and that of the sun. The danger to be apprehended is generally in proportion to the preternaturally heated and excited state of the body, the degree of coldness in the water, and the quantity that is suddenly taken. When these circumstances concur in a high degree, the patient within a few moments after swallowing the water" is affected by a dimness of sight; he staggers in attempt ing to walk, and unless supported, falls to the ground; he breathes with difficulty; a ratling is heard in his throat; his nostrils and cheeks expand and contract in every act of respiration; his face appears suffused with blood, and of a livid colour; his extremities become cold, and his pulse imperceptible; and, unless relief be speedily obtained, the disease terminates in death in four or five minutes." (Rush.) This description includes only the less common, but more violent and rapidly tragical effects produced by a large and sudden draught of cold water, when the body is greatly heated In ordinary cases the patient is seized with acute spasms in the stomach and chest, attended with great oppression and inexpressible anguish. The spasms are seldom permanent, but occur only at intervals, and sometimes with pains so excruciating as to be productive of syncope, or even asphyxia. In the intervals between the spasms, he is much relieved, and to appearance is sometimes quite well.

Liquid laudanum has been considered the only certain remedy for this disease. This given, as in other cases of spasm, in doses proportioned to the violence of the symp. toms; spirituous fomentations to the chest, abdomen and extremities, or the warm bath, if it can be readily obtained; clysters of spirits and water, or warm milk and water; and rubbing the body with spirits of ammonia, or other stimulating embrocations, constitute the means commonly resorted to in the treatment of this complaint. Where the vital powers appear to be suddenly suspended, the same remedies are directed to be used which have been found so successful in cases of persons apparently dead from drowning.

For the purpose of allaying excitement and irregular action, as well as to prevent local congestions, or to guard against their effects where they have already taken place, it is frequently necessary, in addition to the above remedies, to employ the lancet, and sometimes very freely, particularly in robust and plethoric habits. The head is very apt to be affected in this complaint, and in consequence of a determination of blood to that part, the brain becomes oppressed, and there is reason to believe that a mortal apoplexy has not unfrequently been the

result. After bleeding, the Semicupium, or half bath of warm water, has sometimes been attended with immediate relief. Stimulating cataplasms of mustard applied to the region of the stomach are also highly beneficial. On account of the febrile excitement that generally takes place very soon in this disease, we cannot approve of the promiscuous administration of ardent spirits and other heating remedies, except, perhaps, where they are given at the very commencement. Occasional draughts of warm water, to which a little whey may be added, would in general be found more useful, together with clysters of the same, or of warm milk and water.

Quinsies, peripneumonies, obstructions and inflammations of the liver, and other parts of the abdomen, are some of the more remote and less immediately dangerous consequences which flow from the free use of cold water, when the body is much heated by exercise, labour, or exposure to the sun.

In the general bill of mortality for the month of July, 330 deaths are recorded: from

Abscess, 1; Apoplexy, 5; Cancer, 3; Casualty, 5; Child-bed, 1; Cholera Morbus, 12; Consumption, 58; Convulsions, 29; Contusion, 1; Cramp in the Stomach, 1; Diarrhœa, 13; Drinking Cold Water, 9; Dropsy, 3; Dropsy in the Head, 10; Dropsy in the Chest, 1; Drowned, 9; Dysentery, 8; Epilepsy, 1; Fever, 1; Fever, bilious, 1: Fever, Hectic, 1; Fever, Inflammatory, 3; Fever, Typhous, 41; Gravel, 1; Hæmoptysis, 1; Hæmorrhage, 1; Hives, 2; Hooping Cough, 14; Inflammation of the Brain, 3; Inflammation of the Chest, 5; Inflammation of the Stomach, 1; Inflammation of the Liver, 7; Inflamation of the Bowels, 3; Insanity, 1; Intemperance, 3; Jaundice, 2; Killed or Murdered, 2; Locked Jaw, 1; Marasmus, 2; Measels, 1; Mortification, 3; Old Age, 14; Palsy, 3; Pneumonia Typhodes, 2; Scrophula, 3; Sore-Throat, 1; Spasms, 1; Sprue, 1; Still-born, 3; Sudden Death, 3; Suicide, 1; Syphilis, 4; Tabes Mesenterica, 7; Teething, 7; Unknown, 4; Worms, 4.-Total 330.

Of this number there died 69 and under the age of 1 year; 31 between 1 and 2 years; 16 between 2 and 5; 11 between 5 and 10; 11 between 10 and 20; 37 between 20 and 30; 47 between 30 and 40; 48 between 40 and 50; 25 between 50 and 60; 13 between 60 and 70; 14 between 70 and 80; 7 between 80 and 90; and 1 between 90 and 100 years.

JACOB DYCKMAN, M.D.
New-York, July 31st, 1818.

stones, medallions and prints-to the artist, also, let us not be less liberal,-he whose glowing and creative imagination, impregnated with the fire of genius, and richly embued with the unperished and exquisite forms of classic antiquity, imparts life to the inanimate marble, or charms us with the magic of pictorial design, and the fascination of colour-and who his mind full of the lustre which his art sheds, and will ever shed, round the proudest states, dwells with transport on names and topics connected with his profession-will not, assuredly, fail of our indulgence when, the recollection of the sublime geniuses who have graced it floating across his memory, he launches forth in its commendation, and elevates it above all other pursuits. And thus is it with every one whose avocation relates to the nobler endowments of our nature; in the tradesman and working mechanic it would, indeed, be not a little absurd to expect such a feeling, inasmuch as the objects occupying their thoughts, time we had better said, are of a nature completely distinct from those connected with intellect; but with respect to every pursuit demanding the active co-operation of mind, we conceive it will be usually remarked that in the estimation of its cultivators its supereminent value acquires a most implicit faith, and that they are ever ready to speak its praises with an ardour and enthusiasm which, however it may excite the ridicule of the vulgar, will always be met with the utmost candour and indulgence by the more refined and intelligent portions of the community.

And shall not the MAN OF LETTERS— he whose occupations more than those perhaps of any other class of society, are largely and intimately linked with those qualities and attributes which give to man his superiority over the brute creation-shall not the man of letters be admitted to the same privilege? Shall a profession so manifold in its departments, and in each so important, be unpermitted the claims to distinction freely granted to the practisers of sciences which, however honourable and deserving they may be of the respect of mankind, are nevertheless incalculably more limited in their range, than the almost boundless field within which the literary character pursues his researches? Granting to the advocate, the architectural and medical professor, the artist, &c. their full title to the admiration of the world, would it be just to refuse our applause to him whose mind, frequently at the expense of his

constitution, and by the inflexible rejection of all the pleasures of society, has acquired a strength and subtility, which elevate him, in the happiest instances of such acquisitions, far beyond the ordinary level of even cultivated intellect? He has expatiated over an ampler surface—he has become familiarised with all the remoter springs of whatever is sublime and beautiful-of all that is intellectually grand or splendid-of all, in fine, that approximates the human to a higher order of beings. Of the professional characters we have enumerated, the lawyer may advance high and legitimate pretensions to the esteem of his fellow-citizens ;—as a moralist by avocation-for law may be defined as neither more nor less than a system of practical reasoning and morality,-his studies have deeply initiated him in the duties which civilized society imposes on its members-his profession is eminently a public one-he is a conservator of the general weal-and from his perpetual intercourse with various classes of men, he acquires a practical knowledge of the human character in all its shades of good and evil, unattainable by any other process. In one respect, indeed, it has frequently occurred to us that the profession of the lawyer assimilates him with the confessor of catholic countries, an order of men who have always been celebrated for their knowledge of the world, which is only another phrase for the virtues and vices of its members. The very nature of his employment renders it necessary for all who seek his assistance to unbosom themselves to him with scarcely more reserve than the Italian or Spaniard uses towards his priest, and though, unlike the monk, the lawyer is not invested with the power of absolution, he will, if he be a moral and conscientious man, not infrequently be enabled to frustrate the machinations of evil minds, and diminish the pressure of unmerited misfortune. The advocate and his client-the confessor and his penitent—stand related to each other, as far as regards the important and main result of such connexion

pretty nearly in the same manner and ratio with this essential difference, however, that, while the influence of the priest, exercised over the fears of ignorance and superstition, tends to the abasement, and, through the medium of absolution, to the corruption of society, the same knowledge which he attains through terror, and practises for deception, the lawyer acquires by means honourably and indispensibly connected with his profession, and uses for purposes

which we would willingly suppose equally redounding to his credit. The architect -the physician-the artist, &c. also occupy eminent and brilliant stations in the intellectual and professional world-let them all receive that legitimate and liberal homage to which talent is entitled, which will always be cheerfully rendered by their enlightened contemporaries, and which in after ages will shed round their name and memory a magnificence surpassing that of kings. Yet let us not in our admiration of talents devoted to the useful or brilliant arts, forget the superior glory poured round the brows of a nation by the genius of its authors, nor be unjust to the merits of men, who in the silence of night, as amid the bustle of the day, rejecting the allurements of pleasure, and scorning every lighter object, are consecrating the whole strength of their matured and vigorous faculties to the building up a monument to their own and country's glory-a monument that shall outlast the splendid but perishable labours of art, and when the dome and the statue have crumbled into dust, and the tints flown from the decaying canvas, shall shed a strong radiance over the sepulchre of national greatness, and present to remotest ages a triumphant and immortal testimony of the power and divinity of genius.

Perhaps some of our more sober readers may conceive us a little enthusiastic in our estimation of the importance and lustre of the literary character, and accuse us of partiality towards a profession of which we are, certainly, proud of being members, however humble. Were it so, we do not think we should be very open to censure. To the concessions we would make which we have made to others, literary men are assuredly also entitled, and if the fact were otherwise than we have stated, our eulogium would be no unwarrantable stretch of the privilege accorded to science and art, nor would the courtesy of liberal minds feel oppressed by the extent of our demands. But we are bold in affirming that our panegyric is but co-equal with the merits of its objects, and we would appeal in support of our assertion, to the evidence which ages have left us. Time is the grand witness in questions of this nature, and he is on our side. Let us, for a moment, turn our eyes to those nations and periods most distinguished in the page of history-those periods and nations to which the veneration of the modern world, with all its wonderful improvements, is yet fondly attached-and see

what are the foundations on which reposes the structure of their fame, or at least that portion of it which is most illustrious, and which will be as fresh a thousand years hence, when the ruins of Athens, and Syracuse, and Rome, shall be mingled in dust with the ground on which they stand, as now. Is it not to their literature that those renowned states owe the transmission of their glory, and the preservation of those talents and virtues which built up and cemented the fabric of their grandeur and prosperity? Were we deprived of the poems of Homer, and Hesiod, and Pindar, what should we know of the early stages of Hellenic civilization, of that memorable war which mixed in eternal conflict the arms of Greece and Asia, or of institutions which had no trivial share in the formation of the national character of the people among and by whom they were established? It is in the divine strains of those immortal bards that we meet with the living pictures of the manners, improvements, exploits, and domestic sports of their countrymen. Not so much to the exquisite genius of their painters, sculptors, and architects did the ancients trust the immortality of their fame, as to the more lasting labours of their unrivalled writers. The physiog nomy of Pericles might be preservedeven for some few centuries--by the pencil of Pannus, or the chisel of Phidias but the memory of his wisdom, and those profound talents which raised his country to supremacy among her sister states→ to carry down to future times the record of his intellectual features-this was the task of Thucydides :-and thus was it with all the great or distinguished characters of antiquity-marble and canvas were not the chief propagators and preservers of their renown-had their trust been in these, slender indeed would be our acquaintance with the heroes and sages of Greece and Rome.-Nothing, in truth, shows more strikingly the comparative inefficacy of the arts to confer immortality on those whose actions they aim at perpetuating, than the fact that almost all our knowledge of their progress and chefs-d'œuvres, arises from the interest which literature has taken in their advancement and perfection. This is unquestionably the case inasmuch as it respects the arts of antiquity, for the specimens of Grecian sculpture (of painting there are none) that have survived the ravages of time and barbarism, though they show the perfection to which the art had arrived in the time of the artist, are still too few to give a complete idea of that universal

diffusion throughout Greece, of the taste which is generally spoken of as confined to Athens; and were it not for the pains taken by the Greek and Roman writers to transmit to posterity memorials of their countrymen's excellence in arts, as well as in arms and legislation, we might now have to lament our very imperfect acquaintance with their general and ardent cultivation of them. Literature has always been the firm ally of every thing connected with the glory of the countries in which it has flourished, and has provided for the productions of art, and the discoveries of science, a temple which lightning cannot scathe, nor the thunderbolt level with the dust, nor the earthquake heave from its foundations and now that the press extends its Briaræan support to the friends of the muses, we have little reason to apprehend the destruction of her treasures from any of the causes which, previously to its invention, had contributed to mutilate or destroy them--and we have reason to suppose that it will eternally continue the proud and noble prerogative of letters, to gather up in their silent but glorious march, the memorials of contemporary genius, and to bear down to future ages the record of all that art and science have accomplished to illustrate the past. Indeed, it will be evident to the least reflective mind, that the productions of the painter and sculptor, depending for their existence on materials subject to all the casualties of nature and accident, would be gradually obliterated from the memory, and abandoned by the admiration of society, were it not for the protecting hand and embalming influence of literature. How strikingly is this evinced by the brightest periods of modern art-the age of the Medici-and that of Louis XIV. To what chances have the chefsd'œuvres of those times, so honourable to the arts, been exposed! And how probable is it that the course of events which have already and repeatedly placed the capitals of Italy, Germany, and France in the power of exasperated enemies-may, and, perchance, at no very distant period, involve in destruction the works of Michael Angelo, Titian, and Rembrandt; of DAVID, and CANOVA. But their memory will not perish, and it will be the task of the muse and the historian, to inform all ages of the contributions made by the illustrious of their times to the splendour and glory of their country, and to waft down to latest posterity the tidings of their mighty achievements.

We have indulged ourselves to such length upon the train of reflections to which the words of Johnson, and the work before us, gave birth, that we are compelled to deal in rather a summary with the pleasing volume of Mr. D'Israeli. It is an enlarged republication of a tract that we recollect to have perused many years since in England. The motives which induced the ingenious author to bring it again forward, will be best described in his own words :—

"I published, in 1795, an Essay on the Literary Character;' to my own habitual and inherent defects, were superadded those however, not ill received, for the edition of my youth; the crude production was, disappeared; and the subject was found to be more interesting than the writer.

"During the long interval which has elapsed since the first publication, the little volume was often recalled to my recollection by several, and by some who have since obtained celebrity; they imagined that their attachment to literary pursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an concurred with these opinions:-a copy effort. An extraordinary circumstance has which has accidentally fallen into my hands, formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of our times; and the singular fact that it was twice read by him in two subsequent years, at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly convinced me that the volume deserved my attention. I tell this fact assuredly, not from any little vanity which it may appear to betray, for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as candid in respect to my own could not have been gratified by the present productions, as I hope I am to others, I circumstance; for the marginal notes of the noble writer convey no flattery-but amidst their pungency and sometimes their truth, the circumstance that a man of genius could, and did read, this slight effusion at two different periods of his life, was a sufficient authority, at least, for an author to return it once more to the anvil; more knowledge, will now fill up the rude sketch of my and more maturity of thought, I may hope, youth; its radical defects, those which are inherent in every author, it were unwise for me to hope to remove by suspending the work to a more remote period.

"It may be thought that men of genius only should write on men of genius; as if it were necessary that the physician should be infected with the disease of his patient. He is only an observer, like Sydenham, who confined himself to vigilant observation, and the continued experience of tracing the progress of actual cases (and in his department, but not in mine) in the operation of actual remedies. He beautifully says Whoever describes a violet exactly as to its colour, taste, smell, form, and other properties, will find the description agree