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fame time it is fufficiently correct to raise it above the cenfure of criticism and in this refpect the Tranflator has, in general, done juftice to the original.

In fupport of the opinion we have given in favour of this work, we shall lay before our Readers the two following extracts: LADY ORSAN, HARRIOT.

Har. Mama, Mama, I pray you give me leave to fend a guinea to the poor blind woman.

• L. Orfan. Moft willingly your fifters have asked the fame permiffion; Emilia gives three guineas, and Agatha two; but I tell you beforehand, that each of us in giving, has made a facrifice. I have made a facrifice of a picture, Emilia of a port-folio, and Agatha of a hat; I hope, Harriot, you have the fame reafon.

Har. But, Mama, I have no facrifice to make, I do not want any thing.

L. Orfan. I think you propofed yesterday to buy a pretty desk we faw at the cabinet maker's.

Har. That is true indeed.-But I fhall have a guinea left; the defk is only fix and thirty fhillings; Emilia will lend me fifteen fhillings, and I can buy it.

L. Orfan. What, have recourfe to borrowing for a trifle which you can easily do without! Befides, you must never run in debt, but when it is abfolutely neceffary. If you have not a good heart, I cannot give it you, but it is poffible for me to teach you to reafon juftly. If in doing a good action, we retrench nothing from our common expence, we only commit a folly; if we borrow from one hand to give to another, we diforder our finances, and ufurp the appellation of benevolent, for there is no virtue without reafon. Act confiftently, which is all that I have any right to expect from you; buy the desk, or help the poor woman; but never expect to unite the pleasure of gratifying all your whims, with the happiness of being useful to the unfortunate; that is impoffible.

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Har. Since I muft chufe, furely I fhall not hesitate; I give up the desk with all my heart.

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L. Orfan. In that cafe you have merit in what you do, fince it will exercise your felf-denial. Without that, where would be the merit?

Har. My dear Mama, I am fenfible of that, and every time I regret the want of the defk, I will think of the blind woman, and I fhall regret it no longer.

L. Orfan. And you may even fay, "If I had not been compaffionate, I fhould have had a desk which now I do not care for; instead of which, the remembrance of a good action remains to me, an honeft poor woman bleffes ine, and Mama loves me the better."-(She embraces her).

Har. O Mama, from this inftant I think no longer of the desk, I affure you; and I fee that what I at first thought a facrifice, is not one, but the contrary,

L. Orfan. It is fo of all thofe which virtue requires; they are only difficult before the execution; in propofing them, we only confider what they may coft; but in doing them, the pride alone which

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they infpire is a fufficient recompence. I hope. my dear Harriot, you will know a ftill more pleafing value, that which a feeling mind can give. But go with Agatha, return to your governess.'

The following picture of the travelled coxcomb is drawn with fpirit:

THE BARON, THE VISCOUNT.

Vife. Yours is a charming garden-the fite is truly agreeablethat view from the fide of the wood is wild, but exceedingly pidurefque. At the approach of the evening, the fetting fun throws immenfe maffes of light upon the mountain, which produces a very fine effect. That landscape calls to my mind thofe of Swifferland; it has all their beauties, but without the feverity. Nature is more majestic, and impreffes the mind with more awful ideas in Swifferland and Italy; but it is a beauty, if I may hazard the expreffion, whofe rugged aufterity approaches to harfhnefs. Here indeed fhe is lefs fublime, but more fimple; much more affecting.

Baron, afide. What an harangue!I believe, this is what is called an impromptu; but it is not in our language, for I neither underftand the words nor the phrases.

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Vife. afide. I have him he is already confounded.

Baron, afide. Let us fee to what lengths he will go. (aloud) Why truly, my Lord, you aftonith me.-You are exceedingly eloquent.All this fine language, which has been delayed to express that I have a fine garden

Vife. It is because I am paffionately fond of the country. A fine profpect affects me in a very extraordinary manner: how happy I was when travelling over the Appennines! Thofe lofty mountains, rugged with rocks, and furrounded with tremendous precipices; that noble wild afpe&, elevated my imagination, extended and exalted my ideas; hurried on by an irrefiftible enthufiafm, I got out of my carriage, I reflected, I made a drawing, I compofed verses.-What a country is Italy for a lively imagination, a thinking head! On confidering, that I was in the country of Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, I felt an impreffion which it is impoffible for me to defcribe: having all their works by heart, I found a new pleasure in reading them on the very fpot where they were compofed-And Rome, Rome! what tranfporting raptures did I feel on entering Rome!

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Baron. But tell me a little of the people, the manners and different governments; have you not ftudied these things with attention? Vife. In Italy, my obfervation ran chiefly on external objects; there nothing is wanted but eyes and memory; there reflection can only employ itself on the paft; but it is in Swifferland and in England, that thinking beings and well organised heads are to be found; fuch a ftretch of ideas. We have grace, an agreeable varnish, a great glow of colour; we are skilled in the art of bading; but they have the advantage of us in geometric and methodical reasoning, nor can we compare our logic with theirs.

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Baron. So, you rank the Swifs and the English in the fame clafs ? They have no varnish, no glow of colouring, nor art of fhading; but they have method, logic, and geometry?

Vife. Yes, in their manners and their way of thinking, there is a great fimilitude; the natural qualities of both are much the fame. • Baron,

Baron, afide. The natural qualities!-(aloud) I am told you have written a very minute journal of your travels?

Vife. Yes, I have fix volumes of my fcrawlings; it is an unformed work, as you may conceive a work muft be, when written with fuch rapidity. However, it don't want for fire, nor a fpirit of originality. While I was in London, I was perfecuted to print it; but I am fo far from having any vanity of that fort!-I have brought fome valuable drawings from Italy, and fo highly finished!

'Baron. I fuppofe, then, that you are a great connoiffeur in painting?

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Vife. Yes, I have a tolerable good eye, and fuch a paffionate love of the arts!--All the time I could fpare while I was at Rome, was most deliciously dedicated to mufic and painting; I compofed a little treatise on mufic, in which I prove, that the Italians are the only people who have known the great effects of barmony; that their fyle is in general more pure, their ideas newer, and in fhort, even in their moft trifling airs, are to be found pretty intentions, grace, elegance, and motives well fuftained.

• Baron. So then, our mufic is ill intentioned; I am very forry for it, because I loved Rameau. But let us return to painting; and fince you are a real lover of the art, I will fhew you a miniature which is faid to be done by the hand of a malter; you will give me your opinion freely, becaufe, in confequence, I fhall either purchase it or fend it back. There it is. (He gives him the box with Angelica's picture in the lid. He fays afide) Let us hear what this pedant will fay to the figure of Angelica.

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Vife. after a moment's attention. I cannot advise you to purchase it.'
Baron. Why fo?-The face is pretty.

Vifc. looking at the picture. Nono character-bad attitude, no expreffion- a deteftable piece, truly!

Baron, nettled. It is well I hear this.

Vife, ftill looking at the picture. Deteftable!-no taste in the colouring; a fneaking look--a pitiful manner, exceffively hard wretched drapery(Giving back the box.) It is worth nothingabfolutely good for nothing.

Baron, in a paffion. Well, Mr. Connoiffeur, fome other perfon perhaps may not be fo hard to please.'

In the pieces contained in the firft volume, female characters, only are admitted. The fourth volume is written with a particular view to the improvement of young perfons in the inferior claffes of life. The titles of the feveral pieces are; Hagar in the Defart: The Beauty and the Monster: The Phials: The Hap by Ifland: The Spoiled Child: The Effects of Curiosity: The Dangers of the World: The Blind Woman of Spa: The Dove: The Sacrifice of Friendship: The Generous Enemies: The Good Mother: The Bufy Body: The Children's Ball: The Traveller: Vathek: The Falfe Friends: The Judge: The Queen of the Rofe of Salency: The Milliner: The Linen Draper: The Bookfeller: The Truly Wife Man: The Portrait.

If the Tranflator fhould think proper to publifh another edition of this ufeful and entertaining work, in a lefs expenfive

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form,

form, for the use of children; he will perhaps avoid the frequent repetition of the exclamation, My God! for, though it is certainly quite impoffible for a French company to fupport a converfation with any spirit without their Mon Dieu! perhaps fome few individuals in this country may ftill retain fo much English vulgarity, as not to think their children the more accomplished, for being able, on every occafion, with a polite negligence-to take the name of God in vain.

ART. V. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the Royal Society of London. Vol. LXX. For the Year 1780. Part 1. 4to. 7s. 6d. fewed. Davis, &c. 1781.

ELECTRICITY.

Art. 2. An Account of fome new Experiments in Electricity, with the Defcription and Ufe of two new Electrical Inftruments. By Mr. Tiberius Cavallo, F. R. S.

HE firft obfervations contained in this Paper are founded

on a curious experiment lately described by Profeffor Lichtenberg. On exciting an electrophorus negatively, and placing on it a piece of metal, such as a brafs tube, or a three-legged compaís, to which a spark of pofitive electricity is communicated; if the piece of metal be removed by means of a stick of fealing wax, or other electric, and fome powdered rofin, kept in a linen bag, be fhaken upon the electrophorus; it will be found to fall almost wholly about those parts of the refinous plate, on which the piece of metal had been placed: forming fome radiated appearances, refembling the common representations of ftars. On the contrary, if the refinous plate has been positively electrified, and the metallic body negatively; the powder will avoid those parts of the plate from which the metallic body had been removed, and fall principally on the other parts of the plate.

Mr. Cavallo fatisfactorily explains thefe appearances, by fhewing, that the powder, in confequence of the friction which its particles receive, actually acquires a negative electricity; and that confequently these particles are attracted by thofe parts of the plate that are positively electrified, and are repelled by thofe parts which poffefs the fame electricity with their own. The electricity of the powder is fo ftrong, that half an ounce of it fuffered to fall, even from a spoon, on an infulated brass plate, furnished with an electrometer, is fufficient to make the threads diverge as much as they poffibly can.

The Author gives the refults of a few experiments founded on this new method of exciting fubftances in the state of powder i the most fingular of which, in our opinion, is that feel filings, let fall either from a glafs phial or paper, electrified the plate

negatively

negatively; but brafs filings, treated in the fame manner, electrified the plate positively.'—It seems fingular too, that from one experiment it appears, that the amalgam of tin-foil and quickfilver, let fall upon the metal plate from a glass phial, electrifies the plate negatively; whereas, in another trial, we find, that quickfilver alone, poured from a phial, electrifies it pofitively.

In this Article the Author defcribes and delineates a very useful and commodious atmospherical electrometer invented by him; the principal recommendations of which are its very small fize (about 3 inches and a half in length), its not being liable to be difturbed by the wind, and its great fenfibility.

CHEMISTRY.

Article 3. A new Method of affaying Copper Ores. By George Fordyce, M. D. F. R. S.

In this method, troublesome uftulations and fufions are avoided, and the metallic part of the ore is more easily procured, by means of the mineral acids, fixed alcali, and iron. The copper precipitated from its folutions, in its metallic form, by the lat ter, being dried and weighed, gives the proportion of metal contained in a given quantity of the ore. Simple, however, and eafy as the Author's process will appear to the chemical Reader; we cannot help queftioning his affertion that it may be performed by a person totally unacquainted with chemistry, so that any proprietor of an estate, or his fervant, may determine if an ore be of copper, and its value.'

From the Author's obfervations on its procefs we fhall extract a remark of a more general nature. He obferves, that many authors have been mifled by not knowing this property. of metallic falts, viz. that if we diffolve them in a small proportion of water, or if there be fuperfluous acid, the folution will remain perfect if expofed to the air; but if the acid be perfectly faturated with the metal, and the proportion of water to the metallic falt be very great, on exposure to the air it is decomposed; the metal precipitating in the form of a calx, and the acid being loft. This, he adds, may eafily be tried by taking common blue or green vitriol, diffolving an ounce in three ounces of water by boiling, letting them ftand to cool, and filtering the folution. If this folution be exposed to the air, it will remain perfect; but if we drop a drop or two of it into a wine glass full of water, in a few minutes the transparency of the water will begin to be disturbed, and the metal in a short time will fall down, in a red powder if it be iron, in a blue powder if it be copper.'

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M. Bergman has lately fhewn, that this converfion of metallic falts (thofe of the vitriolic kind in particular) into an ochre, or calx, not only takes place on exposure to the open air, but even in a clofe veffel, when the falt is diffused through

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