apply, though perhaps not quite so generally, to apoplexy or palsy.

The morbid appearances after lethargy are very uniform, and have little in common with those produced by apoplexy; they are confined too, more to the surface of the brain. There is commonly a fluid deposited on the surface, and under the tunica arachnoidea, of a citrine colour. The veins are turgid, and the minute arteries more numerous than usual. The membranes, the arachnoid more especially, are opaque; and the substance of the brain flaccid and moist from serous effusion. All the exhaling surfaces have thrown out more fluid than could be absorbed, and the effusion is often turbid, perhaps from resolution of the exhalent arteries. The cineritious substance of the brain is darker coloured than usual, and the brain exhibits in many parts some change of structure. The corpora striata are commonly wasted, deepened in colour, and soft. These morbid appearances are not peculiar to idiopathic lethargy; they are equally met with after lethargic symptoms have supervened on other primary diseases. Examples of this symptomatic disease, are met with in connection with severe inflammation of the more important organs, as well as apoplexy, and torpor or constipation of the bowels. The comatose stupor of typhous fever, appears to be an affection of this description; and it is a common occurrence in the fevers of hot climates. Dr. C. enumerates others instances drawn from his own observation, or the writings of others. In all these, as far as examination has taken place, and there are few in which it has not, the same morbid appearances have been met with, as in the true idiopathic disease. This ample collection of facts reflects considerable light on the nature of the idiopathic affection, for in all of them, there is, in the first instance, an increase of vascular action. It must be inferred, therefore, that a similar state of excitement exists in the commencement of idiopathic lethargy, though its symptoms may not be so strongly marked, as to excite the attention even of the sufferer himself, to a sense even of remote danger.

Dr. C. candidly avows that he has little satisfactory information to offer relative to the treatment of these diseases. In the few instances in which he has been consulted early, he has adopted a considerably active practice with advantage. It consisted of bleeding, when admissible, cathartics, vesication, and the strictest attention to regimen. Purgatives he has found useful only when the disease was connected with torpor of the liver and intestinal canal; calomel is in such cases a valuable remedy. Neither diuretics nor tonics were found to be efficacious; nor was salivation of any use to two patients in whom it was excited, rather by accident than design. Topical bleeding

has been advantageous. Ardent spirits, strong wines, and tobacco must be abandoned, with every thing which excites the nervous system.' We are happy to have the testimony of so accurate an observer as Dr. C. as to the safety with which intemperate habits may at all times be relinquished. He has witnessed, he says, so many memorable instances of the good effects of a return to temperance in constitutions broken by along course of inebriation, that he would have the experiment cautiously tried on all occasions.

In conclusion, we have only to express our conviction that there are few practitioners who will rise from the perusal of this work without deriving from it considerable benefit.-Several engravings accompany the volume; they would have better served the purposes of illustration if they had been coloured.

Art. III. Essays on the Sources of the Pleasures received from Literary Composition. (Continued from Page 287.)

THE sixth Essay is on Melancholy.

There is,' (says the Essayist) a wonderful propensity in the human mind, to seek for pleasure among the sources of pain. We have a delight in the compositions which agitate with terror, and fondly return to the tale of sorrow. Nor are we attracted merely by the fears or calamities of others; what is more remarkable, we are pleased with the passages, which raise our melancholy on our own account. Of this kind are all those passages (and there are none more popular), which give striking descriptions of the evils of life, of those evils, to which we find ourselves every moment exposed.' p. 175. 'Horace frequently reminds us, how soon the joys of this life pass away, and how soon we must part with every object of attachment; yet these are some of the verses, which we are aptest to commit to memory, and fondest of repeating.' p. 176.

In the first place, when the mind is depressed by misfortune, it cannot bear the images of gaiety; just as the eye, when long used to darkness, shrinks from the cheerful sunshine. It takes refuge, then, in such poetry as is accordant to its present feelings, in descriptions, and sometimes exaggerated ones, of the miseries of life. In the next place, as the author observes, melancholy thoughts are frequently conversant with what have been our happiest hours.

In the recollection of joys, that are past, which is the kind of melancholy that we are the fondest to indulge, the conception of these joys renews in some degree the sensations of our happier days, and relieves with its brighter colouring the gloom of sorrow.' p. 181. After all, melancholy is frequently a disease and frequently

an affectation. There is little of it in the robuster geniuses, in Milton, and Shakespeare, and Homer: Pope and Horace have more of it: but the most exquisitely melancholy personages are the contributors to the magazines, the Lauras, and Annas, and Rosas; gentle souls, whose very breathing is a sigh, who walk out-perhaps we ought to say, stray or wander forth,with a handkerchief in one hand, and a pencil in the other, and weep and moan and indite most lamentable ditties upon every thing that ever was, is, or can or shall be.

We are glad to relieve a little the tediousness of critical discussion by a pretty long extract from the next Essay, the subject of which is the tender affections.

"I know not, for instance, if any representation can either awaken more delightful emotions, or raise us higher above selfish and ungenerous feelings, than the following relation, which deserves so well to be recorded, for the honour of the fair sex, and the instruction of ours. It is taken from General Burgoyne's State of the Expedition into Canada, during the campaigns of 1776 and 1777. On the march of the 19th of September, 1777, Lady Harriet Ackland, the wife of Major Ackland, of the grenadiers, had been directed by her husband to follow the route of the artillery and baggage, which was not exposed, his own party being liable to action at every step. The relation is continued by General Burgovne in these words:

"At the time the action began, she found herself near a small "uninhabited hut, where she alighted. When it was found the "action was becoming general and bloody, the surgeons of the "hospital took possession of the same place, as the most convenient "for the first care of the wounded. Thus was this lady in hearing "of one continued fire of cannon and musketry for some hours to“ gether, with the presumption, from the post of her husband at the "head of the grenadiers, that he was in the most exposed part of "the action. She had three female companions, the Baroness of "Reidesel, and the wives of two British officers, Major Harnage “ and Lieutenant Reynell; but, in the event, their presence served "but little for comfort. Major Harnage was soon brought to the 66 surgeons, very badly wounded; and a little while after came in"telligence, that Lieutenant Reynell was shot dead. Imagination "will want no helps to figure the state of the whole group.

"From the date of that action, to the 7th of October, Lady Har"riet, with her usual serenity, stood prepared for new trials. And "it was her lot, that their severity increased with their numbers. "She was again exposed to the hearing of the whole action and at "last received the shock of her individual misfortune, mixed with "the intelligence of the general calamity; the troops were def ated, "and Major Ackland, desperately wounded, was a prisoner.

"The day of the 8th was passed by Lady Harriet and her com“ panions in common anxiety: not a tent or a shed being standing, "except what belonged to the hospital, their refuge was among the "wounded and the dying.

"I soon received a message from Lady Harriet, submitting to my "decision a proposal (and expressing an earnest solicitude to execute it, if not interfering with my designs) of passing to the camp "of the enemy, and requesting General Gates s permission to attend "her husband.

"Though I was ready to believe (for I had experienced) that "patience and fortitude, in a supreme degree, were to be found, "" as well as every virtue, under the most tender forms, I was asto"nished at this proposal. After so long an agitation of spirits, ex"hausted not only for want of rest, but absolutely for want of food, "drenched in rains for twelve hours together, that a woman should "be capable of such an undertaking as delivering herself to the 66 enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she "might fall into, appeared an effort above human nature. The as"sistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; had not even a 66 cup of wine to offer her; but I was told she had found, from some "kind and fortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could "furnish to her was an open boat, and a few lines, written upon "dirty and wet paper, to General Gates, recommending her to his "protection.

The

"Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain to the artillery, readily undertook "to accompany her, and with one female servant, and the major's "valet de chambre (who had a ball, which he had received in the "late action, then in his shoulder) she rowed down the river to "meet the enemy. But her distresses were not yet to end "night was advanced before the boat reached the enemy's out-posts, "and the centinel would not let it pass, nor even come to shore. "In vain Mr. Brudenell offered the flag of truce, and represented the "the state of the extraordinary passenger. The guard, apprehensive "of treachery, and punctilious to their orders, threatened to fire "into the boat, if they stirred before day-light. Her anxiety and sufferings were thus protracted through seven or eight dark and "cold hours; and her reflections upon that first reception could not 66 give her very encouraging ideas of the treatment she was afterwards "to expect. But it is due to justice, as the close of this adventure, "to say, that she was received and accommodated by General "Gates, with all the humanity and respect, that her rank, her merits, "and her fortunes deserved." " pp. 229-233.

We e come, in the eighth Essay, to a subject, than which, says the author, few speculative subjects have occasioned greater perplexity-beauty. We speak,' says he, of a beautiful woman, and a beautiful tree; a beautiful building, and a beautiful piece of music; a beautiful poem, and a beautiful theorem.' We do so; and all the perplexity arises, as it appears to us, from our applying the word beautiful to objects which affect us with very different feelings. Let us endeavour to distinguish them.

In the first place, our senses and the objects of nature are so adapted one to the other, that almost every thing external

which we contemplate affords us pleasure, sensual pleasure. The thing which thus pleases we call beautiful, though, perhaps, common conversation has limited that term to the objects of sight. Of this pleasure, be it observed, we can give no account. We are pleased, we know not why. The Deity has so willed it; it is a proof of his goodness that he has. Thus, almost all the colours, and all the combinations of them which we meet with in nature are agreeable to the eye; the same may be said of almost all the forms, whether the soft and waving outline of hills and meadows, or the angularities of rocks and trees. Nothing seems to us more idle than to inquire further into the matter; and nothing more unfounded than the distinction which Mr. Price has endeavoured to institute between the beautiful and the picturesque.

In the exercise of the understanding and the reasoning powers, every one knows how distressing are confusion and perplexity, and how agreeable, on the contrary, it is to have the steps of a proposition laid down in a regular, clear, intelligible train. The pleasure thus received is, to our minds, of a perfectly different kind from that received in the contemplation of external nature: yet we describe the object that affords it as beautiful;--- we speak of a beautiful theorem.' That the beauty consists in the intelligibility of every step, and the connected order of the whole, will appear from analyzing any particular theorem. We choose the forty-seventh of the first book of Euclid, as one with which many of our readers must be acquainted, and which every one who is so must acknowledge to be most 'beautiful.' It is required, then, to prove that the squares upon the sides of any right-angled triangle are, together, equal to the square upon the hypothenuse. The squares being described, and three lines added to the diagram, we find the square upon the hypothenuse divided into two parallelograms and two additional triangles formed. By the help of former propositions it is proved that the two triangles are equal, that the square upon one side of the original triangle is double of one of them, and one of the parallelograms into which the square upon the hypothenuse has been divided double of the other; and it is thence inferred that the square and the parallelogram are equal. In a similar manner it may be shewn that the square is equal to the other parallelogram; and it is inferred that the two squares taken together are equal to the two parallelograms, taken together, that is, to the square upon the hypothenuse. Suppose now, that the two triangles had been said to be equal, and the reader referred for a proof to some future proposition; or suppose that it had not already been proved that a parallelogram is double of a triangle on the same base and between the same parallels,—and the au