"realzes the hell that priests and beldams feign." Every man forms as it were his god from his own character; to the divinity of one of simple habits, no offering would be more acceptable than the happiness of his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or persecuting others for the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system of simple diet to be a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and, in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with the sauce of appetite will scarcely join with the hypocritical sensualist at a lord-mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures of the table. Solomon kept a thousand concubines, and owned in despair that all was vanity. The man whose happiness is constituted by the society of one amiable woman, would find some difficulty in sympathizing with the disappointment of this venerable debauchee.

I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of wideextended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contemplation full of horror and disappointment to his mind, that beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies, should take delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a variety of painful

maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change, produced without the risk of poisonous medicines. The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to her children, are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual healths and natural playfulness.*

The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases, that it is dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of death, his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?

̓Αλλὰ δράκοντας ἀγρίους καλεῖτε καὶ παρδάλεις καὶ λέοντας, αὐτοὶ δὲ μιαιφονεῖτε εἰς ὠμότητα καταλιπόντες ἐκείνοις οὐδέν. Εκείνοις μὲν γὰρ ὁ φόνος τροφὴ, ὑμῖν δ' ὄψον ἐστίν.

Οτι γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀνθρώπῳ κατὰ φύσιν τὸ σαρκοφαγεῖν, πρῶτον μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων δηλοῦται τῆς κατασκευῆς. Οὐδενὶ γὰρ ἔοικε τὸ ἀνθρώπου σῶμα τῶν ἐπὶ σαρκοφαγίᾳ γεγονότων, οὐ γρυπότης χείλους, οὐκ ὀξύτης ὄνυχος, οὐ τραχύτης ὀδόντων πρόσεστιν, οὐ κοιλίας εὐτονία καὶ πνεύματος θερμότης, τρέψαι καὶ κατεργάσασθαι δυνατὴ τό βαρὺ καὶ κρεῶδες. ̓Αλλ ̓ αὐτόθεν ἡ φύσις τῇ λειότητι τῶν ὀδόντων, καὶ τῇ σμικρότητι τοῦ στόματος, καὶ τῇ μαλακότητι

* See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most gentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment which they experience in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various diseases; and how many more of those that survive are not rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and quantity of a woman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. In an island, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the children invariably die of tetanus, before they are three weeks old, and the population is supplied from the main land.—Sir G. Mackenzies Hist. of Iceland. See also Emile, chap, i. pp. 53, 54, 56,

τῆς γλώσσης, καὶ τῇ πρὸς πέψιν ἀμβλύτητι τοῦ πνεύματος, ἐξόμνυται τὴν σαρκοφαγίαν. Εἰ δὲ λέγεις, πεφυκέναι σεαυτὸν ἐπὶ τοιαύτην ἐδωδὴν, ὅ βούλει φαγεῖν, πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἀπόκτεινον· ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς, διὰ σεαυτοῦ, μὴ χρησάμενος κοπίδι, μηδὲ τυμπάνῳ τινὶ μηδὲ πελέκει· ἀλλὰ, ὡς λύκοι καὶ ἄρκτοι, καὶ λεόντες αὐτόι ὡς ἐσθίουσι φονευούσιν, ἄνελε δήγματι βοῦν, ἤ σώματι σῦν, ἤ ἄρνα ἤ λαγώον διάῤῥηξον, καὶ φάγε προσπεσῶν ἔτι ζῶντος ὡς ἐκεῖνα,

Ἡμεῖς δὲ οὕτως ἐν τῷ μιαιφόνῳ τρυφῶμεν, ὥστε ὄψον τὸ κρέας προσαγορεύομεν εἶτα ὄψων προς αυτὸ τὸ κρέας δίομεθα, ἀναμιγνύν τες ἔλαιον, οἶνον, μέλι, γάρον, ὄξος, ἡδύσμασι Συριακοῖς, ̓Αῤῥαβικοῖς, ὥσπερ ὄντως νεκρὸν ἐνταφιάζοντες. Καὶ γὰρ ὅτως αὐτων διαλυθέντων καὶ μαλαχθέντων καὶ τρόπον τίνα κρεοσαπέντων ἔργον ἐστὶ τὴν πέψιν κρατῆσαι· καὶ διακρατεθείσης δὲ δεινὰς Βαρύτητας καὶ μοσώδεις ἀπεψίας.

Οὕτω τὸ πρῶτον ἄγριον τι ζῶον ἐβρώθη καὶ κακοῦργον, εἶτα ὄρνις τις ἢ ἰχθύς εἰλκυστο· καὶ γεύομενον οὕτω καὶ προμελετῆσαν ἐν ἐκείνοις τὸ νικοῦν, ἐπι βοῦν ἐργάτην ῆλθε, καὶ τὸ κοσμουν πρόβατον, καὶ τὸν οἰκουρον ἀλεκτρύονα· καὶ κατα μικρὸν οὕτω τὴν ἀπληστιάν τονώσαντες, ἐπι σφαγὰς ἀνθρώπων, καὶ φόνους καὶ πολέμους προῆλθον.*

Πλουτ. περὶ τῆς σαρκοφαγίας.

[The substance of this note, with some additions, appeared shortly afterwards in a pamphlet form under the title of A Vindication of Natural Diet, being one of a series of Notes to Queen Mab, a Philosophical Poem, pp. 43. On the title is a motto from Hesiod's Works and Days. The additions made in this pamphlet are curious and worth preservation. Thus, after speaking of "Mr. Newton's luminous and eloquent essay" (vide anteà, p. 353), Shelley goes on to say :—

"It is from that book, and from the conversation of its

excellent and enlightened author, that I have derived the materials which I here present to the public."

The pamphlet omits the Greek quotation from Plutarch, and concludes thus :

"The proselyte to a simple and natural diet who desires health, must from the moment of his conversion attend to these rules :

NEVER TAKE ANY SUBSTANCE INTO THE STOMACH THAT ONCE HAD LIFE.

DRINK NO LIQUID BUT WATER RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL PURITY BY DISTILLATION.

APPENDIX.

Persons on vegetable diet have been remarkable for longevity. The first Christians practised abstinence from animal flesh, on a principle of self-mortification.

Aurungzebe, from the time of his usurpation, adhered strictly to the vegetable system.

Mr. Newton's mode of reasoning on longevity is ingenious and conclusive.

"Old Parr, healthy as the wild animals, attained to the age of 152 years.

"All men might be as healthy as the wild animals. "Therefore all men might attain to the age of 152 years." (Return to Nature.)

The conclusion is sufficiently modest. Old Parr cannot be supposed to have escaped the inheritance of disease amassed by the unnatural habits of his ancestors. The term of human life may be expected to be infinitely greater, taking into the consideration all the circumstances that must have contributed to abridge even that of Parr.

It may be here remarked, that the author and his wife have lived on vegetables for eight months. The improvements of health and temper here stated is the result of his own experience.

QUEEN MAB AND ITS AUTHOR.

To the Editor of THE EXAMINER.

SIR,-Having heard that a poem, entitled Queen Mab, has been surreptitiously published in London, and that legal proceedings have been instituted against the publisher, I request the favour of your insertion of the following explanation of the affair as it relates to me.

"A poem, entitled Queen Mab, was written by me at the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate