160 
compilation. It contains much that will 
be ‘interesting to artists and lovers of the 
arts ; and though by far the most valuable 
portions of the contents are mere selections 
from lectures, works and treatises on taste, 
&c. already well known and of established 
reputation, and even these are somewhat 
alloyed by the admixture of newspaper 
essays and critiques,—we have no doubt that 
to many readers this volume will be found 
more acceptable than a more critically con- 
nected and scientific treatise might have 
been ; and we sincerely wish, that, though 
it can minister little to the literary fame of 
“the author,” it may advance his profes- 
sional views, and contribute to his profit. 
An Analysis of Medical Evidence, com- 
prising Directions for Practitioners in the 
view of becoming Witnesses in Courts of Jus- 
tice. By J. GorDON SMITH; M.D. Under- 
wood, London, 1825.—The subject of me- 
dical jurisprudence has hitherto excited 
less attention, in this country, than its im- 
portance deserves, and the present able 
work of Dr. Smith is well calculated to 
place the subject in its proper point of 
view. The necessity of appointing medi- 
cal men, or at least those who have under- 
gone a medical education, to the respon- 
sible’ situation of coroners, has been long 
felt and acknowledged. And the discrepancy 
often existing between the evidence of dif- 
ferent: medical witnesses, in courts of jus- 
tice, owing in some measure to the present 
legal practice being admirably calculated to 
confuse the judgment. of a witness, and 
embarrass the opinion of a jury, demands 
the most serious attention. We regret 
that -our narrow limits prevent us from 
giving any extract, or indeed doing justice 
to the author of this sensible volume ; and 
although we differ from him, in some of the 
distinctions he has drawn in the prefatory 
portion of the work, yet his appendix con- 
tains a mass of facts and observations on 
some cases of violent death, which are not 
only valuable, as a reference to gentlemen 
of the medical profession, but to all others 
connected with the administration of our 
internal police: more especially since a 
certain dangerous Class of medicines have 
become, perhaps too much, introduced into 
the pharmacopeia, through the refined 
analysis of some foreign chemists. 
The Museum: a Poem. By JOHN Butt. 
8vo.— Whether the words John Bull, stand- 
ing here in the title-page of this catalogue in 
rhyme, be the genuine pro and cognomen of 
some bona fide individual, 
or whether they be intended to designate that 
mighty allegorical aggregate, which grasps 
with its extended arms so many several 
portions of the four quarters of the globe, 
and of whose superb essence both we and 
our readers are integral parts ; or whether, 
finally, the author be a member of the spu- 
rious family of Johnson’s-court, Fleet- 
street,—we cannot, upon any satisfactory 
Literary and Critical Proémium. 
born to the 
once-illustrious distinction of such a name; - 
[Mar. 1, 
evidence, determine. “And as, in such a 
mysterious dilemma, we might, peradyen- 
ture, either, on the one hand, make too free 
in our opinion with an awfuw, or with a 
vindictive personage; or, on the other 
treat with unneedful caution and reverence 
a mere ordinary mortal like ourselves,—we 
shall permit the author to review himself : 
or, in other words, proceed, at once, to 
quotation, and leave the reader to form his 
own judgment. And perhaps the first, 
and, of course, not the least pregnant or 
least polished stanza, may suffice for the 
purpose : 
CANTO I.—A Pause at the Entrance. 
I look upon a noble tomb! Lo, here, 
The fine remains of all antiquity, 
The rich works of the resting dead appear, 
Clothed with a glory, ages hence to die! 
Heroes of art! Around, their labours lie, 
Likespell-bound fragments of their vanish’d lives— 
Moments, immortal made whilst fleeting by, 
Treasur’d by Fame, whose power old age survives, 
And from the lapse of years a reverend strength de- 
Tives. 
If the reader be disposed to go any far- 
ther, he may proceed to the third stanza, 
where he will find, in a style equally Spen- 
serian, “ heavenly visitants leaving the 
gates of their celestial realms,” to see 
where 
Pale Venus sits upon the throne of eve, 
To listen to the plaintive vesper’s chime. 
Poor Venus! whether sitting upon a 
throne or a joint-stool, well may she look 
pale, while she beholds how many pretty 
things, who might otherwise have been 
paying more pleasant devotions to her, are 
chaunting to those vesper-chimes in their 
convent cells, at the once sweet twilight 
hour. After indulging in which natural 
but melancholy reflection, the reader may, if 
he deem meet, proceed through the whole 
140 stanzas, which compose the two cantos 
of catalogue aforesaid : and learn therefrom, 
among other sapient matters (Cant. I. 
st. 39), to ‘ bind a new-born thought with 
everlasting truth,”’—an odd sort of swath- 
ing band! but by means of which, it ap- 
pears, “‘ our spirits may be fraught with the 
wealth divine, resident in some unknown 
sphere ;” and may even ultimately attain 
to the discovery that “ife’s a twilight,’ 
and ‘‘ the soul a morning star,” and death 
but a flitting “ cloud”’—a sort of a tem- 
porary curtain, behind which this star of a 
soul modestly retires to perform its toilet- 
ing, and dress itself “all in a brilliant robe 
of light.’ All this,at least, we have learned 
by merely passing over the ground with a 
hop, step and jump. What might we not 
have collected had time permitted a delibe- 
rate walk through all the paths and avenues 
of such a maze of marvels! 
A Second Series of High Ways and Bye 
Ways; by a Walking Gentleman, 3vols. 8vo.— 
The style, in which these tales are written, 
is light and elegant, and the descriptions 
are even poetical ; at the same time, they 
comprise 
