58 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. [Aug. 1, 
skill to Mr. Richter, in Newman Street. 
This, with a similar intention announced 
by the British Institution, will tend much 
aid to the higher branch of engraving, 
and afford a happy prospect of future 
grandeur in the department of the fine 
arts. 
Mr. Elraes’s laborious undertaking, the 
Dictionary of the Fine Arts and their 
Professors, which contains an explana¬ 
tion of the terms in painting, sculpture, 
and architecture, and the various subor¬ 
dinate branches of art connected there¬ 
with, is in the press. This work will 
contain not only much original matter 
and the most valuable part of Millings 
Dictionnoire des beaux Arts, but every 
other article, biographical and critical, 
that can contribute to render it a per¬ 
fect Encyclopaedia of the Fine Arts; a 
work which has been a great desidera¬ 
tum in the English language. 
The parish of St. James, Westminster, 
are having a splendid painted-glass win¬ 
dow executed for their parish-church, to 
be placed over the altar. The subject is 
the matchless picture of the transfigura¬ 
tion by Raffaelle, a fine copy of which 
is in the possession of Sir Watkin Wil¬ 
liam Wynne, who generously allows it to 
be copied for this purpose. The bishop 
of London, the rector of the parish, not 
only permits this brilliant ornament to be 
added to his church, but highly approves 
of it. This liberal-minded prelate is a 
striking contrast to the bigotted Terrick, 
to whose narrow-minded intnlerance we 
owe the failure of that grand proposal, 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Messrs. Barry, 
West, Mortimer, Signora Angelica Kauff¬ 
man, and others, to gratuitously deco¬ 
rate the eight pannels in the piers under 
the dome with eight historical pictures, 
from the Life of St. Paul. The direction 
of this important work is judiciously sub¬ 
mitted to the superintendance of the pre¬ 
sident West. 
Bromley’s engraving from Devis’s chef 
d^xuvre of the Death of Lord Nelson in 
the cockpit of the Victory, is in a very 
forward and excellent state ; and a late 
proof of it is to be seen at Messrs. Boy- 
dell’s. Illness, a calamitous excuse for 
delay in an artist, has been the cause 
of the suspension of this work ; but its 
forw'ard state, and the improved health 
of the engraver, promise a speedy deli¬ 
very to^the subscribers. 
A similar cause has occasioned a sus¬ 
pension of Mr. Tay’s operations on his 
plate of the Prince Regent in his robes 
of the order of the garter, which were 
announced a short time since. 
Crowds continue flocking to pay the 
grateful tribute of admiration to Mr. 
West’s picture of Christ Healing the Sick 
in the Temple, in the British Gallery, 
Pall Mall ; which may, without exagge¬ 
ration, be ranked with the celebrated 
Communion of St. Jerome of Domeni- 
chino; the Crucifixion of Poussin; and 
other celebrated pictures of the same 
scale. This exhibition closed on the 20th 
ultimo. 
Mr. Nolleken’s statue of Mr. Pitt for 
the Senate-house, Cambridge, is in a 
state of forwardness nearly approaching 
completion; when it is before the pub¬ 
lic, the observations that arise on viewing 
it, will be submitted. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, 
I N a Report adopted by the Class 
of Mathematical and Physical Sci¬ 
ences of the French Institute, as well as 
that of the Fine Arts, March 13 and 18, 
1809, relative to the Work of M. Cha- 
ladni, concerning the Theory of Sound, 
we are told that M. Chaladni, so early as 
1787, published a memoir on this sub¬ 
ject, in which he treated of the vi¬ 
bration of rods, both rectilinear and 
crooked, as well as of the sounds pro¬ 
duced by them. In addition to this, he 
communicated a variety of new facts, 
relative to the vibrations of elastic sur« 
faces. 
His present work, under the title of 
Acoustics, contains remarks, 
1. On the numerical connexions of 
the vibrations of sonorous bodies; 
2. On the laws which regulate the 
different phenomena; 
S. On the laws that govern the pro¬ 
pagation of sound; 
And 4. On the physiological branch 
of acoustics, in which the author exa¬ 
mines whatsoever concerns the sensation 
of sound, as well as the organ of hearing, 
both in men and animals. 
Sauveur, in 1713, proposed to regulate 
the tones of the harpsichord, and ascer¬ 
tain 
