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Mr. Milnes avails himself of the opportunity to promote the pacific intentions of his friends M. Guizot and Sir Robert Peel: 'For honest men of every blood and creed Let green La Vendée rest a sacred spot! Be all the guilt of Quiberon forgot

In the bright memory of its martyr-deed!
And let this little book be one more seed,
Whence sympathies may spring, encumber'd not
By circumstance of birth or mortal lot,
But claiming virtue's universal meed!

And as those two great languages, whose sound
Has echo'd through the realms of modern time,
Feeding with thoughts and sentiments sublime
Each other, and the list'ning world around,
Meet in these pages, as on neutral ground,

So may their nations' hearts in sweet accord be found!
O France and England! on whose lofty crests
The day-spring of the future flows so free,
Save where the cloud of your hostility
Settles between, and holy light arrests;
Shall ye, first instruments of God's behests,
But blunt each other? Shall barbarians see
The two fair sisters of civility

Turn a fierce wrath against each other's breasts?
No! by our common hope and being, no!
By the expanding might and bliss of peace,
By the reveal'd fatuity of war,

England and France shall not be foe to foe:

For how can earth her store of good increase,

If what God loves to make man's passions still will mar ?'

ART. IV.—Animal Chemistry; or the Application of Organic Chemistry to the Elucidation of Physiology and Pathology. By Justus Liebig, M.D. Edited from the German MS. by William Gregory, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, King's College, Aberdeen. 8vo. London, 1842.

THE recent progress of Chemistry, especially of Organic Chemistry, has been rapid and most interesting. Throughout Europe several distinguished men have for a good many years been assiduously devoted to its cultivation; and we are now beginning to reap the benefit of their exertions. In a late article we had to notice the masterly work of Professor Liebig on Agricultural Chemistry;' and already we have, from the same pen, a no less remarkable volume on Animal Chemistry.'

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As his new theme, in one point of view, concerns us all even more nearly than that of agriculture, we shall endeavour to give our readers some notion of the kind and degree of light which our author's labours promise to throw on the obscure and difficult, but most important subject of physiology.

The readers of the Agricultural Chemistry' will remember that he has there developed, and, as we think, established by a very beautiful inductive argument, his theory of fermentation, putrefaction, and decay; or, to speak more generally, of chemical transformation or metamorphosis. In order to the understanding of the present work, it is desirable that we should state, very briefly, the nature of that theory, on which so many of its details are founded.

Professor Liebig, then, applies the name of metamorphosis to those chemical actions in which a given compound, by the presence of a peculiar substance, is made to resolve itself into two or more new compounds: as, for example, when sugar, by the presence of ferment or yest, is made to yield alcohol and carbonic acid.

There are various forms of metamorphosis. Sometimes the elements of the ferment, or exciting body, do not enter into the composition of the new compounds: such is the case in the fermentation of sugar. At other times all the bodies present contribute to the formation of the new products. Thirdly, in one form of metamorphosis, namely, that of decay, or eremacausis, the oxygen of the air is essential to the change: as when alcohol is converted into acetic acid, or wine into vinegar. When an inodorous gas is one of the products, the process is called fermentation; when any of the products are fetid, it is called putrefaction: but these distinctions are not essential; for putrefying animal matters will cause sugar to ferment, as well as common yest. The fetid smell of putrefaction is chiefly owing to ammonia; and hence it is observed not only in the fermentation of animal matter, but also of such vegetable bodies as contain nitrogen, and therefore yield ammonia.

Now the explanation given by our author of these and similar changes is this: that the ferment, or exciting body, is invariably a substance in an active state of decomposition. Its particles are therefore in a state of motion; and this motion, being communicated to those of the body to be metamorphosed, is sufficient to overturn their very unstable equilibrium, and to cause the formation of new and more stable compounds. The more complex the original compound, the more easily does it undergo metamorphosis. The Professor has produced, in support of this doctrine, an extraordinary number of facts, and has, by strict induction from these, demonstrated it almost mathematically.

eye brightened and his form expanded at the thought of again encountering his old enemies. He moved backwards and forwards repeating his favourite harangue- Dan, dan, tan ra ar nélié, potred,-which, for aught we know to the contrary, may equal Henri de Larochejaquelein's famous address, or Up, Guards, and at them!

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The battle began by a close and unexpected fire upon the part of the line in which the students were posted. The Blues were concealed by the nature of the ground, and suffered their opponents to approach within pistol-shot before they fired. The student who commanded the advanced guard, though he had received a severe wound and saw his friends falling round him, continued to give his orders, leaning on his carbine, with a coolness which inspired his little party with fresh confidence, and they gallantly returned the fire. Gamber and the other leaders hastened to take part in the combat, which raged with great fury for about twenty minutes. The younger Cadoudal (the son of George) was seen fighting at the head of his division with no other weapon than a club, and, as none of the royalists had above ten or a dozen cartridges at the utmost, they were all obliged to come to close quarters without delay. Determined not to throw away a shot, they rushed up to the very teeth of their enemies, and seldom fired till their muskets were on the point of crossing. This desperate mode of fighting confounded the Blues, who at length gave way; but the conquerors were too much crippled to follow up the victory, and most of those who attempted a pursuit were checked by the wish to possess themselves of the muskets and cartridge-boxes of the slain. As for old Gamber, his strength failed after a quarter of an hour's chase, and he was found seated on a rising ground, with feet. naked, breast bare, and face inundated with perspiration and tears of rage, groaning over the impotence to which his infirmities had reduced him, and hardly capable of being consoled by the victory. The General of the Blues was taken, and expected to be put to death immediately. On his tremblingly asking Cadoudal what they intended to do with him- There is only one thing for us to do,' was the reply to send you home; but tell me frankly, if you had been the conquerors, would have treated us in the same manner?' you It was my intention,' rejoined the other, casting down his eyes-but I dare not say it would have been in my power.' His wounds were dressed with the greatest care by the Chevalier de Margadel, who only so far indulged his triumph as to repeat these verses from Alzire:

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'Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence:
Les tiens t'ont commandé le meurtre et la vengeance;
Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m'assassiner,
M'ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.'

Their next step was to repair to the neighbouring chapel of Saint Anne to offer up a thanksgiving for their victory, and obtain a renewed absolution from their sins. The manner in which this proceeding was viewed by their prisoners calls forth the following just reflection from M. Rio:

'More than one bourgeois philosophe (a character occasionally not less comic than the bourgeois gentilhomme) believes he adds something to his small stature by loudly expressing the contempt all these acts of popular piety inspire in him, and hardly regards as his equal the credulous countryman who goes to demand of God, by an intercession deemed all-powerful, the strength necessary to endure wretchedness and pardon injuries. There were many of these reasoners amongst our captives, and we could not help feeling a malicious pleasure at seeing the amazement into which they were thrown by our to them incomprehensible generosity.'

This spirit of piety, which had made the Vendéans so long invincible, was afterwards neglected by the Chouan leaders. The peasants were more than once shocked by being compelled to march on a day set apart for the services of religion, and M. Rio complains that their only attendant chaplain was a kind of Friar Tuck, who threatened all who talked to him of confession before a battle with the handle of his umbrella or his fist, and, with a bottle of brandy in one pocket to balance the breviary in the other, was constantly calling attention to his exclusive preference for the bottle.

After a short time spent in collecting arms, it was resolved to attack the town of Redon. The students requested to be allowed to form the advance-guard, but the perilous honour was refused to them, on the ground that the young blood destined to recruit the priesthood should be spared. They were notwithstanding the first to enter the place amidst a shower of balls from the houses, upon which the main body of the defenders retreated to the tower. The horrors of the ensuing night are thus portrayed by M. Rio:

'During the whole of this long night the intervals of silence were short and rare. Although we were under cover from their shots, they kept firing in all directions wherever the light and the noise led them to suppose that there were Chouans. Sometimes they appeared to agree to fire together, and then the tower and town-hall were momentarily lighted up like furnaces in the midst of darkness, and we roused ourselves with a bound at the sound of these terrible explosions, which we took for the prelude of a sally, and we cried "To arms!" and this cry,

repeated

repeated by our patrols, reaching to a distance in the obscurity, came to interrupt the repast of some, the prayer or the sleep of others; in the uncertainty whether the danger approached from within or from without, whether the matter in hand was to repulse the garrison, or make head against a reinforcement from Nantes or Rennes, our people ran at all risks towards the spot where there was most noise-made their way as they best might across dark and cumbered streets, provoking the cries and threats of those who were bearing the litters of the wounded—then, when the alarm was over, the sleepers and eaters resumed their occupation with so much the more ease from its being generally the bare pavement which served both for bed and table.'

The corps of Gamber slept in their ranks in the main street, sitting back to back with their muskets between their legs. When morning dawned it was found necessary to evacuate the town, the students, with Gamber, gallantly bringing up the rear. They ascertained afterwards that the garrison of the tower could not have held out many hours longer for want of water. Instead of harassing the Chouans in their retreat, their first step was to throw themselves all black and panting into the river.

This check had the usual effect of sowing discontent and dissension amongst the unsuccessful party, who loudly accused their General of incapacity-not without reason, for his former sufferings in the cause had fairly worn him out, and he was both bodily and mentally effete. All their hopes were now fixed on the speedy arrival of a vessel laden with arms and ammunition that had been promised, and they were drawing towards the coast to cover the disembarkation, when their courage was put to the proof under circumstances which might have shaken the stoutest

veterans.

Separated from the enemy by a river, they were dispersed through a village and asleep, when a sudden attempt was made to get at them across a bridge. Cadoudal was instantly on the spot with five or six of his best men, and succeeded in checking the advance till the rest of the troops, including the students, had got under arms, but their situation was still precarious in the extreme. Gamber was at some distance with his battalion, and, though Cadoudal might succeed in making good the defence of the bridge first attempted, there was another at a short distance by which the position might be turned. This post was assigned to the students, and they had not been two minutes upon the ground when the cannon-balls began to fall amongst them. By way of keeping up their spirits, a lad named Le Thiée, the bard of the party, struck up a song of defiance

'Si jamais le fer d'une lance

Me frappe au milieu des combats,

Je chanterai-'

There

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