Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

and poems Extracts from the writings of other learned Ladies are next intended to be given; after which it is purposed to print the entire productions of Mademoifelle de Montpenfier, Madame de Villars, Madame de Sevigné, Madame and Mademoifelle Defhoulieres, &c. &c. &c.

Mademoiselle de Keralio confines herself almoft wholly to the literary hiftory of Frenchwomen. She has given a short narrative of the moft confiderable among them, with specimens of their feveral works. Many of thefe fpecimens are taken from MSS. in the library of the King of France, and are valuable not only on account of their antiquity, but, frequently, from their intrinfic merit. She very fenfibly obferves in her preface, and by way of apology for the prefent publication, that though the hiftory of French literature has been given by several able writers, it is yet much too voluminous for the generality of readers, and particularly women; many of whom, for whatever reafon, confider books as calculated rather for amusement than for ftudy, and who, confequently, feldom enter on the perusal of the larger and more elaborate works. She farther remarks with refpect to the prefent undertaking, that it has been engaged in, not only for the ufe of the before-mentioned perfons, but from a defire of perpetuating the names of the several Frenchwomen who have dipped themselves in ink, and whose productions, the thinks, will fhew to what an eminence the fex is capable of attaining, when they devote themselves to the nobleft of all purfuits, the culture and improvement of the mind."

It is now acknowledged (fays fhe, with becoming enthusiasm) that study is no way incompatible with the female character, but that, on the contrary, it awakens the livelieft emotions, and fixes the happiest propenfities in the breaft: that it inclines the woman of fenfibility to a love of folitude and retirement, the ftate, according to our Authorefs, which is immediate and proper to her sex and that even to those who are engaged in the actual commerce of the world, a knowledge of books, provided they make not a particular display of it, will render them, however powerful their charms, additionally amiable in the eyes of all men; in fine, that it will give to them that modefty, and agree

*To these are added fome poetical pieces of Francis the Firft, King of France. They are felected more for the purpose of fhewing the fate of literature among the French, in the fixteenth century, than for any particular excellence in point of writing: though it muft, at the fame time, be acknowledged, that many of them breathe a tenderness and delicacy of expreffion which could fcarcely be expected in a warlike King, and in an age in which the progress to civilization and refinement was but flow.

+ Of which number are Bayle, Niceron, Chauffepied, Felibien, &c. &c. to whom Madlie de K. acknowledges her obligations. ableness

ableness of behaviour, without which beauty is merely as ⚫ painted clay.'

Such are our Authorefs's fentiments refpecting the qualities which the wishes to fee predominant in her fex. Milton, in his immortal work, has faid,

"Nothing lovelier can be found

In woman, than to ftudy household good." But the Ladies of the prefent day are of a different opinion. They are eager to establish their power in the world of letters, though not to rule in it with abfolute fway. While, however, to a fondness for literature, they unite the domeftic virtues which are fo peculiarly graceful in the fex; fuch virtues, in short, as are discoverable in the ingenious writer whofe production is now before us, we will willingly allow them all they can demand:-May they be diftinguished according to their wishes! In a word, may knowledge and virtue contend for empire in them. Thus fhall they live refpected, admired, and beloved by all!

The hiftory of the progrefs of letters in France, from their origin until the fixteenth century, and which makes a confiderable part of the prefent work, is at once both curious and interefting. To trace the developements and unfoldings of the human mind, the gradual advances of a people from a state of barbarifm to that of (comparatively speaking) elegance and refinement, is a talk to which the pen of few can be supposed equal. Mademoiselle de Keralio, however, has acquitted herfelf in a manner that does her honour. In writing the eulogium of her country, and countrywomen, the unwillingly prefents t us with her own. Her narrative is, for the most part, elegant, concife, and clear.

In giving an account of the language of the ancient Gauls, our Authorefs proceeds, on the grounds of Hotoman, and others, in maintaining that it was undoubtedly the Greek. This opinion, which is particularly fet forth by fundry writers, is very ably confuted by Pelloutier + in his Hiftoire des Celtes; in which work he has likewife fully proved, that the old Celtic, or Gomerian, was the primitive, and, for a confiderable space of time, the general language of Europe.

A former publication was infcribed by Madle de K. to her Father; the present is dedicated to her mother, and in a strain that evinces the excellence of her head, and of her heart.

As the Gauls are certainly known to have defcended from the Celts, it is pity that Madile de K. did not take this very ingenious writer for her guide. He has further laboured to fhew, with wonderful accuracy and precifion, that all the European nations came originally from the Celts.

[blocks in formation]

The remarks of Mademoiselle de Keralio on the literary essays of the fifteenth century, at which era the glimmerings of polite literature may be properly faid to have firft appeared in France, difplay an acutenefs and talent for criticism, which are rarely met with in her fex. Her inquiries, likewife, into the particular and comparative excellence of Heloife and Chriftina, the former of whom was of the twelfth century, and the latter two hundred years pofterior to it; together with the preference which the very juftly gives to the abilities of the wife of Abeilard, notwithstanding the remoteness of the times in which the lived, are fo many proofs of the folidity of her judgment, and of the correctness and elegance of her tafte.

This Work, which is prefented to the public as a pile erected in honour of the genius of the women of France, is to be followed, we are told, by another in memory of the abilities of thofe of England and Italy. We with fuccefs to the ingenious and amiable Projector. A.B.

ART. IX.

Nouveaux Memoires de l'Academie Royale, &c. i. e. New Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at Berlin, for the Year 1784; together with the Hiftory of the Academy for that Year *. 4to. 606 pages. Berlin. 1786.

THI

HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY.

HIS part of the volume before us opens with an eloquent difcourfe of M. FORMEY, in which that ancient Academician celebrates the eminent qualities of the late Monarch (then alive), and thofe of Meffrs. Daniel Bernquilli, D'Alembert, and Euler. This is followed by the prize-queftions propofed by the Academy, and the names of the perfons to whom the prizes were adjudged.

The article of ASTRONOMY contains extracts of letters received from several eminent men in that line, but no discovery of confequence. The medical, chemical, optical, and meteorological articles, together with the books, manufcripts, and machines, that were prefented to the Academy in the year 1784, exhibit nothing either new or peculiarly interefting.

EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

Mem. I. Experiments made with a View to discover the Proper tion in which different Fluids are dilated by different and known Degrees of Heat. By M. ACHARD. The experiments related in this memoir are ingenious and fatisfactory; their results are exhibited in feveral tables, with great precifion and perfpicuity. The fluids that have been brought to trial in this feries of expe

* For our account of the Berlin Memoirs, for 1783, fee Appendix to our 75th volume,

riments,

riments, are mercury, diftilled water, folutions of fal ammoniac, and decrepitated fea falt in diftilled water; fpirit of mindererus, the liquor of terra foliata tartari, aqueous spirit of fal ammoniac, cauftic fpirit of fal ammoniac, fpirit of wine highly rectified, Hoffman's mineral anodyne drops, dulcified fpirit of nitre, oil of vitriol, concentrated vinegar, faturated folutions of iron in nitrous and marine acids, a folution of mercury in the nitrous acid, faturated folutions of lead and zinc in the fame acid, a faturated folution of zinc in marine acid, faturated folutions of the regulus of antimony and cobalt in aqua regia; the vitriolic, nitrous, and marine ethers; the oils of wax, amber, turpentine, lavender, lemon-rind, annifeed, caraway, mint, olive, fweet almonds, &c.

Mem. II. Refearches made in order to discover an exact Method of measuring the relative Quantities of Phlogifton, contained in a given Sort of Air, fo as that the Degrees of the Phlogistication of the Air may be reduced, by that Method, to juft and numerical Proportions. By THE SAME. M. ACHARD has undertaken to prove, in this memoir, that none of the eudiometers, hitherto in ufe, are adapted to answer the purposes for which fuch inftruments are defigned. The errors which take place, when the degree of falubrity of any portion of air is measured by thefe inftruments, are occafioned by the methods employed to phlogisticate the air which is to be examined. This our Academician endeavours to prove, by fhewing the inconveniencies which attend the methods of phlogisticating the air, whofe falubrity is to be afcertained by mixing it, in a certain proportion, with nitrous air, as has been done by Dr. Priestley and M. Fontana; or with inflammable air, which is the method of Volta, or with fulphur and filings of iron, which was practifed by Scheele. According to our Author, the only way of obtaining a good eudiometer, or of determining with certainty the mephiticilm of the air, is to find out a method of faturating it completely with phlogifton, without expofing it to any other alterations, independent on M. ACHARD, after those which the phlogifton produces.

many fruitless attempts to difcover fuch a method, found, at length, that Kunkel's phosphorus has all the qualities that are requifite for that purpose. Its great inflammability, which furpaffes, confiderably, that of all other bodies, renders it capable of burning in the air, as long as the latter is not totally faturated with the phlogifton; and as this phofphorus contains, excepting the phlogifton, no principle that is volatile, and capable of combining itself with the air, or making it undergo any alteration, its combuftion produces in the air no other changes than thofe which are derived immediately from its combination with the phlogifton, and are totally independent on any other caufe.

PP 4

Mem.

Mem. III. Eflimate of the Salubrity of the Atmospherical Air, in different Places, within the compass of 16 miles. By THE SAME. No fubject in the fphere of natural philofophy is more important than the falubrity of the air. It has been proved by experiments, that the degree of its falubrity depends fo much on the degree of its dephlogistication, that these terms are confidered as fynonymous. But, according to our Academician, the attention of philofophers has been too much confined to inquiries on the operations by which air, inclosed within narrow limits, is corrupted or meliorated; and as he thinks it of great confequence to the health of mankind, to extend these researches to the falubrity of the atmosphere, as far as it depends on particular and local cicumftances, this is the object which he propofes confidering in the prefent Memoir.

A confiderable number of intelligent perfons offered their fervices in collecting the portions of air that were to furnish the materials for M. ACHARD's experiments; and all poffible precautions (here circumftantially defcribed) were used to prevent ambiguous or uncertain refults. Air was collected in nineteen different places, eight days fucceffively, and each day at three dif ferent and ftated times; fo that from each place 24 portions of air were obtained; confequently, from the whole, 456 portions; the examination of which, by two eudiometers, required 912 different trials. The refults of these trials are exhibited in an accurate and ample table, which facilitates the comparifon to the reader.

From the eudiometrical trials of the air of different places, made with nitrous air, fome in Summer, the others in Winter, our Academician has drawn a confiderable number of interefting conclufions. The principal ones deducible from the trials made in the Summer-feafon are as follows: 1ft, That there is an evident variation in the ftate of the falubrity of the air, in the fame place, at different times:-2. That the hour of the day does not seem to have a particular and conftant influence on the quality of the air;-that neither the weather, confidered as dufky or clear, dry or moift, calm or windy, nor the warmth or different preffure of the atmosphere, feem to have any influence upon the degree of the falubrity of the air;-that, contrary to what is generally imagined, the air is the most falubrious in thofe places which are the moft inhabited * ;-that, cæteris paribus,

When it is confidered, on the one hand, that the phlogistication (and confequently the infalubrity) of the air, is occafioned by the reipiration of animals, by the putrefaction of animal and vegetable fubflances, and by the combuftion of bodies, and, on the other, that the air is confiderably meliorated by vegetation, as appears particularly from late difcoveries, the refults of M. Achard must

at

« ПредишнаНапред »