The first volume is concluded by a lift of rates and proportions; of rather, the prices of different labourers, and the quantity of materials for a given work.

minutes,"

In this volume, various references are made to or those detached obfervations which are separate and diftinct from any general fyftematic plan; and the minutes are recorded in the fecond volume. They are a collection of very valuable facts, related familiarly, and, we believe, faithfully. A lift of provincialisms, a very neceffary work, concludes the volume, If the former part of the work would not admit of abridgment, these isolated facts are still lefs capable of being shortened. The naivetè, the clearness, and the good fenfe which thefe minutes difplay, have rendered them to us fingularly entertaining and inftructive. The management of the dairy is related more at length, and with much care. It is, however, a Norfolk diary, and the products are not of the best kind. In short, Mr. Marshall's minutenefs and fingularity gives ant interefting appearance even to his dealings with the miller at Walsham fair, or his relation of the manner in which a bullock cats turnips. We fhall felect only one fact, and we think it an important one.

In finking a well near Gunton-Houfe, the workmen it feems traced the tap-root of an oak, through an uniformly white fand, to the depth, I think, of twenty feet. The tree was nevertheless uncommonly healthy and beautiful,

This fhews that a ttrong foil is not neceffary to the production of fine oaks.

There might, however, be one circumftance favourable to this oak. The ftratum which it grew in might be impregnated with the drainage of the house and offices; for of fo abforbent a nature is this bottomless bed of fand, that it drinks up the whole drip of the house, together with the overflowings, and wafte water, and filth of every denomination.'

On the whole, our author has executed his task very well; and we shall, with great pleasure, accompany him in his future obfervations in Yorkshire *.

Practical Obfervations on Herniæ; illuftrated with Cafes. By B. Wilmer. 12mo. 15. 6d. Longman.

MR. Wilmer's knowlege and experience render him, in many paths, an eligible guide: on the fubject of hernia he has already inftructed us. These Obfervations are the refult of a careful attention and extenfive practice; and we have little doubt but that they will be received with proper respect.

• These Obfervations are, we find, fince published,

He enforces the obfervations of fome of the beft chirurgical authors, on the ftri&ture of the upper part of the fac, which is often an impediment to the reduction, after the ring of the mufcles is dilated or divided; and he distinguishes, with great care, between the hernia congenita and the hydrocele. Different cafes are alfo added to illuftrate the ufe of cold applications; the coldeft, and therefore the beft, is, in our author's opinion, a faturated folution of fal ammoniac in the coldest water, ufed during folution.

His obfervations on bleeding in hernia have not entirely correfponded with our experience. We have often feen the pulfe, in cafes of rupture, fuller, ftronger, and quicker. If he means to condemn the copious and indifcriminate bleedings, often practifed, we entirely agree with him; but we have ufually thought it expedient to take away fome blood from a found healthy man, if he laboured under a recent hernia, with much pain; efpecially if the ftrain which brought it on occurred in the moments of mirth and jollity, and confequently when a little intoxication may be fufpected. Perhaps our author may not differ from us: the cafes feem to say that he does not; but he will then allow us to obferve, that his condemnation of bleeding is too general.

The ufe of blifters in ileus we do not attribute to the abforption of the cantharides, because their utility appears too fuddenly, to admit of this opinion; and we cannot therefore agree with Mr. Wilmer, in thinking a blister to the abdomen would be of fervice in herniæ; or that the more quick action of the flies, in the methods fuggefted, would be falutary. The acrid purgatives are, we know, alone fuccefsful; and, though it may appear improper, in many views, we fufpect, that to quiet the inverted peristaltic motion previously, with opiates, might in the end facilitate the action of the laxative. this is fufpicion only, not fanctified by experience, and muft therefore be received with caution.

But

Surgical Tracts, containing a Treatife upon Ulcers of the Legs, &c. Second Edition. To which are now added, Obfervations on the more common Disorders of the Eye, and on Gangrene. By Michaci Underwood, M. D. 8vo. 55. Mathews. WE examined Dr. Underwood's Treatife upon Ulcers of

the Legs, the Hints on the Method of Treating Scrophulous Tumors, and the management of the Mammary Abfcefs and Sore Nipples, in our LVIth Volume, p. 156. On his peculiar method we were cautious of deciding, without ex

perience;

perience; but we immediately began a series of experiments, and took occafion, some time after, shortly to mention the progrefs of the trials. It was favourable, on the whole, to Dr. Underwood's plan; but the amendment was not fo rapid, and we can now add, that the cure was not fo certain as we expected. The ftate of many old ulcers has, however, been much amended by it; the inflammation and pain leffened; and, in some instances, where the plan feemed fuccessful, and we thought it might be fafely done, they have been healed. We continue to practise it; and we think it a very valuable improvement: to the former treatises there is very little addition on this fecond appearance.

The tract on the Inflammation of the Eye is now first pub. lished; and contains many facts, which, if not wholly new, are of importance. Dr. Underwood ftrongly recommends an attention to the diftinction between the active and the atonic inflammation. But he allows that in practice it is not cafily made: where the pain or the fever be not confiderable, it may, we think, be fafely treated as atonic. Pain from irritability only, or rather a complaint of the eyes, in a very irritable conftitution, he attacks with the vapour of the spiri tus volatilis aromaticus in boiling water, directed to the eye by a funnel; two drachms of the spirit are added to two ounces of the water. Where there is fome degree of atonic ophthalmy, he advises the folid collyria, in the form of ointments, instead of the fluid ones; and thinks that fir Hans Sloane's ointment is chiefly ferviceable from the ftimulus of the pow ders. He recommends, in fome cafes, even the extract. faturni; in others, the unguent. citrinum, either with or without cerate. We have come very near this practice, by combining the mercurial ointment with the unguentum faturninum, and applying it with a camel-hair pencil every night, between the eye-lids. We have ufed this application many years, with good fuccefs, in atonic ophthalmy, and in the pforophthalmy, Specks in the cornea are, he thinks, fuccefsfully destroyed by a few drops of the aqua fappharina. The effufion of blood in the aqueous humour we have not feen but in confequence of violent blows: Dr.'Underwood mentions it as a vicarious dif charge, or as a fpecies of inflammation, from an internal caufe.

The strictures on gangrene contain fome very proper diftinctions between that kind of the difeafe from atony, and that which proceeds from inflammation. In the atonic kind, he recommends the blue vitriol, of which one-eighth of a grain is given, four or fix times a day, in a spoonful of fpirituous cinnamon-water: it is not, indeca, recommended as an uni

verfal remedy, but as often useful, even when bark and opium have failed. In the gangrene, from wounds of the hand, in diffection, he recommends wine and bark. But we think the wine fhould be in moderate doses, and the bark in large ones. In this way we have feen two cafes, which appeared at first very threatening, fuccefsfully treated. The external remedies afford nothing new; their application is directed, by attending to the original distinction respecting the cause of the disease. We cannot leave this edition, without again expreffing our approbation of Mr. Underwood's plan, and the general execution of his work.

OF

Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Battle off La Hogue till the Capture of the French and Spanish Fleets at Vigo. By Sir John Dalrymple, Bart. Vol. II. 125. in Boards. Cadell. F the first volume of fir John Dalrymple's Memoirs, which commenced at a very important period of British history, an account was given in our Review for May, 1771. In the preface to that volume, the author informed the public, that the work was undertaken by the advice of the late right honourable Charles Yorke, who advised him not to trust to printed books for materials, but to procure access to original papers. Sir John accordingly exerted himself in procuring ufeful manufcripts in England, Scotland, and France. We regretted, however, that the work should not have been enriched with the evidence of thofe family-memoirs in London, of great authority, which the author was anxious to have seen; and we yet wish that he would condescend to the necessary train of folicitation for that purpose.

Befides the authority of original papers, fir John Dalrymple adopted several anecdotes tranfmitted by oral tradition, which he confidered as of fufficient authenticity when generally current, and relative to a period fo late and interesting as that which was the fubject of the Memoirs. We have already given our opinion of the latitude within which tradional evidence may! fafely admitted in the compofing of history; and we have no reason to impeach the credibility of any of the oral documents adduced by fir John Dalrymple in fupport of his narrative.

In April 1773, we gave an account of the fecond volume of thefe Memoirs, which, according to the numeration used by the author in the volume now before us, must be confidered as a part of the former. The authorities upon which it was founded were drawn from the moft fecret fources of information, the Depot des Affaires Etrangers, to which, after great

exertion

exertion of intereft, and fome journies to Paris, fir John Dal. rymple procured accefs by a particular order of the French court. This was a facred repofitory, into which no British fubject had ever before been admitted; and the refult was, that he discovered, particularly among the dispatches of Barillon, the French ambassador at the British court, fuch scenes of political intrigue, and unexampled corruption, as not only excited his own astonishment, but almost rendered men totally incredulous to the authenticity of the documents which he produced. It appeared that Charles the Second was a penfioner of France, that his minifters likewife were bribed, with the privacy of their fovereign, and that even the name of Algernon Sidney was enrolled in the lift of parliamentary prostitutes. In the number of thofe whofe minds revolted at the idea of fuch general venality, were fome who fo far tranfgreffed the limits of liberality and candour, as to entertain fufpicions injurious to the fidelity of the hiftorian. For our own part, we regarded his perfonal veracity as inviolable; but we fuggefted a poffibility of falfehood in the difpatches of Barillon, who having the difcretionary expenditure of large fums, for the purpose of bribing the court and parliament of England, might impofe upon his master, by retaining in his own hands the money which he said he had diftributed among certain members of the legislature.

In the preface to the volume now under confideration, fir John Dalrymple acknowleges that the injurious fufpicions above mentioned, joined to the uneafinefs which he found his difcoveries had created in families with which he lived in friendship, difcouraged him from the profecution of his Memoirs; he therefore refolved to leave the reft of his papers with his family, to publish, or not, as they fhould think fit, after his death; and fome parts of them, which he had given in print to his friends for their opinion, he fuppreffed. Whatever indulgence may be due to the particular circumftances of fir John Dalrymple's connections, we cannot but exprefs our difapprobation of admitting fo incongruous a principle into historical narrative. It is the prerogative of a hiftorian to relate the actions and characters of men with truth, for the information of pofterity. Ne quid falfi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat, fhould be the maxim of every fuch writer; nor can it ever be violated without facrificing the most important and useful purposes of history.

We regret the more the referve adopted by fir John Dalrymple, as there is much reafon to imagine, that among the original papers to which he had accefs, there were fuch documents of political tranfactions and intrigue, as must have

thrown