much excited by the uses of coal. This substance will, in no long time, become our only or principal fuel, and our diligence will, of course, be directed towards procuring a supply of it from our own stores. The following symptoms by which we may judge of the presence of coal, and rules by which we may regulate ourselves in search of that useful product, may not be unserviceable or unseasonable.

The rules are these:

That coal is never to be expected in primeval mountains, as granite, gneiss, &c., but that on the sides of these, particularly if very high, or in the hanging level that slopes from them to some river or valley, it may be sought.

That there is still a greater probability of finding it in the neighbourhood of mountains of argillaceous porphyry, as those are still more subject to disintegration.

That it may be sought with probability of success in sandstone mountains, if sandstone and clay alternate, or sandstone, clay, and argillaceous iron ore.

That in any elevated land, in which sandstone and shale, with vegetable impressions, or indurated clay and shale, or bituminous shale, form distinct strata, or clay, iron ore, and shale, with or without strata of sand, coal may well be expected. That if sandstone be found under limestone, or if they alternate with each other, and particularly if indurated clay and shale form any of the strata, they afford a probable indication of coal; otherwise coal is very rarely found in or under limestone.

That coal is very seldom found with argillite, and such as has been is of the uninflammable kind.

That where trap, or whin and clay, alternate, and more especially trap and sandstone, coal may be expected; it is often, but not regularly, found under basalt. Wood coal is sometimes found under both.

Lastly, that coal frequently bursts out on the surface, or on the sides of hills, in a withered state, which

diffuses itself to a distance from its origin, and requires an experienced miner to trace it truly to the seam to which it belongs.

For the Literary Magazine.

VOICE OF BIRDS.

THE voice of birds naturally ex-. erts itself in three ways: in chirping, calling, and singing.

To chirp is the first sound which a young bird utters, as a cry for food, and is different in all nestlings, if accurately attended to; so that the hearer may distinguish of what species the birds are, though the nest may hang out of his sight and reach.

This cry is, as might be expected, very weak and querulous; it is dropped entirely as the bird grows stronger, nor is afterwards intermixed with its song, the chirp of a nightingale, for example, being hoarse and disgreeable.

The chirp consists of a single sound, repeated at very short intervals, and is common to nestlings of both sexes.

The call of a bird is that sound which it is able to make, when about a month old; it is, in most instances, a repetition of one and the same note, is retained by the bird as long as it lives, and is common, generally, to both the cock and hen.

The next stage in the notes of a bird is termed recording, which word is probably derived from a musical instrument formerly used, called a recorder.

This attempt in the nestling to sing, may be compared to the imperfect endeavour in a child to babble. Some birds begin to record when they are not a month old.

This first essay does not seem to have the least rudiments of the future song; but as the bird grows older and stronger, one may begin to perceive what the nestling is aiming at.

Whilst the scholar is thus endeavouring to form his song, when he

is once sure of a passage, he commonly raises his tone, which he drops again when he is not equal to what he is attempting; just as a singer raises his voice, when he not only recollects certain parts of a tune with precision, but knows that he can execute them.

What the nestling is not thus thoroughly master of, he hurries over, lowering his tone, as if he did not wish to be heard, and could not yet satisfy himself.

I never met with a passage in any writer, which seems to relate to this stage of singing in a bird, except, perhaps, in the following lines of Statius:

-Nunc volucrum novi Questus, inexpertumque carmen, Quod tacitâ satuere brumâ.

A young bird commonly continues to record for ten or eleven months, when he is able to execute every part of his song, which afterwards continues fixed, and is scarcely ever altered.

When the bird is thus become perfect in his lesson, he is said to sing his song round, or in all its varieties of passages, which he connects together, and executes without a pause.

A bird's song is a succession of three or more different notes, which are continued without interruption during the same interval with a musical bar of four crochets in an adagio movement, or whilst a pendulum swings four seconds.

By this definition, we exclude the call of a cuckow, or clucking of a hen, as they consist of only two notes; whilst the short bursts of singing birds, contending with each other (called jerks by the bird-catchers), are equally distinguished from song, by their not continuing for four seconds.

As the notes of a cuckow and hen, therefore, though they exceed the call of a bird, do not amount to its song, we may term such a succession of two notes as we hear in these birds, the varied call.

Birds have not any innate ideas of the notes which are supposed to be peculiar to each species. In a wild state they adhere steadily to the same song, so that it is well known, before the bird is heard, what notes you are to expect from him.

This, however, arises entirely from the nestling's attending only to the instruction of the parent bird, whilst it disregards the notes of all others, which may perhaps be singing round him.

Young canary birds are frequently reared in a room where there are many other sorts; and yet they only learn the song of the parent cock.

Mr. Hunter, the anatomist, found the muscles of the larynx to be stronger in the nightingale than in any other bird of the same size; and in all those instances (where he dissected both cock and hen) that the same muscles were stronger in the cock.

The singing of the cock bird, in the spring, is attributed by many to his desire of pleasing his mate during incubation. Poets and moralists have paid a great many compliments, on this account, to the feathered husband; but not deservedly.

The greater part of birds do not sing at all. Why should the mo ther bird of these dumb kinds be so unfavourably distinguished?

The caged bird, which will sometimes sing nine or ten months in the year, cannot do it from this inducement. The truth is, they are moved to sing chiefly through contention with another bird, or with any sort of continued noise.

No bird larger than a blackbird is known to sing. This may possibly arise from the difficulty of concealing itself if it called the notice of its enemies by its voice.

A well known, but detestable means for improving the voice of the male in the human species, has been tried upon male birds, but instead of softening their notes, it has generally deprived them of their song altogether. This failure of

analogy may excite some surprize in those who are not aware that this operation by no means insures an improvement of the human voice.

The voices of much the greater part of Italian emasculati are so indifferent, that they have no means of procuring a livelihood but by copying music, and this is one of the reasons why so few compositions are printed in Italy, as it would starve this refuse of society.

There have indeed been Farinellis and Manzalis; but the list of such is very small, and we attribute those effects to a wrong cause. They should rather be ascribed to the education of these singers.

This operation commonly leaves the human voice at the same pitch at which it finds it; but the victim, from that time, is educated with a view only to his future appearance on the stage; he therefore manages his voice to greater advantage, than those who have not so early and constant instruction.

Considering the size of many singing birds, it is amazing at what a distance their notes may be heard. A nightingale may be very clearly distinguished at more than half a mile, if the evening is calm. Accurately to compare the loudness of a bird's with that of the human voice, a person should be sent to the spot from whence the bird is heard. On such trial, the nightingale would be distinguished further than the

man.

In passing under a house where the windows are shut, the singing of a bird is easily heard, when at the same time a conversation cannot be so, though an animated one.

Most people, who have not attended to the notes of birds, suppose that those of every species sing exactly the same notes and passages. Scarcely any two birds of the same species have exactly the same notes, if they are accurately attended to, though there is a general resemblance.

Thus most people see no difference between one sheep and another, when a large flock is before them.

The shepherd, however, knows each of them, and can swear to them if they are lost. Q

For the Literary Magazine.

LEARNING AND POLITENESS.

I HAVE often been led to reflect on the difference between learning and politeness, and on the estimation in which they are held by that part of the community commonly styled the fashionable world. Politeness may certainly associate with learning, and may be separated from it; but its first origin is in the good will and sympathy of man, in the desire of being agreeable in the form as well as in the substance of our intercourse with others.

It is impossible to discover any connection of cause and effect between a learned mind, and a polite mind. A learned man, without a kind and sympathetic heart, without a desire to please, may be as blunt a rustic as Rousseau can contemplate in his golden age of simplicity. Learning is very far from being the character of the polite world, and politeness in a still less degree is the character of the learned world. The weakest persons, to whom literature has not even opened her door, may lead in the dance of fashionable politeness. They are per fectly innocent, poor creatures! of the horrid crime of learning; but they are the arraigned before reason's tribunal, they are the convicts of unmeaning profession, of prostituted language, and of all the idle waste of words.

cumstances, has a contrary tendency, and the world is so persuaded of this, that it expresses something like astonishment, if in the acknowledged scholar or philosopher it find the polite man. The love of retirement and even of solitude, as conducive to the pursuits of learned men; the little pleasure which they take in the lighter amusements of life mere straws, in their estimation, which float upon its surface; the little attention which they have bestowed in order to acquit themselves with propriety and grace; the disgust which is excited in them by the trifling conversation and grave nothings of men of the world, render what is called good company as unfit for a philosopher as a philosopher is for good company. What a figure does he often exhibit in a gay and brilliant circle, with his solemn air, his stiffened attitudes, his unmanaged limbs, his absorbed mind, his inattentions, his constrained recollections, his studied expressions, his deep and sententious discourse! He is an object of ridicule to the circle around him; but he knows to estimate himself, and he returns the contempt with which he is received. He feels that he is not on his proper ground; no common sympathy attaches him to his company, nor his company to him; each are under restraint, but a modesty yet unsubdued in him subjects him to truly painful feelings, while a happy confidence which the polish of the world often confers, administers to the company the enjoyment of a secret triumph. He retires from the scene without regret, and his absence excites no regret in those whom he has quitted. A few reflections on the strange interview for a while occupy the thoughts of either party. The one laments the littlenesses and follies of which he has been a witness; the the others laugh at the awkward mortal for his oddities and unaccommodating wisdom: while the fruit of these reflections differs in each as much as the reflections themselves. The one is strengthened in the per

suasion that the accomplishments of politeness are the finishing of the human character, and with more self satisfaction go on in a course, which as a whole is but a waste of time, of talents, and of character. The other owes it perhaps to his keen disgust that he is not swallowed up in the gulph of dissipation, that trifling and unimportant attentions are not over-rated by him, do not debauch his mind, nor lead him to the borders, if not into the open field of vice.

For the Literary Magazine.

A MODERN SAMPSON.

A.

AMONG instances of extraordinary strength, the following, which is well attested, seems to be one of the most remarkable :

Thomas Topham, a man who kept a public house at Islington, performed suprising feats of strength: as breaking a broomstick, of the first magnitude, by striking it against his bare arm; lifting two hogsheads of water; heaving his horse over the turnpike-gate; carrying the beam of a house, as a soldier his firelock, &c. But however belief might stagger, she soon recovered herself, when this second Sampson appeared at Derby, as a performer in public, at a shilling each. Upon application for leave to exhibit, the magistrate was surprised at the feats he proposed; and, as his appearance was like that of other men, he requested him to strip, that he might examine whether he was made like them; but he was found to be extremely muscular. What were hollows under the arms and hams of others, were filled up with ligaments in him.

He appeared near five feet ten, turned of thirty, well-made, but nothing singular; he walked with a small limp. He had formerly laid a wager, the usual decider of disputes, that three horses could not draw him from a post, which he should

clasp with his feet; but the driver giving them a sudden lash, turned them aside, and the unexpected jerk had broke his thigh.

The performances of this wonderful man, in whom were united the strength of twelve, were rolling up a pewter-dish of seven pounds, as a man rolls up a sheet of paper; holding a pewter quart at arm's length, and squeezing the sides together like an egg-shell; lifting two hundred weight with his little finger, and moving it gently over his head. The bodies he touched seemed to have lost their powers of gravitation. He also broke a rope, fastened to the floor, that would sustain twenty hundred weight; lifted an oak table six feet long with his teeth, though half a hundred weight was hung to the extremity; a piece of leather was fixed to one end for his teeth to hold, two of the feet stood upon his knees, and he raised the end with the weight higher than that in his mouth; he took a Mr. Chambers, vicar of All Saints, who weighed twenty-seven stone, and raised him with one hand, his head being laid on one chair, and his feet on another; four people, fourteen stone each, sat upon his body, which he heaved at pleasure. He struck a round bar of iron, one inch diameter, against his naked arm, and at one stroke bent it like a bow. Weakness and feeling seemed fled together.

Being a master of music, he entertained the company with Mad Tom. He sung a solo to the organ in St. Warburgh's church, then the only one in Derby; but though he might perform with judgment, yet the voice, more terrible then sweet, scarcely seemed human. Though of a pacific temper, and with the appearance of a gentleman, yet he was liable to the insults of the rude. The hostler at the inn, where he resided, having given him disgust, he took one of the kitchen-spits from the mantle-piece, and bent it round his neck like a handkerchief; but as he did not chuse to tuck the end in the hostler's bosom, the cumbrous ornament excited the

laugh of the company, till he conde scended to untie his iron cravat. Had he not abounded with good-nature, the men might have been in fear for the safety of their persons, and the women for that of their pewter-shelves, as he could instantly roll up both. One blow with his fist would for ever have silenced those heroes of the bear-garden, Johnson and Mendoza.

Frederick of Prussia, who took so much pains to form a regiment of tall men, was influenced by a very childish freak. Had he turned his attention to the collecting and enrolling men eminent for strength, he would have really contributed to the end of all military preparation. In such a case, Topham would have stood a good chance of being colonel of a regiment of Sampsons.

This account affords a pregnant hint to those philosophers who speculate on man as a mere animal, whose qualities, both personal and mental, are liable to be affected by insulating or crossing the breed.

A king of soldiers exercises pretty much the same power, in the same way, which a breeder of cattle does over his vassals. Thus Frederick, by chusing suitable mates for his strong men, might have gradually reared a Herculean army.

A

The advantage which an army composed of strong men have over a weaker, is in a greater proportion than that which the strength of the first bears to that of the last. man as strong as ten others is a hundred times more serviceable, since he only requires one tenth of the pay and the provision of ten men.

For the Literary Magazine.

HAWKING.

I HAVE so often met, in Europe. an writers of all kinds, with allusions to hawks and hawking, that my curiosity lately led me to make