Greatest, Leaf, and Mean State of the BAROMETER, THERMOMETER, and HYGROMETER, in the Year 1792. Barometer. Thermom, without. Thermom. within. Hygrometer. 1792 Great. Leaft Mean Great. Leaft | Mean Great Leaft, Mean Great. Leaft | Mean Dec. 30,35 29,01 29,84 54,5 33,5 43 57 43.5 47.5 13,5 9 11,5 Whole Year. 30,51 28,99 29,89 79,5 17,551575 34 155 15 8 1,5 Extraordinary History of the Singular REGISTER of a BURIAL in the Parish of Streatham. -- [From Lyfons' Environs of London, Vol. I. just published. ] RUSSEL, buried April 14, fufion among the relative pronouns, 1772. N. B. This perfon was always known under the guife or habit of a woman, and an'fwered to the name of Elifabeth, as ' registered in this parith Nov. 21, 1669, but at death proved to be a man.' In fpeaking of this extraordinary perfon, whofe hiftory I have taken fome pains to inquire into, it will be neceffary, in order to avoid con to make conftant ufe of the mafculine gender, however oddly it may be fometimes combined. The various adventures of his life, had they been collected by a contemporary, would have formed a volume as entertaining as thofe of the celebrated Bampfylde Moore Carew, whom he accompanied in many of his rambles, and from whom probably he first took the hint of difguifing his fex to an D fwer fwer fome temporary purpose. Upon examining the parish register, I find that John Ruffel had three daughters, and two fons; William, born in 1668, and Thomas, in 1672; there is little doubt therefore that the perfon here recorded was one of the two; and that when he affumed the female drefs, he affumed alfo the name of his fifter Elifabeth, who probably either died in her infancy, or fettled in fome remote part of the country; under this name, in the year 1770, he applied for a certificate of his baptifm. He attached himself at an early period of life to the gypfies, and being of a rambling difpofition vifited most parts of the continent as a ftroller or vagabond. When advanced in years he fettled at Chipfted in Kent, where he kept a large fhop. Sometimes he travelled the country with goods, in the character of a married woman, having changed his maiden name for that of his husband who carried the pack, and to his death was his reputed widow, being known by the familiar appellation of Bet Page. In the courfe of his travels he attached himfelf much to itinerant phyficians, learned their noftrums, and practifed their art. His long experience gained him the character of a most infallible doctress, to which profeffion he added that of an aftrologer, and practifed both with great profit; yet fuch was his extravagance, that he died worth fix fhillings only. It was a common cuftom with him to fpend whatever he had in his pocket at an alehouse, where he ufually treated his companions. About twelve months before his death he came to refide at his native place. His extraordinary age procured him the notice of many of the moft refpectable families in the neighbourhood, particularly that of Mr. Thrale, in whofe kitchen he was frequently entertained. Dr. Johnfon, who found him a fhrewd fenfible perfon, with a good memory, was very fond of converfing with him. His faculties indeed were fo little impaired by age, that a few days before he died, he had planned another ramble, in which his landlord's fon was to have accompanied him. His death was very fudden: the furprise of the neighbours may be well imagined, upon finding that the perfon, who, as long as the memory of any one then living could reach, had been always efteemed and reputed to be a woman, was discovered to be a man; and the wonder was the greater as he had lived much among women, and had frequently been his landlady's bed-fellow when an unexpected lodger came to the house. Among other precautions, to prevent the discovery of his fex, he conftantly wore a cloth tied under his chin; and his neighbours not having the penetration of fir Hugh Evans, who fpied Falstaff's beard through his muffler, the motive was unfufpected. After his death a large pair of nippers was found in his pocket, with which, it is fupposed, he endeavoured to remove by degrees all tokens of manhood from his face. It may be obferved, that fuppofing him to be the younger fon of John Ruffel, he would have been 100 years of age; if we fuppofe him to have been the elder, his age would have been 104. He himself used to aver that he was 108. He had a mixture of the habits and employments of both fexes; for though he would drink hard with men, whofe company indeed he chiefly affected, yet he was an excellent fempftress, and celebrated for making a good shirt. There was a wildness and eccentricity in his general conduct which frequently bordered on infanity; and, at least, we may fairly conclude, to use a favourite expreffion of Anthony Wood, the Oxford biographer, that he had rambling head and a crazy pate.' REFLEC REFLECTIONS on the prefent STATE of AFFAIRS in France. The following Reflections are felected from the celebrated M. Necker's Effay on the true Principles of Executive Power in Great States. They appear, indeed, to have been written while Monarchy was ftill allowed to fubfift; but they are not the lefs defcriptive of the prefent Situation of that Country. M. Necker endeavours to fhew, that the Principles of Liberty and Equality, as understood by the French Legislators, have, in Reality, introduced the greatest Inequalities. In his twentieth Chapter, he enters upon a Parallel, which it behoves every Englishman to read with the greatest Attention; and in his Chapter on the Executive Power, as connected with Liberty, is an animated Apostrophe to the British Nation, exhorting them to preserve the Happiness they now enjoy. On LIBERTY and EQUALITY. No fooner did legislators, called upon to inftru&t their contemporaries, choose rather to enlift under the ftandard of the paffions, and to purfue the temporary applaufes of the hour, than they perceived, that to eftablish perfect equality as a maxim of policy, morality and philofophy, would be an admirable means to fecure them a numerous train of fupporters; for there is no man in a ftate of fociety who does not regard a fuperior as a very troublesome neighbour. No fooner therefore did they obtain permiffion to establish this petty fentiment into a principle of government, than the multitude drank in with avidity the leffons of thefe new inftructors. It is not in the capacity of the multitude to analyze the complexity of truth; they can do no more than affociate themselves, by an effort of feeling, to the opinion of him who teaches them a palatable doctrine. Their leaders are well acquainted with this circumftance in their character; they accordingly attempt no more than to infufe into them one or two ideas, and bafely flattering their fhort-fighted arrogance, they tell them that the whole fcience of government is to be found in the developement of a single axiom. It is thus, that in the name of equality, they have induced them to believe the moft free, the most happy government in the world, the go vernment of England, to be tyrannical: that they have taught them to apprehend danger from a divifion of the legislative body into two houfes, though an inftitution that had, a few years before, been adopted even by a republic, the United States of America: that they have infpired them with an irrational contempt for all intermediary rank, philofophically indifpenfible to the fupport of royal majefty. And by and by, in the fame name of equality, they will order a partition of landed property, and at length effect, by their plan of uniformity, anarchy the most complete. But look at the univerfe, and fee whether gradations and diftances have been rejected by its wife architect: on the contrary, it is by them, it is by a general fyftem of fubordination, that every thing holds its place, and that the general harmony of the world is maintained. Hear the words of a celebrated writer of antiquity. The Supreme Being feparated the elements to place them at peace. Fire, the lighteft of all, was fent to shine in the regions, of heaven; the air had the fecond place, and next came the earth fufpended by the laws of gravitation in the midft of the abyfs; water had only the fourth rank, yet was it to conftitute the limits beyond which the world might no longer pafs. Thus D 2 did did the author of nature, by affigning their different fituations to the elements, organize the universe *. Ah! how happy is it for the human race, that our political Quixottes are unable to diffolve this harmonious fyftem, and fubject the elements to an equality! Before the termination of the year they would renew the ancient chaos; and, to complete the cataftrophe, the remembrance of their genius, we and they fhould perish together. DISTINCTIONS which confift in mere appellatives of convention, are not to be ranked as distinctions inimical to focial equality; vanity cannot be wounded in those beneath, nor infolence nourished in thofe above, except where thefe appellatives reprefent real advantages, and recall to the mind honorary rights and immunities confecrated by opinion. Inequalities may therefore exift, fufceptible of no precife defignation, and which yet may be more burthenfome and oppreffive than thofe decorations and titles which have excited fo great jealoufy. These the French conftitution has multiplied, and I proceed to fhow in what man ner. The ancient lawgivers of nations, in order to balance the terrible effects of the power of numbers, a power always poffeffed by the people, placed a moral force in the hands of governments, whereby to restrain the effervefcence of paffions which ignorance and misfortune are apt to engender. We have fubverted this prudent equipoife, have at once deftroyed the authority of adminiftration, weakened the empire of wisdom, and after confecrating, by an abftraction, the fovereignty of the people, have conferred on it every fpecies of power. At fight of this new mafter every one has enquired by what means he was to be feduced, and what address was neceffary to obtain the first rank in his court. To hold of him a municipal office, a feat on the bench of judgment, a church dignity, and to con tell thefe places with an infinite crowd of competitors, was too petty a fphere of ambition. A univerfal paffion was excited of directing the opinions of the defpot, and of influencing his fenSome have nourished his timents. fufpicions, others infpired him with jealoufy and diftruft, and all juftified his violence. The daring partifans of fedition, eager above all others to exercise their fway, have held confultations at taverns, or have mixed with the groupes which affemble in public places; and there, according to their pleafure, according to the ruling paflion of the day, have irritated the people against the king, against the queen, against foreign monarchs, against ministers, against magiftrates, against every man holding rank in the focial order, and lastly directed its fury against property and all those who poffefs it. At the fame time another junto, ambitious of a more extenfive empire, have compofed pamphlets, fuited to the taste and understandings of every clafs of fociety; and mixing, in their recital of events, maxims the most dangerous and principles the most libertine, have diffeminated through the kingdom a fpirit of independence and irreligion. They have given the name of fanaticifm to piety, of vexation to the laws of order, of tyranny to the most feeble authority, and the ftill more terrible one of ariftocracy to every opinion contrary to their own doctrines and tenets: and among these men fome, writing their productions with the dagger's point, have knowingly calumniated the moft virtuous citizens, and denounced them, without fcruple, to the vengeance of a blind populace. Such are the new authorities which have started up in the state, such the * Hanc Deus & melior litem Natura diremit, &c. different different fuperiorities which the conftitution has produced, such the actual inequalities which have fupplied the place of the vain diftinctions, the fuppreffion of which has been celebrated with fo much oftentation. By what names fhall we call them? What titles shall we invent to exprefs the fupremacy of those who can, with impunity ftir up the people against the opinions and perfons of public men; who can, with impunity, draw infults upon the monarch and all who are connected with him; who can, with impunity, cut down my woods, ravage my eftate, fet fire to my habitation; who can, with impunity, recommend a traveller to popular outrages, or can themselves conftrain a peaceable citizen, by menaces, to fly his paternal abode, and become an exile from his family? What tit'es alfo fhall we invent to exprefs the fupremacy of those, who have engroffed exclufively to themselves the public ear, who by their daily publications occupy the whole of the few precious moments that husbandmen and artifans can devote to the improvement of their minds; who thus govern the people by lies, infpire them with whatever paffions and fentiments their bafe purposes may require, and infenfibly weaken in them every tie neceffary to the maintenance of focial fubordination ? Ah! let us call them dukes, archdukes, princes and viceroys, let us engage to treat them with the utmoft deference, provided they will engage in return to leave our property and our lives fecure, and to respect morality and religion, and we fhall make a happy exchange, we fhall fign, at the prefent moment, the best of all poffible contracts. For, I repeat it, thefe are the mafters which have been given us by a conftitution that has placed the fceptre in the hands of the demagogues of the multitude; this is the terrible aristocracy which that con ftitution has generated. And yet we talk of liberty, we boast of a system_ of equality, a fyftem that fall place all men upon a level! It is true the fuperiorities which heretofore exifted are no longer to be feen; but those which have fucceeded them are a thoufand times more terrible. We have deftroyed the parchments which conferred on the ancient chevaliers of France their honorary prerogatives; but we have given commiflions of audacity and impunity to men ftrangers to every generous fentiment. We have taken out of the profpect the weathercocks upon the chateaux of the nobleffe; but we have introduced on all fides the torches of incendiaries. We have destroyed the pigeon-houses of lords of manors; but we have newpeopled the plains with tyrants athirst for blood. We have broken to pieces the proud fepulchres that remained as a memorial over the ashes of the dead; but we have furrounded with tremendous filence, and fecured with tyrannous precautions the abyffes deflined to immanacle the living. Menace has been every where fubftituted for the mild law of refpect, and fanguinary vengeance for the efficacious interpofition of a venerable authority. Government has been facrificed to the fear of defpotifm, and there has immediately fprung up a multitude of tyrants, who, celebrating hypocritically the charms and bleflings of equality, have extended their yoke over the property, over the perfons, over the opinions and over the confciences of men. Meanwhile they are not defcended, as one might be led to imagine, from the land which Cadmus fowed with the teeth of ferpents: but they owe their origin to thofe fatal germs of anarchy which have corrupted the vegetation. of the moral foil of France, and rendered it prolific in malevolent demons and favage fpirits. M. NECKER's |