rum.

INDEFINITE IMPROVEMENT.

adopting the best part of her knowledge and institutions, and compounding them with her own, was enabled to leave behind bounds which Greece could not pass; Rome also declined, and, after a long period of commotion and darkness, when, by the promulgation of Christianity and the incursions of the barbarians, a new order of things had taken place, the knowledge of Roman literature and institutions was revived, and the improvements and discoveries of the European nations have carried them beyond their predecessors. Thus the state of civilized society in one period is superior to its state in a preceding period, and, though one nation rises and then falls, it is only that another may exult in an higher elevation,-it is only because the perfection of the former could not be greater than the existing state of things admitted. The analogy then between the moral and material worlds is slight: the poet may speak of the maturity and decay of a single empire, but not of civilized society. So the analogy between different periods of national existence and the hours of the day, or the seasons of the year, is sufficient merely to supply expressions denoting the vicissitudes of a single nation's existence, but cannot be extended to the civilized nations collectively, for they have neither noon nor night, summer nor winter.

some with whole coats, some with ragged ones, and others with none at all, with small-clothes, to which even courtesy could NEITHER individuals, nor nations, become hardly give the name, garterless stockings, suddenly enlightened and corrupt. The and all the etceteras of Irish tatterdema- young consult and imitate the old. The old lions. The most respectable one wore a are subject to the wisest; and these derive coarse blue jacket, with a silver badge their superiority from study and reflection, sewed upon the sleeve about as big as the corrected by experience. The influence palm of one's hand. We detained him to of the aged and of books over the growing carry the vessel in, and as the others lin- young gradually decreases :-they who engered, Capt. Minquired what they gage in active pursuits, become occupied wanted. The fellow's hat was raised with by business and domestic cares; conversathe back of the right hand, the fingers be- tion and reading fill only small intervals in ing the while employed in gently scratch- their life; their stock of wisdom is circulating his curly pate, which was a little in-ed, experience increases their knowledge clined towards the left shoulder; he an- of its uses, and augments its value:-they, wered, with unutterable brogue, "Pork and who are not called to active life, and who While these were preparing, he do not abandon themselves to idleness or begged a glass of grog to pass away the pleasure, are occupied in enlarging their time, drank it off with great gusto, and de- capital of knowledge, by study, reflection, voutly hoped that "sorrow might never go and speculation. When these two classes so near his heart as that did." The knights have become old, the speculations of the of the ragged small-clothes at last left us to one, corrected by the experience of the continue our sail along the shore of a highly other, make both better instructers of the cultivated country covered more and more young than their predecessors. thickly with villages, churches, &c. The To what then shall it be attributed, that sky was, during the afternoon, occasionally wisdom and experience secure not individveiled by fleecy clouds, through the inster-uals from mistake, nor nations from decline? stices of which the rays of the sun every now Error frequently assumes the garb and the and then streamed out upon some spot of office of truth-the wisest and most expethe land, contrasting it richly with those in rienced are liable to generalize from imthe shade. As we entered the bay we perfect views, and to adopt false principles came in sight of the Pigeon-House, hill of -an undue proneness to system and simpli- When we talk, then, of the Alexandrian Hoth, and other spots renowned in novels. fication is found among them, as among the age of Grecian glory and literature,-of We had a smart squall for a short time as ignorant-and it is not till evils have accu- the Augustan age of Roman magnificence we entered, but it soon passed over, and as mulated to oppression, that they are traced and learning,-when we lament the debasebefore we reached the light-house, the tide to their source: but errors rectified, are ment of Greece, and the darkness which turned, we were obliged to cast anchor out- decided advantages; they give greater se- followed the dissolution of the Roman emside of the mole. Thus we handed our curity to society,-for each corrected er- pire,-let us reflect that Rome, “take her topsails just twenty-three days since we ror is an obstacle removed from the path of for all in all," excelled Greece, and that her hoisted them in Boston harbour. We did improvement. Presumption also retards superiority was accelerated, if not caused, not regret the delay; for the prospect progression. Plans presenting brilliant by the degradation of Greece;-let us also around us was so delicious, we were unwill- prospects, and promising rich results, are consider that the downfal of Rome has ing to go on shore. The sky was neither deliberately investigated and accurately un- been succeeded by another age, more gloclear nor cloudy, the air was just not derstood, before they are adopted-oppos-rious, more learned, more philosophical, calm, and the water gently rippled, or en- ing prejudices are slowly overcome, and and more useful to mankind. By compretirely smooth. We were nearly surround- much time elapses before they take full hensive views let us convince ourselves that ed with fields, crossed with hedge-rows, effect, and then it is that brilliant pros- civilized society becomes, by the vicissicheckered yellow and green with various pects become dazzling reality. But the tudes or transformations of individual civcultivation, dotted with neat little build- splendid consequences of a cautious execu- ilized nations, more susceptible of perfecings, or embossed with magnificent edifices; tion of one plan are apt to generate pre- tion, and constantly improves. We are too and this scene, exquisitely beautiful as it is sumption as to the adoption of another, apt to look upon what we call the degenerain itself, rendered still more so to us by the and cause a stop or retrogradation. Thus cy or degradation of empires, only as efcharms of novelty and contrast. At sunthe nations-each, perhaps, occasionally fects; we do not take in the whole extent set a boat came off from Dunleary, bring- advancing a great way and occasionally of events; we look upon them as constituting a little ragged, waggish-looking boy, falling back a little, have ever been pro- ing many chains; we ought to regard them about the size and, except his dress, the gressing; and, if there is a limit to man's as constituting one great chain, whose end He had a improvement, there is no other destiny for man cannot see, but whose beginning may small bag-pipe, and with the bellows under him than Alexander's, to weep that there be traced to God; viewed in this light, one arm and the bag under the other, came are no more surmountable evils, no more each event is good and necessary, and each along side playing Daintie Davie" with exertions to make, "no more worlds to is better than the preceding. might and main. We were prepared to conquer." enjoy every thing, so we invited the piper on board, and improved the opportunity afforded by the first level surface we have trod on for three weeks, for performing few reels, with much less grace than either zeal or agility. The Irish pipe is rather an agreeable instrument in the open air, and for a promoter of lively dancing is far superior to any I have ever met with. Tomorrow we go up to Dublin.-Farewell.

exact resemblance of

R.

a

We need review but cursorily the histoAn analogy may be discovered between ry of the world to perceive that it has ever the material and moral worlds; to it, we been improving. For a long period only must refer the opinion that civilized society one nation was distinguished among its conhas its infancy, maturity, and old age, that temporaries; as one eminent nation fell, as plants germinate, ripen, and wither, so another rose, not to take its place, but to society must be subject to the same law. rise beyond it—at a later period, we shall Assuredly history furnishes no proof of this. find two or more nations contending for the Egypt was once preeminent above all the palm of merit-and the number of rivals nations; she declined, and Greece, borrow-has been gradually increasing, until, at the ing all that was useful, exhibited superior present day, we find continents contending excellence; Greece declined, and Rome, with each other for a preeminence in worth

From what has been, we have every reason to infer that the world shall improve until all the nations shall become civilized, each a rival to its neighbour, and every one striving to obtain the superiority in excellence-all shall improve, yet the world never reach what it will continue to approach,-perfection. W. Cambridge, Oct. 11.

wisdom, liberty, and true glory,-in every | ures changed with my age, though I founded their civil institutions. It was the sinTM thing that exalts man,-and both exhibit-myself often retiring to the same place, gle determination of every man, to subing an approach to perfection which past ascended part way up the hill, and instead ages never saw. of my fishing-rod, took with me a bookthe play thing of more advanced childhood. This spot had become in some measure the home of my leisure or my listless hours. But my familiarity had not rendered me insensible to its beauties; it had rather endeared them to me. I had not been here long, before I was addressed by a man, apparently about the age of forty, whom I saw not until he spake to me. I never in my life remember to have seen so much decision without harshness, and dignity without reserve. For him to instruct, and for me to listen, was a thing so natural, that he replied rather to my thoughts than to my words.

To the Editor of the U. S. L. Gazette.

MR EDITOR,

A few nights since, after reading a recent publication respecting this country, which interested me considerably,

-I had a dream,

That was not all a dream;

'In what,' said he, would you be instructed?'

I cast my eye from the eminence on

But such as it was, if it will help you to fill a page, which I was, to the surrounding objects beyou and your readers are welcome to it.

A DREAM.

INDICUS.

I retired to rest weary, though not fatigued. I was not in that frame of mind, which demands sleep, as the victim of intemperance seeks the draught which will extinguish care or lassitude in forgetfulness; but the day had already ended; the morrow had commenced; and I regarded the repose which I sought, but as a quiet preparation for what my hands might next find to do, rather than a state of lethargic lifelessness. Man is not held to be accountable for his dreams, because he cannot control them; for that very reason they indicate his character; and imperfect indeed must his be, whose dreams are stained with deeds of wantonness or cruelty. Thoughts are then spontaneous, and they disclose the way in which we are disposed to act. May not the waking hours often profit by lessons, that the hours of slumber will give; for the heart never reflects its own image more truly, than when the limbs lie still; the eyes are closed; the breath prolonged; and the whole influence which man exerts over himself, suspended.

I am more accustomed than most persons to watch my dreams. They amuse me, at least; and they have sometimes almost as much distinctness and continuity as the "visions" elaborated by writers who are broad awake. I will not say that I dreamed the following, just as I have written it; but something like it I did dream. I had retired at a rather late hour, and the moon kept me awake for some time; but her beams gradually withdrew to the foot of my bed; the moaning of the wind was heard less audibly; and I slept.

I soon found myself in a pleasant field, not far from my abode; it was indeed a place which I often visited both in my waking and sleeping hours. It is situated on a declivity facing the east, and at its foot moved a narrow stream, of considerable depth, overhung with willows Hither, in my youthful days, I used to go for the purpose of fishing; and as the nature of my pleas

neath me; I would learn, I replied, some-
thing of the future prospects of my coun-
try.

mit his religious sentiments to no tribunal but to that of God and his own conscience, which finally produced the republican form of government. Say not, then, there is no union of church and state; for there is a union of the heart, though not of the hand. That there is this union, let the example of France testify. Had there existed in that country the same sense of religion that is found in yours, she would not, in her zeal to be free, have laid the hand of violence on liberty herself. She would have wooed, not ravished. She would have resembled the good man, standing forth in the steadfast defence of his rights; not the felon broken from his prison. She would have stood omnipotent, with justice for her cause, heaven her protection, and wisdom her law; and not have wasted her strength in the impotent efforts of madness. The peculiar characteristic of thy country which has marked her progress, is religious liberty; the cause and the effect of religious principle. This must prevail throughout the world. Think of its effects on the civil institutions, the laws, habits, and customs of other nations, and measure, if you can, the influence of thine own, the centre from which it emanates. You desired to know something of the future prospects of your country; I have shewn her peculiar characteristic, from this, if she is true to herself, judge ye of her prospects. I have carried thee to the root of the tree, and analyzed the juices which give it sustenance; to count the fruit, the branches, and the leaves, were endless.'

You know,' said he, the fruit, from the seed that is planted. You may see the character of your country, in that of the few men who first stept on its shores. They were full of the divine intentions of Heaven, which later times have but partially developed. The future exists in the present; the present existed in the past. Revolutions are often the effect of causes, which have been in operation for centuries. The independence of America was achieved before she was discovered; even when the human mind was redeemed from superstition, from the dire bondage of religious slave- He proceeded-Look not for the prory. The independence of America, did I gress of religion to the din of controversy, say? I should have said the independence and the noise of party. The effects of of the whole world. That strong, convul- these must be as ephemeral as the feelings sive impulse to liberty, which the earth from which they proceed. The crusades feels from its centre to its circumference, to the holy land to rescue it from the foot which the iron hand of despotism can hard- of infidels, were not more the effect of amly bind, is an effect of the same cause, bition, feebly masked by false religion, than which is already strengthened by its suc- are the controversies that have since agicessful operation in thy country. There is tated Christendom. The power and enthis only difference. Here the strong de- signs of religion have been bestowed on termination to pursue an upright course the foulest passions of the human heart, as carried with it enough of faith for the ac- the temple of God has afforded protection complishment of that, which other nations to the outlaw and assassin. Religious truth could hardly believe to be possible, until is not a treasure which a man may easily the reality proved itself before them. God defend with his sword; he would seek in sent his veterans in the cause of religious vain, after his victory, for that which he freedom and civil liberty, to this country, had fought for. It is to be found neither that they might be in the front of the bat- in the despondency of defeat, nor the extle. And as other countries gradually ef- ultation of conquest. It is not a prize to fect that, which yours has already accom- be gained by strength, or lost by weakness. plished, from being the youngest, you will It is reflected from the calm and quiet become regarded as the eldest nation on heart in the faithful and peaceable disthe earth. Happy country! destined to charge of its duties, like the face of nareceive aggrandizement, not from hard- ture from the placid water. There exists, fought battles, and ill-deserved conquests; deep in the minds of very many, far rebut from every successful struggle in the moved from what is often called religion, a cause of civil and religious liberty, where- conscientious regard to their duty, produced ever it may be.-The union of church and and nurtured by the word of God. This it state has been a most unhallowed connex-is, which will grow, and work miracles on ion, not from essential necessity, but from earth.-The literature of your country the depravity of man. It was the peculiar-will be as distinctly marked as its governly religious character of this people, which ment. It will be the wreath, which will achieved their independence, and establish- decorate her civil and religious institutiona;

and will derive its life from that of which it used merely as attributives, is divided into comprehended by most children of ten or is the ornament. It will be a real, substan- adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. None twelve years of age, after considerable intial, living form, on whose face may be of our grammarians have, however, so de-struction and explanation. But what is the read the inmost workings of the soul. It fined either of these parts of speech, as to use of teaching them this fact? No person will not as yet-if ever-abound with fic-give us any means of determining what ever violated this part of the rule, and tion, for as the eye looks into the past, it is words belong to it. They have given ta- there can never be a doubtful case for this only as it loses itself in a dim and doubtful bles of those which they think belong to to determine. Is not the time devoted to twilight, that it discovers the shadowy each of these classes; and, but for these it, therefore, misspent? forms of romance; and America has no tables, we should be left wholly in the dark. dark ages, to be the illimitable haunt of No competent reason is given for making those who would work into reality the of these words three parts of speech, and phantasms of their own minds. The litera- they might, for all that appears, as well ture of America will be beautiful and have been divided into twenty. strong and chaste and healthy.'

The last words sounded in my ears as I awoke, and saw the full splendour of the sun falling where I had last seen the gentle light of the moon. I recalled the leading parts of the conversation as well as I could, and spent my first hour of leisure in arranging them in this form.

MR EDITOR,

I would direct the attention of some of your readers to the most important faults of our common systems of English grammar; and your apparent willingness to estimate aright the importance of these inquiries, which I propose making, encourages me to hope that you will admit my essays, if I may venture so to call them. I am aware, that to many of your readers, they cannot be interesting and I hardly dare to hope, that they will fully come vince those who may read them with interest; but if they serve to fix the attention of thinking men upon topics which are certainly of great importance, and have certainly been too long and too much neglected, my principal purpose will be answered.

W.

ON THE COMMON SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH
GRAMMAR.

THERE is no fact more obvious than that no method of parsing the English language has yet been devised, which gives general satisfaction to teachers or learners. All allow that Murray's Grammar, for example, contains much useful information, and affords great assistance towards speaking and writing correctly; but it could scarcely have been made to contain less that is of any use in analyzing the language-reducing it to its elements, and showing the precise use of every word in a sentence. Many words in our language of very common use, and of essential importance, have apparently lost their original, radical meaning, because they are no longer used as leading terms, but only as qualifying terms. Still, if the use of these is to be governed by any rule or system of rules, they must be defined. Although custom may be uniform in many cases, and there may be little danger of error, there are hundreds of those in which even the learned do not agree in their use of terms, because they do not see their radical meaning. Our dictionaries afford us little assistance in determining their specific signification; and our grammars profess to teach us how to construe and parse the language with scarcely any reference to their meaning. Murray gives from Horne Tooke a few definitions, but his system of parsing has no reference to them. This numerous class of words, which were originally nouns and verbs, but are now

book in school."

Most of our rules for connexion, arrange-
ment, and government, depend on these
undefined words; and these rules are gene-
rally such as children cannot understand,
and men forget or despise. At least, nine
tenths of the time devoted in our common
schools in learning to parse, is rendered
necessary solely by the folly of these rules.
Let us take the first, for an example,
and combine with it those which relate to
the objective case. "The boy reads his
"Boy" is in the nomina-
tive case, beyond a doubt. But what is the
nominative case? "The nominative case
denotes an agent or actor; or it is the
subject of the verb." How long will it take
a child to understand, from this explana-
tion, that boy is, for this reason, the nomin-
ative case to reads? What will he know
then, that he did not know before? He will
know that grammarians call a word thus
situated, in the nominative case. In speak-
ing or writing the sentence, he would have
used exactly the same words, and arranged
them in the same order, without this infor-
mation. Before parsing the sentence he
must understand it; and if he understand
it, he cannot say the book reads the boy;
that is, he cannot give the term boy, the
situation of any thing except what gram-
marians term the nominative. The word
is the same in the nominative and the ob-
jective, and hence no error can be commit-
ted in the term itself. In fact, the scholar
does not learn to guard against error, nor
to understand the sentence better than he
did before; but devotes a long portion of
previous time to learning this really use-
less fact-that a word having a certain use,
or performing a certain office in a sentence,
is called by a certain name.
With few ex-
ceptions, these remarks will apply to this
case wherever it occurs.

It is required that the nominative case
shall govern the verb in number and per-
son. The noun boy, is singular, therefore,
the verb reads, must be singular. But this,
so far as it regards the use of the words, is
learned when the language is learned, and
not from grammars; and as to the fact,
that different forms of the verb are some-
times required, by our grammars, to suc-
ceed nominatives of different numbers, it is
of no consequence. All that the scholar
learns from this, and most other parts of
our grammars, is to apply certain technical
terms to what he perfectly understood be-
fore. We are told that all nouns are of the
third person, except when they denote the
object of a direct address. This may be

Let us leave the nominative, and proceed to the other nouns in the sentence. Book and school are both in the objective case. Is not this a little remarkable that two nouns, one of which expresses the object of a transitive verb, and the other denotes the place where the action expressed by the verb is performed, should be considered in the same case. It is to be remembered, that by cases are denoted the relations which nouns and pronouns bear to other words in the same sentence. The nominative denotes the agent; the genitive denotes the possessor; and the objective is made to represent all other relations which exist between nouns, and between nouns and verbs. The principal use of parsing is to acquire the habit of analyzing our language, for the purpose of determining the exact meaning of every word, and its relation to other words in connexion with it: or, to say what we mean in another way, it is to determine exactly the use of every word in the place where it occurs. I suppose no one will dispute the correctness of this assertion. In those languages in which nouns are varied in form, to express certain relations to other words, it is of use, at least to those who learn the language from books, to have the nouns declined. But in English we have no cases of this kind except the genitive; and, except with reference to this, the term case expresses the relations or offices of nouns, and not their terminations. We ought, therefore, to have, in this sense, as many cases as we have relations; and this would make more than a hundred. To tell a child that cases are these relations or particular offices of nouns, and then teach him that there are but three, is a greater absurdity than can be found any where but in English Grammars. Besides the relation between a transitive verb and its object, and those relations expressed by prepositions, there are numerous others, which we have no words to express. Such are the relations between intransitive verbs and nouns of time, space, dimension, &c. Our grammars inform us that these nouns are governed by prepositions understood? but in many, if not most of these examples, there is no preposition in the language that will express our meaning.

What shall we say of the possessive or genitive case? It is said to denote property or possession. The noun expressing this idea is made to express it, sometimes by placing of before it, and sometimes by s and an apostrophe placed after it. These two methods signify the same; that is, they denote the same mode of possessing. When we wish to convey the idea emphatically, in a declarative form, or with reference to the attributes and qualities which

It is not when the parting breath, we watch with love one another, &c. We should tire our

keep the meaning of the sentence inconveniently suspended, and sometimes even to the end of the second or third leaf of the volume. When in addition to these defects, we take into consideration, that there are neither vowels, paragraphs, nor punctuation, which in fact are seldom to be met with in oriental languages, we may form a tolerable idea of the perspicuity of a Turkish manuscript.

"The penury of Turkish literature is, doubtless, to be attributed to those causes. Nevertheless the language can boast of poets, for instance Rouhihi and Meshiy; of romance-writers, amongst whom the aged Tartare Barakeh may be mentioned; and of a considerable number of historians, geographers, and physicians.

at the same time, be interesting to other
readers, by exemplifying the wisdom and
observation of a people generally supposed
to be barbarous.

"We repeat, the Turks are by no means
so uncivilized as report declares them.
Public instruction is encouraged by all the
higher classes of society. Numbers of rich
men in bequeathing legacies, usually devote
a portion to the erection of a Mudreseh, or
public school. Several of the Turkish em-
perors have followed the example. It is
actually the case, whatever surprise the
statement may occasion, that, at the pres-
ent moment, there exists at Constantino-
ple, a greater number of Colleges than at
Paris.

"In the penal laws of this people, there "But, even if the Turkish language does are certain provisions which are not to be not present us with a variety of literary found in our own codes, but which would productions worthy of attention, it ought have done honour to the wisdom of our legnot the less to be an object of study to the islators. Unfortunately, however, the inphilologist, for it is the only diplomatic lan- stitutes are infected with the same fanatiguage made use of at most of the eastern cal spirit which attaches generally to the courts. It is almost exclusively spoken at the followers of Mahomet, and more especially courts of the Viceroy of Egypt, and the Shah to those Mahometans who belong to the of Persia; under the tents of the great Khans Sunnite sect. This fanaticism will ever of Tartary, and in the Seraglio of the Sul- prevent the present rulers of the Bosphotan; and is certainly the maternal language rus from attaining to such a degree of civof these princes. In fact, over all the north-ilization, as is absolutely requisite to enable ern coast of Africa, and from Constantino- them to command respect in the great ple to the western frontiers of China, there family of European nations. is scarcely a spot where the Turkish idiom is not more or less understood. The importance of such a language is undoubtedly great, whether regarded in a commercial or diplomatic view.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

The tenth and eleventh volumes of the Russian national work, the "History of the Russian Empire," by Karamsin, have been "M. Jaubert, whose justly celebrated published. They contain the history of the name recals to our recollection the various government of the last descendant of Ruservices he has rendered to his country, has rik, the Tzar Fedor Joannowitsch; the now established a new claim upon the grat-election, government and melancholy end itude of his fellow-citizens, as well as upon of Boris Godunow; the period of the false that of all friends to literature, by publishing Dimitrii; the horrors of the Interregnum; the grammar to which we are here request- the hated dominion of the Poles, and their ing the attention of our readers. The scar- expulsion from the Russian territories. city and dearness of the small grammar, pub- This is an important and interesting period. lished at Constantinople by the Jesuit, Al- Independent of the scientific worth of the derman; the obscurity of Merinski's gram-work, it must have great influence on the mar; and the incorrectness of the oriental improvement of the language, as it is so type in that which was published by father universally read; and in this respect these Viguier, render the new publication of M. two last volumes seem to be superior to the Jaubert very acceptable to orientalists. In- preceding. We find in them a number of stead of following the example of his pre- truly national expressions and terms which decessors, by rendering his subject difficult had not before been adopted in writing, and and complicated by a multiplicity of rules, which, being now incorporated into the for the most part useless, this writer has en- higher style of composition, are an impordeavoured to simplify the language he has tant philological addition. There has been undertaken to teach, by laying its elements no book which has met with such general before us with method and perspicuity. approbation in Russia. The first eight He has distinguished with much address, a volumes appeared in 1817; and in about variety of trifling anomalies, which other three weeks after their publication, it is grammarians had regarded as general rules said that the whole edition, consisting of instead of exceptions. In short this learned three thousand copies, was sold. The eagerorientalist has employed the superior intel-ness with which all classes, even the less ligence he has derived from long study and educated, hastened to procure the history extensive experience to preserve to the of their nation, was extremely interesting Turkish idiom the character of simplicity and remarkable. Peasants, mechanics, diswhich justly belongs to it. banded soldiers, joined together to make "The work is concluded by a collection up fifty rubles, which was its price. M. of proverbs, engraved in lithographic, by Soenin, a bookseller at St Petersburgh, M. Bianchi, and which are both entertain-published a second edition of an equal numing and instructive. These proverbs will ber, for which he paid the author a large eerve as exercises for the pupil; and will, sum. The ninth volume, published by the

same bookseller, met with like success, and is out of print.

If the work is a remarkable phenomenon in Russia, the venerable author himself is no less so. M. Von Karamsin is a rare, and in Russia the only, instance of a man who has become known and rich by his literary labours alone;* who is indebted to them and his moral character for universal esteem; who, without holding any office, was distinguished at court, and honoured with particular favour and regard by the Emperor and the whole imperial family. M. Von Karamsin, though he has suddenly risen into favour at court, has not become a courtier, but, faithful to the sciences, continues to dedicate the greater part of the day to serious study, and is never so happy as in the circle of his family, or in the society of chosen friends.

HEAT PRODUCED BY THE COMPOUND blow

PIPE.

The astonishing heat from the flame of xy-hydrous gas, issuing from the compound in 1802), is such that Mr Thomas Skidmore blowpipe (originally invented by Dr Hare, found, on projecting this flame against the outside of a small tinned iron cup, full of cold water, that the outside of the cup became red hot, and at length assumed a white heat, not only on its outside, but within, in contact with the water; and in an instant afterwards the flame broke through the side of the cup and entered the water, without being extinguished. This sug gested to him the plunging of the jet pipe and flame under water; which, after due precaution, was effected, and the flame continued to burn with undiminished energy in actual contact with the water; which latter, in a tumbler holding about half a pint, quickly became heated from 56° to 1700 Farenheit.

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE OF COKE AND
WOOD AS FUEL.

Some trials have been made by M. Delrit on the heating power of coke and wood, when consumed in stoves. Two similar stoves were heated, one by wood and the othby coke, and the temperature of the exterior taken at some distance from the fire. The temperature of the flues was at first 90 Centigrade, and the mean temperature at the end of six hours, was, by the wood, 130, by the coke 160; so that the increase by the wood was 4°, by the coke 7°. These effects were produced by 73 kilogrammes (163 pounds) of wood, worth three and a half francs; and 24 kilogrammes (53 pounds) of coke, worth one franc, 80 cents. During the progress of this experiment another stove had been heated for several hours with wood, and the temperature had not risen above 130. The use of coke very quickly raised it to 15° or 16°. Hence it is concluded, and with reason, that coke is

Russia, towards the printing of which the Emperor * It is generally assserted that the History of contributed 60,000 rubles, has already yielde 250,000 rubles to its author.