ause 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 number of days. I shall not easily forget
the alarm and anxiety of the father and mother upon this occasion; both
of them the best of parents, and both of them now punished for having
yielded to this fashionable quackery. I will not say, _justly_ punished;
for affection for their children, in which respect they were never
surpassed by any parents on earth, was the