Worcester's Almanac. We believe that complete sets of the work can still be obtained upon application to the publisher, Mr. Charles Bowen of Boston. Its mechanical execution, like that of all books from the same press, is worthy of the highest commendation.

SKETCHES OF SWITZERLAND. BY AN AMERICAN. PART SECOND. PHILADELPHIA: CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD.

[Southern Literary Messenger, October, 1836.]

THE London Spectator has very justly observed of this, Mr. Cooper's last work, that two circumstances suffice to distinguish it from the class of sketchy tours. He has contrived to impart a narrative interest to his journey; and, being an American, yet intimately conversant with all the beauties of the Old World, he looks at Switzerland with a more instructed eye than the mass of travellers, and is enabled to commit its landscapes to a comparison which few of them have the means of making-thus possessing an idiosyncracy giving freshness to what otherwise would be faded. In our notice of Part 1, of the work before us, we had occasion to express our full sense of the writer's descriptive powers, refined and strengthened as they now appear to us to be. Is it that Mr. Cooper derives vigor from spleen, as Antaeus from earth ? This idea might indeed be entertained were his improved power to-day not especially perceptible in his delineations of the calm majesty of nature. It must be observed by all who have read the " Headsman," and who now read the

66

Sketches," that the same scenes are frequently the subject of comment in each work. The drawings in the former are seldom more than mediocre - in the latter we meet with the vivid coloring of a master. The subject of the first two volumes is Mr. Cooper's visit to Switzerland in 1828 that of the two now published, his visit in 1832. The four years intervening had effected changes of great moment in the political aspect of all Europe, and produced of course a modification of feeling, taste, and opinion in our author. In his preface he pithily observes - "Four years in Europe are an age to the American, as are four years in America to the European. Jefferson has somewhere said that no American ought to be more than five years at a time out of his own country, lest he get behind it. This may be true as to its facts – but the author is convinced that there is more danger of his getting before it as to opinion. It is not improbable that this book may furnish evidence of both these truths." In the last sentence there may be some little arrogance, but in the one preceding there is even more positive truth. We are a bull-headed and prejudiced people, and it were well if we had a few more of the stamp of Mr. Cooper who would feel themselves at liberty to tell us so to our teeth.

has

The criticism alluded to in the following passage never met our observation. Since it is the fashion to decry the author of "The Prairie " just now, we are astonished at no degree of malignity or scurrility whatever on the part of the little gentlemen who are determined to follow that fashion -but we are surprised that Mr. C. should have thought himself really suspected of any such ridiculous" purposes.

The present volumes strike us as more entertaining upon the whole than those which preceded them. They embrace a wide range of stirring anecdote, and some details of a very singular nature indeed. As the book will be universally read it is scarcely necessary to say

more.

A DISSERTATION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL SIGNS IN THE VARIOUS DISEASES OF THE ABDOMEN AND THORAX. BY ROBERT W. HAXALL, M.D. OF RICHMOND, VA. BOSTON: PERKINS AND MARVIN.

[Southern Literary Messenger, October, 1836.]1

THE Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard University, having propounded the question, "How far are the external means of exploring the condition of the internal organs useful and important, a gold medal was, in consequence, awarded to this Dissertation on the subject, by our townsman Dr. Haxall. Notwithstanding the modesty of his motto, "Je n'enseigne pas, Je raconte," he has here given evidence, not to be misunderstood, of a far wider range of study, of experience, of theoretical and practical knowledge, than that attained, except in rare cases, by our medical men. He has evinced too more than ordinary powers of analysis, and his Essay will command (oh, rare occurrence in the generality of similar Essays!) the entire respect of every well-educated man, as a literary composition in its own peculiar character nearly faultless.

The Dissertation does not respond, in the fullest extent, to the category proposed. The only available method of discussing the question, "How far are the

external means of exploring the condition of the internal organs useful and important? is to show, as far as possible, the deficiencies of other means to point out the inconvenience and want of certainty attending a diagnosis deduced from symptoms merely general or functional, and to demonstrate the advantages, if any, of those signs (afforded by external examination) which, in medical language, are alone denominated physical. But to do all this would require a much larger treatise than the Committee had in contemplation, and so far, it appears to us, they have been over-hasty in proposing a query so illimitable. Our author (probably thinking thus) has wisely confined himself to diseases occurring in the common routine of practice, and here again only to such as affect the cavities of the Abdomen and Thorax. The brain is not treated of— for, except in a few strictly surgical instances, the unyielding parietes of the skull will admit of no diagnosis deduced from their examination.

In the discussion of the subject thus narrowed, Dr. Haxall has commented upon the physical signs which (assisted as they always are by functional symptoms) lead to the detection of the diseases of the liver, the spleen, the uterus, the ovary, the kidney, the bladder, the stomach, and the intestines - of Typhoid or Typhus Fever of Inflammation of the Peritonaeum Pleura, Pleura-pneumonia, Hydrothorax, Pneumothorax, Catarrh, Emphysema, Asthma, Dilatation of the Bronchiae, Pneumonia, Pulmonary Apoplexy, and Phthisis,

of

of Pericarditis, Hypertrophy of the Heart, Dilatation of that organ, and lastly, of Aneurism of the Aorta. The most important and altogether the most original portion of the Essay, is that relating to the fever called Typhoid.

The pathology of fever in general has been at all times a fruitful subject of discussion. Solidists, humorists, and advocates of the idiopathic doctrine, have each their disciples among the medical profession. Dr. H. advocates no theory in especial, but in regard to typhus fever agrees with M. Louis in supposing the true lesion of the disease to reside in an organic alteration of the glands of Peyer. He denies consequently that bilious fever, pneumonia, dysentery, or indeed any other malady, assumes, at any stage, what can be properly called a "typhoid" character, unless the word "typhoid" be regarded as expressive of mere debility. The chief' diagnostic signs he maintains to be physical, but enters into a minute account of all the symptoms of the disorder. The Essay is embraced in a pamphlet, beautifully printed, of 108 pages.

A NEW AND COMPENDIOUS LATIN GRAMMAR; WITH APPROPRIATE EXERCISES, ANALYTICAL AND SYNTHETICAL. FOR THE USE OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, AND COLLEGES. BY BAYNARD R. HALL, A.M. PRINCIPAL OF THE BEDFORD CLASSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL ACADEMY, AND FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES IN THE COLLEGE OF INDIANA. PHILADELPHIA : HARRISON HALL.

[Southern Literary Messenger, October, 1836.]

THE excellences of this grammar have been so well proved, and the work itself so heartily recommended by some of the first scholars in our country that, at