IT may well be said here, that Mr. Levret attributes such excellent qualities, and marvellous properties, to that same new forceps of his, as ought to immortalize his memory, and render his forceps universal over the whole earth,—if they were but proved. Ay! there lies the difficulty. Messieurs Rathlaw, Boëhmer, Janckius, and the most notable practitioners in England, do not believe a syllable of the matter. Even Dr. Smellie, though I think he approves the crooked part of the forceps, speaks slightly enough of it, and has even dared to falsify the inventor’s assertion of the ne-plus-ultra of it, by altering the form, as he tells us, p. 370. “in a manner that renders it more simple, more convenient, and less expensive.” Mr. Levret cannot then expect we shall take these advantages for granted upon his own bare assertion, in the blind enthusiasm he manifests for this rare production of his genius. I do not so much as believe, that he was even himself, at times, clearly persuaded of its excellence. At least he, in several places, appears to contradict himself. As it is then greatly of use to show into what a maze of errors these are capable of falling, who neglecting the guidance of judgment in the road of truth, wander into the wilds of imagination, I shall just point out here some of Levret’s, at least, to me, seeming inconsistencies with himself, but especially with plain reason and common-sense. The reader will find the notice I take of them far from digressive, serving as they do even for connexion, as well as enforcement of my arguments. MR. Levret, p. 161, concludes the first part of his observation thus. “NOTA, some very intelligent persons have been pleased to charge me with an opinion, which I have never had as to CURVE FORCEPS: they think, that I believe it capable of going into the uterus in search of the child’s head when it is not ingaged in the orifice: and yet I do not advise the use of it, unless in those cases where the other (the common forceps) is employed, over which it has essential advantages.” HERE the reader will please to observe, that all the wonders, just before quoted from himself, are reduced only to the cases in which it may be advantageously substituted to the common forceps. This, by the by, is reducing it to less than nothing. But how is this consistent with those same marvellous excellencies he displayed to us a little before, to wit? “_It is very feasible with it to extract the head of a child separate from the body, and remaining in the uterus._”——And again, “_with my instrument it appears to me possible, to assist powerfully the getting out the head of a child that shall have remained in the uterus, the body being entirely come out, but of which a part is still in the vagina_.”