And is it not, when such disorders rule,
High time that parents put themselves to school?
What though de Bonald* deem the system naught,
Because it teaches better than it ought?

Think ye the less the youthful armies swell
And crowd the courts of Lancaster and Bell?
In vain La Mennaist proves by reasoning sooth,
That reason never proved a single truth:
The stupid world just takes him at his word,
And owns his truths, at least to be absurd.

Lastly and this your majesties may call
Perhaps the most surprising point of all-
Nature herself appears to impart her force,
And plastic power to aid the infectious course.
For as the lower ranks by art and stealth
Gain ground so fast in knowledge and in wealth,
Their very numbers all account excell;
Their very corporal stature seems to swell.
While to our grief each glorious sovereign line,
The hope of nations, sinks in sad decline,
And scarce from age to age, with pain and care,
Succeeds, perhaps, in eking out an heir;
The rascal vulgar prove, untouched by shame,
Their limbs of iron, and their nerves of flame;
And hosts of children, swarming more and more,
Shew their white heads at every cottage door :
As erst the Jews, though crushed by Pharaoh's hand,
Waxed fast and mighty in the Egyptian land.

*The Viscount de Bonald is a voluminous French writer, who has acquired a good deal of authority with the aristocratic party on the continent by the determined pertinacity, with which he maintains the most absurd of their pretensions.

The Abbé de la Mennais is a much better writer, though, if possible, a still more absurd reasoner, than the viscount de Bonald. In his work on Indifference to Religion, he establishes the infallibility of the pope by the following argument. There is no certainty in any of the information which we receive by means of the senses, of consciousness, or of reasoning; therefore, in order to be certain of any thing, we must have it on better authority than either of these; therefore the pope is infallible. The protestants are also of opinion, that in order to believe in the pope, it is necessary to dispute the evidence of sense and reason; but instead of denying with M. de la Mennais, the credibility of their eyes and ears, they preferred denying that of his holiness. It is a curious thing to see this learned and able advocate of the most superstitious form of the Christian religion resting his defence of its truth upon the basis of universal Pyrrhonism. His argument has not a shadow of plausibility, and is indeed only an empty parade of words without meaning: but if his premises were true, they would lead to a conclusion directly contrary to the point he is endeavoring to prove.'

In vain sage Malthus, provident too late,
Predicts the event, and tells the doom of fate;
With eye unerring marks that hour of ill,
When tribes increasing the vast world shall fill;
Exhaust at once the unequal stock of food,
Fish, flesh, and fowl-from forest, air, and flood,
And last on each green thing despairing prey,
Till plague and famine sweep them all away.
In vain in soft persuasion dips his pen,

To touch the unwary souls of thoughtless men;
Calls beauty's bloom a false seducing show,
And love-sweet love-the source of all our woe;
Cassandra-like, he meets with small applause;
All turn where metal more attractive draws;
The enamored stripplings still delight to sip
The dews of love from beauty's rosy lip;
The blushing fair still views, with secret joy,
The manly charms that grace her ardent boy;
And as at heart the genial glow they feel,

Each quite forgets his great great grandchild's weal;
And leaving him and Malthus in the lurch,

Hies to his bride and trips away to church.'

Our limits do not permit us to continue our extracts from this address, which terminates with the poem. We know not how

extensive a popularity the poem can promise itself in this country, when, at this moment, our local politics are too interesting to leave a production, founded on European politics, much chance of wide circulation. Of the general merit of the poetry our readers can judge for themselves. It is quite above the ordinary level of similar compositions, and may be compared in some portions, not disadvantageously, with Mrs. Barbauld's fine production of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. It is plain to see, that a little more care bestowed on the versification would have removed that excess of pedestrian ease, which we think it manifests. Should the author be induced to continue his performance. we trust he will give this hint a thought. It applies, however, only to the latter part of the poem.

J. W. Webster.

ART. XX.-A Manual of Chemistry. By William Thomas Brande, Secretary of the Royal Society of London. The first American from the second London edition. Three volumes in one. To which are added, Notes and Emendations. By William James Macneven, M. D. Professor of Chemistry in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New-York. New-York, 1821. pp. 638.

THE establishment of the laboratory of the royal institution of Great Britain will ever be considered as a memorable epoch, in the history and progress of chemical science. While the bounds of knowledge were rapidly extended by the powerful genius of the illustrious individual, who first occupied the chemical chair, the lecture rooms were crowded, and a taste for scientific research was excited, resulting in benefits the most important, not only to the immediate attendants on the lectures, but to the nation and to the world at large. To the investigations conducted under the patronage and within the walls of the royal institution, not only is the chemist indebted for the confirmation of many facts, for the development of new and powerful agents, and for many of the brilliant discoveries with which the science has been enriched; but incalculable benefit has been conferred upon the artist and manufacturer; while the natural philosopher, the botanist, and the mineralogist have seen a taste for their favorite studies assiduously cultivated and widely diffused. In the apartments of the royal institution, observes professor Brande, the intercourse which has been facilitated between patrons of science, scientific men, and the promoters of manufactures and arts, has tended to inspire that activity and energy which spring most luxuriantly from the free interchange of opinion.'- Diffusing on one hand the elements of science to crowds of the fashionable world, who were delighted at the new source of instructive amusement thus opened to them, and on the other maintaining an honorable and emulous contest with the profoundest philosophers of the age in the paths of discovery and experiment, the royal institution rose to a height of distinction which has been rarely attained.'

Our readers are probably aware that the royal institution is not merely a school of chemistry, but that the great object for New Series, No. 10.

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which it was established is the advancement of every branch of science; and that within its walls gentlemen of the first talents lecture on practical mechanics, architecture, antiquities, drawing and painting, on botany and the other departments of natural history. The lectures are illustrated by an ample chemical and philosophical apparatus, and the library, the mineralogical cabinet, and the collection of models are of great value and extent.

The work, the title of which is prefixed to this article, professes to be an abstract of the lectures of professor Brande; who, on the resignation of Sir Humphry Davy, was chosen to succeed to the chemical chair in the institution. We have taken this opportunity of alluding to it, in consequence of the new prospects which private munificence has opened upon an establishment in this town, of which we have every reason to be proud, and with which we trust every aid and incentive to the promotion and diffusion of literature and science will before long be connected.

The work of professor Brande has been favorably received in Europe, and most of our readers must be fully satisfied of its merits, from the notice which has been taken of it in so many of the European journals. We congratulate our scientific friends on the republication of the work in this country, and cheerfully recommend it to chemical students, who will find in it a clear and satisfactory view of the present state of the science of which it treats. It will moreover be found to contain many details in regard to the manipulations of chemistry, which they will in vain seek in more voluminous and elaborate treatises. It is admirably well calculated for those who are commencing the study of chemistry, and that portion of it which relates to analysis, will be found particularly useful to all, who undertake operations of this kind. Those who are desirous of pursuing any subject more in detail than has been done by Mr Brande, will find numerous references, at almost every page, to the best and latest authorities.

While we express our approbation of this work, we feel under the necessity of saying, that the American editor has rather imperfectly performed the office he undertook of adding 'notes and emendations.' The whole amount of his labors, as far as we can discover, consists in the adaptation of the representative numbers for the elementary and compound atoms, to the determinations of Prout and Thomson, the omission of one

hundred and eighty-eight pages of preface, and the abridgment of one hundred and two pages of index to two! The fact that the principal part of the preface to the English edition is but an enlarged, though in several particulars an improved version of the author's earlier dissertation on the progress of chemical science, already published in this country, appears to us an inadequate apology for its omission. In regard to the abridgment of the index, we feel still more disposed to complain, having in vain sought for some of the most important topics of discussion in the meagre table of two pages retained. A well digested index to a work of this kind is not only convenient, but we had almost said, an essential part of the treatise itself.

In that portion of the preface which Dr Macneven has seen fit to retain, we are told by professor Brande that the arrangement of the materials of his volumes is that, which 'some years' experience of its advantages in teaching the principles of the science,' has induced him to adopt. In the present state of our knowledge,' he continues, it will be found most convenient to begin with the discussions relating to the general powers or properties of matter, and afterwards to proceed to the examination of individual substances, and to the phenomena which they offer when presented to each other under circumstances favorable to the exertion of their mutual chemical agencies.' The leading facts connected with the general laws of chemical changes are then detailed in a clear and satisfactory manner, under the heads of homogeneous attraction, heterogeneous attraction or affinity, heat, and electricity.'

In the following chapter the properties of radiant matter, and its influence upon the composition of bodies,' are considered. The effects of radiant matter, in producing the phenomena of vision, are not, however, dwelt upon at sufficient length, and the student, we fear, will obtain from this part of professor Brande's work but a very superficial knowledge of the equally curious and beautiful phenomena, connected with the polarisation of light. We should have been pleased to have seen a more complete analysis of the labors of Dr Brewster on this subject, especially as for a few years past it has excited so much attention among the philosophers of Europe. We may indeed say, that chemists and mineralogists are just beginning to avail themselves of its powerful aid in the prosecution of their respective sciences. The labors of Malus, Brewster,