fentence at the conclufion of an Old Bailey feffions in this manner:

"You, John Glim, have been found guilty of houfe-breaking: it only remains for me that I pronounce the fentence of the law, which is, that you be taken from thence to Surgeons Hall, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the City of Weftminster, and County of Middlefex, and there be cut for a fiftula."

You, Thomas Vagrant, have been found guilty of stealing privately. The fentence of the law is that your right hand fhould be cut off; but the court, in confideration of your having a numerous family, whom you maintain by your profeffion as a ballad-finger, hath been pleafed to remit that part of your fentence, and orders that you be qualified for the Opera House."

This, Sir, would alter the face of things in Newgate; inftead of rioting, drinking and fwearing, which are too much to be heard in all our jails, we should hear nothing but groans, and fcreams, and the direful operation of bolufes and juleps. The Newgate Calendar then would be a lift of cafes in furgery; and the keeper, if he found a prifoner refractory, might eafily procure fuch advice from the firft furgeon in the neighbourhood, as would effectually prevent his running away.

Upon highwaymen, footpads, and all fuch blood-thirfty fellows, I would have the various kinds of flyptics tried; experiments might alfo be made with gun-fhot wounds, a fpecies of re.aliation which would admirably ferve the purposes of fcience and justice. As to crimes committed in a state of intoxication; for the leffer fpecies, a courfe of quack medicines might probably be fevere enough; but for the more atrocious, it would be abfolutely neceffary to punish by tapping. Not that I mean that the fentence of the judge fhould be definitive. Alleviating circumstances ought ftill to appeal to the fountain of mercy, and in cafes where the jury strongly recommended to mercy, his majefty would no doubt remit the trocar or the biftoury, as might feem fit. Very heinous offences committed by females, might be punished by operations incident to the fex, fuch as experiments on the nervous fyftem, on the tongue, &c. or perhaps the cafarian operation might be ordered in lieu of hanging; and, if we may believe fome learned profeffional men who have lately tried that operation, it would not amount to much more than a refpite for a week!

As to petty offences, bleeding and tooth

drawing would in general be fufficient, and perhaps as good for the morals as beating hemp and blafpheming; or the apothecaries might be permitted to try the effect of fome new-invented medicine. I fancy I fhall fome day or other read in the newf papers a paragraph like the following:

Yefterday three men and a woman were brought before the Lord Mayor, for getting drunk and making a riot in a public houfe at unfeafonable hours: but, on their making a handfome apology for their conduct, and promifing to behave better in future, his lordship was pleafed to order that each should take a box of Dr. Humbug's Cathartic pills, and be discharged."

In this plan, I humbly prefume, it is very obvious that various perfons would be gratified. Men of science would be undoubtedly pleafed with fo extenfive a range of experimental practice; and I truft there is enough in the fcheme to fatisfy thofe who think that our punishments are in general too lenient. Executioners and jailors may be bribed, and there are various ways of foftening punishments ordered by the law; but the gentlemen to be employed upon my plan would have too much intereft in its fuccefs to be swayed by any confiderations of another kind, or to be prevailed upon to lay down the knife or the lancet before law and justice had been fully fatisfied. Befides, fhould a greater degree of severity be contended for in the cafe of certain crimes, than an expert operator might inflict, we have bungling furgeons and blundering apothecaries enough, whofe handy work and prefcriptions would amount to the full rigour of the law; or the numerous tribe of advertizing doctors might be employed, and I hope none will fay that the punishment in that cafe would not be perfectly adequate to the crime.

Having fuggefted thefe hints, Mr. Edi. tor, I leave them and the whole scheme to the confideration of your readers; I trust they will weigh it with impartiality, and determine whether it is or is not entitled to a preference over the prefent fyftem.

I am, Sir, your most obedient, AFRIEND TO JUSTICE AND SURGERY. P. S. I have this moment read that the Divorce Bill has been thrown out of the Houte of Commons. I am forry for it. I think I could have recommended, in my plan, a trifling operation or two, which would have effectually prevented the increase of Divorces. Sublata caufa, tollitur effectus. June 13, 1800.

dam penitùs fententiam aliquid præterea defideretur, et ejufdem ferè fententiæ commata dividit. Infima verò pofitura morulam interponit quandam, dum lector fpiritum ducat, et diverfas ejufdem fententiæ partes una connexione aptas inter fe et conclufas diftinguit. Prioris generis punctum Texas appellatur ab antiquis grammaticis; fecundi μén; tertii oyun. Atque id inventum ad orationis nitorem excogitatum, Ariftophani Grammatico acceptum refertur. Quod cum ipfe hoc tempore reperiffet, quo literis quadratis, et majufculis vulgo fcribebatur, aptiffimus fuit et utiliffimus illarum ufus, quod literarum amplitudo intercapedinem obfervatu perfacilem tres inter punc torum fedes conftitueret." And that this Ariftophanes was the author of the mode of punctuation, which at firft prevailed, was the opinion alfo of Montfaucon and Salmafiust.

But there does not appear to be any probability, that either Thrafymachus or Ariftophanes invented punctuation, or that this fcience was ever practiced at periods fo remote. Mr. Warburton refers to paffages in Cicero and Ariftotle, as authorities in vindication of the opinion of Suidas. It must however be obferved, that thefe authorities amount to nothing in behalf of what they are intended to prove. Cicero and Ariftotle, in the paffages referred to, mean not the marks of punctuation, but only the parts and completion of a fentence. And with refpect to the affertion of Huetius, I know of no proofs from ancient writers, that have ever been adduced in confirmation of his opinion; nor do I believe any fuch proofs can be adduced.

I can easily conceive, that fome kind of paules, in fpeaking and reading, must have exifted with the knowledge of communicating ideas; but that marks of punctuation, in writing, were alfo coeval with this knowledge, I cannot fo readily admit. Had punétuation in writing been ufed in the times when Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus, and Quintilian, compofed their celebrated treatifes upon language, I cannot imagine but they would have mentioned it: the most minute parts of grammar are noticed by them; and their filence upon this fubject I confider as an argument fufficient to prove, that punctu

* Dan. Huet. præfat. ad Orig. Comment. +Vide Palæogr. Græc. pp. 31. 32. and the Epifle of Salmafius to Sarravius.

ation was then unknown. Belides, if Thrafymachus or Aristophanes had, as has been afferted, invented marks of punctuation, and this had been generally known, Quinctilian would fcarcely have omitted to mention this particular.

On the whole, the arguments hitherto brought forward in favour and support of the great antiquity of punctuation, appear fallacious, and founded upon no good authority; and there is every reafon to believe, that the invention of this science be longs to a period less remote than fome have imagined. To what particular pe-. riod, or to what particular person, the ho. nour of this invention is due, it is perhaps difficult accurately to decide, fince fatisfactory authorities feem to be wanting, for judging with precition upon the subject.

This, however, appears to be generally agreed upon, that the form of punctuation, at first pracЯited, was fimilar to what Mr. Warburton has fhewn from Dr. Bernard, and of which Huetius, in the passage quoted above, has taken notice, viz. a point at the bottom of a letter denoted a comma; in the middle it fignified a colon; and at the top was equivalent to a period or full ftop. Nevertheless, it is not unworthy of oblervation that the mode of punétuation ufed in after times was lefs full and complete. I have seen a Latin tranflation of " Strabo," published about the year 1490, in which no other marks, befides the period (composed of a square · dot), and the colon, are to found. And Mr. Dowling, in the thirty-fifth Number of your Magazine, tells us, that in "Diqnyfius de Situ Orbis" printed at Venice in 1498, the colon and period are abundant, but no others. That a different modifi cation in the characters of punctuation fhould have been a consequence of the ufe of letters different in fize and form from those formerly emploved, is a matter of no furprife; but that this modification fhould be lefs perfect, feems unaccountable. JOHN ROBINSON.

B

ticable; but I certainly did mean to af. fert, what J. S. admits, that the prefent fituation of the labouring poor, arifing from the difproportion of their wages to the advanced price of the neceffaries of life, is fuch, as "to immenfe numbers of them abfolutely precludes the poffibility of faving," and confequently that the prefent moment is by no means favourable to the eftablishment of fuch focieties, as the number of those who would become members of them must be comparatively finall, and there is fo much probability that of thofe who did enter many might afterwards become unable to continue their payments. But, though I conceive little fuccefs would attend any attempts at prefent to render benefit-focieties more general than they are, I have a high opinion of the utility of fuch inftitutions when they are founded on rational principles, and conducted with care and integrity; and if J. S. or any of your readers can find a fufficient number of perfons willing to join in a fociety of this kind, they will have few other difficulties to encounter, as the rates of contribution, both for allowances in old age, and during incapacities of labour, produced by ficknefs or accidents, may be adjusted on fecure grounds from the tables computed for this purpose by Dr. Price, which have been published in the laft edition of his Obfervations on Reversionary Payments, and the neceffary regulations can be eafily formed from the most judicious rules of the focieties that fubfift at prefent. London, June 4.

J. J. G.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIK,

I

AM obliged to the candour and liberality of your correspondent Wm. Evans, for recalling my attention, in p. 441, of your last Number, to my tranflation of this iambic :

Ανθρωπος ίκανη πρόφασις εις το δυςτυχείν.

I allow my reprefentation of it to be fufficiently vague and indiftin&t; will W. E. excufe me, if I venture to pronounce his tranflation alfo deficient in perfpicuity? Some fatisfactory illuftrations have been made, I recollect, in my interleaved copy of my own book, but that is not with me, and I am therefore unable to produce them. I I regard #popacis in this fente, not as derived from pau, according to the common lexicons, but from qz, to fine or appear;

whence the pofterior and prevalent word paw, and the Latin facies, face. The meaning of the verfe, therefore, is primarily and fully this: "Man, even on his fuperficial appearance, is fufficient to fuggeft the idea of misfortune." "At the first fight of man, or the very mention of his name, calamity is presented to our view." Hence thofe ftanding epithets in the poets for our fpecies: which epithets I have enumerated in my Notes on Lucretius, v. 942, vi. 1. A fragment from the Protefilaus of Euripides, preserved by Stoba us, is equivalent to this fentence of Menander under confideration:

Ου θαυμ ελέξας, θνητον όντα δυςτυχείν. "You tell us nothing ftrange, when you speak of a mortal exercifed by calamity." Dorchester Goal, GILBERT WAKEFIELD. June 3, 1800.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

HE Duke de Liancourt, in his Tra

Tvels in North America, speaking of the population of the United States, fuppofes that it is doubled every twenty years, and, computing on the foundation of the enumeration of 1791, he finds, that in 1876 the population will amount to 80,000,000, when the territory of the United States will be peopled in the fame proportion that France was before the revolution. This is a very eafy mode of determining the future ftate of a country with respect to the number of its inhabi tants, but it is extremely erroneous, though it has been frequently adopted, even by those who ought to have been better acquainted with the fubject. Sir William Petty, when he wrote his Effay on the Growth of the City of London, in 1683, ' finding it appeared that for fome time the number of deaths had been double what it was forty years before, affumes this period as the rate of increase of the population of Londen, which would thus continue to double every forty years, till its further progrefs became impossible from the difproportion of the inhabitants of the metropolis to thofe of the country: upon this ground, he calculated that the growth of the city would be at its utmost height in the prefent year 1800, when its inhabitants would amount to upwards of five millions. Such a striking inftance of the fallacy of this mode of computing the future ftate of

the

the population of any place, renders it fcarcely neceffary to obferve, that the caufes of a rapid increase of population almost invariably diminish as the number of the people becomes greater; and that the fuppofition, that because the inhabitants of any country have in twenty or forty years paft doubled their number, they will continue to increafe at this rate, involves an impoffibility, as they must thus in time amount to a greater number than the produce of the whole globe would Lupport. J. J. G.

May 23.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine:

I'

SIR,

MPRESSED by the humanity and independent thinking difplayed in the Effay on Infanity in your magazine for May and June, and encouraged by the general liberality of fentiment by which it is characterised, I am induced to offer a few reflections fuggefted to me by the tendency of Dr. Reid's remarks. The objection to the rigorous and coercive measures adopted in the treatment of unfortunate maniacs does credit to the difcernment and feelings of the writer. Darkness, folitude, confinement and feverity, appear affuredly but little calculated to vary the fixed idea, to divert the gloom of intenfe meditation, er footh the throbbings of defpair. Morbid feeling will probably be exaggerated in the abfence, or by the monotony of external impreffion, and images of horror affume fhapings more palpable and vivid.

But waving the medical propriety of Dr. Reid's obfervations, on which I prefume not to dwell, allow me to advert for a few moments to their moral application. To infift on the neceffity or utility of the paffions, thofe fprings of the mind, the fources of its attention, vigour and energy, or to declaim on the confequence of their intemperance and abufe, would be equally trite and unneceffary. Two remedies only have been hitherto pointed out by moralifts to abate their fervour and oppose to their excefs. By ancient fages, the efficacy of reafon as an antidote to paffion has been ftrongly urged. Modern inquirers have, with greater acutenefs and more fagacity, confidered paffion as a defpot, in poffeffion of power, deaf to the claims of justice, and blind to the fplendour of truth: or, as poffeffing means of corruption but too abundant, and arts of perverfion but too infidious, for converting into an auxi

liary its moft formidable opponent. To wage an equal war, to repel force with force, and paffion by paffion, to combat the enemy with his own weapons, carries with it a more fpecious profpect of fuccefs; and it is against this hypothefis that the remarks of your correfpondent are levelled.

Objecting, he urges, and not without a foundation in truth, the danger left the new paffion, in its failure, fhould give additional force to that by which it is abforbed. This, in melancholy tempera ments, in difpofitions of peculiar tenacity, and in fingular circumftances, is but too probable. Yet, if ftrong paffions are, to a certain extent, increafed by ftruggles; to be exhausted by the continued application of ftimuli, seems to be in the nature of the human machine. Paffion rarely acquires this fatal omnipotence till aided by habit, by whofe mysterious power the wretched victim is compelled to extract, even from agony, a gloomy and horrid species of gratification. By oppofing paffion to paffion, in its earlier progrefs, the force of either is weakened, by their alternations, as by the motion of the antagonist mufcles, the mind lofes the fenfe of fatigue and experiences relief. In proportion to the abfence of others, is the ftrength and permanence of a fingle impreflion. In ftriking one billiard-ball against another, the force communicated to the fecond is deducted from the firft. If men of the world, on whofe fentes a thousand varied objects imprefs themselves, become the votaries of ambition or avarice, it is only as thefe paffions feem to include in them the gra tification of every other. Attention divided is neceffarily weakened. From the torrent fluiced into many channels, there is little dread of devastation.

In the oppofition of paffions to each other, it is not always neceflary, nor poffible, to contraft them. Natural facts are not established by poetical flights, nor does hatred feem to be the apropriate cure for fuccefslefs love. The illiberal quotation of the "fury of a woman scorned," can apply only to a groffer fentiment, or to wounded vanity, feelings which belong not exclufively to woman. Neither by unkindness, injury nor infult, can genuine affection be robbed of its characteristic meekness. It. would encroach on the limits allowed me, to detail the various methods by which the mind, overwhelmed by the preffure of a fingle fentiment, might be roused by ingenuity and addrefs, foftened by patient be nevolence, diverted to the exercife of a liberal