Next appears Mr. Southey, the Laureate. The reader will no doubt be prepared to hear that the nitrous oxide transported him, at least, to the summit of Parnassus;--by no means: he laughed when the bag was removed from his mouth, but it may be fairly questioned whether this might not have been an expression of joy at the terrors he had escaped; for he freely confesses that he could not distinguish between the first feelings it occasioned, and an apprehension of which he was unable to divest himself. The first time Mr. Coleridge inspired the nitrous oxide, he felt a highly pleasurable sensation of warmth over his whole frame: he adds, that the only motion which he felt inclined to make, was that of laughing at those who were looking at him: a symptom as equivocal, perhaps, as that exhibited by the Laureate. A number of other accounts are given, but those already related are perhaps sufficient to establish the fact, that the gas in question possesses an intoxicating quality, to which the enthusiasm of persons submitting to its operation has imparted a character of extravagance wholly inconsistent with truth. It will be admitted that there must have been something singularly ludicrous in the whole exhibition. Imagine a party of grave philosophers, with bags of silk tied to their mouths, stamping, roaring, and laughing about the apartment; it is scarcely possible to conceive a richer subject for the pencil of a Bunbury. We cannot then be surprised at any terms of ridicule in which a stranger, witnessing such an operation, might describe it. M. T. Fievée[29] appears to have considered the practice as a national vice, and whimsically introduces it amongst the catalogue of follies to which he considers the English nation to be addicted. [29] Lettres sur l'Angleterre, 1802. Taking leave of these laughing philosophers, we must now proceed to a much more serious branch of the subject of Pneumatic Medicine. "Having observed," says Davy, "that no painful effects were produced by the application of nitrous gas to the bare muscular fibre, I began to imagine that this gas might also be breathed with impunity, provided it were possible in any way to free the lungs of common air before inspiration, so as to prevent the formation of nitrous acid. "On this supposition, during a fit of enthusiasm produced by the respiration of nitrous oxide, I resolved to endeavour to breathe nitrous gas: one hundred and fourteen cubic inches of it were accordingly introduced into the large mercurial air-holder; two small silk bags of the capacity of seven quarts were filled with nitrous oxide.