who, when closely pursued, is compelled (if not snapped down by the equally active, but more honest and zealous, pursuers,) to make a dive; and then the only interest excited, is to know on which side the pond it will reappear; he once poked his head up toward the end of this vile reign, but drew it in, and never rose again: and thus, "When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more." PRISONS. "Where little villains must submit to fate, That great ones may enjoy the world in state." GARTH. THE principal one was the Tower of London, this place combined in itself a palace, a fortress, and a prison; in the latter capacity, the last trial shows how woefully it was managed. The county prisons were not so numerous as at present, nor were there so many ordinary criminals. The judges went the circuits twice a year, but this year, I have seen it announced, they are to go the circuits thrice.* They were, however, continually occupied by various religious sectarians, who could not, or would not, consent to the various alterations continually making in religion. How could they? "He who complies against his will, Is of the same opinion still." HUDIBRAS. In George Fox's Journal, 1662, he states, "there were 3173 of the Society of Friends imprisoned," himself often among the number. This journal gives a horrible account of the filth and management of these dreadful dens. 66 * The reviewer of "Essays on the Principles of Chritable Institutions," 1836, states: The fact is, that our great wealth has brought with it its usual concomitants-profusion, excess, idleness, want, and crime! While our commerce, says our author, had increased one half, from 1821 to 1823, crime had nearly quadrupled! In London alone, there are about 70,000 persons who subsist on the profit of crime. We have 52,600 licensed public houses, and 33,450 beer shops, in England. The quantity of spirits sold has nearly doubled since 1823. In a period of twelve years, from 1821 to 1833, population has increased 17 per cent, and the consumption of beer 102 per cent; the pawnbrokers' shops have multiplied during the same year from 690 to 1468. Dr. Gordon, physician to the London hospital, states, that at least 65 per cent of all the diseases under his notice are directly referable to intemperance." Gentleman's Magazine, 1837. Colonel Lovelace, a royalist and member of parliament, was imprisoned in the gate-house, Westminster, for merely presenting an excellent petition of grievances from the county of Kent, Therein he wrote the following beautiful poem: TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON. When love, with unconfined wings, To whisper at my grates; When flowing cups run swiftly round, Our careless hands with roses bound, When, like committed linnets, I With shriller notes shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, When I shall voice aloud, how good He is, how great should be, Th' enlarged winds that curls the flood, Stone walls do not a prison make, A writer of such sentiments as these would not be driven from any abstract idea, by a residence in a prison; if he was wrong, this was not the way for his opponents to teach him what they thought was right. The following lines are by Charles Cotton, Esq., an adopted son of Izaac Walton, author of the "Complete Angler." "A prison is a place of woe, Wherein no man can thrive, A touch-stone sure, to try a friend, At times a place of right, At times a place of wrong, Hanway, in his "Virtues of Humble Life," 1777, says, "there were then no fit prisons for houses of correction. There was one at Trim, in the county of Meath, Ireland, fitted up for that purpose, some years before there was one in England." Yes, gentle reader, hundreds of our pious forefather, whose souls were inspired with holy truths, could not, and did not, like the pliant reed, bend with every gentle breeze or raging blast, were cruelly immured in them; and if they had had a Scott, to give elegant words to their oppressed thoughts, they might have said: "I hate to learn the ebb of time, From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime; Or mark it to the sunbeam's crawl, Inch after inch upon the wall." Lady of the Lake. MEDICINE. "For the Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them." ECCLESIASTICUS. "Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives, The shopman sells, and by destruction lives." DRYDEN. On this important science, I have not much useful, but some curious information to give; this science was at a very low ebb glad should I be, if this century had furnished me with some certain remedies, for the cure or mitigation of any prevalent disorder. There were many of the same complaints that now afflict us, but the most prevalent were the plague, the ague, the scurvy, the small pox, "And lordly gout wrapt up in fur, And wheezing asthma loth to stir." SWIFT. Thomas Gale, quoted in Ballingal's Military Surgery, states, "they use such trumpery as is put to horses' heels, and laid upon scabbed backs, and cobblers' wax, in the time of Henry VIII." Some of the practitioners were mere animal farriers, and animal operators. The following amusing extract may be found in a modern publication, from the original, in Her Majesty's State Paper Office, in which Lord Audelay prescribes for Mr. William Cecil, afterwards the great Lord Burghley, then one of Queen Mary's Secretaries of State. The orthography is modernized. "Good Mr. Cecil, "Be of good comfort, and pluck up a lusty merry heart, and then shall you overcome all diseases; and because it pleased my good lord admiral lately to praise my physic, I have written to you such medicines as I wrote unto him, which I have in my book of my wife's hand, proved upon herself and me boti, and if I can get anything that may do you any good, you may be well assured it shall be a joy to me to get it for you. "A good medicine for weakness or consumption: "Take a sow-pig of nine days old, and slay him, and quarter him, and put him in a stillat, with a handfull of spearmint, a handfull of red fennel, a handfull of liverwort, half a handfull of red neap, a handfull of clarge, and nine dates, clean picked and pared, and a handfull of great raisins, and pick out the stones, and a quarter of an ounce of mace, and two sticks of good cinnamon bruised in a mortar, and distill it with a soft fire, and put it in a glass, and set it in the sun nine days, and drink nine spoonfuls of it at once when you list. "A compost: "Item.-Take a porpin, otherwise called an English hedgehog, and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast in a still, with these ingredients. Item, a quart of red wine, a pint of rose water, a quarter of a pound of sugar . . . cinnamon, and two great raisins "If there be any manner of disease that you be aggrieved with, I pray you send me some knowledge thereof, and I doubt not but to send you a proved remedy. Written in haste at Greenwich, the 9th of May, by your true hearty friend-John of Audelay." To the right worshipful Mr. Cecil, this letter be delivered with spede." (Endorsed, "9th May, 1553.") [Gent. Mag.] In Percy's "Reliques of ancient English poetry," we are informed" as to what will be observed in this ballad, (Sir Cauline,) of the art of healing, being practised by young princes; it is no more than what is usual, and was conformable to real manners, it being derived from the earliest times, among all the Gothic and Celtic nations, for women even of the highest rank, to exercise the art of surgery. In the northern chronicle, we always find the young damsels staunching the wounds of their lovers, and those of their husbands; and even so late as the time of queen Elizabeth, it is mentioned among the accomplishments of the ladies of court, that "the eldest of them are skilful in surgery." The admirers of Shakspeare, will probably recollect the following lines, which to us appear an odd remedy: "And telling me the sov'r'ingst thing on earth, When we consider the prevailing opinions of the times, the general credulity, and particularly their outrageous astrological opinions, we need not wonder the art of healing was so low: for without a knowledge of the influences of the heavenly bodies "no leech or doctor could pursue his craft:" it was only by reference to the conjunctions of the planets, the signs of the Zodiac, &c., that put the compositions of their vile nostrums into operation. These are amply discussed in a MS. book, found among some old papers at Losely house, in Surrey, sewed up in a cover of parchment, which had originally formed part of some ancient church music. It was, probably, the manual of some monk or parish priest, containing various notes likely to be useful to him as a teacher of youth, a dispenser of medicine, a diviner of good and bad fortune, and a spiritual adviser of the sick and dying. Thus it had an elementary grammar, sundry prescriptions, a treatise on judicial astrology, divers prayers, and forms for last wills and testaments, demising property to ecclesiastical foundations for pious uses, and the good of the souls of the donors. The lapse of two centuries did not produce any change in the superstitious belief in the occult influences of the heavenly bodies; and, therefore, with the certainty of that almanac, which still bears the name of an old astrologer, Vincent Wing, and tells us in our own time what parts of the human body will be affected in each successive day of the week throughout the year, we find a physician of the period of Queen Elizabeth informing his patient, that on Friday and Saturday the planetary influence would affect his heart, and on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, reign in his stomach: when remedies would be in vain opposed to the domination of what Chaucer calls magic natural; the uncontrolable secret influence of the spheres; but that on the Wednesday seven night, and from that time forward for fifteen or sixteen days, the administration of medicine would be passing good. Thus the physician found himself circumscribed in his healing efforts by the stars, and constrained to wait for their propitious aspect, as patiently as the mariner who brings his ship to anchor, expecting the next spring tide to carry her over the shoals which oppose her passage to the destined port. By degrees, the science of medicine emancipated herself from the dominion of the stars; but over the fortunes of private individuals even to the present time, with some they still hold mysterious sway. It may also be observed, that the Pharmacopeia of ancient apothecaries, and chemists, formerly exhibit |