458 Remarks on Shakespeare and Linnæus. B heat fome large ftones red-hot, and put them into this fweat houfe; then trip themfelves naked, and carry in with them a bucket of water, which they pour by handfulls on the ftones; A the teams afcend to the top, then defcend on them, fitting on a low feat, which immediataly throws them into a profufe fweat, in which, when they have continued a few minutes, they jump directly into the rivulet, ftay in it about half a minute, then return into the fweat-houfe, till the pores are well opened, afterwards wipe themfelves dry and put on their cloaths: This is their method in most chronic disorders, and they ufe it at any feafon of the year: The violence and tedioulness of my illness induced me to try this method, and it entirely relieved me. have fince advised the fame in fixed, C obftinate, rheumatick complaints, and I do not remember a fingle instance of its ever failing. I affure you, Sir, I knew an old man, above feventy years of age, ufe it with fuccefs; tho' not by my advice. I D The following cafe is a very extraordinary one; but I know the gentleman to be a man of veracity, and had this account from his own mouth: He was of a thin, hectic conftitution, and had laboured under a troublesome pulmonary cough for fome years; at last he was taken with an hæmoptoe, for which he had the beft advice he could get in Maryland, but grew rather worle under the care of two phyficians that attended him for feveral months; and at laft heļwas prevailed on to put himself under the care of a Negroe fellow, who is the Ward of Maryland; for he has the reputation of performing fome extraordinary cures, though nature has F the chief claim to them; but indeed this was not the cafe here. In short, he advised the gentleman to go into a warm bath twice a day, to fit up to his chin in it, for two or three minutes at a time, and, as foon as he came out, to dash cold water feveral times on his breaft. This method foon relieved the gentleman, and when I left Maryland, which was feven or eight years after the cure, he remained free from his hæmoptoe, eafed very much of his cough, and went thro' a good deal of exercise. I fhall not invade your province, Sir, by attempting to reafon on thefe facts; all that I pretend to is the honour of fhewing you that I am, SIR, your obliged, and E G MrURBAN, Have been about a month in the Highlands, where I lodged with a laird, two miles from the wood of Birnham, which makes fo confiderable a figure in Macbeth. Shakespeare, if I remember, founds the fancy of the wood's moving upon an order of the Macduffs, for the foldiers taking every man a bough in his hand, to conceal their number on the march. My landhis garden, and telling me the ftory, laird on fhewing me Birnbam hill from acquainted me with a practice of the antient Highlanders in their military affairs, which much more naturally accounted for the accomplishment of the witches prophecy, and which in fact was the true historical cafe. The Highland Clans used to diftinguish themselves in battle by sprigs of different trees, which they wore in their bonnets as cockades. The enfign of the Macdonalds was fir, and every clan had its particular tree, by which in the heat of battle it might be known.Woods are fo fcarce in this country that 'tis to be imagined the sprigs they place in their bonnets were generally not very large; but as Macduff marched to attack Mackbeth from Birnham, where there is a remarkably large wood, and in the fummer, the foldiers decked their bonnets more gayly than ufual, and in their hands; for I fhould have told many of them befides carryed branches you that their enfigns always carry'd a branch of the tree which was peculiar to their clan, by way of colour. Perth, Aug. 29, 1752. Yours, &c. T. C. Critical Obfervations on Dr LINNEUS's The ferriss plan, Dr Linnaus The truth is, he has been too hafty, I fear, in his conclufions about this plant. He writes of it before he tryed Hits manner of generation and vegetation, by his own confeffion. For although he had it in his botanical garden two years, yet he let the cows deftroy it, as he lays, both years; in Plants of Linnæus.A remarkable Story of C. C. indeed this was fhewing great neglect to fo peculiar a plant. So that we have nothing certain about its nature, i. e. whether it can propagate its fpecies or not, or whether or not it is an hybridous or hermaphrodite plant, produced by the copulation of A two different ones, as he fufpects, but does not prove, or indeed pofitively affirm. On Dr LINNEUS's Anandria; Upfal 1745 DR R Siegefbeck, late profeffor of bo- B tany in the Royal Academy at Peterburgh, fays this is a Siberia plant, he fancied it was without antheræ, by which he imagined he had quite overthrown Linnæus fyftem, which is founded on the stamina of plants. But it proved to be a fpecies of tuffi- C lago, whofe flowers are always inclofed in the cup, which never opens (like the flowers of the fig in the fruit) and has stamina, antheræ, and all other parts, as was plainly discovered in the Upfal garden, where it grows. However the profeffor obferves, the great ufe of the facies externa in determining the genius of the plants; this has downy radical leaves, a naked stalk and downy, by which he refers it to the tuflilagos, and further fays, many knew the genius by these marks before it flowered. Dr Haller juftly obferves, that Sigefbeck in writing against Linnæus's fyftem might have faid fomething more to the purpofe could he have moderated his temper. Extract of a letter from Colchester, dated Perhaps you have heard that a cheft D E 457 peared a person of confequence, was in the utmoft agonies while they made a fpectacle of the lady. They fet her in the high church, where any body might come and look on her, and would not fuffer him to bury her 'till he gave a further account of himfelf. There F feized by the customhouse officers which was landed near this place about a fortnight ago: They took it for fmuggled goods, tho' the perfon with it produced the king of France's fignature taken in the name of Mr Wil. G liams, as a Hamburgh merchant. Our officers, not fatisfied with the account he gave, opened the cheft, and one of them was going to run his hanger in, when the perfon to whom it belonged clapt his hand upon his fword, and defired him to defift, in French; for it was the corpfe of his dear wife. Not content with this, the officers pluck'd off the embalming, and found it to be as he had faid. The gentleman, who ap were other chefts of fine clothes, jewels, &c. belonging to the deceased. He acknowledged at last, that he was a perfon of quality, that his name was not Williams, that he was born at Florence, the lady was a native of England, whom he married, and fhe defired to be buried in Effex; that he had brought her from Verona in Italy to France by land, then hired a veffel for Dover, difcharged the veffel there, and took another for Harwich, but was drove hither by contrary winds. This account was not enough to fatisfy the people; he muft tell her name and condition, in order to clear himfelf of a fufpicion of murder. He was continually in tears, and had a key of the veftry, where he fat every day with the corpfe: my brother went to fee him there, and the fcene fo fhock'd him he could hardly bear it, it was fo like Romeo and Juliet. He was much pleased with my brother, as he talk'd both Latin and French, and (to his great furprize) told him who the lady was; which proving to be a perfon he knew, heuld not help uncovering the face. In fhort, the gentleman declared he was a nobleman's fon of North Britain; that he was born and educated in Italy, and never was in England 'till two or three years ago, when he came to London, and was in company with this lady, with whom he fell paffionately in love, and prevailed on her to quit the kingdom and marry him; that having bad health, he had travelled with her all over Eu. rope, and when she was dying fhe afk'd for pen and paper, and wrote, I am the wife of at was in Effex; my maiden name and my last request is The poor gen to be buried at tleman who laft married her proteft's he never knew ('till this confeffion on her death-bed) fhe was another's wife; but in compliance with her requeit he brought her over, and fhould have buried her where the defired (if the corpfe had not been ftopt) without makHins affection to the lady was to ftrong ing any ftir about it. He protested that it was his earnest with not only to attend her to the grave, but to be fhut up for ever with her there. Nothing in romance 4·58 * Literary Hints-A Note to M. Reaumur. romance ever came up to the paffion of B genteel perfon, feems about twenty-five [t She was well known in London and ufed to vifit in Clerkenwell parish.He endeavoured to pafs for a native of Flerence, by fpeaking no Englife, and only Latin and French, but was not born there, and had been from Britain not above four years.] Mr URBAN, I Can with pleasure affure you that Dr Hodges (who by the way amufes his readers too much with groundless chimæras, the general fault of the HutchinJonians) in his Elibu, from p. 70 to 81. Q&. 14. To Yours, &c. R. N. P. S. 1 obferve that you are fo weak as to quote every public paper from which you copy any differtation for the entertainment of your readers, (which is carefully avoided by others who are deeper politians) I obferve also that many of your originals are taken into the London news papers as foon as pubJifhed (without faying from the Gent Mag. fo foon, that, as the news papers come by poft, and your books by the carrier, it would feem that you had copy'd from them, to thofe that don't know that you, finifh the day before the end of each month.Being at the Penfylvania fome months ago, I faw under the words to be concluded in our next, which were added after the firft part of Mr B-k-d's fpeech, in a Gazetteer, a written remark added by fome good friend:- Thou needeft not conclude it, nor have begun it-We have already bad the whole in friend Urban's Magazine.” D Mr URBAN, MR R Reaumur in his Art of Hatch- \ ing and bringing up domeflic Fowls, affures us, that if we take only the big. nefs of a pea of butter, or any other fat whatsoever, or a little oil, and rub over the hell of an egg with it, fo as to leave no part of it untouch'd: the egg will continue for eight or nine months as frefh as it was the first day it was rub'd over in this manner. See his book p. 413. 1 thought, frem Mr Reaumur's character, that no doubt could be made of the truth of this method: and accordingly in April I took a confiderable number of hen's eggs, and on the days they were laid; I ru b'd them carefully over, fome with cil, fome with frefh lard, and others with butter, and kept them in feveral feparate parcels, and in different parts of the houfe, But five G months after, upon trying my eggs of every parcel, 1 found them fo very bad, that I could not eat them, but was obliged to throw every one of them away. there has been a great demand for your magazines (to the exclufion of others) among the clergy in our parts, fince your publication of the judicious criticism on Ecclef. xii. the letters on the liturgy, and particularly the Hutchinfonian controverfy. Our Hebrew gentlemen are much pleased with Candidus, and are in great expectations to fee his objections either corroborated or confuted. The medical effays are much approved by the faculty, and the receipt F to cure pimples on the face, p. 347, has been try'd by an ingenious apothecary with fuccefs on a patient, who for many years has been troubled with very flubborn ones.As we would have Candidus aniwered by arguments entirely new, it is neceflary to caution you against plagiarifts. His objections to ELOHIM. and why it is written ELOH and not ELOI, have been anfwered by Moody, &c. and the writers on the controverfy on the words Elohim and Berith; and here I muft obferve that Candidus's cbjections as to Elohim are by no means now ones. As to the difference be. tween the Cherubim in Ezekiel and Revelations, and in the latter, of their falling down and warshiping, him that fat on the throne, they are fully answered by I beg the favont of you to publish this account (which I affure you to be true) in your next Magazine, as I know it will then come to Mr Reaumur's ears, H that he may either jullity his method, or acknowlege that it is not attended with the fuccels he has promited us. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. A. D. |