Should foemen lift their haughty hand, And dare invade us where we stand, Fast by the altars of our land We'll gather every one; And he shall ring the loud alarm, Hurra! the work is done! And as the solemn boom they hear, And to the struggle run; Young men shall leave their toils or books, Or turn to swords their pruning hooks; And maids have sweetest smiles for those Who battle with their country's foes: Hurra! the work is done! And when the cannon's iron throat That victory is won; While down the wind the banner drops, And bonfires blaze on mountain-tops, His sides shall glow with fierce delight, And ring glad peals from morn to night: Hurra! the work is done! But of such themes forbear to tell. Hush'd be the alarum gun! Sheath'd be the sword! and may his voice Still may he ring when struggles cease, And friendly trophies won! When rival nations join their hands, PEARLS AND PRECIOUS STONES.-A Russian journal, the Gazette of Commerce, gives a tempting description of an acquisition recently made by the Corps des Mines, in St. Petersburgh, the gift of a munificent merchant, M. Lowerstine. It consists of a remarkable collection of pearls and precious stones-amongst which are more than 500 monstres pearls, valued at upwards of 60,000 roubles. One of these, in particular, is a pearl of prodigious size and incomparable beauty, adhering to its shell. The collection of precious stones, cut and in the rough, of all forms and hues, and the collection of diamonds, are not less extraordinary than that of the pearls. The Emperor has acknowledged the donor's munificence by creating him a Knight of the order of St. Stanislaus, of the third class. Guy of Warwick-A hitherto unknown Ms. of the end of the thirteenth century, in old French, of this renowned tale, has, it is said, been discovered in the Wolfenbuttel library. THE AERONAUT STEAM-ENGINE. From the Athenæum. "How to make a man to fly" is one of the Century of Inventions of that arch-anticipator of all modern inventions, the Marquis of Worcester-"which I have tried," says he, with characteristic naïveté, "with a little boy of ten years old, in a barn ;" an excellent caution and laudable foresight; and then he adds this important element in the experiment-" on an hay mow." So completely does this philosophical mode of proceeding square with our own notions of experimental aeronautics, that we confess we experienced no slight disappointment when the many illustrated newspapers of the day brought forth the plans of this much-talked of Aerial Locomotive Engine, to find that among the various precautions for the safety of passengers, there was no vestige of, nor substitute for, the hay mow of the Marquis of Worcester. We hope this appendage will not be forgotten in the specification. We entreat our readers not to assume from this rather suspicious commencement of our notice, that we have any intention of treating this subject with either levity or ridicule. The air is highway that interferes with no vested rights, injures no man's park or pleasure ground, and costs nothing for maintenance. We have neither milestones nor turnpikes there; and, free as air, we may roam where we please, unassailed by taxes or tolls. Railways have realized the fable of Jack the Giant-Killer's "seven-leagued boots;" may the "Ariel" soon realize to the public the fable of the "wishing-cap," and with the purse of Fortunatus reward the inventor; and " may we be there to see,"-for we wish all success to the invention and the inventor; and far be it from us to follow the example of those who ridicule what they cannot understand, and condemn what they are unable to appreciate. So much for feelings and intentions,— now for the facts. Mr. William Samuel Henson is the inventor of the Aerial Locomotive Steam-Engine, for which patents have been taken out, and a bill has been brought into parliament, to authorize the transfer of the patents to more than twelve persons, who are to be incorporated as the Aerial Transit Company. Now, the first question one asks about this machine is, how is it to be supported in the air? We know how a balloon ascends, because it is filled with gas, vapour, or smoke lighter than air, and, of course, like smoke, it ascends and floats in virtue of its small specific gravity. That a balloon should rise in the air, and that it should be rowed forward or propelled by oars or other devices, as a boat is rowed by the watermen, or a steam-boat propelled by the paddles, it is easy enough to understand, provided we get a balloon large enough, a man strong enough, or a steam-engine and fuel light enough to be carried up. This balloon plan of aerial locomotion has often been proposed but never effected. It has an obvious disadvantage; the balloon must be of so monstrous a size to carry the necessary weight, that any degree of success in propelling 308 PROSPECT OF THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE FRENCH COLONIES. so great a bulk at a tolerable speed through the air becomes hopeless. The present plan rests on a totally different principle. It is not sustained in the air by buoyancy, but must be kept up by the continued expenditure of power: to render this as easy as possible, means are adopted to retard the descent by gravity. All our readers are acquainted with the construction of the parachute of a balloon-it is an enormous umbrella, by which a person may descend in tolerable safety from a balloon, in case of danger; the size of the umbrella pressing on the air retards the descent of the weight-now, this is what Mr. Henson uses. He employs an enormous flat umbrella, or gigantic fan or pair of wings (only they do not move as wings do), to keep the weight from falling rapidly; and so, when his machine is once in the air, it will descend but slowly, and the more slowly as the umbrella is larger-the shape is not, however, round like an umbrella, but flat, and oblong, and horizontal. We may observe at this point, that the size of this umbrella can only retard the descent of the machine, but cannot sustain it. This consideration appears to have altogether escaped our inventors. They say,-"Our umbrella is so large as to expose a foot and a half of surface for every pound of total weight, and therefore, as we have 4,500 square feet of surface, and 3,000 lb. of load to carry, we may safely trust that we can stay aloft." But they surely know that no size of umbrella can do more than retard their fall. By a very simple calculation, based on abundant experiment, we have found that this aërial machine, supposing all their sanguine plans to be realized, must infallibly fall perpendicularly downwards to the earth, somewhere about the rate of thirteen miles an hour, or eighteen feet per second. So much for the powers of the umbrella! But may not the power of the steam-engine be applied to keep the machine up in the air, and so countervail this inconvenient gravitation? Let us see. A weight of 3000 lbs. is descending 18 feet per second-required, the power of steam capable of sustaining it? The answer is, 60 horses' power. Our aërial company propose only 20 horses' power for both propelling and resisting powers; and on this splendid basis rests the Aerial Transit Company! Sic transit gloria, &c. [JULY, seem to be in hands capable of developing what good is in the idea, in such wise as to bring a practically good thing out of the idea of it. Further-we have seen that there are no means of sustaining the weight of the engine, even were it once at the necessary elevation. Then how is it ever to get there? The plan is this. The machine is to run down an inclined plane, to acquire a certain velocity, and then spreading its wings, is, by the mere velocity acquired, to rise in the air to the necessary height. Now surely these inventors ought to know that all the velocity a body will ever acquire by running down an inclined plane, will never do more than carry it up as high (barring a little loss) as the top of the plane. We are, therefore, disposed to recommend a start from the top of the inclined plane, rather than the bottom. But who will set bounds to human ingenuity? We may yet fly. Watt was ridiculed, Galileo persecuted, and Dr. Lardner and the Edinburgh Review cavilled about the transatlantic steamboats. So doubtless Mr. W. S. Henson, and his friends, think that, as a matter of course, they are martyrs, and we persecutors of unappreciated merit. But we abide by our opinion, and are satisfied with its risks. We may fly by and bye-but this is not the machine. We hoped great things and we are disappointed Parturiunt montes; nascitur ridiculus mus. PROSPECT OF THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE FRENCH COLONIES.-The French Minister of the Marine and Colonies has printed and distributed the report of the commission appointed by royal ordonnance of 26th May, 1840, for examining the question relative to slavery and the political constitution of the colonies, of which the Duke de Broglie is president, together with the minutes of the sittings and the documents exhibited. The law proposed by the commission for a general and simultaneous emancipation fixes the 1st of January, 1853, for the cessation of slavery in the French colonies. Up to this period the slaves will remain in their present condition, saving certain modifications to be made by royal ordonnance. Civil rights are to be granted to the slaves during Thus have we lost faith in our aerial friends. the intervening ten years, but they cannot make We wished to find their plan true and promis- any appeals to justice without the intervention of ing-but when we find they have not made such the right of possessing ships, boats, fire-arms, guna curator ad hoc. They, however, are not to have very simple calculations, which a slight know-powder, or furniture. The enfranchised slaves ledge of the element they deal in, and the powers they use, would have suggested, what can we think? what can we hope? We see a want of foresight in their calculation; and in their mechanical devices we do not find those judicious mechanical contrivances, which should favor the hope that the patented ideas of Mr. Henson are in hands likely to bring what merit may lie in them out into practical use. But, do we mean to say, there is no merit in the invention? On the contrary-it has just merit enough to seduce and fascinate the race of schemers and speculators. It has a good idea in it, and indeed more than one, only it does not are not to have the enjoyment of political rights, but such of their children as shall be born free are to be entitled to those privileges. The emancipated slaves are to be bound to engage themselves in the service of one or more planters for five succeeding years, and during this period are not to leave the colony to which they belonged. The rates of wages are to be regulated by a decree of the governor in council. Councils of discipline are to be established for the punishment of refracslave-owners is fixed at 150,000,000f. A separate tory slaves. The indemnity to be granted to the bill is proposed for emancipating children born slaves since the 1st January, 1838, and to be born previous to the period of the general emancipation. PLEASANT MEMORIES, ETC. From Tait's Magazine. Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands. By Mrs. Sigourney. With Illustrations from drawings by Roberts, Turner, Creswick, &c. London: Tilt & Bogue. A charming book is this; made up of pleasant desultory prose sketches; poetic gems; and pretty engravings, not the less attractive that they are chiefly taken from memorable Scottish scenes. But the "Memories" refer to England and France, as well as to Scotland. Mrs. Sigourney believes that there are plenty of satirical, caustic, and gossiping American travellers, that visit and report on Europe, though she should not add to the number; and she accordingly sets out on the principle of dwelling only upon the bright side, and seeing, or at least of commemorating nothing save the good and the beautiful. Her landing at Liverpool was made under very impressive circumstances, as the ship, after a most prosperous voyage, was in imminent danger of being wrecked in St. George's Channel. From Liverpool Mrs. Sigourney entered Scotland by the Lake country and Carlisle; and even at the outset she indited verses to ancient Chesterto Kendal, the town of Catharine Parr-to Winandermere-and Grasmere and Southey; and the same chain of bright poetic links marks her entire progress through Britain, and in Paris. The work is, however, as a whole, much better adapted to the writer's native land, than to this country; where, unfortunately, few of us have any thing more to learn of Holyrood, and Abbotsford, Stratford, and Westminster Abbey; of Mrs. Fry in Newgate, or Poet Rogers amid his collection of literary and other nick-nacks. Instead of the loftier national themes which Mrs. Sigourney has chosen for the expression of her pleasant memories, we, as a fair sample, copy out the following sweet lines, which have a true relish of Auld langsyne: SHEEP AMONG THE CHEVIOTS. Graze on, graze on, there comes no sound Of Border warfare near, No slogan-cry of gathering clan, No battle-axe, no spear; No belted knight, in armor bright, Doth change the sports of Chevy Chase Ye wis not that ye press the spot Across the marches in his pride And where the stout Earl Douglass rode With fifteen hundred Scottish spears," To stay the invader's deed. Ye wis not that ye press the spot For madly 'gainst her native realm As to a tournament. He led them on in power and pride; But ere the fray was o'er They on the blood-stained heather slept, And he returned no more. Graze on, graze on; there's many a rill Bright sparkling through the glade, Where you may freely slake your thirst With none to make afraid. There's many a wandering stream that flows For Scotia from her hills hath come, And Albion o'er the Tweed, And sit them down as one. This will not be considered among the best of Mrs. Sigourney's poetical Memories, but the theme is less hackneyed than other things of more ambitious character. The Americans, if the most truthful, are certainly also the most outspoken of people. Nothing should be communicated to one of that nation which one does not wish proclaimed on the house-top-made patent to all Europe. Sure we are that Mrs. Southey, who never saw Mrs. Sigourney beween the eyes, could have had no idea of the following most affecting and confidential communication being made public; yet we know not how to regret that the Amer ican lady's failure of what, perhaps falsely, is considered amongst us strict propriety or proper delicacy, has revealed so much of whatever is most beautiful in human nature. She tells, "From Wordsworth I received the first information of Southey's melancholy state of health and intellect, and resigned, though reluctantly, my intention of going to Keswick to A letter the ensuing spring from his wife, so widely known by her name of Caroline Bowles as the writer of some of the truest and most pathetic poetry in the language, made me still more regret that the short time which then remained to me in England, rendered it impossible to visit Greta-Hall. I trust I may be forgiven for selecting from one of her more recent letters a few passages," &c him. see &c. It is these passages to which we have | my dearest father, should I be so unhappy referred, and now quote. "You desire to be remembered to him who sang of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous Tale.' Alas! my friend, the dull cold ear of death is not more insensible than his, my dearest husband's, to all communications from the world without. Scarcely can I keep hold of the last poor comfort of believing that he still knows me. This almost complete unconsciousness has not been of more than six months' standing, though more than two years have elapsed since he has written even his name. After the death of his first wife, 'the Edith' of his first love, who was for several years insane, his health was terribly shaken. Yet for the greater part of a year, which he spent with me in Hampshire, my former home, it seemed perfectly reestablished; and he used to say 'It had surely pleased God that the last years of his life should be happy.' But the Almighty willed otherwise. The little cloud soon appeared which was to overshadow all. In the blackness of its shadow we still live, and shall pass from it only through the portals of the grave. The last three years have done on me the work of twenty. The one sole business of my life is that which I verily believe as to survive him, will depart all that binds me to this world.'" Miss Mitford has sustained this misfortune, aggravated we deepy regret to learn, by other circumstances, painful to every one, but doubly so to fine and sensitive minds. Owing to the long and expensive illness of her father, and the consequent suspension of those literary labors which have communicated delight to the Old and to the New world, Miss Mitford, at the death of her father, found herself involved in debts to the amount of between £800 and £900. After having relinquished her mother's large fortune in behalf of her other parent, besides several legacies left exclusively to herself, she has had the additional misfortune of losing a sum equal to the half of her embarrassments, by the failure of a publisher; and is thus left without any available means, save the pension of £100 a-year, granted her some years since by the Queen. Miss Mitford was preparing best might,-at whatever sacrifice, and by to meet this heavy responsibility as she whatever exertion,-when some of her We imagine that no travelled American friends, to whom the circumstances became lady would be longer honored as "a poetess known, interfered, and proposed an appeal in her own country," who ventured home to the public, for the purpose of paying without being able to tell something of Miss debts incurred in supplying the wants of the Mitford. It does not appear that Mrs. Sig-aged and infirm father, who had long enourney actually made the customary pilgrim-grossed all her time, and all her care. We age to Three-Mile-Cross; but she must have think too well of the British, and, we may been in correspondence with the lady whose add, of the American public, to believe that filial devotion she eulogizes as adding lustre this appeal will be made in vain. Thouand grace to the rich imagery of her pages. sands, and tens of thousands, have felt and Of Miss Mitford she writes,-"An aged fa-known the charm of her writings, and they ther, of whom she is the only child, is the have now an opportunity of repaying some object of her constant cherishing care. small part of their debt,-of shedding reYears have elapsed since she has left him, turning peace and sunshine over that once scarcely for an evening; and she receives sunny and cheerful spirit, which has log calls only during those hours in the after-diffused an affluence of refined enjoyment, noon when he regularly takes rest upon his and ministered to the sweetest affections of bed. She is ever in attendance upon him; our common nature. cheering him by the recital of passing events, and pouring into his spirit the fresher life of her own. . I cannot with keeps the life in me, the guardianship of my dear, helpless, unconscious husband." hold a sweet picture drawn by her pen, SONNET. When day was gently melting into night, When Earth's fair features fade from human flower though sensible that she had no intention SHE took the veil,-'twas at the vesper hour, In a lone vase pines for the garden bright, Silently awile he stood. She took the vell! IMAGINARY CONVERSATION, Between Mr. Walter Savage Landor and the From Blackwood's Magazine. TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. try has disappeared from Mr. Hunt's poem, though Mr. Landor has by no means left off gabbling. Mr. Hunt is a kindly-natured man as well as a wit, and no doubt perceived that he had been more prophetic than he intended-Mr. Landor, having in SIR, Mr. Walter Savage Landor has addition to verses uncounted, unless on his become a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine! I stared at the announcement, and on fingers, favored the world with five it will presently be seen why. There is the four first I have culled a few specithick octavo volumes of dialogues. From nothing extraordinary in the apparition of another and another of this garrulous sex-mored that a sixth is in the press, with a mens; the fifth I have not read. It is ruagenarian's "Imaginary Conversations." They come like shadows, so depart. You may object that it is a feigned colloquy, in which an unauthorized use is made of your name. True; but all Mr. Landor's colloquies are likewise feigned; and none is more fictitious than one that has appeared in your pages, wherein Southey's name is used in a manner not only unauthorized, but at which he would have sickened. dedication in the issimo style, to Lord John Russell, Mr. Landor's lantern having at "The thing, we know, is neither new nor rare, last enabled him to detect one honest man But wonder how the devil it got there." in the Imperial Parliament. Lord John, Many of your readers, ignorant or forget-it seems, in the House of Commons lately ful, may have asked, "Who is Mr. Landor? quoted something from him about a ChiWe have never heard of any remarkable nese mandarin's opinion of the English; person of that name, or bearing a similar and Mr. Landor is so delighted that he inone, except the two brothers Lander, the tends to take the Russells under his proexplorers of the Niger." Mr. Walter Sav-tection for ever, and not only them, but age would answer, "Not to know me, every thing within the range of their inargues yourself unknown." He was very terests. Not a cast horse, attached to a angry with Lord Byron for designating Woburn sand-cart, shall henceforth crawl him as a Mr. Landor. He thought it should towards Bedford and Tavistock Squares, have been the. You ought to have fore- but the grateful Walter shall swear he is a warned such readers that the Mr. Landor, Bucephalus. You, Mr. North, have placed now your Walter Savage, is the learned the cart before the horse, in allowing Mr. author of an epic poem called Gebir, com- Landor's dialogue between Porson and posed originally in Egyptian hieroglyph Southey precedence of the following beics, then translated by him into Latin, and tween Mr. Landor and yourself. thence done into English blank verse by the same hand. It is a work of rare occurrence even in the English character, and is said to be deeply abstruse. Some extracts from it have been buried in, or have helped to bury, critical reviews. A copy of the Anglo-Gebir is, however, extant in the British Museum, and is said to have so puzzled the few philologists who have examined it, that they have declared none but a sphinx, and that an Egyptian one, could unriddle it. I would suggest that some Maga of the gipsies should be called in to interpret. Our vagrant fortune-tellers are reputed to be of Egyptian origin, and to hold converse among themselves in a very strange and curious oriental tongue called Gibberish, which word, no doubt, is a derivative from Gebir. Of the existence of the mysterious epic, the public were made aware many years ago by the first publication of Mr. Leigh Hunt's Feast of the Poets, where it was mentioned in a note as a thing containing one good passage about a shell, while in the text the author of Gebir was called a gander, and Mr. Southey rallied by Apollo for his simplicity in proposing that the company should N. I am almost afraid to trust you, sir. drink the gabbler's health. That pleasan-You treat the Muses like nine-pins. Nei You and I must differ more widely in our notions of fair play than I hope and believe we do, if you refuse to one whose purpose is neither unjust nor ungenerous, as much license in your columns as you have accorded to Mr. Landor, when it was his whim, without the smallest provocation, to throw obloquy on the venerated author of the Excursion. faithful servant, EDWARD QUILLMAN. I am, Landor. GooD-morning, Mr. North, I hope you are well. North. I thank you, sir.-Be seated. L. I have called to inquire whether you have considered my proposal, and are willing to accept my aid. |