42(> Oxford ; a Poem. [APRIL, 



sr-apes these form the staple of his fancy, and on these he rings the 

 changes till the reader is sick to death with the repetition. Of sound 

 reflection he has not an atom. His thoughts lie for ever on the surface ; 

 yet he fancies they are wondrously sublime ! Like the Cockney, who, 

 jogging up Primrose-hill, thinks he is ascending a mountain, so Mr. 

 .Montgomery, while lounging along the tame flat level of mediocrity, 

 imagines he is scaling Parnassus. Instead of composing, he contents 

 himself with tinkering a poem, and styles that invention which is merely 

 an effort of mechanism. In a word, he is in rhyme precisely what his 

 admirer Mr. Clarkson is in criticism. One is the Mavius of verse ; the 

 other, the Bavius of prose. The reader who relishes the former, will 

 not fail to be equally pleased with the latter. Qui Bavium non odit, 

 amet tua carmina, Mavi ! 



ST. JOHN LONG ON CONSUMPTION. 



As it is a part of the duty which we owe to our readers, to take note 

 of the passing circumstances affecting science, persons and the public, we 

 may give a few pages to the second edition of St. John Long's book. It 

 commences with a letter of Lord Ingestre to a Mr. Wilding, demanding 

 proofs and statements which seem to have decided his lordship's adhe- 

 rence to the system, and then proceeds to lay down the grounds on which 

 the writer expects both the success of his practice and the hostility of the 

 profession. 



^ " Two sources of hostility I anticipate the novelty of my system, and the 

 simplicity of my practice. The latter objection 1 may almost dismiss without 

 refutation, for it is superfluous to prove that the most simple means generally 

 produce the most desired effects, while ignorance and empiricism usually 

 entrench themselves in intricacy and mystery." 



Whether thepractice of the medical profession, in its present alternations 

 of failure and success is to be classed among the benefits of society, may be 

 a matter of rational doubt, but its capability of assuming the rank of a 

 benefit cannot be problematical. It would be to arraign the attributes 

 of Providence to deny, that for every evil there is a corresponding 

 remedy, though it may be left for man to explore it. 



From this the introductory matter launches into a variety of obser- 

 vations, which are undeniable enough ; and apply to all attempts at dis- 

 covery. There is no question that medicine is chiefly a conjectural 

 svstem, too irregular and too obscure to deserve the name of science, in 

 any strict sense of the word ; and though we may not go the length of 

 the phrase attributed to Sir A. Carlisle, that " medicine is an art formed 

 in conjecture and improved by inurder," yet it is perfectly clear that in 

 medicine we have not yet emerged from the lf dark ages." We have 

 some simple remedies for some simple disorders, which however gene- 

 rally cure themselves. But for the severer disorders, those which arise 

 from the self-indulgent habits of life, engendered not more by the 

 opulence, late dinners, and indolent luxuries, than by . the anxieties, and 

 alternations of fortune in our " high pressure" state of society, medicine 

 at present offers scarcely any remedy ; its best power amounts only to 

 palliatives. Who ever hears of the cure of a chronic ? The gout, the palsy, 

 the calculus, with a whole host of other disorders, seem absolutely to 

 defy medicine ; and all that the doctor can do in the multitude of cases, is 



