nicious systems, bear us out fully in our inferences, without entering more at large into the particulars by which they can be corroborated. The report, in addition to the detail of evidence taken before the commissioners throughout the maritime districts, which forms by much the greater part of a large and closely printed folio, gives a copious abstract of the proceedings of the former board, to which we have so often referred, as also communications respecting the fisheries in several of the kingdoms of Europe, from the constituted authorities of each. These also we pass over,-not from a wish to underrate their value, for they contain many particulars, the judicious application of which would tend greatly to assist the proceedings of a public body at home, in case the experience of the past shall warrant the formation of a new official department, instead of leaving the details to the unaided exertions of individual competition.

The report concludes with a summary of the commissioners' suggestions, as to the best mode of raising the fisheries from their present state of depression. "It is probably expected," say they, in the commencement of this summary, "that some proposition for a sudden improvement of the Irish fisheries will originate with this commission; but, whatever disappointment may arise from the confession, the commissioners feel it a duty to declare, that the result of their most anxious enquiries is a full persuasion that no means can be proposed for attaining, by any short process, so desirable an event." With the sentiment conveyed in this preamble, equally sensible and unassuming, we heartily concur. The inveterate abuses engrafted upon a system by prolonged mismanagement, cannot be eradicated by a single effort. The attempt would be but an idle display of political quackery. They then proceed to recommend, as the first step towards the regeneration of the system, the repeal of every act in any way relating to the sea-fisheries of Ireland, in order that all the provisions deemed necessary may be embodied in one statute. This suggestion also meets our hearty concurrence. The multiplication of laws is among the most crying evils under which we labour, in our present state of complicated and highlywrought society: it is also an evil that presses more severely in proportion to the destitution of the class on which it acts. If, therefore, the fishermen be, as we fear they are under existing circumstances, among the poorest and most depressed of the industrious classes, they must feel in its greatest intensity the oppressive weight of such a system. The report then proceeds with a series of minor suggestions, all of which we feel inclined to treat in a very summary manner. They are, in fact, all

included in the first main suggestion of improved and simplified legislation, or emanate from this principle so immediately and directly, as to follow it in action as matter of course.

In the fisheries, as in other departments of the bygone Anglo-Irish system of government, ignorant, injudicious, often corrupt legislation, has done the mischief. The first, per

haps the only, needful remedy is, the doing away with the bad, in order to give fair play to the action of better, laws. When some loathsome object of disease is brought into an infirmary, the first operation he is subjected to is a thorough washing; and this preliminary process is often more than half the cure. Wash, scour away, with unwearied hand, the impurities contracted by years upon years of corrupt legislation; and then it will be seen how few, how simple, the new applications need be; how kindly, how rapidly, how effectually they will operate. It is unnecessary to point out what particular laws should be retained, what substituted, in the general clearance. With good intentions, with honesty of purpose to direct, common sense will easily point them out. From the peculiarity of the insular character of Ireland, her representatives, if they reside any time at home, must be acquainted with its maritime relations and capabilities. There are, therefore, means of knowledge amply sufficient to lead to sound legislation on the subject. There is also, we believe, sufficient honesty of purpose. The eyes of the legislature, likewise, are now directed upon Ireland. They cannot turn from it. They may be momentarily drawn away, to glance at Russia, or Spain, or France, or Turkey, or the Antipodes; but to Ireland they must revert, and that immediately. It is too close to them, it occupies too large a space in the scope of their political vision, not to be a primary object of contemplation. The Imperial Parliament, therefore, must legislate for Ireland. Among its legislative measures, the fisheries must be one object. They must be, we do not say the first or second, but among the leading objects of its agency. They afford a means of profitable employment to a most industrious, most peaceable, and most orderly portion of the community; they increase, or may be made to increase, to an indefinite degree, the means of subsistence for the whole population; they may be made a source of enlarged revenue; they may form a new opening for commercial enterprize; they may be converted into a powerful arm of national defence. Ireland, we beg to repeat it, is an island gifted with an extraordinary range of coast, as compared with its acreable contents; and still further gifted in the equally extraordinary capabilities of that coast towards the nautical advantages of the empire. Lycurgus, when he was

recasting his country in the mould of soldiership, cried out, "Let me have walls of men, not of brick." The battles of Great Britain must be fought upon the open sea. The broad ocean is the field in which her trophies must be planted. What, then, should be the word of preparation with her legislators? Should it not be,-" Let us have a wall of seamen ?" Fishermen, undoubtedly, are not seamen; but they are the matériel of seamanship. Here, then, is one among many points to which the attention of a legislature that seriously and sedulously devotes itself to the bettering the condition of the country should be directed. The process of improvement in it is comparatively easy. Much of the rubbish, the débris of a vicious system, has been cleared away, at least so far as to enable those who choose to follow up the process to see their way before them. The errors and evils of a previous bad system have been developed ; the rudiments of a better are apparent. It remains to apply to this long-neglected element of national prosperity, a due share of that searching and invigorating spirit of reform which we hope and trust is now in active operation both in and out of parliament; and we have no fears as to the ultimate result.

ART. VII.-Mémoire sur la Détermination de l'Echelle du Thermomètre de l'Académie del Cimento: par M. G. Libri. Annales de Chimie et de Physique: par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago. Vol. XLV.

I

T has been fashionable to treat the Catholic religion as hostile to the pursuit of physical science. What motives it can be supposed to have for such hostility, Heaven knows. It surely could not fear that, from the study of astronomy, any objections could be drawn against transubstantiation, nor that chemistry or geology could overthrow its belief in purgatory. It is evident, in fact, that wherever any plausible charge has been made against her upon this head, it has not been connected with any supposed relation to Catholic dogmas, but only to the more general evidences of Christianity. In the painful transactions respecting Galileo, the solicitude of the parties concerned was not to prevent conclusions from his principles contrary to any point of doctrine held exclusively by Catholics, but to silence objections against the inspiration and veracity of the Bible. They took up the cause, not of Rome, nor of the Holy See, but

of Christianity in general; and, however mistaken they were, both in their opinions and in their mode of proceeding, it would be most unjust to charge them with any feeling, that doctrines contested between us and Protestants should be protected from the test of philosophical observation.

It is, however, upon the strength of Galileo's case, distorted and misrepresented as it has almost always been by Protestants, and by too many Catholics, and worse explained and defended as it has been by others, that this species of accusation has been made against Rome. It is not our intention, on the present occasion, to enter into its merits; because it deserves à more minute examination than the immediate subject of this paper will permit. We will only remark, that, putting aside that single and singular case, in which one particular opinion, and not any science, was censured, it would be impossible to prove, by facts, any aversion on the part of Rome to the prosecution of natural studies, much less any apprehensions of their results. At the very time of Galileo, Castelli, his favourite pupil, and Torricelli, the discoverer of the perfect vacuum, received every patronage; and the latter could with difficulty be induced to quit Rome for Florence, to stay there after Galileo's death. On the treatment which Borelli and others of the same school received in the Holy City, our subject will lead us more directly to treat. The elder Cassini, who succeeded Cavalieri, the preparer of the way for the infinitesmal calculus, at Bologna, was most honourably treated, and employed by the Pope; as was, at a later period, Bianchini. The former was allowed to draw his splendid meridian in the church of St. Petronio, in Bologna, the latter in Sta. Maria degli Angioli, at Rome. The learned Jesuit, Boscovich, pursued his studies and gave his public lectures, not merely unmolested, but honoured and employed, particularly in the examination and repairs of St. Peter's cupola, when it threatened to give way, in consequence of imprudent alterations in its buttresses. His "Theory of Natural Philosophy," (1758) has formed the base of many excellent works on the Newtonion Theory. But his contemporaries, the learned Fathers Jacquier and Leseur, of the order of St. Francis of Paul, in Rome, have certainly the merit of having published the best commentary on the illustrious English philosopher's works. (1739-42.) Jacquier was only twenty-eight years of age when the first part appeared; and he held the situation of Professor of Scripture in the college of Propaganda. This proves how little jealousy was felt respecting the philosophical or astronomical systems held by an expounder of Holy Writ. Jacquier continued to receive tokens of peculiar kindness from

the enlightened Pontiffs, Benedict XIV and his successors, to Pius VI, under whom he died.

Nor has there been, since his time, any want of learned and judicious philosophers in Rome, who have freely pursued their researches in every branch of science. Sir Humphrey Davy, it is well known, had many dear friends and associates in his chemical labours at Rome, where many of his experiments on the combustion of the diamond were performed. The operation of transfusion of blood, from the veins of one living person to another, was, we understand, first tried in the same city. The present Pope has laid out very large sums in the construction and furnishing of new museums of natural history, in the Roman University. Every branch of science is conducted in the public schools of that city, upon the most modern and most enlarged plans. Perhaps the only class-book, into which Cauchy's latest researches into the Calculus of Remainders has been admitted, is that lately published by Father Caraffa, for the Jesuits' public schools at the Roman College. But of these things, more on some other occasion: let us now to the matter more immediately on hand.

Upon the revival of letters, a rage seized the whole of Italy; innocent, though extravagant; useful, perhaps, although often absurd. This was in favour of Academies, which sprang up in every town, and gloried in giving themselves the most ridiculous names. The purpose of these voluntary aggregations seldom rose higher than the composition, recitation, and occasional publication, of sonnets, pastorals, lyrics, and the other infinite species of rhymed effusions, in which Italians abound; things, in general, of that standard which neither " gods, nor men, nor the columns" approve. Some, like the Crusca, at Florence, have indeed turned their verbal lucubrations to some better purpose; but even on this, the absurdity of its name, which literally means the Bran-academy, and the homeliness of its symbol, a bolting mill, were calculated to throw ridicule. Two academies, or, as we should now call them, societies, were, however, formed in the course of the seventeenth century, for a more useful and nobler purpose-the prosecution of science, by the combination of talent directed to different pursuits.

These were the Academy of the Lincei, (Lyncæi) at Rome, and that of the Cimento, at Florence. The history of one bears a considerable resemblance to that of the other. Each was planned and directed by one person, whose talents and influence enabled him to bring around him, and keep together, men of rare abilities; and, after a short duration, both came to their end, by the removal of their respective founders. During their