each medicine is preferable; fo that, though the remedies are often valuable, the unexperienced practitioner may fail in his intention, or do much mischief. Befides the objection we have often hinted at, that it is more difficult to know difeafes than to cure them, acquires, with refpe&t to this little book, additional force, for the defcriptions of diseases are very often imperfect. Yet if patients will be their own physicians, they will find at leaft as much useful matter, in a cheaper form, and fmaller compafs, than in fome more laboured fyftems. We fhall give a fhort fpecimen, relating to the albugo, or fpecks on the eye: perhaps the reader, like ourselves, may be displeased at the contant recurrence of that pronoun, dear to every author, who is himfelf the hero of each little tale,' but he will find it fo frequently, that we could not eafily felect any part without it.

6

• Cure. Amongst the many methods by which I have attempted to cure this difeafe, I have found the following to be the most generally fuccessful. First I reduce the inflammation with which it is generally attended by bleeding from the arm, applying four or five leeches to each temple, a blistering plafter between the fhoulders, and by giving an ounce and a half of Glauber's falts diffolved in water. After a proper repetition of one or more of these practices, according to the effects, when I perceive the inflammation to be abated, I then order Sir Hans Sloan's ointment to be applied to the eye with a pencil or the point of a finger, twice or thrice a day. If it gives great pain and raises an unusual degree of inflammation again, by continuance, I omit the ointment for a few days till I have once more reduced the inflammation as before, and then I order the ointment to be applied again.'

A Hiflory of the Practice of Trepanning the Skull, and the AfterTreatment with Obfervations upon a new Method of Cure, illuftrated by a Cafe. By Robert Mynors, Surgeon. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. Robinion.

We have already had occafion to hint at the method here recommended, and to exprefs our approbation of it. The defign is to unite the parts of the fcalp, raised in order to remove the fractured and elevate the depreffed portions of the skull, by the fimple adhesive inflammation; and, in the cafe before us, the fuccefs was complete. It was communicated to the editors of the London Medical Journal, by Mr. Jones; but was abridged in that publication; and, as the authors allege, the fenfe was, by that means, mifreprefented. In a fubfequent Number, the improvement was attributed to Mr. Wilmer of Coventry.

These circumftances have induced Mr. Mynors to publish a pretty extenfive hiftory of the ufual methods; and among thefe, that of Mr. Wilmer is included. The cafe at large then follows, as we have been informed, in a corrected and improved ftate; and the whole is concluded with fome remarks on the utility of extending this mode of union to other operations. On this fubject we need not repeat our opinion; nor can we,

with propriety, accufe or defend the editors of the Medical Journal. The History appears to us accurate, the obfervations ingenious and juft. In the cafe, recorded by Mr. Wilmer, it feems probable, that he might have intended to unite the flaps of the fcalp by the first intention: he certainly preferved them; but it is equally certain, that the cicatrix was only formed after. the ufual fuppurations. We ought to add, that he does not mention any intention of this kind. He probably could not have fucceeded, if it was really his defign, on account of the previous inflammation on the dura mater; and we ftrongly fufpect that Mr. Mynors' method will, for the fame reafon, be chiefly useful, when the operation is performed very foon after the accident.

Chiropodologia, or a Scientific Enquiry into the Caufes of Corns, Warts, &c. By D. Low, Chiropodift. 8vo. 3. fewed. Hookham.

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We do not think Mr. Low, chiropodist, very happy in his phyfiological labours; but his practice is really founded on the moft approved doctrines of the firft medical and chirurgical authors' and, though his Enquiry contains little new, we have no doubt but that his manual dexterity is very confpicuous. The nature of these trifling but painful excrefcences is but little understood: we have however feen fome nearer approaches to a rational fyftem, than this before us.

MISCELLANEOUS.

A Letter to the Rev. Mr. T. Warton, on his late Edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems. 8vo. 15. Bathurst.

The author addreffes Mr. Warton in the following manner,

Sir, your publication of Milton's Juvenile Poems hath very lately fallen into my hands. On cafting an eye over it, I found many things in it to praife, and fome that deferved no fmall cenfure. I immediately conceived an idea of putting a few of the latter together, and fending them to you by the poft; fuch of them, I mean, as I thought molt worthy of your notice, in the cafe of a fecond edition.

I have fince changed my intention, and determined to give them to the public, for reasons which will appear in the fequel.'

We ought not to difpute the motives which any man publicly affigns for his conduct; but may be allowed to fufpect, that another motive, very different from the oftenfible ones, had a fhare in the decifion. There may have been fome hope, however illfounded, that the public would treat a Letter of this kind with more lenity than the perfon to whom it is addreffed. Did the critic never fail in endeavouring to recommend himself to an author, by abufing his works, in a Letter fent by the Poft and may not that mifcarriage have occafioned this public addrefs to the laureat?

The

The author ranges the fubjects of his reprehenfions under three heads. Firft, Miftakes. Secondly, Redundancies. Thirdly, Errors arifing from Spleen, Party-fpirit, or Prejudice.

The mistakes are indeed very inconfiderable, and the redundancies are fo pleafing, that by way of penance we would enjoin a repetition of the fault. The most prominent feature of party-fpirit, which the Letter-writer chaftifes, is a flight com. mendation of bishop Parker, viz. that he was a popular writer, certainly a man of learning, and afterwards a bishop.' Of this extraordinary praife, the first and last parts are allowed facts, and the critic has not advanced a fingle circumftance to invalidate the fecond. The author feems to be angry that Parker was once mentioned without an anathema.

On the whole, this Letter is a very trifling one, and rather fhows a carping difcontented spirit, than a with to reform error or to fupply defects.

A Letter to the Author of Thoughts on Executive Justice. Small 800. 15. Debrett.

In this Letter, the ingenious and benevolent author examines the Thoughts on Executive Juftice' with fome attention. His chief argument arifes from the facts, that in thofe countries where the punishment has been certain and fevere, crimes have been more fanguinary; on this principle, that where no more cruel punishment than death can be inflicted for very difpropor tioned crimes, the culprit will endeavour to fecure his detection, for the robbery, by the death of the perfon whom he has plundered. At the fame time he contends that, at the end of the war, in 1762, crimes were more numerous, and of a deeper die, than at prefent. These are circumstances which deferve attention; but we apprehend, that the fituation of the prefent criminals will not allow us to extend the analogy of other times, and different fituations. Robbery is now a fyftem in which proficients are gradually infructed, from picking pockets to robbing on the highway; from petty pilfering in a fhop to housebreaking and its violent confequences. It ought to be confidered, whether fuch dangerous combinations should not be broken by violence, fince the common methods have failed; and, in many respects, the arguments of the author of the Thoughts' feem yet to have been unaffailed.

Lucubrations by a Lady. 12mo. 1s. 6d. Johnfon.

This is the production of a ferious and contemplative young woman, who appears to have spent her leifure hours very laudably, in improving her mind, and cultivating the virtues of the heart. It confifts of thirteen Lucubrations, or fhort effays, on the following fubjects: Poverty, Nature, Knowledge, Laws, Society, a Future State, Virtue, Religion, the Paffions, the Miseries of Mankind, Fame, and the Being and Perfections of God.

The writer is the daughter of Dr. Harwood.

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For SEPTEMBER, 1785.

Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq. Author of the History of the Decline, and Fall, of the Roman Empire. By George Travis, A.M. 8vo. Second Edition. 55. Rivington.

THIS is a learned and elaborate defence of the celebrated paffage in 1 John v. 7: There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.'

It was occafioned by the following note in Mr. Gibbon's fecond volume of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire :

"The three witneffes (1 John v. 7.) have been established in our Greek Teftaments by the prudence of Erafmus; the honeft bigotry of the Complutenfian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens, in placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falfhood, or strange mifapprehenfion of Theodore Beza."

In the first Letter, our author endeavours to fhew, that this charge against the Complutenfian editors, Robert Stephens, and Beza, is not warranted by fact, and cannot be fupported in argument.'

As to Erafmus, he fays, His conduct betrays, at leaft, great weakness. If he was really poffeffed of five ancient manufcripts, in which this verse had no place, and had thought it his duty to expel it accordingly from his two former editions [in 1516, and 1519] he ought not to have reitored it in his third edition [in 1522] upon the authority of a fingle MS. only. Either he could not produce the five MSS. in which he had alleged the verse to be omitted; or he had other authorities, much fuperior to the teftimony of a fingle MS. for replacing the verfe, which he was not, however, ingenuous enough to acknowledge.'

VOL. LX. Sept. 1785.

This, and what follows, feems to be too fevere a cenfuse upon the conduct of Erafmus. We fee, no great impropriety in giving way to the zeal of his opponents, on the authority of a fingle manufcript. The text was admitted; but it was admitted as a doubtful reading; and its authenticity was left to be determined by more manufcripts, and a farther investigation.

Veruntamen, fays Erafmus, ne, quid diffimulem, repertus eft apud Anglos Græcus codex unus, in quo habetur quod in vulgatis deeft.-Ex hoc igitur codice Britannico repofuimus quod in noftris dicebatur deeffe, ne cui fit caufa calumniandi. Surely the conduct of Erafmus, in this inftance, does not deferve to be called mean,' or grofsly difingenuous.'

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Though we do not by any means join with Mr. Gibbon in the cenfure of Robert Stephens, yet it may not be improper to obferve, that he is not the first who fuppofed there was a mistake or misreprefentation with regard to this passage, in Stephens's Greek Teftament.

F. Simon (who may be fuppofed to have been well acquainted with the Greek MSS. in France) makes the following remark:

Since we are come to Greek manufcripts, it will not be amifs to make this obfervation, that there is an apparent fault in the printing of this place, in the fair Greek edition of the New Teftament of Robert Stephens; the femicircle or hook, that fhews how it should be read, is placed after T gav whereas it ought to be put immediately before even; infomuch that all there words εν τῷ ερανῳ, ὁ Πατης, ὁ Λόγος, και το ἅγιον Πνευμα· και ὗτοι οἱ τρεις ἓν εισιο Και τρεις εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυρώντες, were not in the feven copies that are quoted in the margin of this edition. Lucas Brugenfis has already made this conjecture; for he durft not avouch that this verfe is entire in all Robert Stephens's Greek manufcripts, without the words sy Tw year. Therefore having obferved this, he subjoins, "Si tamen femicirculus, lectionis defignans terminum, fuo loco fit collocatus :"

provided the femicircle, which denotes the end of the reading, be inferted in its proper place." Indeed it is difficult to find Greek MSS. in which thefe words are expreffed. They are not found in any of thofe of the king's library, that I have confulted.'

In the fecond Letter our author proceeds to establish the authenticity of the verfe itself, by teftimonies of different kinds, all antecedent, in point of time, to the days of any of the editors here mentioned; by proofs, commencing with the age of Erafmus, and afcending from thence to that of the apostles.

Thefe