the repulfive become too ftrong for the attractive powers, diffolve the compofition, and reduce the body to thofe particles of which it was at firft made up. This is the great circle ⚫ that Omniscience has marked out, and Omnipotence circumfcribes itself to, for the greateft good of the whole.'

G

Kymber. A Monody. To Sir Armine Wodehoufe, Bart. By
Mr. Potter. 4to. I s. Pridden.

THE

THERE appears a certain peculiarity both in the manner and structure of this Ode or Monody, which the Author probably intended as a recommendation of it to the connoiffeurs in poetry; and if mere novelty is not without its charms, it must become ftill more agreeable when combined with elegance. He begins with invoking the British mufe to the Banks of the Yare, in Norfolk, obferving, in contradiftinction to the claffic, that fhe does not inhabit near the Thames, Cam, or Ifis; though he supposes she may range the rough Cambrian mountains (making hence a compliment to Mr. Gray on his late ode concerning the old British bards) or near the Humber, by which, we imagine, he glances another at the ingenious Mr. Mafon. But having perfuaded her, wherever The makes her capital refidence, to vifit, at leaft, the environs of Wodehouse-Tower, watered by the adjoining river Kymber, this River-God is foon introduced to hail the lofty ftructure rifing on its banks; and then recounts, in chronological order, the military atchievements and civil virtues of this worthy and antient race, whom Juvenal's * axiom has effentially ennobled alfo. This ftrain of the River-Deity, who exifted through the days of the illuftrious ancestors of Sir Armine Wodehoufe, is continued through twelve long ftanzas: the conclufion of which perfonally calling on, and folemnly adjuring him, by their glories and virtues, to live mindful of them, at length awakens the Genius of Britain, who arifes all vindictive of her paft wrongs, arms her fons, and by rendering them victorious at Cape Breton, lays the foundation of enfuing triumph, and final peace.

The ftanza confifting of eighteen lines, with different metre and different returns of rhyme (though the texture of each stanza correfponds exactly to that of the whole) seems to require a repeated reading and attention, to render the melody familiar,

Nobilitas fola eft, atque unica virtus.

and,

and, as it were, intelligible to the ear. But a fpecimen or two, while it exhibits fomething of the fpirit and manner of the performance, will give a better notion of the ftanza than any poffible account or defcription of it. Thus then the monodizing River-Deity commemorates the general merit of this worthy stock, p. 16.

Here the firm guardians of the public weal,
Infpir'd with freedom's heav'n defcended flame,
Rofe nobly faithful to their country's fame;

In frequent fenates pour'd their ardent zeal,
Dafh'd the bafe bribe from curs'd corruption's hand,
And fav'd from scepter'd pride the finking land.
Or, prompt to answer bleeding Europe's call,
To diftant realms bore Britain's high beheft,
Bade the fword fleep, gave gafping nations reft,
And taught the doubtful balance where to fall.
But in the fofter hour of focial joy,

When ceas'd the high employ,

These woodland walks, thefe tufted dales among,
The filver-founding mufes built their bow'r,

Made vocal with the lute-attemper'd fong;
While blooming courtesy's gold-fpangled flow'r,
Cull'd by the graces, fpread its brightest glow,
To deck unswerving honour's manly brow.

And thus again the Kymber, named from the British King, Kymbeline, according to Mr. Potter, calls upon and adjures the living reprefentative of this heroic house.

And thou, to whom thy Kymber tunes this strain,
If ftrain like this may reach thy nicer ear,
O deign in mine thy country's voice to hear,
Which never to a Wodehouse call'd in vain!
By the proud honours of thy martial creft,
The trophy'd tombs where thy fam'd fathers reft,
By Lacy's, Clervaux', Hunfdon's, Armine's name.
By manhood's, glory's, freedom's, virtue's praife,
Wake the high thought, the lofty fpirit raife,
And blazon thy hereditary fame.

That fame fhall live, whilft pride's unrighteous pow'r,
The pageant of an hour,

Fades from the guilty fcene, and finks in night:
That fame fhall live, and fpread its conftant rays,
Warm like the bleffed fun with genial light.
Whilft vice and folly spend their baleful blaze,
As meteors, glaring o'er a troubled sky,
Shoot their pernicious fires, amaze, and die.

K

MONTHLY

MONTHLY CATALOGUE,

For DECEMBER, 1758, continued.

MEDICA L.

Art. 1. An Efay on the Nature and Manner of treating the Gout, &c.By R. Drake. 8vo. 5s. Printed for the Author in York-buildings. Sold alfo by Wilkie in St. Paul's ChurchYard.

TH

HIS treatife may properly be confidered as an extended, or (to ufe the Author's phrafe) a genteel advertisement of the great importance of R. Drake, and the marvellous efficacy of his noftrum in the cure of the Gout. The prefumption of this member of the faculty of medicine (as he files himself) is very fingular: other empirics generally inftruct their patients concerning the nature of their difeale gratis, but R. Drake taxes the readers of his performance at the rate of Five Shillings; deriving hence a double advantage, as a Doctor and as a Bookfeller. We cannot, however, help thinking this genius in Arte Medicinali fomewhat unreasonable and inconfiftent; for after telling us, that his medicine has been proved, by a variety of incontetible evidences, in the courfe of many years practice, to be inva 'luable,' and giving a detail of a great number of cafes, where he has happily restored to health, wife, rich, eminent, honourable, and right honourable patients, who, we doubt not, nobly gratified their preferver; he nevertheless ungratefully remits his reward to futurity. The time may come' (fays he) when this neglected medicine, for its fingular efficacy and virtue may appear in its deserved luftre, and do honour to the Author's memory.' And again, in one part he intimates, that money is the object of his purfuit, or that praife and profit fhall go hand in hand together, at least till he has made his couch as foft as theirs,' meaning his wealthier brother-members of the faculty of medicine -The good man, notwithstanding, concludes his preface with pioufly declaring, that his whole aim is the glory of God, the comfort of the afflicted, and the perfection of phyfic.'

་

mar.

We shall not enter into any particular difcuffion of this performance, equally to be admired for its author's regard to truth, medical knowlege, clearness of method, and fcrupulous adherence to fenfe and gramIn fhort, what Lord Bacon fays of nonfenfe, may, with great propriety, be applied to this production: It stands on its own bafis, like a rock of adamant: there is no place about it weaker than anotherits queftions admit of no reply: and its affertions are not to be invalidated: if it affirms any thing, you cannot lay hold of it: or if it denies, you cannot refute it:'

I.

Art. 2. The Fabrick of the Eye, and the feveral Disorders which injure or deftroy the Sight, explained in a clear and useful man

ner, for the fervice of those whofe Eyes are weak or impaired, &c. &c. 8vo. Is. 6d. Waugh.

Ever fince the revival of learning, when reading became a general amufement, flories of ghofts and apparitions, bloody battles, inhuman murders, terrible carthquakes, and all new and wonderful phænomena, have been reckoned the undoubted property of thofe fubaltern Authors, who took their name [Grubeans] from the ufnal place of their abode.

With the above materials, varioufly modified, thefe ingenious gentlemen often, and fuccessfully, moved the paffions, and touched the pockets, of their aftonished but curious Readers: their art, however, like many other arts, has of late years been greatly extended and improved, both as to the variety of the fubjects, and fize of the performances: to fuch perfection has it arrived, that we fee numerous inftances of hiftory, philofophy, phyfic, divinity, and even husbandry, and architecture, offered to the Public in catch-penny FOLIOS, to the great emolument of that ufeful employer of the labours of the learned, the induftrious trunk-maker. But the piece now before us, like Dr. Douglafs's treatife on impotence, or Dr.Uvedale's on the nerves, is of a very peculiar fpecies of Authorifm; and feems to be the offspring of the fame great dealer in the trade of book-making.

Hitherto the unneceffary crop of medical publications hath chiefly fprung from the vanity or felfifhnefs of Phyficians, whofe performances may be regarded as fo many advertisements to acquaint the world with their learning, fkill, or importance: but this fingular Author triles into a new path. He firft felects for his fubject fome general and taking diftemper; conceals his own, or affumes a fictitious name; and then, by boating of an experience which he has never known, relating facts which probably never occurred, and extolling the virtues of medicines which, perhaps, he never tried, he thrives by the difeafes of mankind: not by the receipt of fees in the ordinary way, but by the fale of his pamphlets. We are credibly informed, that an ingenious Author, whofe name is neither Uvedale, nor Crine, was replaced in his chariot by the gout; that nervous disorders greatly improved the Hilarity of his countenance; and that the virtues of valerian cured him of a remarkable fit of the hypp: nor fhould we much wonder, were we foon to hear of his blood being enriched by the venereal diftemper, or to fee him grow plump from the ehects of a fever.

Some have judged this pamphlet to be the work of the voluminous Author above hinted at: and we have heard it whispered, that having already impaired the fight of many of the King's liege fubjects, by the enormous extent and multiplicity of his other works, in defpair, he aims this publication as a coup de grace, or finishing ftroke at the eyes, by inducing his Readers to become their own doctors.

In this extraordinary production, we are first prefented with an anatomical defcription of the ftructure of the eye; in the next place, the difcafes to which it is fubject are enumerated, and the method of cure

peculiar

peculiar to each is pretended to be fhewn-In regard to the ftructure of the eye, it is obvious our Author is one of those who, with the antients, hold it facrilege to violate the human frame; his defcription of this organ being evidently borrowed from the fix-penny treatises of our London fpectacle-makers. He may boaft, indeed, the merit of ren dering them more obfcure, by making Englife of the appropriated names of the feveral coats of the eye, viz. the horney coat, the grapey coat, and the curtain, for the cornea, uvea, and retina. By the fame rule, too, he ought to have called the iris, the rainbow coat, which we humbly hint to him, for the fake of uniformity, in cafe of a fecond edition The conjunctive, which he defcribes as one coat, is by accurate anatomists divided into three, namely, the internal, the external, and the tendinous. His defcription of the uvea is unintelligible, nor is that of the retina much plainer, which is supported, he fays, by the vitreous humour. Neither is he more accurate in his account of the distempers of the eye, or the remedies propofed for them.-The cataract and glaucoma, for example, he makes the subjects of two different chapters, though they are exactly the fame, being both glaucomas Among his medicines, eye-bright and verwain hold a distinguifhed rank. The latter, ne fagacioufly intimates, is poffeffed of more virtues than is commonly imagined. The firft, however, by all fenfible practitioners, has been long and juftly difregarded; and as to the lat, it is a fimple fo merely herbaceous, that one would wonder how it ever gained admittance into the Materia Medica.-Further remarks would be thrown away on a performance which we fuppofe the Author only threw out with the mere view of raifing contributions on the ignorant and the unwary.

I Art. 3. Remarks on a ferious Addrefs to the Public, concerning the most probable means of avoiding the dangers of Inoculation. To which are added, a few short and useful directions for the conduct of Inoculation. By Thomas Cooper, Surgeon. 8vo. Is. Marks.

It is not our defign to interfere in this invidious fquabble: Mr. Cooper makes a confiderable ufe of the learned Author to whom we referred in our mention of the pamphlet here animadverted on, nor indeed could he have appealed to a more competent authority. This juftice is at least due to the Remarker, that if he is not a better reafoner, he is a much better writer than the Addreffer.

* See Review for last October, p. 410:

L

ERRATA in our Laft.

P. 563, L. 1. for papifts read patriots. P. 592, L. 25. dele and.