rate, and leave our Réaders to judge how far they are new, how far they are juft, or how near they approach to mathematical truths. The following are fome of Mr. Wathen's conclufions;-that the lues venerea, whether recent or chronic, local or univerfal, was never yet radically cured without the use of mercury; that the preparations contained in the London and Edinburgh difpenfatories, poflefs every valuable quality yet known, or perhaps obtainable from this mineral;-that if two or three. drachms of the unguent. cerul. fort. be used every night, the mercurial fymptoms will make their appearance from the third to the fifth day; and if continued in the fame dofe, a falivation' will commence from the fixth to the ninth day; i. e. after having used three ounces of the ointment, or one ounce of the mercury itself ;-that twel grains of the pil. mercul. P. E. taken night and morning, will affect the mouth in about eight days, and, persisted in for eight days longer, a ptyalifm will be raised; i. e. by two drachms of the mercury thus divided;—that the mercur. dulcis fublimatus, which is the best of the chymical clafs, when given from five to ten grains every night, will raise a faJivation on the fixth, feventh, or eighth day; after having administered fomewhat more than one drachm of this medicine;that the mercur. correffiv. fublim. which is the most acrimonious preparation, given to one quarter of a grain twice a day, and perfifted in for a long time, feldom affects the falivary glands, or operates in any fenfible manner;-that this, the mercur. faccharatus, Belleft's Pill, Keyfer's Pill, and indeed all the preparations of mercury are effentially the fame ;-that nothing can be more abfurd than a bigotted attachment to any one of them; and that we may occafionally ufe them all, by adapting them to the patient's cafe and fituation;-that the mercur. corrof. fublim. is not to be Bepended on in these colder climates ;-that Keyfer's Pills are inadequate to the cure of a confirmed lues; and that the author of the Parallele des differentes methodes de traiter la maladie vénérienne, accounts for their reputation in France, from the interested patronage of the great; who have procured their general ufe in the army and navy, and given rewards to such patients, and fanction only to fuch furgeons, who have made use of Keyfer's Pills-that thefe pills are nothing more than mercury diffolved in vinegar:-and that Meff. Hawkins and Bromfield, after the most candid tryal, have rejected both thefe and the folution. Thus much for the various preparations; now for our Author's conclufions relative to the modus operandi of this mineral.

Mr. Wathen afferts, that mercury does not act by way of extinction ;-that it has not the property of a specific antidote ;-that when thrown into the blood in a fufficient quantity, powerfully acts upon both the folids and fluids; diminishing

the

the bulk and rigidity of the former, (the bones excepted) and breaking down and dividing the texture of the fluids:-the ferum of the blood is now muddy, the cruor without tenacity, and the whole mafs in a ftate of diffolution. Hence the fymptoms of a true plethora, and the neceffity of fome speedy evacuation ;-that nature generally determines this evacuation to be by the mouth; at other times by the inteftines; and but rarely by the fkin or kidneys ;-that the venereal poison is fufed and refolved in this common diffolution; and expelled the body in the fubfequent evacuation;-that the perfect cure depends upon an exact proportion in these three things: a fufficient quantity of the medicine, a total diffolution of the poison, and its total evacuation:-and that the leaft deficiency in any of thefe points will neceffarily render the cure incompleat.-Such are our Author's chief obfervations; how near they approach to mathematical certainties, belongs not to us to determine. There are fome however, we apprehend, who are extenfive practitioners, accurate obfervers, and good reafoners, who must be charged with infidelity;-who will even affert that mercury is a Specific; an antidote to this particular poifon; that it destroys its nature; renders it inactive; and that continued and encreased evacuations are not neceflary to wafh it out of the body as ftill noxious. They will afk too, if diffolution be the peculiar operation of this mineral, whence the buffy, dense state of the blood, which fometimes appears after a long continued ufe of mercury?-whence the more than ufually vifcid faliva, which is evacuated in a falivation? Has Mr. Wathen explained the peculiar operation of mercury;-whence is it that the volatile falts, or other powerful folvents, are not equally efficacious antivenereals?-Whence is it, that one ounce of mercury used in the form of ointment; two drachms of the fame administered in the form of pills; and only one drachm of the mercurius dulcis, do all produce the fame mercurial fymptoms?-Some will doubt whether all the preparations of mercury can with propriety be faid to be effentially the fame. The kelp or foffile alkali, as united with the marine acid, makes our common alimentary falt: and whence the neceffity of concluding that mercury, when combined with the fame acid, fhould retain its own individual nature?

We fhall juft mention Mr. Wathen's practice.When the disease is recent and local, half an ounce of the mercureal ointment is to be rubbed every morning on or as near the part affected as poffible; four or five ftools are to be procured every day, which is an evacuation proportioned to the quantity of fluids diffolved by fuch a dofe of mercury; and this courfe is to be continued for a month or more.-There are practitioners who will call this a fomewhat Herculean method. In the worst

and

and most malignant degrees of the lues, where there are exoftofes, caries, &c. a confiderable quantity of mercury, a total change, a perfect refolution, and a plentiful evacuation by a regular ptyalyfm, are neceffary to perfect the cure.In the lefs malignant degrees of the univerfal'lues, where the disease is not fo firmly rooted in the folid parts, Mr. Wathen judiciously obferves, that it may be cured without a falivation;-he gives the mercury in fuch dofes as lightly to affect the mouth, and keeps it acting in this proportion, by the well-timed interpofition of opening medicines.

The letter addreffed to Mr. Collinfon contains the cafe of a child which had fwallowed an ear of dog's grafs. This accident occafioned violent reaching, coughing, and a kind of ftrangulation; after this a pain in the ftomach, fever, lofs of appetite, ftinking breath, and at times the expectoration of matter: all which fymptoms difappeared in about fourteen days. A tumor then began to form upon the back; this fuppurated, and on opening it there was found a fpike of the hardeum fpurium of Parkinson. Many cafes fimilar to this are related by practical writers; in most of which, however, the progreffive motion of the extraneous body was not affifted by the circumftances here enumerated.

The Plays of William Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, with the Corrections and Illuftrations of various Commentators. To which are added Notes by Sam. Johnson. 8vo. 21. 8s. bound. Tonfon, &c. Concluded, from Page 301.

IT

T is prefumed the distinction we endeavoured to establish, in our former article, refpecting the effects of dramatic reprefentation, is too obviously fupported by facts, to be called in queftion by even the moft fcrupulous reader. It is not a little furprifing, therefore, to find the critics implicitly adopting each other's fentiments in this particular, and fucceffively maintaining the neceffity of our being fo far deceived as to believe the diftreis of a tragedian to be real, before we can poffibly be affected by it. Thus the ingenious Abbé Batteux, in treating of this fubject, obferves, that if the place of the dramatic action be changed, or the time of it prolonged, the spectator muft neceffarily perceive there is fome artifice ufed; after the difcovery of which deccit, he can no longer be brought to believe any thing that paffes, and confequently nothing in the reprefentation will be capable of affecting him.' It is notorious, however, as hah already been obferved, that the spectator is affected, and yet be

lieves nothing at all of the actual diftrefs of the scene, or as our Editor calls it, the materiality of the fable. It is, alfo, no lefs certain, that the intereft we take in the representation of the drama, doth by no means depend on thofe retrofpective refinements of intellect, to which Dr. Johnfon imputes it. We are moved by fympathy, and to this end the appearance, the imitation, of diftrefs, even though we are confcious, on reflection, that it is no more than imitation, is yet fufficient:

Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus alfunt

Humani vultus.

And hence the poet proceeds to lay down that rule, which hath been as frequently mifapplied as his incredulus odi already quoted: a view of the whole paffage, however, will fufficiently explain it, as it did the former:

-Si vis me flere, dolendum eft
Primum ipfe tibi; tunc tua me infortunia lædent
Telephe, vel Peleu: male fi mandata loqueris,

Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo.

We fee here that it is the mere appearance, the imitation, of paffion only, which is infifted on as neceffary and fufficient to affect the audience. Indeed, if this were not the cafe, the critics must have even gone fo far as to confine unity of character to identity of perfon. And this they might have done alfo, with almost as much propriety, as they pretend that a fpectator actually fuppofes himself to be where the fcene of the drama is laid. For it is furely as difficult for him to conceive himself actually at Elfinore, while he is fitting in Drury-lane theatre, as it is for him to imagine Mr. Garrick, whofe face he knows very well, and who talks plain English, fhould be really Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Dr. Johnson, therefore, may fully prove the impoffibility of the drama's being in its materiality credited, and yet by no means exculpate Shakespeare in the. breach of the dramatic unities.

It does not appear to us that either Ariftotle or Horace, from whom we seem to derive the neceffity of obferving the unities of time and place,' had any fuch notion, as the moderns entertain, of the neceffity of making the drama credible;' at least in fuch a manner as Dacier, Boffu, Rapin, Le Blanc, and Dr. Johnfon would have us believe. The defective manner in which the plays of the ancients were reprefented, rendered indeed such an attempt to impofe on the audience ftill more impracticable than we even find it at prefent, with all the advantage of moving fcenes, and perspective paintings.

Nothing feems clearer than that Horace, in particular, knew how far the delufion could be carried, in its greatest de

Agreeable to this the poet fays, FALSIS terroribus implet.

gree