enduring interest in imaginary scenery, however beautiful, unless it can be connected with some permanent theme of the poet. Having painted a Paradise, it must be made into an Eden, or a garden of Armida, if it is to charm as a nucleus of association. Berghem always painted cattle well; but, of all his paintings, that is valued highest which represents the cat tle-market in the amphitheatre of Rome, or Coliseo. The magnificent ruin forms a fine back-ground of landscape; its heed Jess tenants talk to the thought; the in stinctive pastoral_habits of man survive and trample under foot the proudest piles of civilization; the cow ruminates where Roscius declaimed;~millennial empires, ye are mortal, only nature is everlasting! The sublime in art, making its efficacy as a nucleus of association our standard of appreciation, is usually overvalued. Landscapes, of which the features are huge and prominent, are naturally enough preferred by the young artist, the gigantic being of easier imitation than the beauti ful, and the portraiture of such features of nature being known at once by any ordinary spectator. The slightest imprecision of outline may annihilate beauty; while great aberrations do not distort colcssality. Yet surely there is a something barbarous and irrational in that rage for mountain-scenery which is professed by lovers of the picturesque. What is a mountainous district but a region in which nothing answers its purpose. The hills are too steep for the plough, the valleys too narrow for pasturage, the streams too abrupt to float mer chandize. Every ascent is the toil of Sisyphus; every descent is the fall of Vulcan. Where perchance the road is level, a crag threatens above, or an abyss yawns below: no where a sentiment of security or convenience. The cottages clamber, like goats, among precipices. The bridges are pelted with stones by the torrents. The mills lurk about cataracts which no waggon can approach. Equally repulsive to human ideas of utility and shapeliness are the larger features of the landscape, the mountains and Jakes. The eye walks on broken flint, or is disappointed of repose by the glare of a blue, barren, agueish, unpeopled, league-wide, flat. The noise of the streams is like a tale told by an ideot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; these brawling brooks are lost to mechanism, to agriculture, and to navigation. Mountain-scenery too is every where ahke, and seems to attach the hardy population it rears only to irregularity and confusion. To all the ravagers of the earth, mountainous districts have supplied a larger proportion of recruits than the more populous plains. On the beautiful, perhaps, men, in the fairest stage of their sensibility and taste, will choose, or tend, to repose. The view from Richmond Hill in our country, and those views about Tivoli, which the landscape-painters send so plentifully from Rome, may probably excite, more completely than any other sort of scenery, the luxurious and agreeable ideas of opulence, refinement, elegance, and enjoyment, being harboured in every dwelling, or scattered in every grove; nature in her fairest garb is there receiving the homage of beauty and sensibility. Yet I doubt whether, in nature life, these soft associations do not in some degree give way to more stimulant ones; whether the somewhat fanciful and arbitrary attribution of beauty to slopes of hills and curves of streams, which can not easily, as in the case of human form, be brought to fixed principles deserving the approbation of the reason, does not progressively lose ground or stability in the mind's eye. In myself I am conscious of such a tendency. The artificial productions of the pencil, those which represent objects of art rather than of nature, are to me become the most delightful. Let others admire Alpine scenery, whitening cataracts, and pyramidal moun tains,hiding in the clouds their useless tallness; give me stones which mind has moved, and shaped into habitations for myriads of men. Give me rivers which bridges have yoked, which navigation beswims. I like the views of large cities. The ages which have been necessary to nurse and rear them into their present magnificence; the quantity of human labour which has been employed to produce this vast convenient tenantable arrange ment; the study, the refinement, the art, the intellect, which were required to impress so tasteful an exterior form; the thousand roads and water-courses, the extensive cultivation and commerce, which the habitations of so condensed and thronging a population imply; the great events of which these cities have been the nurse and the seat; the imperial authority which they exercise over distant men and distant ages, both as to opinions, laws, and institutions; all crowd on the soul, and become associated with the walls and roofs and spires, the domes and columns and bridges, above, about, and underneath. I infer that the highest destination of art 1815.] Mr. Dick on Literary and Philosophical Societies. art is to represent its own produc tions. If the Genius of Prospect were at my beckon, ready with outspread wings to convey me whithersoever I would, as the angel carried aloof Habakkuk by the hair of the head; like the prophet, I would petition for removal from the mountainous Carmel to the builded Babylon. But he is, through the power of fancy, at my command; he uplifts me above the surface of the globe; and is bidding it twirl beneath my feet. This meridian passes on, and the next rolls by; and along each he allows me, with dwelling gaze, to fas ten on the spots, which the suffrage of observation has caused to be depicted on panoramas, and carried about from city to city as the worthiest of human curiosity. And on which of these spots shall we alight in order to obtain the highest degree of visual enjoyment? Shall it be on the pinnacle of the temple of Jerusalem, or on the summit of Vesuvius, or in some boat that fluctuates in the straits of Constantinople-no, but in London, on the balustrade of Blackfriars bridge. There I can behold an immea surably wider extent of builded space than elsewhere; houses rising above houses, streets stretching beyond streets, palaces, theatres, temples climbing from among the endless mass of edifice further than the eye can trace in any direction, and beyond all the majestic Thames, with the ideas of world-encompassing commerce and empire, which that winding forest of masts is adapted to excite; and all this, my countrymen, our own. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, page 503 convinced that this was the idea intended to be communicated, and that the formation of a library was a part, but only a part, of the proposed arrangements. Your correspondent, however, in his short, but interesting, account of "the subscription library of Greenock," has suggested some hints which are equally applicable to the establishment of libra ries and of philosophical societies; on some of which I shall now offer a few remarks and illustrations. In the first place, the subscription li brary at Greenock was formed in consequence of written notices having been put up at the booksellers' shops, coffeehouses, and the principal inns. In a manner somewhat similar, might infor mation be given to the public of the intention of forming literary and philosophical societies. As many of the most important establishments have originated from the suggestion and active co-operation of a few individuals, were two or three active and intelligent persons in every town to agree about the propriety of attempting the establishment of a philosophical society, printed notices of such an intention might be circulated and put up in the most public places, appointing a time and a place for all those who favour the proposed object to meet, in order to concert measures for its organization. Similar notices might also be published in the provincial news. papers, accompanied with a few remarks, shewing the utility of such esta blishments. The lovers of science, and of rational information, would thus have an opportunity of assembling around a rallying point; their number would, in some measure be known, and it would soon be ascertained whether it he IN your Number for, aly last, has been practicable to form themselves would be pleased to refer to a communication of mine inserted in your excellent Magazine for April last; but seems to have mistaken the leading idea which pervades that paper. Instead of "the formation of provincial libraries, the property of which is vested in the subscribers," my object was to recommend the establish ment of literary and philosophical societies, among the middling and lower ranks of the community, in every town and populous village, for the purpose of diffusing general information, as well as for making improvements and discoveries in art and science. If he has perused my last communications on this subject, in your Magazines for July, August, and September, or re-perused the former paper to which he alludes, be will be gular association for literary and scientific purposes. Although the project should be spurned at by many, as it probably would, and only a few, for example, fifteen or twenty persons, should concur in the design, yet this would form no valid reason why the object should be abandoned; as the most important results have frequently followed from very small and unpromising begin. nings, when the first projectors were steady, persevering, and active in the prosecution of their designs; and as many, who at first might stand aloof from the association, would afterwards be induced to become members when the society is completely organized. In the first in stance, it may be expedient to adunit as many respectable persons as chose to become become members, in order to give a certain degree of respectability to the so. ciety; though afterwards it might be proper to admit those only who have attained some degree of literary acquirements, or who indicate a strong desire after knowledge. In the next place, in the formation of the Greenock library, "many of the gentlemen offered the use of their private libraries, for a certain time to the society." This generous disposition, which was manifested by the gentlemen of Greenock, would, in all probability, be indicated in other places, in the establishment of literary and philosophical societies. It would be of considerable importance in their first formation, to have the use of an apparatus for the occasional performance of philosophical experiments; but a considerable time behoved to elapse before the society would have it in its power to procure an extensive variety of instruments for the purpose of experimental illustration. As men of science are generally of a liberal and obliging turn of mind, I have no doubt, that many of them would frankly come forward to offer the use of some parts of their private apparatus to the society, till such time as the funds would permit the purchase of an apparatus on its own account. Were the society, at its formation, in this manner, put in possession of an electrical machine, an air-pump, an orrery, a pair of globes, a microscope, and similar in struments, it would not only reflect a certain degree of respectability on the society, but, in consequence of the interesting experiments which might be Occasionally exhibited, would allure the young enquirer to the study of philosophical subjects. It might also be expected, that a variety of natural curiosities in relation to the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, would soon be presented to the society; either as donations, or for the purpose of being exhibited in the apartments of the society, for a certain time, till its funds should permit the purchase of similar specimens. As an inducement to persons, not immediately connected with the institution, to deposit specimens of this kind in the society's apartments, permission might be given them, on certain days, to visit the museum along with their friends. Thus the society might soon become an object of curi osity and interest to the intelligent part of mankind, and would doubtless ac quire a gradual accession of respectable members. Another circumstance worthy of attention in the Greenock institution is, "that they admit with the same facility as their own subscribers, any gentleman, or lady, who may visit the town, and can prove that they are subscribers to a similar institution." This is a principle worthy of being adopted by all rational associations, and ought in particular to be acted upon in its full extent, by all literary and philosophical societies. In order to designate the members of all such societies, and to prevent the necessity of a circumstantial proof of their belonging to similar institutions, every member might be furnished by his own society, with an engraved card or ticket; or rather, with a medal of brass or pewter, having the society's name and motto engraved on it, and to which the name of the person, at his admission, might also be appended. The advantages which would result from the possession of such a document, are sufficiently obvious. It would form, as it were, a bond of union among all the lovers of science in different parts of the empire, and enable them with facility to recognize each other. Travellers, whether on business, or for pleasure, when visiting the different towns in the line of their route, would thus obtain an easy access to the society of persons of congenial minds; useful hints would be reciprocally communicated, and an interesting correspondence would be occasionally formed, which might be productive of many pleasing and important consequences, both to the individuals and to the respective societies. They would thus feel themselves more home, devoid of that ennui which one so frequently feels in strange places, and have an opportunity of improving those hours which might otherwise be dissipated in listlessness to rational and scientific purposes. In a word, by this means, the idea suggested by the celebrated Lord Verulum, of uniting the learned world into one great republic, might be in some measure realised; every person of intelligence carrying along with him his badge of distinction, and thus indicating to all congenial minds the grand association to which he belongs. at To conclude: the present is an age in which scientific associations, of various descriptions, have rapidly encreas ed, particularly within the limits of the British 1815: Mr. Dick on Literary and Philosophical Societies. 505 British empire. We have now Geological and Wernerian societies, for making researches into the internal structure of the globe, and the changes it has undergone since its first formation; Lin. næan societies, for the improvement of the science of botany; Antiquarian societies, for making researches into his tory and antiquities; societies for the encouragement and promotion of arts, manufactures, naval architecture, and commerce; societies for the improvement of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, natural philosophy, and almost every other department of human knowledge. The principle of the division of labour, the utility of which, in mechanical opera tions, has been so correctly pointed out by Dr. Adam Smith, seems now to be judiciously acted upon in scientific investigations, by the formation of societies which have chiefly one great object to promote, or one individual science which they propose to cultivate. We have therefore reason to indulge the hope, that the different sciences will now make more rapid advances to perfection than in former times. Still, how ever, much remains to be accomplished, in regard to the establishment of literary and scientific associations. The dis coveries hitherto made in the various departments of human knowledge, however interesting and important, are entirely unknown to by far the greatest proportion, even of the civilized part of mankind. Of more than one hundred and fifty millions of rational beings, within the limits of Europe, the most civilized portion of the globe, there are not, perhaps, half a million whose know. ledge extends to any subject of importance beyond the range of their daily avocations. Of the figure, magnitude, and motions of the world they inhabit, and the relation it bears to the other globes which compose, the solar system, of the seas and rivers, continents and islands, which diversify its surface, and of the various tribes of men and animals with which it is inhabited; of the nature and properties of the atmosphere which surrounds them; of the discoveries which have been made respecting light, heat, electricity, and magnetism; of the mag. nitude and grandeur of the planetary and starry orbs, and other discoveries which do honour to human nature; they are almost as entirely ignorant as Pope's untutored Indian : Whose mind fair Science never taught to stray, Far as the solar walk, or milky way. 3 Societies, therefore, still require to be formed on an extensive scale, for communicating to the great mass of mankind, at least the results of those researches which have hitherto been made, for eradicating those erroneous notions which so generally prevail, and for directing their attention to intellec tual pursuits. And, should such societies be formed, we might indulge the hope, that, ere long, they would be enabled to co-operate with those respectable societies which now exist, in making re searches into those regions of science which are yet unexplored. The Christian world is at present lau dably engaged in the formation of societies for diffusing the knowledge of the Scriptures in our own country and in foreign lands; and, from the exertions now making in this way, we have ground to hope, that the knowledge of the sublime and interesting doctrines of Revelation will, at no distant period, be propagated in every quarter of the world. Ten years have scarcely elapsed since the idea of Bible Societies was first suggested, yet their number at this time amounts to several hundreds in Great Britain alone. During the same period, Lancasterian schools, for the education of the poor, have been established in every part of the empire. These facts shew with what rapidity useful institutions, for the instruction of mankind, may be established, when the attention of the public is once directed to the promotion of such objects. The establishment of such societies as those to which I have alluded, is, in some respects necessary, in order to give full effect to the institutions now mentioned, and to supply what is wanting in the objects of these institutions. And were they once extensively established, they might have a happy influence, particularly in regard to the operations of Bible Societies. For true science, and the doctrines of Revelation, so far from being at variance, perfectly harmonize, and reflect a mutual lustre on each other. Of course, the more general information persons acquire on literary and scientific subjects, the more will they be qualified for stu dying the Scriptures in a rational mau. ner; the light of sound philosophy will have a tendency to guard them from scepticism on the one hand, and from superstition and enthusiasm un the other, and to prevent them from im bibing those foolish and erroneous interpretations of Scripture, which have brought discredit on the oracles of ilen ven the coast of Northumberland and Dur ham, and does not occur in Lightfoot's Flora Scotica. LINUM angustifolium. Beacon Hill, Kent; Rev. J. Fenwick.-Hastings, Sussex; Mr. J. Woods. SIBBALDIA procumbens. On Ben Lomound, Ben Lawers, and Ben-y-Gloe; N. J. W. DROSERA rotundifolia. Hampstead Common, Middlesex, and Leith Hill, Surrey; N. J. W. DROSERA longifolia. Dropmore Com. mon, Bucks, and about Southampton, Hampshire; Mr. J. Woods.-Bury, Suffolk; Mr. Hooker.-Cornwall; Mr. E. Forster. DROSERA anglica. Prestwick Carr, Northumberland; N.J. W. MYOSURUS minimus. St. Anthon's ballast hills, Tyne; N. J. W. POPULATION OF HAMPSHIRE, by the Returns of 1811. |
