found it fometimes difagree with the ftomach. In fuck cafes, he adds a quarter, or an eighth part of a grain of opium, to each dofe of the powders. To perfons whofe fromachs are very delicate, he thinks an infufion of the leaves in water, or in fpirits of wine, might be given with advantage. He thinks the Uva Urfi has confiderable power over the nervous fyftem; fome of his patients complained, while taking it, of lownefs, head-ach, or of flight ver tiginous fenfations." It not only reduces the quickness of the pulfe, and leffens the diameter of the artery, but it fometimes, the author fays, (p. 223,) produces the remarkable effect, of occafioning the pulfe to intermit.” However, none of thefe effects were conftant, and "we cannot, he fays, (p. 25,) with any degree of certainty, reduce the rata of the pulfe by Uva Urfi, give what dofes of it we pleafe." Here again we fee the effects of the author's precipitancy, in publifhing, before he had fufficient facts to draw conclufions from. It is very probable, that the medicine has no influence whatever on the pulle; neither Linnæus, Murray, Woodville, nor any writer we know, attribute to it any fuch power; its effects on the urine are lefs equivocal. The Uva Urfi was introduced, or the use of it revived, about fifty years ago, as a remedy againft certain affections in the kidneys and bladder, in which it was fuppofed to have an almoft fpecific power, but its virtues, as ufually happens, ere greatly over-rated. It is ftill, however, occafionally employed, and its effects on the urine are fufficiently remarkable. In one patient, Dr. Heberden fays, Commentaries, (p. 417,) it was frequently tried, and it always changed the urine to a green colour." Dr. Bourne found it produce fimilar effects.

"We know, he fays, (p. 225,) that when hectic fymptoms have taken place in phthifis, the urine is commonly made in wall quantities, is high coloured at first, becomes turbid as it grows cool, and depofits a copious, thick fediment. Unless my experience has milled me, thefe appearances in cafes not far ad vanced, generally change much for the better, after Uva Uri has been taken for a while; the urine is made in the natural quantity, it is of the natural colour, and it depofits no more fediment than urine in the natural state ought to do."

We have reafon however to believe, that the author has been mifled; Uva Urfi has not been found to increase the fecretion of urine, when given in dofes, treble the quantity admini fered by him. In an appendix, with which this volume clofes, the cafes of fix more patients are related, in which the Uva Urfi is faid to have been adminiftered with advanlage. ARR

ART. VI. Memoirs of the Life of Gilbert Wakefield, B. A. formerly Fellow of Jefus College, Cambridge. In Two Vo lumes. Vol. I. written by himself, a new Edition, with his lateft Corrections, and Notes by the Editors, to which is fubjoined, an Appendix of Original Letters. 560 and 531 pp. Price 11. 1s. Johnfon, 1804,

GILBERT Wakefield was a diligent, and, we believe, a fincere enquirer after truth; but he was unhappily fo framed in temper and habits of mind, as to be nearly certain of miffing it, in almost every topic of enquiry. Knowing his own affiduity, and giving himself ample credit for fagacity, he thought that he was equal to the decifion of every poffible queftion. Confcious alfo of integrity, he never fufpected that he could be biaffed by any prejudices, and therefore had no doubt that his conclufions were always right. But unfortunately he had prejudices of the moft feductive kinds. He was prejudiced, in the firft inftance, against every eftablished opinion, merely because it was eftablifhed: and, very fparingly allowing to others the qualities for which he thought himfelf diftinguished, he was always perfectly ready to believe, that all enquirers, who formed different conclufions, were either weak or difhoneft. In this ftrange error he was invincibly confirmed by the very facrifices he had made, early in life, to his own opinions. He muft be honeft, he thought, becaufe he had facrificed his intereft to his judgment: others must be difhonest because their intereft happened to coincide with their opinions. He loved a notion the more for having made himself a martyr to it; and would probably have given it up, if ever it had become the opinion of the majority. He never feems to have fufpected that his mind might be biaffed to maintain those notions, for which he had once pledged his fagacity, or facrificed his advantages; and thus he became bigotted to almoft every paradox which had once poffeffed : his very eccentric understanding. This was not only the cafe in religious queftions, but equally fo in critical doc. trines. He was as violent against Greek accents, as he was against the Trinity; and anathematized the final v, as ftrongly as epifcopacy; though in these questions he flood in oppofition to Profeffor Porfon, and all the best Greek scholars of modern as well as ancient times; no less than in his faith, or rather lack of faith, he contradicted the majority of the profoundeft theologians and wifeft men.

That he was ftrictly and enthufiaftically honeft, ought, we think, to be allowed, in the fulleft fenfe of the terms; and

his

1

his mind, naturally ardent, foon became fo enamoured with this confcioufnefs, (which is undoubtedly, to a mind capable of relifhing it, abundantly delightful) that he feems to have acquired even a paffion for privations; as witneffing to himself an integrity which could cheerfully facrifice inclination to conviction. Thefe feelings, added to his pride of independent thinking, led him, we doubt not, to abftain from wine; to have relinquifhed in part, and to be tending entirely to give up, the ufe of animal food; with various other inftances of peculiarity. Not even the Creator*, who ordained that animals fhould afford fuftenance to each other, could obtain credit with him, against his private opinions: nor would he fee even the obvious truth, that if the use of animal food were abandoned, a small number would be produced, to die by miserable decay, while whole claffes and genera would gradually become extinct. In all things it was the fame, with G. W. Whatever coincided not with his ideas of rectitude, juftice, elegance, or whatever else it might be, was to give way at once, and be refcinded at his pleafure, on pain of the mof violent repre henfion to all opponents: whether it were an article of faith, a principle of policy, a doctrine of morality, or a reading in an ancient author, ftill it was equally cut and flash, away it mu go, Xuveσy, vol te asi-to the dogs and vultures. Thefe exterminating fentences were alfo given with fuch precipitancy, as not to allow even a minute for confideration. To the paper, to the prefs, to the world, all was given at once, frequently to the incurring of moft palpable abfurdity. Thus the fimple elegance of "O beate Sexti" in HoLace, was propofed, in an edition of that author, to be changed to O bea Te, Sexti," though the alteration, befides being moft bald and taftelefs, produced a blunder in quantity fo grofs, that no boy in even the middle part of a public fchool could have been thought pardonable in committing it. It. may cafily be judged, whether a man of fuch precipitance, and fo blind a felf-confidence, was likely to be fuccefsful as an invefligator of truth. So very far was he from it, that though no man of common fenfe perhaps ever literally exemplified the latter part of Dryden's famous line on Zimri

Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,'

yet few, we conceive, have ever approached more com. pletely to both parts, than the fubject of thefe memoirs.

*Not to mention the words of Revelation.

But

But why, it may be afked, fhould we thus mark the character of a man, who can no longer offend, and of whom therefore, as a trite maxim of candour pretends, nothing but good fhould be faid. The folly of the maxim has been recognized by many men of fenfe; because if ever a man's character can with propriety be fcrutinized, it is when any exposure of his faults can no longer injure his interests, or wound his feelings. In the prefent inftance, it becomes neceffary, because, in the volumes now before us, an attempt is made to hold him up to an admiration, which might be hoped to give currency to fome of his moft pernicious oprnions. The admirers of him and of his notions are complimented as the only lovers of truth and freedom*, and he is endeavoured to be reprefented as a martyr, of which character, if he had much of the conftancy, he had proportionably little of the other eftimable qualities. Inftead of exhibiting him as a model, we fhould rather lament him as à firong example of human imperfection; in which fome great qualities of foul and understanding were rendered pernicious to himself and others, by faults original or habitual, which perverted them in almost every exertion. Thus his fincerity became offenfive, his honefty haughty and uncharitable, his intrepidity factious, his acutenefs delufive, and his memory, affifted by much diligence, a yaft weapon which his judgment was totally unable to wield. In fuch a picture, nowithstanding fome fine features, there is more to humble than to flatter the pride of man; and to hold it up to almoft indifcriminate admiration is neither prudent nor useful.

Having premifed thefe things which the neceffity of the cafe feemned to demand, we fhall proceed to characterize the work before us. Of the firft volume the chief part, namely, the "Memoirs of the author by himself," has been long be 'fore the public, having been publifhed in 1792. It is boafted by one of the eulogifts of Wakefield, that "the firft edition of thefe Memoirs was finifhed in the incredibly fhort fpace of twelve days t." Aftronger inftance of that precipitation and extravagant confidence, which we have before noticed as characteristic of him, cannot well be imagined. The public were to take his Memoirs as they flowed; happy enough to have them, (we prefume) whatever crudi ties they might contain. The public, we well remember, cared very little about them; though in time, when the author became more talked of, the impreflion was fold off. That they are an extraordinary performance, under thofe circum

Vol. II. p. 327.

+ Vol. II. p. 462.

Rances,

ftances, may be true, yet they might certainly have been amended by more care. In p. 48, fpeaking of his mafter, Mr. Wooddefon, he fays, "The bent of his genius inclined him to the Ode and Epigram, compofitions fuited to a mind not much enlarged.' This may be true of the latter, but the Ode, which is allowed to be one of the fublimeft kinds of compofition, cannot furely deferve to be thus defcribed. Thefe original memoirs, however, in spite of occafional eruptions of fpleen, are for the most part amusing and inAtructive. They contain anecdotes of various perfons, befides the author; fome of whom are little recorded elfewhere. Many curious particulars, which Mr. W. relates of himfelf, will throw more light upon his character than is afforded by his other biographers. The following is remarkable.

"During the two firft years of my refidence at college, I purfued my mathematical and philofophical ftudies with a stated mixture of claffical reading, except when a ftrange fastidiousness, for which I could never account, occafionally took a bewildering poffeffion of my faculties. This impediment commonly recurred in the fpring of the year, when I was fo enamoured of rambling in the open air, through folitary fields, or by a river's fide of the amufements of cricket and fifhing, that no felf-expoftulations, no profpect of future vexation, nor even emulation itself, could chain me to my books." Vol. I. P 86.

This want of mental regularity and felf-command, in one inftance, may account perhaps, in the moft fatisfactory and the fajreft way, for many of the author's eccentricities. In one paffage, he heartily thanks God, that his father refused a ftudentship of Ch. Ch. Oxford, which was offered, and determined to fend him to his own college at Cambridge. In our opinion, the contrary determination would have been much happier for him; could any thing have regulated fuch a mind. How far he was influenced at Cambridge by examples different from what he would have feen at Oxford, our readers may judge from his own words. After an exagge rated praife of Dr. John Jebb, mentioned in connection with Mr. Tyrwhitt, of the fame College, he fays:

"I will take this opportunity on the mention of Dr. Jebb and Mr. Tyrwhitt to correct a mistake, which I know has been prevalent among my acquaintance; that I was feduced from the paths of Orthodoxy by the voice of these charmers. They are fuppofed, like the Pharifees of our Saviour's time, to have