ful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me the better men and women will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days; though on that account alone I might call myself the household-God of a hundred families. Far be it from me also, to hint at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells made you tremble for your combustible town, you fled to the Town-Pump, and found me always at my post; firm, amid the confusion, and ready to drain my vital current on your behalf, neither is it worth while to lay undue stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick or left them so since the days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. No, these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede to me, if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class -of being THE GRAND REFORMER OF THE age. From my spout and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream, that shall cleanse our earth of a vast portion of its crime and anguish, which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still and the beer vat. In this mighty enterprise the Cow shall be my great confederate. WATER and MILK! The TOWN-PUMP and the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership that shall tear down the distilleries, brew-houses, and malt-kilns, and finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! When shall the glorious day dawn upon us! Ahem! dry work this speechifying, especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter they shall have the business to themselves. Do some kind Christians pump a stroke or two, just to whet my whistle. Thank you, Sir! My dear hearers, by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats, liquor-casks, and beer-barrels, into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honour of the Town-Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon this spot. Such monuments should be erected every where, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. There are some honest and true friends of mine, who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even of a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. In the moral warfare which you are to wage-and indeed in the whole conduct of your lives-you cannot choose a better example than myself, who has never permitted the dust, and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes of the world around us, to reach that deep, calm well of purity which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earths fever, or to wash its stains. One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old.-Hold out your vessel, my dear! There, it is full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go, and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink-" SucCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP!" when the happy day shall arrive that the banded sons of Temperance shall fully carry out their principles ;-when they shall abandon all artificial drinks, and become, indeed water drinkers; then, their wives, their sons and their daughters, and the banners around which they shall rally, for the life of the nations, and the elevation of their own characters, shall shine forth with Wisdom's mottos. "All that drink water shall be comforted!"—"No distillation but the dew of Heaven!"-" No drink but the crystal well!"-When the voice of the whole people shall go forth, saying,—“Let the golden grain be all gathered to our garners, and let man feed on the fat of the land. Let the land be occupied in growing useful vegetables and herbs, roots and fruit; and not useless tea, coffee, etc. etc. Let the fruit of the trees ripen only to give sweetening and variety to man's necessary food, and let none forsake their own mercies, for useless and injurious articles, which give not strength to the system, but only tend to pamper a vitiated appetite. Let them come to vegetable diet and water. Then shall every cheek glow with health-man's life be greatly lengthened-his enjoyments vastly increased-and his labor and anxiety much diminished. Sleep shall be sweet to the weary, and joy again be in the habitation of woe! Love and peace shall prevail, and the blessings of cold water and vegetable food, enhance the value of every other earthly blessing.-When the day spring from on high shall visit us, and the pure water of life flow as a river, to purify and refresh the soul. Then shall the earth bring forth her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us. Then, ye favoured sons and daughters of Britain, whose heritage this may be, with all the benignest gifts of God. "Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue; if there be any praise; think on these things." After nearly three years abstinence from all artificial drink; the increase of health, and vigor of body and mind, and the return of a natural appetite, which enables its possessor to enjoy plain food, we bid farewell to all but Nature's beverage: and while some are quaffing strong drinks, scalding tea, etc.; and fancying they should be greatly abridging their comforts, if they were to abandon them, every member of Nature's Beverage Society, exclaims, "give me reviving and purifying water!-the rills, the stream, or the torrent, which pours from the bright sides of our cloudcrested mountains! the gush cool and clear, that bubbled up before Hagar and the fainting Ishmael, that followed the stroke of the Prophet's rod, from the rock of Horeb,-that refreshed the inhabitants of Paradise, give me the pure water that Isaac drank from the pitcher of Rebekah.— Elijah received from the hand of the angel, and the Saviour enjoyed at the well of Jacob; that cheered the spirits of the favoured Israelites, the valiant Gideonites, the noble Nazarites, and the honoured Rechabites. That quenched the thirst of mighty Sampson, the Holy Daniel, the fearless John, and the youthful Timothy. Give me of these cheering springs, these flowing brooks, and these crystal rivers, whose transparent surface reflects all that is calm, or soft, or bright, in the beautiful firmament above; give me those gentle streams in health, and in sickness; give me those waters untainted and free, until I drink of that 'river, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God."" PART III. CHAPTER VIII. ON DRUGS. Thus with our hellish drugs, Death's ceaseless fountains, I have myself to thousands poison given And heard their murderer praised as blest by Heaven, Because with nature strife he waged. GOETHE'S FAUST. "There has been a great increase of medical men it is true, of late years; but upon my life, diseases have increased in proportion."-ABERNETHY'S SURGICAL LEC TURES. PREVENTION is better than cure. * It must there Dr. Cheyne observes most men know when they are ill, but very few when they are well. And yet it is certain, that it is easier to preserve health, than to recover it, and to prevent diseases than to cure them. Towards the first, the means are mostly in our own power; little else is required than to bear and forbear. But towards the latter the means are perplexing and uncertain. Yet nothing is more common with the short-sighted victims of disease, than to prefer palliating their torments by Drugs, to preventing them by proper regimen: and you may as well try to reason with |