The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

A poem has lately appeared at Petersburg, which, if the critics of Russia are to be believed, may rival the productions of the muse in more temperate climates. It is the work of Michael Lomonosow, the professor of chemistry, and member of the academy at Petersburg, and is addressed to his excellency Ivan Ivanowitz Chouvalow, as an epistle. The subject of it is, the Utility of Glass.

The poet describes this as "the wedlock of fire and of nature, anxious to produce a child worthy of them both." Man, condemned to sufferings, seizes the prize, entrusts it to the precious deposit of juices, extracted from different vegetables, and which are destined to restore health to him when in sickness.

From this useful employment of it, he soon diverts it to joyous and festive purposes; at his table it gives energy to his hospitality; on his toilet it enables him to appear with more elegance and dignity: it forms the ornament of the fair, rounded into beads: it serves as a fence between man and the inclement atmosphere, while it allows him to feel all the pleasures of light.

But its transparency is not merely to assist him in seeing what is at hand. He soon employs it to bring before his eyes what is removed to a very great distance from mortal ken, and by means of it explores the mechanism of the heavens. Pushing his application of glass still farther, he robs the sun of a park of its heat, and conveys it to himself by the electric cylinder.

From this sketch it will be seen that Lomonosow has taken a wide field, and he has, if, as we have already observed, our authority may be depended upon, treated it in a very able manner. The conquest of the New World, and the fable of Prometheus, &c. form episodes. The poem is said to have all the splendor of its subject without its fragility.