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plicated, destined to different functions, and as this or that part suffers,) several species of fever may occur. The vessels of the lungs may be affected by pneumonia, and the glands by catarrh, at the same time. In determining species, only those marks which distinguish it from others must be given. These are sensible modifications of the peculiar actions of the several organs, by a disease of their living powers. If we accurately know from physiology the peculiar functions of each species of organ, it will in most cases be easy to refer the anomalous functions, and their defects, to the organ to which they belong. Delirium consists in morbid ideas. It therefore implies an affection of the brain, or of that organ which contributes to ideas. The genus or the character of the fever appears from the nature of the anomalous actions. We are to examine whether they are performed rapidly, with force or weakly, or whether the peculiar actions fail altogether. Phrenitic delirium is a sign of synocha; the muttering delirium, of typhus; and insensibility in apoplexy, of palsy of the brain.

The following example will serve to illustrate one of the points which may seem most obscure in the above statement. In the beginning of hectic fever, (says the author,) the patient does not imagine himself feverish. He eats with appetite, digests, and has secretions as in health; his senses are acute; his head is clear; and the muscles, nerves, and viscera perform their functions well. The blood-vessels only have fever. The disease in this case is called a simple fever.

To this long abstract, it would be necessary to add, in order to give a full view of the work, the author's arrangement. Every attentive reader will conclude, from the very comprehensive idea given of fever, that the species must be numerous; and in fact not less than 98 occur under synocha; and as many under typhus. Twenty-eight stand under paralysis.

Besides this classification, the present volume contains observations on the complication of fevers, their causes, their type, and their cure.

Stripped of their proofs, Dr. REIL's positions will, by many, on a slight view, be pronounced absurd; and we surely shall not pledge ourselves for his success in an attempt in which so many illustrious predecessors have failed. If he seems to have extended the bounds of fever too widely, we know not who has fixed them to the satisfaction of the scientific world. He is undoubtedly, as a practitioner, a person of nice obseryation; as a literary man, well-read; as a theorist, one of enlarged views; and a thinker for himself. Probably, on the Continent, he has no equal as a speculator on organized nature; certainly, no superior. The ideas which he has thrown out, and the researches in which he is engaged, promise to lead to a more intimate acquaintance with the action and composition of living animal substances.

out,

The inquisitive part of the profession would find their account not only in the present essay, but in Dr.R.'s dissertations on irritability (or rather susceptibility); "De Cænesthesi; De Organo Anima; his " Clinical Observations;" his "Physiology;" and his " Anatomical Exercitations :" all not long since published, or now publishing, at Halle; and all having at least the merit of original ideas.

ART. XVI. Winke über Deutschlands alte und neue Staatsverfassung, i. e. Hints concerning the Old and New Constitution of Germany. 8vo. pp. 180. Germanien. 1798.

TWE author of this work professes to be very visionary, though he fixes a steady eye on the real world. He begins by climbing, in a dream, an elevated cloudy plain, in which myriads of human shadows are thronging about the ghost of Arminius, and are listening with watchful gestures to the instructions of the patriotic Cheruscan. To what Bischoffswerder of Illuminism we are indebted for the citation of this daring spirit, we know not; and in what crypt of the free. masons the imps of Faustus conveyed its lessons to the press, we forbear to suspect.

On Rastadt, the second sight of our seer appears to have rested with almost trivial attention. Surely he does not suspect that, while ultimatums and conclusums were crawling like wood-worms through the rotten desks of office, an occult senate was discussing interests of a higher order! Was the hall of its assembly pervious to this hero-shade? Has an eternal blazon taken place? This spirit (and it is a spirit which some monarchs will think they have an interest to exorcise, and which has perhaps been laid fast for a time in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea) gives a dozen points of advice to the listening Germans. For various reasons, we shall express in the closest possible form the drift of the twelve ghostly harangues. I. Beware of an enthusiastic rage for revolution. II. Conclude a firm general German union. III. Swear to maintain the entirety (Mr. Burke first employed this word) of the German empire *. IV. Swear to maintain the independence (selbstständigkeit) or autonomy of the German empire. V. If you choose a monarchic constitution, let it be a limited one: if a

* Not so the author of Grundlinien zu einer deutschen Republik, Wien, 1797: he recommends a tripartite division.

republic, republic, attend chiefly to probity in your representatives. VI. Divide the country into new shires. VII. Make your mother-tongue not only the national but the fashionable language of your country. VIII. Found your new constitution on the four main pillars of justice, freedom, equality, and morality. IX. Abolish standing armies and the system of conscription: keep a regular soldiery only for purposes of police, and trust to a national militia for the national defence. X. Reform your instituticos of education, your penal code, your system of taxation, your vitious policies, &c. XI. Observe allegiance to the extant constitution, until it be publicly abolished. XII. Remember that the salvation of Germany is to be expected from no planet, nor even from the Northern Star; but only from the sun of pure reason-(a favourite phrase of Professor Kant).

Various low drolleries disgrace this production in the eye of taste.

ART. XVII. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjabre, &c. i. e. William Meister's Apprenticeship. A Romance. Edited by GOETHE. 4 Vols. 12m0. Berlin. 1795, 1796.

A ROMANCE by the author of the Sorrows * of Werter, involving some of the most interesting questions in English literature, early engaged our attention; and, had not a disappointment in our foreign correspondence intervened, it would long since have been introduced to public notice. Even at this period, however, we perceive no reason why we should pass over in silence so remarkable a production; and we are confident that our account, if wedo justice to the author, will afford satisfaction to the reader.

No characters can differ more widely than those of Meister and Werter: no narratives, more than those which recite their adventures. The best judges of style or manner would have been foiled in their conjectures concerning the author of the present production, had it been anonymous; and we could almost wish, for experiment sake, that it had occurred to GOETHE to enjoy his fame for a time incognito: but, as he had before essayed almost every form of dramatic composition, he has also now chosen to rival himself in another department. We have here little flow of sentiment, and scarcely any swell of passion. All is light, airy, and comic, but not ludicrous. In the latter part, indeed, the writer's imagination has taken a bolder scope, but without deep pathos.

* Or rather Sufferings. This at least would be a more literal

version.

The

The incidents are very numerous and minute; and, without surprising, they sufficiently engage. A young man is strongly prepossessed in favour of the vast possible influence of dramatic representations, and is inflamed with the desire of cooperating in the reformation of mankind through the medium of the stage. Hence he becomes connected with two different sets of strollers; and his stage achievements are related at length, but in a tone that bears no relation to Scarron. Afterward, the purposes of the dramatic Quixote are changed; and here the author departs from familiar life, assumes a somewhat graver tone, and pours out the treasures of his fancy.

As a specimen which can be most easily detached, and will be read with most interest, we shall select the solution of a difficult problem in English criticism. - For a time, Meister's acquaintance with dramatic literature had been confined to the productions of the Continent; and so long Racine was his favourite: but a fortunate accident brings him acquainted with Shakspeare. Immediately, a new world of sensations and ideas is opened to him; and he proves himself capable of feeling whatever the transcendent genius of our poet is capable of inspiring. Shakspeare becomes henceforth the subject of his meditations: in him he lives and breathes; and his thoughts and discourse are full of the English bard. -The following is the manner in which he himself, on this occasion, pours out the fullness of his heart to the person to whom he owed his first acquaintance with Shakspeare. Does not GOETHE describe his own sensations?

• Scarcely had William read a few of the plays when he was unable to proceed. His whole soul fell into commotion. He sought an opportunity of speaking to Jarno, and could not sufficiently thank him for the pleasurewhich he had afforded him. "I foresaw, (returned his friend,) that you would not be insensible to the excellencies of the most extraordinary and wonderful of writers."" I recollect not," said William, "that any book, person, or event ever affected me like the precious pieces with which I became acquainted through your kindness. They appear the work of a celestial genius, which mixed with mankind in order to make us acquainted in the gentlest way with ourselves. They are no poems! The reader seems to have open before him the immense books of fate, against which the tempest of busiest life is beating, so as to drive the leaves backwards and forwards with violence. The strength and tenderness, the uproar and repose, of these compositions, have so unhinged me that I wait with impatience for the moment when I shall be in a capacity to read on." Excellent! (said Jarno, pressing his friend by the hand-) this is just what I desired"- " I wish (replied William briskly) that I could lay open to you all that is going on within me.-All the anticipations which I ever experienced respecting man and his lot, and which, unnoticed by myself, have attended me from my youth,-1

find fulfilled and unfolded in Shakspeare's plays. It seems as if he had solved all enigmas for us, and yet it is impossible to say, here (or there) is found the key. His characters appear to be creatures of nature, and yet they are not. These most perplexing and most complicated of her productions act before us, in his pieces, as if they were clocks of which the dial-plate and head were of chrystal. They shew, according to their intention, the course of the hours; and you can see at the same time the springs and wheels which impel them.".

The author becomes more interesting as he descends more to particulars;-in proof of which, we shall adduce what the hero is made to advance concerning Shakspeare's own conception of the character of Hamlet, and the tenor of that admired but ill-understood drama. Addressing himself to a company of actors, he says:

" You know the incomparable play of Hamlet. You received the greatest pleasure on hearing it read at the castle. We intended to act it; and I, not knowing what I did, undertook the part of Hamlet. I imagined that I was studying it, when I began 'to get by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes, in which the powers have full play; where the perturbed mind can vent itself in affecting sentiments, I thought that I entered fully into the spirit of the part, by taking on myself the load of deep melancholy, and under its pressure following my original through his labyrinth of humours and peculiarities. Thus I went on practising, in the conceit of becoming more and more identified with my hero.

"However, the farther I proceeded, the more difficult I found the comprehension of the whole. At length, it appeared quite impossible to attain any distinct view. I now went through the piece without interruption, and then, alas! I found much that would not, fit me. Sometimes the characters, sometimes the expressions, seemed contradictory; and I almost despaired of finding a tone in which to perform the whole part, with its excentricities and shades. 'In this perplexity, I went on for some time, till at length I hoped to reach my end by a very peculiar path.

" I hunted out every vestige of the character of Hamlet previously to his father's death. I observed what this interesting youth had been, independently of that melancholy event, and of the subsequent shocking occurrences; and what he probably would have been without them.

"Delicate and stately advanced the royal scion under the immediate influence of majesty. The idea of what is just, and of the highest dignity; the feeling of what is good and becoming, and of his own high birth; unfolded themselves together in his mind. Born to sovereignty, he wished to reign only that the good might practise their virtues unmolested. Of an agreeable form, of a benevolent heart, and of a virtuous disposition, he was the pattern of youth, and was destined to become the delight of mankind.

" Without any predominant passion, in his love to Ophelia he but anticipated the sweetest feelings of his nature. His ardour for knightly sports was not entirely original. It was necessary to APP. REV. VOL. XXVII. strengthen

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