than human, prohibited its votaries from evacuating the contents of the prima vie during their Sabbath. Bayle has ungraciously diverted himself with imagining the contorsions and grimaces to which a devotee of this kind must have been subjected, till the hour of relief arrived; and we can easily conceive that a pupil of Mr. Ritson must be exposed also to much trouble in his progress towards Pythagorean perfection, till he acquires a philosophic hatred of roast beef, and looks with fraternal commiseration on the slaughtered remains of a calf or a goose. The hardest part of his task, however, we ima gine, would consist in reading Mr. Ritson's book with sufficient gravity; the matter, style, and orthography of which have frequently frustrated our most serious intentions during the perusal.

The first chapter treats of man;' and here the author seems to consider it as proved beyond dispute, that the present world has existed from all eternity, and that men and other animals have been spontaneously produced. He is even obliging enough to inform us, that man may be arranged under the monkey-kind: to which choice opinion we shall only reply, "your humble servants, sir; take your own station where it be fits you." We are sorry, however, to be led to remark that atheism is inculcated at present with singular industry; in verse and in prose, in jest and in earnest. We shall never fail to detect and expose it under all its shapes.

It seems to be the aim of Mr. Ritson to depreciate the human species to a very low rank among animated beings; and really he has exerted his best endeavours to satirize the talent of reasoning, in the course of his discussion. To justify this opinion, we shall extract the concluding part of the first chapter:

For man to have a just and perspicuous idea of the bountys of nature, he should visit hospitals, and not churches. Of these bountys we are supply'd by the divine Milton with an ample and shocking catalogue, as exhibited to Adam by the favourite archangel of the allmighty power, soon after the creation; to convince him of the hapyness provideed for himself and his posterity, which was to replenish the world.

"Immediately a place

Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisom, dark,
A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were lay'd
Numbers of all disease'd: all maladys

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms,
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsys, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone, and ulcer, cholick pangs,
Daemoniack phrenzy, mopeing melancholy,

And

And moon-struck madness, pineing atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasteing pestilence,

Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums."

The onely mode in which man or brute can be useful or hapy. with respect either to the generality or to the individual, is to be just, mild, mercyful, benevolent, humane, or, at least, innocent or harmless, whether such qualitys be natural or not; but if the present system of murder, bloodshed, cruelty, malignance, and mischief, should continue, it would be better that such diabolical monsters should cease to exist.'

After this misanthropic declamation, the author proceeds to shew that animal food is not natural to man. On this subject he has collected some opinions, but no proofs. Had he extended his anatomical and physiological inquiries beyond the very few, authors whom he has mentioned, he would have found that the best anatomists consider the structure of the human digestive organs as adapted both to animal and vegetable food:-unless, in this instance, as respecting the origin of the human race, he should choose to support the doctrines of Martinus Scriblerus; whom yet we do not observe among his authorities.

In the third chapter, Mr. Ritson attempts to prove that animal food is not necessary. We remark here, first, great ignorance of the true theory of digestion, his only references on this subject being to Dr. Cheyne and Dr. Arbuthnot, as if Spallanzani and other late philosophers had never existed: secondly, that the proofs here offered tend to shew that all kinds of food are unnecessary. We shall have occasion to observe, hereafter, that this ought to have been the author's thesis, if he had understood his own argument.

Allons! in the next chapter, animal food is said to be the cause of cruelty and ferocity. Here the author forgets that some vegetable productions, such as wine, beer, and spirits, are liable to the same accusation. We learn, in the course of this work, that Mr. R. has abstained from animal food during many years, yet his lucubrations are not entirely purified from ill-humour and cruelty to other writers. Is there no cruelty, then, but in preparations for cookery? Is an ox intitled to more tenderness than a poet, a scholar, or an historian? We do not admire this partial and perverse benevolence, which fears to inflict a momentary pain on a quadruped or a fish, but which would not hesitate, in prosecuting an argument, to wound permanently the feelings of a highly cultivated mind. This is indeed monkey philosophy; and the reflection on Providence in the note (†), p. 99, has the appearance of being more mischievously than humanely directed.

In the sixth chapter, the origin of human sacrifices is attri buted to the desire of animal food. This is a weak point, and we think that it is by no means made out. Revenge and superstition were more probably the causes of this horrible custom.

Mr. Ritson has laboured, in this and the succeeding chapters, to prove that the practice of eating human flesh has been usual among many nations; and on this subject his misanthropy is conspicuous; for, besides admitting questionable authorities; he has assumed particular and extraordinary incidents for general practices, as if an historian were to infer, from the stories of the cruelties committed on the bodies of Marechal D'Ancre, the Admiral Coligni, and the De Witts, that the French and Dutch nations were habitually man-eaters. Indeed, Mr. R. is disposed, apparently, to conclude, from instances of individual ferocity or maniacal savageness, that cannibalism not only has prevailed in France and other neighbouring countries, but that it was not extinct at a very late period*, either in France or England. To this very liberal opinion, we shall only replý in the words of Malherbe, when Regnier recited some verses to him, in which he represented France as rising into the air to return thanks for one of Henry IV.'s victories; Though this must have been in our time, we do not remember it?

The chapter intitled Animal Food pernicious,' offers fresh in stances of the author's ignorance of facts essential to his subject. He imputes the number of deaths in London among children under two years of age, to the untimely and unnatural use of animal food: but the truth is that very few children are permitted to use animal food so early, and that this premature mortality is imputable to dentition, convulsive disorders arising from acidity in the stomach, and other complaints totally unconnected with indulgence in animal food.-Indeed, when we reflect that the nutritious part both of animal and vegetable food (the gluten) appears from chemical analysis to be identical, every physiological objection to animal food must vanish, as far as it respects quality; and the question is reduced to the consideration of quantity, respecting which writers on diet have always been sufficiently scrupulous. In truth, the author's exceptions against animal food are founded on a mere want of philosophical accuracy. He detests the murder of animals for the purposes of cookery; yet he recommends the murder of vegetables for the same purposes. In what do ani, mals and vegetables differ, but in an arbitrary term of distinc tion? The native rights of a cabbage are as defensible as those of a cow; and, if Mr. Ritson's premises be granted, the con

• PP. 130, 132, & seq.

clusion

clusion is inevitable, that we ought to abstain from food altogether. We observed, indeed, in the early part of the book, a passage which looks towards this notable inference:

Whether it be possible for man, by any mean, either of ten perance, medicine, or morality, to subsist without any, or, at least, with a comparatively insignificant quantity of food, seems uncertain; for, though the famous elixir vitae of the alchemists, (which, by sup plying the successive waste of the matter and spirit of the human body, was calculateed to render it perpetual,) so long sought, has not yet been discover'd, it is not at all impossible, that, in a more enlighten'd age, and by the advancement of science, or some fortunate experiment, this invaluable medicine may be one day hit upon, though not, it may be, within a very speedy period; it should be recollected, at the same time, that there are several instances, recorded by veracious writeers, of persons who have sustain'd exceedingly long fasts. Not to mention Simeon Stilites, who subsisted forty days, at a time, without food, in as much as his appetite is generally suppose'd, at least by the pious believeër, to have been duely temper'd by divine miracle, we are not at a loss, however, for more recent and authentick examples.'

Milk, too, which Mr. Ritson so strongly recommends as food, is an animal production; and it cannot be procured in sufficient quantities for the use of man, without prodigious injustice to the author's clients, the sucking calves, asses, and goats. It must farther be considered that, in devouring vegetable individuals, whether cooked or not, millions of insects, and of their ova, must necessarily be destroyed. Now if Mr. R. be right in the following note, we do not see how he can defend his consistency in proposing the substitution of vegetable for animal food:

It is by no means probable or consistent that the vermin or minute animals (exclusive of worms) which nature has appropriateëd to particular beasts, birds, and fishes, and of which no less than three or four distinct species are peculiar to man, were intentionally place'd in those respective situations merely to be destroy'd by the creatures upon which they were so destine'd to feed. If god made man, or there be any intention in nature, the life of the louse, which is as natural to him as his frame of body, is equally sacred and inviolable with his own.'

What then shall be said of the bloody tyranny of a vegetable-feeder, who at one meal demolishes whole cities of insects, under the form of green-soup, cauliflower, or salad; or of him who, "with the self-same weapon too," "like Samson doth his millions slay?" Humanity like this reminds us of the project of Las Casas, who introduced the African slave-trade in order to spare the natives of America.

Having thus bestowed sufficient consideration on the author's arguments, it remains that we should say something of his style. It is far from being elegant, though generally perspicuous; and it is occasionally antiquated, and sometimes vulgar. Thus, in a note or a passage quoted from Sir William Jones, Mr. R. observes, it is mere fudge;' which we beg leave to recommend as a motto for the next edition of his own volume. The book is also disfigured by an affected mode of spelling, which adds to its original barbarism. We cannot perceive the merit of writing persuadeëd, writeër, hapen, accustomeing, filthie, and so forth. Altogether, indeed, we suspect that neither Mr. Ritson's taste in eating, nor his literary hash, will meet with many admirers.

ART. VI. The Life of Poggio Bracciolini. By the Rev. William Shepherd. 4to. 11. 58. Boards. Cadell and Davies. 1802.

THE

HE attention to Italian Literature, which has been excited by the popular work of Mr. Roscoe, seems to have given rise to the volume now before us. Indeed the name of Poggio occurs so frequently among writers on Italian affairs in the fifteenth century, that many readers may be desirous of acquiring more particular information respecting his life than can be gleaned from general history; and he has been mentioned by the late Dr. Warton as a discoverer of antient manuscripts, in a manner that was calculated to promote inquiry. The public are therefore under considerable obligations to Mr. Shepherd, for the labour which he has bestowed on the memoirs of Poggio; and we have only to regret that the incidents, on which Mr. S.'s talents have been excited, had not proved more numerous and more diversified.

The prolixity of many of the Italian prose-writers imposes. a severe task on every author who undertakes to compile facts or opinions from them. To transcribe would be endless; and to select is both difficult and tedious, when the bulk of their volumes and the imposing solemnity of their style are consi dered. Mr. Shepherd has acquitted himself, under these disadvantages, in a very respectable manner. His facts are chiefly taken from Recanati's Life of Poggio: but he has referred to many other sources of information respecting the history and manners of the age, as well as the immediate object of his biography.

As the leading circumstances of Poggio's Life have been top often repeated to render a view of them necessary here, we shall particularize only some of the more important passages."