with which his hiftory is fo heavily loaded, that it is breaking down under its own bulk.

In p. 296 we have thefe words, Nicopolis, the trophy of Auguftus;' because he obtained a victory near it, and built it in honour of the victory. In the fame page we have a general's want of youth and experience.'-In p. 309 the extreme lands of Italy' are faid to have been, the term of their deftructive progrefs." And let us add, what this chapter forces us to feel, that the hiftory frequently reads like a riddle, from the obfcurity of it.

The SIXTH or forty-fourth chapter is an account, no lefs than eighty-five pages in length, of the Roman jurisprudence, traced through the regal, the consular, and the imperial times, to the days of Juftinian; and containing a particular detail of the provifions made by it, for the various objects of law. The chapter is long and tirefome, from the ample nature of the fubject, and from the neceffary drynefs of the difquifition. Yet it has much learning, much good-fenfe, and more parade of both. But nothing can fubdue the native barrenness of fuch a field as this. And, if any thing could, what has a difquifition on all the the laws of all the Romans, to do with a history of the decline and fall of the empire? Even if it had the legal knowledge of Trebonius, Papinian, and Ulpian united together; if it had alfo the philofophy, of all the formers of polity, and remarkers upon man, that these modern times have produced; and if both were fet off with the energy of a Tacitus, and the brilliancy of a Burke; we should only point at the whole as a set of more fplendid abfurdities, and cry out with disdain,

Beauties they are, but beauties out of place.

A treatise on the domeftic life of the Romans; a differtation on the buttons, the ftrings, and the latchets of their military dreís; on any thing more trifling (hiftorically confidered), among the many trifles of antiquarianifin; would have been almoft as proper for the hiftory, as fuch a difquifition upon their laws. That Juftinian fhould have the honour attributed to him, of compiling the code, the inftitutes, and the pandects; is very reasonable. But it is very unreasonable, that a long and laboured differtation on the laws of all the periods of the Roman hiftory, with an enumeration of its particular provifions, fhould be given as a part of the hiftory; and the effence of the ftatute-book ferved up as an hiftorical dish. In the fullest history of the empire, fuch literary cookery as this would be very abfurd. It is fill more abfurd, in a history only of the decline and fall of, the empire. And it is most of all abfurd, when we had been fo exprefsly affured, that we fhould have only the circumstances of its decline and fall,'

In p. 333 we are told to appreciate the labours' of Juftinian. The author is fond of the word in this harfh application of it; we have seen him ufing it before; and we fhall fee him again. In p. 350, after noticing Cato the cenfor and his fon as men fkilled in the law, he remarks that the kindred appellation of • Mutius Scævola was illuftrated by three fages of the law.* How obfcure! He means, that this family had the honour of producing three good lawyers.-In the fame page he mentions a century of volumes.'-In p. 373 we have the exposition of children,' for the expofmg of them; in 384, the tame animals, ⚫ whose nature is tractable to the arts of education; in 396, the agreement of fale, for a certain price, imputes,' instead of reckons, from that moment the chances of gain or lofs to the ⚫ account of the purchafer; in 398, the pain or the difgrace of a word or blow cannot eafily be appreciated by a pecuniary • equivalent;' in 401, the extirpation of a more valuable tree, where the comparative is used for the politive degree, very abfurdly in a lift of legal punishments; and, in 406, a pru ⚫dent legiflator appreciates the guilt and punishment.'

6

We have noticed before the propensity of Mr. Gibbon to obcenity. It was then, however, covered moftly under a veil of Greek. But, in p. 375, his obfcenity throws off every cover, and comes ftalking forth in the impudence of nakedness. A foul, deeply tinctured with fenfuality, loves to brood over senfual ideas itself, to prefent fenfual objects to others, and so to enjoy its own fenfuality of fpirit over again,

But, in p. 414, he is ftill more vicious, He then mounts up into an avowed advocate for what? for no lefs an enormity than MURDER; and even for that which, of all murders, is the only one that precludes repentance, precludes pardon, and ends the life with the crime of the murderer. The civilians,' fays this champion for felf-murder, have always respected the natural ⚫ right of a citizen to difpofe of his life;but the precepts of the gospel, or the church, have at length impofed a pious fervitude on the minds of Chriftians, and condemn them to expect, without < a murmur, the last ftroke of disease or the executioner.' So boldly is Mr. Gibbon here treading, in the fteps of his honoured acquaintance, the late Mr. Hume! With all Mr. Hume's fpirit, too, he arraigns the precepts of the gofpel;' if they be the hints) the precepts of the gofpel, and not the mere injunctions of the church;' for prohibiting felf-murder. With a fimilar fpirit, in the text of p. 380, he speaks of the wifhes of the church;' when his note makes them to be the laws of Chrift, and the precepts of St. Paul. And, as it is highly to the honour of our religion, that these patrons of self-murder are compelled to set afide the dictates of the gofpel, and the admo

nitions

nitions of the church, before they can vindicate their profligate fpeculations; fo does Mr. Gibbon's fpeculation here seem to tell us, with a melancholy energy, to what a dreadful relief he may perhaps have recourfe hereafter. May repentance anticipate diftrefs; and the light of Chriftianity break in upon his mind, to ftop the uplifted arm of fuicide!

The SEVENTH or forty-fifth chapter, relates principally to the invafion of Italy by the Lombards, and the feparation of it again from the eaftern empire. This is, therefore, in all its principal parts, a mere digreffion. We have fhewn this fufficiently before; nor need we to fay more upon the fubject. We have only to obferve, that there is one link more added to the chain of abfurdity; that to the digreffional account of the Goths and Vandals, of the Goths and the eaftern emperors, is now fubjoined a long history of the Lombards, the emperors, and the Goths; that all thefe continued events of the Italian hiftory cannot have the leaft relation to the western empire, because this has long fince vanished from the earth; and that they equally cannot form any circumstances of the decline and fall of the eastern, because Italy was the feat of the western. In every light, the narrative of events in Italy, after Italy has been fo formally swept away from the ftage of the hiftory, is all impertinence.

A faint and tremulous kind of light, too, is all that is thrown 'over the narrative. This fometimes breaks out and engages the attention. But it is generally too tremulous to caft a fteady illumination, and too faint to furnish a strong one. And it ferves only, like the natural twilight, to prefent the fhadows of objects to our view. The whole fcene of history before us, therefore, is dark, broken, and uninviting.

But digreffion is the great feeder of Mr. Gibbon's hiftory: I fhould not be apprehenfive,' he fays in p. 449, of deviating • from my subject, if it was in my power to delineate the private life of the conquerors of Italy; the Lombards. Italy, having been once a grand object of his hiftory, is for ever to remain fo, it seems. It is not merely to remain, as long only as it is connected with the eastern empire. This the first chapter of this volume proves decifively. The tranfactions of the Goths in it have no relation to the eastern at all, and have a relation only to the Vardal fettlers of Italy. Italy, therefore, is the connecting line of the hiftory. And, upon the fame principle, he may pursue the history to the coming of the Normans into the fouth of Italy; and then give us an account, of their domestic life, their civil laws, and their military tranfactions.

In p. 149 we have the court of Juftinian arranged on the formal reception of fome ambaffadors, according to the military and civil order of"-what? of the hierarchy. This

is extraordinary. Were then the perfons who held civil and 'military' offices about the court, arranged in fome order, fimilar to that of archbithops, bishops, &c. in the church? No: they were arranged in the military and civil order of the hierarchy itfelf. And the word hierarchy is only ufed, with a ridiculous mifapplication of it, for the very court.

[To be continued. ]

ART. II. The Elements of Medicine; or, a Tranflation of the Elementa Medicine Brunonis. With large Notes, Illuftrations, and Comments. By the Author of the original Work. 8vo. 2 vols. 8s. boards. Johnson. London, 1788.

THESE Elements, in their original form, were veiled in an

obfcurity of language which, if it did not preclude a clear comprehenfion of the author's meaning, yet certainly rendered the attempt to investigate his principles a task no lefs difficult than unprofitable. This inconvenience, however, being at length removed by himself, who muft be, of all perfons, the fitteft to exprefs with precifion his own ideas, the work now comes before the public in a fhape better calculated to display, without ambiguity, either its intrinfic merits, or defects. By the friends, or rather the partizans, of the author, the former have already been extolled with an extravagance of panegyric' nothing fhort of medical fanaticifm; while the latter, perhaps, amidst the juftnefs of criticism, are but little indebted to its candour. At the time when we take thofe elements into confideration, Dr. Brown is placed beyond the reach both of praise and cenfure; and we fhall therefore be more free from every suspicion of partiality in pronouncing our opinion concerning them.

It would be offending the patience of our readers to go into any elaborate investigation of this work. The principles upon which it is founded are few and fimple; they inculcate that all diseases, however various in appearance, confift of two claffes, denominated the fthenic or ftimulant, and afthenic or debilitating. This fyftem, fo conformable to the doctrine of the firitum et laxum, Dr. Brown, however, according to his own account, has not derived from the writings of the ancient physicians, but conftructed it upon obfervations which he had made in confequence of being himself attacked with fome fits of the gout. On this flight and partial foundation, has he ventured to erect an hypothefis, dogmatically affirmed to be fubverfive of eftablished theory, and which would introduce into fome of the most ENG, REV. VÒL. XII, NOV. 1788, important

Y

important parts of practice a pernicious innovation. It will be fufficient to present our readers with a few fpecimens of the author's doctrine. And, firft, of the inflammation of the

ftomach:

• To concentrate it into a definition: it is a folution of the continuity of a folid part in the ftomach, by mechanical or acrid means, followed by inflammation and pain, and in confequence of the great fenfibility of the part, propagating fymptoms of disorder over all the fyftem. The cause of general difeafes is an increase of excitement, and the inflammation, accompanying those diseases, arifes from that increase.

The cure of gastritis, or the inflammation of the stomach, is to contrive means to keep the hurtful, and all rude matters, from coming into contact with the inflamed part, and leave that part to heal; taking care neither to increase the local affection by too sthenic a diet, nor to produce a tendency in the inflammation, to run into gangrene, by the abuse of evacuations and other debilitating powers; and if, than which nothing is more likely, the acutenefs or continuance of pain fhould at laft bring on a state of general debility, then to use the palliative means of preventing that bad confequence.

The paffage above recited affords the definition of a wound, not of an inflammation, of the ftomach; and the general method of cure mentioned would be found a vague and useless directory in any cafe of the difeafe.

In the fame part of the work we meet with the following obfervations relative to the peripneumony:

The cure of peripneumony is to weaken the system, from the very commencement of the disease, by diminishing the energy of all the exciting powers; that of the abundance of the blood by bleeding, that of the over-proportion of the other fluids by purging, ftarving; that arifing from the stimulus of heat and other exceffive ftimuli by cold,' &c.

According to the method of cure here prefcribed, if Dr. Brown would not actually have destroyed his patient by ftarving, there can be little doubt that he would, in many cafes, have effected it by fuppreffing the falutary sputum.

In numerous inftances we cannot acquit this author of mifreprefenting the ftate of medical practice. The following is an example of this kind:

The colic has been commonly treated by purging and bleeding, and low diet; but in no inftance has that treatment of it been fuccessful. Opiates were particularly forbidden, upon the fuppofition of their conftipating the belly; but the truth is, that the colic, as well as diarrhoea (which has been fuppofed a difeafe of an oppofite nature, from the feeming contrariety of loofenefs of the belly and coftiveness to each other), are the fame kind of affection, only

differing