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A Poet too he was, not very bright,

Something between a Jerningham and (a) Knight:
He dealt in tragick, epick, critick lore,

With half, whole plans, and epifodes in ftore,
Method was all; yet would he seldom write,
He fear'd the ground-plot wrong, or-out of fight.
At last the DOCTOR gave his friends a work!

(Not verfe, like Cowper, or high profe, like Burke,)
CHAMBERS ABRIDG'D! in footh 'twas all he read,
From fruitful A to unproductive Zed.

RICHARDSON, ROUSSEAU AND GOETHR.

From Thompson's Paradife of Tafle.

HAT other names fome other tombs might show,

WHAT
(Such was our hafte) we did not stop to fee;

But moving onward, gained the vault of woe,
Where mournful paffion reach'd its last degree.
For there eternal filence reign'd profound,
And all the naked wall, with horror hung;
And there one dying lamp o'er all around,
With quiv'ring flame, the light of darkness flung.
Full in the midft a fable coffin stood,

On which reclin'd the priest of virtue lay,
Of all that e'er effayed the melting mood,
Who rul'd the heart with most despotic sway.
'Twas he who told fo well the touching tale,
Of proud Bologna's melancholy maid,
And taught the world Clariffa's fate to wail,
By tyrant force and hellish fraud betray'd.
Two penfive pupils at his feet were laid,

Who drew fweet pictures of domestic life;
Whofe art in virtue's tend'reft robe array'd,
The forms of Wolmar's and of Albert's wife.
The friend of Julia, from her foul refin’d,

Obtain'd a balm to foothe his am'rous woe;
While here no reft could Werter's spirit find,
But rush'd indignant to the fhades below.

(a) Knight and Jerningham.

Soyez plutot maçon, fi c'eft votre talent,
Ouvrier eftimé dans un art neceffaire,

- Qu' écrivain du commun, & poete vulgaire,"

Avis de Boileau, A. P. ch. 4

VOL. XXXVMI.

LI

ACCOUNT

ACCOUNT of Books for 1796.

Zoonomia; or the Laws of Organic Life. Vol. II. 4to. By Erafmus Darwin, M. D. F. R. S. 1796.

HA

AVING in our volume for 1794, given an account of the first volume of this ingenious work, it might perhaps be fufficient for us barely to announce to our readers the appearance of the fecond volume of a work, the former part of which has already excited the attention of moft of those who pursue the fludy of of medicine as a branch of fcience, and intereft themfelves in all its ingenious novelties; and indeed, we mean to do little more than give fuch a general idea of its contents, as may ferve to afford information of what may be expect ed from it. A full analyfis of the work would be dry; a minute criticism would occupy too many of our pages with a topic addreffed only to profeffional men; and partial criticisms would be unfair and impertinent, where the whole is concatenated by a fyftem, only to be properly comprehended in an univerfal view.

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quent orders, genera, and fpecies, and with their methods of cure.' The 3d comprizes the article of the Materia Medica, with an account of the operation of medicine.' Thus the volume is properly a practical fyftem of phyfic, founded on the doctrines of the animal economy laid down in the preceding volume. The claffification of diseases follows that of the faculties or powers of the fenforium, eftablished in the firft part of Zoonomia. As all difeafes are affirmed to originate in the exuberance, deficiency, or retrograde action, of thefe faculties; and to confift in difordered motions of the fibres, the proximate effect of the exertions of thefe difordered faculties ; four natural claffes of diseases are derived from the four powers of the fenforium; which the author denominates those of irritation, of fenfation, of volition, and of affociation. The orders, under each of thefe claffes are formed from the circumstances of increase, diminution, and retrogradation of the actions: the genera are derived from the proximate effect; the fpecies from the locality of the disease in the system.

It is not to be expected that a claffification, founded on fuch peculiar and abstract notions, fhould coincide

coincide with those of former pathologifts and nofologifts. The reader must therefore prepare himfelf for a confiderable portion of furprize, at the view of affemblages of which he has had no previous idea and at the appearance of many things in the catalogue of difeafes which he had reckoned mere fymptoms, and even fome that are natural actions, and reducible to no received definition of difeafe. It would be eafy for us to anticipate his furprize by the production of examples of this fort: but this would be acting unfairly towards the truly ingenious author; who could doubtlefs fhew that a regular purfuit of his fyftem led to analogies and affociations, which no other train of reafoning could difcover.

Meantime, it is obvious that an arrangement of diseases from their proximate caufes is a bufinefs fo thoroughly fcientific, that it muft fuppofe a degree of perfection in our knowledge of the animal body in its healthy and difeafed ftate, which elevates medicine from its humble rank of an experimental art, to that of a true and full formed science. This ftate, indeed, is that in which every friend to its progrefs would wish to view it, and that which every man of genius will attempt to acquire for it:-but the misfortune is that fuch attempts, if premature or inadequate, interfere with the humbler efforts of practical utility, and miflead by falfe views as much as they inftruct by true conceptions. It is not easy to imagine an rangement of difeafes lefs applica ble to common purposes than that in the prefent work; nor is it probable that even those who re ceive, and comprehend, the au

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thor's fyftem of medical philofophy, will always agree with him in his pathological conclufions.

We by no means intend, however, to give a hafty decifion on a performance which is the refult of much thought and labour, and is certainly replete with ingenuity: Though we do not think that it will make an era in medicine, yet it seems calculated to throw new light on many fubjects, and confiderably to improve the principles of medical reafoning. It likewife contains much curious and entertaining fact, and many valu able practical hints and directions. With a marked propensity to try new expedients, in cafes that call for extraordinary exertions, the author difplays a thorough acquaintance with all the old rules; nor does he, more than the late Dr. Cullen, feem over-folicitous to make his practice fquare with his theory, but freely allows its due preference to the former. Many fuggeftions are given in the modeft form of queries; and though quicknefs of imagination may be the most prominent character, yet it is not emancipated from the rule of fober judgement. As a fupplement to the fourth class of difeafes of affociation, he gives a fympathetic theory of fever, de rived from the most intricate and recondite fpeculations belonging to the Zoonomia, which requires not lefs attention in the reader to follow, than ingenuity in the writer to have conceived. The diftri bution of the Materia Medica into feven claffes poffeffes as much novelty as the rest of the work; it turns entirely on the fuppofed power of the feveral articles in influencing the different motions of the fyftem.

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Principles

Principles of Legislation. By Charles Michell, of Forcett, Efq. 8ve, 1796.

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S the most useful publications are not always the most entertaining, thofe which are calculated chiefly for the inftruction of mankind are rarely perufed, except by the small circle of readers who are endowed with a clear understanding and found judgment; and who, divefted of paflion or party fpirit, feek only for the improvement of the mind, or the means of meliorating the condition of the bulk of their fellowcreatures. The great mafs of men in every nation. though they feel oppreffion with as much fenfibility as the most enlightened, are rendered incapable, through the want of education, of finding out a remedy of precifely that degree of ftrength which is fufficient to remove the evils of which they complain, without producing in its place any other grievance of equal or greater magnitude. Thofe who feel pain are unquestionably beft able to tell in what part they are affected, and how acute are their fufferings: but it does not follow that they best know how to get rid of it without deftroying themfelves. The cafe is the fame in the political as in the natural body. The poor can tell, for inftance, when the fcarcity of provifions raises the price of them, and when the ufual fum with which they go to market will not produce the ufual fupply of food; but we may venture to fay that they are not the best judges of the causes of fcarcity, nor of the means either of guarding against or removing it. Some may

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think that it arifes from too small a divifion of farms, others from too great a confolidation of them; fome from the policy of allowing an exportation of grain, others from want of a bounty on the importation; and fome from a radical defect in the organization of government, while others afcribe it to fome particular measure purfued by adminiftration. Thele various caufes having numbers of partizans, each propofing different remedies, and having nothing in common between them but the certain experience of the scarcity, the remedies, if left entirely to those who suffer, must be as various as the parties propofing them; and, confequently, the evil, inftead of being defroyed, would neceffarily be aggravated.

Fully convinced of the calamities that may be brought on fociety by a departure from found principles of legiflation, or by the adoption of fuch as are fuggefted by the uninformed, the prejudiced, or the defigning, the author of the work before us makes an appeal to the found fenfe of his countrymen, and calls them to the serious confideration of the grounds on which political conftitions ought to be raised and maintained. Those who look into books/ only for amufement; those who are incapable of feeing objects with calm philofophic temper and clearness, or whofe judgments are chained down in adamantine fetters by their paffions or by party connections; we advife to throw afide, without reading, the volume that we are going to review: but let it be seriously perused by those who are in fearch only of truth, and who are ready to embrace it under

whatever

whatever form it may prefent itfelf. Let fuch perfons open it, in the fully certainty of meeting with principles, we will not fay in all cafes irrefragably juft, but in general irrefiftibly true. They may be sure of finding calm difcuffion, and a fair appeal to their understanding. They will find the author the fteady friend of rational liberty, and the determined enemy of defpotifm, whether arifing from the cold blooded tyranny of an individual, or from general confufion and anarchy. They will fee that Mr. M. combats many opinions which are at prefent extremely popular, not because they are entertained by a great part of the people, but because they are calculated, in his opinion, to injure the public, and to endanger the throne of liberty. There are many points in it on which we differ widely from Mr. M: but what work of equal extent, particularly in the prefent ferment, could be produced, that muft command the acquiefcence of mankind in all its doctrines? His conceptions, in deed, are generally juft, and his arguments powerful; his knowledge of human nature is profound; his acquaintance with the hiftory of antient and modern times is extenfive and correct; and his powers of reafoning are to be furpaffed only by his moderation and temper-which failed but once (we believe) in the courfe of 513 pages, and that was when speaking of Thomas Paine.

Having thus characterized the publication before us, we will now proceed to give a fummary of its It is divided into two books, the former subdivided into eight, the latter into ten chapters.

contents.

The author fets out with a quotation from Mr. Burke's celebrated Reflections on the French revolution, "that circumftances alone render every political principle beneficial or obnoxious ;" and he ftrongly controverts the truth of it, or at least fhews that it might lead to error from the ambiguity of the term "political." Politics, he obferves, is a word that serves to exprefs both the whole science of government, and the art and practice of adminiftering public affairs. It ought, therefore, to be afcertained in which tense it is ufed. Legiflation he employs as a more proper, because an unambiguous term, for expreffing the former. He fays it may be refolved into principles that are invariable; and that the mode only of applying them depends on the circumftances of the moment. The doctrine of expediency, he admits, may be useful to a fatefman actually engaged in the government of a particular nation: but even with him the author would have it operate only negatively.

Circumftances (fays he) may render pernicious a measure abftractedly good, but no circumstances can render permanently beneficial a measure abftractedly bad. A virtuous and intelligent ftatefman is influenced by expediency no further, than if occafion requires to defit from action. Unlike the mariner who is ignorant of navigation, and who therefore, for the fake of immediate eafe and fafety from whatever point the wind may blow, fteers his hip right before it: he proceeds in spite of adverse winds, by an oblique courfe, to his defined port, or at the worft cafts anchor. For from that extremity

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