be perplexed and embarrassed. These peculiarities of composition, whether originating in carelessness or in affectation, have long since become too inveterate to be remedied; and Mr. Bentham's friends and admirers can now only deplore that the high merit of his writings is obscured, and their usefulness impaired, by these singularities and obstructions of expression. ART. VIII. A Sketch of the Economy of Man. 8vo. pp. 306. 10s. Boards. Longman and Co. F this title be intended, as we presume it is, to denote a general view of the physical, intellectual, and moral constitution of the human being, it is considerably too extensive for the work to which it is affixed; which relates almost solely to the reciprocal influence of the bodily frame and the powers and affections of the understanding. In taking this confined view of human nature, we are not aware that much will be found in the publication before us that is really original, or that has not been better said by preceding writers. - The introduction presents us with the familiar distinction between dead and living matter; the former of which is subject to the laws that regulate chemical combinations, while the latter is endowed with a principle which enables it to resist them, and at the same time confers individuality on the organized substance to which it is attached. In addition to this endowment, animals possess another which we call the sensitive power; and also (at least the higher classes of them) a power which can examine, compare, and deliberate on the effects produced on the organs of sense; this second something is called the rational power. If, then, the brutes possess the rational power, and to such an extent that, in the present author's opinion, the savage has little to boast in this respect over the higher orders of quadrupeds, in what, he asks, does the superiority of man consist? There is, according to him, a third something, to which he assigns the name of spirit: but of its peculiar functions he gives no very distinct or intelligible account; nor does he any where explain for what reason the peculiarities observable in the mental constitution of man may not all be referred to the exercise of the rational power, which is allowed to be similar in kind, but vastly superior in degree, and in the extent of its application, to that which is observed in any of the lower animals. Thus the constitution of the human frame appears to depend on a somewhat complicated combination of principles. We Cc 4 have, have, first, the body; then the principle of life, which distinguishes organized from unorganized matter; thirdly, the sensitive power, or what the author chooses to denominate the soul; fourthly, the rational power, or mind, which according to him is common to man with at least the higher orders of brutes; and, lastly, the spirit. For this triple distribution of the powers of the human intellect, he goes, we think, somewhat out of his way to search for scriptural evidence; and he has contrived, by ingeniously putting together two passages from different epistles, to press St. Paul into the service. It is true that the Apostle uses the three terms πνεῦμα, ψυχή, and yous: but that he has used them in the peculiar sense in which this writer wishes to consider them remains to be proved. The only threefold division to which he ever refers is that of some Greek philosophers into spirit, soul, and body; meaning, probably, by the soul the sensitive faculties of man, and by the spirit the mental powers, or the higher principles of a rational nature. We see no reason, however, for supposing that, in thus incidentally adopting their language, the Apostle intended to sanction the philosophical hypothesis on which that language was founded; and, in the latter of the two passages cited, it is quite evident that the term vous is equivalent to πνεῦμα in the former. In the triplicity which the present author has thus detected in the powers of the mind, he fancies that he perceives an illustration of the Trinity: With regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, (he observes,) we have just seen that we have in ourselves a familiar and a beautiful illustration of it; we, each of us, are a mystery to ourselves; in each of us several parts, several powers, are united, each of us is one and is many. The belief then that our religion requires from us respecting the Deity, is but a belief of the same kind with that which we must subscribe to respecting ourselves. Where then are the grounds, where is the excuse for infidelity ?' We are apprehensive that the unbeliever would not be so ready as the writer before us to perceive this familiar and beautiful' analogy; and we suspect he would find in it only a subject of ridicule which we regret to see thrown in his way. To us, the illustration is certainly new; and it appears just as satisfactory as the celebrated triad in musical harmony, or even the shamrock by which St. Patrick established the orthodoxy of his Irish converts. Let every doctrine, which professes * Τὸ πνεῦμα και ἡ ψυχὴ, καὶ τὸ σῶμα. 1 Thess. v. 29., and ματαιότητι το νος αυτών. Ephes. iv. 17, to to be of divine authority, be referred to its proper evidence, the testimony of Scripture; - by that let it stand or fall. The chapter intitled a Sketch of the Body of Man is a sort of compend of anatomy; which is correct enough as far as it goes, but scarcely suited to the purpose for which it appears to be inserted here. For those who already understand the subject it is superfluous; and for those who do not, it is insufficient. The next chapter, on Sensation, is the most elaborate part of the work, and contains a number of curious facts and observations which the author's profession (for he is evidently a medical man) peculiarly enabled him to furnish: but he does not appear to have thrown much additional light on this obscure subject. The following passage seems to contain the sum and substance of his doctrine of sensation : When an impression upon a nerve produces sensation, we consider that such impression must produce some, change in the state or condition of such nerve; but we find that if there exist not previously in such nerve that which is called Sensibility, impressions will fail to produce that change in a nerve which is essential to the production of sensation. Sensibility as applied to a nerve implies, then, a state of nerve which fits it for having changes produced in it by what are called Impressions. We conceive that different impressions produce different changes of state in nerves, for the production of all which changes it is essentially necessary that there pre-exist that state of nerve which is called Sensibility. Those states which are thus produced by impressions upon a nerve possessed of sensibility, and which so produced lead to sensitiveness and to sensation, we will call Sensual States of a nerve. 'The order then in which I conceive sensation to arise from an impression upon a nerve is as follows; in the first place, there must be a certain state of the nerve which is to receive the impression, which state fits the nerve for undergoing a change, or assuming another state, from the action of the thing impressing; this first state so required is called Sensibility; in the second place, the impression must so affect the nerve as to bring about in it a certain state which we have called a Sensual State; some communication must then be made to the cranial brain; some effect must be produced on it in consequence of the sensual state so produced in the nerve; then, in consequence of this communication, or of this effect, so transferred to the cranial brain, the sensitive power, or soul, is affected, and sensitiveness arises; this sensitiveness in some way or other affects the mind, and sensation is the result.' We certainly perceive nothing very distinct or satisfactory in all this but perhaps the speculations even of eminent writers on the subject of sensation amount to little more. ART. ART. IX. Werner, a Tragedy. By Lord Byron. 8vo. 5s. 6d. sewed. Murray. 1822. Gr LOOMY and even tragical as most of the poetry of Lord Byron has been, it cannot surprize us that he should now appear particularly inclined to court the inspiration of the tragic muse in a specifically dramatic form: yet he does not seem to be disposed towards any attempts for scenic exhibition, nor decidedly to adhere to any strict rules of dramatic writing. In some recent plays, he was the advocate and observer of the unities: but in the tragedy before us, which he most especially announces as neither intended nor in any shape adapted for the stage,' he has disregarded the boundaries of time and place. There are other rules of composition, also, much more necessary to the attainment of excellence, to which his Lordship has been equally inattentive, The claims of Werner,' indeed, as a literary work, are brought into a small compass by Lord Byron's own account of it; for in the preface he says that The following drama is taken entirely from the "German's Tale, Kruitzner," published many years ago in "Lee's Canterbury Tales ;" written (I believe) by two sisters, of whom one furnished only this story and another, both of which are considered superior to the remainder of the collection. I have adopted the characters, plan, and even the language, of many parts of this story. Some of the characters are modified or altered, a few of the names changed, and one character (Ida of Stralenheim) added by myself; but in the rest the original is chiefly followed. When I was young (about fourteen, I think,) I first read this tale, which made a deep impression upon me; and may, indeed, be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written.' That this tale, then, of which the incidents were in themselves dramatic, has been put into a dramatic form by his Lordship, is almost the sum and substance of his labors on it; for even the dialogue or language, we find, though dramatized, is by no means wholly his own. Such as it is, we fear, it will not tend much to increase his poetic fame by the degree of beauty and polish which he has conferred on it; though it retains force, which seems to be a quality always at his Lordship's command. Ida, the new personage, is a precocious girl of fifteen, in a great hurry to be married; and who has very little to do in the business of the play but to produce an effect by fainting at the discovery of the villainy of her beloved, and partially touching on it in a previous scene. When Miss Harriet Lee first published the story of Kruitzner, in the fourth volume of "Canterbury Tales," (1801,) we spoke of it in these terms: "The "The German's Tale, which occupies almost the whole of the volume, is constructed on ideas which the modern German writers have so abundantly supplied. Though not destitute of merit, it exhibits little else than a gloomy, horrid, and unnatural picture; and in some parts the story drags on with as much heaviness as a German stage-waggon in a bad road. It would have produced more effect had it been less dilated." (M. R. vol. xxxviii. N. S. p. 331.) 68 Such was our general opinion of the tale, and such is now our opinion of the tragedy; which may have gained something in interest under its new form, but which is still in danger of losing that attraction by its extent, the whole play occupying five long acts, and extending through 180 pages. We have already said that this picture of life is gloomy, horrid, and unnatural:" it can therefore give no pleasure to the best feelings of the mind; and, as no dramatic justice is executed on the evil-doers, nor any happiness allotted to the little of virtue which appears, the best interests of our nature are no more consulted than our best feelings. The play has thus no moral, and indeed cannot properly be said to have a termination it certainly is not wound up by any of those events which usually constitute the denouement of a plot, and the completion of a fable. The assassination of Stralenheim is not adequately excited by the exigency of the circumstances, at least not from the hands of so young a murderer as Ulric; with whose virtuous indignation, indeed, when he finds that his father (Werner) has committed a pecuniary theft, this murder appears inconsistent and improbable: though the hardened nature of the youth's heart is afterward sufficiently manifest, and he stands prominent as one of those stick-at-nothing heroic villains whom Lord Byron so lamentably delights to pourtray. His reprobation of the theft occurs at p. 69. and his own far worse designs are intimated at p. 101. We find that they have been accomplished at p. 116., and here we do not exactly comprehend the suspicions of his father which he so directly and revoltingly urges, when he had himself just committed the horrid deed. We quote his speech, near the conclusion, when his guilt has been discovered, and Werner alludes to the curse pronounced on himself by his father, for profligacy and disobedience. He exclaims that this curse is working now, to which Ulric answers: 'Let it work on! the grave will keep it down! Ashes are feeble foes: it is more easy To baffle such, than countermine a mole, Which winds its blind but living path beneath Yet hear me still! If you condemn me, yet you. To |