THE SCOTS MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1787. CONTENTS. HISTORICAL AFFAIRS. Poland and United Provinces 90. Italy 91. France 92. Spain and Portugal ib. Weft Indies and America 93. - England: Trials on the fhop-tax 95Prince of Wales entered a free-mason ib. Mr Howard refuses the honours offered him 96. Reduction of the national debt ib. Scotland: British Society's queries to landholders, &c. 96. Decifion in the cause, the burgeffes of Dumbarton against the mas giftrates 97. Jufticiary trials 98. Action for recovery of money fent by a stagecoach ib. Town-council of Dornoch and prefbytery of Nairn on uniting the Aberdeen univerfities 99. Trial of J. Reid ib, Expeditious anfwer of a commiffion by the mail coach ib. Edinburgh poor's-house ib. Stones of the city-walls fold 100. Chamber of Commerce on the Sunday's poft ib. Court of feffion cannot augment the ftipends of the minifters of Tingwall and Cairney 101. LISTS. Marriages, Births, &c. 101-104 Obfervations on VOLCANOES, and the formation of BASALTIC Rocks; with a Collection of curious recent Phenomena. SIR, I one Edinburgh, Feb. 15. Tis often no lefs ufeful than entertaining, to collect facts which might otherwise pass unnoticed, and to prefent them to obfervation in connected view. Such a plan may frequently lead to research and inveftiga. tion, which scattered facts faintly remembered would not have suggested. Some years ago we had in your paper a curious collection of facts refpecting the progrefs of fociety, trade, and manners in Edin. burgh from 1763 to 1783; and might not a collection of facts be alfo made, from time to time, refpecting the phyfical world as well as the moral and political? It is obvious that this globe which we VOL. XLIX. inhabit has undergone great and astonishing revolutions. It is certain that the land we now occupy has once been covered by the sea, for the highest mountains are replete with marine productions. That many of the rocks and mountains which we fee, must have been occasioned by subterraneous fire, no person can doubt. For instance, the bafaltic columns of the Giants causeway, the island of Staffa, the rocks at the harbour of Dunbar, the hills of Arthur's Seat and Craiglockhart, and many others, too tedious to mention. Thefe are only named as being more immediately under obfervation, H Nothing Nothing can account for the regular form which these rocks have taken, but their being produced by fire, and this is fupported by experiment. It has lately been found, that when fimilar fubftances are brought into fufion, and allowed to cool gradually, they affume the fame regular shape as thefe columns of rock. Some time ago, a furnace of flint-glafs having been by accident allowed to cool, the matter was found to have taken the form of bafaltic columns. The refiduum in the furnaces for cast iron is alfo found to be formed in the fame manner. The great proceffes of nature, and the tremendous changes that have taken place in this globe, we have but very little knowledge of, owing to the remote antiquity of the events, or the short period and imperfection of our records. We now know of volcanoes as far to the North and South Poles as land has been discovered; and through the intervening latitudes from pole to pole. It would hence appear, that there is a great body of active fire within the bowels of this earth; and we know the effects of it often appear at immenfe distances, and that it acts in a manner which cannot, or has not yet been accounted for. Volca noes, we also know, have disappeared in one place, and have burst out in another; and that every part of the globe is fubject to fuch convulfions of nature. The northern part of this island of Britain has not within the record of hiftory been fubject to any remarkable phyfical change or revolution, although it is evident that fuch, changes and revolutions have happened in it. The fol lowing recent facts, however, may not perhaps be thought unworthy of remark, and a few facts are of more value than a thoufand hypothefes. In 1782, at the time of the dreadful earthquakes in Calabria, the Mercury in the barometer in Scotland funk within a tenth of an inch of the bottom of the fcale; the waters in many of the lochs or lakes in the Highlands, were much agitated. In 1783-There was an immenfe vol. canic eruption in the northern ifland of Iceland, which began on the 10th of June, and continued till the middle of Auguft. A new inland was thrown up in the neighbouring fea, and again dif appeared. Several months previous to this eruption, a heavy dark bluith fulphureous fog had been observed to reft over the ifland when not diffipated by the winds; this fog, at times, was fpread all over Europe. The year before this eruption, and a few months before the earthquakes in Calabria, the influenza (a disorder hitherto unaccounted for) fpread through Europe. This volcanic eruption in Iceland, is perhaps the most remarkable yet recorded in history. One stream of burning lava extended 40 miles in length, and 16 in breadth, and was in fome places between 4 and 500 feet deep! Upon the 18th of August 1783-A remarkable meteor or ball of fire was feen to pafs from north to fouth, about half paft eight in the evening. This meteor was feen all over Britain, and in many places upon the continent of Europe. This phenomenon happened much about the time of the termination of the volcanic eruption in Iceland; and it is remarkable, that this meteor was first feen to the north-west of the Shetland and Orkney islands, in the quarter of Iceland. Upon the 12th of September 1784-A very extraordinary phænomenon was obferved at Loch Tay. The air was perfectly calm, not a breath of wind stirring. About nine o'clock in the morning, the water at the east end of the Loch ebbed about 300 feet, and left the channel dry. It gradually accumulated and rolled on about 300 feet farther to the weftward, when it met a fimilar wave rolling in a contrary direction. When thefe waves met, they rofe to a perpendicular height of five or fix feet, producing a white foam upon the top. The water then took a lateral direction fouthward, rushing to the fhore, and rifing upon it four feet beyond the higheft water-mark. It then returned, and continued to ebb and flow every feven minutes for two hours, the waves gradually diminishing every time they reached the thore, until the whole was quiefcent. During the whole of that week, at a later hour in the morning, there was the fame appearance, but not with fuch violence. Upon the 11th of March 1785-The Tiviot, a large river in the fouth of Scotland, fuddenly disappeared, and left the channel dry for two hours, and then flowed with its ufual fulness. Upon the 16th of June 1786-A fmart fhock of an earthquake was felt at Whitehaven, in Cumberland, which extended to the Ifle of Man and Dublin, and was alfo alfo felt in the fouth-weft parts of Scotland. Upon the 11th of August 1786-A very alarming fhock of an earthquake was felt about two o'clock in the morning, in the north of England, viz. Northumberland, Cumberland, and in Scotland, across the island, as far north as Argylefhire, and in all these places at the fame inftant of time. This fhock extended above. 150 miles from fouth to north, and 100 miles from east to west. What an immenfe power muft it have been to have produced fuch an effect ! Upon the 6th of January 1787-A fmart fhock of an earthquake was felt in the parishes of Campfie and Strathblane, tea miles north of Glasgow, about ten o'clock in the morning. A rivulet which turns the mills, became dry in several places. A rufhing noife was heard to precede the fhock from the fouth-eaft. The night preceding this earthquake, a fpot of ground near Alloa, on which a mill is built, funk a foot and a half. Upon the 26th of January, the great river Clyde, above Lanark, became almoft dry for two hours, fo as to ftop the mills; and again flowed as ufual. Upon the 25th of January 1787-The River Tiviot again became fuddenly dry, and continued fo for four hours, and then flowed with its ufual fulness. In 1787-The month of January, and thus far in February, have been uncommonly mild. The thermometer at Edinburgh being in general about 20 degrees higher than ufual at the season. Upon the 12th of February 1787-The mercury in the barometer at Edinburgh was nearly as low as at the time of the earthquakes in Calabria. I do not mean at prefent, to draw any hypothefis or theory from what I have stated above, but merely to bring recent facts into one general view, and to induce others to make obfervations of the fame kind. The knowledge of facts is the only foundation of true philofophy, I am, &c. THEOPHRASTUS. I Edin. Courant. LET. I. To W. C. Ela; Coxwould, July 1. 1764. AM fafe arrived at my bower - and I truft that you have no longer any doubt about coming to embower it with me. Having for ux months together been running at the ring of pleasure, you will find that repofe here which, all young as you are, you ought to want. We will be witty, or claffical, or fentimental, as it fhall please you beft. My milkmaids fhall weave you garlands; and every day, after coffee, I will take you to pay a vifit to my nuns. Do not, however, indulge your fancy beyond meafure, but rather let me indulge mine; or, at leaft, let me give you the history of it, and how the fair fifterhood dwell in one of its visionary corners.-Now, what is all this about? you'll fay.-Have a few moments patience, and I will tell you. You must know, then, that on paffing out of my back-door, I very foon gain a path, which, after conducting me through feveral verdant meadows and fhady thickets, brings me in about twenty minutes to the ruins of a monaftery, where in times long paft, a certain number of cloiftered females devoted their lives-I fcarce know what I was going to writeto religious folitude.-This faunter of mine, when I take it, I call PAYING A VISIT TO MY NUNS. It is an awful fpot-a rivulet flows by it, and a lofty bank, covered with wood, that gives a gloom to the whole, and forbids the thoughts, if they were ever fo difpofed, from wandering away from the place. Solitary Sanctity never found a nook more appropriated to her nature !— It is a place for an antiquary to fojourn in for a month-and examine with all the fpirit of rufty research. But I am no antiquary, as you well know-and therefore I come here upon a different and a better errand-that is to examine myfelf. So I lean, lackadayfically, over a gate, and look at the paffing ftream-and forgive the spleen, the gout, and the envy of a malicious world. And, after having taken a stroll beneath mouldering arches, I fummon the fifterhood together, and take the fairest among them, and fit down with her on aftone,beneath a bunch of alders-And do what? you'll fayWhy I examine her gentle heart, and fee how it is attuned; I then guess at her withes, and play with the crofs that hanga at her bofom-in fhort-I make love to her. Fie, for fhame! Triftram-that is not as it ought to be.- Now I declare, on the contrary, that it is exactly what it ought to be; for though philofophers may fay, among the many other foolish things philofophers have faid, that a man who is in H 2 Love love is not in his right fenfes ;-I do affert, in oppofition to all their faws and fee-faws, that he is never in his right fenfes, or I would rather fay, his right fentiments, but when he is purfuing fome Dulcinea or other. If that should be the cafe with you at this moment, I will forgive your ftaying from me; but if this letter thuld find you at the inftant when your last flame is blown out, and before a new one is lighted up, and you fhould not take poft and come to me and my nuns, I will abuse you in their name and my own, to the end of the chapter though I believe, after all, at the end of the chapter I should feel myfelf affectionately yours, L. STERNE. LET. II. To W. C Efq; Coxwould, July 17. 1764. AND fo you have been at the feats of the learned If I could have gueffed at fuch an intention. I would have contrived that fomething in an epiftolary fhape fhould have met you there, with half a dozen lines recommending you to the care of the Master of Fefu.He was my tutor when I was at college, and a very good kind of man. He used to let me have my way, when I was under his di rection, and that fhewed his sense; for I was born to travel out of the common road, and to get aside from the highway path, and he had fenfe enough to fee it, and not to trouble me with trammels. I was neither made to be a thill-horse nor a fore-horfe; in fhort, I was not made to go in a team, but to amble along as I liked; and fo that I do not kick, or splash, or run over any one, who, in the name of common-fenfe, has a right to inter rupt me? Let the good folks laugh if they will, and much good may it do them. Indeed I am perfuaded, and I think I could prove, nay, and I would do it, if I were writing a book inftead of a letter, the truth of what I once told a very great statesman, orator, politician, and as much more as you please-“ that every time a man fmiles,much more fo when he laughs-it adds fomething to the fragment of life." But the ftaying five days at Cambridge does not come within the immediate reach of my crazy comprebenfion, and you might have employed your time much, much better in urging your mettle fome tits towards Coxwould. I may fuppofe that you have been pick ing a hole in the skirts of Gibb's cum brous architecture, or meafuring the fa cade of Trinity College Library, or peeping about the Gothic perfections of King's College Chapel, or, which was doing a better thing, fipping tea and talking fentimentally with the Mifs Cookes, or difturbing Mr Gray with one of your enthufiaftic vifits-I fay disturbing him; for with all your own agreeablenefs, and all your admiration of him, he would ra ther have your room than your company. But mark me, I do not fay this to his glory, but to his fhame. For I would be content with any room, fo I had your company. But tell me, I beseech you, what you did with Scroop all this time. The looking at the heavy walls of muzzing Colleges, and gazing at the mouldy pictures of their founders, is not altogether in his way; nor did he wander where I have whilom wandered, on Cam's allverdant banks with willows crowned, and call the mufe. Alas, he'd rather call a waiter-And how fuch a milkfop as you could travel-I mean be suffered to travel two leagues in the fame chaife with him, I know not-but from that admirable and kind pliability of fpirit which you poffefs whenever you pleafe, but which you do not always pleafe to poffefs. I do not mean that a man fhould wear a court drefs when he is going to a puppet-show; but, on the other hand, to keep the best fuit of embroidery for thofe only whom he loves, though there is fomething noble in it, will never do. The world, my dear friend, will not let it do. For while there are fuch qualities in the human mind as ingratitude and duplicity, unlimited confidence, and this patriotifm of friendship, which I have heard you rave and rant about, is a very dangerous bufinefs. I could preach a fermon on the fubject -to fay the truth, I am got as grave as if I were in my pulpit. Thus are the projects of this life deftroyed. When I took up my pen, my humour was gay, frisky, and fanciful-and now am I fliding into all the fee-faw gravity of folemn councils. I want nothing but an afs to look over my pales and fet up a braying to keep me in countenance. Leave, leave your Lincolnshire feats, and come to my dale; Scroop, I know, is heartily tired of you, Befides, I want a nurfe, for I am not quite well, and have taken to milk-coffee. Remember me, however, to him kindly, and to yourfelf cordially, for I am yours most truly, L. STERNE. LET. LET. III. ToW. C. Esq; Coxwould, Aug. 5. 1764. -- And fo you fit in Scroop's temple, and drink tea, and converse claffically. Now I should like to know what is the nature of this diforder which you call clafficality; if it consists in a rage to converfe on ancient fubjects in a modern manner, or on modern fubjects in an an cient one; or are you both out of your fenies, and do you fancy yourselves with Virgil and Horace at Sinueffa, or with Tully and Atticus at Tufculum? Oh how it would delight me to peep at you from behind a lawrel bufh, and fee you furrounded with columns, and covered by a dome, quaffing the extract of a Chimefe weed, and talking of men who boafted the infpiration of the Falerian grape ! What a couple of vapid, inert beings you must be! I fhould really give you up for loft, if it were not for the confidence I have in the re-invigorating powers of my fociety, to which you must now have im mediate recourse, if you wish for a reftoration. Make hafte then, my good friend, and feek the aid of your physician ere it be too late. You know not the intereft I take in your welfare. Have I not ordered all the. linen to be taken out of the prefs, and re. washed before it was dirty, that you may have a clean table-cloth every day, with a napkin into the bargain? And have I not ordered a kind of windmill, that makes my head ach again with its clatter, to be placed in my fine cherry-tree, that the fruit may be preserved from the birds, to furnish you a defert? And do you not know that you will have curds and cream for your fupper? Think on these things, and let Scroop go to Lincoln feflions by himfelf, and talk claffically with country juftices. In the mean time, we will philofophize and fentimentalize:—the laft word is a bright invention of the moment in which it was written, for yours or Dr Johnson's service:--and you shall fit in my ftudy, and take a peep into the world as into a fhew box, and amuse yourself as I prefent the pictures of it to your imagination. Thus will I teach you to laugh at its follies, to pity its errors, and de(pife its injuftice. And I will introduce you, among the reft, to fome tenderbearted damfel, on whose cheeks fome bitter affliction has placed a tear--and, having heard her ftory, you fhall take a white handkerchief from your pocket, to wipe the moisture from her eyes and from your own:-and then you fhall go to bed, not to the damfel, but with an heart confcious of those fentiments, and poffeffed of thofe feelings, which will give fottnefs to your pillow, sweetnefs to your flumbers, and gladness to your waking moments. You thall fit in my porch, and laugh at Attic veftibules. I love the Claffics as well as any man ought to love them,but, among all their fine fayings, their fine writings, and their fine verfes, their moft enthusiastic admirer would not be able to find me half a dozen stories that have any fentiment in them; and fo much for that. If you don't come foon, I fhall fet about another volume of Triftram without you. So God blefs you, for I am yours moft truly, L. STERNE. LET. IV. To Coxwould, Aug. 8. 1764. I am grieved for your downfall, tho' it was only out of a park-chair.-May it be the last you will receive in this world; though, while I write this with, my heart heaves a deep figh, and I believe it will not be read by you, my friend, without a fimilar accompaniment. Alas! alas! my dear boy, you are born with talents to foar aloft; but you have an heart, which, my apprehenfions tell me, will keep you low.-I do not mean, you know I do not, any thing base or grovelling;-but, inftead of winging your way above the ftorm, I am afraid that you will calmly submit to its rigours, and house yourself afterwards in fome humble fhed, and there live contented, and chaunt away the time, and be luft to the world. How the wind blows I know not; and I have not inclination to walk to my window, where, perhaps, I might catch the courfe of a cloud and be fatisfied;-but here I am got up to my knees-I thould rather fay up to my heart-in a fubject, which is ever accompanied with fome afflicting vaticination or other. I am not afraid of your doing any wrong but to yourself, A fecret knowledge of fome circumftances which you have never communicated to me, have alarmed my af fection for you-not from any immediate harm they can produce, but from the conviction they have forced upon me concerning your difpofition, and the nicer parts of your character. If you do not |