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original. In looking for a book, in his father's library, more difficult than Telemaco, he found a Spanish Don Quixote. Don Quixote, the favourite of his first studies! Oh what pleafure to taite the admirable proverbs of his fhrewd 'fquire, feasoned with all the poignancy of their original language! Were the grave difcourfes of Mentor comparable to the pleafant repartees of Sancho And Calypfo, forfaken by Ulyffes, in fpite of the plea fures of her enchanted ifland, was the fo interesting as the incomparable Dulcinea, for whom her lover undertook to conquer fo many kingdoms. This undertaking required fome courage. It was neceffary conftantly to contend with unknown words, as the knight of the woeful figure did with flocks and windmills ; but he finished this first campaign with equal glory. Yet, fhall I tell it? before the fecond fally of the hero of La Mancha, Zephirin was gone from the Spanish to enter on the English, which he foon left for the Gerinan; fo that at the end of the year, he spoke four living languages, but fo little of each, and fo much of all together, that his audience must have been come posed of the deputies of four nations, to intérpret to one another, what each could catch of the fhreds of his disjointed difcourfe.

Address, in the exercises of the body, feems to lend a new charm to the cultivation of the mind; and the most extenfive knowlege cannot, in the eyes of the world, excufe aukwardness. Zephirin had a disagreeable inftance of this. His father, on his birth-day, had given a little ball, where, notwithstanding his erudition, he confufed all the dancers. He wished to figure according to the principles of art; but no fooner had he learnt the fteps of a minuet, than the entrechats turned his brain. What he chiefly wished to know, in every leffon, was precisely what was not yet proper to be taught. Always greedy to acquire what he was ignorant of, and difcontented with what he had learned, he was conftantly confused. He wished fometimes to make chaffis in the round. A rigaudon coft him little in figuring, instead of a pas grave; and a balance, when a moulinet was required: the violin was not neceffary to change the tune for him to begin alone a pot-pouri; and all this rendered him infupportable to the young ladies.*

We cannot pursue the inconftant in all his changes; this is a fufficient fpecimen of our author's knowlege of the human heart, and his fpirit in relation. Indeed we ought to fpeak well of him, for he feems fond of English hiftory, and of English authors.

It may not be difagreeable, fays he, to my readers to be informed, that the house once inhabited by Newton, and in which his obfervatory ftill exifts, is now the dwelling of the author of Cecilia and Evelina. This feems to be the Temple of Genius, from whence having already taught us the cause of the vast motions of the univerfe, fhe returns, after one hundred years, to enlighten, with equal brilliancy, the deepeft receffes of the human heart. This information was first generally published in Paris; t may

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may thofe, beft able to reward the ingenious family, catch the firit fpark of gratitude from the fame fource!

The Tale of the Inconftant, and an elegant and instructive Dialogue on Flattery, are contained in the first Number; and the volume is concluded by a just description of the Peak at Caftleton (improperly called Castle Town), and an interesting ftory entitled the Peafant a Benefactor to his Country. It is the picture of a modern patriarch, furrounded by his family and triends, difpenfing benefits by his advice, his influence, and his little acquifitions. The fecond volume contains the System of the World, adaped to the period of youth. It is indeed accurate and elegant. The third volume is filled with the three first acts of a tragedy, entitled Charles the Second, imitated from the German of M. Stephanie. As a drama, it is exceptionable; but the fentiments are thofe. of justice, generofity, and humanity. In fome minute points of the history our author is mistaken; but, in general, he is fufficiently exact. In the tranflation of starchamber, and ship-money, he also gives erroneous ideas, ftyling them farry chamber, and the tax on Jhipping. Indeed proper names and national terms, either of places or things, should never be tranflated..

On the whole, having announced thefe volumes, and given them their juft praifes, we fhall leave the fubfequent ones to the reader's judgment. We can only add, that a tranflation of them would be an acceptable prefent to English youth, and probably be received with applaufe.

Analyfe raifonne des Rapports des Commissares, chargès par le Roi de l'Examen du Magnetisme Animal. Par 7. B. Bonnefoy, Membre du College Royal de Chirurgie de Lyon. Paris & Lyons. 8vo. WE have already mentioned the tranflation of the Report of Dr. Franklin, and other Commiffioners, charged by the King of France with the Examination of the Animal Magnetifin. (Crit. Rev. vol. lix. p. 18 1.) It was the object of our attention, as an English publication; but we must now resume the confideration. Thofe who reflect on the danger of oppofing fashionable novelties, or deftroying the fource of a lucrative impofition, will foon have perceived that the detection of monfieur Mefmer must have excited the attention of his friends and confederates. We have now before us feveral pamphlets relating to this famous controverfy, but shall only give an account of the most important ones.

The opinion of the commiffioners is confirmed by the report of those of the Royal Society of Medicine. The laft work which we have received we fhall not particularly mention, as the prin cipal arguments have been already confidered, in the volume of our Journal referred to. We have attentively examined it, but find little to add, Both thefe Reports are fubjected to the ana

lyfis

lyfis of imonf. Bonnefoy; a name, if it be not fictitious, well adapted to the part he has undertaken to defend.. His faith, however, muft rife to credulity, and his philofophy to the occult qualities of Aristotle, if he would defend Mefmer in his principal pofitions.

The chief argument which defervés attention is, that the methods of Mefmer and Deflon are very different; but Deflon was an affiftant to the former, and frequently officiated in his master's ftead, fo that little dependence can be placed on this part of his work. The Reports are then more particularly confidered; but they are attacked by declamation rather than reasoning; and by railing doubts with refpect to other remedies inftead of establish-. ing the certainty of animal magnetism. The author's eloquence is much fuperior to his philofophy; in the latter, his mistakes are grofs and numerous. On the whole, this is a weak defence, and therefore a real injury to the cause which he means to fupport.

Doutes d'un Provincial propofés a Meffieurs Les Medicins Commiffaires. 8vo. Lyons and Paris.

THIS work profeffedly contains the doubts of a provincial, who anfwers for nothing but his doubts.' The difguife is well put on, and fupported with confiftency. The cool contempt with which he fpeaks of medicine, and thofe commiffioners who are phyficians, the indignation which he feems to fupprefs, and which appears only in the most pointed farcafms, betray a little more intereft in the question than the author chufes to acknowlege.

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Ah! would to God that magnetism was the only medicine which clergymen employed with their parishioners, mothers with their daughters, fathers with their fons, relations and friends with each other. What delufion more delightful than to relieve thofe we love? and what reality more ufeful than to preferve them from a destructive art, or the affaffin who practises it?'

Gentlemen! gentlemen! if your fcience had been expofed to this public investigation, if your commiffioners had been your former patients, or the difciples of Mefiner,-juft Heavens! what a report would they have made.'

You have faid fo much, gentlemen, of imagination, that you have infected me with the difeafe; and I imagine that one of the commiffioners, appointed to determine the utility of phyfic, holds in bis hands the horrible trumpet, and cries, Ye dead arife, and give your evidence on all phyficians. Oh! gentlemen! what a terrible judgment would you undergo! What phyfician, at this frightful appearance, inftead of concealing himself, would dare to recriminate against magnetifm?"

In this way our author proceeds in his addrefs; and we rather wonder that fome enemy of the fcience, fome favourer of quacks, does not put this well-written, animated pamphlet, into an Eng VOL. LX. Od. 1785.

X

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lih drefs. The arguments are often acute and pointed, but no ftriking or fatisfactory. The delufion is in the ftyle; for, when we are pleased, we sometimes think we are convinced. The author divides his addrefs into three parts; firft, on what the commiffioners did not choose to do; fecondly, on what they have done; thirdly, on what they ought to have done.

Yet the author is warm in his praises of the individuals who practise medicine; in no profeffion he finds more amiable men, more true philofophers, good citizens, excellent masters, and faithful friends.

It has happened, adds he, in your science, differently from what occurs in others: there are few feiences but what are more valuable than its profeffors; but, by a fingular contrast, there are few phyficians who are not more valuable than medicine. Rouffeau has faid, "bring the phyfic without the doctor." I fhould not hesitate to return, bring the doctor, provided he leaves his medicines behind." Thus he makes the amende honorable. Can we blame him? by no means; he has done every thing, except establishing the credit of Mefmer and magnetifm..

MONTHLY CATALOGUE.

POLITICA L.

An impartial Sketch of the Debate in the House of Commons of Ireland, on a Motion made on Friday, August 12. 1785, by the Right Hon. Thomas Orde, Secretary to the Right Hon. Charles Manners, Duke of Rutland, Lord Lieutenant, for Leave to bring in a Bill for effectuating the Intercourfe and Commerce between Great Britain and Ireland, on permanent and equitable Principles, for the mutual Benefit of both Countries. By W. Woodfall. 8vo. 35. 6d. Robinson and Debrett. MR. W. Woodfall, editor of the Morning Chronicle, has

long been celebrated for the extent of his memory, and his great abilities in reporting parliamentary debates, &c. in which he is certainly unrivalled. Every reader of those productions must therefore reap peculiar fatisfaction, on finding that this extraordinary perfon paid a vifit to the Irish capital, for the purpose of collecting and ftating the fentiments of the reprefentatives of that kingdom, relative to the proposed commercial intercourfe with Great Britain, as delivered on the twelfth and fifteenth of August laft. In performing this fervice, fo acceptable to the public curiofity, he has purposely, and for good reafons, omitted to enumerate every interruption given to gentlemen while they were speaking, and has noticed fuch only as contributed to elucidate the argument, and explain

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the particular fact to which they alluded. He has likewife, with equal propriety, contented himself with ftating on which fide of the question feveral gentlemen fpoke, whom he either heard indiftinctly, or who did not accompany the delivery of their opi nion with any arguments or obfervations that were new, or more pointedly applied than they had been before by other speakers. Mr. Woodfall affures us (and from our experience of his fidelity, in numberless inftances, we can rely on his affertion), that he has guarded against all national prejudice or party-colouring; and as a confirmation of the authenticity to which he has anxiously adhered, we find that he has been favoured with a number of the most fatisfactory communications on the subject. For these reasons, we are perfuaded that the fense of the debate, in general, is fairly and fubftantially conveyed in this publication. With regard to the speeches, we fhall only obferve, that feveral difcover ingenuity, and others both ingenuity and force of argument. But at the fame time that we derive pleasure from these efforts of Hibernian eloquence, we cannot help feeling regret at the influence of what we think a groundless opinion, on the minds of fome of the most diftinguished orators.

Notwithstanding all the oppofition, from whatever motives. it may have proceeded, which has been made to the celebrated propofitions for the establishment of an indiffoluble commercial treaty between Great Britain and Ireland; notwithstanding all that has been spoken in the parliament of both kingdoms, all that has been written, and all that has been thrown out in popular affemblies on the fubject, this verbal, this declamatory oppofition bears not the fmalleft refemblance to that ge neral ferment which arofe in Scotland against the Union in 1706, when almoft the whole nation became outrageous; when queen Anne's minifters were not only publicly infulted, but had nearly fallen a facrifice to the furious refentment of the populace; when the execrated articles were burnt with indignation; and an army was even raised to oppose this reprobated measure of government.-But, as an eminent hiftorian has obferved, with regard to this fubject, We now fee it has been attended with none of the calamities that were prognofticated; that it quietly took effect, and fully answered all the purposes for which it was intended.'

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The perufal of this publication will correct many mistakes that have crept into the papers, respecting what was delivered by the members on each fide of the question, the most important which has been debated fince the period above men、 tioned,

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