we are indebted to him, as well as to many others in the same field, for some of his best, wittiest, and most humorous effusions. It is a mistaken notion, as Mr. Colquhoun correctly observes, that a large quantity of malt liquor is necessary to support labourers of any description. After a certain moderate portion is taken, it not only enervates the body, but stupifies the senses. A coalheaver, who drinks from twelve to twenty pots of "heavy wet" in the course of a day, would receive more real nourishment, and perform his labour with more ease, and with a greater portion of athletic strength and alacrity, if, at most, one-third of the quantity were only consumed. He would also enjoy better health, and be fitter for his labour the following day. Excessive and continued use of malt liquors disposes to apoplexy and asthma, morbid obesity, and inflammatory complaints. With the indolent it is more pernicious than with people of active and laborious habits. Drank moderately, it is useful to people of a debilitated constitution; and is frequently prescribed for such people when it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to procure wine. In phlegmatic habits, where the blood is too thin and watery, porter is highly serviceable, taken as an alimentary drink.* * Materia Alimentaria, MS. SECTION XXVI. ALE. IN Britain there are various sorts of ale, particularly pale and brown; the former is brewed from malt slightly dried; and is esteemed more viscid than the latter, which is made from malt more highly dried. This liquor, a great variety of which is brewed in different parts of England, is the favourite beverage of our peasantry-the poor man's sweet oblivion of his daily care. Goldsmith, another of this fraternity, who devoted much time to his cups, in his beautiful and much admired poem, the "Deserted Village," laments, in the following strain, the decay of a village ale-house: Low lies that house with nut brown draughts inspir'd, Ale is a lighter, but a much more heady liquor than porter. It would be impossible to drink any considerable quantity of it without feeling its effects. It is apt to leave a head-ach behind it. The strong ales should be drank with caution, and never intermixed with spirits. It is strengthening and nutritive. we are indebted to him, as well as to many others in the same field, for some of his best, wittiest, and most humorous effusions. It is a mistaken notion, as Mr. Colquhoun correctly observes, that a large quantity of malt liquor is necessary to support labourers of any description. After a certain moderate portion is taken, it not only enervates the body, but stupifies the senses. A coalheaver, who drinks from twelve to twenty pots of "heavy wet" in the course of a day, would receive more real nourishment, and perform his labour with more ease, and with a greater portion of athletic strength and alacrity, if, at most, one-third of the quantity were only consumed. He would also enjoy better health, and be fitter for his labour the following day. Excessive and continued use of malt liquors disposes to apoplexy and asthma, morbid obesity, and inflammatory complaints. With the indolent it is more pernicious than with people of active and laborious habits. Drank moderately, it is useful to people of a debilitated constitution; and is frequently prescribed for such people when it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to procure wine. In phlegmatic habits, where the blood is too thin and watery, porter is highly serviceable, taken as an alimentary drink.* * Materia Alimentaria, MS. Snuff-taking, though by no means so seemly a luxury as smoking, has nearly as many votaries, and equally as the other, is acquired by habit; and whatever may be said of supplying the Schneiderian membrane with this powder, for the purpose of exciting either sneezing, or an agreeable sort of pungency, it is as rational a mode of using it, at least as chewing, or even as smoking. Those who talk about snuff having been found on dissection after death in the brain of professed snuff-takers, and other such idle stories, know little about the anatomy of the head.* "The Spaniards Havell, in his Letters, 1678, says, call tobacco the holy herb, in regard to the various virtues it hath. If moderately taken, 'tis good for many things: it helps digestion, taken awhile after meat; it makes one void rheum; a leaf or two being steeped over night in a little white wine, is a vomit that never fails in its operation. It is a good companion to one that converseth with dead men; for if one hath been poring long upon a book, or is toiled with the pen, and stupified with study, it quickeneth him, and dispels those clouds that usually o'ersets the brain. The smoke of tobacco is one of the most wholesome scents that is against all contagious airs, for it o'ermasters all other smells; as King James, they say, found true, *It is said that snuff-taking is a preventive of apoplexy, it being difficult to find a case where a snuff-taker has died of this complaint. Formerly they used to take snuff with a quill, and not with the fingers, as is the present custom. I 6 when, being once a hunting, a shower of rain drove him into a pigstye for shelter, when he caused a pipe-full to be taken on purpose. Tobacco cannot endure a spider or a flea, or such like vermin. It is good to cure the mange in dogs. It is also good to fortify and preserve the eye-sight, the smoke being let in about the balls of the eyes once a week, and frees them of all rheum, and plum-tree gum, such as is in old mens' eyes.' Being taken into the stomach, it will heat and cleanse it. The Spaniards, Irish, and French take it in powder, or smutchin, and it thus mightily refreshes the brain. In Barbary, and other parts of Africa, it is wonderful what a small bit of tobacco will do; for those who use it, ride post through the sandy deserts, where they meet not with any thing eatable for days together; they put the tobacco under the tongue, which affords them perpetual moisture, and takes off the edge of the appetite for some days." Master Havell, we are bound to say, does not appear to have been so well acquainted with tobacco: its medical history he evidently knew nothing about, when he speaks of giving an infusion of it in wine as an emetic, or otherwise prescribing it internally. Tobacco has a singular pungent and bitter taste, an acrid smell, and yields its virtues to water and spirit, though the extracts are different, one being gummy, the other resinous-spirit takes up about one seventh of its weight. It produces a pungent heat in the stomach, intolerable nausea, purgings, swimming in the head, faint |