be hanged before the dwelling house of Martin Guerre, and that his body should be burnt to ashes; his effects were adjudged to be the property of the children begotten by him on Martin's wife.

The criminal was taken back to Artigues, and, as the day of execution approached, was observed to lose his firmness; after a long interview with the Curè, he, at last, confessed his crime, acknowledging that he was first tempted to commit it, by being repeatedly mistaken for and addressed by the name of Martin Guerre; he denied having made use of charms, or of magic, as many suspected, very properly observing, that the same supernatural art which could enable him to carry on his deception, would also have put it in his power to escape punishment..

He was executed according to his sentence, first addressing a few words to Martin Guerre's wife, and died offering up prayers to the Almighty to pardon his sins, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.

This singular narrative is authenticated by the respectable evidence of Gayot de Pitaval, and related in good latin by the worthy Thuanus.

I annex the words of the latter; as the passsage is not long, I produce it as a correct specimen of the proper way of telling a story, and as a fair contrast to my own.

"Arnoldus Tillius arctam in adolescentia cum Mar tino Guerra, dum ambo in castris essent, amicitiam coluisset; oris ac corporis specie tam Martino similis, ut nihilo, excepta pedis longitudine ab eo diversus esset.

Post octo annorum Martini absentiam, ausus est pu dicitiam uxoris ejus attentare, et postremo persuasit se Martinum esse; et cum multa, quæ viro cum conjugej secreta sunt, instructus dedieerat, non solum uxori, sed et sororibus aliis que Martini agnatus imposuit, et cum illi totum triennium consuevit, quo tempore duos liberos suscepit.

Sed cum homo alienæ pudicitia raptor, etiam bonis avidius inhiaret, a Petro Guerra, Martini patruo, quasi impostor postulatus, uxore etiam fraudem suspicante.

Judices interea sententiæ incerti essent, cum Deo vo lente, Martinus ex Hispania intervenit, et pro vero viro ab uxore agnitus, omnem dubitationem exemit, et Ar noldus, post veniam a Deo, rege, justitia, et Martino et uxore ignominiose petitam, tanquam impostor, adulter, raptor, sacrilegus plagiarius et fur, ad suspendium dam

natus est."

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

PROBATQUE CULPATQUE.

An Address (to Ld. Henry Petty, and) to the British Parliament, on Vaccination, of the greatest importance to mankind, wherein the Report of the College of Physicians is completely confuted. By Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, Esq. 2d. Edit. Hatchard, 3s. Ed.

When in the earlier stage of Vaccination we perused Mr. Aikin's excellent Treatise on the Cow-pox, we pleased ourselves with the conviction that all controversy on the subject would be precluded; but behold! in this advanced stage of its progress, an address appears to the British parliament, in which the report of the whole College of Physicians is completely confuted, and when we fancied ourselves at the end of our journey, we find we are just at the point from which we set out. This modest medical Esquire, it seems, was an active soldier in his very first hours of childhood; for he thus describes himself: "a physician of thirty-five years most extensive and successful practice, (excepting the time in which I was serving my king and country in arms:" but perhaps he means in the army, for it seems he is not less skilled in the science of powder and bolus, than of powder and ball, for he either holds or has held the situation of Bar- rack-Master; in conjunction with his Diploma as a Doctor of Medicine, he is M. D. or M. B. utrum horum.

This physician of "thirty-five years practice" in arts and arms, caught at first the prevailing affection for vaccination, and in the fervor of this first love, he was induced to have his own child inoculated; but as vaccination, though it prevents the small-pox, has not the like power of expelling or curing all other diseases to which the habit of body may be liable, it so happened that in this case some scrophulous appearances presented themselves, and this great physician thereupon set about rubbing mercurial ointment into his child in arms, and giving mercury internally to the mother; and as the infant died under this trial of skill, this Esculapius rose up in his wrath, sent the case to the renowned Dr. Squir

rel, who nimbly popped it into the list of his cases of cow-poison, and published it to the world with all due

execration.

The case was transmitted in a letter, from which we shall make an extract or two, in order that it may bear testimony to the profound judgment as well as professional eminence of this "physician of thirty-five years extensive and successful practice." The letter begins in this wise:

TO DR. SQUIRREL.

«SIR, "According to your request, I send you inclosed the case of a child of mine who was inoculated with the cow-pox, which proved fatal to the poor infant. During the time the cow-pox inoculation was introduced and brought into general practice, I was abroad, and having heard repeatedly the most favourable and flattering account of its success, was induced when I came home to have my child vaccinated."

Now it cannot but be matter of wonder how it should happen that Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, Esquire, in the course of his extensive practice, should, even after vaccination had been brought into general practice, have only heard the flattering accounts of its success, and have had no opportunity afforded him of practically trying it; besides, the very favourable account of its progress which he received must have been well grounded, for as a inedical man, and in extensive practice, he must have had good opportunity of judging of the truth of what he had heard, and he must have received his report from persons whom he must have known were well informed, or he would not have ordered his own child to be vaccinated. He himself therefore gives the strongest testimony in favour of vaccination, though in the blindness of his rage to suppress it, he does not appear to perceive the tendency of his own evidence. We are pleased however to see the whole College of Physicians confuted, by a single case of singular practice; but we fear they will still persevere in the Vaccine system, for those who are confuted, are not always convinced, and there are some whose prejudice is so strong, as to resist even the combined force of quackery and quicksilver.

The letter proceeds thus:

"On the 8th of April, 1802, the child twenty-two days old, be ing in perfect health, was inoculated with good laudable vaccine matter from a healthy subject, by Mr. Canadine, a respectable and experienced surgeon of East-lane, Walworth."

It is a little curious that this Squire who writes this letter, after the fact which draws down all his virulence and all his vengeance, who in the whole of his book most violently condemns all vaccine matter, as not only bad, but poisonous and execrable, should declare this very vaccine matter to which he lays the charge of his child's loss, to be good and laudable vaccine matter; and it would moreover puzzle the common sense of those who have not this writer's portion of military and medical skill to account, how the child from whom this poisonous, diseasing and deadly matter was taken, should itself be a healthy child.

Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, Esquire, having adminis tered his mercurial aid to his infant of twenty-two days old, not forgetting the mother; and having closed his labours with bestowing on Dr. Jenner the most unqua lified condemnation, and heaping every term of the most abusive scurrility against the advocates of Vaccihation, thus concludes:

"I have now performed my duty to God, to my country, and to mankind, according to my conscience."

Surely this Squire's conscience is of a comical cast But if it suits him, and he is satisfied with it, why so be it. Let every man speak well of the bridge that carries bim safe over. If this sort of conscience enables him in so able a manner to perform his duty thus extensively, we will not quarrel with its materials, or with the mould it was cast in.

4

The Crisis. By the Author of Plain Faets; or a Review of the Conduct of the late Ministers. 2d Edition, 2s. 6d Stockdale, Pall-Mall.

This author writes with great spirit. The Crisis he thinks is at hand, and His main argument is this: As long as Buonaparte chuses to persevere in his intolerant system, at once to interdict all neutral trade whatever f would completely assert (says the Author) the ascendancy of the British trident; and, as far as the intercourse with France and her dependants or her allies was concerned, I would not suffer a neutral bark to float upon the seas. What France wanted, she should not acquire, till a duty had been levied on it in some British port; and thus would I compel her to contribute to the support of our maritime strength.

This we know is a very general and popular Sentiment; but Great Britain need not yet resort to an expedient of which nothing but self-preservation, and that at the very last extremity can justify the employment. Our Author, however, supports his position very ably. There are, strictly speaking, but two independent nations left; and those who are not our friends, must be at present, or must speedily become, our enemies. Buonaparte has the complete rule over the continent, which he exercises, according to his own free-will, in the manner which, in his judgment, will prove most injurious to us. We have the complete rule over the seas, which we, in return, should exercise in the manner which, in our judgment, will prove most injurious to him. This is the only mode which he has left us of correcting his audacity, or of disarming his malevolence. Can we then hesitate to adopt it? The public law of Europe is for the present gone. On the part of the continent, it has been dissolved by the usurper: on our part, it has been superseded, by the necessity to which the operation of that tyranny has reduced It is not to be expected, that we should continue to acknowledge the validity of those restrictive maxims, which our adversary completely rejects; and whilst he is ranging at large, entirely released from all confinement, that we, from bigotted scruples of conscience, should fetter ourselves by an implicit obedience to their authority. His acts exonerate us, in the strictest moral sense, frou all obligation. If it is our duty to be kind towards others that duty can only so far apply as it is consistent with out safety. The strongest law of nature is self-preservation, and to that law, on general principles, every other must bend.

us.

The law of nations must, from its very constitution, be purely conventional. Over the actions of independent states, there can be no sovereignty. There can be no permanent tribunal, to which they can appeal for redress: there can be no judicature to adjust their disputes, or to punish their transgressions. If, therefore, in the civilized parts of the world, a code of laws have gradually grown up, and have been generally acknowledged, it has been from a sense of its utility, and from a conviction of the convenience which has resulted by abstaining from its infraction. It was, no doubt, while it lasted, of infinite benefit to mankind. It has frequently prevented hostility: it has always mitigated the havock of war, and facilitated/