Drops)/ cured by Smoking Tobacco. 205 



himself. After his afflicted with ihat most tormentinrf 



1823.] 



it thence but 



death, wlien a canon of Bayeux, 

 named Samson, had succeeded to the 

 bishopric of Worcester, the English 

 honoured him with the posthumous 

 titles of Saint and Blessed One. Such, 

 indeed, was the privilege of almost all 

 who resisted the Normans. 



All this may seem strange to us, and 

 to our generation : oppressed nations 

 have ceased to beatify their heroes 

 and their paliiots. They can preserve 

 the pure and holy memory of those 

 they have loved, without surrounding 

 it with the halo of superstition. But, 

 diflerent as our associations may be 

 from those of the generations who have 

 preceded us on this our earth, let not 

 that dilicrence induce us to sit in 

 severe judgment over them : let not 

 the singular character of their national 

 acts tempt us to pronounce, that in 

 those acts there was no nationality. 

 The sublime conception of human in- 

 dependence was revealed to them as 

 well as to ourselves ; tiiey shrined it in 

 their best-loved symbols; as wc conse- 

 crate it with ours. Ail they deemed 

 noble, — all they deemed brilliant and 

 beautiful, — they gatiiered around it: 

 they made it religious, as we have 

 inaile it poetical. They sanctioned it 

 Avith the promises of immortal blessed- 

 ness in a world of perfect bliss ; while 

 we hallow it with an immortality, of 

 which ourselves are the guardians, in 

 the memory of future ages, in the con- 

 sciences of tlie virtuous and the free. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Blagazine. 

 sill, 



ONE truth in physic is worth a 

 thousand fanciful theories, how- 

 ever ingenious. Tlie following in- 

 stance of a complete cure of the 

 dropsy, by tiie practice of smoking, 

 ^inassisted by any of the restorative 

 powers of medicine, has Just been 

 lonnnnnlcated tome by my iViend, tlie 

 Rev. John Davis, pastor of Bexlcy- 

 healh Chapel, Kent ; and is so stri- 

 kingly convincing of the salutary 

 edecls of tobacco, (at least in some 

 constitutions,) that I cannot refrain 

 troui sending it to your widely extend- 

 ed and excellent Miscellany. 



CuUum-street. « * * * • 



" In the year 1805 (says Mr. Davis,) 

 my friend Mr. Hopkins, eider-nier- 

 /•liant, of 'J iirley, near Tewkeslniry, 

 <jlouecstershirf, was so dreadfully 



malady the droj)sy, that, when he sat 

 upright in his chair, he was unable, 

 from the immense load of watery hu- 

 mours which penetrated every fluid 

 aperture, to bring his arms round suf- 

 ficiently to permit his hands to meet; 

 in fact, his form resembled more tho 

 appearance of a bale of wet spongo 

 than that of a human being. I left 

 him for two years, to go my ministerial 

 circuit, expecting never to see him 

 more alive ; but judge how infinitely 

 great was my surprise and pleasure to 

 find him, on my return, a complete 

 renovated man, sound and whole, and 

 completely cured of his dropsy. Upon 

 my asking him to what miraeidous 

 means he attributed so thorough a 

 restoration of that invaluable blessing 

 — health, Mr. H. informed me that it 

 was entirely owing to his taking to the 

 practice of smoking, which he perse- 

 vered in for t«o years, until, to use 

 his own piirase, " it made him entirely 

 a new man." 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



READING, a little while since, 

 Dr. Mavor's " Agricultural Sur- 

 vey of Berks," I was struck with some 

 remarks on tithes, m hich probably are 

 the sentiments of a large pro|)ortion of 

 the liberal and enligiitened part of the 

 clergy of the establishment of tlie pre- 

 sent day ; and, assuming them to be so, 

 I wish to make a few observations 

 thereon. Most, if not all, men, are in 

 difi'erent measures liable to be warped 

 by prejudice; yet there is a right and 

 a « rong, a truth and an error, entirely 

 independent of this human inlirmity; 

 and in no case is it more needlul lo 

 endeavour, as far as possible, to bo 

 divested thereof, than when consider- 

 ing subjects wherein our highest inte- 

 rests are involved, as 1 conceive those 

 of the community deeply are in the 

 aflair of tithes. 



'i'he Doctor commences wit!i an as- 

 sertion, "that the title by which atentli 

 part of the pjoduee of agriculture is 

 appropriated to the church, is far more 

 ancic^nt and better ascertained than 

 that to the other nine parts.'' This 

 bold and unqualified assumption he 

 builds upon, without hesitation, in his 

 i'lirthcr arguments on the subject; but 

 I apprehend it would be no very dilfi- 

 cult task to prove, that, so Car from 

 having a lotlG* title to t!ie tenth than 



the 



