condemned; for the great advantages held forth were, that any body might perform the operation, and that the matter was every where abundant and cost-free.  But these were paltry excuses; the mere shuffles of quackery; for what do we know now?  Why, that in hundreds of instances, persons cow-poxed by JENNER HIMSELF, have taken the real small-pox afterwards, and have either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives!  I will mention two instances, the parties concerned being living and well-known, one of them to the whole nation, and the other to a very numerous circle in the higher walks of life.  The first is Sir RICHARD PHILLIPS, so well known by his able writings, and equally well known by his exemplary conduct as Sheriff of London, and by his life-long labours in the cause of real charity and humanity.  Sir Richard had, I think, two sons, whose veins were impregnated by the grantee himself.  At any rate he had one, who had, several years after Jenner had given him the insuring matter, a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands of the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple-dipping small-pox.  The second is PHILIP CODD, Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumsted Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, who has a son that had a very narrow escape under the real small-pox, about four years ago, and who also had been cow-poxed by Jenner himself.  This last-mentioned gentleman I have known, and most sincerely respected, from the time of our both being about eighteen years of age.  When the young gentleman, of whom I am now speaking, was very young, I having him upon my knee one day, asked his kind and excellent mother, whether he had been inoculated.  ‘Oh, no!’ said she, ‘we are going to have him vaccinated.’  Whereupon I, going into the garden to the father, said, ’I do hope, Codd, that you are not going to have that beastly cow-stuff put into that fine boy.’  ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you see, Cobbett, it is to be done by Jenner himself.’  What answer I gave, what names and epithets I bestowed upon Jenner and his quackery, I will leave the reader to imagine.

264.  Now, here are instances enough; but, every reader has heard of, if not seen, scores of others.  Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a school; and if I recollect rightly, there were several other ‘vaccinated’ youths who did the same, at the same time.  Quackery, however, has always a shuffle left.  Now that the cow-pox has been proved to be no guarantee against the small-pox, it makes it’ milder’ when it comes!  A pretty shuffle, indeed, this!  You are to be all your life in fear of it, having as your sole consolation, that when it comes (and it may overtake you in a camp, or on the seas), it will be ‘milder!’ It was not too mild to kill at RINGWOOD; and its mildness, in case of young Mr. Codd, did not restrain it from blinding him for a suitable