Prussian General Menu Von Minutoli, who has undertaken a scientific tour in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, accompanied by an architect, an orientalist, and two naturalists, has written to his patron (his royal highness Prince Charles of Prussia) a letter from Alexandria, dated the 13th of September, in which he gives an account of an interview with the viceroy of Egypt, Mahomed Ali Pasha, and anticipates the safe and successful prosecution of his object.

ITALY.

Mr. Angelo Mai's latest discoveries. -The indefatigable M. Mai, now chief librarian of the Vatican, has lately made new discoveries of works hitherto unknown. In a Greek Codex, which contained the Orations of Aristides, he found extracts of Constantine Porphyrogeneta, taken from the defective or lost books of Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dion Cassius, and other ancient authors. The MS. of these works is of the eleventh century, and very legible. In another Codex of the same Aristides he found a treatise on Politics; and in a Vatican Codex, the second discourse of Aristides in favour of. Lastly, he has found seven complete books of the Physician Oribasius, only two of which were hitherto known; a Compendium of Eusebius, under the title of "Evangelic Questions ;" works of a Latin grammarian, and of a Latin orator; a Greek collection, in which there are many parts of the lost books of Philo; some hitherto unpublished works of Greek and Latin fathers, who lived before St. Jerome; and some small works of less importance. The statue of Memnon.-The Russian Ambassador at the Court of Rome has received a letter from Sir A. Smith, an English traveller, who is at present at the Egyptian Thebes. He states, that he has himself examined the celebrated statue of Memnon, accompanied by a numerous escort. At six o'clock in the morning he heard very distinctly the sounds so much spoken of in former times, and which had been generally treated as fabulous. "One may," he says, sign to this phenomenon a thousand

66 as

different causes, before it could be supposed to be simply the result of a certain arrangement of the stones." The statue of Memnon was overturned by an earthquake; and it is from the pedestal that this mysterious sound is emitted, of which the cause has never been ascertained, and which was denied merely because it was inexplicable.

IONIAN ISLANDS.

Chios, 26th July.—The great Greek college here continues to flourish, in spite of all obstacles. The branches of knowledge at present taught are natural philosophy and mathematics, the Belles Lettres, the French language, drawing, &c. and it is proposed to found a professorship of Italian music. The drawing-master is a young Frenchman of the name of Mangousse, a pupil of the Normal school at Paris. The number of students is now 476, viz. 400 Greeks and 76 foreigners. Among the latter are three Americans, who are studying the language of Homer on the spot which boasts of being the birth-place of the father of poetry.

Four of the Columns which are to be used in the construction of Isaac's church, have lately been brought to Petersburg, by water carriage, from Finland. They are of vast size; the shaft of each being eight fathoms in height, consisting of a single piece. Thirty-six similar columns will adorn the edifice. The whole building will be colossal. Under the pediment, which will be of marble slabs, there are to be thirty-two stoves to warm the church in the winter: being distributed by means of pipes under the pavement. Each of the above-men

tioned pillars weighs, in its present state, 13,000 poods (calculating 36 lbs. English per pood). They are polished by the aid of a steam-engine.

Princess Anna Narischkin, who died about half a year ago at a very advanced age, left in her will the sum of 150,000 roubles for the benefit of

the establishments for the education of youth, viz. the Academy for the Education of Noble Ladies; the schools

of the order of St. Catherine at St. Petersburg and Moscow; the Girl's School of the Military Orphan-house, and the School for the Deaf and Dumb.

ENGRAVINGS

IN LITERARY PUBLICA

TIONS.

DURING the intervals of our periodical exhibitions of individual pictures of importance, we shall invite our readers to the pleasing and useful consideration of the best engraved publications which have recently issued from the press, including single prints, and those which confer a visible grace on literary and scientific thought, and give a body of beauty to the imaginativeness of the poet, the speculations and discoveries of the philosopher, and the narrations of the historian and traveller. We much regret that the extreme hazard of bringing out works which, from their union of size and subject, constitute the noblest class of Engravings, such as WOOLLET's Landscapes, SHARPE'S Historical, and SCOTT's Hunting subjects, will rarely afford us the satisfaction of having such under our review; but we shall not be without a rich mass of sculptural wealth, dug out by the ingenious and elaborate hand of the engraver from his own and the Muse's mine.

A taste for book embellishments, which, in the beginning of the last reign, began to extend from individuals to the public, by means of the unfinished efforts of GRIGNION, who has been called the father of English Engraving, and the charming graver of BARTOLOZZI, was decisively established by the tasteful enthusiasm of BELL, in his edition of the "Poets," and of HARRISON, in his "Novelist's Magazine," in which STOTHARD and MORTIMER, as designers, and SHARPE and HEATH, as engravers, surprised and delighted by the precocity and power of their inventive and executive faculties. Since that bright inorning of British art, a noonday effulgence of taste in the public, and of ability in the engraver, has been constantly appearing; and England now has her sculptural powers nourished to a manly and matured growth. Besides the two last named engravers, she is at present honoured by the labours of Messrs. BROM

LEY, COOKE, ENGLEHEART, FINDEN, HOLLOWAY, LANDSEER, Le KEUX, MIDDIMAN, MILTON, MOSES, NEAGLE, PYE, RAIMBACH, RHODES, SANDS, SCOTT, SCRIVEN, WARREN, WEDGwooD, &c.; whose engraved translations of the works of our elegant book-designers have enriched a succession of numerous and valuable publications, and sent in from their store-house of taste a continued feast of intellect to our firesides and studies. The painters who have assisted most in the supply of this pleasure are Messrs. ARNALD, CHALON, COOPER, CORBOULD, DEVIS, FUSELI, HOWARD, HILTON, HOFLAND, NASH, NEALE, OwEN, PUGIN, REINAGLE, SINGLETON, SMIRKE, STOTHARD, THURSTON, TURNER, UWINS, WARD, WESTALL, WILD; of whom, Messrs. CHALON and COOPER in animals, Messrs. OWEN and TURNER in marine painting, Mr. TURNER in landscape, and Messrs. CORBOULD, FUSELI, SMIRKE, STOTHARD, THURSTON, UwINS, and WESTALL, have been most frequent and conspicuous contributors. Latterly, Messrs. STOTHARD, WESTALL, UwINS, and THURSTON, have been almost the exclusive designers for literary works; so that, when we take up a newly embellished book or number, we scarcely think of seeing engravings from any others of our esteemed artists.

Waverley is the last valuable work of our best writers that has been illustrated by Prints. We wish we could say that the designs from which these have been engraved are worthy of the author, and that we were not doubly disappointed, in their being from the hand of Mr. W. ALLAN; most of whose former productions have led us to expect a feeling more adequate, in power of conception and design, to the highly wrought and very animated scenes described by his Author. Looking at Mr. ALLAN's power of embodying thought and passion here, after seeing them so nobly brought out by his pencil, in his Sale of a Circassian Captive, his Press-gang,

and his Tartar Robbers dividing their Spoil, we are regretfully reminded of the adage, that "No man is the same at all hours." To the genius of the writer of the Novels and Tales may be well applied the power which DRYDEN attributes to music, in the line

“What passions may not Music raise and quell," so intensely are our feelings wrought upon by the writer's descriptions and scenes. The comparative tameness, therefore, of Mr. ALLAN's designs comes as insipidly upon the mental palate as slices of a sleepy apple would after eating a nonpareil. Thus, in Old Mortality, the refined and earnest feeling which prompted the sentiment, that "he considered himself as fulfilling a sacred duty while renewing to the eye of posterity the decaying emblems of the zeal and sufferings of their forefathers," the painter has expressed by the old gentleman carelessly reclining on a tomb-stone, in a half-sitting and halflying posture; the mallet and chisel, with which he is restoring the decayed emblems, appearing as if in the hand of a mere hired workman, rather than of one who was engaged in the business by strenuous and kindly emotions. Simplicity is a comprehensive term often dwelt upon by critics to express genuineness and truth of nature as opposed to every thing that is meretricious: but there is another kind of simplicity, which shews that nature has been very niggardly of her gifts to the possessor, and excites not the most pleasant feelings in those who behold it. We leave to our readers to imagine which of these two kinds of simplicity it is that we perceive in the Engraved Illustrations, where Lucy Ashton and the Master of Ravenswood are pledging their love at the Mermaid's fountain, when we say that we do not know whether it is the representation of what is most woe-begone or lackadaisical. The best design is that where the Laird of Monkbarns is arming himself on the alarm of invasion. It is all fermentation, and bustle of mind and body. Messrs. HEATH, WARREN, ENGLEHEART, &c. have, by the masterly play and brilfiancy of their gravers, added a lively effect to the moderate degree of interest the painter has conferred upon his subjects. It is sunshine over a district but partially

cultivated.

One of the best works now in a course of publication is An Engraved Series of Picturesque Views in Paris and its environs, from original Drawings by Mr. F. NASH; the literary department by Mr. J. SCOTT, &c. This work has a brief but very

VOL. III. NO. I.

relishing mixture of narrative, sentiment, and picturesque description, the result of reading, reflection, sensibility to the objects, individuals, and circumstances described, and of tasteful and personal inspection of the scenes. It is rendered in English and in French, the latter by M. De LA BOISSIERE; and we can hardly conceive that any other local choice could be made, so well calculated to please the imagination, while it conveys information upon matters of Art, Science, Biographical, and Historical facts, which have transpired during the momentous period of the last thirty years, relative to persons and places that excited the deepest interest throughout the world, coming home in their results to our very bosoms, and affecting our personal and political con

dition and interests. The sudden elevation and as sudden decline of the French arms and empire; the alternations of fortune in the various characters who figured on the stage of publicity; the beauty of the Parisian gardens, and fountains; the elegance and grandeur of the public, and the striking appearance of the private edifices; the dreary solemnity of the catacombs; the pensive beauty of the extensive cemetery of Paris, and its other various attractions to the tasteful and moral contemplatist, unite in conferring on the French Metropolis, and on the work that describes it, an unusual excitation to curiosity, that will not be disappointed on the inspection of it. Four Parts have appeared out of the ten which are to complete the publication; each Part containing six Views, with descriptive letter-press to every Print. The Prints are all well engraved, some of them in a masterly style by MIDDIMAN, SCOTT, PYE, &c.— We can from personal knowledge attest the faithfulness with which Mr. NASH has drawn the objects engraved. The following are among the most striking:—View from Pont Notre Dame, engraved by Mr. W. R. SMITH, where the light striking brightly on the right side of the river and the river itself, and from a summer-illumined and light cloud-floating sky, leaves the bridge and the city on the left side in shade, forming one of those pleasing, because well-arranged effects, which are so justly and universally esteemed from Mr. NASH's pencil. The large size and impressive style of the Parisian buildings, and the thronged appearance on the bridge and on the broad thoroughfare along the front of the houses that line the sides of the Seine, are true to the realities.-The View of Paris from the cemetery of Pere Le Chaise describes a portion of the elegant tombs

E

and monuments of that sadly-pleasing place, intermixed with the trees and shrubs which affection and taste have planted and preserved there; forming a rich foreground, over which the city is distantly seen; while the mild lustre of the sun about to decline below the horizon, is at once a contrast to, and an emblem of, the life that has departed from the frail remains of what it once animated: which remains are seen carried to their final destination in the earth, by friends bending mournfully and moving with steps slow and respectful. The engraver, Mr. PYE, has felt and displayed the beauty of his original, and of the greater original, Nature; and the mind dwells on this scene. as it does on its archetype, with a charmed melancholy. The Facade of the Louvre, one of the most beautiful structures in Paris, and which is like a lively and beautiful young woman who is not without her faults, all must admire. "The design was given by PERRAULT, the wretched physician and excellent architect, as he was termed by BOILEAU. After numerous intrigues, the objects of which were the artists LEVAU, LE BRUN, and PERRAULT, COLBERT secured the preference to the latter, by pretending to praise very highly the design offered by Levau. The King, to shew the independence of his taste, immediately gave the work to PERRAULT. It is of the Corinthian order, and the details though magnificent are florid."-The Catacombs. These are chambers and avenues extending two miles round, and were originally quarries that supplied the stones for the building of the city, but are now the depositary of a vast accumulation of bones that took place on the demolition of churches at the period of the Revolution. The bones of more than three millions of human beings are neatly and closely piled along the walls. Entrance to Paris by Menil-Montant, engraved by Mr.MIDDIMAN, with a

NEW INVENTIONS.

fine day-light effect, is a highly picturesque scene, shewing the magnificent city through a beautiful vista of trees.The Garden of the Palais Royal. "This famous emporium of pleasure and business is named by the Parisians the capital of the capital." The garden, in which is a graceful jet d'eau, is surrounded by a noble square building. Its principal part is of the Corinthian order.-Place Vendome and its Column. This beautiful square is ornamented with Corinthian pillars, and its centre by a noble column, exactly imitated from the celebrated Trajan column at Rome, except that it is onetwelfth larger. It is one hundred and forty feet high, is built of stone, and is incased in a bronze exterior, formed out of the cannon taken in the Austrian war. Two hundred and seventy-four plates of bronze bear a set of beautiful bas-reliefs ascending in a spiral line, and representing the most famous actions of the campaigns of the North. (To be continued.)

Royal Academy.-On the 10th ult. the anniversary of this foundation, the officers of the last year were re-elected, and silver medals distributed as prizes to Mr. Watts, for the best copy of an Ostade, in the school of painting; to Mr. Sharp, for the second best, a copy from the infant Bacchus of Poussin; to Mr. A. Morton, for the best drawing from the living model; to Mr. Pitts, for the best model from the same; to Mr. Wood, for the best drawing from an antique figure, one of the dying sons of Niobe; to Mr. R. Williams, for the best model from the same; and to Mr. George Allen, for the best architectural drawing, the plan and elevation of Surgeons College, Lincoln's Inn Square.

Sir T. Lawrence presided. We hear nothing of the academy's going out of the circumscribed bounds to which it has too long limited its operations for the advancement of art.

Reduction of Muriate of Silver.-The use of nitrate of silver in laboratories, as a test for the muriates, causes a quantity of muriate of silver to be collected, which is usually reduced to the metallic state by fusion with potash. But generally much silver is lost in this way, which may be called the dry mode to distinguish it from the moist; and it is therefore prefer

water, and add the muriate of silver with a little sulphuric or muriatic acid. The reduction soon begins, and offers a very curious sight, particularly when the muriate is in lumps; it begins on the surface, and extends over the whole in the form of ramifications, and penetrates the inner part, so that in less than an hour considerable lumps of the muriate of silver are reduced. Some heat is generated in the process which assists the reduction; or if it goes on slowly, the mixture may be warmed.-From the French.

Larch Bark in Tanning.-From an experiment made by Mr. P. Martin, of Haddington, upon the use of larch bark in tanning instead of oak, we learn that as far as respects the durability of leather so tanned, on a comparative experiment with oak, the two sorts of leather, used as soles to each of a pair of shoes, were found to wear equally well. Were we to estimate à priori the relative value of the bark of oak, larch, and Leicester willow, from the proportion of tannin afforded in the experiments of Sir H. Davy, the willow bark would excel that of the two others; but it seems probable that the inferiority of the larch bark, in his experiments, arose from the trees being cut down in autumn; a period when the sap, and its constituents of taunin and extractive, are greatly exhausted, from the previous formation of the young wood, in which they are easily detected; indeed, the proportion of extractive and tannin, in the succulent and newly-condensed wood, is in some cases nearly treble the quantity existing in the old external layers of bark, especially in autumn; and from this it is probable that the annual pruning of trees abounding with these constituents, might with profit be applied to the purposes of the tanner.

a

New Kind of Cord.-M. Magling, privy councillor of Wurtemberg, (but lately deceased) invented new kind of cord, the threads of which are not convolved, like common cord, but combined in a parallel and straight-forward direction. M. Maschenbrock has found, after repeated trials, that threads, not twined round one another, are much

stronger than those which are, but he had not complete success in fitting them parallel. Messrs. Landauer, brothers, of Stutgard, have recently obtained from the King of Wurtemberg a patent (brevet of invention) for their improvements in this species of cord. Agreeably to experiments made, a cord an inch and three quarters in circumference, with its hards (threads) arranged parallel, sustained a load of thirteen quintals without breaking, and when it broke on the application of greater weight, the ruptured threads were as even as if cut with a pair of scissors, which shews that all the threads were equal in their force and tension. A cord of 504 threads, with a circumference of three inches and three-sixteenths, and a length of 111 feet, plaited in this manner, weighed only nineteen pounds; while an ordinary cord of the same length and circumference, and as many threads, weighed 514 pounds.

NEW PATENTS.

JOHN LEBERECHT STEINHAUSER, of City Road, Middlesex, for an Improvement on Portable Lanthorns or Lamps applicable to various Purposes. -Jan. 15, 1820.

This invention consists principally in fitting a tube or shade to slide over the lanthorn, in order to darken it when used for a night or chimney lamp; or, when the shade is drawn up, it may be suspended by a ring, and carried as a lanthorn. It is well adapted for the purpose intended.

ARCHIBALD KENRICK, of West Bromwich, Stafford, Iron Founder ; for Improvements in Mills for grinding Coffee, &c.-May 23, 1815.

The first improvement is the method of fixing the mill against a post or wall, by forming a flanch or flat surface projecting from the box or case, so as that it may be nailed, screwed, or otherwise fastened to a post, wall, table, bench, or other fixed support. Secondly, the box of the mill may be supported by means of a flanch, at the end of a stem or pillar projecting from the side of the box, which may be formed of the same metal as the box, cast in the same piece, or be screwed to it.