Mr. URBAN, Taunton, Dec. 12. YOUR YOUR correfpondent Mr. Perry, p. 1018, is a hearsay reporter only of the late Mr. Baker's cafe of Gout. Mr. Edlin has published it on his own perfonal teftimony; and the account he has given of it has already been anfwered by me in a pamphlet, intituled, "A Reply, containing Grounds of Refutation, to Mr. Edlin's two Cafes of Gout," &c. Your readers are, therefore, referred to that publication for a view of the defence of the cooling treatment of Gout from the fatal effects afcribed to it in that cafe.

The cafe in queftion appears to be artfully, fufpicioufly, and inconclufively detailed; and does not, in my opinion, furnish any thing like decifive evidence on the fubject.

The cooling treatment of Gout has fucceeded mot happily in many hundred cafes, without a fingle wellfounded inftance of its having proved injurious. The unalterable nature of things will ever infure it a continuance of that falutary efficacy.

Your readers' time fhall not be trefpaffed on by any endeavour in me to convince Mr. Perry of his injudicious and precipitate averfion to the practice. He does not appear to be competent to a rational difcution of the fubject; and is evidently actuated by too much erroneous prejudice and captious malevolence to merit from me any other reply, than that the true intereft of the cooling treatment of Gout may be mifreprefented by fuch opponents as he has erinced himself to be, but never will effentially fuffer by fuch dabbling calumny. ROBERT KINGLAKE, M.D.

Mr. URBAN, Hillingdon, Dec. 9.

MY letter to Dr. Kinglake, P. 1018,

was written in the fpirit he had invoked for erecting a pillar of teftimony in behalf of cold applications in the Gout. The cafe of Mr. Baker was ftrictly in point; and my faint outline has been ably filled by the ingenious Mr. A Edlin's publication.

Unfitting as these materials may feem for the purpose, no fuch work can begin in a better way than first to remove

all useless rubbish. Dr. Kinglake's pillar of teftimony, being intended in charity to teach a more fuccessful mode of curing Gout, muft occupy a particular spot. Now, Mr. Urban, there is at this moment upon that fame fpot a pillar of teftimony, leading us all wrong; the work of certain old-fafhioned long-departed would-be phyficians, who have with great fimplicity proceeded in needlefs caution, perhaps inftigated by the firft difcouraging aphorifm of an antient Greek, called Hippocrates. If fuch a man ever exifted, Mr. Urban, down, down with that old pillar, down with it.

In the hiftory of difeafes, medical teachers frequently talk of "natural cure." I do not pretend, Mr. Urban, to fay thefe teachers are right in this, or, in fhort, right in any thing. The words "natural cure" have, however, often been repeated; and which you, Mr. Urban, will poffibly think with me to be firangely perverfe, upon this old pillar of teftimony, under "natural cure for the Gout," are engraved very deep thefe filly words, refidence in a hot climate."

Throwing behind me as mere trash all paft experience, and forgetting every author of former years as much as poffible, I would help to a collection of new facts, beginning with the era of Dr. Kinglake's invocation. All his Majelty's fubjects in the Torrid Zone will be kind enough to report upon this obfolete notion of warmth doing them good in Gout, and tranfmit an account of their aggravated fufferings. When Dr. Kinglake is provided with this mass of facts, we may think of another fuccelsful ftep towards erecting his new pillar of teftimony.

Mr. URBAN,

THE

WM. PERRY.

Dec. 12. letter addreffed to me, p. 1024, feems to call for an anfwer; or I fhould certainly on this occafion have faid nothing, fince few occupations are more unpleasant than anfwering letters full of folly, ill-humour, and ill-manners. As to your correfpondent's threats, I defpife them; let him etch my face if he DARE-1 defy him; and as to his defence, as he may please to call it, it is no defence at all; for he endeavours to obviate the charge of writing nonfenfe, by removing to a diftance every particle of common fenfe; and he wishes to difpel the accufation of envy, by making it plain to every

perfon

perfon that his pen and his mind are directed by its very fpirit.

His gabble about Popish bishops, gold rings, filver chalices, altar-fcreens, mock abbies, and thatched cottages, I cannot understand; and let him be affured that, at prefent, he will remain totally ignorant of the Author of thefe Letters; and that no ftroke of his etch ing needle, and no dath of his pen, will ever terrify me from writing as I have done; and, to change Dr. Johnfon's words, "I hope I fhall never be deterred from expofing what I think illiberality and nonfenfe, by the menaces of fuch a writer as the Author of the Purfaits of Architectural Innovation!"

I only defire him to prove that I have, directly or indirectly, ever in the fmalleft degree fanctioned or approved either the alterations at Salisbury Cathedral, or, indeed, in any other place, where they have tended to the removal or deftruction of the flightest remains of our antient architecture. Let him do this, and I will allow that his letter, p. 1024, is all modefty, all truth, and all talents. H. A. U.

As a father of a numerous family, I

am very glad to read the judicious and fpirited remarks of Ernulphus, p. 1011, on female drefs and manners.. For thefe twenty years it has been my conftant theme, that the ruin of my country will originate in the drefs, habits, and manners, of females. Your readers will perceive by this fentiment that I am no flatterer, and many of your pretty perufers will pafs over this letter in difguft. Be it fo; but let me imprefs the numerous fathers who may run their eye over it with the train of ideas confequent to fuch a fentiment a fentiment confirmed in my mind into an-axiom !

If we fearch hifiory, we fhall find there has been scarcely a great man but it was his mother who made him fo. What is the inference to be drawn from this fact? Why, that his mother muft have been great and virtuous before him; and that the purfuits of her juvenile years must have been-amiable, innocent, and excellent.

Your correfpondent omits in his obfervations female education. Let us look to it, for here is the fource; here the fountain is poisoned; here the habits are formed, here the tajle (a

wretched phrafe for folly) is begun. What are the employments of a ladies' modern fchool? How is Sunday employed? How do they drefs? What is the meaning of their public nights? To what do they tend? What is their influence on the mind? Study this, ye fathers, whofe care goes but to acquire fortunes for your children: ftudy this, ye fathers, whose conduct too often affifis, either by indulgence or example, all the concomitant evils: fiudy this, ye fathers, who are at a distance from a gay Capital, and from the evil of its influence, and yet, who encourage by your fupport fimilar modes in the Country, fo that it is an abfolute fact that, at a difiance from the Metropolis, extremes hinted at and complained of are carried to a greater height.

Your Correfpondent refis his expectations on fathers; and, following his example, I have called upon them. But, alas! I am a father myself, and it does not all lay with me; the cares of the world, the neceffity of a conftant application to bufinefs, makes it needful for another perfon to aflift in this undertaking. Ye mothers, then, whofe falfe tendernefs, or whofe careleffuefs,

leads you to wink at, or be blind to, the follies complained of, form refolutions in your minds, cali up the latent feelings of your fouls, and affift in the reforming the manners of the age-of female levity in manners, pursuits, and drefs-and fave your Country ! Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

ALFRED.

Dec. 7.

AM glad to find that my remarks on Kit's Coity House, p. 611, have drawn the attention of another correfpondent to that curious firucture. The etymology given by Cantius, p. 915, is ingenious; but, when he fpeaks of "fome legend on the ftones now obliterated," I cannot help thinking the conjecture too bold, as the rude appearance of the ftones is fufficient, at the firft glance, to do away the idea of their having borne an infeription. As Cantius withes to explain Horfted by Hans-zod, he will, perhaps, thank me for referring him to the words of Bede (Eccl. Hift. lib. I. cap. 15):

Horfus poftea occifus in bello à Britonibus, hactenus in Orientalibus Canti partibus monumentum habet fuo nomine infique."

Yours, &c.

WILLIAM HAMPER. MEMOIRS