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"Now the last line, pronounced in that manner, calling the fea, the green one, Mr. Sheridan fays, makes flat nonfense of it. But if we read it with proper Emphasis and stop, and fay, making the green-one red, here is a most fublime idea conveyed." Poor Shakespear! how has it been thy fate to have thy immortal labours mangled and mifreprefented by ignorant Players and bungling Commentators! Thofe very abfurdities which either thou didft not commit, or waft certainly afhamed of, are rendered ten times more abfurd, and admired for their fublimity. For our own parts, we muft confefs, that we have always looked upon this paffage to be fo hyperbolical, as to border a little upon the bombait: but, fuppofing Mr. Sheridan to have cleared it from the charge of exceffive hyperbole, the impropriety of calling the fea a green one, or even the earth a round one, is not fo great as to talk of turning green, in the abstract, into red. It is poffible to change the colour of an object, by taking away its prefent hue, and giving it another; but to talk of changing one colour into another, is the height of abfurdity, and is an inftance rather of the profound than fublime.

Our Author's next pretended correction, of an improper manner of repeating that famous line of Othello,

Put out the light, and then, put out the light;

is extremely puerile, and had come with greater propriety from an illiterate member of the spouting club, than from a celebrated Profeffor of Elocution. To the best of our remembrance, we have heard Mr. Quin do juftice to Shakefpear in that paffage, by reciting it thus ;

Put out the light, and then-Put out the light!

To fuppofe, with Mr. Sheridan, that the allufion between the light of the candle and that of life, prefented itself to the mind of Othello before he began the line, is to fuppofe his mind fufficiently calm and unembarraffed, to talk in metaphor and conceit; whereas it is not fo unnatural for that allufion to ftrike him after he had mentioned putting out the candle; in which cafe nothing can be more natural than for him to paufe, and, repeating his words by way of recollecting what he had faid, to address the taper in the moralizing ftrain that follows.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, &c.

Again, in the following line Mr. Sheridan fhews himself

to

to be but a very imperfect corrector of erroneous declama

tion.

Perdition catch my foul but I do love thee.

"This, fays our Lecturer, is the ufual way of pronounc ing that line; by which its peculiar beauty and force is loft, But when it is repeated thus,

Perdition catch my foul but I do love thee

the Emphasis on dò, marks the vehemence of his affection much better than any Emphafis on the verb love could. For when the Emphafis is laid on the verb love, do becomes a mere expletive, being an unneceffary fign of the prefent tense. But when an Emphafis is placed on do, it becomes an auxiliary verb, fignifying an act of the ftrongeft affirmation."

We agree with Mr. Sheridan, that an Emphasis fhould be laid on do; but not that it fhould therefore be quite taken away from love: the auxiliary verb has no meaning without the principal, unless the principal had been before mentioned, and were here only understood; which is not the cafe. Mr. Sheridan, as well as many other theatrical Declaimers, feems to be not fufficiently aware that the Emphasis is frequently required to be continued, with a little variation, on two, and fometimes three words together. We are, indeed, conftantly offended, at our theatres, by the immoderate Emphafis laid on epithets, to the prejudice of their fucceeding fubftantives, on which their meaning in the fentence entirely depends.

Our Lecturer's want of judgment in this particular, appears farther in his throwing away his remarks on the manner of reading fome paffages which were never fo written as to be read with propriety or grace. Nothing can be well read that is not well written; and this confideration may serve to fhew the neceffity of studying Elocution, tho' with no other view than to be able to write what may be gracefully and emphatically read. No Writer, who was able to read, would have given Mr. Sheridan the trouble to ftand up for the propriety of laying an Emphafis upon the particle and.

After all, we must own the force of Emphafis fo great, and the meaning of written language fo equivocal, that it is no wonder perfons, who do not pronounce their own fentiments, fhould differ in their manner of repeating after other people. Our Lecturer, indeed, appears very fenfible of the neceffity of making the fentiment and language our own, in order to read

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read or repeat properly. His farther remarks on the fimple and complex Emphafis are, therefore, very pertinent. He has this defect, however, in common with most didactic Writers, that after having fet forth in general terms the utility of his art, his Pupils are left to themselves, to proceed fecundum

artem.

In the fifth Lecture, Mr. Sheridan treats of Paufes or Stops; and gives fome directions for the proper management of the voice: in the two remaining Lectures he attempts to lay open the principles that may ferve as guides to the public Speaker, in regard to Tones and Gefture; upon which, he fays, all that is pleasurable or affecting in Elocution, chiefly depend. What he advances upon thefe fubjects is ingenious, and deferves the attentive perufal of every one who either is, or intends to be, a public Speaker.

The fixth Lecture treats of Tones, and the seventh of Gefture.

The Lectures are followed by two Differtations; in the firit of which Mr. Sheridan traces the rife and progress of Elocution, in the country where it first had its birth, and arrived at its maturity; that we may be enabled to judge whether, if we apply to the fame methods used there, we may not hope to attain equal perfection.

The fecond Differtation, which treats of the State of Language in other countries, but more particularly our own, is intended as an Introduction to a course of Lectures on the English language, not yet delivered.-In both these Differtations the ingenious Reader, tho' he will probably differ from Mr. Sheridan on feveral points, will yet find much entertainment, and many uncommon obfervations, which shew that the Author has thought much upon his fubject, and is, in many refpects, well qualified for the tafk he has undertaken.

The Reader is likewife prefented with the heads of a Plan for the Improvement of Elocution; and for promoting the Study of the English Language; in order to the refining, afcertaining, and reducing it to a Standard; together with fome arguments to enforce the neceflity of carrying fuch a plan into execution.

We fhall conclude this article with our fincere wishes that Mr. Sheridan may meet with all due encouragement in the profecution of the ufeful defign in which he is engaged.

* Greece.

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An Effay on the Caufes and Cure of the ufual Difeafes in Voyages. to the Weft-Indies, together with the Prefervatives against them. In Answer to the Questions propofed by the Society of Sciences in Holland-What are the Caufes of the ufual Difcafes among Seamen in Voyages to the Weft-Indies? and What are the Means of preventing, and of curing them. By Solomon de Monéhy, City Phyfician at Rotterdam. Tranflated from the Dutch Philofophical Tranfactions. 8vo. 3s. fewed. Becket and De Hondt.

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HIS fenfible and ingenuous Phyfician informs us, in his preface, that he was induced to hazard his fentiments on these interesting Queries, from the confideration, "that very few of his medical brethren in Holland, were qualified for it, from their not being acquainted with the changes and effects which living at fea, and failing into different climates, produce in the human conftitution: and from his farther reflecting, that very few of the Dutch Sea-Surgeons have applied themfelves to acquire any fundamental and folid knowlege of medicine." Thefe fame confiderations alfo occafioned his own delaying to answer thefe queftions the first year, for want of experiments of his own making on the fubject; and he acknowleges he was determined to hazard it at laft, from his fuppofing, there was a confiderable refemblance between the diftempers of the Torrid Zone and the autumnal diseases in Holland; as well as from his perufing the writings of fuch English Physicians and Surgeons as have made the fea diftempers a confiderable object of their ftudy, and have written on them from their own experience. Thefe, he informs us, were chiefly Mead, Pringle, Huxham, Lind, Watfon, Biffet, and Hillary. Befides which, he fays, a Lord of the English Admiralty had condefcendingly procured him, from the Sick and Wounded Office here, an answer to fome questions he had been encouraged to lay before him. Thefe certainly being the beft fubftitutes to his perfonal inexperience of the Torrid Zone, Dr. Monchy, who had been Phyfician to the Dutch forces in Germany during four years, when Dr. Pringle was Phyfician to the British forces in the Confederate army, has, from fuch resources, produced this ufeful and well-digefted treatise.

We judge it wholly needlefs to give any citation from his firft and fecond chapters, Of the Situation of the Weft-Indies, and of the Temperature of the Torrid Zone. From

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the third, Of the Diet of Seamen, we fhall only observe that instead of Irifh beef (which the Dutch Admiralty have rejected as hard, dry, and falt) Bacon is ferved in a smaller quantity, and that they use hogs-lard, two days in the week, to their dinners of peas and bacon.

In his fourth chapter, entitled, Definitions of the usual Difeafes, alluding to the term in the Society's first question, he reftricts them to the putrid fever, the malignant fever, and the fcurvy,

In his fifth chapter-Of the proximate Caufe-he fuppofes thefe diftempers to have one common caufe, Putrefaction; his brief definition of which is as follows.

"I fhall content myfelf to fay, in general, that by putrefaction, with regard to the human body, I understand a certain degeneracy or corruption of our juices, whence they contract a peculiar acridity or fharpness, more or lefs injurious to the folids; and thus impeding their functions, and altering their natural tone and qualities, they produce fymptoms more or lefs violent and malignant, and occafion a great relaxation both of the confiftence of the fluids, and the vibration of the folids. The first perceiveable alterations which putrefaction caufes in our habit, are a colliquation or attenuation of the juices; and, in the folids, fuch a diffolution of their firmnefs and connection, as correfpond with our notion of atony, of relaxation."

In his fixth chapter-Of the preceding or remote Caufes -he fuppofes a hot, moift, and light air, the fetid vapours which the great heat exhales from that confined in the hold, and from the marshy coafts of the Weft-Indies, to be fome of the preceding caufes, The verminous and putrefcent state of the failor's food, and a natural propensity to fuch diseases as refult from a foft, lax fibre, and a weak incompact blood, are also confidered as predifpofing caufes.

In his feventh chapter-Of the Cure-having propofed the following indications to be ftrictly obferved by the furgeon

1. That the peccant acrimony and putrid fubftances, are to be feparated and difcharged. 2. Or elfe that they be corrected, or mitigated: and 3. That the vital powers be corroborated or restored." And having mentioned all the evacuations fuppofed to anfwer the first indication, he obferves, as to bleeding particularly.

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