ery of science, and gathering materials for its advancement. Blindly but perseveringly they do their great work in darkness; as the insects of the coral reefs, while their purpose is simply to provide dwellings for themselves, are laying the foundations for islands and continents, on which nobler animals are to rear the habitations of man and the temples of God.

It is by such a process of experiment on a smaller scale, that obvious revolutions in medicine have been brought about. The change in modern practice to a less active interference with powerful and perturbating and debilitating agents, and a greater reliance upon the efforts of nature, is obvious to all, and is due to the gradual influence, which the observation of judicious men on the effects of remedies, as used in various ways by others as well as themselves, has had on their views of the powers of those remedies. What further changes may be wrought by the same process, it is impossible to foresee. The experiments are going on, and on an increasing scale, and we must stand by to avail ourselves of the results, though we dare not make them ourselves; but where we shall land from this sea of uncertainty remains to be determined. It is impossible that a man of cautious and at the same time liberal spirit, should see around him such contradictory schemes of treating diseases, all claiming the same success, and proving that success by the same statements, without having moments of doubt and despondency. When he sees one practitioner plying his subjects with lobelia, capsicum, hot baths, and sweatings, for all diseases; another for the same maladies, and with as little discrimination, boasting of drawing barrels of blood and administering pounds of calomel; another confining his remedies to leeches and gum water; another confiding formidable diseases to the decillionth of a grain of articles, of which a child might swallow many grains without appreciable effect; it is difficult to resist the conclusion, that diseases are less obviously influenced, either for better or for worse, in the laws of their progress, by agents to whose effects they are subjected during their course, than mankind have generally supposed.

We mean to imply by this remark, not that remedies can produce no effects on disease, but that our power of producing such effects is much less than has been supposed. The medical profession have been reproached with the ill success, which has attended their long continued efforts for the discovery of

remedies. They confess the imperfect condition of their art. Urged by the natural desire of finding a more certain way, the sick and their friends seek out in every direction for those out of the profession, who at least promise more, and who create a livelier faith in their own power of relieving disease and averting death. The statement we have made would seem to show, that the search is found ineffectual; since of the new methods none survive long, and the physician in the main retains the confidence of mankind for one generation after another. We infer, therefore, that his success is upon the whole the greatest, and that the state of the medical art, though it may be a subject of regret, is not one of reproach. Its condition probably grows out of the necessary condition of humanity. The expectation that great discoveries can and will be made in medicine, by which diseases will be cured and life lengthened, assumes what is not proved, that the laws of life admit of the exertion of any great influence on the progress and termination of disease. The rate of human mortality, the length of life, and the length and severity of disease, when examined on a large scale, seem to be governed by very definite laws. And we have reason to believe that it is part of the intention of Providence, that we should not have it in our power, by direct interference, to make any great impression upon them. We are confirmed in the justness of this conclusion by the fact, now well established, that certain other causes, gradually operating on the system, do essentially modify the law of mortality, and the amount and severity of diseases. We refer to the influence of food, clothing, air, exercise, cleanliness, &c. on health and length of life. Now, since we can ascertain the effect of these agents with certainty, we have reason to believe, did the different modes of practice produce great and decided results, we should be as well able to detect these results.

Let us not be supposed by this statement to wish to throw doubt on the value or importance of the profession. Though the medical art may not vary the mortality of disease, or increase the average length of life, as much as we could hope, it does a vast deal by shortening the duration, alleviating the sufferings, and relieving the anxieties of sickness; and indirectly, by the knowledge of the laws and causes of disease which has been accumulated, it promotes both health and life, by improving the habits and modes of living of mankind. No one can witness the intense, zealous, and indefatigable spirit of investigation, which

now actuates the profession in every part of the world, and the laborious and benevolent efforts in which they are constantly engaged, without feeling for them a deep respect as a body of scientific men, and a sure reliance, that to their unwearied efforts in the cause will be finally awarded all that success in discovering the most successful methods of treating disease, which the nature of man renders possible.

J. W.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Trans

Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic. lated, with Notes. By J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. A new Edition, revised. With an Introductory Essay on the Origin, Antiquity, Character, and Influence of the Ancient Ballads of Spain and an Analytical Account, with Specimens, of the Romance of the Cid. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1842.

THIS is the first American edition of a work, originally published many years since in England, and is reprinted from the second English edition, which is one of the most sumptuous specimens of book-making, which has ever proceeded from the London press. The American publisher, without attempting to reproduce the splendor of his prototype, has given us a volume which deserves emphatic commendation for its neatness, good taste, and every way respectable appearance. The literary merit of the work, we need hardly say to our readers, is of a very high order. It forms one of those rare cases, in which the original productions have gained, rather than lost, by being transmuted into a foreign tongue. Mr. Hallam, in his excellent work on the literature of Europe, remarks that the "Spanish ballads are known to our public, but generally with inconceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lockhart." How far Mr. Lockhart has departed from the proper function of a translator, and assumed that of an imitator and paraphraser, how many of his versions are, strictly speaking, centoes, made up of two or three fragments with the chasms filled up by his own inventive genius, we are not sufficiently acquainted with the originals to be able to pronounce. From those better instructed than ourselves we learn, that he is justly obnoxious to some of these charges, which will be judged with more or less of severity, as the critic has more the love of the antiquary than the

taste of a scholar. Judging of them merely as poems, we profess our obligations to him for a volume of spirited and admirable poetry, rare in its kind and excellent in its quality. His own additions and embellishments, if any there be, are like Michael Angelo's restorations of the mutilated statues of antiquity, not to be distinguished from the original body. He does not deface the simplicity of the native ballad by the tawdry and affected phrase. ology of modern courts and drawingrooms. The ballads are fifty-three in number, embracing a considerable variety of character and subject, though mostly, as was to be expected, on themes of love and war. It is either the blast of the hero's trumpet, or the sound of the lover's lute that breathes through them. Many of them, and some of the best, are founded upon the life and fortunes of the Cid. The reader will trace some resemblances, but many points of contrast, between the ballads and those of England; and it would be an interesting subject to trace these effects to their sources in the difference in religion, political insti tutions, and climate between the two countries. The Southern muse is more impassioned, more melancholy, more dreamy, with greater depth of feeling and stronger religious sensibility; the Northern, more joyous, more frolicsome, with more of animal spirits and rough vigor. Where every poem is a gem it is hard to make selections; but we have been particularly pleased with the grace and spirit of "The Cid's Wedding," the picturesque vigor of "The Bull-fight of Gazul," the simplicity and truth of feeling of "Zara's Ear-ring," the descriptive richness and touching close of "The Bridal of Andalla," the plaintive beauty of "The Lamentations for Celin," and the overpowering pathos of "Count Alarcos and the Infanta Solisa."

The American edition, besides the contents of the English, contains an essay on the origin, character, antiquity, and influence of the ancient ballads of Spain, from the 14th No. of the Edinburgh Review, written apparently by one entirely master of the subject; an analytical account of the Romance of the Cid, with translated specimens from the Penny Magazine, and a Bibliographical list, prepared for this edition, of the books containing the original ballads, and of works pertaining to the subject.

The Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. Edited by BENJAMIN PEIRCE, A. M. No. I. James Munroe & Co.

IT is a source of general satisfaction, that a magazine of this character has been started in Cambridge. There is, perVOL. XXXII. 3D S. VOL. XIV. NO. II. 35

haps, no better sign of life, in any department of science, or letters, than the publishing of a good journal. But the sign cannot be given, if the public will not come generously forward with a hearty response. Prof. Peirce says, "The observer, who withdraws from all society, in order to devote his nights to watching the stars, is enervated by his loss of sleep, and unfitted for the labors of the day. He cannot live two lives; and if he works while others sleep, he must sleep while others work. While he sustains science, science must sustain him." This is equally true in other directions. If the learned gentlemen at Cambridge are ready to undertake the labor involved in a publication like this, the labor is their full share of the business, the rest belongs to the public; and if they desire, and even require, - if we may take the language of some of our newspapers as good authority, some such evidence of actual existence and industry from the Mathematical and Astronomical department, they must be ready with their subscriptions, and relieve the conductors of the journal, at least, of all anxiety on the score of expense. Instead of the seventy or eighty subscribers obtained after a six months' appeal, Boston alone (whether it read the book or not) for the sake of science should send in, at the fewest, five hundred names.

But the book will be read. A certain proportion of each number will probably be beyond the acquirements of all but a very few of the subscribers; but if future numbers shall be formed upon the model of the present, a fair proportion will also be generally interesting and instructive. The first half of the present Number is devoted to solutions of mathematical questions, and is of course Cimmerian darkness to nearly all who may chance to open the book; but the remaining half is, for the most part, within the grasp of any intelligent reader. The article on the distances of the fixed stars communicates astonishing results of observations made at European observatories. In an early Number of the Quarterly Review it was stated, that by the observations of Dr. Brinkley upon a particular star, the a Lyræ, its parallax had been found, and its distance consequently ascertained, which was given as twenty billions of miles. By Dr. Herschel the diameter of the same star was calculated, with no doubt some near approach to accuracy, least we should say so, were not the result almost beyond belief, and found to be three thousand times greater than that of the sun! A body, that is, which would spread out its solid mass to almost three-fourths the size of our solar system; and of the vastness of that extent a homely illustration of Ferguson conveys a lively idea, when he says, that a cannon ball, taking

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