high price which the regular practitioners have fixed for their labour, and the rule which is laid down for an equality of rank among them, so that it should not be deemed proper for any individuals to receive smaller fees than their fellow practitioners: the consequence of which is that the great mass of society, not being able to afford the sum demanded by the physician, is obliged to have recourse to cheaper advice. Although other causes are assigned for the present state of the profession, yet this seems to be regarded by the author as the principal; and the remedy which he proposes to obviate it is to divide physicians into three classes, depending on the length of time in which they have been engaged in practice, under the titles of juniors, medians, and seniors: their fees being fixed in a corresponding ratio. For the minute arrangement of the plan, and for the arguments by which the proposer attempts to enforce it, we must refer to the work. Probably most of our readers, though they should approve of the idea, will consider the execution of it as altogether impossible, and regard it more as an Utopian speculation than as a scheme proposed for actual practice. Yet advantage may arise from considering even improbable improvements; since, without adopting the whole system, we might have it in our power to make some approach to it. POETRY. Art. 16. Elegiac Stanzas on the late melancholy and tragical Catastrophe at Chislehurst. Respectfully inscribed to Thomson Bonar, Esq. By a Country Clergyman. 4to. IS. Wilson. The horrid murder of Mr. and Mrs. Bonar was a tragedy almost too deep even for the elegiac muse; since the gravest verse seems too light for the occasion. This country clergyman, however, means well; and, as he has published this trifle for the benefit of a distressed family, we shall copy two stanzas, and wish him success. "The deed of blood is done!"-The moonless night 6 Why slept, alas! in that disastrous hour, Art. 17. The guardian angels, who the good defend? The Olive Branch, a Poem. By M. Crawford. 8vo. When an author, in presenting us with a poem, declares it to be the first, the last, and the only production of his inexperienced Muse,' it seems to be useless, as far as he is concerned, to bestow on it any remarks: but a little praise may alter his resolution; and then the word last will only stand as a proof of his modesty. Cheer up then, Mr. Crawford; for your verses are superior to many which we are fated to read; - superior to many which the hour of triumph has produced. Three or four stanzas, and those not the best, will shew that the encouragement which we here give is not unmerited: • Proud • Proud Corsican! that once proud day is past, When, at each movement of thy wild'ring maze, That day is past, and thy expiring blaze Unheeded bursts, and round thee harmless plays. Thy sword is blunted, dimm'd thy warrior-praise; Wide spread the portals to the victor-train. Behold the mighty toil of heroes done; And see them laurel-crown'd turn home again! In one short hour long years of mis❜ry paid! While spreads the branching Olive o'er the plain; And kindred nations 'neath the grateful shade - The solemn compact swear, and sheathe the battle blade: - And ceaseless bids the streaming sorrows flow, Plead to the feeling heart and melting eye, And ask that sacred boon that gen'rous breasts supply. More dazzling honours than my Muse can pay! On dark horizon still thy beaming ray, And o'er a 'nighted world new-dawning hope has spread!' We do not approve the contraction 'nighted; nor the excla mation Gods!' and the old word 'stithy' in stanza 38. Stanza 23., descriptive of the effect of the Russian winter on the French army, is beautiful, and we think new: Th' invaders, as their homeward way they wound, So, in the gelid cavern, deep and lone, With tangling briars and pendent shrubs o'ergrown, So have I seen concrete to solid stone The pure descending streams of liquid glass, As the entire proceeds of the sale of this poem, free from expences, are to be given by the author to the Fund for the Relief of the Sufferers by the War in Germany, our commendation of his generosity ought to be coupled with our praise of his verse. The influence of both must operate on the sale. Art. 18. Moonshine. 8vo. 2 Vols. 11. 1s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1814. This appears to be the produce of a female hand; and, however little we may be suspected of the grace of politeness, we are always disposed to shew all possible courtesy and forbearance on such occasions. In the present instance, as in many others, the two expressions which we have used have the same meaning: in truth, the less we say the better. Yet our duty to our readers will not admit of our being entirely silent. The work seems to be the emptying of a Commonplace-Book, and we collect from the preface that its contents have principally been the result of hours of sickness: but that circumstance can form no just excuse for a publication, if bad. Parents are frequently observed to have a peculiar attachment to such of their children as are weakly, or imperfectly formed; and, perhaps, it is to the same inclination of the mind that we must attribute the fondness which authors commonly feel towards those productions, which have proceeded from their brain in the hours of its sickness or debility. Certain it is that the excuse, or the reason, to which we are alluding, is much too frequently employed; and it is highly fit that critics should let it be known at once for the benefit of those ladies and gentlemen, in or out of Grub-Street, whose bodily health may happen to be impaired, that water-gruel will not be admitted as a substitute for the waters of the Castalian spring. Its powers of inspiration are of a very different nature. We do not pretend to have perused the whole of these volumes; and if any man ever does, we shall ascribe to him the greatest degree of human patience and perseverance. Much, however, we have read, and we selected from various parts, in hopes that we might have found some straggling piece which we could have presented to our readers: but, alas! in vain. It is indeed all Moonshine; differing, however, from its prototype in the natural world, in one particular, it is all original; not a tittle of its radiance is (we are willing to believe) borrowed: at least we have never seen any thing resembling it, and do not very much care how long a time may elapse before "we look upon its like again." POLITICS. Art. 19. A compressed View of the Points to be discussed in treating with the United States of America, A. D. 1814, with an Apendix and two Maps. 8vo. pp. 39. Richardson. Circumstances of mutual irritation led to the present war with the United States; and it is no doubt the prayer of the majority of the people in both countries, that this unhappy contest may be brought to a speedy termination. The sword, however, being now unsheathed, some time may intervene before it can be returned to its scabbard; and, if the hints which are thrown out in this pamphlet are are to govern our negociators, we should conjecture that this event is at a remote distance. The author, in taking the part of Great Britain, assumes the loftiest attitude, and demands such concessions from America as we should suppose she would not, except in the last extremity, allow. Commencing with the mention of our maritime rights, he prohibits the smallest discussion of them; and, since the Americans have dared to declare war against us, he regards all former treaties with the United States, and all impolitic concessions made by us in those treaties, as completely abrogated. On this ground, therefore, he urges our government to demand, in the first place, a new line of boundary for the enlargement and better security of the Canadas, and for the benefit of our faithful Indian allies. The exclusion of the Americans from the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and all the lakes which ultimately discharge themselves into it, is the object of this new demarcation; which is not to follow the course of rivers, but to be formed by high ground: for the author remarks that mountains separate, but rivers approximate mankind.' Should we, however, not be able to exclude the Americans altogether from the navigation of the lakes, it is recommended to our negociators (among other points) to insist on restricting the Americans to the use of ships of small tonnage. It should be stipulated, that no vessel belonging to the Americans, exceeding a certain burthen, twenty or thirty tons, which is a size quite adequate to the trade of those regions, should be suffered to navigate any of the lakes, and that no fortifications of any kind should be erected upon their borders, or the borders of the St. Lawrence, or upon any of the waters that fall into them from the American side: whilst the right of the British in these respects should be reserved to be exercised without restriction: because one of the avowed and main objects of the American government, in this war, being the conquest of the Canadas, and the object of Great Britain merely the security of these provinces against aggression,-it is indisputable, that no peace can be safe or durable, without providing ample security against attacks of that nature in future. It is equally important that the new claim set up by the United States to the whole of the north-west coast of America, as far as the Columbia River, in consequence of their possession of Louisiana, should be set at rest and extinguished for ever.' The author has still other rods in pickle for the Americans. He would prohibit them from the fisheries of Labradore, Newfoundland, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence; from all intercourse with the British West India islands; from our Asiatic possessions; and, lastly, he would not allow Florida to be incorporated with the United States. In short, this writer would not only curtail the existing possessions of the Americans, but he would contrive in future to keep them within due limits, and effectually to curb all their ambitious projects. As an advocate for British interests, we applaud the author's zeal: but it can never be supposed that the enemy will submit to all the mortifications which he would impose. The subject must be more impartially weighed before any accommodation can ensue. A letter A letter in the Appendix places in a horrible point of view the conduct of the government of the United States towards the Indian tribes. ART. 20. Memorial of M. Carnot, Lieutenant-General in the French Army, Knight of the Order of St. Louis, Member of the Legion of Honor, and of the Institute of France, addressed to his Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVIII. Translated from the French Manuscript Copy. To which is subjoined, a Sketch of M. Carnot's Life, together with some remarkable Speeches which he made on former Occasions, in the National Convention and Tribunat. By Lewis Goldsmith, Author of "The Secret History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte," &c. 8vo. 28. Hookham, junior. 1814. It is well known, and the memoir here subjoined establishes the fact, that M. Carnot, through all the vicissitudes which France has experienced for the last twenty-five years, uniformly espoused republican principles. Whether he goes so far as Cato, who thought that a good king was an impossibility, we shall not pronounce: but it is very certain from this memorial that he prefers a republic, with all its evils, to a monarchy, with all its blessings. As a composition designed for the perusal of Louis XVIII., the present memorial is a curiosity. The translator protests against the sentiments avowed by the memorialist; and to his Most Christian Majesty they must have been wormwood. The writer reminds the people of the futility of all their sacrifices, and would produce a feeling in them the very reverse of contentment. The best way, perhaps, of giving our readers an idea of the spirit of this pamphlet is by presenting them with a few extracts: Formerly the Kings of England came to render homage to the Kings of France, as to their Sovereigns:- but Louis XVIII. has, on the contrary, declared to the Prince Regent of England, that, under God, he owed his crown to him; and when his countrymen flew to meet him, and in order to decree that crown to him by an unanimous vote of the nation, he was instructed to answer, that he did not wish to receive it from their hands, that it was the inheritance of his fathers; then were our hearts closed-they were silent. It is thus that Louis XVIII. was made to begin his part in the midst of us by the most violent of all outrages which a sensible and amiable people could receive. We smoothed the way to the throne for him by shewing our eagerness to adhere to the, perhaps, inconsiderate measures of the Provisional Government; in the liveliness of our satisfaction we had spontaneously abandoned our conquests, we gave up from our national limits that flourishing Belgium, which joined its wishes to our's for its re-union to France. A stroke of the pen sufficed to make us give up those superb countries which all the forces of Europe would not have been able to take from us in ten years. Was Louis, then, under the necessity of imitating the Usurpers, who, not being able to become Kings by the assent of the people, make themselves Kings by the grace of God? Did he not know that we have had Napoleon, by the grace of |