with mufic or with lyric poetry, in the ftrict acceptation of the term, to be qualified to fpeak decifively, or to lay down rules for either. When fhe ventured to affert pofitively, that there is no mufic in the world so calculated as the Irish to make its way directly to the heart,' we hope that he had heard and was enabled to judge of the mufic of every part of the world. What Mifs B. means by fong, we apprehend to be confined to narrative fongs, and hiftorical ballads; the mufic to which muft neceffarily be artlefs and fimple: but if he were to converfe with a mufical inhabitant of London, or of any capital in Europe, who frequents operas and concerts, fhe would be told, that a fong at fuch places requires fine mufic, and fine finging, to excite attention and obtain applause. Such melodies as the ancient bards ufed to repeat to an hundred different ftanzas, or fuch as the Improvisatori of Italy, (the modern bards,) now chant to their infpirations, would not excite much rapture in thofe who have cultivated mufic, or who have been accustomed to hear great performers. The words of the airs in the operas of Metaftafio are certainly the most perfect models of dramatic fong-writing, as his cantatas are of lyric poetry for the chamber; and the wild and artlefs tunes, beft fuited to heroic and hiftorical fongs of antiquity, however beautiful as national music, would not content an auditor who pays half a guinea for his admiffion. The inhabitants of every country have their own favourite national melodies, which, like their language, they understand and feel better than any other, and confequently think they include all mufical excellence. The Scots and the Welch will not allow, any more than the Irifh, that there can be any other than their music worthy to be heard by a rational creature. Are we then to fuppofe that the French, the Germans, the Spaniards, and the Italians, who have never heard a Welch, a Scots, or an Irifh tune, have no tafte for good music, nor any pleasure in that of their own country? To return to poetry, of which Mifs B. feems much more qualified to fpeak with courage, than of mufic. Among this lady's reflections on fong-writing, p. 238, we have the following paffage: Fancy is, in general, the vehicle of wit; imagination that of genius.' Now, this is a diftinction which we do not perfectly comprehend; and Johnfon, and, we believe, all our other lexicographers, explain one of thefe words by the other reciprocally. Perhaps fancy may fometimes imply invention of a lighter kind than imagination; and yet, a lively imagination, and a fertile fancy, feem to convey the fame idea. We We want a work on the fynonima of our language, fimilar to that of the Abbé Girard on the French fynonymes: but fuch nice diferiminations and fhades of meaning would require not only learning, and admiffion into the first circles of fociety, but alfo the defining art of a Johnfon, to give them authority. Mifs B. has put the fongs, which fhe has felected for tranflation, in a very elegant drefs. They contain many uncommon thoughts and flowing ftanzas. The fimile of the cygnet, and the flowing hair, are, however, too often repeated: but we cannot refift giving our readers the three following stanzas from the blind bard Carolan, of which not only the thoughts are beautiful, but the verfion is admirable. As when the fimple birds, at night, And thoufands the bright ruin prove! Mifs B. has given us, in the Irish character, the originals of the poems which he has tranflated. If Mr. Macpherfon had done the fame by the poems of Offian, it would have filenced fcepticism, and prevented much polemic ire. The Tale at the end of this publication, of which all but the mere outline is Mifs Brooke's own property, has great merit of incident, generofity, and paffion, as well as verfification *. It seems to us more equally excellent than any of the pieces which are mere tranflations. Here is not, indeed, the original wildness of rude times, when good taste, probability, and propriety, had no existence: but we are made ample amends by beauties of a more rational and touching kind; beauties which affect the more, in proportion as they aftonish us lefs. We therefore particularly recommend this Tale to the perufal of all who are fenfible to the charms of noble and elevated fentiments, cloathed in elegant and flowing numbers. Indeed Mifs B. is fo perfectly in pof In the last ftanza but one of p. 360, there is a fyllable too much in this line, This fruitless voyage decreed.' Suppose the last two lines of this ftanza were to run thus: By mandate from thy Moriat's hand 7 feffion feffion of the language of poetry, that her verfion has rendered the whole work interefting to English readers; which, if undertaken by a perfon of inferior abilities, would probably never have penetrated beyond the circle of the tranflator's acquaintD.B....y. ance. ART. VII. Philofophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. lxxx. for 1790. Part I. 4to. pp. 300, and 15 Plates. 8s. fewed. Davis. PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS. Experiments on the Analyfis of the heavy Inflammable Air. By William Auftin, M. D. &c. IN Na paper on the production of volatile alkali, of which we gave fome account in our Review for April 1789, Dr. Austin fuggested an idea that the heavy inflammable air is a compound of the light inflammable and phlogifticated airs; and the experiments stated in the prefent paper feem to confirm that opinion. The electric fpark, by which feveral aeriform fluids are known to be decompofed, immediately detected the existence of the light inflammable air in it; for fuch an expansion took place as could not arife from any other known fubftance: it was fometimes expanded to twice its original volume, though not above a fixth part of it was observed to have undergone any decompofition. In this ftate, it was found to confift of light inflammable air, phlogisticated air, and the unchanged portion of the heavy inflammable air. We are not acquainted with any fubftance that will separate the two kinds of air, by combining with one, and leaving the other but we know that dephlogisticated air will combine, in certain proportions, with each of them, for forming water with the one*, and fixed air with the other. The Doctor endeavoured, therefore, by inflaming dephlogifticated air with a mixture of those two, to difcover the excess of deplogisticated air confumed, above what was fufficient for the production of the fixed air that refulted; which excefs may be prefumed to have united with the light inflammable air; fo that by knowing how much of it united with each, as each would take only the proper quantity for its faturation, an estimate might be made of the proportions of the two in the original compound. The idea is ingenious, but the fuccefs was not answerable; for the quantity of the heavy air decompofed was fo fmall, and the feparation of the different products was attended with fuch difficulty, that no accurate analyfis could by this means be obtained. • We here follow the author, in the theory as well as in the facts. Having obferved that fulphur combines with light inflammable air, when the latter is applied in its nafcent ftate, or before its particles have receded from each other, and that hepatic air is generally thus formed; he introduced fome fulphur and heavy inflammable air into a glafs retort, first filled with, and inverted into, quickfilver. By a heat fufficient to fublime the fulphur, it became quite black, and every part of the retort was covered with a black cruft. The bulk of the air was not materially altered: but one-third of it was found to se hepatic air, which was abforbed by water, and communicated a ftrong hepatic fmell: the remainder feemed to have undergone very little alteration. The author fufpects that, in this operation, only a part of the light inflammable air unites with the fulphur into hepatic air;" and that the remaining parts of it are precipitated into a state analogous to charcoal; for the blackened fulphus did not entirely diffolve in cauftic alcali, as pure fulphur does, but left a black powder behind. The analogy between heavy inflammable air and charcoal is illuftrated by the formation of hepatic air from charcoal and fulphur; for thefe fubftances, heated in a glafs retort, yielded hepatic air in great abundance, with a fmall quantity of phlogifticated air. The heavy inflammable air and charcoal feem to confift of the fame elements, but in different proportions; and this opinion is confirmed by the application of heat to pure charcoal, the production of the heavy inflammable air being conftantly accompanied with a production also of phlogisticated air. From these, and other facts here ftated, Dr. Austin concludes: That the phlogisticated and heavy inflammable airs combined, conftitute charcoal; and that the mere application of heat always refolves charcoal into thefe two fubftances. But the heavy inflammable air is itself a compound of the lighter inflammable and phlogifticated airs. If phlogifticated air be combined with the heavy inflammable, or, which is the fame thing, if light inflammable air be taken from it, charcoal is re-produced; therefore when fulphur is melted in the heavy inflammable air, and hepatic air formed from it, the remaining parts of the heavy inflammable air return to the ftate of charcoal. And, laftly, when fulphur is melted in contact with charcoal, the decompofition is complete, and the charcoal is refolved into its ultimate particles, the phlogifticated and light inflammable airs, with a small admixture of volatile alcali.' In all the preceding decompofitions, both by electricity and by fire, ftained papers expofed to the airs gave indications of volatile alkali, agreeably to the Doctor's former experiments on that fubject; to which we have above referred, The The author adds fome interefting obfervations on the com pofition of fixed air, and the formation of charcoal, in vegetation, from the water and aeriform fluids which appear to be the food of vegetables. We hope thefe obfcure fubjects will be further profecuted by a gentleman who has fhewn himfelf fo welf qualified for throwing light on them. He adopts the new doctrine of the compofition of water, becaufe he cannot otherwife account for the dephlogifticated air emitted in vegetation: but with regard to fixed air, instead of its having fimple charcoal, or any fimple principle of charcoal for its bafis, he fhews, from a variety of facts, that it confifts of three elementary airs, the dephlogifticated, phlogisticated, and light inflammable; and that wherever thefe three airs unite in their condensed state, fixed air is the refult. Obfervations on Refpiration. By Dr. Priestley. It is now pretty generally known that, in refpiration, fixed air is produced, and dephlogifticated air confumed: but what becomes of the air fo confumed, has not been fully ascertained. From the experiments and calculations ftated in this paper, it appears that, by repeated breathing, about one-fourth of the dephlogisticated air unites with the phlogiston taken up from the lungs, and forms the fixed air; and that the remaining three-fourths, or what is called the acidifying principle in their compofition, are tranfmitted through the membranes of the lungs into the blood, in a manner analogous to the mutual tranfmiffion, (obferved in fome of the Doctor's former experiments,) of dephlogisticated air, and of inflammable and nitrous air, through moift bladders interpofed between them. Some Account of the Strata and Volcanic Appearances in the North of Ireland, and the Western Islands of Scotland. In two Letters from Abraham Mills, Efquire. In thefe two letters, Mr. Mills gives particular defcriptions of the mineral ftrata, whyn-dikes, bafaltic and other remarkable appearances, as they occurred in the courfe of his journeys; accompanied with a plate, exhibiting views of a rock, cave, &c. in the ifland of Mull. If it be admitted [he fays at the conclufion] that I am right in my opinion of the volcanic origin of thefe different fubftances, a large tract will then be added to that already proved by others to have been fubject to the effects produced by fubterraneous fire; which, as far as has hitherto been discovered by us, commences in the S. W. part of Derbyshire, and, if I mistake not, is again feen in Seathwaite, about five miles from Hawkshead, in the N. W. part of Lancashire, and appears (N. W. from thence) in the neighbourhood of Belfast in Ireland, and ranging through the northern part of that kingdom; it is perceived in leveral of the Western Islands of Scotland, |