have been erected at different times. The principal street is the Voorhout. It is of great length, and contains many houses built in a style of singular elegance.

There are, however, in this town, certain attendant evils, which perhaps tend in a considerable degree to diminish those advantages and superiorities which in other respects it may be said to enjoy. The canals, at least during my short stay, were greener and more stagnant than any I had yet seen. The people seem less primitive in their manners, and the doors and windows of the inns are constantly beset by crowds of officious beggars, whom it is impossible to satisfy, as one horde is no sooner dismissed than a fresh swarm arrives, equally rapacious with the former, and rendered more clamorous by the success of their predecessors.

I lodged at the Twee Steden (Two Cities), not the best auberge I believe. But even here I had some difficulty in obtaining access. The preference is always given, as is natural, to any overgrown Englishman who arrives with three or four carriages occupied by a colony. I happened at this time to be alone and on foot, that is, from the treckschuit; and I am, moreover, a little man, with a sallow complexion, and somewhat of a mean appearance.

Here I dined at the ordinary, and was not particularly delighted with the specimen which it exhibited of Dutch manners. The general aspect of the guests was certainly by no means prepossessing, though I trust, for the sake of Dutch refinement, that the picture which it presented was not one which ought to be considered in the light of a characteristic representation.

At the public table I found assembled a motley group of different aspects and professions, and from various climes. The greater proportion, however, were Dutchmen, and these, judging from their external characters, were chiefly merchants and merchants' clerks-lieutenants and ensigns in the army-captains of trading vessels-and gaunt attornies, all equally vociferous and vulgar in their manners: every one whistling, singing, laughing, and talking, and puffing out most elaborate fumes of abominable tobacco to the other side of the table, as he felt inclined, without

seeming to consider it for a moment possible that any rational being would ever think of accommodating his own pleasures to those of another, or be in the slightest degree guided by any principle or feeling but the immediate gratification of every momentary impulse of his own coarse spirit. After dinner, an interesting Prussian girl came to sing some of her native airs, Her voice was musical in the extreme, but her "sounds of sweetest melody" were constantly interrupted by the hoarse laughs of the Dutchmen, some of whose remarks, I have no doubt, from the merriment they excited, were of a most brilliant and refined

nature.

During my stay in this town, while sitting at the window of a front room, I was treated with a most extraordinary spectacle. A tawdry ill-dressed woman, of a dark complexion and diminutive stature, entered the room, and suddenly adjusting her garments, not in the most delicate manner, she commenced upon the stone floor a long continued series of feats of activity, certainly unparalleled by any thing I had ever before witnessed; bending her limbs and body into every form which it was possible to conceive. It was a painful sight, and is a repulsive subject; but, as a single example of her power, I may mention, that at the close of her performance, when a shilling was thrown to her, she turned herself round, and, bending fearfully backwards, till her face touched the ground, and her forehead was within a few inches of her heels, she picked up the shilling with her mouth, and without touching the floor with her hands, she resumed the attitude of a human being.

Upon the whole, I was not much gratified by my visit to the Hague. Without doubt there are in it many pleasing squares-magnificent palaces

handsome houses, and fine churches; but the little I saw of its men and manners presented a coarse and unintellectual aspect; and, with the exception of the blue-eyed Prussian, I did not see one person whom I should ever desire to see again.

The House of the Wood (Maison de Bois), belonging to the Sovereign Prince, and the ancient summer residence of the Stadtholders, is placed nearly two miles northward of the city, at the extremity of a noble forest.

The house itself has nothing remark able about it, and its gardens, which are public, are not laid out in good taste. The road to it stretches through the forest, the trees of which, though exceedingly high, are so thickly planted and so luxuriant, that the sky is not once visible. The appearance, when you enter it, is picturesque and romantic; and after you are in, you can hardly imagine where you are, the view of the city is so completely obscured. This is a delightful walk, or ride, in warm weather; for the road is of fine sand, to which the wind can get no access quite smooth and firm; and there seems to be through it winding paths in all directions, and no sort of enclosure, division, or fence. On reaching the House of the Wood, I was informed that the princess was there, and that I could not gain admittance till after five o'clock in the evening; this arrangement not suiting my convenience, I returned without visiting the interior. There are in it, I understand, some tolerable paintings, and a cabinet of natural curiosities. The greater part of the latter was moved to Paris during the French administration, and the former would have been so too had they been superexcellent.

This House of the Wood stands embowered amid a grove of oaks, which are the finest in Holland. "Trees of such ancient majesty towered not in Yemen's happy groves, or crowned the stately brow of Lebanon;" but it cannot be added, "Fabric so vast, so lavishly enriched, for idol or for tyrant, never yet raised the slave race of men; for the building itself is like the habitation of a private person. The wood is about two miles long, and three-fourths of a mile broad. It is remarkable, as being perhaps the only production of the country which the Dutch have not endeavoured to turn to account. On the contrary, it is the object of the most superstitious veneration, and nothing will induce the natives to cut it down in any part, or injure it in any manner of way.

About three miles from the Hague, by the sea shore, there is a village called Scheveling, which supplies the town with fish. The road to it is by a magnificent avenue of majestic oaks, limes, and beeches, which are so scientifically planted, that the same effect is produced as if one was travelling VOL. I.

a

through an actual forest. It looks like an endless arch through trees, boundless contiguity of shade,” and is perfectly straight; for in Holland the line of beauty is a straight line, as Euclid would define it.

At Scheveling there lay just beyond the surge, which from the open coast is very heavy here, about a score of stout sloops and schooners, with nets drying, and the place had much the appearance of bustling industry. Yet there, as in most of the Dutch towns, though I had been taught to expect the contrary, you are infested with beggars of both sexes, and of all ages, some of them in a state of apparent wretchedness in the article of apparel, such as I never saw in Scotland or any part of Britain. As many of these mendicants were young and stout, there would seem to be some neglect somewhere, or something rotten in the state" of Holland. Yet much allowance must be made for these last twenty years on the Continent of Europe.

Leaving the Hague early in the morning, I arrived at Leyden to breakfast, after a pleasant voyage, in the treckschuit, of three hours.

(To be continued.)

X. Y. Z.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REMARKS OF A. M. ON THE DOCTRINES OF GALL AND SPURZHEIM.

MR EDITOR,

I OBSERVE in your Notices to Correspondents, that you have rejected several communications on the subject of the system of Gall and Spurzheim, on account of their containing personalities. I think you are perfectly correct in doing so. Yet, sir, you have given a place in your First Number to a paper which contains what is worse than personality. Personality injures him who uses it more than him against whom it is directed, but misrepresentation inflicts a severe injury; and I am persuaded that, had you been aware of what I am now to point out, you would not have inserted the communication of A. M. I will exhibit only one instance of A. M.'s want of candour, as that will be sufficient to enable you to judge of the degree of credit which ought to be attached to what he has written, without occupying your pages with a longer detail,

3 A

which it would be very easy to draw up. "This gentleman (Dr S.)" says A. M., "and his colleague have asserted, that no anatomist before themselves believed that the brain was, throughout, of a fibrous texture. This, therefore, they claim as a discovery peculiarly their own; and, considering it of high importance, they style it, La premiere et la plus importante des decouvertes, celle sans la quelle toutes les autre seroient imparfaites. Dr Gordon proves very satisfactorily, that from the time of Malpighi in 1664, downwards, such a fibrous structure was believed to exist every where throughout the cerebral mass. such proofs Dr Spurzheim returns no

answer."

To

Now, so far from its being true that Dr S. returns no answer, the seventh section of his pamphlet begins as follows. Dr S. attacks Dr Gordon as the author of the Critique on his work in the Edinburgh Review,-as the author of a work on Anatomy, and of the Pamphlet, styling him conscientious reviewer, mechanical dissector, and historian.

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"The historian," says Dr Spurzheim, quotes Vieussens, Haller, Mayer, Reil, Portal, and Cuvier, to prove that the fibrous structure of the brain was known. The reader would be mistaken, if he thought that in our works we have not quoted authors of this kind. We have mentioned the same and others, such as Loewenhock, Stenon, Prochaska, Soemmering, Sabatier, and others. In a passage of our memoir, p. 248, we say, 'Bonnet ne trouve dans le cerveau qui des fibres dont chacun auroit sa fonction particuliere.' We have never thought of being the first who maintain that the brain is fibrous, though we know also that the most erroneous opinions have been entertained with respect to its structure. Our principal ideas are, the successive additions and the aggregations of various parts, the two great sets of fibres, and the unfolding of the convolutions, as I propose to detail in the sequel."

This is quite sufficient to invalidate the testimony of A. M., who has acted as all Dr Spurzheim's enemies do. Whoever chooses to read the Edinburgh Review, Dr Gordon's Anatomy, and his examination of Spurzheim's claims, will find, on perusing Spurzheim's reply, that he is not silent on

any topic which is of any importance to his doctrines.

With respect to what took place in the hospital on the occasion of opening a hydrocephalic head, A. M., while he condemns the conduct of the dissector, would have you to believe that Dr Gordon had no concern in the dissection. Who then was the operator? Instead of the appearances which occurred on dissection, (and which amply confirmed the assertions of Dr Spurzheim respecting the state of the brain in hydrocephalus) having been demonstrated to the students, for whose benefit the head was permitted to be opened, they were allowed to depart without either having seen the morbid appearances, or having heard them described. The contents of the head disappeared, and no one could procure the smallest portion for examination. A. M. may probably know who carried them away, or on whose account the students at the hospital were deprived of the benefit of a case, interesting in proportion to the scarci ty of opportunities of examining it, and more so on account of the disputed point between Gordon and Spurzheim. A. M. professes himself to be the champion of Dr Gordon, for whom I entertain much personal regard, although I entirely disapprove of the manner in which he has conducted himself with regard to Spurzheim. A. M. would have you to believe that there is no other anatomist worthy of credit; but who is Barclay? Is that a name unknown to anatomists, and to the philosophic world? It is universally allowed that Lawrence and Barclay are the first anatomists in Britain. Barclay acknowledges and maintains the truth of Spurzheim's doctrines; and while he continues to do so, we may surely be allowed to doubt the infallibility of any other anatomist.

I have yet another paragraph of A. M.'s communication to notice, because I consider that, at least while he is anonymous, any opinion of Spurzheim's principles is as good and trustworthy as that which he thus expresses:

"Never was there a more evident attempt to evade the overwhelming force of unwelcome facts, than has been made by Dr Spurzheim on this exami nation. Instead of meeting fairly and decisively the objections so strongly

urged against him; instead of a clear refutation, or a manly confession of mistake and error,-there is little else in this pamphlet but a most general and unconnected repetition of his former (why former?) theories and assertions. We see in it only the signs of an imbecile irritability, evidently sensible to reproach;-conscious that it is but too well founded,-but unwilling to confess its justice, and unable to avoid its sting."

Now, Mr Editor, I maintain, contrary to this very arrogant assertion, that there never appeared a more complete triumph of truth over injustice, over the most illiberal, unfair, unphilosophical modes of attack, than is contained in Dr Spurzheim's pamphlet. A. M. will find himself mistaken in supposing that Spurzheim's doctrine has, "lived its little hour." If it dies, it will not probably fall by his hand, whose head, I am persuaded, would, if exhibited, confirm its existence. The method which I took to satisfy myself whether Spurzheim was worth attending to (for had at first very great doubts of the doctrine being any thing but quackery) was to examine my own cranium. I am not ashamed to confess to those who know me, that some evil propensities annoy me; and having found that there appeared more brain in those places which Spurzheim pointed out in his lecture, as belonging to these propensities, than in corresponding places of heads of persons who, I knew, had them not in so great a degree, I determined to listen with attention, and to read Spurzheim's work without prejudice. I would advise A. M. to follow the same course, for it is by observation alone that the doctrine can be confirmed or destroyed. But to be able to observe well requires much practice; and it is also necessary to observe the conditions which are requisite for the action of any organ, as they are laid down by Spurzheim. The doctrine may be confirmed without any appeal to anatomy, but it is probable that anatomical observations will yet be sufficiently multiplied in support of it. S. R.

June 23d, 1817.

P.S. The word craniology is an invention of Spurzheim's enemies. It is not of the bone he treats, but of the manifestations of the mind as dependent on organization. Phrenology would be a more appropriate word.

STORY OF ARISTUS AND DEINUS.

In this lower world there are two hostile energies constantly at work, plotting and countermining each other, known among philosphers by the names of the Good and the Evil Principles. Previous to the fall of Adam, according to the most modern historical divines, the former was uniformly uppermost; but in the memory of man, when the dispute has proceeded on any thing like equal terms, the latter has now and then got the ascendency. You may, by an easy effort of abstraction, divide the body politic into two halves, and by comparing the sections, satisfy yourselves in regard to the present state of the controversy; meanwhile I shall tell my other Readers a short story.

Under the reign of Abdalonimus, on whom Alexander had bestowed the government of Sidon, flourished two young noblemen of the highest rank and expectations. Having gone through the same course of studies together at Athens, an intimacy subsisted between them, as cordial as a radical difference of character, discernible from their earliest years, admitted of. Open, courteous, and brave, Aristus had employed talents of the first order to the best purposes, enriching his mind with useful and polite knowledge. He studied himself, however, more than the world, and fashioned his principles rather on the abstract excellence of virtue, than after the practice of the times. But of the latter he was by no means ignorant. He saw and confessed the necessity of reserve and secret management in conducting human affairs, and was not unprepared to yield, as far as honour and good faith would permit, to the incurable errors of society. Deinus, with an understanding equally strong, had prepared himself for the stations he was likely to fill in a manner somewhat different. Sagacious, observant, and selfish, he investigated the dispositions of men with the eye of an artist, and marked their vices and virtues merely as the handles by means of which he could render them obedient to his designs. Impartial in his choice of good or bad men, the equal patron of all who could serve him effectually, he acknowledged the distinction of utility alone. A true politician, he neither loved nor hated. Avarice and ambition being his sole passions, his