1828.] 
these matters—(but then the book was writ- 
ten expressly to illuminate persons in our 
unenlightened state)—-we see not how Dr. 
Uwins can himself, with any consistency, 
venture upon prescribing at all—not even a 
grain of his favourite fox-glove—and yet we 
ourselves saw a prescription of his the other 
day lying on the counter of a druggist’s 
shop. With his convictions, prescribing 
must be altogether, and at all times, ¢enta- 
tive—a matter of chance and guess-work. 
To prove the soundness of his conclusions, 
he produces cases, where the disease has, 
with the profession, taken a name—been 
attended with common symptoms, and 
treated for a time in the usual manner— 
and where, by some chance or other, a dif- 
ferent course being adopted, a patient, be- 
fore despaired of, recovers—“ all which,” 
he says, with the utmost gravity, and as 
becomes the latent oracle—“‘ proves that 
there is something more in the workings of 
the morbid state than the philosophy of 
morbid anatomy dreams of.” 
If this course be not enough to establish 
covertly the loftiest pretensions, the Doctor 
takes another tack—he raises the more 
alarming and terrible shadows, and then by 
a wave of his magic wand disperses them 
into invisible air. ‘ There is no such 
thing,” says he, ‘ as an abstract disease.’’ 
No body says there is; but, then, to destroy 
an assumption is something, though it be 
your own. ‘“IfIam asked’’—this is Dr. 
Uwins himself—“ whether I subscribe to the 
doctrine of Clutterbuck or Broussais? I 
reply to both and to neither. Does any one 
appeal to me on a disputed point (no mat- 
ter what) whether asthma and hooping- 
cough are affections of the stomach or the 
lungs? I say, they are both and neither. 
Is fever contagious? I say it is, and it is 
not.”’? Could the inquirer do any thing but 
laugh in the Doctor’s face? If there was 
any definite sense in these dicta, we should 
have supposed he might, by possibility, 
mean that the seat of disease was sometimes 
one place, and sometimes another, the source 
of it sometimes one thing, and sometimes 
another—but, in his own language, which 
he considers to be popular, these discrepan- 
cies are referrable to the “ constituent and 
circumstantial variety of condition with 
which the excitant is engaged.”” We as- 
sure Dr. U. he is not yet entitled to take 
the high tone of authority he does—not- 
withstanding he contributes, as he informs 
us he does, to the Quarterly. While affect- 
ing to ridicule practitioners, who assign the 
stomach, or the brain, or the lining of in- 
ternal surfaces, as the primary scat of all 
disease, he exposes himself to a similar 
charge of quackery—for with him even all 
is referrable to indigestion. Abstracting, 
however, all the affectation, verbiage, and 
pretension, the common sense of the book, 
and there is some of that valuable quality in 
it, amounts to this, that every man, in the 
matter of indigestion, may be his own best 
Domestic and Foreign. 
307 
doctor. Every man must know what sits 
uneasily on his stomach—and that it is for 
him to avoid, and thus avoid also two other 
disagreeable things—swallowing drugs, and 
paying fees. 
The Beauties of Don Juan, including 
those Passages only which are calculated 
to extend the real Fame of Lord Byron; 
1828.—This is well meant, but ill planned. 
The object may be good, but it is imprac- 
ticable. There is no handling pitch with- 
out soiling the fingers. Obvious gaps— 
broken stanzas— interrupted narrative — 
what are they but exciters to curiosity— 
setting the imagination a working, and sug- 
gesting probably worse than what is sup- 
pressed—they are signals for the entrance of 
forbidden topics. 
And, to mend the matter, the expurgator 
tells us in the preface what has been omit- 
ted, with respect to which, also—lest, per- 
haps, he or she should be thought not to 
appreciate the passages thoroughly — the 
most superlative terms of eulogy are em- 
ployed. “ Innumerable passages of the 
most brilliant wit and caustic satire have 
been omitted, but a fearless sacrifice has 
been hereby made to Lord Byron’s real 
fame, &c.”—Pray, who that reads for the 
first tine—and the book is expressly meant 
for such—will not choose to see this bril- 
liant wit, &c.? Again, ‘if much of the 
wit and humour of Lord Byron’s powers, 
and of the astonishing insight he possessed 
into the deepest and most dangerous re- 
cesses of the human heart, have been sacri- 
Jiced, all the serious and contemplative 
parts of his poem have been retained, to- 
gether with a considerable portion of its 
playfulness and variety.’? Really the good 
lady had better have said nothing about the 
matter—does she suppose nobody will see 
the preface? Or is the preface meant for 
one class of readers, and the book for 
another ? 
The great difficulty in the general selection has 
arisen out of that extravagant admixture of the 
burlesque with the pathetic, in which the original 
abounds. In many instances the burlesque has 
been carried to such excess as to neutralise the 
pathetic entirely ; and there is something almost 
withering in the scorn, with which the noble 
author, after haying awakened the best and most 
eleyated feelings of the human heart, dashes the 
cup of promise from our lips, and with a sudden 
and a stern misanthropy, surrenders to ridicule 
and contempt the very emotions his genius had 
inspired. It has been the object of the present 
volume to defend the reader, as far as possible, 
against the pain of this cruel and unjust re- 
action, &e. 
This is well said; but the very persons 
for whom the writer cuts and carves will 
defeat the project. The bad must go with 
the good—there is no clapping an extin- 
guisher upon it—they must go together— 
and make their own impression. The good 
may correct the bad, as well as the bad cor« 
282 
