The Botanic Garden

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[_Delighted Savery_. l. 254. The invention of the steam-engine for
raising water by the pressure of the air in consequence of the
condensation of steam, is properly ascribed to Capt. Savery; a plate and
description of this machine is given in Harris's Lexicon Technicum, art.
Engine. Though the Marquis of Worcester in his Century of Inventions
printed in the year 1663 had described an engine for raising water by
the explosive power of steam long before Savery's. Mr. Desegulier
affirms, that Savery bought up all he could procure of the books of the
Marquis of Worcester, and destroyed them, professing himself then to
have discovered the power of steam by accident, which seems to have been
an unfounded slander. Savery applied it to the raising of water to
supply houses and gardens, but could not accomplish the draining of
mines by it. Which was afterwards done by Mr. Newcomen and Mr. John
Cowley at Dartmouth, in the year 1712, who added the piston.

A few years ago Mr. Watt of Glasgow much improved this machine, and with
Mr. Boulton of Birmingham has applied it to variety of purposes, such as
raising water from mines, blowing bellows to fuse the ore, supplying
towns with water, grinding corn and many other purposes. There is reason
to believe it may in time be applied to the rowing of barges, and the
moving of carriages along the road. As the specific levity of air is too
great for the support of great burthens by balloons, there seems no
probable method of flying conveniently but by the power of steam, or
some other explosive material; which another half century may probable
discover. See additional notes, No. XI.]

"The Giant-Power from earth's remotest caves
Lifts with strong arm her dark reluctant waves;
265 Each cavern'd rock, and hidden den explores,
Drags her dark coals, and digs her shining ores.--
Next, in close cells of ribbed oak confined,
Gale after gale, He crowds the struggling wind;
The imprison'd storms through brazen nostrils roar,
270 Fan the white flame, and fuse the sparkling ore.
Here high in air the rising stream He pours
To clay-built cisterns, or to lead-lined towers;
Fresh through a thousand pipes the wave distils,
And thirsty cities drink the exuberant rills.--
275 There the vast mill-stone with inebriate whirl
On trembling floors his forceful fingers twirl.
Whose flinty teeth the golden harvests grind,
Feast without blood! and nourish human-kind.

[_Feast without blood!_ l. 278. The benevolence of the great Author of
all things is greatly manifest in the sum of his works, as Dr. Balguy
has well evinced in his pamphlet on Divine Benevolence asserted, printed
for Davis, 1781. Yet if we may compare the parts of nature with each
other, there are some circumstances of her economy which seem to
contribute more to the general scale of happiness than others. Thus the
nourishment of animal bodies is derived from three sources: 1. the milk
given from the mother to the offspring; in this excellent contrivance
the mother has pleasure in affording the sustenance to the child, and
the child has pleasure in receiving it. 2. Another source of the food of
animals includes seeds or eggs; in these the embryon is in a torpid or
insensible state, and there is along with it laid up for its early
nourishment a store of provision, as the fruit belonging to some seeds,
and the oil and starch belonging to others; when these are consumed by
animals the unfeeling seed or egg receives no pain, but the animal
receives pleasure which consumes it. Under this article may be included
the bodies of animals which die naturally. 3. But the last method of
supporting animal bodies by the destruction of other living animals, as
lions preying upon lambs, these upon living vegetables, and mankind upon
them all, would appear to be a less perfect part of the economy of
nature than those before mentioned, as contributing less to the sum of
general happiness.]

"Now his hard hands on Mona's rifted crest,
280 Bosom'd in rock, her azure ores arrest;
With iron lips his rapid rollers seize
The lengthening bars, in thin expansion squeeze;
Descending screws with ponderous fly-wheels wound
The tawny plates, the new medallions round;
285 Hard dyes of steel the cupreous circles cramp,
And with quick fall his massy hammers stamp.
The Harp, the Lily and the Lion join,
And GEORGE and BRITAIN guard the sterling coin.

[_Mona's rifted crest_. l. 279. Alluding to the very valuable copper-
mines in the isle of Anglesey, the property of the Earl of Uxbridge.]

[_With iron-lips_. l. 281. Mr. Boulton has lately constructed at Soho
near Birmingham, a most magnificent apparatus for Coining, which has
cost him some thousand pounds; the whole machinery is moved by an
improved steam-engine, which rolls the copper for half-pence finer than
copper has before been rolled for the purpose of making money; it works
the coupoirs or screw-presses for cutting out the circular pieces of
copper; and coins both the faces and edges of the money at the same
time, with such superior excellence and cheapness of workmanship, as
well as with marks of such powerful machinery as must totally prevent
clandestine imitation, and in consequence save many lives from the hand
of the executioner; a circumstance worthy the attention of a great
minister. If a civic crown was given in Rome for preserving the life of
one citizen, Mr. Boulton should be covered with garlands of oak! By this
machinery four boys of ten or twelve years old are capable of striking
thirty thousand guineas in an hour, and the machine itself keeps an
unerring account of the pieces struck.]

"Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER'D STEAM! afar
290 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
--Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above,
Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move;
295 Or warrior-bands alarm the gaping crowd,
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.

"So mighty HERCULES o'er many a clime
Waved his vast mace in Virtue's cause sublime,
Unmeasured strength with early art combined,
300 Awed, served, protected, and amazed mankind.--
First two dread Snakes at JUNO'S vengeful nod
Climb'd round the cradle of the sleeping God;
Waked by the shrilling hiss, and rustling sound,
And shrieks of fair attendants trembling round,
305 Their gasping throats with clenching hands he holds;
And Death untwists their convoluted folds.
Next in red torrents from her sevenfold heads
Fell HYDRA'S blood on Lerna's lake he sheds;
Grasps ACHELOUS with resistless force,
310 And drags the roaring River to his course;
Binds with loud bellowing and with hideous yell
The monster Bull, and threefold Dog of Hell.

[_So mighty Hercules_. l. 297. The story of Hercules seems of great
antiquity, as appears from the simplicity of his dress and armour, a
lion's skin and a club; and from the nature of many of his exploits, the
destruction of wild beasts and robbers. This part of the history of
Hercules seems to have related to times before the invention of the bow
and arrow, or of spinning flax. Other stories of Hercules are perhaps of
later date, and appear to be allegorical, as his conquering the river-
god Achilous, and bringing Cerberus up to day light; the former might
refer to his turning the course of a river, and draining a morass, and
the latter to his exposing a part of the superstition of the times. The
strangling the lion and tearing his jaws asunder, are described from a
statue in the Museum Florentinum, and from an antique gem; and the
grasping Anteus to death in his arms as he lifts him from the earth, is
described from another antient cameo. The famous pillars of Hercules
have been variously explained. Pliny asserts that the natives of Spain
and of Africa believed that the mountains of Abyla and Calpe on each
side of the straits of Gibraltar were the pillars of Hercules; and that
they were reared by the hands of that god, and the sea admitted between
them. Plin. Hist. Nat. p. 46. Edit. Manut. Venet. 1609.

If the passage between the two continents was opened by an earthquake in
antient times, as this allegorical story would seem to countenance,
there must have been an immense current of water at first run into the
Mediterranean from the Atlantic; since there is at present a strong
stream sets always from thence into the Mediterranean. Whatever may be
the cause, which now constantly operates, so as to make the surface of
the Mediterranean lower than that of the Atlantic, it must have kept it
very much lower before a passage for the water through the streights was
opened. It is probable before such an event took place, the coasts and
islands of the Mediterranean extended much further into that sea, and
were then for a great extent of country, destroyed by the floods
occasioned by the new rise of water, and have since remained beneath the
sea. Might not this give rise to the flood of Deucalion? See note
Cassia, V. II. of this work.]

"Then, where Nemea's howling forests wave,
He drives the Lion to his dusky cave;
315 Seized by the throat the growling fiend disarms,
And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms;
Lifts proud ANTEUS from his mother-plains,
And with strong grasp the struggling Giant strains;
Back falls his fainting head, and clammy hair,
320 Writhe his weak limbs, and flits his life in air;--
By steps reverted o'er the blood-dropp'd fen
He tracks huge CACUS to his murderous den;
Where breathing flames through brazen lips he fled,
And shakes the rock-roof'd cavern o'er his head.

325 "Last with wide arms the solid earth He tears,
Piles rock on rock, on mountain mountain rears;
Heaves up huge ABYLA on Afric's sand,
Crowns with high CALPE Europe's saliant strand,
Crests with opposing towers the splendid scene,
330 And pours from urns immense the sea between.--
--Loud o'er her whirling flood Charybdis roars,
Affrighted Scylla bellows round his shores,
Vesuvio groans through all his echoing caves,
And Etna thunders o'er the insurgent waves.

335 VII. 1. NYMPHS! YOUR fine hands ethereal floods amass
From the warm cushion, and the whirling glass;
Beard the bright cylinder with golden wire,
And circumfuse the gravitating fire.
Cold from each point cerulean lustres gleam,
340 Or shoot in air the scintillating stream.
So, borne on brazen talons, watch'd of old
The sleepless dragon o'er his fruits of gold;
Bright beam'd his scales, his eye-balls blazed with ire,
And his wide nostrils breath'd inchanted fire.

[_Ethereal floods amass_. l. 335. The theory of the accumulation of the
electric fluid by means of the glass-globe and cushion is difficult to
comprehend. Dr. Franklin's idea of the pores of the glass being opened
by the friction, and thence rendered capable of attracting more electric
fluid, which it again parts with, as the pores contract again, seems
analogous in some measure to the heat produced by the vibration, or
condensation of bodies, as when a nail is hammered or filed till it
becomes hot, as mentioned in additional Notes, No. VII. Some
philosophers have endeavoured to account for this phenomenon by
supposing the existence of two electric fluids which may be called the
vitreous and resinous ones, instead of the plus and minus of the same
ether. But its accumulation on the rubbed glass bears great analogy to
its accumulation on the surface of the Leyden bottle, and can not
perhaps be explained from any known mechanical or chemical principle.
See note on Gymnotus. l. 202, of this Canto.]

[_Cold from each point_. l. 339. See additional note, No. XIII.]

345 "YOU bid gold-leaves, in crystal lantherns held,
Approach attracted, and recede repel'd;
While paper-nymphs instinct with motion rife,
And dancing fauns the admiring Sage surprize.
OR, if on wax some fearless Beauty stand,
350 And touch the sparkling rod with graceful hand;
Through her fine limbs the mimic lightnings dart,
And flames innocuous eddy round her heart;
O'er her fair brow the kindling lustres glare,
Blue rays diverging from her bristling hair;
355 While some fond Youth the kiss ethereal sips.
And soft fires issue from their meeting lips.
So round the virgin Saint in silver streams
The holy Halo shoots it's arrowy beams.

[_You bid gold leaves_. l. 345. Alluding to the very sensible
electrometer improved by Mr. Bennett, it consists of two slips of gold-
leaf suspended from a tin cap in a glass cylinder, which has a partial
coating without, communicating with the wooden pedestal. If a stick of
sealing wax be rubbed for a moment on a dry cloth, and then held in the
air _at the distance of two or three feet_ from the cap of this
instrument, the gold leaves seperate, such is its astonishing
sensibility to electric influence! (See Bennet on electricity, Johnson,
Lond.) The nerves of sense of animal bodies do not seem to be affected
by less quantities of light or heat!]

[_The holy Halo_. l. 358. I believe it is not known with certainty at
what time the painters first introduced the luminous circle round the
head to import a Saint or holy person. It is now become a part of the
symbolic language of painting, and it is much to be wished that this
kind of hieroglyphic character was more frequent in that art; as it is
much wanted to render historic pictures both more intelligible, and more
sublime; and why should not painting as well as poetry express itself in
metaphor, or in indistinct allegory? A truly great modern painter lately
endeavoured to enlarge the sphere of pictorial language, by putting a
demon behind the pillow of a wicked man on his death bed. Which
unfortunately for the scientific part of painting, the cold criticism of
the present day has depreciated; and thus barred perhaps the only road
to the further improvement in this science.]

"YOU crowd in coated jars the denser fire,
360 Pierce the thin glass, and fuse the blazing wire;
Or dart the red flash through the circling band
Of youths and timorous damsels, hand in hand.
--Starts the quick Ether through the fibre-trains
Of dancing arteries, and of tingling veins,
365 Goads each fine nerve, with new sensation thrill'd,
Bends the reluctant limbs with power unwill'd;
Palsy's cold hands the fierce concussion own,
And Life clings trembling on her tottering throne.--
So from dark clouds the playful lightning springs,
370 Rives the firm oak, or prints the Fairy-rings.

[_With new sensation thrill'd_. l. 365. There is probably a system of
nerves in animal bodies for the purpose of perceiving heat; since the
degree of this fluid is so necessary to health that we become presently
injured either by its access or defect; and because almost every part of
our bodies is supplied with branches from different pairs of nerves,
which would not seem necessary for their motion alone: It is therefore
probable, that our sensation of electricity is only of its violence in
passing through our system by its suddenly distending the muscles, like
any other mechanical violence; and that it is general pain alone that we
feel, and not any sensation analogous to the specific quality of the
object. Nature may seem to have been niggardly to mankind in bestowing
upon them so few senses; since a sense to have perceived electricity,
and another to have perceived magnetism might have been of great service
to them, many ages before these fluids were discovered by accidental
experiment, but it is possible an increased number of senses might have
incommoded us by adding to the size of our bodies.]

[_Palsy's cold hands_. l. 367. Paralytic limbs are in general only
incapable of being stimulated into action by the power of the will;
since the pulse continues to beat and the fluids to be absorbed in them;
and it commonly happens, when paralytic people yawn and stretch
themselves, (which is not a voluntary motion,) that the affected limb
moves at the same time. The temporary motion of a paralytic limb is
likewise caused by passing the electric shock through it; which would
seem to indicate some analogy between the electric fluid, and the
nervous fluid, which is seperated from the blood by the brain, and
thence diffused along the nerves for the purposes of motion and
sensation. It probably destroys life by its sudden expansion of the
nerves or fibres of the brain; in the same manner as it fuses metals and
splinters wood or stone, and removes the atmosphere, when it passes from
one object to another in a dense state.]

[_Prints the Fairy rings_. l. 370. See additional note No. XIII.]

2. NYMPHS! on that day YE shed from lucid eyes.
Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs!
When RICHMAN rear'd, by fearless haste betrayed,
The wiry rod in Nieva's fatal shade;--
375 Clouds o'er the Sage, with fringed skirts succeed,
Flash follows flash, the warning corks recede;
Near and more near He ey'd with fond amaze
The silver streams, and watch'd the saphire blaze;
Then burst the steel, the dart electric sped,
380 And the bold Sage lay number'd with the dead!--
NYMPHS! on that day YE shed from lucid eyes
Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs!

[_When Richman reared_. l. 373. Dr. Richman Professor of natural
philosophy at Petersburgh about the year 1763, elevated an insulated
metallic rod to collect the aerial electricity, as Dr. Franklin had
previously done at Philadelphia; and as he was observing the repulsion
of the balls of his electrometer approached too near the conductor, and
receiving the lightening in his head with a loud explosion, was struck
dead amidst his family.]

3. "YOU led your FRANKLIN to your glazed retreats,
Your air-built castles, and your silken seats;
385 Bade his bold arm invade the lowering sky,
And seize the tiptoe lightnings, ere they fly;
O'er the young Sage your mystic mantle spread,
And wreath'd the crown electric round his head.--
Thus when on wanton wing intrepid LOVE
390 Snatch'd the raised lightning from the arm of JOVE;
Quick o'er his knee the triple bolt He bent,
The cluster'd darts and forky arrows rent,
Snapp'd with illumin'd hands each flaming shaft,
His tingling fingers shook, and stamp'd, and laugh'd;
395 Bright o'er the floor the scatter'd fragments blaz'd,
And Gods retreating trembled as they gaz'd;
The immortal Sire, indulgent to his child,
Bow'd his ambrosial locks, and Heaven relenting smiled.

[_You led your Franklin_. l. 383. Dr. Franklin was the first that
discovered that lightening consisted of electric matter, he elevated a
tall rod with a wire wrapped round it, and fixing the bottom of a rod
into a glass bottle, and preserving it from falling by means of silk-
strings, he found it electrified whenever a cloud parted over it,
receiving sparks by his finger from it, and charging coated phials. This
great discovery taught us to defend houses and ships and temples from
lightning, and also to understand, _that people are always perfectly
safe in a room during a thunder storm if they keep themselves at three
or four feet distance from the walls_; for the matter of lightning in
passing from the clouds to the earth, or from the earth to the clouds,
runs through the walls of a house, the trunk of a tree, or other
elevated object; except there be some moister body, as an animal in
contact with them, or nearly so; and in that case the lightning leaves
the wall or tree, and passes through the animal; but as it can pass
through metals with still greater facility, it will leave animal bodies
to pass through metallic ones.

If a person in the open air be surprized by a thunderstorm, he will know
his danger by observing on a second watch the time which passes between
the flash and the crack, and reckoning a mile for every four seconds and
a half, and a little more. For sound travels at the rate of 1142 feet in
a second of time, and the velocity of light through such small distances
is not to be estimated. In these circumstances a person will be safer by
lying down on the ground, than erect, and still safer if within a few
feet of his horse; which being then a more elevated animal will receive
the shock, in preference as the cloud passes over. See additional notes,
No. XIII.]

[_Intrepid Love_. l. 389. This allegory is uncommonly beautiful,
representing Divine Justice as disarmed by Divine Love, and relenting of
his purpose. It is expressed on an agate in the Great Duke's collection
at Florence. Spence.]

VIII. "When Air's pure essence joins the vital flood,
400 And with phosphoric Acid dyes the blood,
YOUR VIRGIN TRAINS the transient HEAT dispart,
And lead the soft combustion round the heart;
Life's holy lamp with fires successive feed,
From the crown'd forehead to the prostrate weed,
405 From Earth's proud realms to all that swim or sweep
The yielding ether or tumultuous deep.
You swell the bulb beneath the heaving lawn,
Brood the live seed, unfold the bursting spawn;
Nurse with soft lap, and warm with fragrant breath
410 The embryon panting in the arms of Death;
Youth's vivid eye with living light adorn,
And fire the rising blush of Beauty's golden morn.

[_Transient heat dispart_. l. 401. Dr. Crawford in his ingenious work on
animal heat has endeavoured to prove, that during the combination of the
pure part of the atmosphere with the phlogistic part of the blood, that
much of the matter of the heat is given out from the air; and that this
is the great and perpetual source of the heat of animals; to which we
may add that the phosphoric acid is probably produced by this
combination; by which acid the colour of the blood is changed in the
lungs from a deep crimson to a bright scarlet. There seems to be however
another source of animal heat, though of a similar nature; and that is
from the chemical combinations produced in all the glands; since by
whatever cause any glandular secretion is increased, as by friction or
topical imflammation, the heat of that part becomes increased at the
same time; thus after the hands have been for a time immersed in snow,
on coming into a warm room, they become red and hot, without any
increased pulmonary action. BESIDES THIS there would seem to be another
material received from the air by respiration; which is so necessary to
life, that the embryon must learn to breathe almost within a minute
after
its birth, or it dies. The perpetual necessity of breathing shews, that
the material thus acquired is perpetually consuming or escaping, and on
that account requires perpetual renovation. Perhaps the spirit of
animation itself is thus acquired from the atmosphere, which if it be
supposed to be finer or more subtle than the electric matter, could not
long be retained in our bodies, and must therefore require perpetual
renovation.]

"Thus when the Egg of Night, on Chaos hurl'd,
Burst, and disclosed the cradle of the world;
415 First from the gaping shell refulgent sprung
IMMORTAL LOVE, his bow celestial strung;--
O'er the wide waste his gaudy wings unfold,
Beam his soft smiles, and wave his curls of gold;--
With silver darts He pierced the kindling frame,
420 And lit with torch divine the ever-living flame."

[_Thus when the egg of Night_. l. 413. There were two Cupids belonging
to the antient mythology, one much elder than the other. The elder
cupid, or Eros, or divine Love, was the first that came out of the great
egg of night, which floated in Chaos, and was broken by the horns of the
celestial bull, that is, was hatched by the warmth of the spring. He was
winged and armed, and by his arrows and torch pierced and vivified all
things, producing life and joy. Bacon, Vol. V. p. 197. Quarto edit.
Lond. 1778. "At this time, (says Aristophanes,) sable-winged night
produced an egg, from whence sprung up like a blossom Eros, the lovely,
the desirable, with his glossy golden wings." Avibus. Bryant's
Mythology, Vol. II. p. 350. second edition. This interesting moment of
this sublime allegory Mrs. Cosway has chosen for her very beautiful
painting. She has represented Eros or divine Love with large wings
having the strength of the eagle's wings, and the splendor of the
peacocks, with his hair floating in the form of flame, and with a halo
of light vapour round his head; which illuminates the painting; while he
is in the act of springing forwards, and with his hands separating the
elements.]

IX. The GODDESS paused, admired with conscious pride
The effulgent legions marshal'd by her side,
Forms sphered in fire with trembling light array'd,
Ens without weight, and substance without shade;
425 And, while tumultuous joy her bosom warms,
Waves her white hand, and calls her hosts to arms,

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