MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 455 



the other, and to add our impression that the plagiarism has not been perpe- 

 trated by Mr. Gordon. It is frequently necessary, in the compilation of lec- 

 tures, to draw largely from the works of others, but no author, especially one 

 whose labours are but recently before the public, should be paid off, as it were, 

 with a negative compliment ; a proper acknowledgment is alike honourable to 

 each. 



Of our own knowledge we can say that Mr. Gordon's views of Elementary 

 Locomotion have made many converts to the opinion that steam conveyance on 

 the highways of this country, will be found to be a better mode than convey- 

 ance on railways, whether effected by steam or animal power ; and this he es- 

 tablishes, in the work before us, by the apothegm of political economy, that all 

 waste of capital or of labour is a natural evil. He gives us the law of gravita- 

 tion to work out for ourselves, to bring us to the conclusion that a railway for 

 general purposes is not the best mode of transit when the line of traffic is not 

 on a perfect level, and this he demonstrates so clearly that we strongly advise all 

 parties, who are interested in the existence or formation of railways, or in oppo- 

 sition to their construction, to peruse his arguments, calculations and deduc- 

 tions, with more than ordinary attention. We have never found, until now, in 

 any report on railways, or in any description of them, a proper consideration of 

 the laws of gravitation ; a law so potent that its force is felt in an enormous 

 ratio when the rail is inclined even as little as it is on the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester line. 



Mr. Gordon has gone into some curious calculations as to the relative cost of 

 conveyance by the common road, and by the Liverpool and Manchester Rail- 

 way ; calculations which seem likely to form the groundwork for considerable 

 discussion, and of which we shall only refer to one item, which he states to be 

 the annual amount of tear, wear, and repairs of the locomotive engines. Is he 

 correct in quoting these expenses at 1,5001. each engine ? If so, such of our 

 friends as are canal proprietors may take a little comfort, particularly when they 

 recollect ths speed that has been attained on the Scotch canals even by horses. 

 Dr. Lardner has passed over the latter important fact in rather a careless man- 

 ner, by just glancing at it in a foot note, from which we gather his opinion, 

 "that the effect alluded to in these experiments (which by the way we should 

 call demonstrations, for the regular trips of a boat with sixty passengers for up- 

 wards of twelve months is something more than experimental) would not be 

 produced if the boat were propelled by a steam-engine in it. It seems to be in 

 some degree dependant on the peculiar mode in which the boat is drawn by the 

 power acting on the banks," i. e. the horses. Can the Doctor inform us how, 

 in this wonderful exhibition of the forces, the laws of dynamics are so different 

 from the laws of projectiles ? Or must we suppose that the increased speed of 

 a goose swimming on the water, is regulated, not by any power in the goose, 

 but in some line of attraction on the banks ? We admit it to be possible that 

 the progress of many men in the good opinion of the world may arise out of 

 some power that is not inherent in them, from some " peculiar mode" conse- 

 quent upon external circumstances. Mr. Gordon's Treatise on Elemental Lo- 

 comotion does not appear to partake of this peculiarity the force is in it it 

 has a straight forward aim towards the elucidation of the truth, and we recom- 

 mend its perusal to every one who wishes to obtain the best information of the 

 progress and improvements in the construction of steam-carriages, and of their 

 applicability to every necessary purpose on our common roads. 



VENICE. A POEM. ROMANUS AND EMILIA. A DRAMATIC SKETCH. Wis- 



BECK. 1832. 



NOTHING is more difficult than to criticise a work like " Venice, a Poem." 

 There is a prize-poem like about it, equally provocative of criticism and repul- 

 sive to it. It is a theme chosen by the author to be elegant upon ; and the re- 

 sult is rather a work of memory than of genius. Men read Pope and the bard 

 of his vastly inferior imitators ; and as, nothing in life is easier than to imp the 

 monotonous jingle of the good old Quelen Anne's heroic measure, these pieces 



