: formed a race of men inured to danger; careful of their interests; at all times obedient to those habits of calculation which made a traffic of their lives; blending brilliant action with low sentiments; indifferent to right, yet attached to certain duties; and trained by their condition to dispense with virtues, though at the same time exempt from many vices. Such were the greater part of these officers who were at that time sent from England to instruct and advance themselves in foreign wars; and who, a little later, under the name of Soldiers of Fortune, played a considerable part in her own civil contest. They were destitute of principle, yet they were not wanting in a certain sense of honour; and, when fate launched them amid the vicissitudes of party, they were not easily found to break the engagement which they had first contracted; nor often induced to quit, before their time, the standard to which they had hired their courage and fidelity. They were bound only slightly to their fatherland, but animated with a lively sentiment of fellowship for the men whose dangers they had shared; and they thus formed doubtful citizens but admirable comrades. Although indifferent to the sufferings of a population, they knew how to share those of the soldier; and were so orderly, even in their violence, that they did not aggravate it by the evils of confusion. They were rough and severe, but not ferocious; their avarice submitted to the laws of discipline; and that shameful zeal for plunder which rendered the cavalier gentry the terror of England, has seldom been imputed to the soldiers of fortune. Monk was one of them. Superior to all by his faculties, similar to all in his tastes and exigences, his talents rose with events; but not so his sentiments with his station. He performed great things without becoming great; and retained, among the fortunes of a man who changed the face of an empire, the habits. of mind and heart which had been engendered by the obscure condition of a mercenary soldier.” It is in such disquisitional passages as the above that the author displays his peculiar talents, rather than when he labours to sketch individual character, or lend a dramatic form to the description of events and action. The present work also shows that the author selected Monk not so much as the hero of a marvellous and full biographical narrative, proceeding consecutively and minutely from the cradle to the grave, as a prominent and defined standing ground for the display of his comprehensive knowledge, as that he might bring much of his philosophy into exercise, and that he might be enabled to survey widely and narrowly the influences and the results intimately connected with the most noble, the best sustained, and the most protracted conflicts which any nation ever joined in, where liberty was the object contested. Some of the anecdotes collected by the author help to illustrate Monk's character and policy. We quote three or four. His military daring, and the practical nature of his tactics may be illustrated by the following :— "6 MONKANA. "At Dunbar, September 3, 1650, Cromwell, pressed by the Scots, who were superior in number, had imprudently entangled his army in a con T fined position, between the sea and the heights occupied by the enemy. "The Dutch re-embarked; though not so soon but that the Duke of Albemarle, who had proceeded to the advanced posts, heard the balls whistle by his ears. One of his officers urged him to retreat a little. 'Sir,' replied Monk, if I had been afraid of bullets, I should have quitted this trade of a soldier long ago."" It is well known that though Monk was reserved, and a man of few words, yet he could be eloquent, and remarkably sententious; he had also a dash of humour in him. He could very aptly enforce and illustrate a general principle by a short proverb. Thus "Sometimes the General would make bad faces, and seem to be uneasy in hearing her, (his wife, a Royalist,) and oft address himself to me, as if I were too moderate at the act; to whom I have as oft returned, Sir, what shall I say? She speaks such unhappy truths, that neither you nor I can gainsay them.' I cannot forget his usual answer: True, Mr. Price,' (would he say,) but I have learned a proverb, that he who follows truth too close upon the heels, will one time or other have his brains kicked out.' Not only Monk's wife, but his brother, and his chaplain, Gumble, were hearty royalists; nor can it be supposed that he should remain uninfluenced by their opinions. But he was too cold and insensible to be easily kindled, as sundry particulars in M. Guizot's account of his death intimate. Before inserting this account, however, we shall quote another anecdote that shows how calmly and orderly the General proceeded to the performance of what he deemed his duty; and no doubt not only in the army but in his civil government, he carried into effect and insisted upon the same sort of discipline :— "His first care was to secure, as he advanced, (in the Highlands,) all the posts susceptible of defence. Having arrived one day at the house of a certain Campbell of Glenorchie, he thought it fit for the reception of a small garrison. The laird refused to cede it. 6 'Well,' said Monk, I will not violate hospitality;' and he immediately commanded the officers who accompanied him to evacuate the house. Now,' said he to the laird, look to the defence, for we are about to attack.' The laird, however, though surrounded by many of his friends and relations, though fit to treat; and consented to receive a garrison, on condition that a portion of his house should be reserved for his own use." After speaking of Monk's last expedition in the service of the country, Guizot says his infirmities, particularly his asthma and threatenings of dropsy, increased in violence. He continues— He had performed his last service. On his return from this expedition, his infirmities, particularly his asthma and threatenings of dropsy, increased much in violence. He felt himself incapable of labour, and set out for his seat at New Hall, in the county of Essex; rather to die in the peaceful repose of the country, than with any hope of obtaining thence any relief. He attended little to the physicians, rejected all their remedies, and, with a melancholy which had affected him for several years past, but of which he had never either spoken or explained the cause to any one, when Gumble, who was still his chaplain, pressed him to bestow care upon his health, he answered, Why should I desire to live?' One of his neighbours at New Hall, however, formerly an officer in his army, mentioned to him certain pills said to be sovereign against the dropsy, which were sold at Bristol by one Sermon, who had also served under his orders in Scotland, as a private soldier. This advice and remedy from ancient comrades inspired the old General with more confidence than the skill of the physicians. He sent for Sermon's pills, and found himself so much recovered by them for a time, that he returned to London at the close of the summer. But soon after his arrival, in the latter end of December 1669, the dropsy made alarming progress; and Monk, who was too intrepid to lose on this occasion his habit of seeing things in their true light, himself announced that he had but a few days to live. One remaining care was still deeply rooted in his heart. It was the marriage of his son Christopher with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, granddaughter of the Duke of Newcastle. He hastened its completion with the same activity, and the same minute solicitude, as he could have applied to it in full health; and on the 30th of December the marriage was actually celebrated in his chamber, which he never quitted more. Nothing from that moment could rouse him from his indifference to others as well as to himself. An attempt was made to persuade him to recommend his family to the favour of the King, who came to see him almost daily. It is useless,' said he; I do not doubt the kindness of the King for me and mine.' He listened but coldly to Gumble's discourses, who thought himself bound to prepare him for his approaching end; and spoke of it himself with the same coolness to his friends, whom he continued to receive. At length, on the 3rd of January, about nine o'clock in the morning, while sitting silently in his chair, he sighed, turned his head aside, and expired." Mr. Stuart Wortley's translation is smooth, flowing, and faithful; but not free from marks which indicate haste and carelessness. We should say, that in every respect, it looks like the work of a gentleman. 197 ART. VII.-Eighth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. If the advancement of science is to be gauged by the numbers that may associate for that end, and profess to be its students; if its progress is to be calculated and measured according as the wealth increases, and the rank of its patrons rises in society; or if feasting, dancing, and gallantry are essential to its prosperity, and needful sorts of relaxation and enjoyment to keep alive and to cherish the spirits of its promoters, then the late meeting at Newcastle must assuredly be regarded as one of the most promising signs that ever appeared. The total number of tickets issued greatly exceeded those on any previous occasion in the history of the institution; and the sum which these tokens of admission and the sale of books brought is stated to have amounted to £2,410 10s. If, again, in the course of the migrations of the Association it gathers all the scattered science of the land, and a more general and powerful union is thus formed than could ever be collected by an institution resting on a fixed point, and if also greatly varied objects of interest, and different opportunities of utility are offered by circumstances proper to the several and different places which the Association visits, the late meeting ought to have been peculiarly benefited, and to have bequeathed to the scientific world an extraordinary amount of information,-to have acquired an unusual stimulus. Newcastle is celebrated for many of its artificial works as well as for its natural local features. To the optical philolosopher its glass manufactures must be highly interesting. It offers also a great variety of phenomena of a chemical character, presenting conspicuous and truly magnificent establishments, and exhibiting those processes which have been perfected in the laboratory, to the production of articles indispensable to our most valuable and beautiful manufactures. Then the geological and physical wonders of the neighbourhood are too well known to require a more pointed allusion. Even the architectural creations of the place are remarkable, having with a marvellous rapidity, though the results only of private or individual enterprize, supplanted confusion and meanness. But, on the other hand, if science be not a drawing-room, or ballroom affair; if it be a much more severe concern than dinnereating, or even speech-making; if experimenting and deep research be somewhat different from promenading and showing off before the ladies, then we fear that Mr. Babbage had too much reason for stating at a concluding meeting of the General Committee at Newcastle, that he, with every man of real scientific attainments with whom he had conversed, regretted that so much time and such an expenditure of money should be devoted to festivities and gay occasions. It would appear, indeed, that the good people of Newcastle. VOL. II. (1838.) No. 11. P had felt themselves entitled to regard the Meeting as one more after the fashion of a coronation display and rejoicing than for the encouragement of severe study and the publication of dicoveries made over the midnight oil, or after the most patient investigation. The lodging-house keepers, for example, treated their visitors regard to demand for accommodation as if they had been so many foreign ambassadors come to offer their congratulations to a young sovereign; a circumstance of itself which reads a smart lesson to the Association, and which, we trust, will, with the ridicule that has very generally been expressed in reference to the holiday and festive features of the late meeting, produce a salutary alteration. It is very obvious, and has been too often experienced, that every institution formed upon a plan that is extensive and complicated, even though simple when compared to that of the British Association, is liable to misdirection and useless innovation. It is unquestionable, however, that this body counts among its members, and cordial friends, so many men of high erudition and philosophic attainments, so many who perseveringly and for its own sake cultivate the highest branches of science, that there is still much of promise in its constitution. Besides, it has already earned for itself a title to honour, and the gratitude of every enlightened mind. Were we to regard nothing more than the influence which some of its representations and recommendations to government have carried, and the expeditions and enterprizes that have thence originated, the institution ought to be highly prized and sedulously guarded against all pernicious encroachments. The amount and number of these services we need not at present particularly indicate. Again, the Association has by means of its numerous and variously styled or accomplished members, already amassed a vast quantity of facts in different departments, which by future inquirers and cultivators, it is fair to anticipate, will be productive of ripe fruit. Nor has the gay meeting which has but the other day ended its proceedings been barren in regard to the highest objects of the institution. Without further preface, we proceed to give some account of a few of the subjects which occupied its different sections, for the most part abridging the reports which certain contemporaneous journals have with remarkable fulness furnished. 66 In the section devoted to Mathematical and Physical Science, a Report of singular interest was read by Lieut.-Col. Reid, plaining the progress made towards developing the Law of Storms, and a statement of what seems desirable should be further done to advance our knowledge of the subject." After stating that he had long been convinced that the operations of Providence were governed by fixed laws, that however irregular the tempest or tornado might appear to the careless observer, yet our own day had some of of Unseen the phenomena of these mighty changes reduced to rule, that he believed we were on the eve of further discoveries, and that his |