cause high inflammation, and sometimes death. It must also have been known to him, that many cases are on record in which the bursting of vomica has been followed by a complete cure, without any opening having been made in the chest. It must, moreover, have been known to him that, in tubercular phthisis, the lungs after death exhibit tubercles in every varying stage of advancement, so as wholly to preclude the application of his proposal. Finally, it must have been well known to him that rest is very inadequate to effect the cure of external ulcers, and more especially of those which arise from a strumous taint. An attention to all these facts, of which Dr. C. could not have been ignorant, ought to have convinced him of the complete futility of his proposed mode of cure. Since the publication of these essays, another physician of Liverpool, Dr. Williams, (already mentioned,) has turned his attention to the subject of the collapse of the lungs by puncturing the pleura, and has published an account of his ! experiments in a late number of the Medical and Physical Journal, to which we have just referred. The experiments of his predecessor in this field are sufficiently painful to a humane mind, but these last are truly lacerating to the feelings; and we regret to say that we have not been able to discover any fruit which has been gathered from them, at all compensating for the amount of animal suffering which they inflicted. "To close the scène," says Dr. Williams," the knife was plunged into the heart, with a determination never to perform another experiment on a living animal: to which I was induced by my anxiety to solve an important practical problem." (Medical and Physical Journal, No. 292., p. 485.) It appears from Dr. W.'s experiments, that Dr. Carson was deceived in supposing that a free and uninterrupted admission of air into the cavity of each pleura necessarily proves speedily fatal; for, if the animal on whom this injury has been inflicted, be freely permitted to exert his muscles of respiration, that process, Dr. W. has found, may be carried on, and even a cure of the wounds be effected. Dr. Williams seems disposed to ascribe this to "some peculiar motive-power possessed by the lungs:" but it is obvious to us that the continuance of respiration under such circumstances is simply the effect of powerful expiratory efforts, by which the lungs are compressed, and a portion of air forced out of them which in ordinary respiration would have remained in their tubes and cells. It appears that, in Dr. Carson's experiments, the ribs were so secured as to render the exertion of this new respiratory force impossible; and hence the speedy death of the d 10 aniinal. animal. Dr. Williams denies that the lungs collapse from the admission of air into the cavities of the pleura, provided that the animal is allowed the unconfined use of his respiratory organs: but we have it on his own authority that, in his third experiment, the air rushed in through the wound in the dia-. phragm first on one side and then on the other, which we cannot explain unless by supposing that the lungs successively collapsed. Dr. W. conceives himself warranted in concluding from one experiment on a living animal, and from the inspection of the lungs of a dog that had been hanged and had the trachea secured, "that a sound lung never fills the bag of the pleura during ordinary respiration." (Medical and Physical Journal, p. 486.) We shall not stop to point out the anatomical inaccuracy of this language; and we freely concede to him that the opposite surfaces of the pleura are not always in contact, because in inspiration the lung must have time to expand, which of course will often produce a slight temporary vacuum:- but we deny that any satisfactory evidence has been adduced to prove that the costal and pulmonary pleura of a sound lung are never, in ordinary respiration, as closely applied to each other as the natural exhalation from that membrane will permit. MONTHLY CATALOGUE, FOR SEPTEMBER, 1823. POETRY and the DRAMA. Art. 12. The Italian Wife; a Tragedy. 8vo. pp. 122. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London. 1823. This production is indeed, as the anonymous author informs us, an imitation founded on the romantic old English tale of Rosamund of Woodstock. The other incidents are purely ima ginary; although many stories, of a description not very dissimilar, are to be found scattered through the obscure annals of the petty Italian principalities.' He likewise very candidly states that with respect to the unities of time and place, he has been as careless as he could. If, in the former, he has approached in some degree towards that improbable probability in which modern criticism delights, it was by chance rather than by design that he did so. These liberties, together with some others, both of language and versification, he trusts may be forgiven, as they were taken 4 freely. We wish that we could say that this was really the full amount of the liberties which the author has taken, serious as they are : but he might, with an equal degree of justice, have added to them, REV. SEPT. 1823. H an -- an entire failure in the characters and story, in the interest and the sort of improbable probability' of the whole piece. We do not, however, assert that it does not approach near to Mr. Addison's tragic performance on the same subject; for, if it be not quite so studied and classical, to a degree of tameness, it is certainly more free and spirited. There is something in the vivacity of modern dramatic composition, which is superior to that of Addison and to those of Addison's age: though we possess but a very indifferent example of it in the Italian Wife.' Yet, while we must consider this production altogether as a failure, some detached passages not merely rise above mediocrity, but really discover a strong poetic feeling. Of this description, we shall notice the following stanzas from a Troubadour character, who is introduced into the Duke's festal hall by an enemy, to play on the feelings of the Prince his son. 'CANZONET. "Say not he loves the rose the best, Because it twines his forehead fair, Far, in the shade, from jealous eyes; Art. 13. The Maid's Revenge, and a Summer Evening's Tale; with other Poems. By Cheviot Ticheburn. Svo. pp. 62. Whittakers. 1823. The name of Cheviot Tichéburn may easily be imagined to be fictitious but, if we mistake not, these poems proceed from the same source with the " December Tales" which we lately noticed. (Number for August.) Should our conjecture be correct, we must congratulate the writer on his change of style; for without doubt the present composition is superior to that which we have just mentioned. 6 Candid censure, and modest praise,' says the author in his preface, best become the gravity of the critic.' Now, as we bestowed a little of the former on the "December Tales," we shall expend a portion of the latter on the poems before us. We cannot, indeed, assign to them more than a moderate share of panegyric, though they afford some promise of better things: but, while they are not devoid of poetical spirit and expression, they are wanting in simplicity. We would caution Mr. Cheviot Ticheburn to beware of his brother-mask Mr. Barry Cornwall, who is 99 is a most dangerous model for a young poet; and in one passage of The Maid's Revenge' we are strongly reminded of Mr. C. We have the hapless Arethuse,' and Ocean and the scaly seagods green, and pale Narcissus the fond boy,' and fair Leda's bird; all savouring strongly of that writer. We could carp, if so inclined, at some of this poet's lines; as, for instance, when he talks of first love's indissoluble tether,' were it not that we have arrived at the end of our own. Why Art. 14. Alfred; a Romance in Rhyme. By R. Payne Knight. 8vo. pp. 360. Boards. Longman and Co. 1823. a We had imagined that Mr. Payne Knight had become a miles emeritus in the field of literature, and had availed himself of the privilege of a veteran to lay aside his well-worn pen, when suddenly we find him making an onslaught on the public in Romance,' or rather epic, in twelve books! employment, indeed, appears to be the last passion of those who have ever devoted themselves to its fascination; and, when other A love of literary objects and impulses have long passed away, its influence remains not only undiminished, but more powerful from the secession of pleasures which might at one time have been considered as of higher attraction. says Mr. Knight in his preface, the amusement of intellectual In this last stage of the author's existence,' exertion is the only source of happiness left: the being too much blunted, their objects become too stale, and the prospects of futurity too limited in this world, to afford any real organs of sense or reasonable gratification in the indulgence of pleasure, the visions of hope, or the speculations of ambition.' In this preface are many very strong and some very just remarks. The greater portion of it is devoted to strictures on Lord Byron, and on certain religious opinions to which he has shewn himself adverse; with the addition, also, of some very energetic censures on the character of Bonaparte. Mr. K. attempts to exculpate Lord Byron from the accusation of irreligion in the publication of "Cain," while he likewise makes some spirited and excellent observations on religious persecution; and the sentence, with which the remarks on the character of Napoleon concludes, is as well worth the attention of absolute sovereigns as of leaders of revolutions. ington, may afford a most salutary lesson to all future leaders of His fate, contrasted with that of George Washrevolutions, by teaching them that the surest means of freedom and happiness to themselves are the freedom and happiness of others; and thus rendering passions the most base and selfish in their motives most virtuous and beneficent in their ends.' On the poem itself we shall not dwell: for, though it is written with a considerable degree of measured elegance, it is by no means in the style which at the present day is calculated to conciliate popular favor; being at once too prolix and too smoothly regular to please the impatient ear of the modern public. In H 2 fact, fact, we meet with but little poetry of the higher range in Alfred, though much which displays a polished taste and an attentive study of our best poets. We give a short specimen of the versification. Alfred, flying from his enemies in the disguise of a minstrel, reaches the Cambrian shore, and seeks some lowly dwelling' where safe awhile he might repose his head;' and here he meets the Princess Elsintha. Beneath a rock amid some tufted trees, At length a solitary cot he sees; And hark! as now the path conducts him near, A damsel's voice it seems, who, while she sings, Near and more near, with silent steps he drew, 'd. Beam'd in each feature of her beauteous face; Hid in the covert of the adjoining wood, He thought in happier days he had somewhere seen He thought he had somewhere heard that tuneful tongue, Strikes, |