"Table of the quantities of acids and bafes which mutually neutralize each other. Table of the affinities of fundry bafes for four of the acids, according to their intenfity. And "A table of the real fpecific gravity of folutions as indicated by Baume's arcometer for falts." After those tables, comes a collection of familiar and eafy chemical experiments, which certainly is a very good felection of the kind. It contains 154 experiments, briefly, yet clearly defcribed. The following is a fpecimen. 54. Spread a piece of tinfoil, fuch as is used for coating elec trical jars, upon a piece of thick paper; pour a fmall quantity of Arong folution of nitrate of copper upon it. Fold it up quickly, and wrap it round carefully with the paper, more effectually to exclude the atmospheric air. Place it then upon a tile, and in a fhort time combustion will commence, and the TIN WILL IN FLAME. "55. Take three parts of nitre, two of potafs, and one of fulphur; make them thoroughly dry, and then mix them by rubbing them together in a warm mortar. The refulting compound is called fulminating powder. If a little of this powder be placed upon a fire-fhovel over a hot fire, it gradually blackens, and at laft melts. At that inftant it EXPLODES WITH A VIOLENT RE PORT. "56. Whenever uncombined muriatic, or any volatile acid is fufpected to be prefent in any chemical mixture, it may be detected by ammonia. A fingle drop of ammonia held over the mixture will immediately render the VAPOUR VISIBLE. 57. Ammonia in folution may in like manner be detected by a fingle drop of muriatic, or acetic acid, which will produce very. evident WHITE FUMES. This is merely the reverfe of the former experiment. 58. Procure a bladder furnished with a ftop cock; fill it with hydrogen gas; and then adapt a tobacco-pipe to it. By djpping the bowl of the pipe into a lather of foap, and preffing the bladder, foap-bubbles will be formed, filled with hydrogen gas, Thefe bubbles will rife into the atmosphere, as they are formed, and convey a good idea of the principle upon which AIRBALLOONS are inflated. 59. Procure a bladder fimilar to that defcribed in the laft experiment. Charge it with a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gafes; blow up foap-bubbles as before; and touch them with a lighted match. The bubbles as they rife will EXPLODE WITH A SMART NOISE." P. 544. The vocabulary of chemical terms, and the general index, which are placed at the end of the book, are in alphabetical order, and form a useful appendage to the work. ART. III. Fragments of Oriental Literature, with an Outline of a Painting on a curious China Vafe. By Stephen Wefton, B. D. F. R.S. S. A. R. L. H. 8vo. 180 pp. Payne. 1807. F Of the mifcellaneous articles which compole this volume, that immediately following the preface and table of contents is Meleager's beautiful Idyllium on the Spring, with a Latin verfion, more close and literal than the translation made by Grotius, and a poetical paraphrafe in English. After this we find a compilation of paffages from feveral Arabian and Perfian writers expreffing thoughts fimilar to thofe of the Grecian poet, To this cento, (as Mr. Wefton ftyles it, p. xxv.), are added fome explanatory notes, the value of which would have been confiderably enhanced by references to the various authors from whofe works the Arabic and Perfian lines were selected. The pedigree of an Arabian horfe follows (p. 28); it was fufpended from the neck of a celebrated charger, purchased in Egypt during the laft campaign in that country, but a great part of the original Arabic, (of which a tranflation is given, p. 30), has, by accident, as we fuppofe, been omitted. The ingenious author prefaces fome remarks on the manners of the Arabians with a paffage fo ftrongly recommending the ftudy of Arabic literature, to all whofe object is an intimate acquaintance with the original language of the Bible, that we are induced to quote it in his own words: "It has often been faid by the profeffors of Arabic, both at home and abroad, and impreffed with great force on their hearers by Pococke, Hunt, Ockley, and Schultens, that the study of the Arabic language is the true road to the understanding of the Hebrew; and fo certain is this obfervation, that the learned oriental world is now convinced no complete knowledge of the Scriptures can be obtained without a familiar acquaintance with the Arabic profe and verfe writers, whofe works and manner of compofition have scarcely a fhade of variation from the oldest Jewish manufcripts of the Bible, in idiom, imagery, diction, and fin-. gular ftyle of expreffion; (f) that whilft you are reading the beft authors of Arabia, you meet continually with. fuch ftrong refemblances to what you have left in Hebrew, that you fancy you are still perufing the Proverbs of Solomon, or the poetry of Mofes and Ifaiah, the fon of Amos.-Juft as a French writer, (Bonnet), remarks of Pliny's letter to Trajan on the Christians. It looks as if I had not taken up another author in reading the Acts Acts of the Apoftles, but was still perufing the Roman historian of that extraordinary fociety." P. 49. Mr. Wefton informs us, (p. 97), that Tekht rawan fignifies, both in Arabick and Perfian, a litter or travelling bed. The thing may be used among the Arabs, and the name perhaps borrowed, but the participle ravan (,,) fufficiently (روان) proves it to be merely a Perfian compound. In the fame page the author mentions Mejnun and Leila, "whofe loves Nezami has fung in a fine Perfian poem," he might have added, that Khafrù, Jami, Hatifi, and many others had chofen the fame romantic fubject; and that the Leila Mejnun of the laft-mentioned poet has been printed at Calcutta in the Perfian type under the fuperintendence of Sir William Jones. From Allemanni's Catalogue of Oriental Manufcripts in the Nanian Library at Padua, Mr. W. has extracted the following" account of a coloffal ftatue of bronze, which was thrown down in the reign of Walid, the firft, fon of Abdalmelec, Khalif of the race of Ommiah, in Egypt.' The anecdote refpecting this ftatue is given by Aflemanni from the works of Al Damiri, the celebrated Arabian naturalift. "Hafedh Abu Bekr Alkhatib Albagdadi, fpeaking in his book called Almottefec Valmofterec of Afama ben Zeed, who prefided over the tribute of Egypt, under Walid and Soliman, fon of Abdalmalek, fon of Merwan, who built the ancient nilometer (Mokkias) that flood in the island of Foftat in Egypt, fays, that there was in Alexandria, upon a promontory of the fea, a ftatue of an idol called Sheraheel, of an immenfe fize, which pointed with one of its fingers towards Conftantinople, and the foot of this image was the height of a man's ftature,-wherefore Afama ben Zeed wrote to Walid ben Abdalmalek in these words, O Prince of the Faithful! there is now with us in Alexandria an image of brafs, called Sheraheel, and we are in want of fulles, or copper money; and if the Prince of the Faithful fhould approve we might melt the bronze ftatue and caft copper coin, but if otherwife, we pray the Prince of the Faithful to write whatfoever thall be his command. Then he (the Khalif), wrote to Afama, you are not to remove the ftatue before I fend to you confidential perfons, in whofe prefence it may be done. The Khalif then fent thofe trufty perfons, and the ftatue was thrown down to the ground, and the eyes were difcovered to be two precious ftones of great price, and they coined fmall money into fulfes.”. P. 102. The author, in this last line, appears to have mistaken the Arabic words, merely fignifying فضرب فلوسا fenfe of فلس that they coined the ftatue (not fmall money) into felus, which is the plural of copper coin. fmall In p. 105, Mr. Wefton offers a conjectural criticism on the following paffage in Virgil's Georg. iii. v. 10. "Primus Ego in patriam mecum, modo vita fuperfit Primus Idumæas referam tibi Mantua palmas." He cannot imagine that Virgil meant to bring palms from Idume, nor fuppofe, with Catrou, that the Roman poet meditated a voyage to the Levant. He thinks Idumaa " unfit for its fituation, and would endeavour to fubftitute another epithet in its place, could it be done without offering violence to the trace of the letters, and could it bring out a meaning more agreeable to the general fcope of the paffage than the prefent reading." Mr. W. is aware, that the palms of Idume were used by the poets for palms in general, but he is induced by circumftances to look for palms in a more confined sense, the palms of Greece and the victories of its games. Virgil declares" I will be the firft, if I furvive, to bring the Mufes from the Aonian Mount. I will also be the first to bring with me Idumean palms. I will erect a temple on the banks of the Mincius. Cæfar fhall be the God, and I, the conqueror in purple, will exhibit the games, &c." If it may be asked, fays Mr. W., from whence Virgil was to bring the Idumean palms? the answer is, certainly from Aonia, whither he was just gone but the inftant before, "and if we inquire for what purpose, it may be answered, for the Mincian games, where Virgil, as conqueror, in honour of Auguftus, was to drive his hundred chariots in the prefence of all Greece." On the words" centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus,"-Servius remarks, "id eft," unius diei exhibebo Circenfes," the palms were then defigned for the poet who promised to celebrate his own victo ries over the Mufes of Helicon. As the Mufes come from Greece, fo do the palms in queftion, and Mr. W. thinks it not improbable that Virgil wrote, "Primus Ithon as referam tibi Mantua, palmas." "Ithane "Ithone was a town in Boeotia, facred to Minerva, whose temple food in a plain before Coronca, where the Пaμsia were celebrated, hinc illæ palma.-Callimachus mentions the Ithonian games. σε Ἦνθον Ιτωνιάδος μὲν Αθαναίας ἐπ' ἄεθλα. "We learn alfo from Statius that Ithone was facred to Minerva, "Ducit Ithonæos atque Alcumenæa Minervæ "And in another important paffage, lib. ii. near the end, Monte venis, five Aonia devertis Ithone." V. 721. 66 This conjectural criticifm is followed by fome remarks on a diftich in the Carmen Tograi, an Arabic poem printed at Oxford in 1661,-on Genders,-on an Eastern proverb fignifying that The first man who forgot was the first of men," and other articles fo fhort, that were we to notice them more particularly, we fhould be obliged to transcribe almost the whole. An engraving prefixed to this volume represents a man ftanding with one leg on a dragon, the other drawn up in the air. One fign of the Chinese Zodiac is a dragon, and the man looks towards the great bear. Some pages of the introduction are devoted to an account of this aftronomical painting, which is found on a china-vase in the author's poffeffion. On the subject of a Perfian Lexicon, mentioned in the preface, (p. xvi.), we have the pleasure of informing our readers, that the excellent work which Mr. Weston particu -Farhang Fehan فرہنگ جهانگیری larly recommends, the geeri, has contributed its most valuable treasures towards the compilation of Mr, Gladwin's new Perfian Dictionary, publifhed before this time, probably, at Calcutta. We shall here conclude our notice of Mr. Wefton's Mifcellany; and if fimilar works have, by faftidious critics, been pronounced things of fhreds and patches, it is to be recollected, that this ingenious author profeffes to offer fragments only; and that his motto is, Ου μόνον τας μαζας χρυση αλλά και τα μικρά ψήγματα μετ' ακρίβειας συλλεγουσιν avgwoi."-" Men collect gold not only in lumps, but also ανθρωποί.”. in fmall fragments, with the minutest accuracy."-Chryfoft. 66 ART. |