tegrity, he feels indignant at the restrictions to which he is subjected by the late Act of Parliament, and at the apparent degradation which it inflicts on him. He examines minutely all the several parts of the Bill, objects to the extensive powers that are given to the Commissioners, and endeavours to prove that certain of the duties imposed on them will be very difficult to carry into effect, some indeed absolutely impossible, while others are vague and undefined, and give scope for arbitrary decisions and personal tyranny. He argues that, by the proposed system, the keepers of lunatic establishments will become subjected to a code of penalties and interferences, to which no person of liberal views and of good education will or ought to submit. He insists also forcibly on the absurdity and impropriety of that clause of the Bill which permits the servants, and even the patients themselves, to be received as evidences against the masters; a permission in the highest degree unjust and impolitic, and which must have the effect of materially cramping the exertions of the superintendant, and taking out of his hands that authority which is essential to the due exercise of his professional duties. In several of these remarks, we fully coincide; yet we must also observe that many of the restrictions, which seem severe, are justified by the late disclosures.

Some important considerations occur in the latter part of the pamphlet, respecting the comparative success of the English and the French practitioners in insanity. The balance appears to be in favour of the latter; a conclusion which, if it be founded in fact, we trust, will have the effect of rousing our countrymen to greater exertions.

Art. 19. Observations on the Phenomena of Insanity. Being a Supplement to Observations on the Casual and Periodical Influence of Peculiar States of the Atmosphere on Human Health and Disease. By Thomas Forster, F.L.S., &c. &c. 8vo. Is. 6d. Underwood.

Mr. Forster has been for some time known as a zealous disciple of Dr. Gall, and has applied his doctrines to the elucidation of pathology. The object of this pamphlet is to illustrate the opinion that insanity always depends on a physical change in the structure of the brain, and that this change consists in the increased quantity of blood that is sent to it; while the particular species of insanity, or the character which it assumes, is owing to the preponderance of some cerebral organ, which modified the disposition of the individual in his healthy 'state, and now becomes aggravated by disease. Mr. Forster thus describes his doctrine:

The organs of the brain may be deranged separately or together, any number of them at once, or one separately: hence, patients are insane in one particular faculty, and judge of it by another; when the organ of cautiousness is the particular subject of cerebral irritation, the prominent characteristic of the insanity is fear and melancholy; the organ of ideality would add whimsical and imaginary dangers; the mysterizing faculty gives a super

stitious

stitious turn to the illusion, and the patient then sees visións, hears angels sing, voices calling him, &c.; or, when the upper parts are deranged, he is religiously mad; when the organ of combativeness is morbidly active, he is raving and furious; or destructive if the part of the brain behind the ears be inordinately large, or be called into diseased action. When the symptoms vary or alternate, ás fury, melancholy, &c., it is because the irritated or inflamed state is shifted from one to another organ.

The above opinions, as far at least as this little work is concerned, rest more on their general probability, or their supposed coincidence with acknowleged facts, than on any support which is here brought to their aid. To that part of the doctrine which presupposes or requires a belief in cranioscopy, we cannot assent; and we do not think that we have yet sufficient proof that all diseases of the brain depend on an increased determination of blood. We are, however, strongly inclined to the opinion that insanity is always attended with a physical change in the organ; and it is well known that, in most cases, the previous habits and dispositions of the patient become apparent in his deranged state.

POETRY.

Art. 20. Stanzas sacred to the Memory of Mr. James Swan, jun. who departed this Life, January 16. 1818, in the 37th Year of his Age. By his afflicted Father. 12mo. pp. 8. Printed by the Author, Fleet-Street.

An afflicted father' here bewails, in feeling terms, the early loss of a son whom he represents as sustaining with great propriety all the relations of life which he had borne, and as leaving a widow and five children to mingle their tears with parental grief. The stanzas conclude with an Epitaph, which expresses the writer's affliction, and shews the foundation for it:

Who art thou, Man, that strayst among the dead?
Most serious be thy mien, and light thy tread.
Wouldst thou the history of the being know,
Whose ashes rest in silent sleep below?
He was a man of feelings warm and bland
As e'er to Misery rais'd the willing hand:
Generous and good, a devotee to Truth,..
Whose dictates led him through the snares of youth.
His noble heart, of life despis'd the wiles,
The tyrant's dictates, and the villain's smiles.
A son belov'd, a husband fond and true,
As e'er the milk of human kindness drew.
No man e'er lov'd his tender offspring more,
His infant children were his richest store.

Look here, vain Man, cut-off in early bloom,
All that of life was great, lies in this tomb.
Learn then this awful lesson from the past,
That thou, alas! must come to this at last.”

Art. 21. Monody to the Memory of the Princess Charlotte Au

gusta. By the Author of " Evening Hours." 8vo. pp. 22. Chappell, jun.

We

We spoke of the "Evening Hours" in our last Number, and the present Monody exhibits the same characteristics. The writer deprecates attention to inaccuracies,' because this production is a sudden and spontaneous effusion of feeling :' but wê cannot admit this plea as an excuse for blemishes in a small com. position when it is made public; and certainly this Monody is not unspotted. It may be allowed, however, to manifest fancy, spirit, and feeling; and, as we learn that the writer is very young, we will hope for greater correctness in his future effusions, though the way to attain this improvement is to solicit rather than to refuse the criticisms of others. Our readers may accept a brief specimen :

• Oh! how rudely the whirlwind has scatter'd afar
The blossom we almost had dar'd to adore!
'Tis vanish'd and gone, like the far shooting star
That sparkles in beauty-then sparkles no more!
No high-wrought picturing of fancied woe;
No visionary scene in mournful dress;
From me, a lowly bard, the strain shall flow
Spontaneous as it springs from deep distress.
And who so rude will deprecate the shell,

Scarce heard mid louder plainings of the lyre?
Oh! it would breathe, if it could breathe as well,
Tones that should every soul with grief inspire!
What though alone one melancholy bird

In sweetest melody may pour her song,
Shall not another chorister be heard,
Because less music may to him belong?
Forbid it, Pity! Harmony and Woe,

--

Like rain and sunshine in the summer weather,

Or as the colors of the heavenly bow,

In sweetest unison may blend together

But ah, how rare!-much oft'ner, like the storm,
In darkling clouds Grief muffles up his form;

And striding on the pinions of the gale,

Dissolves himself in floods of fire, and rain, and hail.'

Let the author himself consider the following lines, (among others,) and correct the faults which he surely may discover in them: p. 7. 1.4. and 6.; p. 8. 1. 6. and 7.; p. 12. 1. 8.; p. 14. line last; p. 16. 1.8.; p. 17. l. 7.; &c,

Art. 22.

MISCELLANEOUS.

em.

Facts relative to the State of Children who are ployed by Chimney Sweepers as Climbing Boys; with Observations and Outlines of a Plan for the Amelioration of their Condition. 8vo. 6d. Printed at York, and sold in London by Darton and Co.

Art. 23. The Resolutions and Petition respecting Children employed as Climbing Boys, agreed upon at a Meeting of the Inhabitants of Sheffield; with an Address on the Occasion by Samuel Roberts. 12mo. 2d. Montgomery, Sheffield.

Art.

Art. 24. Report from the Committee of the Honourable the House of Commons, on the Employment of Boys in the Sweeping of Chimneys; together with the Minutes of the Evidence taken before the Committee, and an Appendix. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed June 23. 1817. Published under the Direction of the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys with Notes and Observations; a complete List of Persons using the Machine, and a descriptive Engraving of it. 8vo. pp. 142. 3s. 6d. sewed. Baldwin and Co.

Art. 25. The Speech and Reply of Dr. Lushington, in support of. the Bill for the better Regulation of Chimney-Sweepers and their Apprentices, and for preventing the Employment of Boys in climbing Chimneys, before the Committee of the House of Lords. 8vo. 3d. each.

Art. 26. Address from the Committee of the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, with the Report of the Committee of the House of Lords on the Chimney Sweepers' Regulation-Bill. 8vo. IS. Baldwin and Co.

The number of these pamphlets, and the places at which some of them are printed, sufficiently prove that the benevolent exertions of the principal Society, which we noticed in our Number for December 1816, have been successful in creating a widely extended interest in the situation of the unfortunate objects of their protection and interference. Not only have York and Sheffield come forwards, however, but more than twenty other places have publicly declared themselves the friends of the philanthropic measure of putting an end to the infant-slavery which has so long subsisted. The eloquent Speech of Mr. Roberts at Sheffield cannot be read, nor indeed can its subject be in any degree considered, without a corresponding sentiment being produced in the minds of every thinking individual. The evidence before Parliament amply proves, in the first place, that the trade cannot possibly be taught, by the mildest master, without extreme suffering on the part of the infant-learner; that great and unnecessary cruelties are practised by many to oblige the reluctant apprentice to mount the disgusting and dangerous passage;-that, when taught, the boy is liable to be suffocated, or to be burnt, or to be jammed to death; that infants so young as five years old are often employed; that they are frequently'decoyed from work-houses, and stolen from their parents;that their growth is stunted, their health injured, their limbs deformed, and their lives shortened; and that, even if they survive, most of them are prevented, by the increase of their size and by the overstocking of the trade, from continuing in it, and are turned adrift with bad habits, a decayed constitution, and an untutored mind, again to begin the world in some other calling, or, not finding any, to pick up an idle and a scanty pittance by beggary, or an immoral and adventurous subsistence by theft. It is fully proved, in the second place, that Smart's machine can sweep 95 out of every 100 chimneys, in as cleanly a manner, as efficiently,

efficiently, and as cheaply, as if performed by boys; and that the remainder (which generally occur in the houses of the opulent and which are the most dangerous for boys to climb,) may be cleaned by other simple and unexpensive means. Can, then, a question any longer exist, when so excellent a substitute is provided, and when no encroachment is desired or attempted on the practitioners in the trade, whether men should still be allowed to impose a most laborious and dangerous business on limbs not matured and bones scarcely hardened; on frames the least capable of supporting such hardships; on infants uninformed, and incompétent either to know their rights or, knowing them, to resist their oppressors? Thanks to the exertions of the amiable members of the Committee, these things are not likely long to continue; and we even rejoice at the delay which has occurred, because it will enable those who are inquiring into the subject to come to a more firm opinion, and to legislate more decidedly. Committees of both Houses of Parliament have already examined evidence and reported favourably on the measure; and the bill was, stopped in the House of Lords merely to give an opportunity to the SurveyorGeneral to try an actual experiment on the efficacy of the machinery now in use. It is right that, before such a legislative measure is adopted, the fullest information should be acquired. Of its result we cannot doubt; and we anticipate with pleasure that one more session of Parliament will produce the abolition of a trade which is unknown in other countries, and is a disgrace to this, our boasted land.

CORRESPONDENCE.

A note, without date of time or place, recommends to our attention a controversy that has been for some time going on in Ireland.' We are never very eager to stretch out our hands for a share in controversy, and, thank Heaver! this seems to be beyond our reach.

We thank C. C. Amicus for his information, and shall endea vour to profit by it.

Hum perhaps amused himself in' writing the letter with that signature, and he has amused us also: but his laughter and ours were probably derived from varying sources, according to the old epigram in Joe Miller:

"A different cause, says Parson Sly,

The same effect will give:

Avaro weeps lest he should die,

His wife lest he should live."

X. X. is informed that our GENERAL INDEX will appear in the course or at the end of the next month.

* The APPENDIX to this volume of the Review will be published on the 1st of October, with the Number for September.