And how the same again to botch,

Just as an artist does a watch! 28

'set, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown 'away.

'I wish it were possible, from this instance, to 'invent a method of embalming drowned persons, (in such a manner that they might be recalled to 'life at any period, however distant; for, having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of 'America a hundred years hence, I should prefer 'to an ordinary death the being immersed in a 'cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, until 'that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar 'warmth of my dear country. But since, in all 'probability, we live in an age too early, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art 'brought in our time to perfection, I must, for 'the present, content myself with the treat, which 'you are so kind as to promise me, of the resur'rection of a fowl or turkey cock.'

Now if your worships will be so obliging as to make me a present of a cask of Madeira to try the experiment, I will certainly bury myself therein for a century or two, and I have no doubt but I shall be awakened with as much facility as was Endymion, the famous sleeper of antiquity, who slept seventy years at one nap.

28 Just as an artist does a watch!

I do not arrogate to myself the whole merit of this noble invention. Dr. Price and Mr. Godwin Thus brother Ovid said or sung once,

The Gods of old folks could make young ones,

in divers elaborate works, especially the latter, in his Political Justice,' suggested some ideas which set my ingenuity in such a ferment, that I could not rest quietly till I had brewed a sublime trea, tise on the best mode of pulling down, repairing, and rebuilding, decayed and worn out animal mas chines.

I shall not attempt, in this place, to oblige your worships with any thing like a table of the contents of this judicious and profound performance. I will, however, gratify your curiosity so far as to glance cursorily at a few of the leading topics therein discussed and illustrated, and slightly mention some of the immense advantages which will be the result of this discovery.

In the first place, I make it apparent by a long series of Experiments and scientific deductions, drawn therefrom, that it is very practicable to enlighten the mind of a stupid fellow, by battering, boring, or pulling his body to pieces. Mr. poet Waller's authority is here to my purpose, who tells us, that

The soul's dark cottage batter'd and decay'd, • Lets in new light through chinks which time has made.'

Mr. Grey, likewise, in his 'Hymn to Adversity, requests that Daughter of Jove' to impose gently her iron hand,' and trouble him a little with her torturing hour,' although he appears disposed to ayoid, if possible, her more dismal accompani

By process, not one whit acuter,

Than making new pots from old pewter

ments, such as her Gorgonic frown,' and the funeral cry of horror.'

.

The Spaniards, under Cortes and Pizarro, ma. naged much in the same way, and enlightened the natives of the mighty empires of Peru and Mexico in the Great Truths of Christianity, by killing a part, reducing the remainder to a state of servitude, and battering their souls' cottages at their leisure, This process is in part expressed in a Poetical Epistle, which I received not long since from my correspondent settled at Terra del Fuego, in South America, who thus expresses the conduct of some of his acquaintance, in converting the Aborigines to Christianity.

Good folks to America came
To curtail old Satan's dominions;
The natives, the more to their shame,
Stuck fast to their ancient opinions.

Till a method the pious men find,
Which ne'er had occur'd to your dull wits,
Of making sky-lights to the mind,
By boring the body with bullets.

(

Like Waller, with process so droll,
To illume an old clod-pated noddy;
They thought they might burnish the soul,
By beating a hole in the body.

So fam'd Aldini, erst in France,

Led dead folks down a contra-dance,

I have read of a great mathematician, who wa uncommonly stupid till about the age of twenty, when he accidentally pitched head first into a deep well, fractured his scull, and it became necessary to trepan him. After the operation it was immediately evident that his wit was much improved, and he soon became a prodigy of intellect. Whether this alteration was caused by new light let ' in through chínks, the trepanning chissel had made, or whether the texture and position of the brain were materially changed for the better, in consequence of the jar and contusion of the fall, I shall leave to some future Lavater, or any other gentleman, who can guage the capacity of a statesman, or a barrel of porter, with equal facility, to determinę.

2d. I proceed to demonstrate that man being, as our most enlightened modern philosophers allow, jumbled together by mere Chance (a blind capricious Goddess, who, half her time, does not know what she is about) it is extremely easy to understand the principles of his texture; because the mechanism of his frame is less intricate than that of a common spit jack. Consequently a SoJomon or a Brodum can mend this machine when deranged as well as a Harvey, a Sydenham, or a Mead.

2d. I proceed to prove, from analogy, with what facility this machine may be disjointed, pulled to pieces, and again botched together. My friend Mahomet had his heart taken out, a drop of black

And made them rigadoon and chassée
As well as when alive, I dare say !30

So

blood expressed therefrom, and went about his common concerns next day, as well as ever. when a sighing swain is taken desperately in love, he may lose all his insides without any very serious inconvenience. This I can attest from sad experience, as, about forty years since, I was terribly in for't, with a sweet little sprig of divinity, whose elbow was ever her most prominent feature, whenever I had the audacity to attempt to approximate the shrine of her Goddesship.

4th. The important advantages, which will undoubtedly arise from this invention, are almost too obvious to require explanation. I shall however advert to a few.

By taking the animal machine to pieces, you may divest it of such particles as clog its wheels, and render its motions less perfect. A decayed worn-out gallant may have its parts separated, thoroughly burnished, botched together, and rendered as bright as a new-coined silver sixpence. Thus my venerable Piccadilly friend, (d) who, as Darwin expresses it, sometimes ' clasps a beauty in Platonic arms,' if he should, fifty years hence, perceive that the mechanism of his frame is rather the worse for wear, may come to Dr. Caustic, and be rebuilt into as fine a young Buck as any in Christendom.

5th. Hereditary diseases may be thus culled from the constitution, and gouty and other deleterious particles separated from those which are sound and healthful.

G