of memory, as aided by his system, are absolutely illimitable. | publications through some of our book-houses, instead of We earnestly advise our readers to procure M. Gouraud's by mail. extraordinary work and decide in the premises for themselves.

BY D. APPLETON & CO, NEW YORK AND PHILAD,
Joseph Gill has received The Book of the Army, com-

and passion of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Edited by Walter Farquhar Hook, D. D.;—and Judæa Capta. By Charlotte Elizabeth. John S. Taylor & Co., New York:all handsomely done.

BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. Drinker & Morris have received Nos. 45 and 46 of Theprising a general Military History of the U. S. By John Illuminated Shakspeare;-No. 23 of the Pictorial Bible;rial History of the World, issued in Philadelphia ;-StewFrost, LL. D. Prof. Frost is now engaged upon a PictoPart V of Lee & Copland's Dictionary of Practical Medi- art's Stable Economy, a treatise on the management of cine;-Voyages round the World, since the death of Capt. horses;-The Cross of Christ; or Meditations on the death Cook, being No. 172 of the Family Library-Keeping House and Housekeeping, a story of Domestic Life, Edited by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, a very popular American authoress;-The Ancient Régime, by G. P. R. James;-Life in Italy. The Improvisatore. Translated from the Danish of Hans Christian Andersen, by Mary Howitt ;-Look to the End, or the Bennets Abroad. By Mrs. Ellis ;-Bishop Thirlwall's Greece, No. 8, completing this valuable work ;— New Orleans as I found it. By H Didimus, a work that is attracting attention;-The Nevilles of Garretstown, and the Wandering Jew, No. 10.

BY WILEY & PUTNAM, New York. Drinker & Morris have received Human Magnetism; The Utility of its application for the relief of Human Suffering. By W. Newnham, M. R. S. L.;-Library of Choice of Reading. No. 1, Eōthen, supposed to be by R. M. Milnes, already known to the Literary World-containing brilliant Sketches of Travels in the East. No. 2, The Amber Witch. By Dr. Meinhold, a clergyman of Pomerania. No. 3, Undine and Sintram and his Companions. Both from the German of Friedrich De La Motte Fouqué. The object of this "Library" is to furnish a series of "books which are books," as Charles Lamb says. Hence such will be selected as have stood the test of criticism; or will do it; and some of our own authors will be embraced in it.

Some years ago, when we read "Undine," we were a little disappointed, owing perhaps to too high expectations.

VIRGINIA, ITS HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. BY HENRY

HOWE. BABCOCK & Co. CHARLESTON, S. C. 1845.
This work contains much interesting information, which

a Virginian ought to know and could not easily or cheaply
procure for himself. The Engravings, over 100, and mostly
well executed, tend to make it attractive. We are glad to
have a copy by us, and doubt not that this will be the case
with a very large number. Of the Literary character of
the work, we may take occasion to speak after a farther
examination: p.p. 544, large 8 vo: price $3,50.

The North American, Westminster, Whig and Democratic Reviews have been received. We hope that the ri valry of the last two will at least improve our native Lit

erature.

We are much obliged to J. R. Brodhead, Esq., for a copy of his final Report upon the Colonial documents of the State of New York.

The New York Historical Society propose to change the national Name of the U. S. to Algania. At present we see no insuperable objection.

MISTAKES: EXPLANATION.

The "lines to my cigar” in the last Messenger are from the pen of Charles Sprague. The line at the head of the poem "on the death of Campbell" is not from Byron; but from Shakspeare's Macbeth, which we have read and enjoyed. We endeavor to secure the accuracy of the Messenger, and have the satisfaction of keeping our correspondents from committing a multitude of blunders. For this we deserve no credit;-for oversights and mistakes the liberal-minded will inflict no censure. Our only apology will be found in the following passage from Sir Thomas Browne.

Ball & Perkins, who keep a very neat and well furnished Book-store on Broad Street, have received from THOMAS COWPERTHWAIT & Co., Philadelphia, The American Statistical Arithmetic. By Francis H. Smith and R. T. W. Duke, of the Virginia Military Institute. The known character of Major Smith is sufficient to recommend this and let not Zoilism or detraction blast well-intended labors. Bring candid eyes unto the perusal of men's works, work. The illustrations and examples embody and impart He that endureth no faults in men's writings must only read his to the pupil much useful information respecting the popula- own, wherein for the most part all appeareth white. Quotation tion, products and other statistics of the several United mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may States. The work also contains instruction in Mensura- make not only moles but warts in learned authors, who notwithstanding being judged by the capital matter admit not of dis tion and in Book-keeping-A system of Classical and paragement. I should unwillingly affirm that Cicero was Sacred Geography, embellished with engravings. Together but slightly versed in Homer, because in his work de Gloria, with an Ancient Atlas, by S. Augustus Mitchell. Supply- he ascribed those verses unto Ajax which were delivered ing a great desideratum ;-also Woman in the 19th Century. by Hector. What if Plautus in the account of Hercules mistaketh nativity for conception? Who would have mean By S. Margaret Fuller. Greely & McElrath: New-York. thoughts of Apollinaris Sidonius, who seems to mistake the We have also received from Messrs. G. & McE. Popu- river Tigris for Euphrates? and though a good historian lar Lectures on Astronomy: By M. Arago. With additions and learned Bishop of Auvergne had the misfortune to be and corrections by Dyonisius Lardner, LL. D. These pub- out in the story of David, making mention of him when the lishers have in press the Scientific Lectures delivered by was before his time. Though I have no great opinion of ark was sent back by the Philistines upon a cart; which Doctor Lardner in this country. The work will also con- Machiavel's learning, yet I shall not presently say, that he tain sketches of the Lecturer's travels and impressions. was but a novice in Roman history, because he was misFeatherstonhaugh thus combined travels and Geology; taken in placing Commodus after the emperour Severus. but his production is creditable neither to Science nor to Capital truths are to be narrowly eyed, collateral lapses and circumstantial deliveries not to be too narrowly sifted. Truth. From Doctor Lardner we expect different and bet-And if the substantial subject be well forged out, we need ter things. Messrs. G. and McE. will please send their not examine the sparks which irregularly fly from it."

Their notes o'er the slumb'ring heart's harp string? Round the soul of the sleeper, your frightful beams,

VI.

Dreams, sad dreams!
Ye are no spell of a wizard hand,
Ye rise not up at a fiend's command.
When slumber falls on a guilty breast,
Ye are the pulse of his heart's unrest.
Fancies, they call you; but, oh! ye are not!
Shadows are ye of some damning spot
In life, that haunteth the stricken soul,
And the voices of woe that over it roll,
As a demon rout

Were pouring them out,
Are but the beatings within that he deems
Are dreams, sad dreams.

of speculators vastly more extensive than we commonly imagine, with the German transcendentalists at their head, who see no incongruity in superad. ding to his method the idealism of Plato and the empty dialectics of Aristotle. They profess to follow Bacon implicitly in the common walks of science-observation and induction are competent to this; but they speak in mysterious tropes not to be translated into the language of common sense, of certain upper regions of truth, ethereal, empyrean, speculative, akin to the fixed stars, and no more to be investigated in the ordinary way, than the dimensions and distances of these are to be measured by any process known to our astronomy.

If Newton were among us, he might find disci ples of his own almost any where, at whose feet he would willingly sit as a pupil. So few of his cotemporaries were qualified to master his works that all their names, it is said, could have been written in the palm of one's hand. School children now

AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. amuse themselves with analyzing light, and sport

BY ELISHA BARTLETT, M. D.,

with the solar system in an orrery. We may easily fancy, therefore, with what wonder he would gaze

Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the upon this, and enjoy a prospect of the heavens so

University of Maryland. 1844.

much more clear and vast than in his times-enriched with new stars-and the phenomena which had appeared to him to threaten the stability of the system, revealed in their true character of part of the everlasting harmony of the planetary motions.

Lord Bacon, in his last will, formally bequeathed his name and memory to an after age. His own, he knew, was unfit to appreciate him. He looked forward with the liveliest assurance to the ultimate Not so would it be with Bacon. He would find triumph of the doctrines by which he aimed to revo- his vocation to be still that of teacher and reformer. lutionize the philosophy of mankind, and with a The ancient speculative philosophy, which it was sagacity which appears almost prophetic, he delin- the business of his life to combat, he would see eated many of the developments which science still thriving and busy in new shapes, and often was to attain under their guidance. His lessons under cover of his own name. Would he not set were copiously expounded by every art of demon- about preparing a new edition of his works? stration; held up in every light that appealed either to the reason or the utilitarian selfishness of men, and beautified by exhuberant treasures of wit, learning and fancy. But it belonged to his calm and comprehensive genius to perceive how much venerable error time would have to wear out, how slowly the world would catch up with the long stride which he had taken in advance of his day, how impotent powers, mighty even as his own, were to work a sudden reformation.

But we cease to marvel at the difference in the two cases, when we consider the infinitely greater difficulties of the subject which Bacon undertook. We cannot help thinking that his was the crowning achievement of human genius. It was intellect accomplishing the transcendent feat of lifting itselfbodily with its own hands, from off the ground, in order to examine the foundations on which it stood! In comparison, Newton's discoveries shrink into a corner and look like a petty detail. It was his masAbove two hundred years have elapsed since the ter's precepts that guided him in the right track of publication of his Novum Organum. Bacon has investigation. A department or two of science indeed become the great name in science, and In- include his labors, vast as they were. But Bacon's ductive Philosophy is the watch-word of all sects. scheme was commensurate with universal truth, Yet, even among the very minds that are marching with the whole empire of reason, with every height at the head of the age, how few exactly compre- and depth and intricate winding of thought; it hend the true spirit and scope of his teachings! marked out the hitherto shadowy and vague cir On the one hand, we may detect a narrow and cumference within which the finite mind must convulgar conception of his system in the phrase so fine its inquiries; it compassed the laws of intel current in our Cyclopædias and other treatises, that lect and the laws by which nature has systematized he is the father of modern physics; as if he were her external works. The far-reaching principles one whit less the father of modern metaphysics, running through this constitutional code of all seiproperly so called. On the other, there is a class ence and philosophy, are not easily reduced to for

male and diagrams to be handled by common past. They fail to see how much faster knowledge thinkers.

ought to advance with its improved instruments There is, however, a cant prevailing which de- and opportunities; that it works too much by patscribes Bacon's philosophy as something intensely terns and models; is too much led along by the practical, and bids men go straight forward to work, vague spirit of the age; that its impulse has been without pothering their heads with deep first prin- rather stimulated by Bacon's denunciation of the ciples. It depreciates such writings as the Essay old philosophy, than guided by a precise knowledge whose title stands at the head of this paper, as of the principles of his own. It is like what theoretic, aerial and out of place in this business we may suppose of the first mariners who used age. Science, it would say, has outgrown leading the compass, that they would fain still sail by strings, and must not be sent back to the horn-book the stars, and in other old fashioned ways, inand ferrule of an elementary school. Bacon would stead of placing their whole reliance on the simthus be made appear a philosophic Avatar, who had ple and unerring needle. Dr. Bartlett complains annihilated the hosts of ancient error; and that it bitterly of the false philosophizing in medicine. We was only necessary to mouth his talismanic word, suppose he has a right to rate his own profession Induction, in order to make the doors of know- soundly, just as a man by the old English law was ledge fly wide open. Now, according to our views allowed to chastise his own wife. We doubt, howof science, it would be much more truly repre- ever, whether it deserves any uncommon share of sented as perpetually assailed by that original sin censure. Its father, Hippocrates, appears to have of the intellect which the father of modern philoso- laid down the true canons of reasoning, while the phy first clearly comprehended and exposed; and rest of philosophy was yet in the crudest infancy; to prevent a relapse into the mistakes which caused and it has always been our opinion that the great his predecessors to trifle away ages of the world reformers of thought, such as Aristotle, Bacon and in day dreams and jargon, his maxims must be Bayle, were most probably indebted to their familiconstantly re-asserted, and his warnings eloquently arity with natural science, for the improved princi pronounced afresh. If the nonsense of a certain ples of classification which they carried into more set, who style themselves, par excellence, the prac- abstruse departments. Nor are we at all surtical, could be fully carried into effect, and scien- prised, therefore, that the clearest interpretation of tife men would not stop to look back to the past, the Inductive philosophy that we have met with, to re-examine the exact starting place ard goal of should come from a doctor. Indeed, some stricknowledge, there is no doubt that but a brief pe- tures on this work, which we have seen in medical riod would be required to bring back astrology, journals, and heard from occupants of professoralchemy and their kindred brood. Extremes meet, ships and editorial chairs, betray notions of what and such persons are, in effect, the blindest and constitutes Baconian philosophy, which amaze us loosest of all theorists. Their pretending to guide not a little, especially considering how flippantly themselves aright in scientific generalization, with- they discourse about Induction. We cannot help out studying the lessons which the most gifted of viewing this, however, as quite of a piece with the men could derive only from the observation of a imperfect understanding of the subject which forms thousand ages of error of uncertain struggles, is one of the faults of these times. In the recoil virtually a revival of the ancient dogma, that their from the unsubstantial speculations of old times own minds include the perfect archetypes of all we have flown to the opposite extreme. The mind truth. And we hold that none are more substan- itself is not sufficiently studied and disciplined as tially entitled to the highest regards of their age, an instrument of investigation, dexterous and ready or perform a task requiring such large intellectual for all service. The higher philosophy of science endowments, as the few choice spirits who watch is too much neglected, as abstract and savoring of over the general directions of philosophy, purify- visionary refinement. ing and enlarging knowledge at the fountain head. It is customary to style the philosophy of Bacon, It is for merits of this kind that we notice Dr. practical and utilitarian, in a sense which he never Bartlett's work. We leave the medical details to meant. Many, we imagine, are apt to figure him, be canvassed by his profession. We welcome him in their mind's eye, a bluff John Bull, with his as a profound, luminous, and, we had well nigh said, sleeves tucked up for hard work, denying the exisoriginal expositor of the Baconian philosophy. tence of every thing but what lay under his nose, Superficial observers are deceived as to the ne-asserting that it was better to work than to think, cessity of more profound and accurate ideas among and that he had found in roast beef and plum-plumthe scientific, by the unparalleled progress which pudding the supreme good, which other philosothe sciences are now making. They argue, that phers had been star-gazing after in vain for so all must be going on excellently well to produce long. The mongers of mechanical detail, who such wonderful fruits. No matter for principles, prize science only at its money price in the mar say they, since practice is actually performing mira- ket, and rank a theory among the deadly sins, are cles. But they draw their comparisons from the delighted with an account which degrades the father

things; and who never laud any branch of knowledge at the expense of another, considering them all equally necessary parts of the great whole.

of modern improvement to their own level. The spells and culling by moonlight the potent herbs agrarian democracy of the times, too, is prone to with which she purposed to "renew old Eason," conceive him as a sort of revolutionary sanscu- had she been accosted by a modern utilitarian and lottes in science. Strange conceptions these of bidden go home to the loom and distaff, would have the magnificent sage of Gorhambury, Viscount of replied that her present employment had a far more St. Albans and Lord High Chancellor of England; useful object than spinning and weaving; that it historian, wit, moralist, naturalist,-a genius well was better to restore the old gentleman to the bloom nigh universal, who, as he himself says, had taken of youth than to make him raiment. the whole circle of knowledge for his theatre. If we characterize that system by any one word, True, he dissuaded men from their highflown spec-it ought to be Certainty. Take care of certainty ulations, and in the warm language natural to a re- and utility will take care of itself; whereas, if the former, exhorted them to be practical. Thus the philosopher is guided by the narrower sense of the encomium may be applied to him which the Roman latter, he leaves whole regions of truth unsearched; orator bestowed on Socrates, that he brought down he misses their rich mines because he does not see philosophy from heaven to earth. But he by no the metal sparkling on the surface. Who can means meant to bring her down as Vulcan is said foresee the future worth of a new fact? The slower by the poets to have been tumbled from on high, swinging of the pendulum of a clock near the when his leg was broken and he remained a hob-equator led to the discovery of the earth's true bling drudge. Homan ingenuity had been soaring figure, and modern geology dates from an amusing above the world: Bacon merely desired to recall dispute about some fossil shells which had attracted it into the world. He bade it quit searching after the attention of the curious in Italy. Indeed, the secrets which lay beyond man's scrutiny, and study sort of utilitarianism which we are rebuking, mocks more accurately the things within its reach. Such at and hinders those more catholic spirits, who was his idea of the practical, only another word welcome and revere all truth because it is troth; for the knowable, the certain. His utilitarianism because it is never isolated and worthless, but affilembraced, without distinction, all phenomena which iated by important relationships to the system of can be observed and classified, whether of matter or mind. He laughed at Eutopia, but he would have read the Spirit of Laws with edification; nor would Locke hold a lower place in his esteem than Robert Fulton. He is their common progenitor. So, let no narrow set profane the universal Bacon, by fashioning him into their own one-sided image, or imagine, because he flouted the old philosophy for being a dainty Ariel, a tricksy spirit, a fine apparition that "rode on the curled clouds,” that he wished to make it a lumpish and earthy Caliban. If we mistake not, one of the most brilliant and influential writers of the day, in a fit of the eloquent exaggeration in which he frequently indulges, has let fall expressions calculated to propagate this misapprehension. In Macaulay's well known article on Lord Bacon in the Edinburgh Review, it is contended that the key to Bacon's whole system is found in the one word Utility. This, we think, is mistaking a consequence for a cause and making the less include the greater. The hard question instantly springs up, what is the useful? How and where are we to find it? Every art, science, sect and calling is clamorous in praise of its own superior utility. The whole tribe of wild theorists which Bacon belabored, could lift up their united voices in triumphant chorus. The epicurean would say that nothing was useful but what contributed to sensual pleasure. The stoic would say the same of his impassive hardihood which contemned the accidents of life. Astrology was hunting for the useful, believing that the interests of men were swayed by the starry influences. Even the enchantress Medea, when she was muttering her

Macaulay goes on to argue, that men reason no better from being acquainted with Bacon's exposi tion of the Inductive Process, for the same reason that William Tell would not have been any more apt to hit the apple on his son's head, had he known that the arrow would describe a parabola under the influence of the earth's attraction; or that unedacated people, who live all the time in good society, speak as correctly as those who have studied grammar. These are his illustrations. Without stopping to analyze their sophistry, we will suppose Tell in a new situation, as cannonier for instance, where he would have to aim projectiles at a very distant mark. Would not a knowledge of the parabola help to keep him from undershooting it? And those who have caught a language accurately by ear, if they wished to employ it in the higher arts of composition, would they not sadly feel the lack of grammatical training? This argument of the great Reviewer, if carried out, would prove human reason itself to be of no account, because human reason cannot improve upon certain instincts of the lower animals. Could Sir Christopher Wren instruct bees in building honeycomb? Could Arkwright teach the silkworm to be a better spinner? Now, nobody pretends that the mind performs its common-place operations better by understanding the philosophy of its workings. But science is full of dark and intricate questions where the mind must write down the thick coming ideas in short hand, and work with vast quantities alge