The Tor Hill. By the Author of "Brambletye House," "Gaieties and Gravities," &c. Philadelphia. Carey & Lea. 1826. 12mo. pp. 561.

THE "Rejected Addresses," of which the author of this work was one of the writers, was a very successful example of the talent of giving fac-similes of the peculiar styles of celebrated poets; the odes of "Horace in London," by the same hands, in the midst of some violent strainings to be witty, contained some tolerable jests, and some ingenious applications of the ideas of the old poet; their translations from the Greek Anthology were, in many instances, prettily done; and their "Gaieties and Gravities," with a great many poor and stale jokes in the comic parts, and some borrowed sentimentality in the serious, were very agreeable reading. But "Brambletye House" was, on the whole, a failure, and "The Tor Hill" is no better.

The scene of the plot is laid partly in France, and partly in England, and the events are supposed to take place in the reign of Henry VIII. The bluff king is himself introduced with one of his queens and several of his courtiers, and an attempt is made to give a picture of the manners of that court and of that age. For this purpose, the author has studied very diligently two different kinds of writings, the old chronicles and the Waverley novels. The materials derived from the former are not always skilfully interwoven with the story, large patches of extracts from these works appearing here and there, like huge unhewn stones in a building of modern brick, and the descriptions of ancient customs being often drawn out to a tedious minuteness. As to the author of Waverley, he is imitated in almost every page, the characters are all brought from his storehouse, and his style of dialogue is all along copied. The author seems, indeed, to be quite oppressed with the weight of his materials; where he finds a precedent in the Waverley novels, he handles them with considerable dexterity; but when he has no such guide, he works clumsily and awkwardly. But, although the writer thus sadly lacks invention, he does not by any means lack a certain sort of talent, and many parts of the book are amusing enough. His antiquarian knowledge has enabled him to furnish out some good scenes from the ancient customs and manners of England; his taste for humor shows itself sometimes in a good-humored facetiousness, and there are many sprightly colloquies in the style of Scott, which come as near that author as any thing which might be expected from a diligent and clever imitator.

INTELLIGENCE.

Mexican Manuscript. An Italian traveller, of the name of Beltrami, has discovered, in an old convent in the interior of Mexico, a manuscript, which may be regarded as unique, and of the most rare and interesting description. It is the gospel, or rather a gospel such as it was dictated by the first monks, conquestadores, translated into the Mexican tongue by Montezuma, who, alone, of his family, escaped the massacres of the conquest, and, bon gré mal gré, was converted to the popish faith. It is a large volume in folio, most beautifully written upon mangey or agave paper, as highly polished as parchment, and surpassing papyrus in flexibility. By this great monument of the ancient Mexican language, the learned, by comparing it with the manuscripts in the oriental tongues, may be enabled to throw some light upon the origin of the nations who inhabited these vast countries. Month. and Eur. Mag.

Bell of Notre Dame. In the southern tower of the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, is the famous bell called Bourdon, which is never rung except on great occasions. It weighs thirty-six thousand pounds English. Cast in 1680, and recast in 1686; it was then, according to the absurd fashion of Popish countries, solemnly baptized, or rather blessed; Louis XIV. and the queen his wife standing as godfather and godmother. It received the name of Emmanuel Louise Therèse. The tongue, or clapper, weighs nine hundred and seventy-six pounds. This bell is more than three times the weight of Saint Paul's or Tom of Lincoln, which are the two largest in Great Britain. Glas. Mec. Mag.

Education in Russia. There are six universities in the Russian empire. The cities in which they are established, are Moscow, Petersburg, Casan, Dorpat, Cherkof, and Wilna. The natives of Russia are not allowed to go and study in a foreign country, until having attended for at least three years one of the Russian universities. Nevertheless, the chairs are few in number, several subjects are entirely interdicted, and the vigilance of the censorship cramps the professors in treating those which are allowed. The students are under all kind of restraint, especially at Dorpat and Wilna; where, indeed, disorders have occasionally taken place, which required the interference of authority. The young Russians are not admitted into the military service until they have undergone an examination at one of these universities. That of Dorpat is principally attended by youth from the three Baltic provinces; and German is there the prevailing language. Ibid.

Silk Trade at Taunton, England. The number of silk-looms in this town amounts to about one thousand, and two hundred in the vicinity, Each loom is computed to give employment to two persons, so that the warpers, winders, quillers, and weavers, including those persons employed in the throwing-mills, in the manufacture of Organzine silk, amounts to not fewer than two thousand five hundred persons. The annual returns of the silk trade in Taunton, may be estimated at not less than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The wages alone are 30

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about one thousand pounds per week. The trade is at present in so prosperous a state, that nothing but the want of suitable houses for the artisans employed, prevents it from being doubled. Ibid.

The Bat. Some workmen engaged in opening a vault in our churchyard, were surprised, and, we believe, in some measure startled, by the squeaking of an animal which dropped from the roof of the dormitory, and which, on inspection, proved to be a bat; it appeared lifeless when laid hold of, but, on being brought to the open air, gradually recovered. This circumstance is singularly remarkable, from the fact of the vault having remained unopened for the space of ten years and upwards, and no crevice or aperture being discovered in its thick-ribbed walls, the creature having, in all probability existed in this confined and tainted region during the whole of that period. Bury Gazette.

Animal Bodies Preserved from Putrefaction. Amongst the most remarkable curiosities in the city of Bremen, is the extraordinary property of a vault in the cathedral, by which bodies are preserved in the same manner as if they were embalmed. This vault is sixty paces long, and thirty broad. The light and air are constantly admitted to it. by three windows, though it is several feet beneath the ground. Here are five large oak coffins, each containing a body. The most curious and perfect is that of a woman, said to be an English countess, who, dying in Bremen, ordered that her body should be placed in this vault, expecting that her relations would cause it to be carried over to her native country. However, it has remained here two hundred and fifty years. Though the muscular skin is totally dried in every part, yet so little are the features changed, that nothing is more certain, than that she was young and even beautiful. It is a small countenance, round in its contour, the hair as light and glossy as that of a living person. In another coffin is the body of a workman who fell from the top of the cathedral, and was killed instantly. His features forcibly show the painful nature of his death; extreme agony is marked in them; his mouth and eyelids are wide open, the eyes are dried up; his breast is unnaturally distended, and his whole frame betrays a violent death.

Calisthenic Exercises. It is an admitted physiological fact, that imperfections in the female form have their origin, for the most part, in defective or irregular muscular action. The muscular exercises recommended under the above title are such as are calculated to cure deformities of the figure, whilst they tend, at the same time, to invigorate the system, and conduce to elegant deportment; thus combining the valuable qualities of a remedy with an agreeable amusement. A series of exercises, called, from their results, Calisthenic,* has been introduced under the patronage of the Duchess of Wellington and Lady Noel Byron, by Miss Marian Mason, in George street, Hanover square. They have met with the approbation of Sir Astley Cooper, Messrs. Brodie, Travers, and other leading members of the profession, who have been present during their performance. These exercises are carefully accommodated to the delicate organization of the female sex, and to the peculiar circumstances of the individual; and, although they have been established only a few months, they have proved very beneficial to pupils. New Month. Mag. * A term derived from two Greek words, signifying beauty and strength.

So that, for a population of about thirty-six millions, there are in Germany twenty-two universities; six belonging to Prussia, three to Bavaria, two to the Austrian states, two to the Grand Duchy of Baden, two to the Electorate of Hesse Cassel, and one to each of the following states, Saxony, Wirtemberg, Denmark, Hanover, the great duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Saxe-Weimar, and Switzerland.

Among the professors are enumerated not only the ordinary and extraordinary ones, but also the private masters, whose courses are announced in the weekly programmes. Popish Germany, containing about nineteen millions of inhabitants, possesses only six universities; while protestant Germany, for seventeen millions of inhabitants, has no less than seventeen: it has thus been calculated, that the proportion of students is one hundred and forty-nine to two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, in the protestant parts of the country, and only sixty-eight to the same number in popish states. But it should be stated, that no mention is here made of the popish ecclesiastics, who study not in the universities, but in seminaries. Many other cities formerly possessed universities, which have been suppressed. Philo. Mag.

Magnetic Equator. The magnetic observations made by Captain Duperrey, of the Coquille sloop of war, which sailed from Toulon, on a voyage of discovery, in August, 1822, and returned to Marseilles in April last, are numerous and interesting Every body knows that there are on the surface of the globe, a number of spots where the compass ceases

*The king of Bavaria has ordered this university to be transferred to Munich, a a capital which offers many more resources for instruction than the small town of Landshut.

to point, and that a line drawn through those spots is called the magnetic equator. This equator must not be confounded with the terrestrial equator, round which it winds, as it were; sometimes passing to the north of it, and sometimes to the south, to a greater or less extent. In the course of his voyage, Duperrey crossed the magnetic equator six times; and the result of his observations renders it extremely probable, that the whole line is moving parallel from east to west, with such rapidity, that, since the year 1780, when its position was ascertained by scientific men in a very satisfactory manner, it has advanced no less than ten degrees towards the west. French paper.

Aerial Phenomena at the top of the Pic du Midi. M. Ramond has lately read to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, the conclusion of his memoir on the meteorology of the Pic du Midi. He has established the important fact, that, while the wind at the foot of the mountain blows in all directions, at its summit it is constantly southerly; and that this southerly current is that which the earth's motion produces in the higher regions of the atmosphere, from the equator to the poles.

One day Mr. Ramond was witness, on the Pic du Midi, of a singular spectacle; his own shadow, and the shadows of two persons who were with him, were thrown on a cloud a little distance above them, with a surprising exactness and sharpness of outline; and, which was more extraordinary, these shadows were surrounded by resplendent glories of the most brilliant hues. "A beholder of this magnificent sight," M. Ramond observes, "might fancy himself present at his own apotheosis." This effect has been observed by Bouguer, Saussure's sons, and others; and Bouguer explains the glory by the decomposition of light through frozen particles suspended in the cloud; but M. Ramond rejects this explanation, because the slightly elevated cloud on which the shadows appeared, could not, he thinks, from the temperature prevalent on the Pic, hold in suspension any frozen particles. Lond. Jour. of Science.

Power of the Sun's Rays. Mr. Mackintosh, an intelligent gentleman, who is contractor for the government works carrying on at Stonehouse Point, Plymouth, and descended in the divingbell with workmen, for the purpose of laying a foundation for a sea-wall, reports, that when the machine, which is provided with convex glasses in the upper part of the bell, was twenty-five feet under water, to his astonishment he perceived one of the workmen's caps smoking; on examining it, he found that the rays of the sun had converged through the glass, and burnt a hole in the cap; also, that similar effects had during hot weather frequently occurred on their clothes, so that the workmen, now aware of the cause, place themselves out of the focal point. Ibid.

Lamps without Wicks. Though Mr. Davis, a lecturer at Manchester, appears to have been the first to exhibit these lamps in the form in which they are now so generally known, yet, in justice to Mr. H. H. Blackadder, of Edinburgh, it should be stated, that the discovery of the principle, that oil passed through a capillary tube, produces a flame without the aid of a wick, is entirely due to him. He described the process in the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal." New Month. Mag.