If gaily clothed and proudly fed,
In dangerous wealth we dwell,
Remind us of thy manger bed,
And lowly cottage cell!
If prest by poverty severe,
In envious want we pine,
Oh may thy spirit whisper near,
How poor a lot was thine!

Thro' fickle fortune's various scene

From sin preserve us free!

Like us thou hast a mourner been,
May we rejoice in thee!"

In the whole collection of the hymns written for the weekly service of the church, there are but four or five, which, in our opinion, are at all appropriate. They are generally very beautiful, and show the taste and the fine feeling of piety which dwelt in the breast of the writer, but are not calculated either to excite or to express that species of devotional fervour, which seems so intimately connected with an act of worship. The whole seem to us to be better suited to form a class, which might be appropriately termed "Sacred Melodies," and which, set to music, might fill up the interval between the popular songs, to which some religious persons object, and those "hymns" which are manifestly devotional. To us, there appears not only impropriety, but impiety, in a hymn sung for the amusement of a miscellaneous company; and for many a religionist who would be shocked at his daughter's amusing her friends with an "Irish melody," and yet have no reluctance to her showing off her accomplishments in a hymn, or anthem, is to us very much like "straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel." Such poems as these hymns of Heber, generally, maintain a middle ground, full of pious sentiment, yet not rising into the sublimity of prayer or praise, and admirably suited, if judiciously arranged and adapted to music, as we have said, to form a class which shall be peculiarly attractive, because no piety could be offended, but, on the other hand, the taste and the heart improved. Besides the hymns, there are a few translations of Pindar admirably executed, but each too long for quotation. There are some short translations from the Hindoostanee, one of which we will give."

Sonnet by the late Nawab of Oude, Asuf ud Doula.

In those eyes the tears that glisten as in pity for my pain,
Are they gems or only dew drops? can they, will they long remain?
Why thy strength of tyrant beauty thus, with seeming ruth, restrain,
Better breathe my last before thee, than in lingering grief remain!
To yon planet, Fate has given every month to wax and wane:
And-thy world of blushing brightness-can it, will it long remain?
Health and youth in balmy moisture, on thy cheek their seat maintain;
But-the dew that steeps the rose bud-can it, will it long remain?
Asuf! why, in mournful numbers, of thine absence thus complain,
Chance has joined us, chance has parted-nought on earth can long remain.

In the world may'st thou beloved! live exempt from grief and pain!
On my lips the breath is fleeting-can it, will it long remain?

On the whole, we look upon Bishop Heber rather as a chaste and delicate and classic poet, than as distinguished by any strong marks of genius. He appears to us to have been made, not born a poet. It is to his matchless "Journal," that he is to be indebted for his lasting fame, as most acute and accurate in observation, and most interesting in description; and it is for his selfsacrificing spirit as a missionary Bishop, that his memory will be cherished by all to whose hearts the cause of Christianity is dear. We know not how better to close our protracted remarks, than by the following extract from the tribute to the memory of Bishop Heber, by Amelia Opie, which, with two others of not equal merit, have been attached to the memoir with which this volume commences:

"Here hushed be my lay for a far sweeter verse-
Thy requiem I'll breathe in thy numbers alone,
For the bard's votive offering to hang on thy hearse,

Shall be formed of no language less sweet than thy own.
"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,
Since God was thy refuge, thy ransom, thy guide;

He gave thee, he took thee, and he will restore thee,

And death has no sting, since the Saviour has died.'"*

ART. II.-Malaria: An Essay on the Production and Propagation of this Poison, and on the Nature and Localities of the places by which it is produced. By JOHN M'CULLOCH, M. D. F. R. S. Physician in ordinary to his Royal Highness Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourgh. Svo. pp.

480: 1827.

DR. JOHN M'CULLOCH, is not the politica economist, but the geologist; in which character he enjoys a well-earned fame. The present volume, however, may well be considered as a chapter on political economy, if that science may be regarded as embracing the means of diminishing disease and death, encouraging a healthy, instead of a morbid population, and obviating the greatest source of destruction in every military expedition. The facts and reasonings contained in this work, though medical, are not technical; and are such as every man in the community, reasonably educated, may understand and decide upon; and which every man in the community is deeply interested in knowing. Miasma, marsh-exhalation, malaria, is something which originates from swampy, marshy, moist ground, wherein vegetables

* Written by Bishop Heber, on the death of a friend, see page 163.

having grown, die and putrefy. In Italy, the localities of such putrefying vegetables, go by the name of maremmes; and the infectious matter there generated, when mixed with the atmosphere, is malaria, bad air. The general conditions necessary to produce it, are, a warm temperature of the atmosphere, and dead vegetables putrefying in a moist place. Vegetables that die and become disorganized in cold weather, do not appear to produce this infectious malaria; nor do vegetables that die, and are dried up by heat, in a dry place. Nor do we find it in places bare of vegetation, unless vegetable matter, liable to putrefy, be found there accidentally, or brought there purposely. Nor do we find this miasmatous air prevalent in the winter season; the months of July, August, and September, including, in warm climates, one half of October, are the seasons when this pestilence chiefly prevails. But, it has been observed, that places producing remittent fevers in the fall, are liable to produce intermittents in spring. Places completely covered with water, do not produce malaria, although the margins of such places do.

This poison is now usually supposed to be a gas, acting by its chemical properties; by others, it is presumed to be an exhalation, effluvium, or odour; the ancient opinion, at present not considered as worth investigation, is, that the deleterious quality of the air impregnated with it, is owing to animalculæ. All these theories we shall consider by and by.

The book contains eleven chapters, of which we shall give a brief analysis.

Ch. 1. On the effects of Malaria, and the utility of knowledge relating to it.

Few people are aware of the extent to which malaria affects us. It is the source of more than half the diseases to which the human race is subject, and of more than half the mortality which depopulates mankind. It seems to be the angel of destruction, ordained to maintain the necessary proportion between population and the means of subsistence. It detracts one half from the value of life in Holland ;-at least as much, and probably more, in Italy, where the maremmes extend two hundred miles, from Leghorn to Terracina, having a breadth, according to Chateauvieu, of forty miles; besides the pestilence of Rome and its neighbourhood, which threatens with dreadful probability, in less than half a century, to reduce that former mistress of the world to a desert.

"Let us turn to Italy, (says Dr. M'Culloch :) the fairest portions of this fair land are a prey to this invisible enemy; its fragrant breezes are poison; the dews of its summer evenings are death. The banks of its refreshing streams, its rich and flowing meadows, the borders of its glassy lakes, the luxuriant plains of its overflowing agriculture, the valley where its aromatic shrubs regale the eye and perfume the air; these are the chosen seats of this plague, the throne VOL. IV. No. 8.

37

of Malaria. Death here walks hand in hand with the sources of life, sparing none; the labourer reaps his harvest but to die, or he wanders amid the luxury of vegetation and wealth, the ghost of a man, a sufferer from his cradle to his impending grave; aged even in childhood, and laying down in misery, that life, which was but one disease."

This eloquent representation, is fully corroborated by M. Chateauvieu, in his Account of the Agriculture of Italy, from Pisa, p. 87, to Naples, p. 102. See Rigby's Translation of Chateauvieu's Agricultural Travels into Italy.

The chances of life in England, are variously calculated from forty to fifty years. In many parts of Holland, they are not more than about twenty-five. In many places of France, they are reduced by malaria to twenty and eighteen years. Sicily and Sardinia, and much of Greece, are similarly affected. Lincolnshire, Essex, and Cambridgeshire, and the North Riding of Yorkshire, are known seats of this pestilence in England. Oliver Cromwell died of it: and although we are become much better acquainted with its effects, and its habits, than formerly, great ignorance still prevails, even in England, on this interesting subject. People are not yet aware of the many situations pregnant with latent disease, where danger is not suspected; nor are they aware of the anomalous forms of indistinct, but painful suffering, attributable to this cause, where the absence of intermittent or remittent diseases induces a dangerous confidence and security.* Nor are the rich aware how much their own health and comfort depend on enforcing and maintaining cleanliness among the poor. They are not aware of the heavy price they pay for artificial lakes, and ornamental pieces of water, for reservoirs and fish ponds, and thick shrubberies, damp with luxuriant vegetation, near the principal mansion; or the danger too often attending the delightful rambles on the banks and borders of such places, in the cool of a summer's evening in August and September.

Nor are we sufficiently aware, either in England or in this country, that in travelling for health, the valetudinarian, in a majority of cases, on the continent of Europe, is apt to fix on situations exposed to this fertile source of disease and death. Nor has yet any good list of places on the continent been published, (Captain Smith's Statistical Tables of Sicily excepted,) the ac

Dr. M'Culloch is inclined to ascribe to this cause, the following list of disor ders.-Yellow, remittent, intermittent, and nervous fever. Dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, visceral obstructions. Dropsy, edema, obstructions of the liver and spleen. Neuralgia, and, in particular, that form of it, the tic doloreux; to which we would be strongly inclined to add the dengue of the Havana and Charleston. Scrofula and goitre. Hebetude of intellect, and general lassitude; a Baotian diathesis. Rickets, hernia, rheumatism, sciatica, tooth-ache, asthma, peripneumony, dyspepsia. Palsy, phthisis, chlorosis, are doubtful. Not that these disor ders, or any of them, do not in many cases originate from other causes, but that they are in many cases fairly ascribable to the effects of malaria or miasma.

curate result of observations made with a medical eye, which the sick may consult with confidence, and in safety, without the hazard so often incurred, of meeting disease and death in an additional form abroad, while they are trying to escape them at home.

To be tolerably well informed of the nature and character of a poison so fatal when concentrated, so destructive of bodily comfort, when we are exposed to it, even in a diluted state, and to be aware of the places liable to produce it, cannot but be important to every member of society, without exception. It forms the most prominent feature in the police of health. To give some correct, but general ideas of this too common, but unsuspected source of so many disorders, the present volume has been written; and, although many persons will be inclined to think that Dr. M'Culloch has carried his fears and denunciations to a needless extent, we are persuaded, that the fault, if a fault there be, is a fault on the right side; nor do we know of any medical treatise, (if this may be called one,) so generally interesting, and so much needed in the present state of public inattention, as the book now before us. Even in our own country, without recur ring to the swamps of the Carolinas, or the eastern shore of our seaboard, from Jersey to Georgia, how many of our cities, Philadelphia and New-York, for instance, abound in their outskirts with marshy places, puddles, ponds, and receptacles of vegetable filth, to which, in addition to the banks of rivers and streams, no physician will hesitate to refer the intermittents and remittents of our autumnal seasons. In fact, what at New-Orleans will produce yellow fever, in Virginia will give rise to bilious remittents; in Massachusetts and New-Hampshire, to agues, dysenteries, cholera, and diarrhoea. We do not say, that the many of the numerous tribe of disorders originating from the cause now under consideration, are to be attributed to it exclusively, but it is the usual and general source of them; and it behooves the public to be aware of this: the treatise now under consideration, therefore, is, in our opinion, most important and most wel

come.

Nor is it the mere production of individual disease that forms the great mischief of malaria. Mr. Foderé, in his Traité de Medecine legale, t. v. ch. i. observes, that it stints and debilitates the population, even where there is no particular disease. Ch. 2. Nature of the evidences respecting the production of Malaria in places of less suspected character.

Among travelled men of education, as well as among physicians, no doubt remains of intermittent and remittent fevers and dysenteries, being the consequence of moist and marshy places, where vegetables grow and die, and are enabled to putrefy by the warmth of the climate or season: but, among the common