THE LADIES" TOILETTE; OR, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BEAUTY. [Continued from Page 29.] CHAP. XX. How astonishing is the difference of the impressions which the saine words, or words of the same import, are sometimes capable of producing! If one of the heirs of the pastoral muse of Gessner were to represent Zephyr with his amorous breath caressing the flowers of the groves, and slightly ruffling, i. e. wrinkling the surface of the brook that meanders through the verdant meads, this pleasing image would transportas, in idea, to the scenes described by the poet; we should fancy that we felt the grateful coolness of a spring morning, that, we inhaled the balmy breath of Zephyr, and the streavalet, though ruffled, would still afford us delight. How fortunate is the poet! But, when I speak of wrinkles, nothing but unwelconscideas is excited. At this word, au involuntary horror chills the blood of the beauty that reads it; the bare mention of wrinkles affrights her, and love flies swiftly away. In short, it is impossible to dissemble that, totally different from the brook, a woman is less pleasing when wrinkled, were those wrinkles even produced by the breath of Zephyr. This being the case, it is not surprising that such pains should be taken to prevent these visible signs of age, an object much more easily accomplished than entirely to remove them when they have once gained a settlement. Most of the cosmetics which we have recommended for the embellishment of the skin, prevent wrinkles and retard their formation. The application of slices of veal cutlet to the face, is likewise said to be an excellent preservative. It is asserted that nothing is such an effectual preventive of wrinkles as this simple topic, which, in particular, keeps the skin more fresh and supple than any other cosmetic. The distilled water of green pine-apples, likewise removes wrinkles from the face, and gives it a more youthful look. From among the numerous receipts given by authors who have treated of cosmetics we shall select only the two following. Ointment for removing the wrinkles of the face. Take two ounces of the juice of onions, the same quantity of the white lily, the same of Narbonne honey, and an ounce of white wax. Put the whole into a new earthen pipkin till the wax is melted. Then take the pipkin from the fire, and in order to mix the whole well together, keep stirring it with a wooden spatula till it grows quite cold. You will then have an excellent ointment for removing wrinkles. It must be applied at night when going to bed, and not wiped off till the morning. Wash for removing wrinkles-Take the second water of barley, and strain it through a piece of fine linen. Add a few drops of balm of Mecca; shake the bottle for a considerable time till the balm is entirely incorporated with the water, when it will assume a somewhat turbid and whitish appearance. This is an excellent wash for beautifying the face and preserving the freshness of youth. If used only once a day it takes away wrinkles and gives surprizing brilliancy to the skin. Before it is applied, the face ought to be washed with rain water. CHAP. XXI. Of the Small-pox. How many diseases are there which, though once generally diffused over extensive regions, have been subdued by incessant precautions, an appropriate regimen and cleanliness, and have ceased with the causes which continued to propagate them! They have entirely disappeared, and we now know nothing of them except from the works of aucient physicians by which their memory is perpetuated. Thus leprosy, for instance, has ceased to torment mankind, and tradition alone has transmitted to us the history of that scourge of the human race. The small-pox, a disease probably unknown to the ancients, may perhaps also give way to the precautions taken for the purpose of diminishing its virulence, and our descendants may one day read in the works of our doctors, the description of a malady whose fatal ravages they will have no occasion to dread, This is not a paradox. A great number of physicians of the highest merit have insisted on the possibility of entirely putting a stop to this cruel disease. As early as the year 1610, Chauvel of Avignon, recommended the separation of persons who were attacked by it, as a means of dimi Inishing its virulence. Some years afterwards, Christopher Cachet, another physician, published at Tours a work entitled Preservatives against the Small-pox and Measles; for the small-pox he proposes the same precautions as are made use of against the plague. The path being thus opened, was soon filled with a multitude of champions, and an infinite number of illustrious physicians of all nations defended, in numerous works, the possibility of the total extinction of the small-pox. "It is Dr. Hufeland, professor at the university of Jena, has likewise treated of this important subject, in his Art of prolonging human Life; and it is not without a secret satisfaction that we perceive he views the question in the same light in which we have presented it to our readers. His sentiments are of too great weight, and his observations ns too interesting, not to give an extract from his work easy," says he, "to preserve ourselves from these poisons (those of the small-pox and -measles) by taking care not to touch them, that is, not to come in contact with the patient or his exertions, or with what he has touched, and to avoid being in the same air with him ; for it has long been deemed a fable that the small-pox may be communicated by the air to a certain distance. It is therefore evident that these two diseases are not absolutely entailed on mankind, that they may be avoided, and that thus they may be extinguished, as has already been done in some countries. The whole secret consists in cutting off the patient from all intercourse with persons who have not had the disease. By this method the seeds of it would soon be every where destroyed, and if it were observed throughout the We might mention in this place a great whole of polished Europe, it is obvious that in number of English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, four tears there would be neither any persons Swedish, Hungarian, and even American phy-afflicted with the small-pox, nor any germ of sicias, who have proposed to check the progress of variolous contagion by means of quarantine regulations. Such was the opinion of Cothenius chief physician to the King of Prussia; he maintained that inoculation, so far from diminishing the virulence of the small-pox, only tends to perpetuate the seeds of the disease in a nation; but that, on the contrary, it may be gradually extinguished by precautionary mea sures. Dr. Paulec, a French writer, in a work which he published in 1769, proves, in opposition to the system of inoculators, that we do not necessarily carry within us the germ of the small-pox. In this work, entitled The Art of preserving one's self from the Small-por reduced to principles, and demonstrated by experience, the author proposes a method of extirpation which is indisputably preferable either to variolous inoculation, or to vaccination by which it has been succeeded. Since the time of Paulec, Francis Marino Scuderi, physician at Catania, in Sicily; Fra cis Gil, surgeon at Madrid; and Dr. garth of Chester, have invariably maintained the practicability of extirpating the small-pox. But among the most zealous defenders of this interesting hypothesis, J. C. G. Juncker, professor of medicine at Halle, and Professor Bernard Christopher Faust, at Buckeburg in Westphalia, are particularly worthy of notice. In the year 1799, they presented three different - addresses to the Congress of Rastadt, a the general measures necessary to be taken to this end, but other circumstances drew the attention of governments from the subject. It the disease left, because, as it is well known, it cannot be communicated except by man. would then disappear of itself, as a fire goes out which is not kept up by means of combustibles." Some physicians attribute the origin of the small-pox to the cessation of the frequeat use of the bath, and the substitution of linen for woollen stuffs, and they recommend as an infallible preservative against this disease, that children, at the moment of their birth, should be plunged into warm water and bathed in the same manner for several days together. The Jews who are under the Turkish dominion, rub their new-born children with salt, and wash them with salt water for the purpose of destroying the germ of the small-pox; and it is affirmed that the Hebrews are never attacked by this disease, whereas those Jews who reside in Christian states, and have lost this ancient custom, are subject to the small-pox. It was therefore to the means of totally extirpating the smallpox, that the medical faculty ought perhaps to have directed their attention; but by destroying a disease, medicine would have circumscribed its own || dominion; and besides, there would have been nothing brilliant in the extirpation of a disease. On the other hand, to manage it at pleasure; to communicate it at the proper moment; to change its nature; to substitute au easy for a dangerous malady; to supplant a real epidemic by a phantom of a disease; this, if not beneficial to mankind as its total extinction, was at least much more to the interest and glory of the doctors. In short, the esprit du corps, and medical deception, || countervailed the beneficent propositions of certain members of the faculty, and it was concluded by a great plurality of voices that no means existed for destroying the seeds of the small-pox, and that in consequence it was necessary for them to be sown every where. Hence we had first inoculation and afterwards vaccination, setting aside what we are yet to have in an age fertile in discoveries: for the cow-infection will probably be superseded some day, as variolous inoculation has been. topic, and none of them now exhibits the slightest trace of this enemy to beauty. The process is as follows: Mince a pound of lean veal, sprinkle over it two drams of viper powder; knead it together and divide the whole into three parts, which apply successively to the feet of the child, having previously held the mixture to the fire till it is of a moderate heat. Bind on the cataplasm with suitable bandages; remove it in six hours; apply the second poultice, and at the end of six more hours the third. The two latter must be moderately warmed like the first. Apply this topic when the eruption is out and the fever at its height. There are other means which may be made use of, and which are even necessary, especially if the precaution recommended above has been neglected: I allude to local applications, that is, applications of various ingredients to the pustules themselves, to prevent the matter in them from forming excavations. The applications are commonly made when the eruption is complete, and when the pustules begin to swell and to fill with pus. Some Still, however, it must be confessed that, since the council of the Fates has not thought fit to deliver us entirely from this scourge, and professional men have deemed it adviseable to preserve, at least, a specimen of it, we are under great obligations to the medical art even for this; and till another order of things allows experiments to be made on the means of pre-employ in this case lentile-soup, and others servation, which would certainly be very easy of execution if followed up with the same zeal as has been manifested in the diffusion of the cow-pox, I would earnestly advise parents to have their children vaccinated. But should there exist any incredulous or indifferent persons, who, neglecting to avail themselves of the modern benefits conferred by the art of medicine, should be attacked by the natural small-pox, 1et us point out to these refractory people some means of reducing its malignity. In his work we shall only consider the small-pox in respect to the ravages which it commits upon beauty. We shall therefore confine our observations to the means of diminishing as much as possible the disagreeable effects of that cruel disease. In the first place, then, the use of the warm bath is recommended in the early stage of the small-pox. This as some practitioners assert, || is the best medium of decreasing the eruptive fever and thus rendering the disease less virulent. A more certain method of preserving the face would be to divert the action of the virus, to prevent its operation on that part. This has been accomplished by means of a topic which has produced the happiest effects; and I have been credibly informed that a lady, the mother of eleven children, who have all had the natural small-pox, made use of this a salve made of old lard. Plantain-water with saffron, oil of sweet almonds and spermaceti, are likewise recommended. A salve made of snails may also be used with advantage. The following cheap and simple application has always been attended with success. When the pustules begin to fill with pus, take some well pulverized chalk, which mix with new cream. Let it be thin enough to be rubbed over the patient's face with a feather, and take care to renew it as fast as it dries. The following application may likewise be used with the like success. Take Nuremberg plaster, camphor one or two drams, olive oil, a sufficient quantity to soften the plaster, and reduce it to the consistence of salve. People cannot be too cautious of using cer tain dangerous compositious into which the makers are not afraid of introducing corrosive sublimate, or according to the more modern appellation oxygenated muriate of mercury : and here let me once more warn my readers never to make use of a preparation with the composition of which they are unacquainted. When the suppuration is quite over, the removal of the red spots may be accelerated by bathing them with wine and milk mixed together, or with asses' milk which is still better, and will prevent the complexion from turning brown. [To be continued.] FAMILIAR LECTURES ON USEFUL SCIENCES. ON GARDENING. GARDENING was probably one of the first arts that succeeded to that of building houses, and naturally attended property and individual possession. Culinary, and afterwards medicinal herbs, were the objects of every head of a family; it became convenient to have them ⚫ within reach, without seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth there an admirer of Homer who can read his description without rapture? or who does not form to his imagination a scene of delights more picturesque than the landscapes of Tinian or Juan Fernandez? Yet what was that boasted Paradise with which fountains that watered them, enclosed within "Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful "The red'ning apple ripens into gold. ❝ the gods ordain'd "To grace Alcinous and his happy land?" ceased to furnish spontaneously all those pri-witching poetry, it was a small orchard and Why, divested of harmonious Greck and bemitive luxuries, and culture became requisite, vineyard, with some beds of herbs, and two separate enclosures for rearing herbs grew expedient. Fruits were in the same predicament; and those most in use, or that demand attention must have entered into and extended the domestic enclosure. The good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was drunken; and every body knows the consequences. Thus were acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. No doubt the prototype of all these was the garden of Eden; but as that Paradise was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates; as every tree that was plea-«With deeper red the full pomegranate glows; sant to the sight and good for food grew in it, "The branch here bends beneath the weighty and as two other trees were also found there of which not a slip or sucker remains, it does not belong to the present discussion. After the fall, no man living was suffered to enter into the garden, and the poverty and necessities of our first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make improvements in their estates in imitation of it, supposing any plan had been preserved. A cottage, and a slip of ground for a cabbage and a gooseberry bush, such as we see by the side of a common, were in all probability the earliest seats and gardens; a well and a bucket succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates. As settlements increased, the orchard aud the vineyard followed; and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a modern farmer. pear, "And verdant olives flourish round the year. "Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, "In beauteous order terminate the scene." Alcinous's garden was planted by the poet, enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer, and no doubt an effort of imagination surpassing any thing he had ever seen. As he has bestowed on the same happy prince a palace with brazen walls and columus of silver, be certainly intended that the gardens should be proportionably magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that as late as Homer's age, an enclosure of four acies, comprehending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen garden, was a stretch of luxury the world at that time never beheld. Matters, we may well believe, remained long in this situation; and we have reason to think Previous to this, however, we have in the that for many centuries the term garden im sacred writings hints of a garden still more plied no more than a kitchen garden, or orch-luxuriously furnished; we allude to the Soug ard. The garden of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most renowned in the heroic times. Is No. XXXI. Vol. V. of Solomon, part of the scene of which is undoubtedly laid in a garden. Flowers and fruits are particularly spoken of as the ornaments of M LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE; and the produce of it; and besides these, aromatic vegetables formed a considerable part of the gratification it afforded. The camphor and the cinnamon tree, with all trees of frankincense, and all the chief spices flourished there. Solomon tells us in another place, that he made him great works, gardens and orchards, and planted in them trees of every kind. Indeed we must suppose bis gardens to have been both amply and curiously furnished, seeing the kinds, nature, and properties of the vegetable tribes, seem to have been a favourite study with the royal philosopher, and to have been deemed a subject worthy of his pen; for we are told that he wrote of plants, from the great cedar of Lebanon down | to the hyssop of the wall. Fountains and streams of water appear also to have had a share in the composition, and probably for ornament as well as use. The hanging gardens of Babylon were a still greater prodigy. But as they are supposed to have been formed ou terraces and the walls of palaces, whither soil was conveyed on purpose, Mr. Walpole, in his History of Modern Gardening, concludes," They were what sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till the present, unnatural, enriched by art, possibly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and summer houses, and were any thing but verdant and rural." Others, however, have allowed them greater praise. They seem in many respects to have been laid out with good taste; their elevation not only produced a variety and extent of view, but was also useful in moderating the heat Such a situation would likewise suit a greater variety of trees and plants than a plain surface, and would contain a larger as well as a more diversified extent. The suiting of the situation to the nature of the trees seems, from the account given by Josephus, to have been one view in erecting the building in such a manner. And the success seems to have been answerable, as the trees are said to have flourished extremely well, and to have grown as tall as in their native situations. On the whole, then, however different these may appear from modern gardens, they seem to have been formed with judgment and taste, and well adapted to the situation and circumstances. It seems probable, from several circumstances, that the castern gardens were adjoining to the house or palace to which they be loaged. Thus, King Ahasuerus goes immediately from the banquet of wine to walk in the garden of the palace. The garden of Cyrus, at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon, was probably contiguous to the palace; as was that of Attalus, mentioned by Justin. The hanging gardens at Babylon, were not so much adjacent to the palace, as a part of the palace itself, since several of the royal apartments were beneath them. It is not clear what the taste for gardening was among the Greeks; the Academus, we know, was a wooded shady place; and the trees appear to have been of the olive species. It was situated beyond the limits of the walls, and adjacent to the tombs of the heroes; and though we are no where informed of the particular manner in which this grove was disposed or laid out, it may be gathered from Pausanias, in his Attica, that it was an elegant, ornamented place. At the entrance was an altar dedicated to Love, which was said to be the first erected to that deity. Within the Aca. demus were the altars of Prometheus, of the Muses, of Mercury, of Minerva, and Hercules; and at a small distance was the tomb of Plato. So that in all probability it was highly adapted by, art, as well as nature, to philosophic reflection and contemplation. We are told by Plutarch, that before the time of Cimon, the Academus was a rude and uncultivated spot; but that it was planted by that general, and had water conveyed to it; whether this water was brought merely for use to refresh the trees, or for ornament, does not appear. It was divided into gymnasia, or places of exercise, and philosophic walks, shaded with trees. These are said to have flourished very well, until destroyed by Sylla (when he besieged Athens), as well as those in the Lyceum. Near the academy were the gardens of the philosophers, of Plato, and of the Epicurus; The scene of Plato's Dialogue concerning which, however, were probably but small. Beauty is elegantly described as being on the bauks of the river Ilissus, and under the shade of the plantain; but no artificial arrangement will lead us to imagine the prospect to be any of objects is mentioned, nor any thing which other than merely natural. Among the Romans, a taste of gardening, any otherwise than as a matter of utility, seems not to have prevailed till a very late period; at least the writers on husbandry, Cato, Varro, mention of a garden as an object of pleasure, Columella, and Palladius, make not the least but solely with respect to its productions of herbs and fruits. The Lucullan gardens are the first we find mentioned of remarkable magnificence; though probably from the extravagance to which these were arrived they were not the first. Plutarch speaks of them |