these auxiliaries to speed from habitation to habitation, and proclaim a cure in that stupendous hyperbole of language which magnifies a scratch into a cancer, and an itch into a leprosy. In one essential point, such statements are invariably defective. When the temple of Neptune, and the pictures of those who had escaped shipwreck, were shown to Diogenes, he was asked if he thought it folly to invoke Neptune in a tempest? Diogenes replied, "Where are they painted who are drowned?" "It was asserted by one of these persons, that her favourite performer of cures had studied anatomy in caves under the earth,' and had restored a child to life by encrusting it with dough, and baking it in an oven."-P. 253. These ladies, and their co-operators, the lodging-house-keepers and kept women, are employed by the cure-monger to practise the most base and shameful arts to decoy patients from other medical men. A physician of celebrity in Bath, a few weeks since, expressed his disgust with a profession in which, he affirmed, his last case had depended upon the issue of a contest for the choice of men between the cook and housemaid. Certain English physicians, at Paris, are known to set their housekeepers to entertain all the servant-girls who arrive, and find the plan extremely profitable. The fifth means is gaining a name "by books instead of booths;" or, in other words, by innumerable publications, hawked about to public rooms, and hotels, laid on the tables of circulating libraries and reading-rooms, and advertised, during the season, in the local newpapers. The sixth plan is the prostitution of religion to physic. This trick is so common in all professions, that it is unnecessary to particularise the mode in which it is made available for this one. Among other miscellaneous means which are employed to fleece the "turba ingens stultorum," are the interested connexions which are formed between physicians and druggists. The druggist gives the physician a per centage on his prescriptions, either in an open or covert form, and all his recommendations, which are very considerable, from large establishments in places filled by strangers. The physician, in return, puffs and prescribes the nostrums of the druggist (for example, imitations of the salts of this or that spa), and robs every other house of its customers to serve him. "These pulse-pads, these bed-side banditti, that go snacks with their apothecaries, are villains of the first magnitude. Here the patient is in a sad predicament, being sure to be spanged upon according to the depth of his own purse, or the doctor's conscience; and this I call both felony and murder; for the man is first robbed and then killed."-P. 267. It is also customary for some physicians in some watering-places, Cheltenham, for instance, to receive forty per cent. from undertakers for the recommendation of funerals, which always goes to swell the expenses of the survivors. * * Such is an outline of the system of base and despicable artifices, the adepts in which succeed. We are aware that it requires a particular ingenuity, and an exquisite exercise of low cunning, to make it work well. Hence imitators generally fail, and even originals, after ten years' experience, are often liable to precipitate falls, though seldom, we regret to say, before fortunes have been secured. We oftet meet with men of this description, as Dr. Baynard observes," of no mean magnitude once, but now despised and spit upon; fellows who, having outlived that set of fools that once admired them, can beget no more." In this review, we have borne in mind Lord Bacon, who, speaking of the abuses wherewith the profession of physic "is noted to be affected," says, "It were good to make a list of them; for nothing doth more hurt than that cunning men should succeed." But we earnestly warn our readers against confounding the class of men described with what are called "rank quacks." Rank quackery sufficiently exposes itself in a newspaper or upon a wall; and none are dupes but those who seek it with their eyes open. The quackery which we have described, is practised by men who account themselves any thing but rank quacks, or obnoxious to the obloquy that blackens the public and avowed professors. The mass of them are graduates of St Andrew's, or of that serviceable, but very heterogeneous body, the general practitioners, and a very large proportion mere druggists, or men without any professional bringing-up whatever, who have gradually usurped the multifarious calling of surgeons, apothecaries, men-midwives, oculists, and what not. Of course, where such persons are all grouped and combined together, the public judgment is utterly depraved and vitiated, and men of talent and solid qualifications, who cannot lower themselves to their arts, have not a shadow of a chance. As in law, the petty and notorious pettifogger, though most exclaimed against, commits not half so extensive villany as the rich and apparéntly respectable knave, it so happens in physic that this eminent class of quacks is infinitely the most mischievous. It is very difficult for us to determine why an individual should be absolved from all the responsibility and odium of charlatanism, merely because he has gone through the regular forms of one or other division of his profession, or because he avoids the gross exterior signs of quackery. The man who perpetuates an organised system of tricks and devices, is equally culpable, wherever or however he may have been trained in the profession. It is no palliation, but an aggravation of the conduct of any such man to say " But he demonstrated for Joshua Brookes for twelve months-he is a regular bred man-he is a member of the College of Surgeons." As much may be urged for Messrs. Goss and Co.-they are members of the Royal College of Surgeons. Yet this is the shallow sophistry by which the deluded individuals, who lavish their money and confidence upon knaves and impostors, excuse their folly. Again, since it is generally acknowledged that quacks are the most contemptible of human beings, if they fail, it is hard to conceive why they should obtain countenance and popularity, if they succeed. But the rule of public opinion, in England, as in Turkey, arbitrarily decides that "nothing may properly be called nefas, if it can but win the epithet of prosperum." Blackwood justly remarks, that "knavery and over-reaching have become things to be boasted of amongst us, and in this nice time may not be spoken against But the root of the evil lies in the folly of the people themselves, who go to these places, and fall at once into their habits. A stranger inquires-"Who is your principal prac titioner?" and, five times out of six, is recommended to some disgraceful character, who has risen by the arts which we have described; and if it be but said, "O! he makes such great cures, and has such an extensive practice," the effect is overwhelming. We hope, however, that civilization is advancing even at our watering-places, and that the frequenters of them will no longer consent to be wheedled by cook-maids, lodging-housekeepers, pious persons, and the mere pay of a watering-place, to surrender themselves to a fashionable illiterate purse-milker. Bath, we know, is improving, and many able men are pressing on. Cheltenham, where society has yet reached no fixed level, is perhaps the most quacked town in the kingdom. Not less than three physicians of known learning and abilities have left within these few years, two of whom have succeeded in raising themselves to eminence elsewhere. Leamington, we apprehend, is little better. CHARACTER OF THE EARLY RUSSIANS. (From the Foreign Quarterly Review of Karamsin's History of Russia. THE character of the Slavi, or early Russians, was such as might be expected from their habits-in war courageous, but cruel, and greedy of plunder; in peace barbarous, but simple and hospitable. So far was hospitality 'carried among them, that if a man were too poor to entertain his guest, he was permitted to steal from his richer neighbour what he same * lacked for the purpose; the vice was justitied ' by the virtue. Polygamy was allowed; and the women, as in all savage communities, were a degraded sex. As in India, widows were consumed on the funeral piles of their husbands; and according to the Arabic geographer, Yakut, she was not the only victim; a slave was also sacrificed in the manner. This inhuman custom, which both the Indians and the Slavi probably derived from the same source, was originally founded on the notion that wives and slaves were doomed to serve their lords in the next world as well as in this; and that until the former were put to death, the latter would remain without the necessary aid. Male children were reared for war; but if the female infants of a family were considered too numerous, they were destroyed at their birth. A custom still more horrid was that of children leaving their aged and helpless parents to expire for want. But with all their ferocity and barbarism, the early Russians were not unacquainted with the softer arts of life. "In the sixth century, the northern Winidæ (a widely extended branch of the Slavi, or perhaps but another name for the old race) told the Emperor of Constantinople that music was their greatest pleasure, and that even in their journeys they seldom carried arms, but always lutes and harps of their own workmanship. They had also other instruments, which still form the delight of the Slavonian nations. It was not in the tranquillity of peace, and in their own country only, that the Slavi indulged in music and rejoicing: even in their warlike expeditions, and within sight of the enemy, they sang and made themselves merry. We learn from Procopius, that when attacked by night, A.D. 592, by a Greek general, the Slavi were so much engrossed by their amusements that they were surprised before they could adopt any measures of defence. Many popular Slavonic songs of Lusatia, Luxemburgh, and Dalmatia, appear very ancient; and so do many Russian couplets now current, in which the gods of Paganism and the Danube are celebrated. That river was dear to our ancestors; for on its banks they made the first essays of their valour, and obtained their first triumphs. Probably those airs, which were so sweet and peaceful among the Winidæ, while military glory and success remained unknown to them, were changed into war-songs when their armies had approached the Roman empire, and penetrated into Dacia. Hence the origin of poetry, which among all nations is, in its commencement, the organ for expressing love and happiness, and for celebrating the bold deeds of the warrior."-Vol. i. p. 84. To this ardent enthusiasm for song among See the translation of a curious article on this subject, in the Asiatic Journal for July, 1828. the Slavonian and Tutonic nations, especially among the Poles, the Tyrolese, and the Germans, we can ourselves bear testimony. We well remember-indeed we can never forget-bearing full 30,000 soldiers simultaneously join in one of their favourite songs of triumph, as they were returning through Germany, from their expedition to France, in 1815. The effect was more than tremendous: it was awful-far beyond what we had previously imagined possible. In the earliest stage of their society, the Slavi had no regular form of government, nor did they recognise any authority beyond the natural one which family relations impose. To deliberate on affairs of general concern, the warriors, and those "whom age had taught wisdom," assembled in some appointed place-often in one of their Pagan temples. But superior bravery and success in war soon brought superior power; military chiefs became the civil judges; and often when the son of a hero inherited the great qualities, as well as the substance of his father, he succeeded to his dignity. "A singular custom has been preserved in some villages of Lusatia and Brandenburgh: the labourers secretly choose from their own body a king, to whom they pay the same tribute as their ancestors paid to the jupans. Lastly, in Servia, Dalmatia, and Bohemia, sovereigns assumed the title of krali, or karali, that is, according to some authorities, punishers of crimes, from the word kara, punishment."-Vol. i. p. 92. These dignities, however, were not origi nally hereditary; indeed, some of them never became so. The people reserved to themselves the right of electing, and often of deposing their chiefs, if convicted, or even suspected of mal-practices. When some of them became at length hereditary, the innovation was effected by force; and the people never ceased to lament the extinction of their right to elect their rulers. In Carinthia the election of a voyvod, or duke, was accompanied by a curious ceremony. The object of their choice appeared before the people clothed in the meanest attire. A labourer was seated on a huge stone which served as a throne; before him the new ruler swore to defend religion and justice, and to support widows and orphans. The labourer then descended from the throne: the duke ascended, and every one present swore fidelity to him. THE RELIGION OF THE SLAVI. THE grand duke Vladimir, who piqued himself on his superior piety, and who was anxions to testify his gratitude to the gods, for his success in restoring the unity of power, and in increasing his territories by his wars with the surrounding states, caused new statues to be erected to their honour, and Perune (one of their gods, who was adorned with golden whiskers) was carefully provided with a new and costly pair of appendages. But, lest these acts of homage should be insufficient to satisfy his divine protectors, he resolved to add a human victim. He fixed on a youth, a Scandinavian and a Christian, whose father, not content with opposing the design, railed with all his might against the idols of the country, and thereby exasperated the inhabitants of Kief to such a degree, that both he and his son were sacrificed in their own house. It is, however, some consolation to think, that if they were the first, they were also the last Christian martyrs in that city; for not only Kief, but the greatest part of Russia was about to embrace the pure faith. We are not informed by what means the zeal of the grand duke in the cause of Paganism began to cool. Certain it is that he became displeased with the deities he had made; so much so, that he resolved on the introduction of a better religion. But how select, when so great a number were offered to his choice? We are told that Christians, Mahometans, and Jews, sent the most learned of their doctors to demonstrate the superior excellency of their respective modes of faith; each was anxious to boast the honour of converting so renowned a Pagan. As this is a subject important in itself we willingly make room for the following extract: "The first ambassadors," says Karamsin, chiefly from Nestor, "were from the Bulgarians of the Volga. The religion of Mahomet, propagated by the victorious arms of the Arabs, already reigned over the eastern and northern borders of the Caspian; the Bulgarians also had embraced it, and they wished Vladimir to do the same. The description of the Mahomedan paradise, with its smiling houries, inflamed the imagination of this voluptuous prince; but then he disliked circumcision, and the prohibition of wine he thought foolish. Wine,' exclaimed he,' is the chief delight of the Russians; we cannot *Vladimir was truly the Solomon of his age, if it be true that he had four wives and eight hundred concubines. The first of his wives, Rogueda, who had been affianced to his brother Yaropolk, whose father and brother he had assassinated, and whom he had forcibly carried off, could forgive him the death of her dearest relations, but not his infidelities. She showed her resentment, and was in consequence driven from his palace, and compelled to reside in a solitary building on the Libeda, near Kief. There, however, she was sometimes visited by her husband. As he was one night sleeping by her side, she resolved, in a sudden fit of jealousy and revenge, to take away his life. She accordingly raised a dagger to plunge it into his heart; but that instant he opened his eyes, and was fortunate enough to arrest the descending blow. He arose, intending to put her to death, when the child of both rushed between them, and besought pardon for the mother. After a short struggle, nature triumphed: Vladimir embraced the child, and left the house. He was persuaded by his nobles not only to pardon Rogueda, but (probably to remove her) to settle on her the principality formerly held by her father. ་ 6 · do without it.' The deputies from the German Catholics harangued him on the greatness of God, and the vanity of idols. Go home,' replied the prince, our forefathers never received a religion from the Pope.' After listening to the Jews, he asked them where their country lay. At Jerusalem,' was the reply; but in his anger God has dispersed us throughout the earth.' 'What!' said Vladimir, do you, who are the cursed of God, pretend to teach others! Away! we have no wish to be without country as you are.' At length, a Greek philosopher (his name is unknown), after demonstrating, in a few words, the falsity of other religions, explained to the grand duke the spirit of the Old and New Testament-the creation, original sin, our first parents, the deluge, the people of God, redemption, Christianity, the seven Ecumenical councils; finally, he drew a forcible picture of the last judgment-the subsequent happiness of the blessed, and the punishment of the damned. Struck with this description, the prince sighed and said "What bliss for the good, and misery for the wicked! Be baptized,' replied the philosopher, and heaven will be your inheritance.' "Having dismissed this philosopher, laden with presents, Vladimir assembled his boyards; he acquainted them with the discourses of the Mahometans, Jews, Catholics, and Greeks, and requested their opinion. 'Prince,' replied the boyards and elders, 6 every man praises his own religion; but if you wish to choose the best, send wise men into different countries, to ascertain what people honour God in the manner worthy of him.' most Accordingly, the grand duke selected for this purpose ten of the wisest persons he could find. Among the Bulgarians, they saw nothing but wretchedlooking temples, tedious prayers, and sorrowful faces; among the German Catholics, ceremonies without dignity or magnificence. At length they reached Constantinople. 'Let them see the glory of our God!' said the emperor. Knowing that a barbarous mind is more forcibly struck with external splendour than with abstract truths, he conducted the ambassadors into the church of St. Sophia, where the patriarch himself, in his pontifical vestments, was celebrating the divine office. The magnificence of the place, the presence of the clergy, the splendour of the sacerdotal garb, the ornaments of the altars, the exquisite odour of the incense, the delightful melody of the choristers, the silence of the people, and finally, the holy and mysterious majesty of the ceremonies, powerfully affected the Russians. They thought the temple the residence of the Most High, and the place where his glory was manifested to mortals. On their return to Kief, they gave Vladimir an account of their mission. They spoke with contempt of the Mahometan worship, and with little favour of the Catholic; but of the Greek ritual with the greatest enthusiasm.”—Vol. i. p. 260. The representations of his deputies, and the conviction that Olga, "the wisest of mortals," would not have embraced a bad religion, soon determined Vladimir. But he had no notion of being baptized like other men; he could not allow the humble priests, who had been permitted to settle in Kief, to administer the sacred rite to him; he could not condescend to receive it from any one below an archbishop at least. Would he solicit the Greek emperors (Basil and Constantine then reigned) for the favour? Not he he would declare war against them, and compel them to see that his baptism was celebrated with all due splendour. Hostilities accordingly commenced, and he eventually succeeded in obtaining his admission not only into the Christian church, by no less a dignitary than the Archbishop of Cherson, but even into the imperial family: as he forced the two brothers to bestow on him the hand of their sister the princess Anne, and returned triumphant to Kief, with his royal spouse, with priests, books, vases, and relics without number. Vladimir was not satisfied with his own conversion; he insisted that his subjects should imitate his example, and the means he adopted for the purpose were efficacious enough. He did more in a single day than would have been performed by a thousand preaching missionaries. He began by demolishing the idols, which had so lately been the objects of his worship, and which he had probably loved the more from their being his own workmanship. Poor Perune found his fine whiskers of little avail; as he was the greatest of the gods, so he was doomed to receive the greatest measure of contempt. The deitied log was tied to the tail of a horse, and while dragged to the top of a hill to be rolled down into the river, it was soundly cudgelled by twelve lusty soldiers. When all these visible signs of Paganism were removed, the royal convert ordered that his subjects should every where confirm to the new faith-an order obeyed without opposition. On a certain day all the inhabitants of Kief were assembled on the banks of the Dnieper; and, on a signal from the monarch, all plunged into the river, some to the waist, others to the neck; parents held their children in their arms while the ceremony was performed by the priests in attendance. Thus a nation received baptism, not only without murmuring, but with cheerfulness; for all were convinced that a religion, embraced by the sovereign and boyards, must necessarily be the best in the world. In all places, however, this change was not immediate; in some of the more sequestered districts Paganism subsisted until the twelfth century. BEAUTY. How soon is Beauty's work complete! And Beauty deigns no look but one, How true the winning words appear, Alas! my beating heart is lost, As I on Beauty gaze: Amid a sea of passions tost, I follow all her ways.-Oriental Herald. CURIOUS OBSERVATIONS ON BEES. (From the American Quarterly Review. THE QUEEN BEE. THE queen bee, distinguished by her superior size and dignified carriage, her short and feeble wings, her long and curved weapon, her higher colour, and the care, attention, and respect of her numerous subjects, is seldom seen by the apiarian, except in the hive of glass, or at the head of a swarm, when a colony is sent forth from the parent hive. One of our most eminent apiarians, in a close watch from gray dawn to sunset, for ten weeks, did not see the queen make an excursion from the hive. The queen, and certain fertile workers, are the only mothers of the hive, and they are oviparous. The eggs, productive of workers, are laid in common cells; those which form drones, in longer cells; while those from which royal insects are to spring, are deposited in apartments of a totally different form and structure. In a few days the egg of a drone, or worker, produces a worm, or larva, which, fed on the pollen of flowers mixed with a little honey, called "bee-bread," after a space of from three to six days, encloses itself in a cocoon, and remains for some time in the state termed pupa, or aurelia; and then, issuing from its woven tomb, exhibits the lively, useful, winged insect, in its full development. The worker appears on the twenty-first day: the drone, on the twentyfifth; and the queen, on the sixteenth. The food of the royal larva is termed "royal jelly;" and is a pungent acidulous substance, entirely different from common bee-bread. Fertile workers are supposed to owe their developed ovaries to the accidental use of a small portion of royal jelly, because a worker's grub, three days old, fed exclu sively on it, becomes a queen in all respects. The birth of a queen is an important event in the hive; for on her depend the future welfare, and even existence of the society. According to the best authority, the nascent queen finds herself in undisputed possession of the government, as her predecessor and parent, guided by unerring instinct, leaves the hive, at the head of a swarm, a few days or hours before her birth. The very first act of authority, on the part of the new sovereign, and indeed the act of the first hour of her existence, is one of apparently unnatural severity. Diligently exploring the royal cradles, she inserts into each her long curved sting, and kills every royal pupa. Often, the workers endeavour to prevent the deadly act "No sooner," says Huber, "does she approach, than the bees bite, pull, and harass her, so that she is forced to remove; but the royal cells being numerous, scarce can she find a place of rest. Incessantly animated with the desire of attacking the other queens, and as incessantly repelled, she becomes agitated, and hastily traverses the different groups of workers, to which she communicates her disorder. At this moment numbers of bees rush towards the aperture of the hive, and, accompanied by the young queen, forsake it, to seek another habitation. After the departure of the colony, the remaining workers set another queen at liberty, and drive her from the royal cells; she also, perpetually harassed, becomes agitated, departs, and carries a new swarm along with her. In a populous hive, this scene is repeated, with the same circumstances, three or four times during summer." When the bees, having sufficient room, do not go off in swarms, the new queen either kills her sisters, before they emerge from their cells; or destroys them in single combat after they come forth. In these combats the workers take no part; but when a stranger of royal degree is put into a hive they immediately surround her, cling to her, and, finally, either suffocate her, or starve her to death. Huber supposed that, even in this case, the stranger was killed by the reigning queen, while Rheim and Schirach ascribed her death to the weapons of the workers; but the minute investigations of the Rev. W. Dunbar, revealed the more inglorious cause of destruction. That such is the mode of destroying her, is proved even by Huber's experiments. On the loss of a queen, if a stranger be introduced within twelve hours, she is soon found dead. If less than eighteen hours have elapsed, she is at first imprisoned; but finally escapes, and governs the hive. After an interregnum of twenty-four hours, the new queen is joyfully and instantly received, and admitted to the sovereignty of the hive. * B |