fifted on by the excellent Critic, to whom I have so often referred; but by adding to his judicious general abstract the familiarities of perfonal addrefs, fo ftrongly marked by the writer, not a line appears idle or misplaced: while the order and difpofition of the Epifle to the Pifos appears as evident and unem barraffed, as that of the Epistle to Auguftus; in which laft, the actual ftate of the Roman Drama feems to have been more manifeftly the object of Horace's attention, than in the Work now under confideration. Before I leave you to the further examination of the original of Horace, and fubmit to you the tranflation, with the notes that accompany it, I cannot help obferving, that the fyftem, which I have here laid down. is not fo entirely new, as it may perhaps at firft appear to the reader, or as my felt originally fuppofed it No Critic indeed has, to my knowledge, directly confidered the whole Epifle in the fame light hat I have now taken it; but yet particular paffages feem fo ftrongly to enforce fuch an interpretation, that the Editors, Tranflators, and Commentators, have been occafionally driven to explanations of a fimilar tendency; of which the notes annexed will exhibit fevera ftriking inftances.' It is not only for the happy explication of this exquifite: Poem, which will now no longer be confidered as it hitherto has been, an opprobium criticum, that the claffical Reader is indebted to Mr. Colman, He will receive equal gratification from his admirable translation of it, which is indeed a masterpiece in its kind. The confideration, however, of this, we are under the neceffity of making the fubject of a future article. [To be continued.] ART. VII. The Confeffions of J. J Rousseau; with the Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Iranflated from the French. Izmo. Two Vols. 55. fewed. Bew. 1783. FTER the copious and particular account which we have A already given of these Confeffions and Reveries at their first appearance in French*, it will not be expected that we should refume the work afresh, though preiented to the Public in anether language. The general difapprobation which we expreffed for the original, applies with till ftronger force to the tranf lation. The exceptionable part is not fuppreffed; and its ftriking and animating paffages are not fet off to any advantage, We are thoroughly perfuaded, that the more decent and judicious clats of Readers-thole who are fuperior to the fascination of names, and who determine on the merit of a work, not from the celebrity of the Author, but from its own intrinfic qualitywill confirm the judgment we paffed on this ftrange and motley performance, and prononce the publication of it to be a very rafh and ill-advifed ftep. Both the Confeffions and Reveries, we readily acknowledge, difcover a times tome of the finest springs of the human heart, and fome f the boldeft efforts of a vigori See Review, Sep.. 1782, p. -21. ous ous and fervid genius. We frequently fee the generous ftruggles of a mind that felt its connection with a higher fphere too trongly to bear the restraints of this low pin fold.' But Rouffeau obferved no measure with the world when he broke through its fhackles. Like Jack in the Tale of a Tub, he fcorned accommodation with fafhion; and inftead of taking off unneceffary appendages with coolness and decorum, he rent the garment in funder, and tore it into rags, in order to get rid of the whole at once. Growing impatient of controul, he panted for freedom in those ideal regions to which a wild and restless imagination always pointed his vifionary hopes; and became a torment to himself, and infufferably difguftful and troublesome to all that were about him, because the dream of fancy was not realized in the smoke and ftir of this dim fpot.' Hence his Confeffions are full of complaints, disappointments, mortifications, and all the train of evils which ever have followed, and ever will follow, a mind wholly directed by the violent impulfes of paffion and feeling, unchecked by the cooler dictates of reafon and philofophy. And yet fuch men as Rouffeau feem to entertain an idea, of their having a kind of prefcriptive right to the difagreeables of human nature, becaufe, forfooth! they poffefs tuch a fuperabundant share of its higher excellencies! They may be very infipid, or very troublefome, or very rude companions: they may be still worfe: they may be very worthlefs charactersungrateful to their benefactors, treacherous to their friends, and unjust to all men: but yet the plea of genius fhall overrule every other plea, and cancel every moral and every religious obligation. The man of genius thall infult you in public company, and call you blockhead to your face. He hath a right to do it, because he gives you ample recompence by his wit, even though you yourself fhould be the fport of it. A man of genius fhall do more: he fhall violate the confidence you repofe in hin: he fhall break through the moft awful inclosures of virtue and religion: he fhall epenly profane the one; and having fecretly undermined the other, fhall at last proclaim his villany, and without a blush outrage the common decencies of human life.-But what then? The man is a man of genius! Genius, more than charity, will cover a multitude of fins. He hath perhaps written a beautiful novel, or a fine piece of poetry and fhall he who hath given the world fo much delight be flighted or condemned, because he may, in a careless hour, have given a few individuals a little pain?-becaufe he hath intrigued with his friend's wife, or daughter, or fifter, and told the world of it? - because he hath borrowed money with out any prospect of paying it ?-or because he hath, in the fportiveness of wit and humour, done twenty things which a * Milton. man man of duller powers cannot do without being ftigmatized as a worthless and unprincipled fcoundrel? Ye colder votaries of morality when will you learn this leffon, that genius, like royalty, is guarded by its own fovereign prerogatives, and that the very trifles and faults of both are equally facred! Pinge duos angues. Pueri, Sacer eft locus: extra PERS. Mejite! From this general digreffion we return to the perfon that occafioned it. Rouffeau's heart feemed to have been the repofitory of every affection that can exalt or degrade human nature. He was every thing by turns, and nothing long." The moft heterogeneous principles were jumbled together in ftrange confufion in hist breaft, and kept him in a ftate of perpetual rebellion with himself. He was torn by conflicting paffions: now all tranfport-anon all agony and perturbation: and his whole life feems to have been the warfare of the paffions. At times he overflowed with the milk of human kindness; but there were splenetic moments that frequently intervened, in which he had nothing to give to any around him but vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Sometimes he appeared to be brave, collected, and undaunted: at other times he funk into the most contemptible pufillanimity. All the philofopher was loft in the driveling ideot; and for the man of fortitude we fee nothing but the infant muling and puking in his nurse's arms* In one fit punctilious, scrupuJous, and fo forth: in another, above all the laws of decorum ; above the commoneft rules of good manners; and, what is worse, above the obligations of juftice and the fanctions of truth. This-if we are to credit his own delineation of his difpofition and character-this was Rouffeau!--This was the man whofe vanity and prefumption fo impofed on his understanding, as to lead him to imagine that mankind would lend a ready ear to the moft trifling, to the moft dull, to the moft impertinent, to the most disgusting relations, because they concerned ROUSSEAU! that they would examine every folly, and forgive every fault, because they were the follies and faults of the incomparable Author of Emilius and Eloifa! Yea, this was the man (we tremble to repeat it) whofe ignorance, or whofe effrontery, led him into this blafphemous exultation: Let the trumpet of the day of judgment found when it will, I fhall appear, with this book in my hand, before the fovereign judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, thefe were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good; and if I have happened to make ufe of an infignificant ornament, 'twas only to fill a void occafioned by a fhort memory. I may have fup pofed pofed true what I knew might be fo, never what I knew was falfe. I have exposed myself as I was, contemptible, and vile fometimes; at others, good, generous, and fublime. I have revealed my heart as thou faweft it. Eternal Being! affemble around me the numberlefs throng of my fellow-mortals let them liften to my Confeffions; let them lament at my unworthiness; let them blush at my mifery; let each of them in his turn lay open his heart with the fame fincerity at the foot of thy throne, and then fay if he dare, I was better than that man.'-If Rouffeau was a righteous man, what muft the finner and the ungodly be? ART. VIII. Elements of the Theory and Practice of Phyfic and Surgery. 14 s. boards. medical erudition, to undertake the bufinefs of four learned profeffors Edinburgh has been for fome time pretty remarkable for bold men. We hope they will take care not to merit a fronger epithet. But our business is with the book, not the man. Dr. The chirurgical volume of this work appeared in a former edition, and was noticed in our 64th Volume, page 74.-It was apparent, from the manner in which that was executed, that it would coft the Author little trouble to methodize the other branch of the healing art on a fimilar plan. In fact, there is no great difficulty in felecting, from the many elementary works which have been written, the definitions, fynonymes, and principal circumftances of difeafes, and throwing them into fomewhat of a new form and arrangement. Aitken has chofen to clafs all general difeafes under fixteen heads, though it will be difficult to conceive why thefe, and no others, thould thus ftand distinguished. We fhall enumerate them: Hæmorrhage, Fever, Scurvy, Flux, Suppreffion, Gout, Rheumatifm, Palfy, Madness, Hypochondriacifm, Convul fion, King's-Evil, Decay, Defoedation, Dropfy, Fainting. The local difeafes he has now thrown under five heads,, viz. Swelling, Diflocation, Divifion, Deformity, Obftruction. Inflammation is treated of merely as a circumftance under Swelling; and all its fpecies, as Phrenitis, Peripneumony, Nephritis, &c. are (furely very strangely) brought under this divifion of Swelling. As every new fyftematist must have a fet of new phrafes, at least if not not of ideas, we find this writer continually speaking of a certain alteration of Atructure or of organization, fometimes called a derangement, as the proximate caufe of diseases. By thefe terms we can understand nothing but an unknown internal change, which all feel when they are fick, but neither patient nor phyfician can define. Nothing about this work is fo curious and original as the language. It is to the highest degree affected and pedantic, yet full of inaccuracies. He profeffes to exprefs himself in "plain British language," as he is pleased to term it; yet no one ever employed fo many new terms, totally irreconcileable to the genius of our language. What fhall we fay to Phyfcony, GumSarcom, Pterig, Hypoftaphyl, Ecchymom, Exany, and a hundred others of like origin? It is true he often defcends to appelJatives more intelligible to the purely British reader, as NofeFlux, Squint-Eye, Bone-Swelling, Flesh Swelling, Supple-Joint, &c. In fhort, we are forry to be obliged to fay, that no perfon, with the leaft tincture of literary elegance, can read a page without disgust. This is certainly a capital fault in an elementary work, which cannot be expected to command attention by the novelty of its matter. ART. IX. A Treatise on the Synochus Atrabiliofa, a contagious Fever, which raged at Senegal in the Year 1778, and proved fatal to the greatest Part of the Europeans, and to a number of the Natives : To which is prefixed, a Journal of the Weather during the prevalence of that Difeafe, with Remarks on the Country, formerly read at the Royal Society: And annexed to it, a fhort Reflection on the Gum-Trade of Senegal, and the Importance of the Place on that account; concluding with an Argument concerning the bad Confequences which must attend the prefent Mode of fending Convicts to Africa for Soldiers. By J. P. Schotte, M. D. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Murray. 1782. TH HE fatal disease, which is the fubject of the treatife before us, does not, the writer fays, appear annually at Senegal, but only in those years when the rains are uncommonly frequent and heavy; in which cafe all the country round is laid under water. It broke out in 1778, in the beginning of Auguft, and raged till about the middle of September. Its malignancy was fuch, that nearly two thirds of the white inhabitants were carried off by it, and many of the remainder were left extremely enfeebled. The deaths happened from the third to the feventh day, moft on the fourth or fifth. As to the nature of the diforder, it appears to have been very fimilar to those highly malignant fevers which prevail in most hot and moist countries. It was attended with the highest degree of debility, and a rapid tendency |