rate than from the curtain-lectures of some of our modern female orators. Many of them are, it must be owned, very handsome, but yet I would not willingly fall into the hands of a striking beauty therefore shall be glad if you can direct me in my choice, for it is no easy matter now-a-days to select an agreeable mate amongst all our feathered tribe. Woman, according to a grave antient writer," is a two-footed animal, fond of finery;" which indeed seems to be a tolerably just definition of the whole species, almost without exception. But had he lived in our days he must have added "feathered animals," for few are found without. Hence the number of pea hens, turkey hens, bantum hens, moor poots, magpies, &c. &c. which strut and flutter about all our watering-places. Dr. S***** paid me a visit about ten days before the fatal trigger was drawn; but believe I was no way instrumental in this melancholy event, nor I believe were any of his brethren. A single man in good practice and very easy circumstances; but Love, that tyrant Love, Heavens preserve us! impelled him to adopt one of two desperate expedients to abandon the mistress whom he did love, and marry her rival whom he did not love, or shoot himself; he chose the latter, so says report. If your French correspondent* can direct the aërostatic balance with that nicety which he pretends, he will safely convey the ingenious Elec * Mr. Smeathman. ED. trical Philosopher along with him to England, without endangering a nephritic paroxysm; though I think there will be some danger of a slight vertigo in crossing the Channel, and perhaps a little air sickness. LETTER CCXXX. From the same. A. F. Oct. 11, 1784. Your generous proposal, of purchasing a freehold and establishing a library for the use of the Medical Society, is a most noble project, and far beyond all praise. Some wealthy medical Dons have sometimes condescended to launch out a little in the way of public benefactions, to commence after their death; but an act of munificence of this nature, if planned and carried into execution by a person in the very prime of life, will, I presume, be a circumstance hitherto unheard of in the annals of physic. LETTER CCXXXI. From the same. Oct. 21, 1785. Excellent is the edict lately issued at Paris, by which no one is authorized to vend any remedy, that has not previously obtained the sanction of the Royal Society of Medicine! When shall we imitate so wise a regulation? "Fas est et ab hoste doceri." A. F. LETTER CCXXXII. From the same. May 29, 1789. The Moral Thermometer will, I hope, be a perpetual memento to the abusers of spirits, and awaken their fears for their own preservation more effectually than the labours of the pulpit and the press. It was a happy thought, and deserves to be generally known among the people, as it may tend to deter some among them from becoming their own executioners. I have shewn it to several persons, who approve the design. A. F. LETTER CCXXXIII. From the same. Oct. 29, 1790. It has been observed (and, however singular it may appear, I believe the remark is perfectly just), that married men, though immersed in a variety of active pursuits, and engaged in a multiplicity of important offices, over and above those which result from the care and concerns about a numerous family, do nevertheless bring forth more literary works, and more valuable in their kind, than us bachelors, who stand detached from domestic cares and anxieties, and whose chief concern and solicitude seem to centre in our dear selves. Instances of this are too frequent and obvious to need to be enumerated; otherwise I might mention a Cullen, a Haller, a Priestley, and a Lettsom, and contrast them with a -- but comparisons are odious, and therefore I will not set the Bachelors in competition with the Benedicts, lest I should grow sick of celibacy, and, in a fit of spleen and jealousy, play the fool and marry. However, if matrimony really imparts that vivida vis animi; that energy of mind and versatility of genius, which distinguishes so many of its votaries, and enables them to execute such Herculean labours with such ardour and persevering industry; what bachelor in his senses would not immediately take to himself a wife? nay, five or six wives? but, unfortunately, the laws of this country will not allow more than one; and thus, by a narrow and stingy kind of policy, cramp the genius of its inhabitants. The Reverend author of Thelypthora was severely railed against for recommending a plurality of wives; but I now perceive he had reason on his side, and that in broaching this new doctrine, he discovered a degree of penetration far superior to that of his feeble antagonists, who looked no farther than the surface of things. Solomon affords an irrefragable example of this; that king far outstripped, in wisdom and penetration, all his predecessors and contemporaries; why? why for this plain reason, he had more wives than any of them. Had he been restricted in this necessary expansion of his faculties, can we suppose that he could ever have made such an astonishing progress in the sciences? or that he could have written so largely, or so learnedly, concerning all the genera and species of the vegetable kingdom, from the "cedar of Libanus to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall?” Therefore, since plurality of wives are productive of such wonderful utility, it is to be hoped the British legislature will take the matter into mature consideration, and in the ensuing session establish an act for enabling every literary man to take as many wives as to him may seem neces |