the most ridiculous conduct. Its whole appearance is more like a dream than reality, because it was in life chiefly occupied with the most fanciful reveries. It had, in the nether world, very erroneous conceptions of the laudable zeal with which worthy men endeavoured to promote refinement of taste. What these obtained by sci ence and modesty, that soul vainly strove to procure by clamour and impetuosity. My leader was going to enlarge upon this see that something more important than mere curiosity was the cause of the attention I perceived in that soul. His countenance appeared, at times, extremely serious; but at intervals I descried an expression of ridicule in his looks, and when he smiled I could plainly discern traces of co npassion in his face. I should, on this account, have been tempted to take him for the departed spirit of the author of the English Spectator, had his face been shorter and broader : however I took courage to accost him, and hav-subject, but my curiosity rendered me so impaing disclosed my wishes, saw that he was pleased with my enquiries. He shook my hand good naturedly, and said, I will gratify your desire. Since I have parted from my body, I always found the greatest pleasure in observing the actions of departed souls. My occupations, when live, were of a similar nature. I aimed in my writings to convince my fellow-citizens of their errors, and to direct them to the road to happiness. Follow me, you will learn every thing that can be useful to you. I requested this spirit to tell me his name, which he did, after I had promised to keep it a profound secret. My readers must excuse me for keeping my promise. The departed souls are a little more conscientious with regard to this point than lovers. I descried, within a short distance from the spot where we were, a numerous concourse of souls, and the noise which they made tempted me to g nearer. My conductor, at first, cautioned me, asserting that I ran the risk of receiving blows in the throng. But I was determined to run the risk, and requested him to attend me. I will accompany you, said he at length, but first tell me whether you are a poet? This question hurt me more than I can express, and I would have severely resented it had it been put to me when alive. I became painfully sensible of the loss of my writings, which I had left behind me, and was silly enough to resolve to return to my study, and to fetch some printed proofs. I hinted it to my conductor; but his countenance grew at once so serious that I was ashamed of my being an author; therefore I told him in timid accents tha 1, when alive, had not been an enemy to poetry. This is very well, replied he: I put this question to you, because you must possess some knowledge of the disposition an the extravagancies of poets, if you are desirous of visiting that spot with advantage. You will see singular objec.s. It should seem that the order of nature is totally reversed in that place, and you will find that all the actions that will occur to your observation are widely different from what they naturally used to be, because the poets d not think as they naturally ought to do. The whole district, continued he, is put in motion by a soul, who, when alive, distinguished itself by tient, that I took him by the hand, and pressed through the crowd. I beheld, upon a high stage, a soul in the pompous attire of a mountebank, for whom I should have taken it, had not my conductor apprized me that he was a charlatan of good taste. He had erected his stage on an elevated spot, whence he could overlook the assembled multitude, and be seen by every one. The architecture of the stage was, however, in a Gothic style, and rather absurd, and the ornaments did not correspond with each other.Some pieces consisted in carvings, which appeared extremely sumptuous, and executed with uncommon skill. My conductor assured me that the charlatan had stolen them out of old temples, where they had been preserved as remarkable relics of Roman and Greek architecture. He added, they had been carried off by some of his associates, whom he had purposely kept at London and Paris, and that he now was so impudent as to pretend that they had been carved by his own hands, though he had been repeatedly convicted of the theft, and that it even had been proved to him from what places he had obtained them. This account appeared incredible to me; for I observed that the pirated ornaments composed scarcely one-fourth of his theatre, while the three remaining parts consisted of logs of timber, of unplaned boards, and of toys with which children are wont to play. All this was patched together in a clumsy and confused manner, and threatened every moment to come to pieces. This would probably have happened, had not several persons, who appeared to wear his livery, supported it with anxious care. Their master seemed, however, totally indifferent to his precarious situation, He paced the stage with firm strides, and whenever he extolled his nestrums, spoke in such accents of confidence, that the whole structure was shaken. I never witnessed a more impudent presumption than this charlatan displayed. His face was extremely ugly and mishapen. I could, nevertheless, discover that he was painted, and vain enough to flatter himself, that he was the most charming mountebank of his time. [To be continued.] STRAND. THE ANTIQUARIAN OLIO. CLOSE to this house was Ivy Bridge, which is described as situated in the high street, and as having had a way, or low going down, under it, stretching to the Thames, similar to Strand Bridge before spoken of Strype represents it as being the next turning down to the water westward of Salisbury-street. At this place Stow considers the city of Westminster as commencing. The space from TempleBar to Ivy Bridge being comprehended within the duchy of Lancaster. Originally, however, Thorney Island and Westminster were co-extensive, and consequently at that time Westminster came no nearer to London than the end of Gardeners-lane, King-street. The first house in Westminster, according to Stow's division, was Durham-House, erected by Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of that see. Pennant, however, says, it was originally built by Anthony de Beck, in the reign of Edward I. On the site of this house stands the present Adelphi, and on that of the stables belonging to it, a new Exchange was built in 1608, but it has since been pulled down, and the spot covered with houses. In the time of Henry III. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, having among other estates given several tenements near Charing cross to bad. From Temple Bar to the Savoy, it appears to have been paved about 1385, but the paving went no further than the Savoy till the latter part of Elizabeth's reign; and it also appears at that time not to have been completely inhabited; before this time the few houses that existed there were, probably, in general either inns for the accommodation of such persons as were brought from the country on business depending before the courts of law at Westminster, or else cottages, with a small portion of ground. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, or in the former part of that of her successor, it appears to have been considered as an elegant situation. Ben Jonson, in his comedy of Epicene; or, the Silent Woman, act i. sc. iv. introduces Sir Amorous La Foule as commending Clerimonte's lodging, by telling him it would be as delicate a lodging as his own if it were but in the Strand. As the line of the main street of the Strand is intended to be here followed, the first object which in that direction merits attention, is the parish church of St. Clement Danes, which, though rebuilt, is, in point of foundation, of great antiquity. The body of Harold, bastard son of Canute, after it had been interred at Westminster, and by the order of Hardicanute, Canute's successor, taken up and thrown into the Thames, was found by some fishermen, and at the prior of Rouncival, in the diocese of Pam-length deposited here, for which reason, as some pelon, in Navarre, an hospital, or chapel of St. Mary, was founded on the south side of the Strand between York-Buildings and Northumberland House. In the large old map of London, engraved by Vertue, the spot where this hospital stood is pointed out, which seems to have commenced nearly opposite St. Martin's-lane, and to have reached to Scotland Yard. Near this hospital, when standing, and over against Charingcross, was also an hermitage with a chapel. This being the extent of the Strand towards Charing-cross on the south side, it will be netessary to return again to Temple Bar, and pursue the course on the north, or opposite side of the street to that already described; in doing which, it will be found that the buildings were neither so numerous nor so important as those on the south. It is a remark of Strype's, that in former times there was not, as now, a continued street of build ings between London and Westminster, but much vacant space of fields and open grounds between; also at that time, the way along it was often No. XXI. Vol. III. say, it was called St. Clement Danes, Harold having been one of our Danish Kings. Some have related that it obtained that appellation on account of a massacre of the Danes, which took place here in the time of King Ethered, in revenge for their cruelty to the Monks of Chertsey, and just as the Danes were meditating their return to their own country. From the church of St. Clement Danes to Exeter C' ange, no building of any antiquity occurs to be noticed. The ie of this last was, however, originally a part of Covent-Garden, so called corruptly, instead of Convent Garden, as having been the garden to a convent, or monastery. ST MARTIN'S CHURCH. In the reign of Henry VIII. the parish church of St. Martin in the Fields, was, as its name imports, not surrounded, as at presen', by a multiplicity of buildings, and situated in a street, but it actually stood in 'he open fields. St. Marun'slane leading up to it, though since converted. into a regular street, was also at that time nothing N more than a country lane, probably with a hedge on one, or both sides of it. KING'S MEWS. Next occured the Mews, so called because the King's falcons were there kept by the King's falconer. Of this term, now so common, few persons, it is supposed, know the exact meaning, may be necessary to mention, therefore, that Du Fresne, in his glossary, explaining the latin word Muta, says it is a disease to which hawks are subject, that the French call it La Mue; that the hawks change or mute their feathers every year, and that then they are so frequently sick as to be in danger of dying. Till the reign of Henry VIII. this building continued to be used for its original purpose, but in 1534, the King's stables at Bloomsbury, or Lomesbury, as it was then called, having been accidentally burnt, the house called the Mews, near Charing cross, was rebuilt, and in the reign of Edward VI. and Queen Mary, converted into stabling. CHARING CROSS. The site of the village of Charing, is even now unequivocally ascertained by the name of Charingcross, which that part of the street still bears, in allusion to a cross erected there by Edward 1. in the twenty-first year of his reign, in memory of its being one, and indeed the last of those spots where the body of his deservedly beloved and truly excellent Queen rested in its way to Westminster Abbey for interment. A range of houses on each side, of what is now the street, was probably at that time the whole of the village. The cross, when standing, was of white marble, and supposed to have been pulled down about 1647. Soon after the restoration of Charles II. the present exquisitely beautiful statue of Charles I. was erected on the precise spot where the cross had originally been. SCOTLAND YARD. Below Charing-cross, on the left, or eastern side, was a palace for the residence of the King of Scotland when he came to Westminster to attend the Parliament, of which it seems he was considered a member, as instances occur among the records of the Tower of writs issued to summon him for that purpose. The spot still retains the appellation of Scotland Yard. FAMILIAR LECTURES ON USEFUL SCIENCES. FAMILIAR LETTERS ON PHYSIOGNOMY. LETTER VI. WHY are you so eager in your inquiries? what I now have to say is known to every body; for what is there new in this, that in general fat people are good natured, and those who rise too high above the common size, sink often below the ordinary standard of wit. The good nature of the first proceeds from the tranquil state of their minds; their blood flowing with less rapidity than that of others, and increasing the weight of flesh which buries the powers of their souls. As to those unproportionably tall, it often happens that they are not only deprived of wit, but of strength and activity; for whenever nature extends her limits on the one side, she narrows them on the other. When she raises up a structure which towers on high, she has exhausted her means, and is unable to furnish it as splendidly as though the edifice had been less elevated and less extensive. It is still her work, it is laboured with as much care as her other productions, the proportions alone are not the same. You will not wonder, when I tell you that strong and nervous persons do not possess a wide share of delicacy; since the matter which composes their bodies, is more purely terrestrial, and therefore less susceptible of feeling. Those whose stiff necks seem unwilling to bend, or whose air seems repulsive, must wear a heart distended with pride, or shut to the wants of their fellow creatures. I must now keep my promise, and explore with you the mirror of the soul; an appellation which has been bestowed by the generality of mankind upon the eyes, and which comes very powerfully to the support of my system. But my subject seems so rich and extensive that I stand bewildered in the midst of mental treasures, and will therefore probably be able to snatch but a very small portion of the instruction they afford. Of all the senses, sight is more particularly the chosen abode of the soul, where she keeps on the watch, and from whence, whenever she glances over a new object, she compares it with the images of others which she has stored in her capacious bosom. Her most energetic language is that spoken through this organ, the force and sweetness of which, cannot be equalled by the powers or harmony of the voice. When our stock of expressions is exhausted, we have recourse to the silent eloquence of the eyes, which, freed from the shackles of grammatical rules, express with one look, what numerous and complicated sentences would have failed to unfold. What confirms my opinion of the importance of the eyes in physiognomy is, that they never can betray truth, however our inclinations may lead us to endeavour to conceal it. You have surely remarked more than once, that many persons answered no with their lips, while their eyes said yes, and their consequent way of acting proved that the yes was real, and the no but feigned, to avoid importunities. Many people imitate the loud tones of passion, while their looks are begging your pardon; should you pay attention only to their threats you will be deceived, but should you examine their eyes, you will immediately discover their true feelings. It is perhaps prejudice which teaches us to prefer large eyes to smaller ones, yet I believe that the first indicate a more open disposition, and that those that are rather prominent, forbode more good than those that are sunk or covered. It is false that little eyes contain more fire than large ones, the reason of its being more apparent in them is, that it is collected into a smaller focus, and therefore shines with more brilliancy. Persons of a very lively temper have seldom received large organs of sight from nature. The same inferences may be drawn from the colour of the eyes; those that are black, intimate that habitual indolence and sloth cannot be ranked among the defects of their possessors; those that are blue, the contrary, but make up in tenderness what they lose in activity. There are some which have no meaning, and among these we must distinguish the full from the common ones. The former, which are in general short-sighted, conceal almost always a rich fund of wit and energy; the latter prove a man to be deprived of the power of reflection, and to be endowed with few virtues, and of all the sorts of eyes I have seen, they are the worst, as they promise nothing. If their colour be blue especially, they will indicate cowardice and weakness; but if black, they will signify no more than some ardour and activity. Clear eyes, I always found attended with a clear and orderly mind, while those which appeared uncertain, though full of fire, belonged to men who loved nothing. A person with humid eyes, loves with too much fervency; and one with eyes widely opened, loves every thing. I run a great risk of offending many of your friends perhaps, were they to see this picture, if so, let them know that I am fair enough to acknowledge, that though such eyes as N-'s displease me, yet I dwell secure upon his friendship; and that though contracted eyes are in my opinion a sure sign of a narrow mind, I deem Mr. D's very powerful and comprehensive. E. R. [To be continued.] ON MUSIC. An Essay on Earl Stanhope's " Principles of the Science of Tuning Instruments with fixed Tones." (Concluded from Page 323, Vol. II.) AT page five of the work before us, Earl Stanhope proceeds to the explanation of that beating which is heard when an interval is not perfectly in tune, and calls it "a kind of disagreeable sound, not very unlike the howling of a wolf at a distance," because tuners technically term it the wolf. But Dr. Chladni, in his valuable work on Acoustics, p. 208 (German), shews that the beating in question is nothing more than that third sound which is generated by two others, and on which Tartini has founded his system of harmony, and the Abbé Vogler his system of simplification in organs. The reason of its being heard in general only as a beating, and not as a distinct note, is its being too grave a note to be distinguished by our ear; and it would no longer remain a wolf, but become a beautiful phenomenon of nature, if its octave and double octave could be added to it to render it a distinguishable note. And the reason why it cannot be heard at all, or only as a very faint note, when an interval is perfectly in tune, is, because it is then so consonant to the two real sounds of the intervals that it becomes nearly incorporated with them; to this principle also are reconcileable the two distinct beatings mentioned at page 13 of the work. success." For they consider any whole length of a string as a total, expressed by the ratio 1, and its twelfth fifth is 531441-262144 of that length; from this subtract 2-1, as the true octave, and it leaves 531441-524288, as that major comma (mentioned before) which is the above Stanhope quint wolf. To compare, in a similar manner, Earl Stanhope's unnatural calculations of his major third wolves with the natural ones of opposite writers, I think quite unnecessary; but I must notice the curious remark which his Lordship makes at p. 7, of the work, concerning his third wolves, viz. that "Nature has imprisoned them, each in a column by itself." If this was really the case, nature might be accused of having executed an unjust imprisonment on one of her most innocent productions; and any thing in nature might not only, and with equal propriety, be considered as imprisoned in its respective compass, but the whole universe would be nothing more than a prison of prisons. Earl Stanhope then continues:-" Musicians and tuners are in the habit of talking of the wolf in the singular number; I shall, however, shew in the sequel that there are as many as five wolves, &c." But when tuners generally speak of a wolf, in the singular number, it only shews that there is no occassion to attend to more than one wolf or distribution, as I have explained in the former part of this essay, and not that the well informed part of them knows of no more than one wolf; for several other writers have shewn not only his Lordship's quint and major third wolves, but also minor third wolves, fourth wolves, and minor and major sixth wolves, and consequently many more than those five mentioned before. To enumerate them, and those others which are also contained in our modern diatonic scale, according to his Lordship's manner, there would be one perfect fifth and one perfect fourth wolf; six minor fifth, and six major fourth wolves; four major third, and four minor sixth wolves; three minor third, and three major sixth wolves; two major second, and two minor seventh wolves; and one minor second, and one major seventh wolf; in all thirty-classed as follows, viz: the equal temperament, four wolves. This, indeed, would be a host of howlers, sufficient to deter any person from studying the art of tuning; but I have shewn before that no more than one of them need be attended to in tempering our modern scale. Those five wolves taught by Earl Stanhope are, one quint wolf, and four major third wolves; and the manner in which his Lordship calculates them is as follows:-the length of a wire which would yield the lowest bass C, is fixed at 960 quarters of an inch; and a succession of twelve fifths, one over another, would require the length of seven quarters of an inch, thirtynine hundreds of a quarter of an inch, and 905.276.408.179.929.662.935 decimal parts of one of the latter. From this frightful and still infinite number, subtract 7 quarters of an inch, as the true ratio of that perfect octave in which the twelfth fifth should terminate, and it produces an equally long and infinite number for the ratio of his Lordship's first, or quint wolf. To examine the correctness of such calculations I have no patience, and I can also suppose, that no person will ever attend to them; but the worst of them is, that they serve only for one given arbitrary length of a string, and must be varied according to any other given length of it. How much more simple and natural than the above, are the calculations of those other writers, which, according to the work before us, Earl Stanhope finds "not attended with the desired From the explanation of wolves Earl Stanhope proceeds to that of their distribution, or of temperament. And at page 10 of the work, his Lord. ship says :-"There are a great number of dis ferent modes of temperament, which may be and the unequal temperaments." And after a few remarks on the former, his Lordship continues:-"The equal temperament is, however, a mode of tuning which I very much disapprove ; according to that erroneous system, there is not a single perfect third, nor single perfect fourth, nor a single perfect quint in the whole instrument;" and at page 11,-" Instead of concords discords will be heard. But to have in any instrument nothing but discords is abominable; and that is always and necessarily the case whenever that mode of tuning which is denominated the equal temperament is adopted." But the above remarks are contrary to reason, to experience, and to part of Earl Stanhope's own doctrines. For reason teaches us, that as it is difficult to find in this world any thing perfect in the strictest sense, we must admit as perfect enough those things in which no imperfection is very perceptible. And universal experience confirms, that all our senses really will disregard an almost imperceptible imperfection. So Earl Stanhope himself considers his bi-equal and triequal fifths, fourths, and thirds, as perfect enough for consonances in his own temperament, though they are perhaps three times as imperfect as those fifths, fourths, and thirds, which in the equal temperament his Lordship calls dissonances and abominable. At page 12, Earl Stanhope proceeds to the particulars of his own temperament, where it |