I leave it to the professional and graduated homicides."[65]
In this connexion it is natural to cite the lines on "The Poetical Medicine
Chest,"[66] which Mr. Stuart Reid has printed. They contain some excellent
advice about the drugs which a mother should provide for the use of a young
family, and end, majestically, thus:--
"Spare not in Eastern blasts, when babies die,
The wholesome rigour of the Spanish Fly.
From timely torture seek thy infant's rest,
And spread the poison on his labouring breast.
And so, fair lady, when in evil hour
Less prudent mothers mourn some faded flower,
Six Howards valiant, and six Howards fair
Shall live, and love thee, and reward thy care."
But parochial and domestic concerns could not altogether divert Sydney
Smith's mind from the strife of politics. He watched the turmoil from afar.
On the 1st of January 1813, he wrote to his friend John Allen, who was more
sanguine than himself about the prospects of the Whigs:--
"Everything is fast setting in for arbitrary power. The Court will
grow bolder and bolder, a struggle will commence, and, if it ends as I
wish, there will be Whigs again.... But when these things come to
pass, you will no longer be a Warden,[67] but a brown and impalpable
powder in the tombs of Dulwich. In the meantime, enough of liberty
will remain to make our old-age tolerably comfortable; and to your
last gasp you will remain in the perennial and pleasing delusion that
the Whigs are coming in, and will expire mistaking the officiating
clergyman for a King's Messenger.
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