University of Virginia Library

Although Dame Fortuna was, by ancient mythologists, represented as a whimsical being, cutting her capers on the periphery of a large wheel, I am justified in accommodating her goddesship with a ladder, by virtue of a figure in rhetoric called Poetica Licentia (anglice) poets' licentiousness.

Pursuant to Mr Pope's advice;

This wondrous soul-transporting modification of matter is christened by chymists gaseous oxyd of nitrogen, and, as will be evident, from the following sublime stanzas, and my judicious comments thereon (in which I hold the microscope of criticism to those my peculiar beauties which are not visible to the naked eye of common sense) is a subject worthy the serious attention of the poet and physiologist.

Any “half-formed witling,” as Pope says (Essay on Criticism) “may hammer crude conceptions into a sort of measured nonsense, vulgarly called prose bewitched.” But the daring mortal, who aspires to “build with lofty rhyme” an Ævi Monumentum, before he sets about the mighty enterprise, must be filled with a sort of incomprehensible quiddam of divine inflation. Then, if he can keep clear of Bedlam, and be allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper, every line he scribbles, and every phrase he utters, will be a miracle of sublimity. Thus one Miss Sibyl remained stupid as a barber's block, till overpowered by the overbearing influence of Phœbus. But when

the frantic gipsy muttered responses at once sublime, prophetic, and unintelligible.

Indeed, this furor mentis, so necessary an ingredient in the composition of the genuine poet, sometimes terminates in real madness, as was unfortunately the case with Collins and Smart: Swift, Johnson, and Cowper, were not without dismal apprehensions of a similar fate. The wight, therefore, who wishes to secure to himself a sublunary immortality by dint of poetizing, and happens not to be poeta nascitur, must, like Doctor Caustic, in the present instance, seek a sort of cow-pock-like substitute for that legitimate rabies, which characterizes the true sons of Apollo.

Brother Southey then made the important discovery that “the atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens was composed of this gas.”

Beddoe's Notice.

The same poem to which the gentleman alludes in his huge quarto edition of Joan of Arc, in the words following —“Liberal criticism I shall attend to, and I hope to profit by, in the execution of my Madoc, an epic poem on the discovery of America, by that prince, on which I am now engaged.”

As liberal criticism appears to be a great desideratum with this sublime poet, I trust he will gratefully acknowledge the specimens of my liberality towards a worthy brother, which I propose hereafter to exhibit.

Or, it is possible, may it please your worships, that I—I for the matter of that am a little te—te—tipsy, or so.—But as there may perhaps be, as it were, now and then, one of your Right Worshipful Fraternity, who has been in a similar predicament se—se ipse, I hope I shall receive your worships' permission to stagger on with a jug full of gas in my noddle, at least, through a stanza or two.

See Dryden's Feast of Alexander, where one king Darius has a terrible tumble down, beautifully described by half a dozen “fallens.” But I think the Persian monarch did not after all, fall quite so flat as Doctor Caustic.

See the lamentable case of the Lady, page 16th of Dr Beddoes's pamphlet, who, taking a drop too much of this panacea, fell into hysterical fits, &c.

Boerhaave, Steno, De Graff, Swammerdam, Zimmerman, cum multis aliis. By the by, gentlemen, this epithet shoal is not always to be taken in a shallow sense; but when applied to such deep fellows, must be considered as noun of multitude, as we say a shoal of herrings.

My learned friend, Dr Timothy Triangle perusing the manuscript of this my pithy petition, discovered that my description of the modus operandi on the insect as above, compared with the celebrated “veni, vidi, vici,” as a specimen of fine writing, is superior in the direct proportion of four to three; consequently Dr Caustic has advanced one step higher in the climax of sublimity than Julius Cesar.

That your worships may be able to form something like an idea of the wonderful ken of our mental optics, it will be necessary to con with diligence the opinions of Dr Johnson on this subject, as expressed in his tour to the Hebrides. The Doctor there tells us, that though he “never could advance his curiosity to conviction, yet he came away at last, willing to believe.” But we would have all those who anticipate the deriving any advantage from our slight at second seeing, not only willing, but absolutely predetermined to “believe,” positive evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yes, gentlemen; among other great and wonderful events which we foretold, but which never have happened, and moreover never will happen, was the restoration of the Jews by the intervention of that renowned pacificator, Buonaparte. We first prophecied, and many men of our cast who had a knack at prying into futurity, echoed our prediction, that the pious emperor of the Gauls would make Jerusalem the head quarters of the Millennium, and under our auspices many a wandering Jew was recruited, and stood in readiness to march at a moment's warning to take possession of his patrimonial property.

This was immensely proper, as I propose colonizing these hitherto Terræ Incognitæ, and know of no person in existence, except myself (who am now decrepit with age, and, alas, sadly poverty stricken) whose scientific qualifications, knowledge of the coast, and well known ardent zeal in the science of Tadpolism, so well entitle him to command such important expedition.

Could we command the years of a Nestor, “the indelible ink” of a Lettersom, and the diligence of a Dutch commentator, we should still readily acknowledge that our powers were totally inadequate to the task of eulogising, in proportion to their merits, the philosophical and literary performances of that profound sage, Dr James Anderson, LL. D., F. R. S., Scotland, &c. &c. whose mysterious hints afford a clue by which we have been enabled to add lustre to the present age, by many of our own sublime discoveries and inventions.

In his deep work called “Recreations in Agriculture and Natural History,” the Doctor says, among other things not less marvelous, “The mathematician can demonstrate with the most decisive certainty, that no fly can alight on this globe which we inhabit, without communicating motion to it; and he can ascertain, with the most accurate precision, if so he choose to do” (by the by, this sine qua non part of the sentence is very beautiful, and not at all redundant) “what must be the exact amount of the motion thus produced.”

Vol. ii. p. 350.

“Perhaps no important revolution was ever bloodless. It may be useful in this place to recollect in what the mischief of shedding blood consists. The abuses, which at present exist in all political societies are so enormous, the oppressions which are exercised are so intolerable, the ignorance and vice which they entail so dreadful, that possibly a dispassionate inquirer might decide that, if their annihilation could be purchased by an instant sweeping off of every human being now arrived at maturity, from the face of the earth, the purchase would not be too dear,” &c. &c.—

Godwin's Political Justice.

Lynch Law, is, we believe, synonymous with mob law, sometimes called club law. By this law summary injustice is executed by an ignorant and furious multitude, who burn and destroy, plunder and murder, without measure and without mercy, the property and persons of anybody and everybody who happen to be obnoxious, or are pointed out as objects entitled to the particular attention of their mobocratic mightinesses. Sometimes the poor individuals who are so unlucky as to fall into the clutches of these horrible human harpies, are subjected to mock trials, in which the accusers enact the parts of law makers, judges and executioners. A man by the name of Lynch, who lives, or has lived, somewhere in the West, was active in this mode of taking cognizance of offences, whence the whole process is called Lynch law. But thereby hangs a tale, which we either do not recollect, or have never heard; and in either case, we shall not, at present, trouble your worships with its recital.

It would require an immensity of books, and an eternity of time to describe or even allude to the physological craniological, physiognomical, phrenological, &c. &c. &c. theories of Dr Gall, and a multitude of his followers. We shall, therefore, attempt no such thing, but content ourself with the simple assertion, which we will maintain pugnis et calcibus, that, as to the craniology of reptiles and insects we are out of sight above the utmost stretch of whatsoever these superb philosophers could possibly comprehend.

Mr Mackenzie, author of five thousand receipts, &c., deserves to be trounced and anathematized for the following vulgar sentence:

“To set off the complexion with all the advantage it can attain, nothing more is necessary than to wash the face with pure water, or if anything farther be occasionally wanted, it is only the addition of a little soap.”

We here quote a passage from a popular writer merely to indicate our utter disapprobation of the author and of his sentiments:

“The solicitude of parents, especially of mothers to make their daughters fine ladies is truly ridiculous. How often soever the poor child has occasion to look at anything below the parallel of the horizon, and a little relax the muscles of the neck, it can hardly ever escape the notice of her mamma or her governess, and she is bid with more than common poignancy of expression, to hold up her head, perhaps more than a thousand times in a day. If one of her shoulders should be thought to rise but an hair's breadth higher than the other, she is immediately bound and braced, twisted and screwed, in a most unmerciful manner, and tortured almost to death, in order to correct the supposed irregularity. And lest the dear creature, in the natural play and free use of her limbs, should contract any ungenteel habits, the dancing master must be called in at least three times a week to put every part of the body into its due place and attitude, and teach her to sit, stand and walk according to the exact rules of his art, which, to be sure, must infinitely exceed all the simplicity of untutored nature. Should the least pimple appear on any part of the face, or what is still more alarming, should the milk-maid's flush begin to betray itself in the color of the cheeks, all possible means must be used, physic and diet must do their part, nay, health itself must be endangered or destroyed to suppress the vulgar complexion.

“Health and beauty have been frequently destroyed by a solicitous care to preserve them, deformity induced, and a thousand ill habits contracted by the very means that were intended to prevent them.”—

Ash's Sentiments on Education.

See additional note No. 1, at the end of the volume.

The process by which this fabrication is effected is copied from Nature; and her manipulations in similar performances have been thus described in some of our heretofore publications:

Certain sages learn'd and twistical,
By reasoning not a whit sophistical,
Have proved what's wonderful, to wit,
The smallest atom may be split,
Then split again, ad infinitum;
And diagrams, which much delight 'em,
By Mr Martin make this out
Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Matter thus splittable, I wean,
With half an eye it may be seen,
That spirit, being much diviner,
May be proportionably finer;
Nor is this merely postulatum,
'T is proved by facts, and thus I state them.
Dame Nature erst, in mood of merriment,
Perform'd the following odd experiment;
She took a most diminish'd sprite,
Smaller than microscopic mite,
An hundred thousand such might lie
Wedged in a cambric needle's eye,
And first, by dint of her divinity,
Divided that one whole infinity,
Then cull'd the very smallest particle,
And shaped therefrom that worthless article,
That tiny evanescent dole,
Which serves for Dicky Dapper's soul.

The stanza with which this line commences, is a liberal, but so far as respects meaning, a faithful translation of the famous maxim, Dulce est desipere in loco.—

Horace L. iv. C. 12.

The hint for this improvement was derived from an article in the American Farmer, from which the following is extracted:

“A few weeks since, two of the members of the United Society of Shakers, at Lebanon, N. Y., were at our office. They informed us that they had tried an experiment in feeding hogs with saw dust, produced in their button and other wooden ware factory, by mixing with the usual food, in the proportion of one third; that is, two parts of the usual food and one part of saw dust; and that the hogs thrive full as well as when fed in the usual way. From their experiments they are satisfied that the saw-dust was digested by the animals, was nutritious, and answered in all respects the purposes of the usual food.”

In my younger days, I lived on terms of intimacy with Doctor Franklin, highly honorable to both parties, as it showed we were both men of discernment in choosing each a great man for his friend.

In a letter from that venerable sage, afterwards printed (See Franklin's Works, p. 115, vol. ii. third edition) he told me that toads buried in sand, shut up in hollow trees, &c. would live forever, as it were; and, among other things, informed me of certain curious facts about flies, which I will relate in his own words. “I have seen an instance of common flies preserved in a manner somewhat similar. They had been drowned in Madeira wine, apparently about the time when it was bottled in Virginia, to be sent to London. At the opening of one of the bottles, at the house of a friend where I was, three drowned flies fell into the first glass which was filled. Having heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these. They were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been employed to strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours two of them began by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive motions of the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with their fore feet, beat and brushed their wings with their hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding themselves in Old England, without knowing how they came thither. The third continued lifeless until sun-set, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown away.

“I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life, at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country. But since, in all probability, we live in an age too early, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought, in our time, to perfection, I must, for the present, content myself with the treat which you are so kind as to promise me, of the resurrection of a fowl or turkey cock.”

I do not arrogate to myself the whole merit of this noble invention. Dr Price and Mr Godwin, in divers elaborate works, especially the latter, in his Political Justice, suggested some ideas which set my ingenuity in such a ferment, that I could not rest quietly till I had brewed a sublime treatise on the best mode of pulling down, repairing, and rebuilding decayed and worn out animal machines.

I shall not attempt, in this place, to oblige your worships with anything like a table of the contents of this judicious and profound performance. I will, however, gratify your curiosity so far as to glance cursorily at a few of the leading topics therein discussed and illustrated, and slightly mention some of the immense advantages which will be the result of this discovery.

In the first place, I make it apparent, by a long series of experiments and scientific deductions, drawn therefrom, that it is very practicable to enlighten the mind of a stupid fellow, by battering, boring, or pulling his body to pieces.—Mr poet Waller's authority is here to my purpose, who tells us, that

Mr Gray, likewise, in his Hymn to Adversity, requests that “Daughter of Jove” to impose gently her “iron hand,” and trouble him a little with her “torturing hour,” although he appears disposed to avoid, if possible, her more dismal accompaniments, such as her “Gorgonic frown,” and the “funereal cry of horror.”

The Spaniards, under Cortes and Pizarro, managed much in the same way, and enlightened the natives of the mighty empires of Peru and Mexico in the great truths of Christianity, by killing a part, reducing the remainder to a state of servitude, and battering their souls' cottages at their leisure. This process is in part expressed in a poetical epistle, which I received not long since from my correspondent settled at Terra del Fuego, in South America, who thus expresses the conduct of some of his acquaintance, in converting the aborigines to Christianity.

I have read of a great mathematician, who was uncommonly stupid till about the age of twenty, when he accidentally pitched head first into a deep well, fractured his skull, and it became necessary to trepan him. After the operation it was immediately evident that his wit was much improved, and he soon became a prodigy of intellect. Whether this alteration was caused by “new light let in through chinks,” the trapanning chisel had made, or whether the texture and position of the brain were materially changed for the better, in consequence of the jar and contusion of the fall, I shall leave to some future Lavater, or any other gentleman, who can guage the capacity of a statesman, or a barrel of porter, with equal facility, to determine.

2d. I proceed to demonstrate, that man being, as our most enlightened modern philosophers allow, jumbled together by mere chance (a blind, capricious goddess, who, half her time, does not know what she is about) it is extremely easy to understand the principles of his texture; because the mechanism of his frame is less intricate than that of a common spit jack. Consequently, a Solomon or a Brodum can mend this machine when deranged, as well as a Hurvey, a Syndenham, or a Mead.

3d. I proceed to prove, from analogy, with what facility this machine may be disjointed, pulled to pieces, and again botched together. My friend Mahomet had his heart taken out, a drop of black blood expressed therefrom, and went about his common concerns next day as well as ever. So when a sighing swain is taken desperately in love, he may lose all his insides without any very serious inconvenience. This I can attest from sad experience, as, about forty years since, I was terribly in for't, with a sweet little sprig of divinity, whose elbow was ever her most prominent feature, whenever I had the audacity to attempt to approximate the shrine of her Goddesship.

4th. The important advantages, which will undoubtedly arise from this invention, are almost too obvious to require explanation. I shall, however, advert to a few.

By taking the animal machine to pieces, you may divest it of such particles as clog its wheels, and render its motions less perfect. A decayed, worn-out gallant may have its parts separated, thoroughly burnished, botched together, and rendered as bright as a new-coined silver sixpence. Thus my venerable Piccadilly friend, who, as Darwin expresses it, sometimes “clasps a beauty in Platonic arms;” if he should, fifty years hence, perceive that the mechanism of his frame is rather the worse for wear, may come to Dr Caustic, and be rebuilt into as fine a young buck as any in Christendom.

5th. Hereditary diseases may be thus culled from the constitution, and gouty and other deleterious particles separated from those which are sound and healthful.

Pride may be picked from the composition of an upstart mushroom of a nobleman, impudence from a quack, knavery from a lawyer, moroseness from a methodist, testiness from an old bachelor, peevishness from an old maid; in short, mankind altered from what they are to what they ought to be, by a method at once cheap, practicable, easy and expeditious.

The only difficulty which has ever opposed itself to my carrying this sublime invention to the highest possible pitch of perfection, has been the almost utter impossibility of procuring any man, woman, or child, who is willing to become the subject of operation. Now if either of your worships would loan me his carcase to be picked to pieces, and again botched together in the manner above stated, provided the experiment should not fully succeed, I will engage to pay all the damages thereby accruing to community, out of one tenth part of the profits of this publication.

—Stricto Medea recludit
Ense senis jugulum: veteremque exire cruorem
Passa, replet succis. Quos postquam combibit Æson
Aut ore acceptos, aut vulnere barda, comæque
Canitie posita nigrum rapuere colorem.
Pulsa fugit macies.

This passage, with a condensation of thought and felicity of expression peculiar to myself, I have thus happily hit into English.

Medea cut the whither'd weasand
Of superannuated Æson,
Then fill'd him with the acrid juices
Of nettle-tops and flower-de-luces;
Till from the defunct carcase, lo!
Starts a full blooded Bond street beau!!

Chymistry furnishes us with a method of manufacturing artificial earthquakes, which will have all the great effects of those that are natural. The old-fashioned receipt for an earthquake, however, of iron filings and sulphur mixed in certain proportions and immersed in the earth, I shall not take the trouble to state to your worships; as most of you have, perhaps, read Mr Martin's Philosophy nearly half through. But my plan is to make such an earthquake as no mortal, except Dr Darwin and myself, ever supposed possible. The former gentleman made shift to explode the moon from the southern hemisphere of our earth, and I propose to forward other moons by artificial earthquakes of my own invention, from the northern hemisphere. I will give your worships a specimen of Dr Darwin's moon-producing earthquake, from “Botanic Garden,” Canto I.

“Gnomes! How you shriek'd! when through the troubled air,
Roar'd the fierce din of elemental war;
When rose the continents, and sunk the main,
And earth's huge sphere exploding burst in twain.—
Gnomes! How you gazed! When from her wounded side,
Where now the South sea heaves its waste of tide,
Rose on swift wheels the Moon's refulgent car,
Circling the solar orb, a sister star,
Dimpled with vales, with shining hills emboss'd,
And roll'd round earth her airless realms of frost.”

No man will say in this case,—

The reaction, at the moment of explosion, of that mass of matter which now composes our moon, is the cause of the obliquity of the polar axis to the poles of the ecliptic, according to Dr Darwin; though Milton says, Whether an explosion similar to that, so beautifully described by Dr Darwin, from the north side of the equator, would not set all right, and a new era be announced, which will be, like that of old, when is a problem worth the attention of our modern philosophers. But at any rate, I, Dr Caustic, will positively try the experiment.

This notable exploit I think to be a very great improvement on electrical experiments made by a number of renowned French and English philosophers. See Priestly's History of Electricity, page 94.

Dr Darwin alludes to this wonderful performance in the following superb lines:

Botanic Garden, Canto iv.

That Great Britian, not content with domineering on the surface, contemplates the colonizing of the depths of the ocean, is evident from the following lines, by Dr Darwin:

But be it known by these presents to Britannia's ladyship, that all that part of the ocean, which lies between the centre of gravity and six feet of the surface, including whatsoever salt water touches or rests upon, belongs to Doctor Caustic, by the rights of discovery and pre-occupation.

We preferred whales both for the docility and the rhyme's sake.

Charles Babbage, Esq. A. M., Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, [Eng.] and member of several academies, has written and published a work On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, which furnished that impulse to our Organ of Constructiveness which eventuated in the accomplishment of the solid gas manufactory above alluded to.

“In Iceland the sources of heat [to wit, hot springs, volcanoes, &c.] and their proximity seem almost to point out the future destiny of that island. The use of its glaciers may enable its inhabitants to liquefy the gases with the least expenditure of mechanical force; and the heat of its volcanoes may supply the power necessary for their condensation. Thus, in a future age, power may become the staple commodity of the Icelanders, and of the inhabitants of other volcanic districts; and possibly the very process by which they will procure this article of exchange for the luxuries of happier climates, may, in some measure tame, the tremendous element which occasionally devastates this province.”

By our improvement, after the gases are condensed into a liquid, they are made solid by the total abstraction therefrom of every particle of caloric, insomuch that a thermometer, of our invention, with its bulb in a ball of gas, indicated 999 degrees below 0 of Fahrenheit.

Monsieur Citizen Volney, a sort of minor doctor Caustic, published a circular letter, requesting the co-operation of men of similar views and intellects with his own, to make observations on the course and velocity of the winds, the times of their occurrence, &c. in different parts of the globe. The results of these observations he wished might be forwarded to him at Paris, that he might therefrom be able to complete a theory, which he had partly formed for calculating the tides and currents of the atmosphere, with as much precision as those of the ocean are now predicted.

Dr Franklin's theories relative to this subject also deserve the meed of metrical immortality. His tropical hurricanes, caused by a whirling precipitance of cold air from the upper to the lower region of the atmosphere are very fine phenomena. His north east storms, which, on our continent, begin their operations at the south west, in consequence of some extra rarefaction of air somewhere on or about the isthmus of Darien, deserve a minute inspection. The ascent of rarefied air at the equator, which makes its way to the poles, and visits us in the form of a frigorific north-wester, as explained by Dr Darwin, requires your worship's high consideration. But we do not believe it possible by a single impulse to project all this philosophy into your right worshipful's pericrania. You will, therefore, please wait till we have leisure for the operation.

This terrible bear is likewise a camelion, and also a dragon. But here you have him—

“Castled on ice, beneath the circling bear,
A vast CAMELION drinks and vomits air;
O'er twelve degrees his ribs gigantic bend,
And many a league his gasping jaws extend;
Half fish beneath, his scaly volutes spread,
And vegetable plumage crests his head,
Huge fields of air his wrinkled skin receives,
From panting gills, wide lungs, and waving leaves;
Then with dread throes subsides his bloated form,
His shriek the thunder, and his sigh the storm.”
Botanic Garden.

And again in prose.

“Though the immediate cause of the destruction or reproduction of great masses of air, at certain times when the wind changes from north to south, or from south to north, cannot yet be ascertained; yet as there appears greater difficulty in accounting for this change of wind from any other known causes, we may still suspect that there exists in the arctic and antarctic circles, a BEAR or DRAGON, yet unknown to philosophers, which, at times, suddenly drinks up, and at other times as suddenly vomits out, one fifteenth part of the atmosphere: and hope that this or some future age will learn how to govern and domesticate a monster which might be rendered of such important service to mankind”!!!

Botanic Garden. Note XXXIII.

“Divine Nonsensia.”

“Many schemes” (it is said in Rees's Cyclopædia, article Aerostation) “have been proposed for directing the horizontal motion of balloons. Some have thought of annexing sails to a balloon, in order to give it the advantage of the wind; but to this proposal it has been objected, that as the aerostatic machines are at rest with respect to the air that surrounds them, they feel no wind, and consequently can derive no benefit from the sails.” None but a conjurer, however, could have made that discovery. But Dr Rees says further, that “An ingenious writer observes, that the case of vessels at sea is quite different from that of balloons; because that the former move with a velocity incomparably less than that of the wind impelling them, on account of the resistance of the water,” &c. This ingenious writer must have had a new edition of Friar Bacon's head on his shoulders.

Our mode of steering a balloon is an improvement on the invention of Professor Danzel, which is thus described by Dr Rees. “Professor Danzel has constructed two cylinders, or axles, to the ends of which are fixed, in the form of a cross, four sails or oars, moveable at the point of their insertion in the cylinder, in such a manner, that when made to move round by means of a handle, the eight oars, like the cogs of a water mill wheel, present, successively, sometimes their flat side and sometimes their edge,” &c.

It is very possible that you may have heard of some of our American mechanical geniuses, who have sometimes come very nigh to the art of navigating boats against the stream by the force of the current. But our invention is very materially different from that. We manage much like a crab or lobster that paddles himself forward under water, and proceeds as well as if he actually carried sail.

Some people, who appear to be fond of an opportunity of spoiling a beautiful theory, have produced against contagion the following arguments, and thereby very much perplexed a simple subject which ought to have been decided solely by the ipse dixit of some famous personage of the faculty.

1. The disorder is propagated more rapidly than could be possible on the theory of contagion; as it spreads over a large city quicker than the small pox would pervade a single alley.

2. It assimilates to itself all other diseases, and forces them to wear its livery; which never is the case in contagious disorders.

3. It is destroyed by frost; but frost increases the activity of contagion.

4. It is an endemic, and must have its own local atmosphere, beyond whose limits it cannot be communicated. Thus the attendants of the sick in country hospitals are never known to be infected.

These, and fifty other arguments of a similar nature, I overturn by the weight of the authority of Dr Mead and other great men, which I have found to be a concise and conclusive way of stopping the mouths of my opponents.

Many an elaborate argument, founded on the above philosophical proposition has been bandied about in periodical prints and journals, during sundry desperate disputes relative to the origin of the American plague. Madrid and Edinburgh, it is affirmed, are rendered healthy by a want of cleanliness, which is proverbial. This sound reasoning is made the basis of our judicious prescriptions which adorn this and several consecutive stanzas.

I do not think that one in forty of your worship's has ever read the “Theory of the Earth,” as first produced by James Hutton, M. D., F. R. S., &c. &c. and thereafter much improved by professor Playfair. As it would, however, be highly commendable for gentlemen of your honorable profession not to rest with a superficial view of the great operations of nature, I will accompany you as far as the centre of gravity, in a journey of observation, for investigating the astonishing magazines of burning materials which Dr Hutton and professor Playfair have furnished us for the execution of our stupendous project.

1. You will obligingly take it for granted, or run the risk of spoiling the Huttonian Theory, that the centre of the globe is a stupendous furnace, a million times hotter than that of Nebuchadnezzar. That this same heat, although it never amounts to a blaze, and wastes no fuel, is sufficiently elastic to raise the continents from the bottom of the main —That having once raised or blown them up, as it were, like a bladder, it is very careful not to let them down again, because as we shall see by and by, they must all be “disintegrated,” alias washed into the ocean.

2. Moreover, Dr Hutton's followers will thank you to suppose that all this matter, raised as aforesaid, consisted originally of unstratified rocks, which, though they are properly called primitive as the most ancient of the whole family of rocks, yet they are in fact nothing better than the scrapings or “disintegrations” of primal continents which existed before the commencement of the last edition of the earth.

3. You will please to believe that all calcareous matters are formed from the detritus of the primitive rocks, delivered by rivers into the sea, and there, after having been modified by central heat, protruded above water as before mentioned.

4. You will likewise be convinced that no metal, mineral, or lapidose substance, can possibly be formed except at the bottom of the ocean, in the laboratory of Dr Hutton.

5. That although some foolish people have supposed that the sea has been subsiding for centuries, yet, as we know that the continents are crumbling into the ocean, you will conclude that we shall at length find all our dry land under water, and the sea increased in proportion to the square feet of earth deposited under its surface.

6. That it is evident that this central heat, having raised its continents, and put proper supporters under them, will go to work in due time, and raise new continents from the bottom of the ocean. Thus the area of Dr Hutton's centre will be enlarged, till the earth and moon will come in contact, if our plan hereafter mentioned should not check such progression. But we forbear, lest when it is ascertained that “the present continents are all going to decay and their materials descending into the ocean,” it may cause some disagreeable sensations among our friends, who are speculators in American lands, whose property, it seems, according to Dr Hutton's theory, is about to take French leave of its worthy proprietors.

When you have thoroughly saturated your faculties with this theory, we will oblige you with a fresh solution from Dr Darwin, compounded as follows:

“The variation of the compass can only be accounted for by supposing the central parts of the earth to consist of a fluid mass, and that part of this fluid is iron, which requiring a greater degree of heat to bring it into fusion than glass or other metals, remains a solid ore. The vis inertiæ of this fluid mass with the iron in it occasions it to perform fewer revolutions than the crust of solid earth over it; and thus it is gradually left behind, and the place where the floating iron resides, is pointed to by the direct or retrograde motion of the magnetic needle.”

And therefore the writer of the article “Earth,” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, is wrong in attempting to overturn this fine fabric of philosophy, by making it appear that metals, minerals, fossils, &c. are continually forming by accretion, &c. on the earth's surface. Indeed, that writer has laid a heavy hand on all the theories of our modern earthmongers.

In the first paper of the third volume of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, you will find certain “Conjectures concerning the formation of the earth,” &c. in a letter from Dr B. Franklin, to the abbe Soulavie; which we would prescribe as tonics to Hutton's system. The American sage informs us, that in the course of some observations in Derbyshire, in England, he “imagined that the internal part (of the earth) might be a fluid more dense, and of greater specific gravity than any of the solids we are acquainted with; which, therefore, might swim in or upon that fluid. Thus the surface of the globe would be a shell, capable of being broken and disordered by any violent movements of the fluid on which it rested. And as air has been compressed by art so as to be twice as dense as water, in which case, if such air and water could be contained in a strong glass vessel, the air would be seen to take the lowest place, and the water to float above and upon it; and as we know not yet the degree of density to which air may be compressed; and M. Amontons calculated, that its density increasing as it approached the centre in the same proportion as above the surface, it would at the depth of—leagues be heavier than gold, possibly the dense fluid occupying the internal parts of the globe might be air compressed. And as the force of expansion in dense air, when heated, is in proportion to its density; this central air might afford another agent to move the surface, as well as be of use in keeping alive the subterraneous fires; though, as you observe, the sudden rarefication of water coming into contact with those fires may also be an agent sufficiently strong for that purpose, when acting between the incumbent earth and the fluid on which it rests.

“If one might indulge imagination in supposing how such a globe was formed, I should conceive, that all the elements in separate particles being originally mixed in confusion, and occupying a great space, they would, as soon as the Almighty fiat ordained gravity or the mutual attraction of certain parts and the mutual repulsion of other parts to exist, all move towards their common centre: That the air being a fluid whose parts repel each other, though drawn to the common centre by their gravity, would be densest towards the centre and rarer as more remote; consequently all matters lighter than the central part of that air and immersed in it, would recede from the centre and rise till they arrived at that region of the air which was of the same specific gravity with themselves, where they would rest; while other matter, mixed with the lighter air would descend, and the two meeting would form the shell of the first earth, leaving the upper atmosphere nearly clear. The original movement of the parts towards their common centre, would naturally form a whirl there, which would continue in the turning of the new formed globe upon its axis, and the greatest diameter of the shell would be in its equator. If by any accident afterwards, the axis should be changed,” [viz. by the impinging of a Buffon's comet's tail or the delivery of a Darwin's moon] “the dense internal fluid by altering its form must burst the shell and throw all its substance into the confusion in which we find it!” There's an air gun for your worships!

Now, if we did not possess a particular partiality for the sage who formed this system, we should probably break up his Eolian cave, even at the risk of creating half a hundred hurricanes. For should we open a vent as large as a needle's point into this magazine of compressed air, you would instantly be assailed by “another guess whistling” than was the tempest tost Trojan fleet when

I am afraid, after all, this would turn out but a bubble.

Now, if it should happen that the comparative levity of air consists in the repellant powers of its particles, and those bodies which have the greatest cohesion are most prone to gravitate, there “needs some conjuror to tell us,” what should hinder bodies of greater specific gravity from riddling down between those particles of air. No man but Dr Franklin could have caught the fugitive air under the shell of the first earth, and pressed it till it became heavier than gold by a hurly-burly of elements “mixed in confusion.”

The “Monthly Reviewers” of our late edition of Tractoration, would have it that OURSELF was a Scotchman “frae the north,” &c. Now here's a yankee phrase, merely to convince you that they were out in their conjectures.

We should be able to make much more rapid progress in our sublime flights of poetry, were we not under the necessity of dismounting from our Pegasus every ten paces, in order to give your worships a hoist, and thus enable your ponderosities, like Mr Pope's “slugs,” to keep up with us. It is a thousand to one if any one of your college has ever heard of Dr Burnet, of earth-manufacturing memory. But it is absolutely necessary that you should know something of Dr Burnet's theory before you can comprehend the stanza to which this note has reference. You will, therefore, shut up this, my volume, and per fas aut nefas obtain possession of Dr Burnet's theory of the earth's formation; and when you have diligently drudged through that treatise, we will again take you in tow, and permit you to accompany us, but non passibus equis, till our muse salutes you with procul! O procul! &c.

A composition has been invented by a Mr Parker, which bids fair to become one of the most important discoveries which has signalized the present century. The gentleman has compounded a cement or mortar, which, by the mere action of the air, assumes in a week or two the durability and consistence of the hardest marble and the firmest stone, and may be applied to all the purposes to which the strongest grained freestone is usually applied. Bridges, aqueducts, houses, and we suppose pavements and roads, can be as well constructed of this material as of the ordinary matters used in their composition. The ornaments and articles usually made of marble can also be made of the same materials, as it admits of a high polish, is incalculably cheaper, just as durable, much lighter, and more easily worked. It is not unlikely, that the waters of the Croton may be brought to New York in pipes and aqueducts made of this article, as it would be so much more economical than if transported thither in a canal of masonry, besides that the new canal is impervious, never leaks, and consequently no expenses for repairing would be ever incurred. There is not an article used in household matters, or for public purposes that has formerly been of stone, but admits of the substitution of this cheaper and lighter article; and we learn that the corporation have inspected the manufacture, and are impressed with a proper sense of its importance and applicability to civic purposes.—

N. Y. Mirror.

See Studies of Nature, by St Pierre, in which that scheming philosopher has, with wonderful adroitness, swept away the cobweb calculations of one Isaac Newton. Indeed, I never much admired the writings of the last mentioned gentleman, for the substantial reasons following.

In the first place, the inside of a man's noddle must be better furnished than that of St Pierre, or he will never be abel to comprehend them.

Secondly, it would be impossible to manufacture a system, like that of St Pierre, accounting for the various phenomena of nature, in a new and simple method, if one were obliged to proceed, like Newton, in his Principia, in a dull, plodding, mathematical manner, and prove, or even render probable, the things he asserts. But by taking some facts for granted, without proof, omitting to mention such as militate against a favorite theory, we may, with great facility, erect a splendid edifice of “airy nothings,” founded on hypotheses without foundation.

The said Isaac had taken it into his head that the earth's equatorial was longer than its polar diameter. This, he surmised from the circumstance of a pendulum vibrating slower near the equator than near the pole, and from finding that the centrifugal force of the earth would not fully account for the difference between the time of the vibrations at Cayenne and at Paris.

This, with other reasons equally plausible, led him to suppose that the earth was flattened near the poles, in the form of an oblate spheroid, and that a degree of latitude would, of consequence, be greater near the pole than at the equator. Actual admeasurement coincided with that conclusion.

The abbe St Pierre, however, possessing a most laudable ambition to manufacture tides from polar ices, and thus to overturn Sir Isaac's theory relative to the moon's influence in producing those phenomena, and finding it somewhat convenient for that purpose to place his poles at a greater distance from the centre of gravity than the equator, accordingly took that liberty. He likewise had another substantial reason therefor. Unless his polar diameter was longer than his equatorial, the tides, being caused by the fusion of polar ices, must flow up hill.

He therefore drew a beautiful diagram with which a triangle would (according to the scheme of the author of The Loves of the Triangles, improved from Dr Darwin's Loves of the Plants) certainly fall in love at first sight. (See page xxxiv. Pref. Studies of Nature.) In displaying his geometrical skill in this diagram, however, he took care to forget that there was some little difference between an oblong and an oblate spheroid.—That flattening the earth's surface, either in a direction perpendicular or parallel to the poles, would increase the length of a degree of latitude by decreasing the earth's convexity. That neither an oblate, nor an oblong spheroid was quite so spherical as a perfect sphere. This was very proper, because such facts would have been conclusive against his new Theory of the Tides.

If you wish, gentlemen, to know anything further relative to this instinctive plough, you will take the trouble to consult Mr. Godwin's Political Justice, in which you will find almost as many sublime and practicable schemes for meliorating the condition of man, as in this very erudite work of my own. Let it not be inferred from my not enlarging upon the present and other schemes of this philosopher, that I would regard him as one whit inferior to any other modern philosopher existing, not even excepting his friend Holcroft; but the necessity of expatiating on the redundancy of Mr Godwin's merits, is totally precluded by the unbounded fame which his chaste productions have at length acquired among the virtuous and respectable classes in community.

The learned Dr Price, in his Tracts on Civil Liberty, assures us that such sublime discoveries will be hereafter made by men of science (meaning such as Dr Caustic) that it will be possible to cure the disease of old age, give man a perpetual sublunary existence, and introduce the millenium, by natural causes.

“Through all the realms the kindling ether runs,
And the mass starts into a million suns;
Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issue from the first;
Bend, as they journey with projectile force,
In bright ellipses their reluctant course;
Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll,
And form, self-balanced one revolving whole.”
Botanic Garden, Canto i.

This sublime philosopher has been most atrociously squibbed in the following performance, which I can assure you, gentlemen, is not mine; and, if I could meet with the author, I would teach him better than to bespatter my favorite with the filth of his obloquy.

“Lines on a certain philosopher, who maintains that all continents and islands were thrown from the sea by volcanoes; and that all animal life originally sprung from the exuviæ of fishes. His family arms are three scallop shells, and his motto, “Omnia e Conchis.”

“From atoms in confusion hurl'd,
Old Epicurus built a world;—
Maintain'd that all was accidental,
Whether corporeal powers, or mental;
That feet were not devised for walking,
For eating, teeth; nor tongues for talking;
But CHANCE, the casual texture made,
And thus each member found its trade.
And in this hodge podge of stark nonsense,
He buried virtue, truth and conscience—
Darwin at last resolves to list
Under this grand cosmogonist.
He, too, renounces his Creator,
And solves all sense from senseless matter;
Makes men start up from dead fish bones,
As old Deucalion did from stones;
Forms mortals quick as eyes could twinkle,
From lobster, crab, and periwinkle—
Oh Doctor! Change thy foolish motto,
Or keep it for some lady's grotto:
Else thy poor patients well may quake,
If thou canst no more mend than make.”

Citizen Volney made a very curious, simple, and convenient division of the “Interior Structure” of North America, from certain specimens of mineral substances, collected by this industrious pedestrian in a tour of observation through the United States. Notwithstanding the immense extent of territory which has come under citizen Volney's cognizance, and the short time which he did us the honor to reside and peregrinate among us, we find that he was able to parcel our continent into different interior departments, with as much precision as Buonaparte showed in marking the different provinces of his empire. He gives us “The granite region, the grit or sandstone region, the calcareous or limestone region,” &c. &c.

Now this division is the more ingenious, because it possesses no foundation in nature; and therefore shows a wonderful invention in its author. It happens, luckily for this fine theory, that granite is found in wonderful abundance in the limestone region, and that throughout the continent, in defiance of Mr Volney, we find that nature has jumbled all his “regions” together. Nature, having made some confusion in this way, has the more need of the assistance of modern philosophy to aid her defective operations.

This gentleman published in America a small pamphlet, entitled, The Law of Nature, or Principles or Morality, deduced from the Physical Constitution of Mankind and the Universe. In this he tells us, “It is high time to prove that morality is a physical and geometrical science, and as such, susceptible, like the rest, of calculation and mathematical demonstration.

My friend, doctor Timothy Triangle, is much such another philosopher; but has surpassed the Frenchman in the extent of his views, and made systems which were entirely out of the reach of Mr Volney's intellect. Among others, was a scale of national character. By this, the latitude and longitude of a place being given, and a sort of tare and tret allowance made adventitious circumstances, he could ascertain the character of its inhabitants. The latitude of Paris, he affirmed, was that of perfectibility made perfect, and most lucidly manifested in the person of the Liberty-loving Emperor. Rise to the equator, or recede to the pole from that parallel, and human nature dwindles in arithmetical progression.

This gentleman was a great admirer of the principles of the French revolution, and made out, mathematically, how much blood, horror, and devastation would be necessary to give that predominance to France and French principles, which would terminate in philosophy's millennium.

Dr Triangle likewise made geometrical scales of morality, which were not very essentially different from the principles of Volney. These scales were adapted accurately to the interest, feelings, passions, and prepossessions of the persons for whom they were intended, and so elastic that they would stretch to suit any case, and authorize any action which could be conceived or perpetrated.

Here comes the Hydra, which you Herculean gentlemen are requested to destroy; but the means, by which this great end is to be accomplished, will be fully pointed out in the succeeding cantos.