A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts Part 18

[C] The Emperor _Maurice_ being, says _Montaigne_, advised by dreams and several prognostics, that one _Phoeas_, an obscure soldier, should kill him, questioned his son-in-law, Philip, who this Phoeas was, and what was his nature, qualities, and manners; and as soon as Philip, amongst other things, had told him that he was "_cowardly and timorous_," the Emperor immediately thence concluded that _he was cruel and a murderer_. What is it, says Montaigne, that makes tyrants so b.l.o.o.d.y? 'Tis the solicitude for their own safety, and their _faint_ hearts can furnish them with no other means of securing themselves, than in exterminating those who may hurt them. See his Essay ent.i.tled, _Cowardice the Mother of Cruelty_.--Vol. 2d, chap. xxvii.

[D] _Fire places_ gave rank among the Romans. It was a privilege to be a Roman soldier, and in the best days of Rome no man was allowed to be in the ranks of their army, who had not a _fire place_ in his house.

In the reign prior to Queen Elizabeth, there were scarcely any beds, or brick fire places in the houses of the common people of London.

[E] What Mr. Adams has written on this subject, has put _impressment_, or _man-stealing_, beyond all future controversy. His masterly pamphlet was a warlike trumpet in the ears of our nation.

[F] If any man wishes to see the true character of the English, let him read the 8th chapter of HUME'S History of England, especially where it treats of severities and barbarities toward the virtuous Mr.

PRYM.

[G] Our youngest readers need not be told, that by _John Bull_, we mean the English nation _personified_. See Dean Swift's admirable history of _John Bull_, his _wife_, and his _mother_, and his mangy sister Peg.

[H] Queen Elizabeth.

[I] The letter writer, we suspect, had not studied, carefully, the laws and customs of England, where all landed property belongs to the king; who allows the _eldest male_ of a family to possess it _during his good behaviour_.

[J] _This Oration was first printed in England._

[K] _The celebrated Earl of Chatham._

[L] An Irish word, meaning: a distraction of attention by reason of words striking our intellect through _both ears_ confusedly.

[M] Some of these were so exquisitely wrought, as not to disgrace the first cabinets in the world.

[N] _Shirk_--Shift, turn, twist, accommodate, and make the best of a disagreeable situation. It also means contrivance, cunning and evasion.

[O] See the Journals of English Navigators generally; and Captain Porter's Journal of his cruise in the U. S. frigate Ess.e.x.

[P] The Yankees first taught the British soldiery to brew _spruce_ beer at the siege of Louisbourg. The reader may find directions for making it in general orders issued by General Amherst in Sept. 1758.

See Captain John Knox's Historical Journal, Vol. I, page 184, where it says that one gallon of this beer costs, mola.s.ses and all, less than a penny sterling a gallon.

[Q] Lest some might suspect that I have recorded this rough treatment of the sick by an individual, as casting unjustly a reflection on many, I shall here subjoin a pa.s.sage from a Journal of a tour and residence in Great Britain during the years 1810 and 1811 by a French Traveller--a very popular work in England and much commended by the Reviews there. The reader will perceive that he is much severer than we are. I have been carried, says the Traveller, to one of the Hospitals of this great town, supported by voluntary contributions. I shall relate what I saw. The physician seated at a table in a large hall on the ground floor, with a register before him ordered the doors to be opened; a crowd of miserable objects, women, pushed in, and ranged themselves along the wall; he looked into his book, and called them to him successively.--Such a one! The poor wretch leaving her wall, crowded to the table. "How is your catarrh?"--"Please your honour, no offence, I hope, it is the Asthma. I have no rest night and day, and"--Ah, so it is the Asthma; it is somebody else that has the Catarrh. Well you have been ordered to take, &c.--"Yes, Sir, but I grow worse and worse, and"--That is nothing, you must go on with it.

"But Sir, indeed, I cannot." Enough, enough, good woman, I cannot listen to you any more; many patients to get through this morning--never do to hear them talk--go and take your draught.--The Catarrh woman made way for a long train of victims of corruption, cases of fever, dropsy, scrofula, and some disorders peculiar to women, detailed without any ceremony before young students. This melancholy review of human infirmities was suddenly interrupted by the unexpected entrance of a surgeon, followed by several young men, carrying a piece of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh on a dish. "_A curious case_," they exclaimed, placing the dish on the table; "an ossification of the lungs!--Such a one, who died yesterday--just opened. This is the state of his lungs.--See these white needles, like fish bones, shooting through here and there; most curious indeed."--Then they handled, and cut open, and held up between the eye and the light, these almost palpitating remains of an human creature who breathed yesterday. The symptoms of his disorder, and the circ.u.mstances of his death, were freely talked over, and accurately described in the hearing of the consumptive patients, who felt, I dare say, the bony needles p.r.i.c.king their own lungs at every breath they drew, and seemed to hear their own sentence of death p.r.o.nounced.

The women being dispatched, 20 or 30 male spectres came in, and underwent the same sort of summary examination. The only case I recollect was that of a man attacked with violent palpitations, accompanied with great pain in the shoulders. His heart was felt beating hard through the sternum, or even under the ribs on the right side. "His heart has moved from its place!" The unhappy man thrown back on an arm chair--his breast uncovered--pale as death--fixed his fearful eyes on the physicians, who successively came to feel the pulsations of the breast, and reason on the cause. They seemed to me to agree among themselves, that the heart had been pushed on one side, by the augmentation of the bulk of the viscera; and that the action of the Aorta was impeded thereby. The case excited much attention, but no great appearance of compa.s.sion. They reasoned long on the cause, without adverting to the remedy till after the patient had departed, when he was called back from the door, and cupping prescribed!

The medical men next proceeded to visit the resident patients, I followed. The apartments were clean and s.p.a.cious, and the sick not crowded, which is no doubt of the greatest importance. I was shocked, however, with the same appearance of insensibility and precipitation.

_La le long de ses lits ou gemit le malheur, Victimes des secours plus que de la douleur, L'ignorance en courant fait sa ronde homicide, L'indifference observe et le hazard decide._

These are the sentiments and feelings of a sensible French gentleman who had resided 20 years in the U. S. and whose journal of his Travels through England has been highly praised by the British Reviewers for its liberality, candor, justness and good sense. "By the mouth of two witnesses all things shall be established."

[R] Two celebrated American Frigates.

[S] When we have read in the American newspapers, which sometimes reached Dartmoor prison, the speeches and proclamations of the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, some of us have blushed at the degradation of our native state. That state which once took the lead in the opposition to Britain; and that Boston, once considered the cradle of liberty, has become among us, a name of reproach. Such are the effects of an unprincipled faction--a faction that are despised even by these Britons, who expected their a.s.sistance in dividing the Union; and founding "_the kingdom of New-England_."

[T] The mention of this celebrated member of the _Ess.e.x Junto_ brings to our mind a fact in chemistry, viz. that the best of wine, when kept too long _in a hot place_, turns to the sharpest vinegar. Pickering's "_fast anchor'd isle_," is now (autumn of 1816) entirely afloat in an ocean that deserves not the name of _pacific_.