Can earth, or fire, or liquid air, O thou, my soul, whose choral song The circus of Olympian Jove; Whence, borne on many a tuneful tongue, 3 And that good steed's, whose thought will wake A joy with anxious fondness blended :— No sounding lash his sleek side rended : By Alpheus' brink, with feet of flame, Self driven, to the goal he tended: And earn'd the olive wreath of fame The sons of Syracusa tell : Who loves the generous courser well : pp. 81-83. This is undoubtedly very good, very animated; but it is not much in the manner of Pindar. Of the three similes the first is grievously paraphrased from piso ex vdwe; the second has, in the original, a sub-simile appended; and the third is transposed, in the translation, for the sake of perspicuity. Some of the latter part too has a little more of modern ornament than we could have wished about it. Neither is the conciseness of Pindar very scrupuously attended to, by the translator. he appeared close beside him,' in Mr. H. is • Nor called in vain, through cloud and storm, The God of waters came.' p. 89. ★ražipopμıyyes üμvol —'hymns, masters of the harp,' Mr. H. renders, Αναξιφόρμιγγες ὕμνοι 'O song whose voice the harp obeys Accordant aye with answering string.' p. 95. And παῖς ὁ κισσοφόρος is expanded into her son, in dreadful glee Who shakes the ivy wreathed spear.' p. 98. After all, the translations are so good, that we heartily wish for more of them, and hope that Mr. Heber may find time to complete a work so well begun. The translation of West and Pye--the only one of any name-is a work of cautious and timid mediocrity, sometimes elegant, generally smooth, always weak. They have diffused the soul of Pindar, in such a latitude' of verse, as to make dull its faculties and lazy.' The reader may compare the opening lines of the sixth Olympic, as already quoted from Mr. Heber with the following from West. • Fair Camarina, daughter of the main, 6 With gracious smile this choral song receive, • Fair fruit of virtuous toils, whose noble strain Shall to the Olympic wreath new lustre give. •No hues fallacious tinge my glowing lay, • He thus the royal maid addressed : These silver tresses lo! are spread Untimely on a youthful head; For oft' capricious nature's rage Gives to the vigorous brow the hoary tints of age.' -What? do we wave the glozing lie?— The proof be in the deed! To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore, Victorious on the applauding shore, Though treacherous time my locks among 6 PP. 117, 118. Mr. H.'s verse is unshackled by the fetter of strophe and artistrophe. That such is the proper verse for a translator of Pindar, we have no hesitation in giving our opinion. Whether any stanza, any sequence of sweet sounds', be originally more pleasing to the ear than another, it would be to little purpose in this place to inquire. If such stanza there be, it must be short and simple. It seems evident that of a long and complicated combination of verses, the mind can no longer connect the parts, and that therefore, though all of them may in themselves be harmonious, they gain nothing by being joined together. Nor can the ear be soothed by the regularity of the repetition: the ode,' as Johnson remarks, is finished, before the ear has learnt its measures, and consequently before it ean receive pleasure from their consonance or recurrence.' At the same time, too, that the regularity of the Pindaric stanza affords no pleasure to the reader, it is a woful incumbrance on the writer, fettering the freedom of his verse, and even checking the flights of his fancy. It is a perfect Procrustes, which will stretch a thought or lop it, till it be fitted exactly to its bed. How often, even in a common couplet, is a word introduced for no earthly purpose than to fill up the verse-and how much the evil is increased in the case of which we are speaking, any reader may satisfy himself, by taking up one of our common Pindaric writers. We are, therefore, glad that Mr. H. disclaims all acquaintance with the lyric ternaries. His verse, as our readers will already have perceived, is in general easy and harmonious, and a good deal resembling the rich and rambling measures of Marmion. Art. III. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. For the year 1811. Part II, 4to. pp. 210–396. Nicol, 1811. IN this part of the Royal Society's volume for 1811, there are nine distinct papers, numbered from 11, to 20 inclusive. XI. On the Causes which Influence the Direction of the Growth of Roots. By I. A. Knight, Esq. F.R.S. In a Letter to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. K.B. P.R.S. Read March 7, 1811. There are a few facts connected with vegetable growth, which have occasionally led philosophers to attribute to to vegetables the properties of sensation and intelligence, notwithstanding the insuperable difficulties with which such an hypothesis, must always be oppressed. Mr. Knight, however, pursuing the enquiries in which he has been long and usefully engaged, has in this communication offered an explanation of these phenomena, more consistent with the known laws of vegetable life. He first relates some of the experiments which he made to determine the fact, that the roots of plants are influenced by the circumstances of soil and situation in which they may chance to grow. Thus, carrots and parsnips, sown in a trench, two feet deep, at the bottom of which was a layer of rich mould, six inches deep, and above that a layer of poor soil of eighteen inches,' were very languid during the early period of their growth, threw out few lateral fibres, and the root was long, slender, and cylindrical but when they reached the layer of rich soil, their growth was vigorous, and they threw out fibrous roots in great number. When the circumstances of the experiment were reversed, and the rich soil placed uppermost in the trench, the plants grew vigorously early in the summer, and at the close of the season, few of them had penetrated at all into the poor soil, but most of them had divided into several ramifications near the surface, and others tapered rapidly to a point. Other experiments were made with most of the esculent garden plants, and with similar results. The common garden bean afforded results apparently the least favourable to Mr. Knight's views. Some of the seeds were placed upon the surface of mould in a garden pot, and secured there when the pot was inverted, by a slender grating of wood. In this situation the radicles extended horizontally along the surface of the mould, and pushed out fibres upwards into it, in direct opposition to the laws of gravitation, (which Mr. K. had before ascertained to have considerable influence upon the direction of roots) and just as if guided by the instinctive passions and feelings of animal life. This however was found to depend on the circumstances of moisture or dryness; for when every part of the radicles was equally supplied with moisture, they grew in perfect obedience to the laws of gravitation, quite uninfluenced by the mould above them: when this was not done, the fibrous roots were sent off only in contact with the soil, the other portion of the radicle being rendered rigid and inexpansible by the action of the dry air to which they were exposed. The explanation of these phenomena, suggested by Mr. Knight, is founded on the analogy of the known influence of light upon the branches of trees most exposed to its action. As the operation of light gives' ability to the branch to attract and employ the ascending or alburnous current of sap, it appears not improbable that the operation of proper food and moisture in the soil upon the bark of the root, may give ability to that organ to attract and employ the descending or critical current of sap.' Pursuing this analogy, Mr. K. compares the situation of the roots of a plant in a poor soil, to the branches of trees in a crowded forest, the growth being checked, in the one instance by want of light, and in the other by want of proper soil and nutriment. In confirmation of these views it may be noticed, that Mr. K. observed the growth of the fibrous roots to be obviously accelerated, as the points approached ́any considerable quantity of decomposing vegetable or animal matter. XII. On the Solar 1 dicted by Thales. by H. Davy, Esq. 4 Eclipse which is said to have been pre- ▪ ༢ The Eclipse to which this communication relates, is said by Herodotus to have put an end to a furious war which raged betwixt the Medes and Lydians. According to that historian, the contest had continued during five years, with alternate advantages, to each party in the sixth, there was a sort of nocturnal combat. For, after an equal fortune on both sides, and whilst the two armies were engaging, 'the day suddenly became night. Thales the Milesian, had predicted this phenomenon to the Ionians; and had ascer tained the time of the year in which it would happen. The Lydians and the Medes, seeing that the night had thus 'taken place of the day, desisted from the combat; and 'both parties became desirous of making peace.' As neither the time nor place of this singular event are mentioned by Herodotus, the aid of Astronomy has been called in to fix the date for as the date of some other events is intimately connected with this, its precise determination has been deemed an object not of curiosity merely, but of utility. In this investigation, however, much diversity of opinion has asisen, and the extreme limits of time which have been assigned for the event, include a period of forty-three years. But Mr. B. proves from acknowledged historical data, that it could not have happened earlier than the year 629. B. C. nor later than 595 B. C. which narrows the period within which it must have happened to thirty-four' years. If therefore (he observes) we can find within this short space of thirty-four years, a solar eclipse which was central and total within that part of Asia bordering on the |