she have previously read the memoirs on which that lady was occupied at the time, and which we have had the painful duty of noticing in our last Appendix. (See p. 514.)

State of Medical Practice in France. It was with no common share of interest that we perused the observations of Lady M.'s husband (Sir T. C. Morgan, M.D.) on a topic with which he is professionally conversant, and that we accompanied him in an historical view of the comparative state of the healing art in France and in England. In surgery, the French of former days were confessedly our superiors, the long wars of Louis XIV. having rendered the improvement of that science an object of great political importance: but, in the course of the last century, the study of surgery was followed up, both in England and Scotland, with an ardour and a perseverance which may, without partiality, be said to have turned the scale in our favour before the breaking out of the French Revolution. Since that period, the demand for surgical talents has been unhappily so great in both countries, that the science has advanced nearly pari passu; and, if the French surgeons are in arrear with regard to particular im→ provements commenced in England, nothing can surpass their sympathetic attention, their promptitude in operation, and their ingenuity in adapting to a specific purpose all the means: which are at their disposal. With respect to medicine, the contrast is much greater; since in the two countries a total and fundamental difference exists in the mode of considering the principles of the science. The French live under a less unsteady climate; they are strangers to the complaints engendered by a residence in the East or the West Indies; and: they seldom injure their constitution by intemperance in food or drink. Their physicians are therefore adherents to the: system called la medecine expectante; a system which recommends a passive course, and which considers the symptoms of disease as efforts of nature to overcome the source of the evil :

in consequence, they make little use of medicines, and merely study to favour efforts which they regard as having a natural tendency to recovery. They will not listen to the use of calomel in fever, or other diseases, in the way in which it is employed in England, and they consider febrile action as essential to the return of health, and the application of. powerful medicines as disturbing the cause of nature. Blood-: letting is also but little practised among them; although, from the frequency of consumption in France, it would be most important to study the practicability of arresting that dreadful disease in the outset. All this is radically different from the system followed on our side of the Channel; where symptoms

of disease are regarded as the necessary consequences of injury received, and as frequently requiring to be stopped short by the application of strong remedies. So far are we yet from attaining perfection in any science, and so empirical is that of medicine in particular, that it would be presumption to attempt to decide in general terms on the comparative superiority of either system.

The medical institutions at Paris for anatomy, physiology, botany, and chemistry, are on a most extensive scale; surgery and medicine are taught in common; and the hospitals for clinical patients are spacious and well attended. All these advantages, concentrated in one spot, should make the French the first medical men in Europe: but the want of an independent and steady exercise of intellect still keeps them at a great distance from the point at which they might otherwise arrive. They can boast of few great discoveries either in medicine or in general science; and they must usually confine their claims for distinction to order and analysis in scientific works, or to gradual improvements on the discoveries of others. Their men of science are less disposed to contemplate things as they are than as they ought to be: their physicians follow the course of medical practice which they find established; and, instead of attempting innovation, they' restrict the exercise of their powers to an accurate observation of phænomena. The love of system is also one of their predominant characteristics: but the analysis of diseases, according to the texture of the parts in which they occur, is far from being sufficiently practical to become the basis of comprehensive conclusions; since one part of the body can scarcely be diseased without a simultaneous affection of another. Very few successful remedies have been obtained by deduction à priori from scientific data; they are the result of tradition, of personal experience, sometimes even of accidental application.

Such are the doubts and difficulties in which, on a theoretic view, the comparative merits of either system are involved: but, when we come to practical results, there seems no longer any room for hesitation, the average loss of the hospitals of Paris being much greater than that which generally occurs in London. A mortality of one in six is by no means unusual in the former; while, with us, one in ten is considered (Vol. II. Appendix iii. p. ci.) as a high average even in cases of fever. A French writer, who has published strictures on the remarks contained in this work, asserts that the disproportion in question is owing to the aversion of patients in France to repair to the hospitals until their malady has assumed a serious aspect but this will not be accounted a sufficient ex

planation

planation of so great a difference. A part of it may be ascribed to the confined air of Paris, the crowded position of the buildings, and the want of the salutary influence of so wide a river as the Thames.

Sir Charles Morgan has added three other appendices, treating respectively of the state of Law, Finance, and Political Opinion in France. With regard to law, the general scope of the observations is to shew how necessary a total change had become at the æra of the Revolution, and that many of the existing evils are less the consequences of that dreadful convulsion than of the very backward state of things under the old monarchy. The remarks on juries (Vol. II. Appendix, pp. xxv. xxxiii. xxxiv.) will be read with considerable interest; and we fully subscribe to the opinion that, however unfit Frenchmen are to act the part of jurymen, their incompetency arises scarcely ever from a corrupt leaning or from indifference to the cause of justice, but from a disposition which makes them too open to pathetic appeals, and too ready to ascribe to accident those offences which are the result of premeditation. Sir Charles adverts (p. xlvi.) to the singular and, to us, most revolting practice of the judges receiving private visits from the parties to a law-suit: but he makes the significant addition that it does not appear that, either before or since the Revolution, this practice gave rise to pecuniary abuse.'

The gratification with which we read Sir Charles M.'s observations on medicine and law was much lessened on turning to his last article on Political Opinion;' where he shews a disposition (pp. cxxxiv. &c.) to receive with perfect confidence the reports current in the saloons of Paris; and to dwell (p. clxiv.) on documents composed under circumstances totally unfavourable to impartiality. In point of military calculation, he ranks very little higher than his fair partner, who speaks of the action of Montereau in 1814 (Vol. II. p. 301.) as a great engagement.' These animadversions are doubly painful, inasmuch as the discovery of error in points with which the reader happens to be familiar has the effect of shaking his stock of faith in others; and of warning him against allowing his credence to be gained by that happy fluency of language, and that capacity of generalizing, which Sir Charles evidently possesses,

Reverting from this medico-political episode to the sprightly labours of Lady Morgan, which the nature of the topics in the appendages by her husband has induced us temporarily to quit, we find a chapter of great length given to the subject of tragedy, and to comments on Racine, Talma, Mademoiselle George, and the theatres of Paris. Our limits, however, do

Q 4

not admit of commenting on this part of the book; and we turn from these amusing dramatic criticisms to passages which call for her Ladyship's descriptive powers: an exercise in which she is particularly happy, her personages being (as it were) brought before the eyes of her readers. This talent is exemplified in a variety of cases, such as the account (Vol. I. p.379.) of the déjeûner and consequent excursion; and, in a more ludicrous manner, (Vol. I. p. 245.) in her description of a fantastic beau from our side of the Channel. We have a striking instance of it, likewise, in her farther account of the appearance of the quondam ruler of the French cabinet, M. Talleyrand.

'I had frequently seen this celebrated personage, and future historical character, at court, upon other public occasions, in the bustle of processions, at the nuptial pomp of royalty, under the holy dome of Notre Dame, at the deepest tragedy, at the liveliest comedy, amidst the solemnity of the royal chapel, and the revelry of the feasting court-but I saw him always the same; cold, motionless; not abstracted, but unoccupied; not absent, but unmoved;-no tint varying the colourless view of his livid complexion, no expression marking its character on his passive countenance. His figure seemed the shell of a human frame, despoiled of its organic arrangements, or, if the heart beat, or the brain vibrated, no power of penetration could reach the recesses of the one, or guess at the workings of the other. From the mind of this man the world seemed contemptuously shut out- and if this most impassible form and face indicated character or opinion, one would have thought, at the first glance, this is surely the being who has said, "Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts. It seemed as if the intimacy of love, the confidence of friendship, the community of counsel, could never draw the mind to that countenance, which amidst all the vicissitudes, versatility, changes, and contrasts in the life of its owner, had never been “A book, in which men read strange things."

It was indeed a book written in a dead language.'

Another curious example of her powers of portraiture is given in the interview of two antiquated nobles in the garden of the Tuileries.

They were distinguished by the most dramatic features of their class; -the one was in his court dress, (for it was a levée day,) and with his chapeau de bras in one hand, and his snuff-box in the other, he exhibited a costume on which perhaps the bright eyes of a Pompadour had often rested: the other was en habit militaire, and might have been a spruce ensign, "joli comme un cœur," at the battle of Fontenoy. Both were covered with crosses and ribbons, and they moved along under the trees, that had shaded their youthful gaillardise, with the conscious triumph of Moorish chiefs restored to their promised Alhambra. Their tele

graphic

graphic glasses communicated their mutual approach; and, advancing chapeau bas, and shaking the powder from their ailes de pigeon, through a series of profound bows, they took their seat on the bench which I occupied, and began, "les nouvelles à la main," to discuss the business of the day.

A levée, a review, a procession, and the installation of the King's bust, which in some remote town had been received with cries of "Vive le roi, mille fois répétés," were the subjects which led to a boundless eulogium on the royal family. The speeches made by the King and the Duc de Berri to Count Lynch were themes of extravagant admiration. "Ah mon Dieu, oui," (said the courtier,)" voila bien nos princes! Et l'usurpateur, Monsieur le Général! a-t-il jamais parlé de la sorte?" Comment, donc, Monsieur le Baron! vous nous parles du tyran? C'étoit un bourreau de la rue St. Denis, dans toutes les façons: Monsieur le Baron, croyez bien que, si les jours du meilleur des Rois étaient menacés, nous lui ferions, de nous tous, un rampart de nos corps; là." ""Monsieur le Général," (exclaimed the Baron, placing his little hat on three hairs of his toupet,) on n'a pas besoin d'être militaire pour penser ainsi." Both now arose, in the exaltation of the moment; the one shuffling towards the palace; the other hobbling to the Corps de Garde of the Cent Suisses.'

To these delineations, we must add the portrait of General la Fayette, whom Lady M. visited at his country-seat:

'We found General La Fayette surrounded by his patriarchal family; his excellent son and daughter-in-law, his two daughters (the sharers of his dungeon in Olmutz) and their husbands; eleven grand-children, and a venerable grand-uncle, the ex-grand prior of Malta, with hair as white as snow, and his cross and his order worn, as proudly as when he had issued forth at the head of his pious troops, against the "paynim foe," or Christian enemy. Such. was the groupe that received us in the salon of La Grange; such was the close-knit circle that made our breakfast and our dinner party; accompanied us in our delightful rambles through the grounds and woods of La Grange, and constantly presented the most perfect unity of family interests, habits, taste, and affections.

We naturally expect to find strong traces of time in the form of those, with whose name and deeds we have been long acquainted; of those who had obtained the suffrages of the world, almost before we had entered it. But on the person of La Fayette time has left no impression; not a wrinkle furrows the ample brow; and his unbent and noble figure is still as upright, bold, and vigorous as the mind that informs it. Grace, strength, and dignity still distinguish the fine person of this extraordinary man: who, though more than forty years before the world, engaged in scenes of strange and eventful conflict, does not yet appear to have reached his climacteric. Bustling and active in his farm, graceful and elegant in his salon, it is difficult to trace, in one of the most suc cessful agriculturists, and one of the most perfect fine gentlemen that France has produced, a warrior and a legislator. The patriot, however, is always discernible.