lowers of the fine arts, should make but moderate use of the athletic regimen. Repose has a contrary effect. Those who live a sedentary life think and feel more than the active, if their inactivity is not excessive, and then it diminishes the ener gy of the mind also. Among men who are strangers to great muscular exertion, repose augments the weakness of the stomach, and sobriety on that account becomes the more necessary. "On peut observer, à ce sujet, que la grande activité de l'organe pensant est souvent entretenue par les spasmes des viscères du basventre, ou par de points de sensibilité vicieuse établis dans leur region!" Hence a certain state of physical disease is often favourable to the rapid and brilliant developement of talent, as well as of the most pure and delicate moral affections. Hence also, in reestablishing the health of such persons, their comfort may be increased, but their talents are not always augmented. Men of sensitive constitutions require a considerable portion of sleep. Long watching makes them feel feebleness both of mind and body. But where the excess of sensibility depends on the inertness of the stomach, too much sleep increases this inertness, weakens the brain, and in consequence deranges all the operations of the will and the intellect. Labour has a great effect on the mind. Work which requires much muscular exertion, and is performed standing, directs a large portion of vital energy to the muscles, and hence the equilibrium between the organs of motion and of sensation is broken. Besides, the additional activity which the digestive organs possess makes the brain more inert. The nature of the employment has a great effect on the moral habits. Those who follow disgusting employments contract analogous manners. Those who follow dangerous employments add boldness and carelessness to superstition. Soldiers who use arms acquire despotic and domineering habits. Butchers, in general, are rough, pitiless, and ferocious. Hunters also are rough in their feelings. Their characters present a combination of daring and guile, and their manners a union of perfidy and cruelty. The rough scenery in which they live, produces a roughness of feeling by the natural impressions which it conveys. Nations of fishers, especially in frozen regions, have the same feelings. The roughness of the sea, the hardships they suffer, the severe impressions of the cold, the dismal objects they constantly behold, all conspire to render them savage and fe rocious. Tradition, history, fiction, and the reveries of philosophers, have represented the pastoral life as the model of virtue and 11 happiness. But these brilliant pictures are mere illusions. People purely pastoral have never been but hordes of robbers and plunderers. They have no idea of property in the soil, and of all the rights which follow it. It is only in fortunate vallies, under a mild sky, where they can give themselves to the cultivation of poetry, or astronomy, and become in any degree civilized. The agricultural people enjoy not only the most secure subsistence, but their employment is best calculated to the cultivation of sociality, virtue, and good sense. Thus, then, regimen, that is to say, the daily use of air, food, liquors, watching, sleep, and employment, exert a very extensive influence on the character of the ideas, the passions, the habits of the mind, in a word, on the moral state. But here our quotations must end. The extracts which we have given are sufficient to convey an idea of the book, and our limits prevent us from giving more. We have only a very few observations to make on the subjects of which it treats, which we shall express as shortly as possible. While we cannot go the length to which Montesquieu, the present author, and several others would carry us in attributing all our moral affections to physical causes, yet the influence of organic impressions on our perceptions, and consequently on our habits and ideas, appears to us so important as to deserve much more consideration than it has hitherto received. Nor do we think such investigations lead to materialism, as seems in this country to be generally apprehended. We can conceive that the impressions made on the mind by physical causes, operate on it much after the same manner as the moral impressions made on it by education; or, in other words, we consider physical impressions to act as one species of education. For example, it cannot with plausibility be disputed that there are certain primitive faculties in the mind, and that nature has established a certain relation betwixt these faculties and external objects, in virtue of which the presence of these objects excites certain feelings or sentiments in the mind; some of them pleasing and others painful. A bed of flowers, for instance, is a pleasing object, as by We suspect that this may be, or rather has been, disputed. Our correspondent cannot be a stranger to the doctrine of association.-Editor. the constitution of our nature it is beheld with a feeling of delight. If such impressions be frequently and forcibly repeated, we see no reason why they may not be supposed capable of exerting a permanent influence on the mind, as well as impressions made by moral causes alone. Or, on the other hand, in consequence of the relation thus established betwixt external nature and the faculties of the mind, certain objects are fitted to excite gloomy and dismal sentiments. A stormy climate, a dreary and barren wilderness, mines sunk into the bowels of the earth, and many other objects might be mentioned, the natural expressions of which to the human mind are dismal. Now, if these objects are constantly presented, and their powerful impressions often repeated, we see no reason why they may not be supposed to impress a permanent tendency to such feelings, as certainly as dismal views of our moral condition are admitted to throw a gloom over every object. What we would beg leave to suggest to the consideration of our philosophers, therefore, is, that in investigating the nature and the functions of the faculties of the mind, they should not lose sight of the influence which internal organization, and also impressions from external physical objects may exert on these faculties. It is too obvious that the mind is powerfully affected both by the internal organic constitution of the body, and by the impressions made upon by external physical objects, to allow us to pretend that the investigation of these subjects is of no importance; and it is unbecoming the character for pe netration usually ascribed to our countrymen to have so generally neglected them. L. it ON VERBAL CRITICISM, ILLUSTRATED BY SOME SPECIMENS. Omne tulit punctum.-HOR. IN a former essay on this obsolete subject, we gave some examples of what may be done for the text of old authors, by a proper attention to punctuation, and the use of parenthesis. There are, however, passages in which more must be attempted, and See Number for October. VOL. III. we have promised our readers some specimens of conjectural emendation. The general rule here, too, is to give as little scope to invention as possible. The author's words, as they are transmitted to us, are probably nearer the truth than any our fancy can hit upon, and, although it is a very tempting exercise of ingenuity to introduce our own words, on the supposition that they are the author's; yet it seldom happens, that such suppositions though they may be plausible, are not quite erroneous. Warburton is one of the most fanciful of Shakespeare's commentators. There is a passage in that poet's Coriolanus, May these same instruments which you profane Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-fac'd soothing! When steel grows Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made An overture for the wars, in which he makes the following change, Let camps as cities Be made of false-fac'd soothing! When Soft as the parasite's silk, let hymns be steel grows made An overture for the wars. This is ingenious, but so violent withal, that succeeding commentators have been dissatisfied with it, and alteration of a less darin kind. have made some other attempts at There is, in truth, no necessity for any change here at all; the only difficulty is in the last clause, which means, site's silk, then let there be made to "when steel grows soft as the parahim (the parasite) an overture or proposal to attend the wars." Where, however, a change is necessary, the slightest is commonly the best. In the play of Cymbeline, Belarius says of Cloten, Being scarce made up, I mean to man, he had not apprehension Of roaring terrors; for defect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear. Mr Theobald says justly, that the reason here given for Cloten's fearlessness, his defect of judgment, is, by a strange kind of inconsequence, represented to be the cause of fear. He accordingly reads, and his reading is now adopted in the most approved editions of the poet, 3 U This, to say the least, is a very awkward expression, a vile phrase," as Polonius would call it, a sort of jumbling of cause and effect, which our metaphysics will not permit us to tolerate. A change of punctuation, and a much slighter alteration on a word, will, we think, restore the passage: He had not apprehension Of roaring terrors, for defect of judgment, As oft the cause of tear. The addition or rejection of a single letter will often make a very important change on the sense of a passage. The letters, whether as the sign of the plural, the sign of the genitive, or as a contraction for the substantive verb is, may very easily be inserted or omitted in the text, or appear in the wrong character; without a supposition of very great inaccuracy on the part of the printer, particularly in the case of dramatic writing, in which the accuracy of the printed passage may often, in a great degree, depend on the pronunciation of the actor. There is a speech, for instance, in Romeo and Juliet, which, as it is now edited, appears very absurd. Juliet "That runaway's eyes may wink," however the commentators may attempt to explain it, is mere nonsense. Juliet is addressing the night, and our poet, in the Merchant of Venice, has already called the night a runaway. "For the close night doth play the runaway;" leave out then here the sign of the genitive case, and the passage is quite intelligible. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night! That, runaway, eyes may wink, &c. Which were such As Agamemnon's, e'en the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass, and such again, As venerable Nestor's, hatched in silver, &c. "Your speeches (says Ulysses) were such, that all Greece should possess and study Agamemnon's engraved in brass, and Nestor's in silver," &c. Take another instance of the same kind from Beaumont and Fletcher. In Wit without Money, Valentine, the hero of the piece, who had spent his estate, is advised by Lovegood, an old relation, to repair his fortune by marriage. He replies, An you can find one [i. e. a wife] that can please my fancy, You shall not find me stubborn. Lovegood. Speak your woman. Valentine. One without eyes, that is, self-commendations; (For when they find they're handsome, they're unwholesome ;) One without ears, not giving time to flat terers; (For she that hears herself commended, wavers, It is natural, while she is thinking And points men out a way to make 'em of the approach of night, which she is longing for, that she should also recollect how rapidly it will pass away. wicked ;) Though she be young, forgetting it; though fair, Making her glass the eyes of honest men, Not her own admiration; all her ends Obedience; all her hours new blessings; if There may be such a woman. The commentators can make very little sense of the lines in Italics. Correct the punctuation, and make the slight change of the introduction of the letter s contracted for is, and the passage will not only be quite clear, but energetic and forcible. One without substance of herself that's woman; Without the pleasure of her life-that's wanton; &c. In the same play, Valentine has a quarrel with some rich friends, who are so inhuman, as to make him actually strip himself on the stage of most of the articles of apparel which he had got at their cost, and leave him shivering in the cold, one of them saying as he goes out, Pray have a care, To which VaSir, of your health!" lentine answers, (Act 3. Scene 4.) Yes, hog-hounds, more than you can have of your wits! "Tis cold, and I am very sensible; extremely cold too; Yet I'll not off, till 1 have sham'd these rascals. I have endured as ill heats as another, And every way; if one could perish my body, You'll bear the blame on't! I am colder here; [i. e. in his pockets] Not a poor penny left! To the words, If one could perish my body You'll bear the blame on't! Mr Weber, the last editor, subjoins the following note: "I have endured as ill heats, and in every way as another; if any such heat could make my body perish in the present case, you would bear the blame of it." This is the only explanation, he adds, which occurs to him; but he suspects the omission of a line. Seward's alteration, And almost every way that one can perish: My body, you'll bear cold, but they the blame on't, Is no doubt about as impertinent a piece of licence as ever was taken with the text of any poet; nor is any thing necessary, except a slight change in one word, completely to cure the passage. I have endured as ill heats as another, And every way; if one cold perish my bo dy You'll bear the blame on't, &c. Indeed, there is scarcely required here even so slight a change as the omission of a letter; cold, and many words of the same sort, such as bold, old, soldier, &c., were even, in our recollection, very commonly pronounced, and probably were at one time spelled, could, bould, ould, souldier, &c. Another very trifling change upon a word will give sense and poetry to a passage, in the same play, which, as it stands, is quite incomprehensible. In one of his ravings against marriage, Valentine says, If you'll needs Do things of danger, do but lose yourselves, (Not any part concerns your understandings, For then you're meacocks, fools, and miserable,) March off amain, within an inch of a fir cug, Turn me o' th' toe like a weathercock! Kill every day a serjeant for a twelvemonth, Rob the exchequer, and burn all the rolls! And these will make a shew. This fircug, which is the reading of the old copies, has given much annoyance to the commentators. "Theobald (says Mr Weber) ingeniously conjectured the real word to have been firelock. I think it more probable, that fircug was a corruption of firecock, by which the cock of a gun may have been denominated." These changes make no sense. How is a person in more danger, by turning round like a weathercock within an inch of a firelock or a firecock, whichever you please to call it, than in standing still before it; or what danger is there in being before it at all, if nobody is letting it off? "March off amain, (say the poets as we understand them,) lose yourselves in pathless mountains, and when you have got within an inch of a firerag, a precipice so obscured by fir trees, that you may fall over before you are aware, turn round on your toe like a weathercock." We would hazard rather a more violent alteration on a passage in The Humorous Lieutenant, of the same poets. Antigonus, to console his son Demetrius for the loss of a battle, (in which kind office he is joined by an old General, Leontius,) says, (Act 2. Scene 4.) Sir; "Twas but a walk, a handsome walk. We have little more room at present, but before we turn tails on our readers, we beg leave to subjoin one other example from Shakespeare, reserving to a future essay a few farther elucidations of the text of that great poet. In a speech of Belarius, in Cymbeline, there occurs a difficulty which, after various attempts at amendment, has been at last left in the text in despair. O, this life Is nobler than attending for a cheek; &c. SINCE forwarding to you a sketch and description of the remarkable subterraneous cemetery on the estate of Lunan, near Montrose, which you so obligingly inserted in your useful Miscellany, many others of inferior note have been discovered; and the probability is, that these latter were the graves of the vassals or dependants, whilst the superb one formerly described was the burying-place of the chieftain and his family. The spot where these latter graves were discovered is a sandy knoll of no great elevation, situated about seventy yards south of the remarkable antiquity formerly described. On this little eminence fifteen graves have been discovered in the course of bringing it into aration, and they differ little from many others which I have had occasion to examine in different parts of Scotland; still, as they fix some material points in the customs of our ancestors, which appear to have been generally overlooked, it is presumed that a brief description of them may not be uninteresting. In every one of the above instanThe commentators can make no- ces, the grave was constructed of two thing of" doing nothing for a babe." rows of stones, one on each side of the Warburton for babe reads bauble, body, and a third one for a covering. Hanmer, bribe, and Dr Johnson, brabe, These stones were sometimes freewhich he coins from a monkish Latin stone, and sometimes consisted of word of which nobody ever heard be- the different varieties to be found fore, brabium, signifying a reward. It in the immediate vicinity. One pehas been even proposed by some inge- culiarity pervaded the whole, namely, nious person or other, to read baubee, that the graves were exactly proporthe Scotch name for a halfpenny. We tioned to the size of the skeletons dethink the mistake lies in the word posited. A second peculiarity was, for, which might very easily be intro- that each grave contained only one duced by the printer instead of from, skeleton, so that they had never been especially as there is a for immedi- reopened (as is the present custom) ately above it in the preceding line, for the purpose of repeated inhumaand another immediately below it in tion; and a third peculiarity was, that the line which follows. From a the heads of all were laid to the east, babe," is the same thing as "from contrary to the Christian mode of sea child," or "from childhood," and pulture. One of the skeletons found as many rich men may be said from was that of a child, apparently about the time of childhood upwards to do six years old, with the skull very ennothing, this is a very natural cir- tire. |