Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

100

50

Suppose the power applied in either cylinder, be equal to raising the weight 100 Suppose it lifted by B to its present situation, and the communication from the boiler to B then closed, and opened to A-it follows, that as the power in A will, of itself, be sufficient to raise the weight, the expansion, whatever it is, in B, will be added to the 100 in A-And as all elastic fluids, occupying double space, act with half pressure, the power in B, when the piston shall have arrived at the top of its stroke, will be equal to 50; the gain will, consequently, be the mean between that and 100.

100

100

B

A second, and certainly not unimportant advantage is, that as the communication of the power from the two cylinders to the cranks is at right angles, and both act on the same leading shaft, it will always be equalized; as, when one crank is at its dead point, the other will be at its strongest; and they will thus mutually assist each other, thereby doing away the necessity of balance-wheels, always inconvenient on board of vessels. In consequence of this a more convenient arrangement can be made with the machinery, by which it may be more safely protected in vessels of war, &c.

This engine will be much less liable to derangement, as, from its construction, should an accident happen to any part, there is always a corresponding one capable of performing the functions of both. When the wind is strongly adverse, an engine is unable to make its usual number of revolutions; from eighteen or twenty strokes per minute it is sometimes reduced to ten or twelve, and, consequently, the surplus steam must be suffered to escape from the safety valve:-with two cylinders this will be entirely obviated, as whatever may be the quantity of steam generated, it can all be used by altering the time of shutting off in the cylinders, and thus the power will be increased with increased resistance.

ART. IX.-Notoria; or Miscellaneous Articles of Philosophy, Literature, &c.

Account of Mr. Burckhardt, the celebrated traveller in Africa.-From the Quarterly Review of June 1818. Mr. J. L. Burckhardt, a cadet of one of the principal families in Switzerland, was a native of Zurich. At the time when the despotism of France had closed every avenue, but one, of distinction to the youth of the continent, our young traveller, unwilling to engage in the career of a military life, came over to England, with an introduction to sir Joseph Banks, and after a few months' residence in London, offered his ser

vices to the African Association. The result of Park's first attempt had more effect in kindling his hopes of final suc cess, than the fate of Houghton, Horneman, and Ledyard in depressing them. Possessed of a good constitution, and unimpeached moral character, well educated, and capable of improving his talents by application in whatever pursuit might be found necessary to qualify him for the undertaking, he was immediately enlisted into the service of the association, and received from various quarters every

assistance he required in the different branches of science, to which his attention was directed.

Mr. Burckhardt left England on the 2d of March, 1809, for Malta, whence he set out for Aleppo, which he reached on the 6th of July following. Here, and at Damascus, he spent a principal part of the next three years; during which he made a variety of excursions into the Hauran and the Lesge, visited the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec, passed some time among the Turkmans of the northern provinces of Syria, and perfected himself in the knowledge of the religion, manners, and language of the Mahommedan Arabs, by frequent and long residences among the bedouins of the desert. The result of his researches in that part of the world, which he considered as merely preparatory to his great enterprise, the African Association now possess, in the form of journals, and of political, geographical, and statistical notices. On the 18th of June, 1812, he set out from Damascus for Cairo, avoiding the usual route of the sea coast and desert between El Arish and the borders of Egypt, and directing his course, in the disguise of the poorest of the Bedouins, from the Holy Land, east of the Jordan, by Szalt, into Arabia Petræa, and across the great desert El Ty: he reached Cairo on the 4th of September, with the intention of availing himself of the first opportunity of penetrating into Africa, which the departure of a Fezzan or a Darfour caravan might afford him.

Finding, however, that this was not likely soon to take place, he deterinined to pass the intermediate time in exploring Egypt and the country above the Cataracts, and was thus enabled to perform two very arduous and interesting journies into the ancient Ethiopia; one of them along the banks of the Nile, from Assouan to Dar El Mahass on the frontiers of Dongola, in the months of February and March 1813, during which he discovered many remains of ancient Egyptian and Nubian architecture, with Greek inscriptions, such as are found in the temples of Phila;-the other, between March and July, in the following year, through Nubia to Souakim and Djedda. The details of this journey contain the best notices ever received in Europe of the actual state of society, trade, manufac

tures and government, in what was once the cradle of all the knowledge of the Egyptians.

Our traveller's next excursion appears to have been from Cairo into the peninsula of Arabia, for the purpose of visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; in the former of which he resided between four and five months, making his observations secure under the character of a Mahommedan Hadje or pilgrim, and with all the advantages of the perfect knowledge which he had now acquired in the religion, language and manners of the inhabitants. His residence in this part of the east necessarily brought him into contact with the Wahabees; and the Association have received from him, besides a full description of Mecca, and of the early and recent superstitions of that part of the world, a very elaborate account of the rise and progress of this extraordinary set of Mahommedan puritans, comprehending the whole of their political history from the foundation of the sect, between fifty and sixty years ago, by Abd El Wahab and Mohammed Ibn Saoud, to the peace between Abdullah Ibn Saoud and Tooson Pasha, on the part of Mohammed Ali, pashaw of Egypt, in 1815.

The last excursion of Mr. Burckhardt was from Cairo to Mount Sinai, and the eastern head of the Red Sea. The journal of this interesting tour is interspersed with a variety of historical notices on the former state of the country, and annexed to it is a memoir of the wanderings of the Israelites on their departure from the land of Pharaoh.

Besides these works, we are happy to learn that the Association are also in possession of a variety of notices on the interior of Africa, with several vocabularies of African languages, collected from the natives who visited Egypt during Mr. Burckhardt's detention in that country. There is also a series of nine hundred and ninety-nine Arabic proverbs, in the original language, together with English translations and illustrations of the various allusions contained in them; to these is added a literal and spirited translation of a burlesque epic poem, in the vulgar dialect of Cairo; the subject of which is a contest between wine and bast, the latter being a generic term for all the intoxicating substances com

THE

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1818.

ART. I. The Old Bachelor.

2 vols. 18mo.-Baltimore.

1818.

THERE is, we think, one charge at least, from which our Magazine may be deemed secure that of hostility or prejudice against the literary performances of our countrymen. If we have sinned in relation to them, it has, we apprehend, been on the side of indulgence; in forgetting at times, that nearly as much mischief might result from the too ready gratification of our natural partialities, as from the invariable application of the severest rules of criticism.

At the period of the formation of the national taste, there is a particular danger from bad models, and a particular exigency, therefore, for a vigilant censorship. It is laudable and patriotic to encourage native efforts; but it is not so to spare contagious vices of manner; to contribute to the confirmation and propagation of evil habits. The reprobation which is just in itself, should not be withheld, nor denied its most efficacious form, for a barely possible, or remotely contingent advantage. We find much weight of reason as well as of authority in the following remarks of Dr. John'An author who does not write from necessity, places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism, and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace. Dulness is not culpable in itself, but it may be very properly reproached when it pretends to the honours of wit. If bad writers were to pass without reprehension, what should restrain them? and upon bad writers only will censure have effect. All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment. He that refines the public taste, is a public benefactor.'

son:

A doubt may be rationally entertained whether any system of literary animadversion, however unsparing and inexorable, would overawe and deter real genius or knowledge disposed to claim the attention of the public through the press. Capacity is seconded in most cases by the due measure of confidence, and sets at defiance both satire and scrutiny. We are not aware that a single author of promise has been stifled in the bud by the Edinburgh Review, and its impotency to produce this unlucky

VOL. XII.

34

person

consummation may be fairly inferred from the case of lord Byron. For one such who may have been disheartened by the aspect of that Rhadamanthean tribunal, hundreds of dunces and quacks have been emboldened to make free with the press, and hardened in their unlawful courses by the opposite scheme of judgment pursued in so many other quarters.

Few reflecting minds can fail to be convinced, that to set up exorbitant pretensions for American literature and science, has a tendency to retard their real progress and check the growth of their external reputation. In the proportion that we overrate ourselves, are we liable to be undervalued abroad, and to grow sluggish or fall short, at home, in the race of excellence. If we proclaim ourselves contented or delighted with what scarcely reaches mediocrity, none among us will seek, and few comparatively will know it possible, to ascend beyond that point; and foreign nations must suspect that we are deficient in the powers, either of production or discrimination. These considerations are substantial and obvious, but the common practice implies that they have been disowned or overlooked. The honest expression of a belief of our general backwardness in the train of the muses, the candid exposure of the demerits of a particular American book, has been, for the most part, viewed and stigmatized as evidence of a recreant, anti-American spirit. The hue and cry raised on such occasions, and still, we fear, ready to be raised in spite of the clearest demonstration of its injustice, has the two fold inconvenience of repressing all truly enlightened and instructive criticism, and multiplying the enterprises of presumption and imposture.

Such a strain of remark as the foregoing, might be regarded as of no very favourable omen for the Essays of the Old Bachelor; but we have meant merely to put our readers in a right way of thinking on a matter of some importance, and not to prepare them for a sentence of condemnation on a deservedly popuÎar American work. The preamble may serve, perhaps, to afford us some protection in freely excepting, as is our design, to what we deem seriously exceptionable in the diction and doctrines of the author. We have temptations which, we must confess, we can scarcely withstand, to give into unqualified panegyric in this instance. We look with gratitude and wonder upon a gentleman of the bar, in whom the severest labours, and highest offices, and amplest emoluments, and brightest laurels of his profession, have not stifled the generous ambition of shining in the career of letters; who so far from sympathizing in the contempt or indifference which seems to be generally entertained among us for every kind of excellence not appertaining to active life, lays the chief stress upon the utility and dignity of literary speculation; whose mind has been for a long term of years exposed to the atmosphere of courts, and the attrition of the world of business, without losing any of the finer poetical qualities with which it was richly

endowed.

re

A vein of the most delicate, and at the same time, lofty sentiment runs through these Essays, written, as we understand, but a few years ago; they discover an unabated enthusiasm, a youthful freshness of feeling, for whatever is admirable in the productions of nature and art, and especially for the grand and beautiful in the conceptions and expressions of the masters of ancient and modern literature. What fascinates us, too, is the invariable, earnest solicitude of the author, manifested not only in this work, but in his 'British Spy,' to spiritualize the character of his countrymen; to engage them in the noblest studies and habits; to mould them to that standard of perfection on which his thoughts and affections are so intensely fixed. It was marked of Cicero, by one of his cotemporaries-that, notwithstanding he prized the reputation which he had established as the first orator of Rome, far above every other distinction or blessing, he laboured strenuously and unremittingly to raise up some master of his art who should surpass even himself, and realize the perfect model figured in his imagination. The jealousy with which it was natural for him to contemplate the idea of a superior or rival, seemed to be absorbed by his passionate and generous love and admiration of eloquence in itself, as at once the most sublime and beautiful result of the combined powers of the human mind and heart. Every reader of his rhetorical treatises, is likely to make the same observation concerning the fervor of his wishes, and the liberality of his spirit in this respect. He would have cheerfully forfeited his fame of preeminence, with all posterity, could he have produced that consummate orator, whose image perpetually occupied his fancy and fired his enthusiasm, while it humbled his pride.

We do not mean to call the author of the Old Bachelor a Cicero; but it is notorious, that, in the State which claims precedence of the rest of the American confederation, in the field of oratory, he enjoys, if not the palm of forensic eloquence, at least, and deservedly, an equal share of reputation with the most brilliant of its boasted models. There is, indeed, no one of his profession, throughout the Union, with whom he may not vie as an advocate. It is, in adverting to these circumstances, in connection with the anxious, restless zeal which animates all the writings of this gentleman, for the perfection and utmost splendour of the art of speaking among his countrymen, that we are reminded of the case of the prince of Roman orators. With a like enthusiasm and disinterestedness, he labours to fashion the youth of Virginia particularly, into patterns of oratory with whose excellence none existing could be compared, and before whose honours his own must, in a great degree, fade. Of the general impressions in his favour, left by the essays which we are about to examine, the most lively, perhaps, is that of his public spiritedness; of their uniform, studied tendency to attach every reader to the cause of morality and knowledge. Among those impressions also, is the belief of his

« ÎnapoiContinuă »