Where, pensive as they walk'd, the holy breeze Th' enchanter's cauldron smites my wond'ring eyes! In frantic mood, and form a horrid dance; The screams that hurried thro' the midnight sky, The milk of murder'd mothers streak'd with gore, To close their incantation's fearful rite, And leering cast into the vase profound, The likeness of two skulls which once were crown'd!' Mr. Fox may not, perhaps, think himself much indebted to Mr. J. for the compliment to his candour in inscribing to him a poem so adverse to his principles. E. Art. 46. The System, a Poem: with Notes. In Five Books. By the Rev. Joseph Wise, Rector of Penhurst, Sussex, and Curate of Poplar, Middlesex. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 92. 28. Richardson. The want of a sufficient number of subscriptions has induced the author to publish only the First Book of this intended work. In this he boldly advances into the theological mazes of the introduction of evil,fixed-fate, free-will, fore-knowledge, absolute;' which topics he treats considerably at length, but without throwing any additional light on these subjects; of which the importance has invited, and the obscurity has baffled, the most patient and laborious investigations of the brightest geniuses and the most acute reasoners. The eternal contradiction between the existence of evil, natural and moral, and the supreme perfections of a Being of infinite power, knowlege, and wisdom, remains in full force. We apprehend, too, that the poetical merits of this work are by no means sufficient to entitle it to any place among the treasures of British bards; no higher rank can be allotted to it than a metrical version of Euclid would deserve, halting on uneven feet, and with such rhimes as angle, circle; ratio, propor tion; wrath, death; &c. The The following passage is a fair specimen of the poetry, as well as a summary of the doctrines; which we submit to the judgment of pur readers: From God the system rose, entire in all Virtue and bliss; but liable to fall. Of all the evil in creation known. Evil, thus brought, shall in probation's course This suits probation's fall: the fleeting pain Offence in one a curse to many gave; Such, adds the poet, is the plan in revelation's view.' Art. 47. Poems by Thomas Hoccleve; never before printed: Selected from a MS. in the Possession of George Mason. With a Preface, Notes, and Glossary. 4to. pp. 113. 6s. 6d. Boards. Leigh and Sotheby. 1796. Of the multitudinous porers in black literature, Tyrwhitt by his edition of Chaucer, and Steevens by his edition of Shakspeare, have rendered a permanent service to the British public :-The poems of Spencer still await the help of a learned editor: but there are tasks which, however well performed, cannot hope to obtain praise, nor to extort gratitude; which neither furnish to the historian a clue through the labyrinth of ignorant ages, nor unlock the portals of the inchanted gardens of genius. Of this kind is an imperfect edition of the A.Ai. the stupid stanzas of Thomas Hoccleve. We doubt not that the manuscript, from which these poems are selected, once belonged to Henry Prince of Wales, son to James I.-We doubt not that it came into the hands of the editor at the well-known auction of Dr. Askew's manuscripts in 1785:-We doubt not that these six poems are the least disgusting of seventeen which are still extant; that they were probably composed about the year 1400, or soon afterward; that they have been printed off with attention; and that those variations from the manuscript original, which consistency required, have every where been marked in Italics: - We are sure that the glossary is better made than most others;--and we hope that, with these concessions, the editor will not require us to waste the time of our readers by the transcript of more of such trash than is contained in the following lines: Remembre his worthynesse I charge thee, How ones at London desired he Of me, that am his servant and shal ay, To have of my baládes swich plentée, As ther weren remeynynge un to me, And for nat wole I to his wil seyn nay.'- &c, &c. Art. 48. Quashy; or the Coal-black Maid: a Tale. By Captain A negroe love-story, which bears reference to the slave-trade, is here but indifferently told; and the merits of the poetry must be confined to those of correct rhimes and easy versification. MEDICAL and CHEMICAL, &c. Art. 49. Medical and Chemical Essays. Containing Additional Observations on Scurvy, with Cases and Miscellaneous Facts, in Reply to Dr. Beddoes, and others, who have supported the Pneumatochemical Pathology of the Author in his former Work. Communications from New South Wales, on Scurvy and other interesting Subjects. The Case of a Blue Boy belonging to his Majesty's Ship London, who died at Haslar Hospital, with the Appearances on Dissection. Thoughts on the Decomposition of Water, and a Method of preserving it pure and sweet in long Voyages, with Experiments. By Thomas Trotter, M. D. Physician to his Majesty's Fleet under the Command of Admiral Richard EARL Howe. 8vo. pp. 155. 3s. 6d. Boards. Jordan. Of Dr. Trotter's former work on the scurvy, we have given an account in our Rev. vol. Ixxiv. p. 316; also of the second edition of that work, much improved; see vol. xii. N. S. p. 264. The present brief additions are chiefly of a practical nature. They tend to confirm his position, that scurvy is produced from a deficiency of vegetable matter alone,' by proving, from fact, that impure air will not of itself occasion this disorder, and that it is curable only by fresh vegetables, or their acid in a natural state. This last truth, which we conceived to have been before as decidedly established by various * Richard Duke of York. writers Tay A.Ai. writers as any one point in the practice of physic, is so fundamental to the true theory as well as to the successful treatment of the scurvy, that it may fairly be admitted as a test of any medico-chemical doctrines advanced on the subject. The letter from Mr. Laing, surgeon at the settlement in New South Wales, contains some particulars worthy of remark: but, from its epistolary form and miscellaneous contents, it seems rather misplaced among medical and chemical essays.' There is nothing in it, as we think, so worthy of the notice of those who are vested with authority over their fellow-subjects, as the view which it affords of the sufferings necessarily endured by the convicts in their long transportation to their place of punishment :-sufferings which take from this novel mode of disposing of criminals all pretensions to any improvement on the score of humanity. What must a considerate man think of the following description of one of the transport ships? In the orlop of the Pitt transport, where 450 convicts were crammed together, (too many,' Dr. T. thinks, by one half,') the thermometer stood at 80, when it was only 67 in the shade on deck. Small pox, fever, dysentery, and scurvy among these poor wretches, who were farther tormented with ulcers in the legs proceeding from their irons, and with want of water, fill up a scale of human misery, which we are truly grieved and ashamed to note as a consequence of British jurisprudence. The case (oddly enough intitled) of a blue boy is of a lad of 14, who, with difficulty of breathing and thoracic complaints, became cold and livid, and died anasarcous. On dissection, it appeared that the circulation of the blood through the heart and lungs was obstructed by large concretions in the right auricle. The thoughts on the decomposition of water, and on a method of preparing casks for sea use, begin with a letter which Dr. T. sent in January 1792 to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. on the subject of seasoning casks for preserving water; the rationale of which he supposes to depend on exhausting that principle of the wood which favours the decomposition of the water; and this he proposed to do by previously steeping the staves in putrid water. The additional letter relates to the practice of charring the inside of the casks, in order to make them keep water sweet; a method long fol lowed with success by Mr. Raikes the master-cooper at Portsmouthyard, and which Dr. T. supposes to act by interposing a coat of indissoluble matter between the water and wood, and thereby preventing the decomposition of the former by the latter. He strongly recommends this practice for imitation. In the preface to this work, the author has published severe strictures on the medical attendants at Plymouth Hospital. We have been favoured with letters in refutation of these charges: but, as the subject seems pregnant with circumstances of a personal nature, with which we do not choose to trouble ourselves nor our readers, we shall here close the present article; observing, en passant, that this is not the only instance in which the public are obliged to Dr. Trotter for his attention to the welfare of the British Navy; vid. “ Essay on the Medical Department," &c. Rev. N. S. vol. ii. p. 230. Art. Ai. Art. 50. On Rheumatism and Gout; a Letter addressed to Sir G. Baker, Bart. M. D. &c. &c. By John Latham, M. D. 8vo.. pp. 80. 25. Longman. 1796. The proximate causes of diseases are involved in such impenetrable obscurity, owing to our very imperfect knowlege of the minuter parts of the animal economy, that those physicians, who have seriously en deavoured to improve the practical part of their profession, have al most entirely abandoned such disquisitions to the professors and students of the schools, and have contented themselves with plain reasonings from manifest phænomena, and careful inductions from experimental proofs of the juventia and ledentia. In fact, to establish any one point relative to these affections of the vascular and nervous systems, in their extremest ramifications, which are the immediate sources of discase, would (if at all possible) require a series of the most accurate and laborious investigations, aided by all the anatomi cal, physiological, and chemical knowlege that we possess; and nothing can be more futile than the bare guesses of even the most ingenious men into operations so recondite, and in which fancy has such uncontrolled licence of supposition. The theories concerning rheumatism and gout are, as every medical inquirer knows, extremely vague and contradictory; and the differences of their symptoms from those attending other inflammatory diseases are, as every one has observed, very great, and practically important. This being the state of medical opinion, it is vain for any one to imagine that he has gained ground by disputing concerning the exact application of the term inflammation to denote the swelling, pain, heat, and redness of the affected part in these diseases; since no rational physician employs the term for any other purpose than to express this assemblage of circumstances, without deducing from it more than his knowlege and experience warrant. Dr. Latham's theory concerning rheumatism, by which he labours to prove it not an inflammatory disease, is, that its seat is in the exquisitely fine and slender radicles of the lymphatic vessels;' which, in consequence of cold applied to the surface, and constringing the series of the lymphatic system in general, become incapable of transmitting their contents, and undergo a preternatural distension. This obstruction communicates itself to the surrounding vessels, and thus are formed the tumour, heat, redness, &c. attending a rheumatic paroxysm. Dr. L. surely needs not to be informed that by many theorists all inflammation has been attributed to obstruction; and that whether it begins in the lymphatic vessels, or in the capillary arteries, can be of little consequence, provided that in its progress the obstruction or accumulation extends to all the neighbouring vessels, which the augmented bulk and redness of the part seem to render a matter of visible demonstration. What new indications of cure can be derived from so slight a deviation from the common mode of theorizing on the subject, it is not easy to say: but certain it is that the loose and general remarks concerning the curative means usually employed, which occupy a considerable part of this pamphlet, have little to do with any novelty or peculiarity of reasoning in the author. Chronic rheumatism is by him, as by so many others, attributed to the |