currency each,) rather than suffer the business to go to a hearing. "This I am truly sorry to say," observes the advocate-general, "was the only punishment which could be inflicted for so barbarous and

atrocious a crime."

This horrid recital, which is given almost in the words of the report, merely avoiding repetition, seems to require little comment. One circumstance of it, however, may not strike the minds of some readers with its due force, although it appears to be the most affecting part of the whole case. Colbeck, it is said, on hearing that it was not his slave who had been murdered, went away satisfied. O most opprobrious satisfaction! The preceding part of the narrative had prepared us to expect in Colbeck some approxima tion to European feeling. But what is the fact? On being coolly told that a negro had been killed and buried-told so by his neigh bour the murderer, is he shocked? Does he express any horror or indignation on the occasion? No! he goes away satisfied!! Let the reader give its due weight to this one circumstance, and he will be convinced that a state of society must exist in the West Indies, of which, as an inhabitant of this island, he can scarcely form any adequate conception. Suppose, instead of a negro slave, that it had been a horse which had been thus killed. Colbeck, had his horse happened to be missing at the time, would have pursued ex-, actly the same steps, and would have been affected in the same way as in the present instance. We may also learn from this impressive circumstance the value of West Indian testimony when given in favour of West Indian humanity. The moral perceptions and feelings which prevail in that quarter of the world, it wil! be perceived, are wholly different from those on this side of the Atlantic. It may be allowed that these men mean what they say when they give each other the praise of humanity. But examine their standard. Who is this man of humanity? It is one who, hearing that a fellow creature had been cruelly and wantonly murdered, goes away satisfied, because he himself has sustained no loss by the murder! An exception may be admitted in favour of a few men of enlightened minds; but the remark applies to the people-to the bulk of the community, whose prejudices are stated by Lord Seaforth to be so horribly absurd, as to resist all measures for remedying this dreadful state of things.'

The authenticity of this account is unfortunately too certain to admit of doubt; and he who wishes for further details of atrocity, may have his wishes gratified by the perusal of the work itself. Barbadoes certainly is behind the other colonies in the enactment of laws at all approaching to a system of humanity. But we fear Mr. M. has good grounds for his assertion, that even in those islands where less revolting regulations exist, the laws in favour of negroes are far from being religiously obeyed. Sych at least appear to be the sentiments of General Prevost, who considers an

act passed in his island of Dominica for the encouragement and protection of slaves, as a political measure to prevent the interference of the mother country. This neglected act, however, contained provisions of the most salutary nature, not less beneficial to the slave than to the master, whose benefit and advantage are and ought to be identified, though the wrong-headed despotism of the whites will bear no good that does not flow from their sovereign will and pleasure. Yet if these principles continue to be persisted in, the day will come, nor can its date be very remote, when the planter will in vain regret that he has failed to obtain the attachment of his negroes, that he has added the stimulus of ill usage to the native disposition to rebellion, and drawn a too uneven balance between the benefits of sparing comforts and most miserable protection, on the one hand; and on the other, the view of liberty and independence, clouded though it must be by the horrors of a sanguinary insurrection.

Mr. Macallum's style appears to considerable advantage from the above quoted specimens of his work. In these extracts we observe a decent correctness of language not destitute of energy. But so very different, so far inferior are the letters which form the main part of this volume, that we can hardly imagine the same author to have produced them both. Of the rules of grammar Mr. M. scems to have very obscure notions. The first clause of a sentence is frequently more connected to the last by proximity of situa tion than by any other discoverable rule; and many a nominative is left to bewail its separation from its verbal partner. This work also may afford great help to the next editor of the lexicographical Johnson, who may here desery a host of words which never before appeared above the horizon of letters. These children of our author's brain, however, unlike the luminaries which adorn the natural sky, diffuse a darkness visible, and are sometimes no less difficult to comprehend than to pronounce. Ablocating prostitutes,' we now learn for the first time is the vile practice of hiring out female slaves in order to participate in the profits of their iniquities. Providence, we are informed, visibly interposed at one period to procrastinate our author's life. One happy morsel we quote entire from page 84, for the consideration of our critical readers. Mr. Macallum is employed in portraying the hardships to which the highlanders of Scotland are subjected, when he observes,

The labourer by numerous privations of diligent industry, can scarcely succeed to acquire a moment's ease, before a melancholy

presage of the future intervenes, and siderates his fugitive delights. An increasing family and old age approaching, enervate the arm that must shortly succumb in the combat he has yet to wage; poverty and all its concomitant train of evils, prey deeply on his mind, and prevent a ray of happiness from smiling in his lancinated imagination,'

Mr. Macallum's rays are really very merry, and have in these melancholy times, the happy power of spreading the contagion of laughter. He ought to be advised, however, to attend more faithfully to the motto prefixed to his volume, in despite of which sensible admonition, he has entangled himself in a snare of hard words which he has partly misspelt and partly misapplied, of metaphors of which he knows neither the meaning nor the use, and of strange uncouth combinations of letters, which he has rashly mistaken for English. A plain unaffected narrative may be homely, but cannot prove absurd: and nothing is more foolish, and few things more tiresome, than never-ceasing and abortive attempts at flowery language and learned, expressions.

ART. VII-A general View of the Writings of Linnæus, by Richard Pulteney, M. D. F. R. S. The Second Edition, with Corrections, considerable Additions, and Memoirs of the Author, by Wm. George Maton, M. D. F. R. S. F.S. A. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and a Vice-President of the Linnean Society of London. To which is annexed, a Diary of Linnæus, written by himself, and now translated into English from the Swedish Manuscript in the Possession of the Editor. 4to. pp. 596.

Mawman. 1805.

SO great was the merit of Linnæus, that the eye of the naturalist is irresistibly arrested by the appearance of his name, connected especially as it is in the present volume, with the account of his writings by Dr. Pulteney, and the publication of his diary composed by himseif, and authenticated by apparently respectable evidence. Yet these feelings of impatience to proceed to the inspection of these memoirs, are not without the alloy of the caution of experience, which, as the bride declared to her husband with more candour than wisdom, has been too often cheated before, to give any more trust. In truth, so frequent and ample has been the disappointment that has checked our springing senti ments of approbation, that we are more disposed in these days of gorgeous quartos to expect the slavish and undis

criminating admiration of illustrious men, whom it is now safe to praise, or that slavering fondness which has become the diversion of the public, and the delight of biographers, than the philosophic spirit which commends with caution, and censures with reluctance. Linnæus was professor of botany and medicine at Upsal. It is wonderful with what respect the eyes of some men regard the insignia of learning, the gown, and the chair. We remember actually to have seen a inember of a northern seminary, who, after having himself attained the professorial honours, was heard to declare with irresistible gravity, that he had imbibed in his youth such an awe and veneration for all professors, that he believed it would never leave him. The endless spinuing out of the thread of a dull narrative, the prolix particularity, the nauseous magnification of trifles, have already found so many patrons among the able and the learned, that we are happy to announce to our readers that the author and editor of this work have not fallen so much into this error as might have been reasonably feared, and that it is in the Diary of Linnæus himself that the most censurable passages of this sort are to be found. These the editor has,with good judgment, presented to the inspection of the public unaltered. And if a little exuberance of vanity of the most harmless and almost amiable character, does occasionally shadow the pages of the father of botany, what acrid spirit will pursue these trivial blemishes, or discern with an eye too perspicacious, these specks on the sun which has illuminated the three kingdoms of nature?

In this republication, the new parts are neither very numerous nor very ample. Some few additions have been made to the General View of the Writings of Linnæus. The arrangement has been rendered more strictly chronological; the abstracts of the Systema Naturæ have been completed, which before were only partial, and notice hus been taken of the classification of the materia medica, and of the volumes of the Amoenitates Academica, which had notappeared at the time of Dr. Pulteney's writing. These additions seem very proper in themselves, and are executed with a reasonable share of ability on the part of the present edi tor. Besides these specimens of his exertions, the volume is augmented by a life of Dr. Pulteney, and a translation of the Diary of Linnæus from the original Swedish by the assistance of a friend, Dr. Maton's university learning not having condescended to the knowledge of the Gothic dialects.

The Memoirs of Dr. Richard Pulteney are faced by a fair

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and comely delineation of his countenance, regarding with complacent features an opened volume, probably the very former edition of his own work, and casting a side glance of approbation at a most grave and well finished suit, terminated at the wrists by frills of smooth-ironed folds, in imitation, we cannot doubt, of the monapetalous and rotated corolla of the botanists. The original of this portrait was, we are informed, like all geniuses, inspired in his very infancy with the love of his future pursuits, and though bound by legal chains to the mortar of an apothecary, he contrived to escape into the Selds, where he examined the very dirt and weeds with the most lively curiosity. Notwithstanding the force of this ruling passion, Dr. P. appears to have had good success in his labours at the pestle, since we find him at the very expiration of his apprenticeship pounding his own drugs in the town of Leicester. We gather, however, that his occupation was not the most constant in the world, and that his Calvinistic brethren preferred the comforts of prayers to those of boluses; while the higher bred episcopalians despised altogether the stuff of a presbyterian apothecary. Botany, however, by her secret charms, soothed the pangs of professional mortification, and the Gentleman's Magazine was swelled by numerous articles, the fruits of the ardour and idleness of Dr. Pulteney. These papers are enumerated by Dr. Maton with a tedious, care, and we confess we would rather believe than read the list. These communications, however,with some others to the Royal Society, procured for Dr. P. the honour of the acquaintance of various men of science and rank, by whom he was at length persuaded that his situation in his profession was unequal to his merits, and that he ought to apply for the doctorate, which we are informed his great humility had previously prevented him from coveting. For this purpose he proceeded to Edinburgh, where the ancient practice of bestowing academical honours on those who had never studied regularly, was almost abolished. Dr. Pulteney, not without a most serious and, in our opinion, most commendable opposition from the body of students, obtained his object, and was crowned with the doctor's cap. Notwithstanding the degree of merit which may form some pretext of excuse for the irregular promotion of this gentleman, we reflect with satisfaction that a repetition of these circumstances ven in favour of the most learned, can no longer take -slace, and it were well if the two more northern universities would adopt a regulation no less required by their own reard for character than by the demands of public interest. 'he English nation has long beheld with astonishment and