Yes, whoever the king marries is queen; and as long as her husband lives the may govern him, and rule the nation as much as fhe pleases; but, when he dies, fhe is not permitted to rule any longer, except the next king pleases.

Now this fhews, and you may tell your fifter Befs fo, that, in fpite of all the coaxing and courting which the French ufe to the women, yet they are falfe-hearted towards them at the bottom, and do not respect them fo much, as to the main point, as we English does; and yet one of thofe dd parlivoos will go farther with fome women in a day, than an Englishman in a month-all owing to their impudence; for a common man has as much impudence in France as a man-midwife has in England. By the bye, Ben, I wonder you allow Tournelle, my lord's French fervant, to be fo much with your filter Befs. He pretends to teach her the French cortillong; but who knows what fort of cortillongs he may try to teach her; in my own opinion, old John Lancafhere could teach her dancing as well, and this would be more decent for the reputation of her vertue; but you need not fhew this part of my letter to Befs, but make ufe of it.

your own

I have seen the French horfe-guards, which they call Jangdarms; the men are smart-looking young fellows enough, but the horses are poor wafhy things in comparifon of our dragoons.

The Swifs guards are ftout men, clothed in fcarlet, the fame as our foldiers; but they have mouftaches on their lips, like the ratcatcher in St. Giles's.

The French foot-guards are dreffed in blue, and all the marching regiments in white, which has a very foolish appearance for foldiers; and as for blue regimentals, it is only fit for the blue horfe or the artillery.

I believe the French army would have no great chance with our troops in a fair battle upon plain ground. It is lucky for the mounfeers that there is no road by land between Dover and Calais; but as it is, I wonder the king does not fend fome regiments by fea to take Paris, which could make no great refiflance; for there is no walls round the town; and there would be a good deal of plunder.

• But, after all, I like Paris better than Naples, though it is fo near Mount Vefuvius, which all ftrangers go to fee, the fame as they do St. Paul's, the Monument, and lions in the Tower of London. It is to be fure continually fmoking and throwing out fiery ashes and other combustibles, fuch as none of our English mountains does. I went one night to the top of it with Mr. N 's valet, Euchanan, and one Duncan Targe, another Scotchman. I thought I should have been choked with the fmoke and fulphurous fmell. But as for Buchanan and Targe, it gave them no difturbance; the reafon of which I take to be, that the Scotch are accustomed from their infancy to brimflone and bad fmells in their own country. I do not fay this by way of difparagement to them two, who are not bad kind of menonly a little proud; but of the Scotch in general, who, in my opinion, ought to be restrained by act of parliament to their own country, otherwife I do believe in my confcience, fooner or later, they will cat up old England.

4.

• I have

I have fent unto you, by the bearer, a pappy mafhee tobaco box, and a dozen pair of gloves for your fifter Befs, who will also deliver to you this letter, which I have taken three days in writing, to oblige you and Befs; and I durft not write by the polt, for if the French found this letter, they would take me up for a fpy, and shut me up in the Baftile during my life; and in England I am told all foreign letters are opened by the miniftry, in which cafe this might bring you into trouble, because of the box and gloves, which, being counterband against the act of parliament, the king would be enraged if he knew of fuch a thing; which stands to reafon, all fmuggled goods being fo much money out of his pocket. All from, dear Ben, with my kind love to your fifter Befs,

• Your fervant to command,

THOMAS DAWSON."

Ferdinand Count Fathom is evidently the prototype of Zeluco; and though the rank, habits of life, and character, of the latter produce a villain in many refpects different from Fathom, yet ftill the family likenefs is difcernible.

Upon the whole, Zeluco is the production of a man of good fenfe, who is well acquainted with the world; and, as a novel, holds a middle rank between the bad and the excellent.

ART. X. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

CHEMISTRY.

M. PELLETIER, in a paper read at the Royal Academy. of Sciences at Paris, recites a feries of experiments, by which he has accomplished the perfect union of phosphorus with all metallic fubftances. After fhewing why Margraf did not fucceed in fimilar trials, the failure of which obliged him to conclude that phofphorus would act alone on copper, zinc, and arfenic, he proceeds to his own fuccefsful experiments. The great analogy betwixt fulphur, arfenic, and phofphorus, led him to fufpect long ago, that, as well as the others, the latter might be made to enter into a combination with metals. M. Pelletier directs these to be melted, or at least to be in a state of incalefcence at the moment of their union with the phosphorus. In the mean time he cautions against the danger which attends this procefs, and proceeds to a diftinct account of the uniting of phosphorus with each metal.

Phofphorated Gold.-M. Pelletier mixes half an ounce of gold, chemically feparated, in powder, with an ounce of phosphoric glafs, and about a grain of powdered charcoal; he puts the whole into a crucible, covering the compofition with a small

quantity

quantity of powdered charcoal; he afterwards gives a degree of heat fufficient to fufe the gold. During this operation many phofphoric vapours are difengaged; but all which are produced are not diffipated, fince a fmall quantity of them unites with the gold. It is eafy to conceive that the degree of heat which changes the phosphoric acid into phofphorus, likewise caufes the gold to enter into fufion; and on this particular circumftance the combination depends; the gold is united at the bottom of the crucible, and no longer retains its natural colour.. It is whiter, it breaks under the hammer, and has a cryftalline appearance. The increase of its weight is not confiderable, and the ease with which the phosphorus quits the gold caufes it to vary; by continuing the fire a long time, the gold would be found at the bottom of the crucible in an unaltered state.

Upon a coppel placed upon a heated tile, M. Pelletier exposed twenty-four grains of the phofphoric gold obtained by the above procefs; it loft a grain of its weight, and the button of gold which remained had resumed its original colour.

Phofphorated Platina.-An ounce of platina, an ounce of phofphoric glafs, and a grain of powdered charcoal, being blended, and put into a crucible, the author covers the whole with a little powdered charcoal, and gives to it a degree of heat nearly equal to that which fufes gold. Having continued this heat for an hour, he breaks the crucible, and finds at the bottom of a blackish glass a mafs of a filver colour, weighing upwards of an ounce, and of which the inferior part presents well-shaped crystals of the fame fubftance; their figure is a perfect cube. He has repeated this experiment feveral times, and from a mixture of twelve ounces of platina, twelve of phofphoric glass, and twelve grains of charcoal, has conftantly obtained a very neat and beautiful mafs, weighing twelve ounces and five grains.

The platina thus united to phosphorus is very brittle, and of a confiderable firmnefs; it is no longer fenfible to the action of the magnet, and when expofed uncovered to a fire fufficiently intense to keep it in fufion, it disengages the phosphorus which was united to it, and this laft burns on its furface. The degree of fire to be employed should be lefs than that which fuses filver.

The phofphoric refiduum, that is to fay, the fubftance which, at the diftillation, has furnished all the phosphorus which the degree of heat of a good reverberatory furnace can throw off, this refiduum, fays M. Pelletier, is ftill proper to phosphorate platina ; he mixed four ounces of this with an equal quantity of the metal, and threw the whole into a crucible, kept during an hour in a fufing furnace. The mixture flowed, and he obtained a

mafs

mafs of phosphorated platina, weighing four ounces and three grains, and covered by a blackifh glafs.

The combination of phosphorus with the other metals, M. Pelletier defcribes nearly in the same way.

From the whole of his experiments he gives the following refult: That phofphorus is capable of being combined with gold, platina, filver, copper, iron, tin, and lead; that it deprives the five firft of their ductility, whilft the tin and lead preferve this quality. He will endeavour, by new trials, to determine whether it be poffible to combine a greater quantity of phosphorus with the laft-named metals, and whether they will invariably preferve their malleability.

In a fucceeding memorial he will examine its action on demimetals; and is employed in establishing the order of its affinity to metals and metallic fubftances.

At Petersburg, Mr. Lowits has made many attempts to collect and concentrate all the most agreeable parts of the acetous acid he has at length fucceeded, and we give the following account of his progress in this new and very interesting attain

ment.

Having frozen as completely as poffible good white-wine vinegar, diftilled in balneo mariæ, and charged with the phlegm which paffes off first in diftillation, he afterwards rectifies this vinegar in balneo maria as many times as are neceffary to cleanse it entirely from all foreign particles, and from the groffer of its oily particles, which at the first diftillation passed into the recipient.

If the cold be not fufficiently intenfe to concentrate the vinegar as it fhould do, he finds it easy to remedy this inconvenience by feparating, at each rectification, the weak fpirit of the vinegar which rifes firft; and here the following obfervation ought to be made:

When the vinegar, concentrated by the froft, is fubmitted to rectification, a spirituous liquor rifes very rapidly; from this liquor, put apart and re-diftilled feveral times, a most fubtle ether is feparated, of a very agreeable flavour, and not capable of uniting with the water. This ether must be mixed with fresh vinegar, after this laft, by repeated diftillations, has been deprived of all its heterogeneous and aqueous particles.

REMARKS.

1. Mr. Lowits advises to preferve the phlegm which rises firft in the diftillation of vinegar, because this phlegm contains a principle well calculated to give a richer flavour to the dulcified

vinegar,

vinegar, and afterwards, by freezing and rectifications, produces ether, as well as the concentrated acid.

2. Stahl is the first who taught how to concentrate vinegar by freezing; but it has not been known hitherto that, by repeated rectifications, the vinegar thus concentrated is capable of this high amelioration; and ftill lefs has it been conceived that fo agreeable an ether is to be feparated. Till this time the acetous ether has been procured by the procelles of Weftendorf and the Count de Lauragais only.

3. The difagreeable flavour peculiar to diftilled vinegar rifes from the groffer oily particles which come off at the first distillation. Soon as thefe particles are separated by frequent rectifications, the concentrated vinegar recovers the agreeable flavour of undistilled vinegar. In this the vinegar here defcribed, of Lowits, differs principally from all the fpirituous vinegars that have been hitherto prepared, and equals, as well in this respect as in its other properties, the dulcified vinegar of Ehrenreich, which likewise contains ether.

4. At Petersbourg the cold in winter is always fufficiently intense to give vinegar the ftrength of that of Ehrenreich, which was found frozen during the laft winter, when the cold was by no means exceffive. It is, however, true that the fame degree of ftrength cannot be given by congelation to vinegar, as is produced by combining it with another body, from which it is again feparated by a more powerful acid. Weftendorf's, prepared in this way, is an excellent vinegar; but it is no less certain that every vinegar prepared in this way undergoes too violent changes; fince, by the lofs of a part alone of its oily principle, it acquires an acrimony of which it cannot be divested by any convenient methods, as has been demonstrated by a variety of experiments.

Since the difference in ftrength betwixt the vinegar now treated of, and that of Weftendorf, very inconfiderable indeed, does not prevent the firft being equally proper in medicine with the other, it is certain that it ought to have the preference, as it is deprived of its fuperabundant water and heterogeneous particles, without the affiftance of any extraneous body; and further, fince, by the operation it undergoes, the oily, fpirituous, and acid particles are preferved unaltered, in the ftate in which nature has blended them together.

ENG. REV. VOL. XIV. SEPT. 1789.

P

MONTHLY