philosophers will not allow them even the poor excuse of accident to palliate occasional error. These more than eastern wisards say that they have erred, and that is enough. Having erred, they must have erred through wickedness-at all events, from the palpable and inexcusable villany of not calling in the counsels of the sage men of checks.' And then they write-ye gods, how they do write!-how mathematically they demonstrate the particular blunder which deforms the fair face of things! Philidor never could have talked more technically of the motions of his ivory combatants than they do of the movements of real men. And occasionally how oracular! Apollo thundering down the Loxian steep was never in his best day superior to them, either in the certainty of his matter, or the obscurity of his style. Calumniators of old accused the god of barbarism, and of want of knowledge of the tongue he used. The calumniators of the present day accuse his rivals in oracle of something of the same kind; but they, of course, are not to be listened to. With these aerial sages-these antediluvian lawyers, as an opposition vender of reforming nostrums calls them-were conjoined, in the annals of the cause of Greece, some rather more terrestrial, though still distinguished, natures. These gentlemen also utterly despise the incapable governments of this globe, and pick holes in their proceedings with the most marvellous exactitude. They meddle not with the grand views of their collaborators, but are wonderfully critical on the practical part of administrating affairs. In an account of five millions, they fasten on a horrid squandering of money in a 5s. 11d. item, showing by a curious calculation, that the sum should have been 5s. 101d. These eminent men are walking encyclopædias in matters of detail. They know every thing, from the movement of an army to the price of a pair of shoes for its tiniest drum-boy-and from the specimens we have seen, are equally able to manage the one as to supply the other. How valuable must not have been the assistance of statesmen who had proved, even in spite of Cocker, that the English army was mismanaged-the English navy mismanaged-the English revenue boards mismanaged the English treasury mismanaged the India Company, in all its details and ramifications, mismanaged-in short, all wrongin money, materiel, everything! Who could anticipate mistakes from them? Great ammirals who so sternly castigated our Lords of the Admiralty for allowing a wrong nail to be driven in a fleet of a thousand ships-how easy it must have been for them to manage a couple of steam-boats! Noble financiers who looked with an eye of scorn on an erroneous sixpenny item in a revenue of some fifty millions-how simple to them it must have appeared to manage something less than a hundredth part of the sum! And yet-how shall we say it? The thing is mismanaged after all. The checks of the philosophers

have been in vain the classification of human motives has been unavailing financial knowledge beyond calculation is baffledminute accuracy of attention to accounts is de facto deceived. The utmost that the wisest of mankind can urge to save themselves from the charge of deliberate roguery and unparalleled meanness is that they-they merciless on the errors of otherswere taken in! Shades of Swift and Cervantes, where do you linger? If, like Ossian's heroes, you float upon the clouds, how loud must have been the cachinnation along the firmament!

These then, people of England, are the men whose aspiration it is to manage the great interests of this empire-they! who cannot manage a handful of cock-boats! And it is to them the financial concerns of millions on millions are to be handed over-to them! who cannot be trusted with the fiftieth part of one year's revenue without being suspected.

But we have got something by the business. In the Hecyra, a young gentleman who had been, like other young gentlemen of our own times, sent to one of the Greek isles for money, and returned, like the other young gentlemen, penniless, consoles his testy father for his loss by a moral flourish. 'What,' says the cross old man, so all you have brought me back is one fine sentence. Perhaps he would have been consoled had Pamphilus brought him four. At least Mr. Bowring would seem to think so, for precisely such is the answer he vouchsafed to Signor Luriottis, querulous like the old man in the play for the want of money..

1. He (quoth the maximizing stockbroker) who conceals one-half of what he knows may give to falsehood the semblance of truth.

2. To suppress evidence is nearly as bad as to invent it.

3. The man who is elevated by undeserved eulogium is less to be envied than is the victim of undeserved censure.

4. The best triumph is the final triumph.'

Confucius never said anything better: though Mr. Hume has said something quite as good about the distinction between lukewarmness to the Greek cause and over-zeal for his own purse. FUR es, ais Pedio. Pedius quid? Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis. Doctas posuisse figuras Laudatur.'

The American pamphlet, which is also named at the head of this Article, is an exposure of the Philhellenic transactions in that country, just as edifying as the recent exhibition of our own. It appears, from the statement of Mr. Sedgwick, an eminent New York barrister, that our Transatlantic relations understand commission, brokerage, jobbing, &c. &c. &c. as well as their elder

brethren

brethren on this side of the water; but we think they surpass even our Greek committee in the arts of ship-building. It seems that the United States' government had built a frigate of their own for 273,000 dollars; but when Jonathan had to do the same thing for his Greek friends, the cost amounted to 540,000,-about double the sum; and the frigate which cost that price was afterwards sold for 233,000, upon the appraisal of three gentlemen of the navy, of the highest rank and capacity.' Mr. Sedgwick was employed by the Greek Deputies to oppose some of this Philhellenism, and we recommend the result to Mr. Mathews, for his next entertainment.

Other than this, (i. e. the Barrister's statement of the case,) I gave no provocation for the scene that followed. Judge Platt then stated that he should not at that time express what he felt, but this he would say, that since the award a course had been pursued on one side in violation of professional duty and honour. This remark I then understood, and still believe, was meant to apply to all the counsel for the deputies. It may, however, have been intended for me alone, and I am content that it be so considered. It was made in immediate answer to what I had said, and was addressed to me. I replied," Sir, you have grossly violated your duty."

'Judge Platt then proceeded to state, as if in continuation, "from beginning to the end, the conduct of Mr. Henry D. Sedgwick, in this business, has been marked with prevarication and falsehood." To this I retorted, "Sir, I shall only say, that you have done all that was in your power to ruin one country and disgrace another."

'Young Mr. Platt, whose christian name I do not know, then started up on the side of the room opposite to which I was, and applied to me some epithets, to the repetition of which, as proceeding from him, I have no objection, but which I do not myself choose to repeat. I replied simply, "Your standing is not such that I can take any notice of you." He then sprang forward and attempted to strike me. I am told that reports are in circulation that a gross indignity was offered to my person. Such reports are false, infamously false; I DO NOT BELIEVE that he TOUCHED MY PERSON.'-Vindication, &c.

Whether the reports, which Mr. Henry D. Sedgwick does not believe, be false or not, the whole thing gives us a very considerable notion of the dignity of judges and barristers in the land of freedom and good order. We have not quite arrived at that pitch of civilisation; for though our worthy Philhellenes have been rather liberally accusing one another of prevarication and falsehood, we believe we may assure our readers that there has not been, as yet, a boxing match among them.

ART.

ART. X.-I. Recueil d'Observations Electro-Dynamiques, contenant divers Mémoires, Notices, Extraits de Lettres ou d'Ouvrages périodiques sur les Sciences relatifs à l'Action mutuelle de deux Courans Electriques, à celle qui existe entre un Courant Electrique et un Aimant, ou le Globe terrestre, et à celle de deux Aimans l'un sur l'autre. Par M. Ampère, &c. &c. Paris. 1822. 2. An Essay on Magnetic Attractions, and on the Laws of Terrestrial Magnetism, &c. &c. By Peter Barlow, F.R.S., of the Royal Military Academy, &c. London. 1824.

THE new fields of science opened to us by means of galvanism,

have yielded, within a few years, an ample harvest of discoveries; and we have still more recently gained access to another province of natural philosophy, which, though situated between the domains of two of its principal divisions, had hitherto eluded every research. To Professor Ersted belongs the merit of having first struck out the path leading to this new science of Electro-magnetism. But among the many philosophers who have engaged with ardour in its pursuit, none have been more successful than Ampère, to whom we are indebted for the most comprehensive as well as the most original theory on the subject. He seems to have constructed the master-key which is adapted to open every compartment of this intricate science, and procure us a clear and consistent view of the whole. As the theory to which we allude does not appear to have attracted, in this country, the attention it deserves, and as, indeed, there exists no work in English in which it is more than slightly adverted to, we shall here attempt to give such a sketch of its leading features as may be intelligible without the necessity of poring over diagrams, in which nearly all the letters of the alphabet are crowded together, or of deciphering analytical formulæ containing at least half as many.

Electricity and Magnetism had long constituted two distinct departments of physical science. It was, indeed, impossible entirely to overlook the marked analogies subsisting among the laws by which their respective phenomena are governed. The agencies, whatever they may be, which give rise to electrical and magnetic effects, are distinguished from all the other agencies in nature by the association of two co-ordinate but opposite forces. In this respect, they are strikingly contrasted with the other imponderable agents of which we have any knowledge, such as those that produce heat and light, and of which all the results may be regarded as being of a positive kind. Thus heat and cold can be considered only as different degrees of the same power; there exists between them no definite point of neutrality. The same remark obviously applies to the different degrees of light and darkness; the latter term

being merely a mode of expressing the absence of the former quality. But it is otherwise with regard both to electricity and to magnetism; for all the phenomena included under these heads result, in either case, from the predominance of one or other of two contrary kinds of influence, which act only when separate but which neutralise each other, or become inoperative, when combined. Electricity, for instance, is either of a vitreous or resinous quality; or, to use a different form of expression, is either of a positive or negative species: the state of neutrality, or point of zero, being a determinate point, intermediate between these opposite conditions.

Magnetic agencies are in like manner referrible to one of two contrary polarities, the northern and the southern, or, as they are sometimes termed, the austral and the boreal. These contrary electric or magnetic influences have, in either case, the very same relations with regard to each other: whether separate, or in combination, they must always co-exist. Vitreous electricity can never be produced without the accompanying production of an equal degree of resinous electricity; nor do we ever find a northern polarity in a magnetic body, but in association with a southern polarity in some other part of that body. In both cases the two associated agents are mutually attractive; while each is repulsive of the agent of its own kind. Vitreous and resinous electricities, for example, attract each other; but the vitreous repels the vitreous, and the resinous repels the resinous. In like manner, the north and south poles of magnets attract each other; but repulsion takes place between poles of the same kind.

It is a well-known fact, that electrified bodies tend to render all the bodies in their vicinity also electrified; and the very same kind of influence is likewise exerted by magnets on all ferrugineous matter situated within a certain distance. This class of phenomena is termed induction. An exact correspondence is observed to exist between the laws of electric and of magnetic induction. Each kind of electricity, as well as each magnetic polarity, tends to induce in bodies on which it exerts its influence, an electricity, or a polarity of the opposite kind.

Although the phenomena of electricity are more easily and naturally explained on the hypothesis of there being two fluids of opposite natures, there can be no doubt that they are also explicable on the theory of Franklin, which supposes the agency of but one electric fluid. But this latter hypothesis, although apparently the more simple and satisfactory, is found, on the whole, when applied to the explanation of the phenomena, to be encumbered with more serious difficulties, and to involve more arbitrary assumptions, than the admission of two kinds of electricity. Even here, however, the analogy with magnetism is still preserved. Epinus, who has

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