still and silent, and when volition strengthens by

repose.

The leading symptom of the beginning disease, is disturbed and short-lived slumbers: the almost universal attendant on the existing disease, is obstinate and sometimes complete watchfulness. By procuring sleep that is sound, where it was fugitive and broken, the disease may in general be prevented and by producing it, where the disease is formed, if it be not of long continuance, it may in general be cured. To speak of the various methods of inducing sleep, would lead to a very wide discussion. Opium I employ in doses from one grain to one hundred, according to the degree of excitement of the brain. But, in general, for the early stages of watchfulness, a dose of two grains is sufficient. A lady, a patient of mine, who has suffered three relapses of this disease, and who fell under my care about three years ago, keeps pills of opium, of two grains, by her; one of which she takes on the first accession of watchfulness; and by this simple means, she has preserved the health of her mind. It is necessary to counteract the effects of opium by magnesia, aloes, or castor oil.

Such, my dear madam, are my remarks on this disease, as far as a reference to the case in question requires. What I have said may need ex

planation or application; and I attend for the purpose of giving it as far as I am able; happy if I can, in any degree, contribute to the peace and comfort of one, of whom I will not speak as I feel, lest it should be imputed to me as flattery; but whose good opinion I esteem an honour, and whose friendship I consider as a blessing.

My much valued friends! -- but stop - this is a consultation, and I will not indulge in sentiments which do not suit the occasion; and which, on all occasions, are better felt than expressed.

Your letter of the 25th was very acceptable to me, of which my answering it a few hours after I have received it is a proof. I caution you, however, against the uneasiness that may arise from the notion that you are again so soon put into my debt. Doubtless, your correspondence is

highly valued by me, and the more so, as I can hardly say I have any other of a literary kind in Scotland. I would wish so far to keep it up as that we may meet with some acquaintance of each other's minds when we do meet, either in England or Scotland. But then there should be nothing of the nature of a task on either side; and though I should regret not to hear from you again within the year, yet should you not find, for twelve months to come, an hour of leisure that can be devoted to me, without restraint on inclination, do not, on that account, suppose it more difficult to employ such an hour in my service, whenever it may occur.

*

I am glad to find that we are approaching nearer each other on the slave-trade business. Had it not been so, I should really have given up some of my opinions on the benefit of free discussion; since repeated public examinations and denunciations of this trade by the first understandings, perhaps, in the world, had failed to make any impression on a superior and unprejudiced mind, upon a subject, to my apprehension, so clear, and involving so many and such unparalleled enormities. You do not like the way in which it has at length been carried; nor I that in which it has been so long

resisted. I allow the irregularity of the kind of exertions that were made in favour of the oppressed Africans; but I respect the generous impulses that produced them, and consider the whole proceeding as by far the finest feature of the present age. I include, and indeed distinguish in this praise, the debates in Parliament, which I think had a specific superiority as to the principles argued from, and a decided pre-eminence as to the eloquence and ability with which they were enforced, over any former discussion of that or any other assembly that I know of, either of the ancient or modern world. The conduct of the people in Scotland on the slavetrade was, I believe, new; but such conduct is common in England. A similar and a much more violent exertion fixed Mr. Pitt in his place in the year 1784, in opposition to the Parliament; and that was, in my judgment, a most salutary exertion. You would not confine the expression of public sentiment to the re-echoing of a royal proclamation? or, in the midst of an agitated world, bid freemen suppress their emotions of sympathy and suffering in silence, and give utterance only to the honied accents of assent and adulation? If our government be representative, it must represent the sense of the nation, and it ought to yield to that sense, calmly

and deliberately expressed. As it is constituted at present, it can resist every impulse of enthu siasm or popular delusion; but it must yield to general conviction, repeatedly and deliberately expressed. This state of things is, in my mind, far better than a legislature so powerful as to compel the nation to adopt its sentiments, if I may so speak, or so weak as to be compelled to fluctuate with every breath of popular opinion, however light and transient. On this supposition I doubt much of the practical benefit of an extension of the elective franchise; but if it is to be supposed that in the present delegation of members to the House of Commons the people completely delegate and give up their right of judgment, or of declaring that judgment, it then becomes high time, I apprehend, that the single medium through which their thoughts can be conveyed, should be pure,-at their command,— and at the command of no other. In a word, this appears to me a scheme of things that would justify the plans of the reformers, annual parliaments, universal right of suffrage, &c. &c. I prefer things as they are to any measures of this sort that I have yet seen. Political, as a branch of moral, truth lies most commonly in the medium; and the medium in this case seems to coincide with the practice; having on the one