622

REVIEW.-The Oracle of Health.

able waste will be 72,000,-the remainder will be 178,000, a force far too small for the gigantic projects of Napoleon. He said himself, that his army of Italy in his first campaign was renovated five successive times. Moreat called him (see p. 243) a General at ten thousand men a day; and his annual conscriptions amounted to two or even three hundred thousand men. Rude as may be these calculations, it is plain that he could not continue to draw such forces from France, for a sufficient length of time to insure his conquests. His ultimate fall was therefore certain, and it was considerably expedited by his disastrous Spanish and Russian expeditions, and the great numerical superiority of his combined enemies. It was not necessary on their part to fight for victory, only for exhaustion, because the former was assuredly consequent upon the latter.

That the allies knew this, and acted accordingly, is evident, from the following passage, given in p. 246, under

the account of Moreau:

"He predicted the fall of Buonaparte. The sacrifice of so many armies (he said) must at length reduce the empire to such a state that it would be unable to resist the enemies roused by the mad ambition of its chief. The time would come when exasperated Europe would drag the despot from his throne."

"He often compared Buonaparte with Charles XII. of Sweden, and expressed his conviction that uninterrupted success would prove the ruin of the one, as it had done of the other. On one occasion he said, 'I believe Charles has been judged with too much severity. I think he would have been the greatest captain of his age, had he lost the battle of Narva. That battle inspired him with too much contempt for the enemy, and with too much confidence in his own troops. He possessed in too high a degree the qualities which constitute a great captain, and he was the victim of that ex

cess.

"No prudent general will attack the enemy, unless he is almost sure of success. It is very rare indeed, that both generals have the same interest to risk the engagement; the abler one will force the other into it. Thus the great art is how and when to give battle, not to receive it. The great Frederick had the enemy often within his reach, but he knew how to restrain himself; an action imprudently commenced against the Russians was near proving his destruction. The battle of Hochstett, which should have been carefully avoided, occasioned evils that

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were sensibly felt during the ten following years.'

"It is impossible to peruse these sentiments, the result of great observation and experience, without being struck with the conformity between the character of Moreau, and that of Wellington. Both acted in operation, inevitably leads to success. on a system of tactics, which, however slow Neither would commit any thing to chance, and both were ever ready to take advantage of the slightest mistakes of the enemy. Such generals will ever be ranked among the true and legitimate masters of the art.'

All this is resolvable into the two known principles, of caution being the essence of generalship, and not attacking, except with superior numbers, or palpable advantages. We think that, however able was Moreau, envy alone placed him on a par with Napoleon. Soult is considered by excellent judges the next best to Buonaparte, and Blucher little inferior to Moreau in retreat.

We need not praise this interesting work, which contains the history of Buonaparte's family, past and present, as well as that of his Generals.

The Oracle of Health and Long Life; or, plain Rules for the Attainment and Preservation of sound Health and vigorous old Age; with rational Instructions for Diet, Regimen, &c. and the Treatment of Dyspepsy or Indigestion, &c. By Medicus. Post 8vo. pp. 206.

MEDICAL books, like this, inculcate the valuable moral lesson of controuling the sensual passions, and thus are highly auxiliary to virtue, and, as connected with health, to happiness. The great complaint of the day is, however, unconnected with excess or immorality, viz. dyspepsy, or indigestion; the chief cause of which is, in We shall not expatiate further, beour opinion, sedentary employment. the most general application and uncause we mean to make extracts, of questionable utility. The first refers to exercise, which is founded upon the universal principle of nature, motion.

"The necessity of labour or exercise to promote the regular and complete the circulation of the blood, is evident from this circumstance, that the strength of the heart and arteries alone, in a sedentary course of life, is by no means sufficient to keep up and perpetuate with due efficacy the circulation throughout the smaller blood-vessels. The assistance and joint force of all the muscles of the body acting at proper intervals, are essential for that purpose. With

PART II.] REVIEW.-Brenan on Composition and Punctuation.

out this extraordinary occasional aid, which can only be effected by labour or exercise, the smaller vessels are, in process of time, choked; and the delicate springs of our frail machine lose their activity, and become enervated. It is not impossible that by great care, the body might be brought to such a tone, the fluids made so bland, that no miasmus could corrupt them. Among domestic pampered animals, contagion is common; but naturalists give no account of epidemic diseases among the wild inhabitants of the woods, the air, or the waters." P.114.

Plato (says our author) had so high an opinion of exercise, that he said it was a cure even for a wounded conscience. Every day's experience produces instances of persons insensible to the pangs and remorse of a wounded conscience, through the bustle of active life.

The puritanism of modern fanatics is downright superstition, and as injurious to health, as it is to reason.

"For the due preservation and enjoy ment of health, see fair play between cares and pastimes, increase all your natural and healthy enjoyments,-cultivate your afternoon fire-side, the society of your friends, the company of agreeable children, music, theatres, amusing books, an urbane and a generous gallantry. Knowledge, sympathy, imagination, are all divining rods, with

which the cultivated mind discovers trea

sure, and heightens and enlivens its happiness. He who thinks any innocent pastime foolish, has yet either to grow wise, or is past it." P. 182.

We have always thought that in humanity curtain lectures should be delivered in a morning, and we believe that they are given at night, only because we are undrest and cannot run away from them. We are sure, however, that the fair lecturers have no desire to injure health; and, therefore, that they may alter the hours, we observe from our author,

"That in order to enjoy sound and refreshing sleep, every object that may excite unpleasant ideas or violent emotions in the mind, should for some time before going to bed, be most sedulously avoided." P. 143. We shall conclude with an important precaution;

"The difference in frosty weather be tween the open air and the temperature of a heated room, is often from fifty to sixty degrees; at any season of the year there is a difference of many degrees. And yet how few deem precaution necessary, or heap fold over fold on the surface of the body, while

623

they leave the delicate structure of the lungs to the freezing midnight blast. How easily might all the danger they incur be obviated, by folding a comforter or large cotton handkerchief about the lower part of the face, so as to detain a portion of the caloric or warm air expired from the lungs, and thereby communicate a degree of warmth to the current of air respiring into the lungs at each inhalation." P. 111.

Composition and Punctuation familiarly explained for those who have neglected the study of Grammar. By Justin Brenan. 16mo. Pp. 144.

We know a Doctor of Divinity who has a particular objection to longwinded sentences, because they obstructed his delivery. He preferred paling language to hedging it. Mr. Brenan has the same antipathy. What he means is exemplified by Robertson and Blair; and that such a style is fadoubt, because intricacy never can be vourable to perspicuity is beyond so. The general rule is short sentences, and only one idea, with its immediate appendages, in a sentence.

It has been observed, that the word get has almost superseded all others in our language. It is equally certain, that the dash, long and short, has nearly devoured colons and semicolons, and threatens to begin next upon commas. Period is the only stop of rank which seems likely to stand his ground. The poor sign-post fellows for interrogation and exclamation - ? and though tall and good-looking, have no brains-they neither can say or mean but one simple thing-not so the universal genius dash ·

Now the apotheosis of the dash race is the peculiar object of Mr. Brenan. Heexhibits the post barbarisms of colons and semicolons, things void of elasticity, whereas dash, like leather breeches, stretches to all thighs. Mr. Brenan maintains, that "the composition of sentences requires only the comma and dash" (p. 73), and that the colon and semicolon are mere incumbrances; and most certainly he has written a very judicious and useful book without using either of them-nor has he dashed to bring himself into notice. He enters into other matters relative to style and grammar, and it is impossible to study his book without certain improvement, or read it without valuable information.

624

REVIEW.-Arnott's Elements of Physics.

Elements of Physics, or Natural Philosophy, General and Medical, explained, independently of technical Mathematics. In 2 vols. Vol. i. part i. comprehending the subjects of Heat and Light. By Neil Arnott, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians. 8vo. pp. 320.

HE who is fond of the marvellous, cannot do better than study Natural Philosophy. He will there see miracles far beyond conception by the most fertile imagination, and ultimately perhaps agree with our author, that all the phenomena of the Universe are effected by the modifications of one simple substance, so infinitely divisible and imponderable, that, as Sir Isaac Newton thought, even one ounce of it uniformly distributed over the vast space in which our solar system exists, might leave no quarter of an inch without its particle," and yet so susceptible of other forms, as, we think, to be fluid or solid, and constitute matter of every kind, through changes occasioned by the attraction or repulsion, or modification of its particles. If for instance Man was formed out of dust, and returns to it, it is proved by the latter event that he originally was dust; and assuredly it is just as iniraculous for a living intelligent animal to undergo such a transformation, as for any substance to have variations which imply other phenomena. To explain the essence of substance is impossible, because infinitorum nulla sit ars, and that matter is divisible ad infinitum, is shown by Mr. Higgins on Light (pp. 3, 9). The cause of Motion is either not to be known at all, or is incompre hensible by our senses (id. p. 8); but it is evident that Substance is powerfully acted upon by foreign agents; as for instance, particles of substance are repelled by heat, which is a solar emanation, and are aggregated by withdrawing it. To suppose, besides, that there can be abstractedly such a thing as a perfect vacuum, a real nothing, is absurd, and an hypothesis formed only through our imperfect senses. In short, we believe that there is only one original substance, however modified, throughout all nature; and that, if

we cannot find out the cause of motion, we cannot find out the modes of action in such a substance, through defect of faculties.

We have gone into these premises because Dr. Arnott supposes (p. 3) an ethereal fluid, distinct from sub

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stance, to be causative of phenomena; but we doubt it. We by no means suppose an anima mundi, only that substance has properties variously conof course imply divine agency, and vertible by laws of providence, which that alone. We are led to that opinion, by the glimpses which chemistry affords of the self-action of bodies; and the subjection to the same accidents, and identity of properties in all of them, is to us a proof that their essence is one and the same, and not distinct. All have gravity, attraction, repulsion, motion, &c.; and there is nothing of which insusceptibility of decomposition can be predicated, except the Almighty. We beg to be understood, as not going further than opinion; but we think that we are vindicated, more especially by the following fact, dependent upon a common chemical rule. We think, then, that the bare extraneous action of an Ethereal fluid is insufficient to solve the phenomenon of the creation of man from dust, because it implies only a superinduced action, not a change of one and the same substance; but that evidently does ensue both in animals and vegetables; which however would not, as before observed, return to dust, if they had originally been any thing else.

But to the work. We do not know factorily and judiciously written; and a book upon the subject more satisthe very considerable ingenuity of the author is employed by him for the of evoking new discoveries, not to useful purpose, as if he was a magician, gratify barren curiosity, but to realize, in sober sadness, most valuable advantages. The construction of airengines, with an expansive power four times greater than that of steam from an equal quantity of fuel, is the chief object to which we allude. Dr. Arnott has given different specifications of plans for the construction of such an engine, and then says,

"Could an obedient and durable engine to the plan given above, its advantages over be contrived, at all approaching in simplicity First, its original cost would be much less, the steam engine would be very considerable. by reason of its small comparative size, its

* It seems to be highly probable, that minute atoms, possessing certain polar acsimple elementary matter consists of certain tions, or repulsions and attractions. Weldon on Chemistry, p. 20.

PART II.] REVIEW.-Dr. Pring on Intellectual and Moral Relations. 625