Near Obferver has rather the talents of an able, than the adroitnefs of an experienced writer. ART. 39. Thoughts on the theory and practice of the French Conflitution. In four Letters. 8vo. 36 pp. IS. Blamire. 1794. We are forry that this tract did not fooner come under our notice, for it is full of argument and difcuffion. The author, who fubfcribes himfelf an Englishman," examines the new doctrines refpecting the fovereignty of the people, and the rights of man, as they are described in the French conftitution of 1792, and how far they are reconcileable to reafon and common fenfe; and, by tracing the progress of the revolution, determines that they cannot exist in practice. The fecond letter contains a curious account of the fate of the editors of the Paris Gazette, and of the Paris Journal; who were executed within a few days of each other, one for writing against the conftitution, the other for writing in its favour. P. 14. The third letter fhows, that there never was fuch a medley of revolting cruelty, fhameful injuftice, and difgufting abfurdity, as was exhibited in the murder of Lous XVI. The laft letter treats of the rapid changes of government in France, the arrogant pretenfions of reformers in this country, their falfe affèrtions, and their readiness to ufe (if they dared) the fword inftead of the pen. This little tract is worthy of being preferved among the valuable productions, to which the affairs of Europe have lately given birth. ART. 40. Thoughts: the public Duties of private Life, with Refe- 2S. In an effay elegantly written, and replete with the most generous fentiments, expreffed with energy and truth, we cannot but regret a want of care in the choice of a title, or a want of method in the explanation of the plan, which throws an obfcurity over the whole. Were we to name this publication, we fhould call it "an Effay on the private Virtues which conduce to public Happiness;" which title, though not very remote in meaning from the prefent, appears to us with much more clearness to explain its object, and illußrate its contents. Some want of method and regular connection in the tract wili, after all, a little obfcure its merit, which, however, we fhould conceive to be too great, to fuffer it, as the author, towards the conclufion, appears to apprehend, to fall" dead-born from the prefs." The following paffage alone ought to rescue any tract from neglect, and we can affore our readers, that it is only one out of many that are excel. lent. After remarking fome particulars that are praifeworthy in the character of Englifhmen, Mr. Macdonald thus admirably ftigmatizes the bafeness of demagogues. "But even here we may truft too much to the strength of national character. A people are never ftationary. They are either rifing or falling in the general fcale of manners and public virtue. We have here our mobs; compofed of all ranks of perfons. We have alfo our flatterers of mibs-men who would declaim against the obfequi oufnefs oufnefs of courts, and yet practife a fpecies of adulation a thoufand times more bafe. It is more bafe, in proportion as it is more mifchievous and dishoneft. The flattery of a courtier is diffolved in air: it amounts to no more than an established and familiar formula; addreffed, in general, to those who hear it but as a found, and can anfwer it in terms of equal infignificance. But this is not fo with that part of a mob which is compofed of the fimple and unfufpecting among the lower ranks of the people. Their orator becomes their idol. They believe him to be their friend. They liften to his vile and hackneyed proteftations, as the effufions of fincerity and regard: and thank him by acclamation, for feducing them from their labour and tranquillity, and teaching them to believe that they are an oppreffed and unhappy people. They thank him for a boon, which, for aught he can tell, may involve many a poor family in mifery. The man who, for purposes of ambition, can thus deliberately practife upon all that is honeft and right in the natural frame of uncultivated minds,— of what villainy, were it well mafked, would he not be capable ?" P. 68. Many other ftriking paffages will be found in this tract, among which the character of an English independent country gentleman is one of the most confpicuous; it is drawn with vigour and elegance, and, as the author affures us, from living models. Nor is the character of the British ladies delineated with lefs fpirit, or lefs attractive truth. ART. 41. A fer Words in Favour of the British Conflitution. By one of the People. 8vo. 70 pp. IS. Debrett. 1795. A very flight declamation, from "a youthful pen," (p. 29) about the British Conftitution, and various other matters. A fketch of feveral reigns, from that of King John to the Revolution, furnishes this profound leffon," that the Conftitution of Great-Britain, as it is now modified, was not the work of a moment, nor even of a single century." P. 24. The author fays he is "unhackneyed in the paths of literature;" we fhould have gueffed otherwife from one circumftance the eking out of this little book by an extract of twenty pages together from Guthrie. pp. 31-51. Of the concluding period, the only competent critic is Mr. Fox, who is there defired to weigh the acceffion of this defender, against the defection of feveral friends. : ART. 42. Obfervations on a Letter to the Prince of Wales, in Confequence of a fecond Application to Parliament, &c. and on thofe figned Neptune and Legion. In the fame Pamphlet. 8vo. 28 PP. 15. Griffiths. 1795. The fentiments of a firm and energetic reafoner, expreffed with due refpect for the parties whose characters are involved in the investigation of a circumftance, which appears to be here met fairly, firmly, and difpaffionately. BRIT. CRIT. VOL. VII. FEB. 1796. ART. ART. 43. Remarks on thofe Paffages, in Mr. Belham's Memoirs of the Mr. Belfham, in the work alluded to, has entered very much into detail upon the adininistration of India. In the courfe of this hiftory, he has defcribed, in no very amiable colours, the fuppofed malverfation of Mr. Haftings. To diminish the impreffion which this may produce, is the object of the prefent pamphlet; and the author (whom we understand to be Major Scott) has certainly acquitted himself with confiderable credit as an advocate. And as the public has already paid fo liberally for the impeachment of the Governor General, they should not hesitate to pay a couple of fhillings for a vindication, which circumstances seem to prove fo well founded. ART. 44. A Letter to the Deputy Manager of a Theatre Royal, London, on his lately acquired Notoriety, in contriving and arranging the Hair-Powder Act, commonly called the Poll-Tax. With a further Expofition of the faid Act. Including feveral Particulars inferted for the Protection of Housekeepers, c. against Informers and Spies. 8vo. Allen and Weft. 1795. 32 PP. IS. After a careful perufal of this pamphlet, we cannot but acknowledge that it is written, as the author declares, on the hair-powder act; but what he means to prove, and whether the work be intended to cenfure or to applaud the faid act, we are wholly at a lofs to de termine. ART 45. An Addrefs to the Electors of Southwark on the following Subjects: 1. Their late Petition to Parliament: 2. The Conduct of their Reprfentatives on that Occafion: 3. The State of the British Nation: 4 Their Duty under the prefent Circumftances. By an Elector. 12mo. 32 pp. 6d. Smith, Lincoln's-inn-fields. No date. If any perfon is defirous to fee a strong fpecimen of the inflammatory language employed to excite difcontent, and to ftimulate difcontent into fury, he may caft an eye upon this pamphlet. How conftitutional it is, may be judged from the following maxims: 1. That no member of parliament is any thing but the fervant of his conftituents: 2. That, therefore, the will of his conftituents ought to be the only rule of his conduct, &c. &c. The author does not fcruple to fuggeft even murder in no very concealed manner. P. 9. ART. 46. A Letter to the Magiftrates, Burgefes, &c. of the Royal Burghs of Scotland. By John Donaldson, Ejq. 8vo. 16 pp. 6d. Cadell. 1795. The author of this letter has already come before us in a plan of moral and municipal reform. We delivered our judgment upon his defign in reviewing that work, and therefore have only to remark on the prefent pamphlet, that it expreffes the author's ftrong conviction of the utility and practicability of his projects for univerfal reformation. ART. MEDICINE. ART. 47. A Treatise on the Dropfy, wherein the various Kinds of the Difeafe are confidered, with their different Caufes, Ec. Sc. The Abfurdity of the prefent general Mode of Cure expofed, and a different one recommended, as pursued by the Author. To which is added an Appendix, containing a few remarkable Cafes which had been given up, and abandoned as incurable, by medical Practitioners of the highest Character and Reputation, but were afterwards cured by the Mode propofed; adduced as a Proof of its fuperiority over the common Method. By a Phyfician. 1795. "A confiderable part of the following work," the writer fays, "was originally published in Latin, at Leyden, when he took his degree of doctor of phyfic, at that Univerfity; it was then thought not devoid of merir." It is now republifhed, with fuch additions and improvements, as thirty years practice has enabled him to make. As the doctor's name was doubtless affixed to the firft impreffion of the work, it is not eafy to account for his modefty in witholding it from the prefent more improved edition. After giving a fufficiently accurate account of the different fpecies of dropfy, and of the methods commonly pursued in attempting the cure of them, which the writer obferves are almoft conftantly unfuccefsful, he proceeds to describe a procefs by which he has often fucceeded, he fays, in cafes left as defperate by phyficians of the first eminence. But, as the most material part of this procefs confifts in the exhibition of a preparation invented by himself, and kept, for the prefent, as a fecret, we must refrain from giving any opinion upon the fubject. The author promifes, on another occafion, to divulge his fecret. ART. 48. Medical Extracts. On the Nature of Health, with prac .tical Obfervations: and the Laws of the nervous and fibrous Syflems. By a Friend to Improvements. Vol. II. 8vo. 6s. Robinfons, &c. 1795. It is not eafy to give an analysis of this fingular book, we muft, therefore, content ourselves with informing our readers of what it is compofed. It is properly called extracts, or fcraps, as it confiits almost entirely of paffages, principally from modern authors, difciples of the new, or Brunonian, fyftem, of which the author is fo enamoured, that he fcruples not to call the inventor, Dr. Brown (p. 136, as it is numbered, but in reality p. 2) "another Newton." Amongit the extracts, as they are called, is an account of the late plague at Philadelphia, not extracted from, but confifting of almost the whole of the curious account of that dreadful vifitation, written by Mr. Carey, which we noticed in the fourth volume of the British Critic*. Of the author's attachment, or rather bigotry to his fyftem, the following is a ftriking example, "Some very pleafing experiments," he fays, p. 200, are related by Dr. Peart (whofe name would be oftener mentioned with ftill higher respect, were we fortynate enough to rank him among the many illuftrious converts to the new chemistry) which prove that partial exercife conveys a glow over the whole body." But the most remarkable part of the book is the bill of fare, or table of contents, which, with the title pages, &c. fills upwards of feventy pages; that is, a space equal to fomething more than a third part of the text. For, although the last page is numbered 334, from this must be taken 134 pages, contained in a former publication, of which this is to be confidered as a continuation. But as no reference is made in the title to a former part, this muft tend to mislead the purchafer, who has actually only 200 pages for his fix fhillings, a circumftance we think it our duty to notice. ART. 49. Afbrt Treatife on Canine Madness, particularly the Bite of Mad Dogs; fome Cautions to prevent the Danger, and Remedies for Injuries received thereby, together with those of other enraged Animals. By a Phyfician. 8vo. 50 PP. 15. Kearfley, Extracted, verbatim, the writer fhould have added, from Dr. Mead's eflays on thofe fubjects, contained in his mechanical account of poifons. ART. 50. Dialogues between a Pupil of the late John Hunter and Jeffé Foot, including Pafjages in Darwin's Zoonomia. 8vo. 39. Beckett. 1795. 102 PP. This writer, like a doughty knight of old, attacks all comers; Mr. Hunter, the admirers of Mr. Hunter, the late critical reviewers, the prefent critical reviewers, and Dr. Darwin, are here the objects of his lance. Not fatisfied with having written a fatirical work against Mr. Hunter's doctrine, and a fatirical life of him after his decease, he feems to feel himself ill ufed, that no perfon will come forth to answer him and, as no one elfe will do him that honour, he has made a man of straw, and answered himself. We hope he has done it very much to his own fatisfaction, and only with him more active antagonifts in his next controversy. MISCELLANIES. ART. 51. A Letter to the Lord Bishop of Worcester, occafioned by bis Strictures on Archbishop Secker and Bishop Lowth, in his Life of Bishop Warburton, now prefixed to the Quarto Edition of that Prelate's Works. By a Member of the University of Oxford. 8vo. 41 pp. 15. Cooke, Oxford; Rivingtons, London. 1796. There are few readers of the Life of Bp. Warburton, lately produced (we cannot properly fay publifhed) by the Bishop of Worcester, who have not lamented with us, that the learned prelate fhould have been so far biaffed by his early prejudices, as to speak in a depreciating manner of two fuch men as Archbishop Secker and Bishop Lowth. In the tract before us the fame of the former of thefe perfonages is vindicated temperately, but ftrongly, the caufe of the other is fup pofed |