may be the right one. The foil which, according to him, alone gave them nourishment by abforption, was an unctuous vegetable mould, formed by animal ordure, and a carbonate of lime. Water was the only other fubftance engaged in the process. Here, then, we have oil, carbonic acid and water directly exhibited and proved by our author himself to have been copioufly abforbed by the plants during their growth. Is it not reasonable to conclude, that the plants may have been compofed of them? Nay, do not all former experiments on the phyfiology of vegetables teach us, that they contain oil? And does not the daily evidence of our fenfes fnew us that they contain water? Yet for all this no allowance is made by Signor da S. Martino,

There is one other particular in which we are forced to dif agree with him. In his analytis of the bit of wood, he infers that oxygen was contained in it, not because he detected that fubftance, but merely becaufe fomething was neceffary to make his numbers balance, and because he could think of nothing elle but oxygen for the purpose. For he exprefsly tells us, that the amount of the water, carbonic acid and fixed refidue, was fo much, that therefore he concluded the difference between this quantity and 3000 (the original weight of the wood) was all received from the atmosphere; and that he alfo inferred, that the carbon of the acid, and the hydrogen of the water, alone came from the wood, which left a deficit of 156 grains wanting to complete the 3cco. Confequently, because the fort of wood employed contains no azote, this 156 grains must have been oxygen. It is fingular, that he never tions what kind of wood he ufed. But, at any rate, the above deduction obviously poffeffes all the qualities of reafoning in a circle. No proof whatever is offered to show that the oxygen came from the atmosphere; no evidence is given of the efcape of a portion of gas and, admitting that fuch a portion had been proved to have efcaped, we are left to conjecture that it was oxygen, merely because the author does not know that azote is contained in the wood: And, after all, it remains to be fhewn that the various changes which the confiituent parts of the vegetable fubftance undergo in the experiment, produce no difference upon their specific gravities; for our author's calculation proceeds upon the conftant affumption that no fuch alteration is occafioned.

men

Upon the whole, though we acknowledge the ingenuity of this paper, and efpecially admire the elegance of the method taken to analyfe the foil; and though we admit the accuracy of the means used to effect the determinate growth of the plants in known fubilances, we must be excufed for altogether denying

the.

King of France, whom the boy had pictured to himfelf like the Henry and the Francis, the heroes of the legendary tales of his country. His efcape, his journey, his difappointment, have all the fame ftyle of merit; and it is in fuch painting, where the fubject is actuated by fome wild, uncommon or unnatural strain of paffion and feeling, that we conceive Mr Godwin's peculiar talent to lye. At Paris, the deferted Ruffigny is patronized by Fleetwood, the grandfather of our hero; and his future connexion with that family is marked with reciprocal acts of that romantic generosity, which is fo common in novels, and so very rare in real life.

The main narrative is now refumed. Ruffigny accompanies Fleetwood on his return to England, where he finds in his paternal dwelling an empty manfion and a tenanted grave.' Notwithstanding his grief for his father's death, he is on the point of forming a connexion with a bewitching Mrs Comorin, (quare Cormorant ?) who had lately cohabited with Lord Mandeville, but, having quar relled with her admirer, had a heart and perfon vacant for the first fuitable offer. This naughty affair is interrupted by the precipi tate retreat of Ruffigny, who, not chufing to be prefent where fuch matters were going forward, was in full march towards Switzerland, when he is recalled, by Fleetwood's confent, to facrihis young miftrefs to his old friend. After this period, the ftory flags infufferably. Fleetwood, like king Solomon of yore, tries the various refources of travelling, fociety, literature, politics and farming, and, with him, pronounces them all vanity and vexation of fpirit. In this vain purfuit, he becomes a confirmed old bachelor; and the intereft of the ftory, contrary to that of every other novel, commences when he exchanges this unprofitable state for that of matrimony.

This grand ftep he is induced to take by the difinterested arguments of Mr Macneil, a fhrewd Scotchman, whom he meets on the lakes of Cumberland, and who at that very moment had four unmarried daughters upon his hands. The accomplishments of thefe damfels were rather overfhadowed by fome peculiarities in the history of their mother. This lady, when very young, had, while in Italy, married her mufic-mafter, who gave her no fmall reason to repent her choice. Macneil delivered her from the tyranny of this ungrateful mufician, who had immured her in a ruinous caftle, his hereditary manfion! That fhe gave her deliverer her heart was natural enough, but the alfo bestowed upon him her hand, to which the deferted minstrel had an unalienable claim. The ladies on the lakes of Cumberland judging that two husbands was an unreafonable allowance, declined intercourse with the fair monopolift. Macneil, was therefore about

to

to return to Italy, where he had vefted his whole fortune in the hands of a banker of Genoa; but, upon the fervent fuit of Fleetwood, he agreed that his youngest daughter Mary fhould remain in England. He himself, with his wife and three eldest daughters, proceed on their voyage, leaving Mary a vifitor in a family at London. The veffel in which the Macneils had embarked is wrecked in the Bay of Bifcay, and all that unfortunate family perish in the waves. This difaftrous intelligence is nearly a death-blow to poor Mary, the fole furvivor, and to whom her mother and fifters had hitherto been all in all. The Genoese banker finding that no vouchers of his being the depofitary of Macneil's fortune had efcaped from the wreck, refufes to give any account of it; and our interest in Mary's diftrefs and defolation is unneceffarily interrupted by a minute detail of the steps by which Fleetwood in vain attempted to bring a banker to confefs the receipt of a fum which could not otherwife be proved against him. It is even hinted, as a reafon for which he preffed his marriage with the deferted orphan, that he at length became afraid that, fince the queftion refted on a trial of character betwixt him and the Genoefe, he might himself be fufpected of having embezzled her fortune. This is one of the inftances of coarfenefs and bad taste with which Mr Godwin fometimes degrades his characters. In Caleb Williams, a gentleman paffionately addicted to the manners of ancient chivalry, becomes a midnight affaffin, when an honourable revenge was in his power; and in Fleetwood, a man of feeling, in foliciting an union prefled upon him by love, by honour, and by every feeling of humanity, is influenced by a motive of remote and defpicable calculation, which we will venture to fay never entered the head of an honeft man in fimilar circumstances.

Fleetwood and Mary are at length married; and from this marriage, as we have already noticed, commences any interest which we take in the hiftory of the former. Indeed it can hardly be called a history, which has neither incident nor novelty of remark to recommend it, confifting entirely of idle and inflated declamations upon the most common occurrences of human life. The union of Mary and Fleetwood, confidering the youth and variable fpirits of the former, and the age and confirmed prejudices of the latter, promifes a more interefting fubject of ipeculation. Upon their arrival in Wales, the reader is foon made fenfible that a man of feeling, upon Mr Godwin's fyftem, is the most selfish animal in the universe. We appeal to our fair readers if this is not a juft conclufion, from the following account of the matrimonial difputes of this ill-matched pair. Upon vifiting the family manfion in Merionethfhire, the lady gives the first caufe of

difguft

difguft, by rather haftily appropriating to her own purposes a closet which had been the favourite retirement of her husband. Without having the force of mind to tell Mary that this unlucky boudoir was confecrated to his own ftudies, Fleetwood nourishes a kind of fecret malice against his wife for her unlucky felection of this retreat, hallowed as it had been to his own exclusive use. This is hardly over, when a new offence is given. While our hero is reading to his young bride his favourite play, ' A Wife for a Month,' (in fact he did not retain his own for many more}, Mary, either from natural levity, or because the ardent declamations of the amorous Valerio, excited comparisons unfavourable to Fleetwood, chooses to defert the rehearsal in order to botanize with a young peasant on the cliffs of Cader Idris. Now there is nothing unnatural in this incident, and we believe domestic felicity is frequently interrupted by fuch differences of taste and neglect of the feelings of each other. But we doubt whether our readers will not think the tragic declamations of Fleetwood infinitely too high-toned for the nature of his misfortunes. It is not very pleasant to lofe poffeffion of a favourite clofet, and it is teazing enough to be deferted while reciting a favourite author; but furely the fefquipedalia verba of Fleetwood attach to these grievances a degree of confequence in which none can fympathife, and which to moft will be the fubject of ridicule. Another caufe of difpute, of a ftill more important, as well as of a more common kind, arifes betwixt Fleetwood and Mary. This concerns the fhare to be taken in the vifits and public fociety of the country in which they lived. Mary's fondness for thefe amufements excites the difpleasure, and at length the jealousy of her husband; and he expreffes both, with very great indulgence to his own feelings, and very little to those of his lady. In thefe circumstances her health began to give way, under the perpetual irritation occafioned by the deportment of her moody partner; and her mind fettled in mournful recollection upon the contemplation of the lofs fhe had fuftained by the fhipwreck of her fifters and parents. We tranfcribe the following account of the progrefs of her malady as one of the few interefting paffages in

the book.

• One further circumstance occurred in the progrefs of Mary's dif temper. She would fteal from her bed in the middle of the night, when no one perceived it, and make her efcape out of the house. The first time this accident occurred, I was exceedingly alarmed. I awoke, and found that the beloved of my foul was gone. I fought her in her clofet, in the parlour, and in the library. I then called up the fervants. The night was dark and tempeftuous; the wind blew a hollow blast; and the furges roared and ftormed as they buffeted against the hurri, cane. A fort of fleet blew fharp in our faces when we opened the door

of

of the house. I went myself in one direction, and defpatched the fervants in others, to call and fearch for their miftrefs. After two hours fhe was brought back by one of my people, who, having fought in vain at a diftance, had difcovered her on his return, not far from the houfe. Her hair was dishevelled; her countenance as white as death; her limbs cold, fhe was languid and fpeechlefs. We got her, as quickly as we could, to bed.

This happened a fecond time. At length I extorted her fecret from her. She had been to the beach of the sea to feek the bodies of her parents. On the fea-fhore the feemed to converfe with their fpirits. She owned, he had been tempted to plunge herfelf into the waves to meet them. She heard their voices fpeaking to her in the hollow wind, and faw their faces riding on the top of the waves, by the light of the moon, as it peeped precariously through the ftorm. They called to her, and bid her come along, and chid her for her delay. The words at first founded foftly, so that it feemed difficult to hear them, but afterward changed to the most dolorous and piercing fhrieks. In the laft inftance, a figure had approached her, and, feizing her garment, detained her, just as fhe was going to launch herself into the element. The fervants talked fomething of a gentleman, who had quitted Mary precifely as they came up to conduct her home.

She confeffed that, whenever the equinoctial wind founded in her ears, it gave a fudden turn to her blood and fpirits. As the liftened alone to the roaring of the ocean, her parents and her fitters immediate ly stood before her. More than once she had been awaked at midnight by the well known found; and, looking out of bed, the faw their bodies ftrewed on the floor, diftended with the element that filled them, and their features diftorted with death. This fpectacle fhe could not endure; she had crept filently out of bed, and, drawing a few clothes about her, had found her way into the air. She felt nothing of the ftorm; and, led on by an impulfe fhe could not refift, had turned her fteps towards the fea.' Vol. III. p. 79-82.

This kind of partial derangement of the intellect is very strikingly defcribed. It has not, however, the merit of novelty, as the fame idea occurs in the licentious novel of Faublas, written by the famous Louvet. At the conclufion of that work the hero tells us, that still when the fouth wind whistled, or the thunder rolled, his difordered imagination prefented to him the scene which had paffed at the death of his mitrefs; he again heard the found of the midnight bell, and the voice of the centinel who pointed to the river, and coldly faid, She is there.' We quote, from memory, a work which, for many reafons, we would not choofe to read again; but we think that this is the import of the paffage, and it confiderably refembles that in Fleetwood, though the idea in the latter is more prolonged and brought out.

Mary is removed to Bath, where the recovers from her depref