To Mr. Byrne's fhare of the work much commendation is due; a congenial fpirit seems to have animated both artists. The neatness of the engraving will recommend the Antiquities of Great-Britain' to thofe who are not capable of relifhing their other merits; and the connoiffeur will feldom find that force and freedom have been facrificed to high finishing.

The other artifts, who have been employed in a few of these views, have exerted themfelves with commendable emulation, and executed their tafks much to their credit.

The work confifts of fifty views, with a beautiful frontispiece of the weft-front of Malmbury Abbey, and Stonehenge as a tail-piece. A fhort historical account in French and English accompanies each plate.

THE German chemift, Mr. Weftrumb, has made fome beautiful difcoveries with regard to fpontaneous inflammation. If the filings of antimony, arfenic, bifmuth, nickel, cobalt, tin, lead, copper, or lead, be mixed with volatile alkali, and thrown into oxygenated muriatic acid, they will inftantly emit a ftream of fire. Mr. Weftrumb confiders this curious fact as favourable to the doctrine of phlogifton. But it happens unfortunately that few of the late difcoveries can be reckoned decifive. The experimentum crucis has not yet been made, and the facts admit of a plaufible explanation from either hypothefis. The present is an instance of double affinity. The attraction of the volatile alkali for the muriatic acid enables the metals, in the common temperature of the atmosphere, to absorb the excess of oxygen, and during the combination the caloric, or matter of heat which was latent in the gas, is evolved, and produces, by its rapid motion, the luminous appearance.

M. Geanty, member of the Royal Society of Sciences and Arts established at Cape François, in the ifland of St. Domingo, tranfmitted vitriolic gas through milk, and by this means converted it into cheese. He reverfed the experiment, and reftored the cheese to milk, by the application of alkaline gas. In his first trials the milk thus procured had an intolerable smell, but, by conducting the operation gradually, he was able to restore it to its original fweetness and inodorous quality. Hence he derives an explanation of the effects of alkaline cataplafms in removing pains and inflammations from the breafts of nurses.

M. Prouft has difcovered that camphor exists in confiderable proportions in the effential oils of feveral plants growing in Murcia,

Murcia, in Spain. He detected this concrete fubftance by gently evaporating the oil of lavender, of fage, of marjoram, and of rosemary; but if these be carefully diftilled in a fand-bath, the different products may be obtained without any fenfible lofs. He conceives that the cultivation of lavender might become an object of national importance, and that the Spanish peasants could be inftructed to separate the camphor with sufficient accuracy and attention. To communicate whiteness and hardness, M. Prouft advises the careful and gradual fublimation of the camphor; and this is the process he is affured which the Dutch employ.

Le Pere Cotte has published Memoires fur la Meteorologie,* in two volumes quarto, intended as a continuation of an useful work which he gave to the world in 1774.

Captain de M. Donadæi has obferved that ambergrease is frequently thrown, by the tide and violent ftorms, upon the coafts of Guyenne. The fea-birds difcover a great fondnefs for that fubftance. The foxes alfo devour it greedily, and, being unable to digeft it, discharge it unaltered. In this state ambergrease is sometimes found in the woods, or at a distance from the water-mark.

M. de la Vieville, manufacturer at Marseilles, has discovered a dye, preferable to Pruffian blue, for ftaining paper. He offers to fell it at a livre the pound, and affirms that the faving would amount to one third.

M. Gengembre made the beautiful discovery that phosphorus, diffolved in hydrogenous gas, fpontaneously inflamed from the contact of air. Meffrs. Donadei and Pelletier diftilled calcareous phofpate, and, to the phosphoric acid thus obtained, they added the oxygenous and nitrous gas, and an inftantaneous explosion was produced. The experiment must be repeated, and the circumftances that accompany it accurately noted, before we can venture, with confidence, to give an explanation. It is probable, however, that, in this cafe, one portion of the nitrous gas imbibes oxygen from the oxygenous gas, and forms nitrous acid, and, its capacity being thus diminished, it evolves a quantity of heat. At the fame time, another portion of the nitrous gas abAtracts the oxygen from the phosphoric acid, leaving phosphorous, which is inflamed by the heat now generated, while the combuftion is fed by the oxygenous gas.

Le Pere Cotte has published, in Rozier's Journal, a table of the mean diurnal variation of the magnetic needle, obferved at Laon in 1789:

Hours.

The greatest variation during the year was 11° 24' on the 27th of March, when there was an aurora borealis; the leaft was 4o 20', on the 16th of July. It appears that the greateft diurnal variation is at two o'clock in the afternoon, and the least at eight o'clock in the morning. It is curious that thefe are alfo nearly the maximum and minimum points of heat.

Dr. Dutrône la Couture has published at Paris a treatise, inoctavo, upon the fugar cane, and the method of extracting the effential falt; which, from the account we have seen of it, seems to be an excellent work. The Chinese were acquainted, from the most remote ages, with the cultivation of the fugar-cane, and the process for obtaining the faccharine fubftance. Sugar feems to have been unknown to the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Jews. The Greek phyficians are the first who mention it, and under the name of Indian falt. It was imported along with the fpiceries and other luxuries from the other fide of the Ganges, to gratify the taste of the opulent Romans. The fugar-cane was introduced, in the thirteenth century, into Arabia, and fucceffively into Egypt, the kingdom of Morocco, Syria, Sicily, the island of Madeira, the island of St. Thomas, and in 1506 it was cultivated in St. Domingo. It is a native of the torrid zone, flowers in November or December, and continues in bloffom for eighteen or twenty months, when it perishes. Dr. Detrône examines particularly the ftructure of the fugarcane, and traces the progrefs and gradual elaboration of the juice. The effential falt is difturbed in its cryftallifation by the intermixture of mucilage, which it is the great object of the

fugar

fugar manufacturer to separate. For this purpose alkalis and lime have been employed. Bergman fuppofed the use of this application was to faturate the acid, which he conceived abounds in the fugar. But Dr. Detrône fhews that thefe fubftances onlypurify the liquor, and that they combine with the mucilage and fæculæ, and detach them from the juice. The impurities which ftill adhere to the liquor are deftroyed by the application of an heat, rifing fometimes above 250°. Dr. Detrône proceeds to defcribe the procefs of boiling, cryftallifing, &c. He next points out the improvements which he has made on the common practice, and which he has introduced with fuccess into the ifland of St. Domingo; but we shall probably have another opportunity of taking more particular notice of the subject.

MONTHLY

CATALOGUE

For APRIL 1790.

MISCELLANEOUS.

ART. 14. Julia; a Novel, interfperfed with fome poetical Pieces. By Helen Maria Williams. 12mo. 2 vols. 6s. Cadell. Lon don, 1799.

TH

HE author of these volumes has already recommended herself to a confiderable fhare of the public favour by feveral fpecimens of poetry. The work before us detracts nothing from the good opinion fo generally entertained of her genius. The images of nature with which it abounds are affecting.

The story is fimple, not long, no where interrupted by foreign matter, and worked up by a chain of events finely invented and connected by a charm which cannot but fascinate every reader of sensibility. Here, as is often the cafe in modern novels, we are fhocked by no grofs pictures of immorality, characters that have no originals, or groups of monsters to intimidate the weak, or fill the vulgar with wonder. The whole relates to an affair of love, which is managed throughout with fimplicity and innocence, though it may probably, in modern eftimation, be deemed not the more natural for that circumftance. Indeed no courtship was ever better conceived, or conducted with more addrefs. To fome the parties may appear too virtuous; but, from the delicate point of view in which they are prefented to our attention, they do not poffefs more than is neceflary to give us an intereft in their fate. We cannot help alfo remarking, that the particular which of all others ftrikes us as the leaft probable is, the ignorance of Charlotte, who is the only injured perfon, and who, though conftantly witnefs to the infidelity of the man The loves, even with the friend of her heart, fufpects nothing of the

matter

matter till made acquainted with the fact by the good-natured impertinence of a female friend.

The following fhort extract will give the reader no unfavourable fpecimen of Mifs Williams's defcriptive powers. The object is common, but not always feen through the medium of genius. (Page 78, Vol. I.)

On the evening of their arrival at the family feat Julia walked out with Charlotte, and felt with peculiar fenfibility the beauties of nature. She had till now only feen the rich cultivated landscapes of the fouth of England, but her ardent imagination had often wandered amidst the wild fcenery of the north, and formed a high idea of pleasure in contemplating its folemn afpect; and fhe found that the fublime and awful graces of nature exceed even the dream of fancy. The fetting fun painted the glowing horizon with the most refulgent colours. Immediately above its broad orb, which was dazzling in brightness, hung a black cloud that formed a'ftriking contraft to the luxuriant tints below; fome of the hills were thrown into deep fhadow, others reflected the fetting beams. When the fun funk below the horizon, every object gradually changed its hue. The form of the furrounding hills, and the fhape of the darkening rocks that hung over the lake, became every moment more doubtful; till at length twilight spread over the whole landscape that penfive gloom fo foothing to an enthufiaftic fancy. Every other found was lost in the fall of the torrent; a found which Julia had never heard before, and which feemed to ftrike upon her foul, and call forth emotions congenial to its folemn cadence.'

Mifs Williams unwarily discovers the fources of her reading and information by confining her quotations to plays and novels. We are not fond also of feeing even the beft verfes employed in eking out compofitions in profe. The lines of Mifs Williams are by no means defpicable, though they appear to us mifplaced. Such picadillos, however, if she will permit us for once to copy her manner, are but as the most trivial specks on a diamond of the first water.

ART. 15. The Young Widow; or, The Hiflory of Cornelia Sedley. 12mo. 4 vols. 12s. fewed. Robinsons. London, 1789.

Here are groups of lovers, a world of diftreffes, much wickedness, and fome religion. No medley can boaft greater variety in the materials of which thefe volumes are compofed. The fable difcovers invention, and the conduct of it proves the author not to be deficient in the powers of execution. The virtue which the beautiful Cornelia preferves, with fo much fortitude and tenderness, exhibits to the young and giddy of her own sex a most interesting and impreffive example of that divine triumph of which true piety only is capable; and the most volatile and romantic of ours may derive much valuable caution, in running the frantic career of pleasure, from the fufferings and fate of her lover. The whole of this very interefting novel is worked up with great addrefs, and every where detailed in language glowing and nervous.

ING. REV. VOL. XV. APRIL 1790.

U

ART.