Dear Sir, I am heartily thankful to you for your very kind remembrance of me in every stage of your progress -the wines of the Cape, the canes of Bengal, every thing good in every place, revives your obliging disposition towards your friends. The wine is not yet arrived. Indeed that kind of wine, and in that quantity, is beyond the mark of patriotism, not endowed with a good fortune. You know that his worship, Alderman Wilkes, only gives Port in his Shreivalty Feasts; Constantia is therefore a lady, much too highly bred to appear at my private table, though neither she nor any one else is too good for those who honour it with their company. I will, therefore, send your Constantia to a place where it will be rather better assorted. A good friend of yours, Lord Rockingham, shall have my portion; and there I will drink your health in my own wine, and would continue to renew the toast, if it could be any way pleasing or useful to you, until your cane should be necessary to support me in my way home. Perhaps this was the typical meaning of the "wine and cane?"whatever it was, I am extremely obliged to you for both, and for the very sensible, friendly, and polite letters that accompanied them. Your countrymen may now fill their newspapers with as much abuse of me as they think proper; I have abundant consolation in the friendship of one Scotchman, who has more wit than their whole set, and the whole body of their English allies along with them; and who has so much good humour and good nature, as would make him agreeable and amiable, if he had no more genius than the rest of the corps.

"I am sorry that the affairs of your

masters are in such a strange state of derangement, Discord has chosen the India House for her temple, and I assure you her devotees are as zealous and enthusiastic as any bigots whatsoever. The company is shaken to its foundations; the unfortunate contest about superiors-the heavy debt, a little too lately divulged-the probable deficiency of dividend, both to the proprietors and the Exchequer-the fall of Stock, and the strange unmeaning hostility of the Court-all join to throw one of our most important concerns into the most perilous situation. These events have given a rude shock to our friend Sir G. Colebrook's interest that power is shaken, but it is not destroyed; and no other party that I can find is yet able to profit by the blow our friends have received. The list of chairs you see have been rejected by the Court of Directorswhat list will be finally ratified by the general Court, I cannot guess.

"In the first scheme, no more than three superiors were proposed. General Monkton and Mr. Stuart were intended by the chairs; to them they did me the honour to add me, with every circumstance of rank in the commission and in the office that could make it desirable. I was extremely sensible of the kindness of their intentions; but things were so situated, both with regard to the Company's affairs, and the government at home, as not to permit me to think of obeying their commands. Whoever goes, I wish him success; his duty is difficult, but his exertion seems necessary-at least we think so here, where we entertain, perhaps erroneously, an opinion, that there have been great mistakes and mis-management. City politics

you are abundantly supplied with in the newspapers. The Aldermen in that interest fought with some resolution; but their retreat, if it does not cover some extraordinary design, was neither able nor reputable. Wilkes even losing the Mayoralty, is in some sort triumphant; he lost his point but by one, even in the strongest hold of the enemy. It is odd to see how he drags some of your old friends after him. Townshend is now Mayor, made by Wilkes with the exception of the one, and against the will of the other. It is an odd sort of creation. By this means your old friend Lord Shelburne becomes master of the city one year at least.

The partition of Poland is a subject worthy of your pen. To make a partition of Poland, formerly put all Europe in a ferment; now it has four kings, and all Europe is quiet. Sweden has taken an absolute monarch as a cure for scarcity of provisions, and an army surrounds the Diet to persuade the States to agree to their unanimous resolution. These are odd paradoxes, but two great and pacific monarchs at present keep these matters from being any thing worse than ridiculous to the rest of mankind. What effect their action, and our repose will produce, is not for me to divine.

use to a man of spirit and principle ; and I am sure you will oblige me extremely.

The next is one to whom you are no stranger, Emin, the Armenian. He is not with me, nor I dare say with you, the less a hero for being unfortunate. He has attempted great things, gone through infinite labours and infinite perils, and is at last where he set out, poor and friendless in Bengal. This should not be. It would be a disgrace to his nation, that a man once countenanced by the first people in this kingdom as well as in Germany, should without any cause of his own, pass his decline of life in misery and contempt in an English settlement. I know many think him an impostor, but I can bear witness to the truth of what he asserted, long before he attracted any part of the public notice; and to the patience, integrity, and fortitude with which he struggled to improve himself in all knowledge within his reach. His having served in Germany, and in all the expeditions to the coast of France, gives him a title to the little favour he asks-some respectable post in the Company's India troops. Be so good as to give him my humble service, and the enclosed.

Mrs. Burke, my brother, and Mr. W. Burke present their best compliments; and believe me, with great truth and affection, Dear Sir,

"Of all the powers in nature," says Lord Bacon, heat is the chief, both in the frame of nature and in the works of art; heat and cold are the hands of nature." And this opinion, to any one who has given his attention to observing the constitution of nature and her various and continual alterations, will not appear extravagant, though to the casual or superficial observer such a rank may seem too exalted for this single agent; and at the present time, when the researches of modern science have laid open to our view so many of the secrets of the universe, it may seem strange that an aphorism of one who lived but during the infancy of natural science should remain, its truth unquestioned and its importance undenied. For of all the imponderable physical agents which are appointed for carrying on the course of nature there is none of such paramount importance; we witness the effects of heat in every process of nature; we see its genial influence exerted in the production of all those objects which serve for the convenience or luxury of man-the fruits of the earth-the flowers of the fields the sparkling rivulet--the mighty ocean are all dependant on this agent for their production or utility to man; without it existence would be impossible for beings organized as the present inhabitants of the world are; we see that where its influence is withdrawn, vegetation altogether ceases, animal life is extinct, and the mighty ocean itself is chained by eternal frost.

Nor is it less necessary to man, as an artificial, than as a natural agent-in all the conveniencies and luxuries of life we behold its importance; by its agency has man been enabled to add to his power and multiply his resources almost to an infinite degree. By means of the steam engine he is no longer

the sport of winds and waves-no longer dependant on animal strength for the performance of his wishes; he has acquired means of conveyance which enable him to vie in speed with the tenants of the air, and acquired powers which have increased the available population, as if there had been a new creation of human strength. Fire, flood, and earth are the vassals of his will;" but it is to the first of these that he owes his mastery over the other elements. Such is the agent to which we would direct the attention of our readers, as there are very few who are in any degree acquainted with its theoretical applications, though its practical uses are continually before them, or who have any clear or definite notions relative to its nature and propertiesignorant alike of the investigations of some of the greatest philosophers of our times, and of the great practical results which have rewarded their labours; this inattention to a most important branch of physical knowledge has chiefly arisen from its being generally considered merely as a branch of elementary chemistry, to which it no more properly belongs, than electricity and light do, but with which it has generally been studied, as its most important laws are disclosed to us by chemistry, and have been investigated by cultivators of that branch of science; and also from the fact, that the only treatises on heat were those given in works on chemistry, no separate general treatise having appeared on this subject until the present, with the exception of the admirable article on heat, by the Rev. F. Lunn, of Cambridge, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, which, from the form under which it was published, cannot be looked upon as calculated for general use; however, Dr. Lardner has in his present work, supplied the deficiency and

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