220 



Monthly Review of' Literature. 



[FEB. 



With memory'! sweetness o'er thee ; the wild 



storm 



Hath oft assailed thy lonely castle's form, 

 Sacred Pendennis! yet thou standest still, 

 Braving the blast awaked at Heaven's will, 

 And calm and lovely smiles the azure deep, 

 As if it ne'er had felt a tempest's sweep : 

 I have had clouds and storm-blasts round me 



too, 

 But oh, I will be firm and calm as you. 



Deutsches Lesebach ; or Lessons in 

 German Literature. By J. Rowbotham. 

 F. Ast. S. L. 1829 This is one of the 

 scores of introductory helps to the study of 

 languages prompted by the spirit of emu- 

 lation and improvement, spreading fast 

 through every class of instructors scarcely 

 excepting certain privileged institutions, 

 where the professors, raised, in their own 

 fancies, above the necessities of vulgar ex- 

 ertion, would willingly, but must not wholly, 

 indulge the otium of their own shades and 

 eschew the conflicts of competition. The 

 plan of this little work is well conceived, 

 and the proposed assistance so well ar- 

 ranged, step by step, as to call, if that be 

 a virtue, for no other efforts than acts of 

 memory, till the pupil is, ultimately, as he 

 ought to be, thrown almost solely on his 

 own resources. But the planning is better 

 than the execution, though the errors of ex- 

 ecution are chiefly such as are almost insepa- 

 rable from one who undertakes to judge of a 

 foreign language. The pieces are not, in 

 the first place, well selected, for many 

 abound in phraseology now perfectly obso- 

 lete among the best writers of the day, 

 and others are not even free from common 

 grammatical errors. The translations, again, 

 though on the whole very well performed, 

 are often, we take upon ourselves to say, 

 erroneous, and that, of course, precisely, 

 where a learner would find obscurities that 

 is, he will be most misled where he most 

 wants help, and most relies on receiving it. 

 For the student, then, who has an instructor 

 at hand, the volume is a good one ; but for 

 one who depends wholly upon books, he 

 must look for a safer guide, and such are 

 not wanting. Mr. Bernays's Selections, 

 which we noticed a few months ago, are 

 made with a modern knowledge of the lan- 



guage he is a native German, and a man 

 of good taste. 



A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of 

 the Genitals of the Male, by Dr. Titley ; 

 1830 This medical treatise the produc- 

 tion of a gentleman who has directed his 

 attentions closely to a subject of incalculable 

 importance, since it unhappily concerns very 

 considerable numbers, and those most ex- 

 posed to the impositions of quackery, and, 

 moreover, the physical soundness of suc- 

 ceeding generations, we notice, partly for 

 its apparent completeness as to descriptions 

 and remedies, but more particularly for its 

 Preliminary essay, in which the author dis- 

 cusses the history, nature, and general 

 treatment of Lues Venera. This discussion 

 is very ably conducted, and to a conside- 

 rable extent establishes his point. He 

 scouts the notion of its being a new disease, 

 or even a specific disease; but this last 

 matter we leave, as a question exclusively 

 professional he denies that it was, as is so 

 often affirmed, an importation from Ame- 

 rica, or even the communication of the 

 Moors at an earlier period. He finds the 

 disease marked among the Greeks by Hip- 

 pocrates, in its strongest and most specific 

 symptoms, and even in the same combina- 

 tion of symptoms, or nearly so he finds it 

 among the Romans, in the works of Cel- 

 sus ; and in numerous writers from two to 

 three centuries before the American Disco- 

 veries. Yet it cannot be denied, that num- 

 bers soon after these discoveries do speak of a 

 new disease of this kind, that is, of one 

 appearing during the last years of the fif- 

 teenth century. It is not quite satisfactory, 

 to say, that all were mistaken that the 

 same thing had existed, but was not ob- 

 served before. No, the intelligent author 

 inclines to believe there was a new disease, 

 then imported from America, not however 

 the Lues Venera but the Yaws. That is a 

 disease quite distinct from Lues Venerea, 

 but attended with several similar symptoms." 

 It is, however, peculiar to tropical regions, 

 and soon mitigates in other climates as 

 confessedly the new disease, as it was 

 termed in the south of Europe, in a few 

 years did a fact which does not at all cha- 

 racterize the Lues Venerea. 



VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 



The White Lupin. Gardeners generally 

 think the white lupin a summer plant, re- 

 quiring much water and manure. Willdenow 

 imagines that the husks of the white lupin, 

 before they are ripe, might be substituted 

 for coffee when they have been prepared in 

 water, cut, dried, and roasted. M. de 

 Vulflfen, having taken an agricultural journey 

 some time ago, found that in one part of 

 P'rance, the white lupin was cultivated in 

 vast plains ; and that it attained the finest 



development in places where the soil was 

 not very sandy. The sole object of this 

 extensive cultivation of the lupin was to 

 employ it as a manure ; for no animal eats 

 either the plant or the grain it yields. On 

 account of the nature of the soil most favour- 

 able to it, the white lupin is cultivated 

 only in the district which forms a triangle 

 between Valence, Lyons, and Grenoble. Be- 

 yond these limits, and in places where the 

 soil is richer and more compact, this plant 



