Mr. Flat-man, in speaking of the death of Charles II. expresses, his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying; because, says he,

 

Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.

 

They should abscond, that is, into the other world.

 

12 Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted: for in a pirated edition of Buchan's Domestic Medicine, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer's wife who was studying it for the benefit of her health, the doctor was made to say – »Be particularly careful never to take above five-and-twenty ounces of laudanum at once;« the true reading being probably five and twenty drops, which are held equal to about one grain of crude opium.

 

13 Amongst the great herd of travellers, etc. who show sufficiently by their stupidity that they never held any intercourse with opium, I must caution my reader specially against the brilliant author of »Anastasius.« This gentleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in that character from the grievous misrepresentation which he gives of its effects, at p. 215-17 of vol. i. – Upon consideration, it must appear such to the author himself: for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself admit, that an old gentleman ›with a snow-white beard,‹ who eats ›ample doses of opium,‹ and is yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is but an indifferent evidence that opium either kills people prematurely, or sends them into a mad-house. But, for my part, I see into this old gentleman and his motives: the fact is, he was enamoured of ›the little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug‹ which Anastasius carried about him; and no way of obtaining it so safe and so feasible occurred, as that of frightening its owner out of his wits (which, by the by, are none of the strongest). This commentary throws a new light upon the case, and greatly improves it as a story: for the old gentleman's speech, considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd: but, considered as a hoax on Anastasius, It reads excellently.

 

14 I have not the book at this moment to consult: but I think the passage begins – »And even that tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion,« etc.

 

15 A handsome news-room, of which I was very politely made free in passing through Manchester by several gentlemen of that place, is called, I think, The Porch: whence I, who am a stranger in Manchester, inferred that the subscribers meant to profess themselves followers of Zeno. But I have been since assured that this is a mistake.

 

16 I here reckon twenty-five drops of laudanum as equivalent to one grain of opium, which, I believe, is the common estimate. However, as both may be considered variable quantities (the crude opium varying much in strength, and the tincture still more), I suppose that no infinitesimal accuracy can be had in such a calculation. Tea-spoons vary as much in size as opium in strength. Small ones hold about 100 drops: so that 8,000 drops are about eighty times a tea-spoonful. The reader sees how much I kept within Dr. Buchan's indulgent allowance.

 

17 This, however, is not a necessary conclusion: the varieties of effect produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A London magistrate (Harriott's Struggles through Life, vol. iii. p. 391, third edition,) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his trying laudanum for the gout, he took forty drops, the next night sixty, and on the fifth night eighty, without any effect whatever: and this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a country surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott's case into a trifle; and in my projected medical treatise on opium, which I will publish, provided the College of Surgeons will pay me for enlightening their benighted understandings upon this subject, I will relate it: but it is far too good a story to be published gratis.

 

18 See the common accounts in any Eastern traveller or voyager of the frantic excesses committed by Malays who have taken opium, or are reduced to desperation by ill luck at gambling.

 

19 The reader must remember what I here mean by thinking: because, else this would be a very presumptuous expression. England, of late, has been rich to excess in fine thinkers, in the departments of creative and combining thought: but there is a sad dearth of masculine thinkers in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent name has lately told us, that he is obliged to quit even mathematics, for want of encouragement.

 

20 William Lithgow: his book (Travels, etc.) is ill and pedantically written: but the account of his own sufferings on the rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting.

 

21 In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual house, as the reader will understand when I tell him that, with the exception of one or two princely mansions and some few inferior ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The architecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in this county: but for any other architecture – it is in a barbarous state; and, what is worse, in a retrograde state.

 

22 On which last notice I would remark that mine was too rapid, and the suffering therefore needlessly aggravated: or rather perhaps it was not sufficiently continuous and equably graduated. But, that the reader may judge for himself – and above all that the opium-eater, who is preparing to retire from business, may have every sort of information before him, I subjoin my diary:

 

First Week.

Drops of Laud.

 

Mond. June 24 130

–– June 25 140

–– June 26 130

–– June 27 80

–– June 28 80

–– June 29 80

–– June 30 80

 

Second Week.

Drops of Laud.

 

Mond. July 1 80

–– 2 80

–– 3 90

–– 4 100

–– 5 80

–– 6 80

–– 7 80

 

Third Week.

Drops of Laud.

 

Mond. July 8 300

–– 9 50

–– 10 Hiatus in M.S.

–– 11 Hiatus in M.S.

–– 12 Hiatus in M.S.

–– 13 Hiatus in M.S.

–– 14 76

 

Fourth Week.

Drops of Laud.

 

Mond. July 15 76

–– 16 731/2

–– 17 731/2

–– 18 70

–– 19 240

–– 20 80

–– 21 350

 

Fifth Week.

Drops of Laud.

 

Mond. July 22 60

–– 23 none

–– 24 none

–– 25 none

–– 26 200

–– 27 none

 

What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask perhaps, to such numbers as 300–350, etc.? The impulse to these relapses was mere infirmity of purpose: the motive, where any motive blended with this impulse, was either the principle of ›reculer pour mieux sauter;‹ (for under the torpor of a large dose, which lasted for a day or two, a less quantity satisfied the stomach – which, on awaking, found itself partly accustomed to this new ration): or else it was this principle – that of sufferings otherwise equal those will be borne best which meet with a mood of anger; now, whenever I ascended to any large dose, I was furiously incensed on the following day, and could then have borne any thing.

 

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