though the workhouses had been crowded (in an inferior degree, indeed, to their present state) through the whole of the year 1800, and the bounty of the public, which was then bestowed with a liberality that did the subscribers the highest honour, and was applied with the greatest assiduity, it failed in effecting permanent relief; though the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Corporation of London, and the Committee at Lloyd's, most singularly and meritoriously distinguished themselves, and Government granted a very large sum, yet it was all exhausted without obtaining the desired relief to the poor weavers and their families. But no sooner did the Ladies advocate their cause, and universally adopt the beautiful and elegant works of their looms, no sooner did they give to their own lovely forms the exquisite advantages derived from silk habiliments, and, like Venus, in the Iliad, t "shake their silken vests," than the languishing business revived; and notwithstanding foreign impediments causing a scarcity, and consequent dearness of the materials, yet both sexes of the silk manufacturers, with their numerous families and dependants, found full employment, which has, without intermission, continued from the year 1802 till about twelve, months ago; since which time the distress in the parishes of Christ Church, Spital-fields, St Matthew, Bethnal green, Mile End New Town, &c. &c. has been inconceivably severe, and continually accumulating. The weaving trade has laboured under an increased, and still increasing stagnation, from which no power on earth, except the power to whom I now appeal, can relieve it. To shew the sovereignty of the LADIES in this respect, from the earliest times, I must observe, that, on royal birthdays, courts, coronations, public festivals, &c. they were considered as the greatest ornaments, and on some such occasions endowed with absolute commands. The display of silk ou such grand solemnities is historically remarked through every age nearly down to the present time. Formerly, indeed, both Ladies and Gentlemen went to the height of expense in satin, brocade, and velvet dresses, so much to the benefit of the manufacturers, and so distinctive of themselves, that I should anxiously wish to see that fashion revived. Now certainly the only way to effect this de sirable purpose, is by the celebration of the two royal birth-days in the man ner that the notice from the London Gazette, which precedes this paper, in dicates. Though that the company upon both occasions should all appear in British manufactures, seems, judging by the patriotism, loyalty, and benevolence, which distinguish the British Court, to be a useless intimation; yet it will seem of real consequence, when it is considered how many families have lately been abroad, and with what ease contraband articles of every description find their way into circulation, to the ruin and destruction of our native manufactures, and the distress, almost the annihilation, of the manufacturers. I shall, Ladies, conclude this ardent and afflictive appeal to your hearts, the thrones of mercy and benevolence, by noticing scenes of human suffering and possible you could have any idea of unexaggerated misery, that it is im or you would not think the purchase of a silk gown of your native manufacture an expensive mode of relief, which it certainly is, if adopted generally, a very effectual one, besides its being (if, with feelings alive, one dare intrude such able to yourselves. nonsense upon your ears) a mode agree The hamlet of Mile End Old Town is a small place; its inhabitants are mostly poor weavers; the workhouse is of a moderate size for forty or fifty persons, yet it has through the greatest part of this year contained (or had crammed into it) near 140 paupers, who lay six or more in a bed, and nine or ten if children they have at present in the house 132 persons, who are contained in forty-five beds, that is three or four in a bed, and four or five if children! : In the workhouse of the parish of Christ Church, Spital-fields, there are 545 paupers. Relieved out upwards of 400 families weekly. The average of these, 1600 individuals !!! district, whose orderly conduct, indusThe journeymen weavers of the whole try, and ingenuity, certainly deserves hibited, through my medium appeal to greater encouragement than is here exyou, Ladies, once again. This relief can only be effected by your discountenancing all illicit foreign silks, &c. and the nefarious dealers in them. By which means, joined to those I before recommended, you will contribute to the support and comfort of OLD AGE trembling upon the verge of eternity, relieve the distresses of MIDDLE LIFE and their FAMILIES, save MALE YOUTH from evil courses, and FEMALES from the horrors of prostitution ! Spital-square, Nov. 16, 1816. BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER IT OF EMINENT PERSONS RECENTLY DECEASED. No. XVI. RICHARD REYNOLDS. T is delightful to our feelings to record, it must be equally interesting for our readers to peruse, the outline of a character, whose praise should resound throughout the Empire, to stimulate others to follow the eminent example. From almost every pulpit in the City of Bristol, some token of respect was paid to the memory of RICHARD REYNOLDS, who left this sublunary world to receive the crown of glory, laid up for the righteous, on the 10th of September, 1816. During his valuable life, he bestowed in acts of charity upwards of two hundred thousand pounds; but still the greatness of the gift exceeded not the manner and the discrimination with which it was bestowed. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, But droppeth as the gentle rain from Heav'n Upon a place beneath; it is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." Of his personal history, short and few are the particulars. He was one of the Society of Quakers-born at Bristol married twice. In right of his first wife, he became connected with the large iron works of Colubrook-dale and its vicinity; but as the profits of these great and extensive works increased, So his disposition increased to distribute amongst his fellow-creatures the blessings of his labour. His only surviving son, Joseph, resides at Colubrook-dale; his daughter, Hannah-Mary, is Mrs. Rathbone, of Liverpool; both of whom, with their children, attended their ve nerable sire to the grave. Can any outward pomp exceed the triumph of HIS FUNERAL. From the eager anxiety publicly manifested to pay the highest respect to the remains of so virtuous a man, it was to be presumed that a great concourse would attend his burial. Accordingly, crowds of people were to be seen early in the morning, collecting in St. James's-square, round the house of the deceased. Soon after nine o'clock the procession commenced, passing through a body of about five hundred charity-children belonging to the parishes of St. James and St. Paul, and the Royal Lancasterian Association, which slowly and silently reached the grave-yard of the Friends' Meetinghouse, about ten o'clock, in the following order: THE BODY. Relations of the deceased. Trustees of his Charity-Three Aldermen, Messrs. Daniell, Fripp, and. Birch. Clergymen of the EstablishmentMessrs. Olive, Day, Cowan, &c. Ministers of the various Dissenting Congregations-Messrs. Estlin, Ryland,. Lowell, Thorp, Roberts, Maurice, Page, &c. Committee of the Bible Society. Mr. Sheriff Barrow, and other Members of the Corporation. Committees of the Infirmary, Dispensary, Penitentiary, Samaritan Society, Strangers' Friend, Prudent Man's Friend Society, and other public Charities, &c. forming a body of nearly 200 Gentlemen, all dressed in mourning. An immense concourse of people fol lowed. When the coffin was placed over the grave, and the numerous relations and friends of the deceased were collected around, a profound silence of about a quarter of an hour ensued; after which several Ministers of the Society addressed the vast assemblage present (which consisted of some thousands of persons) in a most impressive manner, bearing testimony as well to the truly Christian life and character of the deceased, as to the power of religion, by which his life had been governed. These several addresses were succeeded by a prayer, which, with the interment of the body, finished this impressive solemnity.. So great was the public curiosity exeited on this occasion, and such the eagerness manifested by the poor, who had lost their best friend, to pay the last respect to his remains, that not only the spacious burial ground was filled with spectators and mourners, but the very walls and tops of the houses surrounding the area were covered with spectators. It is but justice to add, that the behaviour of this vast concourse of people was in the highest degree decent, orderly, and respectful; and it was evident, that the poor considered it a favour to be permitted in their turn, to approach the grave of their departed friend, and to drop the silent tear as a mark of their regard for a man whose life had been spent in DOING GOOD." So greatly was felt the loss of this one estimable man, that at a General Meeting of the inhabitants of Bristol, held on the 2d October, (at which John Haythorne, Esq. Mayor, presided) it was resolved to form a Charitable In stitution to perpetuate his memory; and among others, the following Resolutions were unanimously agreed to :— "That in consequence of the severe loss society has sustained by the death of the Venerable RICHARD REYNOLDS, and in order to perpetuate as far as may be the great and important benefits he has conferred on the City of Bristol and its vicinity, and to excite others to imitate the example of the departed Philanthropist, an ASSOCIA TION be formed under the designation of "REYNOLDS's COMMEMORATION SOCIETY." "That the object of this Society be to grant relief to persons in necessitous circumstances, and also occasional assistance to other Benevolent Institutions in or near this City, to enable them to continue or increase their useful ness, and that especial regard, be had to the SAMARITAN SOCIETY, of which RICHARD REYNOLDS was the Founder." What a public acknowledgment of his extensive ability! Many are the anecdotes related of him, as connected with the motives and foundation of his benevolence; and from amongst them, we select the following: : Mr. REYNOLDS having applied to a gentleman whom he thought rich, but who was really only in circumstances of mediocrity, to stimulate him to give, made use of the following argument: When gold encircles the heart, it Europ. Mag. Vol. LXX. Nov. 1816. PIECES, BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, "The mind of man not being capable of having many ideas under view at once, it was necessary to have a REPOSITORY to lay up those ideas."-LOCKE. A NEW MODE OF IMPROVING OR MELLOWING WINE. Extracted from the German of M. S. T. Von Soemmerring, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Science at Munich. THE improvement recommended to notice is, that wine should be kept in glass vessels having their orifices closed with bladder, as the means of mellowing or imparting to it the advantages of age in a short period of time. The experiment chiefly founded upon is the following: Four ounces of red Rhenish wine, of the growth of 1811, on the 21st of December 1812, were put into a tumbler of common white glass, three and a half German inches deep, and two inches and two lines wide. This was secured by a well prepared bladder softened by steeping and placed on a shelf out of the reach of the sun, in a com 31 mon sitting-room. The spaces comprised by two and four ounces were marked on the outside of the glass by lines. The glass was opened upon perceiving that two ounces of the wine had escaped through the dry bladder, which was the case in the space of 81 days; and the following observations made upon the remaining wine: 1st. It was neither mouldy nor mothery, as it would have been had it been left uncovered, or even stopped with cork for the same length of time, in the same kind of glass, and in the same situation. 2. Dry chrystalline crusts or pellicles were perceived Boating on its surface. These were found to be ordinary cream of tartar, from their sinking to the bottom on the wine being slightly shaken; from their being seen through a magnifier to consist of aggregated chrystals; by their reddish colour and semi-transparent substance; by their grating between the teeth; by the sour taste peculiar to that substance, as well as by their emitting the same smell as that when burning, and depositing the same kind of ashes. The quantity was too small for further chemical tests. 3. A cream of tartar precisely similar had subsided to the bottom of the glass. 4. The wine was of a darker colour, yet brighter and finer than the same sort bottled in the customary way, and which of course had undergone no evaporation. 5. In smell, its flavour was stronger and more enticing than that of the same wine ordinarily bottled. 6. In taste, its flavour, though more spirituous and aromatic, was still, in another way, milder, softer, and more grateful to the palate, or in a word, mellower than that of the other. 7. Its proportion of alcohol was one half greater than in the ordinarily bottled wine of the same growth. Wine concentrated in the same way was afterwards submitted to closer tests, and experiments were repeated on some of a different kind, but still red; and the above results were uniformly confirmed. Notice is given of experiments to be made upon a much larger scale. and some observations resulting from those already made are added, of which the following are a part. It was known that water escaped through dried bladder; but that it did not admit an equally free and ready passage to the spirituous portion of wine as to the aqueous, seems a new and not unimportant discovery. By this treatment of wine, no extraneous alterative is used and it is left to rid itself spontaneously of the superfluous, coarse, sharp, sour salts, by the evaporation of the water in which they are held in solution. Every one knows that wine left standing upright in a half-emptied bottle, either open or ever so well corked, for several weeks together, will spoil, and become mothery and sour. By closing the bottle with bladder, wine (red only has been tried) may be preserved under the same circumstances for a year together without any such consequences. If the mouth of the bottle should not be larger than ordinary, we may be sure that in a year's time the quantity of half an ounce will not have been wasted, and the remainder not only be uninjured, but rather improved. Thus, it cannot be denied, that dry cork is a very different guard to wine, from dry bladder. The mellowness acquired by wine when kept in the cask, and which is ascribed to age, should seem to be an effect of the same cause; viz. the winę evaporating its watery particles through the wood, and depositing its salts on the sides in the shape of a film or concreted crust of various thickness. Probably the spirituous particles of wine rise at the same time and in the same manner as the aqueous to the inner surface of the bladder; but the spirituous particles seem to meet with an opposition to their egress, not experienced by the aqueous. Thus we have in bladder a substance well adapted to separate spirituous from aqueous particles. As the wine wastes by keeping in the wood, so fresh wine must be added to supply the waste, or else the whole spoils: this is not the case under the new treatment. Wood lets out alcohol, the preserver of wine, along with water, but bladder does not. Bladder keeps out the atmospheric air, so as to prevent fermentation and the turning of the wine to vinegar, which the dry staves of an half empty cask will not do; and of course fermentation takes place in all casks of wine where the due replenishing is omitted. Wine cannot receive from glass the taint which, it is well known, it will acquire when kept in wood, where occasionally both colour and taste are altered, and it becomes an infusion. The degree of improvement or mellowness, which is induced in the wine treated as above in twelve months, is said to be equal to that which would be induced in the cask in twelve years. The shallower the glass, and the wider its orifice, the sooner the same effects are produced. Another advantage is, that in the glass vessel we can always perceive the degree of evaporation that has taken place, and regulate the process at will. It is suggested that some interesting results might probably arise from the examination of the gas found between the surface of the wine and the bladder, at different periods during the progress of evaporation. FISHMONGERS. Not less than fifty chief magistrates of the city of London, have belonged to the worshipful company of Fishmongers. In Fishmongers-hall, they had some time since, a statue of the famous Sir William Wulworth, who was a fishmonger; as we gather from an epitaph which Weever, the antiquary, says was placed over his tomb in St. Michael's church, Crooked-lane. The following is a transcript: "Here under lyeth a man of fame, pear: Who with courage, stout and manly might odd." BLACK-LEAD MINE AT BARROWDALE. Black-lead Pencils are only produced in England. The literati on the Continent supposed them to be melted into the form in which they received them, and conceiving this they attempted to imitate them. The following account of the Mine is extracted from the Cheinical Essays of Mr. S. PARKES, and is by far the best description of it that we have met with: On a journey to the Lakes of Westmorland and Cumberland, in the summer of the year 1814, I heard that. the celebrated mine of black-lead in Barrowdale had been lately opened, and that the workmen were then engaged, in raising and dressing the mineral. Rejoiced at this intelligence, I immediately determined not to lose so favourable an opportunity of visiting this curious spot, and therefore fixed myself at Keswick, the nearest town to the mine, in order to collect the necessary preliminary information, and learn how to procure the most intelligent guide which the neighbourhood could afford. In travelling from the north, the road lies thus:-From Carlisle to Wigton is 11 niles; from thence to Keswick is 22 miles; and from Keswick to the mine 9 miles. It is necessary to take a chaise from Wigton to Keswick, as there is no mail or other coach which runs between those towns. From Kes wick to the mine saddle-horses are nethe mountains are too narrow to admit cessary, as some of the defiles through the passing of a carriage. As no account has hitherto been given of this celebrated mine, where black-lead is is known in any other part of the found of a quality far superior to what world, I trust the following particulars will not be uninteresting to my readers. "The neighbourhood of Keswick has for ages been celebrated as a mining country. gold and silver were procured in conIn the reign of Queen Elizabeth, siderable quantity from the mountain called Gold-scarpe in the vale of Newlands near Keswick. At that time the mine was worked by a company of Germans, who raised a large quantity of copper and lead, and not only converted those to their own use, but also laid claim to the precious metals, in opposition to the Queen, who demanded them as well as the usual royalty. However, on an appeal to comtn law, her Majesty gained the point, and the foreigners soon after absconded.” "It was during this reign that the very valuable mine of black-lead, or plumbago, was first discovered at Barrowdale. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood say that this rich depository was first brought to light by a tremendous burricane, which blew up a large |