nesses, are permitted to feast at the suitor's expense. It was from him I learned the fees the commissioners and jury had received. What the lawyers were paid I did not learn, it was too delicate a question to ask; but I dare say they were paid quite enough. I do not, however, grudge them their fees, nor the commissioners or the jury their's; but I do say, that the addition of an expensive entertainment, besides its being so barbarously ill-suited to the melancholiness of the occasion, is a circumstance which calls for the especial interference of the chancellor, in order to put a stop to an abuse so disgraceful in itself, so unfeeling in it's nature, and in it's effect so contrary to the principle of a commission of lunacy, which is to protest, and not to plunder, the property of a wretched lunatic and his pitiable family. Kentish-Town; January 16, 1815. H. For the Monthly Magazine. CONTINUATION of a MORNING'S WALK to KEW. TH HE road from WANDSWORTH to PUTNEY HEATH ascends with a gentle slope, which is inclined about six degrees from the horizontal plane. Wandsworth itself lies little above the level of the Thames at high water; and, as this road ascends nearly a mile, with an angle which averages six degrees, the height of Putney and the adjoining Wimbledon Common may be taken at about the tenth of a mile, 180 yards, or 540 feet. The ascent of one yard in ten gives that gentle fall to the road, which, in a smaller degree, ought to be conferred artificially on all roads, in order that they might drain lengthways, and that the argillaceous earth might be carried off in solution, and only the hard bed of silex remain behind. This beautiful piece of road is a fine exemplification of that principle; but an elevation of two degrees, or nearly one yard in thirty, would be sufficient for the purpose; and, if the rise and fall in flat roads were made to take place at every quarter of a mile, the difference between the bottoms and tops would be about fifteen yards. In general, the natural inequalities of the country would assist such a system of philosophical road-making; but, notwithstanding the first labour, it merits no less respect in all dead levels, as the only means of carrying off their standing water and clay, and of esta blishing a hard bottom, which, when ence formed, would last for many years. Any person who has not duly regarded this principle, will be struck with its justness, by taking notice during a journey of any piece of road from which the road-makers have been unable to turn a stream of running water; and he will find, that it possesses a hard smooth bottom, and stands less in need of repair than any road in the same vicinity. Let us then take a lesson from nature on this subject, as we do on all others when we evince our modesty and wisdom. The objection to this form of roads, founded on the increase of draught required in ascending one side of the inclined plane, has no validity. An incli nation of two degrees, rises one yard in thirty; consequently, such a power as would draw thirty tons on level ground, must, other circumstances alike, be equal to thirty-one tons on a road so inclined. The resistance of friction in roads which permit the wheels to sink into them, rises, however, in a much higher proportion. It may be assumed, that wheels which sink but half an inch, would require an increased draught of an eighth, or, in the above instance, of 24 tons; if an inch, they would require a fourth more, or 74 tons; if two inches, a half increase, or fifteen tons; and at S inches, the power would be required to be double. Different soils, and differ ent wheels, would indicate different proportions, but the above may be taken as averages; and, when contrasted with the small increase of power, rendered necessary by the ascent of an inclined plane, the latter, on the ascending half of any road, will appear to be unimportant. The Emperor Napoleon, who endeavoured to apply philosophy to all the arts of life, decreed, that no public road in France should exceed an inclination of 4° 46', or rise more than one metre in twelve. This proportion, it was estimated, would combine the inaxima and minima of the powers; and, in spite of those malignant. confederacies which he was so often called upon to overthrow, the labour of reducing many steep roads of France to this practicable inclination was accomplished, and hence the praises of the roads of that country which we read in the narratives of our tourists. England, which set the first example to Europe, in this branch of economy, ought not to allow itself to be outdone by the mea sures of a reign which it asserted was incompatible with regal dignity; but, proceeding on correct principles, it ought in this case to imitate even a bad exam ple, 1815.] A Morning's Walk to Ker-Horses. ple, and to correct its system of patching up its roads under the direction of surveyors, ignorant of general principles, and at the expence of local commissioners who are interested in making their improvements on the narrowest scale. The rapid advancement of Great Britain in social comforts, within the last sixty years, may be ascribed to the turnpike system, which took the jurisdiction of the public roads out of the hands of parish-officers, and transferred it to commissioners of more extensive districts. A still further improvement is now called for by superadding the controul of a NATIONAL ROAD POLICE, which should equalize the tolls, or apply the whole to the unequal wants of various districts; so that roads of nearly equal goodness might characterize all parts of an empire which ought to be rendered one great metropolis, and to be united in means and fraternity by all the facilities of human art. A stage-coach toiling against this road of six degrees inclination, and a fourwaggon traversing from side to side to lengthen the hypotheneuse, yet stopping at every hundred yards to enable the horses to recover their ordinary tone of breathing, proved the good policy of that law in France, which would have lowered this road at the top full thirty yards, and have extended the hypotheneuse three hundred and sixty yards under the level road at the summit. If the barbarity of the practice of tight-reining the heads of wretched horses needed any exaggeration, its superlative absurdity was evidenced in the horses which I saw labouring up this hill. Nature, which does nothing in vain, had a final purpose in giving motion to the vertebra that join the head of an animal to the trunk. The moving head is, in truth, one of the extremities of that compound animal lever, whose fulcrum is the centre of gravity. The latter point is disturbed in its inertia, and acquires progressive motion by the action of the extremities of the lever, which are themselves moved by volition, whose seat is in the cranium; and the head, in consequence, is in all instances the first mover. The propul sion or vibration of the head puts the entire muscular system in motion, disturbs the balance on the centre of gravity, and so effects the sublime purposes of loco-motion in all animals. Yet it is this prime mover which the greater brutes, who profess themselves knowing in the economy of horses, so tie up that it can 115 in no way exert itself; and then they whip and spur the animal to force it to make new and unnatural exertions! Let any man, himself an erect animal, the powers of whose primum mobile are divided between his head and his hands, cause his head to be so tied back and fastened behind as to force out his chest. In that position let him try his comparative powers in walking or running with speed and safety, or in carrying or drawing a load, and he will soon be convinced of the cruelty of the practice of tying up the head of a horse for no other purpose than that he may look bold and noble ! WESLEY and BAKEWELL, who rode more than any men of their time, told me that they had suffered from frequent falls, till, by attending to the evident designs of nature, they suffered the bridle of their horses to festoon in a semicircle; and since then in riding thousands of miles they had never endured even the anxiety of a stumble. A pedestrian like the writer could not avoid feeling grateful to the constructor of this piece of road, for its beautiful and spacious causeway, which extends from the village of Wandsworth to Putney Heath. It is in most parts seven feet wide, and it doubtless owes much of its hardness, smoothness, and dryness, to its declining position, which causes the water to run off, carrying with it in solution the argillaceous earth,and leaving a basis of pure but well pulverized silex. All who reside in the country, ladies particularly, know how to estimate the worth of a broad, smooth, and dry walk, by the miseries so generally suffered from those of a contrary description. For the sake, therefore, of the example and the precept, they will candidly excuse the eulogy extorted from a wandering pedestrian on meeting with so agreeable an accommo dation in a district, which, in many respects, seems appropriated to the caprice of wealth. To supply the deficiency of our Road Bills, one sweeping law ought to enact that all turnpike roads should be provided with a raised causeway for foot passengers, at least five feet wide, with cross posts at every furlong to prevent equestrians from abusing it, and with convenient seats at the end of every mile. It is too much to expect in these times to see realized the writer's favourite plan of MILE-STONE and MARINE COTTAGES, among a people who have passionately mortgaged all their estates, and blindly encumbered all their industry, in paying the interest of money raised to Q 2 carry carry on wars made for the purpose of with insolvents or needy culprits, and regulating the independant governments of other countries! The sides of this road and the openings of the distant landscape, excite the admiration of the eye of taste by the architectural and horticultural beauties of mansions which have sprung out of the profits or artifices of trade. The multiplication of these dormitories of avarice is considered by too many as the sign of public prosperity. Fallacious, delusive, and mischievous notion! Was the world made for the many, or the few? Can any one become rich from domestic trade without making others poor; or can ano. ther bring wealth from foreign countries except by adding to the circulating mediun, and thereby diminishing the value of money? In either case, what is the benefit to the public or the community? Yet a benefit is rendered visible-a fine house has arisen where there stood before but a wretched hovel-and a paradise has been created out of a sheep pasture! The benefit, however, is merely to the individual! His pride and taste are gratified, and this gratification is called a benefit-yet with him the benefit, if to him it really is so, begins and ends. But he employs the neighbourhood, patronizes the arts, and encourages trade? Granted, -but whence come his means? His wealth is not miraculous. It has no exclusive or intrinsic properties. If he spends it at Putney, he must draw it from other places, either from rents of land or houses, or from interest of money, both the fruit of other's industry, and the sign of corresponding privations in those who pay them! For the sake however of the elegant arts, which at present derive their encouragement from the superfluities of the few; and of the magnificence of wealth, which gratifies the pride of our nature, I am no enemy to moderate inequalities of means which enable men to become worthy examples to others of the good effects of industry; I merely object to the vulgar inference that these toys add to the wealth, or serve as signs of the wealth, of a country. The wealth of a nation is better indicated by the general diffusion of plenty and comforts by the abundance of smoking farm-houses and well-stored barus-cheap provisions and dear labour-enough for ourselves with moderate exertions, and something to exchange for the luxuries of different climates. But it is no index of national prosperity to see elegant villas rising ke sun-flowers, as gaudy and as unprofitable, while our gaols are crammed our poor-houses are overflowing with wretchedness! Poland astonishes travellers by the splendour of its thousand palaces: while they are shocked at viewing in the same prospect a million of the huts of the people, exhibiting all the characteristics of English hog-sties! Let the multiplication of splendid mansions therefore be considered rather as proofs of the derangement of social order, than as signs of its triumph; and let us bear in mind that, however much they may benefit and gratify the meritorious and blameless occupants, they do not tend as fine houses to demonstrate any increase of benefit or gratification to the community at large. On arriving near the top of this road, before my debut on Putney Heath, I enjoyed a singularly fine view of a phenomenon, which can be seen no where in the world but at this distance from London. The Smoke of nearly a million of coal fires issuing from the two hundred thousand houses which compose London and its vicinity, carried in a direction which lay at right angles from my station in one compact mass! A dingy horizon produced by half a million of chimneys, each vomiting a bushel of smoke per second, which had now been disgorging themselves for at least six hours of the passing day! This vast body moving be fore a south-east wind in a north-western direction, at the solemn pace of six miles per hour, presented a dense cloud that filled an angle of the horizon equal to seventy degrees, or full 25 miles long, and a mile in height. As it goes forward it diverges like a fan, becoming constantly rarer, so that it is seldom discovered by the inhabitants at its extreme distances, though it has been distinguished near Windsor; and doubtless, as the wind changes, fills by turns the whole country within twenty or thirty miles of London. Over this district then it deposits the immense volatilized products of three thousand chaldrons, or nine millions of pounds weight of coals per day, producing, as may be supposed, some ascertainable effects on the country. In London this smoke is found to blight or destroy all vegetation; but, as the vicinity is highly prolific, a smaller quantity of the same residua may be salutary, or the effect may be counteracted by the extra supplies of manure which are afforded by the metropolis. The other phenomena produced by the smoke of London are its union with fogs, which it often fixes, rendering them nearly opake, and shutting 1815.] London Smoke-Large Parks. shutting out the light of the sun; the deposit of its tar in the mud of the streets, which it blackens, while the unctuous mixture renders the foot pavement slippery; and the solemn Egyptian darkness which it produces whenever a change of the wind returns over the town the volume that was on its passage into the country. One of the improvements of this age, by which the next is likely to benefit, will be the more perfect combustion of coals, and the condensation and sublimation of the smoke. Such, to the credit of the directors, is the system already pursued in the numerous offices of the Bank of England. They are warmed by stoves or buzaglos, in which the combustion is very perfect, and the small quantity of unconsumed steam or smoke is then carried through pipes into subterraneous reservoirs, where it sublimes, and at intervals is removed by scavengers, who give a high price for it as manure. The general adoption of a similar system would render the London air as pure as that of the country, and diminish many of the nuisances and inconveniences ofatown residence. It must in a future age be as difficult to believe that the Londoners who, in the reign of George the Third, boast of a high degree of refinement, should have resided in the dense atmosphere of coal-smoke above described, as it is now hard to conceive that our ancestors endured houses without the contrivance of chimneys, from which consequently the smoke had no means of escape but by the open doors and windows, or through a hole in the roof! 117 trees and grass? The superb mansion of A SIR, On the left I passed the entrance into the tastefully planned, but very useless, park of the justly esteemed EARL SPENCER. It contains about seven hundred acres, disposed so as to please the eye of a stranger, but which, like all home-spots, soon lose, from their familiarity, the power of delighting a constant occupant. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. Why then appropriate so fine a piece of ground to so barren a purpose? Is the supposed gratification of strangers, and the first week's pleasure afforded to the owner, a sufficient counterpoise to the consideration that the same spot would afford the more substantial ornament of ten farms, or subsistence to three hundred and forty smiling cottages, each having an acre of garden and of pasture? Would not these afford more gratifying and varied prospects to a nobleman of ac knowledged benevolence? Would not strangers find more to admire in such a scene than in the monotonous aspects of T the end of Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated, is the author's name affixed, with some Hebrew abbreviations, expressed in the following manner: WILLIAM WOLLASTON. מכ'א ות"ל If any of your readers, conversant in Basingstoke; Feb. 4, 1815. To To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. I SIR, NOW proceed, without restricting myself to any particular order, to exhibit, with occasional remarks and critical illustrations, some of the misconceptions on the subject both of ancient and modern Prosody, alluded to in my former paper, inserted in No. 260 of your much respected Magazine. That learned critic, Isaac Vossius, affirms (in his work De Poematum cantu et viribus Rhythmi), that we have no rhythm at all in our poetry; that we mind nothing but to have a certain nuin. ber of syllables in a verse, of whatever nature, and in whatever order; that there is nothing but confusion of quanti ties in the modern odes; that the moderns have no regard to the natural quantity of syllables; and have introduced an unnatural and barbarous variety of long and of short notes, without any regard to the subject and sense of the verse, or the natural pronunciation. Nothing can be more untrue than the substance of these remarks. That the accident of quantity is not much regarded in English poetry, nor in that of other living languages, is a fact which no one conversant with the subject will be inclined to question. For a modern verse is regulated neither by the mere measure, nor by any particular order, of times. But doubtless the same care that the ancients devoted to the regular arrangement of their longs and shorts, the moderns devote to that of their emphatics and unemphatics; in the due and natural observance of which consists the essence or rhythm of their poetical com. positions. Rhythms, then, the English language does possess, similar in its nature, we will venture to assert, to that of the ancients, the essence of both consisting, not in the mere drawl of quantity, nor in the fluctuating and fugitive tones of syllables, but in the prominent, natural, and regularly varied distinction of syllabic emphasis and remission. Trissino, a famous Italian poet, justly observes "that, as the ancient feet were deter mined by the quantity of the syllables, so in his language they are determined by the accent," (i. e. syllabic emphasis.) "This (adds Pemberton, in Observ. on Poet.) is equally true in our tongue; and for this reason, that, whereas the ancient Recent is represented to be only a variation in the tone, and had no relation to the quantity of the syllable, our's is constantly attended with an emphasis which implies greater length in the syllable.” Here there appears to be at least two blunders, the confusion of accent and emphasis, and the assertion that syllabic emphasis implies greater length of syliable, which is not always the fact. But in some points regarding this subject, Dr. Arthur Brown seems to have erred even more than his failible predecessors. He observes (7th vol. of Irish Transact.) that "the modern Greeks make accents the cause of quantity; they make the syllable long on which the acute fails; and they allow the acute accent to change the real quantity. They always read poetry, as well as prose, by accent." That either the acute accent, or the syllabic emphasis, (two things, however, widely different,) may fall most frequently on a long syllable, is not at all unlikely; but that, in any language, either accent or emphasis can be "the cause of quantity," is a most unnatural supposition, one which will obtain credit from no per son that has any clear conception of the distinct natural properties belonging to a note of speech. No such relation subsists between them. The truth however is, that Mr. Marsh, the learned translator of Michaelis, asserts the contrary; he states that he heard a Greek priest distinctly mark, in his pronunciation, both accent and quantity. But he appears to say nothing respecting the syllabic emphasis, which is much to be regretted ; for, since so prominent an affection could not be overlooked, a suspicion may remain, that, while he imagined he was remarking the accent, his attention was arrested merely by the more commanding quality of syllabic emphasis. It is indeed too true, that, from the circumstance of our syllabic emphasis being commonly termed accent, even our most intelligent writers on the subject seem to forget, or not to know, that there really does exist such a quality as accent or tone, altoge ther different from that of emphasis falsely termed accent. Still, however, his assertion would prove the correct observance of syllabic emphasis and quantity. Indeed I am inclined to think that Dr. Browne himself, when he wrote, did not understand the difference between accent and emphasis. When he employs "accent" or the "acute accent," he appears to mean syllabic emphasis. "They always (he says) read poetry, as well as prose, by accent." And were they ever read correctly, otherwise? He probably then meant to say, that, in their poetry, syllabic emphasis has the same predomi nance that it possesses in our own, and |