literature what belongs to a liberal education, such as that of our universities, is all that is required; indeed, a young man who has performed the ordinary course of college studies which are supposed fitted for common life and for refined society, has all the preliminary knowledge necessary to commence the study of chemistry.  The apparatus essential to the modern chemical philosopher is much less bulky and expensive than that used by the ancients.  An air pump, an electrical machine, a voltaic battery (all of which may be upon a small scale), a blow-pipe apparatus, a bellows and forge, a mercurial and water-gas apparatus, cups and basins of platinum and glass, and the common reagents of chemistry, are what are required.  All the implements absolutely necessary may be carried in a small trunk, and some of the best and most refined researches of modern chemists have been made by means of an apparatus which might with ease be contained in a small travelling carriage, and the expense of which is only a few pounds.  The facility with which chemical inquiries are carried on, and the simplicity of the apparatus, offer additional reasons, to those I have already given, for the pursuit of this science.  It is not injurious to the health; the modern chemist is not like the ancient one, who passed the greater part of his time exposed to the heat and smoke of a furnace and the unwholesome vapours of acids and alkalies and other menstrua, of which, for a single experiment, he consumed several pounds.  His processes may be carried on in the drawing-room, and some of them are no less beautiful in appearance than satisfactory in their results.  It was said, by an author belonging to the last century, of alchemy, “that its beginning was deceit, its progress labour, and its end beggary.”  It may be said of modern chemistry, that its beginning is pleasure, its progress knowledge, and its objects truth and utility.  I have spoken of the scientific attainments necessary for the chemical philosopher; I will say a few words of the intellectual qualities necessary for discovery or for the advancement of the science.  Amongst them patience, industry, and neatness in manipulation, and accuracy and minuteness in observing and registering the phenomena which occur, are essential.  A steady hand and a quick eye are most useful auxiliaries; but there have been very few great chemists who have preserved these advantages through life; for the business of the laboratory is often a service of danger, and the elements, like the refractory spirits of romance, though the obedient slave of the magician, yet sometimes escape the influence of his talisman and endanger his person.  Both the hands and eyes of others, however, may be sometimes advantageously made use of.  By often repeating a process or an observation, the errors connected with hasty operations or imperfect views are annihilated; and, provided the assistant has no preconceived notions of his own, and is ignorant