Il Penseroso being familiar adaptations of Milton. His constant sensibility frequently becomes eloquent; and his verses have many ingenious passages. Many of his poems are occasional addresses to the fair, in which the charms of Delia and Rosalinda have every attention paid to them.

In person, Hopkinson is described as a lively man, a little below the common size, with small but animated features.* He had many general accomplishments, in music, painting, and conversation. As a kindly trait of his character, it is told that he had a pet mouse which would come to him at table, and that his familiar pigeons were quite famous. He corresponded on novelties in science, for which he had a decided taste, with Franklin and Jefferson. His portrait, from which our vignette is taken, is painted by Pine.

His son, Joseph Hopkinson, wrote the song, Hail Columbia.

A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN IN AMERICA, TO HIS FRIEND IN EUROPE, ON WHITE-WASHING.

DEAR SIR,-The peculiar customs of every country appear to strangers awkward and absurd, but the inhabitants consider them as very proper and even necessary. Long habit imposes on the understanding, and reconciles it to any thing that is not manifestly pernicious or immediately destructive.

The religion of a country is scarcely held in greater veneration than its established customs: and it is almost as difficult to produce an alteration in the one as in the other. Any interference of government for the reformation of national customs, however trivial and absurd they may be, never fails to produce the greatest discontent, and sometimes dangerous convulsions. Of this there are frequent instances in history. Bad habits are most safely removed by the same means that established them, viz by imperceptible gradations, and the constant example and influence of the higher class of the people.

We are apt to conclude that the fashions and manners of our own country are most rational and proper, because the eye and the understanding have long since been reconciled to them, and we ridicule or condemn those of other nations on account of their novelty: yet the foreigner will defend his national habits with at least as much plausibility as we can our own. The truth is, that reason has little to do in the matter. Customs are for the most part arbitrary, and one nation has as good a right to fix its peculiarities as another. It is of no purpose to talk of convenience as a standard : every thing becomes convenient by practice and habit.

I have read somewhere of a nation (in Africa, I think) which is governed by twelve counsellors. When these counsellors are to meet on public business, twelve large earthen jars are set in two rows, and filled with water. The counsellors enter the apartment one after another, stark naked, and each

"At Mr. Peale's painter's room I met Mr. Francis Hopkinson, late a Mandamus Counsellor of New Jersey, now a member of the Continental Congress, who, it seems, is a native of Philadelphia; a son of a prothonotary of this country, who was a person much respected. The son was liberally educated, and is a painter and a poet. I have a curiosity to penetrate a little deeper into the bosom of this curious gentleman. He is one of your pretty, little, curious, ingenious men. His head is not bigger than a large apple, less than our friend Pemberton, or Doctor Simon Tufts. I have not met with anything in natural history more amusing and entertaining than his personal appearance-yet he is genteel and well bred, and is very social. John Adams to his wife. Phila. Aug. 21, 1776. + Delaplaine's Repository, Art. Hopkinson.

leaps into a jar, where he sits up to the chin in water. When the jars are all filled with counsellors, they proceed to deliberate on the great concerns of the nation. This, to be sure, forms a very grotesque scene; but the object is to transact the public business: they have been accustomed to do it in this way, and therefore it appears to them the most rational and convenient way. Indeed, if we consider it impartially, there seems to be no reason why a counsellor may not be as wise in an earthen jar as in an elbow chair; or why the good of the people may not be as maturely considered in the one as in the other.

The established manners of every country are the standards of propriety with the people who have adopted them; and every nation assumes the right of considering all deviations therefrom as barbarisms and absurdities.

The Chinese have retained their laws and customs for ages immemorial: and although they have long had a commercial intercourse with European nations, and are well acquainted with their improvements in the arts, and their modes of civilization, yet they are so far from being convinced of any superiority in the European manners, that their government takes the most serious measures to prevent the customs of foreigners taking root amongst them. It employs their utmost vigilance to enjoy the benefits of commerce, and at the same time guard against innovations that might affect the characteristic manners of the people.

Since the discovery of the Sandwich islands in the South-Sea, they have been visited by ships from several nations; yet the natives have shown no inclination to prefer the dress and manners of the visitors to their own. It is even probable that they pity the ignorance of the Europeans they have seen, as far removed from civilization; and value themselves on the propriety and advantage of their own customs.

There is nothing new in these observations, and I had no intention of making them when I sat down to write, but they obtruded themselves upon me. My intention was to give you some account of the people of these new states; but I am not sufficiently informed for the purpose, having, as yet, seen little more than the cities of New-York and Philadelphia. I have discovered but few national singularities amongst them. Their customs and manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long been used to copy. For, previous to the late revolution, the Americans were taught from their infancy to look up to the English as the patterns of perfection in all things.

I have, however, observed one custom, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some amusement.

When a young couple are about to enter on the matrimonial state, a never-failing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of WHITE-WASHING, With all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances. You will wonder what this privilege of white-washing is. I will endeavor to give you an idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it performed.

There is no season of the year in which the lady may not, if she pleases, claim her privilege; but the latter end of May is generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is nigh at hand. If the lady grows uncommonly fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the nastiness of every thing about

her: these are symptoms which ought not to be neglected, yet they sometimes go off without any further effect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard, a wheelbarrow, with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets filled with a solution of lime in water, there is no time for hesitation. He immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers and private property are kept, and putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight. A husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage. His authority is superseded, his commission suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance than him. He has nothing for it but to abdicate, for a time, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify.

The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped of their furniture-paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie huddled in heaps about the floors; the curtains are torn from their testers, the beds crammed into windows, chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, under petti coats, and ragged breeches. Here may be seen the Jumber of the kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass for the foreground of the picture; gridirons and frying-pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, joint stools, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. There a closet has disgorged its bowelsriveted plates and dishes, halves of china bowls, cracked tumblers, broken wine-glasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds and dried herbs, tops of tea-pots, and stoppers of departed decanters—from the rag-hole in the garret, to the rat-hole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment. In this tempest, the words of King Lear unavoidably present themselves, and might with little alteration be made strictly applicable.

Close pent up guilt,

Rive your concealing continents, and ask
These dreadful summoners grace."

This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings with brushes, dipped into a solution of lime called WHITE-WASH; to pour buckets of water over every floor, and scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes, charged with soft soap and stone-cutter's sand.

The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the penthouse, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a bucket within reach, dashes innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of passengers in the

street.

I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of these water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation: but after long argument it was determined that no damages could be awarded; inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences. And so the poor gentleman was doubly nonsuited; for he lost both his suit of clothes and his suit at law

These smearings and scratchings, these washings and dashings, being duly performed, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house-raising, or a shiplaunch-recollect, if you can, the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleansing match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean. It matters not how many useful, ornamental, or valuable articles suffer mutilation or death under the operation. A mahogany chair and a carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance: a fine large er graving is laid flat upon the floor; a number of smaller prints are piled upon it, until the super-incumbent weight cracks the lower glass-but this is of no importance. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, till the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvas of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be cleaned; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak through and deface the engraving-no matter! If the glass is clean and the frame shines it is sufficient-the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able arithmetician hath made a calculation, founded on long exerience, and proved that the losses and destruction incident to two white-washings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire.

This cleansing frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance: the storm abates, and all would be well again: but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should pass over without producing some consequences. For two or three weeks after the operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore eyes, sole throats, or severe colds, occasioned by exhalations from wet floors and damp walls.

He

I know a gentleman here who is fond of accounting for every thing in a philosophical way. considers this, what I call a custom, as a real, periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is whimsical and ingenious, but I am not at leisure to give you the detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable; but after much study, he thought he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose, he caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort. His hope was, that when the white-washing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub, and scour, and smear to their hearts' content; and so spend the violence of the disease in this out-post, whilst he enjoyed himself in quiet at head-quarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation. It was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband, at least once in every year; to turn him out of doors, and take the reins of government into her own hands.

There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher's: which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper. This is generally done. And though it does not abolish, it at least shortens the period of female dominion. This paper is decorated with various fancies, and made so ornamental that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design.

There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress. He generally has the sole use of a small

room or closet for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a privileged place, even in the white-washing season, and stands like the land of Goshen amidst the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever upon his guard; for should he inadvertently go abroad, and leave the key in his door, the house-maid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes-takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights, to his utter confusion, and sometimes serious detriment. I can give you an instance.

A gentleman was sued at law, by the executors of a mechanic, on a charge found against him on the deceasel's books to the amount of £30. The defendant was strongly impressed with a belief that he had discharged the debt and taken a receipt; but as the transaction was of long standing, he knew not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time approached when judgment should be obtained against him. He then sat down seriously to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had untied and displayed on a table for the purpose. In the midst of his search he was suddenly called away on business of importance. He forgot to lock the door of his room. The house-maid, who had been long looking for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room and putting things to rights. One of the first objects that struck her eye was the confused situation of the papers on the table. These, without delay, she huddled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but in the action, a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which unfortunately happened to be the very receipt in question. As it had no very respectable appearance, it was soon after swept out with the common dirt of the room, and carried in a dust-pan to the yard. The tradesman had neglected to enter the credit in his books. The defendant could find nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled, and the money paid, one of the children found the receipt amongst the dirt in the yard.

It

There is also another custom, peculiar to the city of Philadelphia, and nearly allied with the former. I mean that of washing the pavements before the doors every Saturday evening. I at first supposed this to be a regulation of the police; but, on further inquiry, I find it is a religious rite preparatory to the Sabbath: and it is, I believe, the only religious rite in which the numerous sectaries of this large city perfectly agree. The ceremony begins about sunset and continues till ten or eleven at night. is very difficult for a stranger to walk the streets on those evenings. He runs a continual risk of having a bucket of dirty water dashed against his legs; but a Philadelphian born is so much accustomed to the danger that he avoids it with surprising dexterity. It is from this circumstance that a Philadelphian may be known any where by a certain skip in his gait. The streets of New York are paved with rough stones. These, indeed, are not washed, but the dirt is so thoroughly swept from between them that they stand up sharp and prominent, to the great annoyance of those who are not accustomed to so rough a path. But habit reconciles every thing. It is diverting enough to see a Philadelphian at New York. He walks the street with as much painful caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lamed by the gout: whilst a New

Yorker, as little approving the plain masonry of Philadelphia, shuffles along the pavement like a parrot upon a mahogany table.

It must be acknowledged that the ablutions I have mentioned are attended with no small inconvenience; yet the women would not be induced by any consideration to resign their privilege.

Notwithstanding this singularity, I can give you the strongest assurances that the women of America make the most faithful wives, and the most attentive mothers in the world. And I don't doubt but you will join me in opinion, that if a married man is made miserable only for one week in a whole year, he will have no great cause to complain of the matrimonial bond.

| This letter has run on to a length I did not expect; I therefore hasten to assure you that I am as

*PROF. What is a SALT-BOX?

STU. It is a box made to contain salt.
PROF. How is it divided?

STU. Into a salt-box, and a box of salt. PROF. Very well!-show the distinction? STU. A salt-box may be where there is no salt; but salt is absolutely necessary to the existence of a box of salt.

PROF. Are not salt-boxes otherwise divided?
STU. Yes: by a partition.

PROF. What is the use of this partition?
STU. To separate the coarse salt from the fine.
PROF. HOW?-think a little.

STU. To separate the fine salt from the coarse.

PROF. To be sure:-it is to separate the fine from the coarse: but are not salt-boxes yet otherwise distinguished?

STU. Yes into possible, probable, and positive. PROF. Define these several kinds of salt-boxes. STU. A possible salt-box is a salt-box yet unsold in the hands of the joiner.

PROF. Why so?

STU. Because it hath never yet become a salt-box in fact, having never had any salt in it; and it may possibly be applied to some other use.

PROF. Very true:-for a salt-box which never had, hath not now, and perhaps never may have, any salt in it, can only be termed a possible salt-box. What is a probable salt-box?

STU. It is a salt-box in the hand of one going to a shop to buy salt, and who hath six-pence in his pocket to pay the grocer: and a positive salt-box is one which hath actually and bona fide got salt in it. PROF. Very goo1:-but is there no instance of a positive salt-box which hath no salt in it? STU. I know of none.

PROF. Yes: there is one mentioned by some authors: it is where a box hath by long use been so impreg long since emptied out, it may yet be called a saltnated with salt, that although all the salt hath been box, with the same propriety that we say a salt herring, salt beef, &c. And in this sense any box that may have accidentally, or otherwise, been long steeped in brine, may be termed positively a saltbox, although never designed for the purpose of keeping salt. But tell me, what other division of salt-boxes do you recollect?

STU. They are further divided into substantive and

* Prof. professor; Stu. student; Gov. governor of the institution.

pendant: a substantive salt-box is that which stands by itself on the table or dresser; and a pendant is that which hangs upon a nail against the wall.

PROF. What is the idea of a salt-box?

STU. It is that image which the mind conceives of a salt-box, when no salt-box is present.

PROF. What is the abstract idea of a salt-box? STU. It is the idea of a salt-box, abstracted from the idea of a box, or of salt, or of a salt-box, or of a box of salt.

PROF. Very right:-and by these means you acquire a most perfect knowledge of a salt-box: but tell me, is the idea of a salt-box a salt idea? STU. Not unless the ideal box hath ideal salt in it. PROF. True:-and therefore an abstract idea cannot be either salt or fresh; round or square; long or short: for a true abstract idea must be entirely free of all adjuncts. And this shows the difference between a salt idea, and an idea of salt.-Is an aptitude to hold salt an essential or an accidental property of a salt-box?

STU. It is essential; but if there should be a crack in the bottom of the box, the aptitude to spill salt would be termed an accidental property of that saltbox.

PROF. Very well! very well indeed!-What is the salt called with respect to the box?

STU. It is called its contents.

PROF. And why so?

STU. Because the cook is content quoad hoc to find plenty of salt in the box.

PROF. You are very right:-I see you have not misspent your time: let us now proceed to

Logic.

PROF. How many parts are there in a salt-box? STU. Three. Bottom, top, and sides.

PROF. How many modes are there in salt-boxes? STU. Four. The formal, the substantial, the accidental, and the topsey-turvey.

PROF. Define these several modes.

Sru. The formal respects the figure or shape of the box, such as round, square, oblong, and so forth; the substantial respects the work of the joiner; and the accidental depends upon the string by which the box is hung against the wall.

PROF. Very well.-And what are the consequences of the accidental mode?

STU. the string should break the box would fall, the salt be spilt, the salt-box broken, and the cook in a bitter passion: and this is the accidental mode with its consequences.

PROF. How do you distinguish between the top and bottom of a salt-box?

STU. The top of the box is that part which is uppermost, and the bottom that part which is lowest in all positions.

PROF. You should rather say the lowest part is the bottom, and the uppermost part is the top.-How is it then if the bottom should be the uppermost?

STU. The top would then be the lowermost; and so the bottom would become the top, and the top would become the bottom: and this is called the topsey-turvey mode, which is nearly allied to the accidental, and frequently arises from it.

PROF. Very good.-But are not salt-boxes sometimes single and sometimes double?

STU. Yes.

PROF. Well, then mention the several combinations of salt-boxes with respect to their having salt

or not.

STU. They are divided into single salt-boxes having salt; single salt-boxes having no salt; double salt-boxes having salt; double salt-boxes having no

salt; and single double salt-boxes having salt and no salt.

PROF. Hold! hold!-you are going too far. Gov. We cannot allow further time for logic, proceed if you please to

Natural Philosophy.

PROF. Pray, Sir, what is a salt-box?

STU. It is a combination of matter, fitted, framed, and joined by the hands of a workman in the form of a box, and adapted to the purpose of receiving, containing, and retaining salt.

PROF. Very good.-What are the mechanical powers concerned in the construction of a salt-box? STU. The ax, the saw, the plane, and the hammer. PROF. How are these powers applied to the purpose intended?

STU. The ax to fell the tree, the saw to split the timber.

PROF. Consider. Is it the property of the mall and wedge to split?

STU. The saw to slit the timber, the plane to smooth and thin the boards.

PROF. HOW! Take time! Take time! STU. To thin and smooth the boards. PROF. To be sure-the boards are first thinned and then smoothed-go on

STU. The plane to thin and smooth the boards, and the hammer to drive the nails.

PROF. Or rather tacks.-Have not some philosophers considered glue as one of the mechanical powers?

STU. Yes; and it is still so considered, but it is called an inverse mechanical power: because, whereas it is the property of the direct mechanical powers to generate motion, and separate parts; glue, on the contrary, prevents motion, and keeps the parts to which it is applied fixed to each other.

PROF. Very true.-What is the mechanical law of the saw?

STU. The power is to the resistance, as the number of teeth and force impressed multiplied by the number of strokes in a given time.

PROF. Is the saw only used in slitting timber into boards?

STU. Yes, it is also employed in cutting boards into lengths.

PROF. Not lengths: a thing cannot properly be said to have been cut into lengths.

PROF. What is a salt-box?

STU. It is a figure composed of lines and surfaces.
PROF. What are the external figures of a salt-box?
STU. Four parallelograms and two squares.
PROF. How are these disposed?

STU. The four parallelograms are thus disposed: The superior, or top; the anterior, or front; the inferior, or bottom; and the posterior, or back; and the two squares form the two ends.

PROF. Very good.-Let us now consider one of the squares at the end of the salt-box. Suppose then a diagonal line to be drawn from one of the angles of this square to the opposite angle of the same, what will be the consequence?

STU. It will divide the square into two equal and similar triangles.

PROF. Very true.-But can you demonstrate that these two equal and similar triangles are equal to each other?

A

C

STU. I draw the square A B C D, whose sides are

עי

B all equal, and the contained angles, all right angles. I then draw the diagonal B C, dividing the square into two equal parts. Then I say, that one of those equal parts, viz. the triangle A B C is equal to the other equal part or triangle B C D; and further, that those two triangles are not only equal but similar. For by the 105th proposition of the 49th Book of Euclid, if in two triangles, all the lines and angles of the one, are equal to all the corresponding lines and angles of the other, those two triangles will be equal and similar. But the leg A B of the triangle A B C, is equal to the leg C D of the triangle B C D, because they are two of the sides of the square A B C D, equal by construction: and the leg AC is equal to the leg BD for the same reason; and because the hypothenuse BC is common to both triangles, therefore the hypothenuse of the triangle A B C is equal to the hypothenuse of the triangle BCD. Now, because by the 115th proposition of the same book, equal legs subtend equal angles of the same radii; it follows, that all the angles of the triangle A B C are equal to the corresponding angles of the triangle B D C: ergo, those two triangles are equal and similar: and ergo, if a square be cut by a diagonal line into two equal parts, those parts will be equal. QE D.

PROF. Very well! very well indeed!-Suppose now a right line to be let fall from a given point above a salt-box, till it shall touch the superior parallelogram, and another right line to be let fall from the same point till it should touch the inferior parallelogram of the same salt-box, can you demonstrate that these two lines must be unequal: or, in other words, can you prove that a line of 12 inches is shorter than a line of 18 inches in length?

STU. If two lines

STU. Divided by a vertical membrane or partition into two large cavities or sinuses.

PROF. Are these cavities always equal?

STU. They used to be so formerly; but modern joiners have thought it best to have them unequal, for the more convenient accommodation of the viscera or contents; the larger cavity for the reception of the coarser viscera, and the smaller for the fine.

PROF. Very true-thus have modern joiners, by their improvements, excelled the first maker of saltboxes-Tell me now what peculiarity do you observe in the superlateral member of a salt-box?

STU. Whereas all the other members are fixed and stationary with respect to each other, the superlateral is moveable on a pair of hinges.

PROF. To what purpose is it so constructed?

STU. For the admission, retention, and emission of the saline particles.

Gov. This is sufficient-our time is short-dinner must not wait-let us now proceed to

Surgery, and the Practice of Physic.

PROF. Mention a few of the principal disorders to which a salt-box is liable?

STU. A cracked and leaky fundamental; a gaping of the joint in the laterals; luxation of the hinges: and an accession and concretion of filth and foulness external and internal.

PROF. Very well.-How would you treat those disorders?-begin with the first.

STU. I would caulk the leak fundamental with pledgets of tow, which I would secure in the fissure by a strip of linen or paper pasted over. For the starting of the lateral joints, I would administer powerful astringents, such as the gluten corneum ; and would bind the parts together by triple bandages until the joints should knit.

PROF. Would you not assist with chalybeates?

STU. Yes-I would at-tack the disease with prepared iron, in doses proportioned to the strength of the parts.

PROF. How would you manage the luxation of the hinge?

STU. I would first examine whether it was occasioned by the starting of the points which annex the processes to the superlateral or its antagonist, or to a loss of the fulcrum, or to an absolute fracture of the sutures. In the first case, I would secure the process by a screw; in the second, I would bring the sutures together, and introduce the fulcrum; and in the last, I would entirely remove the fractured hinge, and supply its place, pro tempore, with one of leather.

PROF. Very well, sir!-very well!-now for your treatment in case of accumulated foulness, external and internal-but first tell me, how is this foulness contracted?

STU. Externally, by the greasy hands of the cook; and internally, by the solution and adhesion of the saline particles.

PROF. True. And now for the cure.

STU. I would first evacuate the abominable vessel, through the prima via. I would then exhibit detergents and diluents; such as the saponaceous preparation, with great plenty of aqua fontana.

PROF. Would not aqua cœlestis do better? STU. Yes plenty of aqua cœlestis with the marine sand. I would also apply the friction brush, with a brisk and strong hand, until the excrementitious concrete should be totally dissolved and removed. PROF. Very proper.—What next?

STU. I would recommend the cold bath, by means of a common pump; and then apply lintal absorbents; and finally, exsiccate the body by exposition either in the sun, or before the kitchen fire.

PROF. In what situation would you leave the superlateral valve during the exsiccating operation? STU. I would leave it open to the extent, in order that the rarefied humidities might freely exhale from the abominable cavities or sinuses.

Chemistry.

PROF. You have mentioned the saponaceous preparation-pray, how is that procured?

STU. By the action of a vegetable alkaline salt upon a pinguidinous or unctuous substance. PROF. What is salt?

STU. It is a substance sui generis, pungent to the taste, of an antiseptic quality, and is produced by crystallization on the evaporation of the fluid in which it is suspended.