and is very subject to falling-fits. I was sent for last night, when one of these fits had just seized him. He lay to all appearance dead on the floor, wallowing in the midst of a fetid mass, partly solid, partly fluid, which had issued from his mouth and nostrils with repeated eructations. I would immediately have administered to him a proper dose of Aq. Font. tepefact. but on offering him the draught, he shewed the strongest symptoms of a confirmed hydrophobia.

I went out of charity to see a poor tragic author, (no reflection upon any of the profession, Mr. Town) who has been obliged to keep his room all the winter, and is dying by inches of an inveterate atrophy. By his extravagant ravings, sudden starts, incoherent expressions, and passionate exclamations, I judged his disorder to be seated in the brain, and therefore directed his head to be blistered all over. I cured another, a comic author, of a lethargy, by making a revulsion of the bad humour, from the part affected, with stimulating cathartics. A short squabby gentleman of a gross and corpulent make was seized with a kind of St. Vitus' dance, as he was practising Harlequin for the masquerade: his whole body was convulsed with the most violent writhings and irregular twitches; but I presently removed his complaint by applying blisters to the soles of his feet.

The plague, as I observed before, puts on different appearances in different subjects. A person of quality, one of the club at White's, was seized with the epidemical phrensy raging there, which propagates itself by certain black and red spots. He had suffered so much loss by continual evacuations, that his whole substance was wasted; and when I saw him he was so reduced that there were no hopes of a recovery. Another nobleman caught the infection at Newmarket, which brought upon him such a running that he is now in the last stage of a galloping consumption. A reverend

divine lately made a dignitary of the church, has unhappily lost his memory; and is so blind withal, that he hardly knows any of his old acquaintance: the muscles of his face are all contracted into an austere frown, his knees are stiff and inflexible, and he is unable, poor gentleman! to bend his body, or move his hand to his head. I have observed others seized at times with a strange kind of deafness; and at certain intervals, I have found them so prodigiously hard of hearing, that though a tradesman has bawled ever so loudly in their ears, it has had no effect upon them.

By what means this plague has been introduced among us, cannot easily be ascertained;-whether it was imported in the same band-box with the last new head, or was secretly conveyed in the plaits of an embroidered suit:-But that it came over hither from France, plainly appears from the manner in which it affects our people of fashion, (especially the ladies,) who bear about them the most evident marks of the French Disease. This is known to affect the whole habit of body, and extends its influence from head to foot. But its strongest attacks are levelled at the face: and it has such an effect upon the complexion, that it entirely changes the natural colour of the skin. At Paris, the face of every lady you meet is besmeared with unguent, ceruss, and plaster; and I have lately remarked, with infinite concern, the native charms of my pretty country-women destroyed by the same cause. In this case I have always proposed calling in the assistance of a surgeon to pare off this unnatural epidermis or scarf-skin, occasioned by the ignorance of empirics in the immoderate application of alteratives.

From what I have been able to collect from observations on my female patients, I have found little variation in the effects of the plague on that sex. Most of them complain of a lassitude, a listlessness,

an uneasiness, pains they don't know where, vapours, hysterics, want of rest, want of spirits, and loss of appetite: consequently the same regimen may serve for all. I advise them to use a great deal of exercise in driving about the town, to dilute properly with tea, to perspire freely at public places, and in their seasons to go to Bath, Tunbridge, Cheltenham, or Scarborough.

I was indeed suprised with an extraordinary new case the other night, when I was called out of bed to attend a maid of honour, who is frequently afflicted with fits of the mother. Her abdomen, I found, upon examination, to be preternaturally distended: the tumour has been gradually increasing; but I would not attempt to discuss it, as it was not yet arrived to maturity. I intend soon to remove her into the country for a month, in order to deliver her from the complaint she labours under.

I have been induced, Sir, to write to you on this occasion, as you are pleased to take this city under your immediate care. So alarming an evil calls upon us all to oppose its progress: For my own part nothing shall deter me from a diligent discharge of the duty of my profession; though it has already exposed me to the greatest dangers in the execution of it. An old captain of a man of war, who is grievously troubled with choler and overflowing of the gall, on my only hinting a clyster, swore vehemently that I should take one myself, and applying his foot directly to my fundament kicked me down stairs. This very morning I escaped almost by miracle from the contagion, which raged in the most violent degree through a whole family. The master and mistress were both of them in a very high fever, and quite frantic and delirious: their tongues were prodigiously inflamed, with the tip very sharp, and perpetual vibrating without the least intermission. I would have prescribed some cooling and

lenitive medicines; but the husband in the height of his phrensy flung my tye-wig into the fire, and his wife sluiced me with extravasated urine. As I retired with precipitation, I heard the same wild ravings in the nursery, the kitchen, and every other quarter, which convinced me that the pestilence had seized the whole house. I ran out of doors as fast as possible, reflecting with Terence, "If Health herself would save this family, she could not."

66

Ipsa si cupiat salus

Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam.

Upon the whole, I may conclude with the aphorism of Hippocrates; "that no people can possibly be "afflicted with so many and so terrible disorders, "unless the plague is among them."

W.

I am, sir, yours, &c. B. G.

N° 6. THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1754.

-Quid alat formetque poetam.

HOR.

Practice alone must form the writer's head,
And ev'ry author to the trade be bred.

I Remember to have seen, in some old Italian poet, a fable called "The Education of the muses. Apollo is there said to have taken them at their birth under his immediate care, and as they grew up, to have instructed them, according to their different capacities in the several branches of playing and singing. Thalia, we are told, was of a lively turn, and took delight in the most comic airs; but was at first with difficulty restrained from falling into ridiculous drol

leries, and what our author calls extravaganzas in her manner. Melpomene, who was of a serious and grave disposition, indulged herself in strains of melancholy; but when she aimed at the most pathetic strokes, was often harsh, or run into wild divisions. Clio, and the rest of the Nine, had not yet learned to temper their voices with sweetness and variety; nor could they tell how to regulate the stops of their flutes, or touch the strings of their lyres with judgment and grace. However, by much practice, they improved gradually under the instructions of Apollo, till at last they were able to exert all the powers of music: and they now form a complete concert, which fills all Parnassus with the most enchanting harmony.

The moral to be drawn from this little fable is naturally applied to those servants of the Muses, Authors; who must necessarily rise, by the same slow degrees, from their first lame attempts in cultivating the arts of Apollo. The best of them, without doubt, went through many more stages of writing, than appears from the palpable gradations still remaining in their works. But as it is impossible to trace them from the first setting out, I shall here present the reader with the sum of my own experience, and illustrate in the life of Mr. Town, the progress of an author.

Right or wrong, I have ever been addicted to scribbling. I was famous at school for my readiness at crambo and capping verses: I often made themes for other boys, and sold my copy for a tart or a custard: at nine years old I was taken notice of for an English distich; and afterwards immortalized myself by an holyday's task in the same language, which my master, who was himself a poet, pronounced to be scarce inferior to his favourite Blackmore. These were followed by a multitude of little pieces; which, like other fruits that come before their season, had nothing to recommend them but their early appearance.