and left, when smoke, and dust, and mingling flame will consummate the glory of the battle.

I come now to another head. You are all accused of being bad cooks; and true it may be, that the Highlands have produced one Ossian and a host of bards, but not one cook. Mesdames M'Iver and Fraser, whatever may be their merits, are Highland by mis-alliance and not by descent. I have said you are all bad cooks -but this is your pride and your glory. Nothing can be more contemptible than the care and anxiety some fussing denationalized mistreses show about the dressing of dinners, and laying out of tables for their families and visiters-flamming and skimand basting ming-washing and O glorious days, say I, when a dozen pretty men seized a steer, ripped him up with their dirks, and made his own entrails the seething pot! Those times are gone still I would warn you not to contaminate the dignity of your Highland natures, by the flesh pot mysteries of the Saxons. I have it to say with pride, that many among you remain to your dying day, as ignorant of such arts, as the day you left your mother's side. Show however a proper degree of taste and diserimination in what you eat yourselves, and a fixed aversion to soups rewarmed, fish when cheap, and broken victuals. If shabby families will produce such things for their hard working servants, tell them with a toss of your head, you can eat a potatoe for your part for dinner. You can indemnify yourself in the proper place, especially when you have company. Your mistress may be

mean enough to wish things sent away, brought back to table a second time; but do you, as a faithful servant, save her from that disgrace. A liberal way of living and bestowing, is respectable; and when you secretly send off quantities of provisions, it can be for nothing but the credit of the family. You must from the first day of going to a new place, show your good taste in tea.

No doubt, you were

always accustomed to this expensive beverage in perfection in your mother's hut; and you may expect it equally elegant when you have the good luck to be married, which no doubt will be some time; so that you have a right to insist on your tea twice a day, and to take no slops nor dish-washings," as you may call it, "off any body's hands." I have known girls of spirit carry this point with so high a hand, that they have left their places, and starved on brochan for six months before they yielded it.

But I have wandered from the Saxon science of gastronomy, which literally means belly-filling. If you must cook, contrive to do it with as little washing as possible: this practice blanches meat and destroys its native flavour. At the management of a fire for cooking, I conclude you an adept, and equally so in taking care of your saucepans, &c. All the Scots have a national antipathy to under done meat. I would, therefore, advise you to show a noble disregard of hours and clocks, and time fixed for dinner; and if your mistress interfere, show an equally noble degree of self-independence. It is no matter of hers surely besides,

hours were made for slaves-you are a free-born serving lass. Let the same contempt of clocks be shown in whatever you do. In roasting a joint of meat be sure to leave a good swinging black spit mark, with a garnishing of butcher's pins in it. This will prove that it has been roasted, and not done at the bakers; and if it be allowed to cool gently on the dresser, while you clean yourself, and be then dished up, floating in an ocean of greasy gravy with a sprinkling of ashes, it must do great honour to your cookery. A sprinkling of ashes is good in many things. You may have heard that the Jews of old, for the punishment of their sins, ate ashes for bread-and I dare say your masters are as great sinners every bit-and have as much reason to go to their penitentials."

DESIRE OF HAPPINESS.

The desire of happiness is so natural to mankind, that it becomes the motive of all their labours, and the spring of every action. It was that desire which alone gave birth to philosophy in the earliest ages of the world. Every mortal, by following the instinct, certainly endeavours to render himself happy; but as all men have not either sufficient discernment, or sufficient opportunity, to discover the path that leads to felicity, some among them have arisen, who have persuaded others they had discovered that path, or, at least, that they applied themselves expressly to the search of it, and have established celebrated schools, where they might point it out to

their fellow citizens. These new guides in the career of good fortune, have called the science that leads to happiness, by the name of wisdom, and, consequently, their doctrine the love of wisdom, which is expressed by the Greek word philosophy.

It is naturally and morally impossible for all mankind to behold the same object in the same point of view; and, consequently, there soon arose, among those masters of philosophy, different opinions concerning happiness, and the road that leads to it: from hence came the different symstems of philosophy, and those celebrated disputes, which, at this day, appear to us so insipid and frivolous. All that there is of certainty in this matter is, that none of these philosophers perceived that the happiness of each individual lies in his own opinion; and it is with reason that opinion is called the queen of the world. Passion is nothing but a vehement desire we have to gratify our own opinion in what we think capable of procuring our felicity. Every man laughs at, and censures his neighbour for his bad taste in this pursuit, and for the choice of the object that is to make him happy. The covetous man blames the prodigal; the scholar, retiring to his study, condemns the courtier, hurried away by the fashionable dissipations; the fine gentleman, in return, turns the scholar into ridicule; the connoisseur in pictures, antiquities, or natural curiosities, cannot account for that excessive love which the miser feels for his money; the usurer shurgs up his shoulders, and is astonished to see any person misspend his time in learned

pursuits; the man of sanctity, lifting his eyes towards heaven, laments the wretched taste for earthly enjoyments; and the man of the world, on the other hand, ridicules the enthusiast in a word, each is unable to account for his neighbour's taste; and no one is satisfied, but in proportion as he is able to gratify his favourite passion, that is, what in his opinion constitutes human happiness.

It is apparent, that we do not speak here of eternal happiness, for that is the object of theology, but of temporal felicity, which the merest bauble is as able to procure as any thing of real value. It is pleasant enough, however, to hear a philosopher exclaim, " mortals, you cannot be happy, but by such and such means, or by such and such maxims ;" he forgets that the happiness of a woman frequently consists in a diamond or trinket, and that of a courtier in a title or riband.

ON CALORIC.

(Continued from page 172.) "The next method of producing heat is by exciting vibration in solids. Whether fluids can be thus heated we do not know: there is no clear instance of heat being produced by their vibration. We may excite vibration in solids, by friction or by collision: if we rub together or strike two bodies, if they have any elasticity they will vibrate. The rougher bodies are, when rubbed together, the greater vibration is produced; and, therefore, the greater heat. The vibration is, also, cæt. par. in pro

portion to the elasticity of bodies."

In Count Rumford's ninth Essay, which is an enquiry into the source of heat that is excited by friction, many interesting experiments are related. From these experiments it appears, that sufficient heat was produced by the friction of two metallic surfaces (when the access of atmospherical air was entirely prevented) to make water actually boil, &c.

This ingenious philosopher, when reasoning on these experiments, gives satisfactory reasons to prove that the heat could not be furnished either by the air, or by the water which surrounded the machinery, And, considering that the source of the heat, generated in these experiments, appeared evidently to be inerhaustible, he naturally concluded, that heat could not be matter for, says he-" It is hardly necessary to add, that any thing which any insulated body, or system of bodies, can continue to furnish without limitation, cannot possibly be a material substance."

"Another method of producing heat is by the taking place of chemical attractions. Every chemical attraction as far as we know, in taking place, produces either heat or cold; whether it be simple combination, elective attraction, or compound elective attraction. Some of the chemical attractions are attended, besides the production of heat, with another striking phenomenon, namely, the producing of light. For instance, this is produced by the combination of respired air with phlogiston: and other instances might be adduced. This strikes out an interesting subject of philosophical inquiry."'

The fourth and fifth methods of producing heat might be descanted upon very copiously; but perhaps, this would have but little tendency towards determining what heat is.

Lastly-" Heat is produced in volcanos. This has commonly heen supposed to be the burning of fuel, but it is evident that it cannot be produced by this cause, or by any other known means of the production of heat. The burning of fuel, it is known, destroys a proportionate quantity of air to produce a very great degree of heat requires still more to be applied than is naturally combined with phlogiston. Now, the whole island, Santalina, is a mass of iron ore, very difficult of fusion, which was fused and thrown up from the bottom of the sea, in the midst, betwixt two shores, by this heat, where no air could, therefore, possibly come; and, if it could, it would have required more in quantity than would have exhausted the whole atmosphere, to animate fuel enough to have produced the heat. In Friesland, some time ago, there was a tract of country, one hundred miles across, the whole of which, with men, animals, trees, and whatever was on it, was melted into one common mass. This heat then, cannot be produced by the burning of fuel; much less can it be by the decomposition of pyrites, which is, indeed, the burning of sulphur. And by what means such intense heat is produced, we are at a loss to determine."

Having spoken of the various methods of producing heat, we must next observe, that bodies may be heated by communication. And several experiments

might be described to shew, that some bodies will both communicate and receive heat more readily than others, &c.

"Iron is a good conductor of heat; on the contrary, wood is one of the best non-conductors of heat known. That the former is a conductor, and the latter a non-conductor, is evident from the following simple experiment

If you take a nail or a small piece of iron and hold it in the flame of a fire or candle, it will speedily become so hot all over, as to oblige you to relinquish your hold; but if you take a small piece of wood and hold it in the flame, you may keep hold of it till it is nearly all consumed by the fire, without being incommoded by the heat of the wood.' Hence, heat passes with ease in iron, and with difficulty in wood."

From the results of various experiments, Count Rumford concludes that water, oil, mercury, and air, are non-conductors of heat; indeed, he thinks it essential to all fluids, that they should be non-conductors of heat, or that all interchange and communication of heat among their particles, or from one of them to the other, is absolutely impossible. Glass, when rendered of a loose texture, conducts heat with very great difficulty; insomuch, that the lava of a volcano has, sixteen years after an eruption, been found red-hot a foot under the surface of such glass, though this was quite cool. This circumstance might, very probably, give the hint for the assertion (paradoxical as it may seem without proper deliberation), "that it would be no difficult matter to convey an iron ball

red-hot, from London to Lincoln." To perform this, it must be inclosed in pumice stone, which is very porous glass, formed by volcanos, and then covered over with fur. It is also easy, by covering a room with fire, to preserve the air in it of the same temperature, without bringing any thing into it either hot or cold, for a very great length of time.

As to the effects produced by heat, it is known to expand bodies; and some late chemists affirm, that it tends to diminish every attraction we are acquainted with, &c.

From a review of what has been here advanced, we shall find there are few, or, perhaps, we may confidently say, no appearances but what will admit of as easy an explanation by conjecturing that heat is a quality, as by supposing it is a substance. Nay, some of the phenomena, particularly those which attend the production of heat by friction or vibration, in solids, will, as must appear from what has been previously observed, induce us to incline more to the former hypothesis than to the latter, &c.

We have also seen that light may be produced by particular means, the solar rays, for instance—it may, likewise be destroyed. The method of reasoning just applied to heat, may, with equal propriety, be used here; and this will induce us to conclude, that light, instead of being a fluid, per se, as has been sometimes conjectured, is a quality, and can no more exist independently of matter than heat

can.

Whether these conclusions may be safely relied on, is not for us to determine. The great mysterious Being who made and governs the universe, has set a part, only, of the chain of causes in our view; and we find, that as He, himself, is too high for our comprehension, so His more immediate instruments are, also, involved in an obscurity that our feeble endeavours are not able to dissipate.

EFFECTS OF TERROR.

The honourable Mr. Boyle relates, that when he was in Ireland, an Irish captain, coming with some of his followers to surrender to lord Broghil, was casually intercepted by a party of the English, his lordship being then absent. This was an unexpected misfortune, and the terrors of death had so remarkable an effect on the captain, that, before lord Broghil's return, his hair changed its colour in a surprizing manner; some of his locks became perfectly white, and being interspersed with the rest which retained their usual redish hue, exhibited a very uncommon appearance.

A young nobleman having violated a lady's chastity, was imprisoned, and condemned to lose his head the next day. Being brought into the imperial presence, before the execution of his sentence, he could not be known. The beauty of his face was vanished, his countenance exactly resembled that of a corpse, and his hair and beard entirely grey. So wonderful an alteration gave reason to suspect the person was a counterfeit ; but after a strict examination,