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With an appreciation of intellectual merit was of middle stature, and of a vigorous which few communities in England have ex- muscular frame. A portrait of him by hibited, the municipal body and the princi- Allen, taken in 1814, in his forty-eighth year, pal inhabitants of Manchester resolved to represents him in his manhood. The bust honour the memory of their eminent fellow- of Chantrey exhibits him at a more advanccitizen with a public funeral. Although the ed age; while a successful portrait by Mr. Society of Friends, to which he belonged, Phillips shows him "when his features had objected to the measure, the conduct of the lost much of their chiselled firmness." He funeral was intrusted to the authorities of has been thought to have had a considerable the town. The remains, deposited in a lead likeness to Sir Isaac Newton. In their coffin enclosed in one of oak, were placed in mental powers, too, there were many points an apartment in the Town Hall, hung with of resemblance. With but little imaginablack drapery and artificially lighted. Up- tion or genius, all their discoveries were the wards of 40,000 spectators passed through result of industry and patient thought. the apartment for some days, many of them Experiment and observation were their but little cognizant of the claims of their never-failing guides; and when they did deceased townsman. venture into the regions of hypothesis, it

The funeral took place on the 12th of Au- was with the resolution of subjecting their gust. A procession of a hundred carriages, speculations to the severest scrutiny. In and many hundred persons on foot, accom- their religious and moral character, too, their panied the body to the Ardwick Cemetery, resemblance was considerable. In the on the south-east side of the city. The creed of both are found the great truths of streets and the windows were crowded with Christian doctrine. Their faith, too, shone numberless spectators; 400 of the police in their works; and in their moral nature, were on duty, each wearing a badge of justice, generosity, and Christian charity mourning; and nearly all the shops and were conspicuous.

warehouses in the line of the procession Having devoted so much of our space, as were closed. The grave, to which the re- we wished to do, to a popular sketch of the mains of a humble and simple philospher life of Dr. Dalton, we must endeavour very were thus magnificently conducted, was briefly to give some account of the great surrounded with a strong railing, enclosing discovery with which his name will be for a space about twenty feet square. A tomb- ever associated. stone, consisting of a solid red granite pedi- Various opinions have been entertained ment and overhanging slab, with the inscrip- respecting the constitution of body or mattion, JOHN DALTON, in large letters, and the ter. Democritus, Epicurus, Bacon, and date of his birth and death in smaller ones, Newton, have regarded it as composed of was erected some years after his death, when indivisible atoms placed at a distance from the sum of L.5312 was raised by subscrip- each other. Boscovich discarded atoms tion for this and other purposes. He him- altogether, and regards the elements of matself had originally set aside L.2000 to ter as physical points which are inextended, establish a chair of Chemistry at Oxford, and which are the centres of attractive and from which the Atomic Theory, as propound repulsive forces. This singular hypothesis, ed by himself, should be explained; but a though maintained by so distinguished a desire to repair the losses sustained by Mr. philosopher as Mr. Faraday, is not likely Johns, to show his gratitude to his affection- to have many supporters. ate friend, Mr. Peter Clare, and to Mr., In the Atomic hypothesis of Dalton, the Neild, to whose table he had for many particles of bodies are ponderable and indiyears been regularly welcomed, induced him visible, and they have length, breadth, and to alter his will. In place of employing thickness, and therefore form; and that hyany part of the subscription to establish a pothesis consists in showing how these parchair at Oxford, his friends decided upon ticles are combined in various bodies susapplying it to an analogous purpose. Owen's ceptible of chemical analysis. Assuming College having been founded in Manchester that every compound body invariably consince his death, a large part of the fund sists of the same components, the first law has been devoted to the establishment of is that of definite or constant proportion. two Dalton chemical scholarships of L.50, Water, for example, from whatever source for two years; two Dalton mathematical it be derived, is composed invariably of 8 scholarships for the same time; Dalton parts in weight of oxygen, and 1 of hydroprizes from L.10 to L.25; and a Dalton gen; and common salt, or muriate of soda natural history prize of L.15,-all of which invariably contains 35 parts of chlorine, and were advertised for competition in 1856. 22 of sodium. If any other matter is conIn his personal appearance Dr. Dalton tained in the water or in the salt, it is un

combined or only mechanically mixed with of expressing the order and symmetry of the water or the salt. This law was known material nature, and its value as a means of to Bergman, Cavendish, Lavoisier, and apprehending and inculcating great chemical others; but was demonstrated by Wenzel, truths."

Richter, and Proust.

The second law of the Atomic hypothesis

is that of multiple proportion; a mode of

Béranger. Paris, Perrotin.

2. Mémoires sur Béranger, recueillis et mis en ordre par Savinien Lapointe. Paris, G. Havard.

combination in which the higher numbers ARTICLE VII.—1. Euvres Complètes de are multiples of the lowest, that is, if 8 parts of oxygen combine with any body, 8 or 84 cannot combine with the same body: 16 parts of it, or 24 or 32, multiples of 8, must be combined with it before it is saturated. The five compounds of nitrogen and oxygen afford a fine example of this law.

Nitrous oxide consists of 14 nitrogen and 8 oxygen.

Nitric oxide
Hyponitrons acid
Nitrous acid

Netric acid

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16

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24

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32

14 14

40

3.

Quarante-cinq lettres sur Béranger, et détails sur sa vie publiés par Madame Louise Collet. Paris, Librairie Nouvelle.

ANECDOTE-MONGERS and collectors of gossip are already with Béranger. The French public is anxious to know as much as possible respecting a man with whom they all This law of multiple proportion was cer- felt thoroughly identified; they are containly discovered by Mr. Higgins, Professor scious that the great chansonnier was the of Chemistry in Dublin; but Dalton was true embodiment of their thoughts, their not aware of what had been done by his pre- passions, and their sympathies; and they decessor, and had the merit of establishing the almost expect to discover in the secret of law by numerous analyses, and applying it of his every-day life the spell which made to various theoretical and practical purposes. him so essentially, so exclusively-we might The third law of combination has received say-the poet of France. A few facts have the name of reciprocal proportion, that is, already been collected in the brochures of if 16 parts of sulphur combine with or Madame Louise Collet and M. Savinien saturate 8 of oxygen, and if 27 parts of Lapointe; a few more may be found scatiron saturate 8 of oxygen, 16 parts of sul- tered hither and thither in the feuilletons of phur will saturate 27 of iron. This law the daily newspapers, and, without waiting was discovered by Wenzel, and published for the publication of the posthumous works, in 1777, and was confirmed by numerous which M. Perrotin, the bard's editor and analyses by Richter. friend, has now in the press, we think that The fourth law of the Atomic hypothesis we have before us elements enough from is that of compound proportion; according which we shall be able to draw, for the to which the combining number, or propor- benefit of our readers, a sketch of Bérantion, of the compound body is the sum of ger's life and influence. the combining numbers, or proportion, of its Yes, "Béranger," and not " De Béranger" components. The combining number of-although the latter appellation is the one water, for example, is 9; but 9 is the sum sanctioned by the parish-register-but the of the components of water, namely, 8 parts singer of the French bourgeoisie dropped of oxygen and 1 of hydrogen. In like man- the aristocratic particle at a very early pener, the combining proportion of marble is riod. We have not been attracted to this 50, which is the sum of its components, article by any great love for, or by warm viz., 22 of carbonic acid, and 28 of lime. admiration of, Béranger. His works, howThese views of chemical combination pre-ever, will long continue to keep alive and sented themselves to Dalton in 1803. They to control one of the most powerful political were first adopted and explained by Dr. forces now at work in France, which is as Thomas Thomson, and afterwards cordi- surely destined, in the future, to influence ally by Wollaston, and reluctantly by Davy. the moral condition of that great country, In France they were welcomed by Gay as it has done in the past. And even, as in Lussac, who, in 1809, discovered the law of the case of Burns, when the higher mind of volumes according to which the gases com- France shall turn away from the loose and bine in equal or multiple volumes; and licentious effusions of the chansonnier, they wherever chemistry is studied, the Atomical will continue to influence the lower class of hypothesis of Dalton, as we are entitled to society, which have ever played such an imcall it, is universally received and admired portant part during crises in French politics. "on the twofold ground," as Dr. George It seemed good, then, to devote a few pages Wilson remarks, "of its beauty as a method to the works quoted above.

The Boswells of the transcendental school | had lessened the receipts of Monsieur Chamare remarkably fond of discovering some- pi, the maitre tailleur. Things in general thing symbolical, mysterious, and ominous were declining from bad to worse; gloomy in the least particulars of a great man's life. forebodings had got possession of every Thus they have endeavoured to form a mind; and it is highly probable that few Béranger according to their own pre-con- few people could go to the expense of proceived notions, and to explain, after the ap-viding a satin waistcoat, when famine, bankproved formulas of their dim philosophy, a ruptcy, and civil war were threatening character than whom none was ever less France with utter destruction. The fact is, qualified to discuss metaphysics. We shall that young Pierre Jean was left to do very not attempt such high-flown notions, but ask much as he liked,—that is to say, to neglect from the poet himself the plain truth respect- his books, cut school, and spend his time ing the year and place of his birth :- with the gamins of the neighbourhood, playing at marbles, commenting upon the latest pranks of Monsieur de Mirabeau, or gathering the intelligence about the approaching session of the States-General.

Dans ce Paris plein d'or et de misère,

-

En l'an du Christ mil sept cent quatre-vingt,
Chez un tailleur mon pauvre et vieux grand-père,
Moi nouveau-né.

66

Papa Champi"- we quote from the same authority-" who had been unusually In plain prose, Pierre-Jean de Béranger was harsh with his own children, treated his born in Paris, Rue Montorgueil, on August grandson with the greatest weakness, or 19th, 1780. Whilst his father was engaged rather indulgence. He would not allow anyin financial speculations, which seem to have body to contradict me; every one was to deadened even his parental feelings, the be at my beck and call, ready to execute "grand-papa" Champi-a notable tailor by the commands of Monsieur son petit fils. the-bye-watched over the child, took charge The reason he alleged for such kindness was of him entirely, and packed him off to my extreme debility. The fact is, that I Auxerre under the care of a Burgundy nurse. was weak, although a good-looking child; It has often been remarked, that the inci- therefore my grandfather had no difficulty dents of early childhood leave on our mind in making the whole family acquiesce in his a deeper impression than the events of a opinion. I was sent to a school in the culcomparatively later date. Béranger's recol-de-sac de la Bouteille. As my grandfather's lections of his nurse were never very vivid; house was opposite, I had only the street to but, on the other hand, he always remem- cross. The class was held on the first floor. bered his foster-father's care, and found in I felt no inclination for books, and often prehim the same generous, disinterested affec tended to be ill, in order that I might be tion which characterized the old tailor of kept away. My head aches,' I used to the Rue Montorgueil. say, and that was enough; papa Champi, thoroughly frightened, made me stay with him, or perhaps sent me out for a walk, just as I felt inclined, and this infallibly brought about my cure.

"I was five years old," says the poet, "when I returned home. Grand-papa Champi owed several months' nursing; I even think it was more than one year. The fosterfather did not ask for his money. On the day when he received the letter which apprised him of our separation, I remember that the intelligence threw the whole cottage into the greatest consternation. The girl cried. There was between the father and mother a rather long discussion on the sub. ject of knowing who should take the child back to Paris. Both declined the task. At last the père nourricier accompanied me. John deposited me upon the tailor's worktable, shed a flood of tears as he gave me a parting embrace, and refused to pocket the money which was due to him-No,' said he to grand-papa Champi, it seems as if I were selling you the child.' It was very difficult to comfort the poor fellow." "? *

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If history had not recorded for our benefit the experience of other lads who became illustrious men without going to school, we might well grieve over the truant dispositions of young Béranger. The lad, who was to be in after times Sir Walter Scott, used to spend his time in composing and relating to his companions tales of chivalry, not very long before the period when Champi's grandson roamed through the streets of Paris in quest of fun. Fun! there was not much of it to be had then; and one day, the rolling noise of artillery, the deafening shouts of the victorious Gardes Françaises, and the crash of the gates of the Bastille as they fell, never to rise again-such was the scene which the scholar of the cul-de-sac We are unable to ascertain what causes de la Bouteille was called upon to witness.

*Lapointe, p. 22.

*Lapointe, pp. 23, 24.

Pour un captif, souvenir plein de charines!
J'étais bien jeune; on criait: Vengeous-nous!

A la Bastille! aux armes! vite aux armes !
Marchands, bourgeois, artisans, couraient tous.
Je vois pâlir et la femme et la fille;
Le canon gronde aux rappels du tambour.
Victoire au peuple, il a pris la Bastille!
Un beau soleil a fêté ce grand jour.

the club, to the less noisy but more useful protection of a printer, M. Laisney, who, together with the means of earning an honest livelihood, gave him the opportunity of completing, or rather of carrying on, his education.

J'ai fait ici plus d'un apprentissage,
A la paresse, hélas! toujours enclin.
Mais je me crus des droits au nom de sage,
Lorsqu'on m'apprit le métier de Franklin.

"I had," says Béranger, "such an idea of a printing-office, that I entered it, as I would leaders of the locality not possessing either have done a temple, bare-headed. But the all the peaceful virtues or the classic lanat their command, I was obliged to modify guage which I fondly imagined they had very much my opinion of them; I could not get reconciled to kicks and cuffs. Maman Bouvet took me away. I had learnt art of making paper caps, in which I was very little of the printer's craft, except the pre-eminently successful."

The first step in the career of the French Revolution was soon followed by that wellknown series of events which led to the "Reign of Terror." It had become rather unsafe for a child to run about the streets of Paris when the cry of "à la lanterne" was the order of the day, and when summary execution was soon to be the lot of all those whose republican sentiments had not been thoroughly vouched for by competent sansculottes. Rather than see his grandson swing from a lamp-post, M. Champi made up his mind to part once more with him; and accordingly the boy was despatched to Péronne, where lived an aunt of his, by name Madame Bouvet. This lady, although attached to the principles of the Revolution, was a woman of good principles. Her rather doubtfully with M. de Béranger père. In the meanwhile, matters had gone on occupation (she was an aubergiste or innkeeper) left her time to cultivate her taste Deeply engaged in the Royalist movement, for literature; and she had a small library, turn of the Bourbon family, the old gentleand firmly convinced of the approaching reto which her nephew enjoyed free and unrestricted access. Unfortunately, together of sans-culottism, and for himself, as a small man was anticipating the total discomfiture with the works of Racine, Fénelon, and acknowledgment of his services, an appointCorneille, this collection contained the more

objectionable productions of Voltaire; and ment at Versailles-some wand of office, young Béranger devoured these with all the with, perhaps, the rights of grandes and peavidity of a boy who had been taught to midst of all these dreams, down tumbles tites entrées, and what else besides? In the hail in the philosophe de Ferney, the regene- Pierre-Jean, the journeyman printer, quite rator of the human race. The now hackneyed anecdote of the storm proves how as deeply enthusiastic for the cause of the speedily free-thinking principles can take root in the heart, and blight, under their withering effect, every sentiment of awe for his favourite poet :the power of God.

Republic, most clever at making paper caps, singing "le chant du départ," and repeating with marked emphasis the famous lines of

pense;

Notre crédulité fait toute leur science."*

In the meanwhile, the doctrines of Vol-Les prêtres ne sont pas ce qu'un vain peuple taire and of the "Encyclopédie," reduced into practice by the Lycurgi and the Dracos of the French Republic, had given rise to a style of literature which was assidu- The progress of the Revolution speedily ously cultivated by all the young genera- overturned the Royalist's hopes. Instead tion. "Patriotic institutes"-species of de- of enjoying the entrées both great and small, bating societies-were springing up on all he was arrested and ignominiously thrown sides. In the "Patriotic Institute" of Pé- into the prison of the Temple, as many ronne, the young alumni were taught the others had been before him; and when he Rights of Man," the "Republican Calen- was at last released, it was only to have the dar," and the art of composition, illustrated mortification of seeing General Bonaparte by addresses to Tallien, Robespierre, and at the Tuileries, and himself totally ruined. Collot d'Herbois. Béranger seems to have He died soon after, at the comparatively in a very short time qualified himself as an early age of fifty-two. Such a catastrophe accomplished club-orator; and it is said would have damped the spirits of any other that he was sadly annoyed when his aunt but the chansonnier in posse: after the removed him from the patriotic care of citoyen Ballue-Bellanglise, the founder of

66

* Voltaire.

visions of twenty franc pieces piled up in tunately derived from a systematic contempt neat little columns, and bank-notes spread for religion. The following lines, reprinted out in layers twelve or fourteen deep, to in the preface to the Complete Works, and fall down to a dry crust of bread and a glass taken from a poem, entitled Meditation, of water! Why, citoyen Ballue-Bellanglise strike us as exceedingly interesting. The himself, with all his patriotism, could not reader, in order to appreciate them better, have stood it. Fortunately, by the interests must bear in mind, that at the time when of Arnault, whose friendship he had made, they were written (1802), M. de Lamartine he got an appointment to an office, to which had not yet begun to sing, and that the ara small salary was attached. tificial and flimsy poetry of Delille was still considered as the ne plus ultrà of fine writing.

But before the appointment of Béranger to a clerkship in the offices of the University, he had already attracted the notice of Lucian Bonaparte, whose independent character, at a time when moral degradation was a general rule, cannot too much be praised. He sent for Béranger; talked with him for a long time on his position, his wishes, and his works; encouraged him to persevere in the career of literature; and when his own liberal opinions had brought down upon him the displeasure of the Emperor, and obliged him to withdraw to Rome, he made over to Béranger the salary

he received as Member of the French Institute, accompanying the kind present with the following letter:

"Je vous prie d'accepter mon traitement de l'Institut, et je ne doute pas que si vous continuez de cultiver votre talent par le travail, vous ne soyez un des ornements de notre Parnasse. Soignez surtout le rhythme; ne cessez pas d'être hardi, mais soyez plus élégant."

We need scarcely say that Béranger never forgot the Mecenas whose timely and considerate assistance had shed a bright light over the beginning of his literary life, and relieved him from the pressure of actual want. "The recollection of my benefactor," said he, "will follow me to the tomb."

Au milieu des tombeaux qu'environorait la nuit,
Ainsi je méditais par leur silence instruit.
Les fils viennent ici se réunir aux pères
Qu'ils n'y retrouvent plus, qu'ils y portaeint na-
guères,
Disais-je, quand l'éclat des premiers feux du jour
Vint du chant des oisecaux ranimer ce séjour.
Le soleil voit, du haut des voûtes éternelles,
Passer dans les palais des familles nouvelles ;
Familles et palais, il verra tout périr!
Il a vu mourir tout, tout renaitre et mourir,
Et, lugubre flambeau du sépulcre où nous
Vu des hommes, produits de la cendre des hommes,

sommes,

Lui-même, à ce long deuil fatigué d'avoir lui,
S'éteindra devant Dieu, comme nous devant lui.

These lines, and such as these, were running through Béranger's imagination, whilst twice a-day he walked over the distance which separated his small appartement de garçon from the office, where his services as a clerk were remunerated at the rate of eighty pounds per annum ;* and sometimes, as he met on the way the then king of song, Desaugiers, with an expression half of contempt, half of jealousy, he was wont to mutter between his teeth: "Well! well! I could write songs quite as well as you do, if I liked; only there are those poems of mine!" Our readers, of course, will ask, what One morning, M. de Fontanes, grandwere the songs which Béranger had com- master of the French University under Naposed at that period-what were the sub-poleon, received an anonymous letter, in jects of his satire? Against what abuses in which he was warned that one of his clerks, Church or State had he directed his shafts ? Béranger by name, instead of earning conBéranger was not yet a chansonnier,—at least scientiously the salary bestowed upon him he was not known as such. IIis first pro- by the munificence of Government, spent duction, "The Garland of Roses," published his time in composing songs. And what at Péronne in 1797, consisted of small pieces songs! The notorious Roi d' Yvetot was enin the style of Parny and Dorat. Besides closed as a specimen. It seemed certainly bold that, he had begun an epic poem on the sub- in a young man, circumstanced as Béranger ject of Clovis, and composed several odes on then happened to be, to read a lecture of religious themes, written in a style which, moderation to Napoleon-le-grand. The caucertainly, would not have led any one to an- tious M. de Fontanes thought so; he forthticipate in their author the same Béranger with took the manuscript and submitted it who was shortly afterwards to compose to his Imperial Majesty. Paillasse, le Marquis de Carabas, and Les Révérends Pères. M. de Chateaubriand had published his Génie du Christianisme, and it is curious to notice the influence upon a *He began with forty-four pounds, and never writer whose greatest reputation is unfor- rose higher than a salary of two thousand francs.

The date of "le Roi d'Yvetot" is 1813. Napoleon had gained the victories of Lutzen

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