had his model Bolingbroke, more in his eye, than in those that follow. "Since our laft converfation, I have reviewed the fubject of it, with a genuine and unfeigned concernment. The topics of ordinary difcourfe feldom excite any feeling of anxiety, beyond the laft moment of their difcuffion. They live their hour. They produce a fhort-lived agitation. New themes of reflection arife; new fubjects of communication fpring up; for the old ones, they are abandoned and forgotten. But it was the bitter profpect of lofing my friend, that mingled in the debate; and I confefs, that I reafoned with the animated defire of recalling my old companion from the melancholy refolve of deferting his country. "I forbear, however, any longer to urge fuch confiderations. Your refolution, no doubt, is fixed, and perhaps too firmly to be fhaken by the garrulity of a friend, who has nothing but his friendship to recommend it to your attention. You have already determined to cross the threshold of old regards and ancient connections; and the fentence of the eternal divorce is definitively paffed, that is to feparate you for ever from England. "I write these letters, therefore, to explain what I meaned for arguments advanced in colloquial debate are not always duly meditat. ed; and the obfervations that fall in fudden difcourfe are feldom juftly or properly applied. I with likewife to convey to you the record of my fentiments on the measure you have adopted, before the last flender cable is cut, that binds you to European fociety, and before the Ocean fhall interpofe his wide arms, perhaps for ever between us. "The grounds, I think, on which we difcourfed concerning the propriety and fitnefs of emigration, were the political evils of this country. In this inftance we agreed; and we seemed to enjoy a melancholy fort of pleasure in chaunting the dirges of English freedom and English happiness. But the deduction of duty, and the principle of action, we refpectively wished to draw from the existence of thefe evils, were widely and irreconcileably different. We acknowledged that in feafons like the prefent, there was one path of duty only, which we were bound to follow that no intermediate, qualified mode of conduct could be adopted with propriety, or purfued with fafety; and that from this path the flighteft obliquity or deviation was a mifchievous error. You thought that it behoved every lover of freedom to abandon and defert his country: I thought then, as I think ftill, that it behoves him to remain in it." P. 19. : ART. XI. The rational Practice of Phyfick of William Rowley, M. D. Member of the University of Oxford, the Royal College of Phyficians in London, and Phyfician to the St. Mary-le-Bone Infirmary, &c. &c. 8vo. in four volumes. Il. IIs. 6d. E. Newbery. 1794. THIS work confifts of a collection of the numerous pieces which have been ufhered into the world by this prolific writer, writer, with fome corrections and alterations; and two or three effays which appear now for the first time. Of the former, it will not be expected we fhould take notice, as we fuppofe them to be fufficiently known. One, however, is too fingular to be paffed over. A Treatife on one hundred and eighteen Difeafes of the Eyes. The conceit of this title was probably borrowed from a Treatife of one hundred and thirteen Difeafes of the Eyes and Eyelids, publifhed by Richard Banifter, Mafter in Chirurgery, Oculift, and Practitioner in Phyfick, in the year 1622. But our author has not followed the advice of his predeceffor, although it seemed well worth attending to. "Know gentle reader" (the editor fays)" that the defire I beare to be beneficiall to the commonwealth, and the deare esteeme I had of the health of my countreymen, together with my care to bring credit to the art of chirurgie, was the caufe that within a few yeeres, I left the greatest maffe of that unmeasurable myfterie, as a heape too heavy for my undergoing; to take up only fome particular pieces, wherein I might the better proceed to fome perfection; choofing rather to walk in a right line, whofe very beginning points to a certaine end; then to run in a ring, whofe mazeful compaffe foretells much pain with little progreffe, or a long journey without an inne. Methinks fince I perceive what all find and confeffe, that the art of chirurgerie is a fea unfounded; men fhould not think to grafpe every drop of it in their hands and feeing alfo that it is manifeftly remarkable that the most exquifite chirurgeon excelleth but in fome few points of his profeffion; why should they not content themfelves to profefs no more than they excell in." Of the new pieces contained in thefe volumes, the most confiderable are, A Short Treatife on the Bite of Dogs fuppofed to be Mad, and an Effay on Diet. Thefe being the latest productions of the author, we may expect to find them more matured and perfect, than the earlier fruits of his ftudy. The Author begins the firft of thefe pieces, by informing us, that, although the diforder here treated of has been denominated madness, it never was what is defined to be madness, but a febrile and nervous delirium, of the acute kind, terminating fatally in a few days and although he had feen many perfons affected with the disease, yet he never faw any of them : *This was a re-publication, the name of the writer is not known, but it was become, in Banifter's time, fo exceeding fcarce, he tells us, as not to be bought for money. He made fome additions to it, drawn from his own experience. + Preface to Banister's edition of the Treatife of 113 Diseases of the Eyes. barking barking or howling, &c. Whence he does not hefitate, he fays, to affert, that many extraordinary relations of canine madness are very dubitable." In this the author is certainly right; they are fo very dubitable, that no perfon of knowledge and experience allows them any credit. Dr. James, whole treatife on canine madnefs was published in the year 1760, had told us," that what is called madness was nothing more than the fever that carnivorous animals were fubject to,' and he fuppofes it may be communicated in them by effluvia alone. He alfo quotes feveral cafes of hydrophobia occurring where the party had not been bitten by any rabid animal; and of perfons dying in confequence of the bite of mad animals, in whom the hydrophobia never appeared; and tells us, that perfons affected with the difeafe, ufually retain their fenfes to the laft; and neither bite, endeavour to bite, or in any of their actions, refemble dogs, or the animals from which they received the infection; and in thefe obfervations, all late writers have concurred. In the prophylactic and cure, our author has adopted the methods that have been recommended by the latest writers upon the fubject; plentiful ablution, cauftics, or exfection, according to the fituation of the part bitten. The work concludes with a treatise on diet. This is divided into two parts. The first part confifts of obfervations on digestion, chylification, fanguification, &c. collected from different phyfiological writers, and is not very material in a practical treatife on diet. In the fecond the author examines into the properties of the feveral articles commonly used in diet. "Bread compofed of wheat flour," (he fays) "made from pure grain, well fermented, properly falted, without adulteration, and well baked, is a moft falubrious food; but it should not be too new, fhould be well dried, porous, tender, fapid, and easily deliquefcent in the mouth; otherwife it may be productive of many diforders." "Hot bread well buttered is confidered by many delicious, but it renders the teeth" (the gums we fuppofe he means) "foft, and loofe, and is difficultly digefted," &c. "Bread too much burnt in baking, from its proximity to coal, or as we say, burnt to coal, cannot prove nutritious." This we prefume might have been known, even although the author had with-held his information, and alfo the following," Bread not properly falted is infipid, and not eafily digefted." And, "Gritty bread, when the millstones in grinding mix fome of their gritty mud with the flour; this caufes a ftridor of the teeth. The author remembers having eaten fuch bread at Bellifle, after its capture in 1761: and we remember a fimilar E e affection BRIT. CRIT. VOL. V. APRIL, 1795. affection being produced, from chewing bread that had acci dentally fallen on the floor, amongst fand or ashes. Rye bread has more tafte than the wheaten, is dark coloured, foon dries, does not create coftivenefs, and is detergent, Hatulent, but nutricious. There are as many fpecies of rye flour as wheaten; and every one is lefs nourishing than its antecedent." That is, the lefs nutricious, is not fu nourishing as that which is more fo. Speaking of leguminous foods, as peas, beans, lentils, the author obferves, that when they are ftewed, in the French manner, in gravy mixed with butter or cream, they are lefs flatulent and more nourishing than when fimply boiled. But however prepared, he adds, they are liable to create flatulency, and are highly improper, when they difagree." We could produce many more obfervations, equally pertinent and fignificant, but apprehend our readers will be contented with thofe we have laid before them. 'ART. XII. Price on the Picturefque. (Concluded from Page 167.) 1 W&Carrecond part, as by giving his own words at the E cannot fo properly explain the author's intention in beginning of it. Having now examined the chief qualities that in fuch various ways render objects interefting; and having fhewn. how much the beauty, fpirit, and effect of landicape, real, or imitated, depends upon a due mixture of rough and smooth, of warm and cool tints; and of what extreme confequence variety and intricacy are in those as well as our other pleafures; having fhewn too that the general principles of improving are in reality the fame as thofe of painting, I fhall next enquire how far the principles of the laft-mentioned art (clearly the beft qualified to improve and refine our ideas of nature) have been at tended to by improvers, and how far alfo thofe who firft produced, and those who have continued the prefent fyftem, were capable of applying them, even if they had wished to do fo." P. 183. He then begins with Kent as the first improver on the new fyftem, and fhows from one of the anecdotes in Mr. Walpole's treatife on Gardening, that Kent, though a Painter, was ill qualified to be an improver; but that on the contrary, he may serve as an example how little a certain degree of mechanical practice will qualify its poffeffor to direct the taste of a 3 nation nation in either of the arts." He takes this opportunity of pay ing a high, but juft compliment to Sir J. Reynolds's difcourfes' and contrafts the opinions of fuch a liberal, enlightened artist, with thofe that refult from mere practical dexterity. From Kent he proceeds to Mr. Brown, whom from that time he never afterwards quits, confidering him as the establisher and completer of the new fyftem. Before he examines his works he gives a sketch of what he thinks the character of his mind, as it may be collected from these works, and contrafts it with that of Claude Lorraine. The one, he obferves, was bred a gardener, the other a paftry-cook; but in the works of Claude the meanness of his original occupation never appears, whereas Mr. Brown, in his opinion, transferred the minutiae of a parterre, its clumps, knots, &c. to the great scale of nature.— He begins his examination with the clump, "whofe name, if the first letter was taken away, would molt accurately defcribe its form and effect." That form and effect he places in a great variety of lights, conftantly oppofing them to thofe of the natural group, pointing out the effential differences between them and the unquestionable fuperiority of the latter. He illuftrates his doctrine in a note, by an anecdote of Mr. Brown, who, when High Sheriff, was told facetiously to "clump his javelin men." This is the main attack on that diftinguishing feature of modern improvement, the clump, but in the courfe of the work it is perpetually held up to ridicule. "The next leading feature to the clump in this circular fyftem, and which, in romantic fituations, rivals it in the power of creating deformity, is the belt." "This infipid circle," he opposes to the formal but fimple and majestic avenue, of whofe folemn effect by moon-light he gives a very juft and ftriking picture. He fhows alfo, notwithstanding the ftiffnets of its lines, how much lefs it interferes with the rest of the landfcape than the belt, whofe effect he compares to that of the ring of Angelica in Ariofto, which inftantly diffipated every illufion, every enchantment. After pointing out the reafons why the belt muft unavoidably interfere with every variety and play of ground, he makes the following fhort remark, which well deferves attention: "This may fhew how impoffible it is to plan any forms of plantations that will fuit all places, however convenient it may be to the poffeffor to establish fuch a doctrine." He finishes his attack upon belts by defcribing a grand view of the fea embayed amidst iflands, mountains, promontories, then makes his reader fhare his indignation, when he tells him that this uncommon difplay of fcenery is difgraced by a belt. The Profeffor who planted the belt had begun, (as he was informad) by clearing away a number of very effential trees at this Ee 2 fame |