satisfactory evidence of his having been engaged in the study of midwifery, subsequent to such rejection.

The school of surgery, under the direction of the court of censors, is in every way complete; it consists of two professors of anatomy, two professors of surgery, and professors of the practice of medicine, of chemistry, of materia medica, of midwifery, of medical jurisprudence, and two demonstrators of anatomy, who superintend the pursuits of the students in practical anatomy*. In addition to the museum and library of the college, the students have access to a valuable museum, and lending library, peculiarly devoted to the purposes of the school.

Few cities possess greater advantages for a school of medicine and surgery than Dublin: with numerous hospitals, always filled from a vast pauper population, abundant opportunities for the cultivation of practical anatomy, and able lecturers on the various branches of medical science, students here find considerable facilities in following their professional pursuits. Besides the school of physic, in connexion with the university and the college of physicians, and the school of surgery supported by the College of Surgeons, there are several private schools conducted by private teachers of anatomy and medicine. Of these, the two principal are that in connexion with the Richmond surgical hospital, and that situated in Park-street, both of which afford great advantages to students. The hospitals of Dublin are in general very well attended to by their respective medical officers: clinical medicine and surgery are there well and assiduously taught; in one or two of them the German method of clinical instruction has been adopted, and it is said with considerable success.

The winter session commences in Dublin at the beginning of November, and terminates at the beginning of May. All the courses of lectures are of this duration; in consequence of which, the lecturers are enabled to treat their respective subjects in a very complete manner. From this circumstance, as well as the facilities above-mentioned which Dublin possesses, that city has obtained, and still bears, a high reputation as a school of medicine.

*The fee for each course of lectures at this school is two guineas, and that for anatomical demonstrations and dissections, four guineas. The fees at the other schools in Dublin are about the same.

REVIEW S.

DESCRIPTION OF ANCIENT ITALY.

A Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient Italy, with a Map and Plan of Rome. By J. A. Cramer, D.D. 2 vols. Oxford, 1826.

It is a curious fact in the history of classical learning, that till within these few years we had no work in the English language on the ancient geography of Italy. It is another proof among many which we have brought forward, that an improper direction has been given to the course of study pursued by the young, and that many branches of literature have been neglected which were best calculated to excite youthful curiosity, and to draw them to the acquisition of useful information. They spent much time on the prosody of the Latin language, and all the peculiarities of its metrical laws, while history and geography were but little known; and what ought to have been of primary importance was regarded as a secondary and subordinate object of study. Of late years, indeed, a gradual amendment has been taking place; the public attention has been roused to the absurdity of the plans pursued, and we feel confident that we are now entering on a course of public instruction from which we may expect to derive much more benefit. We believe that there is no study better fitted to excite in the young a love of learning, than geographical investigations when they are united with historical facts. Without an acquaintance with the country in which transactions have been carried on, the narrative loses half its interest, and the most important link which binds it to the recollection is entirely dropped. Geography may be considered the connecting link between the past and the present; all the actors in the important events of which we are reading have disappeared, and even of their mightiest works scarce a vestige may be left behind, yet the spot where they lived and acted may still be pointed out. The field of Canna is no longer red with the blood of the slain; yet the face of nature exhibits the same features which it did two thousand years ago. It is this which renders the study of geography delightful, and imparts to it an interest which perhaps no other branch of literature possesses in the same degree.

It may be easily believed, that the ancient geography of Italy early attracted the notice of the learned, and that no labour was spared to discover and to elucidate the many remains of

antiquity with which it abounds. The talent of Italy, forbidden by the jealousy of its governments to take part in the more exciting and interesting events of the passing time, was glad to expend its energy on subjects of this nature, and to indemnify itself for present degradation by the glorious recollections of the past. Many, no doubt, repeated to themselves the words of their illustrious countryman, evidently poured forth with all the vehemence of deeply mortified feelings: Hoc quoque laboris præmium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum, quæ nostra tot per annos vidit ætas, tantisper certe dum prisca illa totâ mente repeto, avertam.' (Liv. Præf.) It is chiefly no doubt to this circumstance that we owe the numerous works which Italy has produced to illustrate its topography. There is scarcely a city of any note which has not furnished its own historian, and as we might expect, all regard their own particular district as having more immediate claims on the attention of the world. Such being the case, the English geographer has little else to do than to condense and simplify the statements of facts so abundantly furnished by others. He cannot, indeed, expect to communicate much original information; but if he has himself examined the country in the way which it was his duty to do before he attempted to write a work of this description, he may be enabled to clear up some points which are still doubtful, and to fill up some gaps which are yet apparent. If the work be intended, as seems to have been the design of Dr. Cramer's, to serve the traveller as a guide to the topographical and classical antiquities of the country, it must not only supply him with the chief events in the history of each city, but point out to his observation what fragments of its ancient glory have escaped the hand of time. Without this information the work will be incomplete, and the portion of most value to the traveller will have been omitted. It is on this point more particularly that we find Dr. Cramer to be deficient, though in other matters he is by no means so accurate or exact as we had a right to expect in a work which required little more than common diligence and industry. Still we must consider ourselves under obligations to him, as he is the first who has attempted to draw the attention of the public towards this subject.

It is curious that, in a work of this description, Dr. Cramer should have thought it unnecessary to give some account, however concise, of the various appellations by which Italia or Vitellia was known at different times. Dionysius (i. 35) tells us, that in the early ages the whole peninsula was called by the Greeks, Hesperia or Ausonia, but by the natives, Saturnia. It is evident that Hesperia must have included the whole of the

countries to the west of Greece, Iberia, or Spain, as well as Italy, in the same way as the word Anatolia was introduced under the Greek empire to express the parts to the east of Constantinople. Ausonia was a name extended by the Greeks from a single district to the country beyond it, and being at first synonymous with Opica was gradually extended to the whole peninsula south of Rome. It is not improbable that Saturnia was used by the ancient Latins to designate a portion of central Italy, of which Latium formed a part. We know at least that the irregular metre in which the songs, as well as poetical attempts of the early Romans, were written, received the name of Saturnian verse. Again, the author gives a very indistinct account of the progressive enlargements which the meaning attached to the word Italia underwent, till it came to embrace the whole of the peninsula bounded by the Alps. He does indeed mention that Italia was originally applied to the southern extremity of the boot, which is confined between the gulfs of S. Euphemia and Squillace; but he might have added that it was next extended to the country bounded by a line from Tarentum to Posidonia, (Herod. i. 24; Dion. i. 73,) and that in the age of Timæus, (about B.C. 264,) it stretched as far as the Tiber and beyond Picenum. Dr. Cramer says, (p. 2,) it was not till the age of Augustus that it was applied to the whole peninsula; but we find Polybius using it in its widest extent, reaching to the Alps, and comprising Cisalpine Gaul and Venetia. Niebuhr remarks, that in the middle ages the appellation of Italy was restricted by the Emperor Maximian to the five provinces in the north, Æmilia, Liguria, Flaminia, Venetia, and Istria, thus ending at the opposite extremity from that where it had arisen.

In respect to the seas which surrounded Italy, (vol. i. p. 3,) we may remark that the Mare Inferum was far more frequently known as the Mare Tuscum, and that the epithet of Etruscum is but seldom applied to it; but the author ought also to have distinctly stated that the Mare Superum was used by the Romans to designate not only the Adriatic, but also the sea along the east coast of Italy as far as the island of Sicily. It received this name from the Romans who dwelt to the west of the Apennines, while the Greeks gave it the appellation of 'Adpias, (Gulf of Adria,) probably from the powerful maritime city of Adria*, near the mouth of the Po. Neither do we find that Dr. Cramer is aware of the existence of the appel

* It is absurd enough to derive the name of Ægæum Mare from some insignificant rock, Egæ, in that sea. Is it not more likely to be connected with the important commercial island of Ægina? We have heard of several ingenious suggestions as to the origin of the name, Ægæum, but the consideration of them cannot properly come in here.

lation of Mare Ausonium, which was employed by the native tribes of Italy to designate the southern portion of the sea, including the gulfs of Tarento, and Squillace, and deriving its name evidently from the earlier inhabitants of this part of Italy, (Plin. iii. 5.) In later times it was called Mare Siculum from its vicinity to the island of Sicily.

We believe that it would be unfair to attach any value to the theory Dr. Cramer propounds respecting the origin of the ancient inhabitants of Italy. We suspect that he merely proposed it as a probable conjecture, and as it does not suit the design of his work to enter at great length into the subject, we shall not deem it necessary to point out all the inconsistencies and difficulties, which the attempt to maintain such an opinion would cause. We are willing to allow that it is much more easy in such a difficult and obscure subject to show how the authority of ancient writers will not justify the inferences that are deduced from them, than to furnish a theory which shall at all points be unassailable. We shall, therefore, pass at once to his geographical description of Liguria.

It seems to us by no means an improbable conjecture of the author of the Roman History, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, that there is some connexion between the Ligeris (Loire), and the name of Ligures. The Ligures were a powerful nation, extending, in the earliest ages of which we have any tradition, from the Pyrenees as far at least as the river Arno. The early Greeks, who had a vague and indistinct notion of this western part of the world, seems to have included under the name of Ligystica even the whole of Spain, (Strab. ii. 92,) and made it the scene of some of their most beautiful poetical fictions. They believed Hercules to have passed along its coast; and it was to furnish him with arms against the brave Ligurians that Jupiter rained a shower of round pebbles, which are still to be seen near the mouth of the river Rhone. It was in this It was in this way that the imaginative genius of the Greeks explained that curious natural phenomenon observed at La Crau, between the Rhone and the marsh of Berre or Martigues, where a piece of ground upwards of a mile in extent is found covered with large round pebbles. Dr. Cramer states, that the Ligurians were certainly Celts, but we do not believe that he can produce any fact of a sufficiently positive nature to decide that point. Dionysius, on the contrary, says, that their extraction was unknown, and we are more inclined to give credit to this historian, who seems to have been a diligent investigator of the origin of ancient nations, than to Plutarch, whose attention was less directed towards such subjects. Strabo also says (ii. 128,) that they were not Celts,