There is nothing enlivens a cottage fire-side, remote from the capital, so much as a newspaper. The Pilot of last night was particularly cheering, as it told me you had finished your academic labours and received your honours. Allow me to congratulate you, and to assure you how happy I shall ever be in hearing of anything that adds to your fame, your fortune, or to your general comforts.

The Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge, corresponding with the contemptible editors of that miserable catch-penny Journal, the Medical Observer!!! What phenomenon, I wonder, will vaccination next present to us? Atrocious and absurd as this man’s conduct has been, there will be a difficulty in punishing him, as he seems insensible to everything but his own conceit. However, he is in able hands, and my excellent friend Thackeray (to

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whom I beg you to remember me most kindly) I know will not spare him.

Sir Isaac has certainly out-blockheaded all his predecessors. Pray tell me what is going forward. Alas! poor thing! He has been too daring, and I tremble for his fate. The scourge is out, and I don’t see that he erased a single line that was pointed out to him as dangerous. This venomous sting will produce a most troublesome reaction, and injure the cause it was meant to support. You know the pains I took to suppress it; but all would not do.

I have not heard anything of the new Vaccine Institution since my arrival here, except a word or two from Lord Egremont, who says the Ministry are so incessantly occupied with the affairs of Spain, that matters of a minor consideration cannot at present be attended to. I shall thank my friend in Russell Square, for the communications which, through you, he was good enough to make to me, but am of opinion that the proper time to object will be when anything objectionable rises up. Whatever is going forward either in the College or out of it, is at present carefully concealed from me. The proposition hinted at by Dr. S——, respecting an equal number from both Colleges to form the Board, I mentioned to Sir Lucas as the certain means of keeping off those jealousies which otherwise I thought would show themselves.

It affords me great pleasure to assure you that your pamphlet is much liked by all who have read it in this part of the world, and by no one more than by myself. A few trifling alterations will be necessary

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for the next edition. I think you may be more copious in your extracts from some of those letters of which Murray availed himself. By the bye, it might not be amiss, perhaps, if, by way of firing a shot at the head of your knight, the extract from Sacco’s letter (see Murray’s Appendix) and that from Dr. Keir, at Bombay, were to appear in the Cambridge newspaper.

I ought to make a thousand apologies to you for suffering your last obliging letter to remain so long unanswered. Did my friends whom I serve in this manner but know the worrying kind of life I lead, they would soon seal my pardon. However, I feel myself now more at ease than for some time past, having crept from under the thick, heavy Board, which so unexpectedly fell upon me and crashed me so sorely. To speak more plainly, I have informed the gentlemen in Leicester Square, that I cannot accept of the office to which they nominated me. Should the business come before the public, as I suppose it will. I am not afraid of an honourable acquittal. Never was

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anything so clumsily managed. If Sir Isaac himself, instead of Sir Lucas, had taken the lead, it could not have been worse, as I shall convince you when we come to talk the matter over. By the way, what is become of this right valiant knight? Thackeray, I hope, has not done exchanging lances with him, unless he is ashamed of the contest. I was glad to see your pamphlet advertised on the yellow cover. Give it as much publicity as you please, and remember, you are to draw on me for all costs. Does it go off, or sleep with the pages of Moseley? Opposition to vaccination seems dead—at least in this part of the world we hear nothing of it. Through a vast district around me, I don’t know a man who now ever unsheaths that most venomous of all weapons—the variolus lancet; and the small-pox, if it now and then seizes upon some deluded infidel, soon dies away for want of more prey.

I have not written to my friend Dr. Saunders a long time, but if you see him, assure him he shall hear soon from me. If he considers the business between me and the Board, and looks steadfastly on all its bearings, I am confident he will not condemn my conduct. If it should be thought of consequence enough for an inquiry, I shall meet it with pleasure; but, though I say “with pleasure,” I had much rather they would let me alone, and suffer me to smoke my cigar in peace and quietness in my cottage.

I wrote two long argumentative letters to Dr. Saunders soon after I received your hint, on the sub-

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ject of the new institution; but from that time he has dropped his correspondence with me. When next you fall in with the doctor, pray sound him on this subject. Have you seen the last number of that infamous publication, the Medical Observer? There is the most impudent letter in it from the editor to me that ever was penned. I think our friend Harry would at once pronounce it grossly libellous. The thing I am abused for, the effects of an epidemic small-pox at Cheltenham, is as triumphant as any that has occurred in the annals of vaccination. A child that had irregular pustules, and was on that account ordered by me to be re-vaccinated, which order was never obeyed, caught the small-pox. This is the whole of the matter, and on this foundation Moseley, Birch and Co., have heaped up a mountain of scurrility. Between 3,000 and 4,000 persons have been vaccinated there and in the circumjacent villages, who remained in the midst of the epidemic untouched. This trifling circumstance, these worthy gentlemen did not think it worth their while to mention. Adieu, my dear Sir, I hope you are very well and very happy.

You may easily guess what a state of mind I am in, by my neglecting my friends. This I was not wont

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to do. I am grown as moping as the owl, and all the day long sit brooding over melancholy. My poor boy still exists, but is wasting inch by inch. The ray of hope is denied only to a medical man when he sees his child dying of pulmonary consumption; all other mortals enjoy its nattering light. You say nothing of your little girl in your letter from Ramsgate. I hope she is well and will prove a lasting comfort to you.

If Dr. Saunders is displeased, his displeasure can have no other grounds than caprice. I never did anything in my life that should have called it up. I wrote twice to him in the spring, and since that time he has not written to me. Why, I am utterly at a loss to know. In one of these letters I went fully into an explanation of my conduct with regard to the National Vaccination establishment. Depend upon it neither Mr. B. nor Sir Lucas will ever make it the subject of public inquiry. They know better. I have always treated the College with due respect. They made an admirable report to Parliament of vaccination; but in doing this they showed me no favour. It was founded on the general evidence sent in from every part of the empire. I love to feel sensible of an obligation, where it is due, and to show my gratitude. If the College had published the evidence, which they promised to do, then I should have been greatly obliged to them. Why this was not done, I never could learn, but shall ever lament that such valuable facts should lie mouldering on their shelves, as they must from their weight have lain too heavy on

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the tongue of clamour for it ever to have moved again. I wish you had been there, and that I had first made my acquaintance with you. Our strenuous friend in Warwick Lane would have effected everything by filling up this lamentable chasm. I enjoyed your dialogue. Poor Sir Isaac! Your pamphlet is highly spoken of, wherever it is read. After this spice of your talents in lashing the anti-vaccinists, I hope you don’t mean to lay down the rod. Moseley, as far as I have seen has not taken the least notice of it. A proof of his tremors; for he has not been sparing of his other opponents. And now my good friend let me request you, without delay, to let me know the expenses of printing, advertisements, &c., &c. I don’t exactly know where this may find you, but shall get a cover for Ramsgate. If you are not there it will pursue you. Dr. Saunders’s throwing me off, I assure you, vexes me; but I have the consolation of knowing that it was unmerited. Remember me kindly to our friend Harry. He will soon climb the hill, I think. He may be assured of not reaching the top a day sooner than I wish him. Will you have the goodness when in town to order Harward to send the Annual Medical Register with my next parcel of books? I have not seen it, but shall, of course, turn to the article “Cow-pox” with peculiar pleasure. Do you recollect my exhibiting some curious pebbles which I had collected during my stay in town, to some friends of yours in your apartment? By some mishap they were left behind me. They were good specimens of wood and bone converted into silex. I don’t think

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there is a corpuscle of the globe we inhabit that has not breathed in the form of an animal or a vegetable. Adieu!