readily defer. “It is really lamentable,” says he, “to observe the extreme ignorance of those among medical practitioners who are applied to in the first instance, and who constitute the most numerous class. They are taken from a writing school, or perhaps a grammar school, and boundapprentices, so that upon the whole their education may be said to be about equal to that of a pauper in a parish day-school. Their business is to stand behind a counter and compound medicines by the prescriptions of the doctor. The poor lad, if he has time, will toil at his dictionary, where, however, he often toils in vain : but if he has not time, which is usually the case, he takes the most expeditious method of doing business. After having spent seven years in a shop, compounding drugs and spreading plasters and after having acquired a little paltry portion of mechanical knowledge by constant habit, he is dismissed as complete; and going into the country a bold professor of chirurgery and pharmacy, with a smart dress, an unblushing countenance, and a voluble tongue, he is sure of success, and bids defiance to all the learning

in the world. He is, in his own opinion, another Heberden or Hippocrates, and is indeed an object of real wonder to the country people." The sketch closes with rather a droll remark, "that those who could bear witness against his skill are all secured and silenced in the churchyard." The German, whose letter I have quoted, said nothing half so severe as the concluding sentence: "A man who undertakes this profession, and recommends himself by address and artifice, without qualifying himself with preparatory knowledge, and who abuses the confidence of those who fly to him as to a guardian angel in the deepest distress, has very little title to the claim of an honest man, and deserves to be stigmatized and punished as the worst of villains." Now this I think is carrying the joke rather too far: if he had only gone the length of prescribing the stocks or pillory, few, I believe, would object to the severity of the chastisement.

To me, reviewing these things calmly, and with all the seriousness which the importance

of the subject demands, the conclusion from the whole matter seems this;-that education is the only security upon which any reliance can be placed, that this most useful of all arts is not abused to the vilest purposes, and converted into a curse instead of a blessing; and that education, to be available, ought to be laid broad and deep in early life. “There is, as Knox observes, a certain enlargement of mind, which is lost in the narrow habits and confined views of those who take an active part in a lucrative profession." Now these narrow habits are precisely what it clearly ought to be the very first of all objects of education to provide against. There is nothing else, I know, that has any chance to put down those wretched tricks of "giving forked counsel and taking provoking gold." Not that I think there is any infallible specific for making men honest; -on the contrary, we may assure ourselves with Byron, that "as long as there are men so ignorant as to be credulous, there will always be impostors to profit by their credulity." But still I think

much might be done that is not done, because the thing is never thought about, the consideration of which I must reserve to another place. If the College of Physicians had never been of any use beyond that of keeping up a reputable rank in the profession, it is worthy of all its power and patronage.

In these piping times of peace, this gigantic evil of plausible charlatanry may be presumed to be considerable, when we reflect that with such a demand there is no outlet; and that the surplus medical force which is not wanted for the fisheries, is spread every where over the defenceless country; so that there is hardly an obscure corner that cannot boast its soidisant doctor or general practitioner.

29th. Ar the Institution for the Encouragement of National Industry, founded by Napoleon in 1802, its object is to encourage and invite the exertion of ingenuity by the offer of prizes for the most successful discoveries, more immediately applicable to the arts and to husbandry. There are two general meetings in the course of the year, one in this month, (of February) at which the accounts are audited, and the annual council of administration elected. The other meeting is in July, for the distribution of rewards; each branch of industry being superintended by its own special committee. The repository of the institution is not allowed to be stored with any models beyond those of the

current year.