652 Monthly Review of Literature. 



him a crown proved me to be a gentleman, is another matter ; I know those 

 who will rather think it proved me to be a fool. 



" Upon the whole, I was much diverted with this my first excursion in the 

 mountains. True, it poured with rain the whole way, and I saw very little of 

 the wild and desolate crags, which, soaring above and around us, were swept 

 out of the landscape by the rolling clouds. Yet I felt a compensation for all 

 in the freshness of the mountain air, in the roaring of the swollen torrent, in 

 the little difficulties of our path, and above all in the droll conversation of my 

 friend the weaver." 



Mr. Smith must not consider us unkind or personal in making the above re- 

 marks. A far higher consideration has prompted us to make the above (which 

 by the dissection of the work we might have made thrice as long) namely, 

 that of exhibiting the folly of our travelling countrymen, who go abroad and 

 fancy that every land under the sun must contain people with a language and 

 habits like their own. That Mr. Smith has done so to a certain extent cannot 

 be denied : that he has sinned less than others is owing to his more, en- 

 lightened education. 



MEDICAL SCIENCE. 



British Annals of Medicine, Pharmacy, Vital Statistics, and General 

 Science. Nos. 18 and 19. Sherwood. 



WE before noticed the establishmentof a weekly medical periodical under the 

 above title, and we will now enquire, for the guidance of our readers, how far 

 the editors of this work have redeemed the promises they set forth, at the out- 

 set of their career, to the public. It has been thought by those who are not 

 fully competent to offer an opinion upon the progress of literature, that the 

 " Annals of Medicine" was an unnecessary intrusion upon a field already 

 occupied by two popular medical periodicals, the " Lancet," and " Medical 

 Gazette." 'This, however, is very far from being the case, and the discern- 

 ment which has been displayed by the conductors of the " Annals/' in the 

 path which they have chosen for their exertions, and the nature of the informa- 

 tion which they have selected, is at once a direct proof of the positi on which 

 we have assumed. 



We have ever deemed it a duty, which as critics we owe to the public, to 

 be all-watchful over the interests of literature, and to wield our magic rod 

 wherewith we can at our will range before us the choicest fruits of all coun- 

 tries, and of all sciences, with such judgment and discrimination as to em- 

 brace in their turn all that may be interesting or instructive. It is with this 

 view that we have now stepped upon the car of medical letters, with the view 

 of showing to our readers that the progression of improvement, as it is con- 

 fined to no clime, so is it a stranger to no branch of science or profession. 



The " Annals of Medicine" then we proclaim to be the index which points 

 to the progressing movement of medical periodical literature, and we refer 

 for the grounds of our opinion to the analysis of its proceedings since its com- 

 mencement at the beginning of this year. 



We will not go back to the earlier numbers of the " Lancet" to make com- 

 parison ; that would be ingratitude to a light that first shone from out the 

 mists of darkness and obscurity. Nor do we in later times ponder upon the 

 party workings that gave birth to the " Medical Gazette," nor the records of 

 a clique that have since preserved that journal in existence. But we may 

 peruse the earliest pages of the "Annals of Medicine," and declare our 

 opinion that they did not fall short of the more advanced times in which they 

 were presented to the public ; and that since they have become the annals 



