Is this the scene where Freedom's purest flame
Led toiling nations in the path of fame?
Their strife has ceas'd, their noise has died away,
Their very tombs are sinking in decay :
The sculptur'd monument, the marble bust,
Descend and mingle with their native dust;
No half-disfigured line remains to tell
How much lamented merit liv'd and fell.

Once lovely scene! along thy mould'ring piles
Tho' ruin frowns, yet beauty sadly smiles;
Some rays of former glory linger yet
In twilight radiance, thoʻthy sun is set.
But say, 0 say, who rightly may disclose
From what first cause thine infant greatness rose ;
Who first begun, by what contrivance plac'd,
These splendid piles amid a desert waste ?

One little stream,—around whose bubbling head
Umbrageous palms refreshing coolness shed,
First gave the cause from which their glory came,
Palmyra's strength, magnificence, and fame.
A thousand tribes, by distant commerce led,
Soon pour'd their treasures round that fountain-head;
Pass'd and repass'd through all the sandy plain,
From broad Euphrates to the western main,-
The rising mart to strength and splendour came,
Tho'small at first, and grew a mighty name.
Thence o'er the Roman world, with swelling sail,
Proud commerce sprung before the fresh’ning gale,
And Tyrian ships to ev'ry port convey'd
The boundless treasures of Assyrian trade,
E'en Rome herself, at sight of Eastern, gold,
Forgot the lessons taught her sons of old;
Plunged in the gulf of ostentatious pride,
She deeply drank the intoxicating tide;
Through ev'ry nerve the vital poison ran,
And Goths achiev'd what luxury began.

Thou Eden of the desert! lovely smild Thy matchless beauty o'er the lonely wild; 'Mid barten solitudes securely plac'd,

Thy native bulwark the surrounding waste,
Tho' loud and harsh the tumult roar'd without
Of Rome triumphant and the Parthian rout,
Peace o'er thy plains her downy pinions spread,
And twin'd the olive for thy blooming head;
Taste, learning, genius, triumph'd in her reign,
And guardian Freedom bless'd the sister train.
Thrice glorious Freedom ! on whose hallow'd shrine
Burns ever bright the patriot flame divine,
She, great preceptress, warm with heavenly fire,
Bade thy free sons to worthiest hopes aspire,
Live unsubdued, and equally disdain
To wear the victor's as the despot's chain.

Such were the souls that o'er the proud array
Of banner'd Persia scatter'd wild dismay.
Far in the East, with loud redoubled roll,
The tumult burst upon the tyrant's soul.
Confusion seiz'd his host, and pallid fright
Mark'd with disgrace his ignominious flight.

Then, lovely city, what rejoicings rose
What songs of triumph from thy palmy groves
What altars blaz'd-what clouds of incense rollid
Their rich perfume around thy sbrines of gold
What bursts of rapture echo'd from the throng
As the proud triumph slowly moved along.

Such was thy glory once! a transient gleam
Of brightest sunshine-a delusive dream.
Most like the pageant of thy festal day,
It charm'd a little while; then passed away.
Or like those varying tints of living light
That gild at eve the

portals of the night;
Alps pild on Alps, a glorious prospect rise,
Ten thousand phantoms skirt the glowing skies :
But as we gaze the splendid vision fades,
Lost in the

gloom of night's obscurer shades.
O doom'd to fall! while yet indulgent fate
A few bright years prolong's thy fleeting date,
Thy name shall triumph, and thy laurels bloom,
Ere yet they languish in sepulchral gloom.
And as the breathless pause that oft portends
The rising tempest ere the storm descends,
Thus at the close shall glory's loveliest light
Gild the dark clouds of thine approaching night,
For tho' the beams of truth's historic page
Bat faintly gleam through each successive age,
Tho' her recording annals briefly tell
How Tadmor rose, by what disaster fell,
One name at least survives the wreck of time,
From age to age extends, from clime to clime.

Oh! if departed glory claims a tear,
Let mem'ry pause, and kindly drop it here.
If fond reflection ever loves to dwell
On those last scenes where royal greatness fell,
Thy reign, Zenobia, and thy deathless name,
Shall live emblazon'd on the roll of fame ;
Adorn the poet's most romantic dream,
Fire all his soul, and be his moral theme.

At length drew nigh th' inexorable hour
Charg'd with the stroke of Rome's destroying pow'r;
In dread array along the Syrian coast
Mov'd the full strength of her invading host,
Wide o'er the champaign, like a baleful star,
Blaz'd the proud standard of imperial war;
Perch'd on the top, the bird of conquest shone,
With glittering wings expanded to the sun.

Yet all undaunted stood the warrior-queen,
Foremost and bravest in the battle-scene.
Quick at her word, fast binding man with man,
Through ev'ry rank electric vigour ran.
Not such the valour of the beauteous maid,
Whose conq’ring steel proud Ilion's fate delay'd;
Not such in arms the virgin warriors shone,
Who drank thy waters, limpid Thermodon.
Fair idol of the virtuous and the brave,
Great were thine efforts—but they could not save.
Twice on the plain the dubious conflict burn'd,
Twice to the charge the struggling hosts return'd,
Till at the close, where open

valour failid, Art won the day, and stratagem prevaild.

Thus the proud seat of science and of arms,
In the full promise of her rip’ning charms,
Palmyra fell!-art, glory, freedom shed
Their dying splendours round her sinking head.

Where was Zenobia then?-what inward pow'r
Ruld all her spirit in that awful hour?
Could Rome, fierce Rome, the fire of valour tame,
Shake the firm soul, or quench the patriot flame?
Say, when destruction, black’ning all the air,
Let loose the vulture-demons of despair,

On a Species of Earthy Matter spontaneously Combustible. 183

When Rome and havoc swept the sadd’ning plain,
And Tadmor fell, when valour toil'd in vain,
Did she not then the gath’ring tempest brave,
And with her country share one common grave?
Oh, sad reverse! what future fate befel
The captive queen-let deepest silence tell.
Ye who the faults of others mildly scan,
Who know perfection was not made for man,
In pity pause-o be not too severe,
But o'er Zenobia's weakness drop a tear.

Turn from the scene of her disastrous fate,
The wrongs that mark'd her last embitter'd state,
And see Longinus in his dying hour
Spurn the fierce Ruman, and defy his pow'r.
In vain the tyrant rollid his redd'ning eye,
It aw'd not him who trembled not to die.
To bis sad friends he breath'd a last farewell,
And Freedom triumph'd as her martyr fell.
Ilis daring soul, in death serenely great,
Smild on the scene, and glory'd in her fate,
Spread her glad wings, and steerd her flight sublime
Beyond the storms of nature and of time,

MODERN.

FROM THE EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL.

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On a Species of Earthy Matter spontaneously Combustible. By John

Murray, Esq. F. L. S., M. W. S., &c. &c. Communicated by the Author.

As you had the goodness to insert in a former number of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, the results of a chemical investigation of the properties of a liquid matter which I collected in the crater of Vesuvius, I have taken the liberty of submitting a description of a peculiar species of earthy matter, dug up at Ashleyhag, in the parish of Wirkswork, Derbyshire, which is remarkable for its spontaneous combustion. I have not been able to submit it to a very minute examination, but intend to do this when at leisure, and I may then have it in my power to send you a more rigorous analysis. This remarkable earthy matter was discovered about fifteen years ago, about six feet below the surface soil, by labourers engaged in “soughing” some land, situated on a declivity nearly at the base and S.W. side of Allpont, the greatest elevation in the south of Derbyshire. The following are the strata incumbent on this substance:

Surface soil, from 6 to 8 inches deep.
White clay,

2 feet thick.
Blue clay,

3 feet thick. Then proceeds,

The substance referred to, 3 feet thick. Underneath this is a stratum of lapideous matter, called by the people Toadstone, (amygdaloid,) but which is a simple aggregated mass or Breccia, composed of fragmented pieces of a dark red sandstone, agglutinated by peroxide of iron. The water beneath these deposits is an ochrey sediment.

This peculiar matter was immediately pronounced to be a rich and valuable soil, and consequently a considerable quantity was removed and put up into a heap near the garden wall, for the purpose of employ

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ingit in horticulture. It had only lain in this form twelve or fourteen days, when it emitted copious rolumes of smoke, accoinpanied with a powerful sulphureous smell. The farmers, in order to extinguish it, ordered water to be thrown into the mass. This, however, only increased the evil, and, at the imminent hazard of suffocation, it was necessarily removed to a distance.

A small quantity had been scattered on some meadow-land. The grass immediately irithered, and several years elapsed before it recov. ered its wonted fertility.

The residue of two cart loads (after this spontaneous combustion), would not fill a wheelbarrow.

The external or physical characters of this substance would induce us to believe it to be a rich dark mould. It is mingled with fragments and fibres of decayed wood, and with glistening metallic particles. It has a considerable avidity for moisture, and soon becomes humid. Dissolved in distilled water it possesses a ferruginous and styptic taste.

When ignited in a platinum spoon with a spirit-lamp, it becomes light brown, with interspersed minute shining particles, apparently metallic. It glows in this flame like pyrophorus, giving off copious and sulphureous vapours. The sulphurous acid gas thus found was announced by its peculiar smell and dense smoke, when a stopper moistened with ammonia was brought near.

From experiments made, its probable constituents, on the effusion of water, are carbonaceous matter, muriate of soda and magnesia, and the sulphates of lime, lead, copper, and iron.

Its spontaneous ignition may be accounted for, by the united action of air and water on the sulphur, in contact with metalline and carbonaceous matter, analogous to the phenomena sometimes exhibited in the aluminous schistus at the Hurlet mine, near Paisley; or, that of a paste of sulphur and iron filings, when moistened.

On the Detection of very minute quantities of Arsenic and Mercury.

By James Smithson, Esq. F.R. S.

(To the Editor of the Annals of Philosophy.) Sir–To be able to discover exceedingly small quantities of arsenic and mercury must, on many occasions, prove conducive to the purposes of the chemist and the mineralogist, more especially now that a very diminished scale of experiment, highly to the advantage of these sciences, is becoming daily more generally adopted.

But the occasion above all others in which the power of doing this is important, are those of poisonings. In these it is often of the first moment to be able to pronounce with certainty, from portions of matter of extreme minuteness, on the existence and the nature of the poison.

OF ARSENIC. I have already communicated the method here proposed for the discovery of arsenic by employing it in the analysis of the compound sulphuret of lead and arsenic from Upper Valais, printed in the An. nals of Philosophy for August, 1819, but not having mentioned the

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generality of its application, or the great accuracy of it, it seems not superfluous, from the importance of the subject, to resume it.

If arsenic, or any of its compounds, is fused with nitrate of potash, arseniate of potash is produced, of which the solution affords a brickred precipitate with nitrate of silver.

In cases where any sensible portion of the potash of the nitre has become set free, it must be saturated with acetous acid, and the saline mixture dried and redissolved in water.

So small is the quantity of arsenic required for this mode of trial, that a drop of a solution of oxide of arsenic in water, which, at a heat of 54.5o Fahr, contains not above 1-80th of oxide of arsenic, * put to nitrate of potash in the platina spoon and fused, affords a considerable quantity of arseniate of silver. Hence when no solid par

, ticle of oxide of arsenic can be obtained, the presence of it may be established by infusing in water the matters which contain it.

The degree in which this test is sensible is readily determined.

With 5.2 grains of silver, I obtained 6.4 grains of arseniate of silver; but 0.65 grain of silver was recovered from the liquors, so that the arseniate had been furnished by 4.55 grains of silver.

In a second trial 7.7 grains of silver, but of which only 6.8 grains precipitated, yielded 9.5 grains of arseniate.

The mean is 140,17 from 100 of silver.
If we suppose 100 of silver to form 107.5 of oxide, we shall have
Oxide of silver

107.50
Acid of arsenic

32.67 Consequently 1 of acid of arsenic will produce 4.29 of arseniate of silver; 1 of white oxide of arsenic, 4.97 ; and 1 of arsenic 6.56.

OF MERCURY.

All the oxides and saline compounds of mercury. laid in a drop of marine acid on gold with a bit of tin, quickly amalgamate the gold.

A particle of corrosive sublimate, or a drop of a solution of it, may be thus tried. The addition of marine acid is not required in this case.

Quantities of mercury may be rendered evident in this way which could not be so by any other means.

This method will exhibit the mercury in cinnabar. It must be previously boiled with sulphuric acid in the platina spoon to convert it into sulphate.

Cinnabar heated in solution of potash on gold amalgamates it. A most minute quantity of metallic mercury may be discovered in a powder by placing it in nitric acid on gold, drying, and adding muriatic acid and tin.

A trial I made to discover mercury in common salt by the present method was not successful, owing, perhaps, to the smallness of the quantity which I employed. I am, sir, yours, &c.

JAMES SMITHSON.

INFLUENCE OF GREEN FRUITS UPON THE AIR. M. Theodore de Saussere has given the following as the results of his experiments on this subject :

Green fruits have the same influence as leaves upon the air both in

Chimie de Thenard, II. p. 167. Vol. I. No. 2.-Museum.

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