But, though the most potent motives combine tò prescribe such an union, we are not rash enough to assert even the probability of its formation.--Where self-interest and self-preservation have so 'repeatedly failed to produce their natural effects, who can venture to hope for the adoption of a line of conduct more consistent with sound policy, and more favourable to the general safety? At home, the bustle of electineering seems not only to have en. grossed the attention, but absolutely to have absorbed the faculties, of the people; the spirit of patriotism has, through it, been subdued by the spirit of party; in proinoting the interests of a favourite candidate, the interests of the country have been neglected; and in deciding the fate of a county or a borough, the fate of Europe has been forgot. Ministers, themselves, appear to have joined in the general oblivion of care and of business, during the prevalence of the septennial saturnalia; the President of the Board of Controul consigned the concerns of India to subordinate hands, while he attended in person to the concerns of Southwark; the Secretary for the War Department left his favourite commander (the able panegyrist of Mack!) to inhale the sea breezes at Falmouth, and the military expeditions, and all the business of the war department to shift for themselves, while he was patriotically employed in marshalling the friends of government in Norfolk; and others of his associates condescended, with equal zeal, to abandon for a while the affairs of their respective departments, in order to secure the independence of Hampshire.More illustrious characters have joined in the national festivity; and political tours have been made, for the same laudable purpose, of confirming the rights of electors to dispose of their votes at their pleasure, and of ensuring, by that means, the inestimable blessing of a free representation, and the inappreciable advantage of a pure, unbiassed, and upright Parlia ment. To be serious--the events of this election require a distinct, particular, and comprehensive discussion. They involve questions of great constitutional importance; and, if we mistake not, some of them will become the subjects of Parliamentary interference. This discussion, therefore, must be reserved for a future day. We promised, on the appointment of the present Administration, to judge them by their measures; but, on these (we mean such of them as re... late to grand objects of foreign policy), though nine months have elapsed, we have not yet had any opportunity for the exercise of our judgment. Ministers, however, though tardily, have acted wisely, in sending Lord Hutchinson to the head-quarters of the Combined Armies; though, if his Lordship and Colonel Crawford had changed situations, the arrangemer would have appeared more wise and more consistent, in the opinion of thes nation at large. Lord Morpeth, indeed, had been previously sent as Mi. nister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Berlin; but this young Nobleman seems to have been struck with the same panic which affected the flying Prussians, and to have secured his retreat with the velocity of an extraor dinary courier. It is of the first consequence, that Ministers should secure a safe and ready channel for the conveyance of information from the Continent; as their co-operation with the Belligerent Powers must be influenced by circumstances, it is absolutely necessary that they should be early ap prised of the movements, and relative situation of the contending armies. That a favourable diversion may be made, is our fervent wish; that it might be made, on more points than one, is most certain; that it will be made is, we fear, doubtjul. November 21.. P. S.-Since the above Summary was written, accounts have been received of the destruction of the Prussian army, and of the annihilation of the Prussian Monarchy !!! That work of subjugation, which ancient Rome, in its zenith, took years to accomplish, modern France completes in a month! It is impossible to account for such events, without the unterposition of Providence. November 25. This Work having fallen into new hands, will henceforth be conducted with more spirit than it has lately displayed; but still, on the same prin ciples, religious and political; a consistent adherence to which, amidst the tergiversation and apostacy of the present times, must entitle it to public respect, and to public protection. A greater number of publications will be reviewed, and a greater variety of matter introduced. To the Appendix to the Twenty-fifth Volume, which will appear on the 1st of February, 1807, an Historical Sketch of Europe, including a View of the Po-. litics of the different Powers, during the four preceding months, toge ther with observations on the proceedings of the last Parliament, will be prefixed. And, henceforth, a similar sketch will be given with each volume. These brief HISTORIES OF THE TIMES will be written with perspicuity, spirit, and impartiality. The writers will be attached to no party; and will distribute their praises and their censures, according to the merits or demerits of those on whom they will be bestowed, and not according to the party to which they may belong. They boldly assert their independence, and mean, by their conduct, to prove the justice of their claim. The Booksellers, as well as our Readers and Correspondents, are informed, that the ANTI-JACOBIN OFFICE will be immediately REMOVED TO No. 20, Wych-street, Drury-lane, to which place all Letters, Advertisements, and Communications to the Editor, must, henceforth, be addressed. CORRESPONDENCE. Valerius Publicola to the Right Hon. John Sullivan, is received aud shali appear in our next. Observator is informed, that the facts mentioned in his Letter, on the Murder of the Rev. Mr. Parker, are of too serious a nature to be ir serted on anonymous authority. If he will send his name (privately) to the Editor, and authenticate the facts, his Letter shall certainly appear. Printed by B. M‘Millan, Bow-Street, Covent Garden. THE ANTI-JACOBIN Review and Magazine, &c. &c. &c. For DECEMBER, 1806. Αισχρὸν κρίνειν τὰ καλὰ τῷ πολλῷ ψόφω ARISTOPH. ORIGINAL CRITICISM. The Climate of Great Britain; or Remarks on the Change it has undergone, particularly within the last Fifty Years. Accounting for the increasing Humidity, and consequent Cloudiness and Coldness, of our Springs and Summers; with the Effects such ungenial Seasons have produced upon the Vegetable and Animal Economy. Including various Experiments to ascertain the Causes of such Change, &c. By John Williams, Esq. 8vo. Pr. 358. Baldwins. TH 1806. SHERE is an anecdote circulated of King Charles II. that soon after the institution of the Royal Society, he was present at one of the meetings where the cause was investigated, why, on immersing a carp in a tube brimful of water, none of the water would overflow. The monarch wished to see the experiment tried; a carp was procured, and put gently into a vessel quite full of water, a proportional quantity of which, as might naturally be expected, flowed down the sides of the tub. Something like this strikes us with regard to the work before us, which investigates the cause of an effect, which it is our decided opinion, from much experience and investigation, does not exist. Of the truth of this opinion, the writer of this article is a tolerably competent judge for 45 of the 50 years particularly mentioned in the title-page; but for the last 31 or 36 years (viz. from 1770 or 1775) to which the author, in the body of the work, chiefly confines his remarks on the change, he thinks himself fully competent to judge of this fact; not from electric experiments, or investigations NO. CII. VOL. XXV. Z of of the barometer and thermometer in his study, or catching the drops of rain in his cistern, but from accurately and attentively observing the weather, which was of consequence to him, from travelling much on horseback in the southern parts of England; from carefully watching the progress of vegetation in the spring, and of the maturity of fruit and grain in the summer and autumn, and remarking the effects of genial rains on the former, and drowning rains on the latter; and, however strange the circunstance may appear to Mr. Williams (of which a word more will be said as we proceed), in one who assumes the office of a critic, from being as a sportsman much interested in the event of a hard, or a mild winter. We will first see what the author says on the subject of his in quiry, in the introductory Chapter on Climate. "England, from its insular situation, in common with all other islands, must ever experience to a certain degree, a variable atmosphere: the changes of temperature with respect to heat and cold, dryness and moisture, being more frequent and sudden than in countries on the Continent. The climate of this country is universally allowed, by those who have had opportunities of making comparisons, to be the most uncertain of any on the globe. This, perhaps, may be accounted for from its peculiar situation; its distance from the equatorial and polar parts of the earth; its having the great European Continent to the east, and an extensive ocean to the west. Notwithstanding this variableness, however, it possesses many advantages over countries situated between the same parallels of latitude on the Continent; the inhabitants not being subject to the extremes of heat and drought in summer, nor of cold and frost in winter. The greatest defects in the English climate appear to be, the dry cold easterly winds generally prevalent in the spring, and the frequent rain and cloudy skies experienced in our summer months. It has been an opinion universally adopted of late years, that the generality of our summers are more wet, and consequently colder, and our winters less frosty and more mild than they formerly were. This remark has been made not only by speculative, but practical men; by those most observant, be. cause most affected by ungenial weather. Persons ignorant of the strong and uniform connection between cause and effect, are utterly at a loss to account for it, while they acknowledge the fact; and the generality of such persons, being addicted to superstition, do not fail on such occasions to cut the knot they cannot untie, and solve every dificulty by having recourse to supernatural means-the malice of our grand enemy, or the judgments of the Almighty. Hence while this change has been observed, the greater part of the observers have attributed it to that outrageously impious Act of our Legislature, in the year 1752-for to change the style, with them, is to alter the seasons. To this has been attributed the cloudy and ungenial weather we have more or les experienced ever since, and the -years of scarcity we have so frequently felt. This change, it has been peculiarly remarked, has been taking place since about the years 1770 or 1775. And if we apply for information on this subject to people occu pied in rural affairs, whose time has been employed in agricultural or horricultural pursuits, whether or not the generality of our summers have been been of late years more unfavourable for the production of corn and fruit? the answer is in the affirmative; for the seasons have been invariably more wet and cold than formerly they were. But the inquiring mind on such occasions is naturally roused to investigation, and endeavours to account for the causes of this extraordinary and unfortunate change. We find from astronomical observation, that our geographical position on the globe has not varied materially; for though it has been ascertained that the angle formed by the equator and the ecliptic has been gradually lessening, called the nutation of the earth's axis; and the retrograde motion observed in the apparent situation of some remarkable fixed stars, called the procession of the equinoxes, proves that some alteration annually takes place; yet the ratio is so small, that the aggregate of centuries will not amount to sufficient aberration to justify us in considering this as the sole or principal cause in the mutability of our seasons. For we do not hear the same complaint of wet cold seasons from our neighbours, who inhabit the same parallels of latitude on the Continent: we may therefore with propriety suppose this increasing disposition to humidity in summer and mildness in winter, is owing to some change effected on the surface of our Iland." "I attribute the humidity, and consequently coldness of our modern summers, to the increased evaporating surface, caused by the enclosing of the open fields and wastes; the multifarious intersections of them by fences, especially with hawthorn; to the increased luxuriance of our crops, by a general system of improvement in the agriculture of the country; to these I may with propriety add the late increase of pasturage, productive of a serious disproportion between that and tillage; to the numerous plantations, more especially of foreign trees, and such whose exhal. ing power is prodigiously great; and the immense bodies of nearly stagnated water in the numerous canals that have been cut within the assigned period." That the climate of England has been varium et mutabile semper, we are ready to allow, as well as that it has been the general custom, long before the period assigned by Mr. Williams, to abuse it, and look back to some happier æra, when we had brighter skies and more fruitful seasons. Near a century ago Swift tells us, that during a shower "Loitering in coffee-house is Dulman_seen, Who dainns the climate and complains of spleen." And Dr. Armstrong, in his poem on Health, first published in the year 1744, complains thus of the climate in his time: "Scarce in a cloudless day the heavens indulge |