it, for future processes. No experiment of mine has answered this purpose but that in which I employed animal charcoal. In the residuum of the distillation of æther, I added a quantity of water, equal in weight. I filtered it though paper, and then added to a quart of the filtered liquor, 50 grammes, or 772 troy grains of the charcoal of bones. After three days it was filtered, and it passed colourless. It was then concentrated by evaporation, and nearly the whole of the acid, originally employed, was reco-, vered. Tincture of turnsole, mixed with a few grammes of charred bones, is quickly deprived of its colour. I prepare my bones thus: I take the most compact part of beef bone, or mutton bone; I break them, and fill a crucible, which I cover and lute carefully, except a small hole at the top. Thus prepared, I put it in a blacksmith's fire and heat it gradually to redness. When the flame produced by the combustion of the greasy matter of the bones is over, I partly stop the hole, and increase the fire; much carburetted and oxicarburetted gas escapes. I then stop the hole, and let the vessel cool. The charcoal is reduced to powder by trituration. The discolouring property of this charcoal depends much on the care taken in preparing it. Ivory black, as well as bone black, also answers the purpose. By use they lose this property, which they regain on being strongly heated in a close vessel, but a little longer time is required to produce the effect. All the experiments alluded to in this memoir, were repeated with the charcoal of wood, which produced but a slight ef fect. Hence, I conclude, that animal charcoal may, hereafter, be applied to many useful purposes in chemistry and the arts, to which vegetable charcoal is inedequate. Vinegar, thus deprived of colour, contains a small quantity of acetite and phosphat of lime. These earthy salts produce no ill effect whatever on the animal economy, for we take them daily in much larger proportion, with our common food: but they may be previously separated, thus: Pour on ivory or bone black, dilute muriatic acid; after twelve hours, add to it a quantity of water, filter and dry it. This separates the calcareous salts, without depriving the vinegar of its property of taking away colour. Charcoal of glue produces the same effect. To the above paper, it will be worth while to add the following process used for making vinegar in the large manufactories of England, which I describe from my own observation, and believe it is no where else detailed. In an oblong room, heated by stoves to the degree of 75 of Fahrenheit, place upon tressels, a series of quarter casks, high enough from the floor, for a pail or tub to stand conveniently under the cocks, from which the liquor is drawn. The top of the quarter-casks is pierced full of augur holes. The casks are filled with cider. On the top of the casks is placed a tub filled with Malaga raisins, the bottom of the tub being likewise pierced with augur holes. A man is employed from morning till night, in going round this series of quarter casks, and drawing from the bottom of each, a pail or bucket full of cider, which he pours on top of the Malaga raisins. The cider percolating through the body of Malaga raisins, acquires some saccharine mucilage, and a vinous flavour, and by degrees is converted into vinegar. The raisins will generally answer to give flavour to two casks full of vinegar. When the cider is thus converted into vinegar, it is drawn off, and the casks are replenished with cider, to undergo a similar process. The vinegar drawn off is fined with white of egg, and then racked off for sale. I take this opportunity of mentioning, that I am preparing a volume of manufacturing processes, depending upon chemistry. Carlisle. T. C. THE FINE ARTS. FOR THE PORT FOLIO. Their various uses meaner toils commend, A shade to shelter, and a sun to warm. LIFE OF POUSSIN. We now pass to the consideration of the French school of painters: and it is here proper to remark, that it remains a doubt to the present day whether Nicholas Poussin, who stands in the front of this class, is a disciple of this or of the Italian sect. This controversy, like most other questions of this nature, where the terms are not specifically stated and defined, will be found on examination to be a dispute about words only. If the accidental circumstance of birth entitles a country to this honor, France has indisputably the advantage; on the other hand, if the country to which this artist was indebted for all his celebrity, where he lived, and where he acquired his knowledge of the art, and which still retains his ashes: if these circumstances united, entitle Italy to the honour of enrolling the name of Poussin amongst her other illustrious names, all these may be urged in her behalf, As the controversy now stands, there is no point in issue, and although both parties dispute each other, neither contradict. This eminent artist was born at the Adelys, a small town in Normandy, of poor but noble parents. They had suffered in the wars of Charles IX and Henry III and IV; but embarrassed as they were, they still watched with attention the education of their son, and kindled in his mind an ardent enthusiasm for Grecian and Roman letters. His early attachment to romance was indulged in exploring the uncouth legends of heathen mythology; and this in its turn created a subsidiary taste to become more intimately acquainted with the laws, habits, constume, religion of the people; and in short, to explore antiquity in its minutest details. He was early denominated, from his love of ancient lore, and his rigid, austere, and unbending habits, an Athenian in taste and a Spartan in manners. The young artist perceiving the poverty of his parents, and how unable they were to afford him that education he desired, at the age of eighteen formed the resolution of becoming no longer a burthen to them. He quitted his paternal abode, and, undisciplined in the ways of mankind, journied towards Paris. He entered this splendid metropolis a solitary stranger; poor, unknown, and destitute. Fortune, however, was bountiful beyond his expectations, and introduced him to the acquaintance of a young French nobleman, who, admiring his genius, and commiserating his distress, placed him under the care first of L'Attimant and then of Ferdinand Elli, two painters who were very little known, and still less regarded. He abode with them only a few months and then accompanied his benefactor to his residence in Poiteau. His silent and recluse habits were not regarded by the wife of this nobleman, to whom he had been recently married, with the kind partiality of her husband. She thought him a useless incumbrance to her family, and could discern no merit encompassed by so much apparent coldness, taciturnity and unbending reserve. Poussin, with the virtuous pride of independence, abandoned the abode of his benefactor and returned to Paris, where, with the scanty knowledge he had already acquired of the pencil, under masters so unequal, he was compelled to drudge for a poor and precarious subsistence. While he was labouring under these cruel embarrassments, sickness was added to the catalogue of his miseries, and he was compelled to seek his paternal mansion again. On the re-establishment of his health, he resorted to Paris once more, where he vigorously prosecuted his studies, and supported himself by copying engravings from the works of Raphael and Julio Romano. Irksome as this drudgery was, it was in the end attended with substantial benefit; it enlarged his views of his art, made him conversant with finer forms and more exquisite models than he had hitherto conceived, and created in his mind an unextinguishable desire to study the originals themselves. For this purpose he resolved on visiting Rome; but he had proceeded no further than Florence before poverty compelled him to retrace his footsteps: undismayed he still persisted in his resolution, but from the same cause he was a second time obliged to return, and with a desponding heart to renounce all hopes of his journey. Such apparently wayward events are often, however, real blessings in the shape of present evils; they are links of that fine and invisible chain by which we are often led to prosperity and honour in the end. Poussin was, while at Paris, employed to adorn the church of the Jesuits with six pictures in fresco; a work which, although finished in eight days, attracted the notice of connoisseurs and finally of the chevalier Marino. Perceiving their uncommon merit, and resolving to foster such early genius, he took the young artist under his patronage and accompanied him to Rome. His patron introduced him to the notice and friendship of cardinal Barberini. A circumstance so peculiarly auspicious brought his talents into active exercise: he remitted nothing of his industry, but studied antique with the most persevering attention, and formed his style on the models which he so much admired. His early studies, his knowledge of classical antiquity, were now rendered subservient to his plan. He had, notwithstanding, to encounter two severe misfortunes in the death of one of his patrons and in the resignation of the other. He was thus reduced by poverty to sell his most admired pieces at very inconsiderable prices and to labour with double industry for subsistence. But he remained serene amidst all his misfortunes; for, looking back on the rapid proficiency of his pencil, he became thoroughly convinced that his genius had now acquired sufficient strength to advance with ardor, and he dwelt with confidence on the anticipation of happier days. His early habits of self-denial corroborated those impressions, and without brooding over his misfortunes he devoted his time to the pencil. Thus was this humble artist continually employed in the study of antique and in amending his style after such exquisite models. He was advancing towards fame in solitude |