8 



audience that the slightest access o{ unguarded flame, or the 

 contact of a mere spark, would have been attended with the 

 most fatal consequences, besides shivering the whole appa- 

 ratus to atoms. These experiments were followed by a 

 variety of others, demonstrative of the original principles 

 upon which this most important instrument was constructed 

 by its great inventor, whose successful exertions on this sub- 

 ject Mr. W. characterized as one of the most brilliant exam- 

 ples of legitimate inductive reasoning presented in the annals 

 of science.' The lecture concluded with tlie introduction of 

 a new form of compound gas, obtained from the decompo- 

 sition of Caoutchouc, or elastic gum, remarkable for the 

 beauty and brilliancy of its combustion, and as being pre- 

 cisely, volume for volume, of the same specific gravity as 

 atmospheric air. 



October 28. — Mr. W. Brent delivered a Lecture on 

 Aisthetics, which he defined as comprehending all those 

 finer sensibilities that appertain to the human mind, and 

 which, assisted by memory and imagination, give that zest 

 to life which would scarcely be worth courting if deprived of 

 their influence. Amongst the sensations which the Lecturer 

 exemplified were those which most frequently attached them- 

 selves to the mind of man, and his definitions, descriptions, 

 conclusions, and illustrations, possessed both reality and 

 interest. 



November 4. — Mr. John Brent, jun, delivered a second 

 Lecture on the Supernatural in Fiction, He entered into 

 the description of the supernatural, in the Mythology of the 

 Oriental, the Classical, the Scandinavian, and the Celtic 

 nations. The supernatural creations of the East, founded 

 on that luxuriance of imagination equally manifest in her 

 poetry, literature, and religion, with many of the charac- 

 teristic legends and superstitions of Arabia, Persia, and 

 lliudostan, were then treated of. He then reviewed the 

 mythology of classical history, and in passing to the sub- 

 ject gave an animated apostrophe to the departed splen- 

 dour of Greece and Rome, remarking that the latter was 

 not so famous for the supernatural creations of the mind 

 as the former, and though the Romans possessed purity 

 of language and chasteness of design, they were yet de- 

 ficient in the splendid creations to be found in Homer, 

 Pindar, iEschylus, &c. The mind and genius of the Greeks 

 were then contrasted with those of their ancestors, the Egyp- 

 tians. Scandinavian and Celtic Mythology were next treated 

 of, and shewn to be of oriental and classical origin, but 

 varied tlirough the different customs of each individual 



