whence he inferred, that the parochial clergy ought therefore to exert themfelves with the more zeal in their paro chial duties.

As to your obfervation, that I have lived to So without drams, it puts me in mind of an obfervation of the late Bishop Berkeley, viz. that "there was, in every district, a tough drammift, who was the devil's decoy, to draw others in." Upon the whole, the open public teftimony that I have for thirty years paft borne against drams, in eleven different bocks or news papers, has been matter of greater fatisfaction to me than if I were affured, that the means I have proposed to avoid noxious air fhould occafion the prolonging the health and lives of an hundred millions of perfons.

I have here inclofed a very useful receipt for making yeft, which Mr. Pringle, furgeon to the first regiment of Guards, gave me, which I publifhed in the news-papers the beginning of laft March, and which is probably in the Magazines, where I guess you may have feen it. But, for greater certainty, I fend it, and, with it, what I did not fee till I was cutting the receipt out of Lloyd's Chronicle, viz. the query, "Whether it be right for truly ferious perfons to vifit on Sundays?"

As to your queries on the caufes of the fcurvy; as we are wrought out of materials that have a ftrong tendency to putrefaction, and as the fcurvy is a putrid malady, the principal caufes of it in fhips are the very putrid air and water which they there breathe and drink. Another caufe is the long-falted filesh which they eat; which, though it does not appear putrid to the taste and fmell, yet is juft on the borders of putrefaction, as appears by the following judicious experiment, which Dr. Addington told me he had made, viz. he put into a glafs of water a piece of falted beef fit to boil; and, into a like quan. tity of water, he put a piece of fresh, raw, unfalted beef; when he observed the falted beef to ftink firft; which thews that it was very near a flate of putrefaction, though the fait concealed it from the tafte and finell. And when fuch falted fiefh is, in eating, mixed with our drink, and other juices of the body, and withal beated in the body, no wonder that it should tend to breed the fcurvy, which falt from the falt-feller cures and prevents.

I look on fea air to be very wholefome, unless near muddy fhores, where

7

the vapours, being putrid, make the air unwhole fome, as is evident on fome parts of our fhore; but, where that fhore is fandy, it is conftantly healthy. If fea air were unwholefome, the feaport towns would be moft fickly when the wind blew from the fea; which I never heard to be fo.

The too great quantity of flesh which we eat in this island is, doubtlefs, a principal caufe of the prevalence of the fcurvy among us, which is the reafon why I always begin dinner with plain pudding, to prevent my living on all flesh, of which I never eat any at night, but milky fpoon meat, which occafions me much fweet fleep.

Cold, damp, inclement air, may pro. bably occafion the fcurvy, by checking too much the perfpirable vapour, which has a ftrong tendency to putrefaction, and which may alfo be the reafon of the cutaneous diforders to which the more Northern countries are obferved to be fubject. There is also another reason why they are fo subject to the fcurvy in very cold Northern countries, viz. the thutting themselves much up in clofe rooms, where they breathe very putrid air. As a remedy for this, I propofe the having fmail trunks país up through the roof, with turning copper cowis at the top, for the moll putrid, and therefore light, air continually to pafs off.

I guess the ftrong winds are hurtful to your trees, &c. on account of the great quantity of marine falt with which the air is impregnated, which is a common cafe on our fea fhores. However, I find your climate is in the main temperate.

This is a long letter for me; but my fincere defire to do what I guess will be moft acceptable to you has urged me to lengthen it. I am, my Lord, with the greateft efleem, your Lordship's obliged humble fervant,

STEPHEN HALES. P.S I had forgot to mention a thing which I have long intended to write to you about, viz. whereas you complained that the duty of your large church and congregation had incommoded your voice; it has been found, by the experience of many, that drinking tarwater very much deterges and opens the lungs, and thereby gives a very fenfibly greater eafe in fpeaking. If you fhail think fit to try it, you may use the common tar, which is fold in every town for the use of farmers; which I

have

1794]

any.

The Bishop's [Berkeley] prefcription is, a quart of tar ftirred fix minutes in a gallon of water; but, if there be fomewhat lefs tar, it may do as well, especially at first, to try how it fus on you.

You may take about one-fourth of a pint, at four feveral times, at a due diftance from meals. It will be a good time to begin in fourteen days. You may continue it for fix or eight weeks, as you find. I took it thus in the early fpring with good effect, and intend to begin again in 14 days.

(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

July 19.

IN your last volume, you were fo good as to infert an enquiry, which I was defirous of making into the truth of a report, that the Warden and Fellows of All Souls college, Oxford, had rejected a founder's kin, though bound by their statutes to elect fuch a claimant in preference to all others. Several of your correfpondents very obligingly answered me, and made it too plain that the college had acted in this manner t. I expreffed my feelings on the occafion, with a hope that, if I mifconceived the bufinefs, or if it had been imperfectly ftated. I might be fet right. No member of the college having condefcended to notice what has been faid, it is fair to prefume that they feel themfelves unable to answer the obfervations; your publication is too generally read to allow a fuppofition of its not having been feen by fome of that body. It is a matter in which fo many are interested, that I will beg leave once more to bring it before the tribunal of the publick, by giving a fhort fummary of what has been stated, and which, not having been contradicted, must be taken as true; and then I will trouble you no farther than to exprefs my with that, if the college fhall again prefer a ftranger to one of their founder's kin, the matter

may be once more difcuffed in a court of justice. It is of great and weighty concern to the universities, as well as to the publick at large, to know whether pofitive ftatutes can be thus got rid of. It appears then,

That the founder, by his ftatutes, exprefly ordered that, in elections of

69T

scholars, principaliter et ante omnes alios illi qui funt VEL ERUNT de confangui nitate noftra et genere, fi qui tales fintdum fint reperti babiles et idonei fecundum conditiones-eligantur* ;

That the members of the college take an oath to observe the flatutes;

That, in 1694, the college (for the first time, at least nothing prior has been ftated) attempted to get rid of the kin dred by a fide wind, but that Archbp. Tillotfon compelled them to receive the kinfman ti

That, in 1722, the college openly preferred a ftranger, but were compelled by Archbishop Wake to admit the relation of the founder, and were told by him, that they had done the young gentleman great injustice ;

That from this time the college admitted the claims with great reluctance §;

That, in 1761, they applied to Abp. Secker, to determine whether the collateral kindred was to be confidered as fubfifting without end; that he refused to answer the question, no cafe being before him; that they foon brought a cafe before him, by electing a stranger in preference to one of the kindred; and that he, like his predeceffors, determined against the college §;

That, in 1776, they again preferred a ftranger, and that the then archbishop was prevailed on to allow their proceedings, and to interpret that ftatute, by which the founder declared that his kindred, qui funt vel erunt, should always be preferred ante omnes alios, to mean, that only a certain number should be preferred;

That, in 1791, they again rejected a kinfman, and that the archbishop, or his affeffors, have confirmed this rejection **.

And it does not appear that the oath is abolished by which the Fellows fwear to obey the ftatutes of their founder. Yours, &c. A. B.

tion, with very large additions and emendations throughout the whole, made by the author during the laft twelve years of his life." For "London" we should in that note read "Oxford;" and for "lately" we should subftitute "1740." The new editors of the Biographia fhould undoubtedly have noticed thefe circumftances; and Q Qfhould know that C was the original fignature of Mr. Morant; the initial letter of whofe name is now fubjoined in its fiead to this life of Dr. Cave, which was written by him. P. 508, col. 1. Your Stratford correfpondent may find the infcriptions, which his friends would not allow him time to copy, printed in Dr. Nath's very valuable "Collections for the Hif tory of Worcestershire;" in the first voJume of which, rp. 446, 7, is given "an account of the water-works of Mr. William Sandys, of Fladbury, in com. Wigorn, on the river Avon, begun in the year 1635 It appears that, " 8 Charles I. a leafe was granted by John, bishop of Worcester, to Sir Wm. Sandys, and Wm. Sandys, efq. his fon, of the office of bailiff of Fladbury." From Dr. Nash's fecond volume, p. 391, we learn that the celebrated Samuel Butler, auther of Hudibras, was a native of Strentham, where he was chriftened in February, 1612. In the course of laft year the Doctor published a moft fuperb and fplendid edition of Hudibras, in quarto; to which is prefixed a short account of the inimitable author, contain. ing alfo a general critique on his poem, and other prefatory matter. A volume of felected and original notes is like. wife fubjoined.

P. 515. The particulars refpe&ting Abp. Williams bring to recollection his letters in the poffeffion of your correfpondent in p. 99 of your last volume. When will he perform his promife of communicating them to Mr. Urban?

P. 528. In Mr. Gilbert Cooper's article in the Biographia Britannica, here referred to, all that is laid of "Winfreda" is, that "the admirers of fimple and elegant poetry are not a little obliged to the author [of Letters on Tafte] for bringing them acquainted with the Song to Winifreda." Do these words point bim out as "the author of this pretty fong?"

P. 530, col. 1. W. W. B. may not perhaps recollect, that the "extracts from the writings of Dr. Priestley, which were read in court at the aflizes

"Feb. 20, 1794.

"I ought long ago to have complied with your request, by giving you fome remarks on the coin and infcriptions at Greta bridge. As there was a neat and correct drawing of the latter published in the Gentleman's Magzine, for December laft, p. 1073, which must have been taken about the time we

faw them, I need only obferve, that the tablet is intcribed to Severus and Caracalla, after the latter was declared Auguftus, and to Geta, as united with them in the empire, after his being declared Cæfar, by Lucius A' finus Senecio, their legate lieutenant, L&G. FORUM PR. PR. It appears from Veget us, De Re Militari, and from many infcriptions, that these two offices were frequently held by one and the fame perfon; and it appears, both from a coir, and from an infcription on the fragment of a ftone found in the fame

place with the tablet, that L. A. Senecio was an officer in the fixth legion. On the coin are the words LEG. VI. VICT. P. F. le gio fexta victrix pia fidelis; and LEG. VI fo, from which unfortunately the letters beVICT. may be made out on the fragment al

tween SUB CURA and LEG. VI. VICT. are broken off. On this fragment is, in letters plain enough, LABS for LAPS. For, in very many infcriptions we find labfum for lapfum. It is probable the letters preceding denoted what was fallen into decay, and was repaired; and, from the only remaining letters in the two laft lines, I would infer, that it was between the fort and the bridge, CITRA Ponte M. citra pontem. The tablet by L. A: Senecio records the time, when the affairs of the Romans in this island were in fo difbacted a state, that it was become neceflary to repair and build forts, and especially in the Northern parts, while Geta was only Cæfar. You find this fixth legion in conftant employment during the whole reign of Severus. Long before the time I am speaking of, even fo early as when his fon Baffianus, nicknamed Caracalla, was only Cæfar deftinatus, part of this fixth leg on was employed in building or repairing the fort at Ilki y, in Yorkshire, under Virius Lupus, his legate heutenant, VIR, LVP. LEG. PR. PR.

Ano

ther