apartment at Gayville's. Sir Clement's fufpicious temper leads him, in the courfe of the tranfactions relating to the marriage fettlements, to infift on feeing a particular deed, for which Alfcrip, in a hurry, puts another into the hands of his attorney; and, by this rather too artificial contrivance, difcovers that a confiderable eftate really belongs to Clifford his grandfather, to whom Alfcrip was fteward, and at laft creditor, having had no right to difpofe of it. The event is now obvious, though the piece is not immediately concluded; probably on account of the length which has been arbitrarily af figned to every regular play: the reft is filled with fome explanation of the mistakes which have occurred. This part is dextrously managed; for, inftead of the wounded nake dragging its flow length along, the concluding fcenes are not inferior to the other parts.

:

This outline will feem to afford nothing very interesting; and, in meaner hands, would have fcarcely deferved attention. General Burgoyne, however, has had the addrefs to vary common characters, so as to give them an appearance of novelty he has coloured his sketch with a masterly pencil; and drawn a difcriminated likeness, which gives the most lively impreffion of real life. The fuggestions of jealousy, expreffed by fir Clement, are pointed, and apparently well founded; Clifford, with the most difinterested integrity, is occafionally in fuch an equivocal fituation, as to justify the doubts of a man who may have fuffered by pretended honefty, or at least endeavours to vindicate his claim to fagacity, by a propenfity to fufpicion. Lady Emily is not the romantic heroine of a novel; though she loves with tenderness, the difguifes a feeling heart by affected gaiety; and, inftead of yielding without resistance, instead of pining in fecret, fhe is brought mere near to a real character, by being reprefented as a lady who joins in the circle of fashionable pleasure. Lord Gayville and Clifford, mifs Alfcrip and her father, are common figures; but the characters are well preferved, and they are brought forward with great propriety. Indeed we have seldom seen a play, where the appearance and part allotted to each perfon is fo july proportioned to their real importance. We too commonly perceive one figure magnified to a gigantic ftature, and the others placed at a humble diftance, curtailed in their fize, effect, and importance. There are two other characters which fill up the piece, though, as they are of no great confequence to the general ftory, they did not occur in the outline. These are Blandish and his fifter, two infamous parafites, attached to lord Gayville and mifs Alfcrip. We can only observe, that they feem copied from real life; and we fufpect,

fufpect, are too often met with there: we do not mean that they are defigned for particular perfons; but, to speak in the language of natural history, they are fpecies rather than individuals.

We have before remarked, that the great hinge on which the change of fortune turns, is too artificial. It is improbable, and is not the only circumftance which deferves that title. But we shall not dwell on imperfections, particularly on those which almost disappear in the reprefentation; the trueft criterion of the excellence of a comedy, and which are not very obvious or ftriking blemishes, even in the clofet. Indeed we may conclude, that if this comedy is not the firft in our language, or even in the first line, it poffeffes confiderable merit'; and we have little doubt but that it will continue a favourite with the public, as it has already enjoyed fuch diftinguished tokens of approbation.

It is not eafy to felect a fpecimen. Perhaps the following can be more easily separated from the reft. Lady Emily, it is to be remembered, in a dejected ftate endeavours to lose her own thoughts, in a trial of fashionable extravagance with miss Alfcrip.

Enter Mifs Alfcrip and Mrs. Blandish.

• Mifs Alferip runs up to Lady Emily and kisses her forehead. Lady Emily. I ask your pardon, madam, for being fo aukward, but I confefs I did not expect fo elevated a falute.

Mifs Alferip. Dear lady Emily, I had no notion of its not being univerfal. In France, the touch of the lips juft between the eyebrows has been adopted for years.

Lady Emily. I perfectly acknowledge the propriety of the cuftom. It is almoft the only spot of the face where the touch wou'd not risk a confufion of complexions.

Mifs Alfcrip. He he he! what a pretty thought!

Mrs. Blandifh. How I have long'd for this day!-Come, let me put an end to ceremony, and join the hands of the fweetest pair that ever nature and fortune marked for connection. Joins their hands).

Mifs Alfcrip. Thank you, my good Blandifh, tho' I was determined to break the ice, lady Emily, in the first place I met you. But you were not at lady Doricourt's last night.

Lady Emily (affectedly). No, i went home directly from the opera projected the revival of a cap; read a page in the Trials of Temper; went to bed, and dream'd I was Belinda, in the Rape of the Lock.

Mrs. Blandifh. Elegant creature.

Mijs Alferip (afide). I must have that air, if I die for it. (imitating) I too came home early; fupped with my old gentleman; made him explain my marriage articles, dower, and heirs entail; read a page in a trial of divorce, and dream'd of a rofe

colour

colour equipage, with emblems of Cupids iffuing out of co

ronets.

Mrs. Blandifh. Oh, you fweet twins of perfection! what equality in every thing! I have thought of a name for youThe infeparable inimitables.

Mifs Alfcrip. I declare I fhall like it exceedingly-one fees fo few uncopied originals-the thing I cannot bear

Lady Emily. Is vulgar imitation-i muft catch the words from your mouth, to fhew you how we agree.

Mifs Alfcrip. Exactly. Not that one wishes to be without affectation.

Lady Emily.

Oh! mercy forbid !

Mifs Afcrip. But to catch a manner, and weave it, as I may fay, into one's own originality.

Mrs. Blandih. Pretty! pretty!

Lady Emily. That's the art-Lord, if one liv'd entirely upon one's own whims, who would not be run out in a twelvemonth?

Mifs Alferip. Dear lady Emily, don't you doat upon folly? Lady Emily. To extacy. I only despair of feeing it well kept up.

that.

Mifs Alfcrip. I flatter myself there is no great danger of

Lady Emily. You are mistaken. We have it's true, fome examples of the extravaganza in high life that no other country can match; but withal, many a false fifter, that starts as one wou'd think, in the very hey-day of the fantaftic, yet comes to a ftand-fill in the midft of the courfe.

Mrs. Blandish. Poor fpiritlefs creatures!

Lady Emily. Do you know there is more than one duchess who has been teen in the fame carriage with her husband-like two doves in a bafket in the print of Conjugal Felicity; and another has been detected! I almoft blush to name it.

Mrs. Blandifh. Blefs us, where? and how? and how ?
Lady Emily. In nurfing her own child.

Mifs Alfcrip. Oh! barbarifm !-For heaven's fake let us change the fubject. You were mentioning a reviv'd cap, lady Emily; any thing of the Henry quatre ?

Lady Emily. Quite different. An English mob under the chin, and artless ringlets in natural colour, that shall restore an admiration for Prior's Nut brown Maid.

Mifs Alfcrip. Horrid! fhocking!

Lady Emily. Abfolutely neceffary. To be different from the rest of the world, we must now revert to nature; make hafte, or you have fo much to undo, you will be left behind.

Mifs Alfcrip. I dare fay fo. But who can vulgarize all at once? what will the French fay?

Lady Emily. We are to have an interchange of fashions and follies upon a bafis of unequivocal reciprocity.

• Mifs

Mifs Alfcrip. Fashions and follies-oh, what a promifing

manufacture!

Lady Emily. Yes, and one, thank heaven, that we may defy the edict of any potentate to prohibit.

6

Mifs Alferip (with an affected drop of her lip in her laugh). He he he! he he! he!

6

Lady Emily. My dear mifs Alfcrip, what are you doing? I must correct you as I love you. Sure you must have observed the drop of the under lip is exploded fince lady Simpermode broke a tooth-Sets her mouth affectedly)-1 am preparing the caft of the lips for the enfuing winter-thus-It is to be called the Paphian mimp.

Mifs Alfcrip (imitating). I fwear I think it pretty-I must try to get it.

Lady Emily. Nothing fo eafy. It is done by one calabiftical word, like a metamorphofis in the Fairy Tales. You have only, when before your glafs, to keep pronouncing to yourself nimini-primini-the lips cannot fail of taking their plie.

Mifs Alfcrip. Nimini-pimini-imini, mimini-oh, it's delightfully enfantine-and fo innocent, to be kiffing one's own lips.

·

Lady Emily. You have it to a charm-does it not become her infinitely, Mrs. Blandifh?

Mrs. Blandish. Our friend's feature muft fucceed in every grace; but never so much as in a quick change of extremes.'

FOREIGN ARTICLE.

Hiftoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences Année 1781, avec les Memoire de Mathematique & de Phyfique pour la même Année, Paris, 4to. 1784. (Concluded, from p. 64.)

WE muft go on with M. Lavoifier. This dextrous and en

terprising chemift, in the next Memoir, examines the conftitution of fixed air: it is intended to give a stability and a roundness to his general fyftem. But he approaches nearer to the old principle of Stahl; and, as the hiftorian hints, the two contending fects may one day unite: they feem already, by their mutual gravitations, to tend faft towards an union. The principle which, in vital air, forms with fulphur and phofphorus their peculiar acids, he ftyles the oxyginous principle, because he finds it again in the nitrous acid, formed by the mixture of nitrous and vital airs; and he hopes to find it in fixed air, Coal, he obferves, contains earth, fixed alkali, and inflammable air, with a fubftance wholly combuftible, which (mark him reader), he calls a coaly fubftance. He burns coal in a veffel, full of vital air, with fome alkali (the cauftic volatile alkali) to abforb the air, and expects to find the fixed air equal

to

to the coaly substance loft, and the vital air abforbed. There was, however, a difference; for fome of the inflammable air of the coal had formed water by its union with the vital air. When this was allowed for, he found the fixed air composed of feventy-one parts of vital air, or its oxyginous principle, and twenty-nine of coaly matter. The water was properly accounted for, fince when the coal had been previously deprived of its inflammable air, no water appeared, and the refult was the fame. He then ufed wax, which he found wholly compofed of a coaly fubftance and inflammable air: water was formed, and fixed air appeared to confift of the fame proportions. Other experiments, with minium and mercurius precipitatus per fe, after proper allowances, give the fame refult; and thus the author eftablishes the formation of the peculiar acid from vital air, and a combuftible body; or rather of the oxyginous principle of this air, for light and heat efcape in the experiment. think, however, that he has, with unufual precipitation, haftened to his conclufion; for this combustible body fhould have been more particularly examined. He has only proved, that vital air is neceffary to the production of fixed air; which might have been fuppofed from its being an acid in the rest of the argument there is ftill much obfcurity.

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We

Monf. Bertholet, in the following Memoir, examines the decompofition of nitre by diftillation. In this process, vital air arifes equal in weight to half the falt; a little fixed air at first, and phlogisticated air at laft, feem to contaminate it. This phlogisticated air is often called by the modern French chemists air reduit, because it remains after the feparation of the different parts of atmospheric air, viz. the vital and fixed airs. We shall beg leave to introduce a new term, and call it the refiduum of air. A fixed alkali, as may be expected, remains in the retort. Some nitre fublimes in the experiment; but, if there is not a free communication between this fublimed falt and the vital air, it refembles the neutral, formed by nitrous air and the alkali. When the nitre was decompofed, by adding three grains of coal to each drachm of the falt, (the coal being previously deprived of its air by diftillation, it gave no longer pure air, but an air mixed with fixed, and the refiduum of air; when the proportion of coal is increased, these impurities are in greater quantity. With fulphur and arfenic he obtained nitrous air; with metals, fixed air, in proportion to the quantity added. This laft fact feems to deferve more attention than has been paid to it. From thefe experiments our author concludes, that nitrous air is the acid, with a fuperabundance of phlogifton; and the refiduum of air and fixed air are supposed to be only vital air, with different proportions of the fame principle.

In a mixture of mineral acids, whether defigned or accidental, meffrs. de Laffoune and Cornette found that the heavieft may be obtained very pure by distillation, if the operation