that by a rational use of them a regular mode of curing cancer may yet be established. We heartily wish that Mr. Young's future ex perience may confirm his hopes. This work, we understand, is in tended as a prospectus of the future labours of the author in the same field of enquiry. Considering it as a coup d'essai, we think respectably of the talents of the writer. We would advise him, when he again presents himself before the public, to confine himself to prac tical observations, to abstain from the use of a metaphysical jargon, which our modern pathologists mistake for profundity, and not to indulge in unbecoming and petulant remarks on the labours of his predecessors.

POLITICS.

ART. 25.-Two Letters on the Commissariat; written to the Com missioners of Military Inquiry, by Havilland le Mesurier, Esq. Commissary General to the Army late in Egypt and the Medię terranean. Svo. Stockdale. 1806,

DURING several years of attentive and faithful service in the com missariat, Mr. Le Mesurier had discovered a variety of errors and abuses which prevailed in that department. These he had made known during Mr. Pitt's former administration; but no notice was taken of his representations and remonstrances, and no reform whatever was introduced, though immense sums of the public mo ney might have been saved by the adoption of such practicable and salutary regulations as Mr. Le Mesurier proposed. But whatever might be Mr. Pitt's merits as a statesman, he was certain, ly never forward in promoting an economical expenditure of the public money; nor did he ever show any favour to those who pointed out the abuses of office and the means of their prevention. It is in the commissariat as in other departments, the accounts of the different agents appear sometimes not to have been passed for years, or never passed at all. Thus vouchers could be easily forged, charges made that never were incurred, or increased greatly beyond the original amount; and we all know that where pecuniary profit is to be ob tained, all kinds of impositions will be multiplied in proportion to the prospect of impunity. But the sagacity which Mr. Le Me surier displayed in the detection of frauds in the office of the com missariat, and the honest industry which he exerted in the preven¬ tion, were so far from recommending him to the favour of Mr. Pitt, that they rather operated to bis disadvantage. After experiencing marked neglect and multiplied mortifications, he retired from the service in the year 1798. But when Mr. Addington, who seems to have had the good of his country really at heart, came into office, the patriotic virtues of Mr. Le Mesurier were not forgotten, and be was, in October 1801, appointed commissary general to the forces in Egypt and the Mediterranean. On his arrival in Egypt, Mr. Le Mesurier found that even before the walls of Cairo the troops were furnished with biscuit and salt pork which had come from the vic

twalling stores of Deptford, at the price of about four shillings the ration, when soft bread and fresh meat might with a proper commissariat establishment have been procured at the price of sixpence the ration. When Mr. Pitt had succeeded in subverting Mr. Addington's administration, Mr. Le Mesurier was no longer an object of favour or of patronage. The office of commissary general had become vacant by the resignation of Sir Brook Watson, who had never been an advocate for any economical reforms in the department over which he had so long presided. Mr. Le Mesurier was both in the army and in the commissariat universally regarded as the most proper person to be his successor. But Mr. Pitt rejected the faithful and patriotic servant of the public, whose indus try and vigilance had been the saving of so many thousands, and appointed a stranger from the other side of the Atlantic to fill what at the present crisis is a place of so much importance, and on the proper execution of which the success of military enterprize must so much depend. Mr. Le Mesurier's pamphlet well deserves the attention of the present administration; and we trust that they will profit by the wholesome advice which it contains. They are pledged to the most upright and economical expenditure of the public money; and we think so well of them as to believe that they will not violate their own solemn engagements, nor frustrate the sanguine hopes of every wise and good man in the united kingdom.

ART. 26.-A Plan or Proposal for the Augmentation of the Regu lar Army of the Line. By Military Officers. Seal. 1806.

THESE officers propose to limit the number of men in arms to 350,000; that of these, 200,000 should be composed of regulars, and that the remaining 150,000 should consist of volunteers, peasantry, and yeomanry cavalry; but that whatever troops we might send abroad, there should never be less than a force of 200,000 regulars in England. They add that the whole regular army should be divided into battalions of 500, men each, and put under the command of effective colonels, a rank entirely unknown at present in the regular army; for though there are more colonels in the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland than in all the rest of Europe put together, there is not one single effective colonel doing duty as such in the command of a battalion in the whole regular army !!!

ART. 27.4 Defence of the Volunteer System, in opposition to Mr. Windham's Idea of that Force; with Hints for its Improve ment. Hatchard. 1806.

WHATEVER may be the defects of a volunteer system, we trust that there are few persons, who will not bear testimony to the spirit, the energy and disinterestedness of the volunteers; to the ala crity with which in a moment of the most serious alarm they expos

ed themselves to great expence and numerous inconveniences that they might be trained to arms, and learn to wield the musket and the sword against the enemy, who seemed ready to yomit his nume rous hosts of ravagers upon our shores. We cannot too much blame those who affect to ridicule the exertions or to depreciate the merit of so truly patriotic and respectable a portion of the commu. nity. But at the same time we think, as we have stated in our review of Major Cartwright's publication, that a general arming of the kingdom on the ancient plan of the posse comitatus or county power, would be found the cheapest, the most constitutional, and the most efficacious mode of defence which we could adopt. Nor could the internal peace of the country be at all endangered by such a plan; for, as the whole property of the country would be inured to the use of arms, all civil commotions would be instantly repressed by those who were most interested in the preservation of order and of peace. Our defence against any enemies to the British constitution either from within or from without would not be left to an indigent and unprincipled rabble, but would chiefly depend on those who, from the greater interest which they had at stake, and from the effects of a superior education, would be, less easy to se duce from their duty, and most likely to display an energetic zeal for the welfare of their country. By this means we should likewise obtain a larger and a more equably disposed force than the volunteer system can ever furnish. Wherever the enemy might effect a landing, he would in a short time be overwhelmed by a superior force, which, instead of being brought at great expence and considerable delay from a distant part of the country, might be instantly collected from the surrounding district. There would be no occasion, as has been proposed, to lay the country waste for miles before the face of an invading foe, and thus to commit a sort of spontaneous ravage on ourselves, which it would cost a century to repair; for the enemy, being opposed by myriads of freemen at the moment of his landing, would not be able to advance, or would find his host so thinned at every step that he must soon propose a surrender or sound a retreat. A parity of force may vanquish where there is superiority of skill; but it is numbers only which can ra pidly annihilate. And if the old posse comitatus were re-established with improvements suited to the change of manners and the state of modern war, no French marauders would be permitted to breathe for two days on English ground. They would within that time be strewed in lifeless heaps upon the ground, or pushed into the

sea.

ART. 28. A dispassionate Inquiry into the best Means of National Safety. By John Bowles, Esq. Hatchard. 1806.

AMONG the best means of national safety this author seems toreckon increased penalties on the non-attendance of public worship, and severe restrictions on gratifications which we have been always taught

to consider as by no means incompatible with virtue and with innocence. Thus the circulation of Sunday newspapers seems an object of his mortal aversion, and one of those crying sins which we must relinquish before we can expect to beat the French out of the field, or make the haughty Corsican lower the crest of his ambition.— As there are many persons who hate no time for intellectual culture or for harmless recreation, except on the sabbath, we do not see how it can possibly be reconciled either to the nature of the institution itself, or to the benign genius of christianity, to debar them from spending a part of the Sunday in a manner at once so instructive and agreeable. We are of opinion that political information cannot be too widely diffused; and that the more thinkers and readers we have among us, the better security we enjoy for the rational and well-tempered freedom of the British constitution; the greater restraints will the free expression of public opinion impose on bad measures and bad men. Religion does not consist in senseless mortifications; nor will the great precepts of moral duty, in the practice of which the essence of christianity more especially resides, ever be recommended by an incongruous association with puritanic severity and fanatic gloom. The sabbath of the moody calvinist or the whining hypocrite may be covered with crape, or dressed out like a lifeless carcase for a funeral ; but the sabbath of the benign disciple of the benevolent Jesus, will be a day not only of devout thanksgiving, but of social endearment, and harmless mirth. That Providence, which designed the florid beauty of the fields, and modulated the lively cho rus of the groves, cannot but be pleased when he beholds his rational creatures innocently gay. True piety is never a stranger to joy of heart; and those who convert the sabbath into a day of penance and austerity, defeat the benevolent ends of the institution, and do despite to that spirit of charity, without the exercise of which no sabbath can be sanctified.

ART. 29-A comparative Statement of the two Bills for the better Government of the British Possessions in India, brought into Parliament by Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt with explanatory Observations. By the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Budd. 1806. THIS is the republication of a pamphlet which appeared in the year 1788. Of the comparative merits of the two bills there cannot well at this day be two opinions. Mr. Fox's bill was simple in its principle, but comprehensive in its plan, and powerful in its operations: Mr. Pitt's bill was intricate in its constitution, confined in its views, confused in its statements, and to every beneficial purpose quite impotent in its operations. Mr. Fox's bill would have augmented the power of the parliament; Mr. Pitt's increased the patronage of the crown. Mr. Fox's bill would have promoted the true interests of the East India Company, and have secured the peace of India; Mr. Pitt's bill has had the effect of embarrassing the afairs of the company, of loading them with debt, and of disturbing the whole empire of Indostan with ravage and with war.

Aur. 30. The Destiny of the German Empire, and the general Prospects of Europe. In two Parts. By J. Bicheno, A. M. Flower. 1806.

TIMES of calamity and distress, of war, famine, and despair are those in which, in all ages of the world, the desire of anticipating the progress of events and of unveiling the dark covering of the future, has been the most impatient, and consequently in which the spirit of prophetic delusion has been most diffusive in its influence and most active in its operations. Such has been the agitated state of man for the last sixteen years, in which so many extraordinary events have occurred, and so many more seem still ripening to maturity in the womb of fate, that we ought not to be surprised that this feeling has been so general, and that it has given birth to the wildest reveries, the most chimerical suppositions, and the most gloomy imaginations. Thus we have had some new prophets and more new interpreters of the old. The book of Revelations, which has never wanted a host of expositors to apply its mystic imagery to recent occurrences, has afforded an ample stock of materials on which to exercise the faculties of the visionary, and to impregnate the fancy of those who wish to lift up the curtain which God has thrown over the destiny of nations and the future prospects of man. Many are they who have failed in explaining this hidden book, and Mr. Bicheno must not be angry with us if we presume to add his name to the number of those, who, in their eager desire to discover in the labyrinth of its sombre details, predictions of what is, and of what is about to be, have violated the sober rules of rational criticism, and disgraced their compositions by the most puerile absurdities.'. ART. 31.-An Answer to War in Disguise; or Remarks upon the New Doctrine of England concerning Neutral Trade. Svo. John son. 1806.

THE question discussed by the author of War in Disguise' is now under the consideration of plenipotentiaries appointed by the British ministry on the one part and that of America on the other, In this season of peaceable concession, the Americans will probably have no pretended grievances, which they can render the subjects of menace or complaint. The writer of this pamphlet will not instruct the plenipotentiaries by any new observations, arguments or facts,

ART. 32.-La Paix en Apparence. Réponse à L'Ecrit intitulé lą Guerre Déguisée. Ou Considérations Politiques sur les véritables Intérêts de la Grande Bretagne relativement aux Puissances Neutres. 8vo. Budd. 1806.

THE pamphlet entitled War in Disguise' has provoked several answers, among which the work before us may claim peculiar attention from the spirit of moderation with which it is written. It is said to be translated from German into French, and printed in London.