rant on what principle he acts. His virtue, his fovereign good, his money, health, and life. But is he then to enjoy good health and long life, merely to live long and be healthy? Or have life and health no higher aims? Why then is he not temperate with a view to preferve the fuperiority of his faculties, both mental and corporeal, to make use of them as well as of his time for the advantage of fociety, for his own advantage in labouring after his own happiness, and from a principle of obedience to God?

Eratius applies himself indefatigably to his commercial affairs; but has no object in view but to leave a great fortune to his children, and give confequence to his houfe. He does not allow himself in means the leaft improper to obtain this; it would be lofing his credit, and expofing himself to be deprived of the bleffing of Heaven. Nothing can equal his honefty and integrity: he tears himself from fleep to purfue his fpeculations, and he lives frugally that he may work more affiduouily at his defk. The most innocent recreations might make him neglect an occafion of gaining fome lawful advantage; be prohibits himself from them entirely. His reputation is fo well eftablifhed, that he is cited as an example of a confcientious and labourious man, who facrifices his life and his pleafure to his duty. But by what law is he obliged thus to give himfelf up to his commercial bufinefs, to enrich and aggrandize his family? A good education is preferable to riches, and he takes no pains to procure it to his children. The duty of accumulating wealth for them, is it not very inferior to that of watching carefully over their conduct, and that of all his household? After having flaved during fifty years at a laborious employment, which has not had a more elevated object in view than the enriching his family, what will he have done at the end of his life, to enoble and bring his foul to perfection? To fhrink from no kind of fatigue and anxiety, to leave a more confiderable inheritance to children, and to aggrandize them, may be called vanity or natural affection, but never can be efteemed virtue.

"It is precifely by an effect of the attachment we have for ourselves, and for what belongs to us, that we fo eafily falfify and obfcure our ideas of virtue, by giving this name to whatever procures us fome lawful advantage, or which preferves us from the lofs of health, of reputation, and of our well being in this life. We often think ourfelves labouring in the caufe of virtue, when, in fact, we are only employed in fatisfying our paffions. We become different from what we were, without being at all better or more religious.

"Every man, then, who wishes to be convinced of the value of virtue, must know it, form to himself ideas of his duty from the holy and immutable will of God, and compare his ideas and the divine will together, that he may eftimate them jufly; otherwife on a thousand occafions he will be unable to triumph over himself, and the most he will obtain will be the pomp of virtue. He muft labour to renew and fortify his conviction, by filent reflection in retirement, and by exercifing himself, each day, in well doing; he must apply himself to purify his knowledge, and to clear it from thofe errors which imperceptibly mix with it. Thus the intelligent man will encreafe his information, whilst he who is without understanding, the fcoffer who

flies from labour and application, and who occupies himself seldom, and inattentively, in the fearch of wisdom, will not be able to find it." Vol. ii. p. 151.

A fhort paffage in the conclufion of the lectures is too valuable to be omitted, becaufe it contains in a manner the effence of the whole.

"Young men, to whom these leffons have been more particularly addreffed, if I entreat one favour of you in return, which it is in your power to grant me, a favour interefting to your own felicity, a favour which I fhall confider as the moft precious gift you can beftow on me, and which will form the confolation of my future days, could you refufe to grant it me? Let me conjure you then to recollect frequently, nay, daily, as an abridgement of thefe leffons, that the only way to enjoy tranquillity, content, and felicity, and to die in poffeffion of thefe bletlings, is conftantly to ftudy wifdom, and to practise virtue and piety; the only means of obtaining the comfort of a good confcience. Remember that there exifts no real happiness for man, but that of feeding his mind each day with the falutary precepts of natural and revealed religion, conforming his conduct exactly to its principles; that the fooner he enters the path of virtue, the more eafy and agreeable he will find it and that every duty prefcribed to us by God has our happiness for its object. Recollect, therefore, continually, that the young man and the man of riper years, can alone cleanfe his way by taking heed to it, according to the word of God. Let the whole tenour of your life, be a practical, rational, and truly Chriftian course of morality. Apply yourselves to it with all poffible care and zeal.

"However carnefly we may and do endeavour to perform this duty, it is nevertheless impoffible for us by our natural strength to become wife and virtuous. I have always laboured to bring you back to this principle with which religion and experience furnishes us never lofe fight of it. Man is by nature in a state of infirmity and depravity, which does not allow him to attain by his own exertions the recovery and happiness of his foul. As men and as Chriftians we must seek from God, and according to the means he has pointed out to us, the power of becoming virtuous in heart and mind. It is an important duty which refults from the faith and obedience we owe to our creator and fovereign matter, and is alfo the first step towards felicity. In conducting us to it, the feeble glimmerings of reafon lead us to the brightnefs of revelation. By the affittance of reafon we may certainly practife many apparent virtues, and abitain from many vices, but it is not in the power of reafon to regenerate our hearts. Let us then be careful to banish every falfe and fuperftitious idea of virtue. This virtue is not confined to our understanding; it does not confift in fome detached good actions; it does not confift in what proceeds from the lips, or in a grave demeanour. It is not that outward decency and propriety of conduct, with which the world is fatisfied; it is not a hypocritical bigotry, nor the gloomy devotion of a reclufe; neither is it a mere happy natural difponition. It is the fruit of wifdom, and a conftant endeavour to reduce its dictates to practice; it is the choiceft

bleffing

bleffing God beftows on us, not fuddenly but by degrees; not without our confent, but by a rational ufe of the means he has appointed for its attainment." Vol. iii. P. 260.

Whatever may be the defects of the French tranflation, compared with the original, which we have not an opportunity of examining, Mrs. Douglas has well performed her tafk of rendering the French into English. Her language is, in general, pure, and very feldom tainted with the idioms of the language the was tranflating. In fome places, where the author recommends German books, fhe has very properly pointed out correfponding English or French authors in a note; as at p. 234, of vol. ii. and elsewhere. She may certainly congratulate herfelf on having prefented to the English public a book from which much good, and only good, may be acquired.

ART. XIII. The Popular Compendium of Anatomy: or a concife and clear Defcription of the Human Body with the Phyfiology or Natural Hiftory of the various Achons and Functions of its different Organs and Parts. Containing alfo an Article on Sufpended Animation, with the proper Means to be used for the Recovery of Drowned Perfons. By William Burke, Surgeon. 12mo. 261 pp. 6s. Highley. 1804.

WE feel pleafure in recommending this excellent work to

the notice of thofe gentlemen, not of the medical profeffion, who may wish to obtain fome general notion of anatomy. The author appears to have been prompted to the undertaking by religious fentiments; for no other fubject furnishes fo many convincing proofs of a divine agency, as the admirable mecha nifin, and actions of the organs of the human body.

The arrangement of the matter is perfpicuous, the doctrines are found, and the flyle is that of a fcholar. We only lament. that the work is fo concife. Had the author enlarged more on the mofl important parts, his work would have been still more valuable.

To give fome idea of the fpirit with which Mr. Burke has executed his plan, we fele&t the following paffage.

66

Of the Complexion.

"The colour of the fkin has engaged the attention of most naturalifts, and by the diverfities which it exhibits among different races of people, it once gave rife to opinions, fome of which were innocent, but others extremely injurious to the happiness of mankind; as directly afferting, that, in violation of the eternal principles of justice, and

the

the facred rights of humanity, the people of one colour had a right to feize and enflave thofe of another. But now the feat of colour being difcovered, and fome of the circumftances which influence its changes being known, thofe erroneous opinions are exploded; and instead of feeing grounds for the affault and flavery of our fellow-creature, in the difference of his complexion from ours, the philofopher contemplates the fhades of the human countenance, as he does the variety of its features, and beholds alike in both the provident defign and work of the fupreme architect.

"It was not till lately that the true feat of the colour of the fkin became known. Prior to this, anatomifts fuppofed that colour depended on the outer or fcarf-fkin; and before the diffection of the human body, it might have been even imagined that colour entered deeper than the fkin, and had influence on the other and more internal parts of the frame. Malpighi, an eminent Italian phyfician, at length led to the knowledge of its true feat. He was the firft who found that the skin of the human body confifted of three parts, feparable one from the other; namely, the scarf skin which is external, the thicker or true fkin beneath it, and a coagulated fubftance which lies between both. On future investigation it was difcovered that this coagulated fubftance was exclufively the feat of colour in the skin, and what caused the various fhades of complexion in the different inhabitants of the globe. This difcovery has been fince fully confirmed by anatomical experiments. If the fcarf fkin be feparated from the coagulated fubftance underneath, it will be found to be femitranfparent; this is invariably the cafe with the scarf skin of the blackeft negroe, and with that of the pureft white. Whence it follows that the outer skin of both being fimilar in tranfparency and colour, (and the inner or thicker fkin being known not to differ in perfons of the moft oppofite complexions) the intermediate coagulated fubftance must be the feat of colour; and this fubftance varying in its tint, and appearing through the tranfparent fearf-fkin, gives them thofe differ ent complexions which frike us fo forcibly in comtemplating the hu

man race.

"Whatever caufes co-operate in creating thefe appearances, produce them by acting upon the coagulated fubitance; which, from the almost incredible manner in which the fearf-fkin is perforated, is as acceffible as this fkin itfelf. These causes are probably thofe various qualities of things, which, combined with the influence of the fun, contribute to form what we call climate. For the coagulated iuhftance is found to vary in its colour from the equator to the poles; being, in the highest latitudes of the temperate zone, generally and perpetually fair, but becoming fwarthy, olive, tawny, and black, as we defcend towards the fouth.

"Thefe different colours are no doubt beft adapted to their respective zones; although we are ignorant how they act in fitting us for fituations that are fo different; and the capability of the human conflitution to accommodate itself to every climate, by contracting after a due time the fhade proper to it, affords a fine illuftration of the benevolence of the deity. This pliancy of nature is favourable to the increase and extenfion of mankind, and to the cultivation and settle

ment

ment of the earth: it tends to unite the most diftant nations; to facilitate the acquifition and improvement of tcience, which would otherwife be confined to a few objects and to a very limited range: and alfo, by opening the way to an univerfal intercourfe of men and things, to elevate the various nations of the earth to the feelings of a common nature, and a common intereft." P. 138.

The plates are only five, but they are very neatly executed: two on ofcology: one for the veins and arteries, which of courfe is infufficient, and two for the inteftines: with ample defcriptions and references to each.

ART. XIV. General Zoology, or Syftematic Natural Hif tory. By George Shaw, M. D. F. R.S. &c. With Plates from the first Authorities, and most felect Specimens. Engraved principally by Mr. Heath. 8vo. Vols. IV. and V. each in Two Parts. 21. 12s. 6d. each Volume. Kearfley. 1803 and 1804.

A great chafm in English works on Zoology, is filled by thefe

two volumes of Dr. Shaw's important undertaking. Our naturalists, intent on other parts of the fubject, have left the clafs of fishes almoft untouched. Since the great though pofthumous work of Willughby, which Ray brought to light in 1685, and which befides was in Latin, we have had no publication of any magnitude devoted to this enquiry. Goldfmith takes a very fuperficial view of it, in part of his fixth volume; nor do we recollect any other attempt of the kind, except that of an anonymous compiler of natural hiflory published at Edinburgh in 1792. This author, whofe plan is generally good, though his details are very frequently incorrect, follows the Linnean arrangement, and gives a fhort account of the moft remarkable genera and fpecies, in about one half of his third volume. Such fishes as are ever found in the British feas have been defcribed by Mr. Pennant †, but thefe form a very fmal! part of the whole arrangement. The celebrated and extenfive work of Dr. Bloch has been tranflated into French, but not into English; and it remained for Dr. Shaw to give us firf a comprehenfive and fatisfactory view of this whole divifion of nature, in the English language.

xvi.

For our accounts of the preceding volumes, fee Brit. Crit. vol. p. 523, and xix. p. 294.

+ British Zoology.

Our