best before meals, especially riding. Riding on horseback is the best exercise to recover lost health, and walking the best to preserve good health."

To those to whom the sensual gratification of drinking deep, or the tooth-picking lounge upon the sofa, afford little pleasure, the ball-room is both a pleasant and healthy mode of spending the evening. Than dancing, there is no species of exercise which can be taken within doors more cheering to the mind, and renovating to the body; and though usually considered a fatiguing recreation, it seldom produces any bad consequences. The music* alone has a remarkable power over many individuals in soothing the mind and equalizing the passions; and a placid state of mind becomes in its turn a powerful auxiliary in the treatment and cure of no small number of the most inveterate diseases. The weak and delicate ought not to exert themselves like the strong and vigorous, and in no instance should the body when overheated be suddenly exposed to the cold air. The warm bath, though from the usages of society rarely compatible with dancing hours, is a real luxury after this exercise, and will frequently induce sound and tranquil sleep.

Dr. Jones, in the year 1572, after advising the visitors at Buckstone to get acquainted with the air, adds, "and have Melody, for it refreshes the wit, increases the strength, and melancholy it puts to flight."

DIET.

From the earliest authentic records which we possess of our species, the sacred writings of Moses, who paid much attention to the subject, down to the present time, to deter mankind from intemperance has employed the authority of the Jawgiver, the tongue of the declaimer, the pen of the satirist, the reasoning of the philosopher, and the religion of the divine; and all with less success than could have been wished or expected. Much has, indeed, of late been attempted and even affected to reduce the people of this country to a sober consideration of this matter; yet I am not. aware that any modern guardian of the public purse has attributed the descending ratio of the national income to the Temperance Societies' or to the Tee-totallers' en masse. Such a view of the case would have been complimentary on both sides, and must have recalled to the leaders of these systems the words of the poet, 'the angry spirit of the water shrieks.' In connection with

these ancient and modern auxiliaries, my remarks on this head may be much shortened, when the very great number of works on dietetics, regimen, and homæophatics recently published are considered. The physical and mental condition of the species have in some of those works been treated with much ingenuity. Man is now no longer a cake half turned,' but has been viewed, turned, recast, and reformed, in almost every state of individual and social relation.

Moderation in eating is at all times highly commendable, but more essentially necessary during a course of mineral waters. For the largest proportion of cases which require their use, has been either originally excited, or subsequently confirmed by a too free participation in the luxuries of the table. As there is no class of diseases in which a proper regimen is found to be of greater importance, so there is none in which medicine is unfortunately less efficient. Aware of this, it is imperative upon all who either value the health they enjoy, or seek to regain that which is lost, to abstain from those things which their own experience, or that of others, has ascertained to be injurious; and to have recourse to such plain food as will nourish the body, without oppressing the organs of digestion. The number of distinctions

and the variety of detail which this important subject involves, preclude the possibility of laying down rules suited to every case, or entering minutely into a consideration of the different kinds of aliment. Nor is it the mere quality of food which is generally of most importance; the quantity and variety, the time it is taken, and the manner of preparing it, are the objects most worthy of regard.

As the complaints for which these waters were anciently used have been already enumerated, the diet for the same period may be no less interesting, which proves that whether cooks were as scientific as at the present day, it was not for want of good materials. Dr. Dean, in 1626, says, "let the drinkers use a moderate quantity of meat and drink, of light and easy digestion, good and wholesome, affording laudible juice; but such as breed crude and bad humours must be refrained, and also variety of dishes eaten at the same meal and all pickles spices, sauces, and fat in dressing, They must also avoid all salt meats, beef, bacon, pork, lard, and larded meats, hare, venison, tripes,

The reader is referred for further directions to Fothergill's Rules for the preservation of Health; Cheyne on the natural method of curing disease of the Body and Mind, 4to edit.; Willich's Lectures on Diet and Regimen, Arburthnot on Aliments, 4to edit.; the works of Dis. Kitchener, Paris, Combe, &c. &c.

and all other entrails of beasts, blood-pudding, geese, pigs, swans, teale, mallard, and all other water fowl, being of hard digestion and ill nourishment. And among fish, salmon, eels, lamprey, herring, and salt ling, all salt fish, sturgeon, oysters, anchovies, cockles, muscles, and shell fish. I likewise disallow of the white meats, milk-curds, cream, old cheese, custards, white-pots, pudding pies. Of fruits, apples, pears, plumbs, codlings, gooseberries, and all summer fruits, either raw, or in tarts and pyes; and all peas and beans, colu sallads, raw herbs, onions, leeks, chives, cabbage, coleworts, pompions, cucumbers, and the like; nor should they use much exercise after dinner; nor sit heavy, sullen, dull, musing, or slumbering; but a little gentle walking, or cheerful conversation. Let therefore their diet be hens, capons, pullets, chickens, partridges, pheasants, turkies, and generally all wood and mountain fowls; veal, mutton, kid, lamb, rabbits, young hare, and leverets, rather roasted than boiled, except use or constitu tion require the last. Of fish, trouts, perches, Joches, and all scaly brook and river fish; smelts, soales, dabbs, whitings, turbut, gurnet, and allsuch other that are not heavy and unwholesome. These may be altered with mint, hysop, or anise. Also cray-fish, crab-fish, lobsters, and the like;