LITERARY INTELLIGENCE, &c.

WE learn that steam-boats have worked with success on certain rivers in Scotland for a considerable time past, particularly on the Clyde and the Leven. One of these, called the Comet, built about two years ago at Port-Glasgow, is at present on a voyage to London.

DR. JOHN MOODIE, of Bath, a member of several literary societies, has finished for publication a work on which he has been several years engaged, on the modern geography of Asia. It is to contain a full and authentic description of the empires, kingdoms, states, and colonies; with the oceans, seas, and isles, of this great division of the globe; including the most recent discoveries and political alterations. Also a general introduction, illustrative of the physical geography, and present moral and political state of Asia. The whole to form two volumes, quarto, with an atlas. An original work of geography is a literary phenomenon, and Asia particularly merits that attention in Great Britain which Dr. M. has bestowed upon it.

QUEEN ELIZABETH's navy consisted only of 35 ships of one hundred tons and upwards. One of 1000 tons; three of 900; two of 800; three of 600; six of 500; and the others smaller. Our modern navy consists of 1000 ships, half of them larger than her largest; and query, will the present times rival in glory those of Elizabeth?

CAPTAIN ALLCUME, of Paris, has contrived a plan of modelling or casting cities in miniature, and has actually modelled, or made a cast of, Paris, on the scale of an inch to two hundred yards.

Some French engineers propose to blow up masses of loose earth, when hardened, during frosts, by means of gunpowder, as an expeditious mode of making canals, &c.

MR. TURNBULL, the last circumnavigator that has published the history of his voyage, has introduced, in a new and enlarged edition of his work in quarto, a prodigious number of facts relative to the interesting islands of the Pacific. Among other novelties, he mentions a circumstance, connected with geological speculations, which deserves to be transferred to our pages. In the voyage of Perouse, that navigator describes a reef of shoal banks, a few degrees north of Owhyhee, where he suggested that a pearl fishery might be established to advantage, and he states that the French frigates sailed over them. Some commercial persons, in consequence, lately engaged divers, and visited the spot, but were astonished to find, not only that no vessel can now sail over these banks, but that through a large extent they afford but two or three feet water, and in many places exhibit verdant spots above the water. Mr. Turnbull ascribes the change solely to the unremitting labours of polype and coral insects, and he confirms the hypothesis that many other of the groupes of islands that stud this vast ocean derive their origin from similar causes.

ZERAH COLBURN, the American boy, continues to attract much attention among the curious in London. He multiplies four figures into four with momentary precision, and extracts the cube root of 12 figures with equal facility.

A late Portuguese work on port wine states, as matter of complaint, that the growers are in the habit of giving only a few hours boiling to the wines, and of dashing them, in the course of the fermentation, with bad brandy to give them strength, and with the elderberry, and the rind of the ripe grape, to give them colour. Most of the factories at Oporto buy, it is said, large quantities of brandy and elderberries to mix with the wines in their own cellars. A pipe of port wine costs at Oporto 15l. and in London 1301.! The duties in England produce 2,000,000l. per annum.

A German moralist, in this age of chymistry, has published an analysis of the character of the German women, and assigned the several proportion of thirty-two parts as under:

Vanity

8 parts.

M. CUVIER has just published, in four volumes in quarto, with numerous plates, a collection of all his memoirs on the fossil bones of quadrupeds. He has described seventy-eight species, forty-nine of which were certainly unknown to naturalists, and sixteen or eighteen are still doubtful. The other bones found in these recent beds, appear to belong to animals known. In a preliminary dissertation, the author explains the method which he followed, and the results which he obtained. It appears to him, from facts which he has established, that the earth has undergone several great and sudden revolutions, the last of which, not more remote than five or six thousand years, destroyed the country, at that time inhabited by the species of animals existing, and offered for a habitation to the feeble remains of these species, continents which had been already inhabited by other beings, which a preceding revolution had buried, and which appeared in their actual state at the time of this last revolution.

Died at Paris, the Abbe Delille, who was supposed to occupy the poetical chair of his time. He was very much attached to the English poets, and was enabled, by his translation of some of them, and his intimate acquaintance with all, to throw an unusual proportion of strength and richness into his style.

VOL. II. 2D ED.

56

442

MEMOIRS OF THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN.

By Thomas Clarkson, M. A. 8 vo. 2 vol. pp. 1020.

[From the Edinburgh Review.]

IT is impossible to look into any of Mr. Clarkson's books, without feeling that he is an excellent man-and a very bad writer. Many of the defects of his composition, indeed, seem to be directly referrable to the amiableness of his disposition. An earnestness for truth and virtue, that does not allow him to waste any thought upon the ornaments by which they may be recommended and a simplicity of character which is not aware that what is substantially respectable may be made dull or ridiculous by the manner in which it is presented-are virtues which we suspect not to have been very favourable to his reputation as an author. Feeling in himself not only an entire toleration of honest tediousness, but a decided preference for it upon all occasions over mere elegance or ingenuity, he seems to have transferred a little too hastily to books those principles of judgment which are admirable when applied to men; and to have forgotten, that though dulness may be a very venial fault in a good man, it is such a fault in a book as to render its goodness of no avail whatsoever. Unfortunately for Mr. Clarkson, moral qualities alone will not make a good writer; nor are they even of the first importance on such an occasion: and accordingly, with all his philanthropy, piety, and inflexible honesty, he has not escaped the sin of tediousness, and that to a degree that must render him almost illegible to any but quakers, reviewers, who make public profession of patience insurmountable. He has no taste, and no spark of vivacity-not the vestige of an ear for harmony-and a prolixity of which modern times have scarcely preserved any other example. He seems to have a sufficiently sound and clear judgment, but no great acuteness of understanding; and, though visibly tasking himself to judge charitably and speak candidly of all men, is evidently beset with such an antipathy to all who persecute quakers, or maltreat negroes, as to make him very unwilling to report any thing in their favour. On the other hand, he has great industry-scrupulous veracity-and that serious and sober enthusiasm for his subject, which is sure in the long run to disarm ridicule, and win upon inattention-and is frequently able to render vulgarity impressive, and simplicity sublime. Moreover, and above all, he is perfectly free from affectation; so that, though we may be wea

ried, we are never disturbed or offended-and read on, in tranquillity, till we find it impossible to read any more.

It will be guessed, however, that it is not on account of its literary merits that we are induced to take notice of the work before us. WILLIAM PENN, to whose honour it is wholly devoted, was, beyond all doubt, a personage of no ordinary standard-and ought, before this time, to have met with a biographer capable of doing him justice. He is most known, and most deserving of being known, as the settler of Pennsylvania; but his private character also is interesting, and full of those peculiarities which distinguished the temper and manners of a great part of the English nation at the period in which he lived. His theological and polemical exploits are no less characteristic of the man and of the times; though all that is really edifying in this part of his history might have been given in about one twentieth part of the space which is allotted to it in the volumes of Mr. Clarkson.

William Penn was born in 1644, the only son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, the representative of an ancient and honourable family in Buckingham and Gloucestershire. He was regularly educated; and entered a gentleman commoner at Christ's church, Oxford, where he distinguished himself very early for his proficiency both in classical learning and athletic exercises. When he was only about sixteen, however, he was roused to a sense of the corruptions of the established faith by the preaching of one Thomas Loe, a quaker-and immediately discontinued his attendance at chapel; and, with some other youths of his own way of thinking, began to hold prayer meetings in their private apartments. This, of course, gave great scandal to his academical superiors; and a large fine, with suitable admonitions, were imposed on the young nonconformist. Just at this critical period, an order was unluckily received from court to resume the use of the surplice, which it seems had been discontinued almost ever since the period of the reformation; and the sight of this unfortunate vestment" operated," as Mr. Clarkson expresses it, so disagreeably on William Penn, that he could not bear it; and, joining himself with some other young gentlemen, he fell upon those students who appeared in surplices, and tore them every where over their heads." This, we conceive, was not quite correct, even as a quaker proceeding; and was but an unpromising beginning for the future champion of religious liberty. Its natural consequence, however, was, that he and his associates were, without further ceremony, expelled from the university; and when he went home to his father, and attempted to justify by argument the measures he had adopted, it was no less na

tural that the good admiral should give him a box on the ear, and turn him out at the door.

This course of discipline, however, not proving immediately effectual, he was sent upon his travels, along with some other young gentlemen, and resided for two years in France, and the Low Countries; but without any change either in those serious views of religion, or those austere notions of morality, by which his youth had been so prematurely distinguished. On his return, his father again endeavoured to subdue him to a more worldly frame of mind; first, by setting him to study law at Lincoln's Inn; and afterwards, by sending him to the Duke of Ormond's Court at Dublin, and giving him the charge of his large possessions in that kingdom. These expedients might have been attended with success, had he not accidentally fallen in at Cork with his old friend Thomas Loe, the quaker-who set before him such a view of the dangers of his situation, that he seems from that day forward to have renounced all secular occupations, and betaken himself to devotion, as the main business of his future life.

The reign of Charles II., however, was not auspicious to dissenters; and in those evil days of persecution, he was speedily put in prison for attending several of the quaker meetings; but was soon liberated, and again came back to his father's house, where a long disputation took place upon the subject of his new creed. It broke up with this moderate and very loyal proposition on the part of the vice-admiral, that the young quaker should consent to sit with his hat off, in presence of the king, the Duke of York, and the admiral himself! in return for which slight compliance, it was stipulated that he should be no longer molested for any of his opinions or practices. The heroic convert, however, would listen to no terms of composition; and, after taking some days to consider of it, reported, that his conscience could not comport with any species of hat worshipand was again turned out of doors for his pains.

He now took openly to preaching in the quaker meetings, and shortly after began that course of theological and controversial publications, in which he persisted to his dying day; and which has had the effect of overwhelming his memory with two vast folio volumes of puritanical pamphlets. His most considerable work seems to have been that entitled "No Cross, no Crown;" in which he not only explains and vindicates, at great length, the grounds of the peculiar doctrines and observances of the society to which he belonged, but endeavours to show, by a very large and entertaining introduction of instances from profane history, that the same general principles had been adopted and acted upon by the wise and good in every generation, and