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der circumstances which left do doubt of her identity :-she was also reported to us, by one of the philosophicals, to have been at that very time, listening to Griscom's evening lecture on Astronomy-while we ourselves fancied, that it was no less a personage than this self-same expectant heiress, whom at that identical moment we were watching, as she threaded the mazes of a cotillion, at one of the City Hotel Publics. Fanny's father too by the same sort of appropriating legerdemain became, like Mrs. Malaprop's Cerberus, "three gentlemen at once." He was observed throwing an intent and business-like glance at "Lang's Bulletin," which a fresh arrival had loaded with news; and yet it was insisted by one, that he was sitting at that very time, with a board of Insurance directors; and by another, that he had but then passed him, at the court end of Wall-street, doffing his beaver to Mr. Gelston, the collector.'

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The second edition puts an end to all these shrewd conjectures, and leaves Fanny-with an indifferent shawl on-to music and a 'tear;' and her father-after being visited by the notary,' and taking 'a shilling's worth of Jupiter, through the showman's telescope,'-to Scudder and to Poetry. It is not surprising that a mere fancy-sketch, which, in its general lineaments, in its colouring, and its keeping, is so true to the collective features and characteristic expression of a large class, who are struggling for the reputation of having been admitted into the den of that mystical and equivocal "lion"-the first society, should have put curiosity on the alert, in search of a real original, and secured to conjecture the certainty of being mistaken.

The father was

'A decent kind of person; one whose head
Was not of brains particularly full ;'

Who had made and saved money in Chatham-street-moved to 'Hanover-square'-gained consequence and self-importance-became bank and insurance director, philanthropist and politicianemployed all sorts of masters to teach Fanny all sorts of accomplishments-made presents of 'bivalve moluscas' to Dr. Mitchell-purchased a mansion in Broadway, to clear his “household coat" from stain-set up a splendid equipage-gave magnificent parties-had the brokers for his friends, and-' stopp'd payment.'

'For two whole days they were the common talk ;
The party, and the failure, and all that,
The theme of loungers in their morning walk,
Porter-house reasoning, and tea-table chat.
The third, some newer wonder came to blot them,
And on the fourth, the "meddling world" forgot them.
Anxious, however, something to discover,

I pass'd their house-the shutters were all clos'd;

The song of knocker and of bell was over;
Upon the steps two chimney-sweeps repos'd;
And on the door my dazzl'd eye-beam met
These cabalistic words-"this house to let."
They live now, like chameleons, upon air,

And hope, and such cold unsubstantial dishes;
That they remov'd, is clear, but when or where
None knew. The curious reader, if he wishes,
May ask them, but in vain. Where grandeur dwells
The marble dome the popular rumour tells;

But of the dwellings of the proud and poor,
From their own lips the world will never know,
When better days are gone-it is secure
Beyond all other mysteries here below,
Except perhaps, a maiden lady's age,
When past the noon-day of life's pilgrimage.
Fanny! 'twas with her name my song began;
"Tis proper and polite her name should end it;
If in my story of her woes, or plan

Or moral can be trac'd, 'twas not intended;
And if I've wrong'd her, I can only tell her
I'm sorry for it-so is my bookseller.'

Fanny, whether real or unreal, is quite indulgent to our poet's taste for episode, and permits him to ramble almost at will over our bustling city of Gotham, in pursuit of such flying vanities as may be shot at consistently with good nature. With one or two exceptions, he has used the license with discretion, and has for the present left the tribe of graver phantoms undisturbed by the touch of his satirical wand. We shall leave them too, and conclude this article with the author's beautiful apostrophe to Weehawken-a picture that exhibits powers of description, an ease and sweetness of versification, and a poetic sensibility, which, if spread over a larger work, and applied to subjects less fleeting than the local and evanescent follies of the day, would secure to their possessor that enviable reputation of taste and genius, which receives its stamp in the temple of the muses.

'Weehawken! In thy mountain scenery yet,

All we adore of nature in her wild

And frolic hour of infancy, is met;

And never has a summer's morning smil'd
Upon a lovelier scene, than when the full eye
Of the enthusiast revels on-when high,

Amid thy forest solitudes, he climbs

O'er crags, that proudly tower above the deep,
And knows that sense of danger, which sublimes
The breathless moment-when his daring step
Is on the verge of the cliff, and he can hear
The low dash of the wave with startled ear,
Like the death-music of his coming doom,

And clings to the green turf with desperate force,

As the heart clings to life; and when resume
The currents in his veins their wonted course,
There lingers a deep feeling-like the moan
Of wearied ocean, when the storm is gone.
In such an hour he turns, and on his view,

Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him;
Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue

Of Summer's sky, in beauty bending o'er him-
The city bright below; and far away,
Sparkling in golden light, his own romantic bay.
Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement,
And banners floating in the sunny air;
And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent,
Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there,
In wild reality. When life is old,

And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold

Its memory of this; nor lives there one

Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood's days
Of happiness, were pass'd beneath that sun,

That in his manhood's prime can calmly gaze
Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand,
Nor feel the prouder of his native land.'

SELECT.

ART. I. Base du Systéme Metrique Décimal, ou Mesure de l'Arc du Méridian entre les parallales de Dunkerque and Barcelone. Exécutée par MM. Mechain et Delambre. Tome Premier. Paris. 4to. 1806.

[Edinburgh Review-Jan. 1807.]

Ir is remarkable that some of the clearest of our ideas are incapable of being accurately expressed by means of language, or of any arbitrary symbols whatsoever. This happens with respect to certain ideas of quantity, while with respect to others, not more clear or definite, the contrary takes place. Of the magnitude of a line, for instance, no precise notion can be conveyed in words from one man to another, except by comparing it with a line already known to them both; and if such a standard of comparison is wanting, the ordinary means of information fail entirely, and there is no resource but in the actual exhibition of the line itself. It is quite otherwise again, where either the ratio or the angular position of magnitudes are concerned: these can be fully explained by verbal communication, and never require the production of the objects themselves. We know what

a Greek geometer meant by a right angle, or by an angle of one degree, just as well as if we had before our eyes a circle divided by some artist of Athens or Alexandria. We understand, too, what he means when he speaks of the ratio of two to one, or of the ratio of the diagonal of a square to its side; but if he specifies some individual length, of a foot, for example, a spithame, or a stadium, we comprehend nothing of the matter, unless he has made a reference to some common standard, that is, to some magnitude which remains the same now as when he wrote.

So also when Eratasthenes tells us that the distance between Alexandria and Syene subtends, at the earth's centre, an angle, which is the fiftieth part of four right angles, we are at no loss to comprehend what is meant; but when he says that the distance between the two places is 5000 stadia, we receive no accurate information; and much critical discussion has been required to extract even a very uncertain meaning from his words.

The first attempt at fixing such a standard of measure as should be accurate, and universal, both as to place and time, is due to the inventive genius of the celebrated Huygens. That philosopher demonstrated that the times of vibrations of pendulums depend on their length only; and, whatever be their structure, that a certain point may be found, which in pendulums that vibrate in the same time, is constantly at the same distance from the centre of suspension. Hence he conceived that the pendulum might afford a standard, or unit, for measures of length; and though a correction would be necessary, because the intensity of gravitation was not the same in all latitudes, he believed that science furnished the means of determining this correction with sufficient accuracy. Picard laid hold of the same notion, and Cassini, in his book de la Grandeur de la Terre, proposed another unit, taken also from Nature, though not so easily obtained, viz. the six thousandth part of a minute of a degree of a great circle of the earth. A similar idea had even earlier occured to Mouton. No attempt, however, was made to raise, upon any of these standards, a regular system of measures, adapted either to the purposes of science or of ordinary life. Among the measures and weights that actually prevailed throughout Europe, the utmost confusion and perplexity continued to take place. In each sort of measure units of different magnitudes were admitted. These were inaccurately divided, and variously reckoned, to the disgrace of the economical arrangements of every country where they were found. The inconveniences which arose from thence, were generally felt and complained of. Remedies were every where proposed, but no serious attempt was made to apply them. France was, in these respects, in the same condition with other nations. A system, however, that had nothing to support it but

the authority of the past time, and the inactivity of the present, was not likely to maintain itself long against the spirit of reform which became so general in that country at the commencement of the Revolution. This system, too, beside the other objections to it, had the misfortune to appear connected with all the abominations of the feudal times. The abolition of it, therefore, was resolved on; and it would have been happy for France and for Europe, if every thing which was then destroyed had been replaced by as solid and useful a structure as that which we are going to describe. In the reformation proposed, two principal objects were kept in view. The first was the establishment of a natural standard for the measures of linear extension, and of course for the measures of all other quantities. The second was, to render the computation of those measures subject to the same arithmetical system that is used in other calculations. For this purpose, the unit of measure was to be divided decimally, and to be multiplied decimally, in order to constitute the other measures which it might be necessary to employ. No fractions but decimal were to be used in expressing quantities of any sort; and the great improvement of having but one arithmetical scale for reckoning integers and fractions of every kind, was in this way to be introduced; an improvement so obvious, and, withal, so little difficult, that it is matter of surprise that it should not have been attempted till near a thousand years after decimal arithmetic itself was first introduced into Europe.

The fixing a natural and universal standard of measure, and the abolition of the present diversity of weights and measures, was an object that very early drew the attention of the Constituent Assembly. It was proposed in that assembly by M. de Talleyrand, and decreed accordingly, that the King should be entreated to write to his Britannic Majesty, to engage the Parliament of England to concur with the National Assembly in fixing a natural unit of weights and measures; that, under the auspices of the two nations, an equal number of Commissioners from the Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London, might unite in order to determine the length of the pendulum in the latitude of 45°, or in any other latitude that might be thought preferable, and to deduce from thence an invariable standard of measures and of weights. This decree passed in August, 1790. The Academy named a Commission composed of Borda, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, and Condorcet; and their report is printed in the memoirs of the Academy for 1788. Three different units fell under the consideration of these philosophers; to wit, the length of the pendulum, the quadrant of the meridian, and the quadrant of the equator. If the first of these was to be adopted, the commissioners were of opinion, that the pen

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