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present, one genus consisting of deranged association of irritative motions, another of sensitive motions, and so on. It would be endless, were we to attempt to enumerate and comment upon the different parts which compose this system. A few examples of the diseases attributed to each class, will be quite sufficient for our present purpose. In the first class we find irritative fever, warm sweat, chronic rheumatism, teething, worms, acuteness of the senses, fainting, coldness in fevers, rickets, dropsies, scrofula, colic, impaired senses, iliac passion, catarrh, diabetes, palpitation. In the second class are included deglutition, hiccough, inflammations, various inflammatory affections, cutaneous diseases, various fevers, and mental affections. Among diseases of volition, we find convulsive and spasmodic diseases, insanity, fatigue, sleep, night-mare, apoplexy, folly. Among diseases of association, we have the following:-flushing of the face after dinner, toothedge from grating sounds, eruption of smallpox, gout, involuntary laughter, life of an egg, indigestion from cold feet, pain of the little finger from sympathy, St Vitus' dance, laughter, periods of the gout, diarrhoea from fear, nausea from ideas, voluntary vomiting, sickness against rain !—a most motley group, it must be acknowledged. The first observation that suggests itself on reading over this system is, that Dr Darwin uses the term disease in a different sense from that in which it is used by medical writers in general. He uses it to denote what others would call a symptom, if this be kept in view, the work would not be a useless one, if it performed all that it professes; for a physiological description of the nature, origin, and effects of all those conditions of the body, which may appear as symptoms of diseases, is a desideratum in the science of medicine. In the work of Darwin, there are, doubtless, many observations remarkable for their originality and accuracy; but they are obscured and overwhelmed by the mass of theoretical speculations, founded on the metaphysical theory of the author. Very far from despicable, also, are those hints respecting the practice of medicine, which he has appended to most of the descriptions of diseases. That part of the theoretical speculations of Darwin which has attracted the greatest attention, is his doctrine of fever. We shall not attempt an analysis of his very extended examination of this subject, but shall briefly state the doctrine itself. The foundation of the theory of Darwin had been long before known to the public in that of Brown, the so-called Brunonian system. According to Brown, all diseases consist in accumulated or exhausted excitability,-accumulation being produced by rest, exhaustion by exercise. Brown had omitted to explain the means whereby the accumulation of sensorial power took place. This omission is supplied by Dr Darwin, who supposes the brain to secrete the sensorial power or fluid. In the words of Dr Mason Good,-" All this is intelligible; but when beyond this, he endows his sensorial fluid with a mental as well as a corporeal faculty, and makes it the vehicle of ideas as well as of sensations, he wanders very unnecessarily from his subject, and clogs it with all the errors of materialism." The same author describes, in the most intelligible terms that we can find, the doctrine of fever. "In applying the doctrine of sensorial power to fever, he considers the occasional causes, whatever they may be, as inducing a quiescence or torpor of the extreme arteries, and the subsequent heat, as an inordinate exertion of the sensorial power hereby accumulated to

excess." The objections which have been urged against this doctrine are numerous, but no where are they set in so clear a light as in the work of Dr Good. This writer is inclined to agree with the first assumption, that the first effect of the causes of fever consists in a quiescence or torpor of the extreme arteries, a position far from being incontrovertible. On this account he admits the possibility of the explanation being applied to the phenomena of a single febrile paroxysm; but as it applies no further, it must be fundamentally erroneous. "For when the sensorium has exhausted itself of its accumulated irritability, the disease should cease." But this is not the case. It is therefore said, that in consequence of this exhaustion going too far, a second torpor, producing accumulation of energy, is brought on, and the new paroxysm is caused by the expenditure of the accumulation. "Admitting this, for a moment, it must be obvious that the first or torpid stage alone could ensue; for the system being now quite exhausted, the quiescence can only be supposed to recruit the common supply necessary for health; we have no reason to suppose, nor is any held out to us, that this quantity can again rise to a surplus. Yet it must be further remarked that, in continued fevers, we have often no return of torpor or quietude whatever, and, consequently, no means of reaccumulating irritability; but one train of preternatural action and exhaustion, till the system is completely worn out. To this objection, the Darwinian hypothesis seems to be altogether without a reply."

The treatise on the materia medica is arranged according to the effects of medicines upon the irritative motions. It is by no means so much deserving of notice as the former parts of the work, so that we may pass it over without further observation.'

James Beattie.

BORN A. D. 1735.—died a. d. 1803.

THE close of the eighteenth century presents us with four names of eminence in the annals of our poetical literature, though of very different merit, and possessing little in common with each other,—these are Beattie, Darwin, Burns, and Cowper. We have already glanced at two of these, and we should now, in chronological order, take up Cowper; but we prefer to close the list of the poetical names of this century with that of Cowper, who forms a clearer connecting link betwixt the poets of the last and present century, than the author of The Minstrel,' and exercised a much greater influence on the poetical destinies of the succeeding generation.

Dr James Beattie was born in Kincardineshire in 1735. His father was a shopkeeper in the village of Laurencekirk, and also rented a small farm in the neighbourhood. James was the youngest of six children. He was sent to the university of Aberdeen in 1749, where he obtained a bursary by public competition, and remained four years en

Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Darwin's Zoonomia. Brown's Observations. Aikin's Dict. The study of Medicine,' by John Mason Good, vol. ii.-Annals of Medicine for 1798. Blackwood's Magazine, vol. v. Stewart's Philosophical Essays.

gaged in preparatory studies for entering the ministry. He finished his course of study in a manner which gave the greatest satisfaction to his teachers; but his merits failed for a time to procure him any substantial patronage, and he was glad to support himself for a period of four years by teaching a small country school. In 1758 he obtained an usher's place in the grammar-school of Aberdeen, and was soon taken notice of by the distinguished men who at this time adorned the university, and by whose recommendation he was appointed at the early age of twenty-five professor of moral philosophy and logic in Marischal college, a situation which he filled till within a short period of his Ideath. On his election to this chair Dr Beattie had such men as Campbell, Reid, Gerard, and Gregory, for his professorial associates, and he maintained an intimate friendship with all these great men to the close of their respective lives.

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The first publication of Dr Beattie was a volume of juvenile poems, which appeared in 1760. The author has sufficiently marked his estimate of these effusions, by the fact that in subsequent editions of his poetical pieces they were nearly all of them omitted. His biographer, Sir William Forbes, has attempted to save a few of them from what he considers unmerited oblivion; but most readers will be of opinion that he had better consulted the reputation of his friend by resigning them to the fate their author desired for them. In 1763 he made his first visit to London. In 1765 he published a poem entitled 'The Judg ment of Paris,' which was not very favourably received. In this year he formed an acquaintance with the poet Gray. In 1767 he married, and appears to have begun his Minstrel,' and Essay on Truth.' The latter work was intended as an antidote to the sceptical philosophy of Hume then getting into fashion. It made its appearance in 1770, and took amazingly with the more serious portion of the public, especially in England. The dignitaries of the English church were beyond measure delighted with it, and pressing offers were made to him of speedy advancement if he would consent to take orders in the church of England. To an intimation by Dr Porteous that a living worth £500 was at his service, Dr Beattie replied in the following terms: “I wrote the Essay on Truth,' with the certain prospect of raising many enemies, with very faint hopes of attracting the public attention, and without any views of advancing my fortune. I published it, however, because I thought it might probably do a little good, by bringing to nought, or at least lessening the reputation of, that wretched system of sceptical philosophy, which had made a most alarming progress, and done incredible mischief to this country. My enemies have been at great pains to represent my views, in that publication, as very different; and that my principal, or only motive was, to make a book, and if possible, to raise myself higher in the world. So that if I were now to accept preferment in the church, I should be apprehensive that I might strengthen the hands of the gainsayer, and give the world some ground to believe, that my love of truth was not quite so ardent, or so pure, as I had pretended. Besides, might it not have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and by some, be construed into a want of principle, if I were, at these years (for I am now thirty-eight) to make such an important change in my way of life, and to quit, with no other apparent motive than that of bettering my circumstances, that church of which

I have hitherto been a member? If my book has any tendency to do good, as I flatter myself it has, I would not, for the wealth of the Indies, do any thing to counteract that tendency; and I am afraid that tendency might in some measure be counteracted, (at least in this country,) if I were to give the adversary the least ground to charge me with inconsistency. It is true, that the force of my reasonings cannot be really affected by my character: truth is truth, whoever be the speaker; but even truth itself becomes less respectable when spoken, or supposed to be spoken, by insincere lips. It has also been hinted to me, by several persons of very sound judgment, that what I have written, or may hereafter write, in favour of religion, has a chance of being more attended to, if I continue a layman, than if I were to become a clergyman. Nor am I without apprehensions (though some of my friends think them ill-founded) that, from entering so late in life, and from so remote a province, into the church of England, some degree of ungracefulness, particularly in pronunciation, might adhere to my performances in public, sufficient to render them less pleasing, and consequently less useful."

In the summer of 1771 Dr Beattie paid a second visit to London, and was introduced to all the literary society of the metropolis. He repeated his visit in 1773, on which occasion he was admitted an honorary doctor of law at Oxford, had an interview with royalty, and received a substantial mark of favour in an annual pension of £200. Towards the close of the year 1773, there was a proposal for transferring Dr Beattie to the university of Edinburgh: this he declined chiefly, it would appear, from the dread of having to encounter there many machinations and subtle inventions of the sceptical philosophers, whose head-quarters he deemed Edinburgh to be, and who, he appears to have thought, would certainly plot his destruction if he was so foolhardy as to place himself within their reach. The reader will often be reminded of poor John Dennis's dread of the French court in perusing that portion of Dr Beattie's voluminous correspondence which relates to this matter. "There are about thirty pages of anxious elaborate correspondence on this subject, which illustrate, more than any thing we have lately met with, the importance of a man to himself, and the strange fancies that will sometimes be engendered between self-love and literary animosity. With no better grounds of apprehension than we have already mentioned, Dr Beattie writes:- Even if my fortune were as narrow, &c. I would still incline to remain in quiet where I am, rather than, by becoming a member of the university of Edinburgh, place myself within the reach of those who have been pleased to let the world know that they do not wish me well;-not that I have any reason to mind their enmity, &c. My cause is so good, that he who espouses it can never have occasion to be afraid of any man.' If he had actually been in danger of poison or stilettoes, he could not have used other language. He proceeds afterwards: As they are singular enough to hate me for having done my duty, and for what I trust (with God's help) I shall never cease to do, (I mean for endeavouring to vindicate the cause of truth, with that zeal which so important a cause requires,) I could never hope that they would live with me on those agreeable terms on which I desire to live with all good men,' &c. And in another epistolary dissertation on the same subject, he adds,

with some reference to the members of the Edinburgh university, which we are persuaded was without foundation. I should dislike very much to live in a society with crafty persons, who would think it for their interest to give me as much trouble as possible; unless I had reason to think that they had conscience and honour sufficient to restrain them from aspersing the innocent.'

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Dr Beattie published a volume of Essays in 1776, and another in 1783; a treatise on the Evidences of Christianity in 1786, and an outline of his academical lectures in 1790. These constituted all his prose publications. The first canto of the Minstrel' was published in 1771. It took well, probably more in consequence of its author being already known by his Essay on Truth.' It is by no means a poem of the highest order; yet it contains some beautiful descriptions and fine sentiments, and will always be read with pleasure by gentle and cultivated minds. The author makes the following remarks upon his own poem in his letters to Lady Forbes: “ Again your ladyship must have observed, that some sentiments are common to all men; others peculiar to persons of a certain character. Of the former sort are those which Gray has so elegantly expressed in his Church-yard Elegy;' a poem. which is universally understood and admired, not only for its poetical beauties, but also, and perhaps chiefly, for its expressing sentiments in which every man thinks himself interested, and which, at certain times, are familiar to all men. Now the sentiments expressed in the Minstrel,' being not common to all men, but peculiar to persons of a certain cast, cannot possibly be interesting, because the generality of readers will not understand, nor feel them so thoroughly as to think them natural. That a boy should take pleasure in darkness or a storm,-in the noise of thunder, or the glare of lightning; should be more gratified with listening to music at a distance, than with mixing in the merriment occasioned by it; should like better to see every bird and beast happy and free, than to exert his ingenuity in destroying or insnaring them, these, and such like sentiments, which, I think, would be natural to persons of a certain cast, will, I know, be condemned as unnatural by others, who have never felt them in themselves, nor observed them in the generality of mankind. Of all this I was sufficiently aware before I published the Minstrel,' and therefore never expected that it would be a popular poem." What follows, however, as it partakes of anecdote, will probably be more interesting to most readers. "I find you are willing to suppose, that, in Edwin, I have given only a picture of myself as I was in my younger days. I confess the supposition is not groundless. I have made him take pleasure in the scenes in which I took pleasure, and entertain sentiments similar to those, of which, even in my early youth, I had repeated experience. The scenery of a mountainous country, the ocean, the sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when I was a school-boy; and at a time when I was so far from being able to express, that I did not understand my own feelings, or perceive the tendency of such pursuits and amusements; and as to poetry and music, before I was ten years old I could play a little on the violin, and was as much master of Homer and Virgil, as Pope's and Dryden's translations could make me."

In 1796 Dr Beattie lost a favourite son, his only surviving child.

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