our contemporaries, who, either from obstinacy or incredulity, die in this great metropolis, or indeed in this kingdom, when they may prevent or cure, at a trifling expense, not only all distempers, but even old age and death itself! The renovating elixir infallibly restores pristine youth and vigour, be the patient ever so old and decayed; and that without loss of time or business: whereas the same operation among the ancients was both tedious and painful, as it required a thorough boiling of the patient.

The most inflammatory and intrepid fevers fly at the first discharge of Dr. James's powder; and a drop or pill of the celebrated Mr. Ward corrects all the malignity of Pandora's box.

Ought not every man of great birth and estate, who for many years has been afflicted with the posteromania, or rage of having posterity, a distemper very common among persons of that sort; ought he not, I say, to be ashamed of having no issue male to perpetuate his illustrious name and title, when for so small a sum as three-and-sixpence he and his lady might be supplied with a sufficient quantity of the vivifying drops, which infallibly cure imbecility in men, and barrenness in women, though of never so long standing?

Another very great discovery of the moderns in the art of healing is, the infallible cure of the king's evil, though never so inveterate, by only the touch of a lawful king, the right heir of Adam: for that is essentially necessary. The ancients were unacquainted with this inestimable secret: and even Solomon the son of David, the wisest of kings, knew nothing of the matter. But our British Solomon, King James the First, a son of a David also, was no stranger to it, and practised it with success.

This fact is sufficiently proved by experience; but if it wanted any corroborating testimony, we have

that of the ingenious Mr. Carte, who, in his incomparable History of England, asserts (and that in a marginal note too, which is always more material than the text) that he knew somebody, who was radically cured of a most obstinate king's evil, by the touch of somebody. As our sagacious historian does not even intimate that this somebody took any thing of the other somebody for the cure, it were to be wished that he had named this somebody, and his place of abode, for the benefit of the poor, who are now reduced, and at some expense, to have recourse to Mr. Vickers the clergyman. Besides, I fairly confess myself to be personally interested in this inquiry, since this somebody must necessarily be the right heir of Adam, and consequently I must have the honour of being related to him.

Our laborious neighbours and kinsmen, the Germans, are not without their inventions and happy discoveries in the art of medicine; for they laugh at a wound through the heart, if they can but apply their powder of sympathy-not to the wound itself, but to the sword or bullet that made it.

Having now (at least in my own opinion) fully proved the superiority of the moderns over the ancients in the art of healing, I shall proceed to some other particulars, in which my contemporaries will as justly claim, and I hope be allowed the preference.

The ingenious Mr. Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses, very justly observes, that hieroglyphics were the beginning of letters; but at the same time he candidly allows that it was a very troublesome and uncertain method of communicating one's ideas; as it depended in a great measure on the writer's skill in drawing (an art little known in those days); and as a stroke too much or too little, too high or too low, might be of the most dangerous consequence, in religion, business, or love. Cadmus

removed this difficulty by his invention of unequivocal letters; but then he removed it too much; for those letters or marks being the same throughout and fixed alphabetically, soon became generally known, and prevented that secrecy which in many cases was to be wished for. This inconveniency suggested to the ancients the invention of cryptography and steganography, or a mysterious and unintelligible way of writing, by the help of which none but the corresponding parties who had the key could decypher the matter. But human industry soon refined upon this too; the art of decyphering was discovered, and the skill of the decypherer baffled all the labour of the cypherer. The secrecy of all literary correspondence became precarious, and neither business nor love could any longer be safely trusted to paper. Such for a considerable time was the unhappy state of letters, till the beau monde, an inventive race of people, found out a new kind of cryptography, or steganography, unknown to the ancients, and free from some of their inconveniencies. Lovers in general made use of it; controversial writers commonly; and ministers of state sometimes, in the most important despatches. It was writing in such an unintelligible manner, and with such obscurity, that the corresponding parties themselves neither understood, nor even guessed at each other's meaning; which was a most effectual security against all the accidents to which letters are liable by being either mislaid or intercepted. But this method too, though long pursued, was also attended with some inconveniencies. It frequently produced mistakes, by scattering false lights upon that friendly darkness, so propitious to business and love. But our inventive neighbours, the French, have very lately removed all these inconveniencies, by the happy discovery of a new kind of paper, as pleasing to the

eye, and as conducive to the despatch, the clearness, and at the same time the secrecy of all literary correspondence. My worthy friend Mr. Dodsley lately brought me a sample of it, upon which, if I mistake not, he will make very considerable improvements, as my countrymen often do upon the inventions of other nations. This sheet of paper I conjectured to be the ground-work and principal material of a tender and passionate letter from a fine gentleman to a fine lady; though in truth it might very well be the whole letter itself. At the top of the first page was delineated a lady with very red cheeks, and a very large hoop, in the fashionable attitude of knotting, and of making a very genteel French courtesy. This evidently appears to stand for madam, and saves the time and trouble of writing it. At the bottom of the third page was painted a very fine well-drest gentleman, with his hat under his left arm, and his right hand upon his heart, bowing most respectfully low; which single figure, by an admirable piece of brachygraphy or short-hand, plainly conveys this deep sense, and stands instead of these many words, I have the honour to be, with the tenderest and warmest sentiments, madam, your most inviolably attached, faithful humble servant. The margin of the paper, which was about half an inch broad, was very properly decorated with all the emblems of triumphant beauty, and tender suffering passion. Groups of lilies, roses, pearls, corals, suns, and stars, were intermixed with chains, bearded shafts, and bleeding hearts. Such a sheet of paper, I confess, seems to me to be a complete letter; and I would advise all fine gentlemen, whose time I know is precious, to avail themselves of this admirable invention: it will save them a great deal of time, and perhaps some thought; and I cannot help thinking, that were

they even to take the trouble of filling up the paper with the tenderest sentiments of their hearts, or the most shining flights of their fancy, they would add no energy or delicacy to those types and symbols of the lady's conquests, and their own captivity and sufferings.

These blank letters (if I may call them so, when they convey so much) will mock the jealous curiosity of husbands and fathers, who will in vain hold them to the fire to elicit the supposed juice of lemon, and upon whom they may afterwards pass for a piece of innocent pleasantry.

The dullest of my readers must, I am sure, by this time be aware, that the utility of this invention extends, mutatis mutandis, to whatever can be the subject of letters, and with much less trouble, and much more secrecy, propriety, and elegancy, than the old way of writing.

A painter of but moderate skill and fancy may in a very short time have reams of ready-painted paper by him to supply the demands of the statesman, the divine, and the lover. And I think it my duty to inform the public, that my good friend Mr. Dodsley, who has long complained of the decay of trade, and who loves, with a prudent regard to his own interest, to encourage every useful invention, is at this time learning to paint with most unwearied diligence and application; and I make no doubt but that in a very little time he will be able to furnish all sorts of persons with the very best ready-made goods of that kind. I warned him indeed against providing any for the two learned professions of the law and physic, which I apprehend would lie upon his hands. One of them being already in possession (to speak in their own style) of a more brachygraphical, cryptographical, and steganographical secret, in writing their warrants;