interesting department of science, and I think my situation is well calculated to coincide with the wish expressed by W. W. residing, as I do, in one of the "extreme parts of the kingdom," near the eastern shores of the fertile Kent. Now I am addressing you, Sir, will you allow me to communicate a simple process, by means of which I have long succeeded to the extent of my wishes, in preserving subjects of natural history? I am induced to send you an account of my method, from having perused the somewhat elaborate process described by Mr. C. Hall, at p. 3, of your last Number. Let The preservation of birds of beautiful plumage, is a matter of the highest interest to the lovers of natural history. Suppose a fine specimen of the above kind, in possession of such a one. an assistant hold the bird with its back and wings downwards, and with the aid of his fore-fingers, spread aside the feathers at the inferior part of the abdomen, a little before the anus; this will afford a convenient opportunity for the operator to make a longitudinal incision of adequate dimensions, by means of a knife, or other sharp instrument. The intestines and other viscera of the bird, may then be easily scooped out with the handle of a large table-spoon, when the cavity is to be completely stuffed with a mixture of fine charcoal-powder, mixed with camphor, reduced also to powder by rubbing it in a mortar, with a few drops of spirit of wine; about a drachm of the latter to two ounces of the former. This done, the incision in the abdomen should be carefully stitched up by a needle and strong thread, the feathers again turned over the part, and no marks of the operation will remain. The eyes of the bird may be next removed, and their place filled up by others of artificial construction, some of the foregoing antiseptic powder may also be forced by the mouth down the oesophagus and neck of the bird; but, when treated as I have stated, I have never seen it necessary to remove the contents of the cranium. The bird, without the smallest injury to its plumage, and well supported by wires, may now be removed to a convenient repository; in my own, I have several specimens of the most beautiful description, which, treated by the simple process I have endeavoured to describe, have for a long period remained unchanged. Before I conclude, Sir, I would beg to be informed (supposing we start, as your Correspondent has proposed, with our meteorological scheme, on the 1st of March) whether it would be most consistent with your pages to receive our remarks monthly, quarterly or other. wise? Perhaps you will be kind enough to remove my ignorace on this point, by a note in your next Number. Wishing every success to the intended plan in the cause of science, and with a similarity in reality of initials, which is, perhaps, rather remarkable, as well as pursuits, with your Correspondent, I am happy to second his intentions; and am, Sir, both his and yours, &c. W. W. Tilmanstone, Feb. 10, 1820. For the Monthly Magazine. NOTES made during a JOURNEY from LONDON to HOLKHAM, YORK, EDIN- W [Continued from p. 222.] Elooked with anxious eyes during our journey for instances of peat, unmixed with any other soil, being reclaimed and restored to arable crops, or good grass, but I think without entire success, or at least with less success than was to be wished. Though there were many instances of scanty crops of oats, as well as potatoes, growing upon land adjoining places where peat was dug for fuel; and we repeatedly thought they were upon peat: without the mixture of any other earth; for in all such cases the soil was of a peat colour, and on one occasion it was nearly surrounded by ground dug for peat; but on examining the soil in a few places (though in a very insufficient manner we acknowledge), where the crops were growing, there was found a mixture of some other earth, such as either clay, sand, or gravel; though sometimes the addition to peat was so little as to be not more than just discernible. At Solway-moss, and other places were persons who undertook to shew such improvements to us; but in every such case the improved soil was found to be peat mixed with some other earth. That is, the peat had probably been so thin on the surface as to admit of raising a part of the subsoil * Quarterly or half yearly would be as often as we could devote sufficient space for them.-ED. by by the plough or the spade, and of mixing them together, by which light crops of oats were obtained, and when sown with grass seeds it became a poor pasture. Solway-moss is a tolerably dry peat ground, now being dug to depths which vary from ten to twenty feet; therefore it does not appear to be overcharged with water, nor could we learn that such attempts as have been made to cultivate some parts of it without the admixture of other earth have in any instance succeeded. But see more of this in the first page of our notes which relate to England. Nevertheless we are willing to hope there are persons in England, Scotland or Ireland, who may have ascertained experimentally how to convert peat, with a mixture of its own ashes and lime, into tolerably good meadow, pasture, garden, or arable land. And probably, if we had availed ourselves of the many opportunities we had, it might have been in our power to report the manner of doing it. I very much regret, that we did not pay more particular attention to this subject, as the immense quantities of this earth, generally producing heath, now in the highlands of Scotland and other places, must remain in its present worthless state, until the discovery of an easy method of converting it to the beneficial purposes of agriculture, and the raising nutritious crops of grass. 'Therefore it is of the greatest importance to the proprietors of such wastes to be put in possession of a ready method of improving them. And for that purpose it is thought they ought to offer large premiums to the best, the second and third best methods, verified by experience, of improving a soil purely peat. A few thousand pounds offered for such a purpose would, probably, induce many adventurous spirits to direct the energies of their minds to it, and try experiments by which the discovery might be made. Nay, further, there are millions of acres of peat, which produce nothing better than the worthless plant heath; therefore, the cultivation of it with profit would be a great benefit to the nation. One of the few disgusting things we met with in Scotland is, that much the greater part of the population are with out shoes or stockings. The pairs of naked legs amount to two thirds, or perhaps to three fourths of the whole population. The females, with only an exception of the very highest class are so exposed; and boys, till they are twelve or more years of age, are in a similar state. An English gentleman little expects to see such numerous proofs of the remnants of savage nakedness so near his own residence as he may meet with in Scotland. Every class of men dress in Scotland in the same manner as similar persons do in England. The exposure of naked knees among men is so generally discontinued as not to prevail in more cases than one or two in a parish. They now generally wear shoes, stockings and pantaloons; indeed, they clothe too much by wearing pantaloons made of woollen cloth during the hottest days in August. The women and the men labour together in most cases, but when they work separately, the men seemed to us to take the easier department. A man with his wife and daughter, were gathering strawberries in their garden, near Aberdeen ;* the women, with naked feet; the man had the same parts clothed; I asked him, if he thought his wife and daughter would not derive as much comfort by clothing their feet as he did? After a short pause, he replied, with a smiling countenance, should not be able to do without." This barbarous practice extends to the female waiters and chamber maids of the inns; at all such places they attend their customers with naked feet, until they are told it is offensive, and, then some of them contrive to be seen in clean white stockings. "he Another piece of barbarism in Scotland, is their method of washing linen. 'On the borders of every river, many women, with their cloaths tied-up round them; treading dirty linen with their feet, in as many washing tubs, which we supposed were half full of cold water. On one occasion, we observed an elderly female, with her clothes fastened unseemingly high, ford a river to spread her linen to dry upon an opposite bank; as this woman would have to go and return with every basket of clothes, it is obvious she would ford the river many times daily. In conversation on this matter, with a very respectable inn-keeper at Inverness, he said, "There is some degree of necessity for it, occasioned by their linen, being in so dirty a condition when sent to be washed, as the gentlemen of England have no idea of."* The Scotch highlands are wholly unfit to be visited by English ladies, and even the gentlemen of England must not expect to see the mountains of Scotland with as much ease as they could travel from London to Brighton. Such of them as determine to visit the highlands of Scotland, should be disposed to prefer fine lakes and rugged mountains; the latter frequently consisting of naked rocks and cascades, partially covered by towering pine trees; and it is not uncommon for the mountain sides to present you with a mixture of shrubs, trees, and the largest rocks, mostly with a loch (lake) of either salt water or fresh, at the bottom of the glen (a narrow valley.) Some of these scenes may be contemplated without foregoing many of our usual comforts; but the more Alpine ridges, softened by shrubbery and the finest lochs, cannot be approached without some portion of inconvenience. However these troubles may be lessened, or in part provided against, by a package of good biscuits, coffee, and tea. And one other great inconvenience may be provided against, by persons who travel in their own close carriages, having it built for the purpose, with a substitute for a water closet. It will seldom be indispensibly requisite to resort to such a convenience, as the best inns in the largest towns are so provided; and most of the inns where post-horses can be obtained even in small towns, have a dirty exposed place for that purpose.+ But * Glasgow has the merit of setting a good example to other Scotch towns, by restraining the women from their unseemly method of washing dirty clothes in the river. The corporation have enclosed a piece of ground, of a square shape, and erected sheds on the four sides of it, in such a manner, as to have a clear area, or space in the middle of it, sufficiently large for the purpose of washing and drying; in which these women, half naked, and their operations, are concealed from public view. This is very commendable, and deserves imitation in other Scotch towns; until such women can be induced to wash, dry, and iron in their own houses, as is constantly done for the vastly larger town of London. † We ought in a former number, vol. 48, p. 516, to have observed that the only inn at Huntley, fit for English company, is on the east side of the street; of which gentlemen should take notice, and prevent, if they can, being taken to one of another description, on the west side of the way. there are stages which end at a single house, some of them with, and others without, a small garden, and all such houses certainly are without any convenience for indispensible purposes. At such places an earthen floor and a dusty chamber indicate the state of straw beds and pillows, with other furniture equally wretched. A small portmanteau of mine served me for a pillow (though a hard one) on several occasions. These extreme cases do not frequently happen, but when they do the parties should reconcile themselves as I did, one night, to sleep in their own close carriage. The men in Scotland appeared to us to be lazy and rude; the women were obviously industrious and dirty; negligent of the cleanliness of their persons, as well as of their houses and furniture; and doing all sorts of labour in the fields, including that of the peat bogs. They are paid from eight-pence to ten-pence per day, for hoeing turnips, and a shilling in the hay field. But they make the stacks of hay, as well as those of peat, and the pikes of hay. The women seemed to us, to do the chief labour in the fields, and the men indulge very much in riding in single horse carts. The pavements in Scotch towns, generally look as clean, and are frequently more clean than such places in England, which arises from there being no gentlemen's carriages, and little appearance of carts and waggons, consequently there are not many horses to soil the streets. But in most of the streets of every town in Scotland, our noses were assailed by a disgusting smell, to such an excess, that we frequently quitted the foot-path to walk along the middle of the carriage-way, as the means of being farther from an offensive kennel. There are great number of small drains, from passages and back settlements, which cross the foot-paths; all these, as well as every kennel near the sides of the foot ways, are constantly running off the offensive matter of night. soil, that accumulates at iron grates, and there the stench becomes insufferable. The leading inhabitants of Scotland, are without excuse for not removing this nuisance, by the authority of parliament, which they might easily obtain, to compel the building of privies, and the removal of filth from them by night, as often as it may become necessary. London and other towns in England, are provided with these means of cleanlin ess an liness with the best effect. A similar rule, having the authority of law, ought to be extended to the whole of Scotland, and that would do away with their nasty custom of making their alvus discharges in the rooms where they dwell, and emptying the dirty vessels near their doors and under their windows upon a few ashes; from which a mixture of every thing that is noxious ooses out and drains along the kennels extremely disgusting to every genteel person. But still worse, the inhabitants of Scotland occasionally avoid the trouble of carrying their filth to ash heap, by the more ready method of throwing it from the windows of their apartments. Even in Glasgow, in the middle of the day, we were disgusted at the sight of such things being thrown from a window, about four stories high, into a public cross or branch street, in the view of persons in High street, and to the great danger of those below. Surely the gentry of Scotland will not much longer submit to customs so extremely offensive; the present specification has been added in order to rouse the higher classes of society to such proceedings as may prevent a continuance of the nuisance. We ought to have observed before we quitted the Northern capital, that Edinburgh is much convenienced by restraining the slaughtering of cattle to a place set apart for that purpose. A quadrangular shed has been erected, for the sole use of the slaughter-butchers, in which they and their operations are enclosed from public view. They also have the great merit of disposing of the blood and other offensive parts of cattle in some manner that is unseen. Whereas the kennels in Butcher-row, Southwark, as well as in Whitechapel-market, and Warwick-lane, near Newgate market, are very frequently running with blood from dying animals towards the sewers. In this respect, certainly, and probably in some others, London might be improved by copying from Edinburgh. [To be continued.] AVING attempted to give a slight the progress of American literature, we shall now enter into them a little more narrowly, with a view more especially to their influence on poetry. The intellectual progress of a nation is dependent on a thousand moral and physical causes, amongst which the spirit of their government, and above all, the nature of their occupations, may be reckoned the chief. The climate too, to which Montesquieu attributes so much, must undoubtedly have a considerable effect on the mind; but this influence cannot be compared with that which the spirit of a nation's occupations exerts. Nature, for the happiness of man, has wisely ordained that we should insensibly accommodate ourselves to our si tuations; and thus our daily habits make an impression on our mind, similar to that which is produced on the surface of a stone, by the perpetual dropping of water. Hence any pursuit which requires continued and minute attention, necessarily excludes occupations of a higher cast, and renders the mind unfit to entertain expanded and lofty thoughts. An exclusive pursuit of one object, not only prevents the mind from acquiring new ideas, but also incapacitates it for the reception of them. Of all occupations, those of commerce, especially in the detail, are least fitted for the developement of poetical excellence. In almost every other situation in life-in the labours of the scholarthe dangerous path of the soldier-the simple and healthy toils of the shepherd and the husbandman, there is matter from which the poetical mind can extract ample and pleasant nutriment. But in the mean and uninteresting details of commercial transactions, in accounts current, and balancings, and prices current, in the rise and fall of the markets, and in nice calculations of profit and loss, a man may seek and find his worldly advantage, but with it he too often acquires a narrow and contracted mind, which prevents him from making a true use of those advantages which Fortune has placed in his power. We do not by any means wish to decry the incalculable advantages which a country enjoys, from the possession of an extended and flourishing commerce, we only assert that it is in vain to look for enlarged and accomplished minds, in those who follow such pursuits. All men cannot perform all things; it is, HAVING to which retard therefore, perhaps too much to require MONTHLY MAG, No. 339. 2 S any any vast mental exertion from these indefatigable labourers, who so earnestly seek to enrich themselves, and consequently their country. In taking a view of American literature we shall find it pretty much in this state. The Americans would, perhaps, vehemently deny it. They would say, "We have academies, and colleges, and literary institutions, we encourage literary men, and we are a reading people."--All this may be very true, and yet America may be unable to produce any literary work, which is either original or excellent. It is an attempt, and nothing more. The national mind in America is yet in its infancy, it is busy in storing riches, and has no time to impart them. Society is not sufficiently advanced, there is no public call for the exertion of intellect, they are sufficiently interested in the routine of their daily occupations to feel no cravings for literary enjoyment. In old countries, such as England, there are thousands and tens of thousands of the higher, and even the middle classes, who have no other employment but what the literary market affords them, and it is in general these classes which furnish our authors. In America, though reading forms an incidental and pretty general employment, it is, we apprehend, The never the sole source of interest. Americans have heads of colleges, and professors and teachers, and men eminent in various departments of science; but they have not a class of disengaged literati such as exists in England. As the Americans acquire riches and importance, their frame of society will alter, and a more due and equal cultivation of letters will ensue. Another circumstance has been men. tioned, as possessing a powerful influence over the literature of nations-the form of government. The historical evidence of this fact, if examined, will be found very strong, though the mode in which it operates, is by no means so well understood. Under an oppressive and despotic government, literature never continued to flourish, and never will: it I is too much to assert that it has never flourished at all under such influence, for some of the most splendid eras of national literary excellence, have been marked by the subjection of the people, and the establishment of tyrannical power, of which the times of Pericles, of Augustus, and of Louis the Fourteenth are proofs. While a despotic government, from its debasing the public mind is invariably hostile to the true interests of letters, however for a time it may seem to foster and protect them; a republic, on the other hand, always preferring the useful to the ornamental, does not afford much encouragement to such pursuits. In a country where the advantages of the different forms of government are. united, as in England, where the freedom of democracy is joined to the useful patronage which the court and the nobles can bestow, literature has the best prospect of splendid and lasting success. There will be nobler and higher genius displayed in such a country, than under a despotic monarchy, and it will meet with more encouragement than the austerity of republican minds would be willing to confer. England is indeed a proud instance of the effect of political institutions on national literature.. These observations may perhaps account, in some degree, for the small progress which the Americans have made in letters, and if we, at the same time, consider the nature of their pursuits, as a nation, they may not inadequately account for it. It now remains for us to examine more particularly, the mode in which these disadvantages operate on the literature of the Americans, and more especially on their poetical literature. The most striking feature in their compositions, is, the want of original and deep thought, such as proceeds from minds, which have intensely studied the mysteries of their art.-Another failing is, a want of consistency and equality in their writings, and a great absence of good taste. From a poverty of invention, they are also led into a great habit of imitation, in which they are frequently run away with by their bad taste. As a nation, they write precisely like a young author, whose irregularity has not yet been chastened down into severity of thought and a dignified equality of execution. We may meet as we read, much good and some beautiful writing; but when we turn the leaf, it is more than probable that we shall meet with some sentiment or expression, to use an artist's phrase, entirely out of keeping, something which runs completely counter to all our pre-conceived ideas of taste and judgment, and which has almost power to obliterate the preceding beauties from our mind. This unfortunate lack |