Star.
London, England, 1824-03-04 00:00:00

THE PAMPHLETEER, No. XLY.
This Number, which is no way deficient in variety
or interest to any of its predecessors, has just made its
appearance. The Pamphleteer conjains, such' an ample
collection of valuable documentary matter, that it ought
to form part of the furniture of every politician's and
merchant's library. , •

THE COMPONITIM.,
In the STAR of the Ist inst. we announced that under
this name a new musical instrument of very singular
powers Was exhii)itio,, in Paris. The 'following parti-
culars, 6
respecting it, which we copy from The Harmo-
vicom, are certainly calculated to excite no small degree
of curiosity :
" This extraordinary instrument has excited consider-
able interest at Paris. Its ingenious inventor, M.Win:,
kel, of Airnsterdam, has given it the astonishing faculti,
of imitating extemporaneous petformance, and of re-
ducing into harmonic form all the Tossible combina-
tions, which the most bold and fertile imaginition could
produce. The prodigies announced respecting it, at
the same time that they awakened the curiosity, also ex-
cited the distrust of the musical public, as to the reality
of the mechanical means to which such wonderful re-
' iults were attributed. The charge of charlatanism to
Which this incredulity gave rise against the proprietors
of the Componium, rendered it necessary for them to
prove that, in effect, what they gave out to be a ma-
chine, laid no further claim to human sensation than
what it received from the hand of a man of extraordi-

. .
nary ingenuity."
The instrument was tried before " a considerable
body of saunas, composers, and enlightened amateurs,
among whom were Messrs. Le-Soeur, Boyeldieu, Ber-
ti), tatel, 1-I,theneck, Paer, Biot, of the Academie des
Sciences; Mr. Breguet, junior; the Duke de Grams
mont, le Comte de Montesquieu, &c.
"4 The Componium,' as tried before this assemblage
of impartial judges, produced upon the auditory an ef-
'feet difficult to be described. The astonishment of the
hearers was at its height when, after having executed a
march, with variations by Moscheles, the instrument
-was left to follow its own inspirations : the applause
was loud and unanimous, and some exclaimed that it
was altogedier miraculous.
" Still, the more perfect the execution, the stronger
the feeling of issledulity became. The company there.
fore requested Messrs. Cate' and Biot to examine the in-
strument, and to decide by their report upon the future
fame or coiidemnation of the machins. Gentle-
- men complied with the general rcque.t, and reported
that, When this instrument has received a varied
theme, which the inventor has had time to fix by a pro-
cess of his own, it decomposes the variations of itself,
and reproduces their diffsrent parts in ail the orders of
possible perniutation, the same as the most capricious
• imaginatign roi3lit do; it forms successions of sound so
diversified, and' produced by a principle so arbitrift y,
that even the person the best acquainted with themecha-
• niers' construction of the instrument, is unable to foresee at
any given moment the chords,that are about to be pro-
duced.—That a single example ss ill suffice to shew the
freedom of choice that is permitted by jt. None of the
airs which h varies lasts above a minute; could it be sup-
posed that but one of these airs was played without in-
terruption, yet, though the principle of vatiability
which it possesses, it might, without ever resunsing
precisely the same combination, continue to play not
only during years and ages, but during so immense a
series of ages that, though figures might be brought to
express them, common language could not.'
7 te Life and Times of Salvator Rosa. By Lady Morgan.
2 Vols. Bvo.
In these volumes Lady Morgan ventures on a new
Feld,—that of Biography,—in which, it is butjostice to
• say, she has acquitted herself well. Her Ladyship,
however, has not confined herself entirely to the Life or
even to the age of Rosa ; but has adduced much curis
ous historical matter, accompanied with some li4spy
philosophical views tespecting the revival of the Fine
Arts and Music in Italy ; the progress of Philosophy,
and the state of Religion, and Morals after the revival
of learning in the west of Europe.
Like ail Lady Morgan's productions, this Wot4c, from
Which we have derived both amusement and instruc-
tion, will be read, not by her friends only, but, by her ,
foes,—we mean political foes, for it is to be Imped her
Ladyship has so other.—Not longer to detain the
Reader,— the following extract, on the influential
causes of the progress and perfection of the Art of
Painting during the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries may serve as a specimen of the woe k.
We have to regret, however, that want of room com-
pels us to omit:some of the Notes:
The perfection attained in the Art of Painting
during the Waddle ages, had its source in the political
combinations of times when a predominant hierarchy
held the ascensbrnt, and the Church was—the State.
"•Knowledge, which is supremacy as long only as it
is a monopoly, WAS then the exclusive possession of the
clergy; and the intellectual disparity, which existed
between the many and the few, long continued to be
the instrument of delusions, of which ignorance inevita-
bly becomes the dupe and the
"To support the powerful system of priestly flonii-
nation, which for ages governed the nations of Europe
and their rulers, the efforts of human intellect'and the
products of human genius were discarded or brought
forward, as the exigencies of successive epochs dictated.
The same hierarchy which, at one pet icd, found its ac-
. count in burning the works of Cicero, and casting the
statues of Praxi:cles.. into the Tibet*, in another, re;
stored the philosophy of Aristotle, and proposed the
_

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