The elegant ODE, entitled "THE RUSSIAN CHIEFS," by an ingenious and learned friend, we did not receive until the 26th. Of course, our notice of it could not appear in this; but it shall be inserted in our next MAGAZINE. We must leave the grievance complained of by O. P. to remedy itself. If persons are found willing to work for nothing, and even to pay for the privilege of so doing, we apprehend that the public press has little to do with it. If occasion should offer, we will think of W. P. The first attempt on Anacreon will never do. The verses on the late venerable and worthy Granville Sharp, Esq. having appeared in almost all the newspapers, the author must excuse our declining them. S. 4. is, no doubt, a good patriot; but he is not a poet. We are so overloaded with communications (in verse particularly) which have not merit enough for insertion, that it would be too much to expect us to preserve and return such articles. We do not undertake any such thing: Correspondents are, therefore, requested to preserve copies of what they send to us. We have more than once expressed our intention not to give admission to eulogies on particular individuals. The author of the poem, beginning “Go, gen'rous hero," must recollect this. Several other favours are deferred for want of room. It gave us great pleasure to recognise the hand-writing of our old friend and Correspondent, W. C. whose further communications we earnestly solicit. Albion is inadmissible. A Constant Reader will observe, by this month's Magazine, that he is angry without a cause. AVERAGE PRICES of CORN trom July 17 to July 24, 1813. Wheat Rye Birl. | Oats Beans INLAND COUNTIES. Wheat Rye | Barl. | Oats Beans Essex 124 000 049 045 678 0 Middlesex 125 11 62 055 147 879 11 Kent 120 857 654 047 675 0 Surrey 482 0 050 000 cHertford Suffolk 0181 244 6 047 1144 000 033 104 100 045 943 108 470 053 337 055 939 000 041 874 11 Bedford 9149 080 0 562 1 Huntingd. 110 1000 472 0 Northampt.116 000 080 5 Rutland 111 0(00 054 0100 0 Nottingh. 112 873 380 o Derby Cumberl. 103 583 456 341 8000 Stafford 124 400 065 Westmorl. 115 588 057 643 0:00 0 Salop 047 400 0 044 10 00 0 Hereford 116 278 126 100 119 800 131 500 S. Wales 124 800 0161 WALES. 119 000 0160 VARIATIONS OF BAROMETER, THERMOMETER, &c. at Nine o'Clock A.M. By T. BLUNT, Mathematical Instrument Maker to his Majesty, No. 22, CORNhill. 1813 Barom Ther. Wind Obser. 9 48 1077 0 035 600 0 EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, AND LONDON REVIEW, FOR JULY, 1813. MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILLIAM MANBY, ESQ. HONORARY MEMBER OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY, &c. &c. &c. (WITH A PORTRAIT, ENGRAVED BY J. BLOOD, FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING, BY S. LANE.] Aspera crescit hyems, omnique è parte feroces Cacaque nox premitur tenebris hyemisque suisque : NONTEMPLATING the PORTRAIT CONT that precedes the BIOGRAPHICAL DIVISION of this the sixty-fourth volume of our work, the subject to which it so correctly adverts brought to our recollection the lines that we have chosen for our motto; and although their elegant author had merely in his mental view the Mediterranean Sea, storms on which have, by English sailors, been termed only caps full of wind; yet if he had consulted the commentaries of his immediate precursor Julius Cæsar, he would have discovered that the elementary war of the British Channel, engendered in the Northern Ocean, though not perhaps more terrific in description, was far more destructive in reality; of the latter, a modern poet, who had certainly seen the passage that we have quoted of the ancient, has adapted the subject to a zone, to which storms are more connatural, indeed to the region of tempest of this, he says, "Those sullen seas, That wash'd the ungenial Pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty north, But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave: And hark! the lengthened roar continuous OVID. MET. L. XI. Athwart the rifted deep; at once it bursts, That toss'd among the floating fragments While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror THOMSON. It was scenes like these, which every winter occur in that part of the North Sea, termed the German Ocean, that introduced into the active energetic and susceptible mind of the gentleman to whose PORTRAIT we have adverted an ardent desire, as we shall again have occasion to state, to counteract, as far as human genius, calling to its aid mathematical skill, and stimulating mechanical powers, could counteract, the dreadful effects of those boreal tempests, and marine perturbations, which had periodically come within the scope of his observation, and consequently to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners, and sea-beaten wanderers, that induced him to publish a volume descriptive of his plan, explanatory of the machinery calculated to effect a purpose so humane, so interesting, and so truly patriotic; and to ap peal, in a variety of forms, to the nautical genius and marine feelings of the people of this united kingdom.* It also urged us in the review of the publica. tion to which we have alluded, to venture many remarks upon its scientific principles, and its extreme utility. To those remarks, we shall, in the course of this speculation, have frequent opportunities to recur; but at present it is necessary to expatiate upon another subject; for as the former regarded the machinery, this may more particularly be termed argumentum ad hominem, and applies directly to the MAN. In the extensive range of those charac. ters, which are to the mental eye of the biographer so frequently exhibited, many owe their celebrity to circumstances that involve the fate of empires, and include the military and civil transactions of the WORLD, operating in their progress or results upon the domestic affairs of this united kingdom. Heroes, legislators, and statesmen must, therefore, frequently come within the scope of his observation; the pious, the learned, and the scientific, must form important links in his concatenated series: consequently, while he varies his themes from the acme of admiration, to the profundity of respect, while he is in both cases warmed by the animated glow of approbation, he will feel that this sensation is peculiarly due to those men by whose studies and exertions the condition of mankind is meliorated, the arts and sciences improved, and above all, to those by whose inventions au MAN LIFE IS PRESERVED. The wreck of ships, and the distresses of seamen, have been a theme among the historians and poets, both of ancient and modern times: they are recog nized by Homer and Herodotus; the Athenians had a law whose object was, the prevention of accidents, even on the ferry from their city to Salamis; † and the Romans, whose poet, Virgil, has *This work was reviewed, in an article elucidated with unmerous engravings on wood, explanatory of different parts of the .Ropara.us, in the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, Vol. LX. page 120, for Aug, 1812, under the title of An Essay on the preservation of the lives of shipwrecked persons, &c." + schines in Ctesiphont. By the Rhodian Iw, ships wrecked were not to be plundered, The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus enacted a law to the same effect, A.D. 161. given beauty to the horrors of a tempest, and rendered elementary concus sion most elegantly picturesque, were so impressed with the idea of nautical danger, that it was their custom to have the circumstances of the shipwreck, from which any of their mariders had been saved, represented on a tablet, and hung in some public place, as commemoratory of the event. But, as the best of things may be perverted, these tablets were probably, by impostors, procured and exhibited in situations where they could best excite the compassion of the public; to this custom the poet adverts in the following lines: Mersa rate, naufragus assem Dum rogat, et picta se tempestate tuctur. § and the success of which plainly shews the sense that the Romans had of the danger to which marine adventurers were exposed. of This, among other reasons, most unquestionably induced that sagacious and humane people to decree the corona civica to any one that had saved the life of a Roman citizen; an ornament, which, although, intrinsically, it was small value, yet in its appendages, it became of the greatest importance; for so highly estimated, and so reverentially honoured, were the persons who had by their exertions merited the civic crown, that, when they entered any public place, the whole company, patricians, as well as plebeians, the senators, as well as the people, rose up with one accord, to shew their veneration and respect for them; they were then conducted to the seats of honour, and not only excused from all duties and offices that were troublesome in their own persons, but also had the happiness of procuring the same immunity for their grandfathers, fathers, and, we think, other of their relatives. Such were the ideas that formerly ob tained upon this important subject, the salvation of human life, in a city then termed in arms, in arts, and letters, the mistress of the WORLD, with respect to him that had, by skill or courage, Juvenal, Satire 14. It is a curious circumstance, that this mode of exciting compassion, that is, by pretending to have been shipwrecked, is practised, though with a little variation as to the supplicatory manner, to the present hour. Vide Plin. lib. 16. c. 4. |