CASTLEMILK, the feat of Sir John Stewart Baronet, is fituated on the fide of the Cathlain hills, about four miles fouth from the city of Glafgow. The view from the house on all fides, is most delightful, affording profpects the most rich and variegated any where to be met with. To the eaft, the rich vale of Clyde, with Tinto in the back ground, appears full in view; to the north, the city of Glasgow with its numerous fpires, and the diftant hills of Campfie; on the west, the river Clyde enlivened by the many veffels floating on its furface; the towns of Paisley, Renfrew, and Castle of Dumbarton, all unite to render the middle distance of the picture enchanting, while far beyond all these, appear the diftant hills of Arran and Argyle towering above each other, and as they recede, lowering their tints till they foften into the azure of the sky. Towards the fouth, the view, though not extentive, is yet moft agreeable, the woods of Caftlemilk, interfperfed with corn fields and houses, and the top of the Cathlain hills terminate the profpect. In this house, the unfortunate Mary is faid to have lodged the night before the battle of Langfide. Many different spots are pointed out in the neighbourhood, where, the following day, the reviewed the discomfiture of her army, which was the ruin of all her fortunes. The most probable place is upon the brow of the eminence above Caftlemilk, where a spring iffues from the rock, and moiftens the root of a thorn tree, now grown venerable with age, under which the fat; and which is preferved as a lafting memorial of that melancholy disaster. CURIOUS ANECDOTES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC. From the Travels of Count Stolberg, through Germany, Swifferland, Italy, and Voltaire. Sicily. As S we approached the fmall town of Rheinmagen, we met, on a high narrow fhore at the foot of a still higher hill, a folemn proceffion, in honour of St Apollinarius. The priest and the holy red banner were followed by the crowd, finging: boats glided along the ftream, each bearing its own enfign, and refounding with the fame chorus. We fmiled, when we were told that thefe good people were on a pilgrimage to the remains of the faint; interred, as they fuppofed, on a neighbouring hill; for a fortnight before, we had met thefe very remains in a like folemn proceffion at Duffeldorf. No wonder that these two communities fhould dispute the honour of poffeffing the faint; when fo lately two municipalities, in France, would have made ferocious war on each other, for the remains of VolSf 2 taire ; taire; had not one taken his body, and the other his heart. The heart of Voltaire!-Oh you who laugh at the fimplicity of the peasants of the Rhine, who devoutly chaunt their hymns to the memory of a worthy man! You who ftrain at a gnat and fwallow a camel! You who cannot forgive the fanaticism of implicit faith! What fay you to an affembly of legislators, that decrees a niche in the new temple of the gods to the man who, while he lived, wandered from country to country, refpecting neither the religion nor the manners of any of them! who, in his Candide, ridiculed the Providence of God, and to whom virtue was a jeft? Horology. The Margrave of Baden is abfent, on a visit to the uplands of his principality. He is univerfally ranked among the best of the princes of Ger many. Counsellor Bockmann has very kindly fhewn us his inftruments, for the promoting of mechanical and experimental discoveries; and explained their uses. He poffeffes a large aftronomical clock, conftructed by the reverend paftor Hahn; which not only contains the common divifions of time, but has likewife divifions of ten, of a hundred, and of a thousand years. The fpectator contemplates with pleasure the contrafted quick motion of the fecond hand, and the thousand year hand; which turns on a small dial plate, not larger than that of a Parilian watch. The progrefs of the latter in fifty years is very small; fo that its motion is im perceptible. The ten, hundred, and thousand year hands are not a mere difplay of the art of the maker: they are of great ufe; for, on the large dial plate, which contains all the leffer, the globes are defcribed, and the progress of the ftars denoted: so that the hands, by their combining motions, display the variations, pofitions, . and appearances, of the earth and the heavenly bodies. A Wonderful Infant Genius. We faw a watch made by Mr Auch, of Stutgard; a scholar of the minifter, Hahn. He is only fix-andtwenty; yet, in the opinion of fome, he already furpaffes his master. This watch contains the divifions of time, from a second to a century. On the oppofite fide, on a clouded azure ground, is feen the courfe of the fun and the moon, with its nodes and eclipfes. The artist-means to improve this watch, and defcribe the courfe of Venus; as a morning and an evening ftar. The price of the watch is only three hundred rix dollars; which is but about half the fum paid for an English time-keeper; and which does not defcribe the course of the heavenly bodies. This artift has likewife conftru&ted an arithmetical machine, that works the most difficult queftions, with incredible expedition, by the aid of a comprehenfive table: in about five hours he worked all the fums from eleven times eleven to one hundred and fixteen times a hundred and fixteen while an expeditious writer could fcarcely copy the products faft enough. Mr Auch is now (1790) five-andtwenty years old; and is the fon of a peafant of Wurtemberg. When a child, about the age of four or five, he often rofe with the fun; and dili. gently employed himfelf in mechanical purfuits. He conducted water through tubes of elder; dug wells; made conduits of quills; and, about his fixth year, made a pendulum clock, from fhingles, with a kind of Englifh cogs; which would go tolerably for a quarter of an hour. In his tenth year, he wished his fchool-mafter to teach him arithmetic : in which request he was not indulged. At eleven, he was permitted to ftand in a corner, while the teacher heard the other scholars their leffons; all of whom whom he foon excelled, and was of ten cited, by the mafter, as an example; and as capable of working fums too difficult for the other pupils, His father wished to bind him ap. prentice to a barber: but for this the boy had no inclination. At last, he was brought acquaint ed, by his own paftor, with the reverend Mr Hahn; at Kornwestheim, near Ludwigsburg; who found in him a scholar as apt to learn as he was thankful for inftruction. He afterward quitted his teacher, and refided at Vaifingen; a fmall town in the Province of Wurtemberg; where he married, and lived highly respect. ed for his talents and his morals. He employed his leisure hours in reading; much to the improvement of his heart, and understanding. Aftronomical knowledge was that which he most eagerly endeavoured to acquire. He conftructed a meridian line for himself, with the other neceffary aftronomical inftruments; and began, with great ardour, to observe the motions of the heavenly bodies: proceeding to draw ingenious plans, to fimplify aftronomical watches, and the whole fyftem of the universe. I have the lefs difficulty in fend. ing you thefe anecdotes of a living artist, because I think it highly probable that this young man, who has already difplayed fo much genius, will hereafter make very valuable discoveries. A Pyrometer. Mr Bockmann fhewed us, among other valuable inftruments, a Wedgewood Pyrometer. It confifts of two Atraight pieces of brass, fixed nearly parallel to each other upon a flat fcale of the fame metal. There is a Space between these brafs pieces about one English Jine wider at one end than at the other; and, the whole length being divided into one hundred and twenty parts, the inftrument becomes a gage for measuring to the hundred and twentieth part of a line; the line being the twelfth part of an inch. In the use of the Pyrometer, a cylinder of porcelain clay is expofed, together with the fubject of experiment, to the same heat of a furnace; and the gage, by admeasurement of the greater or less contraction produced in the cylin der, fhews the degree of temperature with great exactness, to the ut moft power of a melting furnace, Thefe cylinders have accordingly been applied to the practical meas furement of the heat of furnaces for glass making, or the fufion of metals: a discovery the utility of which is as great as it is felf-evident. A Botanical Anecdote. We visited Mr Kolreuter, the famous botanift; who, by artificial vegetation, has fucceeded in producing new fpecies of plants. His mode is neither that of fowing feed nor of tranfplanting: but by planting of fhoots. It is remarkable that the growth of this new kind of vegetation should be greater than that which we have fuppofed to be the natural growth; perhaps it is because that, by this method, the expence of fap is leffened. By repeated experiments, he has no lefs fuccefsfully reduced thefe varieties to their original form, and genus. He has again conducted them through their different gradations, and again and again. fully reftored them to all their original powers, and properties: bringing back fome of them to the male. kind, and others to the female. Tirefias was ftruck blind, when he daringly endeavoured to unfold the fecrets of Venus. May we not expect that another Nemefis fhall purfue the man who, with wonderful wisdom and paffionate ardour, has drawn afide the veil of Nature. This bold and difcreet obferver, who watched the bees at their employment, and who, by placing glass tubes in the ambrofial cups of flowers, robbed them of their fweets and brought brought forth honey, this remarkable man has not a foot of land, that he can call his own. Not one of the great men of Germany has conferred on himself the honour, or the delight, of beftowing a garden on this fage: whofe fcience is as pleafant as it is abundantly beneficial. Effigies of John Huss. We faw, in a house, as we came back, the effigies of John Hufs, carved in ftone, with the date of the year 1415. Perhaps he lived in this houfe when the Emperor granted him a paffport to conduct him fafely to Conftance. It is a noble figure; wisdom and love beam in the heaven-directed eye. The countenance denotes no arrogance, but on the contrary that benevolent fortitude with which, as Hufs approached the ftake, he told his lordly perfecutors he would perfevere in the truth to death. The lines of the face are expreffive of the filent affliction he felt, at the decline of the church. The form of the lips feems to denote that ferenity of mind which he poffeffed at the fake, when, to the old woman who took up a firebrand that he might have fome part in the execution of a heretic, he fmiling exclaimed, Oh fancta fimplicitas! A Political Reflection, About a league before we came to Schaffhaufen, we faw the Rhine in the valley, among woody fhores, trongly courfing its clear waves of emerald green, after having refresh ed itfelf in the lake of Conftance. The top of a hill, in the foreft over this ftream, divides the German Em pire (there no longer German) from Swifferland half a league before we come to Schaffhaufen. No longer German! No! By the facred waves of the Rhine, which rifes among the mountains of our more free allies; and which watering the plains of the Ba tavians, lovers of liberty, empties it felf in the fea; no: our brethren of thefe hills, and our brethren of those plains, are no longer German: because they would no longer endure the yoke of tyranny. We contemplate them with refpect: yet may they never forget their origin! We caft a retrospective look of admiration over their dark valleys, with a hope that the time may come when the clouds that envelop our own hills fhall difappear. Here and there, where and when it fhall be neceffary, may the mountains be visible! If they portend forms, they likewise portend fertility. But oh, never may brand of extirminating difcord for Germany, like France, mistake the the fire of heaven! With such a deluge may her parched plains never be fertilized! Lavater. We have now been here [Zürich] eight days; of which eight days, oh, how much have I to say! After an absence of fixteen years, I have again feen our friends; Lavater, Hefs, and Pfenninger. Are they entirely. what they were? No: not entirely. The river at its mouth grows larger, and more mighty. Wine every year becomes more potent, and mild: the goodness of good men every year increases. Time, meditation, and fenfibility, have traced their furrows on the face of Lavater: it betrays an alteration of more than sixteen years: but his foul, his heart, his benevolence, his cheerfulness, his ferenity, flourish in eternal youth. The taunts of his adversaries have not conquered him; have not weakened in him that firm and lively belief in the excellence of human nature, which was ever his chief characteristic. Lavater took us, the day after our arrival, to a public walk; which, fome years ago, was laid out on the fouth-eaft fide of the town. There are high terraces among thefe walks. Thefe and their various profpects, fome |