1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



467 



tion, finally, of aiding him in the recovery. 

 The more successful were his cares for the 

 child, the more stinging was his remorse ; 

 and at last, finding the state of his feelings 

 intolerable, he went over to Ireland, and 

 had an interview with the peer, whom he 

 found in a far more pitiable condition than 

 himself. Lord Altin had married, and 

 death had carried off his wife and all his 

 children, save one. He felt it to be the 

 penalty of his crime. He was still, how- 

 ever, resolute not to abandon what he had 

 sacrificed honour and peace to obtain. 

 While Cloudesly was meditating an appeal 

 to public justice, a letter from a friend, in 

 whose care he had left Julian, now a young 

 man of eighteen, informed him, the boy 

 had quitted his roof, and was supposed to 

 have joined some profligate acquaintance, 

 connected with banditti. The next news 

 Lord Altin hears, was Cloudesly's death, 

 without any information of what was be- 

 come of Julian. The intelligence threw 

 the peer into agonies, and his new confi- 

 dant, Meadows, is dispatched to Italy to 

 discover his retreat. This was finally ac- 

 complished. The youth had, indeed, asso- 

 ciated with a company of robbers, com- 

 manded by a ruined nobleman of lofty 

 abilities and qualities, and had been ar- 

 rested with a party, and was in imminent 

 peril of being hanged. He was rescued by 

 the arrival of Lord Altin in person he had 

 lost his last child, and was ready to make 

 all the reparation in his power to the son of 

 his brother. He makes a clear conscience, 

 and the scene closes. Tiie tale must be 

 ready not skimmed. 



The Christian Physiologist ; or Tales of 

 the Five Senses, by the Author of the Col- 

 legians* 1830. This is a mixture of phy. 

 siology, divinity and romance a whimsical 

 union we do not remember to have met with 

 before. The triple purpose of the artist seems 

 to have been to strike out some new and taking 

 application of his recent studies in anatomy 

 and natural theology. Knowledge, he dis- 

 covers, should be the handmaid of virtue 

 -Christian virtue ; but the handmaid, it 

 seems, now-a-days, chooses herself to be 

 mistress, and, as usually happens in such 

 cases, treats the expelled lady very scurvily. 

 More, in plain language, the author com- 

 plains more is thought of knowledge than 

 conduct ; and, therefore, he resolves to con- 

 tribute his mite toward putting matters in the 

 right orderagain. Accordingly, he selects for 

 his especial department, the five senses to 

 point out, apparently, how the knowledge of 

 their uses should subserve to the virtuous 

 employment of them. These, therefore, he 

 first describes after the manner of Joshua 

 Brookes ; or, perhaps, some more fashion- 

 able demonstrator of anatomy ; and to each 

 sense tacks, what appears to him, an appro- 

 priate and illustrating tale. Thus, after 

 detailing the parts and purposes of the eye, 

 he tells how an old Irish woman once went 



blind, just at the time her darling son was 

 returning after a long absence; how a 

 very skillful surgeon removed the cataract, 

 and enabled her to recognise her said son, a 

 few days after; and how she was very 

 grateful to God, the surgeon, and his 

 needle. Then comes, in the same way, the 

 hearing, with all the bones of the ear, down 

 to the stirrup ; and a tale of a youth born 

 deaf and dumb, who suddenly, without the 

 aid of any surgeon, in a fit of strong emo- 

 tion, is seized with intense pain in his ears, 

 followed by the discharge of a thin liquid 

 that bursts in his throat. Multitudes of 

 sensations rush in by the new inlet. The 

 youth conceals the fact from his parent, 

 takes lessons in talking privately, and, on 

 some grand occasion, surprises the wonder- 

 ing old man with a grand display of the 

 use of his tongue. The cure of a volup- 

 tuary, by exposure to a little difficulty about 

 eating and drinking, and the sight of misery 

 and oppression, illustrates the sense of 

 feeling. Smell gave him some trouble, he 

 acknowledges, and the best he could do, after 

 roundly abusing perfumes, was to tell of ft 

 maniac, who went mad from a lady's burn- 

 ing in his arms, self-consumed the effect 

 of habitually bathing in camphoretted spirits 

 of wine. She took fire, as they say old wo- 

 men used to do from drinking brandy. By 

 the way, we remarked Mr. Donovan, in a 

 volume of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, quotes 

 numerous instances. They all occurred, 

 we observed, a long way off, and most of 

 them a long while ago. The fact wants 

 authenticating sadly. 



Cabinet Cyclopedia, vol. 4. ; Sir Wal~ 

 ter Scoffs Second Volume of the History of 

 Scotland. 1830 The managers Of the Ca- 

 binet Cyclopsedia have shewn no little tact in 

 securing the services of Sir "Walter Scott, 

 and still more in placing him in the fore- 

 front of the battle. No imaginable ma- 

 noeuvre could with half the certainty have 

 fixed attention upon the new undertaking. 

 The public will, probably, be much their 

 debtor not for Sir Walter's history, for 

 that had been resolved on before the Cyclo- 

 paedia was thought of, and would have come 

 forth in some other shape but for drawing 

 from others, what, without their prompting, 

 would never perhaps be accomplished. 

 The reigns of Mary and James, till his 

 accession to the English throne, occupy the 

 greatest part of this volume. The ease and 

 simplicity of the narration are admirable, 

 and not less remarkable is the soundness of 

 judgment every where visible, or the temper 

 with which every question is discussed. 

 Mary puzzles him ; circumstances con- 

 demn her, while the absence of legal evi- 

 dence acquits her. He cannot pronounce a 

 peremptory verdict, and makes a Scotch 

 return of non proven, which indicates lack 

 of evidence for guilt, but enough of it for 

 doubts of innocence. Hume, whom he calls, 

 of course, with some reference to the case, 



3 O 2 



