which is considerably bolow the usual range. The mean daily curve of the atmospherical oscillations, as shewn by the barometrical' surface, measures a little more than 37 inches. Total number of changes, 116.

The annual mean temperature is nearly 51°; the mean of the first three months, 4209; second, 5504; third, 620.4; fourth, 42° 1; of the six winter months, 420.5; six summer months, 58.9. The maximum of 80°, occurred on the 30th of July; and the minimum of 20°, on the 10th of December. Difference of the extremes, 60°.

The fall of rain, hail, snow, and slect, which have fallen in and about Manchester, is a trifle more than 35 inches. The greatest quantities of rain fell in January, February, October, and December, and the least in May. The notations in the above rain-column for November and December, have been furnished me by my friend, Mr. John Dalton. My observations in those months were incorrect, in consequence of the frost breaking the bottle in the early part of November. A similar accident happened in

December. Mr. Dalton makes the an nual fall of rain, &c. 35.240 inches. Total number of wet days on which rain fell more or less, 215; out of this number, 48 may be designated completely

wet.

on

The south-west, south-east, and northwest, have been the prevailing winds. Strong or boisterous winds have rarely occurred; out of nine instances which brisk winds were noted, eight blew in the first four months of the year. The only boisterous winds of the year occurred in January, viz. on the 17th, 18th, and 25th, from the west and southwest. Suow has fallen on 25, and hail on 14, days.

The Reporter has only noted five instances of thunder, viz. one in May, two in June, one in July, and one in October.

The temperature of the past year has been generally above an average, although not marked with any great elevations or depressions. The following will shew the comparative difference between the monthly means of the past year, and the general monthly means of the twelve preceding years.

Twelve Years' General
Monthly Mean
Monthly Means in 1819 41 8 41 1

Difference p. 5.2 p. 1.1 p. 4.

429.6 37.6

ences were in January, March, April, and August. My friend, Mr. Edward Stelfox, of Lymn, near Warrington, has favoured me with his account of rain. Mr.S.'s raingauge is exactly the same as mine, and I can rely upon his account as correct: his farm adjoins the rivers Mersey and Bollin, and is very much subject to be flooded. In January there felt 3.224 inches; February, 3 013; March, 1352; April, 1988; May, 2035; June, 2641; July, 2649; August, 1497; September, 1.695; October, 3030; November, 1,881; December, 4.300 inches:-total 29-305 inches. Mr. Stelfox says, that the snow which fell on the night of the 29th of December and the following day, measured eight inches in depth. He

SIR,

ANY persons, some from mis

bad motives, have attributed the distresses of the manufacturers to the use of machinery in abbreviating labour. It has however been proved, from the most authentic documents, that to the use of machinery the country mainly owes its wealth and prosperity.

The truth certainly is, that, where a country possesses inventions for manu. facturing which other countries do not possess, there is a great advantage; that, by degrees, as other countries adopt the same inventions, though the sum total of gain or advantage is rather increased, it becomes more equally distributed, and the country that originally enjoyed a superiority, loses that superiority which it before enjoyed.

That

That arts and inventions should pass to other nations by degrees, is not only natural, but inevitable: but the rapidity with which those inventions are disseminated must depend on circumstances. The invention of the improved steamengine, and various other machines of which it serves for the moving power, was for a time confined to England, and the Legislature intended, by prohibiting the exportation of machinery, to prevent other nations from adopting the same means of manufacturing quickly and cheaply. Of late years, however, the makers of various machines have contrived to evade the law; and, for their own private advantage, have exported them to our rivals in trade.

We have often in this country up braided and despised the Dutch for selling gunpowder, and other warlike stores, to their enemies; and certainly, when a spirit of avarice leads individuals to act so directly in opposition to the interests of their country, their conduct is worse than contemptible, it deserves the most severe punishment: but the Dutch never did any thing so bad as has been lately practised in England.

The Dutch were in possession of more mechanical inventions than any nation in Europe about 150 years ago; and they took every method to prevent other nations from becoming their rivals by adopting the same; and it was death to export or communicate an invention.

In England likewise, to export certain tools or machines is punishable by law; but lately the law is asleep to everything but revenue, and persons have been found vile enough to export some of the most valuable machines, to enable our rivals to shut the foreign markets against us.

It will scarcely be believed, that that valuable machine, the steam-engine, to which this country owes so much of its wealth within the last thirty years, has been exported clandestinely, in different parts or pieces, and by different conveyances, to serve manufacturers on the Continent; and it is a fact, that, by this very means, we are rivalled and undersold by manufacturers, who pay lower wages, lower taxes, and, in some cases, have other great advantages, such as better patterns and better colours in the printed-cotton business.

The unprincipled crucity of thus undermining the industry of the country is not to be described in words. Every engine of a sixteen-horse power deprives 200 of our poor workmen of bread, and

the maker does not gain 400/, by the sale; so that, for a paltry gain of 21., he deprives an industrious man of the means of gaining his bread, and his country of the profit on his labour.

When such practices are permitted, our manufactures must go to ruin, under our heavy poor's-rate, high taxes, and consequent high wages of labour. Though the evil is partly done already, yet, as the workmen on the Continent are not expert, either at making or keeping in repair so nice and complicated a machine, if future exportations can be prevented, much good will be done. That the law, as it stands, is incompetent, is proved by experience; but regulations may be made, that will render it impossible in future.

Such are the thoughts and reflections that naturally occurred, on considering the difficulties into which this country is suddenly plunged, and knowing that there are laws to prevent the practices in question; but how much is the wonder increased to find it asserted, on authority that cannot well be called in question, that steam-engines have been exported from this country openly and frequently with the approbation of government, and always with its knowledge.

This last piece of information leads to an awful question: What evil Genius reigns over England? when the rulers of the country permit the arts by which its wealth has been acquired to be transferred to rivals and enemies; when the rich proprietors expend their revenues abroad, unmindful of the penury they entail on their fellow-subjects in their native land; when the labouring and industrious are without work and in want of bread, and at war with all the higher orders and the government under which they live; when paupers increase in numbers, and insolently curse those by whom they are fed; when all are dis satisfied with the present, and look with fear and anxiety to the future; when the nature of things seems inverted; when war is looked to for relief, and peace is attended with misery.

WILLIAM PLAYFAIR.
London; Jan. 6, 1820.

For the Monthly Magazine. The STATE of the FINE ARTS in FRANCE; written in PARIS, by D. CAREY, esq. JOW that tranquillity and order have succeeded the tumult of war and public agitation on the Continent, it cannot but be interesting to trace the

NOW

silent progress of the arts which adorn and tend to humanize society in countries that have lately been the theatre of great and extraordinary events, and where the genius of the painter and the sculptor, the architect and the engraver, has added fresh splendor to the acquisitions of national glory.

France, from being the centre of refinement, and enriched as she has been by the spoils of the treasuries of art in other states, notwithstanding her preference of the military qualifications, must be a point of great attraction to the enquirer, whose curiosity is awakened to learn the state of the fine arts in foreign countries. Not artists alone are interested in this enquiry. The state of improvement and prosperity in which the fine arts are found, indicate the degree of wealth and refinement to which a nation has arrived; and the philosopher and statesman, who would watch over the interests of society, and furnish lessons of instruction for the guidance of mankind, must consider these proofs of national genius and energy, and analyze the principles by which empires have emerged from barbarism to the highest glory of refinement, as well as the neglect which caused them to sink back into their original rudeness and obscurity.

Considered as the depository as well as the fertile nursery of the productions of art, and of artists of all classes, France is still rich and formidable. She has indeed lost many of the fruits of her conquests; but these, as far as regards the works of art, are but little missed. The opportunities which the French artists have long enjoyed, the encourage ment given to native genius, the splendor and power of the government, the brilliant admiration of men of wit and genius, the applauding energies of literature and the press, combined with the popular feeling and enthusiastic reverence and affection for their painters and sculptors, have cherished the works of imitative genius as gifts from heaven.

The renovated French Museum of Pictures and Statues has been diligently recruited since the dispersion occasioned by the Allies. Even in its present state, notwithstanding the many losses it has sustained, it is certainly infinitely superior to any other collection, public or private, in Europe. Indeed, the labours of the French artists in general appear to have been lately exerted with much industry and effect. The annual exhibitions of paintings at the Louvre,

and the number of private collections in Paris gratuitously open to the inspeòtion of amateurs, amply testify the industry of the artists, and the great encouragement afforded to them. Besides the circumstances already enu, merated, which have contributed to this advancement of the art of painting in France, it has received a stimulus in the department of portraits, now not the least inconsiderable, from the wealth, and perhaps vanity, of the foreigners who are now making that country their place of residence.

The fine arts in France have recently experienced a fostering and quickening influence from the establishment and the patronage of a new institution entitled La Societé des Arts, whose object is to seek out and encourage meritorious ar tists, and to purchase their productions for the use of the public. The beneficial effect of this institution was eminently apparent in the late exhibition at the Louvre, where many highly-finished productions, by youthful artists, which had been purchased by the Society, were placed before the public, and ob tained for the painters the attention they deserved. Various other departments of industry in France have felt the fostering influence of such institutions; and even science and literature have been much indebted to such co-operation. An important proof of the improvement which has taken place in manufactures, was also lately exhibited in the Museum of the Louvre, where was a public exhibition of specimens of the principal manufactures in France. The encouragement given by public bodies and the state to these productions of native labour, was understood to have greatly accelerated their improvement; and the circumstance of the King himself having attended the inspection, and distributed with his own hand the medals and rewards, not a little contributed to give an encouraging impulse to the stimulus of industry in this particular, as well as to add to the popularity of the monarch.

The annual exhibition of paintings at the Musée des Arts (the Gallery of the Louvre), is similar to that of the British artists at Somerset-house, but on a much more extensive scale. The pictures thus exhibited are generally the produc tions of probationary artists, though pieces are frequently added by celebrated masters. It is unnecessary here to speak of the stationary ornaments of the magnificent apartment dedicated by the French to the productions of the

most

most illustrious masters of the pencil, the chef-d'œuvres of Raphael, Titian, Caracci, Dominichino, Poussin, Rembrandt, Blanchard, Courtois, Le Brun, - &c. I shall confine myself in these remarks to the works of the rising candidates exposed to the inspection of the public at the late exhibition at the Musée Royal.

The number of pieces thus brought forward was great beyond any precedent, and strikingly evinced the increased devotion paid to the art of delineation. At Paris all are critics of the works of the pencil, and the period of any new exhibition of graphic beauty is invariably one of great bustle and interest to the public. The gratuitous access afforded to all classes tends to make all the populace connoisseurs. Being at Paris at the period alluded to, I paid repeated visits to the scene of pictorial display. The Gallery of the Louvre forms a vista of 1300 feet in length, the sides of which are ornamented with the most exquisite productions of art: new pictures were ranged in front of the old. As they were all tastefully disposed, and in splendid frames, it is impossible for language to do justice to the magnificent coup d'oeil thus afforded. In wandering through the maze of beauty, the eye knew not where to rest. I eagerly mingled with the crowd of spectators, who paced the long arena with inquisitive and admiring looks. Many of them were of the lowest orders of the

community, but every one had a catalogue in hand, and was eagerly scrutinizing the merits of the respective portraitures. Having also provided my self with a catalogue, I began a course of examination, which has considerably increased my acquaintance with the modern French school. The result of my observations was not always satisfactory; for, besides the crrors in taste which I thought I could perceive in some of the pieces, notwithstanding their merit as paintings,I strongly felt, what I fear Englishmen and foreigners too generally experience in such situations, the unconquerable force of national attachments.

[To be continued.]

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

HAVE read the letter of your Correspondent in December last; and, as the subject is an interesting one, I have to offer you my observations upon

it. His proposition, in the first place, "that we are undersold in foreign mar

kets by some one or other of our neighbours, in almost every commodity in which we deal," is not quite so apparent: a preference, to my knowledge, being given still to our manufactures, over those of the French, in one of their own West India islands. And then he cruelly and insultingly attributes the cause of this change in our foreign trade to the idleness and extravagance of the people, which makes them insist on higher wages than are paid in other countries; and to the heavy taxes on the necessaries of life, and upon some of the materials for manufacture.

These causes, no doubt, operate to enhance the price of our various manufactures; but he surely cannot mean to attribute idleness and extravagance to our weavers at the present day, or to say that they are too highly paid for their labour. Assuring you, that I have lately been witness to their working fourteen or fifteen hours in the day, and then could only earn 10s. and 11s. per week; and that their ordinary diet consisted in nothing more than oatmealporridge, with a dinner of boiled potatocs and butter-milk.

I cannot agree with him, "that the want of employment, so much felt in this country, at present arises from the want of demand abroad for our manufactures, and not from an excess of population;" believing that there are now more goods made in this country, than were manufactured ten years ago: but the work is done now by machinery, and not by hands, which he does not notice.

The country is not thrown into any dilemma by an excess of population, but by the amazing increase of machinery superseding human labour. Sau sage-mcat is now cut by steam engine: and I read in the Paper the other day, that the late Mr. Watt contemplated the practicability of ploughing by steam! and, if the same progress be made in the next twenty years as in the last, human labour will be superseded altogether.

I conceive that our neighbours have not yet brought their commodities to bear a competition with ours, and that we still enjoy a pre-eminence in the foreign markets. How long we shall continue it, is another question; property and machinery being withdrawn from us on account of the excessive oppression of the taxes. When we do lose our trade, we certainly shall have to attribute the cause, in the greatest measure, to the taxes imposed with so