Here we have another Note, but in a more ferious ftrain, or the fignificancy of Prelatical titles. "The title of MOST REVEREND Father, fays he, is impious. Surely God the Father is the Father moft worthy of Reverence! As to the title of a Spiritual Lord, I fee no inconvenience in their affuming it; at leaft, like your Grace, or your Worship, it implies no impiety : it only implies nonfenfe. Where is the fenfe of a Spiritual Lord or a Heavenly Lord? All the Lords that we know, are either British Lords, or Irish Lords; carnal, fubftantial, and Terra 'Firma Lords." A drole and feasonable hint is thrown out, with refpect to the indifference with which we who are not perfonally or privately interested in the grand queftion, who is in, or who is out, ought to regard it. Still addreffing himfelf to their Graces: If you are treated ill, and put on, 'Tis natural to make a fuss; To fee it and not care a button, Perhaps from men of greater fashion, You may extract all their compaffion, Like people viewing at a distance We fee men thrown from a high ftory, In fuch difafters never chufes, 'Tis neither Tom, nor Will, nor John, 'Tis the phenomenon amufes. This cannot fail of reminding every one who has read Swift, of a graver reflection of the Dean's to the fame purpose: "Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few." By this time our Readers will perceive that this Independent Teacher of Truth, is not quite a new acquaintance. The fimitude of manner between the present work and the Crazy Tales*, the Two Lyric Epiftlest, and one or two other pieces of a like kind, will naturally point out this merry Parfon of Parnaffus ; whom we can with pleasure compliment on his having now ap * See Review, vol. XXVI. page 450. † Ibid. vof. XXII, p. 437• proved proved himself, more than heretofore, both merry and wife: there being no indecency mingled with the well-timed levity of this agreeable and exhilirating Anodyne. Obfervations en Dr. Hunter's Medical Commentaries. By J. Garnor, M. D. 8vo. 6d. Sandby. HIS Gentleman, who very cavalierly affumes the character of a Connoiffeur, or rather of a Hypercritic, in Anatomy, fubfcribes to Dr. Hunter's prior injection of the human Teftis, to his being the first pofitive Allertor of the Abforption of the Lymphatics; and to his earliest Demonftration of the Ducts of the Lachrymal Glands: of courfe difallowing young Mr. Profeffor Monro's claim to any discovery on thefe heads. But left the Writer of the Commentaries fhould be credited with a compleat advantage in the debate, Dr. Garnor employs twenty-fix pages in attempting to prove, from Haller and others, that the veins containing the red blood, do alfo abforb. This truly is a piece of as empty parade as we can recollect to have feen in print; fince Dr. Hunter has only doubted, but not denied, the abforbing faculty of the red veins; exprefsly faying, "Authors of the beft credit had given fuch arguments in favour of Abforption by veins, that I dared not, even in my own mind, determine the question." To what purpose then have we fo many fuperfluous quotations from different Anatomifts, with fcarcely one valuable* argument or obfervation of Dr. Garnor's own? "But • We can recollect but one difcovery of our Author's, and of which he only feems almoft fure. It occurs expressly in these words. their orifices, [thofe of the Lacteals] opening into the inteftines, very probably, are larger than those of the venal branches, and, therefore, would not fo readily be clofed, by a conftricting caufe, would more eafily imbibe the injected liquid. Befides, they were not wounded, like the veins."-Now we are informed by different Anatomists, that the orifices of the Lacteals are fo extremely fmall, as not to be difcernible through the largest magnifying glaffes. And for this reafon an eminent medical Author thinks, the Archæus which Helmont was for placing in the ftomach, as a kind of intelligent Guardian of the conftitution, fhould have been stationed about thefe orifices of the Lacteals; from the very interefting circumftance of their being the inlet or aperture into the general mafs of blood; by which all the vital functions were to be fuftained; from which all the neceffary fecretions were to be made; and into which nothing that was incompatible with thefe purposes was defigned to be admitted. We are at a lofs, therefore, to imagine, what fuperabundant magnifier Dr. Garnor availed him felf of, to make this H 2 fuppofition, own? Some of these cited and tranflated paffages are probably the fame, which have prevented Dr. Hunter's determining the queftion in his own mind. But though this laft Author may justly claim a philofophical liberty of diffenting, with decency, from Baron Haller, or any eminent Anatomift, on any anatomical or phyfiological point; yet we humbly conceive, the liberty affumed by our prefent Author, to interfere in fuch a debate, and pretend to determine between them, is principally or folely founded on the liberty of the prefs. Dr. Hunter and Dr. Monro are both fated to be wrong, on different topics of their late debate, that Dr. Garnor, who has appointed himself Umpire between them, may be unexceptionably and fovereignly right. To give him his full due, in the civileft terms, he is not guilty of the leaft felf-diffidence on this occafion; and all the reflection we fhall make on fuch a conduct, may be aptly couched in two words,Rifum teneatis? But our Author, not content with having rendered himself thefe extraordinary honours, endeavours to give equal evidences of his fuperiority in language and criticifm; obferving very floridly, The drefs of language, in which this production [the Commentaries] is exhibited to the eye of the public, is tarnished with a few ftains." His profound inveftigation then discovers bas printed instead of have, (Comment. p. 84) its omitted after · and, p. 59.—a no, which he knows not how to digeft, p. 40.and the expreffion of the laceration of the bag in a rupture, p. 71: which he very archly fuppofes muft fignify, that the rupture is poffeffed of a lacerated bag:" but which certainly proves the Suppofer poffeffed, not with the fpirit of criticifm, but of caviling. Thefe ftains are the fum of what his utmost efforts have difcovered, in upwards of a hundred large pages in quarto. And were the Commentator to give him up thefe few fyllables, as fo many crumbs of fubfiftence, what wonderful comfort could they afford him; or what triumph could they add to his critical powers? There was not the leaft fear of his ftopping once at the remaining hundred pages, to point out any excellence or elegance. This is utterly inverting the conduct of Horace as a Critic, who immediately overlooks a few blemishes, where he difcerns many beauties: but, perhaps Dr. Garnor intends to reform Horace's manner of criticizing; as well as to perfect Dr. Hunter and Dr. Monro in the fcience of Anatomy. whole truth, however, is, that his exceptions are, for the moft part, mere quibbling. fuppofition, (which feems a mere fuppofition to us) fo very probable to himself. Perhaps it might have fome analogical proportion to that metaphyfical magnifier, through which he may have beheld the extent of his own abilities. For For example, as we might fay to a Grammaticafter-If the sentence, or a part of the sentence, preceding has, be made the nominative case to it, as it grammatically may, then has will be juft as proper as have. And it were very caly to give paffages from our best Writers; in which the verb in the fingular number is thus preferred; and reads more eafily. Br as this Schodiaft, or Scholar, may demand an example in a learned language, we shall inftance it in a good moral fentence from Lilly, which he may profitably apply at home. Ingenuas didicile fideliter artes emollit mores. This imports, that a truly liberal education fwectens the manners: as nec finit effe feros, may be extended to fignify, the humanizing of a favage Critic. The fecond fain, the offfion of its, he may difcufs with the typographical Corrector of the Commentaries. We fuppofe Dr. Garnor would cure no more into any more, which are often ufed indifferently; and, at the worft may, perhaps, be refolved into a local diverfity of phrafe or idiom. For will it not fignify the fame truth, whether we fay, We are not convinced of this Gentleman's deep knowlege of Anatomy any more, or no more, than we are of his exquifite attainments in Philology and Criticism ? Such frivolous objections, however, give us a right to expect uncommon correctnefs and precifion, in the writings of fo delicate and qualmish a Reader. Now to trace fuch a one through fome of his thirty-four pages, which certainly do not contain a twentieth part as much as the Commentaries, we find he frequently infifts upon arterious inftead of arterial; the firft of which is certainly not formed according to analogy; no tolerable Writer having ever ufed arteriofus but arterialis. On the other hand, his venal blood, venal trunks, venal branches, venal abforption, and circulation, fhould have been venous, from vefus, a claffical Latin word, to diftinguish it from venal, venalis; which it is wonderful so very accurate a Master of language fhould omit, in order to avoid the leaft ambiguity. For, without any harsh metaphor, venal blood may fignify black puddings; venal trunks occur at every Trunkmaker's; venal branches at the Braziers and Glafs-fhops; venal abforption or inforption is the faculty of Mr. Powell the Fire-eater; and the venal circulation may refer to the practices at a corrupt Election: though had our Author used the proper adjective venous here, as a Phyfologift, the courfe of the blood through the veins conftitutes but half the circulation of it. This circumftance, however, does not leffen the propriety of the expreffion in its political fenfe; the aurum portabile, or potabile, on fuch an occafion, iffuing only from the arterial Candidates to the truly venal Electors, without any refluent circulation; except where the latter fhould inally be fold, by way of re-imbursement. H 3 As As appears indifputable, p. 16, is very barely Grammar and profe idiom, as it ftands there; which appear indisputably is the meaning of it, and would have been proper. Dilating orifices, p. 18, for dilated Agrofs error in Grammar, or a very licencious Enallage of the paffive for the active voice. Great Galen, great Allinusiminent Boerhaave, are really not English profe idiom, without the prepofitive particle: for notwithstanding magnus Galemis, &c. would do either in Latin verfe or profe, our Author will learn, after he is much better grounded in Latin, and advajced a little in Greek, that the phrase, structure, and idio of our language, have a much stricter affinity with the la than with the firft. Now the Greek would either be, d μέγας Γαληνος, or Γαληνες ο μεγας, as we fay Alexander the Great, &c. Some of these errors and affectations we admit to "be minute enough, or even infantine, which he prefers to infantile; but to fpecify them is treating this wife Gentleman (who feruts on, as Horace fays, Nugis armatus) in his own way; and may serve either to teach him more purity and correctness in any of his fubfequent Effays; or to attemperate the juvenile acrimony of his ftrictures on the writings of his Cotemporaries. it Notwithstanding fuch numerous escapes in fo little a performance, one third of which is quotation and tranflation, it is evident our Author piques himself not a little on his style, which, indeed, is fomewhat new, and, like the dialect of Hudibras, confiderably amphibious. It feems, upon the whole, to be a kind of contradiction to Monfieur Jourdain's Preceptor in literature, who affirmed, all that was not verfe, to be profe, and vice verfa fince the style of this pamphlet is ftrictly neither one nor the other. Nevertheless, feveral paffages of it were certainly intended to foar, to furprize, and all that, as Bays fays; from which we shall prefent our Readers with a little pofy, fubmitting the quality of it to their own decifion."That ingenious Pupil of Nature conftantly perceived dogs pierced deep with the sharp point of deepeft agony."-" The voice of Hoffman"-[Perhaps there is a celebrated German Singer of this name]" Let the hand of Impartiality hold the balance."" The injections of thefe Sons of Anatomy, who fhine, with radiant blaze, unite, in demonftrating," &c.[Query, Whether thefe blazing fons were not intended for fo many fuys, which would certainly be higher, and more brilliant, than blazing Anatomifts ?]"Let us liften," and how? "with an attentive ear.' -What an elegant redundance!— But thefe may fuffice for a fcent and fpecimen of the many flowers in this collection; especially as exceffive fweets do not agree with all conftitutions. Their felect affemblage, here may alfo difpofe him, perhaps, to a farther rumination of them in his |