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between his former sentiments, and his newly acquired religious opinions. He was not a professed theologian; and this will excuse a little inaccuracy, the subject of which appertains equally to botany and divinity. He says, of her early afflictions, we may indulge the belief, that in this solitary and sorrowful period, were sown those seeds of grace, which, though buried for a season, sprouted forth, and in after years flourished like the green bay tree, and finally produced the richest fruits of humility, charity, and vital piety.' p. 18. He could not have been aware of the fact, that the green bay tree never produces any fruit, and that although it widely extends itself, yet, it is for the destruction of all vegetation around it, by the deathful influences of its leaves. He could not have known that the Scriptures compare none but the wicked to this tree. I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree;' (Psalm xxxvii. 35.) for the destruction of all around him. It would better have suited the nature of the case, had our author compared his partner to the palm tree 'planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither.' Ps. i. 3. Of this tree, it is a literal truth, that it never sheds its leaves.

On the 29th page commences one of the finest strains of our author. It must please every reader.

'Her character as a wife is known but to one in this world.

She was capable of that deep, generous, self devoting sentiment, which, in retirement, springs amid mutual charities and mutual pursuits, links itself with every interest of life, and twines itself even with hopes of immortal happiness. She was a wife but nine months, five of which were passed in sickness, and in suffering. But if the tenderest sensibility of soul, the purest and warmest heart, a sound judgment, a disposition sweet and placid, a lively and playful wit, a firm, constant, self devoting attachment, knowledge various and elegant, a delicacy which almost shrunk from observation, and enthusiastick love of domestick life, a deep and solemn sense of religion; a knowledge of all her duties, and a soul intent upon their

full performance could render the conjugal state happy; her husband must have been happy. He was happy while she enjoyed health; he was tortured by her sickness and agonies.

'O! may the same Almighty hand, which has so heavily pressed him to the earth, raise him from the death of sin, enable him to imitate his beloved wife in the hour of sickness and of death, and finally join her again in those celestial mansions where there is no more sickness or pain.'

From the thirty-third to the fortysecond page, we have a specimen of the admirably descriptive powers of Mr. Grosvenor. The history of the commencement of the pulmonary disease, which terminated his partner's career, excites a lively mterest in the mournful scene. We should extract several pages for the gratification of our readers, did we not deem it a sort of literary robbery to take so much from so small a volume as this.

To the Sketch is added an Appendix, which contains a well written, but brief notice of Mr. Grosvenor.

KIRK and MERCEIN of New York have just published, in a handsome octavo volume, Colden's Life of Robert Fulton, Esq., with a portrait. The profits arising from the sale of this work, are to be appropriated to the fund for erecting a statue to the memory of the late lamented Mr. Fulton, under the direction of the Literary and Philosophical Society.

BOTANY.

M. CAREY and SoN have issued proposals for publishing by subscription, a work, entitled Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States; or Medical Botany: containing a botanical, general, and medical history of medicinal plants, indigenous to the United States; illustrated by coloured engravings, made after original drawings from na ture, done by the author. By William P. C. Barton, M. D. Professor of Botany in the university of Pennsylvania, &c. It will be published in eight quarto numbers, each containing six plates, coloured according to nature, and about 60 pages of letter press.-Price three dollars a number.

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Robert Fulton Esf.

Engraved for the Analectic Magazine Published by M. Thomas.

THE

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1817.

ART. I.-The Life of ROBERT FULTON, by his friend Cadwallader D. Colden. Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York. 1817. p. 371.

SOME one has observed, that mankind respect most and reward best, first those who murder and destroy them; secondly those who blind their understandings and cheat them; thirdly those who amuse them; last and least, those who endeavour to instruct and benefit them. In this class must be included authors and projectors; appellations that associate in their common acceptation, a portion of pity mixed with contempt.

Fulton ranked among the class last enumerated. His life was spent in devising the means of promoting the comfort and facilitating the intercourse of civilized life, and counteracting the evils of modern warfare. In proportion as he succeeded in demonstrating the practicability of his plans, he gave birth to obloquy and opposition. During the last years of his life his plans of public utility were greatly interrupted. He was forced to protect himself against men who speculated on his ideas: who were ready to deprive him of the honour, and to rob him of the profit of those inventions, by which his fellow citizens had been so much benefitted, and the reputation of his native country so much promoted.*

The present life of Fulton by Mr. Colden, is a plain, unaffected, unexaggerated account of what Fulton did and proposed to do for the benefit of his country and of mankind. It is neither prolix nor pompous; it does not offend by any over-strained panegyric, nor does it omit any part of Fulton's character, performances, or projects, that the public is interested in knowing. It is creditable to the very useful man concerning whom it is written, and to the biographer who writes it.

Robert Fulton, the subject of the present memoir, was the third of five children born of Robert and Mary Fulton. His father was of Kilkenny in Ireland; his mother was also of Irish descent. There are two countries in Europe, insignificant in point of popula

* The Chevalier Cadet de Gassicourt in a letter from Paris, January, 1817, proposing the substitution of the hydraulic-press to the force of steam, as a moving power to propel vessels, observes that "Steam Boats offer such great advantages to commerce, that England, France, and America with one accord proclaim the glory of Fulton." Month. Mag. May, 1817 p. 299.

VOL X.

23

tion and extent, that have furnished more examples of brilliant intellect, and useful knowledge, than nations of ten times their size and number. Ireland may challenge Europe for her proportion of men of genius, and the petty territory of Sweden has done more towards chemistry and natural history than any single nation in that quarter of the globe. It is not easy to defend the practice of characterising masses of men by a few individual instances, but it is hardly possible to with-hold our assent to permanent traits of character ascribable to nations, and it is gratifying to ascribe them when they are so honourable.

Fulton was born at little Britain in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765: his father died in 1768, leaving little patrimony to his children. Robert Fulton the son, was attached in his youth to drawing and painting, and from his earnings and savings in this profession between his 17th and 22nd year, he purchased a small farm in Washington county, Pennsylvania, on which he settled his mother; who remained on it till her death in 1799, thirteen years. Fulton, therefore, commenced his career of life, by sacrificing the profits of his earliest exertions to make his surviving parent comfortable and independent. This was a commencement of excellent augury.

Probably, much of Fulton's success in his plans, depended on the ease with which he was able to express his ideas on paper by means of his pencil. Drawing, is the first acquirement necessary to that most useful and important character, a civil engineer: next to that is a perfect readiness in all arithmetical and mathematical calculations, particularly of the higher mathematics; next chemistry and natural philosophy. It is thus that Smeaton, and Watt, and Woolfe and Clegg, have been made in England; men, who when weighed in the balances of public utility against the monarch and the ministry, the peers and the commons of the parliament of that country, would cause the scale of the latter to kick the beam. It is not too much to say that the duke of Bridgewater, Boulton and Watt, Wedgewood, and Bentley, and sir Richard Arkwright have been worth to their native country, a hundred millions of pounds sterling. We shall have no such men here, till more time is allowed to education, than the superficial manners of the present day deems necessary in this country-till boys are permitted to remain boys until nature and education shall make men of them. It was by pursuing with steady attention his mathematical studies which he found absolutely necessary to his success, and by his acquirements in physical science, that Fulton himself was enabled to bring his native talents so usefully into play: for genius uneducated and unimproved, is often a nuisance, and seldom of value, either to its owner, or mankind.

Soon after he had settled his mother, he set out for England to study painting under Mr. West. But while in that country, in 1793, he became acquainted with the duke of Bridgewater and lord Stanhope, and turned his attention toward the construction and the use of navigable canals; a scheme, to which the duke of Bridge

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