1831.] Monthly Review of Literature. 329 



Dr. Drummond reconcile the justice of balancing the rapacity of the one with 

 the murder of the other ? The fly has heedlessly fallen into a trap ; but if relief 

 be at hand, why should it be refused because the entrapper would like to make 

 a meal of him ? Nay, let the spoiler wait for the next opportunity, and devour 

 his victim when there is none to rescue him. What advantage does the author 

 anticipate to the feelings of humanity, which he is usually so earnest in incul- 

 cating, by teaching his pupil to steel his heart against the cry of distress, come 

 from what quarter it may ? 



To compensate, some pains are taken by Dr. Drummond to remark upon 

 BuiFon's ridiculous language, and it well deserves it. "An animal like the bat," 

 says BufFon, " which is half a quadruped and half a bird, and which, upon the 

 whole, is neither one nor the other, must be a monstrous being ; because by 

 uniting the attributes of opposite genera, it resembles none of those models 

 presented to us in the great classes of nature. It is an imperfect quadruped, 

 and still more an imperfect bird. A quadruped should have four feet, and a bird 

 should have feathers and wings." Can any thing be imagined more absurd 

 than this tone ? Again, " the bat's flight is rather a desultory fluttering than 

 flying, which it executes very awkwardly. With difiiculty they raise themselves 

 from the ground, and never fly to any great height ; they quicken, relax, or 

 direct their flight in a manner the most bungling and imperfect." Buffon must, 

 to be sure, have supposed he could have done better. The flickering movement 

 has an obvious purpose — the pursuit of moths, which have a similar flight. 



Divines or the Church of England, edited by the Rev. T. S. Hughes, 

 B.D., &c. Vols. XIII. XIV. XV. 



This desirable reprint proceeds steadily according to the prospectus. The 

 volumes before us are occupied with Jeremy Taylor's Works, or rather his 

 " Sermons," and prefaced by a memoir, which contains the pith of Heber's bio- 

 graphy, compressed very faithfully and competently by Mr. Hughes, who still 

 perseveres with the Summaries at the head of each sermon. To say the least, 

 this is a work of supererogation. The reader who cannot catch the drift of 

 Taylor, and pursue it without these aids, should leave him alone — he has no 

 concern with him — he is not of his kidney, and should betake himself to the 

 dry bones, which abound on all sides. Nothing but the sermons are, appa- 

 rently, to be reprinted in this collection, which, we think, is a matter to be 

 regretted. Of his other productions, many are superior to his sermons — and all 

 theological, or so near of kin, as fairly to have a family claim to admission. 



Treatise oit Cholera Asphyxia, or Epidemic Cholera, by Geo. Ha- 

 milton Bell, late Residency Surgeon, Tanjore. 



Though but an ill-constructed book, Mr. Bell's is by far the most intelligent 

 account of the cholera which we have met with, and we accordingly point it out 

 to our readers as a book from which much, historically and physiologically, may 

 be gathered, at least relative to the Indian cholera ; and there is no reason to 

 question its identity with the Russian. Britain itself has probably been more 

 than once visited with this formidable disease — the sweating sickness, so remark- 

 able in the annals of disease in this country, accords too closely in its symptoms 

 to have been far removed from this same cholera, which Mr. B. from its leading 

 characteristic designates asphyxia — with more propriety than the senseless epithet 

 morbus. Nothing can be more inapplicable than cholera, but the name has got too 

 strong a hold to be shaken oft'. 



In India cholera is no new disease. Bontius, 200 years ago, has an accurate 

 description; and in 1775 the medical officers of the Company describe the epi- 

 demic as extending its ravages to the island of Mauritius. But it was not till its 

 last avater in 1817-8, that materials were gathered for marking its progress with 

 anything like geographical [irccision. In the early part of 1817 the cholera was 

 first heard of in the upper provinces of Bengal. Through that year, and consi- 

 derably into the next, it gradually proceeded southerly to the peninsula, stretching 



