a specimen or two. On the subject in general, Dr. A. thus ob

serves:

Natural objects, for the purpose of classification, have been in general arranged under the three grand divisions of animal, vegetable, and mineral, each of which will admit of many lesser subdivisions, about which we mean not here to treat. One observation, however, upon a general view of the whole, as it cannot fail in time to present itself to every person who engages in this study, may here be introduced: it is, that, however easy it may seem, at the first glance, to discriminate the three classes of objects from each other, yet every class of natural objects will be found to approach so nearly in the extremes to other classes, that it is a matter of difficulty to say with precision where the one ends, and the other begins. The whole are so closely connected, like the links of a chain, that there is no possi bility of finding a disjunction in any part. Among animated beings, bats are the connecting link between beasts and birds: the numerous class of amphibia conjoin beasts and fishes; and lizards unite them with reptiles. The humming-bird approaches the nature of insects, and the flying-fish that of birds. The polypus, the sea anemony, and, the sea-pen, though of animal origin, have more the habits of tables than of animals; while the fly-trap (dionæa muscipula), the vege sensitive plant, and some other vegetable productions, by their spontaneous movements, or extreme sensibility, seem to participate more of animal origin. Corals and corallines, from the different forms they assume, may be more easily mistaken for mineral or vegetable than animal productions, to which class they are now referred by the unanimous decision of naturalists. The truffle, though a vegetable, assumes rather the appearance of a mineral; and there is reason to believe that the anomalous substance called peat is actually a live vegetable, sui generis, rather than an earthy or mineral substance, as it has been often supposed.'

Hence the author proceeds to a consideration of the mental faculties of animals; and he has most strikingly illustrated the dignity of human nature, or the vast pre-eminence of man over all the other creatures of this world:

Nor is it with regard to corporeal forms only, and peculiarities of organization, that this disjointed connection subsists between the different objects which inhabit the globe: the same concatenation is observed to take place respecting mind, beginning with man, who forms the highest link of the chain, and descending from him, by an almost imperceptible diminution of mental powers, through an inn merable series of existences, till it ends at last in mere animation alone, with a seeming privation of all mental perception whatever. It is in deed true, that though, in regard to intellect, some of the higher orders of animals appear, in certain points of view, to approximate to the lowest of the human species, yet there can be no doubt that man is much farther exalted above them all, than any one of these excels the next below it; so that if there be any break in the chain at all, it is here that the rupture takes place. For though many of REV. AUG. 1802. the

the higher orders of animals possess a kind of memory, and the fa culty of reasoning in a certain degree; though the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," yet, unless it be in recolfecting their dependence on others for food, and a few circumstances of a similar nature, tending chiefly to the preservation of existence, the intellectual powers of even the highest order of animals are extremely circumscribed. Men alone can reason from consequences to remote causes, and can from the creature trace an idea of the Creator. A sense of religion, then, is the characteristic peculiarity which decsively marks a separation between man and all other animals.

Nor is it in regard to these higher attainments only that man is exalted above the mere animals on this globe; for, abstracted from the natural impulse called instinct, implanted by the hand of God upon all animated beings, for the preservation and continuation of their existence, and which in many instances we are apt to confound with reason, we shall find that the very highest of these approximations to reason in animals, falls infinitely short of that which is perceptible even among the lowest orders of mankind. The dog is a favoured, and a very sagacious domestic animal: he feels the benign influence of the pailout fire, and enjoys it as much as any of the hunian species; but he never can be made sensible of the uses to which heat may be applied in changing the nature of bodies which are subjected to its power: he never can be made to conceive how a piece of coal, or a billet of wood, can augment that heat, and continue to support it; and thus he cannot spontaneously feed the fre when occasion shall require it; a degree of reasoning which a child acquires almost before it can walk, and which even an idiot knows. In like manner the elephant, that most sagacious of the brute creation, delights in the sugar-cane, and gives evident indications that this is a food which he relishes in the highest degree, and when he once discovers where it can be found, will expose himself to almost any danger in order to obtain it: but no elephant hath ever yet been able to discover that if the joints of these plants be buried to a certain depth in newly turned up earth, it will there revive, and send up choots, which in due time will afford abundance of his favourite food, if it be not destroyed before that period. This kind of reasoning, though it be the most obvious to all mankind, is far beyond the li nited faculties of the brute creation; on which account they are, and ever must be, subservient to man, whenever he chooses to exert his powers for that purpose."

Having prepared and instructed his readers in these introductory essays, and informed them that his purpose is to give a series of dissertations, though without following any systematic arrangement, Dr. A. commences his Recreations with an inquiry into the nature of that department of Natural History, which is called Varieties among Animals; with some cursory hints on the same term as applicable to vege

tables.

In opposition to M. de Euffon, Dr. Anderson concludes that

The division in the classification of animals, which has obtained the name of varieties, is not a casual, but a permanent distinction; that it is preserved, without any variation, among wild animals, while in a state of nature, for any length of time: that these varieties, however, while animals are reared by man, admit of being altered by him at pleasure, or of being continued by him unchanged as long as he shall so incline: that if he intend to effect changes in this respect, he can do it at will, and always in such a way as that he can know with certainty what will be the nature of the change even before it is effected: that nothing therefore can be so improper as to denominate these different classes of animals casual varieties, depending upon extraneous circumstances of climate, food, or management: that a change in any of these varieties, whenever it does take place, is always produced by a mixture of blood, and happens alike under every climate and in every variety of circumstances: and that in no case has a new variety of the kind above described ever been produced from any individual animal, either when in a state of nature, or while under the influence of man ; all that he can do being merely to make a compound (or mongrel) out of those that have been already known.’

Many curious facts are stated in this dissertation, which deserve the attention of the breeders of animals; and, that idle speculations may be avoided, and facts alone regarded, this practical philosopher speaks of his brother philosophers (does he include F.R. SS. of London and Edinburgh?) as a set of beings, against whose speculative opinions, mankind at large cannot be too much on their guard.'

Respecting the varieties in the Vegetable Kingdom, he observes that

Mongrel varieties among plants, however, differ in several respects from mongrel animals. In the last case the produce participates nearly in an equal degree of the properties of both the parents; but among plants the same uniformity is not observed to take place, because the greater part of vegetables being both male and female in the same flower, of course the pollen of the plant itself must always be blended with that of any other plant that can be brought near to it. In the first crossing, therefore, if the phrase be admitted, the breed is less debased in vegetables than in animals, and a repeated mixture of the mongrel with the pure breed is required before a kind can be obtained that shall participate alike of both sorts, which is directly the reverse with animals. I have never heard of any experiment being made with a view to obtain a mongrel breed of plants of the diceceous class, where the male and female are distinct plants, and among which it is possible that an exact medium mongrel breed might be obtained at once, as among animals; but this has not as yet, that I know of,, been ever attempted.

There is one peculiarity affecting plants that seems to have no parallel to it among animals, viz. that variation which is observed to take place in some cases respecting the production of double flowers.'

In several papers of the subsequent volumes, this most amusing and instructive subject is continued.

An account is next given of the mode of making the fine marble-like cement of India, called Chunam, communicated to the editor by Dr. Anderson of Madras. We have also, in Vol. I. curious papers on the Phenomena of Frost; on Mr. Forsyth's Mode of managing decayed Fruit-trees; on Hot-walls; on the best Mode of constructing Houses in Warm Climates, &c. &c. in which essays, the genius and abilities of the author display themselves to advantage.

We could have wished that Dr. Anderson had confined his Recreations to Agriculture, Natural History, and the Arts, omitting altogether the Essays on Miscellaneous Literature; since the papers introduced under the latter head do not harmonize with the prominent features of the work, and in our opinion are the least ereditable parts of it. We shall not, therefore, make any farther comment on these divisions of the volumes before us, than by remarking that the effusions of a Mr. Hairbrain, had they been perfectly in character, would have ill suited a serious work,' such as Dr. A. professes this to be: but, when they only contain unsuccessful attempts at wit and vivacity, such as inviting Mr. Zephyrus to have a game at romps with Mrs. Flora,' we have additional reasons for lamenting their insertion.

In Vol. ii. among a variety of matter, Dr. A. commences a Dissertation (prosecuted through several numbers and volumes of his work) on the Origin, Excellence, and Defects of the Grecian and Gothic Styles of Architecture; in which we find many just observations, but to the whole of which we do not subscribe. In the general outline, however, of the discriminating features of the two styles, he is nearly correct, when he terms the Grecian mode of architecture the architecture of a colonnade, and the Gothic the architecture of a church, since neither of the styles includes a system embracing all that is requisite for duly arranging, distributing, and erecting buildings of every sort. He compares Grecian churches with Gothic, in order to shew the superiority of the latter; and he explains his ideas in the following manner, (vol. iv. p. 385.) illustrated by a wood-cut:

The most magnificent specimen of the inside of a church, erected on the Grecian system of architecture, that I know of in Britain, is St. Paul's church in London; and, although Westminster Abbey is not so perfect in its kind as many other specimens of that mode of architecture, and is besides so much disfigured by a variety of extraneous incumbrances as to detract greatly from its general effect; yet even in its present corrupted state, though greatly fallen, it still rises

proudly

proudly eminent, and seems to be (as in the language of Milton) "not less than archangel ruined;" so that as those who have not an opportunity of visiting more perfect structures of this kind, may, from it, form some idea of the kind of sensation which that species of structures are calculated to excite, I shall, on account of its proximity to the other, employ it for the purpose of illustration. Let any person, then, who has never thought of such structures, enter the one or the other of these churches by the west door; and, after the' first surprise, excited by the novelty and magnitude of the objects, has a little subsided, let him candidly attend to the nature of the sensations that they severally excite. In that case, I shall be very much deceived if he does not confess, that in Westminster he feels a light and exhilarating sensation that tends to elevate and expand the mind, and exalt it to a kind of sublimity of perception that makes him rise, as it were, from the earth, and expand and fill the ample space around him. The eye, whichever way it is turned, sees an amplitude of space so distinctly marked as to be sufficient to enable the mind to measure in idea its extent, without being so much broken as to separate it into parts that cannot be contemplated together. It seems, then, to be one great whole of immense magnitude; which, as it retires backward from the eye, leaves the imagination still to trace, without confusion, an indefinite extent still unseen. In St. Paul's church, on the contrary, on entering by the west door, the lowness of the roof compared to what the exterior of the building made you expect, and the uniform vault-like appearance which that exhibits; the magnitude and solidity of the pillars that support this ponderous vault, with the puerile pilasters stuck upon them; the closeness which these assume at a small distance, so as to convey the idea of a solid wall, which totally cuts off all idea of space behind it; the gloom which results from the smallness of the windows behind, totally excluded from the eye of the beholder, conjoined with the shade of the massy pillars; all these circumstances, combined, tend to depress the mind with a chilling sensation of a burial vault, more fitted for the repose of the dead than the reception of the living, Nor is this sensation abated when the eye is directed to the farther end, where the small window, from the great distance, is contracted into a point; and from the closeness, parallelism, and darkness of the sides, it conveys more truly the idea of looking through a telescope than any thing else; though the light from the dome appears to be a kind of something that is not easy to be accounted for, the parts of it appearing from that view so indistinct as not to be easily recognized.'

This monument of Sir Christopher Wren's glory is farther criticized, with much severity.

To return from columns, pilasters, domes, &c. to agriculture and rural affairs, we must briefly notice the chief contents of vol. ii., which are Hints on Experimental Agriculture-on obtaining Green-houses and Hot-houses, &c. without much expence-on an improved Mode of Horse-hoeing, (illustrated with figures) on the Uses of Beech-mast-on the Breed of Sheep,

&c.