THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, For JANUARY, 1809. Mr. URBAN, Jan. 5. Sof Queen Elizabeth, for the auHOULD the following Anecdote thenticity of which I can vouch, be deemed worth inserting, it will, I presume, be illustrative of the descent of that very respectable family the Marwoods; some particulars of whom are inserted in the Gent. Mag. vol. LXI. p. 608; and will particularly oblige your constant Reader, J. M. L. During that part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth when the Earl of Essex was most in favour, his Lordship had a disease in his foot, which baffled the skill of the first medical men in the Metropolis, and his existence was despaired of. Dr. Marwood of Honiton, a physician of the first eminence in the West of Eng land, whose fame had reached the Queen's ear, was sent for, and was fortunate enough to perform the cure; when her Majesty desired the Doctor might be introduced; which being done accordingly, she asked him what favour she could grant him, to satisfy him for the great cure he had accomplished. And the Doctor being already possessed of an ample independence, which he had inherited from his ancestors and acquired by his profession, said, "If her Majesty would grant him a favour (mentioning one of a very trivial nature), he should consider himself amply rewarded." But the Queen, struck with his choice, declared he should accept of an estate near Honiton, as a reward; which property forms at present part of the immense landed property of James Thomas Benedictus Marwood, esq. of Avishays in the county of Somerset, and Sutton in the county of Devon, his lineal descendant. If any of your intelligent Cor respondents could inform the publick of any particulars respecting the Marwoods Baronets, who for a long time resided in Yorkshire, it would be esteemed a favour. Mr. URBAN, N J. M. L. Jan. 6. my former Essays I have endeavoured to lay before your Readers a summary Review of the principal Evidence of the Merits of Vaccination; and the facts which I impartially adduced must, I think, be more than suflicient to convince every candid observer, that the Cow-pox Inoculation, when properly conducted, does afford an effectual and permanent security against the Variolous Contagion, and that it excites no new diseases, and produces no injurious effects upon the Constitution. Having esta blished these important points, it might be conceived that the discussion of the subject was ended; and it might be expected that mankind would universally concur, in eagerly embracing the mild and safe preservative which is offered them, against a disease, which has long been one of the sorest scourges of the human race. There is a popular argument, however, which is not unfrequently urged by those who are not avowed opponents of Vaccination, the insidious nature of which is calculated to produce considerable injury, by delaying the progress of the New Inoculation. Upon this argument I beg leave at present to offer a few remarks. We allow, it has been said, that Vaccination may generally afford security from the future infection of the Smallpox, and we should be reluctant to oppose the high Authorities that support the practice: but we think that a sufficient time has not elapsed since the promulgation of the Discovery, to enable the publick to form a de cided opinion of its merits. At the same time, we all know that the Smallpox has been greatly mitigated by the present improved method of Inoculation, under which not more than ...e in three hundred dies. Why, then, should we forsake a certainty to adopt an uncertainty? Why should we relinquish a System of Inoculation, the benefits of which have been evinced by the experience of a Century, to embrace a new System, in which we have had comparatively little expcrience? The objection that sufficient time has not been allowed, to put the efficacy of Vaccination to the test, must have arisen from a want of information on the Nature of the disease. Mankind are indebted to the genius and industry of. Dr. Jenner, for the idea of propagating the Vaccine Infection from one human being to another, by means of Inoculation; and, certainly, ten years only have passed, since he made public his discovery. But it must be remembered that, though the Inoculation of the Cow-pox is a novel practice, yet the disease, in its natural state, has been known for time immemorial, and its power of preventing the Small-pox has long been acknowledged. There are many well-authenticated instances upon record, of persons who were affected with the casual Cow-pox* in their youth, to whom the Small-pox could never afterwards be communicated either by Inoculation or Contagion; and who lived to an advanced oid age, in the most perfect health, and perfectly secure from the Variolous Infection. It must be unnecessary to inform any one, who has the smallest acquaintance with the Laws of Physiology, that the Vaccine matter, after passing successively from arm to arm through a thousand subjects, is precisely the same, in all its parts, as when originally taken from the Cow. The Vaccine, therefore, has in reality undergone as long a trial as the Smallpox Inoculation itself. In those districts where it is most accustomed to prevail, the "Vox Populi," for nearly a century, has borne witness to its * Dr. Jenuer, in his first publication on the subject, gives instances of its preservative effects to the extended period of 51 years. affording a full security from the Small-Pox, and its effects have ever been considered as rather beneficial than injurious to the constitution. On no subject, therefore, can our evidence be more complete, and more firmly established; and so far from there being a necessity for further time to form a proper opinion on its merits, it has the testimony of Time and Experience, in the fullest degree, to support it. Having endeavoured to obviate this plausible objection, it remains to enquire whether, in the present improved state of Small-pox Inoculation, any substitule is necessary or expedient. If the welfare of the individuals inoculated were exclusively to be considered, I should attach but little importance to the Vaccine practice. But we must bear in mind that it is not merely the decrease of danger and suffering, on the part of those inoculated with Vaccine matter, as compared with those inoculated in the former way, that constitutes the great advantage of Vaccination. It is the singular and invaluable circumstance of no contagion being thereby communicated to others. The Variolous Inoculation, it is true, nearly secures those to whom it is applied; yet it continues for ever to keep open the source of danger to others. An individual may undergo the Small-pox, so as not to suffer any material inconvenience; yet he necessarily must com municate the contagion to some of those with whom he associates. They, in the habits of necessary and ordinary intercourse, may communicate it to others; and thus the most fatal of disorders may be disseminated, in a manner the consequences of which it is impossible to calculate. This is the reason why the mortality occasioned by the Sinall-pox has been greater since the introduction of Inoculation than it was before. The mitigation of the disease has universally dimi nished the caution with which it was formerly avoided. Hence it arises, that the practice of Inoculation, which has prevailed among the higher and middle classes of society, has diffused the r.atural disease more widely among the lower orders, whose determination to live and die in their own way, according to the customs of their greatgrandfathers, has rendered them al most 1 most insuperably averse to adopt the lenient means of removing or alleviating disease, which are afforded by modern improvements in Medical Science, and which the many absurdly denominate unnatural or artificial disorders. There is an Institution in this Metropolis, established for the Inocula tion of the small-pox, the Founders of which were undoubtedly actuated by motives which cannot be too highly applauded. It was the prac tice, till within the last few months, to inoculate out-patients there, to the amount of 2000 annually; and it was usual for these out-patients to resort twice a week to the Hospital, to be inspected by the Surgeon. These, as they passed through the streets, must of course have spread the contagion on every side. 1 rejoice to find, that a stop has at length been put to this unjustifiable prac tice; and the introduction of a Bill into Parliament during the last Ses sion, to regulate and limit the Variolous Inoculation throughout the British Empire, is a most auspicious circumstance, which must afford sin cere delight to every one who has the welfare of the human race at heart. Whether it be warrantable to continue the small-pox in any shape or form whatever, when we have in our hands the means of totally preventing it, I must leave to the determination of those who are better. versed in political economy. As, however, it is a subject of universal interest, and as the propriety of Legislative interference has been a matter of much discussion; I shall beg leave, Mr. Urban, to trouble you with a few remarks upon it, for the next number of your Magazine. From the whole of these consideratious, it must, I think, appear, that even if the Inoculated Small-pox were. never fatal, a non-contagious substitute for it would be of the highest public importance, in order that the diffusion of the disease in the natural way might be prevented. In this, then, the distinguishing excellency of the Vaccine Discovery consists; on this its more forcible claim to public patronage is founded. Its constant mildness is a point of great importance with respect to individuals; but when the social interests of populous Empires are taken into. * the account, its benefits are inestiuable. Were its advantages to extend no farther, how important would they be to those who are engaged in our Naval and Military Service! "Not a soldier," General Tarleton observed in the House of Commons, 66 need be left in the barracks during the process of Vaccination; but they can, without the least inconvenience, inove from place to place, just as if they were under no process whate soever. They are also soon fit for their military duty; and are free from the Inoculation in a much shorter period than in the old mode; and as they sustain no loss of time on account of the preparation, they come very soon under arms again. This I should consider to be a point of great utility to this Country at any time, and more especially at the present period." 1 Many other considerations, Mr. Urban, might be urged; but am unwilling at present to intrude any farther upon your columns. These simple facts and arguments I loave to the judgment of your Readers, with an assurance, that they must. be sufficient to convince every candid mind of the importance of the Vaccine Discovery to every individual, to every community, and to every nation. COSMOPOLITOS. Y Mr. URBAN, Tichfield-street,Des.2. A BOOKSELLER in the Strand, of the name of Bagster, has just republished my father's edition of Wals ton's Complete Angler. Without any authority or permission from me, he has inserted my name in the frontispiece; and I have heard it has been asserted, that his publication has received the approbation of Messrs. Rivingtons (who purchased the copyright, and in consequence published the former editions) and of myself, To clear myself and them from this misrepresentation, and to secure myself from the supposition of my having had any concern or hand in publishing it (which, as all the editions since my father's death have been revised by me, may perhaps be entertained by some persons), I think it neces-, sary to declare, as is the fact, that till the 27th September last, and then only on the following occasion, I never saw any part of it; and that I neither, then nor since ever gave or expressed any any approbation or consent to its appearance, or commendation of its contents; some of which I highly disapprove. On Tuesday, 27th Sept. 1808, while I was dressing up-stairs, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the following note from a friend, whose name I think it unnecessary to mention, was brought up to me:-" Dear Sir, Mr. S. Bagster, with whom I have been many years acquainted, is publishing an edition of Isaac Walton, and is anxious to have the autograph of Mr. Charles Cotton, and of your father. I am sure, for my sake, you will oblige him, if in your power." On my going down into my sitting-room, I found Mr. Bagster there, with his spectacles on, reading part of the Life prefixed to my edition of Ignoramus, in an interleaved copy with manuscript notes, which stood on the top of a case for prints there, and was lettered "Ignoramus with corrections." In answer to the inquiries mentioned in my friend's note, I told Mr. B. that I did not believe the signature. of Cotton was in existence, because he had made no Will; and therefore a fac-simile could not be got from Doctors Commons; but that, as to my father's hand-writing, I had and could furnish specimens of that. However, as Mr. B. found Cotton's was not to be procured, he said he thought it would be useless to give specimens of two only. He told me he had a specimen of Walton's, but his name was there written only Iz. Wa. instead of being at length; and this induced me to look among my prints for that, which he has given as communicated by me, in order to see whether the name was at length. While I was looking for this, he asked permission to go on with what he was reading in the Life before Ignoramus, which he still held in his hand; and this, as I saw there were no manuscript corrections or additions in that part, and knew I should find the print, as I did, almost immediately, I did not refuse him. Though my specimen of Walton's hand-writing was not more complete than that which, according to his account, Mr. B. already had; yet, as I happened to say that the Cousin Roe mentioned in it was also spoken of in the book, he desired permission to have it engraven, and promised to return it in three days. He shewed me the book in sheets, in which the leaves containing the fish were wanting, because the plates had not been worked in. It had the plate with Walton's, Cotton's, and my father's heads; and also that, with Donne's, Herbert's, Hooker's, Sir H. Wotton's, and Eishop Sanderson's; but no other plates. He said, that he had been advised to have my father's head taken out, and another engraving of him inserted instead, from a plaster profile which he produced; because he was told it was very like: but I said, what was the fact, that the print published by Harding, from which he had taken his, was a stronger resemblance. He asked where the original picture was; and I told him, in the Music-school at Oxford: and I mentioned to him the occasion of its being painted. I observed a passage in his Advertisement respecting consolidating the short additional manuscript notes in my father's own copy (which I had kept distinct in the editions I had revised), with my father's former notes. I saw also that a fact taken from Dr. Zouch, as to two letters of Walton's existing in Emanuel College Library, was also introduced between brackets in the Life, and spoken of in the Advertisement as an important addition, In one part of the text of the book, I saw, between brackets, an insertiou of the Editor's, to give notice that (instead of placing the notes at the end, or as near the end, of each chapter as possible, as my father had judiciously done, because they were intended as a commentary on the whole chapter, not on a single passage) they had been shifted back to other places (to which they were never intended to refer), for the purpose of giving room for what the present Editor chose to insert: Mr. B. himself told me, and pointed out to me, that his Editor had found occasion to censure a passage (of either my father's or mine, as he said) in one of the notes; and he then turned to the place. It was the note relating to Antony and Cleopatra, in which my father had said that those persons, though of the highest rank and with the whole world at their command, had been obliged to resort to the recreations of the meaner sort. On this note the sagacious Editor had inserted a note, saying, that Walton would have had reason to resent such an at tempt tempt to degrade his art. I convinced Mr. B. that his Editor had misunderstood the passage, which meant not to speak of the lower sort of recreations, but of the lower sort of people; and that it was absurd to give it the sense there assigned it, when the object of the whole publication was to shew that Angling was an Art: and he tore the leaf, and said it should be canceled. It is needless to trouble the Reader with any farther particulars of this interview, of all of which I have memoranda, made immediately after the events, and while the facts were fresh in memory; and I can therefore detect and contradict any false assertion, should any such be attempted. Sufficient it is for me to assert, as I do most positively, that no one or more circumstances passed, which, either individually or collectively, can be possibly interpreted or construed into an approbation of the book, of which I then saw too little to judge of the whole, but enough to convince me there was in it what I could not approve. In civility to my friend, though I thought him wrong in thus apply ing to me, I could not do otherwise than answer the questions he mentioned; nor could I, when Mr. B. said what he had been advised to do as to my father's portrait, mislead him into making, or permit him in candour to make, an alteration for the worse. When he said he had Walton's autograph, but yet wished to borrow mine, I could not decently refuse him; as, if he said true, it was putting him in no better a situation than that in which he already was: but I never intended that my name should appear or be used, as it is now apparently designed to be, in the frontispiece, as any recommendation or sanction of the publication. No such permission was ever asked of me; and, if it had, it would not have been granted. Since its publication, I have once had, for not more than two minutes, a cursory view of the book at a bookseller's; and this, which was not a more minute examination than the former, tended to confirm, by additional instances, my opinion of its demerit. The letter-press I had not time to look at; but I saw some of the cuts of Fish were ill-drawn. Some, at least, if not all, of the fish seem not to be supported by the water in which they are swimming. Nor is the boasted advantage of the use of the original drawings so great as may be imagined, for the drawings have not Wale's last corrections; and I have heard my father say that Wale corrected the proofs of the original plates, from time to time, as Ryland the engraver went on. I am myself used to drawing the human head, the whole human figure together, and all their parts separately; and consequently know what they should be, and what constitutes resemblance. I therefore do not hesitate to assert, that, in the plate of the three por traits, Walton's hand is out of all drawing, and resembles nothing human; that my father's head is unfaithfully copied, and abundantly faulty in numerous parts of the outline; and that it is neither like him, as many persons now living, who remember him, can testify, nor like the print from which it was engraven. These particulars, which I have been driven to state in my own justification, will no doubt convince every Reader of the impossibility that I could ever approve of a book containing such defects as these (all of which were detected by myself without the assistance of any one else), and professing to give a portrait of my father, but exhibiting instead an engraving wholly unlike him. I positively assert, that, in fact and in truth, I never did approve or intend to approve of the book, or give any permission or consent to its appearance; but on the contrary I highly disapprove, in many particulars, of what has been done, and consider it as an invasion of copy-right (for the additional notes written by me from my father's pencil hints were first published in 1793, and are consequently within the 28 years allowed by the Act of Parliament.) I have the authority of Messrs. Rivingtons for making a similar declaration and assertion on their behalf; and so far were they from approving the undertaking, that when Mr. B. sent to them, as I am told he had the modesty to do, to borrow 30 plates of cuts of Fish belonging to Donovan's British Fishes, for the purpose of inserting them in this edition of The Complete Angler, they, as I am informed, very properly, refused to lend them. Whether |