the most fearful ftate of fufpenfe, dreading," he fays, p. 2. "left what they were perfuaded to do in the hope of faving their children from one disease, may not prove the means of plunging them into another, at once novel and malignant.” But this author has no confolation to give them, and as he was principally inftrumental in exciting the alarm, fo be takes care to keep it up, and extend it by every means in his power; for having no new facts to produce, he has thought it expedient, by way of eking out this pamphlet, and giving it its due bulk, to add two publications, the one a paper which he circulated in the year 1804, the other a pamphlet by his friend Mr. Rogers, which was published in the courfe of the last year, both of them calculated to continue the alarm in the minds of those parents who had suffered their children to be vaccinated. The opinion which thefe gentlemen labour to inculcate is, that the cow-pox is not only no fecurity againft the fmall pox, but that it introduces into the conflitution, new, and exceedingly loathfome difeafes. Thefe charges have been urged with confidence, and the public have been told that the cowpox has failed in giving the promifed fecurity, in hundreds of inftances; but on examination thefe hundreds of failures have dwindled into a very infignificant number of cafes, not one in fome thoufands; and in refpect to the new and unheard of difeafes, faid to be produced by the cow-pox, neither Dr. Jenner, nor one of the many other practitioners, who have each of them inoculated their hundreds, and fome of them their thoufands, have met with them; they are only to be feen, by thofe keen eyed fpeculators, who predicted them, and therefore readily gave that name to eruptions, in which other practitioners would have found nothing novel, or extraordinary. Experience has fhown us, that matter taken from the cow. pox, inoculated, or inferted under the cuticle of any human fubject, uniformly produces the cow-pox in the perfon inoculated, which is capable of communicating the fame disease to another, probably ad infinitum, in the fame manner as the matter of the fmall pox produces the fmall pox. If the matter of the cow-pox was capable of producing, or in other words, if it contained in it the feeds of any other difeafe, it would as regularly produce that difeafe. The farmer does not attri bute the weeds which grow up with his corn, to the grain that was fown, but to the land which contained the feeds, before the corn was fown. We do not however expect to weed from the mind of this author the prejudices he has im bibed, we are even ready to admit that he believes all he afferts on the fubject; we only with him to believe that the gentlemen who recommend the cow-pox are equally fincere, and and that they do not adopt the practice of vaccination, from finifter motives; particularly that it was not introduced for the purpose of fuperfeding the furgeons, and turning them, as he fays, from the nursery. "But the object of the projectors of vaccination," fee Rogers's pamphlet, p. 37. was not, I fear, fo much the defire of doing general good, as that of fecuring to themselves, and to men-mid wives, if the experiment fhould fucceed, the abfolute command o the nurseries, to the entire exclufion of the furgeons." The apothecaries, it feems, were afterwards let in, or rather they obtruded themselves, with a view of getting a fhare of the plunder. "They came into the new practice," the author fays, p. 48. "because they early difcovered it was the plan of the menmidwives to feclude them, by this manœuvre, from the nurseries: and finding they could not fight them fairly on their own ground, they refolved, by forming an alliance, to fhare, if poffible, the conquest." But the vaccinators, to make fure work of it, and totally to exclude the furgeons from the nursery, were at the pains of bringing the ladies over to their party; and then to fecure their conqueft, they abfolutely bribed all the printers and book fellers in the kingdom, confequently had the command of all the newspapers, magazines, and reviews; fo that the benevolent, and patriotic gentlemen, who wifhed to rescue the world from the evil they forefaw was about to overwhelm it, were precluded from all poffibility of giving affiftance! "As I had feen," this author fays, p. 25, among the vari ous bufinefs of life, fome political manoeuvres, and the manage. ment of fome party fchemes, I was not at a lofs to conjecture in what manner the caufe of vaccination would be carried. "The royal patronage, the authority of parliament, would be made ufe of, beyond what the fanction given warranted; the command of the army and navy would be adduced, not merely as the means of facilitating the experiment, but as the proof of the triumph of the caufe: and above all the monopoly of the prefs, and the freedom of the poft-office would be employed, to circulate the affertions of the friends of vaccination, and to fupprefs the arguments of their opponents. What I forefaw," he adds, "happened: and fuch was the influence of the Jennerian Society, that many publishers and bookfellers refused to print, or fell fuch works as might be deemed adverfe to vaccine inoculation: in confequence of which, it was hardly poffible, at the first moment, to contradict any thing the Society chofe to affert. It was in vain to argue against the fyf. tem ; tem; for even the ladies themselves were prejudiced, were influ enced, and employed in its defence. Men-midwives found their interefts were effentially connected in its fuccefs; and they forefaw that if they could vaccinate at the breaft, without danger of conveying infection, they fhould fecure to themfelves the nursery, as long as vaccination lafted; no one could enter to interfere with them; they would prefcribe for the apothecary, and hold him at a diftance; the phyfician and furgeon would be fet afide; and if any accident occurred that fhould render diffection after death, neceffary, fome anatomift, friendly to the caufe," his colleague, Mr. Cline, perhaps, might be called in, to quiet the alarms of the family.' We are concerned to find a gentleman filling fo refpectable a fituation as Mr. Birch occupies, a dupe to fo extraordinary an illufion. The charges here urged against the introducers, and favourers of vaccination, are of fo heinous a nature, that the gentlemen who are attacked, must be at once the most unprincipled, and the weakest of mankind, should they really deferve the cenfure he has heaped upon them. If Mr. Birch has fo poor an opinion of their honour, as to fuppofe they would introduce into the families by whom they are employed, including among them all the rank and fashion in the kingdom, fo dreadful a poifon, as he depicts the cowpox matter to contain, yet he ought to have feen, that a regard to their intereft, which he does not accuse them of neglecting, would have long fince deterred them from continuing a practice, which muft ultimately cover them with confufion. Yet, notwithstanding the warning this gentleman, and feveral of his coadjutors in the caufe, have given them, we are far from finding them relaxing in their endeavours to extend the practice. They have had intereft fufficient, this author tells us, to procure its introduction into the army, and navy, and the reports of the officers, he fhould have added, have been highly favourable to the practice. Surely this fhould have made Mr. Birch more guarded in his cenfure, as he must know, that the further the practice of vaccination is extended, the greater the number of the fubjects who are fubmitted to the operation, the fooner muft any mifchief, if it is capable of doing any mifchief, be detected. He had only therefore to wait, and the zeal with which the vaccinators propagate the inoculation, muft, if his opinion be correct, have done all that he has been labouring with so much heat and intemperance to effect. In the ordinary affairs of life, when we are defirous of acquiring knowledge upon any fubject, we ufually apply to perfons, whom we conceive to have had the best opportunity of obtaining the neceffary information. formation. In this cafe, we are expected to reverse this maxim, and instead of applying to perfons experienced in the practice, to take the opinions of thofe who profefs they never did, nor ever will perform the operation. This author has attempted an answer to the report of the Jennerian Society, and to Mr. Moore's reply to the anti-vaccinifts, but we fee little of argument in any part of his ftrictures on these fubjects. Some compliments are paid to Mr. Moore's performance, but it has not had the effect of softening the anger of Mr. Birch, against the cow-pox, or its propagators. The dread of being banifhed from the nursery, is ftill predominant in his mind, and until that fear be quieted, the vaccinifts muft expect no quarter. ART. X. The Fall of the Mogul, a Tragedy. By the Rev. Thomas Maurice, &c. &c. 8vo. 7s. White. 1806. FEW are the departments of literature in which Mr. Mau rice has not diftinguished himself, but perhaps it is no more than juftice to obferve, that his claims as a poet are of the higher order. This has already appeared and been acknowledged in a long feries of years, and a great variety of compofitions, from the period of his being under the tuition of Dr. Parr, and the publication of the "SCHOOL-BOY," to the present year, and the production of thofe animated verses on the irregularities of genius, which were recited by Mr. Tweedie at the laft anniverfary of the Literary Fund. The former poem was acknowledged by Dr. John on to contain the genuine feeds of genius, and the promise of much poetical celebrity; the latter is in every body's hands, and needs not our praife. Why Mr. Maurice has not fucceeded as a writer for the flage, it is not eafy to determine. His talents of this kind, we fcruple not to fay, are fuperior to those many writers who have obtained reward and diftinétion in this line; his power of animating and interefting the paffions, his imagination in reprefenting ftriking and brilliant fpectacles, are eminently great. There is, it is to be prefumed, fome fecret o which his genius has not condefcended, or fome myfterious craft which his manly pride difdains. The prefent Tragedy is a beautiful compofition on the whole, and reprefents one of the most fplendid events in the page of history. It is alfo, in fome degree, ori inal, at least U BRIT. CRIT, VOL. XXVIII. SEPT. 18.6. we we are not able to remember any dramatic piece on the subject in our language. It is the deftruction of the Mogul empire, and the plunder of its capital of Delhi, under the celebrated conqueror Nadir Shah. Perhaps the fpeeches were confidered as too long for recitation, otherwise as a compofition, and we fhall conceive as a fpectacle alfo, it is far, very far fuperior to the water gruel ftuff, which has of late years not only been endured, but applauded on our theatres. This will fufficiently appear from the following fpecimen. SCENE II. ZUMANI, SOLIMA, NADIR SHAH. "Zum. For freedom and a crown, at once regain'd, What terms, illuftrious Nadir, fhall exprefs The grateful rapture of my bursting heart! Nad. Princefs, wherever juftice points this fword, Mercy, the radiant feraph, ftill is nigh, Tempers our wrath and blunts its falling edge. Zum. No wonder, fir, thus wide your triumphs ring, While clemency and fortitude unite At once to blazon and to fix your fame. Nad. In fields of death to reap triumphal palms Zum. The princefs Solima, my lord. Nad. Her fame Hath long refounded through the Perfian court; (attempts to faize her hand. Why, with abhorrent glance and backward ftep, Thus ftrangely doft thou fhun my fond falute? Sol. Thou art, I think, that Perfian fo renown'd, Nad. What means my fweet upbraider-whither tends Sel. |
