"It seems to be, Julia, that the only true grief is connected with guilt. Every other has so many gleams and respites, and is so transient, and carries in its train so many after joys! But remorse! the sense of scorn deserved; the weight of indignation, human and divine; that must be agony indeed."

For the Literary Magazine.

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY.

M. CHAPTAL'S account of the method of fertilizing the mountains in the Cevennes is curious, and shows how necessity will, at times, render the most infertile regions productive, though, perhaps, the exertions of these mountaineers are not equalled by the patient industry of the Chinese in similar situations. The inhabitants of the Cevennes raise walls at the bottoms of the mountains across the termination of the gullies, which suffer the water to escape, and retain the soil. Parallel ones are erected at different heights; and thus nature forms the hanging gardens which supply the mountaineer with the food which his attentive industry has so justly merited. The receding strata of of the calcareous rocks are by a similar method formed into various plats of a smaller size.

For the Literary Magazine.

THE BURTHEN OF POMP.

IT is no new remark, that the honours and distinctions of the world are generally purchased, not only at the expence of much money, but of much health, comfort, and ease. As fashion is many-fold and ever-varying, it must be in almost perpetual conflict with truth which is one, and with propriety which is uniform; but as there is no consideration of so much importance, in vulgar eyes,

as the respect of others, all mankind must bow to fashion, by a submission to which that respect can only be purchased.

Fashion, indeed, becomes sometimes the standard of beauty and propriety in the minds of its followers, and hence, with such, whatever evils their submission to the mode may inflict upon them, no violence is done to their conscience or their taste. But this is not always the case: frequently obedience to fashion is painful and reluctant, and is practised, not because her dictates conform to those of reason, but because any evil, poverty, disease, and even death itself, is better, in our deluded apprehensions, than to be out of the fashion.

In reading an account of the British embassy to Ava, I was much struck with the following instance, in which fashion lays as heavy a load on a king as on a porter.

The ambassador was, in due time, admitted to an audience of his Birman majesty. We had been seated, says he, a little more than a quarter of an hour, when the foldingdoors that concealed the seat opened with a loud noise, and discovered his majesty, ascending a flight of steps, that led up to the throne from the inner apartment. He advanced but slowly, and seemed not to possess a free use of his limbs, being obliged to support himself with his hands on the balustrade. I was informed, however, that this appearance of weakness did not proceed from any bodily infirmity, but from the weight of the regal habiliments in which he was clad; and if what we were told was true, that he carried on his dress fifteen viss, upwards of fifty pounds avoirdupois of gold, his difficulty of ascent was not surprising. On reaching the top he stood for a minute, as though to take breath, and then sat down on an embroidered cushion, with his legs inverted. His crown was a high conical cap, richly studded with precious stones; his fingers were covered with rings, and in his dress he bore the appearance

of a man, cased in golden armour, whilst a gilded, or probably a golden, wing on each shoulder, did not add much lightness to his figure.

For the Literary Magazine.

ALGEBRAIC ABSURDITIES.

IN the first attempts of a student of geometry and algebra, one of the most discouraging circumstances he meets with is the strange language in which the principles of these sciences are wrapt up. He will naturally expect to find, and therefore will not be surprised or disheartened at finding, words entirely new to him; but he will be extremely puzzled when he meets with terms, with which he is already familiar, used in a sense, not merely new, but contradictory.

He well knows, for instance, that a number may be greater or less than another number; it may be added to, taken from, multiplied into, and divided by another number; but in other respects his reason in forms him that it is very untractable: though the whole world should be destroyed, one will be one, and three will be three; and no art whatever can change their nature.

You may put a mark before one, which it will obey: it submits to be taken away from a number greater than itself, but to attempt to take it away from a number less than itself is ridiculous. Yet this is attempted by algebraists, who talk of a number less than nothing, of multiplying a negative number into a negative number and thus producing a positive number, and of a number being imaginary. Hence they talk of two roots to every equation of the second order, and the learner is to try which will succeed in a given equation: they talk of solving an equation, which requires two impossible roots to make it solvible: they can find out some impossible numbers, which, being multiplied together, produce unity. This is

all jargon, at which common sense recoils; but, from its having been once adopted, like many other figments, it finds the most strenuous supporters among those who love to take things upon trust, and hate the labour of a serious thought.

Square and cube are modes of continued quantity, and cannot be applied to numbers: the absurdity is seen in the use of the word sursolid; for, if there could be such a thing as a solid number, there might be a sursolid number, and a thing might be more than solid, which is absurd.

People err much in supposing that a word is of little consequence, if it is explained. If that word has a very different meaning in other respects, the learner will confound frequently the different meanings, and pass through life without having a clear idea upon the subject. In educating children, we should take care not to use a word above their comprehension, nor, by our authority, to impress a position on their minds which is not true. If we teach them little, we should teach them that little well: but we are doing them a real injury, when we fill their heads with a jumble of words, or with false and incoherent notions.

These sciences deal so much in abstractions, that it is difficult enough at any rate to make ourselves familiar with the ideal existences about which they are conversant. It seems peculiarly absurd to heighten these inevitable difficulties by the addition of needless ones. Metaphors and fictions abound most in the two sciences where they would naturally be least expected, in mathematics and in law.

For the Literary Magazine.

SHAKESPEARE RE-EXAMINED.

THE remarks made, in a former number, on the similies of Shakespeare, has not met with the appro

bation of all your readers. Some objection was made by the critic to the terms made use of by Troilus, when, speaking of his efforts to disguise his uneasiness, he says, that his sigh was buried in wrinkle of a smile."

The term wrinkle was thought to be exceedingly inapt and unsuit able, because a wrinkle is a furrow produced by age upon the cheek or forehead, and cannot, therefore, be employed to illustrate the influence of a smile.

A correspondent, in the last number, has arraigned the critic before the tribunal of Johnson. He seems tacitly to admit, that, if a wrinkle be a furrow produced only by age, that then the objection is a just one: but he denies that this is a true de finition of a wrinkle, and refers us to Johnson's Dictionary, in which a wrinkle is described to be

1. A furrow or corrugation on the skin or face;

2. Any roughness.

A

It may seem a little daring to deny the right of Johnson to decide in cases of this kind; yet I cannot help observing, that I think the definition is a defective one. It is true that a wrinkle is a corrugation or roughness on the skin: but this is not enough; it is a corrugation or roughness of a particular kind, and produced by a particular cause. furrow produced by a hot iron, the scar produced by an old wound, by a healed abscess, all come within this definition; and yet surely it would be a gross breach of propriety to call a roughness or furrow, produced by burning, scarification, contusion, or disease, by the name of wrinkle. The term wrinkle is, in my mind, inseparably associated with age. It is so generally used in this sense, both among writers and talkers, that I think no one is justified in using it in any other.

That Shakespeare should err, on this occasion, is surely nothing to be wondered at, since errors of the same kind, and of every kind, are so plentifully strewed over his works, that it would be difficult to

find ten lines together not blemished by some of them. To point out and ponder on the beauties of Shakespeare is a pleasing and profitable task; but these beauties will be seen in their greatest splendour only by the eye which most truly distinguishes between various shades of excellence, and between excellencies and faults.

CRITO.

For the Literary Magazine.

DIAMONDS.

A FRIEND of mine is at a loss to conceive by what means the great fortunes which some few lucky minions of the blindfold goddess in this side of the ocean, and many more on the other side, possess, could be spent. I referred him to a lawsuit, of which the report is to be found in all the London newspapers of the day, in which certain jewellers claim from the prince of Wales the value of certain jewels furnished, in the course of three years, to his royal highness. After an impartial hearing, the jury awarded to the plaintiffs, as their due, the trifling sum of fifty thousand nine hundred pounds sterling.

For the Literary Magazine.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

THE millenial period, or period of perfect terrestrial felicity, a christian poet always considers as future; the Greek and Roman poets always as past.

The description which Tibullus gives of Saturnean times is embellished with all the fairest flowers of fancy; but there is this material difference between the Romans and ourselves: these happy times were reviewed there with lamentation and regret, as past and gone, and never to return. By us they awak

en only the sentiments of joy and hope, because we are hastening towards them, and our partaking of their blessings will wholly depend upon ourselves.

It is somewhat remarkable, that the Hebrew poets, when they describe the land of promise, should select the same images with those adopted by Tibullus, in describing his happy land. Palestine is commonly pictured as a land flowing with milk and honey. These images are thus amplified by Tibullus:

Ipsa mella dabant quercus, ultroque fe

rebant

Obvia securis ubera lactis oves.

For the Literary Magazine.

NATIONAL LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS.

WHERE is a nation free and happy to be found? These terms are thought to be correlative. A nation is said by some to be happy only as it is free.

Most readers will probably smile when I direct them to Prussia, in the reign, almost one continued and destructive war, of the great Frederick; and yet, were I called upon to name a country, the freest and most prosperous of all countries, I should not hesitate to name this.

The meaning of the word liberty is continually varying. At no time have any two nations used it in the same sense. In my opinion, to constitute civil liberty, there must be equal laws, and those impartially executed; justice must be promptly, equitably, and cheaply dispensed; and the nation at large should be entitled to express its sense of public measures, and to confine the exertions of political power within the sphere of public good.

The Prussian territory in Germany is vulgarly considered as affording the most complete example of a military despotism, especially under the reign of Frederick II,

and as a country where the misery and desolation of war were experienced in their fullest extent; and yet, if I have stated a just definition of liberty and happiness, it may be proved, that in no corner of the world have they flourished more than in the dominions of the Prussian Fredericks for the last sixty years.

The laws of Frederick are not only good and just, but being made by a man who knew the power of words, are short, determinate, and easily understood. Of the law's obscurity, expensiveness, or delay, there is less occasion to complain than in any kingdom on earth; and during the greater part of his reign after he had reformed his courts of justice, there scarcely occur, in the lapse of thirty years, three instances of legal oppression.

It may be alleged, that the Prussians, however well governed, enjoy not any share in the public administration, and cannot therefore feel themselves much interested in the public good. But these premises are untrue. The truth, however, is, Frederick acknowledged with pleasure the states of each province: they met regularly at stated times in national assemblies; he consulted them on matters of general legislation; listened patiently to their advice; committed to them the administration of their internal government, and entrusted them with the collection of the taxes. These institutions, which he introduced and confirmed, represent not the image of a military despotism, but rather breathe the genuine spirit of just monarchy, which of all governments promises perhaps the greatest share of public happiness.

Though it may reasonably be regretted, that this patriot king did not crown his great work, and, enforcing manners by law, render that constitutional and unalterable, which is in some measure casual and arbitrary; yet, with the education which that extraordinary man gave the princes of his family, a king of Prussia cannot be suspected of