dined with his early friend and patron, Sir Henry Englefield, who, speaking of his behaviour on that day after eighteen years had elapsed, said, "It was the last effort of expiring nature." Such frailties, though just grounds of censure and regret to his contemporaries, will be lost in the splendour of his discoveries. Yet is the observation of them not useless as a warning to others: for the higher the station, the more closely will the actions of him who fills it be scrutinised, especially if his elevation be the work of his own hands.

In 1823 he undertook, in consequence of an application from Government to the Royal Society, an inquiry into the possibility of preventing the rapid decay of the copper sheathing of ships. His former Voltaic discoveries at once explained the cause and suggested a remedy. When two metals in contact with each other are exposed to moisture, the more oxidable rapidly decays, while on the less oxidable no effect is produced. Thus a very small piece of iron or zinc was found effectually to stop the solution of a very large surface of copper. Several ships were accordingly fitted with protectors, as they were called, which succeeded perfectly in preserving the copper; but their use was found to be attended by an evil greater than that which they remedied. The ships' bottoms grew foul with unexampled rapidity; and the protectors were finally abandoned by the Admiralty in 1828. This failure was a source of much ill-natured remark to the many whom Davy had offended, or who were jealous of his reputation, and of deep mortification to himself. Indeed he displayed an impatience of censure, and irritability of temper, far from dignified: the spoilt child of fortune, he could not bear the feeling of defeat, still less the triumph of his enemies. This weakness may perhaps be partly ascribed to declining health, which must always more or less overcloud the mind, especially of one whose

amusements as well as his employments were of an active and stirring kind. To the sports of fly-fishing and shooting he was devotedly attached; and jealous, even to a ludicrous degree, of his reputation and success, which it is said not always to have been so great as he would willingly have had it believed. But his failing health gradually curtailed his enjoyment of these pleasures, and towards the end of 1825, the indisposition which his friends had long seen stealing on him reached its crisis in the form of an apoplectic attack. All immediate cause of alarm was soon removed; but the traces of his illness remained in a slight degree of paralysis, which impaired, though without materially affecting, his muscular powers. By the advice of his physicians he hastened abroad, and passed the rest of the winter, and the spring, at Ravenna. In the summer he visited the Tyrol and Illyria, and finding his health still precarious, resigned the chair of the Royal Society. In the autumn he returned to England, having gained little strength. The early winter he spent in Somersetshire, at the house of an old and valued friend, too weak for severe mental exertion, or to pursue successfully his favourite sports. Yet the ruling passion was still shown in the amusement of his sick hours, which were chiefly devoted to the preparation of Salmonia.' Of the merits of this book as a manual for the fly-fisher, we presume not to speak. To the general reader it may be safely recommended, as containing many eloquent and poetical passages, with much amusing information respecting the varieties and habits of the trout and salmon species, and of the insect tribes on which they feed.

In the spring of 1828, Davy once more sought the Continent in search of health. His steps were turned to that favourite district, of which he speaks as the "most glorious country in Europe, Illyria and Styria ;”

where he solaced the weary hours of sickness, by such field-sports as his failing health enabled him to pursue, in the revision of an improved edition of Salmonia,' and in the composition of the Last Days of a Philosopher.' Of this he says, in a letter dated Rome, February 6, 1829, "I write and philosophise a good deal, and have nearly finished a work, with a higher aim than Salmonia.' It contains the essence of my philosophical opinions, and some of my poetical reveries." Under this sanction, the reader will peruse with pleasure the sketch contained in the third dialogue of a geological history of the earth, and the other questions of natural philosophy which are discussed. A large portion of the work is occupied by metaphysical and religious disquisitions. As a moral philosopher, his opinions do not seem entitled to peculiar weight. Of his visionary excursion to the limits of the solar system, it is not fair to speak but as the play of an exuberant imagination, mastering the sober faculties of the mind. The work contains many passages, reflective and descriptive, of unusual beauty; and is a remarkable production to have been composed under the wasting influence of that disease, which, of all others, usually exerts the most benumbing influence.

The winter of 1828-9 he spent at Rome; with returning spring he expressed a wish to visit Geneva, but his hours were numbered. He reached that city on May 28, unusually cheerful; dined heartily on fish, and desired to be daily supplied with every variety which the lake afforded: a trifling circumstance, yet interesting from its connexion with his love of sport. In the course of the night he was seized with a fresh attack, and expired early in the morning without a struggle. His remains were honoured by the magistrates with a public funeral, and repose in the cemetery of Plain Palais. He died without issue, and the baronetcy is in consequence extinct.

THE history of Bolivar is that of the revolutions in Columbia and Peru. Nothing remarkable is related of his early life; and with respect to his personal merits as a soldier and statesman, he has shared the common lot of eminent men, in being extravagantly praised and violently censured. He has been compared to Cæsar and Napoleon on the one hand; and he has been accused of frivolity, incompetency, and even cowardice, on the other. The time for forming a dispassionate opinion of his character is not yet arrived. We shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a short sketch of the establishment of independence on the Spanish Main, so far as Bolivar was concerned in it; premising that we merely follow the course of history in giving him the credit of those measures

which were carried into execution under his authority and ostensible guidance.

Simon Bolivar was born in the city of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on the 24th or 25th of July, 1783. In early childhood he lost both his parents, who were of noble family, and possessed of large estates. At the age of fourteen or sixteen, he was sent to Spain for education. His habits are said to have been dissipated; but he paid some attention to the study of jurisprudence. After visiting Italy and France, he returned to Madrid, married, and in 1809 returned to reside on his estates near Caracas. It is positively asserted, and as positively denied, that Bolivar had an active share in the decisive movement at Caracas, April 19, 1810, when the Spanish authorities were deposed. A congress was summoned, which met March 2, 1811. Bolivar received a colonel's commission, and was sent to claim the protection of Great Britain. The date of his return to South America we do not find; but he is said to have been concerned in the first military operations of the patriots; and in September, 1811, he was appointed governor of the strong sea-port of Puerto Cabello. In March, 1812, a violent earthquake took place. The clergy succeeded in producing a considerable reaction in favour of royalist principles, by representing this calamity to be a manifestation of God's wrath against revolution. Monteverde, the royal general, then advanced, and met with rapid success. The strong hold of Puerto Cabello, the chief depôt of the patriots was wrested from Bolivar by an insurrection of the prisoners confined in it; the patriot army became dispirited; and General Miranda, under the sanction of congress, concluded a treaty, July 26, 1812, by which an amnesty was concluded, and the province of Venezuela returned under the dominion of Spain. Miranda was subsequently arrested on a futile charge of