The Domestic Management of the Sick Room. By Anthony Todd Thomson, M.D., F.L.S., &c., &c. pp. 506. Longman and Co. 1841.

In the volume before us, which is intended more especially for the perusal, or rather study, of the softer sex, the author has endeavored to convey that information which is essential to aid the medical treatment of disease, not to cure it.' Much is to be done in the sick chamber by means generally regarded as extra-professional, which may be readily understood and easily practised by attendants of ordinary competency; and which are in many instances of as much value to the patient as the sagest nostrum that was ever prescribed, albeit under the auspices of a gold-headed cane. We do not mean to underrate medical science and skill, but we do mean to contend that these derive their full efficiency in the treatment of disease only as they have the co-operation of suitable domestic management; which, it is too obvious, is but little understood by those to whom it is usually assigned. Dr. Thomson's work is a plain and concise compendium of the duties to which we refer; we therefore recommend it as an available antidote for much of the embarrassment to which they are frequently exposed who have the charge of invalids; and as a book of reference in cases where medical aid is instantly required but cannot be as promptly obtained. The subjects of which our author treats are necessarily numerous, and generally of sufficient importance to deserve grave consideration; but we should direct the attention of the English reader more especially to the remarks on 'ventilation,' bathing,' and administration of medicines.' Dr. Thomson might have given the profession a more scientific work, but he could not have exerted his abilities with more advantage to the public at large.

A Dictionary of the Art of Printing. By William Savage, Author of Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, and of a Treatise on the Preparation of Printing Ink, both Black and Colored.' London : Longman and Co.

This is a work of immense labor and of great utility, upon which the author has been employed, directly or indirectly, upwards of fifty years. His opportunities for collecting the requisite materials have greatly exceeded those of most men, whilst his diligence and skill are amply proved by the publication before us. The object of the volume, as stated by the author, was that of making a purely practical work: one that might meet every exigence of the printer whilst in the exercise of his art, and one that would serve as a book of reference to the author, the librarian, and in fact to every one interested in books or their production.' Every branch of the art of printing is treated with fulness, the details and illustrations being admirably adapted to subserve the practical aim of the author. Mr. Savage has supplied what was previously much needed, and his volume is so complete as to prevent all fear of his labors being superseded. We strongly recommend it as a book of reference to those who are interested in such matters.

of destruction in the conflagration of a noble steamer called after his own name. Alas! for the picture of splendid unhappiness given by Lord Londonderry, in his Recollections of a Tour in the north of Europe:

"

We there learn, that the imperial family only tasted in private the sweets of familiar intercourse: when the curtain drew up, and majesty appeared upon the scene, ceremony reigned triumphant over the orien tal show. On these occasions, as for instance at the annual consecration of the waters of the Neva, the emperor himself becomes the sworn slave of etiquette. This is true at the courts of all unlimited monarchs. To rule by the force of custom you must bow yourself to the same power. But the Russian has a peculiar character, from the union of the ecclesiastical and temporal authority, which in some degree has brought about a connexion between the ceremonies. The calculations of dexterous policy are very evident. A poor and rude people are to feel reverence for grandeur and wealth, but they must not be irritated or embittered by comparing them with their own misery.'-pp. 28, 29.

We have already alluded to the existence in Russia of Germanic customs and Roman laws. The most ancient legislative monuments are furnished by the chronicles of Nestor, extending from the times of Oleg and Igor. These were a couple of treaties concluded with the Greeks in the tenth century, which prove that the Muscovites had a separate quarter at Constantinople, where they were governed by their own private regulations; that they already admitted the validity of testamentary donations, even although they might be nuncupative; that the fortune of every Russian dying away from home escheated to the mother country, instead of following the feudal Droit d'Aubaine, in default of lawful heirs; that the rights of criminal jurisdiction were carefully secured; and, lastly, that pecuniary compensations were admitted for torts and wrongs, as is seen still more clearly and directly in the Code of Yaroslaf. This curious digest bears the title of Rouskia Pravada, or Russian Truths; which quite remind one of the Twelve Tables at Rome; except that since the eleventh century ecclesiastical usurpation had armed the hands of the church against person, property, and conscience. The Teutonic principles, however, of the Fred and Vergeld are fully admitted. Murders, wounds, and blows had specific prices or reparations attached to them, varying according to the condition of the victim, the nature or seriousness of the injury done, and the sort of weapon employed. A person was considered to have the right of avenging the assassination of his kinsman: but next to this in point of importance and heinousness was cutting or maiming the beard or the moustachios. Penalties attached to secret thefts, or open robberies, were also graduated according to value and circumstances. The

proofs of trespass involved all those singular modes of ordea practised among the German tribes; such as testing the witnesses and their oaths by boiling water, red-hot iron, and trial by battle. Each sovereign dispensed justice, either in person or through a delegation of his power to waivodes-the latter being always assisted by juries of twelve citizens: so old amongst the northern nations is that venerable institution, in which our native country more particularly glories. Aristocracy soon contrived to render nugatory such ancient vestiges of liberty. Magnates of every size and calibre absorbed them, one after the other, until they themselves were subjugated by one mightier despot. The hierarchy too continued not less active in its peculiar vocation, terminating in the same result. Prelacy, transplanted as it was from Constantinople, quickly put forth its innumerable pretensions as a religious establishment, not only to administer the sacraments, and promulgate its dogmas and discipline, but also to act out the untold enormities of the Civil and Canon Law. Hence bishops claimed cognizance over all matrimonial matters, from the slightest dissension between a man and his wife, to the more serious transgressions, of fornication, illegitimacy, adultery, polygamy, and divorces. Nor did they condescend to pause at a single point, until their interferences had imitated the frogs of Egypt, and intruded themselves, as they always do, into the houses, beds, bedchambers, cupboards, ovens, and kneading-troughs of the people. Their courts spread oppression and darkness throughout the empire, stretching an iron wing over the profanation of tombs, sacrilege, sorceries, idolatries, poisonings, the disobedience of children towards their parents, the utterance of abuse and slander, 'lawsuits betwixt very near relations, and even the order and arrangement of municipal weights and measures.' Metropolitans frequently interposed between princes, more especially in the affair of appanages; and so far they checked the multiplication beyond certain bounds of nóbles in moated castles, playing off the drama of King Stork upon a smaller and a smaller scale, until every district had become a petty sovereignty, and its lord a Nero in miniature. Slavery, nevertheless, flourished mightily, being maintained by protracted internal wars, and a state of perpetual conflict with the Asiatic hordes. Serfdom petrified the land.

Peter the Great could not leave the legislation of his country stationary; whilst, at the same time, he found himself powerless to endow it with a new code, as Napoleon afterwards did for another nation whose entire surface and framework had been shattered to pieces by recent revolution. Peter did what he was able to achieve, and displayed his practical wisdom in not aiming at more. He contented himself with re-modelling the

almost overwhelming congeries of antiquated customs and regulations. His successors down to the present autocrat framed commissions, and issued ukases for the same purposes, until at length, in 1833, was published under imperial authority the Swod, or a systematic collection of all the laws relative to the rights of citizens, and to most branches of public justice. The military laws remained to be collected, and this was ordered in the decree of the 31st of January, 1837. This military Swod, which embraces all the laws published and still in force, since the days of the great imperial reformer down to the 1st of May, 1838, is now completed, and became law on the 1st of January,

1840.

Thus a work has been produced, which will be of the highest importance for the history of Russian civilization: it is a fixed level below which intelligence cannot fall, and it ensures the possibility of diffusing a true notion of justice. For the more a people becomes aware of its rights, the more sensible will it be of every attack upon them, and the more capable of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of all public measures. The establishment of the Swod will favor some growth, however gradual, of public opinion, and circumstances may render it a weapon for the attainment or the defence of political freedom.'—pp. 36, 37.

6

The last reports of the Ministers of Justice and Public Instruction give valuable details on the moral and spiritual development of the empire. In proportion to the population, it would appear that there is a far smaller number of condemnations than in France. However, it is well known that the statistics of crime in Russia are not very accurately kept; besides, most of the crimes of the great body of serfs are not publicly punished, while the thinly-peopled expanses of the empire facilitate concealment. The belief in any superiority of morals over those of western Europe will be still more shaken when we reflect, that, according to a rough estimate, the four governments of Siberia contain about 100,000 convicts-many of whom, however, are for only political offences. But an edict, characteristic of Russian justice, was published in 1837, by which prisoners, who were acquitted for want of proof, were returned to their communes in charge of the police; but the communes might refuse to receive more than one-third of the number; in which case, the others were sent to Siberia! The rack is still in use, as a means of examination, if we are to believe the statements of the newspapers. In western Europe, education has been developed and fostered by a clergy who sprang from and belonged to the nation; and, in consequence, the system of popular schools has been universally diffused. But in Russia it is entirely an affair of government, and only calculated to meet the wants of the public service; so that it is not surprising that the higher branches of education should have been encouraged, to the neglect of the lower.'-pp. 60-62.

There are now in the empire six universities, several scientific in

stitutions and academies, a good many lyceums, gymnasiums, and schools for the nobility. Petersburg possesses a noble academy of sciences; and at Kasan a college has been established for promoting the study of the oriental languages, which hopes some time or other to be the means of uniting the inhabitants of 'two quarters of the globe.' The instruction of the mass of the people, as might naturally be expected, is in a miserable state. With the exception of Poland, Finland, and the Cau'casus, the proportion of learners to the whole population was only as one to two hundred and ten; and the increase of, at 'the utmost, 5000 scholars per annum is no very brilliant result. To encourage the educational body, the teachers of the middle 6 and upper schools have been raised into a higher rank in the 'public service; and a general economical fund has been set apart for the whole civil establishment of instruction, so as 'to complete the centralization of the scholastic system, and to place in the hands of the minister a still greater power 'than he already possessed.' In fact, none know better than those at Moscow and St. Petersburg, that intellectual light once let in upon their political system would display in all its hideousness that rudis indigestaque moles, which stands like a Pyrenean range of wickedness betwixt Russia and the rest of the European world. Hence they are resolved to retain this lamp of Aladdin, so long as they possibly can, in their own hands, that they may let the scanty ray fall only where it may shine with safety for themselves: leaving unilluminated that thickness of darkness which seems the congenial region to which abuses and abominations resort for shelter, whether they belong to despotism, aristocracy, or the devil. There is not a movement made on behalf of literature and science in Russia, which does not become directly or indirectly chained to the chariot-wheels of the imperial power. Even the pupils in the upper and middle schools are concentrated, on every possible occasion, into boarding houses under governmental superintendence. The censorship has become as perfect a harpy as Celæno herself ever was, or as modern conservatism could desire: una in præcelsa consedit rupe; and the moment any chance occurs of an intellectual banquet being spread before any portion of the public, high or low, in the metropolis or the provinces, down pounce the obscænæ diræque volucres of the mental police, and defile the whole affair. Neither in the capitals, nor even at such an obscure and unconnected city as Archangel, are foreign papers, journals, or periodicals ever admitted, until they have been minutely examined; and all obnoxious passages are immediately blotted out with black paint, detestable to another sense as well as that of sight, besides the bodily fear induced by the menaces of enraged officials: