A sort of spiritual creation, Now, since it is secur'd by patent, You cannot steal it, Sirs, there's that in't, As did your countryman, one Hadley. 44 contrivances, but have a partiality for the real “organick mud." But, here I will stop short lest I afford such a clue to the labyrinth of my invention that you will be able to make your way into its innermost recesses. 44 As did your countryman, one Hadley. This man, by dint of diplomatick skill made himself master of the invention of what is called Hadley's Quadrant. The instrument was, however, actually invented by a Philadelphian, whose name was Godfrey. Hadley professed himself to be the patron of Godfrey, and proffered his services for procuring a patent in England; but very adroitly made imself principal in the affair, took a patent in his own name, and deprived the inventor of both the honour and profit of his invention. This your worships will allow to have been extremely well conducted, and in perfect consistency with modern philosophical principles. Thus both M. De Luc, and Lavoisier, took the liberty to make use of Dr. Black's theory of latent heat, without any acknowledgment to its author; and thus Lavoisier was denounced by his intimate friend and pupil, a true modern philosopher, decapitated accordingly, and his discoveries and theories claimed by this grateful disciple. The mystick characters of Nature From bearings of the different osses 45 We read more readily than Lavater. There was one Mr. George Christopher Lichtenberg, who foretold, with very considerable accuracy, the progress which physiognomy would make under our auspices. "When physiognomy arrives at the perfection expected by Lavater, we shall hang children before they have committed the crimes which deserve the gallows. There will every year be a physiognomical Auto da Fe! How provoking it is to perceive that Lavater found more in the noses of some authors, than we can find in their writings!" 46 Can write a man's complete biography. If the truth were known, we are positive that we should discover that most of the stories told by modern biographers about deceased personages, were taken from data somewhat similar to the grounds of our above stated discovery. We would, however, by no means wish your worships to entertain an idea that Miss Anna Seward wrote her "Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin" by any rules which are at all consonant to our science. Had Miss Anna Seward been in the least degree acquainted with this our We've drawn nine million diagrams, method of etching a man's biography (which, in physiognomical nomenclatures, by a word delicately coined from the Greekand rounded with a most energetick Latin termination, is denominated metronomocenocephalismaticality) and in possession of no one document nor the least information respecting the great personage, whom she has taken off in her "Memoirs," she would have given us a much more correct account of the wonderful philosopher. But now, alas! she is most unconscionably handled by the Edinburgh Reviewers. These anti-chivalrick criticks, without the least regard to that delicacy towards the fair, which ought to regulate the strictures of gentlemen, upon lady-authors, have fallen upon her without mercy, and I am sorry to say that our Amazon appears not quite impregnable. We will oblige you with a specimen of their lack of gallantry. "On the birth, parentage, and education of her hero, Miss Seward has not deigned to bestow a single line. We are abruptly introduced to him at the age of twenty-four, when he first came to practice physick at Litchfield, in the autumn of the year 1756; and even then instead of proceeding directly in her narrative, she stops at the threshold to give us a "sketch of his character and manners," such as they had appeared to her in the subsequent course of Dr. Darwin's life. This inversion of the usual arrangement in biographical writing may be perfectly consonant to the desultory plan of these memoirs; but in itself is so palpably injudicious, that there is very little hazard of its adoption as a model. Within these few years a similar innovation was attempted by a Scottish historian, who at the commencement of every reign, in On which you'll please to place reliance, troduced that general delineation of character, which has usually found a place at the close: but, if we may judge from our own feelings, the example of Mr. Pinkerton will not probably prove more seducing than that of Miss Seward." Edinburgh Review, April 1803. As respects us in this aforesaid discovery we will candidly confess, that conceiving ourself justified both by the principles and the practices of our contemporary philosophers, we actually built our superstructure on the foundation of the famous Dr. Gall, whose theory is thus described. "The brain is alike the immediate seat of all the powers of life, whether strictly vital, moral, or intellectual; and each power having its seat in a peculiar portion of the brain, the degree of general power, in each individual is in exact proportion to the quantity of that particular part of the brain, in which the function is exercised. The brain, being complete before the ossification of the cranium, must give it a peculiarity of figure, according to the largeness or smallness of its own parts; and therefore if the position of the seat of each faculty were known, the depressions or prominences of the skull might be taken, as indicative of the degree, in which the different powers were possessed by the owner of the skull!!!" See Edinburgh Review for April 1803. Now, all real philosophers must be enamoured with this theory: whence it follows that the Edinburgh Reviewers are not philosophers; for they assail it in the following man ner. By these we measure our first rates men; "That the general strength of the vital, moral, and intellectual powers is great in each individual, in proportion to the quantity of the encephalon, is an assertion, to which the experience of every one must have furnished him with a reply. We confess, though at the risk of having the periphery of our heads diminished, in the imagination of our readers, that our experience is completely against this assertion. We have known a large cranium with very great dulness of the intellectual, and moral, and even the vital powers." &c. Now I will undertake to lay prostrate these Reviewers, by a simple statement of my mode of physiognomising. I would premise, however, that I borrowed a hint from one Archimedes, a chief of the Mohawks, in an experiment which he made on the fur cap of a certain Hiero, a noted Narraganset. 1. I fill a bucket, capable of containing five gallons, brimful of water. 2. I place a vessel under said bucket, to catch the contents in case of its overflowing. 3. I gently sink the head of my patient, the Physiognomée, into the said brimming bucket of water. 4. I catch all the water which thus overflows from the bucket. 5. I measure, to the nine hundred and ninety ninth part of a thimble full, what is the amount of the water, which has thus overflown. H |