ON MADNESS. 117 



to their walks, the following receipt, wliich I 

 received from a friend of mine in Staffordshire 

 (the person already mentioned in this letter, an 

 excellent sportsman, to whom I have many ob- 

 ligations) will answer the purpose best, and on 

 their change of diet, from milk to meat, may be 

 sometimes necessary : 



Three quarters of an ounce of quicksilver, 

 Haifa pint of spirits of turpentine, 

 Four ounces of hog's lard, 

 One pound of soft soap, 



Three ounces of common turpentine, in which the 

 quicksilver must be killed. 



Instinct directs dogs, when the stomach is out 

 of order, to be their own physician; and it is to 

 them we owe our knowledge how to relieve it. 

 It may appear foreign to our present purpose, 

 yet as it is much (if true) to the honour of ani- 

 mals in general, I must beg leave to add, what 

 a French author tells us — that also by the hip- 

 popotamus we are instructed how to bleed, and 

 by the cratie how to give a clyster. 



Madness, thou dreadful malady, what shall I 

 say to thee ! — or what preservative shall I find 

 against thy envenomed fang ! Somervile, who 

 declines writing of lesser ills, is not silent on 

 the subject of this. 



