JENNER. 253 hopes, through this terrible visitation, was an every- day spectacle : the imperial house of Austria lost eleven of its offspring by the small-pox in fifty years alone* ; the instance is mentioned, because it is historical, but in the obscure and unrecorded scenes of life, this pest was often a still more merciless intruder. Nevertheless, a painful reflection is forced upon us, in considering the history of Jenner ; he surely did not receive, among his countrymen, the distinction, the fortune, and the fame which he merited. It seems that, among nations called civilized, the persons who contribute to amusement, and to the immediate gratification of the senses, occupy a higher share of attention, than the gifted and generous beings who devote their existence to the discovery of truths of vital importance. The sculptor, the painter, the musician, the actor, shall engross, a thousand times, the thoughts of citizens, who perhaps, only five times in a whole hfe, consider the merits of a Jenner. The little arts of puffing, the mean machinery of osten- tation, never once entered the heads of a Newton, a Watt, or a Jenner ; but they protrude into me- ridian splendour the puny pretensions of count- less poetasters, witlings, and amateurs. Real genius and active industry should not be dismayed, however, by this indifference which clouds the dawn of their exertions, and which sometimes nips the bud of noble aspirations ; for great truths there will always come a time and a place ; the
- The grandfather of Maria Theresa died of it, wrapped, by order
of the faculty, in twenty yards of scarlet broad-cloth.
