fe higher in offence, we afcend rough the various degrees of fracires fimple and compound up to e trepan, or lithotomy. Methinks I hear the recorder affing fentence at the conclufion, f an Old Bailey feffions in this nanner : "You John Glim, have been uilty of houfe-breaking; it only emains for me that I pronounce the entence of the law, which is, that ou be taken from hence to furgeons all, in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, in the ity of Westminster, and county of Middlesex, and there be cut for a iftula." You, Thomas Vagrant, have been found guilty of ftealing privately. The fentence of the law is that your right hand fhould be cut off; but the court, in confideration of your having a numerous family, whom you maintain by your profeffion as a ballad-finger, hath been pleafed to remit that part of your fentence, and orders that you be qualified for the opera houfe. This, fir, would alter the face of things in Newgate; inftead of rioting, drinking, and fwearing, which are too much to be heard in all our jails, we fhould hear nothing but groans, and fcreams, and the direful operation of bolufes and juleps. The Newgate Calendar then would be a lift of cafes of furgery; and the keeper, if he found a prifoner refractory, might eafily procure fuch advice from the firft furgeon in the neighbourhood, as would effectually prevent his running away. Upon highwaymen, footpads, and all fuch blood-thirfty fellows, I would have the various kinds of ftyptics tried; experiments might allo be made with gun-fhot wounds, a fpecies of retaliation which would admirably ferve the purposes of fcience and juftice. As to crimes. committed in a state of intoxica-. tion; for the leffer fpecies, a course of quack medicines might probably be fevere enough; but for the more atrocious, it would be abfolutely neceffary to punish by tapping. Not that I mean that the fentence of the judge fhould be definitive. Alleviating circumstances ought still to appeal to the fountain of mercy, and in cafes where the jury strongly recommended to mercy, his ma-, jefty would no doubt remit the trocar or the bifoury, as might feem fit. Very heinous offences committed by females, might be punished by operations incident to the fex, fuch as experiments on the nervous fyftem,on the tongue,&c. or perhaps the cæfarian operation might be ordered in lieu of hanging; and if we may belive fome profeffional men who have lately tried that operation it would not amount to much more than a respite for a week! As to petty offences, bleeding and tooth-drawing would in general be fufficient, and perhaps as good for the morals as beating hemp and blafpheming; or the apothecaries might be permitted to try the effect of fome new-invented medicine. I fancy I fall fome day or other read in the new paper a paragraph like the following. "Yesterday three men and a woman were brought before the lord mayor, for getting drunk and making a riot in a public-houfe at unfeasonable hours; but, on their making a handfome apology for their conduct, and promiling to behave better in future, his lordflip was pleafed to order that each fhould take a box of Doctor Ff4 Humbug's Humbug's Carthatic pills, and be dicharged." In this plan, humbly prefame, it is very obvious that various perfons would be gratified. Men offcience would be undoubtedly pleafed with fo extenfive a range of experimental practice; and I traft there is enough in the fcheme to fatisfy thofe who think that our punithments are in general too lenient. Executioners and jailots may be bribed, and there are various ways of foftening punifinnents ordered by the law; but the gentleman to be employed upon my plan would have too much intereft in its fuccefs to he fwayed by any confiderations of another kind, or to be prevailed upon to lay down the knife or the lancet before law and juftice had been fully fatisfied. Befides, fhould a greater degree of leverity be contended for in the cafe of certain erimes, than an expert operator might inflict, we have bungling furgeons and blundering apothe caries enough, whofe handy work and preferiptions would amount to the fall rigour of the law; or the numerous tribe of advertising docfors might be employed, and I hope none will fay that the punishment in that cafe would not be perfectly adequate to the crime. thrown out of the house of com?mon's. I am forry for it. I think I could have recommended, in my plan, a triffing operation or two, which would have effectually prevented the increafe of divorces. Sublata caufa, tollitur effectus. June 13, 1800. Inquiry into the Origin of the Nerves: from the fame. Sir, S you are frequently confulted by your correspondents refpecting points of antiquary learning, fuch as the origin of names, cuftoms, proverbs &c. I have taken the liberty to fend you this fhort requifition on a fubject which has fong perplexed many of my friends as well as your humble fervant, and which yet we talk about as glibly and freely as if we understood it. I have, indeed, often remarked that certain people will talk to long about certain things without knowing the meaning of what they fay, that, when the inquiry comes, it is found extremely difficult to find any meaning at all But to proceed: It is probably well known to you that of late years all bodily and many mental complaints have been termed nervous, and that most indifpofitions, from the most serious of the bed-ridden clafs, down to the common tea-table dont-know-howigh Having fuggefted thefe hints, Mr. Editor, I leave them and the whole fcheme to the confideration of your readers; I trust they will weigh it with impartiality, and, have been refolved into cerdetermine whether it is or is not entitled to a preference over the prefent fyftem. I am, fir, your moft obedient, P. S. I have this moment read that the divorce bill has been tain operations of the nerves. Now, fir, what I want to know is the origin of thefe nerves. Where did they firft appear? Are they indigenous, or were they imported? Are they aborigines or ftrangers? If indigenous, when were they firft visible? Are they innate ideas, or fupe perinduced by reading and edit tion? Who was the firt man that ad nerves? Who first convinced is fellow-creatures that they had erves? If imported, from what ountry did they come, and in what hape? Were they fmagled over, r came they in the fair way of rade? If in the way of barter, what did we give in exchange? I ipprehend it mult have been mufcles and bones, but of that I have no direct proof, and therefore mention it with fubmiffion. My information is extremely feanty, and I do not wish to build theories any more than I would build honfes without materials. A very worthy friend of mine has infpected the cuftom-houfe enfries for the laft fifty years (a period longer than nerves have been known), but cannot find them mentioned, and this, in lack of other proof, would induce me to fuppofe that they have been conveyed as fome people think the plague is ufually conveyed, in bales of goods; and afterwards became epidemic. It has likewife, and fomewhat in corroboration of this, been fuggefted to me, that they came from China in chefts of tea; but as a commodity can only come from the place where it is, and never from a place where it is not, I am doubtful of this fact. Our information relpecting China is fill incomplete. On confulting Du Halde, Grofier, and Sr G. Staunton, I cannot find that nerves are peculiar to China. Sometimes I have been inclined to think that they may have come from France, a country with which we had formerly very clole connec frons in trade: but they are not (pecified in lord Aukland's celebrated commercial treaty, and I question whether the existence of nerves in that quarter can be proved. If the French had nerves, it must have been their intereft of late years to get rid of them. In Holland one cannot look for any thing of the kind; and in Germany, although they are mentioned in thofe wonderful moral plays which we import and mend to the great edification of all Chriftian play-goers, yet i prefume they exift principally upon paper. Such are fome of the calual conjectures which have prefented themfelves to my mind while meditating upon this fubject. I let no ftore by them, I draw no conclufion from them. Valeant quantum valere poffint. I will now proceed to facts, or to firch obfervations as I have drawn from appearances under my own eye. It is certain that they have not been the fubject of converfation in this country until within these few years. I cannot ftate the exact period. That is precifely what I want to learn from your correfpondents. I am not old enough myfelf to be confidered as of fufficient authority; but my mother, in her feventieth year, affures me that there was no fuch thing as nerves in her young days; and my aunt Deborah, a fpinfter in her fixty-feventh year, confirms the fame, although the has lately contrived to procure a fet of nerves for her private ufe, the only confequence of which is that the gives more frequent orders than ufual to an Italian liqueur merchant ita * I most earnestly entreat, Mr. Editor, that you will give exprefs orders to your printer to fpell this word greurs, as I have written it, and in Italics, to diftinguish it from in the neighbourhood, and is fo alarmed about the fteadiness of her hand, that he is perpetually trying whether it will carry to her head. Other perfons in advanced life, indeed all I have confulted, agree that nerves were not known in their juvenile days, and their opinion is that they must have crept in within the last thirty or forty years.. It would, therefore, be a great object for curious perfons to learn the precife time of their appearance, and, if poffible, the inventor's name. I have no doubt that he would, whether dead or alive, be highly honoured for his ingenuity, as it has tended more to the confumption of medicinal and other cordials than all the rest of the contents of Pandora's box. I have no doubt, therefore, that the perfons moft obliged by the difcovery, fuch as the apothecaries and diflillers, would erect a grand ftomachic pil-, lar, with fuitable devices, as delicate fibres, the fenfitive plant, afpen leaves, &c. &c. and, like the Monument, a flaming fire at the top. It is feldom, as hath been well obferved by philofophers, that the firft inventor forefees all the confequences of his invention. This in genious man, for example, whoever he was, did not foresee that a time would come when nerves fhould fupply converfation with the moft charming anecdotes, when every pretty fpeaker fhould not only be extremely nervous, but delight in the enumeration of the many tremors, palpitations, and feelings the was afflicted with. Even the war and the taxes are nothing oppofed to a budget of fpafms, and the most ferious difcuffion of the affairs of Europe hath often been interrupted by a vigorous attack on the pit of the ftomach, or a fudden fomething in the head, which can be seen in the highest perfection through the medium of a glafs! It was this which made a wicked fellow fay of my aunt Deborah, "That old lady's converfation is an odd compofition. It is all religion and cherry-bounce." Thele are matters of obligation which the inventor of nerves may be affured will be gratefully acknowledged, as foon as he avows himfelf, or his relations will make known the place where his hallowed remains are in fweet repose. The benefits he has conferred will be fuitably acknowledged by all who know and value the luxury of complaining, by all who are tired of colds, which are indeed too general to confer any merit, or disturb the harmony of a party, and who have found more liveliness and variety in the family of fpafms. Although, as before obferved, the principal object of this letter is rather to acquire than impart information, I may add, in point of fact, a few other circumftances which have come under my obfervation. I would therefore briefly ftate that nerves, from whatever origin they may have fprung, are principally confined to large and populous cities, and I think more peculiar to Weltminster than to London; not to deny, however, that there are many perfons in the city, who are perfons of property, keep their carriage, and are very ner from liquors, an attachment to which is a thing of a very different defcription. Taking a quantity of liquors is downright drinking; but three or four glaffes of quars, in the courte of a day, is, as I am confidently affured, no fuch thing! vous. Indeed I have obferved that nerves very much follow the scale of property; and I fancy that if I could procure a peep at the books of the commiffioners of income, I could pretty exactly point out those whole ten per cents amount to a decent trepidation. But as these gentlemen are fworn to fecrecy, I must be content without this difplay of the phyfiognomy of income, and perhaps it would, like other phyfognomonical sketches, be rather a fubject of curiofity than utility. In the country there are very few nerves; even in places not more than twenty miles from London, they are fcarcely heard of, except in the newspapers. But in the adjacent villages they are fufficiently plenty. You may trace them on the Hammersmith road, as far as Kew or Richmond. Their tendency is weftward; for, although they are exceedingly common on the Bath road, and at the fouth western villages of Roehampton, Wimbledon, Putney, &c. yet we do not hear much of them about Rotherhithe, Limehoufe, or Stepney. Indeed I do not know of what fervice they could be in the hip-building-line. On Hounflowheath they are occafionally found in perfons who travel after dark. I am told likewife that they are general in affembly-rooms, and that the poffeffion of nerves is a fine qua non in the fubfcribers to dances and card clubs. In Wales and Scotland, they are unknown-a circumftance which is particularly fortunate for the natives of the latter, as they would travel very flowly on the London road with fuch an incumbrance. Having ftated thefe circumftances as mémoires pour fervir à l'histoire, An Essay on the Origin of the Italian Language; from the German. their opinions relative to the HE learned differ very much in origin of the Italian language. Leonardo Bruni, of Arezzo, a celebrated writer of the fifteenth century, cardinal Bembo, and among the modern writers, Quadrio, maintain that the Italian was as old as the Latin language, allerting that the latter had been the language of the learned, whilst the former had been fpoken by the multitude, and in common converfation. They fay, that the ancient Romans had learned the genuine Latin language in the fchools, and that in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, who, from the nature of their com pofitions, were the least able to de, viate from the language of the mul titude, words and idioms are found; which are not to be met with in works of fcience. Hence they conclude, that the common language of the people had been a peculiar language as widely different from the Latin as the Italian is now. Nothing can be easier than to refute this opinion. When Plautus wrote his plays, and caused them to be acted at Rome, the difference between the language of the learned and that of the common people could not but be very trifling. The Romans then began to be ambitious of literary eminence. The Latin language, |