The Quarterly Review

ART. I.-1. St. Petersburgh [Petersburg]. A Journal of Travels to and from that Capital; through Flanders, the Řhenish Provinces, Prussia, Russia, Poland, Silesia, Saxony, the Federated States of Germany, and France. By A. B. Granville, M.D.; F.R.S.; F.L.S.; M.R.I.; F.G.S.; and M.R.A.S. Physician in Ordinary to H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence, Physician-Accoucheur to the Westminster General Dispensary, and to the Benevolent Lying-in Institution; Principal Physician to the Royal Metropolitan Infirmary for Sick Children; Hon. Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Madrid; Corresp. Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburgh, and Hon. Member of the Imperial MedicoChirurgical Academy of the same town; Foreign Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Naples; Member of the Physico-Mathematical Class of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin; Corresp. Member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Berlin; and Ordinary Member of the Natural History Society of Halle; Corresp. Member of the Prussian Physical Society of Bonn; of the Philomathic and Philotecnic Societies, and the Societé Médicale d'Emulation of Paris; of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Manchester; of the Georgofili of Florence; of the Medical and Scientific Societies of Marseilles, Florence, Pistoja, Val d'Arno, Padua, Venice, &c.; and Member of the Royal College of Physicians in London. London. 1828. 2 vols. 8vo.

2. On the Designs of Russia. By Lieut.-Colonel De Lacy Evans. London. 1828. 8vo.

3. A Few Words on our Relations with Russia, including some Remarks on a recent Publication by Colonel De Lacy Evans, entitled 'Designs of Russia.' By a Non-Alarmist. London. 1828. 8vo.

E have printed Doctor Granville's short title-page with the long tail to it, to give a more extensive circulation to the existence of his polyonomous honours and occupations, than could be expected from that of a work of 1320 pages. The Doctor has truly titles manifold'; and these, when more generally known, will, doubtless, prove a passport for his volumes to the shelves of the learned; but old birds are not easily caught with chaff,' and, to speak for ourselves, we are not likely to be biassed one way or other

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other by a string of initials stuck after a name, were they as many and as legitimate as the quarterings on the shield of the Baron Thunderdentronk.

Doctor Granville thinks it necessary to acquaint the public that he had three reasons for travelling, and three reasons for writing a book about his travels. There is great virtue, as every body knows, in the number three; but we must doubt its efficacy in the present case. The first three are,—the health of the amiable Countess of Woronzow, whom he attended in the capacity of accoucheur;-his own health;-his family affairs;-all good substantial reasons; but what had the public health, or the public affairs to do with them? As little necessity was there to publish to all the world, that,

• When a medical man, fully engaged in practice in such a metropolis as London, whose services have, in common with those of many of his colleagues, been considered useful to the community, abruptly absents himself from his duties, and sets off, at a short notice, to post upwards of four thousand miles over the Continent-the public, whom he serves, and by whom he lives, have some right to ask what motives could have led to such a step. It is in deference to that right that the Author has thus openly entered into an explanation.'—Preface, p. vii.

We have a strong impression that the doctor, in this early part of his book, (for we are yet only in the preface,) betrays a smack of the common vice which too easily besets authors, and which, indeed, we had some suspicion lurked in the long title-page,—in a word, that this hero of etceteras has, unconsciously, perhaps, persuaded himself into a notion that he fills a larger space in society than his pretensions would warrant.* Doctor Granville is unquestionably a clever, shrewd man; and, though a foreigner, we should have thought he had lived long enough in London to know that the English public, so far from feeling any uneasiness at his absence, or exercising any 'right' to call for an explanation' of it, neither does now nor ever will care one straw where he goes, how long he remains absent, when he returns, or whether he ever returns or not, excepting, perhaps, those patients who may have confidence in his skill, which we have heard and believe to be considerable. And having settled this point, we now proceed on our journey through the Doctor's two fat octavos, assuring him that whatever

What else than a wish for public notoriety could have induced Doctor Granville to detail his grievances as a disappointed candidate for the obstetrical chair of the misnamed University of London, in ten or twelve interminable pages in a book on St. Petersburg, and to carry on an unanswered string of objurgations with an encyclope dical-gifted individual' as he calls Mr. Brougham, in the columns of a Sunday newspaper? How can he imagine that the public takes any interest whether Dr. Granville or Dr. Davis be appointed to deliver lectures, or any thing else, even the young Alma Mater herself, in Upper Gower-street.

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The Quarterly Review, Volume 39