(I will not say in the history of physic, but) in any history whatsoever!

Your constant reader and admirer,
EPHRAIM QUIBUS, M. D.
Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street,
No. 8, February 26, 1730.

That the marvellous and irrelevant in medical literature are not less common in the present day than in the year 1730, must be strikingly apparent to every one conversant with the recent illiberal controversy on the subject of the cow-pox. Such a mass of abuse, falsehood, and folly, was, perhaps, never before accumulated on any subject in the annals of medicine. As a specimen of the marvellous, which perfectly eclipses the cases of Dr. Nicholas Robinson, I shall quote a few lines from a pamphlet, intitled "A Warning Voice to the United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland; in which the Origin, Nature, and Effects of the Lues Bovilla, or Cow-pox, are clearly explained, and the Report of the College of Physicians completely confuted, by Mr. Ferdinand Smith Stuart."

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Among the numerous shocking cases of cow-pox,” observes Mr. Stuart," which I have heard of, I know not whether the most horrible of all has been yet published; viz. of a child at Peckham, who, after being inoculated with the cowpox, had its former natural disposition absolutely changed to the brutal; so that it ran upon all fours like a beast, bellowing like a cow, and butting with its head like a bull!!" p. 57, 58.

This notable description realises the very apprehensions and imagery of the author of the "Vaccine Phantasmagoria," who humorously exclaims:

O Mosely! thy books, nightly phantasies rousing,

Full oft make me quake for my heart's dearest treasures;
For fancy, in dreams, represents them all browsing
On commons, just like little Nebuchadnezzars.

There, nibbling at thistles, stand Jem, Joe, and Mary; On their foreheads (oh horrible!) crumpled horns bud: Here Tom with a tail, and poor William all hairy, Reclin❜d in a corner and chewing the cud!

No. XII.

Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini;
Hanc Remus et frater; sic fortis Etruria crevit,
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma.
VIRGIL.

The frugal Sabines thus their acres till'd;
Thus Remus and his brother lov'd the field;
The Tuscans to these arts their greatness owe;
"Twas hence majestic Rome began to grow,
Rome, noblest object of the things below.

WARTON.

HAVING given my countrymen a short account of the civilities and ceremonies of politeness in use amongst the Romans; * for their farther information, I shall now proceed to shew how they parcelled out their time in the daily and ordinary course of a private life.

Under their kings, the people, as yet uncorrupted with affluence, gloried in frugality; and the greatest simplicity of manners was accounted most fashionable: their time was almost wholly taken up in providing for the necessities of life, and in supporting the fatigues of war, during the term of above two hundred years.

Under the consuls, as often as they had no foreign wars to fear, they found themselves at leisure to foment intestine broils. The desire * See No. ix.

of rule amongst the patricians, and the love of liberty in the plebeians, kept Rome in a perpetual ferment, which threatened destruction to the commonwealth in its infancy. These two orders of citizens, transgressing alike the bounds of moderation, lived in a mutual distrust one of the other; so that, as soon as they perceived they were in no danger from enemies abroad, their principal care was to defeat the cabals of each other. Thus, through the course of about five hundred years, the main attention, the vigour, and the virtue of the Romans, was employed in defending themselves against the hostilities of their neighbours, and in composing their domestic feuds. If they enjoyed any intermissions from these cares, they then applied themselves entirely to agriculture. In these happy intervals of tranquillity, no man thought it beneath him to set his hand to the plough: the patrician and the plebeian, whose conditions and whose business so widely differed in the city, had one occupation in the country; and the greatest, in common with the meanest Roman, was not ashamed to be styled a labourer.

We have many examples of this laudable simplicity, not only in the early times of the republic, when it was customary to send for consuls and dictators from their farms, to assist in the arduous

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affairs of government; but likewise in the flourishing ages, wherein Rome was mistress of Italy, and had made her power respected beyond the seas. I need not, therefore, mention Quintius Cincinnatus, who was found labouring in his grounds, by the persons who were dispatched to notify to him that he was appointed dictator. I want not for instances to my purpose in Curius Dentatus, in Fabricius, Astilius Serranus, Licinius Stolo, Cato the Censor; and many others, who, in much later times, were proud to take their surnames from some particular branch of husbandry in which they excelled: hence (according to the concurring opinions of ancient writers) came the Asinean, the Vitellian, the Suillian, Porcian, and the Ovinian family; the founders of these families having been famous for breeding the several sorts of animals implied in their names. Others likewise had distinguished themselves by raising and improving particular kinds of pulse; whence came the surnames Lentulus, Fabius, Piso, Cicero, and many more. word, so generally were the Romans addicted to the occupations of a country life, that the names of Way-farers (Viatores) was given to certain officers, whose business it was to go and acquaint the senators, that an extraordinary session would be held on such or such a day. As for the

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