in Ships, &c., with some remarks on Flame." For the services thus rendered to the cause of human well-being, he was presented with a service of plate of the value of 2,500l. at a public dinner given to him at Newcastle, on the 11th October, 1817, at which Mr. Lambton, now Earl of Durham, presided. Besides this present from the coal-owners, he received also a splendid silver-gilt vase from the late Emperor Alexander of Russia, accompanied by a letter from the Emperor himself, and further, by his own sovereign, a Baronetcy was conferred on him in 1818. Stimulated by these means to fresh exertion, he made a further improvement in the safety-lamp, furnishing the miner with a steady though feeble light in any part of the mine where life could be supported.

In 1818 Sir Humphry Davy made a second continental journey and returned in June 1820. At Geneva he seems to have received a letter concerning M. Ersted's experiments, which led to the discovery that the voltaic pile is a powerful magnet. The leading fact verified by Sir Humphry Davy was this, namely, that when the extremities of a voltaic pile or battery are united by a perfect conductor, as a metallic wire, and the compass is brought near it, the needle is attracted by the wire, and may be made to deviate from its natural direction. Reasoning whereon, he inferred that the uniting wire itself, during the passage of the electricity through it, must have become magnetic, which was confirmed by experiment -in conducting which, he found at length reason to believe that the magnetism of the earth depends on electricity.

On the death of Sir Joseph Banks in 1820, Sir Humphry Davy succeeded him as President of the Royal Society. He continued the Conversaziones begun by Sir Joseph Banks, changing however the evening from Sunday to Saturday, and proceeded with his scientific labours, especially on magnetism, and the liquefaction of the gases, and also with researches on the corrosion and on the protection of the copper sheathing of vessels. In 1824 he made an excursion into Norway and Sweden. In 1825 his health began to decline, and having experienced a paralytic attack in 1826, he made a third visit to Italy through France. On his return to England he visited his old friend Mr. Pool, and published his Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing, and in 1828 set out for his last journey to Italy, where he suffered at Rome a paralytic seizure, which ultimately proved fatal. His brother's account of his last days is highly interesting; Sir Humphry Davy died like a philosopher, on the 29th May, at Geneva, in the year 1829. We need not say with what high delight we look forward to the publication of the new and uniform edition of his collected writings. As we receive the vol umes, we shall treat our readers with an analysis of the contents, and hope by such method to supply whatever may be the deficiencies of the present notice. Books like these, it is both a duty and a pleasure to review.

AMERICAN RAMBLERS.*

WELCOME, all ye ramblers in America, who delight to wander over the country, and write books upon the customs of the Yankees! More especially do we welcome Captain Marryat and Mrs. Jameson. Our greeting may have been long a-coming, but nevertheless is it sincere. Indeed, we are afraid that we are open to the reproach of having neglected both of these talented authors, although nothing was farther from our thoughts. 'Tis an old saying, and we believe it to be a very true one, "that things postponed until better opportunities, are never accomplished." Now this has been exactly our case. We have been pleasing ourselves with the idea that the time would come when we should be enabled to give these works an elaborate review--but the time came not! Yet have we now taken up the pen, with a determination to do something like justice to the Captain and Lady who have been so long waiting for our decision. We fear, however, that even now our ability will not be commensurate with our wish.

Lifting our eyes from the page whereon we are writing, we perceive, from the reflection of our visage in the opposite mirror, that we are absolutely grinning-a sad departure from our critical gravity. In thus leading us astray, you have, Captain, a heinous crime to answer for.

To let joking go by the board-really Captain we cannot agree with all your opinions, notwithstanding the engaging manner in which they are expressed, and our respect for yourself. You must excuse us finding fault-we shall admire as well as condemn.

To plunge into your book, then, medias res; or, as our mother-tongue more aptly expresses it, neck and crop, we don't like the following passage:-we find in vol. i. p. 73, "Beasts of prey, and noxious reptiles," say you, "are permitted to exist in the wild and uncultivated regions, until they are swept away by the broad stream of civilisation, which, as it pours along, drives them from hold to hold, until they finally disappear. So is it with the more savage nations; they are but tenants at will, and never were intended to remain longer than till the time when civilisation, with the gospel, arts, and sciences in her train, should appear, and claim as her own that portion of the universe which they occupy."

Horrid dogmatism this Captain,-horrid! If these said savages are but "tenants at will," of course they have a landlord. We ask, "who is this landlord!" If you say that the white man is he, well and good, for then he certainly has every right to take possession of his own property; but if you do not, it is quite evident that the white has no business to disturb another person's tenant. The supposition, however, of the white man being the landlord is manifestly absurd; opposed alike to common-sense and religion. Therefore, Captain, the only way in which you could support your opinion, would be to affirm, that the whites take possession of the "regions" occupied by the savages, by

A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions." By Captain Marryat, C.B. author of " Peter Simple," &c. &c. London: Longman, 1839.

"Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada." By Mrs. Jameson, author of "Female Sovereigns," &c. &c. Saunders and Otley, 1838.

virtue of authority emanating from the real owner. will, with your permission, endeavour to controvert.

This affirmation we

All of us, while we reside on this earth, are the tenants of a wise, great, good, powerful, beneficent, just landlord; and whom, accordingly, we honour, reverence, and obey, calling him God! It is impossible for us to separate these attributes from our idea of a God; but if Captain Marryat's opinion be correct, of some of them we must, at least, deprive him. Thus would the case stand: the white and the savage, are both, respectively, God's tenants or creatures, and both are, as we have been taught to believe, equal in his sight; the white man, however, being the more civilised, wins favour with his landlord, who, as it would appear, without reference to the right of occupying on the part of the savages, turns them out to make room for his favourite race. What could be more flagrantly unjust? We should not like to be the supporters of this hypothesis as a general rule. Mind we don't mean to say that whites should not take up their residence in countries belonging to savages-far from it! We merely declare that, in so doing, the right of the original occupants should be respected. It is well known that savages cannot avail themselves of the full capabilities of their country -that indeed it must be, in a great measure, unpeopled; and that, therefore, there is plenty of room for the old inhabitants and the new comers-hence we can see no harm in taking advantage of these circumstances to relieve our own over-burthened population; particularly as, if things are conducted properly, all parties must be benefited, and civilisation extended. We should consider ourselves missionaries to our savage neighbours, and instead of endeavouring to extirpate, we should try, by enlightening their darkness, to amalgamate them with ourselves.

These remarks have, in a manner, been forced from us by reason of the prevalence of the feeling which dictated Captain Marryat's opinion --a feeling which has been productive of much misery, injustice, and bloodshed! Savages have been treated as if they were out of the pale of humanity by Europeans proud of their own advancement; they, self-satisfied dreamers! little thinking that human nature, as exhibited in the conduct of the poor wild despised Indian, forms the groundwork upon which all civilisation is based; little thinking that the feelings, that the virtues, that the vices he possesses, are the counterparts, albeit in a ruder form, of those we find in our own breasts. We know too little of savage nature-would that all travellers were philosophers!

There is one portion of Captain Marryat's work in which we felt much interested, namely, that relating to a sect of fanatical Quakers* prevalent in America; concerning whose tenets much has been already said. The captain was present alone at one of their assemblies, and thus describes it: After a silence of ten minutes," he narrates, " one of the men of the community arose and addressed a few words to the spectators, requesting them not to laugh at what they saw, but to behave themselves properly, &c.-and then he sat down.

"One of the leaders then burst out into a hymn, to a jigging sort of

T

tune, and all the others joined chorus. After the hymn was sung, they all rose, put away the forms on which they had been seated, and stood in lines, eight in a row, men and women separate, facing each other, and about ten feet apart; the ranks of men being flanked by boys, and those of the women by girls. They commenced their dancing by advancing in rows just about as far as profane people do in l'été when they dance quadrilles, and then retreated the same distance, all keeping regular time, and turning back to back after every third advance. The movement was rather quick, and they danced to their own singing of the following beautiful composition :—

keeping time also with the hands as well as feet, the former raised up to the chest, and hanging down like the fore-paws of a dancing bear. After a quarter of an hour they sat down again, and the women made use of their large towel pocket-handkerchiefs to wipe off the perspiration. Another hymn was sung; and then the same person addressed the spectators, requesting them not to laugh, inquiring if any of them felt a wish to be saved? adding, 'Not one of you, I don't think!' He looked round at all of us with the most ineffable contempt, and then sat down ; and they sang another hymn, the burden of which was,

"Our souls are saved, and we are free

From vice and all in-i-qui-ty !'

which was a very comfortable delusion at all events.

"They then rose again, put away the forms as before, and danced in another fashion. Instead of l'été it was grande ronde. About ten men and women stood in two lines in the centre of the room, as a vocal band of music; while all the others, two and two, men first, and women following, promenaded round, with a short quick step, to the tune chaunted in the centre. As they went round and round, shaking their paws up and down before them, the scene was very absurd; and I could have laughed had I not felt disgusted at such a degradation of rational and immortal beings."

Strange enough truly! Yet wherefore should the captain feel disgusted? Some mystical meaning was undoubtedly cloaked beneath these apparently ridiculous exercises. We are sorry that there was any occasion for the captain to add a note to the passages quoted, reflecting on the morality of these people.

Taking from this point a hop, skip, and a jump to the end of this (the first) volume, we find some few remarks upon poors'-rates, deprecating the introduction of them into America. Now, in our opinion, the principle of poors'-rates is not one of justice, but of expediency. To say that it is proper to take a portion of the hard-earned profits of the industrious to keep those that work not, militates against all the received rights of property. As for the moral obligation, that's another thing. Dismissing, however, the question of its justice or injustice, the establishment of this tax is a measure of evident expediency. It might

be proved, that the expenses incurred by the rich on behalf of their poorer brethren, if the poors'-rates were abolished, would be much greater than they are at present. Public opinion will always enact a virtual poors'-rate, although the legislature might abrogate the legal one. Under the existing arrangement, a man's duty is considered as discharged when he has paid the "rate for the relief of the poor;" all further donations are considered as proceeding from pure benevolence, and he gains credit accordingly. If, however, there were no poors'-rates, the case would be manifestly altered. Then a degree of reproach would fall upon him who should refuse to contribute towards the support of the indigent-yea, and that handsomely too-unsustainable by any, but those who are totally dead to all sense of shame. We should behold charitable associations arise "plentiful as blackberries," around us; and by their agents we should be so drained that the quarterly visits of the rate-collector, as we looked back on the past, would, in comparison, appear "as nothing." Besides, common sense tells us-the moral law tells us our own conscience tells us, the poor must be maintained-ought to be maintained! Yet all this argues nothing to the justice of the temporal power, ordaining a compulsory contribution; but what can relieve us from our moral obligation to see to the wants of the poor?

In America, however, where every body can obtain employment, we completely agree with Captain Marryat in thinking that it is inexpedient to establish poors'-rates. It was with great pleasure we read the wellmerited encomiums he bestows upon the generosity of the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia.

We shall comply with the Captain's request, which he has attached to the end of his third volume; and refrain from criticising his remarks upon the American institutions, until the concluding portion of his work is published, for which we wait with great impatience.

Let us now accompany Mrs. Jameson in her Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada-that much wronged, much abused, much mistaken country. By misgovernment, by misrepresentation, this fine country has been driven into a revolution, which may perchance delay its ultimate prosperity for many years; and which has, among its other baneful effects, been destructive of all confidence between the rulers and the ruled. But let us fervently hope, with Mrs. Jameson, that although this finest province of the British empire has thus been placed in jeopardy, our young Queen may not hereafter, when she looks upon the map of her dominions, do so with the "indignant blushes and tears with which Maria Theresa, to the last moment of her life, contemplated the map of her dismembered empire, and regretted her lost Silesia."

To this sentiment, we are sure, all loyal subjects of our Queen will respond, Amen!

The chief charm of this book lies in its egotism. Though it be true that Mrs. Jameson, while in Canada, was thrown into scenes and regions hitherto undescribed by any traveller; and into relations with the Indian tribes such as few European women of refined and civilised habits have ever risked, and never recorded-and that the northern shores of Lake Huron are new ground-yet it is to the personal feeling running through the work, that its real attraction belongs. We seem, while reading the