1831.] Monthly Review of LiteraUire. 333 



German institutions. " This city was recently revived one of those German 

 universities, where young men, like the polytechniques of Paris, fancy them- 

 selves to know more than their teachers, laugh at religion, set at defiance all " 

 authority, behave with insolence to their fellow citizens, lose all sense of de- 

 cency, and muddle away their time in drinking beer and smoking tobacco. 

 They are, in fact, the fruitful nurseries of immorality, sedition, and licentious- 

 ness," &c. Can the writer imagine that passing through Bonn, in a carriage, 

 gives any weight to the sentiments of any body with or without a name? The 

 opinion thus expressed of Bonn, the writer, of course took with him, and could 

 have no means of personally ascertaining the accuracy of it. Yet is it put forth 

 as that of a person who has visited the place, and of course must know ! The 

 views, consisting chiefly of buildings, are drawn by Colonel Batty, and etched 

 on steel by that gentleman. The effect is excellent. 



Change of Air, an Autumnal Excursion through France, Switzerland, 

 AND Italy, 1829 ; by James Johnson, M. D., Physician Extraordinary 

 TO the King. 



Dr. Johnson is very far beyond an ordinary tourist ; he travels for health, or 

 for relaxation, which he deems essential to health ; and he gives, with the tact 

 and the precision of his profession, the results of his own observations upon the 

 physical effects of travelling. The wear and tear of life — the consequences of 

 over-excitement in the metropolis, whether from professional pursuits, or the 

 eager chace of'distinction in science or literature, require occasional cessations ; 

 and, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, there is nothing like travelling — it is his panacea, 

 and excellently good reasons gives he for his opinions. He looks with the eye 

 of a philosopher, and something approaching to scorn, at the rage with which 

 every thing is overdone from ambition, pride, vanity, and fashion — the result, as 

 it is, being loss of health and vigour, but poorly compensated by the loftiest suc- 

 cesses. Contrasting England with France, he finds it is all work and no play 

 with the English, and all play and no work with the French. The effects are 

 traceable in the countenance. Of the general truth of this statement we have no 

 doubt ; but the French do not look less harassed than the English : the marks of 

 strong passions are everywhere visible — wearing down the possessor's frame to 

 an " atomy." 



The tour itself is through France, Switzerland, and Italy, and the scenes of 

 every day's description ; but the tone differs from most books. 1 he Doctor de- 

 lights in reducing the high-flown to a lower level ; and so rarely does he sym- 

 pathise, and to such a degree does he indulge a critical spirit, that he is every- 

 where, if not querulous, derisory — he vents his indignation at delusive description 

 upon the unlucky country itself — and nothing is finally bearable but Old England, 

 or at all comparable with it. He crossed F"rance from west to east, and on his 

 return from south to north. " La Belle France is the most uninteresting. The 

 flowers, nay even the flatness of Holland — with all its smooth canals and shaded 

 dykes (those monuments of industry), its fertile fields, its neat and cleanly towns, 

 its painted houses, varnished furniture, and broad-based, thick-headed inha- 

 bitants, excite a variety of emotions, and those generally of a pleasant kind, in 

 the mind of the traveller — but France, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, from the 

 Tura to the Atlantic, from Antibis to Calais, presents very few spots indeed, 

 compared with her vast extent of surface, on which the eye can rest with either 

 pleasure or admiration. Her mountains are destitute of sublimity, her valleys of 

 beauty," &c., to the end of a diatribe which extenda some pages, and compre- 

 hends man, woman, and child in its vituperations. 



The Doctor's attention was turned especially towards disease — the cretinism of 

 the valleys of Switzerland, the pellagra of Lombardy, the malaria of Rome — the 

 details and discussions are full of interest. The reader will not be wearied with 

 unimportant matters; the Doctor glances at every place, without any bother as 

 to how he got there, what he eat, or where he slept. In Rome and Na|)les, and 

 at I'ompeii, he is full of historical recollections, and so thoroughly out of humour 

 is he by that time got to be, that he cannot forbear a stroke at Cicero and Cato 



