And the soul's deep eternal night come on- ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES, 1831-1881. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, F.R.S. (b. 1834). President of British Association, 1881. Electricity in the year 1831 may be considered to have just been ripe for its adaptation to practical purposes; it was but a few years previously, in 1819, that Ersted had discovered the deflective action of the current on the magnetic needle, that Ampère had laid the foundation of electro-dynamics, that Schweizzer had devised the electro-coil or multiplier, and that Sturgeon had constructed the first electro-magnet. It was in 1831 that Faraday, the prince of pure experimentalists, announced his discoveries of voltaic induction and magnetoelectricity, which with the other three discoveries constitute the principles of nearly all the telegraph instruments now in use; and in 1834 our knowledge of the nature of the electric current had been much advanced by the interesting experiment of Sir Charles Wheatstone, proving the velocity of the current in a metallic conductor to approach that of the wave of light. Practical applications of these discoveries were not long in coming to the fore, and the first telegraph line on the Great Western Railway, from Paddington to West Drayton, was set up in 1838. In America, Morse is said to have commenced the development of his recording instrument between the years 1832 and 1837, while Steinhall, in Germany, during the same period was engaged upon his somewhat super-refined ink-recorder, using for the first time the earth for completing the return circuit; whereas in this country Cooke and Wheatstone, by adopting the more simple device of the double-needle instrument, were the first to make the electric telegraph a practical institution. Contemporaneously with or immediately succeeding these pioneers, we find in this country Alexander Bain, Breguet in France, Schilling in Russia, and Werner Siemens in Germany, the last having first (in 1847), among others, made use of gutta-percha as an insulating medium for electric conductors, and thus cleared the way for subterranean and submarine telegraphy. Four years later, in 1851, submarine telegraphy became an accomplished fact through the successful establishment of telegraphic communication between Dover and Calais. Submarine lines followed in rapid succession, crossing the English Channel and the German Ocean, threading their way through the Mediterranean, Black, and Red Seas, until in 1866, after two abortive attempts, telegraphic communication was successfully established between the Old and New Worlds, beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In connection with this great enterprise, and with many investigations and suggestions of a highly scientific and important character, the name of Sir William Thomson will ever be remembered. The ingenuity displayed in perfecting the means of transmitting intelligence through metallic conductors with the utmost despatch and certainty, as regards the record obtained between two points hundreds and even thousands of miles apart, is truly surprising. The instruments devised by Morse, Siemens, and Hughes, have also proved most useful. Duplex and quadruplex telegʻraphy, one of the most striking achievements of modern telegraphy, the result of the labors of several inventors, should not be passed over in silence. It not only serves for the simultaneous communication of telegraphic intelligence in both directions, but renders it possible for four instruments to be worked irrespectively of one another, through one and the same wire connecting two distant places. Another more recent and perhaps still more wonderful achievement in modern telegraphy is the invention of the telephone and microphone, by means of which the human voice is transmitted through the electric conductor by mechanism that imposes through its extreme simplicity. In this connection the names of Reiss, Graham Bell, Edison, and Hughes are those chiefly deserving to be recorded. The Whilst electricity has thus furnished us with the means of flashing our thoughts by record or by voice from place to place, its use is now gradually extending for the achievement of such quantitative effects as the production of light, the transmission of mechanical power, and the precipitation of metals. principle involved in the magneto-electric and dynamo-electric machines by which these effects are accomplished, may be traced to Faraday's discovery in 1831 of the induced current, but their realization to the labors of Holmes, Siemens, Pacinotti, Gramme,* and others. In the electric light, gas-lighting has found a for* Siemens, pr. See'mens; Pacinotti, pr. Pachinot'ti; Gramme, pr. Gram. midable competitor, which appears destined to take its place in public illumination and in lighting large halls, works, etc.; for which purposes it combines brilliancy and freedom from noxious products of combustion with comparative cheapness. The electric light seems also to threaten, when sub-divided in the manner recently devised by Edison, Swan, and others, to make inroads into our dwelling-houses. By the electric transmission of power, we may hope some day to utilize at a distance such natural sources of energy as the Falls of Niagara, and to work our cranes, lifts, and machinery of every description by means of sources of power arranged at convenient centres. To these applications the brothers Siemens have more recently added the propulsion of trains by currents passing through the rails, the fusion in considerable quantities of refractory substances, and the use of electric centres of light in horticulture, as proposed by Werner and William Siemens. By an essential improvement by Faure* of the Planté Secondary Battery the problem of storing electrical energy appears to have received a practical solution, the real importance of which is clearly proved by Sir W. Thomson's recent investigation of the subject. It would be difficult to assign the limits to which this development of electrical energy may not be rendered serviceable for the purposes of man. Presidential Address to the British Association, August 1881. (Fellow of Trinity College, and Slade Professor of Fine Art, Cambridge.) The Pentam'eron (published 1837) is a series of dialogues, connected by a slender thread of narrative, and supposed to have been held on five successive days between Petrarch and Boccaccic,† in Boccaccio's villa of Certaldo, during his recovery from an illness and not long before his death. In the Pentameron Landor is at his very best. All his study of the great Italian writers of the fourteenth century, and all his recent *Faure, pr. Fore. Francesco Petrarca, Italian poet, 1304-1374: Sonnets, etc.-Giovanni Boccaccio (pr. Jo-van-ee Bo-kat-cho), Italian novelist and poet, 1313-1375: The Decameron, or Hundred Tales. observations of Tuscan scenery and Tuscan character, are turned to skilful and harmonious account. Landor loved and understood Boccaccio through and through; and if he overestimated that prolific and amiable genius in comparison with other and greater men, it was an error which, for the present purpose, was almost an advantage. Nothing can be pleasanter than the intercourse of the two friendly poets as Landor has imagined it; nothing more classically idyllic* than the incidental episodes. Let us take from the Pentameron an example of what Landor could do in allegory. This was a form of composition for which Landor had in general some contempt, especially when, as by Spenser,† it was used as a foundation, more or less shifting and dubious, for an independent structure of romance. But the direct and unambiguous use of allegory in illustration of human life and experience he thought occasionally permissible, and no one except the object of his aversion, Plato, has used it so well. Petrarch's allegory, or rather dream, in the Pentameron, is of love, sleep, and death. It is an example unmatched, as I think, in literature, of the union of Greek purity of outline with Florentine poignancy of sentiment. The oftener we read it, the more strongly it attracts and holds us by the treble charm of its quiet, scber cadences, its luminous imagery, and its deep, consolatory wisdom. The thoughts and feelings concerning life and the issues of life, which it translates into allegorical shape, will be found to yield more and more meaning the closer they are grasped :— “I had reflected for some time on this subject (the use and misuse of allegory, says Petrarch), when, wearied with the length of my walk over the mountains, and finding a soft old mole-hill covered with gray grass by the wayside, I laid my head upon it and slept. I cannot tell how long it was before a species of dream or vision came over me. "Two beautiful youths appeared beside me; each was winged; but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard, looking at me frequently, said to the other, He is * See page 467. + Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), author of the allegorical epic "The Faërie Queene.' The six surviving books of the poem contain six allegorical legends descriptive of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. Plato, the famous Greek philosopher (B. C. 429-347). With his Dialogues are interwoven the allegories above referred to. under my guardianship for the present; do not awaken him with that feather.' Methought, on hearing the whisper, I saw something like the feather of an arrow, and then the arrow itself the whole of it, even to the point; although he carried it in such a manner that it was difficult at first to discover more than a palm's length of it; the rest of the shaft (and the whole of the barb) was behind his ankles. "This feather never awakens any one,' replied he rather petulantly, but it brings more of confident security, and more of cherished dreams than you, without me, are capable of imparting.' 666 "Be it so,' answered the gentler; 'none is less inclined to quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded grievously call upon me for succor; but, so little am I disposed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them than to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many reproaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for indifference and infidelity! Nearly as many and nearly in the same terms as upon you.' "Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike!' said Love contemptuously. Yonder is he who bears a nearer resemblance to you; the dullest have observed it.' "I fancied I turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and saw at a distance the figure he designated. Meanwhile the contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in asserting his power or his benefits. Love recapitulated them, but only that he might assert his own above them. Suddenly he called on me to decide, and to choose my patron. Under the influence, first of the one, then of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture; I alighted from rapture on repose, and knew not which was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and declared he would cross me throughout the whole of my existence. Whatever I might on other occasions have thought of his veracity, I now felt too surely the conviction that he would keep his word. At last, before the close of the altercation, the third genius had advanced, and stood near us. I cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be the genius of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I soon became familiar with his features. First they seemed only calm; presently they became contemplative, and lastly beautiful; those of the Graces themselves are less regular, less harmonious, less composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a counte |