his meditations by the perusal of Dr. Kinglake's Dissertation.* He has accordingly dedicated his last chapter to the refutation of Dr. K.'s doctrines, and to prove that many cases unquestionably occur, in which the speedy suppression of gouty inflammation is followed by alarming symptoms, constituting what has been termed retrocedent gout. It would appear, however, that in his own person, the refrigerant plan has been always attended with the success which Dr. K. avers that it invariably produces; and we do not think that Dr. K. would desire a more pointed example to illustrate the treatment which he recommends. It appears to us that the author does not employ the term, cure, in the sense in which it is generally used in speaking of the gout; and that hence that difference of his doctrines from those of Dr. K, and some others, is rather verbal than real. The latter apply the term cure to a single paroxysm; the author seems to apply it to the removal of the gouty diathesis, or to the prevention of the disease.

The great object of the present treatise, however, is to demonstrate that the disposition to gout consists in a peculiar acrimony' of the fluids. The nature of this acrimony is not absolutely pointed out; but it is supposed to be either the uric or lithic acid, or an approximation to that acid which contaminated the circulating fluid. This hypothesis principally rests upon two facts. First, on the dis covery of Dr. Wollaston, that arthritic concretions consist of lithate of soda; and secondly, of the circumstance ascertained by Drs. Cullen, Cadogan, and others, and particularly exemplified by the author, that alkaline medicines are efficacious in removing or diminishing the gouty diathesis. The author, however, has followed up the doctrine with a great many arguments drawn from collateral circumstances, which give an air of considerable plausibility to his hypothesis. Yet we do not apprehend that our knowledge of gout and its cure will be greatly advanced by this dissertation, to which nevertheless we must award the meed of praise due to ingenuity of discussion. The utility of alkaline medicines has been long ago ascertained, but it will be vain, we believe, to attempt to correct the acrimony of a, gouty habit by the feeble aid of a drug, while it is constantly and copiously generated by intemperance in all its forms. The author indeed lays considerable stress on the necessity of avoiding acid and acescent articles of diet.

Nodes of the joints arise, in the author's opinion, from the same prevalence of acid acrimony in the habit; and the same medicine and regimen have been found effectually to counteract their formation, and to remove them when formed.

We wish that every hypothesis in medicine was submitted to the same test as is recommended by Horace for an epic poem; nonum prematur in annum.' The aid of experiment and observation might then be employed to strengthen or to invalidate the suppositions of the

*Sea Crit. Rev. for April, 1805.

mind. There is an appearance of crudity and immaturity in this work, from a deficiency of this sort of evidence'; and too much is taken for granted, to leave any satisfactory impression of solidity on

the reader.

ART. 16.--A Manual of Anatomy and Physiology, reduced as much as possible to a tabular Form, for the Purpose of facili tating to Students the Acquisition of these Sciences. By Thomas Luxmoore. Small 8vo. Ss. 6d. Highley. 1805.

THIS little volume may be as useful, as some others that are published, on the table of the student in the dissecting toom; for which purpose its brevity and tabular form recommend it. But in comparison with the excellent compendium of Mr. Fyfe, it is very jejune and superficial. The term Physiology, indeed, might have been omitted in the title page, without injustice to the work; for on this head little or nothing is to be found in it. No mention, for instance, is made of a gastric fluid, or of digestion: nothing is said of the nature or use of the bile, of the pancreatic juice, of the saliva, &c. not a word respecting the changes of the air in the lungs, or the purposes of respiration. The descriptions, however, are in all instances marked by great perspicuity; the tables of the muscles, in which the situation, name, origin, insertion and use of each, are seen. at one view, are particularly clear. In this point the dissector will find the manual possessed of some advantages,

DRAMA.

ART. 17.-The Delinquent; or, Seeing Company: a Comedy, in Five Acts, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden. By Frederick Reynolds. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Longman. 1805.

WE leave the fable of this drama to the perishable tomb of those phemeral publications which have already enshrined it with more splendid obsequies than we should be inclined to afford. To say that it resembles other modern trash, were doing great injury to that trash. It is infinitely beneath the notice of the most frivolous. The Young Roscius, the Young Roscia, the Melo-Dramas of Mr. M. Lewis, and the comedies of Mr. Reynolds, direct the taste of the day. We shall scarcely venture to contradict the decision of the public, and therefore shall close this short critique with an appropriate quotation, never desiring more to See the Company of the Delinquent. (Vide epilogue.)

"Enter Young Doric hastily.

Y. Doric. Pheugh! I'm out of breath, I've run so fast to be be. forehand and forestall my partner and this sailor--Sir Arthur, you're restor❜d to liberty, Sir Edward has releas'd his debt, Doric and Co. have done the same, and should there still remain one who'd enforce the outlawry, I and the Major here, will give a ball, will pay the Savage with his own bank notes, or if that fails, hark'ye, (taking

the Major aside) 'tis but to open the wrong chariot door, and Rollo like we'll shove him in a Hermitage.

1

'Mrs. Aub. Restor❜d to freedom! Olivia, unite with me again in thanking him.

Olivia. I do,with heartfelt gratitude and joy.

Delin. Sir, you remember that when last we met—

Y. Doric. I do, Sir Arthur (in a melancholy tone.) I remember I left you out of my party, but if I luckily should get a wife and a more roomy mansion, speak-(aside to Major again) and I'll ask you to the wedding supper.

Major Tor. He'll ask me to the wedding supper! What say you, Olivia ? But here's the man.'

P. 72.

We had almost forgot the Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue was written by a Friend;' and in a very friendly manuer, we allow, ne has amicably determined not to eclipse Mr. Reynolds. The Epilogue, which is no better than the Prologue, was penned by Mr. Fitzgerald.

Mr. Fitzgerald has occasionally written some good verses, but he is no poet.'

POETRY.

ART. 18.-The Penance of Hugo, a Vision on the French Revolution. In the Manner of Dante, in four Cantos. Written on the Occasion of the Death of Nicola Hugo de Basseville, &c. &c. Translated from the original Italian of V. Monti into English Verse, with two additional Cantos, by the Reverend Henry Boyd, A.M. &c. London, 1805.

IT was indeed a great Penance to toil through this book. Here then we stand, in a white sheet, with a taper in the right hand, and the Vision on the French Revolution' in our left, and we declare it to be the most heavy, dull, and uninteresting performance we ever reviewed. We read the book-we own we read the book-indeed we will never do so again-and we hope that our present confessional apology, will superinduce a forgiveness of our sin. We bend to the respectable inquisition of the public, and are ready to expose before that tribunal the erroneous opinions and heresies of the Penance of Hugo.' It beginneth with the devil, and endeth with the blest confines of eternal light.' The book deserveth purgatory. A few words more of palinodia, and we have done.

Hugo Basseville was an agent in the French service, employed on the mission of revolutionising Rome. The quisquiliæ' were a little savage on the occasion; they dragged him out of his carriage, and killed him in the street.-According to poetical justice, the soul of this gentleman ought to have gone to a place which is hinted at in every page of the Vision-but no such thing; he was not quite bad enough for that; so the poem opens with a sight of our hero, which makes us shudder for his spirit,

Q'er the abyss with feeble pinions hung

Icarus's wings would have melted in a moment, but Hugo's are made of asbestos, and must manage to hold him up through 137 pages. The following stanza is terrific and obscure: the essence of the sublime!

The minor spirit, and the parted shade

To the great guardian of the crozier paid

Obeisance due; and, mounting on the gale,
Instant arrived with momentaneous flight,

Where, foaming high beneath the shades of night,
The Sardian billows laved the rocky pale.'

So much for Monsigner Monti-now for Mr. Boyd. A gentleman by the name of Anancus' (from Aváy, necessitas.) 'First of the gnomes is he, who wings his flight. Accompanied with airs from ancient night. And, Hades, wafted on his murky wing, Frore on the shivering nerves his influence falls, His gorgon look the stoutest heart appals,

And leaves the bosom dead to honour's sting.'

Gentlemen, you have probably had enough. The poem is in the manner of Dante only inasmuch as it is full of hell, devils, murky stinks,'' noisome fumes' and 'Stygian fumes.'

The notes are taken from old newspapers-and the whole closes with the Witch of Lapland in Imitation of Gray's Descent of Odin.” The friend of Gaul, in a very apposite and complimentary manner to the witch, takes a metaphor from her broomstick, and says,

'Give me a wind,' the Demon cried,
'To sweep the broad Atlantic tide.'

Then the petticoat of the witch is elegantly described:

The crone her crimson flag unfurled."

But peace to thee, spirit of Hugo!--peace to thee, witch of Lapland!

ART. 19.-Poems suggested chiefly by Scenes in Asia Minor, Syria, &c. Embellished with two Views of the Source of the Scamander, and the Aqueduct of Simois. By the late J. D. Carlyle, B.D. F.R.S.E. 4to. White. 1805.

WHEN the Earl of Elgin was sent ambassador to the Porte in 1799, it was thought desirable that his Lordship should be accompanied by some person of eminent learning, who might improve the facilities then offered by the friendly disposition of that court of ascertaining what treasures of literature were to be found in the public libraries of Constantinople. Mr. Carlyle was selected for this service without any solicitation on his part. The scenes which engaged his attention in Aa Minor and in the islands and shores of the Archipelago, suggested the subjects of the principal poems contained in this small volume. They did not receive the finishing hand

of the author, who died very soon after his return. The languor and depression of sickness interrupted his literary employments, and finally prevented the revision and correction of the present poems, which under these circumstances are offered to the candour of the public by his sister. Her duty as an editor has been performed with pious care. With sisterly affection Miss Susanna Maria Carlyle appears to have regarded this little volume as a monument of respect to her deceased brother's memory, and she has therefore decorated it with all the elegance that the press can bestow.

It is sufficient for us to observe that these poetic trifles are such as might be expected from a person, who with a cultivated mind, but without any of the fire of poetic genius, should choose to write memorandums of his travels in measured lines rather than in prose.

Until we read the tale of Hopus, Mopus, and Tropus,' we could not have conceived it possible for a composition to be written so exactly in the spirit of Gray's Long Story. There is humour, but we do not smile; and there is wit, but it does not make us laugh. It is a merry story related by a very grave doctor. The Salted Cherry,' is a salted cherry; we do not relish it."

ART. 20.-The British Martial, or an Anthology of British Epigrams. 2 vols. 12mo. Phillips. 1805.

THE editor of this collection has prefixed a host of names of authors, from whose works he has selected the contents of two volumes, which contain 1052 epigrams, or lines with rhymes at the end, which he pleases to call by this name. He professes to have ransacked the writings of our most celebrated poets, from Prior and Pope down to Piozzi and Pye: we trace his researches also in paths of literature whichhe does not explicitly profess to have trodden, and to which he owes obligations which he ought particularly to have acknowledged: we allude to the Quiddities of Quintus Quoz, the Fun-box broke open, the true Air Balloon Jester, and Timothy Grig's Delight; but we cannot say that he has reaped those advantages from the labours of others, which he might have done, or that his selections are discriminate and judicious.

That the reader may be apprized how far the editor is qualified to perform the task which he has undertaken, he informs us, that a natural taste for quips and quiddities has led him at an early period of life to turn over all the books in ancient and modern languages, in which he was likely to find either wit, point, or humour. This we can pardon we can readily excuse the mistake, which most men are apt to make in estimating their particular genius: but we cannot so easily forgive a positive falsehood, because the limits between truth and error on real circumstances of fact are clearly definable, and can be at all times ascertained with precision. Every moral man before he admitted a book of this kind into his library would naturally look into the preface, to see whether, according to the professions of the editor, he might safely leave this collection to the perusal of casual curiosity; and upon reading the following