utmost liberality, and Fourcroy was one of the first professors; as he was also in the school of medicine, and the polytechnie school. He was equally concerned in the restoration of the university, which constitutes the most splendid part of Bonaparte's reign, and the part which will be longest remembered with gratitude and applause.

The violent exertions which M. de Fourcroy made in the numerous situations which he filled, and the prodigious activity which he displayed, gradually undermined his constitution. He himself was sensible of his approaching death, and announced it to his friends as an event which would speedily take place. On the 16th of December, 1809, after signing some despatches, he suddenly cried out, Je suis mort, and dropt lifeless on the ground.

He was twice married: first to Mademoiselle Bettinger, by whom he had two children; a son, an officer in the artillery, who inherits his title; and a daughter, Madame Foucaud. He was married a second time to Madame Belleville, the widow of Vailly, by whom he had no family. He left but little fortune behind him; and two maiden sisters who lived with him, depended, for their support, upon his friend M. Vauquelin.

The character of M. de Fourcroy is sufficiently obvious. It was exactly fitted to the country in which he lived, and the revolutionary government, in the midst of which he was destined to finish his career. Vanity was his ruling passion, and the master spring of all his actions. It was the source of all the happiness, and of all the misery of his life; for every attack, from what quarter soever it proceeded, was felt by him with equal acuteness. The sneer of the most ignorant pretender, or the most obscure paper, affected him just as much as if it had proceeded from the most profound philosopher. It is needless to observe, after this, how much he must have suffered from the various parties into which the French chymists divided themselves: all of which were more or less hostile to him, excepting the one which he himself headed. His occupations were too numerous, and his elocution too ready, to put it in his power either to make profound discoveries, or to compose treatises of great depth or originality. The changes which took place in the science of chymistry were brought about by others, who were placed in a different situation, and endowed with different talents: but no man contributed so much as Fourcroy to the popularity of the Lavoisierian opinions, and the rapidity with which they were propagated over France, and most countries in Europe. His eloquence drew crowds to hear him, and persuaded his audience to embrace his opinions.

He must have possessed an uncommon facility in writing, for his literary labours are exceedingly numerous. Besides those essays which have been already noticed, he published five edi

tions of his System of Chymistry, each of them gradually in creasing in size and value; the first edition being in two volumes, and the fifth in ten. This last edition he wrote in 16 months. It contains a vast quantity of valuable matter, and contributed considerably to the general diffusion of chymical knowledge. Its fault is the diffuseness of the style, and the want of correct references. The readers of Fourcroy's system would suppose that all the discoveries in chymistry have been made by the French, and that other nations have contributed comparatively little to the stock of chymical knowledge; whereas, in reality, the very opposite is the truth. A much greater number of important chymical discoveries have been made in Britain than in France; and the British chymists have contributed prodigiously to the raising of that beautiful fabric which we at present admire.

Perhaps the best of all Fourcroy's productions is his Philosophy of Chymistry, which is remarkable for its conciseness, its perspicuity, and the neatness of its arrangement.

Besides these works, and the periodical work called Le Medicin Eclairé, of which he was the editor, there are above 160 papers on chymical subjects, with his name attached to them as the author, which appeared in the Memoirs of the Academy of the Institute, in the Annales de Chimie, or the Annales de Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, of which last work he was the original projector. As in most of these papers the name of Vauquelin is associated with his own, as the author, and as during the publication of those which appeared with his own name alone, Vauquelin was the operator in his laboratory, it is not possible to determine what part of the experiments were made by Fourcroy, and what by Vauquelin; but there is one merit, at least, which cannot be refused Fourcroy, and it is no small one. He formed and brought forwards Vauquelin, and proved to him ever afterwards a most steady and indefatigable friend. This is bestowing no small panegyric on his character; for it would have been impossible to have retained such a friend through all the horrors of the French revo lution, if his own qualities had not been such as to merit so steady an attachment. I have taken no notice of the labours of M. de Fourcroy in the chymical part of the Encyclopedie Methodique, though they are rather voluminous, because I conceive them of inferior importance to those which I have noticed.

AN ANCIENT TRADITION,

Relative to the effigy of an armed knight, recumbent upon a tomb-stone, in the Church of Tolleshunt Knights, Essex.

[From the Sporting Magazine.]

A LEARNED doctor of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, some few years since, presented the world with a pamphlet, setting forth the actual operation of a miraculous cure, at the well of Saint Winifred, in Wales; let us see whether we also cannot perform something in the miraculous line, for the amusement at least, if not for either the instruction or conversion, of our readers; always duly acknowledging our inferiority to his reverence above quoted, in that our miracle is of the ancient, his of the modern stamp; with the reserve, however, of whether such accident may or may not be deemed a mark of inferiority.

Some few years of my early life were spent in the vicinity of the ancient parish of Tolleshunt Knights, or, as it is locally and vulgarly called, Tolleshunt Bushes, in the county of Essex, a few miles N. E. of the town of Malden. That parish, together with its immediate neighbour, Tolleshunt Darcey, formed a part of the patrimony of the noble family of D'Arcey. My childish curiosity was powerfully attracted by the little church of Tolleshunt Knights, with its wooden steeple and three candlestick bells; by its lonely sequestered situation, but still more by a tomb of soft chalky stone, within side the church, and in juxtaposition to, if I recollect rightly at this distance of time, the northern wall. Upon this tomb, recumbent at full length, frowned an armed hero of our iron age. At his feet were two canine figures, somewhat defaced by time, or sacrilegious and boorish hands. The whole appeared then, namely, about one-and-fifty years ago, to have just received the benefit of a modern white-washing. The old tradition respecting this hero, to which I repeatedly listened among the tales of the evening, strongly interested my attention, and I well recollect the traces of that kind of impression which it made upon my mind, such as to excite these opposite cogitations-could such a tale possibly be fact, or could it possibly be related without any ground of fact? It was indeed, at that time, in full currency among all the old women and children of the parish; doubtless honoured with entire credence by some, as well as other ancient fables, and half, believed by all. The wonderful feats achieved by this heroic and self-devoted victim of patriotism, had been handed down from VOL. II. New Series:

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the primitive age in which they were performed, and the relation runs as follows:

Once upon a time, there existed a great dispute among certain proprietors, as to the particular spot where a manor house, to be called Barn Hall, afterwards situated where a house of that name at present actually stands, within four or five miles of the little church of Tolleshunt Knights, should be built. Its erection, it seems, was attempted in the neighbourhood of the church, but, for some supernatural reasons, which customarily in these cases are not always assigned, as fast as either the foundation was laid, or the walls run up by day, the whole was, with equal certainty, torn up, or pulled down, and carried clean away, by night. This nightly operation, too, was attended by portentous and frightful noises, and appalling sights, heard and seen, or not, yet related and believed, and great dismay fell upon all the parish. No doubt but these sights were too tremendous to be witnessed by any but those by whom it was proper they should be seen; and it is well known, that upon all such solemn occasions, there are such people. At length, one man generously offered to take upon himself the consequences, be whatever they might, of his neighbours' misfortunes or errors. And this scape-goat hero, suffering his neighbours to retire quietly to their beds, at night-fall boldly marched to the dreadful spot, armed cap-a-pie, and attended only by his two faithful spayed bitches. About twelve o'clock at night, the moon and stars suddenly retired behind the scenery of black clouds, as if to get out of harm's way; the lightning flashed incessantly; the thunder growled minute guns; the winds rattled, with all the usual accompaniments in such a concert, when, in a furious whirlwind, up arose the devil! When two game cocks meet a battle is inevitable; and in natural conformity, the devil and the knight instantly set to, and surely enough a dreadful combat there was, although no bottle-holder, or second, or other living soul of a spectator was at hand, to see or hear, or take note of the rounds, the devil, the knight, and the two spayed bitches aforesaid, only excepted. But witnesses are quite unnecessary in far more important similar relations. After a round of five minutes' hard fighting, in which each combatant stood up to his man without flinching, or attempting the indulgence of a fall, the devil, quite blown, made a full stop, and resting upon the immense infernal club with which he was armed, (I really imagined I saw the battle and heard the dialogue, so well were they related to me,) thus catechised the valorous knight, his antagonist-"Who helped you?" To this the wary and religious knight made answer, "God and myself, and my two spayed bitches." In an instant to it again they went, ding dong, but in five minutes more the well-lathered and jaded devil made another

full stop, and, supporting himself upon his club, bellowed out, "Who helped you?" The religious knight again replied, " God and myself, and my two spayed bitches. After the third setto, according to my informants, more terrible than either of the other, for both knight and devil, it seems, had rare plucks, the usual pause was made, and question asked; but whether from the power of original sin in the knight, or that he had, after all, a white feather in his wing, or from whatever error or backsliding it might happen, he made the fatal blunder to answer, "myself and God, and my two spayed bitches"-putting himself before God! The learned reader, recollecting the necessarily fatal consequences of such a slip in the knight, will not be at all surprised, that from the moment, his ghostly enemy had full power over him, soul, body, goods and chattels, including his two spayed bitches. Satan, then, rolling his goggle eyes, belching forth fire and flames from his mouth and nostrils, and lashing his infernal flanks with his tail, thundered out a roar, which shook all the neighbouring lands, and waked all the good people out of their first sleep. The poor recreant knight was, at the next moment, discomfited and slain; when, striding over his fallen enemy, the victorious devil exclaimed, with a voice which shook air, earth, and hell," be you buried by land or by sea, in church or churchyard, I will have you." Then seizing his club, he threw it five miles, saying, wherever you drop, there Barn Hall shall be built.. And behold it came to pass that Barn Hall was built upon the very spot on which the infernal club alighted, and the said club became the main beam of the house. Things thus far settled, with the becoming resignation of the people, it became next an inquiry in what manner to dispose of the body of the fallen knight, so that it might be preserved safe from the claws of Satan; when it was proposed by a sagacious elder, skilled in cheating the devil, to bury it in the church wall, contiguous to which I found its representative, in such armour as no doubt he fought, and his two spayed bitches at his feet.

I recollect, however, some discrepancy in the above relation, as so commonly happens in ancient traditions. It is often the case after a poor man's death, and sometimes before, that he has swallowed the three black crows, as Smollett well knew. And many persons supposed the story to be relative to building the church itself, instead of the manor house, a supposition which, true or false, can have little effect upon the great truths of the combat.

The real ground of the tradition, at last, may be, that in some midnight period of the feudal ages, when landmarks were uncertain, and property insecure, some powerful persons had an interest to prevent a house or church being erected on a certain spot, and