circumstances, qualities which her fair readers will do well to imitate as well as admire, and attractions of which every one of us has seen, or may hope to see, the prototype.

"Her fine figure was syinmetry itself, and the expression of her countenance was perfectly fascinating; yet she was far from being a beauty; on her entrance into a ball-room, a quizzing glass would hardly have been levelled a second time at her face, which owed its principal charms to the witchery of her smile and the irradiations of genius and intelligence which sparkled in her eyes. In short, she was of that description of women whose attractions lie in ambuscade, but who infallibly steal the heart-the very soul of man, and maintain over him the most powerful ascendancy." vol. 1. p. 3.

This amiable creature, whose name is Florence, is the daughter of an antiquary who lives upon the income of a sinecure place, and devotes the chief part of his time and money to the purchase and care of pictures, fossils, relics, coins, &c. with as little discrimination as prudence. He had been for many years a widower, and being wholly engrossed by his museum, the care of his daughter's education had devolved upon a widowed sister perfectly qualified for the task, and who proves the mentor of the tale. Early in the first volume, we are told of Mr. Mustiman (the father of our heroine) that

"He undoubtedly broke the tenth commandment, for he beheld, with longing eyes, and an aching heart, the complete fossil bones of an animal, which doctor Flowerdale had procured from some diggers, who were working in a quarry in the north of England. What the creature might have been, afforded much debate at a numerous meeting of virtuosos who assembled to examine it. One sapient doctor pronounced it to be the skeleton of an elephant, and another thought it was a hippopotamus; but counsellor Positive, a great zoologist, gave it as his decided opinion that it was a mammoth, though smaller than those ever found before, as it did not answer to the description of any other animal which had yet been seen. Its dimensions, he argued, proved nothing against it, as it might have been a very young one; and his opponents not having much to advance in contradiction, it was at last voted to have been a chicken mammoth. Doctor Flowerdale was delighted to have so great a rarity in his possession, and Mrs. Flowerdale was still more intoxicated; she never called it anything but her dear chicken a diamond necklace, at no period of her life, would have given her so much pleasure.

:

"Mr. Mustiman felt that he could not bear to go into his friend's museum, this prodigious acquisition having sunk himself into such inferiority as a collector. He made use of the epithets overbearing and selfimportant, when the doctor was mentioned, and even called Mrs. Flowerdale, when speaking of her to his sister, a conceited, ignorant woman, but he acted to have changed his opinion on the following occasion.

"Doctor Flowerdale, one very severe day, caught a cold by stepping into a wet ditch, in search of a curious plant; and, after a short illness, he left his lady a widow, with a very small income. The whole of his property, excepting his museum and furniture, amounted to little more than four thousand pounds, to the interest of which she became entitled

during her life, by her marriage settlement, but the principal was afterwards to devolve to their only son, who was chaplain to a regiment at that time in the West Indies.

"Mr. Mustiman was at first in hopes that the curiosity he so much coveted would now be sold, Mrs. Flowerdale having such a limited income; and he only feared he should have so many competitors, that it would be above his means. However, the lady declared, that rather than part with her dear chicken, she would live upon bread and cheese. But the animal was so large, that no small room would contain it, and Mrs. Flowerdale was in a sad dilemma, for she could not afford to keep the house her husband had rented, neither could she get another to suit her finances, which would accommodate this precious rarity. Mr. Mustiman could not sleep for thinking of it; and so solicitous was he to see it in his own museum, that he concluded the best way would be to become a suitor to the widow, and thus secure the inestimable treasure.

Mrs. Flowerdale had certainly no inclination to marry again; she would have preferred an Egyptian mummy to any man in Christendom; but it occurred to her, after mental debate, that the gentleman had an apartment large enough to shew off her hobby-horse to advantage; so she surrendered in due form, and the happy time was fixed when Mr. Mustiman should bring home his bride and the mammoth together. Mrs. Hanway and Florence were not much delighted when they were informed of the intended marriage; the former, because she thought her brother's concerns would go to ruin under the management of a savante, and Florence regretted being parted from her beloved aunt, who declared she should retire to lodgings. The day at length arrived, when Mr. Mus timan was to conduct Mrs. Flowerdale to the altar; and it was agreed, that after the performance of the ceremony, and he had attended the lady home, he should return to her house, to escort the mammoth, which was nailed up in boards for removal. As for the other articles of her museum, she had dispatched them to her intended husband's dwelling some time before; but this invaluable treasure, she protested, should never leave its station until she went herself; and after several conferences on the safest mode of conveyance, it was decided that it should be carried by two porters, on a long hand-barrow, and that Mr. Mustiman should walk by the side of it. This plan being put into execution, the bridegroom and the mammoth were proceeding side by side, just turning the corner of a street in Westminster, when a hackney-coach at full speed came suddenly on the hand-barrow; the poor fellows were thrown down who carried it, and the box which contained the mammoth was precipitated to a considerable distance by the jerk, and being but slightly tacked together, it burst open: out flew the bones in every direction, for as they were only united by small wires and cement, having been discovered in a disjointed state, the violence of the concussion had entirely shaken the skeleton to pieces, and poor Mustiman stood aghast, with his hands upheld, beholding with horror and dismay the destruction of those hopes he had indulged of eclipsing his brother virtuosos. I am ruined! I am

undone! &c."

We devote the remainder of our limits to a slight sketch of the adventures of our heroine. The son of her step-mother who, having no taste for recent productions, was a most negligent and ungracious parent, first interested Florence by his misfortunes, and then rivetted her attachment by his good and great qualities. Some circumstances of doubtful interpretation,

which arise in the progress of their acquaintance, involve these conscientious lovers in anxieties and perplexities, which keep alive the curiosity of the reader, and are not cleared up till the close of the last volume. Hamlet Flowerdale is in holy orders, and passes through all the probationary stages of chaplain, tutor, and curate, before he becomes the grateful possessor of two good livings, with perfect credit to himself and satisfaction to his employers. Florence, finding herself, at the death of her father, left with a provision too slender for her maintenance, prefers the exertion of her talents, to dependence upon her aunt, and enters upon the difficult duties and mortifying station of a governess. Her adventures in three very different families are exceedingly well imagined, and afford a correct portrait of what is termed genteel society, when viewed from beneath.

In the winding up of the story, nothing appears superfluous, unnatural, or over-strained; the events rise out of each other, much to the satisfaction of all the deserving characters introduced, and the inquisitive reader is at length enabled to guess why the book is called "Lady Jane's pocket."

ART. VIII. A Philosophical treatise on the hereditary peculiarities of the human race: with notes illustrative of the subject, particularly in gout, scrofula, and madness. The Second Ed. with an Appendix, on the Goîtres and Cretins of the Alps and Pyrenees. By JOSEPH ADAMS, M. D. London. J. Callow,

1815. 8vo.

DR. Adams informs us, that his precursors in this walk of medical science have been but few; and he states the main object of his work to be:

"To ascertain what provisions are made by Nature to correct any apparent deviations in the human race.

"And to show how far these provisions may be imitated or improved by Art." p. 11.

He distinguishes between family and hereditary peculiarities; the first being confined to a single generation, the children of the same parents; the second continued from one generation to another. Such diseases either appear at birth, or they arise afterwards. The first alone can properly be termed hereditary or family diseases; the latter are only susceptibilities of disease.

When appearing at birth, diseases are termed congenital or connate. Susceptibilities are divided by Dr. Adams into dispositions, whereby the disease is induced without external causes, or by causes that cannot be distinguished from the functions of the economy; and predispositions, when the

susceptibility requires the operation of some external cause to induce the disease.

Connate or congenital diseases are seldom hereditary; and dispositions to disease are oftener family than hereditary. Congenital blindness or deafness are seldom hereditary; though the disposition to them is often so. Gout and madness, though generally considered hereditary, are only so, the author observes, in predisposition. The younger members of families frequently fall into particular diseases at a critical time of life; and if they escape that period, they are afterwards free from the complaint. "When the susceptibility to an hereditary or family disease is so great as to amount to a disposition, that is, so great that the disease is induced without any external causes, we can have little hopes of preventing it; and that if the disease has arisen during the changes about the age of puberty, we are to expect a cure, more from a proper direction of the efforts of nature during that period, than from remedies which may be useful in the same disease, when excited by external causes, or induced at a more advanced age." p. 21.

"The danger or security of the rising offspring may often be estimated by a similarity of feature or character to those of their brothers or sisters, who have previously fallen into the disease."

"This remark is still more applicable to that kind of consumption which affects several brothers and sisters about the same age. The parents are often healthy, or at least free from this disposition; but the fate of some of their children gives an early presentiment concerning others born afterwards of a similar complexion, features, and temper. Meanwhile the young subjects are the last to see the danger, and when it is suspected, the excess of life, if I may so call it, or the precocity of growth and intellect is such as to precipitate a most interesting figure and character into a vortex, from which no caution can prove any security. But when the susceptibility is so slight as to amount only to a predisposition, we have rarely any means of discovering it till the disease itself approaches; nor is there any age at which we may call the patient secure. As, however, some external cause is always necessary to induce the disease, we may hope to prevent it by avoiding such causes, or to cure it by removing them. Hence, the importance of distinguishing the first described consumption from the scrofulous: the one a family disposition, requiring no external cause to excite the disease, which exists in all climates, and is fatal in all; the other an hereditary predisposition, never excited into action but in certain climates, and the disease often cured by an early removal from them." p. 22.

Another state of susceptibility demands some caution:

"The state to which I refer is induced by pregnancy and child-birth in women and at the more advanced climacteric in both sexes. Though the actions excited on these occasions arise from the functions of the economy, yet they are not the ordinary functions. In most cases the provisions of Nature are sufficient for preserving the subject during such changes; and on that account they are often too little regarded. In women not only pregnancy and child-birth, but the critical period of advanced life is strongly marked, and many judicious cautions are to be found in medical writers on this last subject; but it is a great

mistake to suppose, that the change in men about the same age is Iways unattended with any disturbance of the constitution." p. 28.

The Doctor proceeds next to the provision made by nature for correcting such hereditary peculiarities. In the diseases ensuing from climate, he remarks that those who are affected by them are prevented from propagating the disease by the course of its operation. He exemplifies this fact by the instance of Elephantiasis,

"The Elephantiasis of ARETEUS is peculiar to warm climates: the disposition to the disease is hereditary, and the disease itself has hitherto proved incurable. I have never been able to learn that it has attacked emigrants from a colder climate, nor their immediate descendants. A residence therefore of some generations is probably necessary to induce the disposition. When the diseased disposition is derived from inheritance, the action always commences before the age of puberty; and the subject never arrives at that state; the organs are never evolved, and no other marks of virility appear. When the disease originates with an individual, it usually commences at a more advanced age; but from that time, the organs which distinguish the sexes decay, and become gradually unfit for their original purposes. This fact of a disease, which arrests the progress to virility of every youth, and emasculates every adult whom it attacks, is so surprising, that after having witnessed it myself, I should have been backward in publishing the result of my observations, had not others been present at every examination; and I should have been unwilling to draw inferences from them, had not subsequent writers confirmed

my account.'

"Thus is an hereditary disposition to an irregularity of the most formidable nature, which being excited by climate, must have progressively increased in spite of all human institutions, arrested as soon as it occurs, by those very actions which form a part of the deviation from the usual progress of Nature." pp. 37-9.

He observes, that "throughout all the animated productions with which we are acquainted, there is found a disposition in every variety to return to the original form," unless when interrupted by accidental causes, among which, is the propagation of defects by the nuptial alliance with consanguinity, or with parties similarly constituted. Hence he takes occasion to celebrate the wisdom of that divine law, by which sexual intercourse is forbidden between near relations under pain of death, He also introduces some remarks on the dissemination of lunacy by marriage.

"The number of maniacs does not increase in proportion to our increased population, and the great exciting causes of madness, namely, encreased wealth, and other sources of ambition. Nor is this the only provision we can trace. The worst stages of madness are attended with a total indifference to the sex, not to mention the very general inclina

'See Edinburgh Medical Journal, vol. v. p. 500, Note-Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 81, July to December 1811, p. 145, seocnd Column; and Dr. Gourlay's History of Madeira.