Our last extract must be on another interesting and curious disease,—the evil genius of the land of mountains, we believe, in almost every country.

"Goître," says our author," which is, in fact, but a modification of cretinism, is generally found to prevail where there exists a marshy soil combined with imperfect ventilation, or stillness of the atmosphere, as in some of the valleys of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Toderè considered it to depend on the prolonged influence of a thick and stagnant air, charged with miasmata and fogs. M. de Saussiere remarks that goître is not met with above a certain altitude, as one thousand or one thousand four hundred metres; he also ascribes it to the influence of the heated, stagnant, and corrupted air which is breathed in the deep valleys, as in those parts of the valleys which have a purer ventilation, and where they open out into plains, the complaint is less common. That the principal cause of the disease, when it prevails endemically, is referable to the quality of the air inspired, the anatomy would lead us to believe, and the opinion is corroborated by the observations of many of the professional men in those districts where it prevails. As a proof of the influence of humidity in promoting its formation, it may be mentioned that in dry and cold weather it is not unusual to see the goitres diminish in size. It has by some been attributed to the drinking of snow-water; but the inhabitants of many valleys in elevated situations, and also in some parts of Russia, drink nothing but snow-water during a great part of the year, and yet they are not liable to goître; but in the Haut Valais, where the combined causes of marshy exhalations and imperfect ventilation prevail in the highest degree, the most aggravated forms of the disease, cretinism, is met with. In other localities, where the operation of these causes is not so constant, cretinism is more rare, and the milder form of goître principally obtains. This is well exemplified in the valley of the Rhone, which widens below Riddes, where the mountains likewise are less high, and cretinism is less frequently met with, though persons with goître are still seen. Below Martigny, however, where the valley is wide, the mountains low, and the earth more cultivated, even goître becomes comparatively rare, and in proportion as you approach the lake of Geneva the inhabitants have a more healthy and cheerful appearance. Even in the Haut Valais, however, cretins are at the present day less frequently seen than formerly; which I suspect depends on their being kept

more out of sight than upon any material diminution of their number."

We think that the specimens we have given of the author's acquaintance with his subject, and his variety of observation, will lead many to read, and some to take the volume with them on their travels, as a companion on whose fidelity and usefulness they may with security depend.

Poems and Songs. By E. H. B. WERE we only to please ourselves, we should simply select from this little volume the poems that pleased us most, and assign the reason for our preference: but we think the poetry might be improved by a little attention bestowed on it by the author; and, as we think it worthy of the "limæ labour" which Horace, the prince of poetical critics, considers necessary, we shall second his advice, and say, there is good taste, and poetic feeling, and knowledge of the poetic art, shown throughout these pages. The subjects are pleasing, and the reflections introduced naturally, and with ease and propriety. "Do what you can therefore," we say, "to heighten and improve the beauties, and correct the improprieties and faults which have escaped attention in the heat of composition, and by this exercise of the taste and judgment you will find yourself invigorated for a fresh and still nobler flight over have more confidence in your future the regions of Parnassus, and you will productions. We shall select one or two only, as poems which we much like. We shall point out one or two trifling errors, and leave the rest in your own hands, with our best wishes for your future progress in the honourable but difficult path you have chosen."

The song of distant choir, the sigh which gave
Hyperion's daughter to embrace her child;
The murmur of a trembling woodnote wild;
All that by which swift thought may be be-
guil'd,-

These, oh my lyre! must fail before His Name.
Breathe it, oh breathe it softly! like a sound
Borne on a cloud of incense in its flight;
Oh! be it, like the temple's mystic light,
Enshrin'd, a sacred word! where all of bright
And pure-the lov'd-eternally do dwell.

Yet oh, my friends, no more my muse may dare
To syllable with meaner sounds that name,
Till my wrapt soul take wing on winds of flame,
To wander mid Elysium's blissful plain,
Where treasures fail not, and where all is love.
There shall mine early chaunt, like incense, rise
Harmonious, faithful, as a holy prayer,
Or cloister'd vesper song-an angel's care
Above, intense, invisible-the air
Trembling with mystic melody above.

ASPASIA TO PERICLES.

I still would pen some hurried lines,
To ask thy weal, my friend, of thee,
Altho' thy memory's faintest chords

May wake no thought which tells of me.
Forbid that I should e'er perplex

One moment of thy bright career; Yet pardon woman's weaker sex,

And wipe from woman's eye the tear.

I dream'd I saw thee wan and pale;
Ah! 'tis a dream I would forget!
Yet still its hauntings made me quail,

My heart's pulse fails, my eyes are wet.
Ah! say, does pain or sorrow dwell

Around thy couch, thy peaceful hearth; Has dire disease, or phantom spell,

Scatter'd its mildew o'er thy path?

Yet should it be too much to ask

One line my fainting heart to cheer, Forget the all-unwelcome task,

And be remembrance buried here.

The word "pen" is perhaps not a very happy expression for a lady who is supposed, if she wrote at all, to have written with an iron stylus on a waxen tablet; and in the third stanza we think "wan and pale" are words of too much the same meaning to be placed so closely together: indeed, the whole of that stanza will want some little revision in the next edition. Our last extract is from a little poem which needs no correction.

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND (Accompanied by a Brooch containing Hair arranged as a Lute). Go, little lute, with tresses bound, Affection's messenger thou art; Mute, mute to all besides thy sound, Thine is the language of the heart.

Though time flies fast, and dull decay
Broods o'er all sublunary things;
Though sorrow darkens all our day,
There's healing on sweet Friendship's wings.
Then scorn not to accept, my friend,

An offering from a heart sincere ; Though small and worthless what I send, 'Tis hallow'd by Affection's tear.

This is pleasing in thought, and correct and elegant in expression. In looking over the others, we should say of them, as we should of many a volume to which no vulgar name is affixed, that it would be better by a careful revision: nor ought the author to think this task otherwise than honourable, which the greatest poets of ancient and modern times, from Homer to Virgil, from Shakspeare to Tennyson, have undertaken with pleasure and advantage. We know no task more useful and more improving. Then, the author will find some lines in Pompeii which are not correct in metre, as : Rich with the Tyrian dye, and Glaucus, Wreath'd with the flowers which Phoebus lov'd. Slight errors, but which should be set right. Secondly, all the defective rhymes, as crimes and shrines, should be removed, for in such correctness is the first element of poetical diction. In the pretty little poem of the "Snowdrop" there is an omission of " Thou”" in the last stanza, to make it grammatical. In the song at p. 50, unless it is meant to be sung by a Persian lady, the Bulbul should not be introduced. But we shall not intrude any more of our critical gall upon these pure white pages, which have on the whole given us much pleasure and some improvement.

Who view with unmov'd heart, and frigid gaze,
The pleading works of bright, departed days;
Who grasp at petty pelf, or present pow'r,
And ask no joy beyond the passing hour.
Oh, let not such approach this land of fame!
For them no magic breathes in Greece's name;
For them her ruins seem but silent stone,
Her cities wastes, her mountains stern and
lone;

For them no classic forms would haunt the vale,
People the woods, or cluster in the gale.
They who would feel, admire, must crush the
birth
[earth,

Of grovelling thoughts that weigh the soul to Break the strong chain the "new" hath round thee cast,

And, warm'd by beauty, woo the deathless past

Let us take a second specimen, and let the subjects be the earliest ever sung.

Here, as we learn of fam'd Sigeum's steep, Scan all the shore to Hellé's dashing deep; Then eastward glance, till gray hills bound the view, [blue,

Crown'd with night's stars, and lost in ambient What see we left of man's far-spreading reign? Nought, nought but death,-his trophies still remain.

Beneath our feet lies great Achilles' dust,But where the marble? where the urn and bust? On Rhætia's brow sleeps Ajax, he who pour'd His grief in rage, and perish'd on his sword. The mighty Hector, with his "beamy " spear, "Neath yon small knoll hath clos'd his fierce

shore,

The conqueror sinks, and power avails no more.

We must pass over some interval of time and space, and make our last extract from the country of another and later poet.

Cross Adria's gulf, and land where softly glide A stream's crisp waves to join blue ocean's tide.

Still westward hold thy way, till Alps look down On old Verona's wall'd and classic town. Fair is the prospect,--palace, town, and spire, And blossom'd grove, the eye might well admire ; [less snow, Heaven-piercing mountains capp'd with endWhere winter reigns, and frowns on earth below;

Old castles crowning many a craggy steep,

From which, in silver, sounding torrents leap.

Southward, the plain where summer builds her

bowers,

And floats on downy gales the scent of flowers; Where orange-blossoms glad the honied bee, And vines in festoons wave from tree to tree; While, like a streak of sky from heaven let fall, The deep blue river, glitt'ring, wends through all;

The woods that whisper to the zephyr's kiss, Where nymphs might taste again Arcadian bliss ; [view,

The sunbright hills that bound the distant And melt like mists in skies of tenderest blue, All charm the ravish'd sense; and dull is he Who cold, unmoved, such glorious scenes can

see.

Here did the famed Catullus rove and dream,
And God-like Pliny drink of wisdom's stream.
Wrong'd by his friends, and exiled by his foes,
Amid these vales did Dante breathe his woes,
Raise demons up, call seraphs from the sky,
And frame the dazzling verse that ne'er will die.
Here, too, hath Fiction weav'd her loveliest
spell,-

Visions of beauty float o'er crag and dell.
But chief we seem to hear, at evening-hour,
The sigh of Juliet in her star-lit bower,
Follow her form, slow gliding through the
gloom,

And drop a tear above her moulder'd tomb, &c.

The notes to this poem are full of learning, and scarcely less interesting than the text; and we are sorry that only one portion of the work has reached us. We do not say that there are not lines that ought to be remodelled, and some expressions that might be improved; but the author's own taste will be his best and safest guide, and worth a thousand of our criticisms.

The Philosophy of Animated Nature.

By G. C. Holland, M.D.

THIS treatise, on "The Laws and Action of the Nervous System," is at once most important in its subject, and is conducted, as it appears to us, throughout the argument, with a philosophical precision and scientific knowledge. It is certainly too professional to be discussed in our pages at any length, though the general reader may find in it much that will come within the compass of his information, and may leave the abstruser portions, without impairing the benefit he will receive from the entire development of the subject, and the connexion of the different series of proofs and conclusions. We should point out for their perusal, that chapter on "The Relation of the Senses to the Mental Powers generally," in which the ob

servations on Bishop Berkeley's theory of vision will reward the attention given to that interesting subject, which has passed through so many hands, and been the point of so much subtle and refined discussion. We should next refer to that part in which the author shews how the "existence of a nervous principle is proved by mesmerism" (p. 153), and the whole of that chapter. Let us make a short quotation on this head.

"If the present work possess any merit or originality, it is owing to the phenomena which mesmerism disclosed-the wondrous insight which it gave us to the action of the nervous system. There is no field of inquiry equal in interest or importance to this. There is no study that is nobler than the study of man himself. The progress of one branch of science is

on Natural Theology: to our apprehension, the noble and learned Lord has completely fallen before his more scientific and philosophical antagonist.

A Catalogue of Engraved Warwickshire Portraits of Nobility, Gentry, Clergymen, and others, born, resident in, or connected with the County of Warwick, alphabetically arranged, with the Names of the Painters and Engravers, and the size of each Plate: to which are added numerous Biographical Notices. By John Merridew, Coventry. 4to.

THIS is a very useful and even entertaining compilation, and will be appreciated by all who are acquainted with the merits of the portrait-catalogues of Granger, Noble, and Bromley.

ment of every other. Truths have not an insolated but a related existence. The

light which they possess is widely diffusive, and they mutually cooperate in the extension of their boundaries, by which the truth of to-day, in the comprehensive application of its principles, is only the the infant of the giant foreshadowed in a coming age. Mesmerism and phrenological researches furnish a beautiful illustration of the justness of these remarks. The one renders impregnable the position of the other. The discoveries of the immortal Gall might possibly have been elicited by mesmerism; but how stunted and distorted would have been their proportions, had we not been enlightened by his labours! He prepared the way for the ready acceptance of the collateral evidence of another science. He had cleared the path before him of the accumulated errors and prejudices of centuries. It is scarcely possible to speak in sober terms of the

value of truths with which he enriched the world," &c.

From the ninth chapter to the conclusion of the work, the chief subjects of which are the relative influences of

the mind and the body on each other, there is nothing but what may be read and understood by those who bring to it the attention it deserves, and they will be well rewarded by the explanation of very singular phenomena, and the refutation of many accepted truths; among the latter, we should mark particularly what the author says in refutation of Lord Brougham's assertions on the changes of the body in its progress to old age, in his Discourse

sketch such graphic characters as form the chief praise of "The Biographical History of England," yet he has enlivened his catalogue with many anecdotes which will attract the attention of those who consult his pages; and he has assembled a store of valuable facts and dates, which not only serve as landmarks to those who collect for their private gratification and amusement, but are also the starting-posts for future historical research.

There are, probably, few provinces of England that cannot boast of their local collectors, though too many of them are content to labour in secret, and to allow their collections, perhaps, to be finally dispersed by the auctioneer without having answered any purpose more useful than that of temporary gratification. The county of Norfolk offers an exception, in which Mr. Dawson Turner has printed a list of Norfolk views as well as portraits,* and has also promoted a subscription for a series of etchings from portraits of the History of Surrey, by Manning previously unengraved. At the end and Bray, will be found a similar be considerably enlarged. catalogue, which might now, of course,

The county of Warwick has, during several distinguished collectors, who the present century, been the field of have not only been industrious but useful in their generation. Foremost must be named our old correspondent

* Published in 1842.

Mr. William Hamper, of Birmingham, the editor of the Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale; then his coadjutor Mr. Thomas Sharp, of Coventry; and the late Mr. Staunton, of Longbridge House, near Warwick. Their respective labours have been very recently noticed in the memoir of the last-named gentleman, published in our December Magazine, p. 659. The only survivor of any celebrity is Sir George Chetwynd, of Grendon Hall, Bart. of whom we find the following notice at p. 10 of the present volume:

"Sir George Chetwynd is well known as a collector of coins, pictures, books, prints, and medals, and possesses some choice and rare specimens of the English

series.

"His collection of provincial coins and tokens of the last and present centuries is the most extensive and perfect ever formed. A catalogue (by the late Thomas Sharp, esq.) was privately printed in the year 1834, which supersedes every work previously published on the subject.

"[Portrait engraved] from a bust, being the obverse of a very rare medal by Benjamin Wyon. 12mo. 1834. Radclyffe."

Of the late Mr. Staunton, to whom the volume is dedicated, and whose collection of Warwickshire portraits is pronounced in the preface to be “ certainly unrivalled," we learn that there is a private plate taken in 1841 from a profile drawn by H. Corbould.

The native of Warwickshire who has furnished most employment to the engravers is, as might be anticipated, "the sweet swan of Avon." The compiler of this catalogue has taken great pains to describe the best prints of Shakspere, and has enumerated more than a hundred and fifty, classed either as copies from

The old engravings,
The Felton picture,
The Harley picture,
The Chandos picture,
Vertue's engraving,*

This also was from the Chandos

picture. It was " Done from the original now in the possession of Robert Keck, of the Inner Temple, esq. 1719." From Mr. Keck this picture passed to John Nicoll, esq. of Southgate, whose only daughter was married to John Marquess of Carnarvon, uncle to the last Duke of Chandos. It was recently sold at Stowe to the Earl of Ellesmere. An engraving, more carefully copied than any of its pre

The Duke of Somerset's picture, or Various pictures (chiefly apocryphal ;)

The monument at Stratford,

The monument in Westminster Abbey, and

The alto-relievo in Pall Mall.

Some other great men are included whose connection with the county of Warwick is not so generally known. Among these are Addison, who was lord of the manor of Bilton, and resided there with his wife the Countess dowager of Warwick; Richard Baxter, for some time a minister at Coventry; Chief Justice Coke, who was Recorder of that city; Robert Earl of Essex, another Recorder; Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, as lord of Maxstoke Castle; John Duke of Northumberland, as lord of the manor of Birmingham ; George Earl of Totnes, who married at Stratford on Avon in 1580 the heiress of Clopton in that parish; Sir Christopher Wren, who lived at Wroxhall Abbey, &c. &c.

One of the great persons thus introduced is less correctly noticed than the rest:

"BEAUCHAMP, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, sole daughter and heir of first Duke of Somerset, mother of Henry VII. was lady of the manor of Rugby.

"N. B. Beauchamps Court (in the parish of Alcester), was formerly the residence of the Beauchamp and Greville families: it is now demolished. The Earl of Warwick takes the title of Baron from this ancient court.

4to. Faber."

Beauchamp is here a slip for Beaufort; but the countess should be placed alphabetically under her title of Rich

mond. Her mother was a Beauchamp, but heiress of the Beauchamps of Bletsoe in Bedfordshire, not of those of Warwick. The barony mentioned is Brooke of Beauchamps Court, created in 1620. But if the Countess of Richmond and Derby claims a place in the book as lady of the manor of Rugby there are much better portraits of her than that by Faber, viz. one which is the frontispiece to Whitaker's History of Richmondshire, and another in Lodge's Illustrious Portraits.

Of Dr. Parr, the renowned pedagogue of Hatton, Mr. Merridew enu

decessors, is now in preparation for the Shakespeare Society.