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for the exhibition of lights is erectedIt was raifed with the benevolent intention of fecuring the property of individuals, and of preferving human life, from the calamities of thipwreck.

To the honour of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity-houfe, Deptford Strond, London, it must be obferved, that with laudable zeal they have patronized the undertaking, and completed the building in a ftile fuperior to every other of the fame clafs in the United Kingdoman eminent difplay of tafte and judgment. The grandeur of its fituation on this elevated promontory is unequalled-the fublimity of the profpect muit excite the admiration of every beholder-the vaft fweep of the northern ocean fills the eye with its immeafurable expanfe, and exhibits a fcene which infpires exalted ideas. Innumerable fleets laden with the produce of the coal-mines, and rich trading veffels from Scotland, daily pafs in view; hips freighted with naval ftores and valuable merchandize, from Archangel, from Norway, the ports of the Baltic, and Holland, and others from the whale-fisheries, direct their courfes to this diftinguifhed promontory. Scenes of this kind are characteristic of national grandeur: the bold enterprife and mercantile fpirit of Britain aftonifh the world; the magnitude of her commerce covers the fea with her fleets; her flag waves triumphant in every quarter of the globe; the unrivalled kill, induftry, honourable conduct, and opulence of the country, are the folid balis of its ftability. Surely, fuch important interefts merit a fedulous attention to their fecurity.

While you view with complacency the multitude of thips floating on the extended ocean, fhould you at the faine moment take into confideration the immenfe value of their cargoes, and the many thousands of feamen by which they are navigated, you would then be able to form fome judgment of the extenfive advantages which muft refult from the execution of a plan fo highly ufeful and beneficent If, prompted by curiofity, you have ever furveyed the formidable rocks which line the adjacent fhore, and have observed the foaming waves of the ftormy ocean dathing with irrefiftible fury against the perpendicular cliffs, the fight alone must have filled you with altaniment and dread!-Figure then to yourfelves the melancholy fcene of foine unfortunate vellel enveloped in midnight darknefs, driven by the tem peft, and fuddenly ftranded on the tre

mendous coaft; paint to your imaginatious, the crew of helpless feamen finking among the overwhelining billows, and railing their fupplicating voices, in vain, for aid!-reflect on the inexpreffible agony of their tender connexions, deprived in one fad moment of all that is efteemed dear in life, and left perhaps defolate and forlorn, in a state of helplefs indigence, to mourn the lofs of a hufband, a father, or a fon! These are not vifionary ideas: they are fcenes, alas! which have too frequently been realized. With fuch impreffions on your minds, you must affuredly acknowledge the utility of a delign calculated, under Providence, to prevent confequences fo wounding to the tender fenfibilities of human nature. Had this building been erected at a more early period, the late lofs of his Majetty's thip the Nautilus, Captain Gunter, from the Baltic, and feveral of the yeffels under her convoy, with many valuable lives, might, in all human probability, have been prevented.

From the exhibition of thefe brilliant lights, innumerable will be the advantages to navigation. I will detail the molt prominent:-The fight of them will difpel the gloom which frequently fcizes the boldest and most kilful navigator, in a critical moment; and direct him, when furrounded by the obfcurity of a winter's night, to avoid the dangers of this projecting coaft. They will guide the tempeft-beaten mariner to the Humber, or to a fafe anchorage in Bridlington-bay, famed for its convenience and fecurity. Diffuling their friendly luftre afar, they will fine as leading ftars to enable fhips in a large offing to afcertain their fituations with accuracy, and to take a new departure; and alfo warn others contending with eastern gales, to keep at a proper diftance from the dangers of a lee-fhore. To the fifhermen, who are frequently expofed to great perils on the unflable element, they will be eminently useful in the night: they will guide them to the proper filling grounds, and direct them, on their return to the thore, to a place of falety. Numerous have been the dif afters of this induftrious race of men at Flamborough. I am pertvaded that many of you, who are now prefent, have witnelled the painful fcene of the whole village in mourning: the lamentations of the difconfolate widow and mother mut have pierced your fouls.

With inexprelible anguilh, I have seen the tears of the helpless orphan flow for

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an indulgent parent, who perished in the mercuets wave:-while I retain the faculty of memory, the fad impreflion will never be erafed; and at this moment it is dificult to reitrain my emotions: but the confideration that my humble exertions have been inftrumental in promoting a defign to prevent thofe calamities in future, will be a fource of fatisfaction to me to the remotest period of life. This defcription of an undertaking fo conducive to the fecurity of navigation, will not, I truft, be deemed too highly coloured the facts are incontrovertible, the utility is indifputable. So long as this noble edifice fhall stand unfhaken on its firm foundation, and lift its afpiring fummit to the view of the admiring fpectator, it will remain a coufpicuous inonument of the humanity and munificence of the British nation, unparelleled by any other of the maritime itates on the face of the globe.

May the kind Providence of Almighty God favour this and every other effort of national utility with fuccefs, and crown with glory the ardent courage and deteruined refolution of our matchlefs feamen, in the defence of their native land. While affheted Europe mourns her defolated provinces and fubjugated tate, may this United Kingdom, firm in loyalty, in patriotifin, and every exalted virtue, oppofe an infurmountable barrier to the impetuous torrent which threatens to overwhelm the earth. May Britain ever continue in the envied poffeffion of the empire of the main; and, litting her unclouded head with diftinguifhed luftre amud the gloom which, at this awful cris, overladows the world, exhibit to efponding nations a bright example of glory-invincible on every hottile thock, unfhaken as the rocks which guard her fea-girt fhore.

For the Monthly Magazine. ABSTRACT of EVIDENCE given before a COMMITTEE of the HOUSE of COMMONS, relative to the USB of MACHINERY, the EXCLUSION of PERSONS not having Jerzed APPRENTICESHIPS, the ASSEMBLAGE of the WEAVERS in large MANUFACTORIES, and the MAINTENANCE of the OLD LAWS of REGULATION in the WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES in the COUNTIES of SOMERSET, WILTS, and

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fhire; William Sheppard, of Frome in Somerfetfhire; Daniel Lloyd, of Uley in Gloucestershire; John Jones, of Bradford in Wiltshire; Abraham Lloyd Edridge, of Chippenham in Wiltshire; John Wanfey, of London; Henry Dyer, of Wotton upon Edge in Gloucefterfhire; George Wanley, of Warminster in Wiltshire: Richard Bowther, of Bath; Thomas Joyce, of Frefhford in Somer fetthire; John Wallington, of Stinchcombe in Gloucefterthire; John Vizard, of Durtley in Glouceflertlure; John King, of Frefhford in Somerfetfhire; John Maitland, Efq. of Bafinghall-street; and Charles Brooke, Efq. M. P. alfo of Balinghall-street, London.

The following were the principal facts afcertained by the teftimony of thele witneffes.

I. Apprentices. By the ancient law, (a fyftem gradually formed between the reigns of Edward III. and George II.) no perfon ought to be employed in the woollen manufacture, without having ferved an apprenticeship of feven years: but this law has gone into difufe, by the changes and improvements in the manufacture. The majority of the weavers now employed in Gloucestershire, Wiltfhite, and Somerfetth.re, have become fuch without having been apprentices. The art of weaving may be competently learned within twelve months. It is now practifed by women, as well as by men; and children begin to learn it from the age of five or fix years. The springlooms, which, with great advantage to the manufacture, have become general, would be rendered at once ufelefs, if the old law of apprenticeship fhould be now enforced. The whole manufacture and trade would be brought to a stop. It would be impoffible to anfwer, on the fudden, any extraordinary demand; nor could the manufacture be extended into villages, for the convenience of fails of water to work the mills, as it has lately been. Of the cloth-workers, ftill fewer than of the weavers have ferved apprenticethips. The ufe of the fpring-fhuttle has proved of advantage chiefly to the working weaver. In confequence of its being adopted, one weaver executes what was before the work of two, and receives the wages of two. None of the weavers or cloth-workers that ferved regular apprenticeships of feven years, have been left without employment in conféquence of perfons being employed who have not ferved apprenticeships. Yet combinations of the weavers and

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cloth-workers, inftructed by regular apprenticeships, have been formed to profecute thote who were not fo bred to the butinefs. The poor's rates have not been enhanced in confequence of the employment of unapprenticed weavers, cloth-workers, and dyers.

II. The weavers are averfe from being Affembled to work together in turge munufactories. The manufacturers have no inducements to incline thein to ademble their workmen to labour together, but that they may have the work performed quicker, and with lets embezzlement of the yarn. The weavers are averfe from this, because they do not like to work ander too rigorous an infection of their employers. Great quantities of yarn are embezzled while it is in the hands of the weavers. The weavers are, allo, accutioned to take in work from duterent employers, and to keep it much too long befide thein unexecuted: a practice which would be checked by bringing them to work together under the cm

ployer's eye. Within thefe laft thirty years, Spanish wool has rifen in price 200l. per cent.; the wages to cloth workers, 100l. per cent.; the price of the manufactured cloth, only 30l. per

cent.

III. Machinery and Regulations. The new machinery, &c. employed in the woollen manufacture, is contrary to the regulations of the ancient law, yet indifpenfably requilite to the profperity of

the trade.

By the ufe of the spring-fhuttle, much more cloth than formerly is now made. The annual manufacture of fupertine broad-cloth, in the town of Chippenham, is now twice as much as it was at the diftance of twenty-five years fince.

The gig-mill, prohibited by two flatutes of the reign of Edward VI., is ufed in the operations called the rowing and the dreifing of cloth It renders the expence lefs, by one half, than if the fame work were performed with the hand only. It does not fetch out the cloth to more than one-twentieth part of that which was is firit length when it came out of the loom. It has been used, time out of mind, in Gloucetterfire; and is now employed alfo in the counties of Wills and someriet. The cloth is not found to fhrink more from the ufe of this machine, than if it were dreted with the hand only. Cloths dreffed in the giz-mill are preferred, both in the home and the foreign markets, as fofter,

mcllower, and more uniform, than that which is dreffed with the hand. Cloths, unfaleable as being dietied with the hand, find purchafers after they are redreffed in the gig-mill. Before the ute of the gig-mill was adopted in Wilts and Somerlet, much of the cloth made in thole counties was fent into Gloucefterfaire to be mill-dreffed.

From the pic-mill, the cloth is put into the hands of the thearmen, or into shearing machinery, to be finifhed for the market. The thearmen in Wilhire refuled, for a long time, to work after the gig-mill. They have been lince induced, In general, to return to their mafiers. In confequence of the riots of the wear ers, cloth-workers, and thearmen, beeaufe machinery was introduced, the principal part of the Wiltshire cloth-working branch was transferred, in 1802, to London, Bath, and other places.

It is imposible now for the manufac turers to find fale for cloths made of the exact length, breadth, and weight profcribed in the old ftatutes. The divertity of the markets now requires a variety of fabrics unknown when the old statutelaw was framed. 1 The fineft and thinnet cloths are made for the Turkeytrade; 2, ladies' cloths are in the next degree thicker; 3, the next in thickness are made for the Weft India trade; 4, the next are for the Ruffia trade; 5, fuperfine cloths are thicker still; 6, the thickest of all are double-milled fuperfines, and a fpecies of narrow-cloths named rutteens. The ftatutes which forbid the exportation of cloths tacked and prefed, and cloths unbarbed or unfhorn, cannot now be enforced without rendering the manufacturer usable to fupply his foreign orders.

The ufe of the hot-press, prohibited by the old laws, has become general, and could not be now difcontinued without ruin to certain branches of the mangfacture,

Certain prohibited ingredients are now ufed with advantage in the bailing, from the improvements in the chemistry of dyeing.

Spanish wool has been introduced into the manufacture fince the enactment of the flatutes, and has occafioned great changes in it, which are molt beneficial, but which the ftatutes could not anti pate and provide for.

Lamb's wool, of which the ufe is forbidden in the ftatutes, has, by the improvements in machinery, and the pro

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The quantity of capital in the woollen trade and manufacture in the Weft of Figand, has been prodigiously augmented face machinery came to be employed. The confequence of its employment has thus been to increafe the quantity of the manufacture, not at all to throw the workmen of any clats out of bread.

The Spaniards, having oil, foap, and wool, one-third or one-half cheaper than the articles can be purchased in England, tight rival us in the woollen maBufacture if they could procure our inchuery. S. T.

For the Monthly Magazine. THE LYCEUM OF ANCIENT LITERATURE.-No. III.

THE HAD.

CUCH then is the uncertain account we have of Homer; fuch are the faint thadows which antiquity reflect at this defiance of time. But if we recall the mind from this dark view of his tory, and is it all at once on the poems he has left us, our pity is turned into won der. We forget the rude draught of his perfom and fortune, to contemplate the nobler image of his foul. The blind fung ter immediately vanithes, and in his roon we are prefented with the father and prince of verte, the preacher of witdoui and virtue, the founder of arts and ferences, the great matter of civil life, and the counsellor of kings. Thefe were the titles which the ancients conferred on lum, in their enthufiaftic admiration of the greatness of his thoughts, the tor rent of his words, the charms of his factions, and the utility of his precepts.

The Thad, the first and most comiderable puem of Homer, is founded on the memorable war of Troy, occafioned by the feduction of Helen, carried on with Alternate fucceffes and misfortunes, and hot terminated till after a clofe and vigurus hege of ten years. Some critics former ages, and a very ingenious

writer of our own, have not only affert ed that no fuch poet us Homer ever exified, but have even denied the occurrence of any fuch event as the taking of Troy. But the attempt to establi fo fanciful an hypothetis, coutradicted by the whole body of ancient literature, can be confidered only as the chimera of men who, difdaining to follow the tract purfued by fo many other writers, have fought for novelty in the wildett paradoxes and in the loofett conjectures. It

is too late for all the efforts of modern fcepticifin to throw doubts upon a tranfaction corroborated by the teftimony of every clallic author, and which is in no one of the ancient writings either exprefsly denied or even incidentally quetioned. That we are indebted for many of the incidents in the poem folely to the invention of the poet, is beyond difpute; but it may be considered as equally cer tain, that the fubject was not invented by him, but is the reprefentation of a real fact which took place long before his time.

The Iliad is unquestionably the noblest monument of human genius ever exhi-. bited to the world, and has been tranfmitted to us with the jutett admiration, through every age. But when we commence its perufal, we thould previously confider that we are about to read the moil ancient book that ever was written, except the Bible. It is highly neceffary that we fhould keep this in mind, or we cannot enter into the fpirit, nor tate the compofition, of the poem. The reader mat not expect to find the correctness and elegance of the Auguftan age. He mult divert humfelf of all modern ideas of refinement, and fuffer himself to be tranfported in imagination 3000 years back in the hiftory of mankind. He will fee admirable reprefentations of characters and manners, but till retaining a tincture of the fivage ftate; moral ideas, as yet imperfectly formed; bodily ftrength prized as a principai endowment; pattions not curbed by the refraints of a more advanced ftate of focicty; uncommon beauty of language, fometimes employed on very trivial fubjects; and a motley aflemblage of portraits varioutly drawn, but each reprefenting, in the true colours, the virtues or the imperfections of the humaa mind.

The opening of the Iliad certainly does not poffefs that dignity which a modern expects in a great epic poem. It begins with no higher fubject than the

dilpute

difpute between two chieftains, respect ing a female flare. A prieft of Apollo implores Agamemnon to reitore his daughter, who, in the plunder of a city, had fallen to that king's fhare of booty. He is refufed. Apollo, at the request of his prieft, fends a plague into the camp of the Greeks. The augur, when confuited, anfwers that there is no way of appealing the God, but by restoring the fair captive virgin to the arms of her parent. Agamemnon is enraged at this anfwer; declares that he prefers this flave to his wife Clytemneftra; but fince he must reftore her in order to fave his army, infifts upon having another to fupply her place, and demands Brifeis, the flave of Achilles. The young warrior, as might be expected, is incenfed at this demand; reproaches the king of kings with rapacity and infolence; and, after beftowing on him many injurious appellations, he folemnly fwears that, if thus treated, he will withdraw his troops, and no longer affift the Grecians against the Trojans, He accordingly leaves the camp. His mother, the Goddefs Thetis, interefts Jupiter in his caufe, who, to revenge the wrongs which Achilles has fuffered, adopts his refentment, and inflicts on the Greeks many and tedious calamities, until Achilles is pacified, and a reconciliation effected between him and Agamemnon. Such is the batis on which the action is founded; fuch the Specioja miracula of this extraordinary poem.

From this (ketch it is feen, that Homer did not take for his fubject the whole Trojan war, but felected the moft interefting part of it, the quarrel between the two principal perfonages. Such a fubject was, no doubt, happily chofen. The fiege of Troy formed a fplendid and dignified event, which had engaged the attention of many ages, and was worthy to be commemorated by the verfe of Homer. A confederacy of the monarchs of Greece to revenge the violation of hofpitality committed by Paris, and to vindicate the injured honour of Menelaus, combined at once a grandeur and a moral in the action, eminently calculated to excite the admiration and improve the manners of his cotemporaries. We all confider the poem under three hearts, with refpect to the invention it difplays, its characters, and the narration or ityle.

The great merit of inexhaustible invention has been univerfally allowed to Homer; and though Virgil many difpute

with him the palm of judgment and taste, he is here without a rival. It runs through all the poem, and whether in the choice of incidents, of defcriptions, or of images, is equally remarkable. The prodigious number of events described, of delineations of characters divine and hu man; the infinite variety by which they are all diftinguifhed; the different colours in which they are characteristically drawn,-difplay an almost boundless invention. In order to give an air of dig nity and importance to the fable, he has fo conftructed it as to intereft the Gods themfelves, not only in the general cataftrophe, but in every particular incident that might either halen or retard it. It is admirably invented to make the calamities which Agamemnon and the Greeks futiered, the effect of Thetis' importunate addrefs to Jupiter, in which the implores vengeance on the Grecian army, that their leader might be fentible of his injuftice to her fou Achilles, in depriving him of his fair captive, by feeling the want of his atliftance againit the Trojans. The deluding phantom fent by Jupiter to the tent of "Atrides, in order to perfuade that monarch to give battle to the enemy, deceiving him with the vain hope of ending all his labours and dangers by one effort, which fhould accomplish the entire deftruction of Troy, is a beautiful machine, and introduced with fingular propriety. The interpofition of Venus to refcue her fon from the danger of impending death, is alfo highly invented. The epifode of Glaucus and Diomed, in the fixth book, makes an agreeable paufe in the narration; but that of Hector and Andromache is, of all others, the most deeply interesting. But this epifode is more properly claffed under Homer's talent in exciting the paffions, and is only mentioned in this place as a finely imagined incident. We may add, the ftratagem of Juno's borrowing the girdle of Venus to revive the tendernefs of Jupiter; and the art with which the lulls him to fleep, that Neptune in the mean time may aflift the Greeks, as exquifite fictions of a moft creative imagination. The embally to Achilles, the inflexibility of that hero, and the final extinction of his refentment against Agamemnon, fo naturally effected by the death of Patroclus, by which alone a reconciliation could have been produced confitiently with his character: thefe are a few of thofe heautiful and well-invented incidents which compofe

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