and bafilicas innumerable, befide a great number of aqueducts, the expence of which alone is fufficient to give us the highest ⚫ ideas of the grandeur and riches of the Commonwealth, at this period.'

Our Author proceeds, in a very entertaining manner, to trace the progrefs of the architecture in Rome, till it gained the fummit of perfection; and obferves, that after the empire began to decline from the high pitch of wealth and dignity to which it had arifen, Severus was the laft emperor who diftinguished himfelf by repairing, in any manner worthy of them, the magnificent buildings of his predeceffors.

The works of architecture, as well as fculpture, executed in the times of Dioclefian and Conftantine, may, our Author apprehends, in the ftrongest manner convince us how infufficient the power of the greatest monarchs will prove towards preferving the taste of a declining age. We find indeed in their buildings, fays he, great ftrength and folidity; and, in the general plan of them, the remains of thofe great and magnificent ideas which abounded in the preceding times; but on examining each separate part, in the midst of the utmost profusion of ornament and expence, we difcover a poverty of design, and meanness of execution, which evince to how low a ftate the artists of that time, both Greeks and Romans, were reduced.'

6

The deftruction of the ancient Roman architecture was completed by the establishment of a new religion, of a genius unfavourable to the arts. The emperors who first embraced Chriftianity were led, fays Mr. Cameron, by their zeal, to remove from the eyes of the multitude every object which might recal to their minds the pomp and glory of their former facri-, fices, the beauty and rich workmanship of their idols, and the conftant fuccefs which attended their arms while under the influence of these their imaginary deities. By virtue of the edicts iffued for this purpofe, many temples were deftroyed, others fhut up, or purified and converted to the ufe of Chriftian worship.

We have seen, continues this Writer, the city of Rome, from humble beginnings, attain the fummit of glory, nourished and fupported through a long fucceffion of time, by princes whose utmost ambition was to render her name illuftrious. We must now turn our eyes to a very different profpect, and behold this great city the feat of defolation and mifery, neglected by her fovereigns, and almoft abandoned by her inhabitants; by turns a prey to the fury of barbarians, and the rage of enthufiafm; yet, notwithftanding this great reverse of fortune, venerable even in her ruins.'

The Author concludes this differtation on the rife, progrefs, and declension of the Roman grandeur, with an account of the

revival

revival of literature and the polite arts, which took place in the fourteenth century: but it is time for us to bring our extracts to a period.

Mr. Cameron now proceeds to his account and defcription of the baths of ancient Rome; but for this capital part of his work, confifting of nine chapters, we must refer our Readers to the book itself; in which they will meet with great entertainment indeed! As for the numerous and fplendid engravings by which the work is enriched, we can only fay, that they have afforded us all the fatisfaction that could poffibly be expected from a work of this kind.-The defcriptions and references are alfo given in French, for the accommodation of foreigners.

We must not omit to mention another very curious part of noble work, viz. the fine collection of Roman cielings, engraved on twenty-two large copper-plates, and containing views of the various admirable cielings in the palace of Auguftus; those in the palace and baths of Titus, and Adrian's villa; with a beautiful imitation at the Villa Madama. The number of all the plates amounts to no fewer than seventy-five; befide the many elegant vignettes, &c.

ART. VII. Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum. Autore EDVARDO LYE, A. M. Rectore de Yardley Haflings in Agro Northantonienfi. Accedunt Fragmenta Verfionis Ulphilanæ, necnon Opufcula quadam Anglo-Saxonica.-Edidit, Nonnullis Vocabulis auxit, plurimis Exemplis illuftravit, et Grammaticam utriufque Linguæ præmifit, OWEN MANNING, S. T. B. Canon. Lincoln. Vicarius de Godelming, et Rector de Peperharow in Agro Surrienfi; necnon Reg. Societ. et Reg. Societ. Antiqu. Lond. Socius. Fol. 2 Vols. 31. 3 s. in Sheets. White, &c. 1772.

IN

N the preface to this valuable work we are told, that the Author had finished it, and that about thirty fheets of it were printed under his own inspection. On his death-bed he left it in ftrict charge with his friend Mr. Manning, the learned Editor, to publish the whole. This Mr. Manning cheerfully undertook, but foon found it a much more difficult task than at firft he apprehended. Knowing the learning, abilities, and diligence of the Author, he expected to find the work omnibus fuis numeris et partibus expletum. Upon examining it, however, with care and attention, he faw many imperfections and inaccuracies in it, owing, no doubt, to the Author's age and in

*The particular baths here defcribed are thofe of Agrippa, Nero, Titus, Domitian, Trajan, Caracalla, Dioclefian, and Conftantine; of all which, together with all thofe of Antoninus, the Author has given very magnificent reprefentations, on copper-plates, of their plans, elevations, fections, views, ornaments, &c.

farmities,

firmities, and an earneft defire of finishing the whole in his life-time.

The Editor, in a manner that does him no fmall honour, has carefully revifed and corrected the whole, enriched it with very confiderable additions *, and rendered it a much more ufeful and valuable work than it would have been had he published it as the Author left it.-His own words will beft express what he has done; they are as follows: Deerat in nonnullis locis ipfa vocabulorum interpretatio. Deerant quæ fenfum aliis affignatum confirmarent exempla.-His itaque, quæ auctorem ipfum, vixiffet modo, ad unguem caftigaturum fuiffe nullus dubito, ut potui, profpexi. Alia mutanda, alia detrahenda, alia denique addenda curavi. Quæ vero prorfus omiffa, vel fufiùs explicanda videbantur, in fchedis dudum impreffis, conjeci in SUPPLEMENTUM ad calcem operis. Autographum cætera pene retexui. Adjeci, ubi res poftulare videbatur, atque ut hodierni etiam fermonis etymon exhiberetur, interpretationem Anglicanam. Adhibui exempla pene innumera; præfertim verò in variis præpofitionum fenfibus explicandis; quo facilius innotefceret antiquæ iftius linguæ idiotifmus.-Præmifi denique Grammaticam, tum Gothicam, tum Anglo-Saxonicam: pergratum ratus fore iis, qui delubra Mufarum Saxonicarum fubituri effent, fi nacti fuerint in veftibulo per quem facilis ad arcana penetralium pateret aditus.'

The Editor concludes his preface with a fhort account of the Author and his works †, to which we must refer our Readers.

ART. VIII. A methodical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Phyfic, By David Macbride, M. D. 4to. 11. s. in Boards. Cadel!, &c. 1772.

TH

HE great and deserved reputation which the Author of this performance has acquired in the medical and philofophical world, by his ingenious and original experiments and obfervations on digeftion, and by his detection of many of the properties of fixed air, together with his important practical deductions from them, will not, we apprehend, fuffer any diminution by the publication of the work before us; in which he appears indeed in the humbler, but useful walk of a compiler of a general and methodical fyftem of phyfic. Although the medical libraries feem already to be fufficiently full, fuch an

And this, too, without enhancing the terms of the fubfcription, as originally propofed by Mr. Lye; fo that confidering the peculiar difficulty and expence of the undertaking, the price of the book, which is, moreover, very handfomely printed, will certainly be deemed very moderate.

† His edition of Junii Etymologicon is fufficiently known.

undertaking,

undertaking, exccuted by the hand of a mafter, may fill properly demand an admittance, and juftly occupy the room of fome of the numerous performances under fimilar titles: the greater part of which, put together with very little regard to method, or felection, are little more than crude and injudicious compilations; in which the heterogeneous and difcordant opinions and practices of different writers, with refpect to the hiftory and treatment of difeafes, are jumbled together in the fame page, frequently without any remark made by the compiler on their manifeft incongruity; and the whole executed in fuch a manner, as can only tend to perplex or mislead the bewildered Reader who confults them.

Although the prefent work is in a great measure a compilation likewife, yet it is both with regard to its form, and the matter contained in it, in many refpects, original. As to its form in particular, a method of distribution, refembling the botanical arrangement, into claffes, orders, genera, and fpecies, is here attempted with regard to difeafes; which, notwithstanding the imperfections neceffarily attending the execution of so new a fcheme, must tend greatly to facilitate the ftudy of medicine, and reduce the practice of that complicated art to a greater degree of fimplicity: as by this fyftematic method, a great variety of difeafes, differing very much in their nomenclature, are properly brought together, and claffed under one particular order or genus, because they agree in the greatest number of circumftances, are pro luced by fimilar cautes, and are accordingly capable of being relieved by fimilar remedies.

Our illuftrious countryman, Sydenham, forefaw the benefits that would refult to the art of phyfic from an arrangement of this kind. In the preface to his works, after remarking that the writing of a true and fcientific hiftory of distempers is a work of very great difficulty; he obferves that all difeafes ought to be reduced to certain and determinate fpecies, with the fame exactnefs that we fee it done by botanic writers in their hiftories of plants: for there are diseases, he adds, that come under the fame genus, bear the same name, and have fome fymptoms in common, which, notwithstanding, being of a different nature, require a different treatment." The industrious and accurate M. Sauvages however was the first who carried into execution a compleat claffification of this kind; which was published about the time of his death, in the year 1767, in feveral volumes under the title of Nofologia Methodica. In this claborate work he has enumerated about 2400 fpecies of known diseases, that are arranged under 295 genera, which are referred to 10 general claffes. It is not to be denied, however, that he has fometimes multiplied diftinctions without neceffity (at leaft with regard to practice) and that he has accordingly, in

fome cafes, through his extreme precision, introduced obfcurity and confufion into a plan the defign of which is to produce perfpicuity and order.

Linnæus and Vogel have likewife publifhed different schemes of arrangement, and have been fucceeded in the fame talk by our ingenious countryman Dr. Cullen; who has published all the preceding fchemes, with the addition of a fourth formed by himself, in his Synopfis Nofolegiæ Methodica. So far as a method of arranging difeafes only is concerned, the Author of the prefent work, at the fame time that he has availed himself of the labours of his predeceffors, has endeavoured to correct the errors or imperfections of their refpective fyftems, and has at the fame time added a general but comprehenfive and fatisfactory view of the theory and practice of phyfic.

After this neceffary hiftorical sketch of the labours of preceding writers, in the execution of this new attempt to raise medicine from the rank of an art to that of a fcience, we fhall proceed to give fome of the principal outlines of the present Author's mode of diftribution in the work before us. A very particular analysis of fo large and complicated an undertaking, or a minute detail of the grounds on which his arrangement is founded, will not be expected from us.

Dr. Macbride firft divides all the diftempers to which the human body is liable, into four claffes; under the denominations of Univerfal, Local, Sexual, and Infantile difeafes. Though, the two laft claffes might naturally be comprehended, and are actually included, in the two firft, by the Author's four predeceffors; yet many peculiar circumftances attending the difeafes which come under these two laft denominations have determined him to feparate them; as, for the most part, they demand peculiar methods of treatment. The nature of the fubjects comprehended within thefe two claffes is too obvious to require explanation. It may be requifite, however, to explain the nature of the Author's two other divifions of difeafes, the Univerfal and Local, and to dwell fomewhat particularly on the first and most important of them.

Every difeafe is an affemblage or combination of different kinds of complaint, including either certain degrees of diftrefs, or of inability; each of which, confidered fingly, is termed, in the medical language, a fymptom. Symptoms are accordingly the component parts of a difeafe, and may naturally be divided. into Univerfal or General, and Local: the first comprehending thofe different fpecies of painful fenfation, and thofe inabilities, which affect the whole frame, and difturb the general regularity of the animal functions; and the latter, thofe fpecies of inability or diftrefs, which, being confined to particular organs or parts of the body, do not interrupt or disturb the general œconomy