His daughter maried her Gentleman Usher, Sir Thomas* Vnderhill, whom she made deafe and blind, with too much of Venus. She was living since the beheading of the late King. He had a delicate, lively hazel eie; Dr. Harvey told me it was like the eie of a viper. I have now forgott what Mr. Bushell sayd, whether his Lordship enjoyed his Muse best at night, or in the morning. Mr. Hobbes told me that the cause of his LP.'s death was trying an experiment. As he was taking the aire in a coach with Dr. Witherborne (a Scotchman, Physician to the King,) towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into my Lord's thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poore woman's house at the bottome of Highgate hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman exenterate it, and then stuffed the body with snow, and my Lord did help to doe it himselfe. The snow so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not returne to his lodgings, (I suppose then at Graye's Inne,) but went to the Earl of Arundell's house, at Highgate, where they putt him into a good bed warmed with a panne, but it was a damp bed that had not been layn in about a yeare before, which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 days, as I remember he [Mr. Hobbes] told me, he dyed of suffocation. He had a uterine + brother Anthony Bacon, who was a very great statesman, and much beyond his brother Francis for the Politiques. A lame man; he was a pensioner to, and lived with... Earle of Essex, and to him he [Francis] dedicates the first edition of his Essayes, a little booke no bigger than a Primer, which I have seen in the Bodleian Library. His sisters were ingeniose and well-bred; they well understood the use of the Globes, as you may find in the preface of Mr. Blundeville of the Sphere: see if it is not dedicated to them. One of them was maried to S' John Cunstable of Yorkshire. To this bro. in law he dedicates his second edition of his Essayes in 8vo. his last in 4to. to the D. of Bucks.' The account of Beaumont (p. 236.) seems to prove that Fletcher was the principal author of the plays which pass under their joint names. Fletcher died of the plague in 1625. In the third volume, the life of Harrington is one of the most communicative of new particulars. In the life of Selden, are suppressions which will tantalize the inquisitive. The longest, most curious, and most complete of these biographies, is the life of Hobbes; which is dilated over forty-five pages, and contains a copy of his will.-Our biographers will find, in * I thinke.' + His mother was... hall in Essex, 2d wife to Sir Nicholas Bacon,' these compositions of Aubrey, many little particulars which have hitherto escaped them: but, in our judgment, this collection again ought to have formed a separate work, and to have been introduced by an original biographical memoir of Aubrey himself. His motive for compiling the lives was to supply Anthony Wood with materials for the Athena Oxonienses; and his attention to record the personal appearance, the domestic habits, and the favourite companions of his heroes, deserves praise and imitation. Although this publication might have been better planned, and advantageously separated into two distinct works;—although it might have been more elaborately edited, and have contained some notes to correct Aubrey's errors;-yet we receive it as on the whole an useful addition to the documents for a register of British worthies. The antiquary will read it with gladness; the historian will consult it with patience; and the biographer will employ it with instruction. ART. IV. Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena: together with Meteorological Journals, &c. By Thomas Forster, F.L.S. 8vo. pp. 220. Underwood. 1813. N OTWITHSTANDING the great number of literary men, and of learned societies, who have for a long time been employing themselves in keeping registers of the weather, and in observing atmospherical phænomena, it must be confessed that neither the science of meteorology nor the practice of it has yet made any considerable progress. We can account in a satisfactory manner for very few of the changes which are daily exhibited before our eyes, and we are still unable to predict those changes with any degree of certainty. This deficiency, perhaps, has proceeded from the circumstance, that the attention has been almost exclusively directed to the instruments by which we judge of the weight, temperature, and moisture of the air; in which way we do not become acquainted with the alterations in the atmosphere till after they have taken place. When any other remarks have been made, they are expressed in language not so precise as to convey accurate ideas, and have indeed been so incorrect as to deserve little notice. Lately, however, some individuals have followed a plan of observation which seems much more likely to promote the acquisition of this species of knowlege, and which can scarcely fail to answer some useful purpose. They have carefully watched the different appearances which the clouds assume, have formed a nomenclature to record those appearances, have noticed noticed also the state of the barometer, thermometer, &c. and have compared all these particulars with the subsequent changes of the weather. This plan was first adopted, at least in a regular and systematic manner, by Mr. Howard, and has been extended still farther by the author of the volume now before us. He has been for some time in the habit of publishing his reports in the different scientific journals, and he has now thrown into a more connected form the general principles which he has deduced from his observations. Mr. Forster divides his work into ten chapters. The first is intitled introductory, and consists principally of Mr. Howard's hypothesis of the origin and modification of clouds. Mr. H.'s opinions on this subject have been some time before the public, and it would lead us beyond our limits to enter on a minute examination of them in this place: we have only to state that they are adopted by the present author, with little or no alteration, except that he subdivides the species of Mr. Howard into varieties, and gives them also specific characters and appellations, which appear to us in general very appropriate. The extension of the original arrangement occupies the second chapter, consisting of 17 sections; in which, besides the account of the modifications of the clouds, derived from their form, we have remarks on thunder-storms, rain, snow, and hail,-on the colour and elevation of cloads,-on their structure, on the luminous appearances called halos, parhelia, &c.— and, lastly, on the process of evaporation. The most original and interesting of these sections relates to halos, which are arranged and defined in a much more scientific manner than any which had previously been allotted to them; the essential differences between them are pointed out; and a nomenclature is formed, which will probably be sufficient to enable the meteorologist to note down the phænomena with the requisite accuracy. Falling stars and meteors occupy the third chapter; but it contains rather an imperfect account of them; and we think that the author has been unfortunate in adopting Mr, De Luc's hypotheses of their phosphorescent nature, which appears to us to be without foundation, subsequent chapters are less strictly scientific, and, on the whole, of less value than the first three. The indications of future changes in the weather, as deduced from the particular motions of animals, from the observation of the usual meteorological instruments, and the effects on the vital functions of organized bodies, each constitute the subject of a short chapter; and we have also some scanty remarks on winds. The account of atmospherical electricity is more ample and interesting. Mr. F. appears to regard electricity as the source of all the Bb 3 The changes changes of the atmosphere, as the cause on which they de pend, and as the immediate agent by which they are produced. The various forms which the clouds assume, the different changes which they undergo, the manner in which the modifications are converted into each other, the occurrence of rain and of fair weather, not to mention the more obvious phænomena of thunder and lightning, are all to be traced to the action of the electric fluid. The tenth chapter treats on the superstitious Notions which appear to have had their Origin in an Observance of certain meteorological Phænomena. As a specimen of Mr. Forster's manner, we shall quote the commencement of this section; premising that, in our opinion, his ideas on the subject are generally well founded : There is a natural tendency in the human mind, arising from the faculty of association, to attach ideas of good or evil to those objects which have been observed to precede or to accompany pleasurable or painful circumstances: hence the origin of many superstitious opinions. From such association of ideas, many animals were antiently worshipped, either as good or evil spirits; and even at a later period, when their worship was rejected as superstitious, or useless, they were considered as foreboders of evil or of good, Many of these superstitions originated in the observance of facts, ascribable to atmospheric influence. Thus, certain birds being affected by peculiarities of the air, previous to thunder storms, or other terrible events, and showing signs of their affections by particular habits, were found to be foreboders of tempests, hurricanes, and other dangerous atmospheric commotions; and they were subsequently considered as evil omens in general, gaining, as it were, an ill name, by their utility as monitors. So the crow garrulous, before stormy weather, was afterwards regarded as a predictor of general misfortune. Many animals too were considered by the antients as influenced by human prayers and supplications. In this manner, the observance of many real facts laid the foundation for superstitions, which terrified the ignorant, and which the designing made use of in order to acquire respect, and to aggrandize their own power. Hence the rise of sorcerers, augurs, and other impostors, the interpreters of omens and portenta, who pretended, in the peculiar flight and song of birds, to read the destinies of monarchs and of nations. It is probable, that out of a number of such predictions, some might happen to be true, where the sagacity of the augur penetrated farther into probable events than the ignorance of the multitude; and this fortuitous coincidence enhanced the public credulity, strengthened the empire of superstition, and became a fatal impediment to the progress of science throughout succeeding ages.' This chapter, as well as some of the preceding, is illus trated by numerous quotations from the classical writers, which are are appropriate and interesting: but many of them are inaccurately transcribed. We have only farther to remark that this tract, although it contains many errors of style, and some weak and unimportart observations, possesses considerable claims to respect, and must tend to the advantage of the science which the author has cultivated with so much assiduity. ART. V. A Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases, according to the Arrangement of Dr. Willan, exhibiting a concise View of the diagnostic Symptoms and the Method of Treatment. By Thomas Bateman, M.D. F.L.S. Physician to the Public Dispensary, and to the Fever Institution. 8vo. 12s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1813. EVERY member of the medical profession is sufficiently sensible of the loss which it sustained by the premature death of Dr. Willan; in consequence of which his classical work on the diseases of the skin was left in so unfinished a state, that the part which still remains unprinted is not likely ever to meet the public eye. We are happy, however, to be able to say that this great desideratum is, in a considerable degree, supplied by the author of the volume now before us; though Dr. Bateman, in his preface, modestly declines any comparison with Dr. Willan, and very candidly acknowleges how far he is indebted to him for his materials: To prevent any misapprehension in regard to the nature and object of this volume, it may be necessary to state, that it is not brought forward with any pretensions to supply the deficiencies which have been left in the valuable treatise of Dr. Willan, or to be considered as the completion of that original work. Its sole purpose is to present an abstract of the classification proposed by that respected author, together with a concise view of all the genera and species, which he intended that it should comprehend. The materials for the description of the first four Orders have been obtained principally from Dr. Willan's publication, of which the first part of this Synopsis may be regarded as an abridgement: some additional facts, however, have been supplied from subsequent observation. The remainder of the matter has been derived partly from personal experience and research, but principally from a constant intercourse with Dr. Willan, upon the subject of these diseases, during a period of ten years, while his colleague at the Public Dispensary, and from his own communications in his last illness, before he departed for Madeira, when he kindly undertook a cursory perusal of his unfinished MSS. for my information, during which I made notes relative to those points with which I was least acquainted.' Our readers will recollect that the last part of Dr. W.'s system, which he lived to finish, was the fourth, comprizing Bb 4 the |