lieve this will be perfectly new; but having nothing in view, at prefent, but the hiftory of his life, we fhall referve the difcuffion of this point for a future opportunity. Dver and Johnfon ufed to difpute at this club about the moral fenfe and the fitnefs of things; but Johnson was not uniform in his opinions, contending as often for victory as for truth. This infirmity attended him through life. At the club, however, his morbid melancholy had its lueid intervals; but his biographer leaves us to guefs, how his companions contrived to difpel the gloom. Johnfon, he tells us, would contradict felf-evident propofitions, fuch as, that the luxury of this country has increafed with its riches, and that the practice of card-playing is more general than heretofore. If fuch were the topics, who would not labour under a morbid melancholy? Sir John Hawkins tells us, that in the talent of humour there hardly ever was Johnson's equal; but he gives no inftance or illuftration. That task he leaves to the lively understanding of Mis. Thrale, or the diligent attention of Mr. Bofwell. While a member of this club at the chop-houfe in Ivy-lane, Johnfon laid the plan of that celebrated paper, the Rambler. It was begun without any participation with his chop-house companions. The first number iflued forth on Tuesday, the 26th March, 1749-50; the paper was regularly publifhed on Tuefdays and Saturdays, till the labours of the Rambler concluded on March 17, 1752. The whole number of effays amounted to two hundred and eight. Sir John Hawkins fays, we know with certainty of only four that were not of his own writing; viz. No. 30, by Mrs. Catharine Talbot; No. 97, by Mr. Richardfon, Author of Clarifla; and Nos. 44 and 100, by Mrs. Carter. This account is not perfely accurate: the last Number of the Rambler mentions alfo four billets in the 10th paper; the fecond letter in the 15th; and the fecond letter in No. 107. This, it must be owned, was flender affiftance. Of the Ivy-lane club, the Author, as it feems, made no other ufe, than to eat becf-fteaks with them, to difcufs points with Mr. Dyer, and withdraw his mind from the fatigue of his ftudies. That his chofen companions were not infpired with fome occafional effays, is fomewhat fingular. One would have thought that Horfeman himself would have written an effay. Dennis fays, genius confifts in certain motions of furious joy and pride of foul upon the conception of a great hint: fome, he adds, have the motions without the hints; others have the hints without the motions; and a third fet have neither the hints nor the motions. In which clafs are we to place the members of the chop-house club? The folemn prayer offered up by the Author of the Rambler, invoking the affiftance of Heaven during the course of his work, is an inftance of his piety. s Of this excellent production, the Rambler, the number fold, on each day, hardly amounted to five hundred of course, the bookfeller, who paid Johnfon four guineas a week, did not carry on a fuccessful trade: his generofity and perfeverance are to be commended. We have already faid, that meaning here to give his life, we do not intend to interrupt the narration with critical remarks. Of a pofition, however, advanced by Sir John Hawkins, we cannot avoid taking notice at prefent. The Biographer fays, an eulogium on Knolles's Hiftory of the Turks, and a fevere cenfure on the Samfon Agonistes, are the only critical effays to be found in the Rambler. If he will revife the Rambler, or even the Table of Contents, he will find no fewer than twenty more. What are the effays on Paftoral Poetry, on Verfification, on Tragi-comedy, Hiftory, and many others? In the fpring, 1751, while Johnson was engaged in writing the moral papers of the Rambler, he indulged himself in a frolic of midnight revelry. This was to celebrate the birth of Mrs. Lenox's firft literary child, the novel of Harriot Stuart. He drew the members of his Ivy-lane club and others, to the number of twenty, to the Devil Tavern, where Mrs. Lenox and her husband met them. Johnson, after an invocation of the Mufes, and fome other ceremonies of his own invention, invested the Authorefs with a laurel crown. The feftivity was protracted till morning, and Johnson, through the night, was a Bacchanalian without the ufe of wine. Of this frolic no other particulars are told, except that Sir John had the tooth-ach, and went away afhamed to see the fun fhine upon his debauch. [To be concluded in our next.] M...y. ART. II. American Philofophical Tranfactions, continued. The Art of making anatomical Preparations by Corrosion. By John THE HE various methods of injecting the blood veffels, and removing the foft parts by corrofion, are amply treated by most of our anatomical writers. and publicly taught in every anatomical theatre in Europe. Dr. Morgan advances nothing new on the fubject: his receipts for the injection, are good, and the inftructions he gives for the operation are plain and fimple. An Account of a motley coloured, or pyed, Negro Girl, and a Mulatto Boy. By the fame. Thefe fpotted Negroes are curious and uncommon. They afford ample matter of fpeculation to thofe anatomifts who wish to inveftigate the cautes of black, brown, and white skinned men. The girl here defcribed had feveral broad, white, irregular shaped shaped fpots on a black ground; part of the hair was also white, though curled like the reft; fhe was born of black parents. The boy is fimilarly marked, and was born of a black mother and white father. Two Hearts found in one Partridge. By M. d'Aboville. No anatomical defcription is to be found in this account, M. d'Aboville unfortunately let a dog eat the entrails of the partridge before they were examined; two gentlemen, however, befide himself, had feen this lufus nature; and the paper concludes with two certificates figned by them, in order to confirm our Author's affertions. An Enquiry into the Caufe of the Increase of bilious and intermittent Fevers in Pennsylvania. By Benjamin Rufh, M. D. It has been obferved, that Penafylvania has, for fome years past, been more fickly than it was formerly. Fevers, which a few years ago abounded chiefly on the banks of rivers, and in marthy places, now appear in high fituations, and on gravelly foils. This change with refp &t to the healthiness of the country, Dr. Rush attributes to the following caufes: 1ft, The eftablishment of mill-ponds, there are whole counties,' fays the Doctor, in which intermittens were unknown until the waters of them were dammed, for the purpose of erecting mill-ponds.' 2d, The cutting down wood. And 3d, The different and unequal quantities of rain. However the two firft of thefe caufes may operate in producing an increase of fevers, we can by no means coincide with our Author in attributing the increase of fevers to the laft caufe, fince, by all meteorological obfervations, the quantity of rain in any diftrict is always, communibus annis, nearly equal. The hints for preventing bilious and intermittent fevers are juft, and perfectly confiftent with theory and obfervations. Dry fituations, apartments well aired, and freed from damps, by frequent and brifk fires, warm clothing, generous diet, cleanli nefs, &c. are all highly recommended. Though the practitioner may not meet with any thing new or uncommon, yet Dr. Ruth's precepts are all ufeful, and, if duly observed, cannot, we apprehend, fail of anfwering the end propofed. Obfervations on the Cause and Cure of the Tetanus. By the fame. Dr. Rufh remarks, that the predifpofition to the Tetanus depends on relaxation produced by heat, exceffive labour, watchings, marches, or fatigue of any kind; hence he has found, that the Tetanus is more frequent from wounds received in battles, than from fimilar wounds received in any other way, and that thefe wounds produce a Tetanus more certainly in warm and moift weather. Since it is occafioned by relaxation, our Author justly ob ferves, that the medicines indicated to cure it, are fuch only as X 3 are are calculated to remove this relaxation, and to restore to the fyftem its natural tone. The Peruvian bark and generous wine, are therefore proper. The operation of blifters, he thinks, is of a more complicated nature. He acknowledges that they are fedative, and antifpafmodic, in fevers; but in the peculiar ftate of irritability which occurs in the Tetanus, he confiders their effects as fimply ftimulating. In order to cure the difease, Dr. Rush fays it is not only neceffary to produce a proper tone in the system, but alfo an inflammatory diathefis. As a general inflammatory diathefis difpofes to topical inflammation, fo topical inflammation difpofes to a general inflammatory diathefis. Wounds are lefs apt, on this account, to inflame in fummer than in winter. In the Tetanus there is uniformly obferved an abfence of all inflammation in the wounds which produce it. A splinter under the nail produces no convulfions, if pain, inflammation, and fuppuration follow the accident. It is by exciting pain and inflammation that the spirit of turpentine acts in all wounds and punctures of nervous and tendinous parts; and our Author affirms, that there never was a Tetanus from a wound, where this where / was remedy had been applied in time, and the whole fyftem in a pro where / was per tone. A ^ Dr. Rufh adds feveral cafes to confirm his theory, in all of which the removing the univerfal relaxation, and exciting inflammation by topical ftimulants, always fuccefsfully cured the difeafe. An Account of the late Dr. Hugh Martin's Cancer Powder. By the fame. Dr. Martin was in poffeffion of a fecret remedy which performed complete cures in cancerous ulcers. The powder which he applied to the wound was a cauftic; and effectually extirpated the cancer. Dr. Martin died in the beginning of the year 1784, without divulging the compofition of fo valuable a remedy. On the antifeptic Virtues of Vegetable Acid and Marine Salt combined. By William Wright, M. D. This paper contains the relation of feveral cafes of dyfenteries, diabetes, remittent fevers, belly-ach, and putrid fore throats, in which a mixture of lemon juice and fea falt was given with fuccefs. As the whole paper is a narrative of cafes, without any general remarks or obfervations on them, an abftract of it would be tedious and uninterefting. The Medical Hiftory of the Cortex Ruber, or Red Bark. By John The defcription here given of the tree which produces this bark, and which is called by our Author Cinchona Caribea San&ta Lucia, is as good a defcription of any other tree as of the Cinchona: a fault too frequent with people who have not attended to the minutiae of natural hiftory, In his account of the medical qualities of the bark, Dr. Morgan has made ample amends for his deficiency in botanical knowledge; but we have lately given our Readers fuch full and particular accounts of this new kind of Peruvian bark as may be fufficient to excufe us from enlarging, at prefent, on a subject where nothing materially new occurs. [To be continued.] R--m ART. III. The Bhagvat Geeta, concluded: See our laft, p. 198. N our laft Review, we gave an analytical account of the first fix chapters of this work; we now proceed to the feventh, which treats, Of the Principles of Nature, and the vital Spirit.' The title of this lecture and its contents are in general equally obfcure. We fhall only extract from it one fentence, in which the omnifcience of the Deity is, we think, finely contrafted with man's ignorance of the divine nature. I know, O Arjoon, all the beings that have paffed, all that are prefent, and all that fhall hereafter be; but there is not one amongst them who knoweth me.' Lecture VIII. has for its title Of Pooroofh.' This word, according to our tranflator, in vulgar language, means no more than man, but in this work it is a term in theology, ufed to exprefs the vital foul, or portion of the fpirit of Brahm inhabiting a body. Between the title thus explained, and the contents of this chapter, there feems to be but little analogy. It enforces that abftra&t meditation on the nature of the Deity fo often inculcated before and afferts the diffolution and reproduction of the universe every day and night of Brahma. This day and night are each of them fuppofed to last a thousand revolutions of the Yoogs, or a fpace equal to 4,320,000,000 years. The learned Reader will perceive a ftriking refemblance in this doctrine to that of the Stoic year, and it is obfervable, that fome notions of the alternate deftruction and reproduction of the world are faid to have existed, not only in the philofophy of Heraclitus, from whom the Stoics feem to have borrowed their hypothefis, but in Perfia, China, and Siam, and, if we may truft fome writers, even among the later defcendants of that very people, who, in the Mofaic defcription of the Deluge, poffeffed the only true hiftorical foundation, on which the vagueness of tradition, or the fanciful arrogance of philofophy, may have reared the mishapen fuperftructure of error and fuperftition. Lecture IX. Of the Chief of Secrets, and Prince of Science.' From fome paffages in this lecture in particular, as well as from the general tenor of the Geeta, we think, with Mr. Wilkins, that the principal defign of its author was to unite all the prevailing modes of worship, and to undermine the tenets incul X 4 cated |