tracts of country by embankments from the sea. Better is it to engage in works of ostentatious convenience,-better would it be for the state to build pyramids in honour of our Nelsons and Wellingtons, than that men who have hands, and are willing to work, should hunger for want of employment.

Things of this kind (and many such might be devised) are palliatives, which in this case are all that are required; this part of the evil being but for a season. The radical evil can only be cured by a course of alteratives.

Reverting to immediate relief, as well as permanent good, why should not government extend its military and naval seminaries, so that every body who needed an asylum should know where to find one? Would it not be better that the workhouses should empty themselves into our fleets and armies, than that they should pack off children by waggon-loads, to grow up in the stench and moral contagion of cotton mills while the trade flourishes, and to be thrown out of employ, and turned upon the public when it meets with any sudden revulsion? Seminaries of this kind may be so conducted as to cost little more than well regulated workhouses. Boys become useful at sea at a very early age. There is no danger of overstocking ourselves with seamen; in peace the merchant service will require all that the navy can dismiss, and in war we know what is suffered from the difficulty of procuring hands. Train up children for the land and sea service, instruct them too in their moral and religious duties, encourage them by honorary rewards, pension them off after they have served as many years as their Country ought to require: they will love the service; and the arts of our enemies will be as unavailing as their arms. For the surplus of an army, when war shall be at an end, there is indeed no such immediate employment as would be offered for our seamen ; but the same means which would, above all others, tend to promote the power and security of Great Britain, would provide an outlet for this redundance also.

The subject of foreign trade puts me in mind of the following strance Jou d'esprit of the late Professor Porson,

THE DEVIL'S WALK.

From his brimstone bed at the break of day,
A walking the Devil has gone;

To visit his snug little farm of the earth,
And see how his stock goes on.

And over the hill, and over the dale,

And he rambled over the plain :

And backward and forward he switcht lis long tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.

And I pry'thee friend, how was the Devil drest
Oh! he was in his Sunday's best:

His coat was red, his breeches were blue,

With a hole behind which his tail went through,

He saw a lawyer killing a viper

On a dunghill near his own stable;

And the Devil was tickled, for it put him in raind
Of Cain and his brother Hel

He saw an apothecary on a white horse

Ride by, on his vocation;

And the Devil was pleased, for he thought he beheld
His friend DEATH in the Revelation.

He saw a cottage with a double coach house,
A cottage of gentility:

And the Devil he smil❜d, for his darling vide
Is pride which apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop:
Says he "we're both of one college;
"For I myself sat, like a cormorant once
"Hard by the tree of knowledge."

As he pass'd through Cold-bath fields, he saw
A solitary celi:

And the Devil e paus'd, for it gave him a hint
For impio ing the prisons of hell.

Down a river did glide with wind and tide
A pig with vast celerity;

And the Devil he grinn'd, for he saw all the while
How it cut its own throat, and he thought with a smile
On England's commercial prosperity!

He saw general Gascoigne's burning face,
Which fill'd him with consternation;

And back to hell his way he did make,

For the Devil he thought (by a slight mistake)

'Twas the general conflagration!

PORSON had imbibed the common, indiscriminate, and therefore silly prejudice, entertained in England against law and lawyers. Luckily for that country, he had no opportunity of witnessing what great things might be done, by making every man his own lawyer, every tavern a court of justice, and investing every citizen of the state, with the qualifications of a lord Mansfield by an act of the legislature. Porson knew nothing of arbitration laws, arbitration courts, arbitration decisions, and arbitration costs; nor of the convenience of bringing justice home to every man's door; that is to the nearest tipling house. He did not know with what peculiar felicity, the lawyers of this country are denominated gentlemen of the bar!

He had seen something of the presumptuous and daring despotism of a party in power, in England—but he had not witnessed the republican improve ments introduced by the legislative judges here, on the paramount and convenient principle of DISPATCH. Those who have witnessed such things, will excuse many of the evils attendant on the legal system of their own country. and view with patience at least, if not with respect, the calumniated forms of legal proceedings, which expedience and experience must have had so large a share in establishing. All good has its attendant evil; and doubtless, time will point out gradually, the best remedies for such evils as are reme diable. But ignorance, is a presumptuous, impatient, headlong reformer. Ignorance sees no difficulties; takes no pains to amalgamate the future with the past; or to join with the dexterity of a master-hand, the new to the old Reformation, ought to bear upon his front, the motto, Festina lente.

NOTICE.

I have said, that six owners of furnaces in Manchester, were fined 10h pounds sterling each for not consuming the smoke of their fires, in the yea 1796: the year is a mistake; but the fact is so; and there is a short report of the case in the Monthly Magazine, Vol. XII, page 76. It happened in August 1801, and instead of six, eleven were so fined

I PROCEED now to give an account of the improvements, or supposed improvements, that have been suggested subsequent to the patent of Mr. Watt, of Birmingham.

In so doing, I shall confine myself to the statement of facts. Whatever my own opinion may be, I feel the absence of twenty years practical knowledge, too strongly, to conceive my opinions entitled to any weight: if it were otherwise, the fairest and most satisfactory course for me to pursue, is to give information from which others may make up their minds on any preference which different plans may be entitled. I shall present, as faithfully as I can, all the useful knowledge on this subject, that

the

compass of this publication will enable me to furnish. My own actual experience, extends no farther than an eight hour engine of Watt's construction, which for about two years was under my own management. Whatever else I may know, I derive from the same sources present to my reader.

I

I make these observations, in reply to some letters on the subject, which require to be thus noticed.

The plan of this work will not permit me to insert plates of all the steam engines subsequent to Watt's. I wish it would. The subject is of great importance. James Watt, of Birmingham, would have been cheaply purchased by England at the price of twenty millions sterling. I foresee the time when civil engineers will be rising up among us. To such persons this paper will be of use. But though I cannot insert every thing I wish to see on the subject of steam engines, I shall insert every thing that appears to me of chief importance in the way of improvement, so that this essay shall not leave any principle unknown. In the present essay, and in the references I am now about to give, every thing material to be known respecting steam engines, either in theory or in practice, so far as it is contained in English or French publications, may be found. I much wish the whole was published together in a separate volume.

Architecture hydraulique par M. Prony, 2 vols. qto.

Repertory of Arts, old series.

Hornblower's engine with pl. IV. 361. IX. 290. and N. S. VII. 81.

Specification of the patent granted to Mr. Jonathan Hornblower, of Penryn, in the county of Cornwall, plumber and brasier; for his invention of a machine or engine for raising water, or other liquids, and for other purposes, by means of fire and steam.

Dated July 13, 1781.-Term expired, 1795.

TO all to whom these presents shall come, &c. Now KNOW YE, that, in compliance with the said proviso, and in pursuance of the said statute, I, the said Jonathan Hornblower, do hereby declare, that my said invention is described in manner and form following: that is to say, first, I use two vessels in which the steam is to act, and which, in other steam engines, are generally called cylinders. Secondly, I employ the steam, after it has acted in the first vessel, to operate a second time in the other, by permitting it to expand itself, which I do by connecting the vessels together, and forming proper channels and apertures, whereby the steam shall occasionally go in and out of the said vessels. Thirdly, I condense the steam, by causing it to pass in contact with metalline surfaces, while water is applied to the opposite side. Fourthly, to discharge the engine of the water used to condense the steam, I suspend a column of water in a tube or vessel constructed for that purpose on the principles of the barometer; the upper end having open communication with the steam-vessels, and the lower end being immersed into a vessel of water. Fifthly, to discharge the air which enters the steam vessels with the condensing water, or otherwise, I introduce it into a separate vessel, whence it is protruded by the admission of steam. Sixthly, that the condensed vapour shall not remain in the steam vessel, in which the steam is condensed, I collect it into another vessel, which has open communication with the steam vessels, and the water in the mine, reservoir, or river. Lastly, in cases where the atmosphere is to be