The North American Indians from the south of the Missouri, and from thence to the Northern Ocean, have no idea of poetry as it derives its character from rhyme or measure. Their songs are short enthusiastic sentences, subjected to no laws of composition, accompanied by monotonous music, either rapid or slow, according to the subject, or the fancy of the singer. Their apologues are numerous and ingenious, abounding with incidents, and calculated to convey some favourite lesson. Their tales, too, generally inculcate some moral truth, or some maxim of prudence or policy. In one the misfortunes of a great chief are so linked with his vices, and wind up so fatally at last, that a man of worth whom he sought to oppress, is, by his own agency, made the instrument of his destruction, and established as his successor. The private virtues of this successor, particularly his respect for the other sex, the want of which was the great vice of his predecessor, is made the foundation of his fame and prosperity. In another, the particular duties of women are enforced, by showing how certain women who deviated from ordinary rules were persecuted by the manitoo of the woods; in the progress of which they are made to owe their safety, in various trials, to some particular act of female discretion or delicacy, which they had before neglected. The Indians have their Circe, as well as the Greeks; she is very seducing, and the fate of her votaries very terrible; the strokes of the pencil by which she is drawn are masterly; but the tales respecting this lady are only calculated for the ears of men. This people, worthy of a better fate, are gradually degenerating and wasting away. I have already seen an Indian nation so degraded, that it cannot produce a single orator. Half a century will efface their best peculiarities, and, so multiplied are the causes of their decline, perhaps extinguish them altogether. E. For the Literary Magazine. REVIEW. Letters from Europe, during a Continued from vol. IV, p. 470. THE greatest part of these vo lumes is occupied with Italy. The author makes no considerable halt on his journey from the summit of the Alps to Florence. We meet, in this course, with some useful remarks upon the best mode of travelling in this celebrated country; a few travelling anecdotes; rapid sketches of the plains of Lombardy, the borders of the Po, of the cities of Placentia, Parma, and Modena, of Bologna, its cathedral church, with its pictures and sculptures; a dominican monk; the passage of the Appennines, and a view of Tuscany. The author then enters Florence, where he appears to have staid some time, and to have been very industrious in examining the monuments of arts, of which, notwithstanding the depredations of the French, it still contains a vast number. The squares, streets, temples, palaces, libraries, museums, and pictures of Florence, are briefly enumerated and described. The cathedral church, being the principal curiosity, detains the author's attention longer than any other object. Then follows a short political and economical view of Tuscany. We have also a curious sample, in a note, of the mode in which religious ideas are employed for popular convenience. Though this passage may be liable to objection, on one account, yet the information it contains is highly characteristic, and every judicious reader will regret that these pages have so few of such original and direct observations upon manners; particularly as, in these he gives us, the writer's style is agreeable and interesting Some remarks are made upon improvisatori. The author makes light of the merit or difficulty of this impromptu poetry. The facilities afforded by the nature of the language, and the little intrinsic merit of these performances, will, he thinks, naturally and fully solve this poetical mystery. In the journey from Florence to Rome, the author stops at Sienna long enough to take a hasty view of the cathedral. A continued journey affords some observations which, though few, are not without value. Rome at length appears, and here the author makes an abode of considerable duration, and gives us a view of this great city, principally confined to its monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting: a view which, in most respects, is brief and scanty. This brevity, how ever, arises from the multiplicity of objects compared with the limits to which the author confines himself. In so small a space, such numerous objects could not fail to be crowded, and no single one could expect a very large share of attention. The author's taste and judgment, however, merits no small praise for selecting and arranging his subjects, and for placing them in interesting and instructive points of view. On St. Peter's church he has dwelt longer and more minutely than on any other monument. In this he has shown his judgment, since this is not only the most important object at Rome, but former travellers have given us no adequate or intelligible account of it. They furnish us, in general, with cold and frigid details, which, as they flow from vague and indistinct ideas in the transcriber, make no other impression on the reader. This author, on the contrary, gives us a picture, full, particular, and glowing, and such a one as is pleasing and intelligible to the popular reader, while it is instructive to the connoisseur and artist. Our traveller makes a tour through this church, in which he conducts us through its principal recesses, and from the pavement to the summit of the lanthorn. The enthusiasm with which he is inspired by this deliberate and successive survey of this stupendous edifice, communicates itself to his style, which, on this topic, has an unusual portion of splendour and elegance. The description of the building terminates with a brief history of its erection. The account of this church is all eulogy. We have no critical remarks upon the style or the materials of this edifice. The writer, no doubt, intended a general and popular description, in which such remarks would, perhaps, have been unseasonable. There is, however, some observations in a note (vol. 1, p. 223), which may be deemed exceptions to this remark, and which are liable to some objection. He says, "Travellers have remarked, as a fault, the monotonous simplicity of the front of St. Peter's; and they have compared it, with derogation, to the variegated facade of St. Paul's; overlooking the sublime idea of Paul V, and Charles Maderne, to render the cathedral of Christendom a monument of Christ and his apostles. This obliged them to divide the frontispiece by a regular intercolumniation, upon the twelve piers of which should stand the twelve apostles, thus emphatically indicated as the pillars of the church." The architectural travellers whom we have met with have invariably condemned the facade of St. Peter's, for the want of simplicity: instead of twelve columns, regularly intercolumniated, and proportionally surmounted, which was the grand idea of the first architect, we have eight half columns and four pilasters, forming only nine intervals, no two of which, on the same side, are correspondent in their breadth. Four of the central columns support a most diminutive and contemptible pediment, and the whole colonnade, if such a motley range of columns and pilasters merits that name, is surmounted by a huge and disproportioned attic. The facade of St. Paul's has infinitely more simplicity and regularity, though consisting of two stories, and of columns and pilasters. The simplicity lies not in number, but in arrangement. We have, in the next chapter, an account of the appendages of this temple. In a short digression, the author attacks the catholic interpretation of scripture, on which the papal authority is founded. He gives an account of the chief mosaic paintings of several tombs. From St. Peter's, the author leads us to the papal palace of the Vatican, whose galleries, chambers, chapels, libraries, and museums, are agreeably and circumstantially described. After bestowing suitable attention upon these principal objects, the traveller proceeds, with more haste and brevity, through the remains of ancient edifices, some modern temples and palaces. Having taken a rapid, but particular view of these, he retires, in fancy, to a convenient eminence, and gives us a general view of this famous capital, in which modern appearances are combined with reliques of antiquity. This sketch has considerable merit. After this comparatively long detail of architectural wonders, the author gives us sketches of life and manners. They appear to be drawn from immediate observation, and are characteristic and amusing. A good deal is said about the Roman mendicants, and pleasing anecdotes occur respecting them. We have next a chapter on the ceremonies of the Roman church, in which are more particularly described the papal functions at the celebration of Christmas; and the author relates an adventure which befel him in a nocturnal ramble, among the ruins of the Coliseum, which is followed by a lively picture of the ceremonies used at the consecration of the reigning pope: with this concludes the first volume. To be continued. For the Literary Magazine. FOREIGN NEWS, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL. IT appears from the report of the baron Von Kotzebue, in his recent travels through Italy, that the business of unrolling the Herculanean MSS. proceeds at Portici, under the direction of M. Hayter, with success and rapidity. One hundred and thirty manuscripts have already been unrolled, or are unrolling; and M. Hayter does not despair of being able to decypher the six hundred manuscripts which are still extant. Eleven young persons are constantly employed in unfolding the manuscripts, and two others in copying or drawing them, all under the direction of M. Hayter, and at the expence of his royal highness the prince of Wales. Another work has been discovered of Philodemus, treating on the vices which border on virtues; besides a work of Epicurus, of Phædrus, Demetrius Phalerus, and Colotos; the last in reply to Plato on friendship. Among seven Latin manuscripts, M. Hayter has found a historical work, written in the style and manner of Livy; and, among the Greek ones, the entire works of Epicurus, in the best state of preservation. Mr. Humboldt is beginning to publish the results of his late travels, with an affectation that deserves to be reprobated. He begins with some expensive numbers of botany, and thence proceeds to some other numbers of zoology and geology, promising that he will conde. scend also to give to the public an abridged account of his travels, adapted to general reading. His condescension does not, however, terminate here: for he teils the world that he may, probably, in a few years, publish a full account of his travels, but that the abridged account may satisfy curiosity till he has leisure to gratify it fully! Mr. Irving, author of a work on English Composition, and of the Lives of the Scottish Poets, is engaged on a Life of the celebrated George Buchanan. Mr. William Close has invented an apparatus for raising water, by means of air condensed in its descent through an inverted syphon. This syphon has its higher orifice placed in a situation to receive both air and water at the same time. The air, being conveyed by the velocity of the aqueous column to the lowest part of the syphon, and collected in a vessel, is employed as the medium for conveying pressure to raise water in another part of the apparatus. Mr. C. finds from experiments that a machine constructed upon this principle will raise water for domestic purposes, and although it will not perform half as much work as a bucket-engine by a forcing-pump, yet it may be kept continually employed, and is subject to very little wear, as its operation will almost be performed without friction. Mr. Stothard has found that the elasticity of the steel in watchsprings, &c., is greatly impaired by taking off the blue with sand-paper, or otherwise; and, what is still more striking, that it may be restored again by the blueing process, without any previous hardening or other additional treatment. It is not generally known that green succulent plants are much better preserved after a momentary immersion in boiling water than otherwise. The treatment is adopted for the economical preservation of cabbage and other plants which are dried for keeping, as it destroys the vegetable life at once, and seems to prevent an after process of decay or mortification, by which the plant would have been more considerably changed, if it had not been so suddenly killed. The following is a method for preserving wood in damp situations. Take twelve pounds of resin beat in a mortar, three pounds of sulphur, and twelve pints of whale-oil; let them be melted together over a fire; ochre powder may be added to give it a proper colour. Of this preparation two coats are to be applied, after which the wood will not be subject to injury by humidity. The first coat should be laid on lightly, having been previously heated; the second, after an interval of two or three days; a third may be added, if, from the peculiarity of the situation, it be judged expedient. Mr. Davies Giddy has lately described a singular fact of the invisible emission of steam and smoke tcgether from the chimney of a furnace; though either of them, if separately emitted, is visible as usual. "The flue," says he, speaking of a steam engine," for conveying off the smoke and affording a draft, was made of rolled iron; and the steam, which wholly escapes from these machines uncondensed, was conducted into the same tube about a foot above its insertion into the boiler: when the engine began to move, neither steam nor smoke were seen to issue from the flue; and when fresh coal was added, nothing more than a faint white cloud became apparent, and that only for a short time. The register was slowly closed, and a condensation of steam manifested itself at a small distance from the chimney, and in the same quantity as if it had proceeded immediately from the boiler. The experiment was reversed, and the steam gradually confined to the boiler, when the smoke became visible, till it equalled in quantity and appearance that commonly produced by a similar fire. These trials were repeated a number of times, with unvarying success. Pains were taken to ascertain whether, and in what degree, the draft was affected by the admission of steam into the flue, and it was found that, while the engine worked, the fire bright. ened each time the steam obtained admission into the chimney." To elucidate this fact, Mr. Nicholson contrived the following experiment. "A small glass tube was stuck through a cork, and this was pressed into the neck of the retort in which water was boiling over a |