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royal 8vo, 1795; Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Laws of England, intended to be delivered in pursuance of an order of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, in their hall, 1796, 8vo; A Treatise on the Laws of England for the Settlement and Relief of the Poor, 2 vols. 8vo, 1805, 2d edit., with considerable Additions, 1808.

London at Midnight.

The following passages are from a poem under this title by Robert Montgomery, author of the Omnipresence of the Deity:'

The fret and fever of the day are o'er,

And London slumbers, but with murmurs faint,
Like Ocean, when she folds her waves to sleep:
"Tis the pure hour for poetry and thought;

When passions sink, and man surveys the heavens,
And feels himself immortal.

O'er all a sad sublimity is spread

The dimming smile of night, amid the air,
Darkly and drear, the spiry steeples rise
Like shadows of the past; the houses lie
In dismal clusters, moveless as in sleep:
And, towering far above the rest, yon dome1
Uprears, as if self-balanced in the gloom-
A spectre cowering o'er the dusky piles.

*

How noiseless are the streets! a few hours gone,

And all was fierce commotion; car and hoof,

And bick'ring wheel, and crackling stone, and throats
That rang with revelry and wo-were here

Immingled in the stir of life; but now

A deadness mantles round the midnight scene:
Time, with his awful feet, has paced the world,

And frowned her myriads into sleep!-'Tis hushed!
Save when a distant drowsy watch-call breaks
Intrusive on the calm; or rapid cars,

'That roll them into silence. Beauteous look
The train of houses, yellowed by the moon,
Whose tile-roofs, slanting down amid the light,
Gleam like an azure track of waveless sea!

1 St. Paul's.

The Past!-Oh! who on London stones can tread,
Nor shadow forth the spirits that have been?
An atmosphere of genius genders here
Remembrance of the past! the storied nurse,
The ancient mother of the mighty, Thou,
Unrivalled London! sages, poets, kings,
And all the giant race of glorious fame,

Whose world-illuming minds, like quenchless stars,
Burn through the wreck of ages,-triumphed here,
Or ravished hence a beam of Fame! And now
Imagination cites these mighty dead

In dismal majesty from out the tomb!

And who shall paint the midnight scenes of life
In this vast city?—mart of human kind!

Some weary wrecks of woe are lapped in sleep,
And blessed in dreams, whose day-life was a curse!
Some, heart-racked, roll upon a sleepless couch,
And from the heated brain create a hell

Of agonising thoughts and ghostly fears;
While Pleasure's moths, around the golden glare
Of princely halls, dance off the dull-winged hours:
And, oh! perchance in some infectious cell,
Far from his home, unaided and alone,

The famished wanderer dies:-no voice to sound
Sweet comfort to his heart--no hand to smooth
His bed of death-no beaming eye to bless
The spirit hov'ring o'er another world!...

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And shall this city-queen-this peerless mass Of pillared domes, and gray-worn towers sublime, Be blotted from the world, and forests wave

Where once the second Rome was seen? Oh! say,

Will rank grass grow on England's royal streets,

And wild beasts howl where Commerce stalked supreme? Alas! let Mem'ry dart her eagle-glance

Down vanished time, till summoned ages rise

With ruined empires on their wings! Thought weeps With patriot truth, to own a funeral day,

Heart of the universe! shall visit thee,

When round thy wreck some lonely man shall roam,
And, sighing, say-Twas here vast London stood '

But, hark! again the heavy bell has pealed
Its doleful thunder through the skies: the stars
Grow pale, the moon seems weary of her course
And Morn begins to blossom in the east:

Then let me home, and Heaven protect my thoughts!

Astronomical Occurrences

In FEBRUARY 1829.

Surely there is a language in the sky-
A voice that speaketh of a world to come;
It swells from out thy depths, Immensity!
And tells us this is not our final home.

As the tossed bark, amidst the ocean's foam,

Hails, through the gloom, the beacon o'er the wave;
So, from life's troubled sea, o'er which we roam,
The stars, like beacon lights, beyond the grave,
Shine through the deep, o'er which our barks we hope to save.
SOLAR PHENOMENA.

THE Sun enters Pisces at 24 m. past 8 in the evening of the 18th of this month; and he rises and sets, during the same period, as in the following

TABLE

Of the Sun's Rising and Setting for every fifth Day.

February 1st, Sun rises 27 m. after 7, sets 33 m. after 4

......

6th

18

......

7

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42
51

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One of the easiest ways of regulating a clock, for those who have not the means of observing the transit of the Sun, is to observe the time by the clock when it is exactly 12 by a good sun dial, and then to correct that hour for the equation of time, which will give the precise moment which ought to be indicated by the clock, and consequently show how much it is too fast or too slow.

TABLE

Of the Equation of Time for every fifth Day.

m. s.

Sunday, February 1st, to the time by the dial add 13 58

Friday...

......

Wednesday ......11th.

6th.

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14 28

14 37

14 26

13 57

13 12

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LUNAR PHENOMENA.

Phases of the Moon.

........

7 at night

New Moon.... 4th day, at 31 m. past 2 in the morning
First Quarter..10th........ .23...
Full Moon ....18th........ 15........ 7
Last Quarter...26th..

........20.
........

8

Moon's Passage over the Meridian.

The Moon will pass the first meridian at the following times during this month, which will afford good opportunities for observing her transit, if the weather prove favourable; viz.

February 8th, at 58 m. after 3 in the afternoon

9th 50

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The breadth and brightness of the illuminated disk of this planet is constantly varying, like that of the Moon; and the following is the proportion between the light and dark parts at this time:

February 1st{Dluminated part = 10-72161
Dark part....
.....➡ 1·27839

Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites.

The following are the eclipses of the first and second of these small bodies that are visible this month. There will be more than twenty others, but they cannot be seen in this country.

Immersions.

First Satellite...14th day, at 27 m. 15 s. past 4 in the morning

Second Satellite, 11th

......

46..41............

5....

Conjunction of the Moon with the Planets and Stars.

February 3d, with 8 in Capricorn, at 5 in the morning

Mars.

9

Taurus..... 7 in the evening

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Taurus..... at midnight

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4 in the morning

5

4 in the afternoon.

Other Phenomena.

Mercury will attain his greatest elongation on the 12th. Venus will be in conjunction with Georgium Sidus at 6 in the morning of the 16th. Mercury will be stationary on the 19th; and in his inferior conjunction at a quarter past 3 in the afternoon of the 28th.

Some of the journals, particularly the foreign ones, having excited considerable attention to the re-appearance of the comet which is expected to pay its periodic visit to our system in the course of four or five years, we are induced to insert the following interesting observations, from the Literary Gazette. THE COMET. Yet, yet,

With every coming night the terrible star
Expanded: men had now no thought but that;
All occupations were laid by; the earth
Was left untilled; the voyagers on the deeps
Forsook their ships, and got upon the land,
To wait the dread event.

COMET OF 1832, 3, or 4.-To shew our friends who may have been infected with the terrors excited in the Parisians by the inflammable forebodings' of those astronomers who, according to our correspondent at the French capital, predict the destruction of our world by a comet, in 1832,-to show our friends the grounds of this, not absolutely visionary alarm, we have been induced to give a slight sketch of the history of that baleful star, which is now winging its way earthward, till, in the year 1832, 3,

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