and explanation of their violent, persevering, and obstinate language in support of their errors, after what has taken place all over Europe, where no one has since acted, or would now dream of acting upon the principles urged by them more than six years ago.'-'Why! your highness,' I replied, it imports little what such individuals could say now. No one would listen either to their explanation or their apology. Their occupation is gone; the anonymous trash of two of those writers against all such as differed from them in opinion; and of one of them in particular, who got his mendacious article on a work of mine smuggled into a respectable Review, never affected me; and he had the mortification to find that I was not to be provoked into a reply to his calumnies and wilful misrepresentations. To all that which a writer of this stamp chose to bring against the author of Facts respecting the nature, treatment, and prevention of Cholera,' he only opposed the declaratory resolution which he had moved and carried almost unanimously at a full meeting of one of the most popular medical societies in London. It was after a discussion of some months on the question of the non-contagiousness of cholera, which he had introduced and repeatedly maintained before that society, that the resolution in question was adopted. It went to confirm, in every part, all that the author of the Catechism had advanced, even before the cholera had visited the metropolis; and the triumph was signal and complete. Your highness, therefore, cannot be far wrong in adopting the principle which led to such a resolution on the part of a large number of enlightened medical practitioners in London, who afterwards showed, that they knew well how to manage the disease without, and independently of, the machinery of Boards of health. I shall be most happy to meet in conference the medical gentlemen you have named, in order to develope to them the course which was followed by those of my brethren to whom I have alluded, as well by myself, who took voluntary charge of a large district during the prevalence of the disorder in the English capital."

The success of this conversation is so great that the doctor is summoned to expound his views upon the subject before the medical magnates of Munich, which he does in most masterly style, and with general approbation.

From Munich he proceeds to Saltzburgh, and from thence to Gastein. Of the latter place, he says

"The object which soon calls the attention of the traveller, as he approaches nearer to Gastein, is the impetuous Ache, rushing down between two almost vertical mountains above the village,-where, having once reached its centre, it divides into two streams, presenting, at the distance of six miles, the aspect of a gigantic inverted A, made of silver, and stamped on the mountain side. To this one object the eye of the stranger is directed and fixed. The ear has not yet, at this distance, discovered the sound, nor the eye itself distinguished the foam, which proclaim that striking feature to be one of the principal waterfalls in Europe. But as he ascends higher and higher, and approaches nearer to the level of the region on which Gastein is seated, the figure of that object changes with the windings of the road and the position of the carriage, and he catches, at last, the distant roaring of the water, and perceives distinctly the

boiling of its falling surface, so as to leave no doubt of its reality. The thunder-like noise of the successive leaps deafened the ear, as we were entering the upper part of Gastein, and the dense, mist-like spray which enveloped us while we rapidly dashed over the bridge thrown across this majestic waterfall, hastened the conviction of our senses. In passing over this bridge, called the Badbrüche, we seemed to cut in twain this mighty cataract, the upper portion of which, on our right, is seen to descend nearly vertically from a shelving rock, 650 feet above us; while that on the left, after dashing under the Badbrüche, precipitates itself, into two branches, through the body of the village. The rubicon passed, the britzschka is instantly stopt in front of Straubinger's Hotel." "I stated that on my first arrival at Gastein the carriage stopped before Straubinger's hotel, situated in a sort of platz, or open place, the only one of the kind in Gastein. Opposite to the hotel there is a moderately large building, to which the sounding title of Schloss is given. It is by the side of this edifice the Fürsten quelle,-which issues through a passage fourteen fathoms deep, cut into the rock of the Schreckberg,-descends at the rate of nine and a half cubic feet per minute, with a temperature of 115 degrees, and, uniting with the water supplied by the next source, called the Doctor's-quelle (which latter is forty-four feet lower than the first spring, and sixty feet distant from it) is driven, by means of a machine, up to the Schloss, and into the series of bathing rooms placed behind it. The water from the second spring just mentioned is nearly two degrees warmer than that of the first. It issues from a cleft in the rock, near the ruins of the house of a former physician, by whom it was originally discovered; and besides supplying the cisterns of the Archduke John, whose house is in the neighbourhood, it sends water also to the private bath of the Schloss, to the surgeon's and to the public bath, as well as to Straubinger's douche bath.

"Following the same line of road, we soon came to the third spring, formerly called Straubinger's, but now called Franzens-quelle, in honour of the Emperor Francis, by whose order it was restored to a comparative state of useful application, and its waste prevented. This spring issues from another mountain called the Reichberg, with a temperature of 116 degrees of Fahrenheit, and at the rate of from four to five cubic feet of water every minute. Before the late alterations in the spring, the temperature of the water was two degrees higher, and the quantity of it more considerable. At present it supplies the Straubinger and the Schröpf baths. Lower down this same mountain, ninety feet distant from the last-mentioned source, and thirty-nine feet below its level, we find what is called the Spital Quelle, which yields more than five cubic feet of water per minute, at a temperature of 118 degrees and a half of Fahrenheit.

"These four principal sources of hot water at Gastein are situated on the right bank of the Ache, in the centre of the uppermost waterfall of which, there rises a fifth hot spring, which mingles its water with the cold river stream, as it is precipitated from the high cliffs, and rushes through the middle of the village. The existence of this last spring is made manifest during the winter, by the visible steam which rises from it, through the water of the river."

If the doctor sees a fine view, it generally happens as he goes home from dining with some countess or princess, or other notable.

"The view of this panorama at evening, when, from the small casements of the wooden buildings, and the more pretending windows of modern built houses, lights glimmer in all directions; when the moon tips with silver their wooden or slated roofs, and the peaks of the mountains around; and when the deep darkness of the lowest basin of the valley is made visible only by the white foam of the torrent-river which precipitates itself into it-is very impressive and pictorial. I twice stood to contemplate it last night, as I returned from the Countess of where I had dined and passed an agreeable hour in the evening."

-'s,

The efficiency of the Gastein waters is very great indeed. "The medical effects of the Gastein water, applied to the human body at a temperature varying from 90 to 98 degrees of Fahrenheit, have been too long known and ascertained for any one to deny their reality, on the ground of the apparent simplicity of its chemical composition. I have no more doubt of the power which this mineral spring possesses, in the diseases for which it has been recommended, than I have of the effect of bleeding in subduing inflammation. In all complaints which are not connected with increased action of the heart, or with excitement, or (as the German physicians properly term it) with a morbid elevation of vital activity, the Gastein baths, judiciously and sufficiently used, will not disappoint the patient. Universal debility, dependent on a derangement of the nervous system, without any apparent inward disease to account for it-depression of spirits and general languor of the constitution, from anxiety of mind-paralysis, in young as well as aged people, consequent on repeated rheumatism, gout, or apoplectic attacks, and such as is produced by irregularities of every sort-affections of the spine-hysteric attacks, and other sufferings owing to sexual disturbance in femaleserotic diseases, imperfectly cured-contractions in the muscles of the limbs, or in the joints, and the hip-disease-premature old age-chronic ulcers or eruptions-genuine gout and rheumatism-lastly, derangement of the digestive organs, accompanied by laxity or inactivity of the stomach, or following obstinate diarrhoea and dysentery;-these form the catalogue of disorders in which the Gastein water has evinced its marvel lous power."

Again

"I had a specimen of these things on the morning of my arrival, when urged by an appetite of sixteen hours, I transferred myself, under the guidance of the Hon. Mr. and Lord F, well acquainted with the localities, from my chamber in the New, to the grand Salle de Conversation, in the Old Straubinger hotel-where those gentlemen left me to try my luck at a breakfast. This salle, which is a sort of general assembly-room, was just made ready for the expected guests, who, placed before three long tables, arranged in the shape of the Greek letter П, table-d'hôtize in this place at meridiem, for fifty kreutzers a-head, sans façon, with good humour, and a positive determination to put up with the same eternal 'quatre plats' with which Master Peter supplies them every day."

The following does honour to the doctor's feelings, meeting a pretty English girl in the wildest part of the Tyrol.

"Oh! the gladness of the heart," exclaims the enraptured traveller at the sight, "is great: for it recalls home, wife, and child, whom we can leave behind, but never forget." We say this is very creditable to the doctor's feelings as a family man, and places his character for the domestic affections in a very high point of view.

ART. IX. Chapters on Early English Literature. By J. H. HIPPISLEY, Esq., M. A. London: Moxon. 1837.

In a barbarous age the imagination exercises a despotic power. So strong is the perception of what is unreal that it often overpowers all the passions of the mind and all the sensations of the body. At first, indeed, the phantasm remains undivulged. It is like the voice of the oracle proceeding from the inmost recesses of the temple; it awes and overwhelms, but it is shapeless and undefined. But very soon it struggles to reveal itself in a palpable and embodied form. It draws to itself the elements which accident has rendered most suitable for its manifestation, and displays itself to the eyes of its votaries to enchant, to dazzle, and amaze.

The first works of the imagination are poor and rude, not from the want of genius, but from the want of materials. Phidias would have done nothing with an old tree and a fish bone, or Homer with the language of New Holland.

Yet the effect of early performances, imperfect as they must be, is immense. All defects are supplied by the deficiencies of those to whom they are addressed; we all know what pleasure a wooden doll will give a little girl-she will require no other company, she will nurse it, dress it, and talk to it all day. No grown-up man takes half so much delight in the incomparable babies of Chantrey. In the same manner savages are more affected by the rude compositions of their bards than nations more advanced in civilization. In the course of time the instruments by which the imagination works are brought to perfection. The imaginative power remains the same, but the works it produces are superior in quality, and even if we admit a diminution of the imaginative power, that diminution is more than compensated by the improvement of all those appliances and means of which those powers stand in need. As the development of the mind proceeds, symbols, instead of being employed to convey images, are substituted for them. Civilized men think, as they trade, in a circulating medium. In these circumstances the sciences improve rapidly, and criticism among the rest; but poetry, in the highest sense of the word, disappears. The age of critical poetry succeeds, of poetry by courtesy, of poetry in which VOL. III. (1837.) No. I.

H

the memory, the judgment, and the wit contribute far more than the imagination.

The critical school of poetry improves as the science of criticism improves, and this is constantly tending towards perfection. In our English literature, we find that the downfal of the creative schools, and the rise of the critical, were separated by a long interval. From Chaucer to Spenser, from Spenser to Shakspeare, is the limit of the first, from the latter years of Elizabeth; from the Cowleys, the Donnes, we may state the commencement of the second. In Greece the same phenomena strike our eyes; we see the imaginative school gradually fading into the critical; Eschylus and Pindar were succeeded by Sophocles, Sophocles by Euripides, Euripides by the Alexandrian versifiers. The splendid and grotesque fairy land of the old comedy, rich with such gorgeous hues, peopled with such fantastic shapes, and vocal at once with the sweetest peals of music, and the loudest bursts of elfish laughter, disappeared for ever.

In the latter years of Elizabeth, the spontaneous bursts, wild and graceful play of the imaginative school, were fast merging in the measured and methodical affectations of the critical. Alliterations, puns, quibbles, antitheses, and affected allusions to objects the most remote, began to deform the aspect of literature, and to supply the place of the simple and genuine graces of nature. Shakspeare, himself, was infected with the prevailing extravagance. In the reign of James I., the evil was still further increased. The eloquence of the bar, the pulpit, and the council board was disgraced by conceits, that would have shamed the dilittante of an Italian academy. Instead of producing, writers began to reason about their productions. They wrote by rule and compass, and the creative school was without a representative until the appearance of Milton,

The object of the author of this work is simple and unpretending; like Teucer among the Greek chiefs, he sallies forth upon a battle field, and in a cause in which heroes of loftier post and more stalwart form have reaped a rich harvest of renown, but where there is still room for the display of his precision and dexterity. There are laurels to be reaped by the Parises and Teucers of literature on the ground where Hectors and Achilles have fought before them.

Our author does not enter the field with the haughty trait of the heroes to whom we have compared him. He does not come forward to supply the deficiencies of those who have preceded him, but to aid, by his humble yet confident and well-directed efforts, the impressions they have made, and the good they may have produced. With every becoming modesty, Mr. Hippisley apologizes for his appearance in such a cause, and declares himself a compiler, and nothing more. Now we think a compiler an exceedingly useful person in his way, and we are satisfied that no class of writers con