recollected, that having, on both occasions, arrived from the country late in the evening, he had ordered a plate of toasted Gloucester cheese, of which he had partaken heartily, a dish which, when at home, regularly served him for supper. He attributed his illness to the cheese. The circumstance was mentioned to the mistress of the inn, who expressed great surprise, as the cheese in question was not purchased from a country dealer, but from a highly respectable shop in London. He therefore ascribed the beforementioned effects to some peculiarity in his constitution. A few days afterwards he partook of the same cheese; and he had scarcely retired to rest, when a most violent colic seized him, which lasted the whole night and part of the ensuing day. The cook was now directed henceforth not to serve up any toasted cheese, and he never again experienced these distressing symptoms. Whilst this matter was a subject of conversation in the house, a servant-maid mentioned that a kitten had been violently sick after having eaten the rind cut off from the cheese prepared for the gentleman's supper. The landlady, in consequence of this statement, ordered the cheese to be examined by a chemist in the vicinity, who returned for answer, that the cheese was contaminated with lead! So unexpected an answer arrested general attention, and more particularly as the suspected cheese had been served up for several other customers.

"Application was therefore made by the London dealer to the farmer who manufactured the cheese: he declared that he had bought the anotta of a mercantile traveller, who had supplied him and his neighbours for years with that commodity, without giving occasion to a single complaint. On subsequent inquiries, through a circuitous channel, unnecessary to be detailed here at length, on the part of the manufacturer of the cheese, it was found, that as the supplies of anotta had been defective and of inferior quality, recourse had been had to the expedient of colouring the commodity with vermilion. Even this admixture could not be considered deleterious. But on further application being made to the druggist who sold the article, the answer was, that the vermilion had been mixed with a portion of red lead; and the deception was held to be perfectly innocent, as frequently practised on the supposition that the vermilion would be used only as a pigment for house-painting. Thus the druggist sold his vermilion in the regular way of trade, adulterated with red lead to increase his profit, without any suspicion of the use to which it would be applied; and the purchaser who adulterated the anotta, presuming that the vermilion was genuine, had no hesitation in heightening the colour of his spurious anotta with so harmless an adjunct. Thus, through the circuitous and diversified operations of commerce, a portion of deadly poison may find admission into the necessaries of life, in a way which can attach no criminality to the parties through whose hands it has successively passed."

We must now draw our extracts to a close; but we can assure our readers, that we have not yet introduced them to one tithe of the poisonous articles in common use detected by Mr Accum. We shall give the titles of a few to satisfy

the curious Poisonous confectionary, poisonous pickles, poisonous cayenne pepper, poisonous custards, poisonous anchovy sauce, poisonous lozenges, poisonous lemon acid, poisonous mushrooms, poisonous ketchup, and poisonous sodawater! Read this, and wonder how you live!

While we thus suffer under accumulated miseries brought upon us by the unprincipled avarice and cupidity of others, it is surely incumbent on us not wantonly to increase the catalogue by any negligence or follies of our own. Will it be believed that, in the cookery-book which forms the prevailing oracle of the kitchens in this part of the island, there is an express injunction to "boil greens with halfpence in order to improve their colour?"-that our puddings are frequently seasoned with laurel leaves, and our sweetmeats almost uniformly prepared in copper vessels? Why are we thus compelled to swallow a supererogatory quantity of poison which may so easily be avoided? Why are we eternally insulted at our entertainments with the presence of that villanous decoction of offal, falsely called calf's-foot' jelly? And why are we constantly made to run the risk of our lives by participating in custards, trifles, and blancmanges, seasoned by a most deadly poison extracted from the Prunus lauro-cerasus? Verily, while our present detestable system of cookery remains, we may exclaim with the sacred historian, that there is indeed "Death in the Pot."

Yet, after all, when we have drained the bitter draught presented to us by Mr Accum to the bottom, there will still be found a drop of comfort in the goblet. It is certain that the alimentary sophistications detected in his work have by no means become so prevalent in this quarter of the island as it appears they have done among our neighbours. Scotland is not a soil in which fraud of any kind has ever flourished, and, least of all, fraud of so aggravated a nature as to imply not only the total destitution of moral principle, but the utter

1 We have the authority of Auld Reekie's first Patissier, for stating that, according to a most philosophical and accurate calculation made by him, the quantity of calf's-foot jelly consumed in Edinburgh alone, is five times greater than could be afforded by all the calves killed in Scotland put together! The truth is, it is generally made from bullocks' entrails, which are carefully preserved from the dogs, and transmitted to the mansions of those ladies whom their cards inform us we are to have the pleasure of finding "AT HOME" a few evenings afterwards.

absence of all human feeling in the perpetrator of it. But if we find some security from imposition in the general character of our population, we may rely with still greater confidence on the well-earned fame of individuals. The potency of Provost Manderson's pills will not readily be doubted by those who admire him as an upright and distinguished magistrate, and still less by those who, like ourselves, can bear testimony, by experience (alas! too frequent), to their efficacy. When revelling amid the luxuries of Bailie Henderson's shop, the very smell of which might create an appetite under the ribs of death, no dismal apprehension need spoil the flavour of our Bologna, or prevent us from washing it down with a bumper of his transcendent Maraschino. What delicacy is there of which we may not freely partake in Mrs Weddell's, Mrs Montgomery's, or Mr Davidson's ?—There lurks no poison in the warm, soothing, and delicious jellies of the first, the inimitable mulligatawny of the second, or the exquisite patés and unrivalled ices of the third. Uncontaminated by drugs, the porter of the Prestonpans brewery will still maintain the high reputation it has acquired; and share, with Bell's ale, an honourable, an extended, and a lucrative popularity. Our Scottish wine-merchants, we believe, have yet to be instructed in the art of staining corks, and fabricating artificial crusts. With what delicious safety, therefore, may we quaff the aged Port and perfumed Longbouchon of Messrs Somervell and Campbell, the famous Madeira and Chambertin of the Frisby of Leith, the delightful Hock and superb Closvogeot of Mr Thomas Hamilton of Glasgow! We must conclude. The very mention of these things has thrown our whole frame into disorder. Even if it could be established that death was in the bottle as well as in the pot, we should pitch Mr Accum to the devil, and swallow the delicious poison at the rate of three bottles per diem, till the exhaustion of our cellar or our constitution should unwillingly force us to desist.

GYMNASTICS.

[AUGUST 1826.]

PEOPLE in general have no notion what awkward cubs they are, and how exceedingly unlike Christians. Out of every score you meet, is there one whose external demeanour has not something absurd or offensive? Yet they are all manifestly trying to do the decent and the decorous; and as they hurry by in every imaginable form of awkwardness, believe themselves admired from every window, and doing execution from thrice-sunk story to devil-dozenth flat. Of their mental powers, men in society are made to form, in general, a pretty fair estimate, but they are often sadly out respecting corporeals. An individual, at the Scotch bar, we shall say-videlicet an advocate-masters, as he thinks, a case, and his copious speech overflows the bench, and reaches up to the knees of the President. But the opposite counsel does not leave him a leg to stand upon. Judge after Judge demolishes his argumentation, and the case is given against him unanimously, with costs. This occurring constantly, our friend gets suspicious of himself, and, in a few years, joins the gentlemanly men, who are not anxious for business. But he is not to be so driven from his faith in natural and acquired bodily abilities. They are never brought into any very formidable competition; he can stand, walk, dance, ride, swim, and skate, always better than some one or other of his fellow-citizens similarly engaged; and thus he may continue to the close of a long and

1 An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises; intended to develop and improve the Physical Powers of Man; with the Report made to the Medical Faculty of Paris on the Subject; and a new and complete Treatise on the Art of Swimming. By Captain P. H. CLIAS.

respectable life in the belief that he has all along been a Cupid, a Castor, a Meleager, an Antinous, or an Apollo.

Now, the truth is, that not one man in a thousand knows even how to sit still. Watch the first friend you see sitting, and you will not fail to be shocked with his position-so repugnant to the laws of nature. The chance is that he does not even know on what part of his body nature intended him to sit! See! he is vainly attempting to sit on his hip-joints! and that, too, on a cane-chair. The most obtuse soon discovers his mistake, and seeks to rectify the error by suddenly bouncing from the left hip-bone to the right. The intermediate quarter never occurs to him, obvious as it is. And then, look at his feet, sprawling out into the middle of the floor, as if with his toe he sought to stop the currency of a half-crown, leaping into unintended circulation! With one hand in his breeches pocket, the other arm and elbow seemingly bound with cords to the back of his chair, and his head dangling over like that of a sick harlequin, why, he seriously calls that -Sitting!

Now, as it is universally admitted that we must creep before we walk, so is it equally palpable that we must sit before we stand. Captain Clias, therefore, should have begun with Sitting as the first branch of Gymnastic Exercises; and his instructions here too should have been illustrated by plates. The difficulty is not so much in the theory as in the practice. The golden rule has been already hinted at-in taking your seat, consult and obey nature-don't imitate with your back the poker, nor with your legs the tongs, nor with your feet the shovel. Sit at your ease-but not at your impudenceno sort of scratching allowed; and never cease to remember that you are not at present exercising with the dumb-bells. The characteristic of gentlemanly sitting is-animated composure.

By the by, we are wrong in stating Sitting to be the first branch of gymnastics, for manifestly the first branch is— Lying. Unless a man lie well, he must never hope to be a good sitter. Observe that person lying on a sofa. One leg drawn up with crooked knee-an arm awkwardly twisted round the neck—and to crown the horror, the monster is snoring on the flat of his back! When he starts from his doze, what sort of sitting, pray, can you expect from such a