defences they now bring forward-their evidence must be considered as that of parties to the cause, and entitled to very little attention." By the same rule, Mr. Brown's own evidence must be wholly set aside, as he also is a party to his own cause; which, moreover, he would have most effectually betrayed, even had it been tenable, by his intemperate violence. He seems to have something like an instinctive antipathy towards all his professional brethren connected with the army, or holding official situations, and in no very guarded terms gives them to understand that he does not believe one word which they have said, or shall say, on the subject. It is but fair to conclude, he says, that the minds of those who are connected with the Duke of York and the medical board, must labour under considerable prejudice; and farther, it is curious to observe, even the anxiety of a private soldier to support the cause of vaccination-again, it is somewhat surprising, and rather suspicious, that the vaccine practice should receive its principal support from medical practitioners connected with the army. Indeed, in almost every page he throws out similar insinuations, which, to say the least of them, are more likely to bring Mr. Brown himself into suspicion, than those highly respectable gentlemen he so unfairly and unprovokedly stigmatizes.

Our readers will no doubt wonder that we are all this while overlooking Mr. Brown's proofs; but they will wonder more when we tell them that we have bona fide been actually giving them as his proofs are chiefly of the nature of snarling negations, directed against the army practitioners, mixed up with a few broad assertions respecting his own practice. He calculates most sanguinely on the belief of his readers, and thrusts his opinions with so much audacious hardihood upon them, that unless they previously know something of the man, they might think he had more interest at stake than the indulgence of a little vanity.

When Mr. Brown so liberally deals out his suspicions and accusations of others, it is but natural to infer, that he is himself in the habit of unfair dealing: it is an inference indeed which few would fail to make. But we shall not lay so much stress upon it, as to rank him among "the least creditable class

VOL. I.

of practitioners," who, according to the report of the National Vaccine Board, are the only persons that now persist in the pernicious practice of small-pox inoculation; and Mr. Brown confesses, that he is fully aware of the contemptible state of those who have hitherto opposed vaccination, and shudders to be classed among them. Circumstances, however, have come to our knowledge, which reduces the value of Mr. Brown's authority, more than the irascible and unmannerly style in which he attacks all that is respectable in the profession. We shall just bring to his recollection, his not only calling himself, but, when he met with a rebuff, repeatedly sending his apprentice, to insistfupon the mother of a respectable family to give her authority for a statement concerning her children, dictated by him, and favourable to his views of inoculation, though directly contrary to what she distinctly knew and told him was the fact; which fabricated statement, with others in all likelihood of a similar cast, he intended, no doubt, to use for persuading others into his absurd opinions. It may be stated also, that Mr. Brown is not professionally employed by that family; and the inference is, that he must be at a distressing loss for favourable cases among his own patients, when he is forced to commit so unblushing an outrage on good manners as this was, to get up a number of cases plausible enough to make a swagger with.

After such unfair and unprofessional conduct in one instance, and we pledge ourselves for the truth of what we have said-how can we be sure that Mr. Brown will not resort to a similar mode of going to work, whenever he is puzzled to extricate himself from the net he has so blindly run his head intonay, how can we be sure that he has not resorted to it in numerous other instances, in laudable imitation of Drs. Eady, Jordan, Whitlaw, and others of the confraternity of quacks, who earn their daily bread thereby. After knowing this, it would not be easy for any one to force himself to credit Mr. Brown when he says. I can assure you, sir, in examining my own practice, few or none escaped (small-pox) at the distance of six years after vaccination, that were placed in circumstances favourable for the operation of the epidemic; very few at four years, and at the moment I am. now writing, cases of failure are occur2 E

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ring here exactly in conformity to these principles." Now, the question naturally suggests itself, if this is so, if cases are so plentiful, what induced Mr. Brown to try to induce a respectable mother to tell a direct falsehood concerning her own children, for the purpose of aiding him to support his system. But it is not so, at least such things have occurred to no respectable practitioner so far as we know, except Mr. Brown himself. Dr. Munro expressly says, that it appears both from the cases which occurred in his own family, and numerous others, "that the preventive power of cow-pox does not wear out, and also, that it is not proportioned to the ages of the patients."

We do not deny, for the fact is notorious-that small-pox has frequently succeeded perfect vaccination. But we are sure that the disease is in almost every case mild and mitigated-that the primary fever, though sometimes severe, runs a rapid course, and has an early termination, and that secondary fever never supervenes at all; and we challenge Mr. Brown to bring properlyauthenticated cases of the contrary, or to give up his cause; got-up cases will not do. But in this the cow-pox stand nearly on the same ground with smallpox; a position, however, which to Mr. Brown appears 66 so ridiculous and destitute of all truth, as not to deserve the smallest attention." That is, in other words, Mr. Brown's autos in is to be believed in preference to a whole host of the most respectable practitioners, namely, Willan, Kite, Withers, Mills, Adam, Ring, Bryce, Laird, Bateman, Woodville, Moore, Hennen, Ramsay, Smith, &c. (See Munro, page 81.)

Nay, the second attack of small-pox is, according to the same authority, sometimes malignant and fatal, as was the case in a patient of Dr. Graham's, of Dalkeith; who, though he had had smallpox when three years old so severely as to be considerably marked, was twenty years after seized again, and died on the twelfth day. It is well known, also, that nurses who have had small-pox, often catch the contagion again from suckling children labouring under the complaint; and surgeons who inoculate, have not unfrequently been seized with it from the matter being absorbed in casual scratches on their hands. No," says Mr. Brown, "it has been distinctly proved that whoever has once passed

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through small-pox in a satisfactory manner, will not again be subjected to that disease." Here is assertion with a vengeance, in the very face of the fact which so lately occurred only about four miles from where Mr. Brown resides, in the fatal case of Dr. Graham's already mentioned.

Mr. Brown seems to be particularly vexed to think that our increased population, should be ascribed to the banishment of the small-pox by means of vaccination. Perhaps it would be going too far to say, that the rapid doubling of our population is wholly owing to the introduction of cow-pox; but when we consider, that before its introduction small-pox carried off, in Britain and Ireland alone, from thirty to forty thousand souls every year, or about one in fourteen of all that are born, and that since the cow-pox was introduced there has been an increase of our population of about fourteen in the hundred in ten years, in all about four millions of souls of increase: when we consider all this, we must certainly look upon cow-pox, notwithstanding Mr. Brown's ill-natured declamation, as indeed a boon from heaven. And though, as Mr. Bryce says, there should still remain one in three thousand unprotected after vaccination, or a hundred and eighty-seven of those annually born; and though of these there should die one in fourteen from small-pox, yet will thirteen persons only die annually from small-pox, in place of forty thousand. It appears not so to the profound and diving intellect of Mr. Brown, who has most perversely discovered, that, "those who were employed to take down the numbers (in the last census) in a great many instances, if not in all, took down the numbers which belonged to a family, and not those who actually formed the family at the time, by which means a vast number were taken down twice." And mark what follows: "the consequence of all this foolish and criminal conduct has been, that for these six or eight years past, the ravages of small-pox have been nearly as great as before the Jennerian discovery was introduced." If this is not absolute raving, we must give up our claims to understanding. We can only account for Mr. Brown producing such a proof of his incapacity to talk soberly, by supposing his thoughts to be perpetually haunted with a huge bug-bear, in the form of a Jennerian practitioner. What

must the worthy clergymen, schoolmasters, and others who numbered the people think, when they see themselves thus publicly accused by a professional surgeon, of going from house to house propagating the pestilence of small-pox. We dare say it would have been the last thing which they would have dreamed of, that a few names innocently repeated, would have led to such awful consequences.

Another charge which Mr. Brown makes against cow-pox is, that he has observed, since their introduction, an increased severity in scrofulous cases, and a more early occurrence of phthisis pulmonalis: he also coincides with those who think they have rendered measles more severe and fatal. We are quite astonished to hear such doctrines broached by a professional man. Who does not know that it was one of the greatest evils attending small-pox, to aggravate serofula and consumption, if not to engender them? How many did they not render blind and deformed by the developement of scrofula? Every old woman in the country, indeed, speaks as decidedly on the dregs of small-pox, as Mr. Brown could do of the sequelae of syphilis or scarlatina. And as for the increased severity of measles and hoopingcough, it seems in a great measure out of the reach of proof, and an assumption of a very gratuitous stamp.

It would be endless to follow Mr.

Brown through all his misrepresentations; but we cannot pass over his mode of giving effect to his alarms, by referring to years yet to come, when, he says, in the confident spirit of prophecy, that the small-pox will infallibly drive the cow-pox from the field, after making victims of thousands of the unsuspecting. It is consoling to think that Mr. Brown's credit is not so great as to give general currency to any oracular speech, which it may seem good to him to utter and publish, though it may influence many. We hope, however, that we have in this paper prepared an antidote for the virus he has been so industrious to propagate; and, in doing so, we havé, we hope, a laudable and proper interest for the welfare of the public. We assure Mr. Brown that we do not belong to the army, and are quite unconnected with official situations. But we cannot sit quietly and hear the institutions of our country impudently abused; and we think that those who do so, richly deserve to get " kail o' thare ain groats." We declare most solemnly that we have no malice towards Mr. Brown, but we think that so long as he persists in sending abroad the plague of small-pox, that he is a very dangerous person, whom it would be injustice to the public for us to overlook, and we pledge ourselves to keep a strict watch over his future proceedings with regard to the controversy.

IN the introduction to this curious diary, Sir Joseph gives some account of the ancient, illustrious, and truly English family of the Jolterheads; and, in the course of it, he makes some remarks which would be very serviceable to those of our cotemporaries who fill the same situation in the world of letters that the Jolterheads do in the world of life. There is this difference, however, between them, that he makes such a claim to ancestry, and shews a knowledge of the antiquarian, to which they can have no title. He proves, very triumphantly, that the Jolterheads did not, as some would have us believe, come in with the Saxons, the Danes, or the Normans; that they were not only

great before the heptarchy, but even leading men long previous to the invasion by Julius Cæsar. According to Sir Joseph, they derived their patronymic appellation from the builder of Stonehenge; and, according to what we hold to be antiquarian authority, many degrees overproof, we find, that the Jolterheads had not only much influence in the Celtic parliament, which, from the evidence of the "Cheesewricy" in Cornwall, and the remains of the garden of the Black Prince in Kennington Oval, were holden alternately upon Salisbury Plain and Cader Idris (at which latter, by the way, the project of invading Mexico by Madoc, and working the silver mines there, under the direc

tion of the same Parson Jones who turned the Pavys inine, în Anglesey, to such account, was planned) but that their power at court was so unlimitted, that they could elevate to the kingly office, or dethrone from it, whomsoever they chose. It was for this reason that the aforesaid founder of Stonehenge had his own name of Joe (which has, by the bye, always been the family-name) augmented by the garnish of “alter-head," making, in all, “Joe-alter-head,” which, for the sake of euphony, or according to a well-known tendency in language, has been changed to "Jolterhead," the modern name. At least such is the opinion of General Vallancey and the Reverend Mr. Davies. We presume not to de

cide.

The baronet is most successful in defending his family against the imputation of having obtained their name from their political alterations, from the shiftings they had from York to Lancaster, and from Lancaster back again to York; from their violence during the civil war, and their alterings in every thing that followed. In all these ancient matters he is equally dignified and satisfactory; but when he comes to his own times, and treats of the indignities and wrongs which his family have sustained, at the hands of a certain Lord Yesterday, he loses his patience, and with that, as is very apt to be the case, his argument.

The mother of Lord Yesterday had been charwoman at the treasury during the influence of Lord Bute, and he himself had passed through a remarkable gradation of offices, till he had been elevated to the peerage, and had built, as nearly under the nose of Sir Joseph Jolterhead as he could, a splendid mansion, to which he had given the name of Perquisite Priory. Sir Joseph hated both this mansion and its owner; and, in return, the latter, whose diplomatic practices had enabled him to procure a story out of the least possible number of hints, had alleged, that the pure descent of the Jolterheads had been rendered a little doubtful by a French valet, a Scotch tutor, and an Irish gentleman, who had been in the family for three successive generations. The means which the baronet took to prove his traly English descent in this case, was a challenge to his lordship to a bout at cudgels; but his lordship pleaded his privilege, and the matter went no further.

The baronet began, however, to be

not at all pleased with his situation. Changes had taken place in the country, at which he felt not a little mortified. The rustics, who used to think it an honour if his ancestors condescended to salute their wife and daughters, or sent them a puppy to nurse, now hinted that they would not bear the freedom of the first, or submit to the expense of the second; the farmers, who used to borrow all their ideas at the castle, would now both dispute and disobey the oracles of its wisdom; once the barber would not shave the baronet, till he had completed his tonsorial services for the excisemen, to whom he had made a previous engagement, and who was, in fact, under his hand; and the apothecary refused to leave the blacksmith's wife, upon whom he was attending in a case of extremity, although the baronet's favourite horse had the bots.

These were hard matters enough, but still they were only the beginnings of sorrow. As in cases of weakness of the heart, the blood rushes there, leaving the extremities cold and blanched; so, when the chief of the Jolterheads began to be in trouble, the posse who possessed the neighbourhood, poured their aid toward Jolterhead castle, till they were exhausted; cousins, connexions, and acquaintances of Lord Yesterday, men of more elevated noses, and more sable or sallow complexions than the Jolterheads, occupied the lands from which these were ejected; and Sir Joseph complained that he was left alone in the midst of strangers. These soon outfaced him at the sessions, and out-bullied him at elections, till his power was confined to the church, and the parish-offices; and this he held solely because the successors to his people being mostly of the Jewish persuasion, or in some way descended from or connected with the scattered of Israel, gave themselves little trouble about Christian worship.

But when a man has once lost his influence in secular matters, his hold upon the clergy is but slight. The parson smelt the sweet savour of the newlyestablished kitchens, and forgot the decaying castle; the Jews were in time converted, the apostles were well paid for their trouble, and the result was, that Sir Joseph Jolterhead was eclipsed at church, and Miss Biddy, his sister, (or, as the parson had magniloquently styled her, the Lady Rodolpha) was jostled in the very chancel, by a dame in gay dia

monds and greasy satin, with a nose like the back of a reaping-hook, eyes like two jars of black-currant jelly, and a mouth, which, as Sir Joseph avers, Miss Biddy Jolterhead could compare to nothing but the mandibles of an unfledged sparrow.

These again were matters hard to be borne, especially by those in the hands of whose ancestors had been the destinies of kings; and, therefore, the baronet began to bestir himself. The houses, the equipages, the improvements, every thing about the Hebrews were now grand and expensive; and he, to beat them upon their own ground, felled all the old timber and mortgaged part of his estate. This brought him but small advantage: the sale of the timber did not pay the expense of improving the land from which it was cut; and the premium, together with a few years interest, eat up all that had been raised upon the mortgages. So that Sir Joseph Jolterhead was, by a good deal, a poorer man, and as far behind his neighbours

as ever.

He was hampered in his very sports. Fences, visible and invisible, put a stop to his coursing; and if a favourite dog found a circuitous path to the old cover, bounce went a spring-gun, and the faithful animal never returned to his master. Even at the race-course he was out-done; for after these new personages came about him, all the skill in horse-flesh which he had been aforetime allowed to have, could not enable him to bet upon the winner; and, it seemed that, as the sons of pawnbrokers and old-clothes-men were gaining upon Sir Joseph Jolterhead, so crazy-looking hacks were distancing the best cattle in England. Whenever he met with his Hebrew neighbours they not only had much more money in their pockets than he, but what they, had seemed to draw what he had towards it, by an incomprehensible but powerful attraction.

Meanwhile rents fell and taxes rose: and as Sir Josephi had to depend wholly upon the former and to pay the latter to their last farthing, his situation became more unpleasant y day. He had once supported the minister through thick and thin, and he now made clamorous application for support in return; but the minister, finding where the power was, turned a deaf ear to Sir Joseph Jolterhead, and leaving him to shrug his shoulders, went on to improve the commercial laws. Upon this, Sir Joseph became very angry, and affected to talk big; but his influence was gone, and so nobody cared a straw for his talking; nay, some of those who really had stuck by him for a long time, and who had vowed to stick by him to the end of the chapter, began to hint at the great public advantages which followed when the land frequently changed its proprietors. In conse

quence of these things he became sullen, and dragged and stalked about quite' an altered man, blaming every one of that government which he had once worshipped, and railing at every institution of that country which he had once adored.

In this state of things, Miss Biddy's conduct had nearly broken his heart. Though he had neither the means nor the inclination of falling into the habits of the males of the new race, Miss Biddy loved, though she could not afford to imitate, the finery of the females. She, however, took every method in her power to cultivate their acquaintance; and, in the course of a few months, Miss Biddy Jolterhead became the wife of Jacob Jacobson, Esq., a gentleman possessed of more hundred thousands than teeth, and whose pedigree, which could be traced by a very short and clear line to a blind alley of Houndsditch, became there oblivious even to herald eyes.