[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,

Canto i.

[87]

Must “_duck_” to death his stubborn pate.

More last words of Dr Darwin.

“The brow of man erect, with thought elate,

_Ducks_ to the mandate of resistless fate.”

_Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

I have exhibited this couplet at all the assemblages of poetizing

brethren in Grub street and St Giles’s, not omitting the inhabitants

of the “Wits’ corner, at the Chapter coffee-house, the _elevated_

tenants of the cider cellar in Maiden Lane, and Col. Hanger’s knights

of the round table,” all of whom agree in acknowledging the elegance

and correctness of the metaphor, and that its beauties are so

transcendently exquisite, and beyond the ken of mortal eye, as to be

perfectly incomprehensible.

[88]

That since “to die is but to sleep.”

“Long o’er the wrecks of lovely life they weep;

Then pleased reflect, to die is but to sleep.”

_Temple of Nature_, Canto ii.

I suspect that my intimate friend and correspondent Buonaparte, is a

full convert to Dr Darwin’s doctrine of death and its consequences.

For, when he declared to lord Whitworth his determination to invade

England, although there were a hundred chances to one in _favor_ of his

going to the bottom, he was undoubtedly calculating on a comfortable

nap after the fatigues of government.

[89]

In bats and bed-bugs, fleas and flies.

“Thus, when a monarch or a mushroom dies,

Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;

But, as a few short hours or years revolve,

Alchymic powers the changing mass dissolve;

Born to new life unnumber’d insects pant,” &c.

_Temple of Nature_, Canto iv.

It has been a matter of curious inquiry among some of my corresponding

garreters, whether this philosopher himself, in the latter stages

of his existence, enjoyed much consolation from reflecting that the

“organic matter” which entered into his own composition, was about

to be employed for the important purpose of giving “new life” to

“unnumbered insects.”

[90]

Vast “monuments of past delight.”

“Thus the tall mountains, that emboss’d the lands,

Huge isles of rock, and continents of sands,

Whose dim extent eludes the inquiring sight,

ARE MIGHTY MONUMENTS OF PAST DELIGHT.”

These “monuments of past delight,” Darwin says,

“Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb.”

Thus taught by this wondrous sage, I trust the friend to humanity will

suppose it best to let the poor, infirm and decrepid die off as fast as

possible, to “manure the earth,” that the quantity of organized matter

of which they were composed, may revive in the forms of millions of

microscopic animals, vegetables and insects, make “monuments of past

delight,” &c. Therefore it is to be hoped, that the promoters of the

Perkinean institution will prove as despicable in respect to numbers,

as they are deficient in understanding, especially in comprehending the

great and glorious truths of modern philosophy.

[91]

_They_ may have rest, _we_--elbow room.

If your worships have not read Mr Malthus’s Essay on the Principles

of Population, I advise you to buy the book immediately, and set

yourselves about something like an effort to comprehend its contents.

You will there find, I cannot now recollect the page, that _population_

has a tendency to increase in a _geometrical ratio_, but that

_subsistence_ must be limited to an _arithmetical ratio_. That the

world would soon swarm with inhabitants in such a manner that in years

of the greatest plenty we should be under the disagreeable necessity of

turning _anthropophagi_, and, like the famous Pantagruel, eat pilgrims

with our salad, were not the principle of population restrained by

two _very useful predominant principles_, viz. “VICE and MISERY;”

the former of which is happily exemplified in the extravagance and

luxury of your worships, and the latter correctly expressed in the

_poverty_ of your worships’ petitioner. You will likewise find in the

same volume, _passim_, that after war, pestilence, and famine have

laid waste a country, there is an immediate increase of births, in

consequence of the principle of population being let loose to take

its natural operation in replenishing the earth; or, in other words,

because there is more _elbow room_ for the survivors. Now, this being

correct reasoning, it must be wonderfully wrong to try to keep alive

poor folks, who are a dead weight on population, destroy the means of

subsistence, prevent early marriages, and, by keeping themselves above

ground, stand in the way of their betters.

[92]

The poker take and lay them level.

Please not imagine that I would be understood to recommend this “retort

courteous” in the most unqualified sense, or that it be exercised on

every occasion. On the contrary, the due performance of it will require

no small degree of prudence and discretion. Indeed, I would have you

use the _poker_, or any other violent and _weighty_ arguments of this

kind, only when your antagonist happens to be a woman, a child, or some

debilitated and cowardly wretch who will submit without any chance of

your meeting with unpleasant resistance.

As to the justice of this mode of response, there exists no doubt,

and therefore dread no decisions _in foro conscientiæ_, because the

extreme heinousness of your adversaries’ provocation will appear from

the following consideration. To deprive you of an argument, for which

you have sacrificed everything dear to obtain, must, confessedly be

regarded as a most outrageous proceeding. Now, this is exactly the case

in the present instance; for in your attempt to show that medical men

believe and trust in no medicine, the _modus operandi_ of which they

do not comprehend, you make a sacrifice of _truth_, _decency_, and

_common sense_, the full reward of which sacrifice you ought to enjoy

unmolested. That no man can explain how mercury poisons, bark cures

an intermittent fever, or opium produces sleep, is confessed by every

medical author; and that all these should be used in our practice,

without any hesitation, I never heard any person deny, and for this

proper and substantial reason; their administration is _profitable_

to the faculty. I have therefore to repeat, that when the Perkinites

complain of your rejecting the use of tractors, because their _modus

operandi_ cannot be entirely explained, although you adopt the use of

drugs, the operation of which is equally or more inexplicable, your

sacrifice in support of your ground is so great, that whoever attempts

to drive you from such ground deserves to be laid low with the first

weapon that comes to hand.

[93]

Will e’en _bewitch_ the _operator_.

No part of the learned doctor’s management, in the anti-Perkinistic

cause, merits higher eulogy than this most _rational_ explanation of

that most _irrational_ practice. So _cogently_ does an innate principle

of equity control me, that I am absolutely _coerced_ to offer, at

the shrine of the heroic doctor, my tributary dole of the incense

of admiration, for having presented our profession such a powerful

knock-me-down argument, wherewith to buffet the common enemy.

The sagacious doctor having published a scientific treatise against the

tractors, demonstrating that “they act on the _patient’s_ imagination,”

Perkins, came out in reply, with all the fury of an Irish rebel, and

declared that the doctor deserved to be trounced for not suffering

his readers to know, that the tractors pretended to cure infants and

brute animals, though numerous cases to that effect had then been

published; and in that reply proclaimed that Dr H. purposely endeavored

to suppress such facts, that he might, with greater facility, induce

the public to swallow the deductions drawn from his magical manœuvres

in the Bath and Bristol hospitals. Now, admitting the doctor managed in

this way, I am sure he was perfectly right in so doing. The _end_ in

view, according to established principles of _modern_ morality, will

ever justify the _means_ taken to accomplish that end. In this case,

the end in view was most important--nothing less than the downfall

of Perkinism, and the consequent aggrandizement of our profession.

Should any of our opponents be so captious as to assert, that such

principles and such motives of action should not be encouraged in

society--that they have a pernicious tendency, and other nonsense of

that sort, I must take the liberty to refer them to the first consul of

the French republic, whose conduct has ever been modelled according to

the principles above stated, and who is certainly the most _powerful

logician_ of the age, perfectly able to confound those who shut their

eyes against the light of conviction.

But to revert to the doctor’s treatise, and Perkins’s impudent

replication. The man who could raise the very old gentleman himself,

by the legitimate powers of necromancy, was not so easily defeated.

Accordingly he returns to the charge in another edition--admits the

existence of the numerous cases on infants, horses, &c. but lays them

all level with the following unanswerable argument.--“The proselytes of

Perkinism having been driven from every other argument, have, as a last

resource, alleged that the patent metallic tractors have removed the

disorders of infants and horses. Even this _flimsy_ pretence is capable

of a satisfactory refutation. In these cases it is not the _patient_,

but the _observer_, who is deceived by his own imagination!!!” See

_Haygarth’s book_, page 40. _Mirabile dictu!_

[94]

Then quote his lady’s ECCHYMOSIS.

The celebrated story of the lady’s ecchymosis comes handed down to your

worships by five successive reporters. The lady _incog._ who makes so

_conspicuous_ a figure in Dr Haygarth’s narration, told another lady,

who told a medical friend of Dr H. who told Dr Caustic, who tells

your worships this important anecdote. Now, as “in the multitude of

counsellors there is _safety_,” so in a multitude of reporters there is

_certainty_. But to the story; which I shall give in the language of Dr

H.’s medical friend aforesaid.

“A _lady_ informed me, that a _lady_ of her acquaintance, who had great

faith in the efficacy of the tractors, on seeing a small _ecchymosis_,

about the size of a _silver penny_, at the corner of the eye, desired

to try on it the effect of her favorite remedy. The _lady_, who was

intended to be the subject of the trial, consented, and the _other

lady_ produced the instruments, and, after drawing them four or five

times over the spot, declared that it changed to a paler color; and

on repeating the use of them a few minutes longer, that it had almost

vanished, and was scarcely visible, and departed in high triumph at

her success. I was assured by the _lady_ who underwent the operation,

that she looked in the glass immediately after, and that not the least

visible alteration had taken place!!” (From _Haygarth’s_ book, page 40.)

I had determined to exert my influence in all the medical societies,

that the above case be read at the opening of each meeting, until there

should not be left of the tractors, in this island, “a wreck behind.”

But a far better plan of Dr H. himself has precluded the necessity

of this measure, which was to announce in all the advertisements of

his book in the public papers, that “it explains why the disorders of

infants and horses are said to have been cured by the tractors.” See

his daily advertisements in the papers.

Indeed, I am at a loss which to admire most, the pretty fanciful

relation above cited, which is all the new edition of the doctor’s

treatise against the tractors contains to justify the assertion in the

advertisements before mentioned, or his singular skill in constructing

such a fabric on this foundation. Did I possess the talents of the

doctor in the advertising department, I should announce this my pithy

performance to the public, by publishing in all the papers, that the

price of the tractors was, in consequence of Dr Caustic’s opposition,

fallen to the price of old iron, and Perkins’s pamphlets having been

proscribed by physicians, were condemned, and actually burnt by the

hangman on execution-day, at the Old Bailey, in the presence of every

individual of the college of physicians, and half the citizens of

London.

I would beg leave to add to this incomparable Haygarthian demonstration

an argument of my own, which I think is not less powerful. It is

impossible that these tractors should perform any _real_ cure, as

they act _solely_ on the _imagination_ either of the patient or the

operator. But cures performed by the power of _imagination_ must be

_imaginary_ cures, that is, no cures at all.

[95]

By Haygarth’s tale of lady Hoax.

It is not true, as some sagacious coffee-house politicians have

asserted, that madame Hoax (or more correctly double Hoax) is the

wife of a Chinese Mandarin, settled on the mountains of the Moon, in

Abyssinia, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence of imagination

in the cure of diseases. No, gentlemen, she is a baroness of true

English breed, more sturdy than a Semiramis, a Penthesilea, or a Joan

of Arc, and will prove, in our cause, a championess of pre-eminent

prowess. Should your worships wish for further acquaintance with this

lady, which in my opinion would be for your mutual advantage, you will

take the trouble to inquire at my garret, No. 299, Dyot street, St

Giles’s (having removed from my former place of residence, third floor,

327, Grub street, with a view of being nearer my friend, Sir Joseph, in

Soho square) and her address shall be at your service.

I am now preparing a most awful tragedy for Drury lane theatre (Mr

Sheridan’s approbation being already obtained) to be entitled and

called, the DREADFUL DOWNFAL OF TERRIBLE TRACTORIZING CONFOUNDED

CONJURATION; in which I propose to introduce a new song, that I have no

doubt will be so celebrated as to be the theme of every ballad-singer

in the metropolis. I cannot forbear anticipating some small share of

that applause, which I have reason to suppose will be _piled_ on Dr

Caustic, as soon as he is publicly known as the author of such an

inimitable production, by obliging your worships with a _part_ of the

chorus to the song aforesaid.

Come now let us coax

Haygarth and Dame Hoax,

Like true hearts of oaks,

To crack off their jokes,

While dreading their strokes,

Those sheep-hearted folks,

The tractoring Perkinites, quiver;

O may they with knocks,

“And shivering shocks,”

Pound their jackets and frocks,

Till dead as horse-blocks,

(O what a sad box!)

They’re thrown into the docks,

Or, just like dead cats, in the river!

This song is to be set to music by Mr Kelly in his very best

style of pathos, sublimity, and crotchets, and to be delightfully

demi-semi-quavered to the admiring audience by Mrs Billington. Then, if

box, pit, and gallery, should not, _una voce_, Nick Bottom-like, cry,

“Encore! Encore! Let her roar! Let her roar! Once more, once more! Let

the squeak and the squall be swelled to a bawl, Dr Caustic will find

the door! Find the door! And never go there any more”!!

[96]

Say that the devil never fails.

This stanza contains a legendary tale, which I dare say is as true, as

that which commemorates a notable exploit of St. Dunstan in seizing

old satan, one dark night in the tenth century, and wringing the nose

of his infernal majesty with a pair of red-hot black-smith’s pincers,

which made him roar and scold at such a rate, that he awakened and

terrified all the good people of Glastonbury and its neighborhood.

[97]

In gulping tractors down, for med’cines.

An old lady of my acquaintance was actually advised by an _ingenious_

son of Galen, an apothecary, resident a few miles north of London, to

swallow tractors for an internal complaint. If our profession were to

follow this laudable example, and force their patients to swallow them

for pills, and then give the public a judicious detail of the terrible

consequences, ending with the death of the patients, Perkinism would

sink into that contempt in the estimation of the public which it justly

deserves.

[98]

In wilds where science ne’er was thought on.

That is, in the United States of America, among Indians and Yankees.

You will find, gentlemen, much to the purpose relative to the state

of science, where Perkinism originated, in the _Monthly Magazine_,

of January, 1803, under the title of “Animadversions on the present

state of literature and taste in the United States, communicated by

an English gentleman lately returned from America.” This gentleman

gives information that the Americans are wretchedly “_behind_-hand in

science _with_ the Britains.” Indeed, those transatlantic younkers

ought, in half a century, to have established universities and other

seminaries of learning, at least as _old_ and respectable as those of

Oxford and Cambridge, and which should have graduated as many students

and produced as many great men. As to the parsimonious spirit of

Americans in encouraging science (which this gentleman animadverts

upon with laudable indignation) it ought truly to be exclaimed against

by us Englishmen, for the weighty reason following: Great Britain,

“from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary” (as

judge Blackstone says) hath starved some of her first poets; such for

instance as Butler, Otway, Chatterton, Dryden, Savage, &c. &c. &c.

&c. consequently (according to the same author) she ought to enjoy

the _exclusive “customary privilege”_ of inflicting the horrors of

starvation on the sons of the muses: but it must be granted, for the

honor of British munificence, that the scientific Herschel, in the

decline of life, as a reward for immortalizing his present majesty, by

inscribing Georgium Sidus in the great folio of the heavens, is allowed

the enormous pension of 80_l._ per annum!!

This instance of _liberality_, in rewarding merit, has caused me to

suspend _my_ animadversions relative to patronage afforded men of

_real science_ in Great Britain, till I can discover whether it be the

absolute determination of my countrymen to starve doctor Caustic.

[99]

Say it was twinn’d with monstrous mammoth.

And must, of course, be a most terrible wild beast.--Ladies and

gentlemen may form a tolerable idea of the enormity of Perkinism, by

viewing the skeleton of a mammoth now exhibiting in Pall Mall, in the

very place where lately were to be seen those terrible caricatures of

the devil, &c. under the appellation of FUSELI’S MILTON GALLERY.

[100]

And to go near it you’d be d--d loth.

This manifesto, you will please to recollect, is the language of

gentlemen physicians. Now it is well known that you possess a

privilege, sanctioned by long and invariable practice, if not founded

on act of parliament, to enforce your sentiments by certain _energetic_

expressions, which, in the mouths of people of less consequence, would

be considered as very vulgar, and nearly allied to _profane swearing_.

And since your worships ever most manfully exercise this privilege to

the full extent of its limits, the present manifesto would have been

extremely inapposite and unnatural, had not an _ornament_ of this kind

been introduced.

[101]

The _boldest_ sons of Galen call on.

I say the _boldest_; for we cannot rely on the aid of the _whole_

Esculapian phalanx. Many white-livered dastards, who disgrace our

profession, have shown a disposition to remain neuter, or fight under

Perkinean banners!

[102]

Than Howard’s fulminating powder.

It is a long time since the public have had any _reports_ from the

honorable Mr Howard’s fulminating powder, which, three years since,

made so much _noise_, that the world had reason to expect that the

_thunderiferous_ chymist would make no more of exploding to old Nick

a whole army of Frenchmen, with Buonaparte at its head, than would a

cockney sportsman of shooting a tame goose on the first of September.

Whether this mighty affair is all _blown up_, or what may have been the

cause of the _silence_ of those who defended a thing which so _loudly_

proclaimed its own merits, it becomes Mr Howard to explain.

Of this he may be assured, if he do not stir his stumps in order to

fulfil _some_ of the fair promises which he and his friends have made

to the Royal Society and the public, of the astonishing achievements

they were about to perform, by the demi-omnipotent power of his new

invented artificial thunder, I hereby give the _alarming_ intelligence

that I will apply my own superior talents to this _sonorous_ subject.

Should that happen, those laurels which were designed to decorate

the brow of Mr Howard will be tied in a bow-knot round my venerable

temples. For, in that case, the learned chymist’s acquisitions, in

the art of _intonation_, will bear no better comparison to those of

Dr Caustic, than the clattering wagon-wheels of Salmoneus to the

world-astounding thunderbolts of Jupiter. No person can doubt my

being able to accomplish all this, who is apprized, as he may be

from perusing this performance, of the vast quantity of the most

_detonating_ kind of _mercury_ which exists in my composition, and

which will _fulminate_ with greater effect, than the _gold_ and

_silver_ that line the _magnipotent_ purse of the honorable the heir

_apparent_ to the duke of Norfolk.

[103]

“Kill’d off,” at Marengo.

I have several times taken a confounded deal of trouble to _haul_ into

my poem this beautiful specimen of parliamentary elocution; and, in my

opinion, nothing can be better imagined, or more happily accomplished.

Poetry and oratory, as the ancients inform us, were both _whelped_

at one litter; consequently the same phrase which glittered in the

harangue of _my_ bull-baiting friend, William Windham, a British

senator, cannot fail to cut a dash in the stanza of _his_ seraphical

friend, Christopher Caustic, a British poet.

Now, as I am a great admirer of French principles, and that new and

accommodating kind of morality, by Frenchmen discovered, and which I

ever have and ever will eulogize, to the utmost extent of my faculties,

perhaps your worships will express no small degree of wonderment why

I should be the intimate friend of a gentleman, the _blaze_ of whose

oratory, one would suppose, would have _blasted_ Buonaparte, and even

_singed_ the whole French republic. But those who are admitted behind

the political curtain will perceive that the _tendency_ of the measures

which Mr Windham supports is to _promote_ those jacobinic principles,

of which Dr Caustic _openly_ and _honestly_ professes himself to be the

determined propagator and defender.

[104]

And never meddle with a _strumpet_.

Surely, no person will imagine that I would, for the world, allude to

any _other_ lady than madam Fame herself.

[105]

And _blaze_ through either _frozen_ zone.

I have very substantial reasons for spreading glad tidings of our

redoubtable chieftain among the most distant inhabitants of the globe,

in preference to endeavoring to add to his great celebrity “within the

periphery of his associates.” And, whereas it has been said that this

gentleman’s reputation will ever stand highest where he is either not

known at all, or known only by those literary productions, in which

he is himself the theme of his own most “ardent praise,” mine shall

be the humble task of trumpeting the doctor’s name among the distant

inhabitants of this dirty planet; while the doctor shall himself “dip

his pen in ethereal and indelible ink, and impress his observations in

characters legible in the great volume of the heavens.”

[106]

As one would spit a _goose_ for roasting.

True it is, though “passing strange,” that a _great_ and good

man, composed, as he _himself_ can attest, of the very essence of

humanity, is often most vilely, most audaciously, and most atrociously

bespattered by a set of saucy reviewers.

Those wicked wits, the writers in the _Monthly_ and _Critical Reviews_,

especially the latter, in a critique on one of the late works of a

certain doctor of self puffing memory, tells us that “the importance of

a man to himself was never more conspicuous than in this publication.

Dr Lettsom admits that he has been anticipated by several distinguished

authors; but modestly hints that some of his particular friends will

form no opinion [respecting the cow-pox] till they have ascertained

_his_ sentiments.” They then have the audacity to declare, that “he

merits no slight punishment for his pompous inflated language, for his

fulsome flattery, and ridiculous exaggeration of every part of the

subject.”

See how they speak of a late publication of the doctor on certain

charitable institutions:--“Unless to connect these different

institutions, to lead the different radii to a centre, while that

centre is the author and the editor, who can boast, _Quæ ipse misserima

vidi, et quorum pars magna fui!_ we see little advantage in this

edition. We mean not to intimate the slightest disapprobation of these

institutions, or of humanity in general; but when we see pomp and

egotism assuming its garb, when vanity and ostentation occasionally

peep from beneath the robe, we feel no little disgust from comparing

the fascinating exterior with the unpleasing contents,” &c. They

likewise have the impudence to assert that some of the doctor’s plans

are “better suited to the superstition of a Hindoo, than to the nature

of a rational christian.” And in another review they declare: “We mean

not to stoop to any; but will tell Dr Lettsom his faults” [consummate

assurance!!] “as well as any other author; nor will we conceal that

mean mark of a little mind, over-weening vanity. We saw it in its germ,

have watched its opening bud, till it is expanded into its blossom. The

literary life of Dr L---- may well be styled the _progress_ of vanity:

the termination is yet to come: but we have ample materials for the

subject.” See _Monthly Review_, of July, and _Critical Review_, of

Sept. 1802, and Feb. 1803.

[107]

They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.

I resolved to recommend your arranging yourselves under the banners

of this Leviathan of the Galenical throng, from the moment I first

heard of his noble and spirited sally against the tractors. Disdaining

the wretched trammels of _why_ and _wherefore_, and without assigning

those paltry trifles, called _reasons_, for his opinions, on the

merits of Perkinism, our intrepid commander determined to extirpate it

root and branch, with his simple _ipse dixit_. This is what we ought

to expect from a hero of such prowess. See how well he manages these

metallic makers of mischief! In a eulogium (a very agreeable thing

to a _modest_ man during his life time) on his friend Dr Haygarth,

contained in the work which those wicked reviewers above mentioned

have treated so irreverently, he mentions (page 277) the “important

object,” which Dr Haygarth has so “happily _effected_.” This is

“arresting and _subduing_ two poisons, the most fatal to the human

race (fever and small-pox) and unveiling imposture, clothed in the

meretricious garb of bold quackery:” a note on the word “_imposture_,”

in the margin says, “Experiments on metallic tractors.” Now, unless

I can borrow the pen of the learned doctor, dipped in “ETHEREAL _and

indelible ink_,” and a whole literary apparatus in proportion, I shall

never be able to express how much I admire the matter above quoted,

on account of the important _intelligence_ therein contained. Before

Dr L. asserted it, I dare say not an individual in the kingdom knew

that Dr Haygarth had “_effected_” such an “important object,” that

fever and small-pox were subdued, altogether extinct, despoiled of

that venom which has hitherto “brought death into the world,” and so

much wo. But true it is, they are quite extirpated, and all this by Dr

Haygarth!! One cannot but exclaim against the perverseness of those

members of parliament, who, regardless of this _news_ from Dr L. voted

a reward to Dr Jenner for his services in _subduing_ the small-pox, and

to Dr Smith, for his discoveries in _subduing_ contagious fevers. In

short, I am almost ready to enforce the charge of ignorance against my

brethren in the profession; for I have not yet met with one possessed

of sufficient penetration to see, that neither fever nor small-pox “has

a local habitation and a name among us,” and that they have been both

“_subdued_,” and all this “_effected_,” by Dr Haygarth!

[108]

Prepare the batteries of thy journal.

Here I can, with certainty, calculate on the most powerful

co-operation. This----, what shall I call it? This official Gazette

of the profession--this Medico-Chymico-_Comico_-Repository, for the

effusions of self-puffers, prescribing rules and recipes,

“How best to fill his purse, and thin the town;”

this powerful instrument of offensive and defensive warfare, has ever,

with becoming vigilance, guarded its post against Perkinean invaders,

and suffered no occasion to pass without a squirt of the _Gallic_ acid

of satire, when there was deemed a possibility of _blackening_ the

common enemy.

I can never sufficiently express my approbation of the Carthagenian

cunning with which this journal has been conducted. Dr B. professing

great impartiality, in an early number, (see vol. ii. p. 85) invited

communications on the subject of the tractors. Subsequent management

evidently showed a slight omission in the doctor’s notice, and that

he meant _communications on one side only_; for he has omitted no

pains to procure and publish whatsoever could be suggested _against_

the tractors; but though reports of cases in their favor, and all the

publications of the patentee have been before him, not a syllable

of _these_ was ever noticed by that gentleman; neither has it ever

appeared by his journal that such facts ever existed.

[109]

By every nostrum, save _thine own_.

I appeal to any of my brethren who have been gratified, as I often have

been, with the Demosthenes-like torrent which has been so frequently

poured forth, in our medical societies, by this “child and champion”

of the Galenical throng, against quackery and all its appurtenances,

whether it were fair to surmise, as some unconscionable rogues have

done, that Dr B. has absolutely himself become the proprietor of a

quack medicine. The fire of eloquence with which Perkinism, that most

atrocious kind of quackery, has been so frequently, and so effectually

assailed by the learned doctor at the medical society, at Guy’s,

the Lyceum Medico Londinensis, &c. &c. &c. ought to have ensured Dr

B. so much of the gratitude of the profession, that, although he

should _himself_ choose to become one of the most arrant quacks in

the kingdom, he might depend on your support of his reputation, and

your exertions to uphold him. No subsequent apostacy on his part, I

maintain, will justify a dereliction of him.

Recal to your recollection, gentlemen, the denunciations he has so

often made against every medical practitioner who should presume,

either directly or indirectly, to offer any patronage to remedies which

bore even the most distant resemblance to a nostrum. How often have the

walls of the medical theatres of Saint Thomas’s hospital, and Windmill

street, echoed loud responses to his declamations against the varlets,

who should dare to recommend means, in the profits of the consumption

of which the whole profession could not participate? How often have you

received his invitations to send him your effusions and declamations

against quackery, to receive an efficient publication in his journal?

and what number of that journal has appeared without performing his

promise, by honoring those effusions with a place in its immortal pages?

Lest even these most important considerations should still find you

inexorable, I trust I can show, by examining his conduct in regard to

the quack medicine in question, that, if it be not praise-worthy, it

is, at least, defensible.

The title of the nostrum which has had the assistance of Dr B. in being

introduced to the notice of a grateful public, is “A NEW MEDICINE FOR

THE GOUT.” The pretended discoverer of this specific is, for very

commendable, or, which is the same thing, very _prudent_ reasons, kept

behind the curtain. I wish, however, to express my utter disbelief that

either Dr Brodum or Dr Solomon is the happy mortal, however similar the

style of the pamphlet, announcing this new medicine, may be to their

erudite writings, and the pretensions of the said medicine to “balms of

Gilead” and to “nervous cordials.”

[110]

’Gainst Belgraves, Colquhouns, Wilberforces!

What business had these fellows to intrude their noses into the

concerns of the Westminster infirmary? Brother B. had an undoubted

right to manage, or _mis_manage, the funds of a _medical_ institution,

as best suited his own convenience, without their troublesome

interference.

[111]

_All_ in a chariot take an airing.

I hereby enter a protest against any one of my commentators, whether

he be Vanscanderdigindich the elder, or Hansvanshognosuch, his cousin

_German_ (two _Dutch_ geniuses, who have promised to furnish the next

edition of this my pithy poem with a whole ass-load of annotations)

or any other gentlemen critics or reviewers of equal profoundity,

presuming to intimate, that I intend, by this passage, the smallest

disrespect to your _pedestrian_ physicians. Far from that; I know that

many good and great men (like myself for example) cannot even pay

a shilling for hackney-coach hire. No, gentlemen; I have two great

objects in view, to wit:

1. To encourage my brother B--to persevere in his laudable attempt to

kick Perkinism back to the country whence it originated, by reminding

him, that if the feat were once performed, he might, _perhaps_, soon

afford the expense of a chariot to transport, in a respectable manner,

_all_ that wig, without laying the entire burden on the curious sconce

it now envelopes.

2. To remind brother B--, and the profession in general, how much more

execution may be done by a charioteer than by a pedestrian physician.

Although great men frequently differ, I am happy to find Mr _Addison’s_

opinion and _mine_, in this particular, perfectly consentaneous.

“This body of men,” says he, speaking of physicians in our own country,

“may be described like the British army in Cæsar’s time. Some slay in

chariots, and some on foot. If the infantry do less execution than the

charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried, so soon, into all

parts of the town, and despatch so much business in so short a time.”

Spectator, No. 21.

Not an individual, I will venture to assert, who knows my brother B--,

but must feel the really urgent necessity of elevating him, as soon as

possible, from _le pave_ and giving those talents their full _swing_.

Then, indeed, soon might our charioteer justly boast--

“London, with all her passing bells, can tell,

By this right arm what mighty numbers fell.

Whilst others meanly ask’d whole months to slay,

I oft despatch’d the patient in a day.

With pen in hand, I push’d to that degree,

I scarce had left a wretch to give a fee.

Some fell by laudanum, and some by steel,

And death in ambush lay in every pill;

For save, or slay, this privilege we claim,

Though credit suffers, the reward’s the same.”

[112]

From Brodum down to _gaseous_ Thornton.

I am fully sensible that many of my brethren, of less discernment

than myself, would have assigned this famous little genius a rank

on the empirical list even above Dr Brodum. Making _puffing_ their

criterion, they will argue that those acute half-guinea paragraphs

which we occasionally see at the fag end of the _Times_ and other

morning papers, respecting that “very learned physician,”--his “_great_

discoveries, and improvements in the medical application of the

gases,”--his “_grand national_ and botanical work,” and fifty others

of the same strain, asserting the high claims of this _airy_ writer on

the gratitude of the public, are incontestable proofs of his superior

merits in the _puffing_ department, which, say they, are some of the

most necessary ingredients in the formation of a charlatan. All this is

specious reasoning; but I trust I shall show its fallacy. Pre-eminence,

in my opinion, must be founded on some intrinsic excellence, original

and independent of adventitious circumstances. If we closely examine

the merits of this candidate, we shall find that there can be no great

claim on this score. Let any man enjoy the faculties and advantages of

a general dealer in the _airs_, who must of course have _puffs_ of all

descriptions at hand; and where is the merit of occasionally _letting

off one_?

If there be anything like originality in this industrious little

philosopher, and for the invention of which I should be inclined to

allow him the credit of ingenuity, it consists in his _meritometer_,

which proposes to measure the merits of his fellow creatures by the

degree of faith they can afford to bestow on the infallibility of

his gases as a panacea. See his plan of this instrument, or rather

the deductions drawn from his trials of it, in his large five volume

_compilation of “Extracts,”_ vol. i. page 459. From this scale it

appears, that of one thousand of mankind nine hundred and ninety-nine

are either fools or knaves, as that proportion places no confidence

in the efficacy of his catholicon. I hope, therefore, after the good

reasons here assigned for my conduct, I shall not be suspected of

partiality to Dr Brodum in retaining him at the head of the quacks, nor

ill will to Dr T. for not calling him up higher on the list.

[113]

The Thalaba of English metre.

Mr Southey, in his work with the title of “Thalaba or the Destroyer,”

has given us a fine example of a pleasing dreadful performance,

which is neither prose, rhyme, nor reason. Indeed, nothing but the

inspiration of the gas which we have seen him inhale in the first

canto, could have generated the following effusions.

“A Teraph stood against the cavern side,

_A new born infant’s head_,

That Khawla at his hour of death had seized,

And from the shoulders wrung.

It stood upon a plate of gold,

An unclean spirit’s name inscribed beneath:

The cheeks were _deathy_ dark,

Dark the dead skin upon the hairless skull;

The lips were _bluey_ pale;

Only the eyes had life,

They gleamed with demon light.” Book ii.

Again he towers in Book v.

“There where the narrowing chasm

Rose loftier in the hill,

Stood Zohak, wretched man, condemned to keep

His cave of punishment.

His was the frequent scream

Which far away the prowling Chacal heard,

And howled in terror back.

Far from his shoulders grew

Two snakes of monster size

That ever at his head

Aimed eager their keen teeth

To satiate raving hunger with his brain.

He in the eternal conflict oft would seize

Their swelling necks, and in his giant grasp

Bruise them, and rend their flesh with bloody nails,

And howl for agony

Feeling the pangs he gave, for of himself

Inseparable parts his torturers grew.”

Now, if in this age of turmoils your worships should have occasion to

educate a school of assassins, to be employed as Talleyrand employs

his agents, for the purpose of promoting modern philanthropy and

French projects of universal empire, I should advise you to prepare

them intellectual food from such descriptions as we have quoted

above. By accustoming your pupils to meditate on such horrible

descriptions you will soon enable them to inflict without compunction

or remorse, sufferings like those, which they have been in the habit of

contemplating.

We are sorry to see, however, that our friend, Dr Darwin, has been

pleased to express his disapprobation of this species of the _terrible_

in style, without which your small poets can never become conspicuous.

We shall, however, quote one of his sentiments on the subject merely to

let the world know that we great wits do not always tally upon every

point.

The doctor tells us in his Botanic Garden, p. 115, that there is a

“line of boundary between the tragic and the horrid; which line,

however, will veer a little this way or that, according to the

prevailing manners of the age or country, and the peculiar association

of ideas, or idiosyncrasy of mind, of individuals.”

Now I am apprehensive that doctor Darwin would have adjudged the

greater part of Mr Southey’s sublimity to be of the “_horrid_” rather

than the _tragic_ or _sublime_ kind. Such an opinion, however, would

not only greatly tarnish the reputation of the critic who should

venture to pronounce it, but would entirely put down many pretty

good poets, who, as the Edinburgh reviewers say, must have a “_qu’il

mourut_,” and a “let there be light” in every line; and all their

characters must be in agonies and ecstacies, from their entrance to

their exit.[G]

Thalaba, having leaped into a “little car” which appears to have been

drawn by “four living pinions, headless, bodyless, sprung from one

stem that branched below, in four down arching limbs, and clenched the

carrings endlong and aside, with claws of griffin grasp;”

“Down--down, it sank--down--down--

Down--down--a mighty depth!--

Down--down--and now it strikes.”

There’s the _bathos_ to perfection! Now, if we could in any way have

prevailed on Mr Southey to have stopped this side of the centre of

gravity, we should have been happy to have hired his “car” for this

our dreadful rencontre. But as it appears that the Domdaniel cave soon

after _fell in_, I fancy it would cost more to dig out this vehicle

than to get Mr Southey to make us a new one.

[114]

Adown through vast Domdaniel cares.

That is, as Southey says, through the Domdaniel caves, “at the roots of

the ocean.”

[115]

To monsieur Mahomet’s paradise.

“Thalaba knew that his death-hour was come,

And on he leapt, and springing up,

Into the idol’s heart

Hilt deep he drove the sword.

The ocean-vault fell in, and all were crushed.

In the same moment at the gate

Of paradise, Oneiza’s Houri-form,

Welcomed her husband to eternal bliss.”

[116]

Now rant! rave! roar! and rend! and rattle.

I _C_hristopher _C_austic, _c_ensured by _c_ritics, for my _a_pt

_a_lliterations, though _a_rtfully _a_llied, yet _p_resume it is

_p_olicy for a _p_ennyless _p_oet to _p_olish his _p_uny lays to such

a _p_itch of _p_erfection, that _p_osterity may _p_lease to _p_lace

the _p_ithy _p_roduction _p_aramount to the _p_eaked _p_oint of the

_p_innicle of _P_ierian _P_arnassus.

[117]

Drives, Jehu-like, Death’s iron wagon!!

A poet of less judgment than myself would have seated Mars in the

chariot of Victory, a Vauxhall car, or some other flimsy vehicle of

that kind, which would be sure to be dashed to pieces in a conflict

like this in which we are at present engaged. The carriage here

introduced was made by Vulcan, in his best style of workmanship, for

the express purpose of this attack, and in point of strength and size,

bears no more proportion to the chariot commonly used by the god of

war, than one of those huge broad-wheeled Manchester wagons to the

little whalebone _thingamy_ which the duke of Queensbury ran at New

Market.

[118]

Rend the blue “blanket” of the skies.

This is the same “blanket” which Mr Canning said was “wet” when he

exhibited it in the House of Commons. Since his use of it on that

occasion it has been so frequently _wrung_ by the wits, that it has now

become a perfectly dry and almost thread-bare article.

[119]

And round the Blue Ridge make all rattle.

Volney informs us in his View that the Alleghany mountain is the

frontier on which the south-west and north-west winds in America

contend; and that he beheld a spectacle of that kind at Rockfish Gap,

on the Blue Ridge. See American edition, page 148.

[120]

Huge, hissing hot, and hard as granite.

It is to me a matter of doubt whether your worships are not absolutely

ignorant of the causes and effects of the wonderful phenomena to which

we now allude. But if you will please to take with us a stand for

observation, exactly at the centre of gravity between the earth and the

moon, and look about you with the eyes of great philosophers you will

perceive what is well worth a world of admiration.

You will perceive that what is vulgarly called the _man in the moon_ is

a prodigious volcano, in size much superior to any on our globe, and

that this volcano is continually emitting rocks, which ever and anon

are thrown beyond the sphere of the moon’s attraction, and of course

make their way down upon us.

You will likewise find, by turning to the second volume of the

Philadelphia Literary Magazine, page 389, an account of above thirty

different showers of stones, some of which have weighed not less

than 300 pounds. And you will ascertain that there has been a great

diversity of opinions among philosophers respecting the origin of

these prodigies. Some have believed them to be thrown from some

neighboring volcano. Some have thought them to have been wafted about

by hurricanes. Others have supposed them to have been concretions

formed in the atmosphere. Some have thought them to be masses which

were detached from the planets at the time of the formation; and that

they have been floating about in infinite space till they met with our

earth, which became to them a new centre of gravity.

But the truth is, as you may see through any common optical tube, from

the situation to which I have just had the honor to conduct you, that

these masses of matter are the product of _lunar volcanos_. Here we

have a cause adequate to the effect, as I shall make evident in the

following few words.

A lunar volcano similar to those on our planet would project bodies

much further from the moon than they would be thrown by the same force

from Etna or Vesuvius; for,

1. It is granted by great philosophers, such as _ourself_ and Dr

Darwin, that the moon has no atmosphere; of consequence, a body

exploded from the moon would meet with no resistance excepting from

the power of gravitation. Dr Darwin informs us, Botanic Garden, canto

ii. “If the moon had no atmosphere at the time of its elevation from

the earth; or if its atmosphere was afterwards stolen from it by the

earth’s attraction, the water on the moon would rise quickly into

vapor; and the cold produced by a certain quantity of this evaporation

would congeal the remainder of it. Hence it is not probable that the

moon is at present inhabited; _but as it seems to have suffered and to

continue to suffer much by volcanos_, a sufficient quantity of air may

in process of time be generated to produce an atmosphere, which may

prevent its heat from so easily escaping, and its water from so easily

evaporating, and thence become fit for the production of vegetables and

animals.

“That the moon possesses little or no atmosphere is deduced from the

undiminished lustre of the stars at the instant when they emerge from

behind her disk. That the ocean of the moon is frozen is confirmed from

there being no appearance of lunar tides,” &c.

2. Bodies on the moon possess much less gravity in proportion to their

quantity of matter than bodies on the surface of the earth; for matter

is attracted by the earth and moon, respectively, in proportion to the

quantity of matter which each contains. It follows that a comparatively

slight impulse, communicated to a body on the moon’s surface, would be

sufficient to counteract its attraction towards the moon, and if it

were propelled towards the earth it might come within its attraction,

and would of course make its way to our planet.

Thus it appears very evident, even to persons of your worships’

ordinary penetration, that these wonderful showers of stones are of

lunar origin.

[121]

For doctor Tasker to descant on.

I feel a very great solicitude to mould and modify every part and

parcel of this performance according to rules and regulations of the

best master-builders of epic poems, tragedies, and other great things

of that kind. The judicious critic will perceive that all my wounds are

inflicted with anatomical accuracy, and I have no doubt but my friend

Dr Haygarth will do himself the honor to write a treatise upon this

subject, and tell the world with what terrible propriety we have hewed

and hacked our opponents in the field of battle. The reverend William

Tasker, A. B. has furnished a model of this species of criticism in _A

Series of Letters_, respecting “The Anatomical Knowledge of Homer,” &c.

Dr Haygarth I expect will prove that the “death wounds” of Sarpedon,

Hector, Ulysses’ dog, &c. as displayed in the treatise of Dr Tasker,

were mere flea bites compared with these of Dr Caustic.

[122]

From where the head to where the tail is.

Or more correctly where the tail _was_. Lord Monboddo tells us

that men, as well as monkies, were formerly dignified with long

tails protruding from the place where (according to Butler) honor

is lodged. Philosophers and antiquaries had never been able to

discover how man became divested of this ornament, till my friend,

Dr Anderson, furnished a clue to the mystery. From this discovery I

am led to suppose that your antediluvian bucks began the practice of

CUR-_tail_-ing these excrescences for gentility’s sake, and what was

at first _artificial_ became in due time _natural_, till, at length,

your right _tippies_, as in modern times, were entirely disencumbered

of that monkey-like appendage; but our Bond-street loungers, although

divested of that exterior mark of the monkey, with a laudable desire

to prevent the intentions of Nature from being defeated, have adopted

all the ourang-outang-ical _airs_ which she originally designed should

discriminate that species of _animals_ from man.

[123]

With burning lapis infernalis.

The use of this _caustic_ and other escharotics on this momentous

occasion reminds me of an important era in my life, a _succinct_

biographical sketch of which I shall _shortly_ publish, in nineteen

volumes folio; a work which, in point of size, erudition, and

interesting anecdote, will be immensely preferable to the voluminous

production of lord Orford.

The event in question was of the greater consequence, as it gave rise

to the present family name of “CAUSTIC.”

Just thirty-two years since, from the fourteenth day of last July,

while I was prosecuting some of my chymical researches, my eldest

son Tom, a burly-faced boy, since killed in a duel with a hot-headed

Irish gentleman, overturned a bench on which were placed seven carboys

full of acids, alkalies, &c. and broke them into inch pieces. The

consequences of this accident may be more easily conceived than

described. The whole neighborhood was alarmed, and many most terribly

_causticized_ in endeavoring to extinguish the conflagration which

ensued. In the consternation, and amid the exertions to subdue it, some

one cried out that Dr Crichton (for such was my former name, being the

lineal descendant from the celebrated “admirable Crichton”) is fairly a

Dr CAUSTIC.

Thus began my _honorary_ name, of which, as it is _scientific_, I

am not a little proud, especially as it was acquired by virtue of

an _explosion_, similar to that which gave the honorary appellation

of _Bronte_ to my friend, viscount Nelson of the Nile. For further

particulars respecting this important event, you will please to inquire

at the Herald’s college, where, I dare say, “garter principal king

at arms,” sir Isaac Heard, knt. has done me the justice to register

the occurrence. Instead of lions, bulls, boars, camels, elephants,

and such insignificant _animalculæ_, my shield is decorated with

insignia more appropriate to my great pretensions. On the left are seen

broken carboys _couchant_, implying that the secrets of science lie

prostrate before me. On the right are fumes _rampant_, indicative of my

discoveries, which _soar_ above those of all other pretenders. In the

centre are nine hedgehogs, with quills, _stickant_, a happy emblem of

my peaceable disposition.

My motto, which I trust sir Isaac has also registered, is worthy of

notice. Dr Darwin was much pleased with it, and, desirous to emulate

my fame in the art of motto making, _made_ “OMNIA E CONCHIS.” But your

worships will perceive that the doctor’s motto bears no comparison

with mine, in point of erudition; as I prove myself versed in three

languages; whereas he can boast of only one. Here it comes.

Ο ανθρωπος, or η γυνη

Lacessit never me impune!!

This, my beautiful and appropriate motto, for the sake of accommodating

those among your worships, who are not versed in the lore of Greece and

Rome, and cannot afford to subsidize men of erudition to officiate for

you in that department of science, I shall render into our vernacular

idiom, as follows:

If I’m attack’d by man or trollop

I’ll dose the knave with drastic jalap.

Lest the more critical and polite reader should complain, that in order

to _let myself down_ to the level of your worshipful capacities, I

have anglicized my sublime motto in too vulgar and colloquial a style,

I shall take the liberty, politely, to parodize thereon, and, as lord

Bacon says, “to bring it home to men’s business and bosoms;” that is,

to make the application to that particular kind of gentry, against whom

my hedgehog quills, aforesaid, are pointed _in terrorem_.

Ladies and gentlemen, REVIEWERS!

You are a set of mischief brewers;

A gang of scandalous backbiters,

Who feast on us, poor murder’d writers.

Now if you dare to throw the gauntlet,

I tell you honestly I sha’n’t let

Your impudences, with impunity,

Impose in future on community.

If you dare say that greater wit

Than doctor Caustic ever writ;

If you dare venture to suggest

His every word is not the best;

If you dare hint that Caustic’s noddle

Is not improved from Homer’s model;

If you dare _think_ he has not treble

The inspiration of a Sybil;

If you don’t seem to take delight

In puffing him with all your might;

If you don’t coin for him some proper lies

To circulate through this metropolis,

To give eclat to this edition

Of his Poetical Petition;

If you don’t sing the same tune o’er

Which he himself has sung before,

Ancients and moderns, altogether,

Are but the shadow of a feather,

Compared with Caustic, even as

A puff of hydrogenous gas,

He’ll hurl ye to old Davy’s grotto,

As you’ll imagine from his motto.

[124]

Thus monsieur Satan, was quite merry.

So said Milton, _Paradise Lost_, B. vi. where the hero of the poem

(whom I would propose as a model for your worships’ imitation on all

occasions) and his merry companions “in gamesome mood stand scoffing,”

and “quips cranks,” powder, grape shot, puns, blunderbuss, jokes, and

cannon-balls, flash, roar, and bellow in concert.

But I am sure that every candid critic will be disposed to acknowledge

that neither Homer nor Milton ever described a battle, fraught with

such sublime images and similes, as this in which we are so desperately

engaged.

[125] The above ode was written, set to music, and sung on a public

occasion in Rutland, Vermont, July, 1798. At that time the armament,

which afterwards sailed to Egypt, under Buonaparte, lay at Toulon: its

destination was not known in America, but many supposed that it was

intended to waft the blessings of _French liberty_ to the United States.

[126] This ode was written to the music of an anthem, previously

composed for other words, by Oliver Holden, Esq. Charlestown, Mass.,

a gentleman eminent for his musical talents, and sung during divine

service, at the anniversary of Vermont General Election.

[127] There is an inflated species of simplicity, consisting of

exaggerations of thought expressed by colloquial barbarisms, mixed with

occasional pomposity of diction, which it is the object of the above

to ridicule. The measure is after the model of “THALABA;” but rhyme is

added, as Butler says, merely by way of _rudder_ to the verses.

[128] Killington Peak. The summit of the Green Mountains, in Vermont,

is so called.

[129] Written for the occasion, and sung in New York, July the fourth,

1805.

[130] Mud-pout and sucker are two kinds of fishes of little value,

common enough in muddy streams. The otter pursues these with peculiar

avidity.

[131] Wickapy is the popular name for a shrub, which is remarkably

flexible.

[132] Virgil says “_acquirit_,” which not rhyming we use a substitute;

“For rhyme the rudder is of verses.”

[133] Sung at the Anniversary of the Mass. Hort. Society, Sept. 10,

1830.

[134] Hon. Elias Phinney.

[135] The lady, to whom these lines were addressed, had been offended

at the insolence of the character who sat as the _original_ for our

picture.

[A] We preferred whales both for the docility and the rhyme’s sake.

[B] “Divine Nonsensia.”

[C] And therefore the writer of the article “_Earth_,” in the

Encyclopedia Britannica, is wrong in attempting to overturn this fine

fabric of philosophy, by making it appear that metals, minerals,

fossils, &c. are continually forming by accretion, &c. on the earth’s

surface. Indeed, that writer has laid a heavy hand on all the theories

of our modern earthmongers.

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

[E]Now, if it should happen that the comparative levity of air consists

in the repellant powers of its particles, and those bodies which have

the greatest _cohesion_ are most prone to gravitate, there “needs some

conjuror to tell us,” what should hinder bodies of greater specific

gravity from _riddling down between those_ particles of air. No man

but Dr Franklin could have caught the fugitive air under the shell of

the first earth, and pressed it till it became heavier than gold by a

hurly-burly of elements “mixed in confusion.”

[F] The “Monthly Reviewers” of our late edition of Tractoration, would

have it that OURSELF was a Scotchman “frae the north,” &c. Now here’s

a yankee phrase, merely to convince you that they were out in their

conjectures.

[G] See Edinburgh Review of Southey’s Thalaba, October, 1802.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious spelling errors have been silently corrected.

2. Where necessary, original spelling has been retained.

3. Some words have been left as either hyphenated or non-hyphenated as

in the original.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.