On the black veffel, from her poft on high, Pleads liberty's juft caufe without a fee, And bids each worthy Briton dare be free. One gem of price beyond the reach of France. Art. 28. The old Man's Guide to Health, and longer Life: with rules for diet, exercife, and phyfick; for preferving a good conftitution, and preventing diforders in a bad one. 8vo. Is. 6d. Cooper. We have been prevented, by fome more important publications, from affigning this little one, as we firft intended, to wait upon Dr. Mackenzie's Treatife on Health, as a small fatellite; being wrote on the fame fubject, though executed in a very different spirit, and refulting from more contracted motives. The gentleman just named had confulted the earliest, the greatest, phyficians and philofophers, on this most interefting fubject, with all proper acknowledgment and liberality. The prefent infpired or self-taught Pamphleteer (except mentioning Hippocrates and Cornaro once en paffant) has neither named in his text, nor referred in a note, to any author, dead or living, throughout his production. This he thinks the more confiftent perhaps, as he has not prefixed any name for himself to this performance, out of many obfequious ones he might have commanded; but left his readers at liberty to fuppofe him fome phyfician in great request, from his quoting his own experience fo abundantly. He obferves however, the doctors will not thank him for fome hints he gives his 'readers,' adding, he does not write for their fervice,' which is intentionally true, as he is known to write almoft inceffantly and folely for his own: it is poffible, notwithstanding, he may write for their fervice more than he intends. In 2 In his first chapter-How the old man may know he is in health[which must be impoffible for him to know without purchafing this pamphlet !] He is not to judge himself in health from his having a moderate good appetite, fleeping pretty well and refreshingly, and being as chearful and hearty as his time of life commonly allows; but before he can inform any enquirer how he does in a morning, he • muft feel his pulfe fome time after getting up and before breakfast;' for we are very authoritatively told, It fhould be a rule never to ⚫ omit this examination.' Now as the tactus eruditus, or skill in the pulfe, is not allowed even to every regular phyfician, we are afraid, before the old man attains it, (till which time he has no right to know how himself does) he may easily become hypish enough, when nothing else ails him, to fend for a phyfician to inform him about his pulfe, that he may diet himfelf accordingly, that article being to be regulated folely by his pulfe. In his chapter-on preferving health in old age-he fays, If the appetite fail, or the ftomach be oppreffed with wind after meals, let the perfon take more air and exercife, and read and study lefs' Now may not an old man take too much as well as too little exercise ? May not his appetite be impair'd by the fatigue of it? And is it, in fuch a cafe, to be reflored by fatiguing it more? Befides, do all men who are windy after meals read and ftudy too much ?—though our Author may poffibly have regaled himself with a domestic inftance of this fort. But certainly there are others in these flatulent circumftances, who are far from ftudying too much; and not a few perhaps who cannot read if they would; and fome who cannot afford to read, that is, to purchase. For thefe indigent old men, indeed, it is plain our Author did not write, as his old men are ordered to drink green tea for breakfast of 16s. per pound; on which fuppofition our Author inftracts them, p. 15. how to drink it as methodically, and with as good a grace, as monfieur Pourceaugnac breakfafted. And fince his ordinance on this head may be confidered as a curious and circumflantial formula of an old man's breakfast, (after having felt his pulle) we chufe to infert it in our Author's precife terms. Let the old man drink three moderate cups of this (16.) tea, with a little fugar and a good deal of milk; and fwallow it neither too hot, nor 'mawkishly cool. Let him eat with it a thin flice or two of good bread, with a little butter; and he will find it nourishing and ex'cellent.' We may fuppofe the butter here intended to be as good in its kind as the bread: but fuch minute escapes we fee, alas! are infeparable from the most confummate efforts of human accuracy, In treating of a regulation of the temper, and of the paffions, our Author very fagely advises his old man to be good humoured. This oracular counfel is equal to any that ever iffued from a tripod; and if that fupereminent skill in botanics, with which he often infults the fa. culty, has difcovered any fimple of fufficient virtue to render this counsel effectual, the communication of it, with a scratch or two of fomething like fculpture, will make a moft faleable twelve or eighteen pen'north; which we hope this fertile Author is already pregnant with, and will foon bring forth, to the great emolument of many old Cynics, Cynics, and the felicity of their neighbours and acquaintance.--With refpect to love, he prudently advites his old man to avoid a foolish ⚫ fondness for women.' But when he immediately adds-- This will 5 never folicit him, for nature knows her own time, and the appetite decays with the power'-we imagine his obfervation is very far from being univerfally right. Many pretty female naturalifts, not inexpert in this branch of phyfics, will dient from him here: and our famous ethic poet, whofe knowlege of human nature was not inferior to our Author's, affirms, that where this fondness has formerly been the ruling paflion, it will often tyrannize even in decrepitudeStill to his wench he creeps with knocking knees, &c.' But if for women, indefinitely, we read old women, by fuppofing the compofitor has overlooked that monofyllable, our Author will be very jutt in adding, That a fondnels for them will never (or very rarely indeed) folicit him.' But above all the paflions, he pathetically cautions his old men against covetoufnels; for to what purpofe is he studying and prefcribing longer life to them, if they are too miferable to purchase his precepts, and fo die without them; as fome very old and obftinate people have prefumptuoufly done, without the aid of the faculty. His chapter on the gravel and ftone recommends Burdock root for them, which Dr. Crine Hill has recommended in his pamphlet for the gout; and of which indeed the prefent unchriften'd Dr. teflifes-that numbers are now taking it for the gout with great fuccefs,' thus candidly advertising that pamphlet gratis. We can affure him in return, that Dr. Hill has perufed his prefent performance with immenfe approbation, not to fay partiality, and will, with equal gratitude, refer to it in his next production, if he does not omit it merely to difcredit our prognoftic. We fhould have rejoiced in the mean time, if any of these identical doctors had referred us, as the most communicative daily do, to a few of these happy arthritics; fince the whole worth of that pamphlet depends on Burdock's being a certain cure, or at lealt an unequalled palliative, for the gout; for if it does not exceed fuch as we have already, it is a grofs impofition on the public, and calculated folely to appeafe Dr. Hill's Behpa, which, however, is no exorbitant one, if we fuppofe each of his names to tublift on its proper ftomach or ventricle. Our Author's chapter on weakness informs his old men how to difcover it, almoft as plainly as lameness or blindness. There truly is, throughout this pamphlet, a grave profufion of fuch trite wordy information, with refpect to the phyfical conduct of old age, as cannot be justly termed either falie or wholly utelefs; but which yet is fuch, that most of his old men could inform him of it, as well as he has informed them. Indeed, without the prefixing any name, it wears fucha vifible image of the Author, whom we have more than hinted, that if this mortel, which relates to old men exclufively, be tolerably received by the many, we may veature to predict the speedy appearance of-The old Woman's or Bellam's Guide to more Health and the longeft Life. Unfortunately for him the title of the Child's Guide has been long pre-occupy'd, and he cannot hope to recommend the love of phyfic to fuch young readers; but he can never be much at at a lofs for diverfifying a title-page, or adapting a fubject to the dif ferent claffes of readers. However, to fuggeft one or two-The School-boy's Director, or Truant's Vade Mecum, mentioning the different places where floes and blackberries chiefly abound, and the feafons when they are in the greatest perfection; with an appendix on turnip patches.-This may be no bad tep towards the early inftitution of many young wandering bo:anifts: our ductile writer can foften his ftyle to their tender intellects, and flide readily down into pretty namby-pamby prole, to which we observe feveral happy approaches in this addreis to old men, who are often fuppofed in their fecond childhood. A taking fubject and title page for lads of more advanced standing, may be-The most effectual method of barring out, with the art of raifing contributions in the neighbourhood, and of reducing fchoolmafters to proper terms.-This may prove no bad copy, and in time make a ufeful English claffic. It is unneceffary to hint the proper feasons of such publications, to him. But to be as grave as poffible about this politie retailer of health and long life, the effence of all that is valuable in his treatife has been faid by Floyer in his Medicina Gerocomica, and by others occafionally; and most of it better faid, notwithflanding a want of words is not one of our Author's wants. That diverfity of fubjects, on which he has fpun himself out to the public, has afforded him a plentiful expreffion; but feems to have extenuated thofe faculties, that, to ender him more ufeful in his generation, ought to have been rather concentered on a few relative objects, than diffipated on fuch a difcordant variety. But poffibly what commenced from vanity, has been extended by habit, and continued for convenience; till finding himself at length as cheap as voluminous, and faying with Narciffus, Inopem me copia fecit, he seems determined for a feafon to confine himself to one, but an extenfive province; by retailing, in twelve and eighteen penn'orths, a body of phyfical practice, (with prefcriptions to be compounded chiefly in the fields, or at the herb-market) which may make as many horrible pamphlets as difeafes. It will be an easy tranfition from hence into the confines of furgery, which will ramify, as anatomits fay, into numerous treatifes containing more numerous chapters: a very recent example of which we have in our eyes. And thus, while he is perfuading his patient readers, or reading patients, into fees, or honoraria, of thirteen pence halfpenny at mott, he may hang forth his chapters, of which the prefent pamphlet contains twenty, at much the fame price which the famous Dr. Cafe fet upon his pills; and leave thofe to wonder at his fhifts and his induftry, who can difcern no dignity in his writing, as they difcover nothing ingenuous in his conduct. *Here's fifteen pills for fourteen pence, K RE RELIGIOUS and CONTROVERSIAL. Art. 29. An Efay on the Hebrew Tongue, being an attempt to fhew, that the Hebrew bible might be originally read by vo velletters without the vowel-points. By John Brekel. 8vo. 6d. Waugh, &c. The Author of this fhort ingenious effy, difcovers a confiderable fhare of critical knowlege, together with an uncommon affiduity in confulting the various writers on the fubject of oriental language; though this may have rendered him the less agreeable in his style and manner. The occafion of propofing his thoughts on this fubject Mr. Brekel tells us, was Mr. P. Whitfield's attempt to prove, in oppofition to the learned Capeilus, that the Hebrew Bible was never legible without the points. It is to be observed, however, that he intends not here any difpute with Mr. W. or any one elfe, whether the Hebrew points are of any fervice in reading the Hebrew now, when it is become a dead language, and has fuffered many alterations as to the antient orthography; but only to confider whether, upon the fuppofition that the Hebrew points are not coeval with Hebrew writing, the Hebrew fcriptures might not originally be intelligible enough without them: And here," fays our Author, I fhall en deavour to maintain the following propofition. The Hebrew alphabet had a competent number of vowel letters, (or which is the fame thing in effect) letters that ferved instead of vowels, to render the Hebrew fcriptures fufficiently intelligible at the first without the points, and as legible as any writings in other 'languages.' We fhall juft give the arguments themselves which Mr. Brekel offers in proof of this affertion; and recommend what is faid under each to the perufal of our readers. I. The first argument is drawn up in the form of a fyllogifm, viz. If the Hebrew alphabet had any vowel-letters at all; it had a competent number of (uch letters, to render Hebrew writing legible at the first. But, the Hebrew alphabet had some vowel-letters. Therefore, the Hebrew alphabet had a competent number of let ters, &c. II. The next argument is taken from the near affinity and agreement between the Hebrew and the Greek alphabet as the latter was derived from the former. It is certain, that the Greek alpha'bet hath a competent number of vowel-letters; and therefore the Phænician or Hebrew alphabet must have had the fame; for there cannot be more in the effect than in the cause.' * See Review, Vol. XVIII. p. 305. III |