which may prove prejudicial to health. Hence it loses all the advantages which I have in the preceding pages ascribed to water; and it would in this case be much better to drink beer or any other such beverage that is saturated with nutritive particles rather than impure water. We must leave the stomachs of camels to answer for the preference given by them to muddy water; for we are assured by Shaw, that these animals stir it up with their feet and render it turbid before they drink. The human economy requires, on the contrary, a pure beverage. The signs of good water are, that it easily becomes hot and cold; that in summer it is cool, and in winter slightly lukewarm; that a drop dried on a clean cloth leaves not the faintest stain behind; and that it has neither taste nor smell. It is also a sign of good water, that when it is boiled it becomes hot, and afterwards grows cold, sooner than other water. But this sign is far more fallible than the evidence of the quality of water obtained by feeling. Singular as this may sound, it is very possible to distinguish the properties of water by means of this sense. A soft or a hard water is synonymous with a water the parts of which adhere slightly or closely together. The slighter their adhesion, the less they resist the feeling, and the less sensible they are to the hand, because they may be so much the more easily separated. A gentleman of my acquaintance has for many years used two different sorts of water, which are equally pure and limpid, the one for drinking and the other for washing his hands and face. If his servant ever happens to bring the wrong water for washing, he instantly discovers the mistake by the feeling. Our cooks and washerwomen would be able to furnish many other instances of the faculty of discriminating the properties of water by the touch, which would show that his faculties depends more on the excitement occa sioned in the sensible parts than on any other cause. Hard water, for instance, makes the skin rough; soft, on the contrary, renders it smooth. The former cannot sufficiently soften flesh or vege51 ATHENEUM VOL. 14.-. tables; the latter readily produces this effect. The difference of the extraneous matters, which change the qualities of water, naturally makes a different impression on the feeling; and in this there is nothing that ought to astonish a person of reflection. The water of standing pools and wells is in general extremely impure, and is accounted the worst of all. River water differs according to the variety of the soil over which it runs, and the changes of the weather; but though commonly drunk, it is never pure. Of all impure river-waters, those which abound in earthy particles alone are the least injurious, because those particles are not dissolved by the water. In Auvergne, near the villages of St. Allire and Clermont, there is a stream of a petrifying quality, which constructs of itself large bridges of stone, and yet it is the only water drunk by the inhabitants of those places, and that without the slightest inconvenience. If we consider that a stony concretion is deposited in all our kettles, we shall readily conceive, that a water which carries stone along with it cannot be very pernicious to health, since it is constantly drunk by men and animals. This stone in our kettles is really a calcareous earth, which may be dissolved by boiling in them vinegar, or water mixed with a small quantity of nitric acid; and as the water deposits it, and does not hold it in solution, it can of course do us very little injury. I cannot, therefore, imagine how the celebrated Dr. Mead could believe that water which leaves such a deposit in culinary vessels may occasion stone in the kidneys or bladder, merely because Pliny has said so; though he was well acquainted with the great difference between animal calculi and mere calcareous earth. Next to well and river-water, both which are always impure, rain-water follows in the scale of preference. It is very impure, and a real vehicle, for all the pernicious matters that are continually floating in the atmosphere. Snow-water is much purer. Snow is formed of vapours which have been frozen before they could collect into drops. It is in the lower region of the air that these drops in falling absorb most of their impurities. The vapours floating in the upper atmosphere freeze before they reach the mire of the lower. This water is seldom to be had. That which I would most strongly recommend for drinking, is a springwater, which descends from lofty hills, through flints and pure sand, and rolls gently along over a similar bed or rocks. Such water leaves behind all its course impurities in the sand; it is a purified rain and snow-water, a fluid crystal, a real cordial, and the best beverage for persons in good health. The second condition which I attach to water-drinking is, that such persons only choose it for their constant beverage, to whom warming, strengthening and nutritive liquids are hurtful; and that if they have not been in the habit of drinking it from their youth, they use some caution in accustoming themselves to it. Many suffer themselves to be led away by the panegyrists of water, without considering that even good changes in the system of life, when a person is not accustomed to them, and when they are abruptly and unseasonably adopted, may be productive of great mischief. Hence arises the silly complaints that water-drinking is dangerous, pernicious, nay fatal, and the inapplicable cases quoted from experience. Those who have been in the habit of drinking water from their youth, cannot choose a more wholesome beverage, if the water be but pure. Many nations, and many thousand more species of animals, have lived well upon it. But for an old infirm person, a living skeleton, with a weak stomach that can scarcely bear solid food, to exchange nourishing beer or strengthening wine, with the water of his brook, would be the height of absurdity. Let such adhere to their accustomed drink. Water is an excellent beverage, but beer too is good; it is also water, more nutritious than the pure element, and therefore more suitable for the persons to whom I am alluding. The third condition which I require of my water-drinkers is-that they fake cold and not hot water for their habitual beverage. I mean not to prohibit their boiling or distilling it if they suspect it to be impure. Boyle drank nothing but such distilled water, and most delicate people of good taste in Italy still do the same. It must not, however, be drunk warm, but cold. The ancients, it is true, drank hot water. Various passages in Plautus and other ancient writers clearly prove that so early as their times it was customary to drink the water of warm springs; and there are frequent instances of common water warmed. Thus, in Dio, we find Drusus, the son of Tiberius, commanding warm water to be given to the people, who asked for water to quench their thirst at a fire which had broken out. Seneca says (De Ira, ii. 15,) that a man ought not to fly into a passion with his servant, if he should not bring his water for drinking so quickly as he could wish; or if it should not be hot enough, but only lukewarm; and Arrian says the same thing, but more circumstantially. The drinking of hot water must of coarse have been a common practice with the Greeks and Romans; but it should be observed, that even in their times it was held to be an effeminate indulgence of voluptuaries. Stratonicus calls the Rhodians "pampered voluptuaries who drink warm liquors." Claudius, when he attempted to im prove the morals of the people and to check luxury at Rome, prohibited the public sale of hot water. When on the death of the sister of the Emperor Gaius, he had enjoined mourning in the city of Rome on account of this, to him, exceedingly painful loss, he put to death a man who had sold hot water, for this very reason, because he had thereby given occasion for voluptuousness, and profaned the mourning. So dangerous an indulgence was the drinking of hot water considered, that the trade of water-sellers was interdicted by the Censors. Some writers publicly satirized this species of voluptuousness. Ammianus complains that in his time servants were not punished for great vices and misdemeanours, but that three hundred stripes were given them, if they brought the warm beverage either not promptly enough or not hot enough: and from that passage of Martial's in which he says, that at entertainments the host was accustomed to pay particular attention that during the feast there should be an abundant supply of hot water, it appears that this beverage was an essential requisite at the tables of the luxurious. (New Mon. Dec.) THE LOST PLEIAD.* AND is there glory from the Heavens departed? Though from its rank thine orb so long hath started, No desert seems to part those urns of light, To them the Sailor's wakeful eye is turning ; -Unchanged they rise, they have not mourn'd for thee! Wert thou not peopled by some glorious race, When from its height afar, A world sinks thus! and yon majestic Heaven ON LIEUTENANT HOOD.† THE Briton lies low on a wreath of snow, From his Island home afar, And the bright ice sheets and the wild storm sleets He had spread his sail to the Arctic gale, Where the flinty North sends its terrors forth, Where the insect that plays in the short summer rays There long had he been, and with wonder seen And flash through the night in his radiance bright And the north lights had shed on his hardy head "Like the lost pleiad seen no more below." Lord Byron. ↑ See Captain Franklin's Narrative of his Journey to the Polar Sea. Ath. vol. xiii. p. 296.336. Insects, such as spiders and others, are frozen hard during the Polar winters, and may be thrown about like stones without injury. On being brought to a fire, they recover animation, and move their limbs as actively as in the summer-season. And his task was o'er, and he sought the shore- And his bold heart burn'd, as he homeward turn'd And cheerful he past over antres vast, While the deep snow hid the ground, At night 'twas his bed, and pillow'd his head But the famine came, and he dragg'd his frame, Over morass and stone of that frozen zone, To his cold log hut to die. They have laid him there in their hearts' despair, Where alone the sky with blue canopy Covers the bold heart low, Where no breath is heard-where no wing of bird Where the softest sound is a thunder-bound Oh there he is laid!--but no time shall shade Though the life of the brave may set dark in the grave' Original Anecdotes, Literary News, Chit Chat, Incidents, &c. MADAME D'HOUDETOT. (ROUSSEAU's HELOISA.) MR. EDITOR,An interesting article on the above named Lady having appeared in the third number of "The Liberal," perhaps the following additional particulars may not prove unacceptable to your numerous readers :— Madame la Comtesse d'Houdetot, who, though plain in person, and more than thirty years old when first seen by Jean Jacques Rousseau, excited by the charms of her conversation, and the fascination of her manner, the admiration of that eccentric being, retained to a very advanced period of life her peculiar talent of pleasing and delighting all who approached her. After the signature of the preliminaries of peace in 1801, I spent some months in France, and had frequent opportunities of seeing this lady, and partaking of her hospitality, both at Paris and at her villa in the valley of Montmorency. At both those places, though then nearly eighty years old, she collected around her a circle formed of persons most eminent for literary reputation; among whom it will be sufficient to name Abbe Morelet, Mons. and Madame Pastoret, Mons. and Madame Suard, the Marquis de Bonay, and Madame la Comtesse de Flahot, author of Charles et Marie, and other popular novels. Madame d'Houdetot was herself not the least distinguished of her society; and her bon mots, her epigrams, and her repartecs, were the delight of her guests; while her habitual sweetness of temper, amenity and cheerful spirits,gave a constant charm to her evening coteries. M. St. Lambert, the object of her early attachment, and for whom she resisted the eloquence and assiduity of Rousseau, was, when I had the honour of knowing Madame d'Houdetot, an inmate in the family, which then presented a scene very singular indeed to the eye of an Englishman. M. St. Lambert had fallen into a state of mental imbecility, bordering on idiotcy, and with the capriciousness often remarked in persons labouring under such calamities, had taken an antipathy to Madame d'Iloudetot, whose un wearied attentions he received in the most ungracious manner, while he was, on the contrary, delighted with those of her husband, who, on his part, with a generosity truly French, offered every possible mark of kindness to his afflicted guest. At Madame d'Houdetot's parties the letters of La Nouvelle Heloise were frequently made the subject of conversation; and I recollect very well, on an English lady observing how dangerously seductive was the language of those epistles-"What would you have thought,” replied Madame d'Houdetot with a smile of self-approbation, "if you had known, as I did, that these letters, tho' nominally addressed to Julie were meant for yourself?" It was the rare good fortune of this lady, who was more than ninety years of age at the time of her death, to continue till the last moment surrounded by friends and relations of the former I have already spoken, perhaps the following account of her immediate relations may not be uninteresting. Madame d'Houdetot's only son, who survives her, was already a field officer when the French Revolution burst forth. Though a member of the ancient Aristocracy he did not emigrate, but, remaining in the service, was a general under Napoleon, and had a command at Martinique when that island was captured by the British forces. He was conveyed to England, and resided several years at Litchfield on his parole. While he was so detained, it is creditable to the present Marquis of Lansdown to state, that his Lordship, who had known his mother at Paris, made every possible exertion to procure the liberation of the general: he failed in the attempt: and, after a long captivity, Count d'Houdetot did not return to Paris till nearly the conclusion of the last war. His son was, during the imperial government, Prefect of Brussels; and his daughter married the Baron de Barante, one of the most eloquent speakers in the present French House of Peers. Besides M. D'Epinay, Madame d'Houdetot had another brother, who held the office of Introducteur des Am bassadeurs in the reign of Louis XVI., and his widow is that Madame de la Briche whose Sunday soirees are mentioned by Lady Morgan, and other travellers, as affording the best specimen of literary and fashionable society in the French Capitol. The only child of Mons. and Madame de la Briche,-and therefore the grand-niece of Madame d'Houdetot,-is now the wife of Count Molé, the descendant of the celebrated President of that name, Grand Judge under Napoleon, some time Minister of Marine under Louis XVIII., and one of the most distinguished members of the French Peerage. Perhaps I ought to apologize for having troubled you with so long an account of this lady's family, but as the celebrity of Rousseau gave her importance, so her own many amiable qualities will excite a wish in those who become acquainted with her history to know something of the society in which she closed the evening of her lengthened life. I remain, Sir, &c. A TRAVELLER. DRAMATIC COSTUME. priests, the beaux, the clowns, the serving-men, and all the inexhaustible progeny of Shakspeare's drawing, represented upon the Stage "in their habits as they lived." We are all aware of the vast services done to the drama in this respect by the late Mr. Kemble; and we know how attentive they are to propriety of dress and decoration with regard to the most classical performances in the leading Parisian theatres. But still many anachronisms of the grossest kind, and anomalies of the strangest absurdity, remain to be reformed; and if the task is fairly, liberally, and diligently undertaken, it will undoubtedly be productive of an effect, the extraordinary attractions of which can hardly be sufficiently anticipated. For, besides the great merit of verisimilitude and truth, impressing interesting historical lessons, and explaining many passages which bear reference to the dresses of the characters; the various costumes of these distant times are in themselves exquisitely adapted for dramatic show and picturesque grouping. Every one acknowledges the advantage of having Brutus played in a Roman garb instead of an old Colonel's uniform, and Macbeth in tartan and mail instead of a wig and laced waistcoat; but we have yet to appreciate the, if possible, greater, and at any rate more refined amelioration of the drama, which would be effected by giving us the genuine costume of the Tudors (for instance) in their warlike days, unmingled with that of the sixteenth or seventeenth century up--a British king with perhaps Spanish officers, and all those queer medleys which the wardrobes of our theatres now so invariably exhibit. There has been shown to us the prospectus of a Work on Dramatic Costume, designed from good authorities, and (it is proposed) to be acted upon by the Managers of Covent Garden Theatre, which we cannot but esteem as a promise of the most essential improvement to our national Stage. Viewing it in this light, we shall beg leave to offer a few more remarks on the subject than we are in the practice of bestowing upon bare announce ments. The publication is by Mr. J. R. Planché, and the tragedy of King John is the first selected for this species of graphic illustration. The drawings whence the plates are to be executed, represent the various characters in their real and appropriate costume, as ascertained by references to ancient and contemporary writers, to monuments, to old portraits, and to other data of an unquestionable authenticity. The same being adopted by the theatre (as we learn is intended,) the audience will indeed be enabled to see the kings and queens, the knights and ladies, the Should Mr. C. Kemble, as it is stated in this Prospectus, commence the reformation, of which it is farther stated he highly approves, and if Mr. Planché employs due research and skill upon his part, we are convinced that an epoch will be made in the history of the Stage, which will equally redound to the profit and honour of those by whom it is introduced. We have only to add, that the Drawings are on a small scale, about four inches in length, but they display both |