Well might you hear their guns, I guess,
From Sizewell-gap to Easton-mess;
The show was rare and sightly-
They batter'd without let or stay
Until the evening of that day:

'Twas then the Dutchmen ran away-
The Duke had beat them tightly.
Of all the battles gained at sea,
This was the rarest victory

Since Philip's grand Armada;
I will not name the rebel Blake,
He fought for cursed Cromwell's sake,
And yet was forced three days to take
To quell the Dutch bravado.

So, now we've seen them take to flight,
This way and that, where'er they might,
To windward or to leeward-

Here's to King Charles, and here's to James,
And here's to all the Captains' names,

And here's to all the Suffolk dames,

ART. XIV.-Keeper's Travels in search of his Master.-Fourteenth edition, enlarged by the Author. 12mo. pp. 374. London. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy. 1826.

WE own that we have some doubts of the accuracy of the announcement in the title page, that the present is the fourteenth edition of this little work. We are aware that it has been profusely eulogized by some of our contemporaries; but after perusing it with some attention, we find ourselves at a loss to discover the very exalted degree of merit which has been assigned to it. Its object is undoubtedly a humane one, to deprecate the neglect and cruelty with which animals, particularly the domestic ones, are too frequently treated; but the mode in which the work is executed, is little calculated, one should think, to attain for it that great popularity, which it seems to claim. The first four or five chapters, which are written in a style sufficiently simple and playful to attract the curiosity of school boys, detail the early life and adventures of a dog named Keeper, who having lost his master in the bustle of a market town, sets out in search of him. The idea was not an unhappy one which suggested to the author that he might mix up with the personal history of the errant dog, a good deal of useful instruction, and that, by a little management in the details, the lesson might be so blended with the narrative, as to infuse itself without any formality of appearance into the mind of the youthful reader. This is manifestly the plan upon which the author commenced his work, but before he gets through the first ten chapters, he seems to have forgotten Keeper and his story altogether, and the remaining fifteen chapters are chiefly taken up with solemn discussions, carried on in a high-flown and philosophical style, upon a variety of subjects connected with animals in general. If the work was intended for schoolboys, as we presume it was, it ought to have been carried through upon its original plan, as there is not one youth in fifty who would feel the least interest in those discus

sions, or indeed be able to comprehend them. If desired to get through them, he would now begin to ask, "But what is become all this time of Keeper? Poor Keeper, it is him only that I care about." And then he would endeavour to cut out the dog's story, from the fine woof through which it faintly meanders; and all the author's lectures upon Field Sports, Town Sports, Eastern Tenderness, Cruel Sports, Mahomet's Doves, and Hindoo Fables,-nay, his portfolios and albums, would be passed over with ineffable disdain. Nor, in escaping from these parts of the work, would the youth suffer any severe loss, for from one of the chapters he would learn that, if he were to become a clergyman, he might without any injury to his sacred calling, hunt with all the squires of the country, provided only that he should not go out in scarlet. He would be saved also from several of the author's compositions in verse, which are certainly the very last specimens in the world that we should think of presenting to a youth as models of poetry.

1826.

ART. XV. The Votive Wreath, and other Poems. By Mrs. Parminter, 8vo. pp. 176. 10s. London. Hatchard and Son. CRITICISM is disarmed at once by the apology with which the authoress introduces this volume to her readers, and solicits that patronage for it which is so necessary to one struggling under the pressure of a sudden and expected reverse of fortune. We are glad to see so considerable a list of subscribers, at the head of which are the Princess Augusta Sophia, and the Duchesses of Gloucester and Kent; and, on the score of benevolence, we would recommend the writer of these poems to those who have it in their power to render her substantial assistance. We know no more efficient mode of pointing out her claims, than by citing the following verses, addressed to her husband on the twenty-second anniversary of their marriage.'

6

Again the welcome smile of grateful love

Has blest this happy day ;-Time, who had laid

His icy fingers on our outward forms,
Has not yet chill'd affection's glow within,
Proof against Winter's snow, and Age's frost.
E'er since the day, when in the sacred Fane,

We plighted faith and love, my thoughts have turn'd
To thee as to a centre: spring of all

My earthly happiness.-But well I ween,
Though willing duty never droop'd her wing,
The tenor of her path has yet been mark'd
With many imperfections; still my heart
Has ever been at home, undeviate

In truth and love to thee.-Affection's fount,
Diverging into streams of parent love

Flows copious, but those parted streams return,

Confluent again to thee their native source:

And while my constant prayers ascend to Heaven,
For life, for health, for happiness to thee,

I bless the hand divine that made us one;

Conjoin'd in love, in faith, in holy hope,

Helpmates on earth, and candidates for Heaven.'-pp. 158.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

NOVEMBER, 1826.

ART. I. On Facility of Intercourse. 8vo. pp. 111. London. 1826. [Printed for private circulation only].

If we were to commence our observations on this extraordinary pamphlet, by a bare enumeration of the objects which its very ingenious author (Mr. Vallance) proposes to accomplish, there is not, perhaps, one reader in a hundred who would think them worth a moment's attention. At the present period, particularly, when so great and so just a reaction is taking place in the public mind, against every proposition that is in the least degree connected with a joint-stock speculation; were we to state at once the nature of Mr. Vallance's project, we should run the risk of not only exposing it to derision, and of subjecting its originator to the imputation of insanity, but probably of being ourselves set down among the most visionary and the most credulous of mankind.

Instead, therefore, of prematurely letting the reader into the secret of this design for the facilitation of intercourse, it may not, perhaps, be altogether irrelevant to our purpose, to request that he will have the goodness to recollect, that there was a period of time, and that not more than seventy, or at most eighty years ago, when the internal trade of this country was carried on chiefly by means of pack horses. The roads were then in so wretched state, that even a waggon was seldom seen upon them, and it can hardly be doubted, that, if some of the good folk of that day were now to start from their graves, and behold the velocity with which thousands of light and gay vehicles, laden inside and outside with passengers, are whirled over hills and dales, which had not then even a footway through them, they would either break out into incontrollable laughter at what they would term our folly, or rush back to their tombs overcome with terror.

But what would be their feelings of amazement, what the measure of their incredulity, were they to be told that canals pervaded the country in all directions, exhibiting channels of navigable water exceeding in the sum total of their length, according to Dupin, the enormous amount of three thousand miles? That turnpike roads connect the most distant extremities of our island so closely, as to render journies to them not half so tedious or

VOL. III. NO. XIII,

Q

fatiguing as what, in their day, might well be called "a pilgrimage to Canterbury"? That there are rail-roads, upon which chains of several laden waggons are moved by a single team of horses, which, when they lived, was scarcely sufficient to move one; nay, that upon some of these rail-roads, waggons are moved without the assistance of even a single horse, by an engine, the work of the hand of man, and endowed by his skill with loco-motive power? That numberless cities and towns in England, and elsewhere, are illuminated at night by a gas? What would they say, were they informed of the miracles wrought in our manufactories by the steam engine, and desired to look at those creatures of its mighty strength, which, under the guidance of a single hand, force their way through the most formidable of the elements, against all the opposition of its tides, and even of the winds to which it is itself a slave? What would they say, we ask again, if all these modern wonders were pointed out to them? They would not believe in one of them. They would, one and all, cry out that such things were ridiculous, and that even their own eyes were not to be depended upon, if they conveyed from without ideas of human skill, activity, and majesty of enterprize, so infinitely above what they and their fathers had been accustomed to.

In the same manner, were we to suppose for an instant, that a mode of conveyance could be brought into common use, by which a given number of individuals might, with perfect ease to themselves, be transported over a distance of one hundred miles within a single hour, we should be told that the mere conception was so chimerical, so inconsistent with all our ideas of the motion of vehicles, and in short, altogether so wild and foolish, that it ought to be treated by any reasonable man with instant contempt. Shall we confess, that when such a project was first mentioned to us, we laughed so immoderately, that a friend was under the necessity of tying his pocket handkerchief round our ribs, to preserve them in any thing like their natural form and position? But when the topic was renewed, and some little light was thrown upon the mode in which a conveyance of such extraordinary rapidity was to be effected, the laugh subsided by degrees, and gave way to that sober mood, which, if it be less pleasant, is at least better adapted to a fair examination of the philosophical principles upon which Mr. Vallance has founded his invention.

There is no person, it may be presumed, so little acquainted with the nature of the atmosphere in which we live, as not to know that, like water, it seeks universally an equilibrium. In other words, and to use a familiar way of putting it, if we can by any process deprive, for instance, a small room of all the air it contains, and then open a portion of the window, there will be instantly an influx of air from without, which will not cease until the quantity previously removed from the room is wholly replaced, and its atmosphere restored to an equilibrium with the atmosphere

which externally surrounds it. A similar operation will take place in proportion, according to the quantity of air that is removed from the apartment. That is to say, it is not at all necessary to produce a complete vacuum within, in order to introduce a portion of the external atmosphere; for, to whatever degree, be it ever so slight, the air is removed from the apartment, to the same degree will be the influx of air from without, as soon as it is admitted, until the equilibrium be perfectly re-established. Thus it is easily comprehended, that a diminution of air in one quarter, produced either by ignition or exhaustion, will cause the adjoining atmosphere, if we may use such an expression, to rush towards that quarter, until it be in the same condition as to air, as the place whence the fresh supply proceeds. This simple principle being clearly understood, all the details become matters of demonstration which a child may comprehend.

Putting aside the idea of a common square apartment, let us now suppose that a cylinder is constructed, about ten feet in diameter, and three hundred feet in length, of materials sufficiently compact and strong for the purposes to which it is to be applied. Iron of course is the best material to employ on such an occasion, but it may be composed of brick, well cemented and cased with composition; within this cylinder a vehicle may be erected, capable of bearing for example ten or twenty passengers, its wheels being so regulated as to move with the greatest facility, in the same manner as those which are fitted to rail-ways. To one end of this vehicle a screen may be attached, occupying the whole, or nearly the whole, circumference of the cylinder. The vehicle then being placed near one extremity of the cylinder, and the passengers being seated between that extremity and the screen, it is obvious from what we have said, that if the portion of the cylinder between the screen and the more distant extremity of the cylinder be deprived by pumps, or by any other process, of its air, the external air, if admitted by the extremity at which the passengers are situated, will rush towards that part of the cylinder which has been wholly or partially evacuated. But in its progress it will encounter the screen of the vehicle, and urge it forward together with the vehicle attached to it to the farther extremity of the cylinder, provided that the vehicle and all that it bears, be as to weight, in due proportion to the diminution of resistance produced on one side, and to the motive power of the air admitted on the other. We use the phrase "diminution of resistance," in preference to that of "a vacuum," as, in fact, it more properly expresses the difference necessary to be produced in the air, between that end of the linder which is to be reached, and that whence the passengers are supposed to start, than any other phrase which we could employ. Upon this point it is essential that the reader should be fully aware of Mr. Vallance's reasoning.

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'It is well known, he observes, that air will rush into a vacuum at the