Critical Notices [pp. 784-788]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
scholars, or to gentlemen, or to school-mistresses, but to
every class of mankind, from the President of a College
to the laborer in "his clouted shoon." The topics
it particularly treats of, are the structure and functions
of the skin-of the muscular system-the lungs-the
bones —and the nervous syst'em, with the mental faculties,
supposed to be connected with it. Annexed to each of
these subjects are rules, "by the observance of which,
each of them may be kept in health, and may conduce
to the general health of the body." "And thus the
reader is led to wholesome customs, by being taught
the reason of their being wholesome."
It is now admitted by all intelligent persons, except
those captious and querulous praisers of time past, who
abound in every age, that medicine is far advanced in
a great and most salutary reformation, the progress of
which is still onward. In nothing is this reform more
conspicuous-nay, in nothing does it more consist-than
in the profession's now aiming to preserve health by
timely precautions, instead of being satisfied to restore
it when lost. In fact it is not now medicine so much as
hygiene; it is the art of preserving rather than the art of
healing; prevention rather than cure. And as much superior as prevention proverbially is to cure-so much
better is the present plan of guarding the health by a
judicious diet, seasonable clothing, dwellings properly
warmed and aired, and a strict attention to cleanlinessthan the old one, of letting luxury and debauchery have
their course, and then trusting to expel their crudities
and counteract their poison by physic. If the expelling
agent-the antidote-had been always infallible (and
alas, how many grave-yards prove the contrary!)-the
wear and tear of constitution, produced by the action of
the disease, and even of the remedy, was a clear balance
against the old system.
Dr. Combe's work is emphatically an emanation of
the reformed school of medicine; and though in that
school the names of Broussais, Louis and Jackson may
be more united by fame, we deem "Combe on Mental
Health'"* to have borne away from them all the palm of
usefilness.
In the three numbers of the Review, are many articles
which we would fain mention, but all would exceed our
space, and we do not like the task of further selection.
Some idea of the merits of the work (and incidentally of
Dr. C.'s) was all we aimed to convey.
It is republished (quarterly) in New York, by W.
Jackson, and in Baltimore by William Neal, who are
authorized to receive subscriptions. The price is $5
per annum.
MR. LEE'S ADDRESS.
.Iddress delivered before the Baltimore Lyceum, dtheiceutun Society, William Wirt Society, WVashington Lyceum,
Philo-nomian Society and Franklin.ssociation, Literary
and Scientific Societies of Baltimore, on the 4th of July,
1836. By Z. Collins Lee, Esq.
Having reason to be well aware of Mr. Lee's oratorical powers, we were not altogether at liberty to
imagine his Address, merely from the deep attention
with which, we are told, its delivery was received, the
impassioned and scholar-like performance we now find
* This is the title usually affixed to the back of Dr. C.'s book.
it upon perusal. Few similar things indeed have afforded us any similar pleasure. We have no intention,
however, of speaking more fully, at this late day, of an
Address whose effect must have depended so largely
upon anniversary recollections. We allude to it now
with the sole purpose of recording, in brief, our opinion of its merits, and of quoting one of its passages
without comment.
Is it now, as it was formerly, the necessary tendency of all
alarming and apparently fatal convulsions of society and governments, to realize often permanent good out of temporary
evil? The political revolutions which distinguished the close of
the 18th century were accompanied with various secondary
movements more benign and pacific in their character, and more
lasting in their results, though not contemplated by the then
apostles of anarchy. The changes to which I refer were perhaps
among their legitimate results, and when they have been studied
through a period longer than the perturbations which produced
them, they will doubtless be ranked among the compensatory
adjustments, in which Providence strikes a balance between present and overwhelming evils and future and permanent good;
for in the political as well as in the natural world the desolating
torrent, which sweeps away its bulwarks, often loses its power
in the depths of its own excavations, whilst it forms a new barrier out ofthe very elements it displaced. Thus, in every country
which has passed like ours through a great and sudden revolution, or been the scene of public excitement and party spirit,
there will be a principle of adjustment and order springing out of
the most dangerous and disorganizing commotions. That our
land has been lately the witness of most daring outrages upon
public peace and private rights-that the torch of the incendiary, and the more fearful and disgraceful out-breakings oflawless
violence and ferocious passion, have trampled law and order
before our eyes in the dust, and that life and property have been
swept away by the sirocco breath of popular tumult, are melancholy facts attested in many parts of our country-and to one
unacquainted with the genius of our institutions and the habits
of our people, these were indeed most startling evidences of the
inefficiency of the one and the unfitness of the other for self-government. But, my fellow-citizens, at the bottom of the American character and closely interwoven with its general sentiment,
is a recuperative and renovating principle of right and order,
which, sooner or later compensates for the devastation and ruin
of one day, by years oforder and submission to the laws, and binds
as victims upon their own Moloch altars the mad passions and
daring spirits which perpetrated it. Let not, therefore, our confidence and hopes be diminished or torn from the true, essential
and conservative principles of our institutions, but rather let
these evils stimulate us to greater zeal and more devoted labor,
in spreading far and wide, by means of knowledge and religion,
the true and only remedies-and though the storm may howl and
the clouds gather over portions of the country, oh! let us still
cling with unfaltering confidence to our union, to our religion,
to our liberties. In this age kindred minds will unite their sympathies either for good or evil; i wealth seeks its perservation by
uniting itselfto wealth-power strives to extend itself by an alliance with power-in such cases wealth and rank have frequently
exercised a predominant influence, and brute force has still oftener enjoyed its short lived triumph; but intellectual power
guided by high religious and moral motives, has never failed to
establish its just rights and proper sway. The education therefore of the people, the diffusion of knowledge, and the encoturagement of literature and science are the only safeguard for a
government and social system like ours, exposed as they are to
the double hostility of popular menace and the arrogant inroads
ofexclusive and aristocratic orders; but the most efficacious (fall
these elements ofstability is that of intellectual power, whether
it is exhibited in the statesman's forethought and sagacity-iin the
philosopher's powers of combination and judgment-or in the
lighter and more elegant accomplishments of the scholar and
the poet-the shaft of the stately column is not weakened by the
acanthus that curls at its sumtit, nor is reason less enlightened
when embellished by the imagination.
The foundation, therefore, of a literature peculiarly free and
national, and the encouragement of all the arts of life, should
be our fliet aim; and here, gentlemen of the societies, which
have so honorably been dedicated to these noble objects, permit
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