|| advanced slowly, and not till he had acknowledged that he deserved what he suffered, for his cruelty, and for the insults which he bad committed against Jesus Christ, as Eusebius relates; (Hist. 1. ix. c. 19.) who adds, that all the rulers of provinces, who had acted under him, and persecuted the Christians, were put to death, as Picentius, his principal favourite; Culcianus, in Egypt; Theotecnus, and others.. Urbanus, the cruel governor of with a grievous and terrible disease; for being || extremely fat and unwieldy, the huge mass of flesh was overrun with putrefaction, and swarmed with vermin, and the stench that came from him was not to be borne even by his own servants, as Eusebius relates-(b. viii. c. 16.) Maxentius was overcome by Constan tine, and drowned in the Tiber. Maximinus II. after being defeated by Licinius, was compelled by him to repeal his edicts against the Christians, and died in 313, in exquisite tor-Palestine, had beeu convicted of many crimes ments, under a distemper not unlike that of Galerius. For whilst his army was drawn up in the field, he was lurking and hiding his cowardly head at home; and, flying to Tarsus, not knowing where to find a place of refuge on land or sea, but scared every where with his fears, he was struck with a sore distemper over his whole body. In the most acute and insufferable anguish, he rolled himself upon the ground, and pined away by long fasting, so that he looked like a withered and dried skeleton. At last, he who had put out the eyes of the Christians, lost his sight, and his eyes started out of his head; and yet, still breathing, and confessing his sins, he called upon death to come and release him, which at Cæsaria, and condemned to a shameful death by Maximinus himself; and his successor Firmilianus had met with the same fate from the hands of his master, whom by his cruelties, he had studied to please. Licinius, the last of these persecutors, was a worthless and stupid Prince, who could not read or write his own name, hated all men of learning, and was a foe to religion. He, to please Constantine, for some time favoured the Christians, and pretended himself to be ready to become one; but at last threw off the mask, and persecuted the church, when he was conquered and put to death by Constantine, in 323." ON THE SAFETY LAMP FOR COAL MINERS. On the Safety Lamp for Coal Miners; with some Researches on Flame. By Sir Humphry Davy. 1 vol. 8vo. R. Hunter, St. Paul's Church-yard. To use the words of Sir Humphry,, enjoyments of life; but also with the extenDavy's well written preface, "The gratifi- sion of our most important arts, our manucation of the love of knowledge is delight- factures, commerce, and national riches. ful to every refined mind; but a much higher motive is offered for indulging in it, when that knowledge is felt to be practical power, and when that power may be applied to lessen the miseries, or increase the comforts of our fellow creatures." "Essential in affording warmth and preparing food, it yields a sort of artificial sunshine, and in some measure compensates for the disadvantages of our climate. By means of it, metallurgical processes are carried on, and the most important materials of civilized life furnished, the agriculturist is supplied And such is offered in the work before with an useful manure, and the architect with us, which points out, in a general view, the a necessary cement. Not only manufactories principles on which the security of that vaand private houses, but even whole streets, luable invention, the safety lamp, depends: are lighted by its application-and in furnishan attempt at analyzing this work would being the element of activity in the steam enuseless: it contains so many proofs of what it advances, that we shall confine ourselves to give a part of them in the following extracts: OF THE USE OF PIT COAL. The use of pit coal in Britain is connected not only with the necessities, comforts, and No. 118.-Supplement. gine, it has given a wonderful impulse to mechanical and chemical ingenuity, diminished to a great extent human labour, and increased in a high degree the strength and wealth of the country. stacles, difficulties, or dangers connected with its production, is not unimportant to the state." ACCIDENTS COMMON TO COAL MINES. and that tubes even of a much smaller diame. ter communicated explosion from a close vessel. Hence, I took a new method of ascertaining the safety of my apertures, and of trying different forms of apertures. "I had a vessel furnished with wires, by which the electrical spark could be taken in an explosive mixture, and which was larger in capacity than a safe lamp or lantern was re "The fire damp is found in the greatest quantity, and is most dangerous in the deepest mines; but it likewise often occurs in superficial excavations ; and I have now a letter, of || the date of June 8, 1816, in my possession, inquired to be. I placed my flame sieves, i. e. which it is stated, that in the very commencement of working a coal mine in Shropshire, several miners were killed, and others severely burnt. my systems of apertures, between this jar and a bladder containing likewise an explosive mixture, and I judged the apertures to be safe only when they stopped explosion acting upon them in this concentrated way. "Modes of preventing accidents from fire damp have been ardently sought for by all persons connected with coal mines, and it has discovered, that a few apertures, even of very "In this mode of experimenting, 1 soon even occupied the attention of an enlightened small diameter, were not safe unless their sides government.-In consequence of some explosions which prevented the miners from work- || twenty-eighth of an inch in diameter, and two were very deep; that a single tube of oneing the coal mines at Briancon, in Dauphiny,* inches long, suffered the explosion to pass the Duke de Choiseul, at that time Prime through it; and that a great number of small Minister of France, recommended the subject tubes, or of apertures, stopped explosion even to the consideration of the Academy of when the depths of their sides was only equal Sciences, and a committee was appointed, who to their diameters-and af last I arrived at made it for some time the object of their attention; but the plan that they proposed for the conclusion, that a metallic tissue, however avoiding the danger, was a common mode of thin and fine, of which the apertures filled ventilation. more space than the cooling surface, so as to be permeable to air and light, offered a perfect barrier to explosion, from the force being divided between, and the heat communicated to, an immense number of surfaces. "This evil of the fire damp, though belonging to all coal mines, has been most severely experienced in those of Hainhault, in Flanders, and the infinitely more important mines in the neighbourhood of Whitehaven and Newcastle, in this country, "The number of dreadful accidents, indeed, which had happened within the last three or four years in the last mentioned districts, particularly that by which ninety-six persons were destroyed in the Felling colliery, had so strongly impressed the minds of a number of benevolent persons belonging to, or connected with, the coal districts, that it was said to be in their contemplation to bring the subject before Parliament, that by making it a national question, it might obtain that consideration which its importance demanded." VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS. “In trying my first tube lamp in an explo. sive mixture, I found that it was safe; but unless the tubes were very short and numerous, the flame could not be well supported; and in trying tubes of the diameter of one-seventh or one-eighth of an inch, I determined that they were safe only to small quantities of explosive mixture, and when of a given length; || "My first safety lamps, constructed on these principles, gave light in explosive mixtures containing a great excess of air, but became extinguished in explosive mixtures in which the fire damp was in sufficient quantity to absorb the whole of the oxygen of the air, so that such mixtures never burnt continuously at the air feeders, which in lamps of this construction was important, as the increase of beat, where there was only a small cooling surface, would have altered [the conditious of security. "I made several attempts to construct safety lamps which should give light in all explosive mixtures of fire damp: and, after complicated combinations, I at length arrived at one evidently the most simple, that of surrounding the light entirely by wire gauze, and making the same tissue feed the flame with air and emit light. "In plunging a light surrounded by a cylinder of fine wire gauze into an explosive mixture, I saw the whole cylinder become quietly and gradually filled with flame, the upper part of it soon appeared red hot; yet no explosion was produced." or those that produce little heat in combustion. Or the tissue being the same, and impermeable to all flames at common temperatures, the flames of the most combustible substances, and of those which produce most heat, will most readily pass through it when it is heated, and each will pass through it at a different degree of temperature. In short, all the circumstances which apply to the effect of cooling mixtures upon flame, will apply to cooling METHOD FOR GIVING LIGHT IN EXPLOSIVE MIXTURES OF FIRE DAMP IN COAL MINES, BY CONSUMING THE FIRE DAMP. "The invention consists in covering or surrounding a flame of a lamp or candle by a wire sieve; the coarsest that I have tried with perfect safety contained 625 apertures in a square inch, and the wire was one-seventieth of an inch in thickness, the finest, 6,400 apertures in a square inch, and the wire was onetwo-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch in diame-perforated surfaces. Thus, the flame of phos ter. "When a lighted lamp or candle screwed into a ring soldered to a cylinder of wire gauze, having no apertures except those of the gauze, or safe apertures, is introduced into the most explosive mixture of carburetted hydrogene and air, the cylinder becomes filled with a bright flame, and this flame continues to burn as long as the mixture is explosive. When the carburetted hydrogen is to the air as 1 to 12, the flame of the wick appears within the flame of the fire damp, when the proportion is as high as 1 to 7, the flame of the wick disap pears. "When the thickest wires are used in the gauze, it becomes strongly red hot, particularly at the top, but yet no explosion takes place. The flame is brighter the larger the apertures of the gauze, and the cylinder of 625 apertures to the square inch, gives a brilliant light in a mixture of 1 part of gas from the distillation of coal, and 7 parts of air. The lower part of the flame is green, the middle purple, and the upper part blue." THE NATURE OF FLAME. "Flame is gaseous matter heated so highly as to be luminous, and that to a degree of temperature beyond the white heat of solid bodies, as is shewn by the circumstance, that air not luminous will communicate this de gree of heat. When an attempt is made to pass flame through a very fine mesh of wiregauze at the common temperature, the gauze cools each portion of the elastic matter that passes through it, so as to reduce its temperature below that degree at which it is luminous, and the diminution of temperature must be proportional to the smallness of the mesh and the mass of the metal. The power of a metallic or other tissue to prevent explosion, will depend upon the heat required to produce the combustion as compared with that acquired by the tissue; and the flame of the most inflammable substances, and of those that produce most heat in combustion, will pass through a metallic tissue that will interrupt the flame of less inflammable substances, phuretted hydrogene at common temperatures, will pass through a tissue sufficiently large not to be immediately choaked up by the phosphoric acid formed, and the phosphorus deposited. A tissue of 100 apertures to the square inch, made of wire of one-sixtieth, will, at common temperatures, intercept the flame of a spirit lamp, but not that of hydrogene; and when strongly heated, it will no longer arrest the flame of the spirit lamp. A tissue which will not interrupt the flame of hydrogene when red hot, will still intercept that of olefiant gas, and a heated tissue which would communicate explosion from a mixture of olefiant gas and air, will stop an explosion from a mixture of fire damp, or carburetted hydrogene.” EXTRACT FROM PAPERS WRITTEN BY JOHN BUDDLE, ESQ. "There has been much quibbling about the I perfect safety of the wire gauze lamp. scarcely know how the words perfect safety can apply to any invention for the preservation of human life; but when we have seen some hundreds of the wire gauze lamps in daily use for several months past, in all varieties of explosive mixture, in the most dangerous mines of this country, without the slightest accident occurring, it seems only reasonable to infer, that they approximate as nearly to perfect safety as any thing of human contrivance or manufacture can be expected to do. "It would, however, be quite unreasonable to expect, that accidents are never to happen, where the wire gauze lamps are used; for it must always be remembered, that setting aside the chance of their being damaged by some of the casualties incidental to coal mining, they are to be entrusted to the management of a body of men, amongst whom negligent individuals will be found, who may use damaged lamps, or expose the naked flame to the fire damp, in spite of the utmost vigilance of the overmen and inspectors of the mines. Instances of great negligence have occurred, fortunately without any ill consequences-always with the dismissal of the offender from Rre his employment; but it would be absurd to condemn the lamp, or even to quibble upon its want of safety, on this account." Our limits will not allow us to make fur ther extracts from a work, which deserves every support and encouragement: and which we quit with regret, ending, as we began, with the following just observations of the author: "When the duties of men coincide with their interests, they are usually performed with alacrity; the progress of civilization etsures the existence of all real improvements; ing the good opinion of society, there is a still and however high the gratification of possessmore exalted pleasure in the consciousness of having laboured to be useful." BIOGRAPHICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. RECOLLECTIONS OF CURRAN, AND SOME OF HIS COTEMPORARIES. Recollections of Curran, and some of his Cotemporaries. By Charles Phillips, Esq. 8vo. Hookham, Old Bond-street, and Baldwin and Co. Paternoster-row. of those, which, however authentic, have found their way into our most common jest books-that, for instance, of Peg Plunkett and the Duke of Rutland; her remark on the Irish Bishops. Surely this lady could not be ranked amongst Curran's cotemporaries! THE loss sustained by the public when I should be thrown away in recording some men of strong talents are snatched away, whose oratorical eloquence was exerted fearlessly in the cause of truth, and the lips whence such eloquence proceeded, are closed for ever, may justly be deemed irreparable; yet immortality is their lot, even in this sublunary sphere; long, long will Curran live in the hearts of his countrymen; and the words that he uttered when living will be eagerly treasured up, "While memory holds her seat in this dis- the fine language of Mr. Philips to be so tracted globe." Who better than his friend, and that friend Mr. Phillips, could have drawn together those "recollections" which render the name of Curran doubly dear? We find no boast, no parade of virtue, feeling, friendship, gratitude: but we discover these amiable qualifications in the most common circumstances of his eventful life. The volume before us consists chiefly of recollections or anecdotes; and can scarcely be classed among biographical works: it ́is a fact well, and almost universally known, that Curran was once very poor, and owed all his elevation, and his high renown to his own individual merit; and this we repeat, because we think it the best eulogium that can be offered to his memory. It must not be said we seek for flaws, like the envious birds in their attacks on the peacock-no, we have ever regarded pure that it is difficult to find one word that ought to be erased; therefore, as "the smallest speck is seen on snow," so we the more easily perceive a stale and hacknied jest among new and genuine anecdote, told with that ease and elegance that render them interesting even to the general and indifferent reader, who feels not for Curran and his associates that rapturous glow which he who fondly MR. CURKAN'S RECOMMENDATION "I then lived, said he, "upon Hog Hill; my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments; and as to my rent, it stood pretty much the same chance of liquidation as the national debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister's lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was well determined But when writing some anecdotes of his cotemporaries and many of them peculiarly interesting; (it is impossible for Mr. Phillips to tell any story ill), we are, nevertheless, sorry that such elegance of language || should be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, with my mind, you may imagine, in no very enviable temperament. I fell into the gloom to which, from my infaucy, I had been occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner; and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence-I returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, where Lavater alone could have found a library, the first object which presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name of Old Bob Lyons marked upon the back of it. I paid my landlady-bought a good dinnergave Bob Lyons a share of it-and that dinner was the date of my prosperity.” BOB LYONS. "BOB LYONS, the attorney, was a perfect but indeed a very favourable specimen of a class of men now quite extinct in Ireland, and never perhaps known in any other country in creation. They were a kind of compound of the rack rent squire and the sharp law practitioner-careless and craving-extravagant and usurious-honorable and subtle -just as their education or their nature happened to predominate at the moment.They had too much ignorant conceit not to despise the profession, and too many artificial wants not at times to have recourse to its arcana. The solicitor of the morning was the host of the evening; the invitation perhaps came on the back of the capias, and the gentleman of undoubted Milesian origin capped the climax of his innumerable bumpers with toasting confusion to the gentlemen by act of parliament. This race of men, a genus in themselves, distinct and peculiar, grew like an excrescence upon the system of the country: the Irish 'squire of half a century ago scorned not to be in debt; it would be beneath his dignity to live within his income; and next to not incurring a debt, the greatest degradation would have been voluntarily to pay one. The consequences necessarily of creditors was law, and the indispensable consequence of law was an attorney: but those whom law estranged, the table re-united.The 'squire became reconciled to the attorney over a bottle, to avoid his process he made him his agent, and the estate soon passed from their alternate possession by the same course of ruinous prodigality. “Such was the community of which old Bob Lyons was a most distinguished member; but of which, as I said before, he was a most favourable specimen. Plausible in his manners and hospitable in his habits, those who feared him for his undoubted skill as a practitioner, esteemed him for his convivial qualities as a companion. Nor had even his industry the ill favour of selfishness. If he gained all he could, still he spent all he gained, and those who marvelled at the poverty of his neighbourhood, could easily bave counted his personal acquisitions. No matter who might be the poorer for him, he was the richer for no man-in short, it seemed to be the office of his left hand lavishly to expend what his right hand assiduously accumulated." REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF JUVENILE VENGEANCE. "He (Mr. Curran) was on a temporary visit to the neighbouring town of Sligo, and was one morning standing at his bed-room window, which overlooked the street, occupied, as he told me, in arranging his portmanteau, when he was stunned by the report of a blunderbuss in the very chamber with him; and the panes above his head, were all shivered into atoms! He looked suddenly around in the greatest consternation. The room was full of smoke the blunderbuss on the floor just discharged the door closed, and no human being but himself discoverable in the apartment! If this had happened in his rural retreat, it could readily have been reconciled through the medium of some offended spirit of the village mythology; but, as it was, he was in a populous town-in a civilized family amongst Christian doctrines, where the fairies had no power, and their gambols O currency; and to crown all, a poor cobler, into whose stall, on the opposite side of the street, the slugs had penetrated, hinted in no very equivocal terms, that the whole affair was a conspiracy against his life. It was by no means, a pleasant addition to the chances of assassination, to be loudly declaimed against by a crazed mechanic, as an assassin himself. Day after day passed away without any solution of the mystery, when one evening, as the servants of the family were conversing round the fire on so miraculous an escape, a little urchin, not ten years old, was heard so to wonder how such an aim was missed, that an universal suspicion was immediately excited. He was alternately flogged, and coaxed into a confession, which disclosed as much precocious and malignant premeditation, as perhaps ever marked the annals of juvenile |