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from his papers by his fecretaries, we may be permitted to queftion the folidity of the grounds on which the whole statement depends. He quotes Father Avrigny, who gives it fcarcely any credit; and adds, that the fecretaries themselves, admitting the fact of Sully never having converfed diftinctly on the fubject, ftate their authority for the infertion to have been different pieces of manufcript, unfigned, half torn, little connected, and thrown afide as ufelefs. But we fhould remember that their statement of the plan is precife, and that they aver the poffibility of tracing it diftinctly in thofe documents. They alfo mention having broached the subject to their mafter, who certainly would have given them immediate difproof of the fuppofitions which they had formed, had they been greatly deceived, although nothing could be more natural than his refusal to furnish secret details when he faw them on the right fcent. Nay, the very circumftance of the statement being found only in Sully's papers, forms of itself a prefumption against the mistake or falfity of the compilers. It was at once likely that traces of the defign fhould be left there, though in no other quarter, and improbable that the fecretaries fhould incorporate with their memoirs, not an augmentation or correction of stories then in circulation, but a vifion entirely unknown to all the rest of the world.

M. Chambrier offers feveral remarks upon the difcrepancy of Henry's conduct with various parts of the great defign. By the treaty of Bruchfol in 1610, it is well known that Savoy was ceded to France as an indemnity for her aid to the Duke in conquering the Milanefe. Other proofs are not wanting that the country of Nice was deftined for France alfo. And the treaty of Halle ftipulated the affiftance of ten thousand men to the Princes of the league, in furtherance of their scheme for obtaining the fucceffion of Cleves from the Houfe of Auftria, although, by the grand defign, that fucceffion was to have been incorporated with Holland in an independent republic. But it is unneceffary to dwell at greater length upon thefe difcrepancies. They are all reconciled by the view of Henry's grand defign, which we have ventured to fuggeft in the preceding pages; and the facts, on a comparison of which they proceed, only ferve to place, in a ftill ftronger light, the opinion we have there ftated as to the real nature of that famous project.

ART. XIV. Sopra il Carbone che fi di Giambattista da S. Martino. ça è Fifica della Societa Italiana.

IT

rinchuide nei Pianti. Memoria (from Memorie di MatematiTom. VIII. Part II.

is fufficiently fingular that the fciences fhould fuffer more than any other human concern, by the interruptions which

arife

arife from local boundaries. We have feen, on many occafions, the difficulty with which works the most highly esteemed in one country become known, even to the most learned men of ftates fituated in its immediate vicinity. Every one knows how long the immortal works of Bacon took to make their way across the Channel. The commentator on Kant's Philofophy, has informéd us of the flowness with which a fyftem that occupied every head on the right bank of the Rhine, croffed over to the left; and all Germany had been for twenty years bufily occupied with romances and free-mafonry, before it was fufpected in England that fuch was the paffion of the Germans. When we compare with this tardy and difficult communication of tastes and fcientific lights, the rapid and hourly intercourse of ordinary commerce which unites the most remote quarters of the globe, we fhall at least find reason to conclude that the intereft excited by fpeculative purfuits, is of a kind very different in vivacity from the common defire of gain, and the gratification of our more fenfual appetites. The bill of exchange which Mr Bruce drew in the depths of Abyffinia, where no European had ever before penetrated, was duly prefented for payment in Lombardftreet. The fmall gold coins of ancient Greece and Rome, have furvived the lapfe of ages, when objects of infinitely greater real value, and of far more eafy prefervation, have only left the renown of their names to the prefent generation; and we are now about to fhew that the trifling boundary of the Alps, has locked up from the rest of Europe, the knowledge of many scientific works, which, on the northern fide of those mountains, would have fpread themselves with rapidity over all the ftudies of England and France. It is, however, worthy of notice, that the converfe of the pofition does not hold. The Italian philofophers appear to be in full poffeffion of all the improvements, even the most recent, which their brethren the Filofofi Oltramontani' have been adding to the stock of literature and science.

There are in the different States of Italy, a greater number of fcientific inftitutions of importance for the ardour of their refearches and the regularity and value of their publications, than in any equal portion of territory in the rest of Europe. Neither the multiplied divifions of political fociety which have place in Germany, nor the more compact monarchies of England, France and Spain, nor the crowded and bufy population of Holland and the Netherlands, furnifh any thing like the fame number of diftinguished academi es. Leaving out of view a multitude of minor inftitutions, of focieties devoted to the cultivation of the fine arts, and several phyfical academies, which have not as yet published memoirs (for example, thofe of Pifa and Pavia), we have, in the north of Italy

alone,

alone, (a very narrow diftrict, placed in circumstances not the noit favourable to the calm purfuits of science), no fewer than five learned bodies, only one of which is ever mentioned in the north of Europe, and even that one very feldom referred to. The memoirs of the academies of Mantua, of Milan, of Padua, and of Turin, are all works of great merit. Of the latter, the only one ever quoted in England and France, probably because it alone publifhes its tranfactions in the French language, we have begun to give our readers fome fpecimens in the prefent Number. But more important than all these is the fund of original fcience contained in the tranfactions of the Italian Society of Verona. They are published in large volumes with great regularity, and contain a fucceflion of the most interesting memoirs upon all the fubjects of phyfical and mathematical fcience. We need only refer to the geometrical papers contained in the fourth volume of these transactions. We regret that this publication is of a date rather too far back to justify us in analyfing thofe tracts. They contain foJutions of fome problems, particularly of the famous problem, the fimpleft cafe of which is mentioned by Pappus Alexandrius, and of which the general cafe has been found to be of extreme difficulty by the methods of modern analyfis, according to the first mathematicians. (Berlin Memoirs for 1798, p. 95.) Nothing can be conceived more perfectly rigorous, and at the fame time more imple and elegant, than thofe geometrical investigations of the Italian mathematicians. Pappus mentions the problem in its eaheft cafe, as having been folved by Apollonius, viz. to inscribe in a circle a triangle, whofe fides pafs through three given points in a given ftrait line. Cramé generalized this, fo as to folve it wherever the points were placed. (Berlin Memoirs, 1776.) In the fame volume is a folution by La Grange, alfo by the modern analyfis. Euler, and his pupils Fufs and Lexel, folved this cafe geometrically in the Petersburg Memoirs for 1780. Caftiglione gave another folution in the Berlin Memoirs for 1777. L'Huilier, in the fame Memoirs for 1798, folves the general problem, to inferibe a polygon in a circle, fo that all the fides may pafs through given points. This he does by the algebraical calculus fuggefted by La Grange. But the Italian mathematician does it by the pureft rules of ancient geometry. He was a young man of 15 when he difcovered and made it known. His name is Annibale Giordano of Naples. Several moft able tracts of his are contained in the Neapolitan Memoirs. The other mathematician who folved it at the fame time, is Profeffor Malfatti of Ferrari.

The Societies of Bologna and Florence are famous, especially the latter, for their fcientific refearches; and, not to extend the catalogue

catalogue of this bright conftellation of genius, the tranfactions of the Neapolitan Royal Academy (Atti della Reale Accademia delle Scienze et Belle Littere di Napoli), contain fome of the finest refearches, particularly upon mathematical fubjects, of which any modern inftitution can boaft. We need only refer to Signor Fergolana's two papers on local problems and porifms, (in which, by the way, he mistakes the nature of a porifm moft egregioufly), and still more to the additional tracts of Signor Annibale Giordano on the fame fubjects, and to the paper of Saladino on Cauftics.

The infulated labours of individuals have kept pace with the progress of public inftitutions. Of thefe, except a few anatomical tracts, and the late aftronomical difcoveries, none have as yet been made known in the northern parts of Europe. That they deferve very great attention, the fpecimens which we have given in the prefent Number will, we truft, fufficiently evince.

In all the fcientific refearches of the Italians, we discover proofs of the most happy capacities for the purfuits of true philofophy. There is a diftinctive character in their fpeculative inquiries, as well as in their fchools of the fine arts. We meet with the fame chaftenefs of ftyle in the rigour of their induction, utterly void of that love of dazzling novelty, and that proneness to flimiy hypothefis, which diftinguithes many mafters of the French fchool; and equally remote from that dull and unprofitable fondnefs for mere facts, which characterizes the German daubers. We are not, it is true, fo often aftonished by grand difcovery. We do not meet with the hand of a Black or a Lavoifier, any more than in their galleries we can expect to be arrested at every step by the vigour, the mighty force of a Reubens. But we find nothing to difguft by its tattelefs flatness or its unchafte ornaments. We are conftantly delighted with elegance, fubtelty, ingenuity-with that which beft deferves the name of fine genius: a pronenefs to reafon and combine, but to reafon by combining facts: a love of fpeculation, but joined to a nice capacity for obfervation : a decided partiality for the exercife of the rarer and more beautiful powers of the mind, without any unfitnefs for the patient work of perfevering and long fuftained attention to details: a preference equally strong for efforts of original talent, and of that kind of talent which partakes of the fancy, and bears a relation to refined tafte: a confiderable degree of contempt for the mere exertion of memory and labour-the bufinefs of the linguift and the verbal critic-the work, the bodily toil performed hourly in all the book-maker fhops of the three hundred ftates of Germany. In fhort, if nothing very fublime in the walks of fcientific difcovery has appeared among this fine and ill-appreciated people, they have given birth to numerous and varied works, of

great

great beauty and exquifite ingenuity. They can fhew, even among the mafters of their prefent fchool of philofophy, many Titians; and, as they once produced a Raphael to guide the pencil, we may expect to fee them worship their own Newton, perhaps before either France or England fhall have given birth to a great mafter in the fine arts, and long before any one has arisen in Germany, capable of cutting the canvafs, or mixing the colours.. We purpose, at prefent, to make our readers acquainted with fome of the papers contained in the laft publications of the Societa Italiana, premifing that they will find others of much more fignal merit in the volumes themselves. Some of these we cannot attempt to analyfe, without the affiftance of figures; and others are of a nature too purely algebraical, to admit of any intelligible abstract. We efpecially allude to the two papers in vol. IX., upon the queftion, Whether the circle can be rectified and fquared?' and feveral other analytical differtations, as the papers on equations, and on the law of continuity. All these we earneftly recommend to our scientific readers, as fingularly beautiful and fatisfactory pieces of mathematical research; and we willingly indulge a hope that this reference may have the effect of making thofe excellent productions known in this country. At prefent, we fhall confine ourfelves to lefs extenfive objects, and fhall begin with the chemical and phyfiological paper of Signor S. Martino now before us, as a tract of fome intereft, from the great importance of the fubject, and of confiderable merit, from the general accuracy of the methods purfued in the experimental investigation of it, though we shall have occafion to thew that it is remarkably deficient in the extent of its plan of inquiry.

After remarking, that the difcoveries of modern chemistry have reduced the fimple elements of all vegetable fubftances to three bodies, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; that the origin of the earths, iron, and falts which enter into their compofition, is eafily traced when the origin of the other component parts, has been afcertained; and that the fource of oxygen and hydrogen is evidently the water in which all plants grow; our author propofes, as the only remaining problem, to afcertain the origin of the carbonaceous matter. He fets out with a remark of old date, that the health and strength of plants feems to be inti mately connected with the fat or oleaginous, that is, the carbo naceous qualities of their food. As this pofition has never been, directly proved, he begins by offering an experimental demonftration of it.

He first prepared a perfectly well mixed and homogenous foil, formed of earth and manure, and having fown in equal portions

of

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