344 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[TSKPT. 



thread half an inch by the stoutest effort 

 it could make ; and as to the balloon and 

 the electricity nonsense the ascent of 

 the thread depends altogether upon the 

 wind. And thus the parties are at is- 

 sue for Mr. Murray, though he re- 

 plies, has no further' evidence to pro- 

 duce ; and it must be confessed his ac- 

 count is a little astounding, and well 

 warrants Mr. llennie's surprise, but not 

 his lack of courtesy. Let both keep 

 their temper close, and their eyes open. 

 The volume contains some account cf 

 the old tortoise so long domiciliated in 

 the palace gardens of Peterborough. The 

 particulars were communicated, in reply 

 to an application, by the Bishop, Her- 

 bert Marsh, himself. 



. A Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity, 

 including Lightning Rods and Paragrtles, 

 by ths same John Murray. Mr. Murray, 

 in this little treatise on Atmospherical 

 Electricity, has collected the phseno- 

 mena with great industry, and is very 

 earnest in recommending the farther ap- 

 plication of lightning rods, or paragreles, 

 as they are styled on the continent, for 

 the protection of crops and plantations, 

 and especially of the hop-grounds of our 

 own country. The honey-dew, found 

 upon the hop-leaves, he conceives is, 

 some way or other, occasioned by elec- 

 tric clouds ; and then the honey-dew 

 brings the aphides, which, in sipping 

 the said dew, some how or other suck 

 out the life of the plant. Now these 

 same paragreles- that is, if made of 

 copper, and not of iron stuck over a 

 plantation, will avert those perilous 

 honey - dew - bringing clouds, and the 

 aphides, of course, must then look else- 

 where for a dinner. Mr. Murray's old 

 opponent, the same Mr. Rennie, men- 

 tioned in the last article, ridicules this 

 notion. Mr. Murray, he insists, has 

 mistaken the order and sequence of 

 things; the aphides come before the 

 honey-dew, for the honey-dew is their 

 own excretion ; and he has with his own 

 eyes, through a microscope, observed 

 the very act of excretion, and ascer- 

 tained the matter by another of his five 

 senses. This fact, as he chooses to call 

 it, he published in " The Times," which 

 of course makes Mr. Murray very angry, 

 because it was by mere accident he 

 discovered the communication, and so 

 might have been exposed to miscon- 

 struction at least with the readers of 

 ' The Times," and they are, we believe, 

 pretty numerous. In his new edition, 

 Mr. Murray defends his position, but 

 not, we are afraid, with much effect. 

 He concedes -at least it appears so to 

 us that this same honey-dew may be 

 sometimes the excretion of the aphides. 

 This, we think, is almost betraying the 

 citadel; we have no notion that the 



food of any animal ever wears the same 

 appearance with its excrement, and 

 passes through the process of digestion 

 unchanged. 



Cabinet Cyclopaedia, the first morceau 

 of Sir James Mackintosh's long-looked for 

 History of England. Sir James Mack- 

 intosh suffered himself to be exhibited 

 by the Editor of the Cabinet Cyclo- 

 paedia, as really intending to comprise 

 the whole history of the country, through 

 eighteen centuries, in three toilette vo- 

 lumes, though, certainly, never famed 

 for any extraordinary powers of com- 

 pression. The absurdity struck every 

 body, and the editor, alarmed at the 

 general feeling of distrust, availed him- 

 self of an idle report a mere publishing 

 ruse probably to .announce the new 

 determination of Sir James to expand 

 the three dainty volumes into eight 

 and we may ask what are they to do ? 

 Hume fills eight goodly octavos, with- 

 out getting farther than the revolution, 

 and who ever complained of his pro- 

 lixity ? The result is and it was quite 

 inevitable that events, where they are 

 not altogether passed over, are inade- 

 quately sketched ; and judgments, we 

 shall not say hastily formed, but too 

 peremptorily pronounced, and certainly 

 not upon evidence fairly and fully pro- 

 duced. Sir James may be as correct as 

 man can be we scarcely question the 

 soundness or the shrewdnes of his intel- 

 lect, if coolly and leisurely exercised 

 but matters come forth far too much in 

 the nature of ipse dixits. Even com- 

 mon incidents, when he does enter into 

 detail, he relates as he finds them ; and 

 unless they involve some constitutional 

 or legal question, he seems never to see 

 nonsense. Take an instance or two. 

 After relating how Elgiva had her face 

 branded with hot irons, in order, he 

 says, to destroy her fatal attractions, he 

 adds, as he finds the tale, without a 

 thought of the absurdity " when her 

 wounds were healed, she returned in all 

 her beauty" Again, the Welsh Prince, 

 David, he describes as, " after being 

 drawn asunder by horses, and SEEING 

 his heart and bowels burnt before his face^ 

 beheaded," &c. These are trifles per- 

 hans, but they shew at least haste or in- 

 difference, where neither ought to ap- 

 pear, in a history of the loftiest pre- 

 tension, by a man of tried ability, though 

 not in this line, and puffed beyond all 

 measure we were going to say, all en- 

 durance. The production, in short, is 

 nothing but a commentary upon the 

 History of England, and regarded in 

 the most favourable light, a constitu- 

 tional history of the country a work 

 which, we think, upon the whole, has 

 already been well and learnedly accom- 

 plished by Mr. Hallam a man of the 



