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human race with a larynx thus formed, become capable, by long practice, both of copying the sounds of animals, and of imitating to a nicety the voices of their fellow men. Such a power of voice is indeed possessed by some individuals, that they shall be capable of so modifying it as to give to hearers the perception of its issuing from a different part from that whence it is actually emitted. This faculty, which from an erroneous notion has been vulgarly named ventriloquism, has not yet received a satisfactory exposition; it seems to require the combined existence of a nicety of ear, with a particular construction of the vocal organs. Dr. Good suggests, that those who learn this art with facility, and practise it and carry it to perfection, possess some peculiarity in the structure of the glottis, and particularly in respect to its muscles or cartilages. Ventriloquism is said by some to consist in the power of speaking during inspiration.

The pulmonary portion of the vocal and respiratory organization has, in respect to its economy and uses, been the subject of especial attention from the earliest times. Antecedent to birth, the whole of this wonderful machinery may be considered as at rest. Inspiration, however, is coeval with birth, and the air which then presses forcibly on every side of the body, presses likewise through the mouth and nostrils upon the upper part of the trachea.

The motive powers of expansion, and which are afterwards those of expiration, are immediately stimulated into action; the ribs rise by the agency of the intercostal muscles, and the chest becomes elevated; the diaphragm, whose broad and muscular septum divides the thorax from the abdomen, sinks from instinctive sympathy towards the viscera beneath, and the chest becomes deepened; and into the dilated vacuum hereby produced, the external air rushes forciby by the trachea; and by inflating the lungs to the full stretch of their elasticity, compresses all the surrounding organs. Yet as the force with which the air operates is very considerably, perhaps as much as three hundred times less than that of the heart when stimulated to contract, the blood, instead of being hereby impeded in its course through the pulmonary vessels, flows far more freely, and dilates these vessels by its plenitude, as they are already necessarily elongated by the expansion of the lungs; and the heart in this manner becomes liberated from a load, which, if it were to remain in its cavity, would oppress it, and put a stop to its action. And hence we behold, at once, the important connexion that exists between the sanguiferous and the respiratory systems, and how much the soundness of the one must depend upon that of the other.'

The change in colour and properties that the blood undergoes, in consequence of exposure to the air in the lungs,

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however remarkable or important, is still, with respect to its actual nature, in some sense, obscure. We find blood returned from lungs, spirited with newness of life; perfect ' in its elaboration, more readily disposed to coagulate, and'the deep purple hue here transformed into a bright scarlet.' What has the blood hereby lost? How has this wonderful change been accomplished?

At every inspiration, according to some experiments of Sir H. Davy, about thirteen cubic inches of air are taken in, and twelve and three-quarters are thrown out. The average number of inspirations is about twenty-six or twenty-seven in a minute. The thirteen cubic inches of inspired air contain. nine and a half of nitrogene, three and four-tenths of oxy-: gene, and one-tenth of an inch of carbonic acid: the twelve inches and three-quarters of returned air give nine and threetenths of nitrogene, two and two-tenths of oxygene, and one and two-tenths of carbonic acid. Subsequent experiments have not been able to detect the retention of any portion of the inspired nitrogene; and Mr. Ellis has endeavoured to prove, that even the oxygene which disappears, is not received into the blood-vessels of the lungs, but is converted into carbonic acid gas in their air-cells, by combining with the carbon of the blood secreted through the means of the pulmonary exhalents. This secretion of carbon is common to plants as well as to animals, and Mr. Ellis maintains, that there exists no proof of carbonic acid, or indeed of any other aëriform fluid, being present naturally in the blood.

These experiments and inferences of Mr. Ellis, with other observations and particulars, have served very materially to lessen the credit of Dr. Crawford's, and M. Lavoisier's hypothesis respecting the colour of the blood, and the source of animal heat. By these philosophers it was announced, (and much medical theory was immediately erected on the foundation,) that the darker hue of the blood, when it reaches the lungs to be expired, was owing to an excess of carbon, which it gave out by the respiratory process, and gained oxygene in its stead; that hence was the colour of the blood changed, and animal heat generated; this last being supposed to be disengaged from the inspired air by the laws of altered capaci

ties.

Both the primary cause of the blood's red colour and the source of animal heat still remain then sub judice; and indeed, the actual existence of heat as a substantive essence, is so far from being proved, that to this day some contend (and support their assumption with much that is not easily answer

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able) that heat is merely the result of a certain kind of corpuscular motion.

It should seem, however, that Mr. Ellis has, at any rate, been too precipitate in inferring the non-existence of gas, in a free state, in the blood; and he has, moreover, failed of absolutely proving the non-absorption of oxygene through the membraneous air-cells of the lungs. Indeed, some more recent experiments of French physiologists rather accord in their results with those above adverted to of Sir H. Davy, and shew that, in the act of respiration, there is a little more carbonic acid gas than oxygene consumed.

In respect to disordered conditions of the respiratory function Dr. Good has, we think, been especially happy on the subject of asthma. While he allows to the celebrated treatise of Dr. Bree the merit of much ingenuity as well as elaborate research, he combats some of the principles it inculcates, with much of pathological acumen, and in the best spirit of candid controversy.

(To be concluded in the next Number.)

Art. II. Remains of the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, A.B. Curate of Donoughmore, Diocese of Armagh, with a brief Memoir of his Life. By the Rev. John A. Russell, M. A. &c. 2 vols. 12mo. Price 10s. Dublin. 1825.

THE

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HE admirable person whose remains are here given to the public, would probably never have been heard of by the world, had it not been for a poem which first appeared in the Newry Telegraph, without the Author's concurrence, with the initials C. W., and which was afterwards copied into most of the London prints. That poem (most of our readers will know that we allude to the Ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore) attracted the attention of Lord Byron, who by no means over-praised it, when he pronounced it to be little inferior to the best which the present prolific age has brought 'forth.' It remained for a long time unclaimed; and in the mean while, several individuals,-among others, an anonymous contributor to Blackwood's infamous Magazine,-had the meanness to appropriate it as their own. Captain Medwin supposed it to have been written by Lord Byron himself. It is more like Campbell: it has his lyric spirit, but with more fire and less finish. It was the spontaneous effusion of the Author's genius in one of those fortunate moments of excitement, in which the impulse given to the mind by strong emotion sus

pends the consciousness of effort, and makes the result seem almost involuntary to the writer, while it stamps on the composition an undefinable character rarely attained by the utmost elaboration, and which is felt, rather than perceived. Such poems, with all their faults, are, we were going to say, by necessity what they are,-perfect with all their imperfections; the flaws are in the natural substance, the words seem burned into the verse, and cannot be shifted, and the whole partakes of the homogeneousness of a gem. In the poem in question, the sentiment is not all that could be wished its beauty consists in its being so perfectly martial, that one would have thought none but a soldier could have written it; and while he wrote it, the Author was a soldier, identified with his subject and the scene. This is the triumph of imagination,-sometimes, we admit, a dangerous one, for can it be safe ever to feel otherwise on all subjects, than as a Christian? But those feelings in a good man are perhaps seldom in more danger than when stirred by martial music. For the sake of those readers who may not have seen a correct copy of the stanzas, we must indulge ourselves in transcribing them.

• THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried ;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our Hero we buried.

• We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moon-beam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclos'd his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him ;
But he lay like a Warrior taking his rest—
With his martial cloak around him.

• Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gaz'd on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave' where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring
And we heard the distant and raudom gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

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Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we rais'd not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory!'

We have described this poem as the production of a fortu nate moment. Many such exquisite effusions are to be found in our fugitive poetry, the composition of nameless or obscure authors, in some instances the only offspring of the parent mind, in others the only successful effort,-because no second occasion ever occurred to give a like impulse to the thoughts, with leisure to obey the impulse, and because the writers, though possessed of the genuine enthusiasm of poetry, were not artists who could at pleasure manufacture their feelings into verse. But the other poetical compositions scattered over the first volume of these Remains, are highly interesting. In the following song, Mr. Wolfe has exquisitely rendered into words, his correct conception of the musical expression of Gramachree, the well known Irish air.

'SONG.

'If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;

But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be;
It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain!

But when I speak-thou dost not say,
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid
And now I feel, as well I may,

Sweet Mary!-thou art dead!

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