424 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[APRIL, 



the views of the association ; and though 

 the said association did not accomplish all 

 it projected, yet it led the way to reforma- 

 tion ; and druggists are now men of liberal 

 education, and run no risk of blundering in 

 the disgraceful manner of their predecessors. 

 " Before this auspicious reform," says Dr. 

 Gregory, apparently on his own knowledge, 

 " some drug-dealing grocers at Marlow, 

 mistook arsenic for cream of tartar, and 

 tinctures of opium and jalap for senna and 

 rhubarb. And at Croydon, a druggist, 

 after spelling out the words cucurbita 

 cruentia (which we believe means a cup- 

 ping glass we remember the word in Ju- 

 venal but Dr. Gregory should not have 

 left us to the chance of a frail memory) 

 applied to another Esculapius, and found 

 them to mean an electric shock. While at 

 Worcester, a physician prescribing " Decoct. 

 Cascarilla Jvij. Tinct. ejusdem Ji," was 

 requested by the druggist of the town to 

 substitute something else for the Tinct. 

 Ejusdem, as he had no tincture called Ejus- 

 dem by him, and none was to be got in the 

 town," &c. But the days for these blun- 

 ders are, it seems, gone by ; and, of course, 

 when we hear of such things in the papers 

 one occurs in the Times to-day like the 

 rest of the broad sheet, it is not to be cre- 

 dited. But we are forgetting Dr. Mason 

 Good. 



From 1797 to 1803 he was fagging away 

 for reviews, particularly the Analytical and 

 Critical Reviews, the British and Monthly 

 Magazines ; and in 1803, his labours were 

 still more multifarious. He was finishing 

 his Translation of Solomon's Songs, carrying 

 on his Life of Dr. Geddes, and walking from 

 twelve to fourteen miles a day to visit his 

 numerous patients. In addition, he says 

 himself, in a letter to Dr. Nathan Drake, 

 "he was editing the Critical Review, be- 

 sides writing several of its most elaborate 

 articles every week supplying a column 

 of matter for the Sunday Review ; and at 

 the time of writing, had for some days had 

 the great weight of the BRITISH PRESS 

 upon his hands." " So great a variety of 

 occupations," remarks Dr. O. Gregory, 

 fe would have thrown most men into confu- 

 sion ; but such was the energy," &c. 



But, besides all this, he was at this very 

 time toiling at his translation of Lucretius, 

 which he had commenced so early as 1797- 

 This task was accomplished while tramping 

 the streets on his visits to his patients 

 with what benefit to them it is not easy to 

 determine. Think of a man arriving at a 

 patient's door, with an unfinished line float- 

 ing in his brain Apollo defend us ! This 

 translation was finished in 1805. It is in 

 blank verse, and, with a multitudinous mass 

 of annotation, fills two stout quartos. It is 

 undoubtedly the best we have. Busby's, 

 which appeared a few years after, is com- 

 paratively loose and redundant the sense 

 could hardly be missed by any body. Bus- 



by, who was nothing but a coxcomb, had, 

 indeed, to struggle with the fetters of rhyme, 

 but that was his own choice. Lucretius is 

 not a poem addressed to the imagination, 

 but to the understanding; it is a system 

 of philosophy such as it is and the first 

 merit in the translation of such a thing is 

 closeness and accuracy with rhyme, that is 

 impracticable. Mr. Mason Good made the 

 better choice, and his execution is respect- 

 able the language is clear the construc- 

 tion sometimes easy, and the cadence oc- 

 casionally some music in it. But though A 

 better translation be conceivable enough, 

 it is worth nobody's labour, we think. The 

 notes are full of varied and valuable matter 

 constituting a running commentary on 

 the whole poem with a profusion of obser- 

 vations on the peculiarities of the ancient 

 schools of philosophy (not always accurate; 

 the reader must not expect so much; the 

 writer had too much to do to be accurate), 

 sketches of modern discoveries, and the an- 

 ticipations of those discoveries by the an- 

 cients. 



From the publication of Lucretius to 

 1812, he seems to have been nearly occu- 

 pied with the Pantalogia, a work of the 

 Encyclopaedia kind, which he undertook in 

 conjunction with his friends, Mr. Newton 

 Bosworth, and our biographer, Dr. Olinthus 

 Gregory. This work extended to twelve 

 thick octavos, and Mr. Mason Good did 

 his full share. Then followed his per- 

 formance on the Study of Medicine the 

 object of which was to bind more closely 

 together physiology, pathology, nosology, 

 and therapeutics branches which are usu- 

 ally treated of separately, and not at all, in 

 his opinion, to the advantage of any of them. 

 This was published in 1822, in four very 

 large volumes, and again, in 1825, aug- 

 mented to five ; and holds, we believe, a 

 respectable station among the general works 

 of the profession. The doctor has not done 

 yet ; in 1826 appeared, in three octavos, 

 the Book of Nature, which, says Dr. Gre- 

 gory, " was an infelicitous title it conveys 

 no adequate idea, I might almost say, no 

 idea, of the nature of the publication itself." 

 They contain the substance of his lectures 

 at the Surrey Institution, and touch upon 

 every thing. " The young in perusing 

 them will find their thirst for knowledge 

 kept alive while it is gratified" so says 

 Olinthus we know nothing of it ourselves. 



But now we have forgotten his transla- 

 tion of Job a work which would have cost 

 some men half a life, but with Mr. Good's 

 skill and tact, and something too with his 

 management of his time y a book more or 

 less was nothing. The same character of 

 respectable mediocrity is applicable to this 

 as to all his philological performances ; his 

 views were hastily got up; he could not 

 afford to be nice, had he had the talent for 

 balancing critical niceties ; he caught a 

 glance, and was content with it ; and lie 



