a tone less abrupt, though as solemn as before, 'Do you see that blacked and broken end of a shecling?-there my kettle boiled for forty years-there I bore twelve buirdly sons and daughters-where are they now?-where are the leaves that were on that auld ash-tree at Martinmas-the west wind has made it bare-and I'm stripped too. Do you see that saugh-tree?—it's but a blackened rotten stump now-I've sate under it mony a bonny summer afternoon when it hung its gay garlands ower the poppling water. -I've sate there, and,' elevating her voice, I've held you on on my knee, Henry Bertram, and sung ye sangs of the auld barons and their bloody wars-It will ne'er be green again, and Meg Merrilies will never sing blithe sangs mair. But ye'll no forget her, and ye'll gar big up the auld wa's for her sake?—and let somebody live there that's ower gude to fear them of another warld-For if ever the dead came back amang the living, I'll be seen in this glen mony a night after these crazed banes are in the mould.' 6 "The mixture of insanity and wild pathos with which she spoke these last words, with her right arm bare and extended, her left bent and shrouded beneath the dark red drapery of her mantle, might have been a study worthy of our Siddons herself. And now,' she said, resuming at once the short, stern, and hasty tone which was most ordinary to her- let us to the wark-let us tó the wark.' Vol. III. P. 274. We are well aware that the gipsies preserved, till a very late period, in Scotland, those strong and distinguishing features of character, which have been long since worn out in the southern parts of our island; we are not therefore displeased to see them embodied in so powerful a form. The character of Dirk Haitteraick is a faithful copy from nature, it is one of those moral monsters, which make us almost ashamed of our kind. Still amidst the ruffian and murderous brutality of the smuggler, some few feelings of our common nature are thrown in with no less ingenuity than truth, to redeem even such a monster from total dæmoniacal depravity. The remainder of the personages are very little above the cast of a common lively novel: Mr. Glossin is a villain, but a villain of a very common order: Mr. Bertram is no better than the average of lovers generally are; and the hero himself, Guy Mannering, is a hero of a very dwarfish stature. The Edinburgh lawyer is perhaps the most original portrait; nor are the saturnalia of the Saturday evening described without bumour. The Dominic is overdrawn and inconsistent; while the young ladies present nothing above par. We are sorry to promise the reader so méagre a repast in many particulars, we can however assure him, that in others the entertainment will be rich. There are parts of this novel which none but one endowed with the sublimity of genius could have dictated; there are others, which any ordinary character-cobler might as easily have stitched together. There are sparks both of pathos and of humour even in the dullest parts, which could be elicited from none but the author of Waverley: if, indeed, we have spoken in a manner derogatory to this his latter effort, our censure arises only from its comparison with the former. Had Guy Mannering made its appearance first, we should have hailed it as the offspring of an original mind; as it has, however, succeeded one of the most perfect performances in that peculiar department of literature which we have ever witnessed, we cannot but consider it as an abortion; but it is an abortion of genius, which, in our mind, is still superior to the more regular productions of tame and matured stupidity. We cannot however conclude this article, without remarking the absurd influence which our author unquestionably attributes to the calculations of judicial astrology. No power of chance alone could have fulfilled the joint predictions both of Guy Mannering and Meg Merrilies; we cannot suppose that the author can be endowed with sufficient folly to believe in the influence of planetary conjunctions himself, nor to have so miserable an idea of the understanding of his readers, as to suppose them capable of a similar belief. We must also remember that the time of this novel is not in the dark ages, but scarcely forty years since, no aid therefore can be derived from the general tendency of popular superstition: what the clue may be to this apparent absurdity we cannot imagine; whether the author be in jest or earnest we do not know, and we are willing in this dilemma to suppose that he does not know himself. ART. V. Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. By Charles Hutton, LL.D. F.R.S. Emeritus Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. 8vo. 4 Vols. Plates. 31. 3s. Longman. 1814. THERE are few persons whose credit stands higher as a teacher of the practical part of Mathematical science than Dr. Hutton; it is with pleasure therefore that we shall present our readers with the account of four volumes which promise so much fair and rational entertainment. Although we disapprove stronglyof introducing the study of science under the garb of amusement, as a method which has a constant tendency to enervate the powers of the mind; yet we see no reason why those studies which in theory have been pursued with all that severity of application which is so essential to the attainment of success, should not afterwards be reduced into entertaining problems, and practical recreation. We need not inform our readers that there is no study, in the whole round of sciences, which requires such in tense tense and undivided application of the intellect, as mathematical research; the abstract theory must be severely pursued, and steadily mastered, before the slightest illustration from practice can be allowed to relieve the labours of the rugged way, or to withdraw the mind from that calm and undisturbed attention which is the only guide to perfect demonstration and truth. After however the theory has been thus pursued, we conceive that no instructor will disdain to place in the hands of his pupils such books as will interest their fancy and their pleasure in the same cause, in which their labour and attention have previously been so powerfully exercised. There are very few lads who have a genius so thoroughly mathematical, as to love the study purely for the study's sake; would we therefore command the attention of the majority of our pupils, we must reward them for their dull and wearisome application, by a seasonable introduction of those amusements, which at once engage the imagination, and evince the utility and importance of their more rigid. studies. Nor in a moral point of view do we consider these volumes as less important. A very small proportion of our young students, particularly in military, naval, or commercial academies, can reasonably be expected to employ the time which is not dedicated to the lecture room, in private application. No one acquainted with human nature at that age, can be ignorant of the numerous temptations aud dangers which environ the youth in those hours, which under every system of education can be employed only at his own discretion. Whatever therefore will withdraw his mind from sensual temptation, and employ it in innocent and active pursuits, is a most important subsidiary in the cause of moral education. There is nothing perhaps that will more surely attain this desirable end, than the pursuits of experimental philosophy: in every stage of it there is some practical amusement to engage the imagination, and to interest the attention; and the mind is thus powerfully fixed upon its object, without the appearance even of labour or constraint. Failure but increases its ardour in pursuit, while success presents a still increasing variety of entertainment. Most happy therefore will it be for the morals of any school or academy, when experiments in natural philosophy shall form a leading part in the amusements of the youth. We know of no work more adapted to the accomplishment of this desirable end, than the volumes now before us; they embrace all the various departments of science, and present us with curious and amusing experiments in each. The first publication of this nature that appeared, was edited by M. Oyanam, which, though capable of correction and enlargement, was executed with much ability, and met with its proportionate success. A second work of the same nature was published by M. Mon tucla, tucla, at Paris, about the year 1750, who, though he dedicated his life to works of much greater magnitude and importance, did not disdain to correct, enlarge, and improve M. Oyonam's Mathematical Recreations. The book indeed under his masterly hand assumed a new appearance, and may fairly be considered, from the many alterations and additions he made in it, to be his own. This may be esteemed as the basis of Dr. Hutton's publication, who has in some measure performed the same duty to M. Montucla, that he performed to M. Oyonam. The first volume contains a very amusing account of the various systems and kinds of Arithmetic, of the short method of performing multiplication, and division, by Napier's rods, &c. of palpable arithmetic, properties of numbers, &c. All the experiments which can be made with combinations, permutations, &c. are given; with various amusing and useful cases, chances, annuities, &c. &c. with tables of the probable extent of human life; at the conclusion of the volume, the subject of geometry is entered upon in the same manner, to which many useful tables of weights and measures, both ancient and modern, are subjoined. With the second volume commences the more strictly experimen➡ tal part of the work. The theories of mechanics, hydrostatics, and optics, are reduced into practice, and a multiplicity of problems are proposed, which cannot fail to attract the attention and employ the time of the young reader. With these are mingled descriptions of the most extraordinary works of art, of celebrated clocks, of balloons, of telegraphs, of the steam engine, &c; as the description of the latter may prove entertaining to our readers, we shall extract it at large. "The first part of this machine is a large boiler, to the cover of which is adapted a hollow cylinder, 2, 3, or 4 feet in diameter. A communication is formed between the boiler and the cylinder by an aperture, capable of being opened or shut. Into this cylinder is fitted a piston, the rod of which is made fast to the extremity of one of the arms of a working beam, having at the extremity of its other arm, the weight to be raised, which is generally the piston of a sucking pump, adapted to raise water from a great depth. The whole must be combined in such a manner, that when the air or steam has free access into the cylinder, which communicates with the boiler, the weight alone of the apparatus affixed to the opposite arm shall be capable of raising that piston. "Let us now suppose the boiler filled with water to a certain height, and that it is brought to a state of complete ebullition, by a large fire kindled below the boiler. As a part of this water will continually rise in steam, when the communication between the boiler and the cylinder is opened, this vapour, which is elastic, will introduce itself into it, and raise the piston; as its force is equivalent to that of air. Let us suppose also that the piston, when it attains to a certain height, by means of some mechanism, which may may be easily conceived, moves a certain part of the machine, which intercepts the communication between the boiler and the cylinder; and in the last place, that by the same cause a jet of cold water is thrown beneath the bottom of the piston in the cylinder, so as to fall down through the vapour in the form of rain. At that moment the steam will be condensed into water; a vacuum will be formed in the cylinder, and consequently the piston will be then charged with the weight of the atmosphere above it, or a weight equivalent to a column of water of the same base and 32 feet in height. If the piston, for example, bé 52 inches in diameter, as is the case in the steam-engines of Montrelais, near Ingrande, this weight will be equal to 29450 pounds: the piston will consequently be obliged to descend with a force equal to nearly 30000 pounds, and the other arm of the working beam, if it be of the same length, will act with an equal force to overcome the resistance opposed to it. When the piston has made this first stroke, the communication between the boiler and the cylinder is restored; the steam of the boiling water again enters it, and the equilibrium between the air of the atmosphere and the inside of the cylinder being re-established, the weight of the apparatus affixed to the other, end of the working beam descends, and raises the piston; the same play as before is renewed; the piston again falls, and the ma chine continues to produce its effect." Vol. II. p. 101. The account of the improvements made in this gigantic machine by Mr. Watt of Glasgow, are thus described: "The ingenious Mr. James Watt of Glasgow, perceiving the great loss of steam which was sustained in its use, in Newcomen's engine, about 1768, made a variety of experiments on this subject, and in 1770 obtained a patent for a new mode of applying it; in which the cylinder was made close both at bottom and top, and the rod which connected the piston with the lever, was made to work through a collar of hemp and tallow, so as to be perfectly air tight. The atmosphere being thus excluded from the cylinder, both the vacuum is made by the steam, and the piston is moved by it. Also the steam is not condensed by throwing cold water into the cylinder, but it is taken out by an air pump, and condensed in a separate vessel; and, in order to keep the cylinder as hot as possible, it is surrounded with steam, and covered with non-conducting substances. By this construction, the engine has been made to perform at least double the effect, with the same quantity of fuel, as the best engines on Newcomen's construction. Mr. Watt obtained an extension of his patent right in the year 1775, by an act of parliament, for 25 years, and was joined by the ingenious Mr. Bolton of Soho, near Birmingham; since which, the same prin ciple has still been followed; but the working parts have undergone various modifications, by the joint abilities of these able mechani cians. The principle which was applied to the working of the piston, only one way, that is, by pushing it downwards, as the at mosphere |