BULLS, and BADGERS, COCK-THROWING, &c. are other evils that call loudly for a remedy; a diversion "to satisfy the cruelty of a barbarous multitude;" a school for thieves and murderers, and their partisans. Excellent method of improving and continuing the natural dispositions of a virtuous people!

The absurdity and folly of docking and cropping HORSES and Dogs entirely spoils them, by abating from their utility, and consequent value. Diminishing the volume of the ear, impairs their hearing, and affects the eyes; and interfering with the tail, impedes their speed; as is evinced in the greyhound, in which the mutilated tail destroys fleetness of foot.

It is also of the greatest consequence to "prevent and punish" the least tendency to cruelty in children, by a suffering similar in kind, to prevent the infallible consequences of inveterate and permanent habits of the most dangerous nature. Dr. Andrew Bell has very properly noticed this in his Analysis of Education; and Dr. Colquhoun, in his System of Education, p. 40. The means of carrying this desirable and highly necessary part of judicious police into execution, depends on duly enforcing the existing laws, and obtaining from those in power to lend their aid, by enacting such others as may be found necessary."

We are persuaded that the benevolent intentions of the writer will not rest here. Happily our country abounds in philanthropists, who will think the removal of this stain on its national morals, a part of their duty and character; and we invite the opinions of our correspondents, as to the most practicable means of effecting the reformation of a profligacy, with which other countries are not backward to reproach us.

We shall be happy to be the medium of communication, if the establishment of a society for this purpose should be resolved on. Private letters, if desired, will be forwarded to the writer from whom we have received this communication. Several gentlemen have already pledged themselves to support such an institution, whenever, from the encouragement of others, there appears to be a rational prospect of success. In the mean time, we recommend the consideration of the subject to the attention of our friends, in order that the best means of carrying it into effect may be selected and combined from the plans of several rather than from that of an individual,

DIDASCALIA.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE THEATRICAL SEASON OF 1806-7.

The history of the human mind presents a variety of objects to the attentive observer: childhood, middle life, old age, has, each of them, its pleasures and its gratifications, which would be thought ridiculous, if not unnatural, in the other ages of life. An estimate tolerably correct of the disposition of an individual, may be formed from the knowledge of what most delights him: if his rational powers are engaged on rational subjects, we augur well of his abilities, his judgement, and his conduct. If his attention is absorbed by frivolities, we consider his faculties as weak; but if by meanness, we remit our censures, and exercise our com. passion. The Theatre is an amusement, which, when it has established itself in a country, is seldom wholly removed. Those who favour the Drama, describe it as rational, refined, moral, virtuous, and exemplary. It certainly does not partake of the nature of athletic sports; it neither strings the nerves with health, nor invigorates the body by exercise, it neither encreases speed, nor augments strength. Whatever it assumes as recommendation, must be derived from mental gratification and from the correctness of those almost living pictures of the effects of virtue and vice which it is capable of presenting to the sympathizing spectator. A drama is, moreover, a work of skill and art; a mere history in dialogue, is no drama; but the imagination of the writer is expected to interest the sensibility of the spectator, and to conduct his story, or to enforce his sentiments, with contrivance and ingenuity, with vivacity yet with discretion. The presentation of a drama is, it must be acknowledged, an incident of great hazard to the writer, and to the theatre itself; it is a moment at which concealed malignity or open enmity may produce effects of the utmost importance, to those who have laboured long on a subject intended to interest and amuse the public, to those who have expended thousands in preparation of what a mischievous association of hisses may reduce to utter insolvency. In the course of the theatrical campaign we have spoken our sentiments on theatrical operations without any bias on our opinion; except that arising from the execution of justice in mercy. But it might not be unwise, if the town, at the close of a season, would look back, and consider to what kind of entertainment its attention has been requested, and what were those subjects which it has been solicited to applaud. The labour of this reminiscence is probably too great for the general mass of that population which assumes the title of the town:" the

exertion is too much to expect: but if it were done for them by some impartial obser1 ver, the result might prove advantageous, both to the theatre and to the auditory.

If Voltaire was correct in describing the English as a nation of Philosophers, we cannot but attach some degree of importance to the very amusements of such a nation: and were we called on to predict the subjects with which they would be gratified, with what pleasure should we anticipate the most vigorous efforts of manly reason, the refined wisdom of ages, the renovated incidents of former generations, interesting in themselves, to us, their descendants, especially, but greatly increased in interest, by the combined influence of compressed arrangement, elegant diction, forcible sentiment, and judicious moral. The heart made better while the fancy is delighted, the passions moved, either to abhor vice, or to practice virtue, to drop the ridiculous aberrations of caprice, or to cherish the principles of honour, and to promote the genuine dignity of our species,

The noble mind's distinguishing perfection, That aids and strengthens Virtue where it meets her,

And imitates her actions where she is not. Turn now, gentle reader, to matter of fact.

This "nation of philosophers" has been enraptured with-The Ogre and TomThumb! -with Mother Goose and the Golden Egg! -with Seven League Boots, and real inundations from the New River. We solemnly repeat, in defiance of incredulity, that the nation to which foreigners resort pour apprendre le penser, to learn to think, has had presented to it, those childish, those infantine poverties, which every little man in the kingdom has thrown aside with his bib or his pin-afore! We have been taught to expect wit in compositions which would disgrace the author of Gammer Gurton, and elegance in the awkward motions of a monster, to expect delight from scenes which sense could not vindicate, nor judgement endure. Those who have any regard for the reputation of their nation, will with extreme reluctance recollect the poverty of our drama: to investigate is to expose it: foreigners on the continent and elsewhere, will receive our protestations as irony, and posterity will with difficulty believe (if it actually enforces on itself a kind of belief) the truth of our reports, for the correctness of which we appeal to all our contempo

raries.

But perhaps, it will be said, that public encouragement has not enabled the managers to provide entertainments of a superior nature. We do not affect to be able to state the finances of either Theatre from the treasurer's books; but, if the immense wealth poured into the lap of Madame Catalani may

be any guide to our guesses, the disposition of the public is sufficiently distant from parsimony. Five thousand Guineas for a single season of appearance in public; two benefits, one of which is guaranteed to produce a thousand guineas, and the second as much as it may, are terms which surely do not imply any reluctance in British audítories to pay the full price of their pleasures. We are glad to see every token of wealth and generosity among our countrymen, and of late we have seen many which in our opinion do them honour: but whether we ought not to distinguish those called for by noble and laudable occasions, is what we submit to the cool consideration of the judicious. This, surely, we may say, that while such terms are universally reported and credited, our national Theatres cannot be permitted to shelter the inanity of their presentations, under the pretence of want of public support. We detract from the merit of no one: but we say, produce that merit which may justify applause; relinquish that nonsense which even clowns despise. If the Theatre be capable of rationality, prove it by facts if it be favourable to morals instance those morals: and if it may promote genuine patriotisin, and truly British honour, let it produce our Henrys and Edwards; but not the imaginary tales of the nursery, or the marvels of Mr. Newberry's Works in Lilliputian octavo, which are freely given to all good little masters and misses as rewards for their goodness; their papas and mamas only paying two pence for the binding!

:

Our readers will have observed, that in various other respects, the Theatre has felt our castigating hand. Some of the new pieces have been feeble, and others crude: they had a certain degree of merit, but it was seldom unaccompanied by drawbacks which ruined the combined effect of the whole. Others stood in great need of a truly critical friend, or truly friendly critic, † who could have spoken his mind freely to the author, and whom the author would have heard and reasoned with till convinced of the necessity of curtailing in such or such instances, and of entering more fully into character, in such or such others. Authors are usually too tender on the subject of criticism: they refuse to learn they enter on defence before they have well heard an accusation, and usually, they refuse to hear the reasoning on which an accusation is founded. This should not be. He is an ignorant builder who refuses to apply the plumb line, whoever may offer it as a rule of judgement, when the

*We except the Curfew.

+ Adelgitha cannot here escape the reader's recollection.

perpendicularity of his building is in ques

tion.

We make no remarks on the cunning but not honest arts, intended to ensure popularity, to which the Theatre has had recourse. We believe that there never was a time when favour was more assiduously solicited by the directors of public diversions from the very lowest doorkeepers of the Temple of Faine. Hence praises have been lavished by our prostituted public prints, on productions which absolutely disgraced common sense, and hireling criticism has affected to style itself" the voice of the Public;" and has persuaded a certain portion of the "groundlings "to believe that they were satisfied with what they saw; whereas, to do them justice, had they been left to the unbiassed exercise of their judgements, the Houses would have found in the public a discerniment very capable of rejecting the insipidities offered to its approbation.

But, we find no pleasure in censure; and still less in scrutinizing into those lamentable deficiencies which it is a labour of no very gratifying description to particularize. We turn with a mixture of respect and regret to consider the effect of that criticism which the manager of a theatre has an undoubted right to exercise on the pieces he presents to the public. It is well known, that we have differed entirely on the subject of the Tempest, from the manager who has adopted the additions with which the libidinous muse of Dryden disfigured that beautiful drama. We are extremely unwilling to suppose, with Mrs. Inchbald, that the Tempest of Shakespeare stands in any need of Dryden's alteration-that the mild and airyspirit, Ariel, cannot charm an audience, except by singing, and that this drama does not interest the passions. We cannot so far abandon our judgements as to suffer our passions to be moved, with the pettish quarrel of the two lovers of Dryden, and the two loveresses, who know nothing, and yet too much. Still less can we tolerate the sympathetic powers of cure, patronized by Sir Kenelm Digby: by which the wound would be healed if the sword that gave it was anointed with--Roman vitriol! Nor can we think the aid of Dryden's alteration was very great, when it thus touched on metaphysics:

Dorinda. What is the soul?

Hippolyto. A small blue thing, that runs about within us.

Dorinda. Then have I seen it in a frosty morning run smoking from my mouth.

Is it possible that simplicity should be more injudiciously simple? We are indeed tempted to adopt one line, and but one, of this alteration:

Henceforward let your surgery alone.

If then we enquire what honourable additions have been made to the literature of our country, in the theatrical season that is past, or what support morality has received from the pieces presented duting the course of it; if we examine what share of applause may fairly be claimed by merit, and what must be attributed to meretricious glare, and to mere stage effect ;-we are almost inclined to conclude, that the Drama is sinking rapidly into a state when it will not retain a shadow of those high sounding epithets, which some have bestowed on it: The theatre is the

school of virtue."-Is it, what virtue has it taught this season ?-"The theatre is a most rational amusement."-Is it, how then has it been so prolific in folly, night after night? "The theatre is a remedy for the spleen:-" No: whoever possessing common sense, and permitting common sense to influence him, has, this season, attended the theatre, must have sunk into the spleen, on reflecting how ill his time has been employed, in beholding what others equally ill employed their time in presenting. Charity indeed, might over persuade him, that as these wights must live, he might disguise under that lovely name, the feelings of his mind, and banish from his ideas the consideration of the comparative merit between these subjects, and others of which he could hardly be ignorant.

We have delayed our remarks to the close of the season, because, it cannot now be said, that ill-nature has any share in them. It cannot be said that we have been influenced by pique or by partiality: no performer is the price of a single ticket out of pocket by our censures; no author has a single hiss of disapprobation to charge us with, as leading a party to his detriment; no manager has suffered damage to the amount of a single guinea, or has found his property affected to the value even of an order. But in justice to those who, in succeeding seasons, may be placed in the office of cultivating the public taste (an office of great responsibility, delicacy, and difficulty), we cannot but wish that they may possess fortitude enough to resist the introduction of such childish nonsense, and ridiculous trumpery, as we have witnessed; and may avoid the uncharacteristic characters of heroes without heroism, soldiers without courage, lawyers without law, merchants without method, maidens without modesty, parents without affection, lovers without feeling, and learned women without an atom of wit or erudition :-for such have been prominent characters in Adrian and Orilla-Vindictive Man-Tempest (not Shakespeare's) · Arbitration Fale Alarms-Assignation-Town and Coun try-A Day in London-Peter the Great,

Virtus est vitium fugere; et sapienția prima, Stultitia caruisse,

The reading of Mr. Home's interesting paper on the stomachs of animals, engaged the attention of the society February 12, and April 23 and 30. Mr. H. took an extensive view of the comparative anatomy of the stomach, in man, horses, dogs, elephants, &c. in ruminating animals, and in those of the cetaceous genus; also of the crop and gizzard of birds.

Although Mr. Home has examined several of the cetaceous animals, and in the present instance has dissected a bottle-nosed porpoise, which had six bags, constituting its stomach, yet he has succeeded only in ascertaining the relative dimensions of these parts, without being able to assign any satisfactory cause for such an important difference of structure.

But he has traced the analogy between the mascular stomachs of birds, whose bills serve to separate the husks from the seeds, and those animals whose fore-teeth assist in seizing their food; between those of carnivorous and of granivorous animals, as in the whale, hippopotamus, beaver, water-rat, ass, horse, dog, and man. In the stomach of the horse, ass, and water-rat, much similarity appeared. The kangaroo exhibited a peculiarity in the great length of its stomach, which is covered with a thin cuticle, and supported by numerous muscles to revent the food, as it occasionally ruminates, according to the observations of Sir J. Banks, at New South Wales; although those in the menagerie at Exeter Change, have never been perceived to perform any such function. Mr. H. then made a summary recapitulation of the particular structure of the various stomachs which he had examined, and divided them into six classes: 1. stomachs of ruminating animals: 2. of non-ruminating animals: 3. of animals ruminating occasionally: 4. of carnivorous animals: 5. of granivorous: and, 6. of herbivorous animals.

In the conclusion, Mr. H. expressed his opinion, that all animals may ruminate; and after referring to the observations of certain writers on this subject, he related a case which he had seen of a lad, aged 19, who ruminates all his food. This lad is blind, has a voracious appetite, and his attendants limit his daily quantity. After he has finished his allowance, he regurgitates a part, chews and swallows it; Mr. H. has seen him eat: when he has finished ruminating, he retires

about the size of a star of the 5th or 6th magnitude, and was found in the sign Virgo. It has received the name of Vesta.

This new planet was observed by Stephen Groombridge, Esq. at his observatory at Blackheath, in consequence of the accounts transmitted from the continent. It is of a dusky white colour, very like in its ap pearance to the Georgium Sidus.

These observations, and those of the royal astronomer, were communicated April 30. Equinoxes, Precession of.

Mr. Robertson, Savilian professor of geo metry in the university of Oxford, communi. of the Equinox," proposing some new methods cated Dec. 18, a paper on "The Precession of ascertaining with greater accuracy than has been hitherto done, the calculations of compound rotary motions; he added to his paper, seven mathematical tables adapted to his new theory.

Chemistry.

In the sittings of the 20th and 27th of November, 11th and 18th of December, Mr. Davy, in the " Bakerean lecture," con sidered electricity as a "chemical agent." The preliminary experiments related chiefly to the production of fixed alkali in water, by means of a powerful galvanic battery, having the positive and negative wires inserted in different inoxidizable vessels containing distilled water. From these experiments, a very obvious but very important fact resulted, that even dis tilled water is never chemically pure, but that it frequently retains both vegetable and ani mal matter combined, or dissolved in it, and always nitrogen gas, or some kind of salt.. Hence, after repeated experiments, he found that electricity did not generate fixed alkali, as supposed by Pachiani, but only evolved it. Water, observed Mr. D., when chemically pure (a state which at present scarcely ap pears practicable by art) is decomposed by electricity, and resolved into pure oxygen and hydrogen.

The third, fourth, and fifth section of Mr. D's. lecture, consisted chiefly of numerous isolated experiments, on the effects of electri city on different chemical compounds, most of which it decomposed, and on certain chemical menstrua, in all of which the negative pole disengaged oxygen, and the posi tive pole disengaged hydrogen.

Astronomy.

66

electric influence, as having assisted him in his researches, and holding up a quarry to the busy mine of future philosophers.

We noticed Pachiani's discovery in our first volume, page 557. The production of muriatic acid from water by galvanic agency, was at first vainly attempted by the French chemists; they have since, however, succeeded, and confirm the correctness of this learned Italian's observations. Saff has, notwithstanding, entered his protest against this pretended discovery. He aflirmis, that the acid produced is, the nitric acid, which he discovered six years ago; that water, exposed to the influence of the negative pole, produces ammonia, &c. He pledges himself for the correctness of these results, and announces the publication of his experiments.

Mineralogy.

May 7, a letter was read from a gentleman at Penzance to Mr. Giddy, detailing some singular appearances in the strata, found in sinking a shaft for a tin mine in Cornwall. Pyrites, Schist, and Chlorite alternately occurred, at different depths; but the most remarkable circumstance was that of a stratum of pebbles, found immediately contiguous to the tin, and at the immense depth of seventy-eight fathoms below the surface of the heart. Natural History.

This branch of knowledge has been enriched by learned and new observations on the mechanism and functions of subjects already known, rather than by discoveries of new species.

Physics.

Capt. Flinders communicated to the society, his observations on the variations of the magnetic needle, a subject which has long engaged the attention of the learned, and hitherto with little advantage. Nor are Capt. F's. conclusions entirely satisfactory; he supposes that the guns and shot on board a ship, are sufficient to produce a magnetic atmosphere, which must operate powerfully on the polarity of the needle; hence he infers the reason of the variations in the needle according to the direction of the ship's head, which amounted sometimes from 4 to 8, 9, and even 10 degrees; but even this being granted, how are we to account for the variation of the needle in vessels which carry neither guns nor shot? As to the regular variations, he found no material difference between his own observations on the coast of New Holland, and those made by Capt. Cook, 30 years before.-These papers were ared March 9, April 9, 16.,

Jan. 22, 29, and Feb. 5. Mr. Davy communicated the result of experiments made by Dr. Herschel, which contradict Sir Isaac Newton's explanation of the concentric rays of light, seen between two lenses placed on each other, or brought into contact, in various manners. Dr. Herschel rejects the supposi

tion of Sir Isaac, in ascribing fits of transmission to light, and details various minute experiments, which he had performed with plano-concave, and plano-convex lenses, of different dimensions, in order to produce these concentric rays.

The colour of those rings seen through a lens of 120, were black and white; those through one of 40 were red; those through one of 14, were violet, &c. Thus these concentric rings, which through a glass of one focus appeared black, through another appeared blue; and so on, throughout the whole series of prismatic colours. These experiments were made with lenses of varied dimensions, from one of 120 feet focus, down to those of the most common glasses. The Dr. concludes from them, that light cannot have fits of easy transmission and reflection, as supposed by Sir Isaac; and therefore that this phenomenon must be ascribed to another cause, which he proposes to investigate in a second part of his paper. Dr. Herschel affirms that these experiments were made several years ago, and thus claims the priority over Dr. Bancroft, who has already published similar observations.

Physiology.

In the sitting of Nov. 13, 1806, M. Peirson concluded his paper on Muscular Motion. He entered into long and entertaining details of the relative heat and pulsations of animals, in different latitudes, with a view to ascertain their effects on the muscles. In this country, he observed, horses pulsate 36 times in a minute, cows 48, and men 72. In Lapland, and in the northern provinces of Russia, men pulsate only from 45 to 50 in a minute. From these observations on pulsation, however, we can draw no positive conclusion relative to its effects on muscular motion. It appeared, indeed, that all ex-, cess either of heat or cold, is immediately followed by a sensible diminution of this power. Mr. P. made numerous experiments on the muscles of frogs; in all of which he found the muscular irritability completely destroyed, by plunging them in water at the temperature of 96°: electricity, after such immersions, sometimes gave slight symptoms of excitability, but no human effort could restore the muscular fibre to its proper tone; and vigour. Cold produced precisely similar effects on the muscular fibre, by instantly. destroying its irritability. Here Mr. P. ob served, that great care was necessary in. applying warm water to the surface of the body, in cases of suspended animation, as the heat might be equally as bad as cold, with regard to its effects on the muscular fibre, which he considered as being in some degree the organ of life. Blood, he alleged, was essential to life, only as a necessary stimuli s to muscular irritability. The effects of laurel water, and vegetable poisons, were