1825.] 
far aS reason goes, are we called upon 
to escape) from doubt and contradic- 
tion, into the acknowledgment of an 
eternal self-cxistent power, who fa- 
shions and controls, sustains and orga- 
nizes and modifies the whole. Beyond 
this, we only dream, perhaps, when we 
think we are demonstrating ; or bewil- 
der ourselves in cheerless scepticism, 
“ And findno end, in wandering mazes lost.”” 
——<——a—— 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
The Panacra, or WHore Art of Mr- 
DICINE. 
WAS fayoured with a copy of the 
following curiosity a short time 
ago, and it appears to me very de- 
‘serving of a place in your useful Maga- 
zine, As this is an age fruitful with 
inventions and disceveries for benefit- 
ing mankind, the discovery of this 
panacea, for the cure of all human ills, 
is surely none of the least. TH 
-§ 25th Oct. 1825. 
Extract of a Letter of Advice from Dr. — 
of London, to a young Practitioner in 
the Country. 
ALL medical learning, professional skill, 
Depends on the knack of prescribing blue pill; 
For on whatever part of the frame is the ill, 
The liver’s in fault, you must order blue pill. 
You may join it with fox-glove, or joimit with squill, 
The only effective ingredient’s blue pill. 
‘The liver is torpid, the bile is bad, still 
You change the secretion by dose of blue pill. 
Bile, white, brown, or black, no differemte still: 
it must all be set right by the famious blue pill. 
Whether raging with fever, or shivering with chill, 
Your chylopoetic must fight with blue pill. 
¥rom your eyes, from your nose, should water distil, 
» Tis your bile that’s defective, so down goes blue pill. 
No peppermin:-water, no water of dill, 
For wind can gain credit against the blue pill. 
Thyme, marjoram, rue, Sir, you need not distil, 
Their virtue’s concentrated in the blue pill. 
‘To line their own pockets the doctors must fill, 
’Gainst reason, and logic, and ’gainst your own willy 
Your doctor persuades you to take the blue pill. 
He swears that your cure he thus soon will fulfils 
Open-mouth’d you believe him, and down goes blue 
pill. 
‘Oh! it gladdens my heart, and it makes my nerves 
thrill, 
To think of the cures that are made by blue pill. 
This truth in your mind let me ever instil, 
Your fortune is made if you manage blue pill. 
J should worry myself, and should wear out my quill, 
‘To describe half the charms of the wond’rous blue pill. 
By experience, by study, by whate’er you will, 
You'll be reckoned a fool if you give not blue pill. 
By it, though your patients you afterwards kill, 
You've the present advantage, so stick to blue pill. 
Should your patient survive it! !!—well pleas’d with 
your skill, 
He will trumpet your fame, and the fame of blue pill. 
And the doctor will bring the best grist to his mill, 
Who prescribes with least mercy the mighty blue pill. 
Bath. — Gisps. 
Montntry Mas. No. 417. 
Panacea.—Mechanics’ Institutes. 
409 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
7) WSR . 
HE establishment of Literary and 
Scientific Institutions, will render 
the commencement of the first quarter 
of the nineteenth century, a memorable 
epoch in the career of knowledge; nor 
will the establishment of Mechanics’ 
Schools and Institutions be, among these, 
one of the least prominent features. No 
unprejudiced person can presume to 
doubt that, when the minds of the mass 
of the population shall be directed, sci- 
entifically, to their respective occupa- 
tions, an immense accession of use- 
ful talent. and discovery will be the re- 
sult; and which must contribute, not 
only to individual welfare, in numerous 
instances, as well as to the prosperity of 
the empire generally; but it must also 
tend, in an eminent degree, to such ex- 
tension of the intercourse between na- 
tions, both near and remote, that the 
means for increasing greatly the sum- 
total of human happiness, must un- 
avoidably become more certain and as- 
sured. J take these results to be the 
necessary consequence of the more gene- 
ral diffusion of knowledge of all kinds, 
provided a very moderate share of adroit- 
ness only be adopted in presenting those 
ameans to mankind; and it is really as- 
tonishing that persons are still to be 
found who are desirous to throw every 
obstacle in the way of that beneficent - 
consummation, so long and so ardently 
desired by every sincere and ‘intelligent 
well-wisher to the happiness of our spe- 
cies ; namely, that of making every mem- 
ber of the community a rational and in- 
telligent being. 
As to the Mechanics’ Institutions—in 
answer to the silly cavils raised against 
them, is it no trifling consideration to 
divert the labourer and the mechanic 
from the ale-house to’ the lecture-room ; 
from the debasing and demoralizing 
effects of bacchanalian orgies, to the 
calm deductions of science? the tranquil- 
lizing, yet pleasing perusal of the scien- 
tific treatise, the argumentative Review, 
or to the varied contents of the now 
well-edited and well-written Magazine ? 
or to the spirited essay, sparkling with 
all the vivid corruscations of wit and of 
intelligence ? “ Knowledge,” one of the 
greatest masters of science has told us, 
“ is power.” And without knowledge 
what is man? Need I answer, too often 
a brute; and sometimes a terrible brute 
too. 
But this is by no means att which 
~ these institutions are capable of accom- 
3G plishing ; 
