7 
1825.) 
ral readers who have.a taste for poetical 
composition will not. quarrel with us, 
we trust, for this small intrusion on the 
space usually assigned to correspon- 
dence. Epir: 
i —= 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
pan: 
T has occurred to me, in reading the 
observations on self-educated scho- 
lars, and on the pedantic anti-angli- 
cisms, and frequently barbarous style of 
very learned writers, in various numbers 
of the Philosophy of Contemporary Cri- 
ticism, and divers passages in your re- 
viewing department, that the writer of 
those articles, in mentioning the style of 
Dr. Johnson (which, by the way, with 
all its cumbrous pomp and amplifying 
triplets, has its beauties, to which I 
should suspect that your critic of cri- 
tics has had some obligations in the for- 
mation of his own,) ought to have re- 
membered, that the author of the Ram- 
bler, the literary giant of his day, was, as 
far as authorship is concerned, a self- 
educated scholar. If the materials of 
what, perhaps, the philosophizer on 
Criticism would consider as the defects 
of his style, were brought with him 
from the college, the style itself was 
not formed there, nor owed its beauties 
to the discipline, the themes, or the in- 
‘structions of Oxford. As an English 
author, he educated himself after he had 
quitted his alma mater; and got his 
English, and formed his style of English 
writing (as an appeal to his earlier com- 
positions will sufficiently evince,) when 
his necessities compelled him to seek a 
livelihood (scanty enough for many 
years, heaven knows !) by following the 
trade of an English author, and ad- 
dressing his lucubrations, principally, 
to unclassicalized and mere English 
ears. So true it is, to a considerable 
extent at least, that when a scholar, as - 
we call him, has spent the whole of 
what ought to be his educational years 
at classical schools and colleges, he has, 
from the defective systems of those se- 
minaries (even for scholarship itself) 
the most important part of his educa- 
tion to seek while he is seeking his 
bread; and he may think himself lucky, 
if his greatest blemishes, after all, be 
not attributable to the impossibility of 
unlearning entirely the lumbrous and 
_ inapplicable jargon of pedantry, which 
had been flogged in at one end, and 
crammed in at the other, by the dis- 
_ cipline and the lectures of pedagogue 
| professors, N. B. 
Dr. Johnson.—Dr. Robertson on Remittéent Fever. 
213 
Ozsrrvations on the CausxEs of Re- 
MITTENT Frver, as it occurs on the 
Coasts of the MEDITERRANEAN ; with 
SuccEsTions jor PREVENTING their 
Errects. By H. Rozerrson, M.D., 
Author of a Work on the “ Natural 
History of the Atmosphere,” &c, ., 
[Concluded from No. 415, page 208. } ss 
i consequence of the effect of local 
circumstances, there are situations 
where remittent fever is more frequent. 
and severe than in others in the same pa- 
rallel of latitude, and seemingly enjoying 
the same kind of climate. This excep- 
tion will, however, be found to arise, im 
‘every instance, not from any difference: 
in the cause of the disease, but from the 
position of the place, in regard to 
marshy or-high grounds in its vicinity. 
Thus, places to the leeward or wind- 
ward of stagnant water, and especially 
if enclosed by mountains or high 
grounds, are subject to remittent fever, 
during the prevalence of certain winds, 
or otherwise; and it is, most probably, 
to the blowing of particular winds, 
in certain seasons, that we ought to 
attribute the prevalence of remittent, 
fever in particular places, and its regular 
return periodically ; and not to any de= 
pendence on magnetic or lunar influence :; 
although there is no doubt, that. cer- 
tain positions of the planets, as influ- 
encing the seasons in different years,. 
must, when co-operating with the, 
above-mentioned local circumstances, 
add greatly to the violence of the’ dis~ 
ease, by occasioning the variation men- 
tioned. tf, 
Gibraltar, from its situation, seems to. 
be peculiarly liable to the causes of re= 
mittent fever: because, that along the 
line-walls on the bay, there is a con- 
siderable space of the shore kept in a 
state of humidity only, not being cover- 
ed with water. which, of all others, is 
the condition best calculated for extri- 
cating marsh miasma. The space allotted. 
for the landing of the cattle and neces-. 
saries for the use of the garrisons, also, 
peculiarly noxious in thisrespect ; for the 
cattle, being allowed to remain, even for 
days, before being taken within the walls, 
this circumstance tends greatly to pro-. 
duce a concurrence of those causes that 
so readily generate the matter in ques- 
tion: and I have no doubt that, inde-_ 
pendently of the bad effects arising from, 
other causes of a similar nature, the 
practice I have pointed out, and the bury-, 
ing-ground above-mentioned, contribute 
considerably in producing the disease 
that has so often. desolated that any 
he 
