mufcles, ligaments, and tendons, and likewife through the different cavities, where all or the greater part of the vifcera are found converted into the fame fubftance; which is alfo to be feen in the cavities of the bones, even in the cells of the diploe. It is found to affect the texture of the cartilages; but the bones themfelves, it feems, remain unaltered, as do likewife the hair and nails. There are likewife, we are told, certain colouring principles, fuch as the bile, the fluid of the bronchial glands, the pigmentum of the choroid, the red particles of the blood, and the fibrous part of the muscles, which remain for a long time diftinguishable in the mafs that furrounds them. "The parts that have appeared to our author to be the most fufceptible of this change have been the adipofe and membranous. Some parts, he obferves, evidently acquire it much fooner than others; and he has found the blood- veffels of different vifcera, particularly thofe of the liver, transformed into this mafs, while the furrounding fubftance of the vifcus itself had as yet undergone no fuch change. He obferves that, in general, the parts preferve their natural configuration in proportion to the quantity of adipofe and lymphatic juices they contain, and in proportion to the denfity of their texture. Thus the brain, the heart, the liver, and fome other vifcera, it feems, change completely into this fubftance, and retain their original fi gure; while of the inteftines, and the fpongy and veficular texture of the lungs, only flight veftiges remain after this change; and in thefe the fatty fubftance into which they are converted is of a much thinner confiftence than in the other parts. "From a chemical analysis of this fubftance, for which our auther acknowledges himself indebted to M. Fourcroy, it appears. to confift of an oily principle, combined with volatile alkali, fo as to form a foap. The oily bafs of this ammoniacal foap, feparated by acids, is deferibed as a concrete fubftance, of a greyish yellow colour, and fomewhat more fusible than wax; combined with fixed or volatile alkali it forms, we are told, a firm foap. "M. Thouret remarks, that it is not ductile under the fingers like wax, but that it crumbles into fmall, foft, and unctuous, fragments, like fpermaceti, the fubftance with which he confiders it as having the greatest analogy. Thus he obferves that it cryftalifes like (permaceti, and diffolves even in a greater proportion than that does in heated alcohol; part of it feparating again as the folution cools, in the form of fmall fhining lamine. "From thefe data our author is led to attempt a theory of the formation of this fabRance. He afcribes it to a peculiar modifiCation of the putrid change that bodies undergo in the earth; and thinks that the of gin of all the phenomena is to be fought for in the decompofition of water. It has been fuppofed, he obferves, that, from a combination of phlogifticated with inflammable air, there refults, during putrefaction, volatile alkali; and the fixation of a larger proportion of inflammable air, and perhaps, alfo, of a certain quantity of dephlogisticated air, may, he thinks, give rife to a fat or oily fubftance, which, by uniting with the volatile alkali, forms a foap. "M. Thouret obferves, that a concretion analogous to this fubftance is not foreign to the living animal economy; that it exifts, as is well known, in large maffes, in the cavities of the brain of the whale, and is dif tributed, by numerous veffels, through all the parts of that animal; and that it is alfo to be found in the bile, where, till of late, it has been taken for a refin. It has fometimes, he adds, been found extravafated in the liver when dried in the air, as was proved by the late M. Poullet er de la Salle, of Paris, who, having expofed a human liver to the air for a confiderable number of years, found it changed, at length, into a whitish mafs, in its appearance not unlike agaric, and which, on expofure to a gentle heat, yielded a fubftance fimilar to fpermaceti. M. Thouret affures us, his experiments have taught him that a fubftance of the fame kind may be extracted in abundance from the brain of man and other animals. May it not, therefore, he afks, be latent in the living body, and intended to answer fome purpose in the animal economy with which we are as yet unacquainted? "This fingular tranfmutation, he observes, though it is found to affect bodies of both fexes, and of all ages, is fubject, however, to fome differences which have not escaped the notice of the grave-diggers, who have remarked that bodies which are the fatteft and moft compact pass the soonest into this ftate; that very dry and lean ones acquire more of the appearance of dry mummies; and that lax and humid ones melt into water. "The tranfmutation, whatever may be its nature, takes place, we are told, indifferently in different kinds of earth. It likewife ap pears to be completed in a fhort space of time. The laft great pits of the burial-place had been clofed, it feems, enly five years, and, from the furface to the bottom, all the bodies they contained, a very fmall number excepted, were found by our author tranfformed into the fubftance in question. "In general, however, the manner in which this tranfmutation, when once begun, goes on and is completed, appears to be not altogether uniform. In the pits, where it feemed to be the most completely effected, ' the greater number of bodies, we are told were entirely transformed; but, on the other hand, in fome the change appeared to be only just beginning to take place, while in others the decompofition was complete. In the fmall number that afforded no marks of it the bones only remained, and thefe exhibited the common appearance. Were thefe, the author afks, the remains of bodies that had paffed through this ftate, and had afterwards been totally deftroyed? There was nothing, he observes, in the fituation of thefe laft that could explain the difference. They were found at all depths, and clofe to others in which the change was complete. In general, however, it feems, it was in the bodies at the greatest depth that the change appeared to take place the fooneft; and thefe alfo feemed to be the laft in which this fatty fubftance was destroyed. Our author found this fact confirmed by what he faw in two other burial-grounds at Paris. "It appears, from M. Thouret's obfervations, that the fkin is the part in which this change first begins to take place, and that, after this, follow the fat, the mufcles, and the vifcera. In the early stage of the tranfmutation the texture of the skin, we are told, is still distinguishable, as is also the colour of the fat and of the muscles; and it is not till the fibrous texture of the latter has entirely difappeared that the change can be faid to be complete. When this is accomplished, a decompofition begins to take place, This is firft obfervable in the cavities of the body; and, as it advances, the bones become difunited, the fatty fubftance is gradually diffolved, and at length there remain only flight appearances of it adhering to the furface of the bones; but in this ftate it has the confiftence and colour of clay, or becomes dry and friable, and of a darker colour. M. Thouret fuppofes this to be the remains of the colouring principle, or of the earthy principle ftill combined with a little of the fatty fubftance. "The brain, according to our author, is the part that is the laft destroyed. "As it is to the extrication of aeriform fluids from the dead body during putrefac tion, and to the re-action of thofe fluids on the body itself, that our author thinks we are to afcribe the formation of this fubftance, fo he observes that it is not till the furrounding earth is faturated with thefe fluids that the change hegins to take place. This faruration of the earth, he thinks, is proved by its black colour. Expofed to the air, it foon, he abferves, lofes this appearance, and becomes capable of diffolving the fatty fub ftance in question. He has found this fubftance only in the common pits, where the furrounding earth has acquired this, black colour; he has never been able to discover any traces of it in fingle graves; he therefore concludes that an accumulation of ani, mal bodies in large matles is requifite for its formation; and alfo that these maffes must be fufficiently covered with earth to prevent the evaporation of the aëriform fluids that are extricated; because, in proportion as thefe escape, the faturation of the furrounding earth becomes lefs complete. "But, befides the evaporation of these fluids, which takes place fooner or later, another caufe is mentioned by our author as contributing very powerfully to the deftruction of the bodies thus transformed; and that is, the moisture of the foil, which, by reafon of the foapy nature of the substance in queftion, is found to diffolve it very completely. The state of the earth, in this refpect, is, therefore, one of the principal circumftances on which the duration of this fubftance depends. Our author accordingly obferved, that in the pits the leaft expofed to the fun, and which, from their fituation in other refpects, were mot liable to moifture, the bodies were the most speedily decompofed. He has even feen coffins in an inclined pofition, in one part of which, expofed to the action of moisture, the fubftance in question was completely diffolved, while, in the dry part it had undergone no change. "Of this curious phenomenon, which feems hitherto to have efcaped obfervation, M. Thouret remarks, that it adds new facts to the hiftory of the decompofition of animal bodies in the earth, and may be confidered as a particular fpecies of mummifica tion, which, compared with that which pros duces the dry and fibrous mummy, shews us, in this way, a new process of Nature. Both these fpecies of mummy, he observes, depend on the action of aeriform fluids. Thus the destruction of the body takes place if these evaporate; the fpecies of mummy, which is more immediately the fubject of this paper, is produced if thefe fluids, when difengaged, are reflected on the foft parts of the body, or retained in their texture; and, on the other hand, the dry and fibrous mummy is forined whenever thefe fame fluids are not at all, or imperfe&tly, difengaged. "On fimilar principles, he thinks, may be explained the different circumftances obe ferved in the decomposition of bodies in bus rial grounds, whether in separate or in com→ mon graves; thofe circumstances, more ef pecially, which may be afçribed to the nature of the foil. In general, he obferves, they will depend on the facility with which it abforbs or tranfmits the different fpecies of air, extricated from bodies by putrefaction; and hence dry fand is, he thinks, the most fa vourable to the decompofition of bodies. This decompofition will alfe, he adds, be accelerated by calcareous earths, which are known to be very porous and permeable, and, for this reafon, have been called putrid or feptic earths. On the other hand, compa& argillaceous earths, he obferves, are found to retard this decompofition, as was mentioned by Messieurs Lemery, Geoffroy, and Hunauld, in their report to the Academy of Sciences, in 1738. "Thefe facts, the aut or farther remarks, ferve to fhew how little foundation there is for the opinion commonly entertained rela tive to the converfion of the dead body into earth, earth, no fuch appearance having been obferved in any of the coffins that were entire, Neither, he adds, is what is ufually imagined true, that the body is, in general, deftroyed by worms, as thefe are found only near the furface of the earth, or in bodies that have been exposed to the air. His observations have convinced him that human bodies configned to the earth infenfibly exhale and evaporate in volatile principles; and for this reafon it is, he thinks, that the foil of burialplaces does not perceptibly accumulate.” 189. Surgical and Phyfiological Essays; by John Abernethy. Profeffor of Anatomy to the Corporation of Surgeons, Affifiant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hofpital, and Le@urer in Anatomy and Surgery. THIS work confift of an essay on the lumbar abfcefs, and on the compofition and analyfis of animal matter. The method of opening lumbar abfceffes, by making a large incifion, had been found to be productive of such mifchievous confequences, and frequently proved fo fuddenly fatal, that many furgeons recommended to leave them to burft fpontaneouflv. The opening, by this means, being fmall, and the evacuation of the matter gradual, whenever the injury previously done to the confiitution was not irretrievable, the patient was fometimes obferved to recover; or, if he did fink, life was ftill preserved to a longer period than when the matter was more precipitately discharged. Other practitioners, taking the hint from this circumftance, recommended making a fmall opening with a flat trochar or lancet, and evacuating a portion of the matter every day, régulating the quantity by the ftrength of the patient. But they ufually deferred the operation until the tumour was become very large and pointing, and the integuments in the depending parts thin. Our author, after explaining the nature and fituation of Jumbar abfceffes, is of opinion, that the danger to be apprehended from them is to be eftimated principally from their fize, and that to obviate their attaining too great a bulk is the principal indication. Confonant to this idea he recom mends them to be opened as foon after they are difcovered as is practicable with fafety. This doctrine he defends with great ingenuity and ability, and fhews himself to be perfe&ly converfant with the tubject. In opening the abfcefs, great care, he fays, is to be taken to avoid every thing that may irritate, or occafion inflammation; and, as foon as the matter is evacuated, to close the ori 5 fice, and, by proper compreffes, bandages, &c. to encourage its union.. At the end of twelve or fourteen days, or as foon as there appears to be a fresh accumulation of matter, the opening is to be renewed; by this means the diffenfion of the upper part of the cyft will be prevented, and the fides will have an opportunity of collapfing and uniting. This operation must be repeated a third or fourth time, until the cyft will only contain a few ounces of matter, or until, by coughing, fresh matter is no longer perceived to defcend from that part of the cyft that is concealed in the abdomen. What remains of the abfcefs may then be safely laid open, nearly its whole length, and author illuftrates his account by the rehealed by the common methods. The cital of fome cafes, in which his method has been attended with fuccefs; and, although the number of them is not confiderable enough to establish a new practice, yet, in a disease of fuch magnitude, even the fmalleft improvement upon the established method he thought deferved an early confideration. We heartily join fay to the ferious perufal of practitioners in this opinion, and recommend this efin furgery. principal part of the fucceeding effay, The experiments, which conftitute the were undertaken, the author fays, to enable him to give some account of the nature of animal matter, in a courfe of anatomical lectures, previously to his defcribing its arrangement in the structure of the human body. The author had imbibed an opinion, entertained by many philofophers, that the ultimate particles of matter are the fame; and that the, various fubftances with which this world prefents us were only differences in the arrangement and motion of fimilar particles. A ter inftituting a variety of experiments, managed with great ingenuity, by which it appears that vegetables fuftained by air and water only, and animals fed upon them, yielded the fame fubftances, when analyfed, as those fuftained in the ufual way, the author is confirmed in his opinion. But, as we have allowed a confiderable face to this article already, we shall not enter into an examination of the experiments, but content ourselves with recommending them to the attention of our readers. 190. The last Farequel Sermon, preached at the Tabernacle near Moorfields, April 1, 1792. By the Rev. John Berridge, M. A. late Vicar of Everton, Bedfordthire; taken in Short-hand Short-hand at the Time it was delivered, and faithfully tranfcribed. To which is added, A Short Account of Mr. Berridge's Death, in a Letter from a Friend who was with him the Day be died. Alfo, a Narrative of the ReSpect fhewed to bim by his Friends in London. MR. B. was of Clare-hall, Cambridge, where, if we miftake not, he took the degree of B. A. 1738, and of M. A. 174, and was prefented by that fociety to the fmall vicarage of Everton. Being influenced by an enthufiaftic fpirit, he tried his fortune among the Methodists; and to him the late Dr. Green, bishop of Lincoln, when dean of that church, in 1761, addreffed his first Letter on the Principles and Practices of the Methodis (fee vol. XLIX. p. 236). He published a pamphlet, intituled, The Chriftian World unmasked, pray come and peep, 1773;" methodistical trash; and never feems to have attained to the proficiency or eminence of a Wefley or a Whitfield: fo that, however "precious his memory may be to many of God's people," in the estimation of the publick his farewel fermon will be found to contain nothing beyond the common cant of the taberna cle. Mr. B. feems to have quitted his proper charge at Everton, and opened a meeting at Potton, where he died, after a fhort illness, Jan. 22, 1793. "The pulpits of his two long-beloved chape's of Tottenham-court-road and the taber nacle near Moorfields were decently hung with black. On the Sunday after the interment two fermons were preached at each, by Mr. Torial Jofs and Mr. Matthew Wilks, when a juft tribute of refpect was paid to Mr. B. by each of thofe gentlemen." 191. A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury at the General Quarter Seffions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, bolden at Beccles, on Monday, April 8, 1793. By Sam. Cooper, D.D. Publifhed at the Request of the Court. JUST and animated, and containing many obfervations pertinent to the prefent circumftances of Europe and this kingdom. The offences more particu, larly infifted on in this charge are, Mif. prifion of Felony, and Receipt or Buying of Stolen Goods, knowing them to have been stolen, and Affault and Battery.Former publications of the Doctor have come under our review in vol. LIX. p. 537, LX. 828, LXI. 1212; and an extract from this Charge in the prefent month, p. 798. 192. Imitations of original Drawings by H. Holbein, in his Majefly's Collection, for the Portraits of illuftrious Perfons of the Court of Henry VIII. Published by John Chamber- THIS SECOND number of the admirable work, which we had occafion to mention in vol. LXII. p. 1125, contains the fix following portraits. Sir Henry Guldeford, one of the companions of Henry's youth, and a corre fpondent of Erafmus, great ftandardbearer, mafter of the horfe, efquire of. the body, and one of the chamberlains of the exchequer. He was only fon of Sir Richard G. knight of the Garter, by his first wife, Jane, fifter of Nicholas Lord Vaux, and poffeffed a good eftate in Kent. His fplendid old manfionhoufe at Hempstead, near Cranbrook, is fill an interefting object, in fpite of many cruel attempts, made at great expence, to destroy its antique appearance Holbein's fine picture after this drawing remains in perfect prefervation at Kehfington. William Fitz William Earl of South ampton, fucceeded his elder brother flain at Floddon, was appointed vice-admiral and ambasador to Paris, captain of the caftle of Guifnes, and treasurer of this royal houfehold, admiral of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, earl of Southampton 1533, and lord privy feal. He died at Newcastle, on his march against the Scots, and was buried at Midhurst, in a chapel built by him, where he has a magnificent monument in the style of the times. Jane Lady, Lifter, fecond wife of Sir Richard L. of Wrenthorpe, in Yorkhire, attorney-general before 1527, chief baton of the exchequer 1536, maiter of the court of wards, and lord chief juftice of England 1546, and probably died 1552. This lady was daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley, of Wiftnefton, Suffex, and widow of Sir John Dawtrey, of Petworth. Sir Thomas Strange, only son of Sir Robert S. a younger fon of the very an tient house of Strange, of Hunstanton, Norfolk, and heir to his uncle, Sir Koger. He married Anne second daughter of Nicholas firft Lord Vaux, by whom he had a numerous itfue. He was high fheriff of Norfolk 29 Henry VIII. and died 1545. Edward Lord Clinton, only fon of Thomas eighth baron of his family, born 1512, and, in 1544, was in the expedi tion into Scotland, under the Earl of Hertford, and, entering into the fea-fervice, was admiral in the Duke of Somerlet's expedition, and accellary to the vi&ory 193. Etchings of Views and Antiquities in the County of Gloucefter, &c. THIS work, first reviewed vol. LXII. p. 743, is now advanced to seven num bers, containing, No III. South-east view of Cirencester church. Portrait of Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV. in glass there. Entrance of the tunnel under Saperton hill. Tomb of Sir John and Lady Cay, at Deerburst. Two views of the great chefnut-tree at Tortworth. Roman pavement at Woodchefter. Weft view of Southam house. South-caft view of South Cerney church. Three ftone ftalls at Bitton. No VI. Intide of Gloucefter cathedral great cloifter. Portrait of a king in the Eaft window of Lady chapel, Gloucefter. Redmarton manor houfe. South-eaft view of Wapley church. South-eaft view of Thornbury caftle. North-eaft view of Siddington church, and its South door-cafe, and five compartments of painted glass in the windows. North-eaft view of Cheltenham church, Cold Afbton, Brockhip, Charfield, Cherington, Cromball, and Harfcomb churches. Making, in the whole feven numbers, forty-one plates. 194. A Sermon, preached at the Gravel-pit Meeting in Hackney, April 19, 1793, being the Day appointed for a General Faft. By Jofeph Priestley, LL.D. F.R.S. &c. IN a preface of feveral pages the Doctor vindicates the propriety of obferving days of public humiliation and prayer, appointed by the King's proclamation, confidered as an advice or requifition. In cafes of a merely civil nature he thinks it right to acquiefce in the deci fion of the majority, whatever it be, for without this the fociety will be diffolved. "Every attempt to fupprefs opinion by force is fuch a confeffion of the weakness of any caufe, and of an utter inability to maintain it by teafon and argument, that there is no in@ance in hiftory in which it has answered, or in which it has not operated to overturn what it was intended to establish. What did any Index Expurgatorius, copious as it was, do for the Church of Roine? On this account I am concerned to fee what looks like the commencement of an Index Expurgatorius for the Conftitution of England" (p. vi). He declares that, in no infance, except arguing against the connexion between religion and civil government, has he, on this occafion, ob truded his opinion with refpe&t to any political fubject. Yet he has not concurred with the views of the governing powers of this nation in praying for the fuccefs of their arms in the prefent contest; becaufe, with many others, he does not think that fuch fuccefs will be of any advantage to this country. But he fincerely prays that the war may terminate in the firmer eftablishment of the liberties and happinefs of this country, and of every other country in Europe; and, whether it will be victory or defeat that will moft conduce to this end, he fincerely wishes and prays for it. "I have not fcrupled to intimate my appre henfions that the prefent war, whatever be its progrefs or termination, will only be the beginning of troubles in Europe; and in this I own I have greater apprehenfion from the fuccefs than from the defeat of the prefent combination against France. But I do not pretend to prophecy; and I fincerely pray that the evils which I fear are approaching may be deferred as long as poffible; and that the |