36

Legends of Lampidosa.-The Belgian.

[VOL. 2

grey redingote of his midnight disturber, to reveal his true purpose." It is

strange," she said, trembling," that I see no lanthorn's light, and no one here to meet me !"-Her escort was silent till they reached the square court-yard of the farm, sheltered, according to Belgian fashion, on three sides by the mansion and its wings. All was desolately dark, and the defenceless mistress, gathering courage from her danger, said, in a frank tone, "Let us enter--though my ervant is heedless, and probably absent, I shall find enough to furnish a supper for my protector." "Dare you trust me, then!" returned Von Grumboldt, in a tone which betrayed strong emotion.

1

You have not wronged yourselfbut this is no place for you--here is but one concealment among the hollow elms round the dove-cot."- You are no stranger here!" she exclaimed, firmly. "Trust me only a little longer," he answered- but wait for my signal." -The courageous woman took her station in the hollow elm to which he pointed, and his gentle knock at the farm door was answered from the window by a ruffian-voice--" Why so late, Caspar ? It will be day before we find her hoards."

while she quietly considered his singular aspect. Very little of his face was visible, except the contemptuous curl of his under lip, and the prominence of that feature which is said to express disdain. A broad hat, enormous boots, and a coarse wide wrapping coat, deprived his figure of all symmetry or character, except that of a busy and important burgomaster. As the daylight increased, M. Von Grumboldt discovered indications of curiosity, shrewishness, and other feminine virtues, in the thin lips and wrinkled forehead of his meagre companion, especially when she ventured an inquiry respecting the next inn. A cup of coffee at Quatre-Bras, since so celebrated in military annals, removed a few furrows from his brow, and enabled him to perceive that it was prepared by a fair and well-shaped hand, decorated with a ring of some value. But he chose to sleep, till suddenly seeing the place of his destination, he alighted from the diligence with no other ceremony than an abrupt and scowling farewell. His humble fellow-traveller continued her journey a few hours longer, and when the carriage stopped at the end of a lonely lane, among the cornfields which surrounded her residence, she entered it on foot, without any attendant. Though the night was far advanced, no one seemed to have awaited her coming, and the Brussels diligence was soon far out of sight. Lighted by a full harvestmoon, she was selecting her steps with Flemish neatness and nonchalance along the solitary avenue, when a man's shadow crossed her path. She looked up calmly, though not without a sense of danger, and saw the traveller who had called himself Von Grumboldt. His lingering pace and muffled figure might have justified suspicion, but she only myself."-The modest Flemish farmersaid, "We are still travellers, it seems, ess looked at her preserver with a reon the same road."-" Do you walk spectful silence more affecting than alone, and at this hour, to the White words, and taking the diamond ring Farm?" returned Von Grumboldt, in a from her finger, offered it to his—“ I low voice-"Take my arm, then--we have not forgotten your invitation," said may be useful to each other."-Hesita- the Colonel, resuming his blunt austerity tion would have been danger, and she yielded to the offer without shrinking, though the pressure of her arm against a concealed pistol, and the motion of sabre as she walked by his side, seemed

a

-Von Grumboldt's reply was a shrill whistle, and six men concealed among the elms rushed through the unbarred door into the farm-house, while their guide seized the ruffian admitted by a treacherous servant. He and his accomplice were soon in irons, while the armed stranger returned to seek the mistress of the mansion he had preserved from plunder." These are my soldiers, madam," said he, in a gentler tone; "and you will not refuse their colonel permission to be your guest. I heard the business of this night planned by the felons who designed to execute it; therefore I chose to assist in its defeat

while he brushed a sudden moisture from his eyes--" you will find a voracious guest at your supper-table."Without blushing at the bumility of the task our heroine arranged the ample con

VOL. 2.]

66

Legends of Lampidosa.--The Belgian.

87

tents of her store-room on her best table, Grumboldt forced a painful laugh, and and provided an abundant sideboard desired to know the remedy.—“ Old for her new visitor's attendants. A Finius of Antwerp," said she, closing the chamber, whose neat furniture had chief- volume from which she had seemed to ly proceeded from her own distaff, was quote, "would have prescribed 600 allotted to the Colonel, who would not herbs, the bone found in a stag's heart, have chosen to confess, even on the a ring made from a wolf's hoof-or perrack, how many tender and deep regrets haps a cup of wine: but my father haunted his pillow. Almost at day- taught me another remedy, which I break he rose, and found his hostess bu keep among my hoards-those which sied in her simple domestic avocations. the robbers could not find."-Her guest, -"I do not ask you," said she, "to silenced by confused and sudden feeladmire my garden-vines, or the beauti- ings, followed into the next apartment, ful slope of this valley, for they appear where, supported by pillows in an easy to be remembered."- Perhaps," re- chair, sat an aged man, whose pale grey plied her guest, they resemble --or eye and fixed features shewed the quiet remind me of scenes long since past- imbecility of second childhood. But and who can remember the past without the deep seams in his forehead, the knotregret? But though you have the good- ted muscles about his lip, and the strong ness to ask nothing, I am come to claim contraction of his dark eye-brows, also a reward."—The farmeress raised her indicated what malignant passions had eyes from the spiced bowl she was pre- once been busy there. A boy and two paring for the first repast, and consider- infant girls were busied in wreathing his ed the speaker's countenance. If the footstool with the forget-me-not, and lower part contained those strong lines other beautiful wild-flowers, so abunand curves which students suppose to dant in the fields near Waterloo.indicate the darker passions, his clear "This unfortunate man," said Von eye and ample forehead would have Grumboldt's conductress," was temptimpressed the most unlearned observer ed by anxious fondness for his children with an idea of vigorous intellects and a to confuse his sister's fortune with his rapid spirit. While she paused, the Belgian officer was equally attentive to her looks, but his glance was an inquisition and his smile a satire; for he secretly derided the vain coquetry which he thought expressed in her hesitation. And with more coldness than respect, he added, "The premium I ask for a trifling and accidental service, is to remain a few days or weeks in this house -It suits my military duties, my love good."-The colonel shuddered as he of rural manners, and my health, which replied. "Is this human ruin an enliva terrible disorder has laid waste."-His ening spectacle? And those orphans, entertainer answered, with a kinder smile, whose dependence is the school of craft, "My father was a physician educated in envy, and avarice !—is not their fate a Antwerp; he bequeathed me a book motive rather than a medicine for melanwhich contains the symptoms and reme- choly ?"-" It might be," answered the dies best ascertained; and I think your matron, "if I held myself responsible illness has a well-known name.”—The for events, but I am satisfied with good Colonel, scowling contemptuously, bade intentions, and leave their success to his doctress proceed." It is the mala- another arbiter. Though this human dy of poets, philosophers, statesmen, and vegetable is not conscious of my prekings-the symptoms are a leaden col- sence, and never soothed by any caresour, a hollow eye, a sour smile, and a ses-though those children may be un. venomous wit-It is called wisdom, but quiet, sordid, or deceitful, it is pleasure its true name is melancholy."-Strack enough to love and deserve to be loved by the boldness of this speech, Von by them."" Ah madanı !" said her

own, which vanished away as if the embezzled part had been a brand that consumed the whole. Those who aided him to rob her are gone, and no one remembers him. When I feel the beginning of that distrustful, envious, peevish, and timorous spirit which the world calls melancholy, I look at this forlorn old man and those orphan children; and their gratitude makes my heart

88

abstain from borrowed wealth, and to redeem his father's honour by retiring himself into poverty, though with such a bitter feeling of its disadvantages."

Quack Medicines, "Balm of Gilead," "Pectoral Balsam," &c.&c. [vol.2 guest, uncovering his head with an emo- ment?"-"It is not necessary, perhaps," tion of respect he had not felt before, she replied, "but he is my brother, and "you have said truly that gratitude was my enemy! I must pity and relieve makes the heart good, but ungrateful his wretchedness, unless I endure the men have corrupted mine. The horri- misery of hating him, which would be ble weariness of life, the death of spirit greater even than his. And the evil he which comes upon me every day, has no caused me ceased when I forgot it."remedy. I have learned to hope, to Von Grumboldt started, and examined esteem, and to cherish nothing--but I her with wild and eager eyes, while she remember every thing—and this terrible added, "This is my cure for melanchoremembrance, this cruel experience of ly:-I cannot give you the Antwerp false and hollow hearts, convinces me physician's talisman, but the ring you that even your bounty is a melancholy received from me last night may have illusión. It will make one ungrateful equal virtue. It is the only legacy I and two discontented-it will leave you designed for a nephew noble enough to in a desolate old-age with no employment but to hate and regret."-" My good friend, I have not yet told you my father's most precious prescription. Many, perhaps, equalled him in science, a Neither the natural sang-froid of a few in eloquence-but what a divine Belgian, nor the acquired sternness of a world would this be if all resembled him veteran, could repress the soldier's tears, in gentleness!-His only maxim was, when he recognized his father's sister, "Forget evil"—and there is in these so long lost and so deeply injured. This two words a talisman which assuages interview, this opportunity to offer an the heart, lightens the head, and com- ample restitution of all that her brother poses all enmities. Was your frightful had accumulated unjustly, completed his languor and despair present while you only wish and most sacred purpose, rescued me from robbery and assassina- which had been baffled many years by tion ?"-" No-because we cannot re- the humble seclusion she had chosen member injuries while we are conferring from generous motives. Thus having benefits :-but benefits are forgotten!" retrieved his father's name from blemish, "Ah! now you shew me the gan- he appeared again in Brussels among grene of the wound-you have been his former friends, who readily paid to misunderstood and insulted. Well, the successful and distinguished Colonel take courage I have been charged Von G the homage they had refuswith improvidence in my youth, because ed to Herman Altenberg in his supposed it was easier to trust than to suspect; indigence. But he had learned its true and now I am called a miser by those value, and preferred the white farm who cannot know for whom I am amas- where his benevolent aunt resided in the sing a future competence."-"You loveliness of charity and peace. She seem poor, then, only to enrich others!" bequeathed him all that his filial integrisaid the discontented man, sighing- ty had restored to her, but he divided it "but is it necessary to suffer this rustic among her less fortunate relatives, reand laborious servitude, with the igno- serving only the ring, which, by recalling miny of imputed avarice, for the benefit the beauty of patience and forgiveness of alien children and an insensible man, to bis recollection, became his talisman whose wretchedness is his due punish- against melancholy.

QUACK MEDICINES, PECTORAL BALSAMS, COUGH DROPS, AND LOTIONS.

SIR,

WH

From the Monthly Magazine.

cines, especially when administered to WHEN we consider the fatal effects children, whose tender frames are ill-calconsequent to the exhibition of culated to withstand their operationsome of the more powerful quack-medi- common humanity inculcates the neces

VOL. 2.] Deleterious Effects of Opium, &c. administered by Quacks.

..........................“ his languid frame,

89

Vapid and sunk from yesterday's debauch,”

sity of pointing out their history, in a literati of the present day can never sit
faithful and unprejudiced manner; we down to his studies till the invigorating
are well aware, however, that any obser- effects of the opiate, to which he regular-
vation we can make will have but little ly accustoms himself, are exerted over the
weight with the greatest part of those whole system. The same observation
who make use of them; but there are holds with regard to the tippler-in the
many sensible and respectable people morning after rising he finds his
who, from an ignorance of the conse-
quences, or through the advice of impor-
tunate and ignorant persons, suffer them-
selves, from an ill-judged credulity, when his mental faculties unhinged, and his
they see their friends suffer under any hand so unsteady, that, to perform any
distressing malady, to be led to the use operation requiring nicety and firmness is
of reputed remedies-the influence of utterly impossible; but the impediments
which, for the while, perhaps, lulls the
patient; and their use, on this account,
is persisted in, till at last a habit is in-
duced which can never afterwards be
shaken off.

are removed when he has entered upon his accustomed round of intemperance. It may be said that this has nothing to do with the subject of quackery—but the habit is evidently continued from this principle; the feeling of depression, after the effects are over, being considered as disease, and a fresh potion required to take off the very symptoms of which it had been previously the occasion.

In the case of Laudanum, Balm of
Gilead, Godfrey's Cordial, &c. we have
seen many instances of their daily em-
ployment producing such a necessity for
repeated stimuli to the stomach, that
larger and larger doses have been re- Of all quack-medicines, those which
quired to produce the same effect; or the contain opium are attended with the
victim of inconsiderate indulgence has, worst consequences; we do not wish to
through advice, or his own opinion, that be understood, that a small quantity of
a longer continuance would be injurious, the "pectoral balsams," "cough-drops,"
laid them aside. The uneasiness, indi- &c. when only given occasionally, in ca-
gestion, &c. produced by the want of the tarrhal affections, can produce any bad
accustomed stimulus, have, however, effects; but it is their continued employ-
been so distressing, and the determina- ment, in cases which absolutely do not
tion to leave off the other so fixed, that a require it, that ought to be reprobated.
small quantity of any spirituous liquor In instances of depression of spirits, we
has been made use of to remove the un- might as well have recourse to the bran-
easy sensations--which effect it produ- dy, as the laudanum, bottle-both being
ces; and, upon a recurrence of the same followed by the same results in the long
symptoms, is again and again repeated, run. It may be said that opium cannot
till an habitual dram-drinking is induced, be so injurious, as we see the Turks, and
with all its distressing sequela. It may magy of the orientals, in the daily habit
be said that those circumstances are but of chewing large quantities of it; we
of rare occurrence; but that is not the grant that, in the adult frame, its effects
case-those who have suffered pernicious may not be so immediately percepuble,
habits to spring forth in this manner are but Time," whose ample sweep strikes
never disposed to allow it; but it is a empires from the root," sufficiently dis-
fact too glaring to be contradicted, and covers them.

cannot be reprobated in too severe terms...................." Life rolls apace,
From using the laudanum as a medicine, And that incurable disease, old age,
and occasionally to remove ennui, the In youthful bodies more severely felt,

e'er

female of rank tinds every day fresh oc- More sternly active,shakes their blasted prime;
casion for it,and a larger and larger quan- Except kind Nature, by some hasty blow,
tity is required, till at length she feels it Prevent the ling'ring fates. For know, what-
impossible to subsist without it, and is Beyond its natural fervour hurries on
never in spirits till her accustomed pota- The sanguine tide--whether the frequent bowl,
tion has been taken. One of the first High-season'd fare, or exercise to toil
N ATHENEUM. Vol. 2.

90

Danger of Quack Medicines.

Protracted---spurs to its last stage tir'd life,
And sows the temples with untimely snow."

(VOL. 2

what he considered evident fatal effects from opium; they both occurred in chilThe evils however, which result to the dren under the age of three months, and adult age from the use of empirical rem- they were both the children of poor pa edies, are not nearly so numerous as rents. In the first, on account of a diarthose which we see daily happen to chil- rhoa, which had reduced the little sufferdren: nurses are too apt, whenever the er to a state of great emaciation, about child exhibits the least restlessness, to one-third of a grain of opium had been run immediately to the syrup of poppies, imprudently given; in the course of half Godfrey's Cordial, &c. till it is never at an hour afterwards it was seized with rest except when under their influence; drowsiness, attended at first with convuland it is easy to see, in the tender consti- sions; but these soon went off, and left tutions of infants, what must be the issue it in a state of complete insensibility-of such a practice. the pupils dilated, and the breathing very laborious in this state it continued for five hours, at the end of which time the writer saw it; but the vital powers were so far exhausted, that no probability of its deavours were made to produce evacuasurviving many minutes appeared; ention by the proper means, but without success; the child died about half an hour after we first saw it. In the second case (which happened so lately as the last week,) the mother, on account of restlessness, which she ascribed to gripes, had been in the habit of administering, the infant, however, still continued reston these occasions, Dalby's Carminative; less, when recourse was had to the syrup

"The vigour sinks, the habit melts away, The cheerful, pure, and animated bloom Dies from the face, with squalid atrophy Devour'd, in sallow melancholy clad." Dr. Clarke, of Nottingham, is of opinion that one-fourth of the deaths, during the period of infancy, which occur in that town, is to be attributed to the abuse of opium: this certainly seems a great proportion, but it is sufficient to shew that the abuse is very extensive. He observes," very few are sensible to what an extent this practice prevails in large manufacturing towns; the druggist's shop is the grand emporium for this deadly poison, nearly half his time is em- of poppies. On the morning in which ployed in forming or dispensing its com- the child was taken violently ill, a teapounds: the quantity sold to the poorer spoonful of this last medicine had been class is far beyond the conjecture of those who have not made it an object of enquiry :—from a rough estimate, which the reporter has procured from the venders of these articles, in this town (Nottingham), he is enabled to affirm, that upwards of 200lbs. of opium. and above 600 pints of Godfrey's Cordial, are retailed to the poorer class in the year.* It would be difficult to form an estimate of the quantity sold in this metropolis; but it evidently must be immense. What must be the affection of a mother, who can, for the sake of a few moments' ease

to herself, ruin the health of her offspring; and, if not carry it off in its infancy, lay the foundation of innumerable diseases in more advanced life?

It has been the lot of the writer of this article to meet lately with two cases of

Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iv.---N.B. Each ounce of Godfrey's Cordial, besides the oleaginous and spirituous por

tions, contains 14 grain of opium.

given with two or three tea-spoonfuls of afterwards the same train of symptoms Dalby's Carminative; about half an hour followed as in the last case, and, from some unaccountable neglect, no advice was sought after till too late; as the child died, notwithstanding every attention. It may perhaps be observed that these symptoms might have arisen, whether tainly, as far as circumstantial evidence opium had been given or not; but cer can go, we may confidently ascribe them to that poison, as, in both, the same period after its exhibition. We do not symptoms took place, and about the same mean to say, that a small quantity of the syrup of poppies will be always attended with these distressing effects; but even if there be but a probability that they may occur, surely it becomes a matter of the highest importance never to allow them to be given, except in cases of absolute necessity, and where their utility is