Star.
London, England, 1829-12-02 00:00:00

oppression and contempt for the people's opinion
predominant almost every where? The political
projects of Austria--where M. DE METTER..
WICII has been engaged in a crusade against freedom
for the last fifteen years—are of themselves quite
sufficient to arouse the spirit of resistance and re-
venge, wherever a spark of liberty remains. Abetted
by the Ministers and Royal Family of France,
what incalculable ruin has not this person achieved
in Europe, while every act of himself and a late
Minister of this country, was calculated to heap the
kingly power with public contumely and hatred ! Seeing,
as the people saw—after their best blood had been shed
to destroy the military system of NAPOLEON—that so far
from obtaining those institutions and guarantees which
had been so lavishly promised them in the Proclama-
tions of 1813, a plan for their general partition and
spoliation was organised by the sceptred promisers,
and every demonstration on their parts towards liberal
forms inexorably and instantaneouly crushed, what could
reflecting Statesmen anticipate, but the condition of
things which has now arrived ? To talk of any more
coalitions against freedom, would be to betray a lament-
able ignorance of human nature. We are sure that
0. P. Q., in alluding to this matter, is not serious, when
he speaks of English " seventy-fours and frigates cruis-
ing in the Channel—and Dutch and Prussian troops
stationed along the frontiers." Instead of such a state
of things, the probabilities all run in a totally op-
posite direction. The people of France will not go into
extremities unless they are forced to do so by the ob-
stinacy of the Court. They are therefore more likely
to meet the sympathy and support of Europe,
than its hatred and opposition. This is the great
truth we would fain impress on the minds of Princes
and Cabinets. Let it be the main subject of their future
meditations, and some hope may then be entertained of
avoiding that convulsion to which Mr. CANNING so
emphatically alluded, when—in the best speech which
was ever heard within the walls of Parliament—he sus-
pended the war of opinion" in terrorent over guilty
tyrants.

We have had sent to us the December Number of the
Monthly Gazette of Health, conducted by Doctor
RICHARD REECE; and in the very first article—headed
Medical Biography—which purports to be a life of
Doctor ELLIOTSON, we find a passage on which it is
imperative to animadvert without delay. We do so—as
those who know us will readily believe—without any
admixture of personal feeling towards the respectable
subject of this trashy memoir. On the contrary, we are
sorry to see a man, with such claims to the gratitude of
the profession as the learned translator of RUMEN-
BACH'S Elements of Physiology indisputably pos-
sesses, thus dragged in the mire by editorial puff-
mongers. The piece of imposture to which we al-
lude runs thus :—" A stronger proof of his me-
dical acquirements cannot be recorded, than the
fact of his having been elected a PRESIDENT of the
Medical Society of Edinburgh, which is the arena where
all the medical talent and knowledge of the modern
Athens is displayed."
Dangerous and dishonest passages like this, calcu-
lated to mislead public opinion on so general and serious
a concernment ; written too, as they must expressly be,
to impose on the credulity of families, where health
and even life is at stake ; or—equally fatal in
their effect—the emanations of hardened ignorance ;
cannot be too signally exposed. If Doctor ELLIOTSON,
for whom we have a great respect—and whom, quite
independently of all Edinburgh confirmation, we believe
to be a clever physician—can put upon " record" no
stronger proof of his professional capacities, than his
Presidency over a green assembly like that in question,
we shall indeed be sorry for him. That t'bere is often
much enlightened and scientific discussion in the Royal
Medical Society of Edinburgh, far be it from us to
contravene : but that the election of any indi-
vidual to the Presidency of that Society implies
his superiority in medical knowledge, we do distinctly
deny. It is a severe duty which we are now discharging
to the public, but that duty is paramount over all per-
sonal considerations. We have a great affection for that
Society, and many of our most pleasing recollections are
interwoven with it : for it is the theatre where great abi-
lities often have been first unfolded, and—we fondly
hope—often will be. CULLEN, GREGORY, and
Mov no, presided in that Chair. In that Chair,
also, Sir JAMES MACKINTOSII.--aIMI whom a
name more distinguished as a Statesman, a philo-
pher, and a patriot, it would be hard to find—a
youth then—delivered his maiden speeches to a youthful
auditory, and served his apprenticeship to that popular
eloquence, in which sines he has so gloriously excelled.
It does not, however, depend upon medical qualifica-
tions—but upon the connexions, or party, with which a
young man surrounds himself—to arrive at this honorary
distinction : for, in point of fact, it is nothing else. We
have seen it frequently bestowed, where professional
attainments bad no share in securing the be-
stowal. Let not the public, then, deceive them-
selves; nor fancy—because an individual may have
once presided in the Royal Medical Society of
Edinburgh—that therefore be is a capable physician.
We hnow that it is often the contrary. The writer of
this remonstrance is himself an EXTRAORDINARY
FELLOW of that Society, and has filled the very Chair
about which the present discussion originates, when he
could scarcely have told the difference between bark and
sarsaparilla.

The Nuremberg,' Correspondent of the 23d Nov. is
this day received, in which we find a letter from Odessa,
of the 6th, setting forth that Count PAHLEN, one of the
negociators of the treaty of Adrianople, arrived there from
Bourgas, on board a Russian frigate. We have no in-
formation of the Turkish Legation to St. Petersburgh
having left the Bosphorus. Several hundred Turkish pri-
soners of war were embarked in transports to be conveyed