manufactures and in agriculture is the object of M. Depradt, and his efforts, since they are truly patriotic, must be laudable. Such a competition as he would excite will give pleasure to all good men. The skilfull management of the plough must be more beneficial to the world than the dextrous use of the bayonet; and to stimulate a people to rural improvements is more truly glorious than to lead an army to victory. ART. VII. Mémoires de l'Institut National, &c.; i. e. Memoirs of the National Institute of Arts and Sciences. Vol. III. [Article concluded from the last Appendix.] HISTORY.-In the view of unpublished papers, we meet with a notice respecting the preservation of marble statues, which deserves attention. Statues are sometimes defaced by the growth of a species of lichen, which resists all chemical agents that can be safely employed: for this evil, the remedy proposed is to insinuate a small quantity of white wax into the pores of the marble, by means of heat and friction. This process, it is said, gives the statue a fine polish, and it may be cleaned at any time by washing. Some slight historical sketches of deceased academicians, MM. Charles Dewailly, Etienne Louis Boullée, (both architects,) and Jean Dusaulx (the translator of Juvenal),-occur as usual. Among these we find nothing that deserves to be extracted, excepting the following anecdote of Dusaulx. He went one day to Versailles, on the invitation of Father Menon, a Jesuit. The business was important; for it was proposed to intrust him with the care of some children who were at that time destined for a throne. The Jesuit, after having acquainted him with this design, said, What are your principles ? -Those of justice.-What will you teach these children ?-To respect the laws, and to love humanity.-Father Menon knew the world; he paused, and then resumed the discourse :-Where do you live in Paris?—In the Rue Dauphin.-Well, go back to the Rue Dauphin. The air of this place will not agree with you.—Dusaulx took the hint, thanked him, and returned to Paris, happy in having escaped from servitude. The Memoirs open with an account, by M. CAMUS, of the Works undertaken by the National Institute, or executed under its Direction. Of these, the collection of French historians, and the description of the arts, are the chief. This notice is followed by a poem, intitled, The Old Man of Ancenis, on the Death of General Hoche; by M. CHENIER.-We cannot bestow much praise on this composition: the conclusion of which is truly in the style of Blackmore. The writer predicts the final discomfiture of the English by the grande nation, and is very patriotic if not very poetic. We next meet with a Second Memoir on the Pelasgi, by M. DUPUIS: who derives their origin from Ethiopia.-One of his principal arguments for this supposition is the similarity of their rites with those of the Ethiopians. This consideration, however, would prove rather too much, if we should admit, with some late writers, that all the religions of Europe have been derived from the East. The original superstitions of mankind are naturally similar; and the great difficulty consists in explaining the causes of their difference. When a writer gives so wide a range to his conjectures, founded in a great measure on etymological antiquities, the reader is more amused than instructed.-Andromache may be derived from Andrew Mackay, with Swift, or Jehu from Gee-hoo, with industry and art equally successful. We should deem it time lost to enter on a minute examination of this very long paper. Second Memoir on the Marine: treating on the small Vessels of the Antients, and the Use which might be made of them in the French Navy. By M. LE ROY.-The construction of those vessels which this author terms the second-rates of the antients is here explained, with much display of reading. He proposes that ships of this kind should be employed in transporting troops; and he seems to expect that naval combats may thus be changed to military contests: especially as he writes with reference to the invasion then meditated against this country. The subject is now happily dropped, and we may consign M. LE ROY's remarks to the shelf. The third and last memoir on the Marine of the Antients contains an account of a bas-relief published by Winckelmann, representing a fragment of a galley. M. LE ROY supposes that it exhibits the poop of one of the largest vessels engaged in the battle of Actium. The succeeding memoir relates to a scarce German Romance, intitled, The high Feats of Arms, and some Adventures of the illustrious, celebrated, and warlike Hero and Knight, Teueurdanck (or Tewerdanck)*. By M. CAMUS.-The subject of this paper is a curious metrical romance, published at Nurenberg in 1517, under the direction of the Emperor Maximilian 1st; which contains an exaggerated and sometimes allegorical de This word may be translated, after John Bunyan, Great-Heart. tail of his own atchievements. It has been much disputed whether the text of the first and second editions, viz. of 1517, and 1519, was printed with single types, or with blocks: but, after an elaborate account of different copies of these editions, the present author concludes that the Teueurdanck is a masterpiece of modern typography, performed by moveable types. The numerous plates which adorn this rare book are cut, with remarkable beauty, on wood. Memoirs on Persepolis, by M. MONGEZ.-This extensive paper contains a collection of all the particulars relating to the history and description of the celebrated ruin of which it treats, from antient and modern writers. M. MONGEZ is of opinion that the palace was built by the antient Persians, not by an Egyptian colony; and that its construction belongs to the time of the elder Cyrus. Among the authors here cited and criticized, we are surprized to find the writer attributing the praise of accurate observation to Gemelli Carreri: since it is now very well understood, we believe, that this name is merely ficti tious, and prefixed, like that of Van Egmont, to a bookseller's compilation. M. MONGEZ thinks that only a part of the palace was burnt by Alexander, and that the destruction of the city was principally occasioned by the Generals of Ali, when Islamism was introduced into Persia. In the groupes of figures copied by Le Bruyn, he sees the processions usual on the birth-days of the Persian monarchs. His suppositions are very ingenious and probable: but we must own, with our old friend the Spectator, that "much may be said on both sides." A Poem on Sepulture, by M. Le Gouvé, contains some good lines it is intended to expose the indecency with which interment was performed, during the stormy periods of the revolution. Le frère alors fuyait les obsèques d'un frère; The author expresses, in very good verse, his desire that the remains of the virtuous man may at least repose in the woods, distinguished by marks of filial piety: • Les bois ! ils sont des morts le veritable asyle. We We next meet with a third part of M. BITAUBE's Essay on the Opinions of some celebrated Philosophers of antiquity concerning the Antient Republics.-Of the former parts we have already given an opinion; and we have only to add that, in detailing the sentiments of Aristotle, M. Bitaubé has displayed the same diligence and information which his prior researches manifested. The misfortune is, however, that no useful lesson can now be drawn from similar inquiries: the experience of former generations is overwhelmed in the torrent of events which we have witnessed; and who can yet undertake to predict their ultimate direction? Second Memoir on the Colours and Dyeing of the Antients. By M. AMEILHON.-The author begins this memoir by observing that the art of dyeing consists of three grand operations, viz. Ist, To well cleanse the substance which is to be dyed, and to remove all foreign matter which might prevent it from taking the colour. 2dly, To dispose it by particular compositions to receive and retain the colouring principle; and, 3dly, To prepare the bath of colour in which it is to be immersed, and to work it according to the rules of the art. The first of these operations was considered by M. AMEILHON in a former memoir on the Art of Fulling; and he now proceeds to examine whether the antients employed particular means to fix the colours in the stuffs which were dyed:-in short, whether, like the moderns, they employed what are called mordants. Although it cannot be doubted that mordants were used even in the most remote ages, yet nothing positive can be found in authors of very high antiquity. Plato is the first who unequivocally mentions the use of them. (Plat. Reipub. lib. iv. t. ii. p. 429. Edit. Serrani.) Pliny, also, when speaking of a species of dyeing peculiar to the Egyptians, expressly says that the workmen began by rubbing the stuffs which they intended to dye, and afterward applied drugs which did not leave any stain, but had the property of powerfully imbibing the colours subsequently to be employed: "Candida vela postquam attrivére, illinuntur non coloribus, sed colorem sorbentibus medicamentis." Lib. xxxv. cap. 71.-It cannot be doubted that the substances thus employed acted as mordants, or fixed colours, because he afterward says, " nec postea ablui potest." The antient Greek chemists (whose manuscripts are scarcely known but by their titles, given by Fabricius, but which at a future time M. AMEILHON intends to publish from the collection in the national library,) explain with much perspicuity the necessity of fixing colours by mordants.-They notice the fugitive and permanent colours, χρώματα φεύκτα, and χρώματα QEUXTA.-Many other equally forcible expressions occur; among among which we may notice the term diar, corresponding exactly with the word mordant, being derived from the verb Inna, mordeo.-The Greek chemists moreover observe that sometimes the mordants were first applied, (unočárov, or, Torun,) and afterward the colour: but at other times the mordant and colour were mingled together;-and the application of the mordant was regarded as so very essential by the Greeks, that the term denoting it (rup) was frequently employed to signify the operation of dyeing of which Dioscorides furnishes many examples. M. AMEILHON then points out some of the mordants used in antient times, particularly alum, by which the colour of woad and of some other vegetables was fixed. The antients were acquainted with but few metallic salts; native sulphate of iron and of copper were, however, certainly used by them in dyeing; and the colours were formed and fixed by the gall nuts, or by the seeds of a species of acacia peculiar to Egypt, or by the rind of pomegranates, Punitum malum). Some substances possess the properties of a mordant as well as of a colouring principle; and several of these, such as the root of the oak, and a species of lotus, (called by Pliny faba Graca) were known and employed. The antients also made use of various substances which by modern dyers are called alteratives, and which produce certain changes in many dyes or colours. Pliny affords a strong proof of this when he says, "Mirum, cùm sit unus in cortina color, ex illo alius, atque alius fit in veste, accipientis medicamenti qualitate mutatus ;"and of these alteratives it may be observed, that the juice of lemons and strong vinegar were employed to cause the effects which now are produced by the mineral acids. Pliny also says, " Nitrum utile..... ad inficiendas purpuras tincturasque omnes :"-but this expression, as the author of the present memoir very properly remarks, must not be understood to mean the neutral salt now called nitre, since even the effects which are thus ascribed to it clearly demonstrate it to have been an alkali; and although the mineral alkali or soda was called by the antients natrum, yet even this is not to be exclusively regarded as the substance mentioned by Pliny, because salts in general are called nitre by the antients, and vegetable alkali or potash, which is extracted from wood ashes, was called virgo by Theophrastus. Muriate of Ammoniá, or Sal Ammoniac, was known to the antients, and Pliny relates the mode by which it was prepared: but it is uncertain whether or not it was employed in dyeing. Even supposing it not to have been used, still its place was supplied by urine; and, according to Pliny, this last fluid was commonly |