Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/332

320 phizitians conclude the sore on his heele was ye gowte, & the applying plasters to it repelled ye humor to his head.

Tuesday, 7 at night. The King's head is not yet opened, that is ye plasters of Cantharides to raise blisters not yet taken of. His mouth & tongue & throate are very much inflamed wth ye hot medicines, & is ye cause he has bine twice let blood since noone; but ye 2d time was because ye !st was unsuccessfull & he bled not above 2 ounces, wch was by Pierce; ye 2d time by Hobs, & then he bled 9 ounces. The phizitians were wth ye Council this afternoone & told them they beleeved his Majesty in a condition of safety. My Ld Arlington died A Sunday. Sr Thomas Vernon is dead too of ye Kgs distemper. The ports are all stopt, & expresses gone to Scotland & Ireland, as to all the Ltenances in England. All is very quiet heere wch God grant may continue & ye King recover.

The Bps have bine before ye Kg in Council, & are committed to ye Tower because they would not enter into a Recognizance each of 500l to appeare in ye Term, upon pretence it wd injure theyr Peereage. I heare they were prest much in it & severall instances of ye Temporall Peeres who had done it, as ye Duke of Buck, Ld Lovelace & others. As they past through the courts to ye water side from ye Councill (there being a greate crowd both wthin & wthout doares) the people praid for ym, & ye A Bp held out his hand and said, be dutyfull to ye Kg, hold fast to ye religion, & God blesse you.

The Dtch passd by wth theyr Fleet through Dover roade westward on Friday even, & tis supposed went to Portsmouth, of wch youl heare as soone as we. My Ld Dart [mouth] as soone as he cd get up his Anchors, wch I believe was not till Sunday, plyd after ym. Yesterday was so dead a calm he cd make no way, so is to day & so thick a fog wth all he cant stirr. One of theyr Fly boates wth 200 of ye Kgs subjects & all theyr officers fell into one of ye Kgs Frigots way, having lost her Rudder in ye storm, and are all prisoners. All the Forces in this country are marchd away except that part of Hales Regimt wch are heere, being 200, & 100 more at Land Guard Fort, and those are marchd to Rochester. I can't tell how to advise myself, if I shd presse to be sent far away to march after my Regimt. Loath I am to be out of the ocasion where the King, my friends, & my all are at stake; but this place is a post of greate concern & in my trust, & if any thing shd fall out contrary to expectation may be imputed to me. I have really noe vanity, but wil doe wht I think may be most usefull.

 

  — Mr. W. W. Cooper, the oculist, has devised a new kind of spectacles, the English Mechanic says, to prevent snow-blindness. It is well known that a long exposure to the glare of the intense white of the snow in the Polar regions is most harmful to the sight; to meet this difficulty, spectacles of green-tinted glass, surrounded by gauze, have been proposed. These will, however, fail in practice, as the glass part of the spectacles is liable to get dim and clouded, while the gauze and the wire, by means of which the spectacles are fastened behind the ears, will in an Arctic climate become so cold that to the human skin they will have the sensation of being made of red-hot wire. Mr. Cooper's snow-spectacles have neither glass nor iron in their composition, for they are made of ebonite, and are tied on to the head by a velvet cord. They resemble somewhat two half walnutshells fastened over the eye. Their great peculiarity, however, is that the wearer sees through a simple slit in front of the pupil of the eye. The sides of each eye-box are perforated with minute holes, in order that the wearer can get a side view of objects. These glasses will also prove useful to travellers by railway, inasmuch as they keep out the glare of the sun, and prevent the admission of dust into the eye. To engine-drivers, therefore, they would be invaluable, especially when exposed during sleet, snowstorms, or very windy weather. They are also very agreeable when reading at night by lamp or gaslight.