Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

The ruthless rage of party can disarm;

Thy tears, Monimia, wanted power to save!

She, and the remnant of her weeping train,
Whose faithful love still link'd them to her side,
Torn from their dwelling, trode the desert plain,
No hut to shelter, and no hand to guide.

Thick drove its snow before the wintry wind,

And midnight darkness wrapp'd the heath they past,
Save one sad gleam, that, blazing far behind,
The ancient mansion of my fathers cast.

Calmly she saw the smouldering ruins glare;

"Tis past, all-righteous God! 'tis past!" she cry'd; 'But for my Henry hear my latest pray'r !'Big was her bursting heart;-she groan'd and died!

Still, in my dreams, I see her form confess'd,
Sailing, in robes of light, the troubled sky!—
And soon, she whispers, shall my Henry rest-
And, dimly smiling, points my place to die!

I hear that voice, I see that pale hand wave;
I come once more to view my native shore;
Stretch'd on Monimia's long-neglected grave
To clasp the sod, and feel my woes no more!

Z

4

N° 86. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1780.

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

SIR, MANY inestimable medicines, as well for preserving health as for curing diseases, are overlooked by our modern practitioners. An attempt to revive some of those obsolete remedies, though it may appear better suited to a medical performance, yet does not seem altogether foreign to the MIRROR; since a sound mind, according to the well-known apopthegm, is in natural alliance with a sound body, the same publication which is calculated for the improvement of the one, may not improperly be made subservient to the health of the other.

I. The first that I shall mention is of sovereign efficacy in restoring debilitated stomachs to their proper tone. It renders the body vigorous, and it prolongs the days of man even unto extreme old age. Of it Tulpius, an eminent physician of Amsterdam, treats in his Observationes Medicinales.

In some languages it is called Cha, in others, Tzai; but with us it has received the appellation of Tea.

II. There is another simple of a singular kind: according to the great traveller Pietro della Valle, it is cooling in summer, and warm in winter, without, however, changing its qualities.

It expelled a gout, of thirty years standing, from the toes of the Reverend Alexander d'Albertus, a bare-footed friar of Marseilles, aged seventy.

For a long time Madame de Lausun could not walk without the aid of a crutch; and no wonder ; for the good lady had numbered the frosts of four

score and two winters.' She was seized with what my author calls a tertian-quartan ague, which undoubtedly is a very bad thing, though I do not find it in my dictionary: but she tried father Alexander's remedy; her youth was renewed, as one might say [comme rajeunie], and she threw away her crutch.

The wife of M. Morin, physician at Grenoble, was reduced to the last extremity by a confirmed Phthysic, of no less than sixteen years endurance: at length the Doctor found out a method of laying the disease that had so obstinately haunted his bed. By way of experiment he administered the remedy to his chère moitie (dear half), which is French for a wife. She recovered of her Phthysic, and afterwards, by using the same remedy, of another disease with a horrible Greek name, a Peripneumony.

I might add many and various effects of this medicine still more wonderful. That of the public speaker, who was seized with a fit of modesty, is most remarkable. By taking a single dose, he felt himself restored to his wonted composure of mind; and he declared that he could, with ease, have spoken out another hour.

For this and other authenticated cures, the inqui sitive reader is referred to the treatise of Philip Sylvester du Tour, concerning the virtues of Coffee.

III. There is a certain weed, which, taken a while after meat, helps digestion; it voids rheum, &c. A little of it, being steeped over night in a little white wine, is a vomit that never fails in its operation. It cannot endure a spider, or a flea, or such like vermin: it is good to fortify and preserve the sight, being let in round about the balls of the eyes once a week, and frees them from all rheums,

[blocks in formation]
[graphic]

driving them back by way of repercussion: into the stomach, it will heal and cleanse it; fo Lord Sunderland, president of York, tak downwards into his stomach, it cured him imposthume, which had been of a long tim gendering out of a bruise he had received at ball; and so preserved his life for many year These are the words of Howel, in his le where he enlarges on the praise of Tobacco.

IV. But there is still another medicine of nishing virtues which have been circumstan related by Matthiolus, an Italian physician of sixteenth century: it is a liquid which, when

fully prepared, proves a powerful antiseptic opposer of corruption] to every thing steepe it; and so, by removing all tendency to corrup it is a comforter and a restorative, and pres and prolongs the lives of those who use it. I only cherishes the natural heat, and preserv in its full vigour, but it likewise renovates were, and vivifies the animal spirits, gives an a ⚫able warmth to the stomach, sharpens the ap hension and understanding, clears the eye-s and repairs the memory: it is more peculiarly neficial to those who are of too cold a temp ment, and who are subject to crudities of stomach, and other disorders proceeding cold affections. It therefore affords a sover relief to all who are tormented with pains in stomach or bowels, proceeding from wind indigestion; as also to those who are subjec giddiness, the falling sickness, a relaxation of nervous system, inveterate melancholy, hypoch driacal disorders, palpitations of the heart, trem and fainting fits.'.

Matthiolus subjoins the method of using medicine: has also a soro

R. Once a day a table-spoonful of Aquavitæ distilled from the best wine. But, with all deference to his authority, Aquavita, distilled even from the best wine, is not superior in any of its virtues to our great staple, Whisky: for, from the researches of our own patriotic philosophers, these two conclusions may be deduced; 1st, That Whisky, is a liquor" pleasant to the taste; and, 2dly, That it is a wholesome spirit.

V. I shall conclude with a receipt which might have been considered as of general importance in the seventeenth century, and may prove of no less importance in the nineteenth.

Bartholomeus Carrichters, in his Secret, b. 2. c. 12. published a recipe which is mightily commended by Hector Schlands, in an epistle to his learned friend Gregorius Horstius; see Horstii Epist. Medic. i. §. 7. 1612. R. Dog's grease, well dissolved and cleans'ed, 4 ounces. Bear's grease, 8 ounces. Capon's " grease 24 ounces. Three trunks of the misletoe of hazle, while green; cut it in pieces, and pound it small, till it becomes moist: bruise it together, and mix all in a phial. After you have exposed it to the sun for nine weeks, you shall ex'tract a green ointment, wherewith if you anoint the bodies of the bewitched, especially the parts most • affected, and the joints, they will certainly be 'cured.'

This recipe was tried with amazing success in the case of a young girl, whose condition was truly deplorable; for she vomited feathers, bundles of straw, and a row of pins stuck in blue paper, as fresh and new as any in the pedlar's stall, pieces of glass 'windows, and nails of a cart-wheel; as may be seen in The Wonderful and true Relation of the bewitching a young Girl in Ireland, 1669,' by Daniel Higgs.

[ocr errors]
« VorigeDoorgaan »