The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-03-18 00:00:00

1),...701-INSON'S OPINION OF Etirl4N.

The following extra of a letter from Dr. John-
son to a friend in Scotland, dated at Buxton, was
found among the papers of a distinguished literary
charafter, not long since deceased :
Fortune often delights to exalt what nature has
negleEted; and that renown which cannot be claimed
by intrinsic excellence is often deriied from accident.
The Rubicon was ennobled by the passage of Cae-
sar : and the bubbling up of a stream in the middle
of a lime quarry has given celebrity to Buxton.
The waters, in which it is agreed no mineral pros
perties reside, and which seem to have no better
claim to superior beat than what is derived from
comparing them with the almost Siberian atmos-
phere that surrounds them, are said, however, to
possess a spirit, which, though too volatile and un-
known to receive a name from the chemists of
graver ages, have in this fanciful sera, when macca•
roni philosophers hold flirtation with science, taken
the lead of all the other elements ; and those whose
nerves have found no relief in change of sky, or va-
riety, seek for refuge here in fixed air.
It is indeed amazing, the avidity with which all
ranks of mankind seek after that health which they
have voluntarily alienated to disease ' • like Metho-
dists, who hope for salvation through faith without
works, invalids come here, in hopes to find in the
well that vigour they lost in the bowl, and to ab-
sorb in the bath the moisture that evaporated at the
ball or masquerade. For this purpose they venture
to this dreary spot, which contemplates with envy
the Highlands of Scotland; surrounded by barters
mountains, beaten by storms almost perpetual,
where scarce an inhabitant is to be seen, unless when
the sun, whose appearance is justly considered as
one of the wonders of the Peak, draws them* out,
from a curiosity natural to man, to wonder into what
cavern the storm has retired. Yet this is summer,
and if the winter holds its natural proportion, the
inhabitants of the hall, who are not thirty yards
from the well, must pass months without any com-
munication with it. _

---
Yet the same folly which created disease, for the
cure of which so much is suffered, obstructs the
operation of the remedy, from which so mach is
hoped; animated by the appetite, which even the
d.:luent power of common water, assisted by the
vibration of diurnal exercise, and the collisive hi-
larity of reciprocal salutation, would give to a body
obstrudted by gluttony and rest, they devour with
delicious hunger a farinaceous sponge, with its
interstices undulated with butter, which might smile
with contempt at the peristaltick exertions of an
elephant, and of which the digestion would be no
less an evil than the obstruction ; if obstructed, it
convulses the stomach with rancid exhalation.; and
if by its gravity it finds its way to the bowels, it
tumifies them with flatulent paroxysms of wind ;
by its detention in both it becomes acrimonious and
mephitic ; and while its fume arise and salute the
brain with palsy, its caput mortuum descends, and
lays the foundation of fistula.
Very providentially, however, the evils of break-
fast are not aggravated by the dinner ; dinner is
rather a ceremony here than a repast, and those that
are delicate and sick acquire popularity, by dis-
seminating among the multitude that food which
nothing but rude health, both of body and mind,
can digest. When it is finished, the Chaplain calls
upon the company to be thankful for what they
have received ; and the company, remembering
they have breakfasted, join in the thanksgiving.
The evils of the day are likewise happily allevi-
ated by the early hours of going to bed ; &Id if
sleep forsakes the pillow, even fancy itself cannot
charge it to the supper.
There are, notwithstanding, upwards of 200 peo-
ple here, who, by talking continually of how much
nature has left undone, and how little art has done
for the place, increase the spleen they hope to cure
at it; who speak with rapture of the beauties of
Matlock, which, though within their reach, they
never go to ; and who, hoping by the power of
imagination to convert a smoaking cauldron into a
cold bath, relax and waste to sensitive agony those
fibres which, from the comfortless state of Buxton,
and of the best well which nature gives to man to
drink of, require the tention of the bow-string and
the rigour of steel."