stamp with high value,are referred to with a parent's fondness; but we hope the gentleman will favour the publick with another volume of them and will also continue the publication of these Reports at Nisi Prius on the same principles, which he has followed in the work before us. Such unusual diligence must be successful; and to every American lawyer, desirous of possessing the Reports of Espinasse, we earnestly recommend this edition of Mr Day. The mechanical part of the book deserves praise the paper is better than our American press often employs; the proof sheets have been revised with considerable care, so that the book is decently correct, more so than the London copy, which is certainly not to be said of one book in three from our printers; the binding is the best we have seen. The price, though the work is one of the few American editions worth much more than the English, is three dollars less than the copies imported. This may appear a prop er place for censure on some of our Philadelphia and New York publishers, who charge enormous prices on their editions of English books. We may specify Bosanquet and Puller's Reports, as uncommonly dear, and of very villanous execution. fact, much better, though by means in itself free from exception: but it wants the air of originality, belonging to the first production; partly because it is posterior, and partly, perhaps, for the reason given by Dr. Johnson for the general superiority of the first poets: "the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and left nothing to those, that followed them, but transcriptions of the same events, and new combinations of the same images." Among those parts that have disappointed the admirers of Scott, who open these volumes with enthusiastick curiosity, the most apparent are the introductory epistles at the beginning of each Canto. The short parenthetical notices of the Minstrel at the beginning and conclusion of the Cantos in the Lay, were universally admired. This Mr. Scott was no doubt apprised of, as he appears by the preface to this poem to be very ready in apprehending the civil things that have been said of him by the publick, and to be perfectly convinced of their just ness. Reasoning with great arithmetical exactness, he concludes, that, if one page of introduction gave pleasure, two pages would delight, four would ravish, and that by a dozen, his readers must be "lapt in Elysium." By an equally plausi ble process, though not extending so far above Number One, he concluded, that, if an ancient minstrel, bards of old, in the sadness of de. the last surviving brother of the crepitude and age, could touch the feelings by alluding to his desolation, and his lost child, what could be more natural than that a modern minstrel, piping on a winter's evening before a cheerful wood fire from Ettricke forest, in his own parlour, could interest the publick mind, by talking about his boyish tricks and whippings, or describing the wholesome puddings, and good blind man's buff of Christmas Eve. Far be it from us, like our old Puritanick ancestors, to "Quarrel with minced piès or disparage "Our best and dearest friend plum porridge." JULE ladyola on the contrary, should our Governour favour, us with a proclamation for Thanksgiving, we hope to show ourselves, even before Christmas Eve, their zealous admirers; but that which is good in a patty pan, may be very bad in a poem, and Mr Scott should remember, that a man may be pious overmuch More especially is this true, when these, or similar important subjects are discussed, in such lines as these : For omens we in Livy cross Gentle Reader, is this Hudibras that speaks, or is it: Walter Scott The character of the hero may be objected to this poem. This same Marmion is a bad man, a very bad man he makes nothing of stealing a mun from her convent, and afterwards leaving her to be taken, and starved to death in a dark cold, stone cellar. Another of his ways and means is forging letters, with a view to lead away silly wó. men. To be sure he is a very brave man, and withal considerably gene fous insomuch as he is allowed to have thrown a handful of silver among the heralds, when he went through the gate of Norham castle. But in England, whatever it may be here, forgery is ranked among those crimes considered infamous, and, of course, inconsistent with the char acter of a hero A man may kill half a dozen in fair battle, without much imputation on his moral char acter; there are even some examples amongst the Theseuses and Eneases of a man's ruiming a woman and leaving her, without being thought a worse hero ; but to forge ai letter is generally considered a aware that it would be very injudigreat meanness. Mr. Scott was cious to make his hero a faultless monster; but he ought to have left something pleasing in him besides his "falcon bright" and his brawny brave. ry The other principal hero, de Wil ton, who is probably meant to relieve the bad impression of Marmion's character, is but a milk and water composition, when he appears in pro pria persona, and when he is dis guised under the Palmer's dress, he appears so differently, that we can scarcely believe it the same man. Bad man as Marmion was, however, he held it out to the last, like a brave fellow, without any flinching or twitching of conscience. which, with the rest of his last words, though we must allow it to be excellent poetry, contains but an indifferent moral. We have said that the descriptions in this poem are elaborate, and we add, that many of them are extreme. dy beautiful The descriptions of dresses are, after all, too frequent : for the mere curiosity of it, and to see how neatly an author cap dress lupa trifling/subject handsomely, we are pleased to have a few of them. That of King James, in the fifth canto, is the best of this kind, though we think it inferiour to a very simi lar one of Lord Howard in the Lay. But every reader is surprised, at least, when he finds the poet relating, at every turn, the cloth his hero is dressed in, its texture and qual ity, and the place whence it was brought, and not even letting it slip his notice, if a lady puts off her veil to cool herself. This is another caricature of a very necessary principle viz. that description should not be vague and general; but there is as much danger to be apprehended of exceeding, as of falling short in the application of general principles. It is the overdone as well as the come tardy off, that while it pleases the unwary, makes the judicious grieve. We will now mention one or two of the best passages. The interview of Constance with her judges, in the second canto, and particularly her speech on that occasion, are in the highest style of po etry. When she stands before those marble hearted ecclesiasticks, a com demned criminal, the despair that petrifies her soul imparts a deadly chill to the reader; his heart throbs with horror at the impressive prophetick imprecations of the dying maiden; and when she descends into the dark vault, when the priests withdraw,and the cold rock closes around her, so fine is the description, that the soul sinks into itself in a kindred despair. The battle, which occupies part of the sixth canto is, for picturesque effect, fully equal to any thing of the kind in the compass of poetry. We take a station with the squires on an adjoining hill, when the freshening Western blast has brushed away the smoke, the battle is displayed before us, a picture and not a description. We see, as if present, every circumstance; the line where the contending armies meet; the banners of different warriours waving in the air; the rush of onset; and the faintness of the van. quished: at once, all is confusion, and all distinctness. In observing on the plan of this poem, some have affected to fear, lest a spirit of imitation might inundate the world with metrical romances, and have advised Mr. Scott, as he values his own fame, and the peace of the Commonwealth, to employ his talents about something else. Yet it seems rather tyrannical, when a man has discovered a new field in the region of poetry, where he is gath. ering many fruits and flowers, for another to say to him, for God's sake, my good sir, come out, and do not think of touching any thing more, for if you'do, a crowd of fools will follow and collect nothing but weeds. Men do not now need to be told, that it is bad reasoning to argue from the abuse of any thing against its merits. Private events are equally fitted for poetical purposes,since they are equally calculated to excite interest as the great revolutions, that form the basis of epick narrations; and he that proscribes invention, in order to avoid the curse of servile imitators, scarcely reflects on the consequences of his princi ple.. Upon the whole, if we should conclude, as we began, by alluding to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, we should say, that the author had layished on that his most favourite and poetical images and characters, and that for interest, no character in Marmion will parallel the vagrant Minstrel Reading them, as we read all poems after the first perus 1, for the beauty of particular passages, they stand with few exceptions on exactly the same footing similate them to natural objects, the Lay is fresh and sparkling like the opening rose-bud, wet with the dewof morning; the Marmion is the same If we as rose at once unfolded and desiccated its climate in the vernal months, neiby the noon-day sun. ART. 37. An Oration delivered before the Medical Society of South Carolina, at their anniversary meeting, Dec. 24, 1807, and published at their request. By Joseph Johnson, M. D. President of the Medical Society of South Carolina. Charleston, printed by Marchant, Willington & Co. pp. 24. 8vo. 1808. THIS oration, which might with more propriety receive the appellation of a diary, is a concise account of meteorological variations, and of the nature and effects of the diseases at Charleston, during the year 1807. As a record of the physical changes in the atmosphere, and of the extensive range of certain diseases, which appear intimately connected with these peculiar states of the weather, it is interesting both to the physician and the naturalist. The remembrance of this year will not readily be obliterated in a city, in which one tenth of its inhabitants were swept away by the destructive force of disease. The nature of the local situation of Charleston,and the long continuance of "the heat of its climate, have usually rendered it in the summer and autumnal months almost invariably fatal to constitutions, which have not been accustomed to its effects from infancy. The last year was marked by the peculiar virulence of its diseases. They were not only more widely extended, but also more fatal than had been observed for many preceeding years. It was ushered in by such unusual variations of temperature, that were they to be considered as the result of the operation of an uniform cause, would doubtless render ther more comfortable, nor less inju. rious to the existence of the valetudinarian and the convalescent, than the blasts of the eastern states fresh from the ice-bound shores of New foundland. mometrical observations of Dr.John. In March, according to the ther son, the temperature of the air in one instance, sunk 32° in seventeen 270 in thirty one hours, and in the hours, in another was augmented course of the month of February, fluctuated between 24° and 69° of Fahrenheit. The quantity of rain which fell during this period, was proportional to the variations of the weather; in February it amounted to 7. 3. inches, and in March to 6. 6. inches.. The spring having been so backward, the accession of summer was as rapid in proportion, and the eleventh of June was one of the hottest days,to which our climate is subjected; the thermometer standing at 920, in a very cool situation, The average heat of July, was 86°. The and at 94°, generally, through the city. endemial causus commenced about the eighteenth of August, which was aggravated by the extremely hot weather from the first to the fifth of September, when the thermometer, at noon, in the coolest situation, raised from 90° to 92°. September was, from sickness and death, the blackest month ever recorded in Charleston, there having been 328 interments, of which 114 were from endemisi causus; and at least one fourth of the inhabitants were affected with the influ enza about the last of the month. By" endemial causys" we presume is here meant the disease, to which strangers resident in that city are peculiarly exposed, while the inhabitants, or natives, whose constitutions are assimilated to the climate, enjoy a degree of comparative security; hence it has been popu larly denominated the "Stranger's Fever." After reading the above statement, we cannot avoid the remark, that there appears to exist an intimate connexion between the heat and dryness of season and the energy and extension of disease. In Boston it has often been the subject of observation, that the dryest are generally the most unhealthy seasons: the eloquent pen of Dr. Rush has recorded the same fact in his history of the bilious remitting fever of Philadelphia, and its truth would appear confirmed by the later observations of Dr. Johnson. From the twenty sixth of July to the eighteenth of August," says he, "there had been but one shower; and none from the second of October to the fifth of November. All the ponds and many of the wells and springs were dry. The atmosphere was hazy and thick, as if fill ed with a subtle dust, and the sun, as if deprived of his rays, appeared of a fiery redness." For the space of three months and ten days, there fell but one inch and four tenths of rain. It appears from the "Oration" of Dr. Johnson, that the influenza, which became so general in the Eastern states, in the latter part of summer and the commencement of autumn extended to South Carolina, and was experienced in its greatest severity about the middle of October. Its effects in that part of the union were severe, and the mortality, particularly in the interiour of the state, was far beyond what usually results from this comparatively mild disease. The dysentary was also more acute than usual. The oration is closed with two valuable obituary tables, one of which is reported by the City Marshall, and the other from Dr. Johnson's Dispensary and private piactice. The year 1807 terminated the existence of 2203 persons, of whom 1611 were Blacks. There were 328 interments in the month of September. The number of Africans imported into that city amounted to 15676 and 1112 of these were sacrificed to the "Endemial causus" and other diseases of the country. "The proportion of deaths among them has greatly increased at first a twenty ninth part of the number imported died; but now a fourteenth of the whole. A great proportion of deaths from tetanu and worms occurs in the summer months; convulsions, pulmonick affections, apoplexy, and sore throats are much more fatal in the first part of the year. The proportion of deaths among children is distressing,. one fifth and, in some years, one fourth of all that are born, die under. five years of age; among these how. ever, the number of deaths is one seventh less in proportion than in New York. Of the deaths under the head of consumption the number amounts to an average of rather less than one sixth ; of these it is fair to remark, that many cases are brought to us from the Northern states, on account of the mildness of our climate in the winter: season. In New York from one fourth to one third of all that die, perish by this complaint." Among the deaths in the year 1806, we noticed one marked against the Cow-Pock. |