glad to find that Dr. Zuccafini has exerted himself to investigate this matter; and it would be well to recommend his example to others. The doctor's experiments, began in 1780, and since often repeated, (if not overrated, which is very improbable,) have decided this question in the affirmative. In 1795, out of six pounds of fresh indigo, fermented as in the West Indies, he obtained six ounces of feculæ, differing in their degrees of colour and goodness. Here, then, is a result calculated to excite an interest. The common opinion, that the different kinds of indigo are produced by different degrees of fermentation, appears to be confirmed by the doctor's account.

FARINELLI.

The old Duke of Northumberland was very fond of music. One evening he had assembled a great company on purpose to hear Farinelli sing; but that capricious castrato sent a verbal message, that he was otherwise engaged, and could not attend. On this the Duke of Medina, who was in the company, dispatched his servant for the singer, who was his subject; and a chair having been placed, all the company except his Highness stood up on his entrance. "Does your Grace permit a public singer to sit in your presence?" No," says the Duke. "Mr. Farinelli, stand in yonder corner, and sing in your best manner.” He accordingly complied, and exerted all his powers.

LORD DUNDONALD

is a practical chemist. His speculations on coal-tar or varnishes, allumworks, &c. bear all the marks of a well digested theory. His book on the connexion of agriculture and chemistry presents the subject in its most attractive forms. The pecuniary distresses of this ingenious and eccentric man have long been matter of public notoriety and sympathy.

NAPOLEON.

In 1805 Count DARU was at Boulogne, as intendant-general of the army. One morning the Emperor summoned him into his cabinet. Daru immediately repaired thither, and found him transported with rage, traversing his apartment with hurried steps, and breaking a sullen silence only by hasty and short exclamations:-"What a navy! What an admiral!-What sacrifices lost!-My expectations are

deceived! This Villeneuve ! - In stead of being in the Channel, he has just entered Ferrol!-It is all over with him!-He will be blockaded there.--Daru, place yourself there, (pointing to a corner of the room,) and write while I dictate." The Emperor had received at a very early hour the news of the arrival of Villeneuve in a Spanish port; he immediately saw his intended conquest of England baffled; the immense expenses of the fleet and flotilla lost for a time, and perhaps for ever! Then, in a paroxysm of fury, which would permit no other man in similar circumstances to preserve their judgment, he formed one of the boldest resolutions, and sketched one of the most admirable plans of a campaign which any conqueror ever conceived in leisure and cold-blood. Without hesitating, without stopping for a moment, he dictated the whole of the plan of the campaign of Austerlitz; the departure of all the corps of the army, from Hanover and Holland to the confines of the west and the south of France. The order of the marches, their duration; the places for the converging and re-union of the columns; the cutting off by surprize, and the attacks with open force; the various movements of the enemy,-all was foreseen! Victory was ensured in all the hypotheses. Such was the accuracy and the vast foresight of this plan, that, over a line of departure of six hundred miles, lines of operations of nine hundred miles in length were followed from primitive indications, day by day, and place by place, as far as Munich. Beyond that capital, the epochs alone experienced some alterations; but the places were reached, and the whole of the plan was crowned with complete success.

PATRIOTS.

Sir John Fineux appears to have been one of the earliest of the present race. In the reign of Henry VII. he opposed the tax of the tenth-penny, (according to Lloyd,) and stoutly observed on this occasion, "Before we pay any thing, let us see whether we have any thing we can call our own to pay." Morton, both Cardinal and Chancellor, was against the preferment of this lion-hearted lawyer-he being, in the words of his biographer, "an encouragement to the factions, (whose hydra heads grow the faster by

being

being taken off by preferment, and not by an axe,) but the wiser king thought that so able a patriot would be an useful courtier, and that he who could do so well at the bar might do more at the bench." He accordingly was made a judge, and knighted; after which we learn that no one was so firm to the prince's prerogative."

ORIGINAL LETTER OF MR. TOPPING TO DR. LIND, ON THE STATE OF INDIA IN 1786.

Madras; 12th January, 1786. My dear Doctor, I have now been at this place, my dear friend, near five months, for I landed at Pondicherry the 18th of August last, after an unpleasant passage, in a dirty French ship, of four and a half months, from L'Orient. Cavall has, I dare say, told you of the unfortunate loss of all my baggage in conveying it from London to the ship; and how my telescope and sextant, with a collection of the best instruments that could be got went to the bottom. All this and more I wrote home accounts of some time ago, and do assure you I have felt and still feel the loss very severely, as you know nothing is to be got of that nature here. I had, however, a small sextant and a timekeeper by Arnold, both excellent, on the voyage with me; and I dare say, when you see Dalrymple, he will tell you that I did not neglect to make use

of them.

or arbitrary violence, from the defenceless people of this unhappy country, enabled him to buy up all the virtue of those appointed to examine into his past conduct, as the reports those gentlemen gave in sufficiently demon

strate.

There is not a man in this country, either European or native, that is not unanimous in execrating the flagitious author of so much misery to the innocent. And many persons are still ready to prove that Rumbold by his rapacity and mad extortion, brought Hyder, in 1780, into the Carnatic. He sent to demand ten lack of pagodas of that prince, at a time when the country, by his former base practices, was rendered defenceless; for the nabob, my friend, had seven regiments of cavalry in his pay, all which he was obliged to disband to gratify the private demands of Rumbold for money; and it is well-known that a country invaded by horse cannot be protected without cavalry. It would be entering upon a long and affecting scene were I to open to you every thing I have at different times heard of the late troubles and their causes. Their great spring was the rapacity of Rumbold. I heard a man of respectable authority declare the other day that he could prove that Rumbold had received in hard money from the Nabob alone, sixteen lack of pagodas, i. e. £640,000 sterling, besides what he had nefariously obtained from the Rajah of Tanjour, Sitteram, Rauze, and others.

Extravagant and incredible as these things may appear to you in England, there is no person here of the slightest insight that does not believe them to be strictly true; and, although invitations have been sent out to people in India to declare what they knew; and other pretended attempts have been made to come at the truth; yet with so little good-will has the business been undertaken, that villainy has hitherto come off triumphant. Were, however, proper persons, with proper and wellsupported authorities, independent and unconnected with any one here, charged with the investigation of the business just mentioned, I will take upon me to affirm that their endeavours to come at facts, and to render justice, would not prove inefficacious in the end.

Your old friend, the Nabob, is now superannuated-I mean as to intellectual faculties, which are either gone entirely, or entirely drowned in vene

real

real pleasures; for the Ameer, his second son, who has now the entire management of the country, in order to secure every part of government to himself, thinks it no discredit to stand pander to his father's vices, whom he therefore constantly supplies with fresh relays of the finest women Hindoostan affords; so that his highness has at this time more than six hundred ladies in his haram. You will no doubt think this a pretty good stock for an old lecher of seventy-five, and I am ready to grant the case is rather a ridiculous one. It will, however, I am afraid, prove, ere long, of very serious consequences, as, should the old man die at a critical juncture, and the succession devolve on the Ameer, every thing is to be feared for the English interest in this quarter. The Ameer is a treacherous politic character, who has by flattery and other crafts prevailed on his father to nominate him to succeed, to the prejudice of his elder brother.

It is well known that Rumbold received a large sum of money from the Nabob for lodging the old man's testament in favour of the Ameer in the company's cash chest, to be produced on an emergency; and the duplicity of the Ameer is so well known, that every one here is alarmed for the consequences of his father's decease. He is more than suspected of having hoarded up immense treasures, partly with a view to bribe those who may be in power, at such a crisis, to establish him; and partly, in case of their noncompliance, with the treacherous premeditation of revolting to the French, should a war break out in India at a proper season, all which is thought to be already in embryo. It is certain that he pleaded poverty when Lord Macartney (who justly suspected him of having secreted great sums) one day during the late war told him that three lack of pagodas would save the Carnatic; and yet he is believed at this time to have had at least 100 lack at his command, with which, should he be treacherously disposed, and not be prevented in good time, he must carry all before him. Such a sum, with the command of the country he now possesses, in the most absolute manner, aided by a French alliance, would be more than sufficient to drive the English from the coast.

That the French have designs against India is evident from the preparations they have already made for war, by

repairing the fortifications at Pondicherry, and smuggling privately out great numbers of soldiers and seamen, although they are under treaty at this time with England to withdraw all their naval force from Asia. Bu that aspiring and politic nation, which have already severed us from our possessions in America, will never be at rest while we have a foot of land in India.

To show you that I am not mistaken in my opinion of the Ameer, I will tell you a circumstance of him that happened not long ago. When Lord Macartney obliged the Nabob to assign the revenues of the Carnatic over to the company to answer the many pressing calls the war occasioned, his lordship, from motives of delicacy, still continued the Ameer in the management of the collecting business; but in a very short time found he had placed an unmerited confidence in him. Ameer was presently detected in secreting large sums, with the design to appropriate them to his own use; so that his lordship was obliged to take the trust from him, and appoint commissioners in his stead.

The

A report has lately prevailed that Tippoo Saib has been killed in an action against some insurgents in his own dominions. There is no doubt of some accident having befel him, for it is certain he was carried off the field, and that he has not since been publicly

seen.

The Council of this Presidency at present consists of only three men! and three men less fit for the management of public affairs it would be difficult to find. We are, however, in hourly expectation of General Campbell, whose arrival will, we hope, rescue the English possessions on this coast from the dangerous effects of combined ignorance, pusillanimity, and the cœcus amor argenti; which latter quality is more likely to prove fatal to a state than a confederacy of all other vices together.

I am afraid, my dear doctor, I have tired you with India politics. Happy are those who live in a country like Britain, where reports of foreign distresses affect them no otherwise than just to move their compassion for a moment, and then drop into forgetfulness.

I am, your most faithful

And affectionate servant,
W. TOPPING.

ORIGINAL

PALMYRA;

A Poem which obtained the Chancellor's Medal at
the Cambridge Commencement, July 1822.
By JOHN HENRY BRIGHT,
Of St. John's College.

Movemur, nescio quo pacto, ipsis locis, in qui.
bus eorum, quos admiramur, adsunt vestigia,
TIME, like a mighty river, deep and strong,
In sullen silence rolls his tide along;
And all that now upborne upon the wave
Ride swiftly on-the monarch and the slave,
Shall sink at last beneath the whelming stream,
And all that once was life become a dream!
Go-look on Greece! her glories long have fled,
Iler ancient spirit slumbers with the dead;
Deaf to the call of freedom and of fame,

Her sons are Greeks in nothing but the name!
On Tiber's banks, beneath their native sky,
The sad remains of Roman greatness lie;
No longer there the list'ning crowds admire
The swelling tones of Virgil's epic lyre,
Nor conq'ring Cæsar hold's resistless sway
O'er realms extended to the rising day.

Yet still to these shall fancy fondly turn,
Still bid the laurel bloom on Maro's urn;
From Brutus' dagger sweep the gath'ring rust,
And call his spirit from its aged dust!
What, tho' each busy scene has ceas'd to live,
It has the charms poetic numbers give;
And ever fresh, as ages roll along,
Revives and brightens in the light of song.

At summer-eve, when ev'ry sound is still,
And day-light fades upon the western hill,
And o'er the blue unfathomable way
Heaven's starry host in cloudless beauty stray;
What holy joys enamour'd fancy feels
As all the past upon the mem'ry steals!
How soft the tints, how pensive, how sublime,
Each image borrows from the touch of Time!
Such winning grace the beauteous image wears,
Seen through the twilight of a thousand years.

Then welcome thou, the subject of my song,
Since to the past such heavenly charms belong;
Won by thy scenes, from all that now appears
My Muse shall turn, and dream of other years,
Turn from the sad realities of fate,
The past revive, the present uncreate,
And from thy modern learn thine ancient state.
What boundless charms thy lovely features grace,
O thou, the mother of the human race,
Majestic Asia! to the straining eye

}

Once bloom'd in contrast with the scenes around,
By Nature's lavish hand profusely grac❜d,
The blessed Eden of the joyless waste.
On ev'ry side luxuriant palm-trees grew,
And hence its name the rising city drew,
And tho' their loveliness be pass'd away,
The name still lives, and triumphs o'er decay.
Two shelt'ring hills precipitously swell
On either hand, and form a narrow dell:
Thence to the east, with undulating bend,
Wide and more wide their spreading arms extend,
Then sink at last with slow retiring sweep,
Like distant head-lands sloping to the deep.

Outstretch'd within upon the silent plains
Lies the sad wreck of Tadmor's last remains,
Outliving still, through each succeeding age,
The tempest's fury, and the bigot's rage.
He wants no written record who surveys
But one short hour this scene of other days.
These mould'ring piles, that sink in slow decay,
In stronger characters the tale convey,
Than e'er were trac'd by man's divinest art,-
These speak in simple language to the heart.
Far to the south what scenes of ruin lie,
What sad confusion opens on the eye!
There shatter'd columns swell, a giant train,
Line after line, along the crowded plain,
The loosen'd arch, the roofless colonnade,

Where mid-day crowds imbib'd the cooling shade.
'Tis sweet at eve to climb some rocky steep,
Around whose base the peaceful billows sleep,
And view a summer's sun sink down to rest,
Behind the mountains of the gorgeous west,
One maze of dazzling glory; while below
The ocean-waves with trembling radiance glow.
But sweeter far, at evening's solemn hour,
From the dun battlements of yon rude tow'r,
To see his parting splendors sadly blaze
Around this grave of long-forgotten days.
Mark those bright beams! how mournfully they
shine

Through the still courts of yon deserted shrine,
The sun's proud temple once, whose aged piles
Still fondly catch his first and latest smiles!

Here Desolation cease-thy task is done-
Palmyra yields-thy triumph is begun.
O'er prostrate sculpture raise thy giant throne,
Build here at length an empire all thine own.
Swept by the might of thy destroying arm,
Her noblest work is reft of every charm,
Save that alone whose transitory gleam
Gilds the soft scenes of Fancy's pictur'd dream.

At her command, from dark oblivion's gloom
Past scenes return, and brighter shapes assume;
Things that have ceas'd to be she moulds anew,
And pours her own creation on the view;
In rapid train her fleeting visions rise,
As lights that gleam in Hyperborean skies,
E'en as she dwells on this deserted fane,
Its pomp revives, its glories live again;
The victim bleeds, the golden altars blaze,
Symphonious voices swell the note of praise;
Hark! what loud tumult rends the echoing skies?
Awake-awake, lead up the sacrifice;

The hour is come-the dim nocturnal fires
Are fading in the blue-lo, night expires!
The morning star, with pale and dewy ray,
Proclaims the triumph of the King of Day.
Awake-awake-ye slumb'ring crowds; arise,
Come forth, and join the pomp of sacrifice."

And lo, he comes! triumphant in his might,
One blazing orb of unexhausted light.
Ten thousand glories all around him wait,
His ever-flaming ministers of state;
Ten thousand nations hail him with delight,
Bath'd in the golden tide of ever-flowing light,
Hark! as he rises o'er the middle way,
Thron'd in the fulness of unclouded day,
What sounds of joy, what echoing clamours rise,
Peal after peal, and rattle in the skies!
"Give way, ye crowds-unbar the gates of brass-
Give way, ye crowds, and let the triumph pass."

So

So when around some bold and rocky shore,
Old Ocean beats with unrelenting roar;
Onward and onward roll the length'ning waves,
Then, swelling, dash upon the yawning caves,
Far, far away, the cavern'd cliffs resound,
And mountain-echoes thunder back the sound.
The day moves on;-as ev'ning shades advance,
Some weave the song, while others lead the dance;
From hill and vale resounding through the sky,
Breaks the full chorus of harmonious joy.
Those thrilling notes! they seem to linger still-
Then sweetly die away o'er yon deserted hill.

It could not be! those accents long have fled,-
Joy, feeling, language, dwell not with the dead.
Here, undisturb'd, upon the voiceless plains
The long dull calm of desolation reigns.
Here ruin builds her adamantine throne,
And silence slumbers on each mould'ring stone.
Where once the hum of thronging nations rose,
No sound disturbs the solemn deep repose,
Save the lone Arab, idly passing by.
With reckless soul and unregarding eye;
Save when at intervals some falling block
Sinks on the plain with harsh-resounding shock,
The slumbring desart drinks the hollow sound,
And startled echoes answer all around.

Is this the scene, so desolate and wild,
Where noblest arts in bright perfection smil'd!
Where Commerce emptied all her richest stores,
The nameless treasures of a thousand shores?
Is this the scene where Freedom's purest flame
Led toiling nations in the path of fame?
Their strife has ceas'd, their noise has died away,
Their very tombs are sinking in decay:
The sculptur'd monument, the marble bust,
Descend and mingle with their native dust;
No half-disfigur'd line remains to tell
How much lamented merit liv'd and fell.

Once lovely scene! along thy mould'ring piles
Tho' ruin frowns, yet beauty sadly smiles;
Some rays of former glory linger yet

In twilight radiance, tho' thy sun is set.
But say, O say, who rightly may disclose
From what first cause thine infant greatness rose;
Who first begun, by what contrivance plac'd,
Tese splendid piles amid a desert waste?

One little stream,-around whose bubbling head
Embrageous palms refreshing coolness shed,
First gave the cause from which their glory came,
Palmyra's strength, magnificence, and fame,
A thousand tribes, by distant commerce led,
Soon pour'd their treasures round that fountain-
bead;

Pass'd and repass'd through all the sandy plain,
From broad Euphrates to the western main,-
The rising mart to strength and splendor came,
Tho' small at first, and grew a mighty name.
Thence o'er the Roman world, with swelling sail,
Proud commerce sprung before the fresh'ning gale,
And Tyrian ships to ev'ry port convey'd
The boundless treasures of Assyrian trade,
L'en Rome herself, at sight of Eastern gold,
Forgot the lessons taught her sons of old;
Plung'd in the galph of ostentatious pride,
She deeply drank th' intoxicating tide;
Through ev'ry nerve the vital poison ran,
And Goths achev'd what luxury began.

Thou Eden of the desert! lovely smil'd
Thy matchless beauty o'er the lonely wild;
"Mid barren solitudes securely plac'd,
Thy native bulwark the surrounding waste,
Tho' loud and harsh the tumult roar'd without
of Rome triumphant and the Parthian rout,
Peace o'er thy plains her downy pinions spread,
And twin'd the olive for thy blooming head;
Taste, learning, genius, triumph'd in her reign,
And guardian Freedom bless'd the sister train.
Thrice glorious Freedom! on whose hallow'd shrine
Burns ever bright the patriot flame divine,
She, great preceptress, warm with heavenly fire,
Bade thy free sons to worthiest hopes aspire,
Live unsubdued, and equally disdain
To wear the victor's as the despot's chain,

Such were the souls that o'er the proud array
Of banner'd Persia scatter'd wild dismay.
Far in the East, with loud redoubled roll,
The tomult burst upon the tyrant's soul.
Confusion seiz'd his host, and pallid fright
Mark'd with disgrace his ignominious flight.
Then, lovely city, what rejoicings rose-
What songs of triumph from thy palmy groves-

What altars blaz'd-what elouds of incense roll'd
Their rich perfume around thy shrines of gold-
What bursts of rapture echoed from the throng
As the proud triumph slowly moved along.
Such was thy glory once! a transient gleam
Of brightest sunshine-a delusive dream.
Most like the pageant of thy festal day,
It charm'd a little while; then pass'd away.
Or like those varying tints of living light
That gild at eve the portals of the night;
Alps pil'd on Alps, a glorious prospect rise,
Ten thousand phantoms skirt the glowing skies:
But as we gaze the splendid vision fades,
Lost in the gloom of night's obscurer shades.

O doom'd to fall! while yet indulgent fate
A few bright years prolongs thy fleeting date,
Thy name shall triumph, and thy laurels bloom,
Ere yet they languish in sepulchral gloom.
And as the breathless pause that oft portends
The rising tempest ere the storm descends,
Thus at the close shall glory's loveliest light
Gild the dark clouds of thine approaching night.
For tho' the beams of truth's historic page
But faintly gleam through each successive age,
Tho' her recording annals briefly tell
How Tadmor rose, by what disaster fell,
One name at least survives the wreck of time,
From age to age extends, from clime to clime.

Oh! if departed g'ory claims a tear,
Let mem'ry pause, and kindly drop it here.
If fond reflection ever loves to dwell

On those last scenes where royal greatness fell,
Thy reign, Zenobia, and thy deathless name,
Shall live emblazon'd on the roll of fame;
Adorn the poet's most romantic dream,
Fire all his soul, and be his moral theme.
Atlength drew nigh th' inexorable hour

Charg'd with the stroke of Rome's destroying pow'r;
In dread array along the Syrian coast
Mov'd the full strength of her invading host,
Wide o'er the champaign, like a baleful star,
Blaz'd the proud standard of imperial war;
Perch'd on the top, the bird of conquest shone,
With glittering wings expanded to the sun.

Yet all undaunted stood the warrior-queen,
Foremost and bravest in the battle scene.
Quick at her word, fast binding man with man,
Through ev'ry rank electric vigour ran.
Not such the valour of the beauteous maid,
Whose conq'ring steel proud Ilion's fate delay'd;
Not such in arms the virgin warriors shone,
Who drank thy waters, limpid Thermodon.
Fair idol of the virtuous and the brave,
Great were thine efforts-but they could not save.
Twice on the plain the dubious conflict burn'd,
Twice to the charge the struggling hosts return'd,
'Till at the close, where open valour fail'd,
Art won the day, and stratagem prevail'd.

Thus the proud seat of science and of arms, In the full promise of her rip'ning charms, Palmyra fell!-art, glory, freedom shed Their dying splendors round her sinking head. Where was Zenobia then?-what inward pow'r Rui'd all her spirit in that awful hour? Could Rome, herce Rome, the fire of valour tame, Shake the firm soul, or quench the patriot flame? Say, when destruction, black'ning all the air, Let loose the vulture-demons of despair, When Rome and havock swept the sadd'ning plain, And Tadmor fell, when valour toil'd in vain, Did she not then the gathering tempest brave, And with her country share one common grave? Oh, sad reverse! what future fate befel The captive queen-let deepest silence tell. Ye who the faults of others mildly scan, Who know perfection was not made for man, In pity pause-O be not too severe, But o'er Zenobia's weakness drop a tear. Turn from the scene of her disastrous fate, The wrongs that mark'd her last embitter'd state, And see Longinus in his dying hour Spurn the fierce Roman, and defy his pow'r. In vain the tyrant roll'd his redd'ning eye, It aw'd not him who trembled not to die. To his sad friends he breath'd à last farewell, And Freedom triumph'd as her martyr fell. His daring soul, in death serenely great, Smil'd on the scene, and glory'd in her fate, Spread her glad wings, and steer'd her flight sublime Beyond the storms of nature and of time.

MODERN