the fractions and 30, which is equivalent to about two miles in the length of the earth's diameter; but we are arrived at an age when small differences in matters of science are almost the only objects of discussion.

1

If any preference is given, perhaps the generality of persons will be induced still to lean to the side which La Place has taken. The accurate measurements of terrestrial arcs depend almost wholly on the skill of mathematicians and artists. That part of the inequalities of the moon's motions which depends upon the figure of the earth has been de termined with the great precision which modern astronomy admits; and this, indicating a compression which coincides nearly with that determined by geodetical operations, affords a degree of evidence which it is hardly possible to resist while determinations by the pendulum, depending on circumstances which affect them to an unknown extent, leave a degree of doubt upon the mind that we cannot help desiring to see removed. Upon the whole, however, Captain Sabine may congratulate himself upon having performed a work of considerable utility, both to astronomy and geography.

resist;

Captain Sabine, who appears to have made the most of the time and means at his command, has added four papers to that which constitutes the principal part of his work. The first, entitled Geographical Notices,' contains several sets of observations, for the purpose of determining the longitudes of the stations at which the experiments with the pendulums were made; and from the great care taken in making the observations, we cannot doubt that the positions of those places are determined with all the accuracy of which such observations are susceptible. In the Hydrographical Notices,' which form the second appended paper, Captain Sabine gives an account of the direction and forces of the currents experienced by the Pheasant, in the voyage from Sierra Leone to the different stations, which will be read with interest and profit by all who navigate the Atlantic ocean. The account of the Experiments for determining the Variation in the Intensity of Terrestrial Magnetism," which forms the subject of the next paper, furnishes some important additions to our yet scanty stock of knowledge in this branch of natural philosophy; and we can only regret that we have no room to analyse the results. In the fourth paper, some notices on the depression of the horizon of the sea over the gulf-stream, and the radiation of heat in the atmosphere at Jamaica, terminate the volume.

ART.

ART. VII. The Literary Souvenir; or, Cabinet of Poetry and Romance. Edited by Alaric A. Watts. London. 1825.

Tis not a little gratifying to us to observe the keen and enterprising spirit of emulation which actuates our countrymen, in carrying, to the highest degree of improvement, any invention which they borrow from their neighbours. Three or four years ago we possessed no annual publication which, for beauty of ornament, or utility of design, could be compared with the embellished almanacks of Germany. We have now several pocket-volumes published yearly, the least elegant of which is greatly superior to any thing produced on the Continent, and the best of which preclude the possibility of rivalry any where out of England. When these undertakings were first commenced, they retained, for a season, the character of the almanack, adding to it a few pieces of poetry, a tale or two in prose, and two or three very indifferent engravings. Now, with the exception of a few minor productions, they exclude every feature which would seem to attach them to one year more than to another poets and other writers of the highest classes of our literature contribute to their pages, and feel proud to avow contributions which the most precious resources of art are employed to illustrate.

;

The success which has attended these publications is another circumstance at which we rejoice; for a single glance at their contents convinces us, that it is impossible for them to circulate through the country, without carrying in their train the happiest consequences. Stripped of all religious and political animosities, desiring only to please those individuals in every circle of society, whose taste and virtues best entitle them to the courtship of the muses, these works, wherever they penetrate, cannot fail of informing the understanding, and of attuning the heart and the fancy to the finest issues. A love of the arts is also kindled by their presence in the remotest corners of the empire, whither such admirable specimens of the pencil and the graver might not otherwise have reached in the course of a century.

The Literary Souvenir, produced by Mr. Watts, for the ensuing year, is the most able and finished work of its kind that has ever come under our notice. It has an artist-like touch about it, which skilfully mingles the serious with the gay, and disposes the materials, of which the volume is composed, in the manner best calculated to render them attractive. The embellishments, considering the scale to which they are necessarily confined, are, perhaps, with one or

T 4

two

two exceptions, models of excellence; and their beauty is, for the most part, in perfect keeping with the many gems of poetry by which they are surrounded.

To that portion of the work which is in prose, we must object that it consists entirely of tales, and that of these the greater number are too slight, if not indeed too fantastic, in their texture. The uniformity of fictitious narrative might, perhaps, have been saved by the introduction of a few "curiosities of literature," inedited letters of distinguished men, an essay or two discussing some interesting question in literature or the arts, or speculating in a gay mood on the features of the past and the signs of the coming year. These, it may be said, are not matters so easy to be attained as the world in general imagines. We know they are not; but, neither are tales at least good ones. The Lovers' Quarrel,' however, is a story which no cabinet of romance' might hesi→ tate to own. It is a performance perfectly unique in its way. Let the reader judge.

I wish I could describe the young Lady Sibyl. She was rather tall than otherwise, and her head was carried with a toss of the prettiest pride I ever saw; in truth, there was a supernatural grace in her figure, by which she was in duty bound to be more Tofty in her demeanour than other people. Her eyes were of a pure, dark hazel, and seemed to wander from the earth as though they were surprised how they happened to drop out of the skies; and the sweet, high and mighty witchery that sported round her threatening lips, inspired one with a wonderful disposition to fall down and worship her. It was, of course, not to be expected that such a strangely gifted lady should be quite so easily contented with her cavaliers as those who were not gifted at all; and Sibyl, very properly, allowed it to be understood that she despised the whole race. She likewise allowed it to be understood that, the world being by no means good enough for her, she conceived the best society it afforded to be her own wilful cogitations; and that she meant to pass the whole of her pretty life in solitude and meditation. People conjectured that she was in love, and too proud to show it; and Sibyl surmised that they were vastly impertinent, and by no means worth satisfying.

1

There was a small grotto by the lake that wound before the old arched windows of the hall: a world of fine foliage was matted fantastically above and around it, so as to exclude every intruder but the kingfisher, who plunged, meteor-like, on his golden prey, and vanished in the shade before he was well seen; and an endless variety of woodbines leaped from branch to branch, swinging their dewy tendrils in the air, and showering fragrance upon the green moss beneath, or stealing round the rustic pinnacles, like garlands twined by Cupid for his favourite hiding place. It was

in this choice retreat that the Lady Sibyl chose to forget the world in which she was born, and imagine that for which she seemed to have been created; and in this mood, without manifesting any particular symptoms of exhaustion, excepting that she had grown a little paler and more slender, she continued for three whole years.

On the third anniversary of her resolution, she knew it was the third, because the said resolution happened to have been made on the same day that her wild cousin, who had earned for himself the title of Childe Wilful, chose for his departure to the wars, on the third anniversary, as on all other days, Sibyl again tripped down the chase to live in paradise till tea-time, but, not as on other days; the noble summer sunset seemed to have stained her cheek with a kindred hue. Ere she reached her wilderness, she looked back, again and again, at the hall, slackened her pace that it might not appear hurried, and gazed as long upon the swans and water-lilies as though they really occupied her thoughts. Meanwhile, the flower of the fox-hunting chivalry were carousing with her father in the banquetting-room, and flourishing their glasses to her health. The most mighty and censorious dames of the land were seen stalking up and down the terrace, as stately and as stiff as the peacocks clipped out of the yew-trees at either end of it. Sibyl seemed to have lost the faculty of despising them, and was half afraid that her desertion would be thought strange. As she stood irresolute whether to go on or turn back, she was startled by a voice close by, and the blood leaped in a deeper crimson to her cheek.

Sibyl!-dear Sibyl!" it exclaimed, "wilt thou come, or must I fetch thee, before the whole posse of them ?"

Sibyl tossed her head and laughed; and, with an agitated look, which was meant to be indifferent, strolled carelessly into the shade, just in time to prevent the intruder from putting his threat in execution. He was a light, well made cavalier, with black moustaches and ringlets, and a high-born eye and forehead, which could have looked almost as proud as Sibyl's. As for his accomplishments, the fine frenchified slashing of his costume, and the courageous manner in which he assaulted a lady's hand, bespoke him a wonder.

"And so, my gallant cousin," said Sibyl, with a voice which was a little out of breath, and with a feeble effort to extricate her fingers," and so you have brought your valour back to besiegé my citadel again.'

"Sweet arrogance! is it not the day three thousand years on which we parted; and did I not promise to be here at sunset ?"

"I believe you threatened me that you would. Pray, have you run away from battle to be as good as your word?"

"And pray, did you always consider it a threat, or did you tell me that this grotto should be your hermitage till my return ?"

"And pray, for the third time, do not be inquisitive; and trouble yourself to let go my hand, and sit down on that seat over the way, and tell me what you have been doing these three days?”

"I will,

"I will, as you desire, take both your hands and the other half of your chair, and tell you, as you surmise, that I have been thinking of you till the thought became exceedingly troublesome; and now oblige me by telling me whether you are as proud as ever since you lost your beauty, or whether you have ever mustered humility to drop a tear for the mad blood which I have shed in toiling to be worthy such a mighty lady."

Sibyl laughed, and snatched her hand away from him to draw it across her eyes.

"Dear Sibyl," he continued, in a gentler tone," and has not that wild heart changed in three long years? And has not such an age of experience made our boy and girl flirtation a folly to be amended? And do I find you the same, excepting far more lovely, the same perverse being who would not have given her wayward prodigal for the most dismally sensible lord of the creation ? Often as I have feared, I have had a little comforter which told me you could not change. See, Sibyl, your miniature, halfgiven, half-stolen, at our last parting; it has been my shield in a dozen fights, has healed, with its smile, as many wounds; it has asked me if this was a brow whereon to register deceit, if these were the lips to speak it, if these were the eyes,

they are weeping even now!"

as I live,

She did not raise them from her bosom, but answered, with a smile of feigned mortification, that she thought it very impertinent to make such minute observations. "I too have had my comforter," she said, drawing the fellow-miniature from her bosom, and holding it playfully before his eyes;" it has been my shield against a dozen follies, it has warned me to benefit by sad experience; - it has asked me if this was the brow whereon to register any thing good, if these were the lips to speak it, if these were the eyes, as I live, they are conceited even now!".

--

"But have you indeed kept my picture so close to your heart ?" "And do you indeed think that your old rival, Sir Lubin of the Golden Dell, would have given me a farthing for it ?"

"Did you ever try him ?"

Oh, Childe Wilful! can you change countenance at such a name even now? No, I did not try him, and (for you are a stranger, and must be indulged,) I will tell you wherefore. I would not have given it to him for his head; not for as many of them as would have built a tower to yonder moon; and so now see if you can contrive to be jealous of him; nay, you shall not touch it. Do you remember how often, when it pleased you to be moody, you threatened to take it from me?"

"No more of that, sweet Sibyl."

"And will you never counterfeit a head-ache, to hide your displeasure, when I dance with Sir Dunce, or gallop with Sir Gesling?"

No, never, Sibyl."

"

"And will you never take leave of me for ever, and return five minutes afterwards to see how I bear it ?"

"Never, whilst I live."

6.66 Why,