LETTER
From an elderly Gentlewoman to Mr. Christopher North.
My dear Mr. North—I much fear that this is the last letter you will ever receive from your old friend. "I'm wearin' awa, Kit! to the land o' the leal!" and that, too, under the influence of a complication of disorders, which have been undermining my constitution (originally a sound and stout one) for upwards of half a century. Look to yourself my much respected lad—and think no more of your rheumatism. That, believe me, is a mere trifle; but think of what you have been doing, since the peace of 1763, (in that year were you born,) in the eating and drinking way, and tremble. I know, my dear Kit, that you never were a gormandizer, nor a sot; neither surely was I—but it matters not—the most abstemious of us all have gone through fearful trials, and I have not skill in figures to cast up the poisonous contents of my hapless stomach for nearly threescore years. You would not know me now; I had not the slightest suspicion of myself in the looking-glass this morning. Such a face! so wan and wobegone! No such person drew Priam's curtains at dead of night, or could have told him half his Troy was burned.
Well—hear me come to the point. I remember now, perfectly well, that I have been out of sorts all my lifetime; and the causes of my continual illness have this day been revealed to me. May my melancholy fate be a warning to you, and all your clear contributors, a set of men whom the world could ill spare at this crisis. Mr. Editor—I have been poisoned.
You must know that I became personally acquainted a few weeks ago, quite accidentally, with that distinguished chymist, well known in our metropolis by the name of "Death in the Pot."[7] He volunteered a visit to me at breakfast, last Thursday, and I accepted him. Just as I had poured out the first cup of tea, and was extending it graciously towards him, he looked at me, and with a low, hoarse, husky voice, like Mr. Kean's, asked me if I were not excessively ill? I had not had the least suspicion of being so—but there was a terrible something in "Death in the Pot's" face which told me I was a dead woman. I immediately got up—I mean strove to get up, to ring the bell for a clergyman—but I fainted away. On awaking from my swoon, I beheld "Death in the Pot" still staring with his fateful eyes—and croaking out, half in soliloquy, half in tête-a-tête, "There is not a life in London worth ten year's purchase." I implored him to speak plainly, and for God's sake not to look at me so malagrugorously—and plainly enough he did then speak to be sure—"Mrs. Trollope, you are poisoned."
"Who," cried I out convulsively, "who has perpetrated the foul deed? On whose guilty head will lie my innocent blood? Has it been from motives of private revenge? Speak, Mr. Accum[8]—speak! Have you any proofs of a conspiracy?" "Yes, Madam, I have proofs, damning proofs. Your wine merchant, your brewer, your baker, your confectioner, your grocer, aye, your very butcher, are in league against you; and, Mrs. Trollope, YOU ARE POISONED!"—"When!—Oh! when was the fatal dose administered? Would an emetic be of no avail? Could you not yet administer a——" But here my voice was choked, and nothing was audible, Mr. North, but the sighs and sobs of your poor Trollope.
At last I became more composed—and Mr. Accum asked me what was, in general, the first thing I did on rising from bed in the morning. Alas! I felt that it was no time for delicacy, and I told him at once, that it was to take off a bumper of brandy for a complaint in my stomach. He asked to look at the bottle. I brought it forth from the press in my own number, that tall square tower-like bottle, Mr. North, so green to the eye and smooth to the grasp. You know the bottle well—it belonged to my mother before me. He put it to his nose—he poured out a driblet into a teaspoon as cautiously as if it had been the black drop—he tasted it—and again repeated these terrible words, "Mrs. Trollope, you are poisoned. It has," he continued, "a peculiar disagreeable smell, like the breath of habitual drunkards." "Oh! thought I, has it come to this! The smell ever seemed to my unsuspecting soul most fragrant and delicious." "Death in the Pot" then told me, that the liquid I had been innocently drinking every morn for thirty years was not brandy at all, but a vile distillation of British molasses over wine lees, rectified over quick lime, and mixed with saw-dust. And this a sad, solitary, unsuspecting spinster had been imbibing as brandy for so many years! A gleam of comfort now shot across my brain—I told Mr. Accum that I had, during my whole life, been in the habit of taking a smallish glass of Hollands before going to bed, which I fain hoped might have the effect of counteracting the bad effects of the forgery that had been committed against me. I produced the bottle—the white globular one you know. "Death in the Pot" tried and tasted—and alas! instead of Hollands, pronounced it vile British malt spirit, fined by a solution of sub-acetate of lead, and then a solution of alum—and strengthened with grains of paradise, Guinea pepper, capsicum, and other acrid and aromatic substances. These are learned words—but they made a terrible impression upon my memory. Mr. Accum is a most amiable man, I well believe—but he is a stranger to pity. "Mrs. Trollope, YOU HAVE BEEN POISONED," was all he would utter. Had the brandy and Hollands been genuine, there would have been no harm—but they were imitation, and "YOU ARE POISONED."
Feeling myself very faint, I asked, naturally enough for a woman in my situation, for a glass of wine. It was brought—but Mr. Accum was at hand to snatch the deadly draught from my lips. He tasted what used to be called my genuine old port,
"And in the scowl of heaven his face,
Grew black as he was sipping."
"It is spoiled elder wine—rendered astringent by oak-wood, saw-dust, and the husks of filberts—lead and arsenic, madam, are——" but my ears tingled, and I heard no more. I confessed to the amount of six glasses a day of this hellish liquor—pardon my warmth—and that such had been my allowance for many years. My thirst was now intolerable, and I beseeched a glass of beer. It came, and "Death in the Pot" detected at once the murderous designs of the brewer. Coculus indicus, Spanish juice, hartshorn shavings, orange powder, copperas, opium, tobacco, nux vomica—such were the shocking words he kept repeating to himself—and then again, "Mrs. Trollope is poisoned."—"May I not have a single cup of tea, Mr. Accum," I asked imploringly, and the chymist shook his head. He then opened the tea-caddy, and emptying its contents, rubbed my best green tea between his hard horny palms. "Sloe-leaves, and white-thorn leaves, madam, coloured with Dutch pink, and with the fine green bloom of verdigris! Much, in the course of your regular life, you must have swallowed!" "Might I try the coffee?" Oh! Mr. North, Mr. North, you know my age, and never once, during my whole existence, have I tasted coffee. I have been deluded by pease and beans, sand, gravel, and vegetable powder! Mr. Accum called it sham coffee, most infamous stuff, and unfit for human food! Alas! the day that I was born! In despair I asked for a glass of water, and just as the sparkling beverage was about to touch my pale quivering lips, my friend, for I must call him so in spite of every thing, interfered, and tasting it, squirted out of his mouth, with a most alarming countenance. "It comes out of a lead cistern—it is a deadly poison." Here I threw myself on my knees before this inexorable man, and cried, "Mr. Death in the Pot, is there in heaven, on earth, or the waters under the earth, any one particle of matter that is not impregnated with death? What means this desperate mockery? For mercy's sake give me the very smallest piece of bread and cheese, or I can support myself no longer. Are we, or are we not, to have a morsel of breakfast this day?" He cut off about an inch long piece of cheese from that identical double Gloucester that you yourself, Mr. North, chose for me, on your last visit to London, and declared that it had been rendered most poisonous by the anotta used to colour it. "There is here, Mrs. Trollope, a quantity of red lead—Have you, madam, never experienced after devouring half a pound of this cheese, an indescribable pain in the region of the abdomen and of the stomach, accompanied with a feeling of tension, which occasioned much restlessness, anxiety, and repugnance to food? Have you never felt, after a Welsh rabbit of it, a very violent cholic?" "Yes! yes!—often, often!" I exclaimed. "And did you use pepper and mustard?" "I did even so." "Let me see the castors." I rose from my knees—and brought them out. He puffed out a little pepper into the palm of his hand, and went on as usual. "This, madam, is spurious pepper altogether—it is made up of oil cakes, (the residue of linseed, from which the oil has been pressed,) common clay, and, perhaps, a small portion of Cayenne pepper, (itself probably artificial or adulterated,) to make it pungent. But now for the mustard"—at this juncture the servant maid came in, and I told her that I was poisoned—she set up a prodigious scream, and Mr. Accum let fall the mustard pot on the carpet. But it is needless for me to prolong the shocking narrative. They assisted me to get into bed, from which I never more expect to rise. My eyes have been opened, and I see the horrors of my situation. I now remember the most excruciating cholic, and divers other pangs which I thought nothing of at the time, but which must have been the effect of the deleterious solids and liquids which I was daily introducing into my stomach.—It appears that I have never, so much as once, either eat or drank a real thing—that is, a thing being what it pretended to be. Oh! the weight of lead and copper that has passed thro' my body! Oh! too, the gravel and the sand! But is impossible to deceive me now. This very evening some bread was brought to me—Bread! I cried out indignantly—Take the vile deception out of my sight. Yes, my dear Kit, it was a villanous loaf of clay and alum! But my resolution is fixed, and I hope to die in peace. Henceforth, I shall not allow one particle of matter to descend into my stomach! Already I feel myself "of the earth, earthy."—Mr. Accum seldom leaves my bedside—and yesterday brought with him several eatables and drinkables, which he assured me he had analyzed, subjected to the test-act, and found them to be conformists. But I have no trust in chymistry. His quarter-loaf looked like a chip cut off the corner of a stone block. It was a manifest sham loaf. After being deluded in my Hollands, bit in my brandy, and having found my muffins a mockery, never more shall I be thrown off my guard. I am waxing weaker and weaker—so farewell! Bewildering indeed has been the destiny of
Susanna Trollope.
P.S.—I have opened my mistress' letter to add, that she died this evening about a quarter past eight, in excruciating torments.
Sally Rogers.