the cook's ended-he was to be well acquainted with the quali ties of poisons, to examine the food intended for the Rajah, and if it exhibited any signs of suspicion, to give it to certain animals, the effects upon which were regarded as the tests of its innocence or injurious nature. The operation and effects of poisons must have been very imperfectly understood, and the nature of the treatment indicated was calculated to secure a fatal result in most cases of active vegetable or mineral | poisons.

The animal poisons include snake bites, certain animals that have poison in their teeth and nails, such as dogs, cats, snubnosed aligators, a kind of fish called paka mucha, a shell-fish (sambuka), and lizards: others that have noxious excretions; a kind of flea, a species of leech, and certain fishes that have poisonous bites. The treatment of snake bites was judicious, sensible, and in most respects the same as would be adopted by a prompt European practitioner. Hydrophobia and the poison of various insects were noticed, as well as a long catalogue of deleterious agents from the vegetable kingdom.

The commentary closes with a brief abstract of the Obstetric Medicine and Infantile Therapeutics of the Hindus, neither of which were in a particularly advanced state: they do not admit of analysis in the pages of a non-professional review.

We have now redeemed our promise of presenting a cursory outline of the many matters of interest connected with the medicine of the Hindus, which are contained in the work placed at the head of the list prefixed to this article:-but before concluding we have few words to say respecting the literary merits of Dr. Wise's performance.

Although fully convinced of the laborious industry and patient investigation of the learned author, we are by no means satisfied that the method of translation adopted was the best calculated to secure accuracy. We have been informed upon authority of which we cannot doubt the correctness, that the native gentlemen named in the preface turned the Sanskrit into a vernacular medium, from which it was subsequently done into English' by Dr. Wise, who is not, we are told a Sanskrit scholar. and therefore, himself incapable of detecting any errors of interpretation, should such have occurred, a result by no means improbable. The identification of medicines and diseases is also liable to some degree of doubt for a similar reason, as well as because we know that the majority of scientific terms in Sanskrit have no synonymes in Bengali or Hindui. It was originally our intention to have procured authentic copies of

the Sanskrit medical authorities referred to, and to have had portions translated by competent Sanskrit scholars, who kindly offered us their services upon the occasion, for the purpose of testing the general accuracy of the commentary. Various circumstances have combined to prevent the realization of our design, and we must leave the task to others, who with a larger amount of leisure, combine a greater degree of fitness to execute it with the care, attention, and accuracy requisite.

Another defect of the commentary which has struck us forcibly as somewhat diminishing its value, has been the difficulty of ascertaining in all places whether the remarks referred to the older or more recent medical writers; for we hold the modern medicine of the Hindus to be of a very low order, and are of opinion that any features of excellence it may possess, were derived from their Mahommedan conquerors, whose works embodied almost all that was valuable in the medicine of the Greeks, in addition to their own discoveries in chemistry and other departments. An occasional foot note would readily have remedied this imperfection.

The commentary also abounds in typographical errors, for which the author must have been indebted to the kind but careless or incompetent friend, who brought the pages through the press during his absence from Calcutta.

In spite of all these imperfections, which we trust will disappear in a second and enlarged edition, we hold the Commentary to be a valuable addition to the history of medicine, to contain much that ought to be known to all who study and practice the treatment of tropical diseases, and to be creditable, in every sense, to the learning and ability of its accomplished author.

ART. V.-1. Le Bas's life of the Right Rev. Thos. Fanshaw Middleton, D. D.

2. Proceedings on the formation of a Diocesan Committee for the Archdeaconry of Calcutta for the Society for the Propaga tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1825.

It is our design in these pages, as has been ere now stated again and again, to admit of no restriction in our range of subjects but that which is geographical. Whatever bears directly, or not very remotely, on the interests of India, belongs to us. Instead therefore of offering an apology for introducing our present subject to the attention of our readers, we feel that if an apology is required at all, it is for having so long delayed to take notice of an institution so important in itself, and fitted to tell so directly on the most important interests of India's people, as that whose name forms the title of the present article. In briefly treating of its merits and demerits we can most conscientiously declare that we have no object whatever but, to the amount of our ability, to render it some service, and stir up those to whom is committed the high responsibility of its management, to exert themselves for encreasing its efficiency and remedying its defects. We esteem them far too highly for their work's sake, to suppose that they will for a moment imagine that any thing we may have to say of the defects in the working of the Institution is connected with the slightest feeling of hostility to the Institution itself, or to that branch of the Christian Church with which it is connected: for, in this work, we never have advocated, and never shall advocate the peculiarities of any church or denomination of Christians, but have been, and shall be, always ready to commend whatever in their several operations may be really useful and praiseworthy-pointing out at the same time any errors of administration which may be found to impair their efficiency. Conscious of the sincerity of our intentions, we hesitate not to declare that whatever appears in the following pages has arisen from a strong and earnest desire that the " Bishop's Mission College" may be what its pious founder designed it to be, a monument of gratitude to the Almighty,' and a rich treasury from which the natives of India might receive the imperishable blessings of the gospel.

The first Missionary Institution upon record is that which was established in Jericho not long after it had been rebuilt by Hiel the Bethelite. Here, the sons of the pro

phets were trained under the immediate superintendence of a superior; here, they were initiated into the amount of religious truth which Jehovah had been pleased to reveal; and, issuing from this central spot, they were wont to itinerate through the Holy Land, and instruct the people in the sacred principles and practical applications of religion. We gather from the sacred history of the time, that both Elijah and Elisha were connected with the schools of the prophets; and there can be no reasonable doubt that, under their able and patient administration, many a Missionary was educated and sent forth, rich in his acquired spiritual lore, and powerful in his experimental acquaintance with the divine precepts, to enlighten, convince, and reform the degenerate race who then dwelt in Palestine.

Our thoughts then rest upon the golden Alexandria, the goddess-like city, which " rose out of the idle foam" of the King of Macedonia's conquests. Here was that celebrated catechetical school, where the doctrines of Christianity were inculcated by the learned Pantænus and 's equally learned fellow-labourer Clement. It is indeed true, that the youths who resorted to these distinguished men were instructed by them in an eclectic philosophical system; still, despite of the mass, of human error which was engrafted upon the stock of God's pure truth, of the wisdom of this world, and the Platonism which obscured and weakened the wisdom of the heavenly world; numbers of catechists and presbyters were there prepared by holy discipline to become laborious and practical teachers; and with a single eye, an humble heart, and unswerving energy, to carry on their labors of love, with an intensity of interest and a determination of purpose, which neither prejudice nor philosophic opposition could lessen or shake. Among these students, and pre-eminent among them, was the far renowned Origen, the man, who, as Eusebius informs us, taught as he lived, and lived as he taught: "whose discourses, according to Gregory Thaumaturgus, were unspeakably winning, hallowed and passing lovely, and whose whole life was one sacrifice to his God."

At the close of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century, Columba (Saint, as he is generally styled)-a personage, however, more worthy of canonization than the majority of those crazy, thoroughly dirty, and self-righteous saints which crowd the Romish Calendar,-presided over a Missionary College in the bleak and lonely island of Iona. It was his aim, one which he kept steadily in view, to educate his disciples as painstaking ministers of the gospel. To effect his design, he inculcated a diligent perusal of the sacred Scriptures, and ever taught

his disciples to confirm their doctrine by testimonies drawn from this unpolluted fountain; and at the same time to manifest in their practice that sound and healthy energy which results from the vital principles of Scriptural truth. The catechists and presbyters who were trained in his establishment, were thus ready to act as Missionaries when their services were required, or where there was a prospect of success. Such, briefly sketched, are the outlines of three distinguished Missionary institutions, and we learn from history that a high degree of success attended the working of the systems which were adopted and inculcated within the walls of two of these colleges.

We are now to enquire into some of the causes of this success, and unfold, as far as we may, the reason why these collegiate institutions were not merely great in theory, but also great in practice. And we think that one grand cause and reason of their success lay in the fact, that "too great things," were not attempted by those wise and holy men who originated and presided over these training grounds for Missionaries. With an eagle eye, from their intellectual and moral elevation, Pantænus, Clement and Columba, scanned the position and wants of the multitude around them. Their peculiar state, their habits of thought and life-their errors-their prejudices-all were carefully noted by them. And when they had delineated the moral map of the region within which they were to operate, they spread the map before their disciples, and educated them so that they might meet the necessities of the people that the mind of the teachers might come into contact with the mind of the taught that a sympathy might grow up between the two classes-that they might thoroughly understand each other, and thus be a proof of the correctness of the aphorism that" true usefulness does not consist in doing extraordinary things, but in doing common things from a right motive, and for a right end." In Alexandria, Pantænus and his associate had two distinct objects in view; the one, to prepare their disciples for instructing the children of the inhabitants who professed Christianity, the other to enlighten the minds and obviate the sophistical objections of those who had been educated in the different philosophical schools. They were placed in a peculiar position, and they taught their followers to grapple with the difficulties of that position. In this respect, they were eminently successful. A comparatively pure Christianity was inculcated-the great truths of revelation were dispensed through a philosophical medium, and in this way, the Christian Missionary gained as converts many who other