would for the future prevent them from falling into the impropriety of fuch a procedure,

The fourteenth and fifteenth numbers present us with the good effects of the carrot poultice, and malt infusion,' in cancerous disorders. The carrot poultice had been formerly recommended in thefe cafes, by Mr. Soultzer; and Mr. Gibson, of Newcastle, here informs us, that, though he will not pretend to affert that a cataplafm of carrots will cure an ulcerated cancer, yet he dares advance, that it will fubdue the intoderable french frequently attending foul, gangrenous, cancerous ulcers. This, it must be owned, has been a great defideratum in furgery; and even should the poultice be productive of no farther advantage, it is a confiderable recommendation in its favour.

The next article contains experiments on the cerumen or ear-wax, in order to difcover the best method of diffolving it when causing deafnefs. It appears from the whole, that water is the moft powerful folvent of that fubftance; and that the warmer it is applied, fo as not to hurt the ear, its efficacy is always the greater.

The fixteenth number confifts of obfervations on the cure of an hæmoptoë, and upon riding on horfe-back for the cure of a phthifis, by Dr. Dickfon, of the London Hofpital. This article is of fo much confequence in the practice of phyfic, that we shall extract the whole.

A fpitting of blood is a much more common complaint in this country, than I believe is generally imagined; and when it arrives to any confiderable height, and is long continued, ufually becomes the prelude to a confumption, from which, in my opinion, very few indeed ever recover. I am not, however, to inform you, that in this age and place, men are to be found who talk of their cures of a confumption with the utmost confidence; and which they performed too with much eafe, by methods only known to them. felves. Is it not to be lamented, that thefe cures are chiefly imaginary, and only celebrated from interested views, to impofe on the credulous and ignorant? But to the point: a spitting of blood, which always greatly alarms the patient and those about him, when the method which I fhall mention is early purfued, is, in general, with little difficulty removed. The medicine, which I am to recommend, is neither new or uncommon; on the contrary, it is in most frequent ufe in the practice of phyfic, though feldom, as far as my knowledge extends, ther much ftrefs laid upon it for the cure of this difeafe. But in this laft point I may easily be miftaken. However, though phyficians fhould be never fo well informed of this method; yet, as the greatest part of practitioners have only recourfe to ftyptics, by which they are egregiously disappointed, as I have often myfelf experienced, I think it my duty to turn their attention to what they will find much more efficacious. One great purpofe of our publications being to communicate any thing, found useful in practice, which, however generally adopted

here,

ing which Rollin has annexed to the French words, than from the import which they are generally fuppofed to convey. By the Belles Letters, we prefume, that part of literature has been particularly understood, which not only exercises the understanding and judgment, but is likewife addeffed to the imagination and taste. As to the memory, we can make no progress in any branch of knowledge without the exertion of it. It is a neceffary affiftant to all the arts and sciences; and therefore it is emphatically ftiled by Cicero, the ftorehouse of

the mind.

The rules he lays down for the study of history are extremely fenfible and just. He proposes an excellent method for impreffing the elements of it upon tender minds. The paragraph which we here allude to, concludes with a spirit and warmth, not frequent in our author. It deferves to be quoted entire.

~History ought in a peculiar manner to be the study of every one, who would attain a liberal education; as it is a general ftorehouse for all the fciences, and a school for all the virtues. Whoever is appointed to inftruct the children of princes, of the nobles, or principal inhabitants of the land, fhould endeavour, in the first place, ftrongly to imprefs on their minds a chronological feries of all the remarkable events that are recorded in history, from the creation of the world down to the present day; making them well obferve at the fame time the feveral fynchronifins, or the various events that have happened at the fame period in different parts of the world. By these means he will open in their minds a repofitory, where every particular event may hereafter be ranged in its proper place; for, otherwife, without this, hiftory would prefent a mere chaos to the memory, without order or connexion. When the ftudent has thus acquired a ready knowledge of chronology, he may undertake, with his tutor, a complete and rational courfe of history and there Clio fhould pluck for him the golden apples of the garden of the Hefperides. The animated and ftriking pictures of hiftory offer two forts of examples, the one to imitate, and the other to avoid. It is the bufinefs of an able inftructor carefully to point out, in the annals of all nations, thofe facts and characters that must inspire their pupils with admiration or horror; and confequently excite in their minds a defire to imitate their virtues, and avoid their vices. The portraits of the truly great, as well as the tyrants of antiquity, when lively drawn, must strongly affect the young ftu dent; for they will feem to fay: "Future generations, princes, heroes, ftatesmen, fcholars, philofophers! Providence, for our greater reward, or more exemplary punishment, has placed our

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vehicle for the nitre; yet I will by no means pretend to fay that it is deftitute of efficacy. In private practice, the nitre joined with fp. ceti, or p. è trag. c. has produced equally good effects.

I have faid that nitre, or the electuary already mentioned, is almost as efficacious in an hæmoptoë as the cort. Peruv. is against intermittents; but notwithstanding the vast number of inftances of good fuccefs which I have feen, yet, when I think of the great Sydenham talking as highly of the benefit of riding on horseback in confumptions, I am afraid to truft myself with making a fingle obfervation on any medicine whatfoever: for, if I can judge at all, I am certain that riding on horfeback in confumptive cafes, is most commonly hurtful, without fuch regulations as in general have been little minded. For inftance, I have known a perfon who, by a ride of an hour or two in the morning, was wonderfully recruited, and who, at another time, in the afternoon and evening, without undergoing more bodily motion, has returned faint and languid, and apparently worse; and this obfervation on the fame perfon has been fo frequently made, as to point out evidently the times when this exercife fhall not do hurt in confumptive cafes. You are well acquainted how the pulfe, in the disease just referred to, however calm in the morning, becomes more frequent in the afternoon and night, attended with heat, and other feverish fymptoms; wherefore exercife can only add to the mischief of the fever. I would therefore recommend to all hectic perfons, and especially to thofe who fhall travel to diftant places on account of a better air, or the benefit expected from any particular water, that their travelling should be low, and confined to a very few hours, and only in the morning. From the neglect of this precaution, how many perfons have gone to Britol, and the next day, or in a few days, have made a very unexpected exit?'

The subsequent article prefents us with fome remarks on the bills of mortality in London. The defign of these remarks is to vindicate the falubrity of the British climate from the injurious opinion which may be entertained of it by foreigners, in confequence of the ignorance of those persons who are allowed to frame the bills of mortality; with whom it is ufual to imagine that all difeafes, whether acute or chronic, of which people have died emaciated, were genuine consumptions.

A cafe of a fatal ileus is the fubject next in order; which is followed by remarks on the ufe of balfams in the cure of confumptions, by Dr. Fothergill. The doctor here juftly reprehends the general ufe of balfamics in pulmonary disorders, on account of the heat and ftimulating quality with which they are moftly endowed; evincing their injurious effects in thofe cafes from the confequences of which they are productive when applied to external wounds.

The two next articles are, a defence of Sydenham's method of treating the meafles, by Dr. Dickfon; and the two immediately fucceeding are employed on the Cæferean operation,

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with fhame and confufion that which arifes from their depravity, a mad defire of victory, of deftroying each other; a barbarous custom of maintaining their pretenfions by the force of arms; of imagining that fuperior force gives right; and the folly of placing a vain honour, a falfe glory, in their brutal quarrels and combats. Follies are frequently contagious: that of heroes has infected their hiftorians: blood must be conftantly fpilt: if they were to place only one man upon the earth, they would make him fight, either against the gods or devils, or with ferpents and monsters, or elfe with his own shadow, rather than paint him peaceful and amiable. If they fhould fuppofe two men to exift, it would be merely with a defign that they might deftroy each other, or at least that one of them might murder his companion. When they made Cadmus fow the earth with teeth, from whence men fprung up, it was neceffary that thefe firft of human race fhould immediately attack and butcher each other.

Barbarians! to whom no object appears great but that of war! The nurture of the human race, their establishments, their migratious, the founding of cities and colonies, the progrefs of the human mind in the arts and fciences, grand inventions and discoveries, as that of navigation and a new world, and a thousand like objects; are not thefe worthy of regard? A king came to the crown on fuch a day, in fuch a year: without the leaft reafon he attacked fuch a people, and after that fo many others; or he was himself attacked; and such were the confequences of his wars he overthrew fo many cities, he took fo many prifoners, and left fo many dead upon the field; and at laft this mighty monarch himself is killed, or he dies with remorfe in his bed. You have here, in a few words, the fubftance of hiftory in general; fome little ornaments of moral and political reflections apart.

The fecond fault of hiftorians is, the bad proportions they obferve in the arrangement of their works. Each hiftory, whether univerfal or particular, refembles a peacock, who, to a very small head, and a body indifferently large, has joined an enormous tail, which continually extends as it approaches the extremity. The beft writers of hiftory are faulty in this refpect. Every one can repeat thofe excellent lines with which Tacitus begins his annals; and when they fhall remark the concifion he there obferves, and compare it with the prodigious number of animadverfions that are spread over his hiftory, and the prolixity with which he concludes, they will be convinced that our obfervation is juft. It is to be wifhed, therefore, that the writers of history would acquire the art of extending their introductions, and of contracting their conclu

fions,

fions, that there might be more uniformity in the parts, more regularity and harmony in the whole. Curious and learned refearches, pleafing and useful reflections, are very natural amplifications. And why are not facts that occur in the beginning of a history as worthy of our attention as those of latter times? We know there are many who are of a contrary opinion, but we think they deceive themfelves. All the details of recent events ferve only to promote chicanery and the quarrels of fovereigns: their minifters make use of them to produce arguments in defence of their pretenfions. But, fhould hiftory be debased to fuch purposes as these? Are there not memoirs, periodical productions, and archives, fufficient to kindle thefe difputes, to furnish deductions, and to support thefe literary wars ?

• All modern capital hiftories have likewife the fault of being highly prolix. What life is fufficiently long, what eyes are good enough, and what memory is ftrong enough, to read and retain these works? Those of de Thou, Mariana, Rapin Thoyras, Barre, Daniel, and the rest of this class? By naming a few hiftorians only, it is easy to enumerate feveral hundred folio and quarto volumes; and if we reflect that M. le Long, in his Hiftorical Bibliotheque, has produced the names of more than twenty thoufand authors who have wrote the hiftory of France only; and that the late count de Bunau collected above thirty thousand German hiftorians, whom they call Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, we may easily conceive how enormous a chaos all this must form, and what indefatigable labour it would require to wade through this vaft barren desart of erudition. In proportion as the world increases in years, this hiftoric body increases in bulk, and must at last fink by its own weight. All that can be done in this cafe is, to regard thefe voluminous works as hiftoric dictionaries, that are not to be read, but confulted occafionally.'

Our author divides history in general, 1. into civil, or political hiftory, which relates all the revolutions, and all the memorable events that have occurred in governments, and gives an account of the method by which all nations have been founded, established, maintained, and improved; of their increase, decline, and final diffolution. 2. Into military history, which recounts the wars that each people have fuftained; their battles and fieges, the good and bad fuccefs of all their military operations, thofe generals that have diftinguished themfelves, &c. Xenophon, Polybius, Vegetius, Quincy, and many others, he obferves, have written military hiftories. Thefe two capital divifions of history, he refolves into many fubordinate divifions, of which we shall omit the enumeration.

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