institutions of eminence is few. But with us the case is exactly the reverse. Though learned men are few, yet seminaries of learning of the highest pretensions abound; the consequence of which is, that many of them, invested with all the powers and dignities of colleges, will not bear a comparison with the grammarschools of England, or the second grade of French schools. We copy from an advertisement (for even colleges advertise) the requisites for entering a college in the state of New-York; they are Virgil, Cicero, the Gospel of John in the Greek, and Webber's Arithmetic; and on this excellent foundation they will in four years' time build all the classical, mathematical, philosophical and ethical information, which is thought necessary for any liberal profession whatever. We must, indeed, confess, that very few years are gone by since such a preparation was considered sufficient throughout the union; and then we often met with bachelors of fifteen years of age, and masters of arts at eighteen; and these, we must do the justice to say, not inferior in attainments to their elder brethren. Nor are we perfectly sure that such qualifications would not be sufficient in some colleges of higher reputation and older standing.

The elementary education being thus happily provided for, plenty of colleges instituted, and their honours made as cheap, both in expense of time and money, as possible, it became necessary to render our country independent of Europe by providing courses of instruction in what are called the learned professions, and more particularly (as better care is usually taken of our bodies than our souls) in the science of medicine. The course of a medical education, throughout this country, is, we understand, an attendance on the lectures of some college for three years, during which time the candidate is entered as student or apprentice of some practising physician. At the end of this term a thesis is written (in English doubtless, for the benefit of such of the professors as have forgotten their latin) and publicly maintained by the candidate, who is never unsuccessful, and who, at the close of the examination, is complimented with all the rights and privileges appertaining to the degree of doctor of medicine. As in all other courses of education, where lectures are the chief mode of conveying instruction, every thing depends upon the application and memory of the student;

nor are there any checks upon inattention and stupidity. Many physicians, educated in this way, sink to the level of country practitioners, navy and army surgeons, and surgeons' mates, and even village apothecaries, in which capacities they lead a kind of indirect cannibal life, living on the carcasses of their fellow beings, and quietly swelling the list of weekly interments, without any danger from the laws; this being a class of offences, in which the legal maxim, ignorantia neminem excusat, is not enforced. But some candidates there be of more aspiring views; these, after having drained dry the little college at home, resort to Europe to finish their medical education. To this end they spend a year or two, nay, even take a degree, in Edinburgh; walk the London hospitals; visit the Hunterian museum, and adore the gilded pill which beams in Warwick Lane. Some even push to Paris and Rome, and having attended the garden of plants, cut up a number of subjects, explored the Palais Royal, attended lectures, theatres, operas, dined at the principal restaurateurs, and learned to distinguish Vin de La Fite from Chateau Margeaux, return, laden with knowledge, to astonish their simple countrymen, who have never stirred from home. For such aspiring spirits, the dull routine of practice, though very convenient in a pecuniary point of view, offers no inviting charms; they will stop at nothing less than the chair, the robes, and the honours of a professor. But here comes the rub: all cannot be professors, nor can each professor have the good fortune to be allotted to that branch of the art in which he thinks himself most calculated to shine. New institutions must arise to accommodate those who cannot find room in the old. These new ones, after a while, split, from similar causes, and others arise, until, at last, we have more colleges than can find students. And now, alas, begins the fatal dissensions, the jealousies and backbitings, that take place, when learned bodies come in contact, and jostle each other. Could their disputes be managed so as merely to excite, in the different competitors, a spirit of emulation, or could they be so arranged and accommodated as to form one institution, in which the whole talents of the faculty could be collected, New-York might soon boast of its medical school, second to none in the United States. But, unfortunately, the disastrous ambition of being

first, destroys the very principle of coöperation. Each man would rather stand a cipher by himself, than form a connexion with any neighbouring units, and share the aggregate importance. Each man, instead of courting an alliance with his learned cotemporaries, and forming an honourable bond of mutual advantage and respectability, looks round him among men of still smaller intellects, or more subservient dispositions, who will be content to follow in his train, and among whom he may look great by comparison. These evils, we fear, will continue to exist so long as colleges are multiplied and suffered to spring up like fungi. Nothing is easier than to get a charter from the well meaning, but scantily educated, country gentlemen who form the mass of a state legislature, and who think that the interests of science are promoted in a city by the multiplication of colleges, the same as the knowledge of spelling and reading are in the country, by multiplying school-houses. A charter once granted, it is easy to stock a college with professors, who, if deficient in profound knowledge, are, on the other hand, extremely reasonable in their terms; if they do not fit the student for rigorous examinations, they, at least, suit the examinations to the capacity of the student; and thus, by what are called extraordinary facilities, make out, in a very tolerable manner, to supply the place of essential requisites.

As to any general combination of medical science in NewYork, the prospect at present seems more remote than ever. The very next winter, we understand, three formidable bodies are to take the field; one entrenched among the gray walls of Alma Mater, another bearing as a banner a fresh parchment charter from the Regents of the University, while a third masks its batteries, and wears the colours of a neighbouring state. Our politicians have often speculated on the possibility of fighting against two enemies, who were also enemies to each other, or of warring in a triangle as unprofitable a business apparently as reasoning in a circle; but we have never seen it reduced to practice before.

The foregoing desultory ideas, and many more, which, for prudential reasons, we suppress, arose in our mind on looking over the pamphlet the title of which is prefixed to this paper. As to the work before us, however, and the college of which it gives the VOL. II. New Series. 40

history, we shall pass them by in perfect silence; for which wary conduct, we have not merely the example of more experienced reviewers, but we have sufficient strong reasons of our own to authorize us. We are well aware that let us speak on the subject as we may, either praise or censure are sure to make us enemies. The learned college would never forgive us if we presumed to find fault, and should we dare to praise, we have all the rest of the medical world upon our backs; even if avoiding Scylla on the right, and Charybdis on the left, might we not run on a shoal more formidable than either? The maxim medio tutissimus ibis will not save us. We do not pretend to decide when doctors disagree. Besides, physicians are dangerous enemies; we cannot tell when our lives may be at their mercy. We stand in awe of pills and syringes, patent draughts and pulvis jacobi; of insidious cathartics and secret sudorifics. Gallipots and phials, lancets and amputating knives, present themselves in deadly array, and the portentous pestle and mortar even now clang in our affrighted ears. Quitting the lofty tone, therefore, of reviewers, we most humbly beg pardon for whatever they may have seen amiss in this article. Ye mighty masters of the healing art, spare us-bring us your aid when fevers burn; when colics wring, and gout and rheumatism gnaw, and we in return will spare you though you may lay yourselves open and become vulnerable at every pore, we will not attack you. Though you be divided among yourselves, we will not attempt to unite you by giving you a common enemy.

R.

SPIRIT OF MAGAZINES.

BRITISH LITERATURE.

[From the Edinburgh Review of Mad. de Stael.]

WE come now to the literature of the north-by which name Mad de Staël designates the literature of England and Germany, and on which she passes an encomium which we scarcely expected from a native of the south. She startles us a little, indeed, when she sets off with a dashing parallel between Homer and Ossian; and proceeds to say that the peculiar character of the northern literature has all been derived from that patriarch of the Celts, in the same way as that of the south of Europe may be ultimately traced back to the genius of Homer. It is certainly rather against this hypothesis, that the said Ossian has only been known to the readers and writers of the north for about forty years from the present day, and has not been held in especial reverence with those who have most distinguished themselves in that short period. However, we shall suppose that Mad. de Staël means only, that the style of Ossian reunites the peculiarities that distinguish the northern school of letters, and may be supposed to exhibit them such as they were before the introduction of the classical and southern models. We rather think she is right in saying that there is a radical difference in the taste and genius of the two regions; and that there is more melancholy, more tenderness, more deep feeling and fixed and lofty passion, engendered among the clouds and mountains of the north, than upon the summer seas or beneath the perfumed groves of the South. The causes of the difference are not perhaps so satisfactorily stated.

Mad. de Staël gives the first place to the climate.

Les réveries des poètes peuvent enfanter des objets extraordinaires; mais les impressions d'habitude se retrouvent nécessairement dans tout ce que l'on compose. Eviter le souvenir de ces impressions, ce seroit perdre le plus grand des avantages, celui de peindre ce qu'on a soi-même eprouvé. Les poètes du midi mêlent sans cesse l'image de la fraîcheur, de bois touffus, des