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OF THE ATTRACTION OF COHESION.

83

each other's attraction, will run together and form one large drop.

Two circular pieces of cork, placed upon water at the distance of about an inch from each other, will run together.

If a small globule of quicksilver be put upon clean paper, and if a piece of glass be brought in contact with it, the mercury will quit the paper, and stick to the glass. But if a larger globule be brought into contact with the smaller one, it will leave the glass, and unite with that globule of quicksilver.

It is on the principle of the attraction of cohesion that carpenters, and other artificers in wood, glue their work together; that plumbers, braziers, tinsmiths, and silversmiths, solder their metals; and that smiths weld or join different bars of iron or steel by means of heat.

Though this attraction of cohesion appears to pervade all nature, it must be remembered that it acts only at very small distances. Some bodies, indeed, seem to possess an opposite power, the power of repulsion. For instance, water repels most bodies till they are wet. A small needle placed gently, and with due care, upon the water will swim. Flies walk upon water without wetting their feet. The drops of dew found in a morning upon plants, especially upon cabbage leaves, assume a spherical form, from the particles of water mutually attracting each other; and it will be found on examination that the drops do not touch the leaves, for they roll off in compact bodies, which could not happen if there subsisted any degree of attraction between the water and the leaf of the plant.

The particles of a fluid have but a small repelling force; for which reason, if a fluid be divided it re-unites easily. But if a glass be broken, or any hard substance be parted by violence, the disjointed parts must be first moistened before they can be made to cohere, because the repulsion is too great to admit a re-union.

Between water and oil, likewise, there subsists so great a repelling force, that we are unable to mix them in such a manner that they shall not separate again.

1. What is meant by the attraction of cohesion ?

2. What is said of two leaden bullets?

3. Upon what principle is it that carpenters and other mechanics and artificers unite wood and metals ?

4. Why does a fluid, if divided, easily reunite?

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THE SPECTATOR.

LESSON LX. -MARCH THE FIRST.

The Spectator.

85

THE first paper of that admirable series of essays, entitled the "Spectator," written chiefly by Addison and Steele, was published on this day, 1711. To this very celebrated work, which by its size and merit stands at the head of all publications of a similar kind, Addison contributed a stock of materials comprising some of the most interesting pieces, moral, critical, and humorous, to be met with in the English language.

All that regards the proprieties and the decencies of life, elegance and justness of taste, the regulation of temper, and the improvement of domestic society, is touched upon in these papers, with the happiest combination of seriousness and ridicule. In some of them Addison takes the higher tone of a religious monitor, and gives lessons from the press, which perhaps would not have been attended to from the pulpit.

The improvement of our language was another point in which he successfully laboured; and the abolition of ungraceful contractions, proverbial vulgarisms, and cant phraseology of all kinds, which at that period greatly infested our writing and speech, is greatly owing to his precept and example. Sorry are we to add that the colloquial slang and pet vulgarisms of the present day require satire of a far more pungent quality, in order to effect their expurgation even from decent society, than is to be met with in the mild and playful essays of an Addison.

His papers in the Spectator are all marked by some one of the letters composing Clio; but in general they contain internal evidence of their author sufficient to assure a practised reader. It was a great merit in this work that, at a time when party disputes ran so high as to interfere in almost every concern in life, the topics of the "Spectator" were so chosen and managed as to keep clear of this source of discord, and to afford one point, at least, in which all lovers of letters and morality might unite. Accordingly, its popularity rose to such a height, that, in an age when literature was infinitely less diffused than at the present time, and the taste for reading was almost confined to the wealthier classes of society, 20,000 of the papers were sometimes sold in a day.

1. Who principally wrote the "Spectator?"

2. What kind of subjects did the "Spectator" principally touch upon ? 3. Who was Clio?

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On this day, in 1797, expired, in his 79th year, Horace Walpole. He was alternately a poet, an historian, a politician, an antiquary, and a writer of dramas and romances. The "Castle of Otranto" is his original work in prose, and one which displays great powers. In one of his letters to Mr. Cole, in the British Museum, dated March 9, 1765, he gives the following as the origin of this romance: -"I waked one morning in the beginning of last June from a dream, of which all I could remember was, that I thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the morning I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it. Add, that I was very glad to think of any thing rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hands and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold my pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking in the middle of a paragraph."

Horace Walpole, though forming his plan of life chiefly upon a system of personal enjoyment, possessed kind and social affections, and was capable of very generous actions to his friends. He had seen too much of the world to give easy credit to professions and appearances; but he respected virtue, and had warm feeling for the rights and interests of mankind. Literature and the fine arts were the great sources of his delight; and much of his existence was pleasingly dedicated to the embellishment of his villa at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, and to the formation of that splendid collection of the relics of antiquity, &c., which in 1842 was distributed among the lovers of vertu by the magic influence of the auctioneer's

hammer.

Horace Walpole was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, the celebrated Whig minister in the reign of George I.; but though Horace

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succeeded to the earldom in 1791, he never took his seat

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1. In what departments of literature did Horace Walpole appear before the public?

2. What gave rise to his romance of "The Castle of Otranto? 3. To what object did he dedicate a great portion of his life? 4. Whose son was Horace Walpole?

LESSON LXII. MARCH THE THIRD.
Robert Adam.

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On the 3d of March, 1792, died Robert Adam, an eminent architect. He was born at Kirkaldy, in the shire of Fife, in Scotland, in the year 1728. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and afterwards pursued his studies with all the advantages which an access to the objects of taste and elegance at home and in foreign countries could bestow. On his return from a visit to Italy, in the year 1762, he was appointed architect to the king, an office which he held till the year 1768, when he resigned it on account of his election as representative of the county of Kinross in the British parliament.

The peculiar beauty and lightness of the ornamental parts of buildings, which were the offspring of his inventive powers, were so generally admired, that not only the architecture, but all the manufactures of this country, which depend upon or are connected with decoration, experienced a considerable degree of improvement. A periodical work consisting of designs, which he published about the year 1775, contributed greatly to diffuse this taste and manner.

The genius of Robert Adam was not confined to architecture and ornamental composition, but appeared in numerous landscapes, which display a felicity of invention and management of tint at once bold and luxuriant. It would be difficult to enumerate the many public and private edifices which have been constructed from his plans and designs. His activity was unremitted through life. In the year preceding his death he designed eight public and twenty-five private works, so various and excellent in style and picturesque delineation, as would have afforded him a high degree of reputation, even if these alone had constituted the whole of his performances as an artist.

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1. What was Robert Adam; and where was he born?

2. To what office was he appointed in 1762 ?

3. For what part of his art was Robert Adam most celebrated?

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