thing can remove; that he has inflicted a wound upon himself which ages could not heal: and, racked with such intolerable misery, he hurries to find a shelter in the arms of suicide.

ARTICLE V.

REDGAUNTLET.

THIS novel, although abounding in occasional excellencies and beauties, displays, as a whole, less of the author's gifted talents than even St Ronan's Well. The story is not well concatenated, and many of the personages conduce very little, and some of them nothing at all, to the ultimate result. Mr Saunders Fairford, poor Peter Peebles, Quaker Geddes, Wandering Willie and his Wife, and even Allan Fairford and Darsie Latimer, are no ways instrumental in breaking up the Jacobite conspiracy, or bringing about the re-embarkation of the Pretender, which is the consummation of the story. There are also fewer profound representations of human nature, and in consequence less scope for phrenological remark. Nanty Ewart is a specimen of the character produced when the organs of Propensity, Sentiment, and Intellect, are nearly in equilibrio, and the individual is left without efficient external restraint. He then becomes the very sport of circumstances. Nanty commences life with a sincere desire to conduct himself with propriety; but temptation presents itself, and he yields. He is then hurried into a vortex of iniquity; and under this influence his propensities gain the most frightly ascendency. He is first a seducer, and then becomes a confirmed drunkard, smuggler, and pirate. The moral sentiments, however, burst forth in occasional gleams of better feeling. He is visited with recollections of the loveliness of virtue, and deep consciousness of the degra dation induced by his crimes; he feels remorse, while yet he despairs of reformation; and longs for death as the only termination to his sufferings and crimes. His despair, and a glow of tenderness, (the result of Benevolence and Adhe

siveness still unextinguished,) breaking out almost unknown to himself, bring him within the range of our sympathies, and excite pity for the man while we abhor his actions. His intellect is represented as acute, and partially cultivated, but deficient in native vigour to control the unfortunate combination of propensities that has fallen to his lot.

As a contrast to him, Joshua Geddes, a quaker, is represented as possessing, from nature, a great endowment of Combativeness and Destructiveness; but over-balanced by so vigorous an intellect, and such powerful moral sentiments, that they are kept under habitual restraint. They shew their presence and energy, however, in occasionally bringing the good man to the very verge of a passion; instantly checked indeed, but serving to remind him of the old Adam still dwelling within him; and they inspire him also with great intrepidity of character,--a more legitimate, but equally characteristic, object of their functions.

Our chief object, however, in noticing Redgauntlet, we confess, is to point out one great mistake in point of description which the author has committed, and which comes peculiarly within our province of criticism. He describes Herries of Birrenswork, and informs us, that " his head was small, "with a large forehead and well-formed ears." (Vol. i. p. 71.) Now, we are disposed to risk not only our reputation as Phrenologists, but our heads as men, that the mental character which in nature accompanies such a development of brain, is marked by deficiency of energy in propensity and sentiment, and by vigour of intellect alone. The individual, in short, would be regarded in the world as acute, and probably profound; but he would be felt as singularly deficient in active energy and susceptibility of emotion. Every one would assign the closet, or the hall of a library, as his appropriate fields of exertion, while for the busy haunts of men he would be regarded as nearly incapacitated. The author, however, entertains a different opinion, and represents Herries, who afterwards turns out to be Redgauntlet himself, as possessing prodigious force of character, especially in propensity and

sentiment, the very parts in which nature, if she had given him such a head, would have constituted him feeble. "That "I have seen you before," says Davie Latimer to him," is "certain; for none can forget the look with which you seem "to have the power of blighting those upon whom you cast it." V. ii. p. 131. No human being can produce such a look unless he possess large Destructiveness, with a head in general far above an average size. King Robert Bruce could have done so, while a man with such a head as the author describes would excite ridicule in attempting it. The author, although at fault in regard to the head, is consistent throughout in his representation of the mental character of Redgauntlet. "He flung the warrant," says he, " into the fire with one hand, "and fixed the other with irresistible gripe on the breast of the attorney, who, totally unable to contend with him in either personal strength or mental energy, trembled like a chicken "in the raven's clutch." V. ii. p. 152. See also v. ii. p. 148, and v. iii. p. 124, and 132.

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ARTICLE VI.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE versus PHRENOLOGY.

THE New Monthly Magazine for June contains an article adverse to our science. The editor informs his readers in a note, that he believes himself indebted for it to the brother of the gallant and lamented general who fell ' at Corunna. After an attentive perusal, we are almost compelled to believe that this gentleman has been reposing under the shade of his brother's laurels, altogether unconscious of every thing that has been written, said, and done about Phrenology, since the year of grace 1815. Moreover, he is very ill-informed of its condition even then. A few examples will prove both positions. We shall give the statements of the gallant General's brother, and merely add to them quotations from the works of Drs Gall and Spurzheim themselves. These will show that he misrepresents their doctrines in a manner unworthy of a philosopher and a man

of sense. To an ingenuous mind this is the severest chastisement, and those who cannot feel such a reproof, would not be mended by any other.

The New Monthly Magazine.-" Lavater could only measure "and examine superficially the human features; but Gall could "dissect with skill the brains of men and all animals. This he "industriously performed, and by a method invented by him"self, which other anatomists acknowledged to be the best, he "traced minutely the course of the nerves, and the structure of "the medullary substance. In this study his curiosity rose to "enthusiasm; he developed and followed with his knife the fibres of the brain, even to their source; UNTIL AT LENGTH HE FOND

66 LY IMAGINED THAT HE HAD DISCOVERED THE SEAT AND SUBSTANCE OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS of MAN."

Dr Spurzheim." Many natural philosophers have expected to "succeed in pointing out the organs of the intellectual faculties by means of the anatomy of the human brain in particular, or, at "all events, by comparative anatomy in general. It is also "pretty generally believed that our new philosophy of the brain is "the result of its anatomy. Here, therefore, I shall make some "reflections on human anatomy in particular, and on compara"tive anatomy in general. There are then very few cases where "the structure of any part indicates its function; and the opinion "that this is the case is never more than conjectural. Before "the motions of muscles were observed, it was impossible to in"fer from their structure that they were contractile. The struc"ture of the heart was known a long time before its function "was discovered. The deepest perspicuity would not, a priori, "have attributed the smell to the pituitary membrane of the "nose, the taste to the nervous papillae of the tongue, the sen"sation of light to the optic nerve, &c. Who, in seeing the "structure of the stomach, could conjecture its digestive power? "Who, from the structure of the viscera, could decide that the "liver secretes bile, the kidneys urine? Who, from the struc"ture and form of the nerves, can determine what kind of impressions they propagate? IT IS THE SAME WITH THE BRAIN. "Let the direction of its fibres be known; and let anatomists "distinguish their greater or less consistence, their more or "less white colour, their different size, length, &c. what conclu"sion can they draw from these circumstances? NONE." "Thus "it is certain that the anatomical knowledge of any part DOES NOT INDICATE ITS FUNCTION; and it is therefore necessary to have "recourse to other means in order to discover it." If indeed "it were possible to determine the functions of the organization according to its structure, we should no longer have occasion "to refute many errors; to show, for instance, that the moral "sentiments do neither result from the viscera or nervous "plexus and ganglia of the abdomen, nor from the tempera"ments, &c. Many organs of the brain were discovered before

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"its structure was demonstrated; and these discoveries might "have subsisted for many centuries without the structure of "the brain being known."-Physiognomical System, p. 203, 4, 5. The New Monthly." The brain of man being larger than "that of animals, is brought forward to ACCOUNT FOR THE SUPE66 RIORITY OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, and to IDENTIFY OUR MENTAL FACULTIES WITH SOLID flesh. But this butcher-like argument is annihilated by the facts, that the brains of ele"phants and whales are greater than those of men; and also by "this common observation, that large men with large heads "have not superior capacities to those of moderate dimensions." Dr Spurzheim." The greater number of natural philosophers, being convinced that the brain is the organ of the soul, "have concluded that its functions must be proportionate to its "size. The brain of man was accordingly found larger than "of the majority of tame animals, as the horse, ox, &c. With"out, therefore, examining living beings more strictly, the superiority of man was at once attributed to the absolute size "of his brain. Thus, according to Erasistratus, Aristotle, "Pliny, Galen, Portal,† and others, man has the largest brain. "Modern discoveries, however, have shewn that the brains of "whales and elephants are larger than those of man. Those, there"fore, who measure the faculties of animal life according to the ab"solute size of the brain must err; for whatever the understand"ing of the elephant may be, and though the whale be declared king of the inhabitants of the sea, no one will attribute either "to the one or the other those superior faculties which consti"tute the distinctive character of man. Besides, if we more closely study nature, we find that the brains of the monkey and dog are smaller than those of the ox, ass, and hog, yet the former come more nearly to man in respect to their intellectual fa"culties." "It is not possible, even in individuals of the same "kind, to measure their faculties according to the absolute size of their brain. Hence it is necessary to look for other means " for determining the degree of the faculties of the mind."

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The New Mouthly."Never was there a more humiliating conception of man than this; by which love, reason, wit, and "all the nobler faculties of the human mind, are framed of a "number of masses of flesh conglomerated together, which en"large and diminish while we live, and rot when we die."

Dr Spurzheim." We never venture beyond experience. We "neither deny nor affirm any thing which cannot be verified "by experiment. We neither make researches upon the dead "body nor upon the soul alone, but upon man as he appears in "life. We consider the faculties of the mind only as far as they "become apparent to us by the organization. We never ques

This is a very baby-like argument to be resorted to by so respectable an opponent. +Anatomie Medicale, tom. iv. p. 30.