But to return to versification, I must consider our rhymed verse to have been carried to its acme of purity by Pope. Modern poets, by trying to be still more correct, suffer the spirit of their composition to evaporate, and their verse becomes languid. Dr. Darwin would have written as well as Pope, if he had not tried to write better. There is another fault of an opposite nature, which some of our modern poets run into: they have a notion that the insertion of a harsh or prosaic line occasionally is a beauty, or at least serves as a foil to set off the rest. Too many of these lines we know are to be found in the Paradise Lost ; but surely it is no merit to copy the defects even of the best masters. Milton was partly induced to this, by his fondness for the Italian poets; but their poetry admits of a disposition of the accents, which does not suit with our verse; and partly from his partiality to the ancients. But though some lines even in Virgil are to be found with a defective cadence, the quantity, which is the essential quality of the verse, is always strictly preserved; but as accent is the sole efficient of our verse, a defective accentual cadence with us is equivalent with a false quantity, and a line where this occurs ceases to be a verse. Agreeing entirely, as I do, with your Correspondent's eulogy on Pope, when I see tinsel and barbarism so much preferred to his model by the hypercriticism of the day, I am inclined. to conclude this paper in something like his words, but mutatis mutandis. Such and so rapid has been the effect of the decline of classic composition, on English poetry."

P.

To the EDITOR of the LITERARY JOURNAL. SIR,

In your review of Lord Strangford's translation of the Poems of Camoens, you mention the difference of the present from earlier periods of our literary annals, with regard to noble poets, and you say the cause is not of difficult investigation. But as you have not pursued that investigation, will you accept of my thoughts on a circumstance, the existence of which is evident.

Perhaps the accession of the House of Hanover had no inconsiderable share in producing it. The high notions of feudal dignity at that time prevalent in Germany, and the first two monarchs being strangers to the language, would not lead them to hold literary excellence in great estimation, and the opinion of the court will always influence that of the nobility; indeed there is an anecdote of the late King's expressing

VOL. II.

a poetical contest with Pope. But there certainly is a stronger reason to be produced for the present dereliction of literary pursuits. Excellence in poetry, history, &c. must be the consequence of strong application to them, and this can be given by those only who are professional writers, or those who, from the stimulus of inclination and genius, engage in these pursuits, and have leisure to do it without much interruption. But no men occupied in serious business can acquire fame by any works he may compose merely in the hours of relaxation from his regular and pressing occupations. Now formerly the public duty of our great men called on them only for occasional exertion. The unfrequency of Parliaments, and the comparative little consequence of them when assembled, would not afford sufficient employment for an ardent and active mind, and hence many of our nobles possessing such minds employed them in cultivating the fields of literature. At present the parliament sits generally two thirds of every year, and such is its weight in the scale of goverment, and such the momentous concern discussed in it, that every ardent and active mind will naturally make parliamentary excellence its chief, if not its sole object: and though the sittings of parlia ment were not so long in the beginning of the 18th century as they are at present, yet their deliberations were then employed on as important subjects as at any succeeding period. In short, to give the true statement of the case, we need only quote the reason the biographer of Lord Roscommon give why the design of an academy for refining and fixing the standard of the English language was defeated under the ministry of Lord Oxford-viz. ' by a conflict of parties, and the necessity of attending only to political disquisitions for defending the conduct of administration, and forming parties in Parliament.' Your's, &c.

MR. EDITOR.

E.

I send you a description of a Greek picture in oil, in Mr. Tatlow's Museum, Silver-street, Kensington Gravel-pits. Yours Oriosus.

This picture is 4 feet long by 3 broad, and represents the entombing of St. Ephraim Syrus, whose works we have in folio, 6 Vol. 1732, published by Cardinal Maria Angelo Quirini. At the top of the picture, on one side, is an inscription. H x To άγια Εφραιμ ; at the bottom ΧΕΙΡ ΣΥΜΕΩΝΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ. AXAH. Which is, 'The hand of Simeon painted' (this picture) 1638. The date is according to the æra of the Seleucida, St. Ephraim being a Syrian, and must be reckoned thus, 1638—3121326 of the Christian æra, since the Syrian æra begins 312 years before Christ. Here you have a picture in oil painted ninety years before the discovery of oil-painting by Van-Eyck, or John of Oak de Bruges. Let the connoisseurs examine this board well, and determine if it be oil or no, and how it has been coloured, for appearances are greatly in its favour that it is in oil.

T

On Oil used as a Manure. By C. Baldwin, Esq. From HUNTER's Georgical Essays.

Having for many years considered oil as the great pabulum of plants, I was much hurt by the result of some experiments, which state oil as poison; and turning this in my thoughts a thousand times over, it at last occurred to me, that though oil, as oil in its crude state, might act as a poison, yet it might be so changed as to convey it with great advantage to the soil, and I instantly recollected Dr. Hunter's mode by ashes; it also occurred to me that rape-oil cake was known to be an excellent manure, that no objec tion had ever been made to it but its expensiveness, and that if it was beneficial to the soil, it could only be so from the quantity of oil contained in it, though that quantity must be very small indeed, considering the process of first grinding the rape seed, and the vast force used to drive out the oil, so that what remains is little more than a caput mortuum; yet the cake formed of these very remains is known to be a rich manure.

Think for a moment from how many seeds, plants, shrubs, and trees, we draw oil; from rapeseed, linseed, mustard, fennel, aniseed, juniper, carraways, mint, olives, &c. Thus we evidently draw an im mense quantity of oil from the earth, but when and how do we convey any to it? I know of little or no attention paid to this circumstance in our compost dunghills, so that all the oil conveyed to them can only be from animal dung.

Whatever may be the quantity of oil remaining in each rape-cake, and I believe that no one will state it at half an ounce each, yet it must be remembered that after all it is only a vegetable oil; reflecting on this circumstance, and fully persuaded that animal oil must be much superior to it, I directly went to town to inquire the price of whale or train oil, and there I was informed, that it was about 28. 8d. per gallon; this I considered as too expensive; but pursuing my object, I was informed by Mr. Wilfred Reed, oil merchant, in Thames-street, that he could supply me with bottoms or foots of oil, and a rich thick South Sea whale oil, at 14d. per gallon -This was the very thing I wished for, and directly ordered sixty gallons, for a five-acre field, and thus went to work. Having

a platform or bottom of twenty load of mould with eight load of dung on it, I carried on three load of light sandy mould, and one load of brick and mortar rubbish, ground fine, and having mixed these well, and made a kind of dish of it, about five feet wide and ten feet long, with a ladle we put over it one half of the oil. It was in August, and the warmth of the sun soon made the thick oil soak into this compost, when it was directly thrown up in a heap, broke down again, and by five or six turnings, well mixed spread equally over the whole dunghill; twenty load together, and left in a heap two days, when it was more of good mould was then carried on, eight load of dung, and the remaining thirty gallons of oil were mixed as before, in sandy mould, and brick and mortar rubbish, and equally spread over, and the whole was covered by trimming the four sides of the dunghill, and throwing it on the top.

Thus the dunghill lay more than two months, when

it was cut down by mattocks, carefully broke, well mixed, and turned over. The end of March it was carried on the field, spread, and ploughed in; it lay about a fortnight, was then ploughed again, and, on the 22d of April last, it was drilled with the Rev. Mr. Cooke's most excellent drill; I mean his last, with hoes and scarifiers, which I think much superior to his former one: the last I think every farmer, who has seen it at work, will consider as incapable of further improvement. The field was drilled with barley, two bushels to the acre; the crop came up in a most even and beautiful manner; every seed was up within forty-eight hours of each other; all was ripe at the same time, and, from a couple of months after seed time to harvest, was rated by all who saw it, and it was seen by many, as a sixty bushel crop.

At harvest, three rows were cut across the field, directly thrashed and measured: one load out of thirteen was also thrashed and measured, and both stated the crop to be sixty bushels, but, to wave all possibility of dispute or doubt, I am content to state the crop at seven quarters per acre.

As to the quality of the barley, I could here cite the opinion of one of the most eminent brewers in London, who saw the crop growing, and declared he would readily give £1000 to be assured that all the barley crops in the kingdom were of equal burthen and weight; five quarters of it have been lately sent to Nethrapps, in Norfolk, as seed-barley, under the denomination of 15 comb barley; and an eminent maltster tells me it weighs 220lb. per sack, or 55lb. per bushel, Winchester measure.

perhaps the richest part of the animal, whether I used enough, or what is the proper quantity per acre, experience must point out. Say I used eight loads of mould, three or four loads of dung, and twelve gallons of whale-oil, per acre.

That oil applied to land, as a food for plants, in its crude state, acts as a poison, I cannot deny, but my process is very different; I believe that oil, particularly animal oil, is the pabulum of plants, that is, oil subtilized by the salts in a compost dunghill, left there a considerable time, in a state of putrefaction, and until the whole is become putrescent, then, I say, believe, I have got the best and richest manure that can be carried on land.

I

The barley evidently proved its excellence; a ridge of summer cucumbers, in my garden, pointed out to many its great power, the leaves being in general from ten to ten and a half inches broad, and the vines occupied an uncommon space of ground. Five hundred cabbages and savoys, planted by the side of four thousand more, and which had only one handful of the oil manure put into each hole made by the dil-ble, at the time of planting, were evidently near as big again as the others.

Remarks on Arnold's Chronometers, during Sir Home Popham's Voyage. By an Officer in the Squadron.

July 1801. After the long. of Cosseir, or Kosire, had been determined by a number of eclipses and lunars, we left it, carrying on the rates of the Chrono meters at what the sights for 3 weeks produced. They gave the long. of Juddah, 39° 13' E. of Gh. and Mocha, 43° 20′ E. and upon our arrival at Kedgerce, the 18th August, brought out the long. of that place

I must not omit saying that the barley followed oats, upon a lay of six years old, that the land was, as is too common in such cases, much infested with the little red or wire worm, and that the oats suffered much from them; when we were ploughing for the barley the first time, I observed many turned up by the plough, when a distant ray of hope instantly darted upon my mind, that the oil in its then state, or from its strong effluvium, might prove obnoxious to them, and I am happy in saying, that the barley did

not suffer from them in the least.

I can however, add here, that I am now trying that experiment in Hampshire, having last autumn inade up a dunghill, with twenty gallons of oil, on one third of it, for a six acre field, which is now drilled with pease.

It is well known that all animal substances, in a state of corruption, wonderfully promote vegetation, and are the actual food of plants.

The whale-oil which I used is an animal substance,

and 326, were suffered to go down and sent to Calcutta to be cleaned; fortunately N° 92 was taken better care of. We left the river 10th Dec. N° 92 lost 5" per diem. 66 lost 14", 30" and 326 keeping mean time. On our arrival at Prince of Wales's Island 27th Dec. N° 92 produced the long. correctly, and differed but little from the other. We got to Madras 8th January, 1802; and 92 gave the long. of the flagstaff, 80° 33' which is exactly that assigned it: this is a satisfactory proof of its going very regular, as Madras is the best ascertained place in India.-We therefore continued its rate-5" per diem. 69 was altered to-17" per diem, and 326+4". We left Madras the 13th January, and on the passage to Cochin, ascor tained the longitudes of several places on the island of Ceylon, which agreed with Mr. Dalrymple's, allowing the difference between the true longitude of Bombay, and what he then supposed it to be in. The longitudes deduced from them for Aajiazo, and Cochin, also proved correct, and they all agreed with each other. Upon our arrival at Mocha, the 11th February, N° 92 again produced 43° 20′ E. for its longitude, precisely what we had assigned it the preceding year. The 20th February, we anchored at Judah, and N° 92 gave its longitude within 1' of what we had before made it; and upon our arrival at Kosire, 12th March, N° 92 gave its longitude within 2 miles of the former. This is a very convincing proof of the regular going of