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This root is not very diffimilar to bark; and whether taken in fubstance or as an extract, decoction or tincture, it has a very grateful tafte, flightly bitter and aromatic, and is a moft powerful vegetable aftringent. We have made feveral trials of it, and found it to agree well with many perfons who could not take bark. In all our experiments we uniformly found it to increase the appetite very confiderably, and to act as a very agreeable and efficient tonic. Thofe perfons, indeed, who are fanatically attached to the administration of bark, may not be fo fuccefsful, for they will not believe that any fubftitute can be found for their favourite drug; but every attentive obferver of nature muft have long fince noticed the inefficiency and not unfrequently the injury of bark in the ftomach. Medicines are fubject to the fame viciffitudes as every other thing belonging to man; they have their youth, manhood, and old age: Peruvian bark is now in the latter ftage, and we think the public very much indebted to the fortunate difcovery and labour of Dr. Reece for thus furnishing a cheap, and perhaps we might fay elegant, fuccedaneum. To difpenfaries the rhatany root will be particularly advantageous, as from its cheapnefs it may be used to satisfy the defires of the poor, at a time when every intelligent phyfician must be conscious that no drugs can have any falutary effect. Dr. Reece has found it effectual in intermittents, epilepfy, nervous head ache, dyfpepfia, dropfy, gleet, fluor albus, paralyfis of the lower extremities, and in lepra. Drs. Chester and Beugo, and furgeons Griffith, Carmichael (Dublin), Hill, Platt, and Howard, all teftify the efficacy of this new medicine. To this pamphlet is annexed an account of phosphate and oxyphofphate of iron, fuccefsfully used in the cure of cancer, chlorofis, &c. Thirteen extemporaneous formulæ for the exhibition of rhatany root are alfo added. We earnestly recommend this intelligent and comprehenfive pamphlet to the immediate attention of all medical men.

Obfervations on the Rife and Progress of the Medical Art in the British Empire; containing Remarks on Medical Literature, and a View of Bibliographia Medicina Britannica. By W. Royton, Efq. Apothecary Extraordinary to his Royal Highnefs the Duke of Clarence. Pp. 48, 8vo. Callow. 1808.

WE's not believe that a laboured panegyric on the art of printing is a neceffary introduction to a biographical and bibliographical account of British medical writers; neither do we know any greater ufe of Bibliothecas than to fofter indolence, generate vanity, and increafe pedantry and fuperficialnefs. Such works are never encouraged in any country unless before the public have attained a tafte for enquiry, or after they have loft it. On the decline of ftates, we ufually find their philofophy and literature minced down into dictionaries and bibliothecas. The fame may be faid of appeals to our national feelings; fcience fcorns fuch affiftance, however neceffary they must always be to the politician and ftatefman, and even the moralift. We must alfo beg leave to differ from Mr. Royston when he fays

that the people on the Continent are ignorant of British medical science there is, perhaps, no other branch of knowledge cultivated in England with which they are fo well acquainted, and there is fcarcely an old woman on the Continent who is not firmly persuaded that an English phyfician could rescue her from the jaws of the grave at any time. If Mr. R. has read any of the works of the Italian phyficians, he must have been furprised at the number of English medical writers they frequently quote, and even many of them authors not of the first celebrity in this country. We are far from denying, however, that a critical claffed catalogue of medical publications, accompanied with biographical sketches of the authors, may be a very convenient and even ufeful work, which may be comprised in one or at the utmost two volumes. The number and copiousness of feveral medical dictionaries which have recently been published, preclude the neceffity of entering very minutely into fyftematic or practical details. Mr. R. appears to poffefs talents adequate to the task in which he has engaged, and if he can induce the people of the United Kingdom to depend more on temperance than on drugs for the recovery or prefervation of their health, we shall with his work every poffible fuccefs. We extract the following notice:

Mr. Royston," convinced that a Bibliographia Medicine Britannica is a NATIONAL WORK, has no reluctance to folicit affiftance; and thofe gentlemen who have the means and the inclination to fupply him with information, either by relation of facts, defcription of books, anecdotes, biographical and hiftorical reports, or by critical remarks on his plan, are requested to transmit their communications to his refidence in Princes-ftreet, Cavendish-fquare, London; or to Mr. Callow, medical bookfeller, Crown-court, Soho."

POETRY.

Poems by [the REVEREND] Mr. Polwhele.

12mo. Pp. 701.

In Three Volumes.

Cadell and Davies. 1806.

MR. Polwhele's fame as a poet has been too long established to be either increased by our praife, or diminished by our cenfures, were we difpofed to inflict them. Few poets, indeed, of the prefent day, have written fo much and written fo well; and though moft of the poems which are inferted in these volumes have before appeared, indeed, in a different form, and in different publications, they will not fail to be read with pleasure, in their collected state, even by those who perufed them on their first appearance. The first of these volumes contains The English Orator; the fecond, Sir Allan, or the Knight of Expiring Chivalry, a part of which was formerly published under the title of The Old English Gentleman, and fome of the additional cantos appeared, as original poetry, in an early volume of the ANTIJACOBIN REVIEW; the third is filled with mifcellaneous

pieces. Two of thefe laft, which have never before appeared, we Phall felect as fpecimens of the whole.

"ON LAWRENCE POLWHELE,

“Who died an Infant, Aug. 10, 1805.

"Thro' the long night my cradled child
Drew quick his feeble breath,
And vainly ftretch'd his quivering arms
Amidst the fhade of death.

"The day-star rofe, the redbreast pour'd
A note to dawning day;
His fpirit, ere the note expir'd,
Had pafs'd, ferene, away.

"And, oh! it left, in pale repose,

A fmile upon his cheek:

Thus, thro' the still cold gloom, I view'd
The placid morning break.

"Dear babe! that warbled ftrain I hear,
Thy penfive requiem fweet;
As, lifting up the coffin-lid,

Thofe features, mild, I meet.

"And, plac'd in either lifeless palm,

And, on thy breaft, the flowers
That fade fo faft, and feem to fay
How thort thine infant hours.

"But thou art fpar'd full many a pang,
Efcap'd from fin and care;

And ever thall a Saviour's love
Such fainted children fhare.

Hail, with affection hail (he cries),
Thefe fpotlefs babes of grace:
'For, lo! their angels e'er behold
'In Heaven, my Father's face.'

Thither I fee the feraph wings

Earth's little ftrangers bear

Thee, LAWRENCE! child of innocence!
Thine angel greets thee there."

There is an original fimplicity in these lines that render them irrefiftibly pleafing. They have nothing of the tinfel of art about them; they are pure nature, and have evidently their fource in the heart The next fpecimen which we shall lay before our readers is a tribute of filial piety, and is a fit companion for the preceding tribute of paternal affection.

Written Dec. 19th, 1804, the Day of his Mother's Burial in the Family Vault at Saint Clement's, near Truro.

"Pale o'er my aged mother as I hung,

Borne to her narrow house' a hurried look
(As all my limbs with fudden tremor (hook)
Into the hollow vault of death I flung;
But, as foft raindrops dimpling the still brook
Whofe fands were troubled by a tranfient florm,
So fell, in kind relief, tear after tear!

For I defcried the coffin that contains
The duft of him to filial love fo dear!

And ftrait, methought, I faw my father's form
Beck'ning my foul to yon celestial sphere,

To hufh this throbbing heart. Yet, O, that near
That coffin may be laid my cold remains,

Tho' a poor earthly hope, is the hope trembling here."

We lament very much that Mr. Polwhele did not render the collection of his Poems complete, by reprinting all that he has before published in the fame form as thefe volumes. His "Influence of Losal Attachment"-"The Unfexed Females"-The "Grecian Profpects," and another poem, the title of which we do not remember, but we think The Progrefs of Methodism was the fubject of it, would form three or four more volumes of the fame fize; and, if his Translation of Theoeritus were added to them, they would form a work highly interefting. We recommend this fuggeftion very seriously to Mr. Polwhele's attention.

Legendary Tales. By Eaglesfield Smith. Pp. 139. 12ıno. 4s. Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh; Longman and Co., London. 1807.

IT appears that the author has the merit of adhering pretty closely to the tales which prevail in the North, and his verification is fufficiently eafy and fimple for fuch like compofitions, although it has no claims to the elegance and dignity of poetry. These Tales, however, poffefs very confiderable intereft; fome of them terminate horribly, fuch as Morcar and Elfina; and others happily: they will

"Alas, my SIRE, how fleeting is the view

1

Of pleasure's fhard with thee!--E’en now I shed
Fresh tears; in fancy all my griefs renew;
And wring my little hands befide thy bed;
Prefs thy cold lips, and pillow up thy head!

Yet, by a sweet remembrance footh'd, I tell

How with a placid fmile thy fpirit fled;

And on thofe charities delight to dwell,

Which I ador'd in death, and lov'd in life as well !”

LOCAL ATTACHMENT, 9d edit. p. 83.

be read with avidity by young perfons who take an intereft rather in ftriking events than in brilliant fentiments, and are perhaps as innocent and as amufive as any other romances. Their fhortnefs will in fome degree prevent them from preying too ftrongly on the juvenile imagination. We think the author has talents for compofitions of a higher caft his fimplicity evinces fomething poetical.

Critical Opinions and Complimentary Verfes on the Poems of H. Downman, M. D., particularly on thofe addreffed to Thefpia, by a Friend. To the above are added Verfes occafioned by the Death of Lieut.-General Simcoe. Svo. Pp. 70. Exeter, printed; Cadell and Davies, London. 1807.

THESE friendly contributions are highly creditable to the talents of Dr. Downman, to whom the public are indebted for the gratification which they will infallibly receive from the perufal of them. Many of them difplay both genius and tafte, and most of them have confiderable merit.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Remarks on a fuppofed Error in the Elements of Euclid. By the Rev. W. Lax, A. M. F. R. S. 8vo. Pp. 19. Deighton and Nichol

fon, Cambridge; Lunn, London. 1807.

THIS little tract contains the refutation of a charge brought by the French mathematicians against the fuppofed inaccuracy of a de-' finition in the 11th book of Euclid. It was fent to the Royal Society, in whofe Tranfactions it fhould have appeared, and it was certainly of a nature to do that learned body no difcredit. If we did not know that the Prefident had defcended to the meanness of facrificing the reputation of the Society to that of a neighbouring kingdom-we beg pardon, we would fay empire-and played the fycophant to an envious rival, we might be juftly furprised at the rejection of the paper before us; but Mr. Lax fhould be informed, that to prove the French guilty of ignorance or error is the moft unfortunate claim he can urge to the notice of the Royal Society. Sir Jofeph has already told the world that the "FIRST SOCIETY IN THE UNIVERSE IS AT PARIS;" and a due regard to confiftency will keep his gentle and candid fpirit from countenancing any attack on its infallibility by a blunt and plain-dealing Englishman, with nothing but fuperior truth and science on his fide.

With respect to the tract before us, we cannot, from the nature of our work, enter into any detailed examination of it; but we can take upon us to fay, that it is drawn up with great ability and knowledge of the fubject, and completely proves both the correctness of Euclid, and the miftake of Le Sage, whofe mifconception, like that

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