how to fay, either a civil or a fevere thing, did not take notice of the many obliging expreffions bestowed on him by our author: For he (Pope) is mentioned in feveral parts of the doctor's writings with fingular honour.

Why flumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train,

Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain?" * "But my memory fails me, if Mr. Pope was any where fo courteous as to return the compliment. Indeed, Dr. Young was not in his life-time fo. popular as might be expected from his genius; and writers of fcarce a third of his real ability, by being les grave, were three times more in vogue.

"We will here clofe our remarks on Night the First, which is certainly (as Goldfmith obferves) one of the best in the collection. In a few days expect again to hear from,

Dear Archibald,

That Mr. Melmoth is liberal enough in his encomiums on cotemporary writers, is very certain, and we hope from as liberal motives; though we cannot help fufpecting the compliments, he occafionally beftows on the author of Epiftles to Lorenzo, to be a kind of fop to Cerberus, intended to bespeak the favour of the editor of the London Review.-As Dr. K—, however, has, for that reason, referred the confideration of the prefent article to another reviewer, it were an ill return to his candour to omit the following obfervation.

"In my opinion, fays our author, none of our moderns have more ably, or indeed more mafterly touched upon the fubject of happiness, than Kenrick in his Philofophical and Poetical Epiftles to Lorenzo; a work of great wit, fhrewdnefs, and reafoning: but at prefent it requires too much application for you. Its nature and defign have already been mistaken, by precipitate and careless readers. The fifth epistle however you fhall fee foon; we will read it, fide by fide, the very next time I can efcape from **** to *****. In the interim, to gratify in fome degree, your curiofity (though it will only give you an impatient relish for more) take the following verfes on our prefent fubject.

+ Go, afk, my friend, from door to door,
The high, the low, the rich, the poor;

* In another place, in honour of his memory after death.

"Pope, who could'st make immortals, art thou dead ?" Dean Swift was by no means fo forgetful, tho' feldom remember'd by our author. The fame remark has been made of Virgil and Horace. Shall we hence conclude with the poet, that

"Wits are game cocks to one another."

"Can bear no rival near the throne."

And that, like the Turk, they

GAY.

Let us not be deceived, by the fentiments of difappointment: There have been, and doubtlefs are, authors who can candidly suffer the empire of wit, and the exteafive territories of science, to be divided.

Though it is evident the author, in his Epiftles to Lorenzo, was, as he fays in his preface, above the pride of petty accomplishments, (amongst which he feems to reckon eafe in his verfification) yet, you will obferve in that work, and in the pre

fent

In court, or cot, if here, or there,
Refide the mortal free from care.
You afk in vain, for joy and frife,
Diverfify all ftates of life.

To weild the fcythe with fweaty brow,
With wearied arm to guide the plough;
To fow in hope, and reap in joy
Thine Labour, is the fweet employ.
A life of reft with pain t'endure,
To feek in health difeafe's cure ;
To eat the grape, unprun'd the vine,
Laborious Idleness, is thine:
Yet Idlenefs of Care complains,

And Labour quarrels with its pains.”

That our affociate will plume himself much on this critic's commendation, however juft, we do not believe; if he should, he may be fufficiently mortified at fome other eulogies which this writer moft aukwardly beftows on him. Who, for inftance, would ever think of joining two fuch names as Kand Sterne*, for brilliancy of ftile and fimilarity of genius?

fent quotation, uncommon purity in the rhimes, and peculiar harmony in the periods. Dr. Kenrick, perhaps, withes to attach his readers rather by the force of his philo fophy, than by the fweetness of his poetry. Be this as it may; I doubt not, the delicacy of his found, not a little attracts us to the energy of his fenfe. I have diftinguished the last word in every line by italics, on purpose that you may take note of the effect of good rhime. And I defire you will obferve the following quotation, for the very contrary reafon, viz. that you may feel the awkwardnefs and inelegance of bad rhimes.

Now at the time, and in th' appointed place,
The challenger and challeng'd, face to face

Approach.

So ftands the Thracian herdsman with his spear,
Full in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear;
And thinks, here comes my mortal enemy,

And either he must fall in fight, or I.

Thus, two long hours in equal arms they food,

And wounded wound, till both were bath'd in blood.

Fell Arcite, like an angry tyger far'd,

And like a lyon, Palemon appear'd;

Or as two boars

Their adverse breafts with tufks oblique they wound,
With grunts and groans the foreft rings around.

So they frook,

There feem'd lefs force requir'd to fell the oak.

DRYDEN. Mr. Melmoth fhould have here obferved, that it is easier for a middling poet in these days to make good rhimes, than it was formerly for a great one.

Our editor being apt to be a little fevere upon others, we hope he will take in good part, our making ufe of the lafh, now we have got it in hand, a little against him. This writer has here unadvifedly coupled two names, which, if fimilarity of genius and difpofition only fhould direct the junction, never would have inet. That Sterne had a brilliancy of wit and exquifite humour is cerKk 2

tain,

Rifum teneatis? Should our editor, therefore, be disposed to make Mr. Courtney Melmoth too low a bow on this occafion, we should beg leave to whisper, by way of friendly caution, in his ear, Adfunt Saturnalia.

PRAISE undeferv'd is SATIRE in disguise.

ART. VI. A Treatise on the Medical Qualities of Mercury. In three Parts. I. On the natural properties of Mercury, and its Operation in the animal economy. II. On the principal Preparations of Mercury. III. On the medical Qualities of Mercury in various Difeafes. By N. D. Falck, M. D. 12mo. 4s. Law.

Of this tract the author tells us in his preface, "The whole is built on experimental facts; and fuch facts, as have been attended with happy fuccefs, even in the most desperate cafes. To benefit mankind therefore, by my experience and medical enquiries, has been my fole motive for penning this work.

"It has been customary for those who have written on the fame fubject, to offer fome new chemical preparation of mercury, and afcribe to it many wonderful qualities. It would have been a very eafy task for me to have enlarged the catalogue; but, the fact is, I fee no occafion for it; thofe we have already, are more than enough, So very concife I confefs myfelf to be in mercurial preparations, that five, or at fartheft fix, are in my practice fufficient; and I do believe, that thofe, fkilfully applied, will fully fuffice in every cafe where mercury is neceffary."

"Nothing, continues Dr. Falck, reflects more on a man's underftanding, or difplays his ignorance fo much in medical knowledge, as to be ready to try every pretended noftrum on his patient; without confidering the principle on which it acts, and the true ftate of the disease. It is not the medicine, but the judgment of the application, that reftores health.

"Throughout the work I have been very fenfible of the great torrent of prejudice I had to contend with. I think the very courage to go on, is meritorious; and if I had had the least fear of hurting my reputation or practice, dame prudence would continually have been at my elbow, and made me lay down my pen with a trembling hand.

"Sometimes, indeed, I have ftartled at the approach of prejudice, heading an enraged multitude, threatening to overwhelm me; but

tain, but then he had the power of defcription to an eminent degree, and an cafe and complacency of expreffion in which no other writer of the age was his equal. Of his acutenefs in criticifm with which Mr. Melmoth has here complimented him, he has left us no ftriking proof: whereas of our editor we may fay, as lago does of himfelf, that "if he is not critical he is nothing." His turn for wit and humour is indeed diametrically oppofite to that of the good-natured Yorick; his best critiques abounding in farcafms too cauftic and cutting: a circumftance that gave rife some years ago to the following characteristical epigram on him, as a bon-vivant and fatirut, The wits who drink water and fuck fugar-candy, Impute the ftrong spirit of K-to brandy. They are not fo much out; the matter, in short, is, He tips aqua-vitee and spits aqua-fortis !

PUBLIC ADVERTISER

truth

truth and philanthropy inspired me with fresh vigour, and promifed as my reward, the laurel due to the conqueror of vulgar prejudice and error."

Giving this writer credit for his veracity and philanthropy, we muft withold, however, the laurel due to the conqueror of prejudice and error, till we are farther affured of his having obtained the victory left we should fall into the ridiculous blunder of finging te deum for a defeat. When the facts, he advances, are confirmed by other practitioners, we may poffibly become profy→ lites to his doctrines; at prefent they militate too much against eftablished practice.

In the mean time, nevertheless, his book appears to merit the attention of the faculty; for which reafon we fhall give a fpeci men or two of the author's manner of treating his fubject. Having proved, at the beginning of his work, what, he says, is now in general taken for granted, viz. that the crude mercury is a genuine metal, he proceeds to account for its various effects in the animal œconomy, as follows.

"First, fince this metal, in its natural state, circulates in the fanguineous mafs, in a state of fufion, (if I may be allowed the phrafe) it must follow, as a confequence, that its particles as cohering loosely must be fubject to be divided ad infinitum, and be introduced into not only the molt minute ramifications of the circulating canals, but perhaps be forced into the very ftamina of the folids themfelves. In like manner, it may easily be deduced, that whilst the animal heat is fuperior to the gentle warmth, which keeps this metal in fufion, it muft naturally follow alfo, that it becomes rarified, into a state of ebullition, and confequently evaporate from every pore of the mercurial impregnated patient,

"Secondly, next to gold and platina, mercury is the heaviest

metal.

"This. property has given birth to many very unlearned arguments, by men very learned; namely, that its power and effects in the animal economy fhould proceed from its specific gravity and its momentum in the fanguineous mafs; from whence it has been fuppofed to triturate, as it were, the globules of the blood, and reduce them into a ferious folution; in which fome have fpoken indeed mathematically, but more curious than juft. In cafes where it has been given to the quantity of a pound or two, in order to bore a paffage through the inteftines, fuch an affertion might have fome proprietory, as its ponderofity, together with its accumulating nature, might act from a principle of gravity; but where it becomes uniformly divided in the mafs of blood, an argument of that nature must be repugnant to reafon and experience.

"For, in the first place, the circulation of the fluids depends entirely on the mechanical actions of the canals that convey them; by which the circulating fluids afcend and defcend with equal celerity, independent of the fpecific gravity, or any addition that can be made to them. Secondly, the mixture of the fluid depends not upon me

KK 3

chanical

chanical caufes, as to their combination, but on a chemical principle, that of folution; by which they become united perfectly into one. Hence gold, which is the most ponderous of all metals, may become intimately connected with the lightest of all fluids, æther *; in which this metal may be fo equally and uniformly fufpended and divided, that each drop of the fluid will have an equal proportion of the gold diffolved and fufpended in the whole.

"Similar to this, the mercury muft uniformly be divided and fufpended in the whole mass of blood, when it operates in the animal œconomy.

"Now fuppofe a quantity, as for inftance, one ounce of mercury fhould be introduced into the whole quantity of fluids in the human body, (which is about forty, fifty, or fometimes an hundred pounds weight;) what propriety is there in fuppofing, that an ounce more or lefs in this quantity, fhould have fuch effects in the animal fabric, proceeding from its fpecific gravity?

"But beyond all this, we experience that the effects of mercury, depend not fo much on the quantity, as on the different preparations thereof. If the æthiops mineral is truly prepared, we fee that it does not effect the falivary glands, from its combination with the fulphur; we fee alfo, that friction even to a confiderable quantity of the blue ointment, will not be nearly fo effectual as a few grains, or the like quantity of the turpith mineral, or what is yet more powerful, corrofive mercury; which will make more tumult, and fooner occafion a falivation, than the crude will, by far.

"Here therefore the theory of the effect of the mercury, built on its fpecific gravity, or its additional momentum in the blood, muft fall to the ground."

The author enquires next into the power or quality by which he conceives mercury to act in the animal economy. He confiders next its falivating effect and the pernicious effects of salivation; concluding the ift part of his work with the following commendation of this powerful remedy when properly applied.

"There is no temperament, conftitution, fex, or period of life, exempt from receiving benefit from mercury and its preparations; and I don't knów a disease incident to mankind, where it can with propriety be deemed improper; unless used to excess, and difproportioned to circumftances. The truth of this I have experienced with fuccefs both by internal and external applications; not only in the venereal, but inflammatory and chronic diftempers. And I am convinced, that many judicious practitioners must agree with me, particularly when they have fludioufly avoided its effect on the falivary glands; which must ever be carefully attended to, by every one, who has the benefit of the patient at heart."

In part II. which treats of the principal preparations of mer

If to a folution of gold in aqua regalis be poured vitriolic æther, the gold, which is univerfally fufpended in the aqua regalis, will immediately leave that menftruum, and unite in the æther, which it will tinge of a beautiful yellow; and the æther fe parating itself from the menftruum, will attain an additional ponderofity in proportion to the gold it has imbibed.

cury