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that remains. There is, indeed, a melancholy pleasure in remembering them. The old love to talk of former days, and to tell us they were better than these: there is a predilection for the scenes of childhood and youth; they recal the smiling countenance, and the careless heart: our early friends are endeared by many pleafing remembrances: the mournful remembrance of a first love, long ago in the duft, is preferred to any prefent pleasure. In old age the fenfes decay, the memory fails, the fire of imagination is extinguished; every year invades fome faculty, we are at best fupportable to our friends, and at laft a burden. The fources of enjoyment are gradually dried up; to live alway would be to furvive them all.

Human enjoyments not only fade and decay; they are often blafted in the bud or the bloffom. The moft of men have met with disappointment in the pursuit of fome favourite object of defire. We feldom live long without fomething to allay our happinefs; to tell us we are men, and that man is born to trouble, Job's fad and fudden reverse of fortune is a remembrancer to the happy.

• Befide the real disappointments and evils of life, there are ima ginary evils. Some have hours of deep and awful melancholy. Darkness overfpreads the foul. All earthly enjoyments lose their relifh. The ordinary cares of life are a burden; even friends difplease. There is an appetite for retirement, for the lodging-place of a way-faring man in the wilderness; to fit alone, and liften to the howling wind, and fee the leaves falling, and mufe on the end of man. With difficulty we are dragged to the duties of life, and fulfil as an hireling our day: The foul is struggling to break through the mist of human things, to know their emptinefs, to know itself, to know its large capacity for happiness, which God alone can fill.

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• There is a time of life, with every thinking person, when he looks no more forward to worldly objects of defire; when he leaves these things behind, and meditates the evening of his day. "Age," faid a pious old man, age is the most busy period of human life, but its tranfactions are not with men." Commune with your own heart on the dangers you have escaped, and the duties you have fulfilled. The feafon of inexperience and paffion is paft; thank God if it has paft with innocence. Think on the mercies of fo long a life, and take up fongs of praife. Cultivate the fruits of the Spirit, faith, and hope, and love. Thefe flourish in the winter of life; they are rooted in the foul; and the decay of these bodies, and the diffolution of this world, cannot destroy them; they fhall foon be tranfplanted into the garden of God, and watered with the river of pleature, and fpring up into eternal life. Every root of bitterness shall then be plucked up, and no enemy shall sow his tares any more.'

The death of friends makes us fay with Job, I would not live alway.

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Friendship fweetens life; but the course of human affection is often interrupted, is often varied, is often embittered. In your fa ther's houfe the heart is at eafe a little; it flows out in pure and

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fweet affection to your parents; happy in their love and protection, free from pain and guilt, and the thought of to-morrow, you give yourfelf to joy, and think it is good to be here. The death of a parent is often the firft fad ftroke. The bright scene vanishes. Pleasure is fhut out. Your firft forrow is a facred feafon; facred to affectionate remembrance, to devout refignation, to the faith of immortality. Sober thoughts revolve on the part you have to act. In returning to the world, you feel yourself a ftranger, and caft your cares on God, and think of heaven as your Father's house.

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• Youth feldom paffes without the death of a young friend. Death is brought near; for we grew up together. Many pleafing hopes are laid in duit. From the grave of a friend even the path of virtue appears dark and lonely.

The happieft union on earth must be diffolved, and the love of life diffolves with it.

‹ Parents often survive their children, and refuse to be comforted because they are not.

A beautiful view of Providence opens. That which constitutes our greatest felicity on earth, makes us moft willing to depart. The friends of our youth have failed. Such friendships are not formed any more. Affection is gradually transferred to the world of spirits. We are ftrângers who have fojourned long in a foreign land, and have the near profpect of returning home. The hour of departure rifes on the foul; for we are going to a land peopled with our fathers, and our kindred, and the friends of our youth. The heart fwells at times with the fadly pleafing remembrance of the dead. Awake and fing, ye that fleep in duft, your dew is as the dew of herbs.' At times we overpafs by faith the bounds of mortality, and penetrate within the veil. Our fpirits mingle with theirs.'

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From this fpecimen, to which the strain of the fubfequent fermons correfponds, the reader will fee that he is not to expect, in these difcourfes, that fashionable fing-fong divinity which ftrews the path to Paradife with the unhallowed and forbidden flowers of guilty pleasure; none of those

Light quirks of mufic, broken and uneven,
That make the foul dance on a jig to Heaven.

Religion infers the moft ferious confideration; and any attempts to accommodate its facred laws, to the taste of a corrupted and frivolous age, difhonour its author and degrade its tendency.

There is a difference between a temple and a theatre ; between the giddy nocturnal illumination that expires in darkness and difguft, and the chafte beam of morning that brightens to the perfect day.

The laft fermon is written by a friend of the author, the Rev. Mr. Somerville, of Jedburgh. The fubject is taken from Cor. xv, and 29, a text which has puzzled commentators in every age. Mr. Somerville's explication of it is ingenious, and the improvement of the fermon very eloquent,

ART. VI.

ART. VI. Medical Cautions, for the Confideration of Invalids, more efpecially who refort to Bath. By James Makittrick Adair, M. D. Member of the Royal Medical Society, and Fellow of the College of Phyficians, Edinburgh. Published for the Benefit of the General Hofpital at Bath. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Dodsley.

DR.

R. Adair is a physician at Bath, and appears to be a sensible, difpaffionate man. By his own account he is now on the verge of life; and having acquired a comfortable independence, by a practice of forty years, he thought he could not make a more grateful return than by a treatise of this kind, by way of compenfation for the many profeffional errors he must neceffarily have committed.

The fubjects here difcuffed are fashionable diforders; for example, hyps, nerves and bile; the dangerous effects of overcrowded rooms, regimen, diet, refidence, or place of habitation, cloathing, exercife, reft, regulation of the paffions, with an inquiry into the nature of mineral waters and fea-bathing; alfo obfervations on quackery and lady doctors; and an appen dix, containing a table of the relative digeftibility of foods, with explanatory remarks.

In his effay on fashionable diforders and noctious air, he has endeavoured to counteract the impreffion of ftrong prejudice and rooted habit, by fimple facts and plain reasoning; and with pleafantry, according to Horace, has taken fome pains to laugh the world out of them.

"On declaring," he fays, "to one of his brethren, a man. «of humour, at Bath, that he was determined to write a bitter ic philippic against routs, as detrimental to the health of the company, from the noxious air in over-crowded rooms, he archly replied, let them alone, Doctor; how elfe could twenty"fix phyficians fubfift in this place?"

His obfervations on regimen, he tells us, are the result of long experience: under this head, the fubjects he treats on are diet, quality of our foods, drinks, diet of invalids, fruits, ftrong drinks, and diet accommodated to the cure of diseases. On the article of diet, we have the following remarks.

66

"Gluttony is fo fordid and fo ungentlemanly a vice, that "it would be a grofs affront to fuppofe any man above the << degree of a porter to be capable of it: and yet I suspect that "there are few perfons in tolerable health, who do not more or lefs exceed at dinner. One reafon of this is, the fashion*able irregularity of our meals; the interval between breakfast and dinner being fo great, that we are induced by a keen ap "petite to swallow the first part of the meal without its being mafticated and blended with the faliva in the mouth; a cir

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**cumstance which adds greatly to the labour of the stomach "in the work of digeftion."

"Another circumftance, which induces us to exceed in quantity, is variety of dishes; and, as people of fortune are "frequently epicures in fome degree, they can rarely resist the "temptation of tafting moft of the dishes at table to avoid "this temptation, it were better, if we were contented with 66 one dish of meat, plainly dreffed, and threw our fevers and 86 gouts to the poor.'

It has been a queftion much agitated, whether fupper is or, is not a wholefome meal; but its being fo depends upon "circumftances. The laborious ploughman indulges, with "impunity, in a plentiful fupper; but perfons of fortune, unless "they ufe more exercife then they generally do, experience "inconvenience from a heavy fupper. This inconvenience "does not proceed from fupper being lefs wholesome than "dinner, but becaufe none but the laborious can bear two "full meals of animal food in one day."

Under the article of drinks, he fays it has been doubted whether rum or brandy is moft wholefome, but in his opinion the diftinction and difpute is futile; and with refpect to tea and coffee, as he seems to differ from other writers, we think it neceffary to lay before our readers what he advances on the fubject.

"I am from long and attentive experience inclined to be"lieve," fays he, that the opulent are leaft injured by the "use of either, whilft tea is much more injurous to the poor. "The reafon feems to be, that, as the chief part of the food

of the laborious and indigent is vegetable, which affords a "much smaller proportion of nourishment than animal food, "and is much leis permanent and invigorating, especially to "the ftomach; fo tea has, from its nature, a peculiar power, "by its action on the nerves of the ftomach, to enfeeble not "only that organ, but the whole body: hence we find that "tremor and other nervous symptoms are often brought on by "an intemperate ufe of tea and coffee: this effect may be in "fome degree obviated, if not entirely prevented, by adding a

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confiderable portion of fugar and cream, which, being more "oily, is preferable to milk. This obfervation relates only to "perfons in vigorous health, and not to fedentary people, who

in fome measure may be ranked with invalids: but, on the "contrary, thofe perfons who indulge in a plentiful use of animal food and ftrong drink, are fo far from being incommoded either by coffee or tea, that they often qualify and are quali"fied by thefe beverages; infomuch as they partly counteract 66 the ftimulating effects of the foods and drinks; that if these or any other articles of food difagree, they should be given 466 up."

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Were we to give our readers one tenth part of the ufeful and pertinent obfervations to be met with in this volume, we fhould have room for little elfe. He, by no means, would have invalids, a fedentary people, drink much tea or coffee, without a confiderable quantity of cream and bread and butter. He differs with Dr. Cadogan as to the preference to be given to half-raw meals, and the total prohibition of falted meat and pickles, having known that a small proportion of ham, tongue, &c. has restored even the appetite of invalids, who could not digeft the infipid foods in the smallest quantities.

Under the head of regimen, he proceeds to fpeak of the gout, which, he is of opinion, when inveterate, has never yielded to any of the advertised noftrums, but to a change of diet; and he produces fome instances to corroborate this affertion, where old gouty habits have been perfectly eradicated by abftemious living, and refraining from animal food.

He enters but flightly into the nature and effects of mineral waters or fea-bathing, only gives it as his opinion, and brings anftances to prove it, that no one should drink fuch waters, or bathe in the fea, but under the directions of the phyficians of the place. At Bath he advises this particularly, (and he appears to be a great friend to the place) from many bad effects that have arisen from not doing it.

In his Effay on Quackery, he is very fevere; fays, he has for many years taken much pains to detect the ignorance and knavery of our celebrated noftrum-mongers, and to discover the nature and compofition of their remedies. He affures us that Ward was a footman; Rock and Walker were porters; Graham, a mountebank; Meyerfbeck, a rough-rider to a riding house in London; Turlington, a broker. mafter of a ship; Dr, Freeman, a journeyman blacksmith; and others were weavers and coblers. And, as to their medicines, he fays, "All thofe "of Ward, except his pafte, which is an abfurd compofition,

had long been in regular practice before he adopted them." "Turlington's balfam is the Traumatic balfam of the fhops; "Norton's drops are a difguifed folution of the fublimate mercury; Daffy's elixir is tincture of fena; Anderson's pills are aloes, with oil of anifeed; Speediman's pills, extract of chamomile, aloes, and one or two other trifling ingredients; Stoughton's drops, the ftomatic tincture of the shops; Godfrey's Cordial, an infufion of fafafras, fyrop, and opium; Beaum de Vie confifts of aloes, rhubarb, and falt of tartar, with a large proportion of liquorice juice, to difguife the other ingredients; and Poudre unique is a combination of mercury and antimony. In fhort, there is none of thefe noftrums, (a few trifling tinctures of vegetables, thofe of Hill particu larly, excepted) but what are compofitions of mercury, antimony, or opium."

" James's

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