'Loves of the Plants,' we have seldom heard applied to the vegetable kingdom.

Are onions to be ranked amongst the articles of vegetable diet to be recommended?'

'Yes,' responds the oracle, IF WELL BOILED.' (p. 181.) 'What is the character of peas and beans?'

Their character is, we regret to find, rather bad: they contain little nourishment, and should therefore be refrained from by all except the strong and laborious;' (p. 182)- the laborious, it seems, being the class which may be content with little nourishment. But beet-root is, he thinks, not objectionable, though he can by no means think as favourably of cucumbers.' (p. 184.)

But it is in the chapter of Desserts that the doctor indulges in a vein of pleasantry quite peculiar. The definition of a dessert is itself a treat.

Q. What is meant by a dessert?'

The querist, you might imagine, must have been sadly put to it for a question when he had recourse to this; but no, he knew very well what a dessert was, but the question is kindly suggested that his friend the doctor may gratify us with the answer, which is one of the liveliest retorts in the whole book.

A. A dessert is an unnecessary display of twenty dishes of fruit, cakes, biscuits, and preserves, symmetrically arranged on a polished mahogany table or one covered with a damask table-cloth, after a profuse dinner.'-p. 189.

So a dessert is not a dessert if it consists of more or less than twenty dishes, or of more or less than the four specified articles; nor unless it be symmetrically arranged; nor unless the mahogany be polished; nor unless the table-cloth be damask; nor unless the previous dinner shall have been profuse. Admirable humour! The details of the dessert are treated with almost equal felicity I fear,' says the querist, with amiable diffidence, 'I fear to ask your opinion about trifles,'-which it seems in their circle is an article of the dessert. I should answer you,' replies his facetious adviser, drolling, as Sterne says, on the expression, I should answer you most seriously, that they are the most-INCENDIARY articles in the whole dessert.' (p. 193.) All this is charming, and the irony is so well maintained, that many a worthy person might read it as the grave advice of a learned physician; but Dr. Granville sometimes throws off the mask to a degree that almost betrays his real design, as when the simple querist asks, What is the most healthy situation in a city?' the answer is, 'A residence in a wide and straight street, open at both ends, north and south.'

(p. 45.

(p. 45.) Yet the doctor has before carefully informed us, that he himself resides at No. 16, Grafton Street; which happens to be one of the few streets in London which are not open at both ends, almost the only one which turns at a right angle, and which finally does not open north and south-nor even east and west, which we suppose would have been almost as salubrious. This is an excellent practical illustration of the utter contempt in which the doctor holds all the pompous absurdities with which he has so agreeably enlivened the matter-of-fact puerilities of old Faust.

But we must hasten to the third part, and to our conclusion. The third part treats of 'contagion' and 'infection,'' endemics,' 'epidemics,' and 'sporadics.' Its chief object seems to be to ridicule the doctrine of anti-contagion in the case of cholera, under an affected zeal for the contrary principle: this was rather difficult to manage, for Dr. Granville was, as he tells us, (we ourselves had never heard of it before,) a staunch advocate on the contagion side in the case of Plague, when that was some years ago questioned with as much violence and absurdity, as the contagion of cholera is now debated. The Doctor, we suppose, was then serious; he is now evidently jocose, but to carry on the farce the better, he affects to endeavour to reconcile his two contradictory opinions.

As staunch an advocate as any physician who has seen the disease may be, for the doctrine of contagion in plague, which the author successfully supported in various writings when brought in question some years ago in this country; the author looked with almost personal jealousy on the attempt now made, of forcing into an unnatural marriage with that doctrine a disease which four-fifths of the people of Europe, and a large proportion of those of Asia and Africa, have, through dear-bought experience and personal observation, learned to view only as the spontaneous offspring of celestial and terrestrial phenomena acting on the animal system in each geographical district, independently of each other, and without the necessity of intercommunication.'-Preface, p. x.

We really beg Dr. Granville's pardon, but it is hardly decent to be so droll on so serious a subject,-yet, ridenti dicere verum quid vetat? and though he treats the anti-contagionists rather too flippantly, no doubt but his irony is unanswerable. The disease, he ludicrously pretends, proceeds geographically and without intercommunication, and is the spontaneous offspring of celestial and terrestrial phenomena.' Our readers will smile at that kind of spontaneous birth, which (just like births that are not spontaneous) is produced by two parents. But the reader will perhaps ask what are the terrestrial and celestial phenomena, which four-fifths of Europe have, by dear-bought experience, discovered to be the causes of the disease? Dr. Granville relying, no doubt, on the

notoriety

notoriety of a fact experienced by four-fifths of the European world, has not even hinted, nor are we able to guess. If he had said terrestrial and celestial influences, we could not expect that he should make mere influences tangible or visible, but phenomena -visible facts, must, ex vi termini, be perceptible to the senses, and we wish that some of those that support the opinion, which Dr. Granville makes so ridiculous, would enumerate any one or two of the visible, terrestrial, or celestial FACTS, which have, to the conviction of all the world, produced that geographical disease, called cholera. How adroitly, too, does the witty Doctor talk of celestial and terrestrial appearances, and of non-intercommunication in this country, where no phenomena of any kind have been visible, (except, indeed, the Doctor's own book, which is, we admit, a phenomenon,) and where the disease first appeared in the port nearest to Hamburg, and extended itself by degrees, first, in the neighbourhood where it first appeared, and next to the places which were most in communication with the infected parts. All the absurdities which have been for the last three months talked and written on this subject are, in this one sentence of Dr. Granville, condensed, and, by the very ingenious way in which he states them, refuted. After this we shall hear no more, we trust, of the non-contagion of cholera, and Dr. Granville may, fin some future work, boast that he has now as 'successfully established' the doctrine of contagion in cholera, as he did, he tells us, ten years ago, in the case of the plague.

We began by saying, that medical men were remarkably superior to professional prejudices; but still human nature is human nature, and there will now and then break out a little offended vanity and amour propre blessé. This Doctor Granville pleasantly, but politely, exhibits, by affecting to sneer at the Medical Board of Health, while he at the same moment with admirable candour gives us strong reason to infer that he sneers at it because he was not appointed one of its members. The humour of this turn is perfect. What,' he asks, in the first question of the second section of his third part, (which we admit to be entirely original,) What is a Medical Board?'-a curious question in a catechism of health; which he answers by saying, that it is an assembly of several eminent physicians appointed by direction of the king's most honourable privy council;' and then he proceeds to give the measures of these eminent men' a worse character than he had given even to peas and cucumbers: he calls them, precipitate,' useless,' 'impracticable,' awkward scrapes,' 'fatal errors,' et cetera! et cetera!! et cetera!!!

But, then, on the other hand, there is ONE MAN who is skilled in all the arcana of the disease, and that man-we need not mention

his

his name was excluded from the selected assembly of eminent physicians. He has, however, with that generous humanity which is not to be repressed by personal slights, invented a specific which he calls stimulating alkaline drops,' and which are to be had at that highly respectable chemist's, Mr. Garden, of Oxfordstreet,'

• Put no faith,' says Dr. Granville, ' in your cajeput oil, camphor, oil of peppermint, or cinnamon, your pure stimulants, and all the cholera drugs which the Board of Health suddenly raised into notoriety by their recommendation, and this notoriety into a high price, which has proved the means of making the fortune of some score of druggists-that which I recommend is simple and cheap,'

namely, the aforesaid stimulant alkaline drops; and it will not be the fault of the ingenious editor of the Catechism of Health,' if that highly respectable chemist, Mr. Garden, of Oxford-street,' does not make a fortune as well as the score of his brother druggists. We too wish to have our share in so good a work: 'Fortunati ambo si quid mea carmina possunt.

But in a matter so serious and important, Dr. Granville feels it necessary to throw off at last the mask of irony and the tone of persiflage, and to impart to the public his solid, serious, practical advice for the prevention and cure of the alarming scourge now inflicted upon us. We trust that our readers will perceive the advantages-the especial and distinct practical benefits, which must be derived from following his instructions-they are so pointedly directed to the peculiar and mysterious disease now afloat, that their appropriateness will strike the common sense of all mankind.

Rise early, devote an hour to personal cleanliness,-take your breakfast and sally forth for a walk, or proceed to your morning occupation; eat an early dinner at two or three o'clock,-again take some exercise on foot,-return for your evening meal early, and, having enjoyed the society of your family circle or the luxury of reading and study, get into a comfortable bed and COURT SLEEP'!!!—p. 332.

With directions so accurate and practical even the old women of the village may undertake to cure cholera. But there is another direction which, as the doctor insists on it at some length and above all the rest, we must not in common humanity omit-that is, to furnish yourself with a smelling-bottle to be kept to your nose,' (we wonder to what other uses smelling-bottles are usually applied,) containing some liquid chloride of lime;' (p. 332)-which, again, is prepared by the aforesaid Mr. Garden of Oxford-street. But as it seems the ، keeping a smellingbottle constantly to one's nose' might be somewhat inconvenient, Dr. Granville recommends an ingenious' contrivance for saving trouble in this matter, which is, that one should wear

⚫ an

'an apparatus made of light wire coming from the back of the head, projecting before the mouth and immediately under the nose. It is intended to hold a small open vessel, containing some chloride of sodą or lime.'-p. 333.

Our anxiety for the health of our fellow-citizens induces us to indulge in the hope that we shall immediately have the pleasure of seeing not physicians only, but every one wearing, whether at home or abroad, this ingenious little wire-work fastened to the back of his head, but projecting before the mouth, and offering to the purified nostrils a little open vessel containing liquid chloride of lime such a precaution, besides its obvious convenience and superiority to the old fashioned and cumbrous smelling-bottle, will be a practical answer to all those who consider the disease as geographical, and as arising, not from intercommunication with one's fellow mortals, but from terrestrial and celestial phenomena;' against which, we suppose that even this new-invented smelling-bottle could not be of much avail. It is invented, the Doctor tells us, by Mr. H. Belinage, an able surgeon in London, and we venture to say, that if Dr. Granville will only exhibit it on his own person-great as he tells us his present practice is he will be more followed than any doctor since the days of Van Butchell.

We conclude this already too long article by expressing our cordial thanks to Dr. Granville for this admirable little volume, for the amusement we have derived from the ironical portion, and the instruction we have gathered from his more serious advice; and we beg leave to express our cordial concurrence, and, we think we may add, that of all our readers, in the opinion of M. Moreau de Jonnès, so modestly and so justly quoted by Dr. Granville in a note to his last chapter- que le Docteur Granville est, dans mon (quere, son) opinion, l'un des médecins de l'Europe, les plus instruits dans la connoissance des phénomènes des contagions et dans celle des moyens employés pour en combattre le fléau.'

ART. V.-1. The Rights of Industry. Published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 1831.

2. England's Crisis: A Letter to the Members of the Sheffield Mechanics' Institute, and the Workmen in general. By Samuel Roberts. Sheffield. 1832.

3. An Historical Inquiry into the Production and Consumption of the Precious Metals. By William Jacob, Esq., F.R.S. London.

1831.

4. What has the Currency to do with the present Discontents? London. 1832.

5. A