pantaloons very wide about the hips and hanging down in folds; so that, if the dandy were a little sun-burnt, he would look something like a Turk, with his petticoatish trowsers! The conversation of these pretty fellows is replete with "feminine tales" "Of unair'd shirts, catarrhs and toothach, got Their manners are made up of the exquisite airs of vulgar elegance,—but I will not waste my ink and paper on such insignificant creatures! During my walk, I observed, nailed under windows in various houses, escutcheons of the coat of arms, on a black ground, with the motto RESURGAM. On inquiry, I learned that they were the arms of persons recently deceased, which are exposed thus till the mourning period is over. I leave this resort of modish idiotism, and walk by the splendid mansions of noblemen and ministers. I raise my eyes towards them in succession, and endeavour to people them with creatures of my fancy; alas! how hideous these perb edifices appear, when such reflec tions crowd on the mind! What! the fine arts decorate the residence of the enemies of their country, with all their admirable productions! The magnificent hotel before me, perhaps belongs to a wretch who trampels on the liberties of mankind, and fattens on the spoils of wretchedness! who has left to perish in loathsome hospitals a multitude of poor soldiers. Those mansions have been cemented by the tears and blood of thousands; they contain those beings who are separated from the multitude as much by their heartless insensibility as by their opulence. Oh God! hast thou withdrawn thy beneficent countenance from this modern Sodom! where man is "a pendulum 'twixt a smile and tear!" Near the splendid hotel of fashionable opulence, the poor man starves in some garret, or drags out the lengthening chain" of his existence in hopeless wretchedness. When that unhappy being awakes in the morning, to go through the same round of fruitless toil, he hears the chariot of fortune driving to the residence of his rich neighbour, who retires to his bed of down fatigued with pleasure, when he must shake off balmy sleep, "that sweet forgetfulness of life"-whose Lethean influence had for a few short hours dispelled his cares. How few instances does England afford of poverty bursting through the cloud of surrounding impediments, into the full blaze of reputation and opulence! Modest merit i. there doomed to "blush unseen;" and all its struggles are ineffectual, unless it is brought into light by the gladdening ray of patronage, or by some unforseen circumstance. The darling of prosperity never dreams of the “ sea of troubles" through which the friendless child of ge nius has to wade, before the world smiles on his solitary labours: "Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple stands afar!" The government, far from dispensing rewards to modest worth, may be described, in the language of Phillips, as a sepulchre, where corruption sits enthroned upon the merit it has murdered. Talents and virtues are no recommendations to the satellites of Despotism, who shower their favours on their servile flatterers, and keep in pay the most illiterate banditti that ever polluted the fair fields of literature, under the spoliated banners of the press. LETTER XXXVI. Over them triumphant Death his dart To DR. CALDWELL. London, July 17, 1819. It is not my intention to scribble sheets full of observations on the numberless hospitals, colleges and dispensaries of this metropolis; every Picture of London and guide book of travels describes them very minutely. I will content myself with some general remarks not usually found in the works I have alluded to. Almost every hospital in London is a school in which practice is combined with theory; there are also private theatres and museums in various parts, in which an effective system of instruction is in operation. The different hospitals are attended by medical men of the first rate eminence, who pay their daily visits, descant on the peculiarities of the various diseases, and deliver clinical lectures on the most interesting cases. The wards are not so spacious, nor the beds arranged so secundum artem as those of Paris. Each patient, on entrance, must have at least two shirts, whereas, in the French hospitals, a man may present himself as naked as Adam-he is provided with hospital clothes. In cleanliness and even elegance, the English hospitals yield to those of no other country; every thing in them presents the idea of the simplex munditiis. The mansions are not remarkable for their architectural beauty; but the uniform neatness and unpretending simplicity observable in every part, are admirably adapt. ed to the convenience and comfort of their unhappy inmates. Here the eye of the visiter is not disgusted with the obtrusive presence of those hideous beings who haunt the dwellings of wretchedness in some countries, (ex. g. the Baltimore hospital)-phantoms that wander over the house like perturbed spirits, mournfully clanking their chains, and frightening from the victim of sickness and misfortune, the gentle smiles of hope and the faint anticipations of happiness! The usual time of walking the hospitals is noon; in Paris the visits are paid early in the morning, which is in all respects preferable, both for the pupil and the patient. The stillness of the morning, the peaceable moment of awaking, and the silence of all the passionspermit reason to exert its influence with full liberty-the soul herself being calmed by the oblivious slumbers of the night, appears to revive with pure undisturbed ideas, and, possessing all her faculties with fresh vigour, seems to collect her scattered thoughts and to contemplate her peaceful bosom, like we gaze on the bottom of a clear and tranquil stream. One of the most objectionable regulations in the London hospitals, is that which obliges the pupil to buy a dressership, if he wishes to attend the patients himself: by this means, the richest students alone are enabled to learn the features of disease by actual observation. Many of these wealthy pupils are so ignorant, when they commence the business of dressers, that they commit fatal blunders; and, as the old surgeons often neglect their hospital duties, for more lucrative practice in town, the wards become theatres of senseless experiments, instead of being asylums for the relief of disease. To use the striking language of one of the most elegant of writers, "Là, le long de ces ramparts où gémit le malheur, |