never to return, on the 29th March, accompanied by Dr Tobin, the eldest son of his early friend, Mr Tobin. After trying the warm salt baths of Ischl, he went from Laybach to Trieste to perform some experiments on the Torpedo, which he had long meditated; and the paper in which he published an account of them in the Philosophical Transactions,' was his forty-sixth and last communication to the Royal Society. On the 18th November he arrived at Rome. In January 1827, he received accounts of the death of Dr Wollaston; and on the 1st of February he completed the MSS. of his posthumous work, entitled 'Consolations in Travel.

On the 20th February, without any previous warning, he experienced a severe attack of paralysis, which finally proved fatal. On the 23d he dictated a letter to Dr Davy at Malta, requesting his immediate presence, and another on the 25th, which was the only one that reached its destination. Dr Davy arrived in Rome on the 16th March. The moment Lady Davy heard of this first attack she quitted London, and reached Rome in little more than twelve days; and Sir Humphry had thus the satisfaction of spending his last days under the affectionate cares of those who were most dear to him. Lady Davy had brought with her the second edition of the Salmonia,' which he began to read with great pleasure, and in a few days he was able to go out in a carriage. He even had strength to witness the splendid illumination of St Peter's on the night of Easter Monday. On the 30th April he quitted Rome for the cooler climate of Geneva. Lady Davy, with that kindness and self-devotion which will ever do honour to her affections, went before him in order to make arrangements at each stage for his comfortable reception; and on the 28th May, Sir Humphry found apartments prepared for him at the Hotel de la Couronne at Geneva. After reclining on the sofa, he occasionally walked to the window, and expressed a longing desire to throw a fly into his favourite Rhone. Lady Davy soon after communicated to him the death of Dr Thomas Young, which affected him to tears, but in a short time he recovered his wonted composure. This was the last day of Sir Humphry Davy; and we must leave the interesting though sad description of it to his affectionate brother.

'At five o'clock he dined at table, and made a tolerable dinner. After dinner he was read to, according to his custom. At nine o'clock he prepared to go to bed. In undressing, he struck his elbow against the projecting arm of the sofa on which he sat. The effect was very extraordinary: he was suddenly seized with a universal tremor; he experienced an intense pain in the part struck, and a sensation, he said, as if he were dying. He was got into bed as soon as possible. The painful sensations

quickly subsided, and in a few minutes were entirely gone. There was no mark of hurt on the elbow, no pain or remaining tenderness; and the effect of the blow perplexed him no less than it did me. A slight feverish feeling followed, which he thought little of; he took an anodyne draught of the acetate of morphine, and then desired to be read to, that his mind might be composed to sleep by agreeable images.

About half-past nine he wished to be left alone, and I took my leave of him for the night, and for ever on earth. His servant, who always slept in his room, called me about half-past two, saying he was taken very ill. I went to him immediately. He was then in a state of insensibility, his respiration extremely slow and convulsive, and the pulse imperceptible. He was dying; and in a few minutes he expired. I thank God, I was present to close his eyes! In death his countenance was composed and of its mildest expression, indicative of no pain or suffering in the separation of the immortal from the mortal part. This fatal moment was about three A. M., on the 29th of May.'

The Genevese Government evinced, by a public funeral, the high respect which they felt for so great a man. The Council of State, the Clergy, the Society of Arts, the Physical Society, the Students of the Academy, the English residents, and the citizens of Geneva attended the funeral on the 1st of June; and the body was deposited in the City burying ground of Plain Palais, close to the grave of Professor Pictet. Lady Davy erected a simple obelisk over the grave, and at her desire a small tablet was placed in Westminster Abbey, to give a local habitation to his name.

So widely extended was the reputation of Sir Humphry Davy, that he was an honorary or corresponding member of almost all the scientific institutions in the world. He was one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France; and he received all the honorary medals given by the Royal Society of London, beside the Galvanic prize founded by Napoleon.

It is a remarkable event in the history of science, that in 1829, in one year, England should have lost Wollaston, Young, and Davy; three of the most distinguished characters that ever adorned the contemporaneous annals of our country. All of them had been foreign associates of the Institute of France; all of them secretaries to the Royal Society;-all of them were national benefactors;—all of them were carried off by a premature death; --all of them died without issue;-and all of them have been allowed to moulder in their tombs without any monumental tribute from a grateful country.*

It is not for the honour of the dead, or to gratify the vanity of

Dr Paris has made the same complaint, with that forcible eloquence which is displayed in every part of his work.

their friends, that we crave a becoming memorial from the sympathies of an intellectual community. It is that the living may lay it to heart-that the pure flame of virtue may be kindled in the breasts of our youth, and that our children may learn from the time-crushed obelisk and the crumbling statue, that the genius of their fathers will survive even the massive granite and the perennial brass.

Concurring in the fine sentiment expressed by Mr Babbage, that in the recent biography of illustrious men we can read only their eloges, we shall abstain from any attempt to draw the character of Sir Humphry Davy. While the failings of great men are still remembered within the sphere of their influence, truth demands from the impartiality of history some fidelity in her delineations. The biographer who paints the endeared image on which his imagination dwells, loses the individuality of truth amid cherished and exaggerated virtues. The impartial judge, and even the sincere admirer, are thus summoned to a controversy of false positions, in which genius finds its best vindication in the acknowledgement of its mortality. The premature apotheosis of a glorious name may indeed soothe affliction and dazzle ignorance; but it is only in the deep lines, and on the dark foreground of truth, that the bright spirit can rise with unextinguishable lustre.

ART. VI.-An affectionate Expostulation with Christians in the United States of America, because of the continuance of Negro Slavery throughout many districts of their Country. Addressed by the Minister, Deacons, and Members of the Congregational Church, formed by the Congregation assembling in Mill Street Chapel, Perth. Pp. 8. 12mo. Glasgow: 1836.

WE E have prefixed the title of this tract to the present article for two reasons-First, it is an eloquent and well-timed address, and leaves nothing to be regretted except the inaccuracy with which some facts are stated (as the number of slaves in America assumed to be three millions when they are little more than two); and the haste with which other facts are generalized so as to make the misdeeds of one or two States seem the general abuse of legislative power all over the Union. But, secondly, its title is peculiarly consonant to our ideas of the temper in

which this important subject should be approached. Bitter attacks upon a whole people are not the best way of weaning them from their prejudices; expostulation, kindly though warm and urgent, gives us a much better chance of success, beside being more becoming in itself.

The subject is momentous; it naturally excites great interest in this country as well as in America; and we wish to join in these expostulations for this, among other reasons, that as our opinion has upon all occasions been strongly pronounced in favour of the rights, the institutions, and the character of our Transatlantic brethren, so they can never ascribe the course which we are now pursuing to any of those hostile feelings, long prevalent, we fear still prevalent, among the illiberal party in this country. On the contrary, if we have a wish more anxious than another, next to the desire of seeing negro slavery abolished, it is that we should be furnished by the Americans themselves with a triumphant answer to the invectives now pouring forth against them, by the party which hates freedom, and even dreads improvement, and which we may term their adversary as well as our own. There is nothing from which those enemies of popular rights derive inore satisfaction than the prospect of the American Government and nation, losing their favour in the sight of the English people through the unfortunate continuance of the slave system in the United States.

We shall begin by stating the facts of the case-such of them at least as are necessary, in order to comprehend its precise merits. Let us see then what the Americans say: By the constitution of the Union, framed in 1787, the question of emancipating the slaves is not subject to the legislative authority of the Congress each State may continue or abolish slavery at its pleasure. Four States, comprising about a fourth of the population, have already abolished it. The same constitution excluded the Congress from all interference with the slave trade, as well as with slavery, but not perpetually; the restriction was to expire in twenty years; and a law was accordingly made abolishing that execrable traffic in 1808, as early as the constitution permitted such a proceeding. Moreover, the curse and the crime of slavery was entailed with the Slave Trade upon the American colonists by the mothercountry; her commercial interests were deemed to require it; and the Americans remonstrated in many instances, but vainly, against it. Even the last founded of the colonies, Georgia, as late as the reign of George II. was compelled, in the face of repeated petitions, backed by the strenuous exertions of its governor and council, to admit the importation of slaves; and his dismissal is understood to have originated in the part he took with the planters.

From hence two inferences are drawn :-First, That it ill becomes us, the people of England, to complain of the Americans for refusing to terminate a state of things which we forced upon them. -Secondly, That there exists no power in the American people at large to do what we consider to be their duty; inasmuch as they have not the power by law, unless the individual states concur, and these from local interests, real or supposed, are sure

not to consent.

Before dealing with these propositions, it is necessary that we should add the residue of the facts; because, although what has been just now stated is true, it is by no means the whole truth ; and because there are some other particulars admitted on all hands, which should be adverted to, beside those which apply to the foregoing statement.

That the colonies did, in the earlier periods of their history, protest against the Slave Trade, and show the desire which they really felt not to have negro slaves, may in some degree be true. But it is plain that this aversion did not long continue among them, at least among those of the South. Their unwillingness to relinquish that traffic is the only reason that can be assigned for the restriction which the constitution of 1787 imposed upon Congress ; they were apprehensive that the States which had no slaves, and those which had but a few, would combine and carry the Abolition; to preserve unanimity, accordingly, the proviso was inserted in the fifth article, which lays down the course to be taken for changing the fundamental laws of the Union. Two-thirds of both the Houses of Congress concurring-or the legislatures of two-thirds of the States concurring, may propound any change, and it shall be valid when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States; but the proviso excepts the abolition of the Slave Trade from the operation of this article during twenty years. For, no amendment made before 1808, 'is in any manner to affect' that part of theninth section of Article I., which declares that Congress shall not, prior to 1808, prohibit the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States shall think proper to admit, nor impose any tax on such importation exceeding ten dollars for each person.' And here we may remark, in passing, that the very language used to describe the Slave Trade without naming it (as indeed throughout this celebrated instrument care is taken to avoid mentioning slavery or slaves by name) shows how much there was of compromise between the States holding such property, and those who held it not. The same circumstance evinces the feeling of repugnance, perhaps of shame, with which the illustrious founders of the Republic viewed the position they found themselves placed in,—of establishing a system to secure political

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