Page images
PDF
EPUB

heavens. I expect to hear a good deal more of them at the meetings of the Royal Society during the approaching winter. I believe that no one, besides himself, has yet tried to make such large reflecting telescopes, as those, which he makes; nor do I know, that any one has the same quickness and skill in observing.

I return you many thanks for your letter by Mr. Tracy, and for transmitting to me the vote of thanks for Hoadly's works, with which you and the Fellows of Harvard College have honored me. I wish it was in my power to give the University more substantial proofs of my respect and good wishes.

The inclosed letters, which I have just received from Dr. Jebb, with the five pamphlets, which I convey to you by his desire, with his respects and good wishes to you and Dr. Wa terhouse, contain the only answer, I am able at present to give to your inquiries about our Universities.

The supernumerary copies of my pamphlet, which I have sent to you, Mr. Gorham, and Dr. Chauncey, I wish to be given away to any persons, to whom you and they may think proper to present them.

Mrs. Price was last week attacked a fourth time with the palsy, and she lies now in a state of depression and helplessness, which is very threatening, and almost overpowers my weak spirits. With great regard and every possible good wish I am, dear sir, your most obedient and

humble servant,

RICHARD PRICE.

P. S. When I wrote the above, I intended to send a copy of my pamphlet to each member of Congress; but I now think there would be more parade in this, than the pamphlet deserves, and therefore I have contented myself with offering twenty five copies to the acceptance of the president of Congress.

I should have been glad to have accompanied Mr. Turgot's letter with an English translation of it; but I expect, that a

better translation of it, than I can furnish, will soon be sent to the United States by the Count de Mirabeau, in a piece on hereditary nobility. I wish this to be made as public, as pos sible. The Count de Mirabeau is the son of the Marquis de Mirabeau, author of L' Ami des Hommes. He is himself an excellent writer; and this piece, intended particularly for America, is, I am informed, much admired by the best judges, who have seen it.

I shall wait for your farther orders with respect to the subject of Dr. Jebb's letters.

Two gentlemen of my acquaintance are going for Paris, and I shall take care to convey by them your letter to Monsieur Jeaurat.

[ocr errors]

I want to convey parcels of my pamphlet to several friends in Philadelphia, New York, &c. but I have given you too much trouble, and I shall wait, till I can hear of some ships, that sail for these places.

[blocks in formation]

ANXIETY

ægros autumno occiderit uno.” Juv.

NXIETY for the preservation of health seems now an unreasonable solicitude, since the means of restoring and perpetuating it are increased in a tenfold ratio to prodi gality in its use. Cough drops and infallible cures for consump¬ tions are manufactured by the disinterested friends of hu manity, and our shops are furnished with the means of resus citation, like the huts on the desolate beach for the shipwrecked mariner. Such are the improvements of the age, that the oldfashioned mode of living and of dying will soon become exploded. The plagues, which peopled death's dreary mạnsions, all once issued from Pandora's patent box. Now, under their various forms, they have become the most conspicuous article of traffic; and pedlars, booksellers, and apothecaries enjoy in common the prescriptive right to kill. Medical

1

warehouses are established for the benefit of our metropolis ; and our village shops have not completed their fashionable assortment, until they are furnished with the insidious articles of death. Labels are hung out in alluring forms to entice the passenger, and our newspapers afford their most conspicuous page to puff the deadly trade. Not a disease, to which the human frame is liable, but a pleasant, safe, and certain remedy is found; and each remedy is a certain cure for all. But, instead of guiding to the abode of comfort and health, they decoy to the mansions of death. They are no other, than the enticing voice of the hyena, which allures but to kill. In ordinary concerns such impositions effect their own The cheat is detected, and the charm is broken; but such is the general infatuation, that here our boasted reason has no control, and even experience denies the imposition.

cure.

Nature delights in simplicity. Her complaints are often nothing more, than the exercise of her own energies. In a state of health medicine is poison; and in a state of disease the more simple its form, the more beneficial its effects.

If a free and promiscuous use of medicine in its simple state be injurious, how much more detrimental is it likely to prove, when it is selected, compounded, and sold from a thirst of gain; and when it is applied without any regard to the constitution; without a competent knowledge of the origin of the complaint, or the nature of the remedy?

[ocr errors]

If in the original composition these medicines were as efficacious, as they purport, still in the hands of the ignorant and the interested, whose trade is to yend them, they are liable to adulteration. Their chemical qualities and of course their effects may be essentially changed. The very origin of most patent medicines is fraud and speculation. Each patent seal stamps it an imposture. There is no secret in benevo lence. There is no mystery in our efforts to do good.

So disgraceful is it considered in a neighbouring state* to practise the arts of empiricism, that the offenders are banish ed from the regular and reputable societies, which are there is Connecticut.

established for the promotion of the knowledge of the healing art.

If the good sense and reflection of the community be insufficient to arrest the progress of this evil, if their experience has no warning voice, the guardianship of the legislature should be extended to protect us. Laws are enacted for the inspection of many articles of life, while those, by which our health may be more readily affected, are suffered to be regulated by the mercenary spirit of trade.

ESSAY ON DUELLING.

WHILE the names of Cæsar and Alexander shine

with eternal brilliance in the broad zodiac of fame, and the sacrifice of millions to their heroic ambition stamps immortality on the recording page, the splendor of his character, who offers, as a victim to HONOR, a single life, has suffered a total eclipse by the overwhelming profusion of their lustre...

Friendly to the free enjoyment of equal rights, I feel impelled to shear those worthies of their beams, which have so long obscured the glory of the duellist, and robbed him of his just share of admiration and applause.

His happiness lives not on the breath of fame. Worth, like his, feasts on its intrinsic beauty; but his merit as well, as Alexander's, or Cæsar's, claims a seat in her aerial car, and gratitude must with rich odors perfume the gale, which wafts his praises.

A panegyric on the duellist has one peculiar excellence; however exalted, it cannot incur, as all others do, the suspicion of flattery. No selfish view, no interested policy can be charged with the imputation of partiality.

Detraction herself must feel the justness of every encomium, and calumny confess the laurels well applied. Characters, possessed of petty, tame virtues only require a strict enumeration of them all, to claim a tolerable aggregate of

praise; but the duellist shows prominence in every virtue, and the lustre of each entitles to an exalted seat in the temple of fame.

To display, in a faint picture, a few of the numerous claims, which the duellist has on the profound veneration and ardent gratitude of society, will suffice to elevate him to the rank, due to his merit; but to which, alas, the laws of our country have hitherto forbidden him to rise!

Where lives so vigorous a sense of dignity, where glows devotion to honor with such impassioned ardor, as in the breast of a generous duellist? Say but a crooked word; cast but a glance of disrespect; and, clothed in vengeance, he meditates swift destruction for the wretched offender. But his sense of dignity rises still higher. He sacrifices life to the slightest indécorum. What punishmentt hen can atone for the most insulting contempt? Hecatombs of victims must -appease with their blood his animated ire. Attachment to bonor how sublime! It exalts her even to divinity. ... Did not Moloch and other celebrated gods of the heathen world demand similar oblations to their wrath? It is true, the -duellist sometimes falls by the hand of his brother. What then? Where is the genuine worshipper, who, at the call of This god, refuses to sacrifice his life? Let the man, who feels not the exalted pleasure of killing and of being killed, when honor commands, cease to censure a conduct, the cause of which he is incapable of comprehending. It is indeed pre

Itended, that true dignity and genuine honor demand the forgiveness of injuries, and pity for the injurious person. This is the musty doctrine of timid, superstitious souls, who are too tame to assert their rights, and shelter their cowardice under the authority of a pretended revelation from heaven. For, did this revelation require them to avenge their wrongs by humbling their adversary, infidelity strong, as bars of brass, would refuse it admittance within the pale of their minds. It is also urged, and with an air of triumph too, that reason, --which the duellist himself posseses, forbids the practice of attacking a man's life to revenge an insignificant affront. How

« PreviousContinue »