without feeling that, gifted as he was, with a soul above the mark of other men, his domestic misfortunes called for our pity as surely as his genius called for our admiration. When the career of Burns was closed, I saw another sight-a weeping widow and four helpless sons; they came into the streets in their mournings, and public sympathy was awakened afresh; I shall never forget the looks of his boys, and the compassion which they excited. The poet's life had not been without errors, and such errors, too, as a wife is slow in forgiving; but he was honoured then, by the unalienable affection of his wife, and the world repays her prudence and her love by its regard and esteem. Burns, with all his errors in faith and in practice, was laid in hallowed earth, in the churchyard of the town where he resided; no one thought of closing the churchyard of the town where he resided; no one thought of closing the church gates against his body, because of the freedom of his poetry, and the carelessness of his life. And why was not Byron laid among the illustrious men of England, in Westminster Abbey? Is there a poet in all the Poet's Corner who has better right to that distinction? Why was the door closed against him, and opened to the carcases of thousands without merit, and without name? Look round the walls, and on the floor over which you tread, and behold them encumbered and inscribed with memorials of the mean and the sordid and the impure, as well as of the virtuous and the great. Why did the Dean of Westminster refuse admission to such an heir of fame as Byron? if he had no claim to lie within the consecrated precincts of the Abbey, he has no right to lie in consecrated ground at all. There is no doubt that the pious fee for sepulture would have been paid--and it is not a small one. Hail! to the church of England, if her piety is stronger than her avarice. SKETCHES OF SOCIETY. (Euro. Mag.) THE STARERS. "Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis," etc.-Horat. THE HE vacant mind will naturally exhibit a vacant countenance; and he or she who knows little, will be surprised at almost every thing. From these causes we see the rustic, with broad, open eye, gaze at the shops of the metropolis,-elevate his eye-brows with astonishment at every new object, gape, to stultification, at the highly-dressed dame and dandy, whom he supposes to be a duchess or a peer, from their gaudy trappings, (although, perchance, they may be a cyprian and an adventurer.) Whilst he stops, and fixes each (to him) unaccountable novelty in the living magic lantern of the town. Various are the stories told at the expense of such ignorants:-one, that a countryman stopped short for six hours at Templebar, expecting that the crowd would go by; another, that poor Giles made way for so many ladies and gentle men in the street, and took off his hat so often that he was laughed at, a crowd raised round him, and lastly, eased of his money and beaver; a third, (that of old Horace) who goes so far as to make his country bumpkin wait until the river runs by him, which, with due deference to this learned and witty writer, is a great stretch indeed. Be that, however, as it may, we have, in the British metropolis, a very striking example that extremes approximate, in the custom which the higher orders have of bringing themselves down to the level of the vulgar and unpolished, by a habit-I might almost say a system, of curious, insolent, prying, examining, analyzing, and arrogant staring; nor is this indelicate, inurbane custom confined to rank or sex, since we have starers and glass-adjusters, from the conceited lord down to the am up phibious fopling without a name, whose ways of life are as various and uncertain, as the changeful features and hues of Proteus and the Cameleon; and from the front of brass of lost woman on the pavé of London, to the haughty Duchess, who, from her barouche or opera box, takes the measure of you, as if you were unworthy to be placed "betwixt the wind and (her) nobility." In our parks, our gardens and our streets, nay, also in our churches, theatres, and drawing-rooms, the starers are daily increasing, and annoying modesty, decency, timidity, the stranger, the supposed inferior, and the softer sex. Amongst men, (who ought to have more sense than to possess such a defect) we have legions of them, blocking up passages at the opera and other dramatic houses, levelling their glasses, like pointed cannon, at every coming face, if new. The stare of impertinent curiosity is painful to meet, seeming as if it would say, "Damme, who have we here?" If it be as hackneyed as their own, it is brass meeting brass; yet the thing is still shocking, where the glass does not act as a shield to the offending eye, the offensive weapon is used in a barefaced act of unmanly want of feeling, and the pupil of a fool is bent in divers directions over the person of a lady, or a stranger ill accustomed to such barbarity; sometimes the fashionable gazer or glass-cocker scrutinizes the dress of his fellow man, or monkey, to detect any anomalies in the science of the toilet, and pronounces his victim a vul-gar fel-low, (thus syllabled) or a quiz, (a word evidently derived from unbecoming, contemptuous inquiry-quis? Who have we got here? as already stated.) In our other sex, proud females toss aloft their light heads, taking a bird's eye view of all around them, and shooting the darts of malice at those whom sympathy and identity of sex ought to make objects of protection and sensibility. Here we have a living doll dissecting the dress of a retiring female,-using her organs of distinctiveness to count a thread in a veil, a wrinkle in a stocking, a wind ing curl on an ivory forehead, and to envy or censure the multiplied flounces, feathers, or other external ornaments; I say external, for real mind has no share in these operations: the same perfect sex has trenched upon the usurpations of the male children of pride, by eye-ing the minor classes with that putting down glance which sins against Christian charity, but which, for the time, serves the purpose of imposing, "And fills up all the mighty void of sense." Happily there are men and women who have hearts and heads above this common fault and trespass on humanity; but the number of delinquents is still very great indeed, and they are likely to augment, from thus triumphing in error, and annoying with impunity. The starers out of countenance of manly appearance (to seem and to be are not the same) so seldom meet with the punishment which they deserve, or are so cowardly, in selecting meek, mild, and bashful persons to act against, that very little hopes of their amendment can reasonably be entertained; and the bold gentlewomen, or rather, the bold women, who ought to be gentle, have been so long tolerated in this breach of decorum, that their conversions seem also a little doubtful; but if seeing themselves in print can prove beneficial, by inducing them to selfcorrection, I shall feel amply paid for the regrets which I have entertained on their account, and for the time thus dedicated to their reformation. Let them be persuaded, that one of the most amiable qualities of their sex is the yielding to the voice of advice, and that the triumph over self is the brightest of their conquests. The amiable woman who can own her errors and feebleness, has a direct claim to protection, and to added affection, but the enterprizing woman, (whatever be her rank) who turns round to stare one of her own sex out of countenance, or measures her man, as if for single combat, assumes all the hardihood of the other sex, and loses all that is dearest in her ownunsullied purity of mind and conduct. The maniken who wears a glass, with out being near-sighted, and who uses it not for convenience, but for the annoyance of others, is as troublesome, and little more sufferable, than the sporting dog, which being destined for the field, is introduced into the parlour, where the brute is out of place, and perhaps becomes a terror to the aged-to women and children. But there are higher offenders than these, namely, those who cast impure glances on all that is captivating and innocent, and who would blight the blossom of immaculacy by their gross oglings and pestiferous breath. All those who thus transgress, and "Give virtue scandal-innocence a fear, whether it be done by the breath of WE OF THE METALS. CHEMICAL ESSAYS. (Sel. Mag.) E will now take a slight glance at those parts of chemistry which come more especially under the consideration of the mineralogist. First let us examine the metals. These are now considered as consisting of forty-two. We will enumerate them, and slightly touch upon those which are not so generally known. of metals, or oxides.-Potassium when put into water abstracts the oxygen so rapidly from the water, that it takes fire and is converted into potash. The class of bodies called metals may generally be distinguished by the peculiar lustre which such of their particles as have not been exposed to the atmosphere exhibit upon fracture. Thus, potassium, if cut, will exhibit in its interior this peculiar metallic lustre. This metal then, as we said above, becomes, by uniting with oxygen, potash, one of the alkalis, a class of bodies which has been treated of before. Thus, by a curious alternation of opinion, the metals are shown to be the originals of the earths, instead of the earths the originals of the metals. From this consideration naturally arises a curious examination of the vast quantity of oxygen, which in one state or another is distributed through the universe. The generality of the earths are metallic oxides, or oxygen united with a metallic base. To enumerate a few. The vast chalk hills which appear so frequently in all parts of our island, are masses of lime united with carbonic acid. In each of these two bodies oxygen exists in a great quantity. Lime is the oxide of a metal called calcium and carbonic acid, as we have noticed above, is the union of carbon and oxygen; thus the greatest part of the compound must be oxygen. Again, in the vast beds of clay oxygen forms a great portion. Alumine (or pure clay) is an oxide of a metal called aluminum; and thus might we go through all the earths and assert the same fact. But to return from our digression. Of all the metals iron is the most abundant. Scarcely a vein of any mineral substance is found, with which it does not in some portion mix. There are some purposes for which iron is invaluable. No other of the metals, for example, possesses like powers of magnetic attraction, only one, indeed, besides itself, (nickel,) possesses in any considerable degree the same virtue. Nickel is a scarce metal. It forms a great proportion of those meteoric stones which are found in many parts of the world, and concerning the origin and formation of which much doubt exists. Sodium, though little known of itself, may claim a place in this enumeration from the importance of one of its compounds. And here I do not mean soda, which is its compound with oxygen, and which is so useful not only as a medicine but also as a luxury of life, but to one more strictly speaking a necessary-I mean common salt, which is no more than a compound formed by the union of chlorine and sodium, or a chloride of sodium. The other metals which close the list are little known and put to so little use, that to do more than to enumerate them would be superfluous in a treatise which is intended rather to give a taste for chemistry, than to satisfy the taste if already acquired. So intimately are the various branches of literature connected, that some slight knowledge of chemistry is an indispensable requisite. It is so in the first place to the mineralogist. For the various bodies which he will have to examine on the crust of the earth, are almost all either chemical compounds formed in the vast laboratory of nature; or, at least, are reduced into their present state by the action of chemical causes.Again, to the geologist the study of mineralogy is in some degree abso 8 ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d. series. lutely necessary. The great difference between these pursuits is, that the mineralogist regards all the minute particles he finds on the globe; the geologist, on the other hand, views the masses which form the crust of the earth. The rarest specimens, which are most valuable in the collection of the mineralogist, would to him be useless. He regards the age, the surrounding strata, and the proba ble formation of the masses which he meets with; the mineralogist views alone the body as it is, and wishes to class it with similar compounds. But though there is this great distinction between the geologist and the mineralogist, no one can pursue to great advantage the science of geology without having previously obtained some knowledge of mineralogy; because he does not know the constituents of the bodies of which he treats. Mineralogy may then be considered as the grammar of geology, and chemistry as the grammar of mineralogy.-We may further see the value of the science of chemistry, from its necessary connexion with the enlightened studies of the agriculturist. We might also shew its importance in this point of view even more immediately from its subjecting to examination the component parts of all vegetable matter. But we will not detain our readers longer upon this point. We would only suggest, upon a review of the whole, that the perversion of intellect must indeed be great,which I can lead the follower of these most interesting studies to materialism and atheism. To every well regulated mind the diversified works of nature must afford incessant proofs of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, and lead us to exclaim, with our great poet "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good; Almighty! thine this universal frame, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowliest works: yet these declare (Lond. Lit. Gaz.) THE HIGHLANDS AND WESTERN ISLES OF SCOTLAND, &c. &c. In Letters to Sir Walter Scott. BY JOHN MACCULLOCH, M.D. F.R.S. &c. A TASK of greater weight than the systematic reading of these four ponderous and closely printed volumes, has not fallen to our lot since our editorial functions were so good-naturedly undertaken by us for the public benefit. The American Boy would be lost in calculating the number of pages, sentences, words, syllables and letters, of which they are composed. For our selves we are at a dead stand still on the single question, "Is it really possible to peruse them from beginning to end ?" At any rate we can but dip for our friends this week; and shall endeavour to muster more courage for future exertions. Our worthy Doctor is wonderfully playful and sprightly, considering his unwieldy bulk. The mountain is not solid-it is a hill of whipt syllabub: drollery, fun, and the most portentous efforts of humour pervade these mighty tomes. At hazard we take the account of Dollar as a specimen : "It is (the Doctor tells us after a digression) for the purpose of pointing out the true road hither, that I have thus far encroached on my limits; and chiefly for the sake of Castle Campbell; scarcely known, though known to exist; named, but named as if it was an every-day sight, and passed every day, by hundreds who are satisfied with knowing that they are near it, and with hearing a few wretched puns upon its name. "But I ought to be silent about the puns for the Dea of puns, if there is such a one in Varro's list, seemed to have pronounced a judgment on me for my contempt. Certainly Dollar was a cause of dolour to me; as I was condemned to lie still for a week, and wonder at what particular hour I should be choked with a squinancy. The throat is an awkward contrivance; because, as legislators know, it is easily stopped up. Fortunately, Dollar, or Dolour contained no doctor. The landlady, however, was the howdie of the village, and came to tender her services, producing Dr. Young's certificate. I assured her that my case was not in her line; but by dint of the Napoleon practice, I was rescued from this tedious substitute for a halter; and, in a week, was able to receive the congratulations of all the auld wives, and young ones too, of the neighburhood. I must agree with you, Sir Walter, that it is an odd sex in our hours of ease and the rest follows. Half of the whole sex of Dollar, kind creatures, came out of their houses when they saw the stranger gentleman crawling up the hill, like a spectre from the vaults of Castle Campbell, to offer him seats, and milk, and what not; and when I returned many years afterwards, to see and again to thank my obstetric hosts, I was received, not as one who had been a source of trouble, but as an old friend. Certainly, when I can choose the inn in which I am to have a fever, it shall be at Dollar. "What a piece of work is man ! He certainly is, master Shakspeare. Because his pulse takes a fancy to beat 82 instead of 72, he is unable, in twelve hours, to sit up in his bed: and when he gets out of it at length to enjoy the fresh air he must hold fast by the wall he could have jumped over a few days before. If the pulse continues rebellious, the carpenter comes and nails him up in a box, and all his half finished schemes are at an end. Some one says, that if a watchmaker's productions did not go better, he would get very little practice. However that may be, the sun never shines so warm, the flies never hum such sweet music, the mossy bank never looks so green, and never does the air breathe such perfume, as when he first returns from the edge of the grave to smell the breeze that blows from the wallflowers of Castle Campbell; or of any other castle." Having got well, the Doctor's next and bolder attempt was to climb Ben Ledi, and he thus facetiously goes on to the result. "It was not for want of making the |