CANTO IV.

GRAND ATTACK!

ARGUMENT.

Great Caustic, finding logic sound, The conjuring crew will not confound, Like an indignant hero blusters, The MIGHTY ROYAL COLLEGE musters; Joins to your worships’ powerful phalanx “Death-doing” quacks, and men of all ranks! A bolder, and more desperate host, Than jacobinic France can boast; Then marches to o’erturn and knock dead Each tractoring Perkinistic blockhead; Their INSTITUTION next attacking, He sends them all to Satan--packing!

Our ’foresaid MANIFESTO first done, Which shows our cause a good and just one; The _boldest_ sons of Galen call on,[101] That they with fire and fury fall on!

Sound Discord’s jarring tocsin louder, Than Howard’s fulminating powder:[102] Then into battle like brave men go, Who late were “kill’d off,” at Marengo.[103]

But choose a chief before you start, A bully bold as Buonapart’; And to make sure of well succeeding, Another chap like Charles of Sweden.

Step forth thou POTENT PRINCE OF PUFFERS! Thou modern Hercules of Huffers! Whose name, as Sternhold used to say, Will ring “for ever--and a day;”

For thou canst sound (a thing the oddest, Since an arch quaker should be modest, And never meddle with a _strumpet_[104]) Thine own great name on _Fame’s_ brass trumpet.

And soon that name’s continuous roar Shall roll sublime from shore to shore; Among th’ antipodes, be known, And _blaze_ through either _frozen_ zone.[105]

No more shall merciless reviewers, Stick full of satire’s savage skewers The mighty chief of whom I’m boasting, As one would spit a _goose_ for roasting.[106]

For should they raise with dire misprision, ’Gainst thee one finger in derision; This right hand rudest doggrel’s club in, Shall give the knaves a dreadful drubbing.

But thou, the leader of our throng, Shalt glitter in a future song, Which I intend to raise sonorous, And QUACK! QUACK!! QUACK!!! shall be the chorus.

Then, had I money, I would bet some, And faith I’ll do it (when I get some) One half a guinea, sirs (a net sum) They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.[107]

Thou too, famed KNIGHT OF HORRID FIGURE! With wig than bushel-basket bigger; Which, in its orbit vast, contains, At least a thimble full of brains;

Come on, with lion heart, like Hector, And phiz resembling monkey’s spectre; Prepare the batteries of thy journal,[108] To blast with infamy eternal.

In medical societies pour Forth all thy wonted _learned_ lore: Tell the vile deeds by quackery done, By every nostrum, save _thine own_.[109]

For thou didst play the hero rarely, At Westminster, when routed fairly; Thy genius show’d such vast resources, ’Gainst Belgraves, Colquhouns, Wilberforces![110]

Though hunted down, thou would’st not yield; Though trodden on, didst keep the field. Thus Witherington, in doleful dumps, For lack of legs, fought stout on stumps!

And could’st thou, pertinacious Bradley, But maul these mutton heads most sadly, Soon might thy wig (the people staring) _All_ in a chariot take an airing![111]

Led on by chieftains so redoubted, These vile Perkineans must be routed; Then, if in future people be sick, They’ll worship us, the gods of physic.

Why stand ye now, like drones, astounded, The weapons of your warfare grounded? Arm’d _cap-a-pe_, like heroes rush on, And crush this reptile institution.

But first, to make the bigger bluster, Join every quack that you can muster, Some place in rear, and some in front on, From Brodum down to _gaseous_ Thornton.[112]

Now, when the foe you first get sight on, Shout CA IRA, and then rush right on; And make as terrible a racket, As ever did a woman’s clack yet,

For should you sound a loud alarum, Perhaps you may so sadly scare ’em, Like frighted sheep, they’ll huddle right in The Old Nick’s den, without much fighting.

Just so a gang of Indian savages, When they set out to make great ravages, With war-whoop fright their foes (God help ’em) And then proceed to kill and scalp ’em.

Prudence, by Doctor Caustic’s test, A sneaking virtue is at best, Then drive ahead by hook and crook, Like lions, leap before you look.

But stop, ere further we proceed, To set forth every mighty deed, We must exchange (tho’ horror stiffen ye) Our Clio for a fell Tisiphone!

For when we do these wretches batter, ’Twill be no water gruel matter; And you’ll agree then, I assure ye, Our muse is well changed for a fury.

Thou sprite! thou hag! thou witch! thou spectre! Friend Southey’s crony and protector: Who led the bard, with Joan of Arc, Through death’s deep, dreary, dungeon dark!

Until ye were, I dare be bound, Near half a mile down under ground; Mid screeching ghosts and dragons dreadful, As e’er filled dreaming madman’s head full!

And, after mighty perils past, On Terra Firma, got at last, Didst dub thy jacobin toad eater The “Thalaba” of English metre.[113]

And set the bard to brew a mess Of horror in a wilderness, So wondrous horrible, indeed it Might make one faint away to read it!

Thence sent him under “_rooted waves_” Adown through vast Domdaniel caves,[114] In which the metre man and Thalaba, Had like to have been lost infallibly:

But were translated in a trice To monsieur Mahomet’s paradise,[115] There to enjoy, with Houri-ladies, A whole eternity of play days.

Give me in proper tone to tell, Between a mutter and a yell, How best our fierce avenging choler May do dire deeds of doleful dolor.

Come on! Begin the grand attack With aloes, squills, and ipacac; And then with clyster-pipe and squirt-gun, There will be monstrous deal of hurt done!

Each wry-faced rogue, and dirty trollop, Must well be dosed with drastic jalap, And though their insides you should call up, Still make the numskulls take it all up.

Cram all the ninny-hammers’ gullets, With pills as big as pistol bullets; And mingle mercury enough To season well your doctor’s stuff.

Dash at them escharotics gnawing, Their carcases to pick a flaw in; Of nitrous acid huge carboys, Filled to the brim, like Margate hoys.

Thus when the Greeks with their commander, That fighting fellow, Alexander, Set out one morning, full of ire, To take and burn the town of Tyre;

A patriotic stout old woman Looked out, and saw the chaps a coming; When on a sudden she bethought her To heat a kettle full of water;

And as they went to climb the ladder, (Sure never vixen could be madder, But so the historian of the fray says) She fired her water in their faces!

But to return to _our_ great battle; Now rant! rave! roar! and rend! and rattle![116] Like earth-born giants when they strove, To pull the ears of thundering Jove!

Pelt the vile foe with weapons missile; Make vials round their sconces whistle; Shower on them a tremendous torrent, Of gallipots and bottles horrent.

Make at ’em now like mad Mendozas; With forceps pinch and pull their noses, With tourniquet and dire tooth-drawers, First gird their necks, then break both jaws.

But lo! they bid our dread alliance Of doctors, quacks, and drugs defiance; And, firm as host of cavaliers, Convert their tractors into spears!

See host to host and man to man set! A tractor each, and each a lancet! Each meets his foe, so fierce attacks him! That sure some god or demon backs him!

Fell Ate’s shriek the world alarms! Bellona bellows “ARMS! TO ARMS!” War’s demon dire, a great red dragon, Drives, Jehu-like, Death’s iron wagon!![117]

Loud shouts and dismal yells arise! Rend the blue “blanket” of the skies![118] Grim Horror’s scream and Fury’s frantic Howl might be heard across the Atlantic!!

Although a comet’s tail should hap To give our globe a fatal slap, The “crush of worlds” and “wreck of matter” Would make ten thousand times less clatter!

Thus high in air two different kinds Of monsieur Volney’s warring winds Commence a most impetuous battle, And round the Blue Ridge make all rattle.[119]

Loud, loud they bellow, blow and bluster, With all the power that all can muster; Harsh hurtle, howl, and hiss, but neither Will yield his foe an inch of ether.

Now to the wretches give no quarter, Pound them in indignation’s mortar; Let not the women nor the men chance To ’scape the pestle of your vengeance!

Make cerebrum and cerebellum, To rattle like a roll of vellum, And occiput of every numhead, To sound as loud as kettle-drum head.

With fell trepaning perforator, Pierce every puppy’s paltry pate, or With chissel plied with might and main, Punch a huge hole in pericrane.

And with a most tremendous process, With power of elephant’s proboscis, At once crush dura, pia mater, As one would mash a boil’d potato!

Pelt, pulverize the rogues with shocks Like those from moon-disploded rocks, Sent from that mischief-making planet, Huge, hissing hot, and hard as granite.[120]

Now, with harsh amputating saw, Slash frontal os from under jaw; And make a wound, by cutting slant down, For doctor Tasker to descant on.[121]

Attack Medulla, hight Spinalis, From where the head to where the tail is;[122] Till every bone displays a fracture Of scientific manufacture.

Thus Virgil tells of sturdy fellows, Dares ycleped, and old Entellus, Who, with a pair of iron mittens, Attack’d each other, like true Britons.

Entellus, stout as Hob the giant, Made horrid work, you may rely on’t; Exceeding mightiest verse or prose deed, Knock’d out two teeth, and made his nose bleed!

And now, with desperate trocar, Urge on the dreadful “tug of war;” And, having punch’d them in the crop, say You meant to tap them for the dropsy.

With burning lapis infernalis,[123] Convince them human nature frail is; And taunting, tell them they’re afflicted, Because they are to sin addicted.

With scalprum scrape off epidermis And cuticle (I think the term is) And all the nerves and muscles various, Because, say you, their bones, are carious.

Thus rocks of primitive creation Are worn down by disintegration, Until the mountain mass is brought To 99 times less than 0.

And when reduced to that condition, By some additional attrition, They furnish, by their aggregation, The pabulum of vegetation.

With antimonials make them sweat away; Cram each snout full of asafœtida: Then tell them that their case you fancied Required some castor oil, so rancid.

And though the drug seem somewhat baleful Give each a dose of half a pailful; Then thank them not to make wry faces, For mild cathartics suit their cases.

Dash at them nitrate, hight argentum, And tell them, though it does torment ’em That papists say that purgatory Is but a passport into glory.

Thus monsieur Satan was quite merry,[124] When erst, in Heaven, he raised old Harry; With jokes and cannon, _in terrorem_, Rush’d on and drove ’em all before him.

Stick your keen penetrating probes Through right and left hepatic lobes; And though you pierce the diaphragm, You need not care a single d--n.

So Indians, when a captive’s taken, And they resolve to fry his bacon, Their savage torture to refine, First stick him full of splinter’d pine.

Dissect a rogue or two alive, For thus your worships may contrive To trace the vital springs in action Of nature’s movements to a fraction.

In fine, your worships will contrive To leave not one vile wretch alive, Except those dirty sons of witches, Whom nature meant to dig in ditches.

But all who would not make most topping Fellows to work in docks at Wapping, Some way or other, sirs, I’d have ye Give a quick passport to old Davy.

But if with all this blood and thunder, The stubborn blockheads won’t knock under, And e’en old women bravely wield Their jordans like Achilles’ shield;

No more with these _our_ weapons dabble, But raise a Lord-George-Gordon rabble; Pour on the rogues, that they be undone, The whole mobocracy of London!

Go, when I bid you, order out A riotous and ragged rout From dirty lane and alley dark From Poplar corner to Hyde Park.

Come on, brave fellows, quick surround ’em; With canes and cudgels punch and pound ’em; Brick-bats and broom-sticks, all together, Like coblers hammering sides of leather.

Brave Belcher, Lee, Mendoza, Bourke, Let loose your fists in this great work! Here’s fine amusement for your paws, Without the dread of police laws.

Let not one Perkinite be found Encumbering our British ground; But keep on pelting, banging, mauling, Until old Beelzy’s den they’re all in.

And I’ll be there and blow war’s trumpet: Or with death’s kettle-drum will thump it, Till all’s “confusion, worse confounded” Than erst in Milton’s hell abounded.

Thus, when the Spartans were in trouble, Tyrteus help’d them through their hobble, By singing songs, to raise their courage, All piping hot, as pepper-porridge.

These are the methods of “dead doing,” By which to work the wizard’s ruin; And when with Satan all such trash is, We’ll rise, like Phenix, on its ashes.

Now, sirs, consent to my PETITION, And send these varlets to perdition; So for your weal and welfare, _post hic_, Will ever pray--

CHRISTOPHER CAUSTIC.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

No. I.

Fitted for female education.

Page 25. We are point blank opposed to allowing females any advantages for education, which can possibly induce their ladyships to set up for literata. “_Knowledge is Power_,” and whereas the “seraphic sex” are prone to acquire knowledge with more facility, and communicate it with more felicity than the rough samples of humanity with whom Madam Destiny has had the impudence to connect them by ties (pretty easily severed nowadays) we are amazingly apprehensive that ladies will not only monopolize our trade of authorship, but usurp our places in Church, State and Medicine. We have often shed cataracts of tears (Della Crusca) over the following lines of Pope, which, though addressed to lady Montague, will apply equally well to nine hundred and ninety-nine other lady luminaries, in whose presence the light of Dr CAUSTIC is like the glimmer of a glow worm in the glare of sunshine.

“In beauty or wit No mortal as yet To question your empire has dared But men of discerning Have thought that in learning To _yield to a woman is hard_.”

But with leave of the pope, we lords of the lower part of creation will not “yield to a woman.” We will rather let Lord Bacon and the ladies know, by dint of the right of the strongest, that knowledge _is not_ power, but that _physical strength is power_.

We are excessively provoked with the conductors of the North American Review, who in the No. of that work, dated October, 1835, p. 430, have reviewed, or rather eulogized certain Poems by Mrs Sigourney, and by Miss Gould. And what makes such conduct the more preposterous is that those ladies _deserve_ the encomiums of their admiring Reviewers. They have, likewise, brought into bold relief a great number of lady-authors, such as Miss Burney, Miss Edgworth, Miss Baillie, Miss Martineau, Miss Mitford, Mrs Somerville, Mrs Hemans, Miss Sedgwick, Miss Leslie, Mrs Child, Mrs Hale, &c., whose names and whose merits, correct policy would have consigned to oblivion. Now, be it known, by these presents, that the more merit there happens to be attached to a lady-author, the more her productions should _not_ be taken honorable notice of by a gentleman-critic.

No. II.

In foreign source of yellow fever.

Page 54. Some doctors, however, do not coincide in opinion with Dr Caustic on this subject. Dr Miller, in a _“Report on the malignant disease, which prevailed in New York, in the autumn of 1805,” has the following passage_:

“We live in the latitude of pestilence, and our climate now perhaps is only beginning to display its tendency to produce this terrible scourge. The impurities which time and a police, rather moulded in conformity to the usages of more northern countries than the exigencies of our own, have been long accumulating, are now annually exposed to the heats of a burning summer, and send forth exhalations of the highest virulence.”

No. III.

Page 82, we told your worships, that Perkins was supported by Aldini, and promised some additional remarks by way of illustrating our assertion. We now intend to prove not only that we were correct in our statement, but that light, heat or caloric, electricity, Galvanism, Perkinism, animal spirits, the social feelings, especially when _love_ is concerned, and the stimulus of society, are all intimately connected or different modifications of the same matter.

We will show that _light_ and _heat_ are the same thing in essence, by the authority of some of our prime philosophers whom it would be heresy to dispute or gainsay.

“Universal space,” says Dr Franklin, “so far as we know of it, seems filled with a subtil fluid, whose motion, or vibration, is called light.

“This fluid may possibly be the same with that which attracted by and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the substance, by separating the constituent particles and so rendering some _solids fluid_, and maintaining the fluidity of others; of which fluid when our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they have a proper quantity they are in health, and fit to perform all their functions; it is then called natural heat; when too much, it is called fever; and when forced into the body in too great a quantity from without, it gives pain by separating and destroying the flesh, and is then called burning; and the fluid so entering and acting is called fire.” _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_, vol. iii. p. 5, 6.

Now we will see what Lavoisier, according to Fourcroy, can tell us on this subject.

“The comparison which the more modern philosophers, and particularly my illustrious friend Monge, have established between _caloric and light_, so as to consider these two effects as the _product of modifications of the same body_, is entitled to much more attention. It is established on a great number of experiments; it naturally and simply explains most of the phenomena; and it agrees with the sublime economy of nature, which multiplies effects much more than the bodies which produce them.

“Fire,” he continues, “is disengaged, and shows itself in the form of _heat_, when it is gently and slowly driven out of bodies into the composition of which it entered; but it shines in the form of _light_ when it flies out of compounds, in a very compressed state, by a swift motion.

“According to this ingenious hypothesis, _caloric_ may become _light_, and _light_ on the other hand may become _caloric_. For this purpose it is only necessary that the first should assume more rapidity in its motion, and the second undergo a diminution of velocity.” _Nicholsons’ Fourcroy_, vol. i. p. 57.

Our next step in this our wonderful process is to prove, that light, which is the same as heat, may also be identified with _electricity_.

Here I shall produce the authority of a writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, who appears to be a very sound philosopher. Under the title Electricity, article 83, you will find that gunpowder has been fired by the electric blast; from which the writer reasons as follows.

“As it therefore appears, that the electric fluid, when it moves through bodies either with great rapidity or in very great quantity will set them on fire, _it seems scarce disputable_, that this fluid is the same with the _element of fire_. This being once admitted, the source from whence the electric fluid is derived into the earth and atmosphere must be exceedingly evident, being no other than the sun or source of light itself.” The writer then proceeds to show, that an iron wire has been melted by the discharge of a battery of electricity, and furnishes proofs which must convince the most incredulous, of the correctness of his theory.

Thus far we have proceeded triumphantly in making it abundantly evident that light, heat, and electricity are the same in substance; so that if your worships will permeate this subject with due retention and some small share of true philosophical perspicacity, you will find that heat and electricity are the dregs or sediment of light, and by digesting Dr Black’s theory of latent heat, you will find that the matter of heat, light, and electricity exists in very vast abundance in all bodies and substances.

We next will prove that Galvanism is a modification of electricity. Here we will advert to the theory of Galvani and Aldini, as stated by C. H. Wilkinson, lecturer on Galvanism in Soho square, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, &c. &c. This gentleman informs us, that “the animal body is a description of _Leyden phial_, or magic battery, in one part of which there is an excess of electricity, and in the other a deficiency. _The conducting body communicates the fluid of the part where it is abundant to the part_ where it is defective; and in this passage of the electricity, the muscular contractions are obtained in the same way as the discharges are produced by the Leyden phial or magic batteries. As the _conducting bodies_ in electricity are the sole agents in the discharge of the Leyden phial, so the same bodies alone serve likewise to excite muscular contractions.” _Wilkinson’s Elements of Galvanism_, p. 82.

We next will prove that Perkins’s points are the proper conductors of animal electricity. From a specification which Mr Perkins published in the Repertory of Arts, it would seem that _zinc_ is the principal ingredient in the tractors.

“Zinc,” says Fourcroy, “is a conductor of electricity like all other metals, and nothing particular has hitherto been discovered in it with respect to this property; however, the _powerful manner in which it effects the sensibility of the human body in Galvanic experiments seems to give it herein a sort of prerogative_ or pre-eminence over other metallic substances. If we place a plate of zinc under the tongue, and cover the upper surface of this organ with another metal, and especially a piece of gold or silver, and then incline the extremity of this last, so as to approach it to the plate of zinc, at the moment when the two metals come into contact with each other, the person who performs the experiments feels a very perceptible pricking sensation, heat, irritation, and a sort of acerb taste in the tongue, almost always accompanied with a _momentous_ glare, or luminous circle, which suddenly appears before his eyes. No metal produces this singular effect with such force as zinc is observed to do.”

This animal electricity is likewise a modification of what we call _animal spirits_, and may be termed the _stimulus of society_. That this was well known to the wisest of men, is evident from this adage of Solomon: “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” The want of a proper communication among animal Leyden phials is the cause of the gloom of the _solitaire_. The wish to partake of the benefits of the stimulus of society makes man a gregarious animal, and induces the human race to congregate in large cities, and to be fond of routs, balls, assemblies, in which the aforesaid human electric phials are beaming _animal electricity_ in every direction, and thus a flow of animal spirits is communicated by a pleasing contagion to all present.

When we see an animal Leyden phial superabounding with animal electricity, we say it is a _spirited animal_. When said animal happens to be a hero, a tiger, an irritated ram cat, or a black snake intent on his game, visible flashes of electricity will blaze from the eyes, and communicate very sensible shocks to a spectator. Thus the Gaul, who was commanded to cut off the head of Marius, a celebrated Roman general, and a personage full of the most _positive sort of animal electricity_, received such a _stroke_ of lightning from the battery of that hero’s head, and at the same time was so _thunderstruck_ with the exclamation of “_Tune, homo, audes occidere Caium Marium?_” that the dagger dropped bloodless from the hands of the ruthless assassin. Thus Alexander, when hampered in the chief city of the Oxydracæ, kept his foes at a distance by the fire that flashed from his eyes in whole torrents of animal electricity. How often do we see a Congressional spouter, or an itinerant field preacher _electrize_ a large assembly by repeated discharges of this mysterious fluid. In all cases of fanaticism it is mistaken for the fire of devotion, and causes grimaces, contortions, convulsions, and other strange symptoms, which, however, are easily accounted for by the theory of the “animal Leyden phial.”

But the prettiest experiments ever made with animal electricity, I have seen sometimes exhibited by a female philosopher to a levee of her admirers. On such occasions, the lady’s eyes seem to be fountains of _animal electricity_. This electricity, however, is not _vitreous_ and _resinous_, but _positive_ and _negative_. The former expressed by a _glance of approbation_, and the latter by a _flash of disdain_. The different effects which discharges of these different kinds of electricity exhibit in the subjects of experiment may be rated among the most wonderful of phenomena. The former transports a man, Southey-like, to “the atmosphere of the highest of all possible heavens,” the latter sinks him “down! down! to the Domdaniel cave at the roots of the ocean.” But as this is a branch of natural philosophy to which, for forty years, past I have not paid the least attention, I shall not attempt further to instruct your worships therein, but refer you to the experiments so delectably set forth in the poems of Little, Johannes Bonefonius, Secundus, and other adepts in that curious science.

AN ODE.[125]

Ye sons of Columbia, unite in the cause Of liberty, justice, religion, and laws; Should foes then invade us, to battle we’ll hie, For the GOD OF OUR FATHERS will be our ally! Let Frenchmen advance, And all Europe join France, Designing our conquest and plunder; United and free For ever we’ll be, And our cannon shall tell them in thunder, That foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy, Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

When Britain assail’d us, undaunted we stood, Defended the land we had purchased with blood, Our liberty won, and it shall be our boast, If the old world united should menace our coast:-- Should millions invade, In terror array’d, Our liberties bid us surrender, Our country they’d find With bayonets lined, And Washington here to defend her, For foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

Should Buonapart’ come with his sans culotte band, And a new sort of freedom we don’t understand, And make us an offer to give us as much As France has bestow’d on the Swiss and the Dutch, His fraud and his force Will be futile of course; We wish for no _Frenchified_ freedom: If folks beyond sea Are to bid us be free, We’ll send for them when we shall need ’em. But sans culotte Frenchmen we’ll ever defy, Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

We’re anxious that Peace may continue her reign, We cherish the virtues which sport in her train; Our hearts ever melt, when the fatherless sigh, And we shiver at Horror’s funereal cry; But still, though we prize That child of the skies, We’ll never like slaves be accosted. In a war of defence Our means are immense, And we’ll fight till our _all_ is exhausted: For foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy, Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

The EAGLE of FREEDOM with rapture behold! Overshadow our land with his plumage of gold! The flood-gates of glory are open on high, And Warren and Mercer descend from the sky! They come from above With a message of love, To bid us be firm and decided; “At liberty’s call, Unite one and all, For you conquer, unless you’re divided. Unite, and the foes to your freedom defy, Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!”

“Americans, seek no occasion for war; The rude deeds of rapine still ever abhor; But if in defence of your rights you should arm, Let toils ne’er discourage, nor dangers alarm. For foes to your peace Will ever increase, If freedom and fame you should barter, Let those rights be yours, While nature endures, For OMNIPOTENCE gave you the charter!” Then foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy, Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry.

THE MORNING.

Behold, my fair, the ruddy morn Anticipate the day; What beauteous tints the sky adorn, And gild the azure way!

The sombre mists, which gloomy night Had gather’d in the vale, Are borne aloft, and wing their flight Before the rising gale.

Now changed to clouds of varied hue, In airy maze they dance; Now sweep athwart the welkin blue, And gem the gay expanse.

The plumy tenant of the grove Is perch’d on yonder spray, And serenades his little love With sweetest roundelay.

To taste the pleasures of the morn Is bliss without alloy, Though fashion’s drowsy vot’ries scorn To quaff the cup of joy.

But rise, my lovely charmer, rise To greet the early ray, And let my TERAMINTA’S eyes Add lustre to the day.

AN ODE.[126]

ALMIGHTY POWER!--The ONE SUPREME! Our souls inspire, attune our lays With hearts as solemn as our theme, To sing hosannas to thy praise!

Then, while we swell the sacred song, And bid the pealing anthem rise May seraphim the strain prolong, And hymns of glory fill the skies.

Thy word omnific form’d this earth, Ere time began revolving years-- Thy fiat gave to Nature birth, And tuned to harmony the spheres.

When stern oppression’s iron hand, Our pious fathers forced to roam, And o’er the wild wave seek the land Where freedom rears her hallow’d dome--

When tempests howl’d, and o’er the main, Pale horror rear’d his haggard form; Thou didst the fragile bark sustain To stem the fury of the storm!

Thou badest the wilderness disclose The varied sweets of vernal bloom-- The desert blossom’d like the rose, And breath’d Arabia’s rich perfume!

Look down from heaven’s empyreal height, And gild with smiles this happy day; Send us some chosen SON OF LIGHT Our feet to guide in wisdom’s way.

The sons of faction strike with awe, And hush the din of party rage, That LIBERTY, secured by LAW, May realize a golden age.

On those thy choicest blessings shower To whom the cares of State are given; May Justice wield the sword of power, TILL EARTH’S THE MINIATURE OF HEAVEN!

ON THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON.

Why moves to mournful measures slow Yon sable retinue of wo, With tearful eye and visage pale? And why this universal gloom? Sure Nature trembles o’er her tomb, And bids her wilder’d children wail!

Do plagues infest, do wars alarm, Has God in wrath made bare his arm, To hurl his bolts of vengeance round? Have towns been sack’d by hostile ire, Have cities sunk in floods of fire, While earthquakes shook the shuddering ground?

Ah! no, thy sons, Columbia, mourn A hero past that fatal “bourn From whence no traveller returns;” Before him none more good, more great, E’er felt the unerring shafts of fate, Though glory’s lamp illume their urns.

Behold yon pallid war-worn chief, A marble monument of grief, Who once our troops to victory led;-- The burst of sorrow now control, But now the tears of anguish roll, A tribute to the _immortal dead_!

Fain would the muse those virtues scan, Which dignified the godlike man, And launch in seas without a shore; But sure his name alone conveys More than a thousand hymns of praise, The matchless WASHINGTON’S no more!

DIRECTIONS FOR DOING POETRY.[127]

IN THE SIMPLE STYLE OF SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, AND OTHER MODERN METRE MONGERS.

Supposing you would sing About love in the Spring, Something like this will be just the thing. Tell the reader to behold The gay Tints of the cloud-dappled _morn_! Then streak the azure with gems set in gold, And bring into view Some Tyrian hue, Mix’d with indigo blue. Then the meads must be _spangled_, And glittering _grove_ With OCEANS of dew! _Whew!!_

But now you must mind That rhymes you must find For lines left behind, You therefore must _rove_, Say On any day About the fag end of May, And bid lilacs _adorn_ Your beautiful _morn_; And the thickets must be tangled For the sake of your _spangled_.

Now having found Yourself on firm ground, You may roam along the edges Of hawthorn hedges; Then bid beds of roses And pretty pink posies _Ravish_ our eyes and _captivate_ our noses!!! Interweave, if you will, The hyacinth and daffodil, With now and then a big weed Of purslain and of pig weed, And add fragrant crops Of potato tops, And scatter, here and thereabout, As many hops As you may please to care about; And, between whiles, Say That Nature smiles, In her new holiday Dress;-- Nevertheless, These beauties so rare Can never compare With the dear little dove With whom you’re in love.

Next glance a quick eye To the flame cinctur’d, multihu’d arch in the sky;-- In our vernacular idiom call’d a rainbow, Which perhaps the unpoetic reader would fain know. Then _positively declare_, That Amanda the fair, Who really beats the Dutch, Exceeds as much All such As does a fine lilac silk gown The dirtiest grogram in town. Then bid your muse higher fly, And say your queen of lasses Each country wench surpasses, Yea, far more excels Your Moggies and Nells, Than doth the noontide blaze the scintillating fire fly.

HORACE SURPASSED.

How funny ’tis, when pretty lads and lasses Meet altogether, just to have a caper, And the black fiddler plays you such a tune as Sets you a frisking.

High bucks and ladies, standing in a row all, Make finer show than troops of continentals. Balance and foot it, rigadoon and chasse, Brimful of rapture.

Thus poets tell us how one Mister Orpheus Led a rude forest to a contra-dance, and Play’d the brisk tune of Yankee Doodle on a New Holland fiddle.

Spruce our gallants are, essenced with pomatum, Heads powder’d white as Killington-Peak snowstorm;[128] Ladies, how brilliant, fascinating creatures, All silk and muslin!

But now behold a sad reverse of fortune, Life’s brightest scenes are checker’d with disaster, Clumsy Charles Clumpfoot treads on Tabby’s gown, and Tears all the tail off!

Stop, stop the fiddler, all away this racket-- Hartshorn and water! See the ladies fainting, Paler than primrose, fluttering about like Pigeons affrighted!

Not such the turmoil, when the sturdy farmer Sees turbid whirlwinds beat his oats and rye down, And the rude hail-stones, big as pistol-bullets, Dash in his windows!

Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla, Almost as light as air-balloon inflated, Rigadoons round her, ’till the lady’s heart is Forced to surrender.

Benny Bamboozle cuts the drollest capers, Just like a camel, or a hippopot’mus, Jolly Jack Jumble makes as big a rout as Forty Dutch horses!

See Angelina lead the mazy dance down, Never did fairy trip it so fantastic; How my heart flutters, while my tongue pronounces Sweet little seraph!

Such are the joys, that flow from contra-dancing, Pure as the primal happiness of Eden, Love, mirth, and music, kindle in accordance Raptures extatic.

SONG.[129]

When cannons roar, when bullets fly, And shouts and groans affright the sky, Amid the battle’s dire alarms, I’ll think, my Mary, on thy charms; The crimson field Fresh proof shall yield Of thy fond soldier’s love; And thy dear form In battle’s storm His guardian angel prove.

Should dangers thicken all around, And dying warriors strew the ground, In varied shapes, though death appear, Thy fancied form my soul shall cheer; The crimson field Fresh proof shall yield Of thy fond soldier’s love; And thy dear form In battle’s storm His guardian angel prove.

And when loud cannons cease to roar, And when the din of battle’s o’er, When safe return’d from war’s alarms, O then I’ll feast on Mary’s charms! In ecstacy I’ll fly to thee My ardent passion prove, Left glory’s field, My life I’ll yield To all the joys of love.

TABITHA TOWZER.

Miss Tabitha Towzer is fair, No guinea-pig ever was neater, Like a hakmatak slender and spare, And sweet as a musk-squash, or sweeter.

Miss Tabitha Towzer is sleek, When dress’d in her pretty new tucker, Like an otter that paddles the creek, In quest of a mud-pout, or sucker.[130]

Her forehead is smooth as a tray, Ah! smoother than that, on my soul, And turn’d, as a body may say, Like a delicate neat wooden-bowl.

To what shall I liken her hair, As straight as a carpenter’s line, For similes sure must be rare, When we speak of a nymph so divine.

Not the head of Nazarite seer, That never was shaven or shorn, Nought equals the locks of my dear But the silk of an ear of green corn.

My dear has a beautiful nose, With a sled-runner crook in the middle, Which one would be led to suppose Was meant for the head of a fiddle.

Miss Tabby has two pretty eyes, Glass buttons shone never so bright, Their love-lighted lustre outvies The lightning-bug’s twinkle by night.

And oft with a magical glance, She makes in my bosom a pother, When leering politely askance, She shuts one, and winks with the other.

The lips of my charmer are sweet, As a hogshead of maple molasses, And the ruby red tint of her cheek, The gill of a salmon surpasses.

No teeth like her’s ever were seen, Nor ever described in a novel, Of a beautiful kind of pea-green, And shaped like a wooden-shod-shovel.

Her fine little ears, you would judge, Were wings of a bat in perfection; A dollar I never should grudge To put them in Peale’s grand collection.

Description must fail in her chin, At least till our language is richer, Much fairer than ladle of tin, Or beautiful brown earthen pitcher.

So pretty a neck, I’ll be bound, Never join’d head and body together, Like nice crook’d neck’d squash on the ground, Long whiten’d by winter-like weather.

Should I set forth the rest of her charms, I might by some phrase that’s improper, Give modesty’s bosom alarms, Which I wouldn’t do for a copper.

Should I mention her gait or her air, You might think I intended to banter; She moves with more grace, you would swear, Than a founder’d horse forced to a canter.

She sang with a beautiful voice, Which ravish’d you out of your senses; A pig will make just such a noise When his hind-leg stuck fast in the fence is.

THE SPLENDORS OF THE SETTING SUN.

Sol, slowly sinking down the steep of heaven, With softened splendor greets the musing eye, Resigns his throne to “sober suited even,” But decorates while he deserts the sky.

His noonday beams, insufferably bright, Are now succeeded by a milder blaze, And every slanting filament of light Heaven’s kind and cheering effluence conveys.

Now let me wend my solitary way Where groves and lawns present alternate charms;-- Gaze on the glories of the waning day, Till night shall fold me in her dusky arms.

Mark how the clouds now glow like molten gold, Now gleam like snow-banks, heap’d on banks of snow; Now dash’d with azure, softer hues unfold, Now shift and kindle to a furnace-glow!

Compared with these, what is the pride of art! Your petty palaces and pigmy spires-- The paltry pageants of the noisy mart, And all the city-connoisseur admires!

Should the whole race of man unite as one To celebrate some glorious festal day, The simple splendor of the setting sun Would far surpass their most superb display.

THE SLEEP OF THE SLUGGARD.

O list to an indolent lump of live lumber, Whom slothfulness binds with invisible bands, A little more sleep, and a little more slumber, A little more folding together the hands.

“I’ve a villainous cold--and my head, how it aches! The north wind is blowing, and stings like a hornet, And as to this rising as soon as day breaks, ’Tis a vile vulgar habit, and gentlemen scorn it.

“I’m none of those wretches, who labor for bread Through foul or fair weather, whatever may hap, I mean to enjoy both my table and bed, So let me turn over and take t’other nap.

“I’ve money enough, and can live at my ease, I cannot be caught in necessity’s trap, Will sleep every day till the next, if I please, And so will indulge in another good nap.”

His heavy hydropical carcase he turns, And sinks in uneasy intemperate rest, Till dim in his bosom the lamp of life burns, While snorting with nightmare and plethora prest.

What horrible visions his bed hover o’er, The phantoms of spleen, the blue devils dire, Like Gorgons and Hydras of fabulous lore, Or red dragons belching whole rivers of fire.

Now clings to the side of a prominent steep, O’er a rough, roaring cataract hangs by a hair, Now suddenly sinks in a bottomless deep, And starts, half awake with a shriek of despair!

Thus rolls like a porpoise o’er billows of down, Grows big as a mammoth, and fat as a seal, Lives a plague to his friends, or a charge to the town, And dies to make worms a most plentiful meal.

Ye sons of Columbia, shun the syren of sloth For if you submit to her leaden control, You will find, when too late, like a venomous moth, She consumes a man’s substance and poisons his soul.

If the wizard of indolence takes you in hand, Quick break from his grasp, or you’re quickly undone, Your limbs will be lithe as a wickapy wand,[131] And your sinews be soften’d like wax in the sun.

“A SOFT ANSWER TURNETH AWAY WRATH.”

A gentle answer will assuage The ruthless vehemence of ire, But petulance opposed to rage Is adding fuel to the fire.

He who is cautious, calm and cool, When made the subject of attack, May smile defiance on the fool, Whose anger puts him on the rack.

If injury you must repel, Hard words are not of any use, The greatest energy as well Is shown without, as with abuse.

If one should offer you offence, By being angry with the elf, Instead of gaining recompense You are but punishing yourself.

But gentle answers will assuage The headlong vehemence of ire, While petulance opposed to rage, Adds tenfold fuel to the fire.

“HAVING FOOD AND RAIMENT, LET US THEREWITH BE CONTENT.”

Art thou blest with food and raiment, Give God thanks for favors given; Gratitude is all the payment Thou can’st make indulgent Heaven.

Clothing coarse, and scant subsistence, Recompense which labor brings, With contentment make existence Happier than the life of kings.

Why in heaping useless treasure, Shorten life, and health destroy? Where’s the profit or the pleasure, Hoarding what you ne’er enjoy?

Why, for Mammon’s paltry proffers, Sell thyself to sin a slave, Can the wealth which swells thy coffers, Buy exemption from the grave?

Since the thread of life is brittle Heed the poet’s moral song, “Man in this world needs but little, And that little needs not long.”

Wants by luxury created-- All of artificial kind, By indulgence never sated, Weaken and debase the mind.

To the hardy child of nature, Decent clothes and frugal fare, Furnish pure enjoyments greater Than the pamper’d monarch’s share.

Gold by avarice that’s hoarded, Might as well be in the mine, Wealth that’s generously afforded, Can alone be counted thine.

Then, if blest with food and raiment, Let thy gratitude be shown, No man’s merits, as a claimant, Give a right to these alone.

HARVEST--INTEMPERANCE.

The arable fields and gay meadows behold, And laughing luxuriant landscape accord, In tributes of verdure, enamell’d with gold, The hard-handed husbandman’s promised reward.

But pause ere you gather the bountiful crop, And listen to well meant advice of a friend, The evils which flow from _intemperance_ stop, So far as your own good example may tend.

Avoid the inveterate habit of some, (Excessively foolish, atrociously sinful,) Now bloated with brandy, now reeling with rum, Now stuffing with whiskey a spanish brown skin-full.

With the fire of the elements raging without, If the fire of the still is consuming within, A body of adamant soon must give out, And the steel-sinew’d laborer soon must give in.

A man had much better be burnt at the stake, For thus he will finish his troubles much quicker, Than his own carcase take a blue blaze to make, And be burning for years with the fire of strong liquor.

LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY’S ALBUM.

Miss Ann, you are, it seems to me, An essence all ethereal; The brightest being that can be, Entirely immaterial.

A pencil tipp’d with solar rays Your charms could scarcely blazon; Contrasted with your beauty’s blaze Bright Sol’s a pewter basin.

Transcendent little sprig of light, If rhymes are always true, An angel is an ugly sprite, Compared to Sylph like you.

You frowning tell me, “This indeed Is flattery past all bearing, I ne’er before did hear nor read Of any quite so glaring.”

Yes, this is flattery, sure enough, And its exaggeration May teach you how to hold such stuff In utter detestation.

Should beaux your ladyship accost With something like this flummery, Tell them their labor will be lost, For this transcends their mummery.

The man whose favor’s worth a thought, To flattery can’t descend; The servile sycophant is not Your lover nor your friend.

THE INDEPENDENT FARMER.

It may very truly be said That his is a noble vocation, Whose industry leads him to spread About him a little Creation.

He lives independent of all Except th’ Omnipotent Donor: Has always enough at his call-- And more is a plague to its owner.

He works with his hands, it is true, But happiness dwells with employment, And he who has nothing to do Has nothing by way of enjoyment.

His labors are mere exercise, Which saves him from pains and physicians; Then, Farmers, you truly may prize Your own as the best of conditions.

From competence, shared with content, Since all true felicity springs, The life of a farmer is blent With more real bliss than a king’s.

THE CULTIVATOR’S ART.

We’re highly gratified to find, The public more and more inclined The Cultivator’s art to practise, And patronize, because the fact is That righteousness and cultivation Go hand in hand t’ exalt a nation: And Husbandry’s a hobby which A world may ride with spur and switch, If all mankind at once bestrode him They could not tire nor overload him. Not only men, who sit astride, But ladies also on a side- Saddle so neat, or on a pillion, That’s big enough to hold a million, May ride our hobby with a cheer-up, And he’ll not kick, bite, plunge, nor rear up, But _vires in eundo crescit_,[132] As cousin Virgil somewhere has it So fire, which has obtain’d ascendence, When setting up for independence, Prepares by heat of radiation Combustibles for conflagration;-- By burning fast, the mighty master Acquires fresh means of burning faster, Till blazing pyramids arise, Which threaten to consume the skies.

With ken prophetic, we behold A brighter age than that of gold, Which, with accelerating pace, Is hurrying on to bless our race; And hail its grand approximation, Mark’d by superior cultivation, When wise men’s heads, and good men’s hearts, Devoted to the art of arts, And industry’s untiring hand, Shall make a garden of our land-- Yea, make New England, all exceeding, A new edition of old Eden, If not quite equal, yet before it, In many a root, and fruit, and floret, Indebted for its propagation To modern arts of cultivation.

We’re tranced with rapture, when we find The fairer moiety of mankind, Whose smile makes mortal man’s condition But little short of sheer fruition, By whose society is given Earth’s purest prototype of Heaven, Th’ angelic part of human nature Inspire and aid the cultivator. A plant that’s sunn’d by ladies’ eyes Will like an exhalation rise, We hope that horticulture may Be therefore blest with beauty’s ray, Till Flora’s germs gem every waste, And every grove’s a “Bower of Taste.”

Adam, in Eden, we believe, Had been a brute without his Eve; An arid heath, a blasted common, Blest with the smiles of lovely woman, We should prefer to all that’s rare In paradise, without the fair. We therefore pray that friendship’s hand From every lady in the land, May be to us henceforth extended, From this time till our time is ended; And would solicit every charmer To please to patronize the Farmer, And make those gentlemen, who claim Her approbation, do the same; And common justice must require her To grant this boon to an admirer Like us, so prone to chant her praises, In verse which absolutely blazes.

His head is very like a stump Whate’er its craniologic bump, Who does not see that we the tillers Of earth compose the nation’s pillars, And may be styled, with strict propriety, The props of civilized society. What would have been poor mortals’ lot-- Yea, what were man, if we were not? Nature’s poor, simple, houseless child, The weakest wild beast of the wild, Must live on browse, his home must be A cavern or a hollow tree; Sometimes, in spite of fears and cares, Be served up raw to wolves and bears. Or maugre tooth, nail, fist, and truncheon, Make hungry catamounts a luncheon.

Our art, moreover, claims ascendence As german to our independence; Both, commonly, are coexistent, And each the other’s best assistant. We farmers are a sort of stuff, Tyrants will always find too tough For them to work up into slaves, The servile tools of lordly knaves. Those men who till the stubborn soil, Enlighten’d, and inured to toil, Cannot be made to quail or cower By traitor’s art or tyrant’s power, They might as well attempt to chain The west wind in a hurricane;-- Make rivers run up hill by frightening, Or steal a march on kindled lightning-- The great sea-serpent, which we’ve read of, Take by the tail and snap his head off-- The firmament on cloudy nights, Illume with artificial lights, By such an apparatus as Is used for lighting streets with gas-- Or, having split the north pole till it’s Divided into baker’s billets, Make such a blaze as never shone, And torrefy the frozen zone-- With clubs assail the polar bear, And drive the monster from his lair-- Attack the comets as they run With loads of fuel for the sun, And overset by oppugnation Those shining colliers of creation-- The Milky Way McAdamize, A railway raise to span the skies, Then make, to save Apollo’s team, The Solar Chariot go by steam. These things shall tyrants do, and more Than we have specified, before Our cultivators they subdue, While grass is green, or sky is blue.

AN ODE.

O’er the wild Atlantic wave, Lo the fiends of discord rave; Battle’s bray is heard from far, Battle’s bray is heard from far, To Bellona’s blood-stain’d car, Yoked the madding _steeds of war_:-- But no fiend of battle roars Round Columbia’s happy shores; Peace and plenty, hand in hand, Join to bless her happy land.

CHORUS.

Laud we then the _God of Heav’n_, At whose behest fair peace is giv’n, The God, who led our fathers o’er To Columbia’s happy shore.

Where th’ embattled host of France, To the kindling war advance, There shall heroes bite the dust, There shall heroes bite the dust, Blood shall tinge the rubrick waves Where the fiend of battle raves. Sons of honor, “Sons of soul,” Whom no tyrants can control, Patriotic myriads join, Round fair freedom’s sacred shrine.

Ever laud the _God of Heav’n_, At whose behest fair peace is giv’n, The God, who led our fathers o’er, To Columbia’s happy shore.

Where Britannia’s sons unite To provoke the distant fight, There shall countless heroes fall, There shall countless heroes fall, When the din of battle join’d, Hurtles in the hollow wind. Fiends of horror flit around, Dying heroes strow the ground, Countless ghosts shall wailing go To the sullen shades below.

Laud we then the _God of Heav’n_, At whose behest fair peace is giv’n, The God who led our fathers o’er, To Columbia’s happy shore.

May not _anarch’s_ hydra form, Thunder his voice, his breath the storm, Desolate our happy land, Desolate our happy land-- Mid fell discord’s wild uproar, May no fiend of anarch roar, Call the rugged, meddling throng Of every clime, of every tongue, To light fair freedom’s funeral pyre, And bid her mid the blaze expire.

May the gracious _God of Heav’n_, At whose behest fair peace is giv’n, The God who led our fathers o’er, Still protect Columbia’s shore.

THE COURSE OF CULTURE.[133]

Survey the world, through every zone, From Lima to Japan, In lineaments of light ’tis shown That CULTURE makes the man. By manual culture one attains What industry may claim, Another’s mental toil and pains Attenuate his frame.

Some plough and plant the teeming soil Some cultivate the arts; And some devote a life of toil To tilling heads and hearts. Some train the adolescent mind, While buds of promise blow, And see each nascent twig inclined The way the tree should grow.

The first man, and the first of men, Were tillers of the soil; And that was mercy’s mandate then, Which destined man to moil. Indulgence preludes fell attacks Of merciless disease, And sloth extends on fiery racks Her listless devotees.

Hail, HORTICULTURE! Heaven-ordained, Of every art the source, Which man has polished, life sustained, Since time commenced his course. Where waves thy wonder-working wand What splendid scenes disclose! The blasted heath, the arid strand, Out-bloom the gorgeous rose!

Even in the SERAPH-SEX is thy Munificence described; And Milton says in lady’s eye Is Heaven identified. A seedling, sprung from Adam’s side, A most celestial shoot! Became of Paradise the pride, And bore a world of fruit.

The lily, rose, carnation, blent By Flora’s magic power, And tulip, feebly represent So elegant a flower: Then surely, bachelors, ye ought In season to transfer Some sprig of this sweet “TOUCH-ME-NOT,” To grace your own parterre;

And every gardener should be proud, With tenderness and skill, If haply he may be allowed This precious plant to till. All that man has, had, hopes, can have, Past, promised, or possessed, Are fruits which CULTURE gives or gave At INDUSTRY’S behest.

A SONG.

SUNG AT AN AGRICULTURAL DINNER, AT CONCORD, MASS.

Since time in the primer first sharpen’d his scythe, And the sands in his glass were beginning to flow, There never was spectacle bonny and blithe, Which came fairly up to our GRAND CATTLE SHOW. _Derry down, down, down, derry down._

Here’s bulls, hogs, and horses, and sheep not a few, Respectable animals, worthy a prize, Like good go-to-meeting folks, each in his _pew_, All sober as deacons--if not quite so wise.

Master Pig is the Chorister, just twist his tail, And he’ll give you altissimo trills in high style, The fine diatonics which run through the scale Of his exquisite gamut will ring for a mile.

Our roots have run down to gravity’s centre, Some went on to China, and thieves pulled them through-- But that’s a tough story, and I shouldn’t venture, In a high court of Justice to swear it is true.

And here we have oxen, stout animals, which Might well go to Congress, representing their race, Round gravity’s centre just give them a hitch, And I guess they would twitch the great globe out of place.

The match of our _Ploughmen_ was ne’er matched before, Save when a lorn lover is matched to his fair; They turned the earth over as flat as this floor, Such chaps the great globe, like an apple can pare.

In troth, all the world’s nothing more than a show Of animals, shut up, or running at large, You meet with queer creatures wherever you go, And pity their keepers, who have them in charge.

A _calf_ sent to college comes out a great _bore_, An odd metamorphosis that, it is true, But one which has taken place over and o’er;-- Now I do not mean you, sir, nor you, sir, nor you.

I hate personalities, therefore won’t say, How a jackass conducts when made just ass of Peace, Such animals now and then come in my way, But I never shear hogs for the sake of their fleece.

A vile pettifogger, all quibble and jaw, Is ninety-nine thousand times worse than a brute, In a sunbeam he’ll pick an indictable flaw, And against his own shadow show cause for a suit.

Here’s health to our orator,[134] one who can boast That he practises well what he preaches about; But gentlemen please not to _butter_ my _toast_, For we like him so well we can take him without.

Here’s “MIDDLESEX HUSBANDMEN,” doing more good Than all the political clubs ever known, Unless a man’s head is the essence of wood, He ranks them above any king on his throne. _Derry down, down, down, derry down._

THE EVILS OF A MISCHIEVOUS TONGUE.

Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue.--Eccl. Apoc. xxviii. 8.

Tho’ millions, the sword of the warrior has slaughter’d, While fame has the homicide’s eulogy rung: Yet many more millions on millions are martyr’d; Cut off by that cowardly weapon, the tongue.

One sword may be match’d by another as keen, In battle the bold man a bolder may meet, But the shaft of the slanderer, flying unseen From the quiver of malice, brings ruin complete.

An _insolent tongue_, by a taunt or a gibe, Enkindles heart-burnings and bloody affrays; A _treacherous tongue_, when impell’d by a bribe, The guiltless condemns, or a nation betrays.

A _smooth subtle tongue_ vile seducers employ The fair sex to lure to libidinous thrall; A _slip of the tongue_ may its owner destroy, And _the tongue of the serpent_ occasion’d the fall.

Then be it impress’d on Columbian youth, That the tongue is an engine of terrible force; Not govern’d by reason, not guided by truth, A plague, which may desolate worlds in its course.

CHEERFULNESS.

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”

With mirth let us cherish our hearts, ’Tis a precept by Solomon given, And cheerfulness surely imparts The temper best fitted for heaven.

Among all the numberless ways By which folly contrives to be wrong, There is none which more weakness displays Than wearing a visage too long.

Th’ Omnipotent Donor designs That the gifts of His grace be enjoy’d; Hence, he that forever repines, Had better be better employ’d.

When first was created our race, This earth for man’s mansion was given, And shall he find fault with the place To which he’s allotted by heav’n?

’Tis a thing, I believe, understood, In which every sect is agreed, This earth was declared to be good, And so in the Bible we read.

Under Providence, tenants at will, A fine habitation we hold; For us to be murmuring still Is wicked, ungrateful and bold.

Yet well-meaning people I’ve seen, Who think true religion is shown By a sort of a wo-begone mein, And a whining, conventicle tone.

’Tis true, there’s a season to mourn, As Solomon says--ne’ertheless Our grief should be manfully borne, And ’tis folly to cherish distress.

A train of diseases await On a heart that forever is sad, And some, from a sorrowing state, Become irretrievably mad.

That religion can never be true Which bows its disciples to earth, For he that has heav’n in view, Has the best of all titles to mirth.

With mirth then we’ll cherish our hearts, ’Tis a mandate by Solomon given, For cheerfulness surely imparts The temper best fitted for heaven.

EULOGY ON THE TIMES.

Let poets scrawl satiric rhymes, And sketch the follies of the times, With much caricaturing; But I, a _bon-ton-bard_, declare A set of slanderers they are, E’en past a Job’s enduring.

Let crabbed cynics snarl away, And pious parsons preach and pray Against the vices reigning; That mankind are so wicked grown, Morality is scarcely known, And true religion waning.

Societies, who vice suppress, May make a rumpus; ne’ertheless, _Our’s is the best of ages_; Such hum-drum folks our _fathers_ were, They could no more with _us_ compare, Than _Hottentots_ with _sages_.

It puts the poet in a pet To think of THEM, _a vulgar set_; But WE, thank G--d, are QUALITY! For we have found this eighteenth century What ne’er was known before, I’ll venture ye, _Religion’s no reality_!

Tom Paine, and Godwin, both can tell That there is no such thing as hell! A doctrine mighty pleasant; Your old-wives tales of a _hereafter_ Are things for ridicule and laughter, While we enjoy the _present_.

We’ve nought to do, but frisk about, At midnight ball, and Sunday rout, And Bacchanalian revel; To gamble, drink, and live at ease, Our great and noble selves to please, Nor care for man, nor devil.

In these _good times_, with little pains, And scarce a penny-worth of brains, A man with great propriety, With some small risk of being hung, May cut a pretty dash among The foremost in society.

Good reader, I’ll suppose, for once, Thou art no better than a dunce, But wishest to be famous; I’ll tell thee how, with decent luck, Thou may’st become as great a buck As any one could name us.

When first in high life you commence, To virtue, reason, common sense, You’ll please to bid adieu, sir; And, lest some brother rake be higher, Drink, till your blood be all on fire, And face of crimson hue, sir.

Thus you’ll be dubb’d a _dashing blade_, And, by the genteel world be said, To be a _man of spirit_; For _stylish folks_ despise the chaps, Who think that they may rise, perhaps, By industry and merit.

With lubric arts, and wily tongue, Debauch some maiden, fair and young, For that will be genteel; Be not too scrupulous; win the fair; Then leave the frail one to despair: A rake should never feel.

When wine has made your courage stout, In midnight revel sally out, Insulting all you meet; Play pretty pranks about the town, Break windows, knock the watchmen down, Your frolic to complete!

Besides exhibiting your parts, You’re sure to win the ladies’ hearts By dint of dissipation; Since “every woman is a rake,” A fool may know what steps to take To gain her approbation.

By practising these famous rules, You’ll gain from _wicked_ men and _fools_ A world of admiration: And, as we know from good authority, _Such folks compose a clear majority_, There needs no hesitation.

THE ART OF PRINTING.

Blest be the memory of the Sage, Who taught the typographic page To teem with symbols, heav’n-design’d, The mute interpreters of mind.

The world at length had learn’d to prize The art of speaking to the eyes, Which had, by modes which CADMUS taught, Giv’n immortality to thought;--

When FAUSTUS, by celestial skill, Found means to multiply at will, Those silent heralds of the kind, Which give ubiquity to mind,--

Explored that Art, which brings to view, All that we know--our father’s knew,-- And which developes every hour That knowledge, which results in power,--

That Art, which gives to man’s control Celestial treasures of the soul, Transcending, many thousand fold, Golconda’s gems, and Ophir’s gold.

What but the Printer’s Art sublime, Can register the deeds of time, Recording all that’s said and done Most worthy note beneath the sun?

The poet, patriot, saint and sage Have habitations on his page, Are never absent when you call, Alike accessible to all.

He introduces man to man, Of every nation, tribe or clan, The humble to the high--MOST HIGH, In palaces above the sky.

Then bless the memory of the sage, Who taught the typographic page To teem with symbols, heav’n-design’d, The silent heralds of the mind.

THE OLD BACHELOR:

AN EPISTLE TO A LADY.

What singular mortal is that, Who sits in yon cottage alone, Excepting an old tabby cat, Which gray with her master is grown?

Say, would you his origin know, Or if the odd mortal came here From regions above, or below? The truth I will tell you, my dear.

Dame Nature, a fanciful jade, As ancient philosophers say, When all other creatures were made, Had left a small portion of clay.

The matter, indeed, was so crude She meant to have thrown it aside, At length in a frolicsome mood, To make something of it she tried.

Her goody-ship, worried about, Was forc’d her old vessels to scrape, For matter to finish the lout To a biped, which had human shape.

She moulded the comical stuff, ’Till all in one mass was combined; His body, though quite odd enough, Was _perfect_, compared with his mind.

To a hard unsusceptible heart, She added a thick leaden skull, And threw in of pride such a part, As well might suffice a mogul:

But did not implant in his breast A taste for those pleasures refined, Which give to enjoyment its zest, And soften the cares of the mind.

Of wisdom she threw in a spice, But omitted to add common sense; Dutch prudence a very large slice, To teach him the saving of pence.

She gave him good honesty’s phiz; No mummy was ever more grave, Although, my dear madam, the quiz, To his wit’s full extent is a knave.

All this she perform’d in a jerk, And being well pleased with him, so far, She set herself gravely to work, And forced him to swallow a crow-bar.

No wonder then, this queer machine, Which so rude, and so awkwardly made is, By nobody ever was seen _To bow to the fairest of ladies_.[135]

At length he was usher’d to light, A half-alive kind of commodity, A thing, which you’d say, at first sight, Was quite the quintessence of oddity.

She planted him down in yon hut, To _vegetate_ there with impunity, Till death shall prohibit the _Put_ Any more from disgusting community.

CALORIC.

Earth, sea and air abound in rare Minute caloric particles, Invisible indeed, but still Most energetic articles.

Almighty power each atom gave Existence at creation; Each would Omnipotence require For its annihilation.

It now lies in a latent state, Anon in ardent action; And HE alone, who can create Can bring to naught a fraction.

Chief agent in all acts of power Its atoms seem divinities; Tempests, volcanoes, earthquakes are Mere plays of their affinities.

’Tis their’s to drive the lightning’s car, To speed the shaft of thunder, Give earth an atmosphere of fire, And rend the globe asunder!

THE ILLS OF IDLENESS.

What pains and penalties attend The wight whose being’s aim and end Is wholly self-enjoyment! His easy chair becomes a rack, And all Pandora’s plagues attack The wretch who wants employment.

To shun the exquisite distress Which ever waits on idleness, He flies to dissipation; Drinks _deep_ to keep his spirits _up_, And in the inebriating cup Drowns health and reputation.

And now in Fashion’s vortex whirl’d, A dandy of the genteel world, He figures in the ton, The wise man laughs, the simple stare To see the consequential air The silly rake puts on.

Now drives his curricle about To club, assembly, ball and rout, To waste his time and treasure; Gives sensual appetite the reins, And takes illimitable _pains_ To _seem_ a man of _pleasure_.

The course of life such fools pursue Would worry down the wand’ring Jew,-- Worse off than galley-slaves! And ten to one, about the time The man of virtue’s in his prime, Such sots are in their graves.

But if their days are lengthen’d out, By dint of constitution stout, In apathy and pain; A ruby and carbuncled face Displays the signal of disgrace Like mark, erst set on Cain.

Now dire paralysis and gout Parade their forces round about The citadel of life; In vain the doctor tries his skill; His obstinate opponents still Are victors in the strife.

Disease, remorse, with joint attack, Now put at once upon the rack Their bodies and their souls; Victims of vice, they suffer more Than Montezuma did of yore When stretch’d on burning coals.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

I once stood high on Fortune’s ladder.

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.

[2]

My _tintinabulum_ of rhyming.

“The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme.”--COWPER.

[3]

I’ll drink Pierian puddle dry.

Pursuant to Mr Pope’s advice;

“Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

[4]

Sent me a bag full of his gas.

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

----ea fræna furenti Concutit, et stimulos sub pectore vertit Apollo,

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.

[5]

Was hous’d in heaven’s high upper story.

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._

[6]

Have said that, in his Epic Poem.

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.

[7]

The beldam’s crack’d or Caustic crazy.

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.

[8]

I’m fall’n! fall’n! fall’n! down, flat! flat! flat!

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.

[9]

And women to hysteric fits.

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.

[10]

Besides a _shoal_ of learned Dutchmen.

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.

[11]

----discern, prescribe, apply, And cure----

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.

[12]

Could match OURSELF at second sight.

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.

[13]

Foreseeing things which never will be.

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.

[14]

In our good friend, Sir JOSEPH’S name.

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.

[15]

With leg or wing, he kick or jerk it.

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.

[16]

Is doctoring off one generation.

“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._

[17]

Those LL. D.s’ of Lynch’s Law.

_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.

[18]

Call’d craniology of snipes.

It would require an immensity of books, and an eternity of time to describe or even allude to the physiological, 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.

[19]

Vanish before our beauty washes.

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.”

[20]

We transform dowdies into goddesses.

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._

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

[22]

They might as well have none at all.

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_, ’Tis 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.

[23]

Horace says, _dulce est desipere_.

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.

[24]

Is made of any kind of wood.

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.”

[25]

Illumed as one would light a candle.

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.”

[26]

To healthier action than before.

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

“The soul’s dark cottage _batter’d_ and decay’d, Lets in _new light_ through chinks which time has made.”

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.

Good folks to America came To curtail old Satan’s dominions; The natives, the more to their shame, Stuck fast to their ancient opinions.

Till a method the pious men find, Which ne’er had occur’d to your dull wits. Of making sky-lights to the mind, By boring the body with bullets.

Like Waller, with process so droll, To illume an old clod-pated noddy; They thought they might burnish the soul, By beating a hole in the body.

Good folks to America came To curtail old Satan’s dominions; The natives, the more to their shame, Stuck fast to their ancient opinions.

Till a method the pious men find, Which ne’er had occur’d to your dull wits. Of making sky-lights to the mind, By boring the body with bullets.

Like Waller, with process so droll, To illume an old clod-pated noddy; They thought they might burnish the soul, By beating a hole in the body.

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 gauge 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 Harvey, a Sydenham, 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.

[27]

The gods of _old_ folks could make _young_ ones.

----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 wither’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!!

Medea cut the wither’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!!

[28]

In mimic earthquakes, rain, and thunder!

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,--

Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus.

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,

“----Angels turn’d askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more: From the sun’s axle, they with labor push’d Oblique the centric globe.”--

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

“----Spring Perpetual smiled on earth, with vernal flowers, Equal in days and nights”----

is a problem worth the attention of our modern philosophers. But at any rate, I, Dr Caustic, will positively try the experiment.

[29]

E’en fairly knock the man in the moon down!

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.

[30]

We took like macaroni snuff.

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

“Led by the sage, lo! Britain’s sons shall guide Huge SEA-BALLOONS beneath the tossing tide; The diving castles roof’d with spheric glass, Ribb’d with strong oak, and barr’d with bolts of brass, Buoy’d with pure air shall endless tracts pursue, And Priestley’s hand the vital flood renew.” _Botanic Garden_, _Canto_ iv.

[31]

And if Britannia interferes.

That Great Britain, 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:

“Then shall Britannia rule the wealthy realms, Which ocean’s wide insatiate wave o’erwhelms; Confine in netted bowers his scaly flocks, Part his blue plains, and people all his rocks. Deep in warm waves, beneath the line that roll, Beneath the shadowy ice-isles of the pole, Onward, through bright meandering vales afar, Obedient _sharks_[A] shall trail her sceptred car, With harness’d necks the pearly flood disturb, Stretch the silk rein, and champ the silver curb.”

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.

[32]

And if the theory of Babbage, &c.

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.

[33]

He wanted science to go through it.

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.

[34]

And would not let him “vomit air.”

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_;[B] 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._

[35]

Or stem a hurricane with ease.

“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.

[36]

And its contagion is outrageous.

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 inclusive way of stopping the mouths of my opponents.

[37]

By laws of chemical affinity;

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.

[38]

Paulo majora nunc canamus.

Now sweep Apollo’s sounding lyre, And pitch the psalm an octave higher.

[39]

We’ll turn out full moons by the hundred.

I do not think that one in forty of your worships 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.[C]

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.”

[40]

Of bellows made of Franklin’s air.

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;[D] 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.[E] 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_”[F] than was the tempest tost Trojan fleet when

Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt creberque procellis.

[41]

Destroy good doctor Burnet’s crust.

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 heist, 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.

[42]

By Parker’s cement we’ll endeavor.

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 made 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._

[43]

The foolish trash of Isaac Newton.

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 able 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.

[44]

To make a clever sort of plough.

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.

[45]

They show us how to live for ever.

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.

[46]

His new _exploded_ solar system.

“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.”

“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.”

[47]

First peer’d our continent through and through.

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.

[48]

Of _graduated_ French morality.

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 for 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.

[49]

By PERKINS’S METALLIC PRACTICE.

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.

[50]

“Not so bold ARNALL; with a weight of skull Furious he drives precipitately dull: Whirlpools and storms his circling arms invest, With all the weight of gravitation blest.” _Pope’s Dunciad_, Book iii.

[51]

But I’m a man so meek and humble.

If your worships have ever read the Eneid of one Virgil (which though _possible_ is not very _probable_, as physicians in general rarely make themselves “mad,” by “too much learning”) you will perceive a _classical_ beauty in the commencement of this canto, which would escape the observation of the “_ignobile vulgus_.” As I wish, however, that you might be able to relish some of the most obvious beauties of this, my most exquisite poetical production, you will hire some schoolmaster to show you how happily we have imitated the “At regina gravi” of Virgil, and the “But now t’ observe romantic method” of Butler.

[52]

Though _starving_ is a _serious_ matter!

Many a worthy London alderman will most feelingly sigh a dolorous response to this pathetic complaint.

[53]

We all must be in one sad mess.

The sound is here a most correct echo to the sense; like the

Βη δ’ ακεων παρα θινα πολυφλοισβοιο θαλασσης,

of Homer; the

Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum,

of Virgil; the

Many a lusty thwack and bang,

of Butler;

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line,

of Pope, &c. Indeed, gentlemen, I shall almost be tempted to pronounce that person a sorry sort of a simpleton, who does not see, or seem to see, the lengthened visage and hanging lip of our learned Esculapian Fraternity, depicted with the phiz-hitting pencil of a Hogarth, in these eight beautiful and appropriate monosyllables.

[54]

Behold a rising INSTITUTION.

The builders of this second edition of the tower of Babel must be confounded; and that they will be, most certainly, provided the measures herein after recommended, be fully and manfully carried into effect. But as it may be safest to reconnoitre somewhat before we begin the attack, we will introduce you into the midst of the enemy’s encampment, in an additional note at the end of our poem.

[55]

Perkins supported by Aldini!

These two wonder-working wizards are said to effect their necromantic manœuvres by the application of similar principles to the animal machine. But the latter does not, in so great a degree, infringe on our privileges, for he _begins_ where we _leave_ off; that is, after the patient is _dead_; whereas Perkins, by his pretended easy and expeditious mode of curing those who ought to depend solely on “death and the doctor,” is a more formidable foe to our profession. See additional note, No. 3.

[56]

To raise a dead dog he was able.

“Dr Aldini, now in London, lately exhibited, at the house of Mr Hunter, some curious experiments on the body of a dog newly killed, by which the company then present were exceedingly astonished at the powers of _Galvanism_. The head of the animal was cut off. The head and the body were put beside each other on a table, previously rubbed with a solution of Ammonia. Two wires, communicating with the Galvanic trough, were then applied, the one in the ear, the other at the anus of the dead animal. No sooner had those applications been made, than both head and body were thrown into the most animated muscular motions. The body started up with a movement, by which it passed over the side of the table. The head equally moved, its lips and teeth grinning most violently!” Vide the _Morning Post_ of January 6th, 1803.

[57]

With two legs up, and two legs down.

Your worships will perceive that I have detailed some particulars relative to this famous experiment, which were omitted in the above statement from the _Morning Post_. But should any gentleman among you presume to intimate that I have stated one syllable which is not strictly and literally _true_, I shall embrace the fashionable mode of resenting the affront. I have two pistols in my garret. Let him who dares dispute Dr Caustic take his choice. Then, unless

“Pallas should come, in shape of rust, And ’twixt the lock and hammer thrust Her Gorgon shield, and make the cock Stand stiff as ’twere transform’d to stock,”

I will make it apparent that I am a man of honor, as well as veracity.

[58]

He made it _bellow_ like a Stentor!

“Some curious Galvanic experiments were made on Friday last, by professor Aldini, in doctor Pearson’s lecture room. They were instituted in the presence of his excellency, the ambassador of France, general Andreossi, lord Pelham, the duke of Roxburgh, lord Castlereagh, lord Hervey, the Hon. Mr Upton, &c. The head of an ox, recently decapitated, exhibited astonishing effects; for the tongue being drawn out by a hook fixed into it, on applying the exciters, in spite of the strength of the assistant, was retracted, so as to detach itself, by tearing itself from the hook; at the same time, a loud noise issued from the mouth, attended by violent contortions of the whole head and eyes.” See _Morning Post_ of February 16th, 1803.

[59]

Rogues that were hung _once_, at Old Bailey!

“The body of Forster, who was executed on Monday last, for murder, was conveyed to a house not far distant, where it was subjected to the _Galvanic_ process, by professor Aldini, under the inspection of Mr Keate, Mr Carpue, and several other professional gentlemen. M. Aldini, who is the nephew of the discoverer of this most interesting science, showed the eminent and superior powers of _Galvanism_ to be far beyond any other stimulant in nature. On the first application of the process to the face, the jaw of the deceased criminal began to quiver; and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process, the _right hand was raised and_ CLENCHED, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.

“It appeared to the uninformed part of the by-standers, as if the wretched man was on the eve of being restored to life. This, however, was impossible; as several of his friends, who were near the scaffold, had violently pulled his legs, in order to put a more speedy termination to his sufferings.” Vide the _Morning Post_ of January 22, 1803.

It is to be hoped, in case this Mr Professor undertakes any future operations of this nature, that some more _choleric dead man_ will not only clench his fist like Forster, but convince him, by dint of _pugilistic demonstration_, that he is not to disturb with impunity those who ought to be at “_rest from their labors_.”

[60]

He sees their worships plague old FRANCIS.

Dr FRANCIS ANTHONY. The author of the _Biographia Britannica_ relates a pitiful tale respecting the persecutions suffered by this obstinate old schismatic. “He was,” says that writer, “a very learned physician and chemist, the son of an eminent goldsmith in London. Was born April 16th, 1550. In 1569, he was sent to the university of Cambridge; in 1574, took the degree of A. M. &c. &c. He began soon after his arrival (in London) to publish to the world the effects of his chemical studies. But not having taken the necessary precaution of addressing himself to the College of Physicians for their license, he fell under their displeasure; and being some time in the year 1600 summoned before the president and censors, he _confessed_ that he had practised physic in London for six months, and _had cured twenty persons or more of several diseases_.” [A most atrocious crime! I trust very few if any of your worships would be justified in _confessing_ or _pleading guilty_ to a similar indictment.] “About one month after, he was committed to the Counter prison, and fined in the sum of five pounds _propter illicitam praxim_--that is, for prescribing against the statutes of the college: but upon his application to the chief justice, he was set at liberty, which gave so great an umbrage, that the president and one of the censors waited on the chief justice to request his favor in preserving the college privileges: upon which Anthony submitted and promised to pay his fine, and was forbidden practice. He was soon after accused again for practising physic, and upon his own confession was fined another five pounds, which fine, on his refusing to pay, was increased to twenty pounds, and he was sentenced to be committed to prison till he had paid it. Nor was the college satisfied with this, but commenced a suit at law against him, in the name of the queen and college, in which they prevailed, and had judgment against him. It appears that the learned society thought him ignorant; but there were others of a different opinion, since, after all these censures, and being tossed about from prison to prison, he became doctor of physic in our own universities!”

This is the substance of the proceedings of our ancestors against the arch-heretic; from which we learn the absolute necessity of a still more rigorous prosecution of those disturbers of society, who have the impudence to _cure_ their patients without YOUR LICENSE. Had this old fellow been hung, or “burnt off,” as he deserved, the business would have been finished at once, and none would afterwards have dared ever to call in question your supremacy!

[61]

Why scream the bats! why hoot the owls! While Darwin’s midnight bull-dog howls!

A delectable imitation of Dr Darwin’s delightful pair of lines--

“Shrill scream the famish’d bats and shiverings owls, And long and loud the dog of midnight howls.

To prevent any _post obit_ disputes among those who may hereafter write comments on this sublime passage, I have thought it advisable to designate the _species_ of the dog which howls so horridly on this great occasion.

[62]

’Tis Radcliffe’s sullen sprite now rising.

This shows Pluto to be a god of correct calculation. Had he sent one of your water-gruel ghosts, it is a thousand to one if your worships would have paid the least deference to the mandates of his sooty highness.

[63]

Or Monk-y Lewis’ Spanish Spectre!

I would have no impudent slanderer insinuate that I mean to bestow on the right honorable M. G. Lewis, M. P. any opprobrious epithet. No, gentlemen, I did not say _monkey_. The term which I use is an adjective, legitimately coined from the substantive MONK; and I affix it to this gentleman’s name as an honorary appellation, to which he is entitled, for having written that celebrated romance called THE MONK. As to the _Spanish Spectre_, you will please to consult the romance aforesaid, and you will find a most horrible ballad, by which it appears that a certain Miss Imogene was carried off on her bridal night, if I mistake not, by the ghost of one Don Alonzo, to whom she had been betrothed, but proved false hearted. I would, however, caution against reading this doleful ditty by candle light, lest the story of

“The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out, And they sported his eyes and his temples about,”

might _sport_ with the senses of the more timid reader.

[64]

To make above ground one d--d flurry!

I earnestly request that the learned college will not do me the injustice to suppose that a man of my delicacy and refined feelings would _myself_ utter any phrase like the above, which has so much the semblance of profanity. But as this personage, before he passed that fatal “bourne” (from which _one_ “traveller” _has_ “returned”) had ever been accustomed, like most of our profession, to rhetorical flourishes of this kind, it must be expected that, on such an important occasion, he would express himself with all his wonted energy; and my veracity as a historian obliges me to give _verbatim_ the speech which the sprite did in fact deliver.

[65]

And cannot pay NINETEEN POUNDS TEN”!!!

The terrible shock given not only to Mr Addington, but to the credit of the British nation, by this famous sally of that teasing, testy, querulous, alarming, honorable, cidevant member of the House of Commons, is undoubtedly fresh in the recollection of every person, who has the least smattering in parliamentary debates: and every true patriot and friend to the _peace_ of ---- our prime minister, will congratulate the country on the failure of Mr Robson’s election, as well as that of his co-operator, Mr Jones, into the new parliament.

[66]

Found Hawkesbury’s letter all a take-in.

Now I know the man who cobbled up the famous humbug peace with France, which, in my opinion, was a manœuvre that did honor to its inventor. He tenants a garret adjacent to mine. But Dr Caustic is an honorable man, and twice the £5000 offered by the stock exchange, with the £500 by the lord mayor, for his apprehension, would not tempt him to expose the neck of his friend to the noose of justice. This I premise, that the Bow street officers may not misapply their time and talents in any futile attempts to wheedle or extort the secret.

[67]

Broke a whole gallipot of wrath!

I beseech you, gentlemen, to suspend your impatience relative to this wonderful achievement, till you have _soared_ through a few stanzas. In the meantime, however, I wish that this my favorite hero, and burthen of my song, should stand high with your worships, and be the object of the humble admiration, not only of your honorable body, but of mankind in general: and I, myself, shall take the liberty to trample on all those, who dare call in question his infallibility. I have a knowledge of but few, who more deserve to be trodden upon on this occasion than the conductors of certain foreign literary journals, who, not aware of the inconceivable services which Dr H. has rendered the medical host by his ardent zeal against their common enemy, Perkinism, have expressed their sentiments of him, and his works, with that indifference, which must have arisen from their want of knowledge of his achievements.

Among the most prominent of this junto should be mentioned the _Medical Repository_, at New York, conducted by professors Mitchell and Miller, of that place, the former of whom I understand is a representative in the Congress of the United States, an eminent physician, and the celebrated author of what is usually termed the “Mitchellian Theory of Contagion,” alterations in the French Chemical Nomenclature, &c. The latter, I am told, is likewise a physician of great respectability.

Now that two such characters should presume to represent Dr H. as a man, whose “vanity is more conspicuous than his ability,” is a circumstance which, while it excites my surprise, rouses my resentment. However, to accomplish their disgrace and his renown, I shall concisely state his magnanimous conduct to them, and their ungracious return.

Dr H. in great condescension to the poor wretches of the United States, who, through the ignorance and _inexperience_ of their medical practitioners, were likely to be extirpated by the yellow fever, addressed them in an affectionate letter, and proclaimed the barbarity and unskilfulness of their physicians, in a very appropriate and becoming manner. He even kindly apprized the Academy of Medicine, at Philadelphia, that their proceedings and reasonings on the disease among them were “frivolous, inadequate, and groundless,” and communicated many other facts equally useful and important.

Now, whether his statements were true or false, those foreigners ought to have been grateful to Dr H. for _honoring_ them with the information. But on the contrary, they say that “a poison, which, in the city of New York, has destroyed, within three months, the lives of more than twenty practitioners of medicine, well deserves to be traced and understood by the survivors.” They even have the audacity to assert, that “American physicians and philosophers, who have viewed the rise and progress of pestilence, walked amidst it by day and by night, year after year, and endured its violence on their own persons, almost to the extinction of their lives,” ought to be as competent judges of the cause and cure of the disease as Dr Haygarth, who has never seen a case of it.

After entering into a copious (about 20 pages) and what they seem to think a learned investigation of my great friend’s theory and sentiments, they have dared to refute his reasoning, and turn it to ridicule.

These presumptuous writers finally close their unreasonable account of Dr Haygarth, in quotations from Dr Caldwell, who, it appears, is a fellow of the college of physicians of Philadelphia, and a very ungentleman-like _fellow_ too, for he has also had the rashness to descant on some of the works of Dr Haygarth in terms following.

“Perhaps he (Dr Haygarth) may found the boldness of his pretensions as an author on the maturity of his years. Many writers less youthful are more modest; and it is to be lamented that grey hairs give no _infallible_ earnest of either wisdom or liberality. We will not positively assert that he is not a man of profound erudition; but we have no reason whatever to convince us that he is. Perhaps he may pride himself on being a native of the same country which produced a Harvey, a Sydenham, a Cullen, and a Hunter. We entreat him to remember, that weeds may infest the same ground which has been overshadowed by the lordly adansonia, and that the same clime gives birth to the lion and the jackal.” _Medical Repository_, vol. v. p. 333. Oh, fie! fie!

[68]

Till our aerial cutter runs.

My mode of commencing an airy tour, mounted, Muse and Co. on a poetical _pony_, which, by the way, is metamorphosed into a _cutter_, may, perhaps, be objected to by your fastidious critics, as a liberty even beyond a poet’s licentiousness. But there is nothing which we men of _genius_ more thoroughly detest than any attempt to fetter our faculties with the frigid rules of criticism. Besides, _sense_ or _nonsense_, _poetry_ or _gingling_, it is perfectly _Della Cruscan_.

[69]

“A WILDERNESS OF SUNS!”

This “proud” passage, together with “O THOU!”--“GENIUS or MUSE!”--and “CATARACT OF LIGHT!”--are the legitimate offspring of that prince of poets, who rose to such a towering _pitch_ of poetry,

“That oft Hibernian optics bright _Beheld_ him fairly _out of sight_!”

I should have been happy to have fascinated your worships with further specimens of the same sort of sublimity, could I have retained them in memory. I have been so solicitous for your gratification in this particular, that I have made a painful, though bootless search, throughout the metropolis and its suburbs, for these more than sybiline oracles. Indeed, I have reason to fear, that all Della Crusca’s effusions are irretrievably lost, except the few fragments which I have here _pickled_ for the behoof of posterity.

[70]

But Gifford comes, with why and wherefore.

The admirers of your _polite_ poetry can never sufficiently anathematize the author of the _Baviad and Mæviad_ for extirpating, root and branch, a species of sentimental ditty, which might be scribbled, without the trouble of “sense to prose;” an object certainly of no small consequence with your _bon ton_ readers and writers of rhyme. How could a _sentimental Ensign_ or _love-lorn Lieutenant_ be better employed than in sobbing over “Laura’s tinkling trash,” or weeping in concert with the “mad jangle of Matilda’s lyre?” Besides, there ought to be _whipped syllabub_ adapted to the palates of those who cannot relish “Burns’ pure healthful nurture.” Mr Gifford should be sensible, that reducing _poetry_ to the standard of _common sense_ is clipping the wings of genius. For example; there is no describing what sublime and Della Cruscan-like capers I should myself have been cutting in this “Wilderness of suns;” for I was about to prepare a nosegay of comets, and string the spheres like beads for a lady’s necklace; but was not a little apprehensive lest Mr G. or some other malignant critic should persuade the public, that my effusions of fancy were little better than the rant of a bedlamite.

[71]

And _tollutate_ o’er turnpike path.

They rode, but authors having not Determin’d whether pace or trot, That is to say, whether _tollutation_, As they do term’t, or succussation. _Hudibras_, Canto ii.

[72]

Behold! great Haygarth and his corps.

I here wish to give a concise sketch of the doctor’s necromantic process, so well calculated to give the tractors the kick out of Bath and Bristol, where they were rapidly making the most sacrilegious encroachments on the unpolluted shrine of our profession. I would recommend similar proceedings to every member of the college, and every worthy brother who is truly anxious to preserve the dignity and honor of the professional character. But would premise, that, when the like experiments are made, which, I trust, will be very generally by the whole profession, I would particularly recommend that the doctor’s prudence, in not admitting any of the friends of the tractors at the scene of action, should be strictly imitated; and also his discretion in choosing, as subjects for the experiment, the ignorant and miserable paupers of an infirmary, whose credulity will assist very much in operations of this sort. I also enjoin them to bear in mind his _hint_, “That if any person would repeat the experiment with _wooden_ tractors, it should be done with due solemnity; during the process, the wonderful cures said to be performed by the tractors, should be particularly related. Without these _indispensable_ aids, other trials will _not_ prove so successful as those which are here reported.” _Haygarth’s book_, page 4.

It can scarcely be necessary for me to hint to my discreet brethren, in addition, that should they try the _real_ tractors afterwards (which, however, I rather advise them not to do at all) the whole of these aids of the mind are to be as strictly avoided. I had like to have forgotten to say, that the means used in the instance which follows to increase the solemnity of the scene, were a capital display of wigs, canes, stopwatches; and a still more solemn and terrific spectacle, about a score of the brethren. The very commencement serves to show how “_necessary_” was all this display to ensure the success of these _wooden_ tractors.

“It was often _necessary_ to play the part of a _necromancer_, to describe circles, squares, triangles, and half the figures in geometry, on the parts affected, with the small end of the (wooden) tractors. During all this time we conversed upon the discoveries of Franklin and Galvani, laying great stress on the power of metallic points attracting lightning, and conveying it to the earth harmless. To a more curious farce I was never witness. We were almost afraid to look each other in the face, lest an involuntary smile should remove the mask from our countenances, and dispel the charm.” _Haygarth’s book_, page 16.

A very ingenious friend of Dr H. and the glorious cause in which he is engaged, has conceived an improvement on this process. While the above operation is going on, surely, the adroit necromancer would handle his _virgula divinitoria_ with far greater effect, and himself appear much more in character, by using a suitable incantation. The following has, therefore, been proposed for the general use of the profession.

Hocus! pocus! up and down! Draw the white right from the crown! Hocus! pocus! at a loss! Draw the brazen rod across! Hocus! pocus! down and up! Draw them both from foot to top!

Lest you should not have sufficient ingenuity to _comprehend_ the _object_ of Dr Haygarth, in producing these operations on the minds of those paupers, by the aid of such means as he employed, I must _try_ to explain it. It was to induce an inference on the part of the public, that if, _by any means whatsoever_, effects can be produced on the mind of a poor bedridden patient, whether such effect be favorable or unfavorable (as the latter was often the case in Haygarth’s experiments) _ergo_, Perkins’s tractors _cure_ diseases by acting on the mind also, whether on a human or brute subject. Should any person be so uncivil and unreasonable as to start the objection to this logic, that with the same propriety all medicines might also be supposed to produce their effects by an action on the mind, I particularly advise (provided such person be a noted coward) that you challenge him or her to a duel: but if, on the contrary, he or she be a terrible Mac Namara-like fellow, modestly reply that it was all a joke, and you hope there was no offence.

[73]

O _man_ of _mineral putrefaction_.

In the famous address to which we have before referred, we find a most remarkable discovery of the hero of our tale, relative to the origin of “_stench_,” which alone would entitle our doctor to be numbered amongst the most profound of all philosophers, and which we shall give the world in his own words.

“It is too obvious to escape notice, that the stench arising from the hold of a ship proceeds from the putrefaction of substances which belong to all the three kingdoms of nature, vegetable, animal, and _mineral_!!”

[74]

A certain crazy Russian emperor.

Czar Paul, emperor of all the Russias, &c. who had a very benevolent desire to settle the disputes, which agitated Europe, by virtue of tilt and tournament, among those potentates, whose quarrelsome dispositions so often set their subjects by the ears.

[75]

But first invade the old bell-wether.

This sublime simile, gentlemen, will meet the unequivocal approbation of those who are acquainted with the rustic manners and natural history of Kamtschatka. The leading wether of a flock of sheep is ever invested with a bell, pendent from his neck by a collar, not only as an honorary badge of distinction, but for the purpose of alarming the shepherd, in case of invasion by any of the merciless tenants of the forest. The wolf always makes it his first object to silence this jingler, that he may with the greater impunity destroy his fleecy companions.

[76]

Will most assuredly acquit him.

Why not, as well as acquit Capt. Mac, who evaded all harm, in consequence of his not permitting the “sun to go down on his wrath?” Mr Justice Grose, however, appears to me to have proved himself to have been a very gross justice, in telling the jury that the law does not recognise certain nice distinctions which are adopted by men of honor. If, however, his assertion be true, it is proper that there should be an act of parliament passed immediately, giving US GENTLEMEN the privilege of killing each other, which would save government the expense of hemp, hangmen, &c.

[77]

In crows and infants, dogs and horses.

These are among the _patients_ whose cures are attested in Perkins’s publication, in which he has introduced them to show that his tractors do not cure by an influence on the _imagination_. The fallacy of any deductions, drawn from such cases, in favor of the tractors, will be apparent from the following most _learned_ and _elaborate_ investigation of the subject.

There are no animals in existence, I shall incontestably prove, that are more susceptible of impressions from imagination, than those above mentioned.

To begin with the _crow_. Strong mental faculties ever indicate a vivid imagination; and what being, except Minerva’s beauty, the owl, is more renowned for such faculties than the crow?--Who does not know that he will smell gunpowder three miles, if it be in a gun, and he _imagine_ it be intended for his destruction? These emblems of sagacity, besides “fetching and carrying like a spaniel,” and talking as well or better than colonel Kelly’s parrot (which by the by I suspect to have been a crow) are, as Edwards assures us in his _Natural History_, “the planters of all sorts of wood and trees.” “I observed,” says he, “a great quantity of crows very busy at their work. I went out of my way on purpose to view their labor, and I found they were planting a grove of oaks.” Vol. v. Pref. xxxv.

These _geniuses_ always can tell, and always have told, since the days of Virgil, the approach of rain. That poet says,

“Tum _cornix_ plena pluviam vocat improba voce.”

They can likewise tell when bad news is approaching, as we learn from the same writer,

“Sæpe sinistra cava prædixit ab ilice _cornix_.”

Now I beg leave to know what mortal can do more? and to suppose a crow not blessed with those more brilliant parts, under which _imagination_ is classed, is to do them a singular injustice, which I shall certainly resent on every occasion.

Now as to _infants_. Whoever has been in the way of an acquaintance with some of the more musical sort of these little gentry (like my seven last darlings for instance) and has been serenaded with the dulcet sonatas of their warbling strains, will not be disposed to deny their powers on the imagination of _others_. I have known the delusion practised so effectually by these young conjurers, that I have myself _imagined_ my head was actually aching most violently, even on the point of cracking open; but on going beyond the reach of their magic spell, that is, out of hearing, my head has been as free from pain as it necessarily must be at this moment, while I am penning this lucid performance. Now, I maintain it to be most unphilosophical, and totally opposite to certain new principles in ethics, which I shall establish in a future publication, to suppose that infants should be able to impart either pleasure or pain, by operating on the imagination, and not themselves possess a large share of that imagination, by the aid of which they operate to so much effect upon others.

Next come _dogs_. Dr Shaw, in his _Zoology_, vol. i. p. 289, informs us, “that a dog belonging to a nobleman of the Medici family always attended his master’s table, changed the plates for him, carried him his wine in a glass placed on a salver, without spilling the _smallest_ drop.” The celebrated Leibnitz mentions another, a _subject_ of the elector of Saxony, _who_ could discourse in an “intelligible manner,” especially on “tea, coffee, and chocolate;” whether in Greek, Latin, German, or English, however, he has not stated; but Dr Shaw, alluding to the same dog, says, undoubtedly under the influence of prejudice, “he was somewhat of a truant, and did not willingly exert his talents, being rather pressed into the service of literature.”

Indeed, our greatest naturalists assure us, that this animal is far before the human species in every ennobling quality. Buffon makes man a very devil compared with the dog; and had he come directly to the point, I presume he would have told us that the dog is one link above man in the great chain from the fossil to the angel. “Without the dog,” says Buffon, “how could man have been able to tame and reduce other animals into slavery? To serve his own safety, it was necessary to make friends among those animals whom he found capable of attachment. _The fruit of associating with the dog_ was the conquest and _the peaceable possession of the earth_. The dog will always preserve his empire. He reigns at the head of a flock, and makes himself _better_ understood than the voice of the shepherd” (well he might, for it appears he is more knowing, more powerful, and more just.) “Safety, order, and discipline, are the fruits of his vigilance and activity. They are a people submitted to his management, whom he conducts and protects, and against whom he never employs force but for the preservation of peace and good order.” _Barr’s Buffon_, vol. v. p. 302.

It is to me somewhat remarkable that _theorizing_ Frenchmen, many of whose discoveries are scarcely less important than my own, cannot make them apply in such a manner as to effect some _practical good_ in society. Buffon discovered that a dog was a species of demi-god, and appears on the point of worshipping this great Anubis of the Egyptians. Voltaire tells us, that Frenchmen are half monkey and half tiger, and everybody knows that the one is insufferably mischievous, and the other infinitely ferocious. Now it is surprising that these philosophers could not contrive to improve the breed by a little of the _canine_ blood. Indeed, I should advise them to import some of our Bond street male _puppies_, to be paired with French female _monkeys_, and I will venture to assert that there will be very little of the _tiger_ perceivable in their offspring. And since a dog, as Buffon says, “reigns with so much dignity at the head of a flock, will always preserve his empire, _never employs force but for the preservation of peace and good order_,” and is endowed with so many other great qualifications, which seem to denote him to be a proper personage to wield the sceptre of dominion, I would seriously advise the abbe Sieyes, when he frames his 999th Constitution for the _free_ French Republic (which it is said he has already begun to manufacture) so to organize the executive branch, that at least one of the consuls should be a true blooded English bull-dog.

After the ample proof I have now given of the infinite superiority of the dog to man, when his merits are fairly estimated, which it is very difficult for us, being interested, to do without prejudice, I shall take it for granted, that he must possess all the brilliancy even of a poet’s imagination, and therefore that he is far _more_ likely to be cured by imagination than man.

It now remains to speak of _horses_, and these (not to mention the Bucephalus of Alexander, or the Pegasus of doctor Caustic) I shall show, in a very few words, can boast of performances and qualifications, to which a lively fancy in the comparison is but as the wit of an oyster to the wisdom of a philosopher. One of the most scientific nations that ever existed, renowned alike for its refinements in the arts, and prowess in war, has been compelled to yield the palm to the superior attainments of a horse, and acknowledge its inability to achieve what he most readily effected. Ten long years was the whole power of Greece engaged in an ineffectual siege of far-famed Troy. The bravest of armies, commanded by heroes allied to the gods, assailed the foe in vain. At this disheartening period stepped forth a _wooden_ horse, and promised a victory, provided his plans were adopted. Aware of the horse’s _great capacity_, which enabled him to _comprehend_ a great number of _subjects_, the sagacious Greeks _entered into_ his measures, and Troy was levelled in the dust.

If all this could have been accomplished by a _wooden_ horse, none but a Perkinite will be so absurd as to pretend that one composed of _flesh and blood_, like man, does not enjoy far greater privileges, among which are those of receiving as many cures by the influence of imagination as he pleases.

Now then, gentlemen, I trust that if any man will con over, digest, comprehend, and _admit_ this my ingenious and learned exposition of the fallacy of the arguments in favor of the tractors, so much harped upon by our adversaries, which are drawn from the circumstance of their having cured crows and infants, dogs and horses, he will with great facility be enabled to confound and overthrow them on all occasions, provided he enforce and proclaim it with the ardency its importance deserves.

[78]

For pain itself is all _ideal_.

So said the learned bishop Berekley, in a scientific treatise called _Principles of Human Knowledge_, in which his reverence makes it apparent, to those who have a clue to his metaphysical labyrinth, that there is no such thing as matter, entity, or sensation, distinct from the mind which perceives, or thinks it perceives, such ideas or substances. The bishop’s authority being so pat in point, I cannot but admire that it has not more frequently been adduced in opposition to the tractors.

[79]

THEN MAN, OF COURSE, THOSE DRUGS TO TAKE.

This CAPITAL argument, that it might make a CAPITAL figure, I have ordered my printer to put in CAPITAL letters, and I hope it will make a CAPITAL impression on your worshipful intellects. But still I have not given it half that pre-eminence which its importance claims, under existing circumstances. A great hue and cry has been raised by the Perkinites, by which some of the less penetrating part of the profession have been awed into silence, respecting the _duty_ of medical practitioners. They say that it is the duty of a medical man to employ only such means as will cure his patient in the most _safe_, _cheap_, and _expeditious_ manner. This infamous pretension takes its origin from no other person than Perkins himself. That you may individually be aware of the effrontery with which it is brought forward, I shall, in this note, copy from Perkins’s book his manner of treating the subject. Your worships will form some idea of the magnitude of this objection of our adversaries, in their own estimation, and the mischief it has already occasioned, not only in Great Britain, but abroad, when I inform you that it has been echoed in both the English and foreign journals, and in many of them treated as a complete refutation of the arguments of Dr Haygarth, and of all who object against the tractors, on account of their _curing_ diseases merely by operating on the imagination. Among other foreign publications, I observe that the 21st volume of the _Bibliothèque Britannique_, printed at Geneva, closes a long account (40 pages) of “_Perkinisme_” with this “petite histoire de Mr Perkins.”

“A gentleman came from the country to London, for the advantage of medical assistance, in a complaint of peculiar obstinacy and distress. After being under the care of an eminent physician several weeks, and paying him upwards of thirty guineas, without any relief, he was induced to try the tractors. To be short, they performed a remarkable cure; the person was perfectly restored in about ten days. The physician, calling soon after, was informed of the circumstance. He began lamenting that so sensible a person as the patient should be caught in the use of so contemptible a piece of quackery as the tractors. After assuring the patient that he had thrown away his five guineas, for that it was well established by Dr Haygarth, that a brick-bat, tobacco-pipe, goose-quill, or even the bare finger, would perform the same cures, he was interrupted by his patient: ‘And are you sincere in your belief that you could have produced, by those means, the same effects upon me, which I have experienced from the tractors?’ ‘Do I believe it? Ay, I know it; and that a thousand similar cures might be effected by means equally simple and ridiculous.’ ‘And sir,’ interrupted the gentleman again, in a more stern and serious tone, ‘why did you not cure me then, by those _simple_ means? Remember I have paid you thirty guineas, under the supposition that you were exerting your utmost endeavors to cure me, and that in the most safe, cheap, and expeditious manner. You now, in substance, acknowledge, that, although in possession of the means of restoring me to health, for the dishonorable purpose of picking my pocket, you continued me upon the bed of sickness! Who turns out to be the impostor? Let your own conscience answer.’ The justness of the retort, it will be easily believed, precluded the possibility of an exculpation.” _Perkins’s New Cases_, p. 145.

Had I been the physician, however, I would have rejoined with arguments, not dissimilar to that which is so beautifully expressed in the above stanza. I would have told him that the Author of nature most certainly would not have created either a poisonous or salubrious vegetable, without intending that it should “dose and double dose” his creature man.

Should it be objected that the tractors being also _created_ substances ought also to be used, I could ingenuously retort, they were created in America, a country whose natives are Indians, an inferior order of beings to man, as some great philosophers before me have asserted, and who, it is evident, are the _only_ order of creatures, on whom it was intended the tractors should be used.

I have no particular wish to injure Dr Jenner, or I should positively overturn him and all his adherents with my resistless arguments. If I were not willing that he should retain his popularity, I should make it appear that the small-pox was created with the intent of being universally propagated among the human race for the purpose of mortifying female vanity; and Jenner’s attempt to extirpate it, by substituting the cow-pox, which ought to have been confined to the quadrupeds, among which it originated, as the tractors ought to have been to the Indians, is the extreme of presumption, and the height of iniquity. I cannot but conceive that our bishops and clergy are very remiss in not endeavoring to dissuade from such enormous, innovating practices.

[80]

That learn’d physicians pine with hunger.

No man who possesses a _heart_, certainly none who possesses _bowels_, can view us reduced to this deplorable condition, and hear this pathetic appeal, without the sincerest commiseration. The eminent services that our profession have rendered mankind, in contributing to avert some of the greatest curses that ever befel the civilized part of the world, are too well known, and have been too frequently acknowledged to be forgotten, ungratefully, in the day of our adversity. The testimony to this effect of the judicious, the humane Addison, ought often to be brought before the public eye.

“We may lay it down as a maxim,” says that intelligent writer, “that when a nation abounds with physicians it grows thin of people. Sir William Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the northern hive, as he calls it, does not send such prodigious swarms, and overrun the world with Goths and Vandals, as it did formerly: but had that excellent author observed that there were no students in physic among the subjects of Thor and Woden, and that this science very much flourishes in the north at present, he might have found a better solution for this difficulty than any of those he has made use of.” _Spectator_, No. 21.

[81]

The patient _save_, but _starve_ the doctor.

This would be abominable. Physicians, in general, are a hale hearty race of men, as, indeed, must be readily conceived from their prudent maxims in regard to the preservation of their _own_ health:--they take no physic. No; they are too well acquainted with its tendency. Now, to starve so sturdy and powerful a body, when his majesty is in want of such subjects to check the ambitious strides of restless Buonaparte, as appears from the king’s declaration of this day (May the 16th, 1803,) in preference to letting their miserable _patients_ expire, whom Providence evidently intended should die off, is, I trust, too absurd and unreasonable an idea to be admitted.

[82]

Like Perkinites, they find Mecenases.

The Perkineans have no cause to boast of the extent of their patronage, for the poor tawny reptile chimney-sweepers have of late interested the friends of humanity in their behalf quite as much. Your worships will derive from this circumstance a very pleasant source for _sneering_ at our opponents, which I am sure you will _gladly_ embrace, whenever opportunity presents.

[83]

Except by knaves retired from practice.

This, gentlemen, is a circumstance of no small moment, and which I trust you will see the necessity of looking at with some seriousness. Some of our profession have, to their eternal disgrace, since their retirement on their fortunes, deserted our cause, and are now to be found in the ranks of our enemies. These fellows have the presumption to suggest that their duty to the interests of the community supersedes that which they owe to their old brethren, the unreasonableness of which sentiment I conceive to be self-evident, and therefore shall not trouble myself to prove it. Several have even addressed to the Perkinean Institution communications in favor of the metallic tractors, for publication, three of which are already laid before the public. The first on this list is Mr Lyster, late of Dublin, who having been above twenty years senior surgeon of the Dublin hospital, retired to Bath, where he now seems even to take delight in benefitting the mean and miserable poor, to wanton injury of his own dear brethren. To show the extent of his malice, he has, in his communication to the Perkinean Society, introduced statements of remarkable cures by the tractors; among others one of total blindness of many years duration, in which all medical skill had previously failed; and, to wind up this tale of infamy, he has even ventured to censure, indirectly, my great champion, Dr Haygarth, and to hint that his proceedings were not accompanied with honorable intentions!

Next on this trio list are Mr Yatman, of Chelsea, and Dr Fuller, of Upper Brook street; the conduct of both of whom is equally, if not more reprehensible than Lyster’s. These two also call in the lame, the halt, and the blind, and, as if to spite their brethren who have drugs to sell, cure them with the tractors without fee or reward! Such conduct is so atrocious that if your worships should think proper to have them indicted, and Mr Erskine or Mr Garrow object to defend the cause of such clients, I, counsellor Caustic (remember I am LL.D.) will manage it for you, and, provided I can but get that same jury which decided that captain Macnamara was not accessory to the death of Col. Montgomery, I will procure the defendants to be sent to Botany Bay, or at least as far as Coventry.

To show the barbarity and wantonness of these two men, I will close this note by the following quotation from the letter of one of them, Dr Fuller, who, after a practice of nearly thirty years in medicine, and by which he has secured his own independence, seems now to amuse himself in undermining those of us who are still dependant. After a statement of a number of great cures by the tractors, and proving, by his own trials on infants, &c. that they do not act on imagination, which Dr Haygarth so laudably attempted to show, he proceeds:--“I derive much satisfaction in noticing among the more liberal and respectable part of my profession an increased favorable opinion of Perkinism, and a readiness to _allow_ of its use among their patients, when proposed by _others_. To expect more than this, would be to expect more than human nature in its present state will admit. It must be an _extraordinary_ exertion of virtue and humanity for a medical man, whose livelihood depends either on the sale of drugs, or on receiving a guinea for writing a prescription, which must relate to those drugs, to say to his patient, ‘You had better purchase a pair of tractors to keep in your family; they will cure you without the expense of my attendance, or the danger of the common medical practice.’ For very obvious reasons, medical men must _never_ be expected to recommend the use of Perkinism. The tractors must trust for their patronage to the enlightened and philanthropic out of the profession, or to medical men retired from practice, and who know of no other _interest_ than the luxury of relieving the distressed. And I do not despair of seeing the day, when but very few of this description as well as private families will be without them.” If Dr Fuller were obliged to live in my garret one month, he would sing a different tune.

[84]

Who make, quoth Darwin, good manure.

Besides the advantage of showing how reverently this great philosopher and philanthropist could speak of religion, I am sure I shall render an essential service to agriculturists, by adducing the following quotation. I bring it forward the more readily, as I find that the Board of Agriculture have been so negligent of the interest of that noble art, as not yet to have recommended the universal adoption of this measure.

“There should be no burial places in churches, or churchyards, _where the monuments of departed sinners shoulder God’s altar_ and pollute his holy places with dead men’s bones. But proper burial places should be consecrated out of towns, and divided into two compartments, the earth from one of which, saturated with animal decomposition, should be taken away once in ten or twenty years _for the purposes of agriculture_, and sand or clay, or less fertile soil brought into its place.” _Darwin’s Phytologia_, p. 242.

Here your worships will perceive that there is a prospect, if this advice is followed, that we may enjoy the privilege of _eating_, instead of _drinking_ our friends, which would be something of an improvement on our idea, communicated in page 58.

[85]

Would serve for stock to make mosquitoes.

Among other speculations also in the cause of humanity, bequeathed us by this _friend_ of _man_, are the following, which will prove a great consolation to those who have foolishly supposed that the bloodshed and devastation, produced by war, were circumstances which ought to be lamented.

These remarks are published by Dr Darwin, as written under his own observations in the manuscript of his book, by a “_philosophical_ friend,” whom he left in his library. It is supposed, however, that the doctor wrote them himself. At least the sentiments have his sanction.

“It consoles me to find, as I contemplate the whole of organized nature, that it is not in the power of any one personage, whether statesman or hero, to produce by his ill employed activity, so much misery as might have been supposed. Thus, if a Russian army, in these insane times, after having endured a laborious march of many hundred miles, is destroyed by a French army, in defence of their republic, what has happened? Forty thousand human creatures, dragged from their homes and connexions, cease to exist, and have _manured_ the _earth_; but the quantity of organized matter, of which they were composed, presently revives in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables, and insects, and afterwards of quadrupeds and men; _the sum of whose happiness is, perhaps, greater than that of the harrassed soldier, by whose destruction they have gained their existence_! Is not this a consoling idea to a mind of universal sympathy? I fear you will think me a misanthrope, but I assure you a contrary sensation dwells in my bosom; and though I commiserate the evils of all organized beings, “_Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_.”” _Phytologia_, p. 558.

[86]

Are swept by pestilence and dearth.

Last words of Dr Darwin. I take no small credit to myself, for being one of the first to bring into notice the latest and the most sublime of this sublime philosopher’s sublime speculations. The fountain from which this radiant stream of illumination flows is denominated, among booksellers, THE TEMPLE OF NATURE.

To paint all the writer’s conceptions of the mansion of that old lady, and her own most singular qualifications, would be a task even beyond the abilities of a Caustic. Mr Fuseli, however, has _painted_, his _conceptions_ on the occasion, which in one of his designs, appear, so far as I can comprehend him, to be simply these:--In his frontispiece to the work, he represents one beautiful lady pointing at, or rather fumbling about, (somewhat indecently, I must confess) a _middle_ or _third_ breast of another beautiful lady, whom I suppose to be Dame Nature;

Than which there’s nothing can be apter To fill philosophers with rapture.

This _third_ breast I take to be the painter’s emblem of the discoveries of Dr Darwin--implying that their existence is as evident as that a woman has _three_ breasts. But, not to digress; the doctor ascertains that

“Human progenies, if unrestrain’d, By climate friended, and by food sustained O’er seas and soils prolific hordes would spread Ere long, and deluge their terraqueous bed. But war and pestilence, disease and dearth Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth.” _Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

Some _un_philosophical theorists have foolishly supposed that this sweeping plan of Dr Darwin, which that philosopher appears to have introduced, lest “prolific hordes” should “deluge their terraqueous beds,” might as well be deferred till a few of the “_superfluous_” acres on the earth’s surface were reduced to a state of cultivation. I should advise to employ these supernumeraries in navigating polar ices within, the tropics, as recommended by the doctor in the _Botanic Garden_, were I not apprehensive lest I should thereby in some measure, destroy the operation of Saint Pierre’s tides. See note on page 70,