THE OTAHEITAN MOURNER. [Peggy Stewart was the daughter of an Otaheitan Chief, and married to one of the Mutineers of the Bounty. On Stewart's being seized and carried away in the Pandora frigate, Peggy fell into a rapid decay, and in two months died of a broken heart, leaving an infant daughter, who is still living.]

FROM the isle of the distant ocean

My white love came to me;
I led the weary stranger

Beneath the spreading tree.
With white and yellow blossoms
I strowed his pillow there;
And watched his bosom's heaving,
So gentle and so fair.

Before I knew his language,

Or he could talk in mine,
We vowed to love each other,
And never to resign.
O then 'twas lovely watching
The sparkling of his eyes;
And learn the white man's greeting,
And answer all his sighs.

I taught my constant white love
To play upon the wave,
To turn the storm to pleasure,
And the curling surge to brave.
How pleasant was our sporting,
Like dolphins on the tide;
To dive beneath the billow,

Or the rolling surf to ride.
To summer groves I led him,
Where fruit hangs in the sun;
We lingered by the fountains,
That murmur as they run.
By the verdant islands sailing,

Where the crested sea birds go;
We heard the dash of the distant spray,
And saw through the deeps the sun-
beams play,

In the coral bowers below.

And when my lover, weary,

To our woodland couch would creep, I sang the song that pleased him,

And crowned his lids with sleep. My kindred much would wonder, The white man's love to sec, And Otaheitan maidens

Would often envy me.

Yet when my white love's forehead,
Would sadden with despair,

I knew not why the cold drops
Should start and quiver there.

I knew not why in slumber

His heart should tremble so;
Or locked in love's embraces,
How doubt and fear could grow.
'Till o'er the bounding billow,

The angry chieftains came;
They seized my wretched lover,
They mocked my anguished claim,
In iron bands they bound him,
I flew his fate to share;
They tore him from my clasping,
And threw me to despair.
Are white men unrelenting,
So far to cross the sea;
Their chieftain's wrongs revenging,
To tear my love from me?
Are Otaheitan bosoms

No refuge for the brave; Can exile nor repentance

A wretched lover save?

No more the Heiva's dancing,
My mournful steps will suit ;
As when to the torch light glancing,
And beating to the flute.

No more my braided tresses

With smiling flowers shall bloom; Nor blossom rich in beauty Shall lend its sweet perfume.

All by the sounding ocean

I sit me down and mourn,

In hopes his chiefs may pardon him,
And speed my love's return.
Can he forget his Peggy,

That soothed his cares to rest?
Can he forget his baby,

That smiles upon her breast!

I wish the fearful warning
Would bind my woes in sleep!
And I were a little bird, to chase
My lover o'er the deep!
Or if my wounded spirit

In the death canoe would rove, I'd bribe the wind and pitying wave, To speed me to my love! Birmingham.

P. M. J.

BY PETER PINDAR-1808.

AGAIN the academy I greet;

Once more, my graphick friends, we

meet

Shake hands-Ah! why the greeting hand withdraw?

Lo! by your looks ye seem to sayAvaunt, thou vagabond-awayWe'd sooner take the devil by the paw!

Well, well! once more the bard appears.

He sings, in spite of rolling years:
Time has not stolen one atom of his fire;
The Muse, unconscious of decay,
Still pours the proud Pindarick lay,
Still strikes with equal energy the lyre.
Now, cries the critick of my rhyme,
"How darest thou dream of the su-
blime,

And fancy that it e'er inspired thy Odes?
How darest thou take a Pindar's name,
To steal into the dome of Fame,
And place thy Momus by the side of
gods?"-

I own that Time to my surprise,
Has done some mischief to my eyes,
And done that mischief much against my
will;

But as the Bullfinch, beyond doubt, Sings better when his eyes are out, Why not the songster of the Aonian hill?

Time too has chosen to efface The fine Apollo form and grace And somewhat bent to earth my lofty head;

And though the knave has touched my hand,

The goose quill yet it can command, And o'er the snow the feathered giant

lead.

It certainly must be confest, I come a most unwelcome guest, 'Mid sheaves of corn a sort of wicked weovil:

As for R. A.'s I briefly tell 'em, Fiat justitia ruat cœlum, Although they sooner would behold the devil.

SCOTTISH SONG.

TUNE "O' a' the airts the win' can blaw.”
A BONNY lass I dearly like
And feel a fervent flame,
Aft thinkin' on her form I rove
But dinna ken her name.

Luve's darts are in her twa blu een,
Her form is grace itsel❜;

Whane'er she smiles her beauty's seen
An' mair than I can tell.

A something that I canna name
Comes drizzlin' through my bluid,
An' strives for vent through a' my frame,
I'm thinkin' it's nae gude.

But I've an inklin' what it's now

I'ts nae witchcraft ill thing,
But just love's darts are shootin' thro'
An' that's the very thing.

What if she'd gie a chidin' frown,

Or cast a jeerin' ee,

Wi' thoughts o' that I'm dizzy grown,
I think 'twad gar me die.

Wi' aukwart glee I'd sing her charms,
An' tout her beauty's fame;
But I maun dumb and dowie be,
I dinna ken,her name.

Edinburgh.

ALEXANDER SCOTUS.

PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH.

AN EPIGRAM.

POOR John had bought him half a hog,
And thought it would be glorious prog,
To eat with cabbage, peas, and beans,
Or with a dish of winter greens :

But Nelly thought it far too dear;
Indeed it cost her many a tear,
She used (for saving was her boast)
But half a pound of salt at most.
But see how Nelly was mistaken;
She saved her salt-but lost her bacon.

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

Method of preserving Fruit without Sugar, for Home Use, or Sea Stores. THIS is the discovery of Mr. Thomas Saddington, of Lower Thames street, who, with his communication to the society, enclosed a box containing the following fruits in bottles, preserved without sugar: viz. apricots, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, cherries, Orleans plums, green gages, damsons, and Siberian crabs; but the same mode is applicable to all English fruits. Mr. S. describes the process which he uses, to the following effect:

The bottles for this purpose are selected from the widest necked of those which are used for wine or porter, these being the cheapest. Being properly cleaned, and the fruit, which should not be too ripe, ready picked, the bottles are to be filled as full as they will hold, to admit the cork going in. The fruit while they are filling, is to be frequently shook down. The corks afterwards must be so lightly stuck into the bottles as to be taken out easily when the fruit is lightly scalded, which may be done in a copper, a kettle, or sauce-pan, over the fire, first putting a coarse cloth of any kind at the bottom, to prevent the heat from cracking the bottles. Then the copper, the kettle, &c. is to be filled with cold water sufficiently high for the bottles to be nearly up to the top of it. They are to be put in sideways, to expel the air contained in the cavity, under the bottom of the bottle. If the copper is used, care must be taken that the bottles do not touch the bottom or sides of the opper, which would endanger their bursting. Then the heat must be increased gradually, till it comes to about 170 degrees, by a brewing thermometer, which generally requires about three quarters of an hour. Those who have not such a thing, may judge of the proper degree of heat when the water feels very hot, but not hot enough to scald the fingers. If too hot, a fitfle cold water may be added to temper

it. When the heat is proper, it must be kept at the same degree for about half an hour longer, which will always be long enough, as a longer time, or greater heat, will crack the fruit. While the bottles are thus getting in heat, a tea-kettle full of water must be got ready, boiling, by the time the fruit is done. If one fire only is used, the kettle containing the bottles must be removed half off the fire, when it is at the full heat required, to make room for boiling the water in the tea-kettle. As soon as the fruit is properly scalded, and the water boiling, take the bottles out of the water, one at a time, and fill them within an inch of the cork, with the boiling water out of the tea-kettle. Cork them down immediately, doing it gently, but very tight, but you must not shake them by driving the cork, as that will endanger the bursting of the bottles. When corked, the bottles must be laid down on their sides, as by that means the cork keeps swelled, and prevents the air escaping out. When cold, the bottles may be removed to any convenient place of keep. ing. During the first month or two, it will be necessary to turn them a little round, once or twice a week, to prevent the fermentation that will arise from some fruits, from forming into a crust. By thus properly attending to the fruit, and keeping it moist with the water, no mould will ever take place. Afterwards it may be necessary to turn the bottles round once or twice a month, only.

In order to diversify the degree of heat, Mr. S. states, that he has done some fruits in 190 degrees of it, and continued them in it for three quarters of an hour; but this heat be found too powerful, and the time too long, as the fruit by these means was reduced to a pulp. In 1807, he preserved 95 bottles of fruit, the expense of which, exclusive of bottles and corks, was 14. 98. 5 1-2d. or, upon an average, about 4 1-2d. a bottle. In winter, they may amount to 1s. per bottle. The vessel for scalding the fruit in, should be a long wooden trough of six, eight, or ten feet

in length; two or three in breadth; and one in depth; fitted with laths across, to keep the bottles upright. This trough of water is to have the heat communicated to it by steam, through a pipe from a closed boiler at a distance; or if the boiling water wanted to fill the bottles with, is convey ed through a pipe and a cock over the trough, many hundreds of bottles might be done this way in a short time. Five guineas were voted by the society to Mr. Saddington for his communication.

Mr. E. Thomason [Birmingham] has taken out a Patent for a new Method of manufacturing Umbrellas, Parasols, &c.

The hearth brush is made upon this principle, and at present much used. The patentee's object has been to conceal the brush part, by means of a convenient apparatus, excepting during the time of its using. The same principle being applied to the parasol and umbrella, the spreading part of the latter, when not used as a defence against the weather, is concealed in a walking stick. Though the head of the cane, stick, &c. containing this apparatus, is rather larger than those of common walking sticks.

The French Mode of Fining, or Clarifying

Wine.

The complaint among the wine trade with respect to the difficulty of clearing wine is so general, that we conceive the following extract from a valuable work Jately published at Paris, will prove not unacceptable to many of our readers. "Of all materials used in clarifying wines and other liquids," says M. Parmentier, "I think that the whites of eggs are best calculated to bring them to that degree of perfection, and confer upon them that limpidness which they can acquire neither by rest nor by filtration." When, however, the whites of eggs are made use of for the purpose of clarifying wines, &c. it is necessary to be particularly careful in using the freshest eggs only; and in breaking and examining them, great caution and circumspection are to be observ. ed, since it has often happened that a single egg, however slightly tainted, has given a disagreeable flavour to a whole pipe of wine, an evil which, when once incurred, is irremediable. It is best, adds the author already named, to employ such eggs only as are laid by hens which do not asso ciate with cocks, because the intercourse of the male renders the eggs more liable to putrescence, and gives them a very bad

taste.

Next to the white of eggs M. Parmer tier places isinglass; because, as he justly observes, it does not alter the true co. lour of the wine, or communicate a disagreeable flavour to it.

Experience has proved that white wines in particular, which have been clarified through the medium of isinglass, are more transparent, and preserve their limpidness much longer than those to which the whites of eggs have been applied, the latter being invariably injured by a contact with the atmospherick air. As to red wines, a very small portion of isinglass will clear them, and consequently a species of economy is added to the other advantages derived from the use of it, as thereby an immense quantity of eggs is saved."

M. Parmentier contributed a paper to the Annales de Chimie, in 1792, by which he undertook to prove, that, in many cases, a sort of jelly, prepared from the raspings of bones, might be substituted for isin. glass. But might we not with greater facility procure a much better substitute for singlass, than that which he makes mention of, from our indigenous produc. tions, from our fisheries of every description-Most of the fish which are but thinly covered with scales, and which live in our lakes, ponds, and rivers, furnish great abundance of gelatinous substance, both wholesome and pleasing to the smell and taste, which might be prepared for the purpose already mentioned with very little trouble. In adopting this mode we should confer a benefit upon the nation at large, by curtailing the importation of isinglass, for which such immense sums are paid to the merchants of the northern parts of Europe.

This paper may give rise to more than one philosophical question. First, what is that principle in an egg become stale and tainted, though but little, which is so powerful in its nature and properties as to taint a whole pipe of wine? Consider the smallness of an egg itself in proportion to the quantity of liquor: Consider the expression "however slightly this small quantity be tainted;" and when the principle, or portion tainted is limited, in fact, to a small portion of this small egg. Such is the power of the tainting principle! the principle of corruption! Is there any beneficent principle that is equally capable of meliorating its subject when only so slightly diffused throughout its parts?— Secondly: It is remarkable, that an extract from fish, a commodity sufficiently remote, it should appear, from the nature of any production of the grape, or its

juice, should clarify the liquor innocently, while an egg slightly tainted, injures it. Isinglass is a kind of glue, prepared from a fish. Whether any other glue, prepared from any other kind of fish, might answer the purpose as well; and if not, why not? is also a matter of curious inquiry. The other query which a naturalist will diseern in this communication may deserve discussion, but rather in a learned language, and in a direct dissertation, than in a popular and widely circulating periodical publication. Why are red wines more easily and effectually clarified by isinglass than white wines; and whence is the sediment that subsides from them more easily acted on by this apparently feeble agent?

Few persons in this country know any other use of the aloe than the medicine which it affords; but it serves for a num. ber of other beneficial purposes in the countries where it grows. In the East Indies, aloes are employed as a varnish to preserve wood from worms and other insects; and skins and even living animals are anointed with it for the same reason. The havock committed by the white ants in India first suggested the trial of aloe juice, to protect wood from them; for which purpose the juice is either used as extracted, or in solution by some solvent. Aloes have also been found effectual in preserving ships from the ravages of the worm, and the adhesion of barnacles. The ship's bottom, for this purpose, is smeared with a composition of hepatick aloes, turpentine, tallow, and white lead. In proof of the efficacy of this method, two planks of equal thickness, and cut from the same tree, were placed under water, one in its natural state and the other smeared with the composition; when, on taking them up after being immersed eight months, the latter was found to be as perfect as at first, while the former was entirely penetrated by insects, and in a state of absolute rottenness. An aquatick solution of hepatick aloes preserves young plants from destruction by insects, and also dead animals and vegetables from putrefaction; which renders it of great use in the cabinets of naturalists. The spirituous extract is best for this purpose, though in this respect it is inferiour to that of cantharides, prepared by infu sing two grains in one ounce of spirits, which has been found to be so effectual in the extirpation of bugs. Pærner asserts, that a simple decoction of aloes communicates a fine brown colour to wool. Fabroni, of Florence, has extracted a

beautiful violet colour, which resists the acids and alkalis, from the juice of the fresh leaves of the aloe exposed to the air by degrees. The liquid first becomes red, and at the end of a certain period turns to a beautiful purple violet, which adheres to silk by simple immersion, without the aid of acids.

Richard Walker, esq. of Oxford, has proposed an alteration in the scale of the thermometer, which suggested itself to him during a long course of experiments, and which has been adopted by himself and his friends from the persuasion of its being founded on the truest principles. "The two fixed points, the freezing and boiling points of water as they have hitherto been, will," he observes, " probably never fail to be continued, as being perfectly sufficient for the accurate adjustment of thermometers. The commencement of the scale, and the number of divisions only appear to claim attention. With respect to the first, since neither the extremes of heat or cold are likely to be ascertained, the hope of fixing 0 at either of these may be entirely relinquished, and it remains to fix it at the fittest interme. diate point. Here I propose the following mode of graduation. Having ascertained that the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit is the temperature at which the human body in health is conscious of no inconve nience from heat or cold, and that a deviation from that point of only one or two degrees, above or below, actually produ ces that effect under ordinary circumstances, I fixed my zero or 0 there. I adopted the divisions of Fahrenheit, considering those of Reaumur, the centigrades, &c. as too few, and decimal divisions unnecessary. Hence it will follow that 0 being placed at 62° of Fahrenheit, 150° will be the boiling, and minus 30° the freezing point of water; and all other points on Fahrenheit's scale may be reduced to this, by subtracting 62 for any degree above 0 of Fahrenheit, and adding 62 for any degree below 0. For ordinary meteorologi cal purposes, a scale of this kind extending to 65° above, and as many below 0, will be sufficient."