elevator muscle of the upper eyelid, and the superior oblique muscle no longer contracted; but the frontal muscles, the orbicularis palpebrarum, masseter, digastric, &c. still continued to contract. The contractions ceased first in the masseter muscle; they were prolonged in the buccinator. Two hours after execution, it had entirely ceased in all the muscles, and it could not be excited on moistening them anew. In another head, cut off twenty minutes at least before the preceding, the galvanic irritation caused the depressor commissuræ labiarum, the orbicularis palpebrarum, and masseter, to contract; this latter always much longer than the others. Two hours and three quarters after decapitation, the muscles of this head appeared to have lost all irritability. Before concluding our experiments upon the head of the last decapitated, we exposed the pectoralis major and minor of a body which was brought in. The large pectoral muscle alone contracted under the influence of the galvanic fluid, the muscles of the abdomen no longer contracted; contraction took place only in the right triceps muscle and in the sartorius; they ceased always in the latter half an hour sooner than in the other. Irritation applied to the transverse muscle of this body no longer produced contraction, which we attributed to the circumstance that the body had been opened at the place of execution, after the first experiment. In another body which had been opened at the same time, the application of galvanism also produced some motions, as well as a feeble contraction, which was not renewed: mechanical irritation produced none. An hour and a half after execution, the natural motion of the heart had ceased in the bodies already carried to the theatre. We were still, however, in hopes to produce contraction by means of irritation; not being able to get at the heart of the body which had been first opened, we proceeded to that of a body which had been newly opened. This last had also retained its heat, principally in the internal parts; the heart still contained a little blood, of a deep, colour, in the left ventricle, which was partly fluid and partly coagulated; but we could not, either mechanically, or by means of galvanism, excite any contraction of the muscular fibres of the heart.-Schriften der Gesell der Gesammt Naturwiss zu Marburg, vol. i. 1823.

Literary and Scientific Intelligence.

Charles Brinsley Sheridan, esq., has in the press a Translation in Verse of the Songs of the Greeks, from the Romaic text; in 2 vols. By M. J. Auriel. With additions.

In the ensuing spring will be published the sixth quarto volume of Dr. Lingard's History of England, which will contain the reign of James I. and Charles I.

Mr. Roscoe's new work, entitled, The Italian Novelists, will soon appear in 4 vols. 8vo. This interesting work is selected from the most approved authors in that language; from the earliest period down to the close of the Eighteenth Cen

tury; arranged in an Historical and Chronological Series. It is translated from the original Italian, and is accompanied with Notes, Critical and Biographical.

The Present State of the Mines in Mexico, Chili, Peru, and Brazil, represented from practical knowledge, and illustrated by Extracts from popular writers, with Notes and General Remarks on the Operation of Mining.

A volume will shortly appear concerning the Astronomy of the Egyptians, parti cularly referring to the celebrated Circular Zodiac discovered at Denderah, and which was subsequently conveyed to Paris.

Jones's Continuation to Hume and Smollett's England, 3 vols. 8vo.

F. Valpy, M. A. Trinity College, Cambridge, is collecting and arranging in a volume, the Fundamental Words of the Greek Language, adapted to the Memory of the Student by means of Derivations and Derivatives; Striking Contexts, and other Associations.

The Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach, written by herself, will be published in a few days.

Martin's Carpenters', Joiners', and Cabinet-Makers' Practical Guide, royal 8vo; 30 engravings.

The great fire in Edinburgh has retarded the publication of the Crusaders. Memoirs of Moses Mendelsohn, the Jewish Philosopher, including the celebrated Correspondence between him and J. C. Lavater on the Christian Religion, will be speedily published.

A Manual of Classical Biography, by Joseph William Moss, of Magdalen College, Oxford, &c. will shortly be published.

A new edition of the works of Archdeacon Paley, with a Life of the Author, by his son, the Rev. Edmund Paley, and many sermons, not before published, is announced.

Vol. VI. of the personal narrative of M. de Humboldt's Travels in the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, during the years 1799-1804, translated by Helen Maria Williams, is nearly ready.

Dr. Luden, of Jena, has announced his intention of publishing A History of Germany,' by subscription. It will form 10 vols. and be printed in four different sizes. From so powerful a pen, the lovers of literature may anticipate a work of the highest order.

In 1824, there were one hundred and ninety-seven new dramas produced in Paris; of these, nine were tragedies, twenty comedies, and sixteen operas,-the rest were vaudevilles.

Alex. Tilloch, Esq.-This respected individual, on the 26th ult., closed a long life of literary and scientific devotedness; during which he displayed indefatigable industry and zeal in worthy public pursuits, and was no less distinguished for integrity and excellence in the private relations of life. He was, for many years, the editor of the "Philosophical Magazine;" and a principal proprietor and director of the "Star" newspaper. He also engaged in other periodical as well as distinct publications; and, in none, we believe, ever broached a sentiment which could shed a cloud upon his dying bed.

LIST OF NEW BRITISH PUBLICATIONS.

Lyon's Attempt to reach Repulse Bay, 8vo. 108. 6d. Memes's Memoirs of Canova, 8vo. 15s. Dayes's Picturesque Tour in Yorkshire, &c. royal 8vo. 188. Fosbroke's Encyclopedia of Antiquities, 2 vols. 4to. 61. The Modern Traveller, 5 vols. 18mo. 11. 7s. 6d. Voyage de Polyciete, abrege par Rouillon, 12mo. 68. 6d. The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits, 8vo. 128. Clarke's History of the Hundred of Wantley, 4to. 21s. Memoires ou Souvenirs et Anecdotes, par Comte de Segur, 8vo. 103. 6d. Miriam and Ellinor, by the author of St. Aubin,' 18mo. 3s. French Domestic Cookery, 12mo. 78. Bennett's Short-Hand explained, 12mo. 4s. 6d. Epitome of Paley's Philosophy, 12mo, 48. Smith on Medical Evidence, 8vo. 12s. Boyle on Moxa, 8vo. 78. Brown on Restitution of all Things, 8vo, 45. Parkes's Domestic Duties, 8vo. 128. Webster's Prayers, royal 18mo. 2s. 6d. Scott's Discourses on Natural and Revealed Religion, 8vo. 10s. 6d. Russel on the Covenants, 12mo. 58. 6d. Boaden's Memoirs of J. P. Kemble, 2 vols. 8vo. 28s. Brydge's Recollections of Foreign Travel, Life, Literature, &c. 3 vols. 8vo. 188. The Gil Blas of the Revolution, 3 vols. 12mo. 21s. Britton's History and Antiquities of Wells Cathedral, med, 4to. 50s., imp. 4to. 41. 4s., royal 4to. 81. 8s., ditto, proofs and etchings, 161, 16. Bowles' Final Appeal relative to Pope, 8vo. 78. Dodd's Connoisseurs' Repertorium, part 1. 12mo. 74. 6d., 8vo. 10s. 6d. Cooper on the Church of Christ, 8vo. 78. Brougham's Practical Observations upon the Education of the People, 8vo. 6d. Waddington's Visit to Greece, in 1823-24, 8vo. 88. 6d. Apology to the Traveller's Club; or, Anecdotes of Monkies, foolscap 8vo. 5s. 6d. Shakspeare's Hamlet, a reprist of the first edition, 8vo. 58, Richardson's Sonnets, and other Poems, post 8vo. 5.

MUSEUM

OF

Foreign Literature and Science.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF CLARA REEVE.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

[From Ballantyne's Novelist's Library.]

CLARA REEVE, the ingenious authoress of The Old English Baron, was the daughter of the Rev. William Reeve, M. A., Rector of Freston, and of Kerton, in Suffolk, and perpetual Curate of Saint Nicholas. Her grandfather was the Reverend Thomas Reeve, Rector of Storeham Aspal, and afterwards of St. Mary Stoke, in Ipswich, where the family had been long resident, and enjoyed the rights of free burghers. Miss Reeve's mother's maiden name was Smithies, daughter of Smithies, goldsmith and jeweller to King George I.

In a letter to a friend, Mrs. Reeve thus speaks of her father:"My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the Parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. Igaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and forever. He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave, made amends for its dryness. I read Cato's Letters, by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman Histories, and Plutarch's Lives;all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their

names."

The Reverend Mr. Reeves, himself one of a family of eight children, had the same number; and it is therefore likely, that it was rather Clara's strong natural turn for study, than any degree of exclusive care which his partiality bestowed, that enabled her to acquire such a stock of early information. After his death, his widow resided in Colchester with three of their daughters; and it was here that Miss Clara Reeve first became an authoress, by translating from Latin Barclay's fine old romance, entitled Argenis, published in 1772, under the title of The Phoenix. It was in 1777, five years afterwards, that she produced her first and most distinguished work. It was published by Mr. Dilly of the Poultry (who gave ten pounds for the copyright) under the title of The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story. The work came to a second edition, in the succeeding year, and was then first called VOL. VI. No. 35.-Museum.

3 C

The Old English Baron. The cause of the change we do not pretend to guess; for if Fitzowen be considered as the Old English Baron, we do not see wherefore a character, passive in himself from beginning to end, and only acted upon by others, should be selected to give a name to the story. We ought not to omit to mention, that this work is inscribed to Mrs. Brigden, the daughter of Richardson, who is stated to have lent her assistance to the revisal and correction of the work.

The success of The Old English Baron encouraged Miss Reeve to devote more of her leisure hours to literary composition, and she published in succession the following works:-The Two Mentors, a Modern Story; The Progress of Romance, through Times, Countries, and Manners; The Exile, or Memoirs of Count de Cronstadt, the principal incidents of which are borrowed from a novel by M. D'Arnaud; The School for Widows, a Novel; Plans of Education, with Remarks on the System of other Writers, in a duodecimo volume; and The Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon, a natural Son of Edward the Black Prince; with Anecdotes of many other eminent Persons of the fourteenth Century.

To these works we have to add another tale, of which the interest turned upon supernatural appearances. Miss Reeve informs the public, in a preface to a late edition of The Old English Baron, that in compliance with the suggestion of a friend, she had composed Castle Connor, an Irish Story, in which apparitions were introduced. The manuscript, being intrusted with some careless or unfaithful person, fell aside, and was never recovered.

The various novels of Clara Reeve are all marked by excellent good sense, pure morality, and a competent command of those qualities which constitute a good romance. They were, generally speaking, favourably received at the time, but none of them took the same strong possession of the public mind as The Old English Baron, upon which the fame of the author may be considered as now exclusively rested.

Miss Reeve, respected and beloved, led a retired life, admitting no materials for biography, until 3d December, 1803, when she died at Ipswich, her native city, at the advanced age of seventyeight years. She was buried in the church-yard of St. Stephens, according to her particular direction, near to the grave of her friend, the Reverend Mr. Derby. Her brother, the Reverend Thomas Reeve, still lives, as also her sister, Mrs. Sarah Reeve, both advanced in life. Another brother, bred to the navy, attained the rank of vice-admiral in that service.

Such are the only particulars which we have been able to collect concerning this accomplished and estimable woman, and, in their simplicity, the reader may remark that of her life and of her character. As critics, it is our duty to make some farther observations, which shall be entirely confined to her most celebrated work; the

only piece of her composition, which, according to the rules adopt ed for this collection, can be admitted into its precincts.

The authoress has herself informed us that The Old English Baron is the "literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto;" and she has obliged us by pointing out the different and more limited view which she had adopted, of the supernatural machinery employed by Horace Walpole. She condemns the latter for the extravagance of several of his conceptions; for the gigantic size of his sword and helmet; and for the violent fictions of a walking picture, and a ghost in a hermit's cowl. A ghost, she contends, to be admitted as an ingredient in romance, must behave himself like ghosts of sober demeanour, and subject himself to the common rules still preserved in grange and hall, as circumscribing beings of his description.

We must, however, notwithstanding her authority, enter our protest against fettering the realm of shadows by the opinions entertained of it in the world of realities. If we are to try ghosts by the ordinary rules of humanity, we bar them of their privileges entirely. For instance, why admit the existence of an aerial phantom, and deny it the terrible attribute of magnifying its stature? why admit an enchanted helmet, and not a gigantic one? why allow as impressive the fall of a suit of armour, under circumstances which attribute its fall to a supernatural influence, and deny the same supernatural influence the power of producing the illusion, (for it is only represented as such,) upon Manfred, by the portrait of his ancestor appearing to be animated? It may be said, and it seems to be Miss Reeve's argument, that there is a verge of probability, which even the most violent figment must not transgress; but we reply by the cross question, that if we are once to subject our preternatural agents to the limits of human reason, where are we to stop? We might, under such a rule, demand of ghosts an account of the very circuitous manner in which they are pleased to open their communications with the living world. We might, for example, move a quo warranto, against the spectre of the murdered Lord Lovel, for lurking about the eastern apartment, when it might have been reasonably expected, that if he did not at once impeach his murderers to the next magistrate, he might at least have put Fitzowen into the secret, and thus obtained the succession of his son more easily than by the circuitous route of a single combat. If there should be an appeal against this imputation, founded on the universal practice of ghosts in such circumstances, who always act with singular obliquity in disclosing the guilt of which they complain, the matter becomes a question of precedent; in which view of the case, we may vindicate Horace Walpole for the gigantic exaggeration of his phantom, by the similar expansion of the very terrific vision of Fawdoun, in Blind Harry's Life of Wallace; and we could, were we so disposed, have paralleled his moving picture, by the example of one with which we ourselves had some acquaintance, which was said both to move and