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A MONG the rest of those sciences, beneficial and ornamental, which have been making huge strides of progress during the last fifteen years, the advancement of the art of novel-writing (in this country) stands very eminently distinguished. "Mrs. Roche" has ceased to rave; and, if she raved still, no man would mark her. "Mr. Lathom" can no longer terrify the prentices nor "Anne of Swansea" now delight the ladies boarding-schools. " Mrs. Bluemantle" (alas, poor "Bridget !") has washed her hands (of ink) for ever; and but a water-colour kind of reputation is left to Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Helme. Harp of Leadenhall Street, thy strings are cracked past mending!-Messrs. Lane and Newman's "occupation's gone!"

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In fact, (poetry apart,) the standard of novel-writing has changed among us. That which was the "trash" (eo nomine)" of the circulating libraries," the circulating libraries now can circulate no more.

Nonsense will be printed in the year 1824, but not much that is pure, unadulterated nonsense. The dog-eared darlings of the dressmakers' workrooms have been at auction for the last time! "Miss Nimifie" and "Miss Moffat," and all the "ladies" and "gentlemen" of "fashion," have jumped up, to be "knocked down," at seven-pence-halfpenny a volume; and the cheesemonger smiles, for, at the

* Percy Mallory, a novel, in three volumes, by the author of Pen Owen. Edinburgh 1824.

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For an array of new combatants have burst into the literary field, who canter, and caracole, and bear down all before them! There is the Waverly knight-he of the hundred weapons; -and his war-cry rings loudest on the plain. There is the author of Valerius, in his Roman armour; and the Ettrick Shepherd, with his knotted club; and there is Hope, on his barb of the desart; and Galt, in his pawkie costume; and Maturin, with his frightful mask; and Washington Irving, just in his silk doublet, throwing darts into the air, and catching them again, and riding as easily as if he were on parade; and then there are the Amazons, equipped after every fancy and fashion! Miss Porter, waving her Polish lance, and Miss Edgeworth, holding up her ferula, and the authoress of "Marriage," (in Miss Jacky's green joseph,) tucked up upon a pillion; and Lady Morgan, astradelle, (and in French breeches,) since she has taken to be mad about politics! and poor old Mrs. Thickenwell, and her friends, are no more able to stand their ground against the trampling, and jostling, and capering, of this rabble rout, than a washingtub (with a north-west wind,) could be fit to carry sail in the Bay of Biscay, or a poney chaise hope to pass unpulverized through Bond Street, in July.

A modern novel, indeed, if it hopes ever to be cut open, must show talent of some kind or other. Accordingly, we find, one author trusts to passion, another, to invention; one, to an acute perception of what is; another, to a vigorous fancy for what he cannot be. One brings to market wit-another, metaphysics-a third, descriptive force -a fourth, poetic feeling-a few, like the Waverley writer, bring the rare faculty of managing a long story; but very few venture to come at all, who cannot bring some faculty or other.

People commonly find out the value of any qualification best, in A, when, proceeding in their speculations, they fail to meet with it in B. The peculiar felicity of the Scottish novellist, in the business of telling a story, strikes us

now perhaps from a certain want of the same power in the author before us. But it is curious to observe the manner in which that extraordinary writer contrives to maintain as perfect an arrangement through his history of four volumes, as the Italian conteur ever did in his anecdote of four pages. The Tuscan artist built pavillions-the Scottish sorcerer raises cities; Boccacio can steer a gondola, amid the "crinkum crankum" of a Venetian canal; but the author of Waverley is "The Flying Dutchman," who doubles Cape Horn in the eye of the wind. The Italian prances along, to a hair's breadth, in his cabriolet, the prettiest Pall Mall pacing in the world! but the Waverley man draws THE MAIL "through"—“ from London to Edinburgh"-" twice aweek!"-He looks to his " way-bill"

takes care of his passengers, loses no parcels, and never "drags" an inch of the road! He has got his four "big ones"- "well in hand"-before him. His "five-and-thirty hundred weight,"

"live and dead load," behind him. He gets his four "insides" up, and his three "out"-his "bags"-his "timepiece"-spare whip, and six great coats. The horn blows-he handles the "ribbands"-lets go the traces: off they go, and he comes in, five hundred miles off, without cracking a splinter bar, sleeps his six hours, has his boots cleaned, and is ready to start again.

Piecemeal, perhaps, we might match the author of Waverley, but we cannot match him as a whole. He awakens an impatience in us as to the fate of his dramatis persona, from the very moment that we are introduced to them. He keeps us straining, and "craning,” and tiptoeing, after his catastrophe, and trotting along, with our noses in the air, like the hackney coach-horses of Dublin, who are coaxed forward by a pole with hay upon it, pushed from the window of the carriage before them. We are always villainously inclined, before we have got a hundred pages into his book, to kill the goose at once, and get the eggs out of the last volume; and we are just now (as we observed before) put in excellent condition to admire the dexterity and facile conduct of this author, the adroitness with which he keeps

constantly dragging his readers on, neck and heels, (sometimes, too, by the way, when they might be inclined to grumble a little, if he allowed them time to stop,) by the want of that same facility being the chiefest defect of the writer whose work lies before us for dissection.

"Percy Mallory, a novel, by the author of Pen Owen." It's a pretty practice this, upon "the living subject ;" and we are inventing (only it must be a great secret) an improved system of "operative" surgery, by which we propose, shortly, to "cut up" authors in an entirely new way! In the meantime, however, we will open Monsieur Pen Owen," from the systole, to the diastole." So!-one cut across the abdomen, from right to left; another incision (transverse) about from eight to eleven inches. There! now we shall see what the gentleman is made of.

The author of " Percy Mallory" has great talents, and his books will be generally read; but, either he has not the the knack of managing a narrative, or he will not be at the trouble of exercising it. His main excellence lies in the rapidity and boldness with which he sketches character. He is a quick observer of men's habits and oddities, and has a clever sort of idea of their passions and affections; he writes a smart, petillant dialogue, with great apparent facility, and gives the chit chat, in general, of a mixed company, with an adroitness hardly to be exceeded.

Against these "good gifts" in an author, there are some grievous ill tricks to be set off. We would wager, although we don't know who he is, that he could write farces as fast as he could move his pen. He has the "touch and go" faculty (so lauded in the manager's room) as light as any gentleman we ever met with. No man is less likely to overlay a conversation, or under

stands better the advantage of "shifting a scene ;" but, in return, a general heedlessness makes his transitions pantomimic; his "situations" fall out inartificially, and his means are seldom proportioned to his end; he sets a great deal of machinery to work, which he cannot manage when it is in action; he makes a great bustle where he comes to a difficulty, walks round it, and fancies that he has overcome it. The links that connect his tale are often clumsy, and sometimes inefficient; and probably incident, or accurate description, are points upon which he seldom pauses to attend.

But he doesn't prose, and therefore we won't do it for him.

His present work is better, upon the whole, than Pen Owen; but its faults (and they are not few) are pretty generally of the same character. In both novels, the great charm lies unquestionably in the display of a very extraordinary measure of practical shrewdness and knowledge of life. In addition to this, Pen Owen had a strong spice of political, and this book has a strong spice of romantic interest. The author appears to be gaining skill as to the management of fable; although we are far from wishing him to believe that he is not still much below what he might make himself as to this point. In that and other minor matters he may and must improve; we certainly can scarcely hope to see him better than he is already in regard to certain qualifications of a much higher order-qualifications in which he certainly is not surpassed by any living author, in any style whatever-the charming idiomatic character of his language-the native flow of his wit-his keen satire and thorough acquaintance with man, as man exists in the 19th century, and more especially as he exists in LONDON.

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

"And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim,nor his natura! force abated."-Deuteronomy xxxiv. 7.

A shadow passed before me, and the form
Of dying Moses on my vision rose :
Albeit he wore upon his aged brow
All that youth has of passionate and warm.
I looked once more, and saw the fatal scroll
On which 'twas writ the Prophet was to die;
And o'er his face th' eternal curtains roll,
Drawn by the hand of sweet Euthanasy.

His placid cheek assumed no paler dye
When his pure spirit burst from life's contronl,
Nor age had cast her dimness on his eye;
But the bright angel that received his soul
Tbrew such unearthly calmness in his air,
That I had never deem'd the blight of Death was

there.

(Sel. Mag.)

CHEMICAL ESSAYS. NO.II.

CALORIC-ELECTRICITY.

WE have before observed, that caloric has the power of expanding all bodies. This expansion varies exceedingly in the various substances upon which it acts. Different metals expand in different degrees. To show these variations, instruments called pyrometers have been invented. Upon this principle, thermometers have been formed: they are tubes with a bulb at the bottom; the air is excluded from them, and some liquid (generally spirits of wine or mercury) is introduced into the bulb, which by its expansion or contraction, measured by a scale affixed to the tube, shows the temperature of the bodies with which it is brought into contact.

The most important powers then of free caloric to which we have alluded, are its tendency to an equilibrium, its power of radiation, of expansion, and of conducting. We will now pass on to examine our second modification of caloric; namely, specific or combined caloric. The study of this part of heat we may subdivide into two branches: first, the specific heat of bodies while they retain the same state; seccond, the heat connected with or developed by a change of state.

The specific heat of a body is that which is as it were imprisoned in it: for the only heat we can feel is the free caloric with which it parts, consequently the thermometer can form no test for the specific heat of bodies. The quantity of heat required to raise different bodies an equal number of thermometric degrees, is quite different. If, for instance, we take water, alcohol, mercury, and oil, and heat them in tin vessels by the heat of an oven, we shall find that they will not all arrive at any given point of heat at the same time. The oil will be the last to acquire the temperature, the alcohol next, and then the water; the mercury will first reach it. Nor can this arise from the different conducting powers of the

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various fluids; for if they are now all poured into water of the same temperature, (when they will give out all the caloric they have absorbed,) it will be found that the oil will heat the water most, and so on in succession; thus clearly showing that different bodies have different capacities for caloric.

But we will now proceed to our second division of specific heat: the heat connected with or developed in the changes of state. This is generally called latent heat. The sudden changes of bodies from a solid to a liquid, and from a liquid to a gaseous or aeriform state, and the reverse of these, give the body new capacities for caloric. In the changing of ice into water, great heat is absorbed; this becomes latent in the newly formed liquid. In the same way, to carry on the experiment, when water is boiled, it does not rise in temperature after it has once reached the boiling point, because the additional heat it acquires is employed in changing the water into steam, and becomes latent heat in the newly formed vapour. On the other hand, the latent heat of a liquid may be made sensible, by any method which we can adopt for solidifying it: for it may be remarked, (though with several exceptions,) that the more solid bodies have frequently less capacity for caloric than others which are less solid. If we mix sulphuric acid and water, we shall find, that sufficient heat is evolved to raise the thermometer considerably above the boiling point. The cause of this is, as we before saw, that through some disposition of chemical affinity, the particles of the acid and the water enter into composition in a much more solid form, the capacity for caloric is diminished, and that which was latent heat in its less condensed form, is now sensible, or free caloric, becoming sensible as it is evolved. Another example may be found in the slaking of quick-lime. The heat which is here produced arises from the water and the lime entering into a more solid form; and the capacity for caloric being les

sened, the latent heat of the water this fluid in its weakest state: when collected in larger quantities by instruments which we shall hereafter describe, it appears as a spark. As for its operations, almost all the minute changes as well as the grander luminous appearances of matter, seem to originate in it.

is evolved, and becomes sensible. There is one more striking instance of the effect produced by the demand for caloric to be converted into latent heat; namely, in the cold produced by evaporation. This is very great in the evaporation of spirits of wine, ether, and other fluids which evaporate quickly. Here the caloric is absorbed by the spirits of wine, when converted into a state of vapour, to exist in the vapour in the shape of latent heat. In very hot climates, the cold produced is so intense, that a large animal may be actually killed by the frequent application of ether to his body. In India, ice is produced during the night, by evaporating water in large and very shallow vessels, so that a large surface shall be exposed to the air.

We have now discussed the subject of heat, or caloric. Its chief chemical use is as a solvent. As water destroys the attraction of cohesion by introducing its particles between the particles of the body acted upon, so fire acts with regard to many bodies which are not acted upon by water. Caloric introduces its particles, and thus renders the body more liable to be acted upon by other chemical operations.

We will now advert to our last general power, electricity; and here we must content ourselves with a mere cursory and popular view of the subject, as it would carry us to a far greater length than our limits will admit, were we to attempt to enter into its more abstruse speculations.

If we rub with a dry hand, or with a silk handkerchief, a glass tube, and then bring it near to bits of paper, cotton, or, which is better, gold-leaf, it will first attract these bodies, and then repel them. If when the atmosphere is dry, we take a glass rod in one hand, and a stick of sealing-wax in the other, and having rubbed one of them, approach it to a bit of gold-leaf floating in the air, it will repel, and then attract it: if while the one repels it, we rub the other, and approach it to the particle, it will attract it; and thus you may proceed for any length of time, alter nately repelling and attracting.

Such are some of the phenomena of

There are several substances, such as glass and sealing-wax, which, by friction or other methods, seem to acquire an increased quantity of the electric matter from the atmosphere. We will mention some of these in the order in which they naturally occur, placing the more powerful bodies at the head of the list, and decreasing gradually to the close.

1. SHELL LAC.
2 AMBER.

3. RESINS.
4. SULPHUR.
5. WAX.

6. ASPHALTUM.

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10. BAKED WOODS, &c.

On the other hand, there are certain substances which do not partake in the least of the power to which we have just alluded, but which favour the distribution of electricities when they are acquired. Among these we may rank first the metals. The following is a list of a few of the best conductors of electricities, as these are termed, in opposition to the former class, which are termed electrics, and non-conductors.

1. COPPER.

2

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SILVER.

9.

3. GOLD.

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IRON.
TIN

6. LEAD, &c.
7. CHARCOAL.

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But not to enter at present more at large upon this part of our subject, which would well merit a particular lecture, we will pass on to galvanism, a branch of electricity more especially connected with chemistry. Galvani, a professor of natural philosophy of Bologna, discovered, that when a piece of any kind of metal was laid on the nerve of the leg of a recently killed frog, provided the nerve rested on some other metal, the leg suddenly moved on a communication being made between the two pieces of metal. This was soon found to be effected by a fluid of the same nature as electricity. A mechanism was soon formed, by means of which this fluid might be collected.

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