1 curious Reader to his book, concerning which, all we have further to fay, is,-Pars habet utraque caufas. .. Efai hiftorique & philofophique fur les principaux ridicules des differentes nations. Par M. G. Dourx... Amfterdam, Rey. 12mo. An historical and philofophical Effay on the principal Follies of different Nations, &c. 1766. HE nations which excite the Author's laughter are the TEgyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mahometans, the Eaft indians, the Americans, the Africans, the Chinese, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Germans, the Moscovites, the English, and the French. His chapter on the English chiefly runs thus. The obligations which philofophy, letters, and navigation owe to the English are undeniable: they are likewife laborious, thinking, virtuous and brave: they want nothing but to know how to render juftice to other nations, efpecially to the French. Our fuperiority in this refpect is fo great, that one would be apt to believe us fuperior in other things. In fpeaking unjustly of a rival who has fome merit; we perfuade our hearers that he has a great deal, nay perhaps more than ourfelves. England, at prefent fo jealous of its liberty of thinking and acting, was once the flave of priests and tyrants. William the Conqueror carried his power fo far as to oblige the people to put out their fires and go to bed at fix o'clock. The English, for a long time, paid a tax of a crown a head to the Pope. There was a time when the priests, who meddle with every thing, had rendered this people fo exceedingly fuperftitious as to make them believe not only that the health of their fouls, but of their bodies alfo depended on a regular attendance on public worship. We read in Jurieu, and others, that one of their kings, on viewing the carcass of a stag, which he had just killed, cried out, By heavens he was in good health, though he neither heard mafs nor vefpers. The English are much changed fince that time; but the change coft them many a bloody war. The generality of them being naturally exceffive in every thing, they paffed in a fhort time from flavery to licentioufnefs; from extream devotion to the moft determined impiety. Every individual having divefted himself of his troublefome prejudices, gave himself up to his own humour and opinions. Royalty was overturned in the person of the unfortunate Charles I. who fuffered death without caufe and without pity. This Prince faying to those who conducted him to prifon, That he thought himself accountable for his actions to God alone, their captain had the infolence to answer, Very true, and therefore we intend fhortly to fend you to God for that purpose. During the the reign of Charles II. their manners underwent great revolu tions A tafte for literature and gallantry fucceeded to fanaticism and impiety; but they ftill continued to preferve that basis of ferocity which is productive of ftrong reafoning in one, and in another brutality. Perhaps we ourselves are deceived in this matter by our refined politenefs, which, according to the English renders us unnatural. In general, fays M. de Muralt, they perform a good action boldly, and they dare follow their reafon in oppofition to custom; but their good fense is mixed with whims and extravagance. Their refolutions are generally fudden. It is common in England for a girl to vow that the will marry the first man fhe meets; and accordingly they are married. Wine hath fometimes, among this people, been productive of great cruelty. Some of them have made a vow to murder the first perfon they meet after leaving the tavern; and they have kept their word. Their prime nobility often box or play at bowls with the loweft among the people.-Some of our nation confider the English ftage, which affords that people fo much delight, as a proof of their barbarity. Their tragedies, it is true, tho' interefting and replete with beauties, are nevertheless dramatic monfters, half butchery and half farce. Grotesque character, and extravagant pleafantry conftitute the chief part of their comedies: in one of thefe, the Devil enters fneezing, and fomebody fays to the Devil, God bless you. They are not, however, all of this ftamp: they have even fome in a very good tafte; but there are hardly any which give us an advantageous idea of the English nation; though it is from the theatre that a ftranger forms his opinion of the manners of a people. The English comic poets do not endeavour to paint their countrymen fuch as they are; for they are faid to poffefs as much hu manity as reafon. A man in difgrace at court is, in London, Congratulated with as much folicitude as in other places he is abandoned. The thing for which the English are most culpable is their deeming fuicide an act of bravery. They ought to recollect that even the Athenians, their model, were not fuffered to deftroy themselves till after they had given their reasons for it. The English on the contrary frequently kill themselves on the flighteft occafion; even fometimes merely to mortify another. A husband diflatisfied with the behaviour of his wife, who by his death would be a confiderable lofer, threatned, if fhe did not mend her manners, to be revenged of her by hanging himfelf. The English are now-a-days feldom cruel except to themfelves, or in their public fpectacles, rarely in their robberies. Their highway men generally content themselves with taking your money, and being witty upon the occafion. One of thefe people having ftopped an English nobleman upon the road, refted his piftol on the door of the coach, and faid, This piece, my lord, is worth a hundred guineas: I would advise your lord fhip to buy it. His lordship understood the meaning of thefe words, gave him the money and took the piftol, which he immediately prefented at the highwayman; who told him, with a fmile, that he must have taken him to be a great fool, if he thought the piece was charged. I fhall finifh this chapter with the recital of a very extraordinary affair, which could never have entered any head but that of an Englishwoman: fhe was fo piqued at being told, that women had as great a propenfity to love, as men, that she instantly made a vow of perpetual virginity, and accordingly died a virgin at the age of fourfcore; fhe left in her will, a number of legacies to virgins. She endeavoured, to prove that the proportion in the pleasures of love between the two fexes, was as forty to eighty-three. This drole calculation reminds me, that as the Italians conftantly introduced buffoonery, the Germans wine, the Spaniards devotion, the French gallantry, so the English upon all occafions, introduce calculation." This chapter we fuppofe, will be quite fufficient to give our readers an idea of this author's knowledge, abilities and candour. If the French form their opinion of us from fuch fcribblers, 'tis no wonder that we fhould appear to them in a very extraordinary light. L'Art Du Poete et De L'Orateur, &c. B..t. The Arts of Poetry and Oratory, being a new Syftem of Rhetoric for the Ule of Schools; to which is prefixed an Effay on Education. 12mo. Lyons, Periffe, 1766. N O labours can be more unprofitable than such as are cmployed in laying down systems for the acquifition of those arts, which muft principally be taught by nature and received from her bounty. A fyftem of rhetoric is the abfurdest thing in the world. The rules of which any fuch fyftem is compofed are nothing more than ftrictures on the various distinguished paffages in the best Poets and Orators, whofe examples alone, added to the powers of native genius, and not the frigid comments of fyftem framing pedants, can form the mind to excellence: For the ftrictures of fuch writers are very frequently false, and, instead of inftructing, mislead the native taste of genius. Such would be the tendency of the dull and formal work before us, where we have divifions and fubdivifions, laboured demonstrations of felf-evident propofitions, and, diftinctions without a difference innumerable. For a fpecimen of the Author's tafte, we fhall quote his observation on that famous verfe of Lucan, Victrix caufa Diis placuit, fed victa Catoni. "To give us, fays the Author a magnificent idea of the rectitude and probity of this Roman, the Poet prefumes to put him on a level with the gods, as he could not determine which of the two opponents had the right of the caufe, whether Cæfar, who had the fuffrage of fuperior beings, or Pompey, whose intereft was espoused by Cato. Quis juftiùs induat arma Scire nefas; magno fe judice quifque tuetur. The extravagance of this comparison must be obvious to every one; fince, whatever might be the equity and the virtue of a man, were they to be compared to the juftice of the gods? What Horace and Boileau fay concerning authors of the fame ftamp may very well be applied to Lucan: Aut dum vitat humum nubes & inania captat. La plupart emportés d'une fougue infenfée S'ils penfoient ce qu'un autre a pu penfer comme eux." Nothing but an abfolute want of tafte and an entire inattention to the opinions of different ages and claffes of men could have produced fuch a criticism.-In the present fyftem of theology, to allow any heroe fuch a comparison, would, indeed, be extravagant; but when, in the pagan theology, it is remembered at the conduct of the gods was confidered in a familiar and frequently difrefpectable light, Cato, notwithstanding the magnificence of the poet's contraft, which is very fublime and beautiful, hardly received the honours due to him. L. Antonii de Haen pars decima Rationis Medendi in Nofocomio Practico Vindobonenfi. 8vo. Lugd. Bat. apud P. van der Eyk. Ant. de Haen's Practice of Medicine in the Hospital at Vienna: part the tenth, &c. TH OHE preceding parts of this useful work are fo univerfally known in the medical world, and their merit fo generally acknowledged, that it were unneceffary to fay any thing concerning the Author's fituation, abilities, or the plan of this performance. It will be fufficient therefore, in the prefent article, to give our Readers a sketch of the contents of this number, which makes the fecond of the third volume. It confifts of fix chapters, which we shall review in their proper order. The first chapter, which is the feventh of the volume, treats particularly de colica pictonum. Our Author having formerly confidered the nature and cure of this difeafe, firft in a feparate differtation, and afterwards in chap. 24, vol. i. of this work, refumes the subject in the present number, confining his obfervations more particularly to the morbid phenomena upon diffec tion. The first cafe is that of a painter who in the course of his employment had ufed confiderable quantities of ceruffa and cobalt. About feven years before he was admitted into the hofpital, he had fuffered feveral fevere paroxyfins in the space of one year, but fince that time had enjoyed good health. In March 1764, he was again feverely attacked, and two of his fingers became paralytic. Soon after this he had another fevere fit, but was greatly relieved by a phyfician who ordered him a grain or two of aloes night and morning, and alfo twice a day two ounces of fresh butter. Being brought to the hofpital, where continuing to eat his quantity of fresh butter, and being frequently electrified, he became fo well as to refume his occupation; but the day after his return home he was again attacked, and was again received into the hofpital, where, an amaurosis and ischuria fupervening, he foon expired. During the whole time of his continuance in the hofpital the heat of his body remained about 96 of Fahrenheit's thermometer, which is that of a perfon in health. After his death it was ftill the fame for the first 20 minutes. In 25 minutes it funk to 95; in 30, to 94; and in 35, to 93. The body being opened, the liver was found raifed entirely above the lowest rib, except a fmall portion of the leffer lobe. Hence our Author rationaily obferves, how impoffible it would have been, in this fubject, in case of a difeafe of that vifcus, to have formed any judgment from an external application of the hand. The ileum and rectum were found in fome parts violently con tracted, and in others greatly dilated. The firft of thefe inteftines was likewife much inflamed, and here and there even gangrenous; and near the part where it enters the coecum it was found, together with its mefentery, adhering to the peritoneum of the fpine. In order to give the Reader a proper idea of thefe difeafed inteftines, the Author has fubjoined a plate in which they are delineated. The ftomach was fo enlarged as to contain fix pints, and its external coat violently inflamed. Cafe II. is likewife that of a painter, who during the last twelve years of his life had been employed chiefly in grinding white lead. About two years before his admiffion into the hospital he was first attacked, though not violently, with the ufual fymp toms of the colica Pictonum. A year after, he had a fecond fit, fucceeded by a third which produced an almost general paralyfis. In this condition he entered the hofpital on the 20th of Novem ber, 1764, where he was frequently electrified, and his paralytic limbs and fpina derfi rubbed twice a day with flannel im pregnated with the fume of maftich, olibanum, and juniper berries. His internal medicines were, K. Sap. venet, gam, amm. mass. pil. rufi, terre fol. tart. a. dr. j. thereb. q. f. m. f. pl. gr. iv. two of which he took every three hours, first with water, next with an infufion of fouthernwood, and laftly with an APP, Vol. xxxiv. LI ounce |