550 
be feared never will, in future, be pro- 
perly impressed with the importance, and 
if not the immediate, at any rate the dis- 
tant danger of a cough. Coughing is by 
no means a salutary exercise of the chest ; 
on the contrary, every repetition of it 
must tend to the wear and tear of the 
pulmonary organs, whose texture and 
fabric are too delicate and tender to suf- 
fer without peril or injury any violent or 
unnatural agitation. Each attack of 
cough induces some injury of the sub- 
stance, or diminution m the energy and 
capacity of the Jungs, until at length they 
are reduced to that mutilated and ragged 
state, which, in many cases, does not im- 
mediately put a final pause to, but fora 
little time allows, or rather inflicts, upon 
the labouring sufferer, a most painful and 
agonizing respiration, The patient hes, 
or more frequently sits up, upon his bed, 
a mendicant for air, of which, however, 
no draught or stream could excite into 
active and permanently vital play the 
wasted and broken-up machinery.* 
The process of disease is more to be 
apprehended than its fatal termination. 
It 3s not the tomb, but the shadowy and 
thorny avenue that leads to it, that ought 
to be the subject of horror and of awe. 
* The Reporter was some few years since 
called to the bedside of a late much respected 
friend and eminent physician, who, in his last 
hours, with mournful agony exclaimed, 
<¢ How horrible it is to be obliged to breath 
with half a pair of lungs!” 
— 
State of Public Affairs in April. 
{May 1, 
When life becomes a chronic disease, 
the continuance of it cannot be consi- 
dered as an object of philosophical am- 
bition or of reasonable desire. - Vhis cir- 
cumstance is out of the consideration of 
those, who in their habits or induigences 
are not sufficiently attentive to tie means 
of preserving, not their being merely, but 
their well-being. In the notion of “a 
short life and a merry one” there may 
appear something specious; but it is not 
duly and seasonably considered that 
those aberrations from propriety and 
prudence which contract artificially the 
naturally little span of our existence, 
throw a cloud over its conclusion. 
Life survives the capacity of enjoying 
it, the scene is darkened lofig before the 
curtain falls. The faculties of the mind 
and ‘body continue for a certain period | 
irritable to painful, without being awake 
atiall to any pleasurable, or susceptible of 
comfortable or of even easy, sensations. 
‘The instrument is so entirely out of tune, 
that no fmendly or favourite hand, how- 
ever delicate or dexterous, can draw from 
it an harmonious note. . 
The melancholy slope towards the ~ 
grave, these victims of indiscretion or 
misfortune, find no easy descent; with 
them it is, non “- facilis descensus 
Aver.” ‘ 
J. Rerp. 
Grenville-street, Brunswick-square. / 
April 22, 1808. 
STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS IN APRIL. 
Containing official and authentic Documents. \ 
. ——e 
SWEDEN. 
Bulletin of the Swedish Army. 
TIS Royal Majefty received yefterday two 
~~ reports from Count Klingfpor, command- 
er-in-chief of the army in Finland, bear'ng 
date, Longfors and Nerper, not far from 
Wasa, March 2oth and 23d. The army con- 
tinues, in good order, its march to Ulcahory, 
in order to form a junction with the column 
of Count Cronftedt, chief of brigade. The 
rear was almoit daily engaged with the ene- 
my’s light troops; but a more confiderable 
affair took place, under the orders of Count 
Sowenbjelm, adjutant general, and of Colonel 
Gripenberg, chief of brigade, in which his 
Majefty’s troops, with the utmoft gallantry, 
withftood the a:tack of the enemy far fupe- 
rior in number, and covered the retreat of the 
reft of the army, which carried away all the 
magazines formed in Brorneborg. Count 
Cronftedt, chief of brigade, reported from 
Re 
Knopio, Alipitka, and Idenfalon, under date 
of the 13th, 16th, and 18th, of March, that 
with the troops under his commasd he is con- 
tinuing his march, in good order, to Ulenberg, 
purfuant to his inftru€tions. He had fome 
fevere engagements with the enemy on the 
1ith near Lippawirta, and on the 15th near 
Knopio; during which on both fides a can- 
nonade was kept up for fome time, without 
the Ruffian troops having been able, notwith- 
ftanding their great fuperiority in number, to 
make any fuccefsful attack on his Majefty’s 
troops; they were, on the contrary, coatinu< 
ally repulfed. c ; 
SPAIN. g 
MAvrip, Marcu 19.—During the laf 
four days, events have occurred. which have 
fhaken thethrone, For fix months paft, the 
public mind has been greatly agitated: fome 
accufed the Prince of Peace of having 
concerted with the Queen to deRroy the 
Prince 
