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 a change of the object only; the laborious game of chess occupying, under the name of a recreation, the hours which he could spare from more productive exertions. He became paralytic some time before his death; and though he partially recovered his health, he did not live to complete his 62d year.

His researches concerning the history of the Assize of Bread must have required the employment of considerable diligence, and some judgment, in the discovery and selection of materials; although certainly the subject was not chosen for the purpose of affording a display of talent. His opinion respecting the operation of the assize, as favourable to the community, may by some be thought to be justified by the want of success which has hitherto attended the experiment on its suspension; but the advocates of that measure would certainly not admit the trial of a year to be sufficient for appreciating its utility.

The title-pages of the works on Arches explain the occasion on which they were brought forwards, and at the same time exhibit a specimen of the want of order and precision which seems to have begun to prevail in the author’s faculties: and the works themselves betray a neglect of the fundamental principles of Mechanics, which is inconceivable in a person who had once reasoned with considerable accuracy on mathematical subjects. An anonymous Critic, who is supposed to have been the late Professor Robison (British Critic, Vol. XXI. Jan. 1804), very decidedly, and, at the same time, very respectfully asserted Mr Atwood’s error in maintaining, that there was no manner of necessity for the condition, that the general curve of equilibrium of an arch should pass through some part of every one of the joints by which it is divided: and in fact we may very easily be convinced of the truth of this principle, if we reflect that the curve of equilibrium is the true representative of the direction of all the forces acting upon each of the blocks; and that if the whole pressure be anywhere directed to a point situated beyond the limit of the joint, there can be nothing whatever to prevent the rotation of the block on the end of the joint as a centre, until some new position of the block shall have altered the direction of the forces, or until the whole fabric be destroyed. The Critic has also very truly remarked, that the effects of friction have never been sufficiently considered in such arrangements; but a later Author has removed a considerable part of this difficulty in an anonymous publication, by showing, that no other condition is required for determining these effects, than that every joint should be perpendicular to the direction of the curve of equilibrium, either accurately, or within the limit of a certain angle, which is constant for every substance of the same kind, and which he has termed the angle of repose.

In the appointment which enabled Mr Atwood to devote a considerable part of his life to scientific researches, he appears to have had no successor. It was held, and perhaps wisely, that such sinecures have regularly become, in process of time, mere instruments of party interest, instead of being bestowed as encouragements to merit; and it seems to be the invariable maxim of the British Government, that talents deserve no protection, unless they are immediately employed in the service of the Church or of the State; that ornamental accomplishments repay their possessor by the splendour which they confer on his personal existence, but that, in a commercial country, the actual utility of mental as well as of corporal powers, must be measured by their effects; and that these effects must be of a negociable kind, in order to have a claim to reward. Other Nations, and other Sovereigns, have often thought and acted differently; and they have, perhaps, obtained a forced growth of Science or of Literature, which has contributed, in some degree, to the embellishment of their age; but where the native forest tree acquires so often a form at once beautiful and magnificent, though exposed to all the storms of the seasons, there is little reason to lament the want of the shelter of the Plantation, or of the artificial warmth of the Conservatory.