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INDEFINITE IMPROVEMENT.

NEITHER individuals, nor nations, become suddenly enlightened and corrupt. The young consult and imitate the old. The old are subject to the wisest; and these derive their superiority from study and reflection, corrected by experience. The influence of the aged and of books over the growing young gradually decreases: they who engage in active pursuits, become occupied by business and domestic cares; conversation and reading fill only small intervals in their life; their stock of wisdom is circulated, experience increases their knowledge of its uses, and augments its value:-they, who are not called to active life, and who do not abandon themselves to idleness or pleasure, are occupied in enlarging their capital of knowledge, by study, reflection, and speculation. When these two classes have become old, the speculations of the one, corrected by the experience of the other, make both better instructers of the young than their predecessors.

some with whole coats, some with ragged ones, and others with none at all, with small-clothes, to which even courtesy could hardly give the name, garterless stockings, and all the etceteras of Irish tatterdemalions. The most respectable one wore a coarse blue jacket, with a silver badge sewed upon the sleeve about as big as the palm of one's hand. We detained him to carry the vessel in, and as the others lingered, Capt. Minquired what they wanted. The fellow's hat was raised with the back of the right hand, the fingers being the while employed in gently scratching his curly pate, which was a little inclined towards the left shoulder; he anwered, with unutterable brogue, "Pork and While these were preparing, he begged a glass of grog to pass away the time, drank it off with great gusto, and devoutly hoped that "sorrow might never go so near his heart as that did." The knights of the ragged small-clothes at last left us to continue our sail along the shore of a highly cultivated country covered more and more thickly with villages, churches, &c. The To what then shall it be attributed, that sky was, during the afternoon, occasionally wisdom and experience secure not individveiled by fleecy clouds, through the inster-uals from mistake, nor nations from decline? stices of which the rays of the sun every now Error frequently assumes the garb and the and then streamed out upon some spot of office of truth-the wisest and most expethe land, contrasting it richly with those in rienced are liable to generalize from imthe shade. As we entered the bay we perfect views, and to adopt false principles came in sight of the Pigeon-House, hill of an undue proneness to system and simpliHoth, and other spots renowned in novels. We had a smart squall for a short time as we entered, but it soon passed over, and as before we reached the light-house, the tide turned, we were obliged to cast anchor outside of the mole. Thus we handed our topsails just twenty-three days since we hoisted them in Boston harbour. We did not regret the delay; for the prospect around us was so delicious, we were unwilling to go on shore. The sky was neither clear nor cloudy, the air was just not calm, and the water gently rippled, or entirely smooth. We were nearly surrounded with fields, crossed with hedge-rows, checkered yellow and green with various cultivation, dotted with neat little buildings, or embossed with magnificent edifices; and this scene, exquisitely beautiful as it is in itself, rendered still more so to us by the charms of novelty and contrast. At sunset a boat came off from Dunleary, bringing a little ragged, waggish-looking boy, about the size and, except his dress, the exact resemblance of He had a small bag-pipe, and with the bellows under one arm and the bag under the other, came along side playing "Daintie Davie" with might and main. We were prepared to enjoy every thing, so we invited the piper on board, and improved the opportunity afforded by the first level surface we have trod on for three weeks, for performing a few reels, with much less grace than either zeal or agility. The Irish pipe is rather an agreeable instrument in the open air, and for a promoter of lively dancing is far superior to any I have ever met with. Tomorrow we go up to Dublin.-Farewell.

R.

fication is found among them, as among the ignorant-and it is not till evils have accumulated to oppression, that they are traced to their source: but errors rectified, are decided advantages; they give greater security to society,-for each corrected error is an obstacle removed from the path of improvement. Presumption also retards progression. Plans presenting brilliant prospects, and promising rich results, are deliberately investigated and accurately understood, before they are adopted-opposing prejudices are slowly overcome, and much time elapses before they take full effect, and then it is that brilliant prospects become dazzling reality. But the splendid consequences of a cautious execution of one plan are apt to generate presumption as to the adoption of another, and cause a stop or retrogradation. Thus the nations-each, perhaps, occasionally advancing a great way and occasionally falling back a little,-have ever been progressing; and, if there is a limit to man's improvement, there is no other destiny for him than Alexander's, to weep that there are no more surmountable evils, no more exertions to make, "no more worlds to conquer."

An analogy may be discovered between the material and moral worlds; to it, we must refer the opinion that civilized society has its infancy, maturity, and old age,—that as plants germinate, ripen, and wither, so society must be subject to the same law. Assuredly history furnishes no proof of this. Egypt was once preeminent above all the nations; she declined, and Greece, borrowing all that was useful, exhibited superior excellence; Greece declined, and Rome,

adopting the best part of her knowledge and institutions, and compounding them with her own, was enabled to leave behind bounds which Greece could not pass; Rome also declined,—and, after a long period of commotion and darkness, when, by the promulgation of Christianity and the incursions of the barbarians, a new order of things had taken place, the knowledge of Roman literature and institutions was revived, and the improvements and discoveries of the European nations have carried them beyond their predecessors. Thus the state of civilized society in one period is superior to its state in a preceding period,— and, though one nation rises and then falls, it is only that another may exult in an higher elevation,-it is only because the perfection of the former could not be greater than the existing state of things admitted. The analogy then between the moral and material worlds is slight: the poet may speak of the maturity and decay of a single empire, but not of civilized society. So the analogy between different periods of national existence and the hours of the day, or the seasons of the year, is sufficient merely to supply expressions denoting the vicissitudes of a single nation's existence, but cannot be extended to the civilized nations collectively, for they have neither noon nor night, summer nor winter.

When we talk, then, of the Alexandrian age of Grecian glory and literature,-of the Augustan age of Roman magnificence and learning, when we lament the debasement of Greece, and the darkness which followed the dissolution of the Roman empire, let us reflect that Rome, "take her for all in all," excelled Greece, and that her superiority was accelerated, if not caused, by the degradation of Greece;-let us also consider that the downfal of Rome has been succeeded by another age, more glorious, more learned, more philosophical, and more useful to mankind. By comprehensive views let us convince ourselves that civilized society becomes, by the vicissitudes or transformations of individual civilized nations, more susceptible of perfection, and constantly improves. We are too apt to look upon what we call the degeneracy or degradation of empires, only as effects; we do not take in the whole extent of events; we look upon them as constituting many chains; we ought to regard them as constituting one great chain, whose end man cannot see, but whose beginning may be traced to God; viewed in this light, each event is good and necessary, and each is better than the preceding.

We need review but cursorily the history of the world to perceive that it has ever been improving. For a long period only one nation was distinguished among its contemporaries; as one eminent nation fell, another rose, not to take its place, but to rise beyond it-at a later period, we shall find two or more nations contending for the palm of merit-and the number of rivals has been gradually increasing, until, at the present day, we find continents contending with each other for a preeminence in worth

From what has been, we have every reason to infer that the world shall improve until all the nations shall become civilized,—each a rival to its neighbour, and every one striving to obtain the superiority in excellence-all shall improve, yet the world never reach what it will continue to approach,-perfection. W. Cambridge, Oct. 11.

To the Editor of the U. S. L. Gazette.

MR EDITOR,

A few nights since, after reading a recent publication respecting this country, which interest ed me considerably,

wisdom, liberty, and true glory,-in every | ures changed with my age, though I founded their civil institutions. It was the sinthing that exalts man, and both exhibit- myself often retiring to the same place, Igle determination of every man, to subing an approach to perfection which past ascended part way up the hill, and instead mit his religious sentiments to no tribunal ages never saw. of my fishing-rod, took with me a book-but to that of God and his own conscience, the plaything of more advanced childhood. which finally produced the republican form This spot had become in some measure the of government. Say not, then, there is no home of my leisure or my listless hours. union of church and state; for there is a But my familiarity had not rendered me union of the heart, though not of the hand. insensible to its beauties; it had rather en- That there is this union, let the example of deared them to me. I had not been here France testify. Had there existed in that long, before I was addressed by a man, ap- country the same sense of religion that is parently about the age of forty, whom I found in yours, she would not, in her zeal saw not until he spake to me. I never in to be free, have laid the hand of violence my life remember to have seen so much on liberty herself. She would have wooed, decision without harshness, and dignity not ravished. She would have resembled the without reserve. For him to instruct, and good man, standing forth in the steadfast defor me to listen, was a thing so natural, fence of his rights; not the felon broken from that he replied rather to my thoughts than his prison. She would have stood omnipoto my words. tent, with justice for her cause, heaven her 'In what,' said he, 'would you be in-protection, and wisdom her law; and not structed?' have wasted her strength in the impotent efforts of madness. The peculiar characteristic of thy country which has marked her progress, is religious liberty; the cause and the effect of religious principle. This must prevail throughout the world. Think of its effects on the civil institutions, the laws, habits, and customs of other nations, and measure, if you can, the influence of thine own, the centre from which it emanates. You desired to know something of the future prospects of your country; I have shewn her peculiar characteristic, from this, if she is true to herself, judge ye of her prospects. I have carried thee to the root of the tree, and analyzed the juices which give it sustenance; to count the fruit, the branches, and the leaves, were endless.'

-I had a dream,

That was not all a dream;——

I cast my eye from the eminence on But such as it was, if it will help you to fill a page, which I was, to the surrounding objects beyou and your readers are welcome to it. neath me; I would learn, I replied, something of the future prospects of my country.

A DREAM.

INDICUS.

I retired to rest weary, though not fa- 'You know,' said he, ‹ the fruit, from the tigued. I was not in that frame of mind, seed that is planted. You may see the which demands sleep, as the victim of in- character of your country, in that of the temperance seeks the draught which will few men who first stept on its shores. They extinguish care or lassitude in forgetful- were full of the divine intentions of Heavness; but the day had already ended; the en, which later times have but partially demorrow had commenced; and I regarded veloped. The future exists in the present; the repose which I sought, but as a quiet the present existed in the past. Revolupreparation for what my hands might next tions are often the effect of causes, which find to do, rather than a state of lethargic have been in operation for centuries. The lifelessness. Man is not held to be account-independence of America was achieved able for his dreams, because he cannot con- before she was discovered; even when the trol them; for that very reason they indi- human mind was redeemed from superstition, cate his character; and imperfect indeed from the dire bondage of religious slave- He proceeded-Look not for the promust his be, whose dreams are stained with ry. The independence of America, did I gress of religion to the din of controversy, deeds of wantonness or cruelty. Thoughts say? I should have said the independence and the noise of party. The effects of are then spontaneous, and they disclose the of the whole world. That strong, convul- these must be as ephemeral as the feelings way in which we are disposed to act. May sive impulse to liberty, which the earth from which they proceed. The crusades not the waking hours often profit by les- feels from its centre to its circumference, to the holy land to rescue it from the foot sons, that the hours of slumber will give; which the iron hand of despotism can hard- of infidels, were not more the effect of amfor the heart never reflects its own image ly bind, is an effect of the same cause, bition, feebly masked by false religion, than more truly, than when the limbs lie still; which is already strengthened by its suc- are the controversies that have since agithe eyes are closed; the breath prolonged; cessful operation in thy country. There is tated Christendom. The power and enand the whole influence which man exerts this only difference. Here the strong de- signs of religion have been bestowed on over himself, suspended. termination to pursue an upright course the foulest passions of the human heart, as carried with it enough of faith for the ac- the temple of God has afforded protection complishment of that, which other nations to the outlaw and assassin. Religious truth could hardly believe to be possible, until is not a treasure which a man may easily the reality proved itself before them. God defend with his sword; he would seek in sent his veterans in the cause of religious vain, after his victory, for that which he freedom and civil liberty, to this country, had fought for. It is to be found neither that they might be in the front of the bat- in the despondency of defeat, nor the extle. And as other countries gradually ef- ultation of conquest. It is not a prize to fect that, which yours has already accom- be gained by strength, or lost by weakness. plished, from being the youngest, you will It is reflected from the calm and quiet become regarded as the eldest nation on heart in the faithful and peaceable disthe earth. Happy country! destined to charge of its duties, like the face of nareceive aggrandizement, not from hard-ture from the placid water. There exists, I soon found myself in a pleasant field, fought battles, and ill-deserved conquests; deep in the minds of very many, far renot far from my abode; it was indeed a but from every successful struggle in the moved from what is often called religion, a place which I often visited both in my wak-cause of civil and religious liberty, where- conscientious regard to their duty, produced ing and sleeping hours. It is situated on a ever it may be.-The union of church and and nurtured by the word of God. This it declivity facing the east, and at its foot state has been a most unhallowed connex- is, which will grow, and work miracles on moved a narrow stream, of considerable earth.-The literature of your country depth, overhung with willows Hither, in will be as distinctly marked as its governmy youthful days, I used to go for the purpose ment. It will be the wreath, which will of fishing; and as the nature of my pleasdecorate her civil and religious institutionss

I am more accustomed than most persons to watch my dreams. They amuse me, at least; and they have sometimes almost as much distinctness and continuity as the "visions" elaborated by writers who are broad awake. I will not say that I dreamed the following, just as I have written it; but something like it I did dream. I had retired at a rather late hour, and the moon kept me awake for some time; but her beams gradually withdrew to the foot of my bed; the moaning of the wind was heard less audibly; and I slept.

ion, not from essential necessity, but from
the depravity of man. It was the peculiar
ly religious character of this people, which
achieved their independence, and establish-

and will derive its life from that of which it is the ornament. It will be a real, substantial, living form, on whose face may be read the inmost workings of the soul. It will not as yet-if ever-abound with fiction, for as the eye looks into the past, it is only as it loses itself in a dim and doubtful twilight, that it discovers the shadowy forms of romance; and America has no dark ages, to be the illimitable haunt of those who would work into reality the phantasms of their own minds. The literature of America will be beautiful and strong and chaste and healthy.'

The last words sounded in my ears as I awoke, and saw the full splendour of the sun falling where I had last seen the gentle light of the moon. I recalled the lead ing parts of the conversation as well as I could, and spent my first hour of leisure in arranging them in this form.

MR EDITOR,

used merely as attributives, is divided into
adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. None
of our grammarians have, however, so de-
fined either of these parts of speech, as to
give us any means of determining what
words belong to it. They have given ta-
bles of those which they think belong to
each of these classes; and, but for these
tables, we should be left wholly in the dark.
No competent reason is given for making
of these words three parts of speech, and
they might, for all that appears, as well
have been divided into twenty.

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Most of our rules for connexion, arrangement, and government, depend on these undefined words; and these rules are generally such as children cannot understand, and men forget or despise. At least, nine tenths of the time devoted in our common schools in learning to parse, is rendered necessary solely by the folly of these rules. Let us take the first, for an example, and combine with it those which relate to I would direct the attention of some of your book in school." the objective case. "The boy reads his readers to the most important faults of our common Boy" is in the nomina systems of English grammar; and your apparent tive case, beyond a doubt. But what is the willingness to estimate aright the importance of nominative case? "The nominative case these inquiries, which I propose making, encourages denotes an agent or actor; or it is the me to hope that you will admit my essays, if I subject of the verb." How long will it take may venture so to call them. I am aware, that to many of your readers, they cannot be interesting; a child to understand, from this explanaand I hardly dare to hope, that they will fully con- tion, that boy is, for this reason, the nominvince those who may read them with interest; but if ative case to reads? What will he know they serve to fix the attention of thinking men upon then, that he did not know before? He will topics which are certainly of great importance, and know that grammarians call a word thus have certainly been too long and too much neglect- situated, in the nominative case. In speaked, my principal purpose will be answered. ing or writing the sentence, he would have used exactly the same words, and arranged them in the same order, without this information. Before parsing the sentence he must understand it; and if he understand it, he cannot say the book reads the boy; that is, he cannot give the term boy, the situation of any thing except what grammarians term the nominative. The word is the same in the nominative and the objective, and hence no error can be committed in the term itself. In fact, the scholar does not learn to guard against error, nor to understand the sentence better than he did before; but devotes a long portion of previous time to learning this really useless fact-that a word having a certain use, or performing a certain office in a sentence, is called by a certain name. With few exceptions, these remarks will apply to this case wherever it occurs.

W

ON THE COMMON SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH
GRAMMAR.

THERE is no fact more obvious than that no method of parsing the English language has yet been devised, which gives general satisfaction to teachers or learners. All allow that Murray's Grammar, for example, contains much useful information, and affords great assistance towards speaking and writing correctly; but it could scarcely have been made to contain less that is of any use in analyzing the language-reducing it to its elements, and showing the precise use of every word in a sentence. Many words in our language of very common use, and of essential importance, have apparently lost their original, radical meaning, because they are no longer used as leading terms, but only as qualifying terms. Still, if the use of these is to be governed by any It is required that the nominative case rule or system of rules, they must be de- shall govern the verb in number and perfined. Although custom may be uniform in son. The noun boy, is singular, therefore, many cases, and there may be little danger the verb reads, must be singular. But this, of error, there are hundreds of those in so far as it regards the use of the words, is which even the learned do not agree in their learned when the language is learned, and use of terms, because they do not see their not from grammars; and as to the fact, radical meaning. Our dictionaries afford that different forms of the verb are someus little assistance in determining their times required, by our grammars, to sucspecific signification; and our grammars ceed nominatives of different numbers, it is profess to teach us how to construe and of no consequence. All that the scholar parse the language with scarcely any reference to their meaning. Murray gives from Horne Tooke a few definitions, but his system of parsing has no reference to them. This numerous class of words, which were originally nouns and verbs, but are now

learns from this, and most other parts of
our grammars, is to apply certain technical
terms to what he perfectly understood be-
fore. We are told that all nouns are of the
third person, except when they denote the
object of a direct address. This may be

comprehended by most children of ten or twelve years of age, after considerable instruction and explanation. But what is the use of teaching them this fact? No person ever violated this part of the rule, and there can never be a doubtful case for this to determine. Is not the time devoted to it, therefore, misspent?

Let us leave the nominative, and proceed to the other nouns in the sentence. Book and school are both in the objective case. Is not this a little remarkable that two nouns, one of which expresses the object of a transitive verb, and the other denotes the place where the action expressed by the verb is performed, should be considered in the same case. It is to be remembered, that by cases are denoted the relations which nouns and pronouns bear to other words in the same sentence. The nomina tive denotes the agent; the genitive denotes the possessor; and the objective is made to represent all other relations which exist between nouns, and between nouns and verbs. The principal use of parsing is to acquire the habit of analyzing our language, for the purpose of determining the exact meaning of every word, and its relation to other words in connexion with it: or, to say what we mean in another way, it is to determine exactly the use of every word in the place where it occurs. I suppose no one will dispute the correctness of this assertion. In those languages in which nouns are varied in form, to express certain relations to other words, it is of use, at least to those who learn the language from books, to have the nouns declined. But in English we have no cases of this kind except the genitive; and, except with reference to this, the term case expresses the relations or offices of nouns, and not their terminations. We ought, therefore, to have, in this sense, as many cases as we have relations; and this would make more than a hundred. To tell a child that cases are these relations or particular offices of nouns, and then teach him that there are but three, is a greater absurdity than can be found any where but in English Grammars. Besides the relation between a transitive verb and its object, and those relations expressed by prepositions, there are numerous others, which we have no words to express. Such are the relations between intransitive verbs and nouns of time, space, dimension, &c. Our grammars inform us that these nouns are governed by prepositions understood? but in many, if not most of these examples, there is no preposition in the language that will express our meaning.

What shall we say of the possessive or genitive case? It is said to denote property or possession. The noun expressing this idea is made to express it, sometimes by placing of before it, and sometimes by s and an apostrophe placed after it. These two methods signify the same; that is, they denote the same mode of possessing. When we wish to convey the idea emphatically, in a declarative form, or with reference to the attributes and qualities which

any one possesses, we commonly express this idea of possession by the word be and have, with their variations. For example: "This man is a philosopher." Here we assert that the qualities which constitute a philosopher are possessed by this man. Again: "The man has a watch." In this case, man is as obviously a possessor, as if it were said, "The man's watch," or " The watch of the man." According to the common and only proper definition of English cases, these four methods of expressing the possessive have so near an affinity in meaning, as equally to entitle them all to be termed possessive; but our grammarians call one of them possessive, one objective, and two nominative,

As my present object is merely to lead the attention of my readers to the faults in the present mode of parsing the English language, I have not thought it important to adopt any systematic method, nor to study any greater degree of exactness than is ne cessary for my general purpose. But, seeing that I have got fairly under way, I have a mind to proceed in some future numbers, and remark on some of the more obvious errors in the common method of parsing the several parts of speech.

POETRY.

SARDANAPALUS AT THE TEMPLE OF BELUS.
This spacious mausoleum holds

Proud dust in many a worshipped shrine;
Yon massive golden urn enfolds
The Founder of our line.

In gloomy grandeur, here are laid
The gods, our regal race have made.

Yes, here are sleeping side by side

The gods, Assyrian queens have borne;
Warriors of madmen deified,

And tyrants overthrown.
Why, since my sires are all divine,
Am I, their son, without a shrine?

I have unto my people been

A father, brother, and a friend;
Go to the Western Island men-
Go eastward to mine empire's end;
If there be one hath wrong of me,
Him, fourfold recompense shall see.

I loved the glittering javelin not-
I did not love war's bloody suit;
Though came the strife with victory fraught,
And empires were its fruit.

I passed the prancing war-horse by,
To gaze at beauty's melting eye.

I never crushed Assyria's sons

To build Colossal temples high; I bade the sire his little ones

Watch with a parent's eyc. Throughout the land no vassal strives With a hard lord, nor wears his gyves.

I bade my subjects plant the vine

Throughout the realms my sceptre sways;
And bade them drink the joyous wine,
And feast away their days.
Sardanapalus thence hath lost
His golden shrine and holocaust.

For had I made the rivers dance

With waves of blood from prostrate foes; And couched a warrior's murdering lance, And broke my land's repose;

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My Mother! weary years have passed, since last
I met thy gentle smile; and sadly then
It fell upon my young and joyous heart.
There was a mortal paleness on thy cheek,
And well I knew, they bore thee far away
With a vain hope to mend the broken springs-
The springs of life. And bitter tears I shed
In childhood's short-lived agony of grief,
When soothing voices said that thou wert gone,
And that I must not weep, for thou wert blest.
Full many a flower has bloomed upon thy grave,
And many a winter's snow has melted there;
Childhood has passed, and youth is passing now,
And scatters paler roses on my path;

Dim and more dim my fancy paints thy form,
Thy mild blue eye, thy cheek so thin and fair,
Touched, when I saw thee last, with hectic flush,
Telling, in solemn beauty, of the grave.
Mine ear hath lost the accents of thy voice,
And faintly o'er my memory comes at times
A glimpse of joys that had their source in thee,
Like one brief strain of some forgotten song.
And then at times a blessed dream comes down,

Missioned, perhaps, by thee from brighter realms;
And, wearing all the semblance of thy form,
Gives to my heart the joy of days gone by.
With gushing tears I wake; O, art thou not
Unseen and bodiless around my path,
Watching with brooding love about thy child?
Is it not so, my mother? I will not
Think it a fancy, wild, and vain, and false,
That spirits good and pure as thine, descend
Like guardian angels round the few they loved,
Oft intercepting coming woes, and still
Joying on every beam that gilds our paths;
And waving snowy pinions o'er our heads
When midnight slumbers close our aching eyes.

CONSOLATION.

A.

This deep, this heartfelt loneliness, this quietness of grief

Falls heavier on the flowers of joy, than tempests strong but brief;

Though whirlwinds tear the blossoms fair, yet still the stem may thrive,

But the withering blight of one wintry night, scarce leaves the root alive.

Yet as our earthly pleasures fade, if plants of purer peace

Spring in our bosom's wilderness, and nurtured there, increase;

And humble hope, and holy fear, our wounded bo-
soms fill,

They 'll teach us all the blessedness of yielding to
His will.

Then seek not, hours of sober grief or sorrowing
thoughts, to shun,

Until we feel that we can say, "Thy will-not mine-be done."

And then our hearts to Him will pay an homage
pure and warm,

Who saw the cloud o'er them we love, and housed
them from the storm.
A. C. H.

INTELLIGENCE.

TURKISH LITERATURE.

THE following remarks are contained in a review of a Grammar of the Turkish language by M, Jaubert, published in the Courier de Londres, and translated into the Asiatic Journal for May, 1824.

"An erroneous opinion is generally entertained in Europe respecting the language and literature of the Ottomans, and their system of education. It is supposed by many that the language of this barbarous people is even less cultivated than their manners. Such however is not the case. The descendants of Othman possess a language, which is inferior to no ancient or modern tongue in softness, flexibility, and harmony; and its rules are so admirably simple, that we should rather suppose them to have been framed by an academy of learned men, than by a society consisting of Nomade and pastoral tribes.

"We shall not enter into a minute analysis of this language; but it may not be amiss to furnish, as an example of its general construction, the facility with which a verb is conjugated. By adding a single syllable and sometimes, a single letter, to the radical of the verb, it is thus modified. The verb sevmeq, to love, is made to signify, to be loved, to love one another, to make one love, to make us love one another, to love not, to be not loved, to make us not We should tire our readers by following up the series of mod

It is not when the parting breath, we watch with love one another, &c.

anxious heart,

It is not in the hour of death, when those we love ifications.
depart,

Nor yet when laid upon the bier, we follow slow
And leave it in its dwelling dark, that most we feel

the corse,

the loss.

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"There are, however, several defects with which this language, or rather those who write it, may be charged. The literati of the country frequently write with a degree of obscurity it would be easy to avoid. Not contented with admitting into their pages, a multiplicity of Arabic and Persian terms, borrowed from their neighbours, and which are not readily subjected to the rules of Turkish Syntax, they strive to crowd together a number of participles which give no determinate time, always

222

keep the meaning of the sentence inconveniently suspended, and sometimes even to the end of the second or third leaf of the volume. When in addition to these defects, we take into consideration, that there are neither vowels, paragraphs, nor punctuation, which in fact are seldom to be met with in oriental languages, we may form a tolerable idea of the perspicuity of a Turkish manuscript.

"The penury of Turkish literature is, doubtless, to be attributed to those causes. Nevertheless the language can boast of poets, for instance Rouhihi and Meshiy; of romance-writers, amongst whom the aged Tartare Barakeh may be mentioned; and of a considerable number of historians, geographers, and physicians.

at the same time, be interesting to other same bookseller, met with like success, and
readers, by exemplifying the wisdom and is out of print.
observation of a people generally supposed If the work is a remarkable phenomenon
to be barbarous.
in Russia, the venerable author himself is
no less so. M. Von Karamsin is a rare, and
in Russia the only, instance of a man who
has become known and rich by his literary
labours alone;* who is indebted to them
and his moral character for universal es-
teem; who, without holding any office, was
distinguished at court, and honoured with
particular favour and regard by the Empe-
ror and the whole imperial family. M.
Von Karamsin, though he has suddenly
risen into favour at court, has not become
a courtier, but, faithful to the sciences,
continues to dedicate the greater part of
the day to serious study, and is never so
happy as in the circle of his family, or in
the society of chosen friends.

"We repeat, the Turks are by no means so uncivilized as report declares them. Public instruction is encouraged by all the higher classes of society. Numbers of rich men in bequeathing legacies, usually devote a portion to the erection of a Mudreseh, or public school. Several of the Turkish emperors have followed the example. It is actually the case, whatever surprise the statement may occasion, that, at the present moment, there exists at Constantinople, a greater number of Colleges than at Paris.

HEAT PRODUCED BY THE COMPOUND blow

PIPE.

"In the penal laws of this people, there "But, even if the Turkish language does are certain provisions which are not to be not present us with a variety of literary found in our own codes, but which would productions worthy of attention, it ought have done honour to the wisdom of our legnot the less to be an object of study to the islators. Unfortunately, however, the inphilologist, for it is the only diplomatic lan- stitutes are infected with the same fanatiguage made use of at most of the eastern cal spirit which attaches generally to the The astonishing heat from the flame of courts. It is almost exclusively spoken at the followers of Mahomet, and more especially of Persia; under the tents of the great Khāns Sunnite sect. This fanaticism will ever in 1802), is such that Mr Thomas Skidmore courts of the Viceroy of Egypt, and the Shah to those Mahometans who belong to the oxy-hydrous gas, issuing from the compound blowpipe (originally invented by Dr Hare, of Tartary, and in the Seraglio of the Sul- prevent the present rulers of the Bospho- found, on projecting this flame against the tan; and is certainly the maternal language rus from attaining to such a degree of civ- outside of a small tinned iron cup, full of of these princes. In fact, over all the north-ilization, as is absolutely requisite to enable cold water, that the outside of the cup beern coast of Africa, and from Constantino- them to command respect in the great came red hot, and at length assumed a white ple to the western frontiers of China, there family of European nations. heat, not only on its outside, but within, in is scarcely a spot where the Turkish idiom contact with the water; and in an instant is not more or less understood. The imafterwards the flame broke through the portance of such a language is undoubtedly side of the cup and entered the water, great, whether regarded in a commercial without being extinguished. This sugor diplomatic view. gested to him the plunging of the jet pipe and flame under water; which, after due precaution, was effected, and the flame continued to burn with undiminished energy in actual contact with the water; which latter, in a tumbler holding about half a pint, quickly became heated from 56° to 170° Farenheit.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE OF COKE AND
WOOD AS FUEL.

The tenth and eleventh volumes of the Russian national work, the "History of the Russian Empire," by Karamsin, have been "M. Jaubert, whose justly celebrated published. They contain the history of the name recals to our recollection the various government of the last descendant of Ruservices he has rendered to his country, has rik, the Tzar Fedor Joannowitsch; the now established a new claim upon the grat- election, government and melancholy end itude of his fellow-citizens, as well as upon of Boris Godunow; the period of the false that of all friends to literature, by publishing Dimitrii; the horrors of the Interregnum; the grammar to which we are here request- the hated dominion of the Poles, and their ing the attention of our readers. The scar- expulsion from the Russian territories. city and dearness of the small grammar, pub- This is an important and interesting period. lished at Constantinople by the Jesuit, Al- Independent of the scientific worth of the derman; the obscurity of Merinski's gram- work, it must have great influence on the mar; and the incorrectness of the oriental improvement of the language, as it is so Some trials have been made by M. Deltype in that which was published by father universally read; and in this respect these rit on the heating power of coke and wood, Viguier, render the new publication of M. two last volumes seem to be superior to the when consumed in stoves. Two similar Jaubert very acceptable to orientalists. In- preceding. We find in them a number of stoves were heated, one by wood and the othstead of following the example of his pre- truly national expressions and terms which by coke, and the temperature of the exdecessors, by rendering his subject difficult had not before been adopted in writing, and terior taken at some distance from the fire. and complicated by a multiplicity of rules, which, being now incorporated into the The temperature of the flues was at first for the most part useless, this writer has en- higher style of composition, are an impor-9 Centigrade, and the mean temperature deavoured to simplify the language he has tant philological addition. There has been at the end of six hours, was, by the wood, undertaken to teach, by laying its elements no book which has met with such general 130, by the coke 160; so that the increase before us with method and perspicuity. approbation in Russia. The first eight He has distinguished with much address, a volumes appeared in 1817; and in about variety of trifling anomalies, which other three weeks after their publication, it is grammarians had regarded as general rules said that the whole edition, consisting of instead of exceptions. In short this learned three thousand copies, was sold. The eagerorientalist has employed the superior intel-ness with which all classes, even the less ligence he has derived from long study and educated, hastened to procure the history extensive experience to preserve to the of their nation, was extremely interesting Turkish idiom the character of simplicity and remarkable. Peasants, mechanics, diswhich justly belongs to it. banded soldiers, joined together to make "The work is concluded by a collection up fifty rubles, which was its price. M. of proverbs, engraved in lithographic, by Soenin, a bookseller at St Petersburgh, M. Bianchi, and which are both entertain- published a second edition of an equal num-Russia, towards the printing of which the Emperor ing and instructive. These proverbs will ber, for which he paid the author a large contributed 60,000 rubles, has already yielded serve as exercises for the pupil; and will, sum. The ninth volume, published by the 250,000 rubles to its author.

by the wood was 4°, by the coke 7°. These
effects were produced by 73 kilogrammes
(163 pounds) of wood, worth three and a half
francs; and 24 kilogrammes (53 pounds) of
coke, worth one franc, 80 cents. During
the progress of this experiment another
stove had been heated for several hours
with wood, and the temperature had not
risen above 130.
The use of coke very
quickly raised it to 15° or 16°. Hence it
is concluded, and with reason, that coke is

It is generally assserted that the History of

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