From Brodum down to gaseous Thornton.
I am fully sensible that many of my brethren, of less discernment than myself, would have assigned this famous little genius a rank on the empirical list even above Dr Brodum. Making puffing their criterion, they will argue that those acute half-guinea paragraphs which we occasionally see at the fag end of the Times and other morning papers, respecting that “very learned physician,”—his “great discoveries, and improvements in the medical application of the gases,”—his “grand national and botanical work,” and fifty others of the same strain, asserting the high claims of this airy writer on the gratitude of the public, are incontestable proofs of his superior merits in the puffing department, which, say they, are some of the most necessary ingredients in the formation of a charlatan. All this is specious reasoning; but I trust I shall show its fallacy. Pre-eminence, in my opinion, must be founded on some intrinsic excellence, original and independent of adventitious circumstances. If we closely examine the merits of this candidate, we shall find that there can be no great claim on this score. Let any man enjoy the faculties and advantages of a general dealer in the airs, who must of course have puffs of all descriptions at hand; and where is the merit of occasionally letting off one?
If there be anything like originality in this industrious little philosopher, and for the invention of which I should be inclined to allow him the credit of ingenuity, it consists in his meritometer, which proposes to measure the merits of his fellow creatures by the degree of faith they can afford to bestow on the infallibility of his gases as a panacea. See his plan of this instrument, or rather the deductions drawn from his trials of it, in his large five volume compilation of “Extracts,” vol. i. page 459. From this scale it appears, that of one thousand of mankind nine hundred and ninety-nine are either fools or knaves, as that proportion places no confidence in the efficacy of his catholicon. I hope, therefore, after the good reasons here assigned for my conduct, I shall not be suspected of partiality to Dr Brodum in retaining him at the head of the quacks, nor ill will to Dr T. for not calling him up higher on the list.
The Thalaba of English metre.
Mr Southey, in his work with the title of “Thalaba or the Destroyer,” has given us a fine example of a pleasing dreadful performance, which is neither prose, rhyme, nor reason. Indeed, nothing but the inspiration of the gas which we have seen him inhale in the first canto, could have generated the following effusions.
“A Teraph stood against the cavern side,
A new born infant’s head,
That Khawla at his hour of death had seized,