ever for the inherent difference of disposition which might blood. Before I could recover, the door of the apartment exist. The spirit of the boy was thus broken, and, in whither we were hurrying, opened, and two soldiers of my self-defence, he was taught duplicity. When at length he own company discharged their muskets at us, slightly wounding one of the gallant Scots. Intemperance had is sent to college, and freed from the immediate surveil-blinded the ruffians, and frustrated their murderous intenlance of his parent, he runs into courses and commits tions. We felled them to the ground, and penetrated into extravagancies which he would otherwise have avoided; the chamber. There I had a hair-breadth escape from faHand to escape from the indignation of his father and the ing, by the fury of another of the desperadoes. Parrying reproaches of his own conscience, he finally alienates his bayonet, which he aimed at my breast, I could not prehimself entirely from the paternal roof, and, entering the vent it taking a less dangerous course, and lacerating my army as a volunteer, proceeds to the peninsula. Some left cheek, nearly from the lip to the eye. The gash, though frightful, threatened no consequences more serious than an of the most interesting scenes in the narrative are laid ugly scar. Surgical knowledge enabled me to perceive this, It was a in Spain. It is here that Earnshaw is driven into the as well as to apply the remedies within reach. necessity of fighting a duel with the brother of her he light matter, compared to the accumulated wretchedness When at visible around me. loves most, and shoots him dead on the spot. length he returns, a heart-broken man, to his native land, he finds his father in the grave, and the girl of his heart wedded to another. He retires into a distant county, to ruminate over the bitter lessons which experience has taught him, and to learn to moralize his lot.

The narrative, as a whole, is interesting and wellsustained, and many passages indicate talents of a high order. We like Mr Kennedy in his reflective and philosophical moods. He is no surface thinker. We intended to have quoted his disquisition concerning courage and cowardice, but abstain from doing so in order to make way for the following fine observations on

THE HORRORS OF WAR.

"The room wherein we stood had been devoted to the

festivities of a retired family of moderate fortune. It contained the remnants of those decent elegancies that properly appertain to the strangers' apartment' in a dwelling of the middle class. Mutilated pictures, and fragments of expensive mirrors, strewed the floor, which was uncarpeted, and formed of different kinds of wood, curiously tesselated. An ebony cabinet, doubtless a venerable heir-loom, had suffered as if from the stroke of a sledge. Its contents, consisting of household documents and touching domestic memorials, were scattered about at random. An antique sideboard lay overturned; a torn mantilla drooped on a sofa ripped and stained with wine. The white drapery, on which fingers steeped in gore had left their traces, hung raggedly from the walls." Pinioning our prisoners, we barricadoed the doors against intrusion, and proceeded to offer all the assistance and consolation in our power to the inmates of the desecrated mansion.

"Happy in her insular situation, England knows not by experience the multitudinous calamities of the devoted territory on which kings and conquerors celebrate their "On investigation, the sergeants found the dead body of sanguinary revels. Perhaps she had been morally wiser a domestic, whose fusil and dagger showed that he had and better for receiving one fearful lesson from the destroyers. Peace might then have been to her a word of fought for the roof which covered him. His beard had holier import. Yet I cannot, from any hope of ulterior been burnt in derision with gunpowder. One of his ears was cut off, and thrust into his mouth. In a garret recess good, wish her the possession of knowledge at so heavy a for the storage of fruit, two female servants were hidden, price. Fancy shudders at the thought of foreign legions who could scarcely be persuaded that they had nothing to polluting our domestic sanctuaries, recklessly converting fear. Having flown thither at the approach of the ferocious whatever is most dear to virtuous tranquillity to the black intruders, they had suffered neither injury nor insult. They purposes of havoc and spoliation. We refuse to admit the came to the room where I lingered over an object, unconhorrid possibility of our churches being turned into loop-scious, alas! of my commiseration, and, in accents half holed defences, or ruinous shelters for the drowsy soldiery; choked by sobs, called upon Donna Clara! I pointed to our spacious highways, noble bridges, and magnificent the alcove where the heart-broken lady had flung herself streets, broken and blown up in the retreat or the siege; our on the bleeding corpse of her grey-haired father. She, too, fruit-trees and ornamental shrubs cut down for watchfires; might have had a sheltering-place, could her filial piety our hoarded treasures prodigally scattered among the ruf- have permitted her to remain there when her high-spirited fian followers of the camp; the privacy of our most hallow-sire feebly strove to repel the violators of his hearth. ed retirements laid bare to every ribald musketeer; the sacred hearth, where the embers have shed their cheerful light on honoured ancestral faces, flooded with kindred blood; the recesses to which wives, sisters, and daughters have flown in the tremendous hour of the assault, burst open by wretches veiling the passions of hell under the features of humanity: we arm the spirit against the intrusion of such hideous imaginings; but we contemplate without regret, not unfrequently with satisfaction, our agency in bringing the scourge of war upon other nations, and read of the extermination of thousands of our fellow-creatures with an interest as inconsiderate as that excited by the perusal of the fantastic combats in a poetic tale."

To this passage we shall subjoin an episodical story, which admirably illustrates the sentiments stated above. It is written with the graphic force of a soldier who had seen, and of a poet who had felt, the incidents it describes:

A SCENE AT THE STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

"Passing through a narrow street with two Scottish sergeants, I heard the shriek of a female. Looking up, we saw at an open lattice, by the light of a lamp she bore, a girl about sixteen, her hair and dress disordered, the expression of her olive countenance marked by anguish and extreme terror. A savage in scarlet uniform dragged her backward, accompanying the act with the vilest execrations in English. We entered the court-yard, where the hand of rapine had spared us the necessity of forcing a passage. My companions were humane, conscientious men, with the resoluteness that in military life almost invariably accompanies these qualities. Armed for whatever might ensue, they kept steadily by me, until we arrived at a sort of corridor, from the extremity of which issued the tones of the same feminine voice, imploring mercy, in the Spanish tongue. Springing forward, my foot slipped in a pool of

"Master of a few Spanish phrases, I used them in addressing some words of comfort to the ill-starred girl. They were to her as the songs of the summer bird, carolled in despair. Her sole return was a faintly recurring plaint, that seemed to say, 'Let my soul depart in peace!'

A flask

"I motioned to her attendants to separate her from the beloved source of her unutterable sorrow. They could not comply without the application of force, bordering upon violence. Bidding them desist, I signified a desire that they should procure some animating restorative. of wine was brought. The sergeants withdrew. One of the women held the lamp; the other gently elevated her mistress's head. Kneeling by the couch in the alcove, I poured a little of the liquor into a glass, applied it to her lips, then took it away, until I had concealed my uniform beneath the torn mantilla.

"Affliction, thou hast long been my yoke-fellow! Thou hast smitten to the core of my being with a frequent and a heavy hand; but I bless an all-wise, an all-merciful God, who tries that he may temper us, that I have not a second time been doomed to witness aught so crushing to the soul, so overwhelming in woe, as the situation of the young crea ture over whom I watched on the baleful midnight of our victory!

"She had battled with a might exceeding her sex's strength, against nameless indignities, and she bore the Her maiden attire was rent into marks of the conflict. shapelessness; her brow was bruised and swollen; her abundant hair, almost preternaturally black, streamed wildly over her bosom, revealing in its interstices fresh waving streaks of crimson, which confirmed the tale of ultra-barbarian outrage; her cheek had borrowed the same fatal hue from the neck of her slaughtered parent, to whom, in her insensibility, she clung with love strong as death." Daughter of Spain! well was it for thy sire that he was gone

from a polluted world; well was it for him to whom thou wouldst have flown in thy desolateness, that his place was filled by a stranger to his wounded dove,-one who, though devoted as a brother, could better bear up under the bitter ministrations of that hour!

"Through the means adopted, she gave token of revival. Her hand had retained a small gold cross, and she raised it to her lips. The clouded lids were slowly expanded from her large dark eyes. A low agonizing moan followed. I hastened to present the wine. In the act, the mantilla fell from the arm which conveyed the glass. Appallingly she shrieked, became convulsed,-passed from fit to fit,-expired.

"I called the sergeants. We are here!' they answered. "Spurn those monsters, bound as they are, into the court-yard; remain in the house until morning-I must hence.'

"It will be dangerous, sir, to venture into the streets to-night-consider your wound.' "It may be so I wish it may; help me to clear the passage-I do not feel a wound !'

"I plunged into the darkness. The black ensigns of the Almighty's wrath were unfurled over the earth, of which all lovely and holy things had taken an eternal farewell, and resigned it to the dominion of demons. There was to be no future resurrection of the morning. Thus spoke my tempestuous emotions. But morning came at last; and its grey eye saw me, like a shipwrecked mariner, pacing mournfully near the gate of St Jago."

There is more strong light and shade, and what a painter would call effective grouping, in the above pass age, than in any other part of the volume. The author avoids-perhaps too scrupulously any thing that might be considered over-strained and unnatural. He is anxious to stick closely by human life as it really exists; but we do not think his work would have lost in interest had he here and there introduced a still greater degree of contrast among his characters, and a little more brilliancy of colouring. Several very pretty pieces of poetry are interspersed; the stanzas with which the volume concludes appeared originally in this Journal.

an old woman incapable of bearing children, hence applied as a term of reproach ;-we have an objection to this in common with all the Gaelic Dictionaries which we have seen, viz. that it does not sufficiently distinguish between words truly Celtic, and others which have merely crept into provincial use from the Lowlands, or which have been compounded hastily, often inelegantly, and almost always unnecessarily, to render words which the Celts have hitherto been content to express by a periphrase. This may serve the purpose of Drs Macleod and Dewar very well. They seem to wish that the Gaelic may become a classical language, and they are anxious to supply its deficiencies; but this must prove an idle expectation. The Gaelic is rapidly passing away, and as a spoken language will soon be forgotten. We do not regret this; and even though we were Highlanders, and naturally attached to the language as well as to all the other interests of our native mountains, we should not regret it. The literature of England is that which must amuse, instruct, and enlighten the Celts. They have scarcely any literature of their own, and what little they have is calculated rather to debase their taste, and to impede the progress of moral and intellectual improvement, than to direct their emulation to proper objects, or to promote useful knowledge. We are not ungrateful for the boon of the Gaelic Scriptures-this was a necessary work, and will yet be necessary for some generations; we are not even unthankful for Gaelic Messengers and Gaelic Sermons,-we doubt not they have amused and instructed many; and we are certainly very far from regretting that much learning, and research, and labour, and expense, have been bestowed on Gaelic Dictionaries;—the philologist, the historian, the philosopher, will now and in after ages derive much useful information from these valuable repertories of the language of ancient Europe. What we deprecate, is the attempt to foist upon us words of arbitrary editorial coinage as the genuine language of the Gael,-thus making a new language, when we only wish to ascertain, and understand, and preserve, the old. We have chosen bring the charge home to Drs Macleod and Dewar, by rather to animadvert on the folly of the system, than to

their work. They are to be found, however, almost in quoting instances of such compounds and substitutes from every page; but the charge lies almost equally against the larger Dictionaries, so we may make the observation general.

A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, in Two Parts; 1st, Gaelic and English; 2d, English and Gaelic. By the Rev. Dr Norman Macleod, and the Rev. Dr Daniel Dewar. Glasgow. W. R. M'Phun. 1831. 8vo. WHEN the first number of this work was published, we took an opportunity of stating our opinion of its general plan, and, so far as we were then enabled to form In a few instances, we are disposed to question the a judgment, of its execution. We have now the com- authority by which the Editors give the preference to plete work before us, and we are much pleased to find, certain words over others, which they are pleased to that instead of cause to retract, we have rather to add to, mark as obsolete. We suspect the authority is frequently the praise which we formerly felt it our duty to bestow nothing more than that the favoured word happens to be on the labours of Drs Macleod and Dewar. At the same the Argyleshire dialect, though the rejected one is equally time, we are not disposed by any means to acknowledge, pure perhaps, and in more general use over the Highthat the work which they have executed so creditably lands. Even if the less favoured word should be a corwas one of much difficulty. So much has been done of ruption, it ought not to be marked as obsolete, but should late in the department of Celtic lexicography, that a very either be rejected altogether, or noticed as corrupt. For moderate share of learning, and no very extraordinary example, "easgann" is an eel, while "eascu," most unportion even of industry, were quite sufficient for the questionably in very general use, whether properly or not, accomplishment of such a task. The editors take credit is marked as obsolete. In justice to the Editors, we to themselves for the addition of many words which are must, however, confess, that in our hasty glance at their not to be found in the larger lexicons, by Armstrong and Dictionary, we find few instances of this kind, while we by the Highland Society. We readily take this fact upon see much to praise. In a cheap form, and in moderate their authority, but as we do not happen to have either compass, the Gaelic student has here a most excellent and of the larger Dictionaries lying near us at present, we valuable work. We cannot, however, help regretting, have not the means of ascertaining the value and import- that the Editors did not give an additional value to their ance of the new additions. We hope they do not consist Dictionary, (which might have been done at little or no in such un-Celtic adjectives as “prothaisteach” (corpulent,) additional expense,) by giving the pronunciation on the from the word provost, or in such instances of pay plan of Walker's English Dictionary. In a language πρότερον εις "aol-chlach," (limestone.) (But without like the Gaelic, which is pronounced so differently from dwelling upon such instances, or the far more numerous the written form, this is absolutely necessary, and scarcely ones in which the editors have given us a deficient, and less to the native student than to strangers. The prosometimes even a false, explanation of particular words, nunciation of Argyleshire, or, still better, of Inverness, "cailleach," for instance, they render only in the vulgar might have been adopted as a standard. We do not deacceptation, an old woman-an old wife; omitting alto-spair of seeing this done, some time or other, in a pocket gether its true meaning,— ‚—an useless old woman,-strictly, edition.

The Shamrock; a Collection of Irish Songs, many of them
scarce, or never before published but in a separate state.
Edited by Mr Weekes, of the Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane. Glasgow. Atkinson and Co. 1831. 18mo,
Pp. 254.

And my head, you must know,
When from Molly I go,
Takes its leave with a bow,
And remains in my stead.

Och! it's how, &c.

"Like a bird I could sing
In the month of the spring,
But it's now no such thing,

I'm quite bother'd and dead;
Och! I'll roar and I'll groan,
My sweet Molly Malone,
Till I'm bone of your bone,
And asleep in your bed.

Och! it's how," &c.

In a

Ir we are to judge of Irish songs by this collection, we must say, that the words in general are by no means worthy of the music. The simple Irish melodies are perhaps superior even to those of our own Scotland, in rich and varied pathos, sweetness, and refinement of sentiment. This is probably to be attributed to the deeper tone of feeling which pervades the native Irish airs. "In listening to Irish music," Mr Weekes has remarked It has been the misfortune of Irish songs to be subin his preface, "we are struck with an exquisite melancholy in its character a melancholy so profound, that jected to the inroads of the spurious offspring of a set of the finest feelings of the human heart must indeed have wretched Cockneys, whose imagination, as Mr Weekes been grievously wrung to produce such an inimitable observes, went only the extent of supposing that "to pathos." Yet, with all the strange inconsistency which dress a flat contradiction in rhyme was to make a comic so particularly distinguishes Irishmen, we frequently find Irish song." All such abortions are detestable. the saddest airs wedded to words of a light and gro- few instances, however, successful attempts have been tesquely humorous kind. The truth is, music, especially of made by nous autres Anglois to infuse into a song the gea simple character, starts more spontaneously into exist-nuine spirit of Paddyism, as, for example, in the followence, and flows more directly from the heart, than poetry, ing clever verses by Mr Atkinson of Glasgow, who has which is more indicative of previous study and intellec- contributed several songs to the present volume: tual exertion. Now, the native bards of Ireland,-Heaven help them!-have never been conspicuous either for their studious habits, or the strength of their intellectual faculties; and, to speak plainly, their indigenous song-writers, of course with the splendid exception of Moore, are most deservedly a nameless and unknown herd. Yet now and then we do meet with a few verses that please us, from their being full of the genius of the people. scription is the song entitled

MA COLLEENOGE.

"Oh! sure thus great is my tribulation,
My situation without compare;
I'm left alone, in this mortal station,

Of this de

To mourn the loss of my beauteous fair
For she is under the cold wave sleeping;
'Twould melt the heart of a marble stone,
Och, 'tis myself that will be kilt with weeping,
Ma Colleenoge, she is dead and gone!

"The sweet carnation her cheek adorning,

Blushes like the morning on the mountain snows,
In sweet confusion, and rich profusion,
Her golden hair did on it repose.

The pride of nature to contemplate her,
Sure nothing sweeter was ever known;

Oh Death! you traitor! take me to meet her,
Ma Colleenoge, she is dead and gone!"

Our old acquaintance Molly Malone is also redolent of the Emerald Isle.

MOLLY MALONE.

"By the big hill of Howth-
That's a bit of an oath
That to swear by I'm loath,

To the heart of a stone;
But be poison my drink,
It I sleep, snore, or wink,
Once forgetting to think
Of your lying alone.

"Och! it's how I'm in love,
Like a beautiful dove,

That sits cooing above
In the boughs of a tree;

For myself I'll soon smother
In something or other,
Unless I can bother

Your heart to love me,

Sweet Molly, sweet Molly Malone,
Sweet Molly, sweet Molly Malone!.

"I can see if you smile,
Though I'm off half a mile,
For my eyes all the while

Keep along with my head;

PADDY MAGINN.

"O, you'd laugh, if 'twere a sin,
But to look at rare Paddy Maginn,
But you'd roar the last breath,
That was left you 'twixt death,
If the rogue but a word could slip in!
Such a queer one was Paddy Maginn.

"He's a gentleman every bit,
And a pet of his grandfather, Kit,
But he just loves a spree,
And's as merry and free,
As if he'd not a ha'porth o' wit;
O, Maginn is the boy for a split!

"I wish there were more of his kin,
For a funnier ne'er was in skin;
I'll not spake of shirt,

'Tis the man, not the dirt,
That he or I care for a pin!
Oh, the devil a pride has Maginn!

"But what has become of Maginn?
Even the girls cry out 'tis a sin,

That he should them baulk,
And leave them all the talk!
Och! it's he that their favour could win!
He'd the tongue of the devil, Maginn!

"And has he to the devil ta'en a spin?
Sure to Hell they would ne'er let him in ;
For he'd kill the blue devils,

And the black ones, his revels
Would all make with merriment grin!
Och! come out o' yer hiding, Maginn !"

On the whole, though the materials he had to work upon were but rude, we must express our approbation of the manner in which Mr Weekes has executed his task.

Travels and Researches of Eminent English Missionaries; including an Historical Sketch of the Progress and Present State of some of the Principal Protestant Missions of Late Years. By Andrew Picken. London. William Kidd. 1831. Pp. 508.

THE subject of Foreign Missions is one which has created no slight sensation in the religious world; and we are sorry to add, that it is one which has commanded less unanimity of sentiment among the pious and the intelligent than perhaps might have been expected, and certainly wished. With regard to the object of such missions, there can, of course, be only one opinion among good

men; but the folly, the enthusiasm, the party zeal, and, must we add? the self-interested views and hypocrisy which have been mixed up to an alarming extent with the management and conduct of such attempts as have hitherto been made to carry that object into effect, together with the doubtful, and, at best, insignificant good produced with so much waste of wealth, labour, and life, have tended to cast discredit upon the cause itself, and to cool the ardour of those who entered upon it with the sincere desire and hope of doing good. This we deeply regret; because, although we entertain little respect for the pseudo-philanthropists, who are generally most clamorous at a Bible meeting, or who look for their reward in the printed list appended to its Reports, we think the Missionary spirit one of the genuine fruits of Christianity, and believe that it is yet destined to effect much good. Neither are we prepared to insist, that no good has been already done, so long as we possess the many translations of the whole or parts of Scripture, (of unequal merit, it is true, but all calculated to facilitate the introduction of the Word of God into Heathen lands,) which owe their existence to Missionary exertions. What has recently taken place in the South Seas, gives us some reason to hope that results even still more satisfactory may be achieved, could the friends of Missions be persuaded to substitute rational means for an unwarranted expectation of miraculous success, and sober piety for ill-regulated zeal.

Jefferson's Proceedings in the Georgian Islands, and Ellis's Researches among the South Sea Islands, occupy the rest of the work. Any farther analysis of the volume it is unnecessary for us to give; but we hope that the success of the present publication will encourage the editor to continue, as he hints in his preface, his interesting labours as rédacteur-a character which he has supported with ability upon the present occasion.

Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. By John Frederick William Herschel, Esq., A.M. Being Vol. XIV. of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. London. Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co.

1831.

THIS is a volume we can conscientiously recommend to the attention of the reading public. It is full of important scientific knowledge, clearly arranged, and distinctly expressed. No one can peruse it attentively without having his eyes opened to many philosophical truths of an important and valuable kind. Our limits do not admit of our entering at present into a detailed account of the contents, but we subjoin two extracts, which will serve as specimens, premising that the whole volume is full of equally instructive matter:

THE WONDERS OF PHYSICS.

in one second of time, in one beat of the pendulum of a "What mere assertion will make any man believe that clock, a ray of light travels over 192,600 miles, and would therefore perform the tour of the world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? tion, that the sun is almost a milion times larger than the -What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstraearth? and that, although so remote from us, that a cannon bail shot directly towards it, and maintaining its full speed, would be twenty years in reaching it, it yet affects the earth by its attraction in an inappreciable instant of time?-Who would not ask for demonstration, when told that a gnat's wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred times in a ized beings, many thousands of whose bodies laid close tosecond? or that there exist animated and regularly organgether would not extend an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical enquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly recurring at equal intervals, no less than 500 millions of millions of times in a single second! that it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see-nay, more, that it is the difference in the frequency of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness our eyes are affected 482 millions of millions of times; of yellowness, 542 millions of millions of times; and of violet, 707 millions of times per second? Do not such things sound more like the ravings of madmen, than the sober conclusions of people in their waking senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained."

We confess that these remarks have been suggested rather by the title than by the contents of the volume now before us. The author's, or rather editor's object, is not to give a detailed view of the progress of Christian. ity in those countries which have enjoyed the benefit of Missionary visitation, but to avail himself of the journals of these devoted travellers, for obtaining authentic information in regard to countries hitherto very little known to Europeans. This idea, which we believe Mr Picken has had the merit of first starting, is a very happy one, and may be followed up much farther than the present publication professes to do. No doubt, the author who undertakes such a task has to wade through much rubbish, the journals of the good missionaries generally having little claim to clearness of arrangement or literary merit of any sort; still they must, and do, contain much that is interesting, and much that is important. Mr Picken seems well qualified to carry on the work which he has begun. He judiciously gives us the several narratives, which he has abridged in an historical form,-a form that has many advantages over a confused mass of garbled extracts. He is thus enabled, with less violence to the narrative, to dispense with the absurd remarks, the bad taste, and the private transactions, which are so liberally mixed up with the generality of Missionary reports; and he has, at the same time, an opportunity of compressing whatever is general, or comparatively unimportant, in the narrative itself. We again repeat our unqualified approbation of the plan of this volume, and we are also disposed to speak in very favourable terms of its execution. Mr Picken appears to have made, in general, a very judicious use of his materials; occasionally, however, he has fallen into "The destruction produced by fire is most striking: in the unnecessary style of importance which disfigures the many cases, as in the burning of a piece of charcoal or a writings of many of the missionaries. Take, for example, taper, there is no smoke, nothing visibly dissipated and carthe following sentence: They stood on the quarter-ried away; the burning body wastes and disappears, while deck, and, in the language of St Paul, wished for land,' Truly it was worth while quoting St Paul for the commonplace expression of a feeling which has been common to all sea-faring men from Deucalion in his cock-boat down to the last Cockney tourist, who, under a smart fit of sickness, mistook the Bass rock for the terrestrial paradise!

66

The first narrative in the volume is that of the Voyage of the Ship Duff to the South Sea in 1796. We have next Dr Vanderkemp's Travels in Southern Africa, perhaps the most interesting part of the whole volume. Mr Campbell's Two Journeys into the Interior of Africa,

INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.

nothing seems to be produced but warmth and light, which we are not in the habit of considering as substances; and when all has disappeared, except perhaps some trifling ashes, we naturally enough suppose it is gone, lost, destroyed. But when the question is examined more exactly, we detect, in the invisible stream of heated air which ascends from the glowing coal or flaming wax, the whole ponderable matter, only united in a new combination with the air, and dissolved in it. Yer, so far from being thereby destroyed, it is only become again what it was before it existed in the form world, and a main support of vegetable and animal life, and of charcoal or wax, an active agent in the business of the is still susceptible of running again and again the same round, as circumstances may determine; so that, for aught