ia>2.] Monthly Review of Literature. 239 



THE ANNUAL BIOGRAPHY AND OBITUARY. 1832. VOL. XVI. 

 IT has seldom fallen to our lot to record a series of more distinguished names, 

 comprehending equal loftiness and diversity of talents, than in the course of the 

 past year have ceased to reflect lustre upon the respective pursuits, of which, 

 while living, they formed the chief ornament were the leading authorities pur- 

 suits to which they were so devotedly and passionately attached. Among the 

 more intellectual and highly gifted of these, the public has to regret the depar- 

 ture of genius that may not speedily reappear, of genius that appealed to its 

 deepest and warmest sympathies, penetrated the sources of the human passions, 

 and called forth joy or woe with irresistible power like that of a magician's 

 wand. A Siddons herself has gone to the world of spirits, with the awful 

 shadows and mysteries of which, depicted in word, and look, and action, she 

 could so often startle the house from its propriety, and make the terrors and 

 sympathies of nature triumphant in the glory of her wondrous art. Elliston, 

 too, the most elegant and refined comedian of his day has left us ; and in another 

 sphere, and no less a powerful master over our human sympathies, Mackenzie, 

 the accomplished author of " The Man of Feeling," " Julia de Roubigne," and 

 so many other excellent works, he too has departed ; while in other walks of 

 knowledge we meet the names of the great, original, eccentric Abernethy, of the 

 eloquent and widely popular Robert Hall ; the celebrated academician Jackson, 

 Thomas Hope, William Roscoe, and the highly talented and eccentric Northcote. 

 The memoirs of these and other personages of high rank and character are in 

 general respectably executed, without, however, having much claim to superior 

 novelty, successful inquiry or sound remark, as compared with the Obituary of 

 other years. A few of the lives are hardly of sufficient extent, according to their 

 public importance ; while others appear, at least to judge by relative value, to 

 be carried beyond due length. This inequality may have arisen from their being 

 treated by minds of less congenial stamp than is desirable, when we know how 

 few writers we have, capable of doing justice to merit like that of Siddons, 



Abernethy, or Mackenzie. 







. 



FACTS RELATING TO THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH IN THE METROPOLIS. BY 



EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD, ESQ. SECOND EDITION ; WITH AN AP- 

 PENDIX, CONCERNING MURDER FOR THE SALE OF THE DEAD BODY. 



THIS work of Mr. Wakefield, has already been acknowledged by the public 

 press to contain many valuable remarks and suggestions, the more entitled to 

 attention as being derived from long personal observation and experience. Its 

 utility indeed seems wholly to consist in its practical aim and tendency ; its 

 object being to afford hints for carrying still farther the late improvement in the 

 executive system of metropolitan law. In performing this public duty, some of 

 the arguments brought forward by Mr. W. must strike every man of sense and 

 reflection as entitled to the early and most serious consideration of a British 

 legislature. That portion in particular, the mere title of which is so startling 

 and appalling to the human ear, announcing a new crime, exceeding in strange 

 enormity every thing recorded in the penal annals of any country, and against 

 which, like that of parricide amongst the Romans, there long existed no written 

 law, so terrible a stigma on the human character being wholly improbable and 

 almost inconceivable ; that portion, we repeat, is become of too vital and para- 

 mount importance, whether as regards the safety or the character of a civilized 

 community, not to meet with the instant and most strenuous exertions from 

 every branch of the legislature to remove so terrific an evil by more wise and 

 efficient measures than punishment after commission of the offence. Among 

 other ingenious methods for this purpose, not the least just and rational pro- 

 posed by Mr. W. is that the bodies of all who receive above a certain amount of 

 public money, shall be liable to be claimed for the public good; and, which 

 would clash less with our system of government, by excusing from payment of 

 legacy duty the representatives of those persons who had bequeathed their bodies 

 for dissection, and whose bodies had actually been dissected. Considering the 



