can be surprised that a breach of friendship should shortly take place between the two associates in one pursuit? But John had a still more positive reason for conceiving a dissatisfaction at his brother's conduct towards him; for in some instances of anatomical discoveries of a most important nature, there seems to have been, to say the least, a disposition on the part of the Doctor, to be niggardly in his acknowledgements of the sources from whence he derived his new information; and in one particular instance he pertinaciously laid claim to a discovery which of right belonged to his brother. This, however, was not done without an especial provocation from the latter; and upon the whole, there seems to have been on each side, about an equal degree of blamable feeling indulged, and of blamable conduct exercised. In justice, however, to John, we ought to state that every feeling of enmity was lost on his part, as Dr. Hunter approached the termination of his earthly career. After an entire separation for three years, Mr. H. when he heard of his brother's illness, requested

' in the warmth of his heart, that he might at least be introduced to the sick bed of his near relation, his patron, his instructor, and the head of his family. This request was complied with, and the relation, the quondam pupil and protegé, had the high gratification of administering his professional services in the last moments of his life.'

"

Dr. Adams further transcribes from notes which he took at the time, the affecting allusion which John Hunter made to his brother's death, in the concluding lecture of a course which was just closing at the time the event took place. After some introductory matter respecting the new plan he was about to adopt in his future lectures,

'Here,' says Dr. A. Mr. Hunter seemed to finish, yet to have more to say; at length, endeavouring to appear as if he had just recollected something, he began,-" Ho! Gentlemen, one thing more :-I need not remind you of You all know the loss anatomy has lately sustained!" He was obliged to pause, and turn his face from his hearers. At length, recovering himself, he pro

ceeded.'

What follows related to the introduction of Mr. Cruickshank as his brother's successor; and Dr. A. goes on to say :

This and a few words more, were not spoken without great emotion, nor with dry eyes. The scene was so truly pathetic, that a general sympathy pervaded the whole class; and every one, though all had been preparing to leave the place, stood or sat motionless and silent for some minutes.'

Dr. Hunter's death took place in his sixty-fifth year, and it is remarkable that his brother died at the same age. Our sketch

of the life of the latter brought him down to the year 1787, and to the satisfactory arrangement of his vast anatomical museum, from which time, to his decease, which happened in 1793, his pursuits were much impeded by several paroxysms of illness, and some of them exceedingly severe. Fits of gout, violent spasmodic affections, inflammations of the heart and of the brain, were successively experienced in a very violent degree, by Mr. Hunter, and in very many cases arose so evidently out of the circumstances of his life, as to justify the inference that, humanly speaking, his life might have been considerably prolonged by a more tranquil tenor and course, The nature of his predominant complaint, angina pectoris, made sudden death a more than probable expectation; but how much the actual event must have been imbittered to his surviving relations and friends, by the consciousness, that had he kept himself from exposure to the immediately exciting cause of the extinction of life, he might have lived to a considerably later period! It seems Mr. Hunter was engaged in a series of contentions with his colleagues, about matters frequently in themselves comparatively trivial, and that on the morning of his decease, he repaired to the hospital, in the anticipation, as he mentioned to a baronet, 'that some unpleasant rencontre might ensue, and that if such 'should be the case, he knew it must be his death.'

This event,' says Dr. Adams, was too literally accomplished, Sir Everard informs us, that, on the 16th of October, 1793, when in his usual state of health, he went to St. George's hospital, and meeting with some things which irritated his mind, and not being perfectly master of the circumstances, he withheld his sentiments; in which state of restraint, he went into the next room, and turning round to Dr. Robinson, one of the physicians of the hospital, he gave a deep groan, and dropt down dead!'

We forbear any further comment upon this melancholy and impressive recital. We cannot even with our biographer, follow the body to the place its owner quitted in the morning 'under such dreary impressions, and attend to the exuvia which contained this mighty mind.' All that our limits will allow us further to do, is to transcribe from the Memoir before us, the following reflections of the writer, upon the life and death of the two extraordinary persons who are the subjects of the present article. It is necessary to premise, that Dr. Hunter, after a previous illness, had determined in defiance of the fears and desires of all his friends, to appear again in his anatomical theatre; and such was his debilitated state, that during the Iceture, he was so exhausted as to faint from his exertion to communicate to his pupils something new, and in his mind of much moment. To this theatre he never more returned, and lived only ten days longer.

Such then,' says Dr. A. was the end of two brothers who raised the anatomical school of London to its present celebrity, and in their museums erected their own monuments! Both arrived in London with no capital but genius, industry, and integrity: the first almost without introduction. Each arrived nearly at the same age, finished his career in the same time, and each in the arena of his own labours. The first, struck with the approaches of death in his own theatre, and in his expiring moments anxious to return that he might communicate a physiological fact he never could ascertain till then. The other expiring on the spot.

The late Dr. Denman used to say, that one was a man of order; the other a man of genius. This could only be meant in comparison of each other, for, compared with the rest of mankind, both were men of genius, both men of order; which shews that genius indulged in its own pursuits is not inconsistent with order. When confederates quarrel for prey, we view the scene with indifference, if not with gratification. When one party is the oppressor, our feelings are divided between sympathy and indignation; but when two congenial, and in most respects admirable spirits, tenants of the same womb, are separated by an event which scarcely interests an indidividual except themselves, can we fail to regret, that in such characters, the short period of human existence should not be embellished by all the delights of the purest and most exalted friendship!'

Art. VI. A Poetical Epistle to Lord Byron. 8vo. pp. 16. Miller, London. 1816.

AFTER having expressed our opinion at length respecting

the peculiarities of Lord Byron's poetry, we have no design to enter into any further discussion on the subject. We notice this Epistle, therefore, chiefly on account of the spirit with which it is versified. The Noble Satirist cannot have just cause to complain, that the weapon which he has wielded with so merciless severity, is turned against him, in this anonymous production; but possibly there are those who might have had real ground for complaint, had no champion stepped forward into the lists as the advocate of justice, to answer Childe Harold's proud appeal and insinuated calumny. Whosoever this knight errant may be, that with his visor down advances to chastise the paynim hero, it must be confessed that there is nerve in his arm: Lord Byron best knows whether there is edge in his

weapon.

'Oh, 'tis an easy task, in verse to prate
Of broken hearts, and bosoms desolate!
And 'tis a thriving trade! let Murray tell,

What thou hast written, and for him-how well.
Would that each hungry wretch, dear Britain owns,
Could vend his mis'ry, and impawn his groans;

Could bring, like thee, his wretchedness for sale,
Made up for use, in Pilgrimage and Tale!
And thus the Mendicant, protrudes to sight
His mangled limb, our pity to excite;
Lives on the real wounds acquir'd in wars,
Or feeds and fattens on factitious scars.
Oh, when thy Muse prolific, next supplies
Her import vast, of marketable sighs,
Somewhat, perchance, thy bounty then may spare,
For real sorrows and substantial care:

Somewhat, self-exiled Misanthrope, for those,
Who have not found thus vendible their woes..
To ask for country's sake were vain-and why?
Her" shores can neither grieve nor glad thine eye*."
Yet still proceed-still chant thy gloomy lays,
Insult-retract-bespatter, and bepraise;
Pour on the town in one continued tide,
The dark o'erflowings of thy cynic pride:
While every puling Miss the story greets-
Hugs to her breast these lordly, dear conceits;
Her hours-her sorrows-and her tears resigns,
To ruffian hordes, and wand'ring libertines,
E'en the pure heart, unconscious of offence,
Caught by a feeling-ardent and intense,
Its finest, noblest sympathies affords
To wand'ring libertines and ruffian hordes!
Nor shall the Muse one generous pang disdain,
For powers perverted, or bestowed in vain-

And blush that he, round whose high favoured head,
Her brightest halo, Genius deign'd to shed;
That He-best gifted of the tuneful throng,
With head and mind perversely warp'd to wrong:
Should lend these powerful talents, to impart
The cheerless feelings of a sceptic's heart;
A heart, in which no generous ire is seen-
Cold in its malice-causeless in its spleen;
To trace the moody workings of a mind,
To heav'n unjust, at variance with its kind;
Yet tho' at every line a virtue bleed-
Indulge thy wayward humour-and proceed.
What is this boast of "shrouded thoughts," that dwell
With'ring and dark within their secret cell?

Where the "proud caution" of the struggling breast?
Where is one bitter feeling, unexprest?
When thou hast bared thy heart to every eye,
Proclaimed its heavings to the faintest sigh,
The meanest reptile that has cross'd thy path,
Was crush'd beneath thy desolating wrath;

* 1st Stanza; Childe Harold, 3d Canto.

While gentler natures, and the softer mind-
Have bow'd beneath a torture more refin'd;
That polish'd irony, whose art conceals
Its sting-which but the victim sees and feels.
Oh, to satiety have we not read

Of thy dark sorrows, and "thy widow'd bed?"
And thou hast made thy sport of others pain;
On wounded feelings gaz'd with cold disdain;
Shot unprovok'd the random shafts of spleen,
Debas'd the high-and trampled on the mean-
Nor from envenom'd words could thy last strain,
E'en in its burst of tenderness, refrain.
Misguided spirit! yet in mercy spare,
And if thy heart be human-oh, forbear.
Can mean suspicion, and unmanly wrong,
Support thy fame, or dignify thy song?

No and round cradled innocence to prate,

Of thy "drain'd blood," and " duty taught by hate !”
True taste and feeling must alike deny,

Nature disowns the unhallow'd lullaby.' pp. 6-9.

Art. VII. The Round Table: a Collection of Essays on Literature, Men, and Manners. By William Hazlitt, 2 Vols. Foolscap 8vo. pp. 500. Price 14s. Longman and Co. 1817.`

'The small

THE following work,' the Editor confesses, falls somewhat 'short of its title and original intention.' party of friends who meet once a week at a Round Table to 'discuss the merits of a leg of mutton,' turns out to consist of Mr. Hazlitt and Mr. Examiner Hunt. When our readers shall have before them a specimen of their joint lucubrations, it will, indeed, excite neither surprise nor regret, that no third person, except the author of 'a letter in the Seventeenth Number,' should have ventured to break in upon this philosophic tête à tête. It were a charitable supposition that not many persons, certainly none that value their character, would be ambitious of participating in the honour of this literary fellowship.

"On the Causes of Methodism.

"The first Methodist on record was David. He was the first eminent person we read of, who made a regular compromise between religion and morality, between faith and good works. After any trifling. peccadillo in point of conduct, as a murder, adultery, perjury, or the like, he ascended with his harp into some high tower of his palace; and having chaunted, in a solemn strain of poetical inspiration, the praises of virtue and piety, made his peace with heaven, and his own conscience.

"The Jewish bard, whom we have placed at the head of this class of devotees, was of a sanguine and robust temperament. Whether he chose "to sinner it or saint it," he did both most royally, with a