fiftent, deny this right and this neceffity for obedience. As the answer to this great question is given with much skill by Mr. Gisborne, we have a pleafure in laying it before our readers. The queftion, he fays, whether the general welfare of the nation would be forwarded or counteracted by establishing obedience to inftructions as the duty of the popular reprefentative, may, for various reafons, be anfwered with a decided negative.

1. The fundamental and indeed the only argument alledged to prove the utility of obedience to inftructions, namely, that it enfures in the Houfe of Commons a fufficient regard to the fenfe of the people, cannot in the prefent inftance be applied with advantage. For, notwithstanding the apparent defects in the national reprefentation, the fenfe of the people concerning any particular meafure, when deliberately formed and permanently expreffed, will become in no long time, from the connection between members of parliament and the reft of the public, from the degree in which the former imbibe by means of converfation and familiar intercourfe the opinion of the lat ter, from the recurrence of elections, and the operation of other causes, the fenfe of the Houfe of Commons. While thofe defects continue, the evils refulting from them would be aggravated in a tenfold degree by the introduction of the paffive principle under confideration; and might give to the petty electors of enflaved and venal boroughs an immoderate and ruinous preponderance in the conftitutional fcale. And whenever a temperate reform of parliament shall take place, the bafis of the argument will be done away.

2. Were the principle of implicit obedience established, the influence of a corrupt government and a factious oppofition would not be lefs induftriously exercised than it is at prefent; but it would be exercised in another place. It would be transferred from a fcene of action where it is exerted on agents who are invefted with confpicuous public functions; who are refponfible for the difcharge of their trust; who are watched by the whole nation which they reprefent; who are impelled by pride and the love of glory at leaft, if not by better principles, to keep themfelves pure; who have the most ample opportu nities of intelligence; who are little expofed to be hurried away by fudden phrenfy; to agents obfcure, irrefponfible, fervile, ignorant, and unitable. Every borough and every county would exhibit the picture of a perpetual general election. For though the public fenfe would come fo plentifully to market, as to be confiderably lowered in its price; it would never be fuch a drug as not to find a purchaser. Hence would arife an uninterrupted fucceffion of cabals, of bribery, of artifices, and of riots, with all their attendant evils, public, private, and domeftic, fimilar to thofe which are now experienced in their full force but once in feven years.

3. The effects which the introduction of this principle would produce, by taking away the weight and the dignity of the Houfe of Commons in its collective capacity, as well as that of the individual members, would be in the highest degree pernicious and alarming. The characteristic advantages of the inftitution would be undermined and annihilated. The fame pains would no longer be taken in the

acquifition,

acquifition of political knowledge, there being no longer the fame
fcope for laudable exertion. Public debates would languish, and the
beneficial confequences of their being witneffed would be loft. The
Borough Demagogue, and not the Member of Parliament, would be:
the man of importance. The public speaker, abandoning the Houfe
of Commons, would fly to the popular meeting as the road to emi-
nence and the real feat of power. It is there that without evidence,
without authorities or documents, he would call his auditors to decide
on the conduct of negociations or the expediency of treaties, on the
ftate of public accounts, on military and naval operations, on the most
intricate proceedings of government, and the most complicated charges
of ministerial delinquency. The duty of watching over the intereft
of Great Britain being thus virtually fnatched away from the House
of Commons, and divided and portioned out among a multitude of
inferior jurisdictions, would be well performed no where. The unity
of the democratic part of the conftitution would be broken; meeting
would be played off against meeting, and inftructions, now become
peremptory, against inftructions. Members of parliament, ftripped,
if not of the right of judging, yet of the power of acting according
to their judgement, would become the mere proxies of aristocratic
chiefs, contemptible corporations, and mifguided mobs. The Houfe
of Commons, the fafeguard of the British Constitution, would be
altogether deprived of its energy, and fink into filent contempt. And
the conftitution itself, though its forms might continue to fubfift for
a time, would fpeedily be found to have loft its genuine fpirit, and
that well-poifed equilibrium effential to the happinefs of thofe under
its protection.

Such would apparently be the fatal confequences of univerfally obliging the popular reprefentative implicitly to obey the inftructions of his conftituents; and fuch are the evils which every candidate or member of parliament who now binds himself to obey them, contri butes to entail upon his country." P. 138.

We shall content ourselves with giving one more paffage from this work, which is at once curious from its matter, and of great importance to humanity from the nature of its fuggeftions. It occurs in the ample chapter on the duties of perfons engaged in trade and bufinefs.

"Some manufactures impair the health of the workmen by the deleterious quality of the materials ufed; others, by the crowded rooms and vitiated air in which they are carried on. Of the first clafs are feveral proceffes on metallic fubftances. The pernicious effects of lead are proverbial, and palfies and other complaints frequent among those who are employed upon it. I have feen a young man at work in a manufactory of white lead, whofe complexion was rendered by it as livid as the fubftance which he was preparing for fale. The men who are employed in filvering looking-glafles often become paralytic; as is the case alfo with thefe who work in quickfilver mines. This is not to be wondered at, if we may credit Mr. Boyle; who affures us that mercury has been feveral times found in

*

Bishop Watfon's Chemical Effays, vol. iv. p. 253.

the

the heads of artificers expofed to its fumes. In the Philofophical Tranfactions there is an account of a man who, having ceafed working in quickfilver for fix months, had his body ftill fo impregnated with it, that by putting a piece of copper into his mouth, or rubbing it with his hands, it inftantly acquired a filver colour.-I remember having feen at Birmingham a very ftout man rendered paralytic, in the fpace of fix months, by being employed in fixing an amalgam of gold and filver on copper. He ftood before the mouth of a fmall oven ftrongly heated; the mercury was converted into vapour; and that vapour was inhaled by him.-The perfon I faw was very fenfible of the caufe of his diforder; but had not courage to withstand the temptation of high wages, which enabled him to continue in a ftate of intoxication for three days in the week, instead of, what is the ufual practice, two." Of manufactures which injure the health of the workmen, not by any noxious quality in the article operated upon, but by external circumstances ufually attending the operation, an example may be produced in that of cotton. "The ready communication of contagion to numbers crowded together, the acceffion of virulence from putrid effluvia, and the injury done to young perfons, through confinement and too long continued labour," are evils which we have lately heard afcribed to cotton-mills by perfons of the first medical authority affembled to inveftigate the fubject*. To these muft be added, if report fpeaks truth concerning the practice of fome cotton-mills, the cuftom of obliging a part of the children employed there to work all night; a practice which muft greatly contribute towards rendering them feeble, difeafed, and unfit for other labour, when they are dismissed at a more advanced period of youth from the manufactory.

"To have recourfe to every reasonable precaution, however expenfive, by which the health of the workmen may be fecured from injury, and to refrain from profecuting unwholefome branches of trade, until effectual precautions are difcovered, is the indifpenfable duty of the proprietor of a manufactory. Let him not think himself at liberty to barter the lives of men for gold and filver. Let him not feek profit, by acting the part of an executioner. Let him station his workmen in large, dry, and well ventilated rooms. Let him conftantly prefer giving them their work to perform at home, whenever it can be done with tolerable convenience, to collecting them together into the fame apartment. Let him encourage them, where opportunity offers, to refide in villages and hamlets, rather than in a crowded town. Let him inculcate on them in how great a degree cleanliness contributes to health; and imprefs them with the neceffity of invariably obferving thofe many little regulations, which, though fingly too minute to be noticed in this place, have collectively much effect in preventing difeafe. Where his own efforts feem likely to fail, let him lay the matter before the ableft phyficians, and steadily put in practice the intructions which he receives. And finally, let him exert his utmoft abilities to difcover innoxious proceffes which may be fubftituted for fuch as prove detrimental to the perfons who conduct them; and direct by private folicitation, and on proper occafions, by public premiums, the attention of experienced artifts and manufac

See a report of Dr, Percival, and others, of Manchester.

turers

turers to the fame object. The fuccefs of his endeavours may in many cafes be found highly advantageous to him, not merely by preferving the lives of his moft skilful workmen, but by faving fome valuable material formerly loft in the operation. But whether that be the cafe or not, he will at leaft reap a fatisfaction from them which he could not otherwife have enjoyed, that of reflecting on his profits with a quiet conscience." P. 558.

Seldom have we an opportunity of examining a work of equal importance with the prefent, and very feldom one, in which the most minute, and even hoftile, fcrutiny could, we conceive, find fo little to balance against its great and evident merits.

ART. II. Philofophical Tranfactions of the Royal Society of
London, for the year 1794.
Part.1. 410. 8s. fewed.

Elarly.

UPON confidering the objects which the Royal Society keeps in view, and the flow progreffion of philofophy, originating partly from the caution neceffary in advanceing, and ftill more from the limitation of human powers, we cannot reasonably expect that the tranfactions of a year will regularly conftitute a large volume. In works of imagination, authors may continue their pages as long as their invention can fupply them with matter, and their judgement can arrange and adorn it with reflections, but in fuch fubjects as are now before us, truth and reality preclude amplification the juft rigour of mathematical demonstration compreffes reafoning within narrow limits, and the criterion of experiment rejects at once, as ufelefs or fanciful, all vague hypothefes and plaufible but unfounded fuppofition. Thefe reflections were fuggefted by a general view of the restrictions, which the Royal Society prefcribes to itfelf in its annual publications; that now before us is very refpectable for its extent; and of the variety and importance of its articles; we trust our readers will be able to form a judgement from the following account.

ART. I. An Account of the Discovery of a Comet. In a Letter from Mifs Caroline Herfchel to Jofeph Planta, Efq. Sec. R. S. Read November 7, 1793. Page 1.

THE comet here announced was difcovered by Mifs Herfchel, on the night of the 7th of October, 1793. near 1ft (8) Ophiuchi. At 7 o'clock on the following evening, her brother

found

found that it preceded the 1ft (8) Ophiuchi, 6' 34" in time, and was 1° 25' more north than that ftar. Its difappearance prevented any additional obfervation.

ART. II. Account of a new Pendulum. By George Fordyce, M. D. F. R. S.; being the Bakerian Lecture. Read November 7, 1793, P. 2. 4 Plates.

THIS paper is a very valuable addition to former endeavours to guard against the irregular going of clocks, caufed by the expanfion and contraction of pendulums. The principles, upon which Dr. Fordyce founds the conftruction of his pendulum are clearly ftated; and, from patient and ingenious reafoning, he makes it appear that the method here propofed must afford a very near approximation to rigid accuracy. The Jate Mr. Whitehurft. F. R. S. publifhed in 1787 " An at tempt towards obtaining invariable meafures of length, capacity, and weight, from the menfuration of time," in which he defcribed, at full length, the apparatus which he invented and executed, in order to afcertain by actual experiment how far his theory could be put in practice. After Mr. Whitehurt's death Dr. Fordyce purchafed the apparatus, and, as he himself informs us," endeavoured to contrive a means of rendering the pendulum in his machine always of the fame length, whatever the heat might be, by fome addition to it." In this endeavour he thought of the principle, and formed the apparatus, described in the paper before us.

Having added it," he proceeds," to Mr. Whitehurst's machine, I fet it a going, expecting, in the fituation I placed it, only fome approach towards accuracy in the length of the pendulum. I fixed befide it a tranfit which belonged to Mr. Ludlam, the principal parts of which were made by Mr. Ramfden, the object-glais was a four-feet focus achromatic by Dollond. I found my meridian mark at about three quarters of a mile diftance. I likewife borrowed from my friend Mr. Stevens, a clock with a gridiron pendulum, made by Graham for his father Dr. Stevens, in order to compare them together when I had no obfervations. There were feveral trivial circumftances, which baffled the experiments for fome time, not worth relating, one only excepted; which was, that the curvature of the wire, acquired by its being wound round a pirn, was not entirely unfolded for fome months, fo that the clock went flower and flower during that time. At length this difficulty was overcome; I then began to obferve with Graham's clock, in order to adjust the length of the pendulum, but found irregularities frequently take place. I then adjufted it by obfervation, and foon found that Graham's clock went much more irregularly than my own. I adjusted it-until the clock came to lofe feven-tenths of a fecond in 24 hours. I did not think it worth while to bring it nearer, I then began to obferve, and carried