This malady is so general among the rich, and even in some constitutions among the poor, more especially if they are related or wish to be allied to the rich, so malignant in its nature, and frequently so unaccountable in its cause, that it calls for every exertion to eradicate it; and I hope, sir, that the faculty, from the suggestions and imperfect hints thrown out in this letter, will take it into their most serious consideration, and endeavour to find some remedy adequate to the evil. Perhaps extract of rue might prove of some avail, if any measures could be adopted for inducing the patient to swallow it, towards which, however, I have been told, they discover an extreme repugnance.

But that I may no longer trespass upon your indulgence, and that of your readers, I will for the present conclude, reserving the further account of the sufferings of the rich, and of our plan of relief, for future communications, should this be honoured by your approbation and insertion. I am, sir, your obedient humble servant, CLEMENT BIRCH, Sec. P. S. Communications to be addrefsed to the office of the society, opposite the bank of England.

Particulars with respect to the Family and Papers of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America; and concerning other early authors on the subject of American history. Communicated by Colonel Tatham.

lau

I HAVE often thought that it would be a very

From these last symptoms of the disease, sir, I suspect that it must be seated in the brain, or, to speak plainly, be a species of insanity: a melancholy opinion, but I fear too well founded. Now, sir, let me appeal to the humanity of your readers, whether the victims of this melancholy affliction on human nature, which deprives the unhappy patient of all the charms of conversation by rendering him absent and morose; which impairs the memory of the brightest understandings, which so frequently spoils the finest features of the most beautiful women, and which entirely vitiates the sight of the most brilliant eye, be not greater objects of charitable relief than the sufferers under the gout, rheumatism, jail distemper, or other lefs virulent and lefs disgusting diseases? What greatly adds to the calamity is, that it does not appear to shorten life in the smallest degree; nor have I ever known an instance of a radical cure having been effected, so that those infected with this disease are often doomed to drag out a long life of misery, a melancholy spectacle to all who behold them, while they themselves are so little conscious of the pitiable appearance that they make in the eyes of others, that they embrace every opportunity of showing themselves in public in the most gaudy carriages that can be found, drest out in the finest attire, which, like the principal character in many of the scenes of Holbein's famous dance of death, when a part of the drefs only is seen, may convey the idea of a goddefs; but when the grim visage is directed unexpectedly upon us, "grinning horribly a ghastly smile," like the gorgon shield it petrifies the soul with horror, so as to deprive it for a time of every other

sensation.

This malady is so general among the rich, and even in some constitutions among the poor, more especially if they are related or wish to be allied to the rich, so malignant in its nature, and frequently so unaccountable in its cause, that it calls for every exertion to eradicate it; and I hope, sir, that the faculty, from the suggestions and imperfect hints thrown out in this letter, will take it into their most serious consideration, and endeavour to find some remedy adequate to the evil. Perhaps extract of rue might prove of some avail, if any measures could be adopted for inducing the patient to swallow it, towards which, however, I have been told, they discover an extreme repugnance.

But that I may no longer trespass upon your indulgence, and that of your readers, I will for the present conclude, reserving the further account of the sufferings of the rich, and of our plan of relief, for future communications, should this be honoured by your approbation and insertion. I am, sir, your obedient humble servant, CLEMENT BIRCH, Sec. P. S. Communications to be addrefsed to the office of the society, opposite the bank of England.

Particulars with respect to the Family and Papers of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America; and concerning other early authors on the subject of American history. Communicated by Colonel Tatham.

I HAVE often thought that it would be a very lau

material facts, which travellers casually discover, were either transmitted to some place of general national deposit, or were published by observers themselves in some periodical work, which might perpetuate them for the benefit of society, and have a tendency to elucidate circumstances which are often left to doubts and conjecture.

Under this persuasion, when I was in Spain in 1796, I was at considerable pains to search for every thing obtainable touching the family and writings of Christopher Columbus (in Spanish, "Christoval Colon,") that great and illustrious adventurer, who first dared to quit the coasts of Europe in search of foreign lands, previously conceived to exist in no man's imagination but his own; and whose perseverance in traversing a wide and unknown ocean has left a too thanklefs world so highly indebted for a knowledge of that extensive territory which affords an universal asylum for that surplus of increasing population which would otherwise most probably have fallen a sacrifice to the sword.

At Sevilla, in Andalusia, I found the monument of one of his sons in front of the great altar in the cathedral of that city. His tombstone is a white marble flag of about seven feet in length, with a smaller flag on each side of it, forming the arms of a crofs, and containing each of them a representation of one of the three galleys in which he first traversed the Atlantic Ocean, on his discoveries of America. These flags form a part of the floor of the cathedral, and are surrounded by a border of plain black marble, about six or eight inches wide, corresponding, as near as my eye

Notices of C. Columbus.

63

could commit it to paper, with the annexed drawing, which I was permitted to take by piecemeal day after day during divine service. And I confefs, that I feel indebted to an inward glow of indescribable veneration for the admiral's memory, for that fortitude on the occasion which enabled me to brave the inquisitive, and wonderfully surprised looks of a thousand seemingly jealous spectators.

The description of this monument is so clear that it cannot be misunderstood. The only thing that can be deemed curious in it is the portrait of the two galleys we may suppose to have been an exact representation of those in which Columbus set out on his discovery, one of which is exactly delineated in the annexed sketch.