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    crates , and others less potent are thought to possess qualities which till now were not known . Few will read this paper but will recollect , that , a short time since , we shuddered at the thought of mercury ; the very name conveyed an idea , at which a modest man was

    startled ; but now it is the sovereign restorative . It is Tike Dr — * st " tea-spoon full , " which is just

    enough " for all cases and circumstances whatever . And our city professors , and many country practitioners , in imitation of London fashions , administer calomel

    for symptoms of every species , and fevers of every power . The time is , perhaps , not far distant , when we shall have

    recourse agaia to our own hedges ; when the mania of commerce , which is infused into our very veins , and las infused many poisonous juices with it , shall subside , and with it our attachment to

    foreign drugs . The use of foreign drugs is probably only a revival of a custom long laid aside . Some of these revivals may be clearly traced in the page of history ; others have been lost in the obliterated annals

    of time , and the dark ages of the world . Thej relate to every other thing in use amongst mankind as well as drugs . I am the more induced to entertain this opinion , from a view of the inarch that science has

    conspicuously made over the world . In the different ages it has taken up itp abode upon different spots . We have no means of learning at how earl y a period men became enlightened and were acquainted with the arts and sciences . We first find them flourishingin Egypt . Their progress towards perfection

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    must of necessity have been gnu dual ; and many centuries must have elapsed before they arrived at the perfection they were in at

    the dissolution of the Egyptian monarchy . In consequence of this event , they shifted their station , and fled in , perhaps , a shattered and enfeebled state , to colonies which had branched out from

    this mother of science ; and in a greater or less vigour , they were seen to revive at Tyre , at Babylon , in Greece , in Macedon , at Carthage , &c * But , as all earthly objects are mutable , we see them

    soon changing their station again , and afterwards appearing in full splendour in the centre of the Italian states , which then became the mistress and the regent of the world . Observe , that a perfect

    ignorance , and a freezing barbarism ordinarily succeeded to this state of high civilization and * know . ledge , and much or all that had been learned was forgotten and lost . In later times , the arts and sciences have burst out with a

    blaze that has reached every corner of the globe from a narrow domain , which , but a few centu - ries before , was immersed in ignorance and barbarism * Since

    the days of Alfred , and still more since the reign of Henry VII . the arts of life have been cultivated with the liveliest ardour , and with

    the happiest effects on th « shores of Britain ; while our industrious and ingenious artists are daily making some grand discoveries , and shewing us some new thipg .

    < But may it not be doubted whether all these were notof old time ? Did not Rome possess many of those branches of knowledge which we boast to have brought to light ? Was not Greece acquaint-

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    438 On the Revival of Knowledge long lost .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1810, page 438, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2408/page/14/