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the end of which it was found necessary to break the stone, and extract it piecemeal.

Observations on the Cure of the Hydrocele by Injection. By J. R. Farre, Surgeon.

The result of several cases, detailed in this paper, does not appear very favourable to this method of cure. The uncertainty of success with it is surely a disagreeable circumstance.

An Inquiry concerning the true and spurious Cæsarean Operation, in which their Distinctions are insisted on, principally with a View to form a more accurate Estimate of Success: to which are annexed some Observations on the Cause of the great Danger. By John Haighton, M. D. &c.

This is a review of some authors who have written in support of the Cæsarean operation, and the accuracy of whose evidence appears very questionable.

Rousset, an old French writer, is a principal object of Dr. H.'s criticism; and from the view here given of his credulity, his authority seems to be very light indeed. He mentions one woman who had undergone the Cæsarean operation seven times, and another who underwent it thrice. Another advocate for the section relates, that a physician at Bruges performed this operation seven times on his own wife. This kind of accumulated evidence does indeed remind us of Butler's

"Sir Agrippa, for profound

And solid lying much renown'd."

Dr. Haighton seems to think it probable, (setting aside the ridiculous stories mentioned above,) that the extraction of an extrauterine fœtus has repeatedly passed for an instance of the Cxsarean section.-The danger of the operation is justly stated to arise from the large wound made in the uterus, and the discharge of blood into the abdomen. We think that the contents of this essay should be well weighed, by those who are forward in proposing so hazardous an operation.

A Case of Imperforated Hymen, attended with uncommon Circumstances. By John Sherwen, M. D. Enfield.

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A great quantity of menstrual blood, much thickened, was discharged by an incision in this patient, which had given her the appearance of a pregnant woman during several years. She had been married fourteen years.

ART..

ART. X. The Art of Floating Land, as it is practised in the County of Gloucester, shewn to be preferable to any other Method in use in this Country; with a particular Examination of what Mr. Boswell, Mr. Davis, Mr. Marshall, and others, have written on the Subject. Minute and plain Directions are afterwards given, for the Formation of a floated Meadow, with three descriptive Plates. By T. Wright. 8vo. PP. 95. 3s. 6d. sewed. Hatchard,

&c. 1799.

To point out how two blades of grass may be made to grow, where only one grew before, has been allowed to be doing the country the most laudable service; and this is not only proposed to be effected in the art of floating land, or of watering meadows by passing a complete sheet of quick-flowing water over them at least an inch thick,' but has been actually accomplished. The method therefore of effecting it, or the detailed process with all the minutiae of practice, it is highly meritorious to lay before the public. Mr. Wright was entitled to our commendation when he first printed a small pamphlet on this subject, (see M. R. vol. lxxx. p. 335,) and we thank him, in the name of the public, for the more matured thoughts and observations which are here exhibited. His pamphlet published in 1789 was entitled" an account of watering meadows :" but, in the present work, he objects to the term watering, as not contributing towards a clear conception of the business, but merely affording an idea of wetting the land by a small and inconsiderable portion of water; and he therefore substitutes the term floating as more expressive of the process intended; which is covering the whole surface of the meadow with a thin sheet, not of stagnant, but of flowing water; and, if possible, from a large stream.

Mr. W. tells us that he considers the water of every copious and rapid stream as loaded with manure of the most fertilizing quality; and he is not a little justified in this imagination, by the fact that land may be made rich by it, whatever be the nature of the soil and subsoil. He observes, in commenting on a position of Mr. Boswell, that though, for a few years, difference of soil may have considerable effect, after a continuance of floating, good water will form for itself a good new soil.'

The primary objects of this practice are stated to be, first, to procure a deposit of manure from the water used, and secondly to shelter land from the severity of winter. Whether Mr. W.'s theory be accurate respecting these particulars is of no importance. The evident utility of the practice, or the effect produced, will interest the public and give a value to his

treatise.

In his former pamphlet, Mr. W. estimated too lowly the expence of making meadows for floating. He now sets the cost at between 3 and 61. per acre.

To practise this art in perfection, there must be a command of water. This the reader will perceive by the following extract from the first part of Mr. W.'s chapter on the method of forming a floated meadow :

Before I begin to point out the particular mode of forming a floated meadow; such questions as the following are necessary to be proposed: Will the stream of water to be employed in floating, admit of a temporary wear or dam across it? Can you dam up, and raise the water high enough to flow over the surface of your land, without flooding and injuring your neighbours' adjoining land? Or, is your water already high enough, without a wear; or, can you make it so, by taking it out of the stream higher up, and by the conductor, keeping it up nearly to its level, till it enters the meadow? And can you draw the water off your meadow as quick, as it is brought on? If you are free from all objections of this kind, you may proceed in the following manner :

In the first place, when the descent is not sufficiently great to be determined by the eye, take an accurate level of the ground intended for floating, and compare the higheft part of it, with the height of the stream of water to be used. Ascertain how many inches fall, there are, from the surface of the water, to the highest part of the land: if the highest part of the land, be adjoining to the stream, the process is easy; but if, as it often happens, it be distant from, or the farthest part from the stream, the execution becomes more difficult; as it is necessary, that the sides of the ditch which introduces the water, should be raised all that distance, and kept high enough to carry the water to the aforesaid highest part. In this case, cut, in as direct a line as circumstances will allow, a wide ditch, or master-feeder, keeping up its banks, not upon a dead level, but with a gradual descent from beginning to end. Supposing the highest part of the meadow to be one hundred yards distant, from the stream, and you have five inches fall in that distance, you are to give to the whole length, an equal degree of descent, that is, to each twenty yards, one inch fall, and then every drop of water will be kept in equable and constant motion.'

Those, however, who have estates capable of being im proved by this art, and are disposed to augment their value by the adoption of it, will no doubt attend to the whole of the directions given in the subsequent part of the pamphlet; and will probably avail themselves of Mr. Wright's offer of sending thema Gloucestershire floater,' on a letter being addressed to him (free of postage) at Mr. Scatcherd's, bookseller, AveMaria-lane, London.

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ART. XI. The British Nepos; or Youth's Mirror: being select Lives of illustrious Britons, who have been distinguished by their Virtues, Talents, or remarkable Progress in Life, with incidental and practical Reflections. Written purposely for the Use of Schools, and carefully adapted to the Situations and Capacities of British Youth. By William Mavor, LL.D. 12mo. PP. 464. 4s. 6d. bound. Law, &c. 1798.

N presenting this work to the public, Dr. Mavor has not only made a valuable and much wanted addition to the school library, but has furnished a book which is well calculated for the parlour-window, and for the shelf in the room behind the shop of those tradesmen who devote to reading some of the hours which they can steal from business; justly persuaded that money without knowlege is an acquisition of little value.. As we cannot be ignorant of the dulness and apparent sterility of the initiatory paths to science, we are pleased with every thing that tends to enliven juvenile study, and to excite an early love of reading. It may be objected to what is called a classical education, that it leaves us ignorant of those characters and events which are most interesting to us; that it directs the ardor and curiosity of young readers from the theatre of their own country, and from the great and illustrious persons who have acted on it, to men who have figured in remote climes and periods': and with whose history, though certainly it be worth knowing, we are not so intimately connected. Respect is due to science and virtue in all ages; and let them be presented to the minds of youth so as to fire them with the noblest ambition: but let not our systems of instruction be such that young men of genius shall contemplate with admiration the heroes of antiquity, while obscurity is suffered to rest on that part of the temple of Fame which contains the worthies of their own country.

To British History, Chronology, and Biography, the attention of the British youth ought to be awakened; and while we wonder that more works have not been compiled with this intention, we would give to Dr. Mavor the praise and credit. which are due to him for this agreeable biographical manual; and we would recommend it to the masters of all our respectable schools. Though it is not without faults and defects, it is pleasingly written; and the reflections interspersed are calculated to inspire a love of pure and generous principles, and an hatred of all such as tend to degrade civilized man.

At the head of each article, Dr. Mavor has very judiciously set down the time when the person who is the subject of it was born, and when he died; and if the death was a violent one, that circumstance is specified. We could have wished that to the date of the year, he had added the reign in which each illustrious

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lustrious person was born, and in which he died; this would help the British youth to recollect the series of our kings, and in course fix in their minds the chronology of events;-a circumstance to which due attention is not always paid in our systems of education.

The sketches here exhibited are those of Alfred the Great, Friar Bacon, John Wickliff, Geoffrey Chaucer, Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Cromwell Earl of Essex, Bishop Latimer, Sebastian Cabot, Bishop Jewell, Sir Thomas Gresham, the admirable Crighton, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Burleigh, William Shakspeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Andrews Bishop of Winchester, Sir Edward Coke, Earl of Strafford, John Hampden, Dr. William Harvey, Admiral Blake, Earl of Clarendon, John Milton, Andrew Marvel, Algernon Sydney, Archbishop Tillotson, John Locke, Lord Chief Justice Holt, Bishop Burnet, William Penn, Mr. Addison, the Duke of Marlborough, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford, the Earl of Stair, Sir Hans Sloane, General Wolfe, Lord Anson, the Earl of Hardwicke, Sir John Barnard, George Lord Littelton, Lord Clive, William Pitt Earl of Chatham, David Garrick, Captain James Cook, Sir William Blackstone, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Bishop Lowth, and John Howard.-The lives of Jonas Hanway, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the Earl of Mansfield, were intended to have been given: but, at the close of the volume, we are told that another arrangement and selection had been found necessary. In a second edition, these may possibly find a place.

Embracing the most eventful and important periods of English story, this rich variety of biographical matter must prove acceptable to young readers, and to such as thirst for knowlege, which they are obliged to "snatch," as Pope says, "not take." The memoirs are introduced by judicious remarks from the pen of Dr. M.; some specimens of which we think it may be gratifying to our readers to subjoin.-The life of Latimer thus commences:

That a religion whose distinguishing character is charity and be nevolence, should ever have been employed as an engine of persecution, is mortifying to those who enter into its celestial views, and to the sceptic and the infidel furnishes a weak but plausible argument against its authenticity. In these days, indeed, when bigotry and superstition are justly exploded, it must astonish every sincere Christian, to reflect, how it could have entered into the conception of man, that God could be honoured by a flagrant violation of his express commands," to love one another;" and that the kingdom of heaven was to be gained by the perpetration of crimes at which human nature turns pale. Yet it may be instructive to the rising generation to

know,

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