death-blow to his reputation in that way, by charging him with a mission, success in which should be impossible. The occasion, as he thought, presented itself on the return, in 1814, of the Bourbons to France. Monsignore della Genga was sent to congratulate the King of France, and to endeavour to get him to renounce, in favour of the Court of Rome, certain advantages which the Gallican church had laid claim to since the time of Louis XIV., and the confirmation of which the Emperor had obtained by his famous concordat. Monsignore della Genga, thus charged with a supposed impossible mission, arrived in Paris in 1814, and was not a little astonished to find that the French Government was far from being averse to granting his demand. He immediately despatched a courier to Rome, acquainting Cardinal Gonzalvi with his hopes. This error was regarded here as one of the greatest he could have been guilty of, and completely destroyed his reputation with the long heads of this country. From that moment Monsignore della Genga was set down as an étourdi, altogether incapable of making his way as a diplomatist. In this court a fault of that kind is never pardoned, excused, or forgotten. He should have written vaguely, and talked of the difficulties that obstructed him, and not have despatched a courier, but with the arrangement formally signed. Such an unhoped-for termination of so difficult an affair must have forced his enemy to bestow upon him the first vacant cardinal's hat. The moment Cardinal Gonzalvi received the despatch of the inconsiderate legate, he hastened to the Pope, and told him that he was under the necessity of immediately setting out for Paris, as without his presence the affairs of the church were in jeopardy. At Rome France stands highest in estimation, from the consideration which her adherence reflects upon the Holy See in Europe; Spain is chiefly valued on account of the money she pours into the papal coffers, and Catholic Germany is looked upon as a kind of rebellious state, which plays the same part as the republic of Venice did formerly. Four hours after the receipt of the imprudent despatch of Monsignore della Genga, Cardinal Gonzalvi was whirling along the road to Paris. In the mean time the affairs of the church had gone on so prosperously in the capital of France, that twelve or fourteen days after the departure of the fatal despatch, Monsignore della Genga was on the point of having the arrangement signed, when one morning, as he was preparing to go to the minister's, his carriage waiting for him at the door, he was surprised by the entrance of Cardinal Gonzalvi, who embraced him and said,” I have come here, the affair being so important, to put the finishing hand to the concordat of the Emperor." In less than a quarter of an hour, the Cardinal having received all the necessary documents from the thunderstruck legate, got into his carriage and drove to the Tuileries. A few minutes after his departure, the unfortunate legate fell bathed in his blood, a hemorrhoidal hemorrhage having declared itself, which reduced him to the point of death, and from which he had little desire to escape. The physicians had him re

moved to Montrouge, where he recovered the immediate effects of the accident, but this malady has never since ceased to afflict him, reducing him once a year at least to the last extremity. It was an attack of this kind that had nearly deprived us of his Holiness on the 24th of last December: upon which occasion Cardinal Galeffi administered to his Holiness the viaticum, a ceremony which Leo XII. has undergone no less than eighteen times since the fatal revolution in his system in 1814.

B.

FROM KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE.

TALE OF A CHEMIST.

THE advancement of knowledge is the triumph of truth, and, as such, is the eventual interest of mankind; inasmuch as the extension of reason is by its very definition the necessary object of rational beings. Timid theologians have trembled on the confines of some topics which might lead to dangerous discovery; forgetful that religion and truth, if not identical, are at least inseparable. Some nice and sensitive chemists have foreborne the search of the ne plus ultra in alchemy, dreading that as gold is the great fountain of wickedness on earth, the indefinite increase of that metal might be the unlimited multiplication of human evil: but forgetting that in all human affairs, from fluids up to theories, there is a specific gravity in all things which keeps constant the level of terrestrial operations, and prevents the restless brain of man from raising any edifice, in brick or discovery, high enough to be the ruin of his own species. To me, however, the one consideration, that the eternal search of knowledge and truth is the very object of our faculties, has been the main spring of my life, and although my individual sufferings have been far from light, yet at their present distance the contemplation gives me pleasure, and I have the satisfaction to reflect that I am now in possession of an art which is continually employed, day and night, for the benefit of the present generation and of ages yet to come.

I was born in the Semlainogorod of Moscow; and for ten years applied intensely to chemistry. I confess the failure of many eminent predecessors prevented my attempting the philosopher's stone; my whole thoughts were engaged on the contemplation of gravity-on that mysterious invisible agent which pervaded the whole universe-which made my pen drop from my fingers-the planets move round the sun-and the very sun itself, with its planets, moons, and satellites, revolve for ever, with myriads of others, round the final centre of universal gravity,-that mysterious spot, perhaps the residence of those particular emanations of Providence which regard created beings. At length I discovered the actual ingredients of this omnipresent agent. It is little more than a combination of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote; but the pro

portions of these constituent parts had long baffled me, and I still withhold them from my species for obvious reasons.

Knowledge is power, and the next easy step from the discovery of the elements, was the decomposition of gravity, and the neutralization of its parts in any substance at my pleasure. I was more like a lunatic than a rational chemist;-a burning furor drove me to an immediate essay of my art, and stripped me of the power and will to calculate on consequences. Imagine me in my laboratory. I constructed a gravitation-pump-applied it to my bodyturned the awful engine, and stood in an instant the first of all created beings-devoid of weight! Up sprung my hair-my arms swung from my sides above the level of my shoulders, by the involuntary action of the muscles; which were no longer curbed by the re-action of their weight. I laughed like a fool or a fiend,closed my arms carefully to my side, compressed or concealed my bristling hair under my cap, and walked forth from my study to seek some retired spot in the city where I might make instant experiment of a jump. With the greatest difficulty I preserved a decent gait; I walked with the uneasy unsteady motion of a man in water whose toes might barely reach the bottom: conscious as I was of my security, I felt every instant apprehensive of a fall. Nothing could have reconciled me to the disagreeable sensation I experienced, but the anticipation of vaulting unfettered into the air. I stood behind the cathedral of the Seven Towers; nobody was near -I looked hurriedly around, and made the spring! I rose with a slow, uniform motion,-but, gracious heaven! imagine my horror and distress, when I found that nothing but the mere resistance of the air opposed my progress; and, when at last it stopped my flight, I found myself many hundred feet above the city-motionless, and destitute of every means of descent. I tore my hair, and cursed myself, for overlooking so obvious a result. My screams drew thousands to the singular sight. I stretched my arms towards the earth, and implored assistance. Poor fool! I knew it was impracticable.

But conceive the astonishment of the people! I was too high to be personally known;-they called to me, and I answered; but they were unable to catch the import, for sound, like myself, rises better than it falls. I heard myself called an angel, a ghost, a dragon, a unicorn, and a devil. I saw a procession of priests come under me to exorcise me; but had Satan himself been free of gravity, he had been as unable to descend at their bidding as myself. At length the fickle mob began to jeer me-the boys threw stones at me, and a clever marksman actually struck me on the side with a bullet; it was too high to penetrate-it merely gave me considerable pain, drove me a few feet higher, and sunk again to the ground. Alas! I thought, would to God it had pierced me, for even the weight of that little ball would have dragged me back to earth. At length the shades of evening hid the city from my sight; the murmur of the crowd gradually died away, and there I

still was, cold, terrified, and motionless-nearer to heaven than such a fool could merit to rise again. What was to be the end of this! I must starve and be stared at! I poured out a torrent of incoherent prayers to heaven-but heaven seemed as deaf as I deserved.

Imagine my joy when a breeze sprung up, and I felt myself floating in darkness over the town: but even now new horrors seized me;-I might be driven downwards into the Moskwa and drowned; I might be dashed against the cathedral and crushed. Just as I thought on this, my head struck violently against the great bell of Boris Godunuff;-the blow and the deep intonation of the bell deprived me for some minutes of life and recollection. When I revived, I found I was lying gently pressed by the breeze against the balustrades: I pulled myself carefully along the church, pushed myself down the last column, and run as straight as my light substance would permit me to my house. With far greater joy than when I had been disrobed of it, I speedily applied a proper condensation of gravity to my body, fell on my knees to thank heaven for my deliverance, and slunk into bed, thoroughly ashamed of my day's performance. The next day, to escape suspicion, I joined the re-assembled crowd--looked upward as serious as the rest, gazed about for yesterday's phenomenon, and I dare say was the only one who felt no disappointment in its disappear

ance.

Any one would imagine that, after this trial, I should have burnt my pump, and left gravity to its own operations. But no! I felt I was reserved for great things;-such a discovery was no everyday occurrence, and I would work up every energy of my soul rather than relinquish this most singular, though frightful, field of experiment.

I was too cautious to deprive myself again entirely of gravity. In fact, in my late experiment, as in others, when I talk of extracting my gravity entirely, I mean just enough to leave me of the same weight as the atmosphere. Had I been lighter than that, I should have risen involuntarily upward, like an air-bubble in a bucket. Even as it was, I found myself inclined to rise and fall with every variation of the atmosphere, and I had serious thoughts of offering myself to the university as a barometer, that, by a moderate salary, I might pass the remainder of my days in tranquillity and honour. My object now was merely to render myself as light as occasion required: besides, I found that by continual contact with the earth and atmosphere, I always imbibed gradually a certain portion of weight, though by extremely slow and imperceptible degrees; for the constituent parts of gravity, which I have mentioned, enter largely, as every chemist knows, into the composition of all earths and airs: thus, in my late essay, I should certainly have eventually descended to earth without the intervention of the breeze; indeed, I should probably have been starved first, though

my body would have at least sunk down for the gratification of my friends.

Three furred coats and a pair of skates I gained by leaping at fairs in the Sloboda, and subsistence for three weeks by my inimitable performance on the tight-rope: but when at last I stood barefoot on a single needle, and balanced myself head downwards on a bodkin, all Moscow rung with applause. But the great object of all my earthly hopes was to gain the affections of a young widow in the Kremlin, whose heart I hoped to move by the unrivalled effects of my despair. I jumped head-foremost from a chair on the hard floor; twice I sprung into a well, and once I actually threw myself from the highest spire in Moscow. I always lay senseless after my falls, screamed at my revival, and counterfeited severe contusions. But in vain! I found my person or pretensions disagreeable to her, and determined in some great pursuit to forget my disappointment. A thought struck me. I knew that mortal man had conceived nothing so sublime, and yet it was in my power! I prepared a large tube, and bound myself round with vast bales of provisions, which, with myself, I severally divested of gravity. It was a bright moonlight night. I stood in my garden, with a weightless watch in my hand, gazing on the heavens through the tube. I am confident there was in my face the intrepid air of one who on great occasions can subdue the little feelings of the heart. I had resolved on visiting the planet Venus, and had prudently waited till she was in that part of her orbit which was most distant from the sun and nearest to the earth; the first of which might enable me to endure the heat of her atmosphere, and the latter to subsist on the stock of provisions I could conveniently carry. In fact, I had no doubt but that owing to the extreme cold of a great part of the journey, the evaporations from the pores of my body would be little or nothing, and I could, consequently, subsist on a trifling meal. I had arranged some elastic rods of steel to project me with considerable velocity along the tube, the moment the planet should face it; and, by simple multiplication, I was enabled, from the given velocity of projection, and the known distance of the planet, to compute to a day the period of my arrival there. In fact I took double provision, partly from over-abundant precaution, and partly to support me on an immediate return, in case I found the heat oppressive. The moment approached-arrived! The planet stood shining on me down the tube. I looked wildly round me for a last farewell, and was on the point of loosing the springs, when a horrid doubt flashed on me. United saints of Constantinople! should a light breeze blow me from the line of projection, aye, even a single inch, I should shoot past the planet, Ay off into immeasurable space and darkness from eternity, whirl raving along cold uncomfortable chaos, or plunge headlong into the sun itself! A moment more, and I had been lost. I stood fixed like a statue, with distended lips, gazing on the frightful planet; my eyes swam round,―my ears rung with hideous sounds,-all my limbs were VOL. VI. No. 32.-Museum.

S