Dr. Lettsom mentions a person who usually drank twelve drams a day; but being convinced of his approaching misery, took the resolution to wean himself from this poison. He always drank out of one glass, into which he daily let fall a drop of sealing-wax. By this means he had twelve drops less of spirit every day, till at length, his glass being filled with wax, his habit was cured.
"In the drunkard," says Dr. Willan, "the memory and the faculties depending on it, being impaired, there takes place an indifference towards usual occupations, and accustomed society or amusements. No interest is taken in the concerns of others—no love, no sympathy remain: even natural affection to nearest relatives is gradually extinguished, and the moral sense obliterated. The wretched victims of a fatal poison fall, at length, into a state of fatuity, and die with the powers both of body and mind wholly exhausted. Some, after repeated fits of derangement, expire in a sudden and violent phrenzy; some are hurried out the world by apoplexies; others perish by the slower process of jaundice, dropsy," &c.
P.T.W.
A SCENE ON WINDERMERE.
"Beautiful scene! how fitted to allure
The printless footsteps of some sea-born maid."
It was a holy calm—the sunbeams tinged
The lake with gold, and flush'd the gorgeous brow
Of many a cloud whose image shone beneath