the trade of the place having been in a state of gentle decline for some time past, owing to the inconvenience of its rivers, and the oppressive nature of its port-dues. Capital, however, will always command a certain quantity of commerce; and the riches of Bristol (larger in proportion to the size of the place than those of any other town in the kingdom) wafts into its ports, in spite of these disadvantages, a share of the WestIndia trade. More than a moiety of this traffic has indeed been enticed away from hence to Liverpool, by the superior convenience of the river and docks there; but if Bristol have relinquished to her rival the palm of honourable commerce, she has thrown into her arms at the same time a trade that tarnished her own mercantile character as long as she continued the favourite of commerce, (the African slave-trade) and thus revenged herself amply for her loss, by blasting the honour of the spoiler. Under a decreasing population she still contains seventy thousand inhabitants; is ornamented with nineteen churches, as many dissenting chapels; and exhibits a numerous catalogue of manufactories, amongst which are twenty glass-houses; several copper and iron foundries; two large speculations for fabricating floor-cloth; a patent shot manufactory; lead works; brass-mills; potteries; a patent rollingmachine for paper; and a curious patent manufactory, which has for its object the facilitating the rotation and lessening the friction of an axis, by means of auxiliary wheels. In the walks of literature, science, and natural philosophy, also, Bristol has made and still makes a respectable figure, vindicating her character from that charge of Baotian dullness, and indifference to every thing but objects of interest and money speculations, which it has been the practice to attach to it. The gigantic intellect and sublime genius of Coleridge, which were here first publicly developed, evince that this city is not ungenial to the cultivation and encouragement of the higher gifts of the mind; Chatterton, second only to his monodist* in the rare endowment of lofty fancy, here first saw the light, and tuned his infant pipe; Southey's muse here, also, poured forth those beautiful effusions which rank the author of the Joan of Arc amongst the first poets of the day; and the two Cottles, "Arcades ambo," having given, from their own press, works which would add to the fame of any poets of the day. The justly-celebrated philosopher and physician. * See Coleridge's Monody on the Death of Chatterton. This Dr. Beddoes has proved that the Bristolians do not want that laudable curiosity in their character, which is the only parent of real knowlege, when a proper stimulus is held out to excite it, by the useful scientific institutions he has been able to establish under their munificent encouragement. This distinguished medical author held some years since the professorship of chemistry at Oxford; but circumstances occurring which induced him to resign his situation, he withdrew from the university, and established himself at Clifton. situation he was induced to make choice of, as a place of all others best calculated to afford opportunities of trying some new modes of practice in consumption, deduced from ingenious and profound speculation upon that important subject. The same spirit of scientific and philanthropic investigation which turned his attention to the means of ameliorating this dreadful scourge of youth, innocence, and beauty, led him also to the formation of an establishment in Bristol, (by private subscripcription) called the Pneumatic Institution, for the purpose of ascertaining the peculiar medicinal properties of some new chemical agents, as well as for the general extension of chemical physiology and philosophic medicine. Here his exertions were seconded by the liberality of the citizens, and his labours assisted by the co-operation of extraordinary talent, in the person of a young man, Mr. Humphry Davy, (a phoenomenon in chemical knowledge and its adjuncts) who is since removed to a wider scene for the display of his genius, the chair of the Royal Institution, in Albermarle-street, London. Under the auspices of these two great philosophic characters, the Pneumatic Institution has made considerable progress in the discovery of new facts for the enlargement and improvement of medical science. To it we are indebted for the very ingenious and able analysis and application of a new gas, by Mr. Davy, called the nitrous oxyd; which is found to produce effects upon the nervous system and organs of sense equally extraordinary and delightful. It excites a flow of the most pleasurable ideas and exhilarating emotions, unattended with consequent debility, languor, or depression; effects which lead to the hope that it may be capable of restoring decayed nervous energy, and of arresting its premature diminution. The institution has also afforded a field for extensive trials of a new and valuable remedy in consumptions, the Digitalis or Fox-Glove; and with a degree of success that establishes its powers as incomparably superior to any means hitherto employed in this cruel and depopulating disorder. These and other particulars connected with the cure and prevention of consumption are developed in two admirable essays on the disease by Dr. Beddoes; publications which no parent or person entrusted with the care of youth should be without. The spirit of laudable curiosity, and the diffusion of useful and ornamental knowledge, are kept alive and assisted at Bristol by another establishment of a more general nature than the one I have been describing to you; a public Library, founded originally by an individual, who bequeathed his collection of books for that purpose, since enlarged, and at present supported by regulations the most liberal and judicious. To become a member of this institution, it is necessary to pay five guineas in the first instance, and one guinea annually; which gives a property in the books, transferable by sale, or devisable by will. Two large commodious rooms contain the collection, which, disdaining to be fettered by party prejudice, receives volumes written on every side, provided they have merit for their recommendation. The anteroom, or first apartment, is fitted up after the manner of the Bodleian and Manchester libraries, having presses for the books at right angles with the side of the room, and accommodations for the reader in the divisions between them; here are placed the |