of youth, and entirely consistent with, and conducive to social and domestic habits?

. The observations of Aristotle (de Rep. lib. viii. c. 3.) appear to us so much to the purpose, that we cannot help presenting them to the notice of our classical readers.

φανερον ὅτι δει και προς την εν τη διαγωγη σχολήν, μανθάνειν αττα και παιδεύεθαι· και ταῦτα μεν τα παιδεύματα και ταύτας τας μαθήσεις εαυτών είναι χαριν· τας δε προς την ασχολίαν, ώς αναγκαίας και χαριν άλλων. Διο και την μεσικήν δι προτερον εἰς παιδειαν έταξαν, ουχ ώς αναγκαῖον δεν γαρ εχει τοιῦτον· οὐδ ̓ ὡς χρησιμον, ώσπερ τα γραμματα προς χρηματισμού, και προς οικονομιαν, και προς μαθησιν, και προς πολιτικας πράξεις πολλας Δοκεῖ δε και γραφική χρησιμος είναι προς το κρίνειν τα τῶν τεχνιτών εργα καλλιον εδ αν καθαπερ ή γυμνασική προς υγιειαν και αλκην εδέτερων γαρ τετών ορώμεν γιγνόμενον εκ της μεσικης. Λειπεταί τοινυν προς την εν τη σχολη διαγωγήν· εἰς ὅπερ και φαίνονται παράγοντες αυτήν. Ην γαρ οίονται διαγωγήν είναι των ελευθερων, εν ταύτη ταττεσι.

To those who think with us that music is at least a rational entertainment, and who wish to see it become something more than mere legerdemain, we can confidently recommend Dr. Crotch's work as a clear and perspicuous elucidation of its principles.

ART. XVII.-Horace in London, consisting of Imitations of the first two Books of the Odes of Horace. By the Author of the Rejected Addresses. London, printed for John Miller. 1813.

THE authors of Horace in London give the following account of their book.

"These imitations of the odes of Horace," say they, "were originally written without any regard to regularity of succession. Many of them made their first appearance in a monthly publication, and the odes best calculated to illustrate the topic of the day were, from time to time, pressed into the service. They are now classed and drilled afresh; new troops drafted from the Roman battalion have raised them to their proper complement, and Horace in London is in readiness to take the field.".

Horace in London has taken the field, but it seems he has not been able to maintain it, and has fairly been beaten out of it by the Cossack in London, and other heroes and heroines of the day. The success of the publication called “ Rejected Addresses" has produced an effect the most natural in the world. Finding themselves in such favour with the public, these lucky writers have resolved to turn the disposition in their favour

to good account, and calling in the various attempts at imitating Horace, which had been dispersed abroad in some periodical publication, they present them again to the public under the sanction and shelter of the great reputation. acquired by the "Rejected Addresses." To know how to profit by the prejudices of the public, is one of the profoundest arts in the mystery of authorship, and by the dexterous application of this knowledge, many a man has raised himself above the frowns of fortune, before it has been discovered that he never merited her favours.

These poets seem aware in their preface, that it would have been wiser, if reputation alone were consulted, to have rested on the fame they had acquired in their first trial of skill, and in this opinion we entirely coincide. To attempt that in which Pope can scarcely be admitted to have succeeded, was not a little adventurous in these city candidates for the laurel. Johnsou observes by way of apology for Pope, that his imitations of Horace were the relaxations of his genius. To Pope it was permitted to trifle, but the day is not yet arrived when the authors of the "Rejected Addresses" may do as they please with the public, and put us off with their second-hand intellectual wares and the faded frippery of their muse's warehouse.

Before these authors enter upon their task, so modestly un dertaken, of imitating the odes of Horace, they represent his ghost and themselves in familiar conversation upon the mode in which he is to be treated, and after the great ancient has warned them of the difficulty of the task, and the just indignation he shall feel if not adequately represented, he is appeased in some measure by being told that they do not intend to translate him literally, but to write a book which they purpose to entitle Horace in London, consisting, as they say, of parodies and imitations of his odes. After assenting to this proposition, the insulted bard is made to submit to the indignity of being addressed in the following terms: "As long as you are pointed and witty I shall feed my Pegasus at the same manger; when you are flat, prosaic, and insipid (which under favour you sometimes are, especially at your conclusions where you ought to be most epigrammatic, witness your animumque reddas, inmeritamque vestem, mercuriusque, &c. &c.) I shall take the liberty of starting from the course, and being as pointed and poetical as I please."

We trust the British Reviewers have never incurred the suspicion of entertaining any malice against authors. The Reviewers of the present time have too much of the characters of authors themselves, not to sympathize with the fears and hopes,

the pains and anxieties of their feverish employment. There have, indeed, been callous and tasteless minds among us, capable of drawing forth the sighs of youthful genius, just emerging from want and obscurity, and endeavouring to tear from the aged brow the laurel still verdant amidst grey hairs. The treatment of Henry Kirke White in one Review, and of the venerable Mrs. Trimmer in another, have added greatly to the prevailing prejudice against the disposition and principles of Reviewers in general. Such a practice is as ungenerous as it is injurious. But to dissipate those delusions of vanity which are so treacherous to the fame of an author, which engage him in speculations above his means, and flatter him to his destruction, is eminently the duty of those who affect to watch and to correct the aberrations of taste, and the misdirection of talent. It is a part of that stern benevolence which belongs to the censor's office. Thus, it is our duty to tell the gentlemen who have not merely undertaken to rival Horace, but to supply what he has left deficient, to keep on a level with him when he mounts, and to soar where he sinks, in a word, to be poetical where he is prosaic, and pointed where he is flat and insipid, that they have egregiously miscalculated their own ability, have mistaken burlesque for imitation, and the prurience of their pens for the promptings of genius.

After saying thus much, it will not be expected that much more will be added on a work of the character of Horace in London. Our classical readers, who might be hurt by a degrading representation of Horace, may spare their chagrin, as there is not enough of resemblance in what here sets up for an imitation, to give it the effect of burlesque; and our English mothers and country gentlemen may be assured, that the Horace, to whose acquaintance their sons are to be introduced in their academies, is a very different sort of man from the person who has assumed the title of Horace in London.

ART. XVIII.-A View of the Progress and present Stute of Animal Chemistry. By Jöns Jacob Berzelius, M.D. Professor of Medicine and Pharmacy, &c. Translated from the Swedish by Gustavus Brunnmark, D.D. Chaplain to the Swedish Legation at the Court of St. James's. Sold by John Hatchard. London. 1813.

NATURE, which is incomprehensible to man when extended to immensity, escapes no less his penetration when contracted

into too narrow limits. At both these extremities a boundary is set to his experience, which succeeding ages may extend without ever being able to comprehend the whole." Such is the natural reflection of a mind, which having made animal chemistry its peculiar study, and having acquired much information and experience in this branch of physiology, is arrested in its progress by the minute ramifications of the vessels of the human body, and the inexplicable mazes of the nervous system. Impressed with the justness of the observation, we further agree with the learned author of the little treatise now before us, in considering that, " in the present state of our information, it is no small merit in a lover of the science, if he distinctly lays open what is really known, and determines with equal distinctness what is yet unknown to us, without filling up the chasm with conjecture."

Man is become, at least, as much an object of curiosity to himself in his material as in his moral or metaphysical state, and there is scarcely any principle stronger in him than the desire of developing the mysteries of his own nature. This reflex curiosity cannot be otherwise than laudable, when soberly indulged, since there is no attribute belonging to us that carries us to a greater distance from the lower animals. But in proportion to the dignity and difficulty of the employment is the danger and mischief of gratuitous assumptions, precipitate conclusions, and conjectural theories. At present, it does not appear that we are furnished with experimental knowledge, sufficient to support any satisfactory general results on the subject of animal chemistry; and the numerous medical hypotheses which are furnished to us, however plausibly systematized and maintained, do not seem, to speak in our author's own words, to have advanced the human understanding a hair's breadth nearer the truth. It ought not to surprise us that animal chemistry should be more exposed to these deceptive reasonings than other branches of natural philosophy, when we reflect upon the inexplicable connection which subsists between its processes and that unknown and hidden power which we call life. The ultimate particles of all bodies, whether vegetable, mineral, or animal, are alike; but their agencies are so altered and modified by the vital power, that we seek in vain to apply to matter submitted to its influence, the laws which we have derived from the consideration of inanimate nature.

"The chain of our experience," observes Dr. Berzelius," must always end in something inconceivable. Unfortunately this inconceivable something acts the principal part in animal chemistry, and enters so into every process, even the most minute, that the highest

knowledge, which we can attain, is the knowledge of the nature of the productions, whilst we are for ever excluded from the possibility of explaining how they are produced. But is it not probable, (continues he) that the human understanding, which is capable of so much cultivation, which has calculated the laws of motion for distant worlds, and explored in so many instances the beauty and wonders of surrounding nature, and has even attained a degree of perfection, the summit of which is concentrated in God, may one day explore itself and its nature? I am convinced it will not."

Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, is clearly and legibly written upon the barrier; and we must be content to class the living principle amongst those, which we can only discern in their operations. Innumerable are the phenomena which can never be understood until we can trace the reciprocal agency of matter and spirit; and we are apt to forget that the nature of both the substances must be understood separately before we can know them in their relation to each other. Success seems, it is true, to be more attainable on the hypothesis of materialism; but even this wretched doctrine, could the mind be reconciled to it, would afford no facility in practice to our investigation. Though these boundaries are affixed to our research, the range within is wide, and it is both useful and entertaining to expatiate wherever our footing is secure.

On entering upon the enquiry, our first attention is attracted to the two kinds of analysis applicable to animal substances. The one, which is more strictly chemical, assists us in resolving them, as we do unorganised substances, into oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and other elementary constituents. By the other we become acquainted with their proximate principles, and distinguish them into gelatine, albumen, mucus, urea, and the like. These latter, which may be extracted from the animal body in the same state in which they previously existed there, are composed of the former, and are resolvable into them; but in what proportions they are combined, and in what way new productions are formed in the body, from the disturbance and re-arrangement of these elements, we are totally ignorant. We are acquainted with but very few analagous processes in the vegetable world; in the animal, we have not made one step towards so desirable an elucidation of the processes of nature.

In contemplating the wonderful fabric of animal structure, the nervous system is that which first claims our attention. It is by this intricate and nearly incomprehensible organization that the vital energy diffuses itself. The power of assimilation is the. power of life, and by the nerves is this power impelled. That the brain is the seat of government, and dispenses the economy