temperature of which must be regulated according to the quality of the food upon which the caterpillar has been fed, and the firmness of the cocoons. This process serves to kill the moths; and, therefore, if the cocoons can be reeled off, as soon as they are formed, and before the moths are evolved, it becomes unnecessary, and the reeling is then easier, and the silk of a superior quality. But when it has become indispensable to kill the chrysalides, it may be done, not only by steam, but also by the heat of an oven. Both methods are described and discussed in the report. In Italy, the cocoons are, for the same purpose, exposed to the ardent heat of the sun, during three days. Each cocoon consists of a single thread, the length of which varies from nine hundred to one thousand and two hundred feet.

The reeling is not equally easy with all sorts of cocoons, a vast deal depending on their quality and the temperature of the water employed for the soaking. Mr Rush's report is accompanied with a plate representing an apparatus, which it would be necessary to copy in order to give the slightest idea of the manner of using it; and, in the document, not only is this done with great accuracy, but the explanation hardly admits of an abbreviation. Those who have no idea of the thousand little attentions which this business requires, will wonder on reading the fifteenth chapter of this copious and elaborate performance. It contains, also, much valuable information about various engines, reels, and looms, the most recent improvements in that branch of machinery. We cannot but greatly applaud the care which has been bestowed in annexing a sufficient number of plates for the better understanding of the text.

We have now gone as rapidly and directly as possible through the two stages of the culture of the silk-the raising of the mulberry tree, and the breeding of the silkworm; and we do not enter into the consideration of the fabrication of silk stuffs, for which the country is perhaps not yet prepared. It will be, at first, sufficiently beneficial to possess raw, carded, and spun silk in sufficient quantity for sending considerable supplies abroad. We find in a statement of the raw silk imported into England, from all parts of the world, that in 1814, it amounted to one million, six hundred and thirty-four thousand, five hundred and one pounds; and in 1824, to three millions, three hundred and eighty two thousand, three hundred

and fifty-seven.* Italy, which is not better situated in regard to the culture of silk than a large portion of the United States, furnishes to the English fabrics about eight hundred thousand pounds' weight. The Bengal silk is complained of by the British manufacturers, on account of its defective preparation; by bestowing more care on his produce, the American cultivator could have in England the advantage over the British East Indies. It is a fact well worthy of notice, and the accuracy of which seems warranted by its having been brought before a Committee of both Houses of Parliament, that the labor in preparing new silk affords much more employment to the country producing it, than any other raw material.+. It appears from an official document, that the value of the imports of raw silk into France, during the year 1824, amounted to thirty-seven million, one hundred and forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and sixty francs.

*The official values of these imports are £703,009 and £1,464,994. According to Arthur Young, the province of Valencia produced, in 1787, two million pounds of silk, the value of which he rates at two million pounds sterling; a sum equal in amount, at that epoch, to all the other productions of that portion of Spain.

+ Cocoons,

S Douppoins

39,255

78,975

Soies grèges,

"moulinées,

"teintes,

ART. X.-1. Geschichte der Moldau und Wallachey, nebst der Historischen und Statistischen Literatur beyder Lander.

History of Moldavia and Wallachia, with the Historical and Statistical Literature of the two Countries. By JOHN CHRISTIAN VON ENGEL. 2 volumes. 4to. Halle. 1804. 2. Ιστορία τῆς Βλαχίας Πολιτικὴ καὶ Γεωγραφική, ἀπὸ τῆς ̓Αρχαιοτάτης αὐτῆς Καταστάσεως ἕως το 1774 Ετους. Νῦν πρῶτον φιλοτίμῳ Δαπάνῃ ἐκδοθεῖσα τῶν τιμιωτάτων καὶ φιλογενῶν Αὐταδέλφων Τουνουσλῆ.

Political and Geographical History of Wallachia, from its Oldest Establishment to the Year 1774. Now first printed at the Expense of the worthy and patriotic Brethren Tunusli. Vienna. 1806. Svo.

THE attention of the civilized world is fixed, with no small degree of interest, at the present moment, on the provinces, of which we propose to say something in this article. The contest which has recently commenced between the Porte and Russia, has sprung from the relations of these provinces to the two great powers; and here is the theatre of the first events of the struggle. The first work which we have named at the head of this article, is a portion of a larger one, entitled a 'History of Hungary and the Neighboring Regions,' a work of prodigious industry and learning, the most valuable on the subject treated, within our knowledge. The second work, on the history of the two provinces, is a meagre and almost worthless sketch, in modern Greek, scarcely repaying the trouble of a perusal.

The earliest history of the tribes, which occupied the space between the Danube and Dniester, on the one hand, and the frontiers of modern Hungary on the other, is wrapped in obscurity. From their appearance in authentic history, they were known under the name of Getæ and Daci, and their country was called Dacia. About the year 88, the Romans declared war against them, and Domitian marched against Decebalus, their king. The disgraceful peace which followed, was of short duration; and Trajan was finally moved, by the turbulence of these tribes, to undertake their entire subjection. He threw a bridge across the Danube, took the capital of their prince, the modern Belgrade, and constituted the

country as a Roman province. Roman colonies then and afterwards were established in Dacia, from whom, combined with the native inhabitants and subsequent Bulgarian conquerors, the modern population may be considered as descended. The incidents of this war were sculptured upon the shaft of the historical column, erected in honor of the victories of Trajan, and much information touching the appearance, dress, arms, and military character of the ancient inhabitants of Wallachia and Moldavia has, in this singular manner, been perpetuated.* The language of the Wallachians of the present day, and the denomination by which they call themselves, are proofs of their descent. Their name, in their own tongue, is Roumuni. Eustace affirms, that, when one of these modern Romans offers to enlist in the Austrian service, he answers the usual question, what countryman he is, with the words, 'Romanus sum.' This is altogether fabulous, or if such a thing ever happened, the individual spoke, not his native Wallachian, but the ancient Latin, taught in the schools of Transylvania and Hungary. Any one, who will inspect only so much of this dialect as is given in Adelung's Mithridates,' will see, that it is not so like the Latin as the Italian is. In addition to the mixture of aboriginal Dacic and Latin, the Slavonian conquerors of a later period have furnished a full contribution to the language,

*The following stanzas from the Fourth Canto of' Childe Harold,' will remind the reader of the fate of the Dacian captives, when brought to Rome.

'I see before me the Gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand,-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low,

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him, he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout, which hailed the wretch who won.
'He heard it, but he heeded not, his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away.
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize;
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother, he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday-

All this rushed with his blood.-Shall he expire
And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!'

as well as to the natural stock of the Wallachians of the present time. What few books they have, are printed in the Slavonian character. The origin of the name of Wallachians, Valaques, Blazo, is unknown. It is not improbable that it connects itself with the history of their barbarous conquerors, from the Volga, in the ninth century, and is but another form of the name Bulgarians, still given to a tribe of these conquerors, which settled about the same time on the right bank of the Danube. A plausible hypothesis makes the Gypsies, which exist in greater numbers in Hungary and the Dacian provinces than in any other part of the world, remnants of the population existing in these provinces before the conquest of the Bulgarians, and by them reduced to the condition of serfs. Many of this degraded race lead a Nomadic life, but many others are attached to the soil, constituting the principal wealth of the Wallachian and Moldavian Boyards. They are called by the Turks Zingari, by the Wallachians Katrivelos. Their French name Bohémiens points to the region, in which they first attracted the notice of the cultivated nations of the west of Europe. What circumstance gave them their English name of Gypsies or Egyptians, we do not know.*

The line of Hospodars, or princes of Wallachia and Moldavia, goes back to the close of the thirteenth century, when Radul Negris, a prince of Transylvania, who crossed the mountains which separate that country from Wallachia, entered the latter province with his court and army, established himself there, and built the cities of Tergovista, Bucharest, Kimpolungo (Campus longus, a specimen of Dacian Latin), Petesti, and St George. Negris, or Negro, took the title of Wod, or Waywode, importing governor, and which is used in this and other parts of the Turkish empire, to the present day. The name of Hospodar, also a title of the governors of Moldavia and Wallachia, is of Slavonian origin.

The government thus established by Radul was a despotism like that of the ancient dukes of Russia, mitigated by the power and influences of the Boyards or nobles. On the death of the Waywode, his son or heir succeeded, not without a formal election on the part of the Boyards. After the conquest of

*We are aware, that a popular hypothesis makes them a wandering tribe from Hindostan. It seems difficult, on this supposition, to account for their concentration on the left bank of the Danube.