Works of Thomas Brown, M.D. Professor of Moral Phil. in the Univ. of Edinb. 1. The Paradise of Coquettes, a Poem. 2. The Bower of Spring, with other Poems. 3. Agnes, a Poem, in four parts. 4. Emily, with other Poems. 5. Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. f. 8vo. Edinb. Aristarchus Anti-Bloomfieldianus; or, a Reply to the Notice of the New Greek Thesaurus, inserted in the 44th number of the Quarterly Review. By C. H. Barker, O.T.N. Dedicated to the Rt. Hon. Earl Spencer. [In press.] An interesting discussion of an interesting subject. A MS. found in the Portfolio of Las Casas, containing Maxims and Observations of Napoleon. Lond. A New Dictionary for the Fashionable World; translated from the French, with Selections and Additions. 12mo. Lond. L'Hermite de Londres; ou Observations sur les Moeurs et Usages des Anglais, (faisant suite aux Mœurs Francaises.) Par de Jouy. tom 1. 12mo. Paris. A Translation of Birkbeck's Letters on his new Settlement in the United States. Published at Paris. The Literary Pocket-Book; or, Companion for the Lover of Nature and Art, for 1820. To be continued Annually. [Attributed to Leigh Hunt, Shelly, and others.] The intellectual power of society has so much increased of late, and has become so prominent, as one of the ruling or controlling authorities, that it seems proper and necessary it should have a sort of Court Calendar of its own: and the Literary Pocket-Book is an attempt to supply one. Advert. The Philosophy of Life. By Sir Charles Morgan, M.D. and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 8vo. Lond. Sir C. Morgan has here presented us with a great deal of useful and entertaining information. He has undertaken to consider man as an organized being; to explain his structure, and how it is affected by various modes of treatment. To show the influence of climate, diet, &c. upon the human frame, and to connect this influence with the moral and intellectual character of the mind. In conducting this investigation, he has had an opportunity of calling to his aid, not only the knowledge of his own peculiar profession, but the discoveries of modern chemistry, interesting facts in natural history, and illustrations from general science, and the history of nations. The work contains many plain and sensible lessons on the methods of keeping both mind and body in a healthy state. Advert. Character Essential to Success in Life. By Isaac Taylor. 12mo. pp. 162. Boston. Address to those who may be Moving to the United States. By G. Constauld. Marmor Norfolcience, a very Scarce and Curious Tract by Dr. Samuel Johnson, (under the assumed name of Probus Britannicus,) never published in any edition of his Works. Lond. A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons, exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spiritous Liquors, &c. and Methods of detecting them. By Frederick Accum. London. 1820. and Philadelphia. It is curious to see how vice varies its forms, and maintains its substance, in all conditions of society;-and how certainly those changes, or improvements as we call them, which diminish one class of offences, aggravate or give birth to another. In rude and simple communities, most crimes take the shape of Violence and Outrage-in polished and refined ones, of Fraud. Men sin from their animal propensities in the first case, and from their intellectual depravation in the second. Among the offences which are peculiar to a refined and enlightened society, and owe their birth, indeed, to its science and refinement, are the skilful and dexterous adulterations of the manifold objects of its luxurious consumption. Mr. Accum enters into an examination of the articles most commonly counterfeited, and explains the nature of the ingredients used in sophisticating them. He censures in the strongest terms the practice of keeping water in leaden reservoirs.- In the making of Bread, various ingredients are occasionally mingled with the dough. The best flour being mostly used by the biscuitmakers and pastry-cooks, it is from the inferior sorts that bread is made; and it becomes necessary, in order to have it of a light and porous quality, and of a fine white, to mix a mineral substance with the dough.-In London, the sophistication of wine, as well as the art of manufacturing spurious wine, has become a regular trade, in which a large capital is invested. Many thousand pipes of spoiled cider are annually sent to the metropolis for the purpose of being converted into an imitation of port wine. In carrying on these illicit occupations, the division of labour has been completely established; each has his own task assigned him in the confederate work of iniquity. The most dangerous practice is where white wine is adulterated by an admixture of lead.—The deceptions which are practised by the dealers in spiritous liquors, are chiefly confined to fraudulent imitations of the peculiar flavour of the different sorts. Wine lees are imported into this country for the purpose, and they pay the same duty as foreign wines. Gin is made up for sale by fraudulent dealers, with water and sugar; and this admixture rendering the liquor turbid, several expedients are resorted to, in order to clarify it.-In the manufacture of Malt liquors, a wide field is opened for the operations of fraud. The immense quantity of the article consumed, forms the irresistible temptation: while the vegetable substances with which Beer is adulterated are difficult to be detected, and frequently beyond the reach of chemical analysis. According to the evidence of the most experienced judges, the best beer and porter can be made out of malt and hops; and out of these only. The art then of the fraudulent brewer, consists in the discovery of other and cheaper ingredients. Not only is the use of all these deleterious substances strictly prohibited to the brewer [in England] under severe penalties; but all druggists or grocers convicted of supplying him with any of them, or who have them in their possession, are liable to severe penalties. From the year 1813 to 1819, the number of brewers convicted of using illegal ingredients in their breweries, amounts to thirty-four.Tea, it is well known, from the numerous convictions which have lately taken place, has been counterfeited to an enormous extent. The practice of adulterating coffee has also been carried on for a long time; while white and black pepper, Cayenne pepper, mustard, pickles of all sorts, have been all of them debased by an admixture of baser, and in many cases, poisonous ingredients. We naturally reflect, that such offences, in whatever light they are viewed, are of a far deeper die than many of those for which our sanguinary code awards the penalty of death--and we wonder that the punishment hitherto inflicted, has been limited to a fine. Edin. Rev. extract. [Note. It is intended, hereafter, to give a full list of the analyses of Reviews, (which may not be previously copied in the selection) to form an entire view of all European works which circulate in, or may be interesting to this country.] [From the Retrospective Review.-London, May, 1820.] ART. I. The Works of BEN JONSON, folio, 1616. In this article two only of his plays are considered, which we have selected for their similarity of construction, and as forming a class of themselves among the dramas of Jonson. They are the most careful and high-wrought of his works. Trusting that the elucidation of so great a master may prove a subject well worthy the attention of our readers, we shall not confine ourselves to the present attempt, but probably, in future numbers of our work, pursue the course of his genius through all its varieties, and endeavour to accompany him in his loftier and more poetical flights. To restore the taste for ancient simplicity of style-for wit, whose zest is moral, and for humour, whose foundation is truth, can be no unbecoming trial. To show, that the noblest exertions of imagination, and the most interesting pictures of passion, may be found amid the severest morals and the chastest methods of writing, will, at least, be an effort towards reclaiming the luxuriant romance of the age, and engaging the judgment in the assistance of the fancy. We cannot, perhaps, expect that the novel-reading lady should prefer Ben Jonson to her piquante food, but we will, at least, do her and her sentimental male gossips the service to show them, that the solid fare which honest Ben has prepared for their palates is of a description which will not disgust by its homeliness, nor pall by its false relish. Mr. Gifford's admirable edition, at all events, is within their reach, and may, by its modern type, if not by its excellent explanations, afford some excuse to a fashionable friend for its lying on a reading desk. We shall prefix to our present offering at the VOL. I. 36 altar of immortal greatness, the names of two of its noblest supports, Every Man in his Humour,"—" Every Man out of his Humour." And they, who durst not censure, scarce could praise. So says Samuel Johnson of his more illustrious namesake, in a prologue, which has been celebrated beyond any attempt of its kind for the mathematical justice of its criticism: so says the oracle of his day, of one of our greatest dramatists. These six lines are a curious specimen of how far a position, delivered with an air of certainty under the sanction of an authoritative name, will pass for years as a current truth, and become a test for the examination of the very powers which it misconstrues and belies. In a sense, however, evidently unmeant by the author, the last line, to which we in particular allude, is probably a historical fact. It has been the misfortune of Jonson's fame, that in order to be praised he must be understood; and that to be understood he must be studied. The "coldness of men's approbation" arose from their incapacity of understanding the justice of cause and effect, the nice link of character and action which Jonson, above any other even of his age of intellectual giants, comprehended and depicted. Jonson was no meretricious dramatist; with him, the pedigree of a jest is carefully inspected before it is installed in his house of fame; and his adoption of the ideas of others, or the use he makes of his own, is the badge and coat armour of their merit. His endeavour, from the beginning, was not so much to gain applause, as to show that, if he failed, he deserved it. His plays possess not only their own intrinsic interest, but he has endeavoured to throw around them a new one-the justice of his own plea of encouragement from his auditors. In Every Man out of his Humour, in particular, our constant feeling is of a trial and proof of dramatic skill; and we feel no less pleasure in the author's success in his undertaking, than in the perfect and artful catastrophe of his subject. It is from this cause that, though much talked of, he is little read. He speaks to us with the gravity and command of an instructor, and the age is too weak and petulant to bear with his severities. He is of all authors the most perfect writer, because he is an exemplification throughout of his own precepts. His works are a grammar of classical sentiment and dramatic propriety. But let it not be supposed; that we mean to degrade him to the mere rank of a critic: to show that he is fit to become the instructor of others, we shall prove not only that his rules are true, and his precepts golden, but that he affords proofs of a mighty poetical genius, which his art frequently rather prevented from making use of unworthy means, than fettered from the attempt and attainment of its legitimate objects. There is another cause for his present neglected state;-his characters, although far from being in his best comedies individual satires, are the representatives of the embodied follies of his times; not mere abstract passions with voices, but individual enough in their respective humours, though in their excellencies, vices, or absurdities, they include the major part of mankind. With Jonson, the improvement of the times was the first object; the reprehension of their follies was the proper end of his comedies; while with Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shakspeare, they are only introduced occasionally; and these last rather attack the constant source of frivolity, and engage the passion of vanity in itself, than occupy themselves, like Jonson, with turning its outward form into ridicule. With Master Stephen, we debate the merits of a silk or a woollen stocking; in Master Slender, we behold the vanity of a man endeavouring to recommend himself to his mistress, by his valour in a bear-fight: in the former we see the bare instance, in the latter the humour is incidental, and heightened by the interest of its purpose. Still, Jonson must not be considered as the mere satirist of his age. If the gallants of this time delight not in flame-coloured stockings, their pleasures of dress are not unworthy of their critical progenitors. The breed is not lost, though its motley is composed of different patches. The affectation of a Puntarvolo may be obsolete in the generality of travel to which easier communications have given birth; but a Sordido and a Fungoso are "weeds of every soil," they will endure as long as avarice holds its iron reign in man's heart, and the respect paid to externals induces the weak to consider them the objects of highest attainment. In proportion, however, as Jonson becomes less interesting to the common-place reader, does he rise in utility to the historian of manners: in proportion as he is less understood by the crowd, is he valuable as a record of the habits of his time. If the fire of his genius were allayed by his learning, it was not in his comedy: under the name of comedy, he produced not only scenes of pure wit and humour, refined from the dross of nature in which he found them; but tragic passions and reflections, sublime elucidations of truth, which bestow on him a lustre of transcendant brightness when he wields the bolt and hurls the lightnings of anger, or wears the steady grandeur of undeviating rectitude. The name of tragedy, indeed, was a spell of dark and unwholesome magic upon the powers of Jonson. He deemed it necessary to withdraw from the contemplation of those living models, which were the evident originals of his comedy; and which, when produced, seem ennobled by a reciprocity of nature and art: he found that men were no longer heroes, and, without examining the present |