1797-] Tour of England.-Leeds. point of view. The town feems to fpread its wings to a great extent every way, and the churches, and other buildings bear a modern afpect. LEEDS, from being an inconfiderable town, has, by the manufacture and fale of broad cloths, increased its fize, wealth, and population, to a wonderful extent. It is now fuppofed to contain 32,000 inhabitants and houfes, nay, whole additional streets, are building every year. The prefent war, has, indeed, caufed a ftagnation in masonry; the woollen trade, however, feems to continue very flourishing. The streets in the old parts of the town, are narrow; but those occupied by merchants, manufacturers, and fuperior tradefmen, are broad and fpacious. The houfes in that latter fituation, are uniform and elegant, and fo clean, even on the outfide, that not a fpeck can be feen upon the broad foot pavement. Indeed, in a confiderable portion of Leeds, the inhabitants enjoy at once, the focial pleasures of the town, and the fine air and cheerful profpects of the country; the modern houfes being either built in a line, with an open view to the fields, or in large fquares, the areas of which are covered with grafs and fhrubs, and kept in the neatest order. The town, taken generally, is kept clean, every street having a flagged walk on each fide. The buildings are chiefly brick, and covered in with white flate. Cloth is expofed for fale on Tuesdays and Saturdays, an hour and half each day; and the merchants are not al. lowed to buy, nor even to look at cloth, except at thefe appointed hours. The times of fale begin and end by the ringing of a bell; and if a merchant is found in the hall after the bell has ceafed, he forfeits five fhillings. There are two cloth halls, the one for coloured, and the other for white cloth; but the coloured cloth hall is the principal; it contains stands for 1670 people, who may there expofe two or three pieces each, and is generally full. Upon the whole, the trade and manufacture of this town, in its effect, if one may conjecture from external appearances, feems almoft equal in lucrative produce to a Peruvian mine. A fort of crow coal is got near Leeds. The canal joins the river Air here, which is navigable for finall craft till it enters the Humber, whence an eafy paffage is had to Hull. By the fame route fmall veffels from London can navigate to Leeds. I did not find in MONTHLY MAG, No. XIV, 123 Leeds that narrow-minded jealousy which I had met with at Bradford, relative to the public expences, &c. of the place; the gentlemen of this town, who had the care and direction of these affairs, were ready and even folicitous to give me every neceffary information. To the treasurer, in particular, Mr. S. GAWTHROP, and his worthy family, I owe great obligations, for the many civilities I received from them, during my ftay in Leeds. The poor of the town are well fed and taken care of; indeed, they, as well as the people at large, are happy in having a worthy and very honeft man for governor of the work house, a Mr. Linfley, who was formerly a manufacturer in this town. His temper and difpofition, as well as thofe of his wife, feem peculiarly adapted for their charge; mildnefs, and attention to the complaints of the meanest, joined with firmness of manner, gain the love and respect of thofe who are fo unfortunate as to come under their care. I am at the fame time convinced, by his open manner of fhowing me the books, that he tranfacts the bufinefs of the town with rectitude and economy. Almoft every operation in the manufacture of broad cloths, in and near this town, is now performed by machinery; by which the manufacturers are enabled to fell their cloth confiderably cheaper than formerly. This occafions very few hands to be wanted in the first stages of the manufacture, particularly in carding or fcribbling the wool, and fpinning it. That circumftance, on the first introduction of machinery, deprived great numbers of people of work in that way; and fome unreafonable murmurs are ftill made against the ufe of machinery in general, under the unfounded notion of its being injurious to the poor. [To be continued.] To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. AMONGST your many learned and R out 124. Roman Notation,...Hero worship: [Feb hiftorical; fince he has taken pains (in the Effay on Parties) to controvert the polition therein contained,, that the inventors of ufeful arts are better entitled than legiflators, to be inftalled among the worthies. Milton, again, furely applauds the peo ple for having been wont to repute for faints the affertors of the common li berty; and complains that with a dege nerate bafenefs of fpirit, they feemed likely to transfer their idolatry to Charles the martyr. Nor is his allufion merely oratorical: Edmund, for his prowessEdward the Confeffor, for his laws, were literally canonized. out calculations. The Arabic characters, duced from that author, as more than we know, receive their power from the place they hold, or the relation they bear to others; thus, the third place in enumeration is that of hundreds; the fourth of thoufands; the feventh of I millions, &c. Not fo the Roman; for in them we find four characters used to exprefs a number that we defignate by one, and which falls under unity, viz. VIII-8. I cannot apprehend how, without a tedious procefs, they could even execute a long fum in fimple addition; and as to their multiplying of two large fums together, it is to me totally incomprehenfible, how it could be performed. For inftance, the date of the prefent year, multiplied into itfelf; i. e. MDCCXCVII multiplied by MDCCXCVII. I hope I have expreffed myfelf fo far intelligibly, that the difficulty I fuggeft may be evident to others; and a folution of it will be a fingular favour to Worcester, Feb. 2, 1797. X. O. K. For the Monthly Magazine. Invaluit apud omnes fere gentes, ut memoriam infignium virorum & belli facinoribus imprimis ante alios eminentium 'publicis ac divinos poft obitum eorum honoribus celebrarent, five quod tanta virtutis integritatis que vis ac fplendor, ut reftin&targo viventem invidia, omnium animos mente qué percellat inque fui admirationem rapiat, five quod ex ufu reipublicæ credebatur effe, ut bene merentium jufto honore, fuperftites edocerentur, quâ viâ ad veram gloriam deberent eniti. Romanorum inde apotheofin autores, nummi, marmora loquuntur, aliarum gentium in eâ re hodie que fuperans mos ab iis proditus eft, qui Afia, Africæ, & Americæ litora legerunt. Quidni igitur Arctoæ gentes idem feciffent, qui omne fere jus omnemque gioriam in armis pofitam arbitrabantur. Certe, apud Lucianum Toxaris ait: Scythas ita exiftimare, fe recte & ordine facere, qui virorum præftantium memoriam colant, quo magis viventes fe ad magna erigant, ubi videant etiam poft mortem manere benefactorum præmia. Adamus Bremenfis de feptentrionis incolis: Colunt et deos ex hominibus factos quos pro ingentibus factis, immortalitate donant. Keyfler's Antiquitates Septentrionales, f. 97. S.R. has honoured with a polite commentary (vol. iii. p. 17) the paper concerning hero-worship, in your 2d vol. P. 776. 1. He objects that the cited paffages do not apply. This must be left to the reader. Not every one affociates the like ideas with a given feries of Englith words. Yet Hume, who was emi nently formed by the ftudy of Lord Bacon, plainly confiders the paffage ad The words of Middleton certainly go no farther than to prefer paganifm to popery, on account of the hero-worship which made a part of it. And is this not much in a scholar of his profeffion? 2. To the paragraphs from Hume is objected their implying the exceptionable opinion, that "to degrade the deity will elevate the mortal." They do fo and as this opinion is ill-defended, and quite improbable, they fhould not be pleaded as authority for diffociating hero-worthip, from the adoration of the Supreme Being. Hero-worship is as compatible with that, as faint-worship has been with the adoration of the Trinity in Hindoftan they are faid actually to fubfift in al liance. : 3. S. R. objects to adulation and fervility (who does not ?) and places in this predicament worshipping a man. Socini, as zealous a monotheift as he was, objected not to the worthip of Jefus, whom he confidered as a mere man other monotheifts may think many men alfo worthy of pofthumous veneration. Rites, no doubt, can be imagined, which would be fervile and adulatory; but with fuch, until they have been fuggefted, there is no war to wage. Your correfpondent is willing to fee public halls filled with the bufts and ftatues of heroes and fages; and is willing to attend biographical lectures in their honour. Give the name of churches or temples to fuch public halls; and he admits all that the partizans of hero-worship are likely to contend for, as of probably useful inftitution: for he furely cannot wish to interfere with the pleafures of the people, under a notion of their being idolatrous and to prevent (for inftance) a fraternity of wool-combers from holding their holiday proceffion, in honour of bishop Blaze, 1797.] Correction of Mufical Paper....National Institute. Blaze, to whom their traditions afcribe the beneficial invention of the woolcomb. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, I BEG leave to trouble you with a few lines refpecting fome *errata in the little effay of mine, on the different ftyles of ancient and modern music, inferted in your Supplement, which, it feems, in order to bring into the limited compafs you had allotted for it, you have in fome degree abridged. In the first place, in page 982, col. 1, line 12, the word "nevertheless," feems unaccountably, and moft unmeaningly foifted in. On looking at the original MS. I find that word to be part of a parenthefis, the reft of which you have 125 omitted, and, doubtlefs, meant to obliterate that word alfo from the MS. which the printer has unluckily inferted. There is only one other material error, which it is now worth while to mention, viz. in page 986, col. 1, lines 9 and II, where the adverbs, fimply, plainly, intricately, and complicatedly," are put, without any verb to support them; instead of which, the adjectives fimple, plain, intricate, and complicated," ought to have been ufed. This is alfo owing to abbreviation; as, in the MS. the paffage ftood thus: "in being neither fo very fimply and plainly composed as to be likely foon to pall, &c. nor yet of fo intricate and complicated a nature as to require hearing a number of times," &c. 1 am, fir, your obedient fervant, Feb. 13, 1797. PROCEEDINGS OF THE J. M. FOURTH QUARTERLY SITTING OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE [For Accounts of the Three former Sittings, and of the Plan, and of the Names of the Members, of this Eftablishment, fee Numbers II, VIII, and X, of the MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] DUCIS was prefident of the fitting. acid. The nitric acid acts but very The fecretaries read the memoirs of feebly upon it, and becomes of an orange the last quarter, in their feveral claffes: colour. The muriatic acid first reduces MONGEZ in that of Literature; PRO- it to powder, of which it afterwards NEY, in that of Mathematics; LACE- diffolves a part, affording, by evaporation, PEDE, in that of Phyfics; TALLEY- prifmatic cryftals, with a rhomboidal RAND-PERIGORD, in that of Morals bafe. The nitro-muriatic has the fame and Politics. action on this substance as the preceding PELLETIER read a memoir of acid. The oxygenated muriatic acid Chaptal, on the black magnetic fand that is ufually found to accompany native gold. The fpecimens, which were the fubjects of the following experiments, were found mixed with gold, in the fands of the rivers Ceze and Tala, and in the vicinity of Barcelona and Nantes. This fubftance is not decompofed by expofure to the atmosphere, or to water; is almoft infoluble in acids, and infufible even by a ftream of oxygen gas. It is feparated by means of the magnet, from the other matters with which it is mixed. It exhibits no tendency to combine with fulphur. The diluted fulphuric acid has no action upon it: when concentrated, it forms with it a greyish green falt. of a filky texture, with excefs of The editor entreats that his readers, in juftice to the intelligent writer of the effay alluded to, will have the goodness to make the corrections with the pen. fcarcely acts on it all. Gallic acid, added municated the theory of his improved 126 Plan of the Odéon at Paris. ROMIGUERE read the extract of a memoir of his, on the fignification of the word Idea. DESFONTAINES read the extract of a memoir of the citizen MARTIN, director of the Botanical Garden of Cayenne, on the fuccefs which the culture of the fpices had met with, in French Guiana. The refult is very fatisfactory, as it affords the profpect, that the colony will furnish France with all the fpices neceffary to its confumption. LEBRUN recited an epifode, imitated from the Georgics, and which makes part of his poem of the Lucubrations of Parnaffus, in which is the Hiftory of Ariftides. The fpectators frequently interrupted him with the warmest plaudits. SELIS read, at length, Sentiments on Literature, and on Eloquence in particular. DUPONT DE NEMOURS read an Effay on the Sociability and Morality of Dogs, Foxes, and Wolves. FONTAINES recited a part of the third hymn of the poem of Greece faved. In this piece he defcribes the voluntary facrifice made of their lives by the three hundred Spartans, under Leonidas. The grandeur of the images, the richness of the defcription, the energy of the fentiments, and the fine delivery of the orator, excited an enthusiasm, which manifefted itself by repeated and long applauses. LANGLES prefented fome opinions on the Oriental poets, and read a translation of three Arabic pieces. The fitting was terminated by the reading of the first act of the tragedy of Junius Brutus, by ANDRIEUX, which is on a plan entirely different from that of Voltaire, and is rather an imitation of the Italian tragedy of Alfieri. [In future Numbers we propofe to prefent our readers with fome of the articles at length.] [Feb. The Odéon, at Athens, was a magnificent ftructure, erected by Pericles, where the compofers of mufic contended for the prizes, which were diftributed, at the public expence, to the most fucceffful candidates, and where pieces of mufic were rehearsed, which were afterwards to be fung on the Athenian stage. Paufanias, Appian, and Vitruvius, celebrate the magnificence of this edifice, in terms of the highest admiration. Prior to the conftruction of the great theatre of Athens, the Odéon was also the place of affembly for the poets and musicians, who there recited, or performed their pieces. It ferved alfo for the repetition, or reprefentation, of works in tragedy and comedy, and of mufical compofitions. At Rome were five Odéa, confecrated to the fame ufes as that of Athens. The project of the French Odéon has been approved of by the government, which has prefented the fociety that undertakes to carry it into execution with a grant, for the term of 30 years, of the Theatre at Paris, in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, which was formerly Occupied by the Comédiens François. On the other hand, the fociety have made themselves refponfible to government, to repair, at their owe charges, the Theatre of the Fauxbourg St. Germain; to re-establish it in the fame condition as formerly; to defray the whole expence of fupporting it, during the 39 years of their enjoying the grant; to caufe to be reprefented, on the ftage of the Odéon, pieces in tragedy and comedy; operas, dialogue and comic; and hiftorical pantomimes; to engage and concentre in this theatre, as much as poffible, the most diftinguished theatrical talents of the nation; to invite the fame from all the French theatres in foreign countries, and to attach them to the accomplishment of the objects of the fociety, by the honours and diftinctions which they propofe to confer. The dramatic inftitute of the Odéon 1797-1 Plan of the Odéon at Paris. is to confift of three claffes, through which it is intended that all the pupils of the establishment fhall fucceffively pafs. Young perfons, of both fexes, whofe inclinations and talents lead them to the ftage, as their profeffion in life, will be admitted into it, from the age of 15 to 25; thofe alfo may be initiated who with to affume the caft of actors occafionally, and only for their own amufement. This class of initiation is defigned to raise up a nursery of actors for the Odéon, and for all the theatres of Paris and of France. In the first class of the Odéon, the pupils will be taught to acquire a confummate knowledge of the French language, and the moft correct manner of pronouncing it. They will alfo be taught to make themselves perfect proficients in the art of recitation or reading, without which it will be impoffible to attain to perfection in acting. In this clafs care will be taken to develope and difcriminate the phyfical and intellectual faculties of the pupils, fo that each may be enabled to apply himfelf to the caft or walk for which he thall appear to be the beft calculated by nature. The pupils of the fecond clafs are to be inftructed in the art of analyfing and working upon the different paffions which agitate, melt, or over-awe the heart of man. In the third clafs, the history and plot of dramatic pieces are to be laid open to the pupils; a critical analysis of thefe is to be entered into, and their excellencies and blemishes pointed out, and critically enlarged upon. Thofe pupils who give proofs of proficiency in the courfe of their inftructions, fuch as diftinguish themselves above their fellows, by their difpofitions, their improvements, or their talents, will be entitled to make their début on the ftage of the Odéon. The complementary days in the Odéon will be appropriated to the reprefentation of pieces whofe fuccefs fhall appear to have been the moft marked and confpicuous. On thefe days the adjudication of prizes, and of crowns of glory, will be made, by the order of government. Every kind of public fpectacle being concentred in the Odéon, prizes of various defcriptions will be awarded to the moft eminent artifts, whether authors, actors, or mufical compofers. The author or compofer whofe performance fhall have been reprefented on ne of the complementary days, fhall be 127 entitled to receive a crown, and an annual penfion of 600 livres. The adjudication of a crown the third time, fhall be accompanied with a second penfion of 600 livres. A feventh adjudication of a crown, fhall be accompanied with a third penfion of 800 livres. The triumphs of each author or compofer can only be acquired on the ftage of the Odeon; and at the conclufion of the reprefentation of those pieces which fhall have merited for the candidates fuch an honour. The works which fhall be crowned in the Odéon, fhall conftitute, for ever, a part of its repertory. The actor's whom the Odéon engages to procure and attach to its eftablishment, being already in the height of reputation, by the fuccefsful experience of many years, cannot be put on a level, in the diftribution of prizes, with thofe pupils of the Odéon who are defigned one day to replace them. The prizes will be of two defcriptions: the first of honour and celebrity, for the most excellent performers, in which confummate merit will gain its juft laurels; and the fecond, of encouragement and emulation, for those whole talents are only ripening towards perfection. The ancient artifts of the Theatre Fauxbourg St. Germain, fhall alike be entitled to the palms of the victor, and the penfionary rewards appropriated to merit. They fhall not be obliged to run through the fcale of acceffits of the Odéon, having already, by their labours, attained the highest point of profeffional glory and fuccefs. The other artifts will have it in their power to gain, in the twenty-five years' courfe of their dramatic career, twenty-three acceffits of pre-eminence or fuperiority; four crowns of honour, a crown of celebrity, a medal, and four. penfions or life annuities. The acceffits are defigned to be fo many fteps, by which every actor may proceed, from the first to the fecond, third, and fourth crowns of honour, and to the crown of celebrity. The adjudication of a first crown fhall entitle the victor to a penfion of the value of 250 livres; of a fecond, to a penfion of the fame value; of a third, to à penfion of 400 livres, and of a fourth, to a penfion of 600 livres. Thefe four crowns of honour will entitle the victor to a penfion, or life annuity, of 1500 livres. The |