spring in the south of France; but at the season in which you will receive this letter, the moderate warmth, and refreshing verdure of England, are preferable to the sultry heats and scorched fields of the south. From the view I have of his complaints, I can have no hesitation in advising you to endeavour to prevail on him to quit his drugs, and to leave London without delay. Since he bears riding on horseback so well, let him enjoy that exercise in an atmosphere freed from the smoke of the town, and impregnated with the flavour of rising plants and green herbage; a flavour which may with more truth be called pectoral, than any of the heating resins, or loathsome oils, on which that term has been prostituted. Let him pass the summer in drinking the waters, and riding around the environs of Bristol. It will be easy for him to find a house in the free air of the country, at some distance from that town; and it will be of use to have an additional reason for rising early, and riding every morning. It is of the greatest importance that he continue that exercise every day that the weather will permit: a little cloudiness of the sky should not fright him from it; there is no danger of catching cold during the continuation of that movement which assists digestion, promotes the determination of blood from the lungs to the surface of the body, and is more salutary in the morning than after dinner.

With respect to diet, he should carefully observe the important rule of taking food frequently in small quantities, and never making a full meal; that the digestive organs may not be overpowered, or the vessels charged with too large a quantity of chyle at a time; which never fails to bring on oppressive breathing, and augments the fever and flushing, which in some degree succeeds every repast,

Since all kinds of milk are found to disagree with his constitution, that nourishment, which is in general so well adapted to similar complaints, must be omitted, and light broths, with vegetable food, particularly of the farinace ous kind, substituted in its place.

Acids, especially the native acid of vegetables, are remarkably agreeable and refreshing to all who labour under the heat, oppression, and languor, which accompany hectic complaints. It is surprising what a quantity of the juice of lemons the constitution will bear, without any inconveniency, when it is accustomed to it by degrees; and in those cases where it does not occasion pains in the stomach and bowels, or other immediate inconveniences, it has been thought to have a good effect in abating the force of the hectic fever.

I have met with two cases, since I have been last abroad, in both of which there seemed to be a quicker recovery than I ever saw, from the same symptoms. The first was that of a young lady, of about seventeen years of age, and apparently of a very healthy constitution. In bad weather, during the spring, she caught cold: this being neglected in the beginning, gradually grew worse. When physicians were at length consulted, their prescriptions seemed to have as bad an effect as her own neglect. By the middle of summer her cough was incessant, accompanied with hectic fever and flushings, irregular shiverings, morning sweats, emaciation, expectoration of purulent phlegm streaked with blood, and every indication of an open ulcer in the lungs. In this desperate state she was carried from the town to a finely situated village in Switzerland, where, for several months, she lived in the middle of a vineyard, on ripe grapes and bread. She had been directed to a milk and vegetable diet in general. Her own taste inclined her to the grapes, which she continued, on finding, that, with this diet only, she was less languid, and of a more natural coolness, and that the cough, fever, and all the other symptoms gradually abated. She seemed to be brought from the jaws of death by the change of air, and this regimen only; and she returned to her own home in high spirits, and with the look and vigour of health. The ensuing winter, after being heated with dancing at the house of a friend, she walked home in a cold night; the cough, spitting of blood, and

other symptoms immediately returned, and she died three months after.

In the other case, there was not such a degree of fever, but there was an expectoration of matter, frequently streaked with blood, and evident signs of an ulcer in the lungs. The person who laboured under these symptoms had tried the usual remedies of pectorals, pills, linctuses, &c. with the usual success. He grew daily worse. He had formerly found much relief from bleeding, but had left it off for many months, on a supposition that it had lost all effect; and he had allowed an issue to be healed, on the same supposition; though he still persevered in a milk regimen. I mentioned to him the case of the young lady, as it is above recited. He immediately took the resolution to confine himself to bread and grapes for almost his only food. I advised him at the same time to have the issue opened, and to continue that drain for some time; but this he did not comply with. He forsook, however, the town for the country, and passed as much of the morning on horseback, as he could bear without fatigue. He soon was able to bear more; and after about three weeks or a month, his cough had greatly abated. When he had persisted in this regimen between two and three months, he had very little cough; and what he spit up was pure phlegm, unmixed with blood or matter. He has now been well above a year; and although I understand that he occasionally takes animal food, he has hitherto felt no inconveniency from it. He passed the second autumn, as he had done the first, at a house in the country, surrounded with vineyards. The greater part of his food consisted of ripe grapes and bread. With such a diet, he had not occasion for much drink of any kind; what he used was simple water, and he made an ample provision of grapes for the succeeding winter.

Though I have no idea that there is any specific virtue in grapes, for the cure of the pulmonary consumption, or that they are greatly preferable to some other cooling, sub

acid, mild fruit, equally agreeable to the taste, provided any such can be found; yet I thought it right to particularize what was used on those two occasions; leaving it to others to determine, what share of the happy consequen ces I have enumerated were owing to the change of air, how much may have flowed from the exercise, how much from the regimen, and whether there is reason to think, that the favourable turn in both cases depended on other circumstances, unobserved by me.

I have now, my dear sir, complied with your request; and although I have endeavoured to avoid technical verbosity, and all unnecessary detail, yet I find my letter has swelled to a greater size than I expected. I shall be exceedingly happy to hear that any hint I have given has been serviceable to our friend. If the cough should still continue, after he has passed two or three months at Bristol, I imagine the most effectual thing he can do will be to take a voyage to this place; he will by that means escape the severity of a British winter. The voyage itself will be of service, and at the end of it he will have the benefit of the mild air of the Campagna Felice, be refreshed and nourished by the finest grapes, and, when tired of riding, he will have continual opportunities of sailing in this charming bay.

LETTER LXIV.

Naples.

As I was walking a few days since in the street with two of our countrymen, T——— and N- we met some people carrying the corpse of a man on an open bier, and others following in a kind of procession. The deceased was a tradesman, whose widow had bestowed the utmost attention in dressing him to the greatest advantage on this solemn occasion; he had a perfectly new suit of clothes, a laced hat upon his head, ruffles, his hair finely powdered, and a large blooming nosegay in his left hand, while the right was very gracefully stuck in his side. It is the custom at

Naples to carry every body to church in full dress soon after their death, and the nearest relations display the magnitude of their grief by the magnificent manner in which they decorate the corpse. This poor woman, it seems, was quite inconsolable, and had ornamented the body of her late husband with a profusion she could ill afford. When the corpse arrives in church, the service is read over it. That ceremony being performed, and the body carried home, it is considered as having no farther occasion for fine clothes, but is generally stript to the shirt, and buried privately.

Can any thing be more ridiculous,' says N-than to trick a man out in his best clothes after his death ?' 6 Nothing,' replied T-; unless it be to order a fantastical dress at a greater expense on purpose, as if the dead would not be satisfied with the clothes they wore when alive, but delighted in long flowing robes in a particular style of their own."

T has long resided abroad, and now prefers many foreign customs to those of his own country, which frequently involves him in disputes with his countrymen. The princess of drove past. There she goes,' says N-,' with her cavalieros, her volantis, and all the splendour of a sovereign; yet the wife of a plain English gentleman is in a far more enviable situation. With all her titles and her high rank, she is a mere servant of the queen's, a dependant on the caprice of another; a frown from her majesty would annihilate her.' • Those who are nothing, exclusive of court favour,' replied T-, ought not to be censured for devoting their time to court attendance. But did you never hear of any who are dazzled with the glitter of court shackles in the boasted land of liberty; people whom riches, rank, and the most flattering favours of fortune cannot make independent; whose minds seem the more abject, as their situation lays them under the less necessity of remaining in servitude; who, withered with age, and repining with envy, sacrifice every domestic duty, and stalk around the mansions of royalty, as ghosts are