made the fair fields of science an exclusive preserve, open only to the initiated-to such as possessed the symbolical password, he deserves the best thanks of his fellow-citizens, as one who has thus opened new sources of knowledge and enjoyment to all, which have hitherto been as sealed books. We confess that, in contemplating the future prospects of man, the extended "knowledge for the people," the feelings we indulge are of a nature much more pleasing than painful. Our maxim is, that in proportion as man becomes wiser, he becomes better; and that whatever has a direct tendency to widen the sphere of his acquired knowledge, widens also the sphere of his usefulness, promotes the growth of domestic virtues, makes him more watchful of his own conduct, and a more intelligent observer of the conduct of others. But to secure a harvest of such desirable fruit, our endeavour must be constantly directed to the quality of that knowledge which, as an intellectual engine, we distribute for the moral advancement of the great mass of the people; we must be upon our guard lest, in a soil where either the spurious or the true fruit may luxuriate, the former by deleterious intermixture, should smother the latter, and instead of a wholesome crop, we only reap a harvest of noxious weeds. Never, in the history of this, or any other country, were such extensive funds employed, such powerful minds engaged in furthering, by every human and attainable means, the condition, and in enlightening the minds, of the lower classes. But in proportion as this spirit is fostered, in proportion as the minds of the people are rendered susceptible of self-instruction, and the printed and written language is no longer a mystery, so should every philanthropic mind keep a jealous eye over the multifarious, and often dangerous, matter which is every day issuing from the press, and inundating the country. Unless we do so, learning becomes a curse. As within these twenty years the number of those who, among the lower classes, read for improvement has been doubled, so also has the demand for simple and elementary works on science and art increased, and the services rendered by this "Society" for the promotion of this great end, afford a retrospect of the highest congratulation to every patriotic and enlightened mind. In the publication of the present, and preceding works from the same source, every thing has been conducted in subservience to this important question, “understandest thou what thou readest?" and the arcana of science reduced to the scale of ordinary capacities, and transmitted through the medium of a plain and intelligible phraseology.

But in thus premising our subject we feel that, although we should have much to advance on so interesting a topic, and may revert to it on a future occasion, we are unwilling to occupy the reader's attention with any further remarks of our own, but

introduce him at once to the work itself, the merits and method of which we shall endeavour to illustrate by apt quotation and occasional comment.

After a brief notice detailing the scope and intention of this popular work, there follows a concise and well-written introduction, wherein the more essential facts in anatomical and physiological science, are lucidly set forth, and brought more immediately to the eye and understanding of the reader through the medium of several well-executed plates of the human figure, illustrative of its various functions. The first chapter opens with a dissertation on such diseases as are supposed to arise from peculiar conditions of the atmosphere, in which Dr. John Conolly, the author, has succeeded in condensing within a small space nearly all that is known or interesting on the subject. In the second, we have a description of cholera, with the history of that disease, and an account of its progress northward, till its pestilential presence was announced on our own shores.

"From Bengal, in 1818, it passed on to the Coromandel Coast, or Presidency of Madras, where, with the exception of two years 1826-27, it has, more or less, ever since prevailed. In the same year 1818, it visited the coast of Malabar, or Bombay Presidency, and spread to the Burmese empire; and it is traced in 1819 to the islands of Penang and Sumatra, to Ceylon and Malacca, and to the Mauritius; and in 1820 to China, and successively throughout large portions of Eastern Asia; to islands in the African Ocean; to Arabia, to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judea, in 1821; to Persia in 1822. At length it appeared in Russia. It extended to Poland in March 1831; it appeared in Prussia in May, and also in Austria. In June it reached St. Petersburg: in October it appeared at Hamburgh, and in the same month its existence in this country was first discovered." P. 50.

After a variety of interesting particulars regarding the climate and people of India, the nature and progress of the disease, with authentic evidence in support of its contagious nature, and its recent devastations in the Russian Capital, under the observation of Drs. Russell and Barry; we come to a chapter (1x) of the deepest national concern, the Spasmodic Cholera in England. This chapter is well deserving of attentive perusal, it is multum in parvo, the essence of nearly all that has come to our knowledge up to the present date. It may be proper, however, to state, that Dr. Conolly having given his support in favor of the contagious nature of Cholera, his remarks, though not less valuable in themselves, are nevertheless materially influenced by, and the natural result of, that impression-an impression which we rejoice to say is every day losing some of its original supporters, and consequently much of those shadowy terrors which so lately invested this new and formidable disease. At the head of those who have laboriously applied themselves to the investigation of the disease, as it now appears in the metropolis, Dr. Johnson has succeeded in throwing much light upon the subject, and, in

conjunction with many eminent practitioners, in tranquillising the public mind. For ourselves, we confess we are not alarmists, and with a vast mass of evidence before us in every way calculated to calm the excited apprehensions, but which it would be foreign to our design here to recapitulate, we look forward with confidence to the measures now in force, and the minds everywhere investigating the subject, for the final settlement of the long agitated question of contagion.

In taking leave of this work, we have to thank the author for one of the most seasonable, judicious, and comprehensive treatises that have yet appeared on the subject of cholera. It is a book which no family should be without, particularly in the country; and at this season when the public attention has been so painfully directed to the invasion of these shores by a pestilential disease, the history, prevention, and treatment of cholera, as therein set forth, and the result of much study, reasoning, and practical observation, we can conscientiously recommend as a manual infinitely better adapted to the ends in view, than any thing that has yet appeared. We annex the following extracts, and regret that our space is so limited as to preclude the possibility of our giving the work that space and consideration to which it is so justly entitled.

"There were in a particular part of India to which the cholera came, two companies of soldiers; one of three hundred, one of one hundred. The company of one hundred agreed to live temperately and to avoid the night air: and only one man caught the cholera. The company of three hundred made no such agreement, but went on as usual, and thirty of them died. "Let him who reads this page, then, remember, when he lifts the glass to his mouth, that if it raises his spirits for an hour or two, it shortens his life by many hours. P. 160.

"Fewer women have died of cholera than men, fewer children than women, and fewer sober men than drunkards. If a man's natural spirits and strength are habitually exhausted by artificial stimulants, his stock of spirits and strength will be so taken up beforehand, that if the cholera makes a sudden demand upon his stock, even his life must go towards the payment. Ibid.

"There is no greater enemy of the cholera than cleanliness. If it were not for dirt and neglect, it is almost a question whether it would ever have found a substantial footing any where. It never goes first into cleanly houses; but creeps about the narrow streets, the confined and dirty allies, the damp cellars, and the crowded garrets, where poverty and wretchedness have taken up their abode before. There it finds a home, and becomes stronger and bolder; and after destroying its hundreds, it spreads forth into the air of á whole city, and triumphs over its thousands. P. 162.

"A man who is tired and exhausted, and cold, drinks a glass of raw spirits, and because it produces some warmth, and rouses his languid heart and nerves, as the whip and spur stimulate the jaded horse, he fancies that it does him more good than food: which is just as foolish as it would be to suppose that the whip and spur would keep the horse in as good condition as hay and corn. To live poorly is a bad thing, and to drink is a bad thing; but to live poorly and to drink too, is certain destruction. P.165.

"One of the most common causes of disease is moisture or dampness, whether combined with great heat or great coldness of the air. P. 167.

"The effects of cold upon the body are much more dangerous during sleep than when we are awake. More clothing is required by night than by day. Dry rooms, clean sheets, and good warm blankets, will do more than any medicine to keep off attacks of cholera. P. 174.

"But supposing that the cholera is actually in the town in which you live, or even in the very street in which your house is, what then are you to do? "The first consideration that would press itself on your thoughts at such a time would be, whether with all your care you and your family might not yet take the disease from some of your sick neighbours. You have been told how medical men differ on this subject. It has been mentioned to you that in a great number of instances the disease has seemed to be carried from one place to another by individuals or by their clothes or goods; and that yet so many persons escape who have had more or less communication with the sick that many doubt the possible communication of the malady from one person to another. Examples have been given of places and persons apparently secured from the disease by being carefully separated from others: and of other places from which no care or caution has appeared able to keep out the cholera. In the history given of cholera you must have remarked it has first appeared in sea-ports, seeming to be brought from other sea-ports: how much reason there is for thinking that it went by sea from Baku to Astrachan; and came by sea from Hamburgh to Sunderland. P. 176.

"Leaving, however, the settlement of this question to medical men, many of whom are willing to devote their time, and some of whom are ready to peril their lives in the investigation; it is, in the mean time, the part of every person of sound mind to act as if the contagion of cholera was positively proved.

"We must once more remind the reader that it is only a wise fear which we wish to excite in his mind, and not that extravagant terror which prevailed in the Indian army, where, the common people being unprepared by what has been recommended in this chapter in order to avoid the disease, fled in distraction, and left the sick to die, and the dead to be devoured by the fowls of the air. P. 177.

"Let no one give way to foolish fears; but rather feel quite sure that ordinary care will make the disease almost harmless; and that, if it should become more severe and general, every thing will be done that man's prudence and forethought can devise to preserve the lives of those attacked, and of all about them. Fear alone will sometimes produce irregular actions in the stomach and bowels; and it always lessens man's power of resisting disease as well as danger.

"After all, it would be unworthy of an enlightened and brave people to take fright at the cholera, and most disgraceful to run away by hundreds, or to turn robbers and desperadoes in the presence of such an enemy. Many men go into battle again and again, well knowing the danger. Many incur danger by sea and land, for pleasure's sake. Surely then, if the cholera does come, it ought to find us not only well prepared to keep it out, but, having done all we can, if we must fall, prepared to fall as becomes men and Christians." Pp. 183-5.

Britain's Historical Drama; a series of National Tragedies, intended to illustrate the Manners, Customs, and religious Institutions of different early Eras in Britain. By J. F. Pennie: 1 vol. 8vo. Maunder; London, 1832.

In this fast-writing age, when books of all sorts come pouring in upon us quick as the shadows exhibited by the wierd sisters to the wondering gaze of the bloody Thane, we were not a little astonished, the other day, to find on our table a thick octavo, bearing the alarming title of "A Series of Tragedies." We fancied, before we recognised the name of the author, that they might turn out to be the overstrained productions of some ambitious student, who had mounted on the back of Pegasus, little deeming how unmanageable his steed might prove, and that his rider, while gazing at the stars, might be stayed in his onward flight, and fall, as did of old Bellerophon. In fact the appearance of the book had wellnigh startled us out of our humble wits. We are old enough in our vocation to know with what labouring throes a single readable tragedy (we speak of absolute, regular tragedy,) is produced; to say nothing of the next to certainty, now-a-days, of its being rejected as an acting one by the whole body of managers, stage managers, readers, actors, walking gentlemen, scene painters, prompters, and scene-shifters, nay down to the very call-boys and servants; the latter of whom run on and off the stage, fetching and carrying chairs, tables, candles, glasses, &c. with such wonderful celerity; and whose gaudy liveries put to shame their unrouged and most tallow-like faces. When, therefore, a gentleman thinks it meet, right, and proper to put forth tragedies by the batch, amounting in pages to 547, and in lines or verses to the appalling number of nearly fifteen thousand, we may surely be excused a considerable portion of surprise, and, at the same time, may be pardoned, when we avow that it was not without brightening our intellects, late in the evening, with a cup of the finest gunpowder tea, from the depot of our countryman Davies, who, by the by, is the best selector of teas in this tea-drinking kingdom, together with the appliance of sundry pinches of Fribourg's Martinique and Bolongaro, that we sat down to the perusal of a larger allowance of poetry than is generally dealt out by the inspired brotherhood. But the tea, (and here we could break out into a rhapsody, little short of adoration, on this inestimable beverage,) and the sneeshin, as Edie Ocheltree hath it, made us reckless of all consequences, careless of our eyesight, prodigal of our midnight oil, and determined to admire the best, or laugh at the worst, which Mr. Pennie could bestow or inflict upon our literally benighted understandings. In short, we had worked ourselves up to the necessary pitch of phrenzy,