The history of many articles of diet, as well as medicine, amply prove how much their reputation and fate have depended upon some authority or other. Ipecacuanha had been imported into England for many years, before Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV, succeeded in introducing it into practice in France; and, to the Queen of Charles II., we are indebted for the introduction of that popular beverage, tea, into England. Tobacco has suffered as many variable vicissitudes in its fame and character. It has been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and praised by priests and kings, and proscribed and protected by governments, until, at length, this once insignificant production of a little island, has succeeded in propagating itself through every climate and country. Nor is the history of the potatoe less remarkable or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious influence of authority. This valuable plant, for upwards of two centuries, received an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XIV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe, in the midst of his court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation. Another instance may be furnished of overbearing authority, in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it, is seen in the history of the Peruvian bark. This famed medicine was imported into Spain by the Jesuits, where it remained seven years, before a trial was given to it. A Spanish priest was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639, and even then its use was extremely limited; and it would undoubtedly have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the church of Rome, under whose protecting auspices it gained a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Pope Innocent X. at the intercession of the Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish Jesuit, ordered the bark to be duly examined, and on the favourable report, which was the result of this examination, it immediately rose into high favour and celebrity.