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Lo, he seeketh out a skulle,
Rinsed it and filled it fulle

Of the water from the spring,
And with piteous gait did bring.
Meeklie then her face she lowte;
Inne her eyne a teare upswulle,

And she shodderde, stared abowte, Drank her draught, and totterd oute. "I beswear thee, tell me, man,” So the stranger-knight began,

"What this woman's sin hath beene, That thou lodest hier with teene;

Of her teares the silent prayre Canst thou from thie bosom barr? She is as an aungel fayre,

Meeke and milde as children are."
Stranger, she is fayre I knowe,
Ones did I her seeming trowe,
Hong delighted on her loke,
Thrillde for pleasaunce when she spoke,
And her honeyde wordes beleevde.
Woman's bosom who can knowe?

All her winsome lokes deceevde,
Were in falsehood's loom yweevde.
"For her love was givn and gone
To a squire that here did wone,
Whom from dole and derthe I drewe,
And upbred in gentil thewe.

After wearie warre was owre,
Homeward ones I spedde alone,

And at unawayted howre Hastende to my wed-bed bowre. Lo, her syghte mie eyne dismayde, Inne the clasp of ewbrice layde, With the squire of lowe degree; Beiling did my anger gree. Swytte mie righteous worde I toke, And his pulse of life I quayde:

Her I weened to have stroke

Wile mie sowle for choler quoke. "Botte forthwyth she did her throw At mie feete, and to the blow

Layde her paler bosom bare.
Ruthful shudders thro me fare,
And the shape of helle was come
Full of harowe to mie brow.

No, methought; I may ne dome
Her to the ycorsed home.
"And I spake: Thou shalt, beldame,
Pay the finaunce of mie shame,

Al it be thie life I spare:
Tho the fiend thy sprite shuld tare,
What have I to winne therbye?
No: with prayre, and teare, and grame,
Thou mayst earne thie peace on hye:
1 rallent not til I dye.

Then her hedde I shavde and shore, Toke the gaudes and gems she wore, Clad her lymbes in mourning weede, Of her weeping had no heede;

Woes enow I make her beare. Wilt thou knowe her painsome stoure,

From her lippes thou mayst it heare, Cheere thie spright and follow neare." MONTHLY MAG. No. 198.

Downe a narrow grese they stray, Dank and dymme theire winding way. "Is it to a toome we go?"

Spake the faultring stranger tho.

"What! doth feare alreadie cling To thy brest?" the knight did say:

"Harke, I heare her gittern ring;
Hymnes of penaunce she doth sing."
Deeper down the vault so cold,
Both the knights in silence stroll'd:
Suddenlie sir Egerwene

Op'd a door, and she was seene,
Bye a single lampis fleare,

Sitting in a dungeon-hold:

On her eye-lash blinks the cleare
Halie God-atoning teare.
"Bitter, bitter is her wo,"
Saith the guest as in they go.
Sternlie frown'd his British guide,
And advancing to her side

Op'd a grate with soddeyne tone,
And began therein to sho

Wher against the mildewed stone
Stood a headless skeletone.
Then he spake, "Behold the man
Who this woman's lyking wan;
Who by his advowtrous game
Brought his master's bed to shame.
Now I ween she shuld not shrink
Him from near her side to ban :

From his sighte she may not slink,
And his skull doth hold her drink."
Ere they left the dismal cell,
Did the stranger wish her well,
And a pardon for the sin
She bewailed ther within.

Then she spake with gentle moane
Thro her lippes so swole and pale:

"Yeares may not my guilt atone,
Righteouslie mye lord hath done."
Now they sought their roomes: til daye
Sleepless did the traveller laye,
The remembrance of her sight
Haunted him the livelong night;
How she by the lamp so wan
Wept and sang and preeres did saye.
Chilly sweats him overran,

Thoughts of anguish him unman.
Ere the golden howre of dawn,
On had he his armure trawn;
Parting, to his host he sayd:
"Til thy wife in earth be layd,
Thro the sorrow undergone
Leave her not in thraldom's pawn;
I have nere a woman knone,
Half so fair and wo-begone."
And at length her gentle guise,
And her patient peaceful wise,
Won sir Egerwene to ruth:
He forgave her sad untruth.
Heeded now his threat no more,

No forgiveness to alyse;

Joyed with her as of yore,
Many worthy sons she bore.

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LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS IN APRIL.

As the List of New Publications, contained in the Monthly Magazine, in the ONLY COMPLETE LIST PUBLISHED, and consequently the only one that can be useful to the Public for Purposes of general Reference, it is requested that Authors and Publishers will continue to communicate Notices of their Works (Post paid,) and they will always be faithfully inserted, FREE of EXPENSE.

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A Biographical Peerage of the Empire of Great Britain, Vol. III. 8s.

The Life of Torquato Tasso. By. John Black. 2 vols. 4to. 31. 3s.

Memoirs of the Life of Sir Francis Burdett. 3s.

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A Letter to Sir Samuel Romilly, on the Revision of the Bankrupt Laws. By Wm. David Evans, esq. 3s.

Ta Tsing Leu Lee, being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes, of the Penal Code of China. Translated from the Chinese, with an Appendix and Notes. By Sir George Thomas Staunton, bart. F.R.S. royal 4to. 31. 3s.

Enfield's Compendium of the Laws and Constitution of England. 4s. 6d.

Trial of the Information ex officio, the King versus John Lambert and another, on a charge of Libel on his Majesty's Person, in the Morning Chronicle. 2s. 6d.

MEDICINE.

Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp, and in Garrison. By Sir John Pringle, bart. M.D. F.R.S. and Physiciaa

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A Familiar Essay, explanatory of the Theory and Practice of Prevention of Vene

The Life of Fenelon, archbishop of Cam- real Contagion. By a Member of the bray. 8vo. 7s.

BOTANY.

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Tables on a New Plan for calculating Interest at 5 per cent. By John Smith.

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PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

M

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. R. Davy has laid before this learned society an account of some new analytical researches on the nature of certain bodies, particularly alkalies, phosphorus, sulphur, carbonaceous matter, and the acids hitherto undecompounded. In these experiments he employed potassium, procured by electricity; but he soon substituted for it the metal obtained by the action of igmited iron upon potash, in the manner discovered by MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, because it gave the same results, and could be obtained of an uniform quality, and in infinitely larger quantities, and with much less labour and expense. When ammonia is brought in contact with about twice its weight of potassium, at cominon temperatures, the metal loses its lustre, and becomes white; there is also a slight diminution in the volume of gas. The white crust proves to be potash, and the animonia is found to contain a small quantity of hydrogen. On heating the potassium in the gas, by means of a spirit-lamp applied to the bottom of the retort, the colour of the crust is seen to change, through various shades, into a dark olive. The crust and metal fuse together, and the brilliant surface of the potassium appears. In this state, as the potassium cools, it is again covered with the white crust; and in the operations a gas is evolved, which gives the same diminution by detonation with oxygen, as hydrogen, and the ammonia disappears. Mr. Davy, having examined the properties of the substance

produced by the action of ammonia on potassium, thus describes them: 1. It is crystallized, and presents irregular facets, which in colour are not unlike the protoxide of iron : it is opaque, when examined in large masses, but semitranspa rent in their films. 2. It is fusible at a heat a little above that of boiling water, and if heated much higher, emits globules of gas. 3. It appears to be consider ably heavier than water, 4. It is a nonconductor of electricity. 5. When melted in oxygen gas, it burns with great vividness, emitting bright sparks. Oxygen is absorbed, nitrogen is emitted, and potash is formed. 6. When brought in contact with water, it acts upon it with much energy, produces heat, and often inflammation, and evolves ammonia. "When thrown upon water, it disappears with a hissing noise, and globules from it often move in a state of ignition upon the surface of the water. It rapidly effervesces, and deliquesces in air; but can be preserved under naphtha, in which it seems partially to dissolve. When plunged under water, it disappears instantly with effervescence; and the nonabsorbable clastic fluid liberated, is found to be hydrogen gas. From accurate experiment, Mr. Davy has no doubt, that the weight of the olive-coloured substance, and of the hydrogen disengaged, precisely equals the weight of the potassium and ammonia consumed.

As an inflammable gas alone, having the obvious properties of hydrogen, is given off during the action of potassium upon ammonia; and as nothing but gases apparently

apparently the same as hydrogen and nitrogen, nearly in the proportions in which they exist in volatile alkali, are evolved during the exposure of the compound to heat; and, as the residual substance-produces ammonia, with a little hydrogen, by the action of water, it occuried to Mr. D. that it ought, according to the antiphlogistic theory, to be a compound of potassium, a little oxygen, and nitrogen, or a combination of a suboxyde of potassium and nitrogen; for the hydrogen disengaged, nearly equalled the whole quantity contained in the ammonia employed: and it was easy to explain the fact of the reproduction of the ammonia by water, on the supposition, that by combination with one portion of the oxygen of the water, the oxyde of potassium became potash; and by combination with another portion and its hydrogen, the nitrogen was converted into volatile alkali. To ascertain this, he made several experiments on various residuums, procured from the action of equal quantities of potassium on dry ammonia, each portion of metal equalling six grains; and in the trial which he regarded as most accurate, two cubical inches and a half of oxygen were absorbed, and only a cubical inch and onetenth of nitrogen evolved. The solid substance produced, was pure potash. The quantity of nitrogen existing in the ammonia, which this residuum would have produced by the action of water, supposing it had been decomposed by electricity, would have equalled at least two cubical inches and a quarter. "On what," says Mr. D. "could this loss of nitrogen depend? had it entered into any unknown form with oxygen, or did it not really exist in the residuum in the same quantity as in the ammonia produced from it?"

He made an experiment, by heating the entire fusible substance, from six grains of potassium which had absorbed twelve cubical inches of ammonia, in an iron tube. The heat was gradually raised to whiteness, and the gas collected in two portions. The whole quantity generated, making the usual corrections for temperature and pressure, would have been, at the mean degree of the barometer and thermometer, 144 cubical inches. Of these, nearly a cubical inch was ammonia; and the remainder a gas, of which the portion destructible by detonation with oxygen, was to the indestructible portion as 27 to 1. The

lower part of the tube, where the heat had been intense, was found surrounded with potash in a vitreous form; the upper part contained a considerable quản tity of potassium. In a similar experiment, the same elastic products were evolved. The tube was suffered to cool; the stop-cock being open in contact with mercury, it was first filled with mercury, and then the mercury displaced by water, when two cubical inches and three quarters of hydrogen gas were gencrated; which proved, that at least two grains and a half of potassium had been revived.

"If," says the professor, "a calcula tion be made upon the products in these operations, considering them as nitrogen and hydrogen, and taking the common standard temperature and pressure, it will be found, that by the decomposition of 11 cubical inches of ammonia, equal to 2.05 grains, there is generated 3.6 cubical inches of nitrogen, equal to 1:06 grains, and 9.9 cubical inches of hydrogen, which, added to that disengaged in the first operation, are equal to 382 grains; and the oxygen, added to the potassium, would be of a grain or 6; and the whole amount is 2'04 grains; and 2·05—2'04 '01. But the same quantity of ammonia, decomposed by electricity, would have given 5 5 cubical inches of nitrogen, equal to 1·6 grains, and only 14 cubical inches of hydrogen, equal to 33: and allowing the separation of oxygen in this process in water, it cannot be estimated at more than 11 or 12. So that if the analysis of ammonia by electricity approaches to accuracy, there is a considerable loss of nitrogen, and a production of oxygen and inflam mable gas; and in the action of water upon the residuum, there is an apparent generation of nitrogen.

"How can these extraordinary results be explained?-The decomposition and composition of nitrogen seem proved, allowing the correctness of the data; and one of its elements appears to be oxygen; but what is its other elementary matter?-Is the gas that appears to possess the properties of hydrogen, a new species of inflammable aeriform substance? Or has nitrogen a metallic basis, which alloys with the iron or platina?

Or is water alike the ponderable matter of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen?-Or is nitrogen a compound of hydrogen, with a larger proportion of oxygen than exists in-water?"

Mr.

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