stituted mind rejects all the dross and debasement of savage habits and sentiments, and adopts all the nobler attributes of the Indian; his enthusiastic passion for nature in her unrifled freshness, for the forest in the inviolate solemnity of its hoar antiquity-all these elements harmoniously mingle to fix the impress of genius on this noble original. He is a creation which proves that Shakspeare has not exhausted the new world if he has the old. Of all our author's efforts, it gives us infinitely the highest idea of power. We except none, for though exuberantly fertile in the invention of "moving accidents by flood and field"-the talent with which he appropriates them is melo-dramatic, not tragic. As his humour is not playful nor his wit exquisite, so there is little that is ethereal in his imagination. It is powerful, but wants the tempering guidance of instinctive taste. There is truth in the scenery, but it is brought to the mind's eye as by the camera, with not enough of the exclusion and heightening of art, and even in the most graphic and spirited of his sea pictures, there is occasionally a rawness and feebleness of execution, a want of repose, and a jejuneness of effect-an absence of boldness in the outlineand of those evanescent touches in the colouring, the unbought graces and poetical hues-the sylphs that hover around the pencil of a master, and distinguish his finished magic, from the mere skill of the correct draughtsman-and yet all other sea pictures are tame to Cooper's!

ART. VIII.-The Anatomy of Drunkenness. By ROBERT MCNISH, Member of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. 1st American from 2d London edition. Philadelphia. 1828.

THIS is a very amusing, and in some respects, a very instructive book. It professes to treat scientifically of a moral and physical disease, which, by its extensive diffusion in some portions of our country, has attracted most powerfully the sympathies of the benevolent, and engaged most anxiously the reflections of the wise.

It has been said that there is scarcely an important era in the history of the world, that is not marked by some moral epidemic of absorbing, if not exclusive prevalence, which, either for good or for evil, influences the destiny of man. The origin and progress of these epidemics are to be found in that instinctive love or aptitude for the stimulus of physical and intellectual excitement, which, connected with all our passions, make up a part, and a large part of our common nature. It is thus that certain epochs have had their characteristic and peculiar moral maladies. We find at some periods, the fires of religious intolerance ministering to the excitement which the human mind is so perpetually seeking, and at others, the proud spirit of chivalry exercising an irrepressible control over the opinions and manners of society. Shall we say that drunkenness is the epidemic of modern times, and that chemistry has revealed, through the fatal distillation of alcohol, a pernicious and brutal stimulus, by which the character of the age in which we live, is essentially affected, and the hopes of man paralyzed by the spells of this demoniac indulgence. If we are to take as undeniable, the statistics of drunkenness which the Temperance Associations of our own country have promulged, we think it would be difficult to resist this conclusion, and still more difficult to resist the imputation, that the inhabitants of these United States are the most intemperate of an intemperate age. If we even admit that some of the pictures, as well as some of the estimates in these statements are overcharged, enough remains of unquestionable truth, to satisfy every reflecting man, that society ought to be perpetually on its guard against the seductive influence of inebriating potions, and that we cannot too often or too seriously calculate how large an addition these fatal compounds have made to the sum of human suffering.

The ancients, "according to their opportunities," to use a homely, but significant phrase, were somewhat addicted to the bottle, but, fortunately for them, they were in blessed ignorance of the art of manufacturing either Antigua, or Blue-ruin, Cognac or Farraintoch. The simplest and the weakest wines, formed the only inebriating beverage they used; consequently, the effects of their intemperance were less hurtful, whilst the examples of this vice must have been infinitely less frequent than in modern times. Solitary drunkenness, that last and most disgraceful exhibition of the infirmity among the moderns, was,we apprehend, among them of rare occurrence, as the poets of antiquity never speak of the indulgence in wine, except in connexion with the pleasures of conviviality and social enjoyment. The patron of the vine they placed among their gods,

and even his foster father, "the drunken old Silenus," was a philosopher of no small sagacity, who accompanied Bacchus in his Indian expedition, and assisted him by the soundness of his counsels. The vice with them, therefore, could neither have been marked by the maudlin stupidity, frenzied insanity or palsied atrophy which await its progress in modern times. Their indulgence in a comparatively harmless potation was connected with the pleasures of society; their sparkling bowls gave inspiration to their poets, and animated the exquisite strains of Anacreon and Horace. These Teæn odes, harmless in the times in which they were sung, have since become in this rum and brandy generation, the most dangerous and seductive authorities to warrant the excessive use of a liquid fire, unknown to, and untasted by the masquers and revellers of antiquity.

But after all, this philosophical fact may be taken as undeniable, that there is no period in the history of the world, in which man has not been addicted to the use of artificial stimulus. We may predicate of it, that it is a universal appetite, existing in all ages and all stages of society, with more or less evil according to the intensity of the indulgence, the climate, the civilization and temperament of the people. Tacitus tells us that the Germans were in the habit of using ale or beer to great excess, and even in the interior of Africa a similar practice prevailed, whilst all the descendants of the great northern or Scandinavian hive, soon learnt how to extract from the vegetable kingdom, some poisonous drop, which, in deceitfully alleviating for a moment the burdens of existence, superadds an age of accumulated mis sery.

The Arabian alchemists in their search for gold, are supposed to have discovered the mode by which ardent spirits are to be procured by distillation. The Crusaders brought back into Europe on their return from the East, this knowledge, and thus inflicted upon their descendants the curse of an infinitely more pernicious stimulus, than the excitement which had carried them abroad. If this fatal discovery was made in Asia, its people, perhaps, have suffered less from it than any other inhabitants of the globe. Mahomet, with the wisdom of a great lawgiver, saw the enervating and debasing tendency of the use even of wine, and denied this indulgence to the faithful. But as an incontestible proof of the instinctive proneness of man to seek and enjoy the fascinating excitement of artificial stimulus, the Turk flies to opium to build his airy castles in the skies.

This universal proclivity in man, this desire to cheat life of its cares either by the oblivion or the delusions of the bottlethis too frequent effort to tranquillize by extraneous means the

disordered system, or to impel the blood in an impetuous torrent through the fevered arteries; this frenzied hope of flying from the "ills we have," even at the risk of awaking in the arms of desolation and despair; ought to impress upon all, the great truth, that it is in this quarter modern society is in most danger, in this vortex the most valuable enjoyments of man on this side of the grave are most likely to be absorbed.

We will turn to our author to unveil the horrors of this charnel house. He has well entitled his minute dissection, the "Anatomy of Drunkenness," which is exhibited by member, joint and limb, in the separate portions of its naked and abstract deformity.

After tracing as he does with a good deal of acumen, and with much vivacity of narrative, the history of drunkenness from the most remote ages, he indulges in the following train of reflections:

"Drunkenness has varied greatly at different times, and among different nations. There can be no doubt that it prevails more in a rude than a civilized state of society. This is so much the case that as men get more refined the vice will gradually be found to soften down and assume a less revolting character; nor can there be a doubt that it prevails to a much greater extent in northern than southern latitudes. The nature of the climate renders this inevitable, and gives to the human frame its capability of withstanding liquor; hence the quantity which scarcely ruffles the frozen current of a Norwegian's blood, would scatter madness and fever into the brain of a Hindoo. Even in Europe the inhabitants of the south are far less adapted to sustain intoxicating agents than those of the north. Much of this depends upon the coldness of the climate, and much also upon the peculiar physical and moral frame to which that coldness gives rise. The natives of the south are a lively versatile people, sanguine in their temperament, and susceptible to an extraordinary degree of every impression. Their minds seem to inherit the brilliancy of their climate, and are rich with sparkling thought and beautiful imagery. The northern nations are the reverse of all this. With more intensity of purpose, with greater depth of reasoning powers, and superior solidity of judgment, they are in a great measure destitute of that sportive and creative brilliancy which hangs like a rainbow over the spirits of the south, and clothes them in a perpetual sunshine of delight. The one is chiefly led by the heart, the other by the head. The one possesses the beauty of the flower garden, the other the sternness of the rock with its severe and naked hardihood. Upon constitutions so differently organized, it cannot be expected that a given portion of stimulus will operate with equal power. The airy, inflammable nature of the first is easily roused to excitation, and manifests feelings which the second does not experience, until he has partaken much more largely of the stimulating cause. On this account the one may be inebriated and the other remain comparatively sober upon a similar quantity. In speaking of this subject, it is always to be remem

bered, that a person is not to be considered as a drunkard because he consumes a certain portion of liquor, but because what he does consume produces certain effects upon his system. The Russian therefore may take six glasses a day and be as temperate as the Italian who takes four and the Indian who takes two. But even when this is acceded to, the balance of sobriety will be found in favour of the south; the inhabitants there not only drink less but are bona fide more seldom intoxicated than the others. Those who have contrasted London and Paris may easily verify this fact, and those who have done the same to the cities of Moscow and Rome, can bear still stronger testimony. Who ever heard of an Englishman sipping cau sucrée and treating his friends to a glass of lemonade? Yet such things are common in France, and of all the practices of that country they are those most thoroughly visited by the contemptuous malisons of John Bull."

We believe the speculations of our author to be philosophically just, and that it is in some measure borne out by what we know and see of the relative influence of climate on this continent, and within these United States. Taken as a whole community, intemperance, although every where too common, prevails, we suspect, more extensively in the Northern than in the Southern States of this confederacy. Indeed, the appalling statements made under the sanction, and by the authority of the Temperate Societies at the North, amply sustain this hypothesis, as our bills of mortality shew no such number of victims immolated at the shrine of the dæmon of alcohol, as these societies enumerate, whilst the fact is beyond all dispute, that drunkenness, as a physical disease, is much more fatal and incurable in a southern than a northern climate. But we will forbear anticipating what we have to say on these statistics in another portion of this article.

Our author has divided his subject into several separate heads of discussion, the principles of which are-1st. the Causes of Drunkenness; 2d. the Phenomena of Drunkenness; 3d, the Physiology of Drunkenness; 4th, the Pathology of Drunkenness; 5th. the method of Curing the habit of Drunkenness.

The Causes of Drunkenness.-These are so succinctly and lucidly stated, and at the same time of so much practical value, -as in this disease to prevent is far more easy and efficient than to cure that we cannot do better than transcribe verbatim what our author has to say on this topic.

"The causes of drunkenness are so obvious, that few authors have thought it necessary to point them out; we shall merely say a few words on the subject. There are some persons who will never be drunkards, and others who will be so in spite of all that can be done to prevent them. Some are drunkards by choice and others by necessity. The