Back to Index
FOOTNOTES
{1} "Not yet RECORDED," I say; for there is one celebrated man of
the present day, who, if all be true which is reported of him, has
greatly exceeded me in quantity.
{2} A third exception might perhaps have been added; and my reason
for not adding that exception is chiefly because it was only in his
juvenile efforts that the writer whom I allude to expressly
addressed hints to philosophical themes; his riper powers having
been all dedicated (on very excusable and very intelligible grounds,
under the present direction of the popular mind in England) to
criticism and the Fine Arts. This reason apart, however, I doubt
whether he is not rather to be considered an acute thinker than a
subtle one. It is, besides, a great drawback on his mastery over
philosophical subjects that he has obviously not had the advantage
of a regular scholastic education: he has not read Plato in his
youth (which most likely was only his misfortune), but neither has
he read Kant in his manhood (which is his fault).
{3} I disclaim any allusion to EXISTING professors, of whom indeed
I know only one.
{4} To this same Jew, by the way, some eighteen months afterwards,
I applied again on the same business; and, dating at that time from
a respectable college, I was fortunate enough to gain his serious
attention to my proposals. My necessities had not arisen from any
extravagance or youthful levities (these my habits and the nature of
my pleasures raised me far above), but simply from the vindictive
malice of my guardian, who, when he found himself no longer able to
prevent me from going to the university, had, as a parting token of
his good nature, refused to sign an order for granting me a shilling
beyond the allowance made to me at school--viz., 100 pounds per
annum. Upon this sum it was in my time barely possible to have
lived in college, and not possible to a man who, though above the
paltry affectation of ostentatious disregard for money, and without
any expensive tastes, confided nevertheless rather too much in
servants, and did not delight in the petty details of minute
economy. I soon, therefore, became embarrassed, and at length,
after a most voluminous negotiation with the Jew (some parts of
which, if I had leisure to rehearse them, would greatly amuse my
readers), I was put in possession of the sum I asked for, on the
"regular" terms of paying the Jew seventeen and a half per cent. by
way of annuity on all the money furnished; Israel, on his part,
graciously resuming no more than about ninety guineas of the said
money, on account of an attorney's bill (for what services, to whom
rendered, and when, whether at the siege of Jerusalem, at the
building of the second Temple, or on some earlier occasion, I have
not yet been able to discover). How many perches this bill measured
I really forget; but I still keep it in a cabinet of natural
curiosities, and some time or other I believe I shall present it to
the British Museum.
{5} The Bristol mail is the best appointed in the Kingdom, owing to
the double advantages of an unusually good road and of an extra sum
for the expenses subscribed by the Bristol merchants.
{6} It will be objected that many men, of the highest rank and
wealth, have in our own day, as well as throughout our history, been
amongst the foremost in courting danger in battle. True; but this
is not the case supposed; long familiarity with power has to them
deadened its effect and its attractions.
{7} (Greek text)
{8} (Greek text). EURIPEDES. Orestes.
{9} (Greek text)
{10} (Greek text). The scholar will know that throughout this
passage I refer to the early scenes of the Orestes; one of the most
beautiful exhibitions of the domestic affections which even the
dramas of Euripides can furnish. To the English reader it may be
necessary to say that the situation at the opening of the drama is
that of a brother attended only by his sister during the demoniacal
possession of a suffering conscience (or, in the mythology of the
play, haunted by the Furies), and in circumstances of immediate
danger from enemies, and of desertion or cold regard from nominal
friends.
{11} EVANESCED: this way of going off the stage of life appears to
have been well known in the 17th century, but at that time to have
been considered a peculiar privilege of blood-royal, and by no means
to be allowed to druggists. For about the year 1686 a poet of
rather ominous name (and who, by-the-bye, did ample justice to his
name), viz., Mr. FLAT-MAN, in speaking of the death of Charles II.
expresses his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an
act as dying, because, says he,
"Kings should disdain to die, and only DISAPPEAR."
They should ABSCOND, that is, into the other world.
{12} Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted;
for in a pirated edition of Buchan's Domestic Medicine, which I once
saw in the hands of a farmer's wife, who was studying it for the
benefit of her health, the Doctor was made to say--"Be particularly
careful never to take above five-and-twenty OUNCES of laudanum at
once;" the true reading being probably five-and-twenty DROPS, which
are held equal to about one grain of crude opium.
{13} Amongst the great herd of travellers, etc., who show
sufficiently by their stupidity that they never held any intercourse
with opium, I must caution my readers specially against the
brilliant author of Anastasius. This gentleman, whose wit would
lead one to presume him an opium-eater, has made it impossible to
consider him in that character, from the grievous misrepresentation
which he gives of its effects at pp. 215-17 of vol. i. Upon
consideration it must appear such to the author himself, for,
waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, which (and
others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself admit
that an old gentleman "with a snow-white beard," who eats "ample
doses of opium," and is yet able to deliver what is meant and
received as very weighty counsel on the bad effects of that
practice, is but an indifferent evidence that opium either kills
people prematurely or sends them into a madhouse. But for my part,
I see into this old gentleman and his motives: the fact is, he was
enamoured of "the little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug"
which Anastasius carried about him; and no way of obtaining it so
safe and so feasible occurred as that of frightening its owner out
of his wits (which, by the bye, are none of the strongest). This
commentary throws a new light upon the case, and greatly improves it
as a story; for the old gentleman's speech, considered as a lecture
on pharmacy, is highly absurd; but considered as a hoax on
Anastasius, it reads excellently.
{14} I have not the book at this moment to consult; but I think the
passage begins--"And even that tavern music, which makes one man
merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion," etc.
{15} A handsome newsroom, of which I was very politely made free in
passing through Manchester by several gentlemen of that place, is
called, I think, The Porch; whence I, who am a stranger in
Manchester, inferred that the subscribers meant to profess
themselves followers of Zeno. But I have been since assured that
this is a mistake.
{16} I here reckon twenty-five drops of laudanum as equivalent to
one grain of opium, which, I believe, is the common estimate.
However, as both may be considered variable quantities (the crude
opium varying much in strength, and the tincture still more), I
suppose that no infinitesimal accuracy can be had in such a
calculation. Teaspoons vary as much in size as opium in strength.
Small ones hold about 100 drops; so that 8,000 drops are about
eighty times a teaspoonful. The reader sees how much I kept within
Dr. Buchan's indulgent allowance.
{17} This, however, is not a necessary conclusion; the varieties of
effect produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A
London magistrate (Harriott's Struggles through Life, vol. iii. p.
391, third edition) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his
trying laudanum for the gout he took FORTY drops, the next night
SIXTY, and on the fifth night EIGHTY, without any effect whatever;
and this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a country
surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott's case into a trifle; and
in my projected medical treatise on opium, which I will publish
provided the College of Surgeons will pay me for enlightening their
benighted understandings upon this subject, I will relate it; but it
is far too good a story to be published gratis.
{18} See the common accounts in any Eastern traveller or voyager of
the frantic excesses committed by Malays who have taken opium, or
are reduced to desperation by ill-luck at gambling.
{19} The reader must remember what I here mean by THINKING, because
else this would be a very presumptuous expression. England, of
late, has been rich to excess in fine thinkers, in the departments
of creative and combining thought; but there is a sad dearth of
masculine thinkers in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent
name has lately told us that he is obliged to quit even mathematics
for want of encouragement.
{20} William Lithgow. His book (Travels, etc.) is ill and
pedantically written; but the account of his own sufferings on the
rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting.
{21} In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual house,
as the reader will understand when I tell him that, with the
exception of one or two princely mansions, and some few inferior
ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted
with any house in this mountainous district which is wholly
waterproof. The architecture of books, I flatter myself, is
conducted on just principles in this country; but for any other
architecture, it is in a barbarous state, and what is worse, in a
retrograde state.
Back to Index