
He eyes the passing stages.

The City rout, the Lord Mayor's ball,
The bankrupt-meeting at Guildhall,
He cautiously avoids;

Nor, when bold privateers invade Our homeward-bound West-India trade,

Pays cent per cent at Lloyd's.

His poplars, Lombardy's delight,
He ranges graceful to the sight,
Than mighty Magog taller;
And if one overtop his peers,
The overgrown intruder shears,
Or substitutes a smaller.

Pleas'd from his summer-house to spy,
The lowing herd to Smithfield hie,
To feed each London glutton;
His blushing elder-wine he brews.
To treat his City-friends, who chuse
To taste his Sunday's mutton.

When Autumn rears his sun-burnt
head,

And plums his garden-wall o'erspread,
What joy rewards his labours!
First chusing for himself the best,
He civilly bestows the rest

Upon his next-door neighbours.

Where glides old Middleton's canal, He sometimes joins the motley mall, And feasts on ale and fritters; And when he nods in soft repose, Responsive to his vocal nose,

The merry blackbird twitters.

When drifted snow engulphs the house, He hunts the weazle, rat, or mouse,

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No turbot eighteen pence a pound, Should on my humble board be found, No fricandean or jelly;

No moor-game, dear and dainty breed,
Should fly from Berwick upon Tweed,
To roost within my belly.

I'd kill a pig-I'd drive a team-
I'd keep a cow to yield me cream
More delicate than nectar;
O pure and innocent delight,
To snatch the pigeon from the kite,
And-in a pie protect her!

And when the Hampstead stage I spied,

With six fat citizens inside,

Their daily labour over; The horned herd I'd thus provokeFag on, obedient to the yoke, Behold me safe in clover."

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Paul Poplin in a curious fuss,
A future Cincinnatus thus,

His honest pate was puzzling; When lo! before his counter stands A pursy widow, and demands

Six yards of ell-wide muslin!

He starts-displays the Indian ware, His country box dissolves in air,

Like mists of morning vapour; And in the Poultry Poplin still Sticks to his shop, and eyes the till, A smirking linen-draper.

HORACE IN LONDON.

BOOK I. ODE XXXVII.

The Poet rejoiceth on the Return of Tranquillity, after the Imprisonment of Sir Francis Burdett in the Tower.

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RECENT BRITISH PUBLICATIONS.

Mr. Trotter's Memoirs of C. J. Fox,-the first large edition was sold in a few days-a new one was printed with great expedition, and bespoke before it was ready, and another is preparing. Mr. Trotter has also made considerable progress in the public life of Mr. Fox, which will contain his principal speeches, and the history of parties from authentic documents, in three volumes octavo, with closely printed appendices.

A Treatise on Wills, and Codiciles, with an Appendix of the Statutes, a copious Collection of useful precedents, with Notes, practical and explanatory. By W. Roberts, Esq. Barrister at Law.

Biographie Moderne; or, Lives of remarkable Characters who have distinguished themselves since the commencement of the French Revolution, to the present time.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

By John F. Watson, Philadelphia.

Rhymes on Art, or, the Remonstrance of a Painter: in two parts. With notes and a preface, including strictures on the state of the Arts, criticism, patronage, and public Taste, by Martin Archer Shee, R. A.

By Hopkins, Farrand, Zantzinger, & Co. Philadelphia,

A Sermon, delivered by the Rev. Dr. Alexander, on occasion of the Burning} of the Theatre at Richmond, at the request of the young gentlemen from Virginia, and other students at the University.

Also, Miscellaneous Poems, on Moral and Religious subjects.

By Thomas Dobson, Philadelphia.

The Eclectic Repertory, and Analytical Review, Medical and Philosophical, etlited by a society of Physicians, Vol. 2, No. 6, for January 1812.

By Moses Thomas, Philadelphia.

A Treatise on the Law relative to Principals, Agents, Factors, Auctioneers, and Brokers, by S. Livermore, Esq. of Massachusetts.

By A. Miltenberger, Baltimore.

A new work entitled-The Chronicle; or, An Annual View of History, Politics, and Literature, foreign and domestic.

. PROPOSED BRITISH PUBLICATION.

A Translation of Madam de Genlis's new work, entitled, the "History of the most celebrated French Women, and their influence upon Literatu re," &c. which contains Anecdotes of the most distinguished French Female writers, criticisms, on their works, &c.

PROPOSED AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

Kimber & Richardson, Philadelphia.

Have in press, the "American Class Book, being a collection of Reading lessons for the use of Schools-selected from Blair's Class Book, &c."

K&R. propose shortly to publish a handsome edition of Edgeworth's Practical Education, in 2 vols. octavo.

By the Rev. P. X. Brosius, Philad-Cavallo's Natural Philosophy, in 4 vols.

David Allison, & Co. Burlington, N. J.

Have in press, Griffith's Law Treatise on the Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace in N. Jersey, and the Appendices thereto-together with the Scrivener's Guide, by the same author.

By D. Fenton, Trenton,

For the benefit of the venerable author, the Lectures, corrected and improved, which have been delivered for a series of years in the college of N. Jersey, on the subjects of moral and political Philosophy. By the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. L. L. D.

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