nefs, that he began to grow a little eafy, though the wanted the fparkling wit, and radiant charms of the Espagnoletta; yet fome figns of extreme agitations elcaped him, and from time to time, to her great joy, he fell into unusual distractions: fhe now plainly faw that he was fmitten. They both kept their word to meet at the ball; and in a conversation still more animated than that of the last night, fhe threw fresh fewel on his love. But his marriage obtruding itself among his rap tures, gave rife to fuch forcible reflections, that by a very extraordinary effort of virtue, he was fuddenly for leaving the Espagnoletta. How! will you leave me? fays fhe, with an air fufficient to have enamoured him if he had not been fo. On this he funk down again in his chair, without fpeaking a word. I fee, fays fhe, that to detain you I stand in need of all my charms: well then, I will unmask. No fuch thing, no fuch thing, cried he, labouring in the noble conflict. What will become of me! and, in effect, dreading the confequence of a longer ftay, he inftantly broke from her. This very probably was the first time that a mistress has been pleased at a lover's overcoming the paffion he had for her. The Efpagnoletta, on this flight of her Spaniard, was no lefs delighted with his virtue than with his love.

This gentleman, who had never been known to trefpafs against fincerity, as he had given his word to his future bride, determined not to conceal from her a paffion fo very unexpected. He laid open to her the bottom of his heart, while The only feigned as much jealousy, as fufficed to let him know, that fhe loved him; and afterwards, expreffing fuch refignation and indulgence, and fo much confidence in his fidelity, that he could not but execrate himself for having been capable of harbouring any fentiment to her injury. She endeavoured to remove his concern, by high commendations of his extraordinary prudence and refolution, in refusing to fee the Espagnoletta unmasked; at the fame time advifing him, that he fhould endeavour to fee her fo: That, faid fhe, is the only way of cu ring you; to be fure, fhe is another creature under the mask, than what your in flamed imagination reprefents her; and fhould the prove to want beauty, you would foon forget her wit. No, no, replied he, there is nothing like fhunning her; and this very evening, will I beg

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of my father to put off our marriage for a few days, while I go into the country, where I make no doubt but I shall get the better of this freak; my esteem for you will not allow me to give myself to you in my prefent diftracted state. No, no, fays the, I will put you in the fureft way to forget the charms of your Espagnoletta; for unquestionably your paffion will be cured on feeing her without a mask: you may depend on it; for, to tell you the truth, it is no longer ago than yesterday, that one who knows her perfectly well, was talking of her, and faid, that except her eyes, the had not a single good feature in her face. Still the lover infifted on a fhort ruftication; but the father, who had got intelligence of all thefe tranfactions, laid his commands on his fon to bring matters to an iffue the very next day.

The contract was figned; and after the folemnization, the fplendid company returned to the mother's houfe. Scarce was fupper over, when in came a troop of masks, preceded by fiddles; the bride, who had feigned a flight indifpofition at fupper, requested her husband to perform the honour of the masquerade, while fhe withdrew to reft a while. With fuch difpatch did fhe equip herself in her former habit, that he entered the dancingroom with another groupe of masks, which followed foon after the first: they both confifted of fome intimate friends, who had been defired to form a little masquerade for facilitating the execution of the bride's artifice. The faithful bridegroom, at the fight of that dreaded object, was for haftening out of the room; but the mother, catching hold of him, informed him, that the had defignedly invited the Espagnoletta, who was at a ball in the neighbourhood, to favour them with her company. My daughter, continued fhe, cannot be eafy until you fee her unmasked, as that will abfolutely cure you, for fhe is faid to be even frightfully ugly. Ah! Madam, replied he, all the faults of her face, will never cure me of a deteftable paffion which fo many other charms have kindled; I have already imagined her more hideous than it is well poffible for her to be, and am not a whit the eafier. Ah! Madam, no longer stop me.

Whilft he was fpeaking, the Efpagnoletta, animated by this fcene, which gave her inconceivable delight, exerted the utmost of her kill and vivacity in all the

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motions

motions of the dance: he turned aside his looks from the irresistible temptation; but the wantonly fwept along close by him; which at once expelled his reafon and duty, and he forgot the prefence of his mother- n-law. To complete his confufion, the Efpagnoletta took him by the hand. This fo overpowered his fenfes, that his mother-in-law taking him under the arm, he fuffered himself to be husled away to a closet, without knowing whither he was going, and the mother fhut herself up with them. The Elpagnoletta then fent forth a deep figh; and no more than natural; for by unmasking herself the fear ed that the fhould totally lose the pleafure of feeing her husband fo very fond: fhe loved him as much as he loved the Espagnoletta; her languifhing looks answered thofe of her tranfported lover; they looked at each other for fome time, without uttering a word, whilft the anxious mo. ther's fluent tongue was giving her sonin-law an idea of the most diftafteful ugglinefs, that by this contraft, when her daughter fhould come to unmask, fhe might appear to less disadvantage: the fond bride availed herself as long as the could of her husband's mistake; but as fhe could not prevail on herself to terminate this fcene, the mother at length took the mask from the daughter's face.

The powerful effect that this furprise produced in this happy bridegroom, is one of those things the force of which is diminished by any defcription. Imagine the fituation of a man of honour, conflict ing with love and beauty, infinitely efteeming one perfon, and paffionately in love with another, and at length finding them both united in one complete object. As to the bride, what must have been her ecftafy, that in fo little time fhe had transformed an indifferent lover into an enamoured husband, and brought the ftruggle between efteem and love to a favourable iffue, which established her felicity, and did equal honour to both!

The country-feat. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, April 1762.

Mr UREAN,

April 19. 1762. WHen in London, about three years ago, I remember fome perfon advertifed, that he was acquainted with a fpecific, and an immediate cure, for the cramp, which he offered to make public, on the payment, I think, of 200 guineas, into a banker's hands, by any number of fubfcribers.

To R. B. S.

THE cramp is a convulfive contraction of the muscles, occafioned by cold, to which people advanced in years are more generally fubject than those in the prime of life. It happens alfo to children, and occafionally to perfons of every age.

In the day-time, our erect pofture more. forcibly carries on the circulation of the blood in the extreme parts, to which may be added the bandage more or less of our cloathing, of which in bed we are almost entirely divested. And in the ho rizontal posture we lie, the feet and legs, as the most extreme parts, first grow cold, which (in habits where the veffels are full) occasions the muscles to contract fo fudden and violent as is fufficient to awake a perfon out of fleep, and throw him into great agony.

The most immediate remedy for this complaint, is, to keep above the knee, a ftrong garter with a buckle, and when the cramp feizes you, to flip it as high as You can up the thigh, and draw it tight.

The ufe of what the country-people call a girth-web-belt (with three or four buckles and ftraps) put on round the waift when you go to bed, would prevent it ;* but that being a partial and unequal ban dage, may caufe pain in the head, or dif ficulty of breathing.

Therefore rather recommend, that your bed be laid gradually high to the head, draw on a pair of thick flannel

focks

May 1762.

focks, and put on a dimitty waistcoat, fo fitted, that you may wear it buttoned. Were the complaint mine, abftinence fhould be my remedy; for nothing warms the blood more effectually than abstemioufnefs in folid food, with moderate exer. cife. You may be a very moderate perfon in diet, but your conftitution hereby difcovers an error in your regimen. Do you eat fuppers? leave them off. If you eat none, you have taken fomething in the day-time that was heavy of digeftion, or you have drank too much fmall liquors. Forbear ftrong liquors till four or five in the evening, then drink a glafs or two, and no more till feven or eight, then you may drink to be chearful; and if you fmoke, take a pipe: and if you are no better for my advice, I think I may fafely promise you will be no worse. W.

Mr URBAN, Herefordshire, May. 19. AS your correfpondent of April 19. de

fires any of the ingenious physicians who fometimes favour your Magazine, to publifh the best known and most inof fenfive remedy for the cramp; though I am no physician, I will relate a matter of fact, of the truth of which he may be affured; and which, I hope, may anfwer the purpose without taking phyfic.

I had, for many years, been troubled with this diforder in a moft severe manner, fo that most part of my time in bed was paffed in mifery. I tried various remedies, fuch balfam of Peru, rosemary, holding a clod of brimstone during the fit, and tying eel-skins about my legs, &c. I think I may fav, that I received fome eafe from each of these things, at firft trial; but the good effects continued but for a fhort time, and the pain returned with the fame violence as before these temporary remedies were used.

Near five years ago, being from home, and obliged to lie upon a very hard bed for two nights; though I could not fleep the first night, through the uneasiness of my lodging, yet I had no cramp; the fe cond night I flept well, but no cramp. The lofs of my old tormenting companion for two nights together, a circumftance I had not experienced for years before, fet me on thinking what could be the caufe. I could not recollect any other alteration in my manner of living, than paffing from a foft bed to a hard one, therefore imagined that might be the caufe; and likewife reflecting that this diforder almost always makes its attack

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in the night, I gueffed it must, in a great measure, proceed from the unnatural po. fition of the body in a foft bed, where the body finks down, and the feet rife up. I immediately fet my joiner to work, and made my bedstead regularly floping, fo that there was about a foot difference in height between the head and the feet. I likewife put a hard mattress upon the bed. My project fucceeded, and (I thank God) I immediately got rid of my grie vous pain, which I have not felt fince, (near five years), unless a few times, when through mistake of fervants, the feathers of the bed were left too full at the bottom, and by that means the feet raised higher than they should be.

If this fhould be looked upon, by the learned, as trifling; yet facts are stubborn things, and will not bow down to the moft learned and ingenious hypothefis: and as this is a fact I know the truth of, humanity obliges me to communicate it to your correfpondent, who defires a receipt for the cure of this acute pain; as it is highly probable that this method may give him and others eafe, in like manner as it has done me; and they may be assured that, in a very fhort time, by use, they will find this kind of lodging full as agreeable as that which is fofter, and where the feet lie almost as high as the head.

It may be neceffary to add, that, as the bed flopes fo much, fomething ought to be fixed at the bottom for the feet to reft against.

If any farther fatisfaction upon this head is defired, either by means of your Magazine, or by any gentleman fending to G. H. to be left at the post-office in Worcester, the fame principle which induced the publication of this, will oblige the giving all information that shall be thought neceffary.—I am, &c. G. H.

Mr URBAN,

May 26. 1762. To thofe afflicted with the cramp, the

following will be found a very eafy and immediate remedy. Extend, or rather turn back, as much as poflible, the fingers, or the toes, of the limb affected. This may be eafily done, when it may not be in one's power to remove the whole limb. I have ever found it to give imme→ diate relief; and it is much more effectual than friction, which may not, at any time, be eafily performed. I am, &c. MEANWELL

Letter from M. de la Sauvagere, chief engineer of the ifle of Rhe, to M. Freron.

SIR,

A

Good man will read with pleasure whatever tends to alleviate the cala mities incidental to human nature; and of these, unquestionably, one of the greatest is blindness. This is the melancholy ftate of Mademoiselle de Salignac, a young gentlewoman of a good family in Xaintonge. I had been told of her fingular talents; but, from fome circumftances, I took the liberty to with-hold my belief, claffing them among impoffibilities. All I had heard, and even more, however, has been confirmed to me before my own eyes; the mother having kindly fided with my curiofity, and the young lady herself, in the moft obliging manner, condescending to exhibit fome specimens of her abilities, and thus filence my incredulity.

I fhould previously inform you, that Mademoiselle de Salignac, now in her eighteenth year, lost her sight when only two years old; her mother having been advised to lay fome pigeon's blood on her eyes, to preferve them in the fmall pox; whereas, fo far from anfwering the end, it eat into them*. Nature, however, may be faid to have compenfated for that unhappy mistake, by beauty of perfon, fweatnefs of temper, vivacity of genius, quickness of conception, and many ta lents which certainly much foften her misfortune.

She plays at revertis without any direction, and often faster than others of the party. She first prepares the two packs allotted to her, pricking them in several parts, yet fo imperceptibly that the clofeft infpection can scarce difcern her indexes; every party fhe alters them, and they are known only to her: the forts the fuits, and arranges the cards, in their proper fequence, with the fame precision, and nearly the fame facility, as they who have their fight. All fhe requires of thofe who play with her, is to name every card as it is played; and these fhe retains fo exactly, that I have feen her perform fome notable ftrokes at revertis, fuch as fhewed a great combination, and strong memory †.

* [De Baux's prefcription [xxiii. 652.] should not be used raft.ly.]

In this refpect he is equalled, if not excel led, by Mr Stanky, organill of St Andrew's; who, though biind almost from his birth, plays at whift as well as most men. Gent. Mog.

Mademoiselle de Salignac fhould even A very wonderful circumstance is, that

have learnt to read and write: for when I had the pleasure of feeing her, fhe regularly correfponded with her elder bro ther, whom fome mercantile affairs had called to Bourdeaux; from her hand he received an exact account of every thing that concerned them. She has favoured me with a letter, and has herself read my anfwer. The poffibility of this is readily conceived, on knowing her method; yet is the wonder nor less furpris fing. In writing to her, no ink is used, but the letters are pricked down on the paper, and by the delicacy of her touch feeling each letter, the follows them fuc. ceffively, and reads every word with her fingers ends. I faw a person with a scis far's point, fcratch a card on which was written, Mademoiselle de Salignac eft fort aimable: the fluently read it; yet was the writing fmall, and the letters very ill fhaped. She herself, in writing, makes ufe of a pencil, as fhe could not know when her pen was dry; her guide on the paper is a small thin ruler, and of the breadth of her writing. On finishing a letter, fhe wets it, which fixes the traces of the pencil that they are not obscured or effaced; then proceeds to fold and feal it, and write the direction; all by her own address, and without the affift ance of any other perfon. I must add, that her writing is very straight, well cut, and the spelling no lefs correct. To reach this fingular mechanifm, required fuch a fubject, and the indefatigable cares of her affectionate mother, who accuftoming her daughter to feel letters cut in cards or pasteboard, brought her to diftinguifh an A from a B, and thus the whole alphabet, and afterwards to spell words; then by the remembrance of the fhape of the letters to delineate them on paper; and lastly, to arrange them so as to form words and fentences.

She has learnt, and almoft by herself, to play on the guitar fufficiently for her little companions to dance by, and had even contrived a way of pricking down her tunes, as an affistance to her memory: but at present, being at Paris with her father and mother, a mufic-master teaches her in the common method, obferving the way used in writing to the young lady by pricking; and to diftinguifh the whites, they are made larger. She learnt to fing, and I have, with much pleasure, heard her fing in concert:

fo

fo delicate are her organs, that in finging a tune, though new to her, he is able to name the notes, for them to be pricked down, whilst finging. She even tells the movement of them.

In figured dances fhe acquits herfelf extremely well, and in a minuet with inimitable eafe and gracefulness. As for the works of her fex, fhe has a masterly hand; and I cannot forbear the indifcretion of telling you, that he made me a prefent of a filk and filver purse, wrought in knotted points on a wooden mould. She has even begun one of five colours, of which feveral rows are already finished. She fews and hems perfectly well, and is no lefs skilful in making marly. At prefent her dexterity is chiefly employed on a fack with bead-work. In all her works fhe threads the needles for herself, however small.

As the young lady is now at Paris, you may yourself fee her. She has a watch at her fide. A repeating watch, to be fure, fay you. No; only a plain one, and her touch never fails telling her exactly the hour and minute *. Your's, &c.

As a fupplement to this letter we fhall give a poftfcript of the late Biflop (then Dr) Burnet, to the fecond letter of his travels.

"In the account that I gave you of Geneva, I forgot to mention a very extraordinary perfon that is there, Mrs Walkier. Her father is of Staff-house. She loft her fight when he was but a year old, by being too near a stove that was very hot. There refts in the upper part of her eye so much fight, that the

• The reader may obferve from this account, that the French lady has nothing to boast of in which the is not excelled by the gentleman already mentioned, except reading and writing. The works peculiar to her fex are gained mechanically: but the diftinguishing colours, telling the precife time by a watch, naming the notes in mufic, and many other things depending upon the car and touch, are fo familiar to Mr Stanley, that his friends cease to think them extraordinary in him. His naming the number of perfons in a room on entering it; his directing his voice to each perfon in particular, even to ftrangers, when they have once spoken; his miffing any perfon abfent; his telling who that perfon is; his conceptions of youth, beauty, symTaetry, and shape, are fuch wonderful attain.

ments as are, perhaps, all peculiar to himself;

with which nothing that is reported of the French lady can be brought in competition.

Gent. Mag.

diftinguishes day from night: and when any perfon ftands between her and the light, fhe will distinguish by the head and its drefs a man from a woman; but when fhe turns down her eyes, the fees nothing. She hath a vast memory. Befides the French, that is her natural language, fhe fpeaks both High-Dutch, Italian, and Latin. She hath all the pfalms by heart in French, and many of them in Dutch and Italian. She understands the old philofophy well, and is now studying the new. She hath ftudied the body of divi nity well, and hath the text of the fcrip tures very ready. On all which matters I had long converfations with her. She not only fings well, but the plays rarely on the organ; and I was told the played on the violin, but her violin was out of order.

But that which is most of all, is, fhe writes legibly. In order to her learning to write, her father, who is a worthy man, and hath fuch' tenderness for her, that he furnish eth her with masters of all forts, or dered letters to be carved in wood; and fhe, by feeling the characters, formed fuch an idea of them, that the writes with a crayon fo diftinctly, that her wris ting can be well read; of which I have feveral effays. I faw her write; the doth it more nimbly than can be imagined: the hath a machine that holds the paper, and keeps her always in line. But that which is above all the reft, fhe is a person of extraordinary devotion, great refignation to the will of God, and a profound humility. The preceptor that the father kept in the house with her, hath likewife a wonderful faculty of acquiring tongues.' When he came first to Geneva, (for he is of Zurich), he spoke not a word of French, and within thirteen months he preached in French correctly, and with a good accent. He alfo began to study Italian in the month of November, and. before the end of the following February he preached in Italian: his accent was good, and his ftyle florid; which was very extraordinary, for the Italian language is not fpoken in Geneva, though the race of the Italians do keep up ftill an Italian church there."

Cafe of a lady tormented with a violent headach. With the cure.

A Lady, about thirty years of age, had

been, upwards of a month, tormented with an almoft infupportable pain in her head, which had refifted all the remedies