died in 1818, at an advanced age, greatly respected by all his friends.

Our author made his appearance in the world at a period when the doctrines laid down by Newton, respecting attraction and gravitation, began to be generally received; while those whose tenets he had objected to had sunk into insignificance. "I have seen many rigid Newtonians," observes he, in one of his publications, "who could bear with much more temper to hear the Divinity of our Saviour called in question, than that of Sir Isaac; and looked on a Cartesian or a Ptolomean as a worse species of infidel tharr an atheist. I remember when I was at college to have seen one heretic to their doctrine of gravity, very suddenly converted by being tossed in a blanket; and another, who denied the law of centripetal and centrifugal forces, soon brought to assent by having the demonstration made on his shoulders, by a stone whisked at the end of a string."

It was at this period, too, that the Franklinian philosophy began to be disclosed. The doctrine of electricity made a deep impression on the subject of these memoirs, who was accustomed frequently to make the experiment with the electrical kite that entitled the Trans-Atlantic philosopher to the "Eripuit Fulmen Cælo," and both his writings and conversation were deeply imbued with this subject. It must have been already perceived that Mr, Brydone attributed many of the phenomena of nature to electricity; and, indeed, Dr. Franklin, a little before his death, was accustomed to observe, "that we were on the verge of some great discovery, and that this branch of science was but in its infancy." Our traveller, who was one of his most zealous disciples, had early in life imbibed the very same notion; and this was greatly fortified by an accident that occurred to a lady of his acquaintance, Mrs. Douglas, of Kelso, who had almost iost her life during a thunder-storm, by exposing herself at an open window, with a fashionable cap, mounted on wire, without using an

electrical conductor. The lightning was attracted by the wire, and the cap was burnt to ashes. Happily the hair was in its natural state, without paper, pomatum, or pins, which alone prevented a catastrophe! He himself was at length accustomed to observe, that he never combed his head or took off his stockings without detecting the electric fluid. In short, he deemed this a fifth element, distinct from, and superior to the other four.

Many celebrated writers have agreed fully with him, as to the beneficial effects of electricity on vegetation. Bertholon, in support of it, quotes the testimony of the Abbe Toaldo, who beheld two wild jasmines on the borders of the Brenta, that happened to be twisted around a conductor, attain a most astonishing size. On the other hand, it must be fairly added, that Saussure, during his travels among the Alps, thought he discovered the order of nature to have taken a contrary direction.

It has been objected to Mr. Brydone, that by means of his justly celebrated performance he has contrived to engender some doubts in the Christian world. It is urged, in particular, that his philosophical speculations are not consonant to the opinions received and propagated by the Church, “ having infused the infidel objections of the Canon Recupero into the minds of his readers."

Indeed, his insinuations against the Mosaic account of the creation have been answered by several eminent divines, to which, we believe, he on his part never took the trouble to reply.

List of the Works of the late Patrick Brydone, Esq. 1. Tour through Sicily and Malta,

2. Several Papers in the Philosophical Transactions.

No. VI.

GEORGE WILSON MEADLEY, Esq.

THE subject of this memoir was esteemed by his friends on account of his amiable manners, his rare endowments, and his ardent, but judicious, love of constitutional liberty. To the world he was known by a series of publications, which occasionally conferred a certain degree of celebrity on his name, and towards the close of his short career, raised him considerably in the public estimation. During one of his periodical excursions, he visited the author of this article in the country; and he had afterwards frequent communications with him in the succeeding autumn and winter, in London.

George Wilson Meadley first saw the light at the confluence of the Wear and the occan, having been born at Sunderland, in the county-palatine of Durham, January 1, 1774. At a very early period of life he lost his father; but his education does not appear to have been neglected. After the usual initiatory studies, the youth was sent to school at Witton-le-Wear, a small village three miles from BishopAuckland; and it was his good fortune to have the Rev. John Farrer, who is represented "as a very able teacher and excellent man," for his instructor. While there, he either acquired or displayed a certain tenaciousness of memory, which not only distinguished him from his class-fellows, but actually proved serviceable to his future pursuits in life. He was accordingly enabled to master his lessons with a singular degree of ease and facility; and to this he afterwards, at a maturer period, added a certain felicity of classification and combination, which conferred great advantages in respect to his studies. Thus, both in the

departments of history and biography, he was enabled to acquire and to maintain a certain degree of excellence that could not fail, in due time, to acquire him fame.

His family was respectable, and his father had succeeded in trade: it was not, therefore, the Res Angusta Domi that entirely precluded him from completing his studies at one of the two English universities. He appears to have been satisfied with the resources of a provincial education, and the usual routine of a country school.

Either unable or unwilling to accomplish this grand object, his youthful ambition was soon after fixed on another, which he at length happily accomplished. Mr. Meadley had been induced, like some others of his family, to embrace commerce as a profession; but he soon became weary of a sedentary employment, and tare and tret, and every thing connected with old Cocker at length became odious to him.

He had, by this time, imbibed an ardent desire for foreign travel. He longed to realise the dreams of his early youth; to visit the classic land of Italy; to breathe the same air with the poets, historians, and patriots, of ancient times; to contemplate the beautiful scenery which Virgil had so aptly and elegantly described! He was eager to visit the country which had twice subdued mankind; once by arms, and once by superstition. But he languished, above all things, to behold the capitol, and to contemplate that spot where the first usurper of the Cæsarean line, whose life was devoted by the laws to the infernal deities, perished under the steel of Brutus, and the other avengers of Roman liberty.

But to accomplish all this, required wealth as well as energy; and unluckily the former of these was not then exactly at his command. However, he at length made a compromise with his feelings; and, as it was impossible for him to view the ancient Latium as a mere traveller, he determined to unite two characters in his own person, better known to ancient than to modern times. Mr. Meadley accordingly sailed for the Mediterranean, about the year 1796, in the strange and singular character of

a merchant-tourist. He perhaps recollected, that Solon, the great lawgiver of antiquity, had addicted himself to commerce in the earlier part of his life, and during the time when he imbibed and united in his own person all the wisdom of distant nations. Nor would he be displeased, perhaps, to recollect that "the divine Plato" did not disdain to make an investment of the produce of Greece, to defray the expenses of his voyage to Egypt; and that the oil of Attica obtained for him a knowledge of the secrets of Memphis!

After visiting the Continent, Mr. Meadley landed in several parts of Italy; and while at Naples, visited one of his senatorial countrymen, ebbing out the last remains of an interesting but scanty life, dedicated to virtue, and distinguished by public spirit.

Not content with this, he touched at several of the islands of the Mediterranean, and thus contemplated many of the places described by the majestic muse of Homer. He beheld with rapture several parts of the Archipelago, where the females, as in ancient times, still ply the shuttle beneath the shade of a neighbouring grove. He visited Smyrna and Byzantium; he beheld the modern Greek sighing for liberty, amidst the ruins of the palaces and temples of his ancestors; and he had an opportunity to witness the manners of the modern Turk, at once a tyrant and a slave.

Our traveller doubtless kept a journal of his voyages, and his adventures; and it is greatly to be lamented that he did not publish it on his return. The whole of his peregrinations abounded with incidents, and those not unfrequently of a new and singular kind. We know not, indeed, whether he could have enriched his narrative with a shipwreck, or described his piteous situation as a slave at Tetuan or Algiers. Certain it is, however, that the subject of this memoir was exposed to all the horrors of war, both by land and sea; that he was captured by the enemy, experienced soon after all the joys of an unexThe late Mr. Lambton, Knight of the Shire for the County-Palatine of

Durham.