1814.] Nelson's Motto-Hydrophobia. sion, the American nations, which had made the greatest progress in civilization were mountaineers. People born in the valleys of a temperate region climbed the ridges of the Cordilleras, which become more elevated as they approach the equator; and on these heights they found a temperature and vegetation similar to those of their native land. All those situations in which man has to struggle with natural obstacles on a soil of inferior fertility, and is not absolutely vanquished in too unequal a conflict, are most favourable to the development of his energies. On the Caucasus and in the centre of Asia the barren mountains afford an asylum to independent and savage tribes. In the equinoctial regions of America, where eververdant savannahs rise above the region of the clouds, the Cordilleras alone are inhabited by polished tribes; the first advances in science were there coeval with the extraordinary institutions by no means favourable to individual liberty. We perceive in the New World, as in Asia and Africa, various centres whence spread an original civilization, whose inutual relations, however, we are as incapable of discovering as those of Meroe, Tibet, and China. Mexico derived its civilization from a more northern region. In South America it was the extensive structures of Tiahuanako that furnished the models of those monuments which the Incas erected at Coutzko. Ramparts of considerable extent, bronze weapons, and engraved stones found in the vast plains of Upper Canada, in Florida, and in the wilds bounded by the Oronoko, Cassiquiare, and Guainia, attest that these regions now traversed only by hordes of savage hunters were once the abode of nations who had made some proficiency in the arts. (To be concluded in our next.) MOTTO of the NELSON FAMILY. ANY of your correspondents would 313 RECIPES for the CURE of HYDROPHOBIA. OBSERVING that, in page 55 of the A few years after this recipe was published, I met that No. 2 in an English paper, and observing the similarity, I cut it out, and give it in the exact words of the paragraph. As I take your magazine, if you consider further information necessary, the original proprietor of the recipe can be referred to. He will, I am confident, with his characteristic humanity, cheerfully give it.* I am, Sir, &c. On a subject of so much importance to society at large, we shall certainly be thankful for any farther information from our cor 314 Recipes for Hydrophobia-Death of George II. [Nov. 1, RECIPES for the BITE of a MAD DOG. No. 1. Take four ounces of Mithridate or Venice treacle, six ounces of filings of pewter, four ounces of garlic, and six ounces of rue, cut the garlic and rue small; put the above into three quarts of strong beer or white wine, in an earthen vessel, stopped up close, and put into a pot of boiling water, with hay about it, to prevent it breaking; let it simmer over a slow fire for three or four hours, then take it up, strain out the herbs, and bottle the liquor for use. Give the patient one table-spoonful the first morning, two the second, three the third, four the fourth, five the fifth, and continue five for four mornings longer. A child will require half the quantity. If the patient be wounded, put a poultice of the strained herbs to the wound. No. 2.-Take of leaves of rue picked from the stalks, and bruised; garlic, picked from the stalk and bruised, of each six ounces, Venice treacle, or Mithridate, and scrapings of pewter, each four ounces; boil all these over a slow fire, in two quarts of strong ale, till one pint is consumed; then keep it in bottles close stopped, and give it nine spoonfuls to man or woman, warm, every seven mornings together, fasting. This, if given within nine days after the biting of the dog, will prevent hydrophobia. Apply some of the ingredients, from which the liquor was strained, to the bitten place. "This recipe was, some years ago, taken out of Calthorp Church, Lincolnshire, the whole town being bitten by a mad dog, all that took this medicine did well, while all the rest died mad." In a P.S. it is added, "Many years experience have proved that this is an effectual cure." N. B. I should prefer the gradual mode of giving the medicine, as in the recipe No. 1, to that of nine spoonfuls at once, in No. 2. On the IMMEDIATE CAUSE of the DEATH To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. I AM induced to make the following observations, by reading in your miscellany; in the fourth number of an article respondent, or from the benevolent proprie tor of the recipe, whose name, also, in justice to his disinterested philanthropy, we are desirous of holding forth to the imitation and admiration of his contemporaries.EDITOR. entitled "Georgiana," an account of the death of George the Second, which states, "he died very suddenly of a rupture of the aorta.” It seems somewhat singular that your correspondent should differ so materially from Smollett in the main cause which occasioned his death, and which, if founded upon good authority, must completely refute the account as given by him. The subject may be of trifling im portance to the majority of your readers; but to others, who take an interest in matters of this nature, and whom they more immediately concern, your corre spondent will be rendering a great ser vice by stating, whether more implicit reliance can be placed on the cause as related by him, than on that recorded by the continuator of Hume. The account, as given by Dr. Smollett, is as follows:-" An attempt was made to bleed him, but without effect; and, indeed, his malady was far beyond the reach of art; for when the cavity of the thorax or chest was opened, and inspected by the serjeant-surgeons, they found the right ventricle of the heart actually ruptured, and a great quantity of blood discharged through the aperture into the surrounding pericardium, so that he must have died instantaneously in consequence of the effusion. The case, however, is so extraordinary, that we question whether there is such another on record." The uncommon occurrence of thei complete rupture of the heart is particu larly dwelt on, and if the faculty were in want of an instance of such a nature, it appears more than probable that that attending the death of George the Second would be the first in quotation. To corroborate the above probability, I beg to acquaint you that a particular friend of mine, in translating from a foreign author a work on the diseases of the heart, and the author remarking that a complete rupture of the heart had rarely been observed, he gives, as an instance, the case of George the Second, concluding it to have actually been so. As ruptures of the aorta are not unmotive to have been, by placing the common, I suspect your correspondent's circumstance in the shape of an anecdote, to contradict Smollett's account. If so, by his information, he will confer a favour stating from what source he has derived on some of your readers, and oblige Your obedient servant, ANONYMOUS Sept. 26, 1814. 1814.] Etymology; or Philological Ventilations. For the New Monthly Magazine. ETYMOLOGY; or PHILOLOGICAL VENTILATIONS. By HUMFREE TELLFAIR, M. A.-Part II. (Continued from No. 9, p. 229.) 1 come now to pay some little attention to my learned predecessors in the philological walk, such as lexicographers, critics, or etymologists. And first I shall mention Ainsworthius, who, under the word concurro, gives us "to concur, to condog," that is, to run to gether, as curs or dogs do. This appears in the edition of 1678; but, as a proof of want of taste in lexicographers, it has ever since been omitted. It might perhaps be suspected to be the insertion of some typographical wag; yet what objection can there be to it, any more than to the deriving of the word curtail from the cutting off the tails of curs? And Johnson need not have been squeamish about admitting this last etymology, had he recollected that it has the highest of all authorities. Cloten, in Cymbeline, (Act 2, Sc. 1,) is made to say, "When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths-ha? 2d. Gent. No, my lord, nor to crop the ears of them." i.e. not to cut off the tails nor the ears of these currish expletives. I shall just subjoin that Entickius, the younger brother of Ainsworthius, at the word uxor, has, for the edification of youths at school, translated the phrase uxorem ducere," to be hen-pecked." 315 that the word bath-house is not derived, as one would naturally suppose it to be," from bath and house, but from the Greek περι βάθους, as expressive of sinking or diving under water. But of all the professors of a certain figure, that might be called the longin quopetite in criticism, Mr. Stephen Weston, in his "Specimens of Conformity of European and Oriental Languages," has gone farther than any gentleman I have met with. I have only seen extracts from this work, in a very entertaining critique upon it in the British Critic for December, 1802, one of which specimens being an attempt to illustrate the immortal Shakspeare, I shall here notice. Hamlet says, (act 2, sc. 6,) “I am only mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." Mr. W. it seems, would read a hansa, which, in the Hindostanee and Avan languages, means a goose. Hanmer, indeed, had before been dreaming about a hernshaw, a word which Mr. W. misled perhaps by Johnson, explains to mean, not the bird, but the place it breeds in. This palpable mistake, the only one I recollect in Johnson, is ably refuted by the British Critics; and yet even these ingenious writers directly afterwards say, "It is most probable, as Warburton has observed, that the word hernshaw might have been corrupted through ignorance, or a sort of quaint jocularity, into handsaw."Now I freely own that I cannot think this probable at all; nor can I be induced, even by all this blaze of learning, to give up my original admiration of this beautiful passage, while it remained untouched. We may live and learn to be sure! but I had always thought that the whole humour of the passage arose from the discrepancy or glaring incongruity of the objects, as if he had said, "I know, at such and such times, what it is utterly impossible not to know;" which was an exquisitely characteristic method of bantering, and playing upon his supple and officious auditors. If it must needs be mended, there is a line in a modern theatrical song, "I know a sheep's-head from a carrot, a carrot," that may require a similar improvement. Could a carrot, or something like it, be found in some obscure Asiatic language to signify a calf'shead, how would the sense brighten! and what light would the goose and the calf's-head reflect upon each other! Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities," (p. 349,) denies that true-love-knot is derived, 66 as one would naturally suppose it to be," from true and love, but from the Danish verb trulofa, to plight one's faith. And this, he says, is proved beyond a doubt, because in the Icelandic gospel the word trulofed stands for espoused! My dear and valued friend, the late Dr. Farmer, in his incomparable essay, (p. 22,) tells us, that Mr. Upton doubted whether Truepenny, as Hamlet calls his father's ghost, (act 1, sc. the last,) might not have been from the Greek Tguraro. Now as this signifies a gimlet, we may conjecture that it might be intended to bore a hole, through which the ghost, or at least his voice, might ascend from the shades below upon the London stage. Permit me, then, that I may not be outdone in my department, to propose an etymology, which from both sense and sound appears to challenge the confidence of Mr. Brand, rather than to be liable to the doubting of Mr. Upton, and that is, own Fanciful consonances from the Persic, Coptic, and all manner of outlandish languages, might indeed be multiplied almost in infinitum. I can inform Mr. Weston that kgou is really a goose, and dukotore a duck in the Hottentot language, whence our names are easily deducible. Though hackney horses might come from the first dealers in them residing at the village of Hackney, as well as from the Welsh, French, or Teutonic, quoted by Johnson, yet, to set this doubt at rest, it may be found on inquiry, that a horse in the Caffrarian tongue is hakqua. In Hindoostanee bauson is a plate, and gullek a throat, whence probably our bason and gullet. In the language of Congo, toto is the earth, whence clearly the Latin totus; famu is smoke, whence by transposition fumus and fume; and as amongst these people inkubu means a goat, it may furnish a proof that they looked upon the incubus, or night-mare, to be something like that animal. Lastly, I shall pay some attention to that bewitching science, if it may be so called, which seems likely, ere long, to supplant, or cast into the back-ground all the rest-I mean politics. In this we shall find many terms, phrases, and definitions, well worthy of ventilation by our literary fan. And first, the word meritorious seems deducible from merrytories, alluding to the free-hearted jollity of those who, without anxious and corroding cares of self-interest or ambition, support good and legitimate government through a feeling of true patriotism;— whereas their opponents, who are observed to have an inordinate thirst for power, though loud in their pretences to liberty, independence, and public spirit, are with propriety said to be no-torious, as the no-torious Parson Horne, the notorious Jack Wilkes, &c.; though this latter is not thought no-torious enough by his present successor, who is said to have called him "an apostate from the cause of liberty." To illustrate the spirit of these respective parties; it is reported that, when the Talents were kicked out, a certain lord (one of those who accused Mr. Perceval of inordinate ambition!) retreated cursing and swearing: though when these same Talents pushed themselves in, a lord, to whom it was said"And so you have been turned out too, lord?" is reported to have answered, Aye, and it was such a day, that one could scarcely have thought of turning a dog out." my Liberty having succeeded in almost annihilating the contentment and innocence of the lower ranks of people, and the comforts of the higher, by establishing an insubordination destructive of [Nov. 1, the mutual confidence which these ranks should have in each other, has given way to another principle, called liberality, which seems to mean liberty's ally, and this is now the stalking-horse of the party. If, then, this stalking-horse be meant to refer to what was called the Trojan horse of yore, no allusion could be more fortunate. For let us consider Tests, and especially that which was enacted in the 25th of Car. II. against a popish successor to the crown, are the same, with respect to our constitution, that the gates and bulwarks were to the city of Troy. This sacred law, indeed, was openly attacked and violated by the immediate successor, but, as it caused his ruin, such an attack is not likely to be attempted again. The only chance, then, of succeeding in a similar attempt, must be by covertly introducing, through subtlety, and specious pretences, such a number of the assailants within the place besieged, as may be sufficient to let in their comrades at a proper opportunity. Such was the catastrophe of Troy, and we ought most seriously to consider how nearly it may resemble our present situation. During the paroxysm of Wilkes and liberty,' and the treasonable exertions if favour of American rebels who were really fellow subjects, a friend observed to me, that patriot and traitor were an anagram of each other. I soon convinced him of his mistake, though, to be sure, they are as nearly so as possible; for if we spell Patriot with a capital, then, by adding a little stroke or apron to the first letter, and making it an R, the anagram would be compleat; so that these two appellations may be fairly said to be almost literally the same. Now, as the law disregards the fragment of a day, so the party may, possibly, by a sort of mental reservation, disregard the fragment of a letter. And this might justify the assertions, that such and such persons, though Roman Catholics, are loyalists; for though this, from what we have said respecting Dr. Troy, cannot be exactly correct, yet Loyolists, within a small fragment of a letter, they certainly are, from Loyola, whose restless order has, at this critical juncture, been ominously re-established. I shall only add, that there are two Latin words, an anagram of each other, with the smallest possible variation-of extremely different meanings-and which strongly point out the dispositions of the votaries of our two rival religions-I mean CREDULITAS and CRUDELITAS. Anagram, or metagram, Camden tells us, is the dissolution of a word into its letters, as its elements, and then, by a new connexion of them, making some perfect sense, applicable to the person or thing nained. As there are some modern ones of this sort, exhibiting, probably, far more astonishing coincidences than Camden could have imagined; and as many of them are greatly to our present purpose, I shall here subjoin a selection of the best I have met with; having altered a few of them, which appeared capable of improvement: -LO I DRESS, SOLDIERS-IIS YE GOVERN, SOVEREIGNTY-SPARE HIM NOT, MISANTHROPE GREAT IPS, TELEGRAPHS NO MORE STARS, (i. e. visible, but what they have discovered,) ASTRONOMERS. Some of these, indeed, are to be understood by the rule of quia non, such as-NO CHARM, MONARCH-for this idea is strongly refuted by present events. We might, however, new-make this, and render it perfectly applicable, as thus MARCH ON, MONARCH-which has been gloriously illustrated by present events. Other negative, or quia non anagrams, are-COMICAL TRADE, DEMOCRATICAL, can I find murdered by rogues 317 Sir Edmundburie Godfry.* Having mentioned democratical, I shall observe, that democracy should properly mean 'a government of the prople;' but, as the word 'people' has been of late years exclusively applied to a Wilkite, Foxite, or Burdettite mob, the government of such as these always proves one of the worst of tyrannies to those who are the real people, the steady, peaceable, and respectable citizens. It is falsely then called a government of the people and I remember once suggesting to an ingenious continuator of Johnson (Sir H. Croft) that democracy ought in future to be described in dictionaries, as a contraction of the word demonocracy. The last expression I shall notice, is that of independent gentlemen, by which Opposition wish to have it believed by the common people, that, as they have no places, they are more at liberty in their votes than those who have. But this, I presume, will seldom hold good, since any one listed under a leader who wishes to oppose every thing, seems more likely to be under command, than one who, being of the administration, votes in course with the minister. Thus they who are of neither party, are, as they ought to be our real governors; and these will be found, I apprehend, to be generally with the minister, because he has his choice of measures. Since then the word independent is not suitable in this sense to party-men, give me leave to suggest a sense in which it might appear not at all unsuitable, and that is, supposing them to mean, we'll be in depend on't-in depend on't. (for surely no trade can well be more tragical,)-BEST IN PRAYER, PRESBYTEBIAN, (though such an one sits at prayer as familiarly as the pope does at the sacrament:) and also-A JUST MASTER, JAMES STUART, (but surely this never be said of a popish tyrant.) Others are not only direct and express, but convey in themselves some political document, satire, or compliment, that appears wonderfully appropriate. As, for instance,-10 LOVE RUIN, REV0LUTION, OH POISON PITT, TH' OPPOSITION. Others are formed on proper names, as that famous one in Latin, HONOR EST A MILO, HORATIO NELSON. To which add, A BEAR UPON'T, BUONAPARTE, a tiger might have been better, and-FRANTIC DISTURBERS, Sir FRANCIS BURDETT,--[as their leader.] My last instance, which it will be very seasonable to recollect at this time, may require a little explanation. The unhappy Sir Edmundburie Godfry, having as a magistrate, to take some legal depositions against the Papists, was, by three of those fellow subjects, ful must be the responsibility of ministers, if liberality, to similar circumstances, dreadGreen, Berry, and Hill, waylaid, and they do not apply, as King William did, shockingly murdered, in 1678,-upon which was then written, dared, In short, no man either ought to be, or possibly can be truly independent, in this present state of being. Virtuous men rejoice and glory in being dependent on the best principles,-on the love of This unhappy man, after having taken Oates's depositions, was in perpetual fear for his life and too truly said, "I believe I shall be the first martyr." (See Kennet's Hist. of England, v. 3, p. 251.) If there is reason to fear that any of our real fellow subjects in Ireland are reduced through our All some prompt and powerful remedy. |