To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

Tome time been circulating in New HE two inclofed letters have for York, and have been admired for their humorous and popular way of treating a difficult fubject. They were written, as you will obferve, by Dr. MITCHILL, to ladies of his acquaintance, who were defirous of information, how feptic, or peftilential fluids could beft be rendered harmless or inactive by alkalies. They conftitute two interefting articles of his great inquiry on that fubje&t; and as they will probably be entertaining to your female readers, and attract the notice of fome of the philofophical gentlemen, I beg you will infert them in your valuable Magazine. I am, Sir, your's,

RICHARD V. W. THORNE.

New York, Nov. 10, 1798.

(LETTER.)

Ladies are philofophers, and have long actually practifed what physicians have but lately difcovered in theory, as appears by the following letter to a lady in this city, and recommended to the attention of philofophers.

DEAR MISS,

Recollecting the converfation which paffed between us when I laft enjoyed your delightful fociety, I now undertake the fulfilment of the promise I made you, to ftate my thoughts on the fubject upon paper. You remember I liftened to you very attentively while you expreffed tender concern for your friends in Philadelphia, during the prevalence of the plague this feafon.

The difcourfeturned uponthegreater probability of the ladies efcaping it than that the gentlemen fhould, because their greater temperance was a better fecurity against the peftilential poifon. Upon this I ventured to obferve, that, befides their preferable conftitution of body in fuch perilous times, they had better management and contrivance for the prefervation and extinguishment of contagion at all times, than the men; and if the officers of police and commiffioners of infection underftood their bufinefs as well as their wives and houfekeepers do, we fhould not have fuch frequent and terrible vifitations of fickness in particular places.

It is a tale and indelicate fubject of jefting among the men, how much time is contumed, and how much labour and money expended by the women in fcrub

bing, fcowering, whitening, washing, and cleaning. Women caute these operations to be performed, not for the mere The converfion of common dirtinefs to inpleasure of doing them, but to prevent fection, and to deftroy infection if already produced. Thefe defirable ends they accomplish, by means that have anfwered for the purpofe many centuries. Their experience is decifive on the point, and I feel afhamed, when I confefs to you the almoft total inattention with which men have treated thefe important difcoveries in housewifery. So perfectly do fkilful miftreffes of families understand thefe rules of health, that there is no inftance of infection breaking out in houses where female orders have been obeyed. If mifchief of this fort arifes, it commonly proceeds from the difobedience or perverfenefs of the men.

It will be amuling to review the different modes of proceeding to accomplish the falutary purposes of removing foulnefs and infection from clothes, houses, and their inhabitants. The women employ calcareous earth, or lime, to whiten their walls, and often renew the application of it; and very justly; it stands ready to abforb the feptic acid vapours which render the air peftilential, and inftantly to neutralize them. Even their rooms, if papered, are covered with hangings, whofe colours and ornaments are mingled and daubed on with a calcareous ground. They apply potash and its ley, to fearch the porous materials of their floors and ftair-cafes, to purify garments that have become foul, and to restore to cleannefs every thing that has been foiled or contaminated by long ufe or wearing; and with good reafon: thefe faline fubftances are capable of drawing forth and rendering harmless, those animal exhalations which are ready to turn to peftilential poifon. They ufe fsoap to aniwer the fame purposes, and find it reftore unclean things of almost every defcription to purity, by overcoming their dangerous and virulent taints.

All thofe unwholefome fluids with which houfes, furniture, and clothes become impregnated,, are thus completely neutralized, or deftroyed by lime, potash, and foap, when applied under female management, in private dwellings.

Turn your attention now to the progrefs of things when men undertake houfe-keeping. Prifens are public dwelling houfes, and generally under the management of men. Through neglect of

the

the precautions fo efficaciously employed in well ordered families, infectious diftempers are bred in thofe abodes of filth and wretchednefs. Ships are floatinghouses, in which the management is almost wholly in the hands of men. Through careleffnefs in applying the known preventives, infection of the moft malignant quality is engendered. Cities are collections of human habitations, and the regulations of treets, wharfs, and yards, are chiefly devifed and executed by the men. For want of care in employing thefe antidotes of contagion, the exifting caufes of fevers and plagues are manufactured. If the keepers of jails, the mafters of veffels, and magiftrates of towns, would condefcend to learn a little inftruction from their wives and mothers, peftilential matter would as certainly be prevented or deftroyed, in prifons, fhips, and cities, as it is in private houses.

But men are apt to be proud of their own attainments, and feel a repugnance to borrow knowledge from the females of their families. They contract an averfion for the common mode of houfe cleaning in early life, and their prejudice is fo trong, that they never can be reconciled to it afterwards. They put me in mind of fome perverse boys, who at fchool became difgufted with the Bible, and never in their lives read it any more. They make themselves merry on the subject of mops and brushes, and undertake new methods of destroying foulnefs and infection. They turn philofophers, and beftow vaft pains to find out what is the caufe of fo much mifchief. They difpute what is the difference between contagion and infection? Whether they are general or fpecific? Of domeftic origin, or of foreign introduction? Of animal or vegetable nature? Stimulants or fedatives? Acting upon the nervous fyftem or upon the blood? Finding themselves puzzled in these inquiries, they gravely conclude there is fome deep mystery in the matter, which cannot be understood; and, of course, whenever, by their neglect, ficknefs enfues from accumulated poison, the terrible evil must be prevented by cutting off intercourse, stopping the stages, making veffels perform quarantine, and a number of other inconvenient regulations. Whereas, if they would but encounter peftilence with the fame weapons that women do, it would always be kept under, and health and order prevail in fociety without interruption.

As foon as they fet up for philofophers, they may be generally defpaired

of. They become fo wonderous knowing. and fo vain of difplaying their knowledge by new methods in these innovating and revolutionary times, that the ancient maxims of government in families, as well as in communities, are difregarded or rejected. And you fee in this, as in other inftances, they have paffed from the fyftem in which they have been educated, into the direct oppofite. The ladies had proved, by experience as old at leaft as the establishment of the feudal laws in Europe, that infection was uniformly prevented and extinguished by alkalis. The men of modern days, for the fake of fhewing their fuperior fcience, declare, that acids only will counteract and get the better of it. Look at their proceedings, and with me, laugh at them as you look. They pretty much agree that their acids muft be rendered active and penetrating, by being converted into fmoke or vapour. One fumigates a chamber with the acid of burning tar; another fprinkles vinegar about the floors; a third relies moft upon the acid steams of burning brimstone; a fourth undertakes to clear the houfe by gunpowder; a fifth tries the fuperior virtues of the volatile vapours of the spirit of falt; others have relied upon fumigation with charcoal; and to complete the ridiculoufnefs of their proceedings, they now pretend to have difcovered a certain remedy for an infectious atmosphere, in the fteams of the acid of putrefaction itself. And when we have done laughing by ourselves, we will invite the whole fex to join in the laugh. I love to laugh at the philofophers; and in few inftances have they more richly deferved to be laughed at than in the prefent. Philofophy has very feldom been laid open fo completely to the attacks of wit, in comedy and fatire. She has conftantly been clouded in finoke. All forts of acid exhalations have encompaffed her thickly. Like one of Macbeth's witches, he has been made to circle round the pot wherein the powerful drugs were put:

"Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble," were the words fhe was made to repeat.

Thus have they exhibited her, as a hag; but the fhall foon efcape from their tyranny, beautiful and engaging as ever, and leave the philofophers to enjoy themfelves in the midst of the fmoke they have raifed. The history of these fumigations

would make a curious volume. It would

fhew philofophy led aftray from the plain path of common fenfe, and with her

guides and companions completely bewildered and loft.

It is for the ladies to bring the wanderers back and put them in the right courfe again. But in doing this, there mult not be any airs of triumph on the part of the fair fex. The men have whifpered already that the economical world. is divided into two parties, the alkaline and the acid. To the former belong almoft all the ladies; to the latter, with few exceptions, the gentlemen. In this controverfy it is eafy to tell which will eventually prevail.

As long as the beauty of the ladies fhall pleate the eye, or their grace delight the fancy, fo long fhall the alkalefcency of their caufe tend to compofe the world, by tempering the tartnefs and neutralizing the acidity which is conftantly iffuing from the other party. Whenever this difpute is properly fettled, I expect the phrafes my lovely, or my pretty alkali," will become terms of eudearment in the mouths of the gentlemen.

In effecting this falutary reform, every woman in the fea-port towns of the United States fhould engage, they fhould perfuade their hufbands, fathers, fons, and brothers, that the method of fecuring houfes from peftilence is known already,' and has been long practifed within doors. I hope it is not impoffible to convince them that the means of exterminating infection on one fide of a wall will not fail

muda and Barbadoes, the fhires of England, and the departments of France, the Appenines and the Alps, afford ample teftimony of the fact.

It is doubtlefs on account of the wonders done in thefe ways, by women in houfe-keeping, as well as on account of their beauty, that the charge of witchcraft has been fixed on the fex. A witch was therefore equipped with a broom, and poffefied the power of allaying tempefts, by throwing fand into the air. What they effected by natural means, has been afcribed by fuperftitious men to magic. Go on with your witchcraft, and initiate men as fast as you can into its myfteries. Direct them in the right way of proceeding, and train and tutor them with all kindnefs and patience; but be sure you make them learn; and if you cannot bewitch them with reafon and truth of the thing, there is no other alternative than to beat it into them with the broomstick. But I fear you will think me deferving of that difcipline myfelf if I add any more to this long letter; I therefore end it, by affuring you, that I am affectionately your's, SAML. L. MITCHILL New-York, Nov. 10, 1797. [The fecond Letter in our next. ct.]

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

Tell them how nature has guarded the helpless unhatched progeny of birds from the operation of peftilential vapours by calcareous fhells; and that fome of the eggs are white washed like your rooms, and others fpotted like your paper hangings. Inform them that fuch teftaceous creatures as have little or no power of moving themselves from place to place, and are doomed to lie or crawl on the earth's furface, either beneath the water or above them, are guarded against peftilential fluids by calcareous coats of mail; and that, fecure under cover of his limebuilt-houfe, the fnail can inhabit the fickly marth, and the oyfter thrive amidst the putridity of mud. Bid them obferve where, like your fanded floors, extenfive tracks of country are beftrewed with lime; or like your chamber-walls, whitewashed with chalk: the people who dwell there generally efcape the ravages of peftilence. And fhew them on the map, where Bor

vated, or lefs valued in these days than it was in thofe of our anceflors, for certainly learning does not now receive the honours it then did. That it is lefs cultivated, cannot, I think, with any truth be afferted, because the prefent is denominated a learned age. It must be the univerfality then, with which it is diffuted through fociety, that renders it lefs valuable: as articles grow cheap, not in proportion to their infignificancy, but their abundance. Great talents, indeed, in any condition of civilized fociety mult inevitably confer a certain degree of power: inaimuch as they render their poffeffers either useful, or formidable : but fcarcely any literary attainments would, I apprehend, raife a writer in thefe days, to the fame degree of eminence and requeft, as Petrarch, Erafmus, and Politiano enjoyed, in their respective times. We have now amongst us many fcholars of great erudition*: diftinguished abilities: yet I much quef

men of

* Parr, Wakefield, Profeffors Porfon, and White, &c. &c.

tion, as haughty as kings were under the old feudal fyftem, if any of the princes in being would contend with the fame eagerness for their favour, as we learn the various fovereigns of Europe did, for that of Petrarch, or Erafmus.

It has been questioned by fome, whether the number of publications, which are annually poured upon the world, have contributed in any proportionable ratio to the encreafe of literature? In my opinion, they have not. To a liberal and cultivated mind there is certainly no indulgence equal to the luxury of books: but, in works of learning, may not the facilities of information be encreased, until the powers of application and retention be diminished? After admitting that the present is a learned age, it may appear fingular to doubt, whether it affords individuals as profoundly learned, (at least, as far as Latin and Greek go,) as fome who flourished in the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries. The general mass of learning is greater now than it was then; and is evidently of a more valuable tendency. Yet, whether any of the fcholars of the prefent day could compofe Latin verfes with as much claffic purity, and tafte, as Strada, Sannazarius, or Politiano; or whether any of our commentators, eminent as they are, could break a fpear in the amphitheatre of criticifin, with Erafmus, Scaliger, Salmafius, or Milton, is a matter I much doubt. I am aware that the different ftate in which literature now ftands, compared with that in which it formerly ftood, may be urged as one reafon for the fuperior celebrity which learning then conferred. Men generally unenlightened, but knowing the value of information, would make comparisons, and attribute to genius a degree of credit, perhaps, exceeding its real merit: but, independent of this, the writings of the early critics contain infinite learning. Before the modern languages were to polifhed that fcholars could compofe in them, it is known that the practice prevailed generally amongt literary men, of writing and fpeaking in Latin. This naturally led to a knowledge of that language, not only from motives of refinement, but of neceffity alfo: for hiftories, poems, and even familiar letters, were compofed in Latin. The study of school-divinity, and the difcuffion of learned questions in the form of thefes, ferved to quicken the comprehenfion of the ftudent: and the introduction of the Ariftotelian philofophy into the fchools, however little it might

agree with the fimplicity of the Gospel, would naturally give the mind a degree of penetration and conjecture conducive to the difcoveries of emendatory criticisin. An acquaintance with the Latin was not, however, confined to our fex only: the knowledge of it was familiar to ladies of rank in the fixteenth century. We are told by Moreri of the unfortunate Queen of Scots, "That fhe was doubtless the handfomeft princefs of her age, and very learned in the Latin tongue, in which the prono nced several orations." And there are ftill preferved in the Bodleian, if I mistake not, fome Latin letters, or pieces, of Queen Elizabeth, in her own handwriting. Catharine of Medicis alfo is reprefented by hiftorians as a fplendid patronefs of literature. She poffeffed the hereditary attachment of her houfe to letters and learned men; and was, we may reasonably conclude, skilful in the languages.

The ftrange mixture of religion and gallantry, chivalry and imagination, that exifted in the dark ages, had not lost its hold upon the minds of men, even after the restoration of light under the pontificate of Leo. This fyftem was a fafcinating appeal to the paffions, and gave rife-first to romances, which are an unconnected and improbable narration of religion, love, and war; and next-to novels, a more contracted and probable fpecies of ftory. Of the laft defcription, the Italians, and particularly Bocaccio, have afforded many fpecimens highly entertaining. Cervantes himself, although he wrote in ridicule of the prevailing taste of the age, does not appear to have been entirely free from the contagion of chivalry. His "Don Quixote" fhews a writer well read in romance, and not a little attached to it. The novels he has introduced in the body of his work, difplay the predominant fpirit of the times. They are beautiful, and exquifitely touching. So highly, indeed, did the Spanish and Italian novelifts poffefs the power of imagination, a power in fuch times not much lefs than the power of the keys in the fucceffors of St. Peter, that Shakefpeare, that great mafter of poetic fiction, has founded many of his dramatic pieces upon ftories taken from the latter*. * Or call up him that left half told, The story of Cambufern bold, Of Camball, and of Algarfife, And who had Canace to wife. That own'd the virtuous ring and glass, And of the wond'rous horfe of brafs, Qn which the Tartar king did ride." (Il Penferojo.)

Milton alfo, notwithstanding the feverity of his learning, appears to have been attached, in no inconfiderable degree, to the perutal of romances. And what is the tory of "The admirable Critchton, who was Tam Marti, quam Mercurio ;" and is faid to have poffeffed powers, apparently beyond all human attainment, but a romance, or, at least, a true story romantically embellifhed?

own.

and

From thefe remarks, I would not be understood as withing to make invidious comparisons between the learning of different ages, or to depreciate that of our Upon a fair investigation, there can be no doubt, I think, to which fide the fcale of general literature would incline. My object fimply is, to fhew the different direction which letters take, and the different patronage which they obtain, in different periods of fociety. Indeed, learning may more properly be faid to lead than to follow the courfe of the world: fince, though it may, at first, bend to the spirit of the age, it will in the end affuredly direct, and govern it. The general ftock of genius is, perhaps, always pretty equal: the opportunities of improving it, and the fupport it re ceives, vary with the times. Petrarch and Erafmus were careffed by popes princes: Butler, Otway, and Chatterton, not much inferior in merit, were abfo lutely ftarved; and Johnfon, whofe moral works were calculated to delight and improve the age, lived long in diftrefs, and at length received a fcanty penfion. In fome ages, and upon fome occations, it must be admitted, a genius darts upon the world with intellectual powers, that no induftry, in the common courfe of things, can hope to equal: but this is a particular cafe, and is generally compenfated fome other way. If former times have enjoyed works of more fancy, and fublimity of imagination, than are given to us, we, in return, poffefs more ufeful acquifitions. If they have had their Spencer, Taffo, and Shakspeare, we boaft Newton, Locke, and Johnfon.Science, tafte, and correction, are indeed the characteristics of the prefent day. Every thing is refined; every thing is grand. We are actually mifers in luxury and taste, and have left nothing for pofterity. Venimus ad fummum fortune" We learn our Greek from the Purfuits of Literature, and our morality from Pariffot: and I do not fee how we are to be outdone either in learning or in drefs. I remain, Sir, &c. &c.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

there is an egregious blunder, into N the last number of your Walpoliana, which one would hardly have thought that fuch a man as Lord Orford could have fallen. His Lordship's obfervations on the profound ftudy of mathematics will only excite a fmile in those who are well verfed in that fcience. But upon a hiftorical fact," Lord Orford certainly ought to have been more exact. Speaking of Dr. South's opinion of commentators on the Revelations, he calls him a Bifhop. But that ingenious divine never rofe higher in the church than to a prebendal ftall in Weftminster Abbey. If he had been a man of lefs note, there would have been the lefs reafon to notice this inaccuracy, but the church of England has produced few divines of greater celebrity than South. His fermons are a He treasure of wit and found reafoning. was educated at Westminster school, under the great Bufby, who treated him with uncommon feverity, for which he alledged this as a reafon: "I fee great talents in that obftinate boy, and I am determined to flog them into action." In his latter days, Dr. South became a very zealous Calvinist, but he retained his animofity against the Puritans, from a remembrance of their conduct in the civil wars, to the laft period of his life. His ftatue in Westminster Abbey is exquifitely

done.

excited few efforts of the imagination among poets, a race feldom much under her influence. Spenfer has merely fketched the countenance of a cheerful perfon.

And her againft, fweet Cheerfulness was plac'd,

1

Wells, Norfolk, Oct. 24, 1798..