Page images
PDF
EPUB

de degrees. They ought to begin with the temperate bath, and gradually ute it cooler, till at length the coldest proves quite agreeable. Nature revolts againft all great tranfitions; and thofe who do violence to her dictates, have often cause to repent of their temerity.

Wherever cold bathing is practifed, there ought likewife to be tepid baths for the purpofe mentioned above. Indeed it is the practice of fome countries to throw cold water over the patient as foon as he comes out of the warm bath; but though this may not injure a Ruffian peafant, we dare not recommend it to the inhabitants of this country. The ancient Greeks and Romans, we are told, when covered with fweat and duft, ufed to plunge into rivers, without receiving the fmalleft injury, Though they might of. ten efcape danger from this imprudent act, yet their conduct was certainly contrary to all the rules of medicine; as I have known many robuft men throw away their lives by fuch an attempt. I would not however advise patients to go into the cold water when the body is chilly; as much exercife, at least, ought to be taken as may excite a gentle glow all over the body, but by no means fo as to overbeat it.

To young people, and particularly to children, cold bathing is of the laft importance. Their lax fibres render its tonic powers pecaliarly proper. It promotes their growth, increases their strength, and prevents a vari. ety of difeafes incident to childhood. Were infants early accustomed to the cold bath, it would feldom difagree with them; and we fhould fee fewer inftances of the fcrofula, rickets, and other difeafes, which prove fatal to many, and make others miferable for life. Sometimes, indeed, these disorders render infants incapable of bearing the fhock of cold water, but this is owing to their not having been early and regularly accustomed to it.

It is however necessary here to caution young men against too frequent bathing; as I have known many fatal confequences refult from the daily practice of plunging into rivers and continuing there too long.

The most proper time of the day for ufiag the cold bath is no doubt the morning, or immediately before dinner; and the best mòde, that of immersion head foremost. As cold bathing has a conftant tendency to propel the blood and other humours towards the head, it ought to be a rule always to wet that part first. By due attention to this circumstance, there is reason to believe, that violent headachs, and other complaints, which frequently proceed from cold bathing, might be often prevented.

The cold bath, when continued too long, not only occafions an exceffive flux of humours towards the head, but chills the blood, cramps the mufcles, relaxes the nerves, and wholly defeats the intention of bathing. Hence, by not adverting to this circumstance, expert fwimmers are often injured, and even fometimes lofe their lives. All the beneficial purposes of cold bathing are anfwered by one fingle immerfion; and the patient ought to be rubbed dry the moment he comes out of the water, and fhould continue to take exercife for fome time after.

When cold bathing occafions chillness, loss of appetite, liftleifnefs, pain of the breast or bowels, a proftration of strength, or violent headachs, it ought to be difcontinued.

Though thefe hints are by no means intended to point out all the cafes where cold bathing may be hurtful; nor to illuftrate its extenfive utility as a medicine; yet it is hoped, they may ferve to guard people against fome of thofe errors into which from mere inattention they are apt to fall; and thereby not only endanger their own lives, but bring an excellent medicine into difrepute *. [To be continued.]

* When I heard of the celebrated Mr. Colman's illness, and that it had happened at Margate, I immediately fufpected the caufe, and mentioned my fufpicion to fome medical friends; but as none of them could inform me concerning the real circumstances of his cafe, I fhould have taken no notice of it, had not the following Letter in the London Chronicle ftruck my attention,

"SIR,

To the PRINTER.

"Having feen in your own and other Loudon papers, ferious accounts of Mr. Colman's illness, I, who have attended him during the whole time, think it but juftice to him and his many friends, to give you a plain and true account of his cafe and prefent fituation.

"Mr. Colman's disorder was a combination of the gout and pally, the laft of which was occafioned by his unadvisedly bathing in the fea at an improper period, which struck in the gout; the confequences, as might be expected, foon became very ferious, and his fituation extremely dangerous, &c.

(Signed) JOHN SILVER, Surgeon."

MARGATE, Nov. 5, 1785.

On the DIFFERENT SCHOOLS of MUSI C.

Written by the late Dr. GOLDSMITH.

School in the polite arts properly churches. It is worthy remark, in general,

A in the on of etils that the mufic of every country is folemas

which has learned the principles of the art from fome eminent master, either by hearing his leffons, or studying his works, and, confequently, who imitate his manner either through defign, or from habit. Muficiaus feem agreed in making only three principal fchools in mufic; namely, the fchool of Pergolefe in Italy, of Lully in France, and of Handel in England: though fome are for making Rameau the founder of a new school, different from those of the former, as he is the inventor of beauties peculiarly his own.

Without all doubt, Pergolefe's music de ferves the first rank: tho' exceiling neither in variety of movements, number of parts, or unexpected flights, yet he is univerfally allowed to be the mufical Raphael of Italy. This great mafter's principal art consisted in knowing how to excite our paffions by founds, which feem frequently oppofite to the paffion they would exprefs: by flow folenin founds he is fometimes known to throw us into all the rage of battle; and, even by faster movements, he excites melancholy in every heart that founds are capable of affecting. This is a talent which feems born with the artift. We are unable to tell why fuch founds affect us: they seem no way imitative of the paffion they would exprefs, but operate upon us by an inexpreffible fympathy; the original of which is as infcrutable as the fecret 1prings of life itself.

To this excellence he adds another, in which he is fuperior to every other artift of the profeffion, the happy transitions from one paffion to another, No dramatic poet better knows to prepare his incidents than he: the audience are pleafed, in thofe intervals of paffion, with the delicate, the fimple harmony, if I may fo exprefs it, in which the parts are all thrown into fugues, or, of ten are barely unifon. His melodies alfo, where no paflion is expreffed, give equal pleafure, from this delicate fimplicity: and I need only instance that fong in the Serva Padrona, which begins, Lo conosco a quel occelli, as one of the finest inftances of excel.

lence in the duo.

The Italian artists, in general, have followed his manner; yet feem fond of embellishing the delicate fimplicity of the ori ginal. Their ftile in music seems somewhat to refemble that of Seneca in writing, where there are fome beautiful ftarts of thought; but the whole is filled with ftudied elegance, and unaffecting affectation.

Lully, in France, first attempted the improvement of their mufic, which in general resembled that of our old folemn chaunts in

in proportion as the inhabitants are merry;
or, in other words, the merrieft sprightlieft
nations are remarked for having the flowest
mufic; and those whofe character it is to be
melancholy, are pleafed with the most brisk
Thus in France, Po
and airy movements.
land, Ireland, and Switzerland, the national
mufic is flow, melancholy, and folemn: in
Italy, England, Spain, and Germany, it is
faster, proportionably as the people are grave.
Lully only changed a bad manner, which he
found, for a bad one of his own. His drowfy
pieces are played ftill to the most sprightly
audience that can be conceived; and even
though Rameau, who is at once a mufician
and a philofopher, has fhewn, both by pre-
cept and example, what improvements
French mufic may ftill admit of, yet his
countrymen feem little convinced by his
reafonings; and the Pont-neuf tafte, as it is
called, ftill prevails in their best perform-

ances.

The English school was first planned by Purcel: he attempted to unite the Italian manner, that prevailed in his time, with the ancient Celtic carol and the Scotch ballad, which probably had also its origin in Italy for fome of the best Scotch ballads (the Broom of Cowdenknows for inftance) are ftill afcribed to David Rizzio. But he that as it will, his manner was fomething peculiar to the English; and he might have continued as head of the English school, had not his merits been entirely eciipfed by Handel. Handel, though originally a Ger man, yet adopted the English manner: be had long laboured to please by Italian compofition, but without fuccefs; and though his English oratorios are accounted in imitable, yet his Italian operas are fallen into oblivion. Pergolefe excelled in paffionate fimplicity: Lully was remarkable for creating a new fpecies of mufic, where all is elegant, but nothing paffionate or fublime; Handel's trus characteristic is fublimity: he has employed all the variety of founds and parts in all his pieces: the performances of the reft may be pleafing, tho' executed by few performers; his require the full band. The attention is awakened, the foul, is roused up at his pieces; but diftinct paffion is feldom expreffed. In this particular he has feldom found fuccefs ; he has been obliged, in order to exprefs paffion, to imitate words by founds, which tho' it gives the pleasure which imitation always produces, yet it fails of exciting thofe 1 it ing affections, which it is in the power of founds to produce. In a word, no man ever un derítood harmony fo well as he; but in me Jody he has here greatly exceeded

A COMPARISON between LAUGHING and SENTIMENTAL COMEDY.
BY THE SAME.

"HE Theatre, like all other amufements, pity is encreased in proportion to the height

This its faftious and its prejudices; and from whence he fell. On the contrary,

when fatiated with its excellence, mankind begin to mistake change for improvement. For fome years, Tragedy was the reigning entertainment; but of late it has entirely given way to Comedy, and our beft efforts are now exerted in thefe lighter kinds of compofition. The pompous train, the fwelLing phrafe, and the unnatural rant, are difplaced for that natural portrait of human folly and frailty, of which all are judges, becaufe all have fat for the picture.

But as in defcribing nature it is prefented with a double face, either of mirth or fadnefs, our modern writers find themselves at a lofs which chiefly to copy from; and it is now debated, whether the exhibition of human diftrefs is likely to afford the mind more entertainment than that of human abfurdity?

Comedy is defined by Aristotle to be a picture of the frailties of the lower part of mankind, to distinguish it from Tragedy, which is an exhibition of the misfortunes of the great. When Comedy therefore afcends to produce the characters of princes or generais upon the stage, it is out of its walk, fince low life and middle life are entirely its object. The principal question therefore is, whether in describing low or middle life, an exhibition of its follies be not preferable to a detail of its calamities? Or, in other words, which deferves the preference, The Weeping Sentimental Comedy, fo much in fashion at prefent, or the Laughing and even low Comedy, which seems to have been laft exhibited by Vanburgh and Cibber?

If we apply to authorities, all the great matters in the dramatic art have but one opinion. Their rule is, that as Tragedy defplays the calamities of the great; fo Comedy fhould excite our laughter by ridiculously exhibiting the follies of the lower part of mankind. Boileau, one of the best modern critics, afferts, that Comedy will not admit of tragic distress.

Le Comique, ennemi des foupirs et des pleurs, N'admet point dans fes vers de tragiques douleurs.

Nor is this rule without the strongest foundation in nature, as the diftreffes of the mean by no means affect us fo ftrongly as the calamities of the great. When Tragedy exhibits to us fome great man fallen from his height, and struggling with want and adverfity, we feel his fituation in the fame manner we fuppofe he himself must feel, and our EUROP. MAG.

do not fo strongly sympathize with one born in humbler circumstances, and encountering accidental diftrefs: fo that while we melt for Belifarius, we fcarce give halfpence to the beggar who accofts us in the street. The one has our pity; the other our contempt. Diftrefs, therefore, is the proper object of Tragedy, fince the great excite our pity by their fall; but not equally fo of Comedy, fince the actors employed in it are originally fo mean, that they fink but little by their fall.

Since the first origin of the Stage, Tragedy and Comedy have run in diftinct channels, and never till of late encroached upon the provinces of each other. Terence, who feems to have made the nearest approaches, yet always judiciously stops short before he comes to the downright pathetic; and yet he is even reproached by Cæfar for wanting the vis comica. All the other Comic Writers of antiquity aim only at rendering folly or vice ridiculous, but never exalt their characters into buskined pomp, or make what Voltaire humourously calls a Tradesman's Tragedy.

Yet, notwithstanding this weight of authority, and the univerfal practice of former ages, a new fpecies of Dramatic compofition has been introduced under the name of Sentimental Comedy, in which the virtues of private life are exhibited, rather than the vices exposed; and the distresses, rather than the faults of mankind make our intereft in the piece. Thefe Comedies have had of late great fuccefs, perhaps from their novelty, and alfo from their flattering every man in his favourite foible. In thefe plays almost all the characters are good, and exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on the ftage, and though they want humour, have abundance of fentiment and feeling. If they happen to have faults or foibles, the fpectator is taught not only to pardon, but to applaud them, in confideration of the goodness of their hearts; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the Comedy aims at touching our paffions without the power of being truly pathe tic: in this manner we are likely to lose one great fource of entertainment on the stage; for while the Comic Poet is invading the province of the Tragic Mufe, he leaves her lovely fister quite neglected. Of this, however, he is no way folicitous, as he measures his fame by his profits.

But it will be faid, that the theatre is formed 尜 0

formed to amufe mankind, and that it matters little, if this end be answered, by what means it is obtained. If mankind find delight in weeping at Comedy, it would be cruel to abridge them in that or any other innocent pleature. If thofe pieces are denied the name of Comedies; yet call them by any other name, and if they are delightful, they are good. Their fuccefs, it will be faid, is a mark of their merit, and it is only abridging our happinefs to deny us an inlet to amufement.

Thefe objections, however, are rather fpecious than folid. It is true, that amufement is a great object of the Theatre; and it will be allowed, that thefe Sentimental pieces do often amufe us: but the question is, Whether the True Comedy would not amufe us more? The queftion is, Whether a character fupported throughout a piece with its ridicule ftill attending would not give us more delight than this fpecies of bastard Tragedy, which only is applauded because it is new ?

A-friend of mine who was fitting unmoved at one of thefe Sentimental pieces, was afk ed, how he could be fo indifferent. "Why, "truly," fays he, as the hero is but a tradef"man, it is indifferent to me whether he "be turned out of his Counting-house on "Fish-treet Hill, fince he will fill have "enough left to open fhop in St. Giles's."

The other objection is as ill grounded; for though we should give these pieces another name, it will not mend their efficacy. It will continue a kind of muligh production, with all the defects of its oppofite parents,

and marked with fterility. If we are permitted to make Comedy weep, we have an equal right to make Tragedy laugh, and to fet down in blank verfe the jetts and repartees of all the attendants in a funeral proceffion.

But there is one argument in favour of Sentimental Comedy which will keep it on the Stage in fpite of all that can be faid against it. It is, of all others, the most eafily written. Thofe abilities that can hammer out a Novel, are fully fufficient for the production of a Sentimental Comedy. It is only fufficient to raise the characters a little, to deck out the hero with a ribbard, or give the heroine a title; then to put an infipid dialogue, without character or humour, into their mouths, give them mighty good hearts, very fine cloaths, furnish a new fett of scenes, make a pathetic fcene or two, with a sprinkling of tender melancholy converfation through the whole, and there is no doubt but all the ladies will cry, and all the gentlemen applaud.

Humour at prefent feems to be departing from the Stage, and it will foon happen that our Comic players will have nothing left for it but a fine coat and a fong. It depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive thofe poor merry creatures from the stage, or fit at a play as gloomy as at the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once loft; and it would be but a juft punishment that when, by our being too faftidious, we have banished humour from the Stage, we fhould ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing.

THE

LONDON REVIEW,

AND

LITERARY

JOURNAL.

Quid fit turpe, quid utile, quid dulce, quid non.

The Structure and Phyfiology of Fithes explained and compared with thofe of Man, and other Animals By Alexander Monro, M. D. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society, and Profeflor of Phyfic, Anatomy, and Surgery in the Univerfity of Edinburgh. Illuftrated with Figures. Folio 21. 2s. Elliot, Edinburgh, and Rebinfons, London, 1785.

DOCTOR Monro, in a fhort introduction to this curious and elaborate work, informs the reader, that a variety of circumstances having occurred to him in examining the ftructure of fishes, fome of which had been entirely overlooked, and others imperfectly

defcribed by authors, he thought an account of them would be equally acceptable to the Phyfician and the Naturalift, more efpecially as they relate to points of chief importance in the animal economy.

After giving a definition of the generic

term

term of fishes, which comprehends the Nantes Pinnati as well as the Pifces of Linneus, he begins with tracing the blood from the heart and its return to that organ: he next makes fome curfory obfervations on the organs of fecretion, proceeds to give an account of their abforbent fyftem, and concludes with fome obfervations on their brain, nerves, and the organs of their fenfes. The Doctor's chief example among the Nantes Pinnati is the raia, or fcate; among the Pifces of Linneus, the gadus, or cod-fifh, though he occafionally throws further light on the subject by defcribing parts of other fishes.

The first chapter contains a defcription of the heart, veffels, and circulation of the blood in fithes. In all the fishes the Doctor has diffected, he has, he fays, found but one heart, confifting of one auricle, and one ventricle; and that from the latter one artery is fent out, which is entirely spent on the gills. That from the gills, therefore, the returning blood paffes to all the other parts of the body, without the intervention of a fecond heart, as in man.-The method in which the Doctor has here expreffed hamfelf is incorrect; as at firft it seems to fignify that man has two hearts: a trifling trafpofition would have removed the diffi culty.

After tracing the blood from the heart to the gills, and from thence back to the heart, he proceeds to draw feveral conclufions, of which we shall only mention the following, 2. "That the circulation of the blood be. ng carried on in the cartilaginous fishes in the Same manner as in the offeous, or pifces of Laneus, and the whole mafs of blood paffing through their gills, they muft breathe regularly and uninterruptedly, to furnish blood to the brain and other organs, or they cannot Phiefs the pulmo arbitrarius, as is supposed by Laneus; fo that there appears no just reason far claffing them with the amphibia."

In the third chapter, which treats of the ndular organs and fecreted liquors of bes, the Doctor obferves, that the furface ines, especially fuch as live in the fea, is efended by a quantity of vifcid flime, pared out in the offeous fishes by the branches of two duets placed upon their fides, which are continued upon the head and upper jaw; and others of a fimilar nature are led upon the under jaw. In the fcate our accurate anatomift difcovered an elegant ferpentine canal between the skin and mafcles, at the fides of the five apertures to the gills. From the principal part of this duct, in the belly of the fith, there are not above fix or eight outlets; but from the upper part, near the eyes, there are upward of 30 fmall ducts fent off, opening on the

furface of the skin. The liquors fecreted into the cavities of the cranium, pericardium, and abdomen, are next confidered. Of those fecreted into the organs of digeftion, the Doctor remarks, that as these animals are cold, it is more evident than in man, that the gaftric liquor acts as a menftruum upon their food. "In all of them, he fays, the liver is large, and of course the fecretion of bile copious; in all, organs are found which pour out liquors, fimilar, probably, in their effects to thofe of our pancreatic liquor. In the fcate, the pancreas is fimilar to the huIn the fturgeon an organ is found, refembling in its internal ftructure the inteftinula cæca, which in the offeous fishes fupply the place of the pancreas, the whole enclofed in a mufcle, evidently intended to exprefs its contents."

man.

Speaking of the fecretions of the male organs of generation Doctor Monro obferves, that the ftructure of the milt in the offeous fishes appears to be very fimple; but that in fome of the cartilaginous ones, as the fcate, the apparatus appears more complex than in man; for in place of the testicle, a fubftance is obferved, compofed partly of white matter like the milt, and partly of fmall spherical bodies. From thefe an epidydimis is produced, chiefly compofed of convoluted tubes, terminating in a ferpentine vas deferens; the under part of which is greatly dilated, and forms, as in birds, a confiderable receptacle, or veficula feminalis.

Contiguous to the outer fide of the dilated' end of the vas deferens, he found a bag of confiderable fize filled with green liquor, which is discharged into the fame funnel with the femen, and probably at the fame time with it.

The Doctor here takes occafion to confi

der the opinion of certain anatomifts, who contend, that the organs commonly called veficula femin les, are not receptacles of the liquor fecreted by the teftes, but organs capable of fecreting from their inner furface a prolific liquor, which is mixed with that from the teftis. To fuch the description of the veficula abovementioned containing the green liquor will probably, he thinks, appear a full confirmation of their new doctrine, founded on two obfervations. First, that on examining the liquor of the vesiculæ feminales of a man immediately after death, it was found different in its appearance from the femen discharged by a living perfon. Secondly, that a confiderable time after caftration, geldings and oxen had been found capable of generating. In anfwer to this, the Doctor obferves, that although the liquor of the ve ficulæ feminales differs in colour from the fe

#02

men

« PreviousContinue »