The introduction of antimony and the jesuits’ bark also provoked legislative interference; decrees and ordinances were issued, and a civil war raged among the medical faculty, of which Guy Patin is the copious historian.  Vesalius was incessantly persecuted by the public prejudices against dissection; Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood led to so protracted a controversy, that the great discovery was hardly admitted even in the latter days of the old man; Lady Wortley Montague’s introduction of the practice of inoculation met the same obstinate resistance as, more recently, that of vaccination startled the people.  Thus objects of the highest importance to mankind, on their first appearance, are slighted and contemned.  Posterity smiles at the ineptitude of the preceding age, while it becomes familiar with those objects which that age has so eagerly rejected.  Time is a tardy patron of true knowledge.

A nobler theme is connected with the principle we have here but touched on—­the gradual changes in public opinion—­the utter annihilation of false notions, like those of witchcraft, astrology, spectres, and many other superstitions of no remote date, the hideous progeny of imposture got on ignorance, and audacity on fear.  But one impostor reigns paramount, the plausible opposition to novel doctrines which may be subversive of some ancient ones; doctrines which probably shall one day be as generally established as at present they are utterly decried, and which the interests of corporate bodies oppose with all their cumbrous machinery; but artificial machinery becomes perplexed in its movements when worn out by the friction of ages.

* * * * *

DOMESTICITY; OR, A DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS.

The characteristics of servants have been usually known by the broad caricatures of the satirists of every age, and chiefly by the most popular—­the writers of comedy.  According to these exhibitions, we must infer that the vices of the menial are necessarily inherent to his condition, and consequently that this vast multitude in society remain ever in an irrecoverably ungovernable state.  We discover only the cunning depredator of the household; the tip-toe spy, at all corners—­all ear, all eye:  the parasitical knave—­the flatterer of the follies, and even the eager participator of the crimes, of his superior.  The morality of servants has not been improved by the wonderful revelations of Swift’s “Directions,” where the irony is too refined, while it plainly inculcates the practice.  This celebrated tract, designed for the instruction of the masters, is more frequently thumbed in the kitchen, as a manual for the profligate domestic.  Servants have acknowledged that some of their base doings have been suggested to them by their renowned satirist.