periment dangerous; and thus physicians are a greater pest than the infirmities they pretend to cure; for against these alone nature has more force than against their potions and venemous prescriptions. Such is the perfection of the sciences among the citizens of this republic, and from these general causes arises my continual laughter. While we were amusing ourselves with his remarks, Heraclitus who stood on one side, his eyes bent on the ground, and streaming with tears, raised his voice and said: It is not possible to laugh in this republic without having lost entirely the understanding; if we consider her danger, or examine how scantily Nature has divided her benefits among its citizens; for they are born in such ignorance that to acquire' instruction constant labour is necessary, as the precious metals are found combined with such quantities of vile matter, that if they were not purified and formed by the fire and the hammer, they would remain forever concealed; thus it requires much care and fatigue to cultivate and purify our minds, to discover and improve the disposition we possess for the sciences. What tears, what pains in our childhood? what peregrinations in our riper years, what reading, what writing, what meditating, to acquire a little knowledge? The worst is, that we owe all our information to the brutes, to whom Nature has been more kind,, and from whom we have learned the greatest part of the arts and sciences. The bees taught us politics, the ants economy. The first gave us an example of monarchy in the government of one; the second of an aristocracy in that of the few, which is best; the crows, whose government is alternately shared by them all, exhibit a democracy; from the hawk, using his wings for oars and his tail for a helm, we learned navigation; the spider has shown us how to weave; the swallow to build; even our skill in astronomy exists among the beasts; the cinocephalus, by his barking, marks the hours of the day and night; the greenfinch appears on the day of the solstice; dolphins and halcyons foretel tempests. As he was speaking, we were obliged to retire to make room for a herd of lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, and animals of every description, followed by a man horribly ugly. Heraclitus perceiving him continued his discourse, saying, this is the slave Esop, who having induced these animals to speak, teaches by their means the true moral and natural philosophy, considering them as the best and most secure masters. And is this, O Democritus, an object to excite laughter rather than lamentation? This reprimand, accompanied by a flood of tears, was not sufficient to damp the mirth of the other. I laughed at both, because I saw that they were both actuated by envy and malice, and railed at what they did not understand. The sun is so beautiful, that the idolatry of those who adore it as a god, is excusable; yet such there are, who without having the eyes of an eagle, attempt to examine his rays, and say there is obscurity and spots on his luminous surface. Leaving these philosophers, we turned a corner, and saw flying from a house to escape the rage of her father, Sappho with her robe loose and her hair dishevelled. He complained that his daughter, employing herself in writing verses, had forgot to sew and spin, and neglected the duties of her sex, in which women ought to seek their glory, instead of applying to studies which distract their souls and fill theim with vanity and the rage of disputing, to the great prejudice of modesty and decorum, the best support of their virtue. I pitied the father, whose old age was rendered miserable by the lasciviousness of his daughter, and having soothed him by some excuses for the propensities of his child, I entered in a square, and saw it filled with celebrated hotels, stocked with all kinds of provisions. Here were epic pocms, novels, tales, metamorphoses, and a thousand other productions differently dressed, and so cheap that I thought they were the causes of the complaints and indispositions of the citizens, who, by indulging in this studious gluttony were pale and thin, and subject to headachs and indigestions. Hence Marcus Varro took me to the hall where they administered justice. We entered and discovered on an elevated seat the three judges so celebrated by the ancients, Minos, Eachus, and Rhadamanthus; they opened the court, and an old man rose to defend a cause; his hair was gray, his head and hands trembled, he supported himself on a staff, and appeared to be more than ninety years old. I was surprised that he did not seek for his last days the repose and tranquillity his great age required, and asking Marcus Varro his name, he replied, it is Turanno, a great lawyer, who was known to Seneca, and so attached to the noise of the tribunals, that having been dismissed by Caesar, he retired to his house, and ordered his servants to mourn his death; they wept loudly the leisure of their master, who would have died, really, if he had not been restored to his place. Such is the foolish ambition of men who live in toil, without ever knowing the felicity of calmness and ease. I desired to hear him, but was prevented by a troop of sbirri, who brought in Julius Caesar Scaliger, with a gag in his mouth and irons on his wrists. With him entered Ovid, Plautus, Terence, Propertius, Tibullus, Horace, Persius, Juvenal, and Martial, all maimed and wounded, some without noses, some without eyes, some with false hair and teeth, and others with wooden legs and arms, so disfigured that they did not know themselves.. Silence was commanded, and Ovid, having in his early years studied rhetoric and jurisprudence, pleaded in the name of them all against Scaliger. "In this case, oh just judges, it is not necessary to employ the powers of oratory, to warm your souls, and persuade you to punish the criminal. Behold our bleeding wounds, behold the hand still reeking that inflicted them! Your desire to administer justice would no doubt be impatient of a long narration. Our disfigured faces, our dismembered bodies, speak for us. This is the offence; here is the offender. Protect our innocence; we call on the republic to bear testimony of. our conduct, where for more than a thousand years we lived esteemed and honoured by all. “What are the faults of Plautus and Terence, that they are thus treated? Have they not always been the entertainment of the public? The one is grave, the other graceful and agreeable. In what have Propertius and Tibullus offended? both sweet, tender, and amorous: In what Horace? he is grave and circumspect, and if he jests, it is with urbanity. Juvenal, I confess, is satirical, but it arises from his zeal to amend the public, noticing vice without ever mentioning the criminal. “Persius is too obscure, too confused and intricate to give offence, for no one understands what he means. Martial alone with his equivocations might have provoked his anger, but he swears that he never saw his face, nor knew any thing of him. As for myself, I can say without vanity, that I have always been considered mild and gentle, and though I have genius, I never exercised it to the injury of others. If in my youth I was free in affairs of love, I was exiled for it, and nobody should be punished twice for the same fault. But if we have all fallen into error, was it for him to judge us? or did not this right belong to you alone? His insolence has not even spared pious and religious authors. Sannazarius, Vida, Pontana, Frascatorio, and others, have felt his rage. Consider then, O ye judges, the enormity of his crimes; punish them severely, for our honour, and the tranquillity of the republic, scandalized by this assassin, whose pen is a dagger from which even yourselves are not secure." Scarcely had Ovid finished his speech, when Scaliger, taking the gag from his mouth, refuted the charges with so much pride, and treated the poets so contemptuously, that, irritated beyond measure at being thus publicly insulted, they threw themselves upon him with rage, acting at once the part of judges and executioners. This contempt of court would have cost them dear, if the attention of the judges had not been diverted by an occurrence of more importance. A crowd of people entered, lamenting that the sciences had flown from their palace, and left only some slight traces of their having been there behind them. The citizens raised their eyes, swimming in tears, to heaven, and their sorrow increased at beholding those who had found the precious relics of the fugitives. The Judges much afflicted at this news, retired hastily, to see whether there was no remedy. The authors remained, executing their vengeance on Scaliger. I, moved with pity, strove to appease them; but Juvenal conducted himself so ill, that, raising my arm to give him a blow, I struck the bed-post, and awoke. SELECT SPEECHES Forensic and Parliamentary, with prefatory remarks, by N. CHAPMAN, M. D. Honorary Member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, &c. Tc. Pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem VIRG. Hopkins & Earle, Philadelphia, 5 vols. 8vo. 1808. We opened this work, we confess, with very moderate expectations, though we were no strangers either to the various reading, or versatile talents of the editor. To compile the forensic and parliamentary eloquence of Europe with a critical and explanatory commentary struck us to be an undertaking, in which, an American physician was not very likely to succeed. We did not exactly see by what means he would be able to procure materials, which we knew Time and Carelessness had conspired to disperse; and we distrusted too his competency, even if his well-directed exertions should overcome this obstacle, to determine the merits of legal pleadings and political harangues. We, in short, conceived that heedless of the precept of Horace, he, abandoning his professional walks, had permitted himself unwarily to be seduced into an enterprise, the execution of which, required a species of information and a refinement of taste, not often derived from, or associated with those studies, which he more particularly cultivates. But we had not advanced far with our critical examination, before we became satisfied that these impressions, had been hastily adopted, and were with little justice entertained. To the work is prefixed an introduction, written with uncommon propriety of thought, and felicity of expression, which, at the same time, evinces such unaffected diffidence of his abilities, that we were at once charmed and conciliated. If it were not of a length inconsistent with our limits, we would cheerfully insert the whole of this admirable production, not only as an example of superior composition, but as conveying a much clearer exposition, than we can hope to give, of the plan and objects of the work. After some preliminary observations, intended principally to show that he had not been anticipated in this literary project, the Editor proceeds to inform us, that, incited by a conviction of its importance, he had used every exertion, and it seems not without effect, to obtain the "necessary documents." We are told, indeed, that "from the cabinets of the curious and the hoards of literary misers, he drew such a profusion of materials, as to have ultimately imposed upon him rather the perplexity of selection, than the toil of gleaning, and that, therefore, his collection will be found to contain, "not a few of the noblest productions of eloquence, which, at the bar or the senate, have delighted, roused, defended, or governed mankind." There is nothing in the preceding passage, though expressed with some degree of confidence, which, in our opinion, can be charged of arrogance or conceit. The victorious industry of the Editor entitled him to employ, in speaking of his efforts, the tone of triumph and exultation. No liberal reader, we are persuaded, will hesitate to concede to him this right, when he learns that, notwithstanding the obvious disadvantages, under which the present collection must have been made, that it embraces "all the revised speeches of Burke, more than has appeared before of Chatham's; many of Fox's and Pitt's; several of Mansfield's; the two memorable orations of Sheridan on the trial of Hastings; all the pleadings of Erskine and Curran which are faithfully reported; the best speeches on the slave trade; M‘Intosh's celebrated defence of Peltier; besides a large selection of Irish eloquence, and some speeches of the olden time.” Nor is the praise of laborious and fortunate research the only one which the Editor has earned. The contents of these volumes display a wide and intimate acquaintance with the eloquence of modern times, and distinctly assert his pretensions to a taste, nice and discriminating. Like a genuine eclectic, he has selected, with intelligence and judgment, from the stores accumulated by his diligence, and digested the parts, thus carefully collated, into a whole, which leaves but little to censure, or to improve. We know not, really, so complete has been his success, of any very memorable specimen of rhetoric, coincident with the design of this section of the work, that is omitted, and we can confi |