It is, and shall be acknowledged, to the praise and glory of God, that whereas a most wild, cruel, fierce and violent distemper, and which has destroyed millions of lives, is now (by that happy discovery made of its transplantation) become tractable, safe and gentle.[9] In the knowledge of the emptiness of this bounce, it may seem malicious to withdraw it from forgetfulness; but it serves to point the truth that human nature in 1726 was much the same as human nature at this day, and that the same arts of audacious assertion and rowdy rhetoric were in practice then as now. Indeed, whoever is sufficiently wicked to presume on the natural trustfulness of mankind, and will lie loud enough and long enough, may attain an appalling success--as our story, alas! will prove. One thing goes to Boylston’s credit: he did not propose to make poxing universal--to poison and sicken everybody, and inflict certain injury to avert future and uncertain danger from a few. He proposed to reserve inoculation for emergencies-- When the smallpox left Boston, inoculation ceased; and when it shall please Providence to send and spread that distemper among us again, may inoculation revive, be better received, and continued a blessing in preserving many from misery, corruption and death. The narratives of Mather and Boylston are of special importance because we have in them the true lineage of inoculation as introduced from the eastern to the western world. Boylston tells us that when smallpox appeared in Boston-- Dr. Mather, in compassion to the lives of the people, transcribed from the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society the accounts sent them by Dr. Timonius and Pylarinus of inoculating the smallpox in the Levant, and sent them to the practitioners of the town for their consideration thereon.[10] For some inscrutable reason the true position of Cotton Mather in the history of inoculation is continually overlooked or mis-stated. For instance, in Mather’s biography in the excellent _English Cyclopædia_, it is said that he derived his information and impulse from the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; a statement repeated in the memoirs of that lady, which is entirely fabulous. FOOTNOTES: [1] _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 338, 1714. [2] _Nova et Tuta Variolas Excitandi per Transplantationem Methodus._ Jacob Pylarinum. Venet. 1715. Reprinted in _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 347, 1716. [3] _An Essay on External Remedies._ By P. Kennedy. London, 1715. [4] _Philosophical Transactions_, Vol. xxxii. p. 35. [5] _Letter to Dr. Jurin by Isaac Massey._ London, 1723. [6] _An Historical Account of the Smallpox inoculated in New England upon all sorts of persons, Whites, Blacks, and of all Ages and Constitutions._ By Zabdiel Boylston. London, 1726. [7] _An Historical Account_, p. 39. [8] _Ibid._ p. 38. [9] _Ibid._ p. 46. [10] _An Historical Account_, p. 1. CHAPTER II. LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.