this passage I
refer to the early scenes of the Orestes; one of the most beautiful
exhibitions of the domestic affections which even the dramas of Euripides
can furnish. To the English reader it may be necessary to say that the
situation at the opening of the drama is that of a brother attended only
by his sister during the demoniacal possession of a suffering conscience
(or, in the mythology of the play, haunted by the Furies), and in
circumstances of immediate danger from enemies, and of desertion or cold
regard from nominal friends.

{11} _Evanesced_: this way of going off the stage of life appears to
have been well known in the 17th century, but at that time to have been
considered a peculiar privilege of blood-royal, and by no means to be
allowed to druggists. For about the year 1686 a poet of rather ominous
name (and who, by-the-bye, did ample justice to his name), viz., Mr.
_Flat-man_, in speaking of the death of Charles II. expresses his
surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying,
because, says he,

"Kings should disdain to die, and only _disappear_."

They should _abscond_, that is, into the other world.

{12} Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted; for
in a pirated edition of Buchan's _Domestic Medicine_, which I once saw in
the hands of a farmer's wife, who was studying it for the benefit of her
health, the Doctor was made to say--"Be particularly careful never to
take above five-and-twenty _ounces_ of laudanum at once;" the true
reading being probably five-and-twenty _drops_, which are held equal to
about one grain of crude opium.

{13} Amongst the great herd of travellers, &c., who show sufficiently by
their stupidity that they never held any intercourse with opium, I must
caution my readers specially against the brilliant author of
_Anastasius_. This gentleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an
opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in that character,
from the grievous misrepresentation which he gives of its effects at pp.
215-17 of vol. i. Upon consideration it must appear such to the author
himself, for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, which
(and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself admit
that an old gentleman "with a snow-white beard," who eats "ample doses of
opium," and is yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very
weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice,