The New Hampshire Gazette

From a late Magazine.

To the AUTHOR, &c.

SIR,

Those who entertain us with news, have told many terrifying stories of the mischiefs that have been done by mad dogs, a greater number of which has been infected in this than it has been usual to have happened in other years.

As I give full credit to these relations, they have had their proper effect on me, by keeping me on my guard as much as possible, and out of the streets, when I had no particular call to be in them. In which precautions of my person, for safety, I have had great scope given to my mind, for the making of sober reflections; And really, from the intelligence I have received, as well as from the many observations I have been able to make, I find that an extraordinary proportion of madness this year has not been confined to the canine species: for the human race appears to me to have been as remarkably infected with that terrible malady.

The first particular instance of this that appeared, was in the metropolis, where all the connoisseurs of eminence were unfortunately bit by a mad architect, who infected them strongly with an elliptical phrenzy, which the learned lament they were not precautionally dipped for in the Downs, as the timely doing of it, they say, might have prevented their drowning of many others in fresh water.

Another strong venom has been propagated by the bite of a mad player, which had such surprising effects, as to make the ladies find edification in the character of a bawd; and all the young misses and bucks of the town in that of a hypocrite. This infection still rages, and would be like to rage on for ever, but that a doctor of state has prescribed for its cure.

A famous guitar player has also infectiously shewn, that musick can produce a different effect to that which is caused by the bite of a tarantula; for he has, with wonderful success, thumbed all his sober hearers into frantical extacies. But as this species of infection has been confined to people in high life, it is expected that an effectual cure will take place with the establishment of a new fashion.

The rabble too have been seized with the madness of running after a Norfolk dwarf, who has taken his station in the five fields leading to Chelsea. But, it is imagined, this phrenzy is of a nature soon to wear out, because the ladies in particular of that respectable class are like to find but very little there for the exciting of their curiosity.

All the young parts of the fair sex that perambulate this town, have been most terribly bit by the many mad caps that hang up in the shop windows of milliners, round which they gather in crouds, and are all riveted to a posture under a charm full as potent as that of rattle snakes over birds, and so continue fixed in attention, till they have caught the infection. This phrenzy always operates by making them extremely fanatical. They immediately grow despisers of neatness, usefulness, good sense, and sober conduct; and are continually raving about Ranelagh, Vauxhall, Marybone, the Haymarket, White-conduit house, beaux, coaches, gauze, blond, Brussels, ruffles, ribbons, fringes, feathers, frizzles, fallals, flounces and furbelows.

A military madness has seized all the taylors, who, from killers of lice are resolved to become the slayers of Frenchmen. From crossing their legs they are determined to be the careers of horses; and, having hitherto been deemed less than men, they are now bent upon shewing they are more. But what may be deemed no immaterial excitement to their prowess is, that, in destroying their new enemies, they will also destroy their old ones. For as it is highly improbable the French soldiers have had a necessary recruit of linnen since their total loss of it last year, they hope for the high satisfaction, in killing Frenchmen by the dozen, of destroying lice by the myraid.

Had our late westerly winds continued to keep out our packets from Holland much longer, they probably would have occasioned the turning of all the political brains of the nation, and then half of our habitations would not have been sufficient for mad houses. The fever of impatience was on the point of producing despair; but, just in the nick of time, the mails luckily arrived, and gave us the happiness to know there were no material news to hear.

I need not mention the usual species of phrenzy that abound in this nation, such as the madness of single people to get joined, or that of married people to get asunder. The phrenzy of old pinching misers, in scraping up money, or that of thoughtless young heirs in the squandering of it away. The lunacy that makes people hazard the security of existing to morrow for the sake of enjoying the pleasures of to day, or that of people's sacrificing their estates to their stewards, to live on places at court, or to enjoy at large the delights of A--r's, N--w--t, or mother D--m-s's, not to mention those who buy of impostures reversions in the next world, at the price of all the blessings of this, or the thousand other instances of ever existing madness.

This old wag, Shakespear, made one of his Danish grave diggers tell Hamlet, that the people of England were all mad in his days, the truth of which they acknowledged by applauding the discovery, as our ancestors have always continued to do, with a recognition of the fact, and as we ourselves do, who are ten times madder than any of them: so frank are we in acknowledging and rejoicing in our misfortunes.

After all, if there is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know, as Nat. Lee happily, and indeed experimentally, said, for I think he died in Bedlam, we certainly are in the right to believe those who tell us we are the happiest people alive, for we may allow ourselves to be the maddest of any upon the face of the whole earth.

I am, Sir, your constant reader, and great admirer,

Christ. Cautious.

LONDON.