ministers of justice, if they would promise to have him tried by the laws of the Code Napoleon. This, however, was refused; he was tried, in his absence, found guilty of course, and sentenced, among other things, to a year's imprisonment, whenever he should again set foot on his native land. The sentence was regarded as extremely light, and indicative of sundry wise alarms in high quarters.

"Prussia farewell!" wrote Heinzen in reply. "The ship for my return is now in flames. I will seek for myself another home, and must increase the number of thy banished sons. A year's imprisonment would be a very small price for the purchase of my return to the fatherland. But for me there is no longer a father-land, where the nauseousness of slavery and villainy would become my constant companions."

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It will be seen that Heinzen writes this reply in a sufficiently intemperate spirit, a state not much to be wondered at under the circumstances. That the statements, however, in his Büreaukratie," are in most cases substantially correct, and virtually in almost all, no doubt exists in the minds of those who have had any good means of witnessing or ascertaining the real state of political affairs in Prussia. We shall make these matters a little more apparent in our next paper, which will comprise some account of another daring book which has just appeared in Germany, and been "suppressed." How laughable are these government suppressions! The title of the book will prove rather startling in certain quarters; we do not at present give it, for reasons which may be conjectured.

TWO EPITAPHS IN EXETER CATHEDRAL.

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IN Exeter cathedral, on the left-hand as you enter the choir under the organ-loft, is this inscription: LEOFRICUS, THE FIRST BISCHOPPE OF EXCETER LYETH HERE."

In another part of the same cathedral is another inscription (less clearly visible, just under the effigy of an old Prophet), seemingly copied from this: "HENRICUS, THE LAST BISCHOPPE OF EXCETER, LYETH HERE, AND EVERYWHERE."

W. S. L.

CONFESSIONS OF A QUACK.

WHEN a person who for many years has been living and making money by practices which a moralist would term fraudulent, comes forward at the end of his career with a confession of them, it is likely to be presumed that he has renounced, and is ashamed of, his former course of life. Now I, for a considerable period, have been not only getting my bread, but also buttering it richly, by medical quackery; and I am retired on a handsome fortune which I have thereby amassed. But for my part, so far from feeling either shame or repentance on account of what I have been, I declare solemnly, with my hand upon my breeches-pocket, that I glory in the name of Quack. I wish anybody could imagine with what inward exultation I hear, as I pass by a village pond, the peculiar cry of the ducks upon it. Quack, quack, quack! Yes; I am a Quack, although a retired one. I own it, I boast of it, and when I look back on all the things, ay, and all the persons too, that I have done, to become the rich, fat, comfortable fellow that I am, I am delighted. So pleasing is this retrospect, that thereby, partly, it is, that I am induced to publish these disclosures, which nothing but an ingenuous modesty in speaking of my own affairs makes me term "Confessions.' In so doing, however, I am also actuated by another motive, namely, by a craving for sympathy; a desire to render kindred minds partakers of my This amiable instinct is one which we Quacks, in the busy hum, as it may be truly called, of our lives, are obliged to repress. We cannot unbosom, even to our dearest friends, without putting ourselves in each other's power. Our secrets, in that case, would be betrayed, at all events they would be shared in ; and this would not do would not pay. But now, my active days are over. My mission is fulfilled. I am independent, able to speak out, and can tell what I choose without losing a farthing by it. And let me mention that, although in this position, I am only a middle-aged man. I reflect on this circumstance with great complacency, whilst, when riding in my carriage, I behold one of my brethren --for I will call all medical men my brethren, although they disown

own.

me-grown old and gray in what is called honourable practice, hobbling along on foot.

Full particulars respecting my birth and parentage shall be recorded on the monument which I mean to have erected over my remains. I was educated, that is to say, half-educated, like most persons whose destiny is the medical profession, at a classical and commercial academy. There, I remember, I was once, and only once, flogged; which I mention, because the infliction made a powerful impression on me, and, I believe, was the means of doing me much good. My offence had been a verbal fiction. My executioner, with the concluding lash, bade me mind how I told lies for the future. I recollected this advice in after years, to my no small success and advantage. Having left school, and being required to choose a calling, I made choice of physic, influenced, I believe, chiefly, by a love of the mystic and the marvellous; attributes with which my imagination had invested that science. A short course of practical pharmacy, however, in my master's surgery, soon dissipated all the romantic notions I had formed respecting it, but astonished me at the same time in an unexpected manner. I had fancied that the ills that flesh is heir to, were many, and that their corresponding remedies were equally numerous. I was, therefore, surprised at finding that by far the greater part of my employment consisted in pouring into phials, or "putting up, as it was termed, "Haust: Rub:" "Haust: Nig:" and Mist: Feb:" Three sorts of medicine, I thought, seemed to go very far in treating diseases; and the dim forecast of a still grander generalisation, the embryotic notion of a universal pill, would occasionally occur to my conception.

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When the term of my apprenticeship had expired, I proceeded, as a matter of course, to London, for the purpose of completing my studies. To these I really did apply myself with some diligence, and all that I now regret is, that I wasted so much time as I did in attending lectures and dissections, and storing my mind with a knowledge of anatomy, and chemistry, and botany, and other sciences; which, in the first place, as I crammed them all up by rote, I forgot in less time after my examination than I had taken to learn them in before it, and which, in the next, if I had remembered them, would have been of no use to me. A large per-centage of curable diseases is to be cured with a blue pill and a black dose; those which are incurable are best treated with coloured water and placebo-pills. Now of what service is chemistry,

or anything of the sort, in the prescription of such remedies as these? To arrive at the great truths contained in the foregoing statement, it will be supposed that I endeavoured, at least, to acquire some knowledge of medicine, and that I reflected, to a certain extent, upon the information which I acquired on that subject. Such was actually the case; for before I entered into private practice, I thought, and certainly not without a show of reason, that the success of a medical man was proportionate to his professional skill, and that the better the commodity he had to offer, the more would he gain by the sale of it. How beautifully was I deceived! How not less beautifully undeceived, as I shall show presently! Under this delusion, not only did I cram my head with scientific verbiage, in order to pass the Hall and College; but I diligently attended hospital-practice, and besides that, visited, in the capacity of pupil, patients belonging to another public charity. Acting under the physician to the institution, I undertook their cases, and visited them at their own homes; thus acquiring a knowledge of disease and its treatment at the bed-side. Hence I arrived at the two great principles in therapeutics which I have above enunciated; but this was not all. I certainly did find that there was a no small number of diseases, whose cure really required scientific knowledge, applied by sound and careful judgment; and among these my confessions, I may mention, that I thought myself a rather fine fellow, if not somewhat of a philosopher, for the mode in which I managed them. I do verily believe that I saved several lives, and a large number of eyes and limbs, by sheer art. I afterwards found how little the preservation of a life is appreciated, and how much less is thought of saving a limb, than of amputating it. But let me not anticipate.

My examinations passed, there was the world before me where to practise. I was not a little ambitious; and had any public appointment been open to competition or obtainable by talent, I should have striven for it; and perhaps have become a hospitalsurgeon. But such was not the case, and I here tender the heartfelt thanks of a quack to my brethren, the surgeons of the London hospitals, for contriving so cleverly as they do, to exclude from their respected fraternity all but those who have been their apprentices, and their relations. But for this prudent and praiseworthy arrangement of theirs, I might still be a working man, with perhaps but a middling practice, and only a moderate amount of property in the funds. But to return. I saw no pros

pect of doing great things in London; and an advantageous opening for a general practitioner occurring in a country town, thither I repaired, worth about two thousand pounds, which had been left to me by my maternal grandfather.

Private practice, I very soon found, is quite a different thing from the treatment of gratuitous patients. I was quite astonished at the number of coughs, colds, mere aches and pains, and other trivial ailments, for which my attendance was solicited. I administered what was necessary for them, assuring the applicants that they had nothing to fear; and sometimes, when no medicine was wanted, merely told them to go home, keep quiet, and put their feet in warm water going to bed.

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Noodle, ninny, simpleton that I was! I believe there is a piece of music called, With verdure clad." I declare that I never hear it named without thinking of the excessive greenness with which, as with a mantle, I was invested at the period just referred to. Imaginary and trifling complaints are the staple of medical practice. Serious diseases are too few to furnish bread and cheese. That there should ever have been a time when I was ignorant of these things!

From month to month, from week to week, I waited for important cases. Seldom they came; and for the few that I met with I got small pay and fewer thanks. My practice altogether, instead of increasing, decreased; and the coughs, pains, and aches betook themselves to a rival, who, I afterwards found, made much of them, and persuaded the subjects of them that they were really seriously ill.

I found too, that I unwittingly was constantly giving offence. I happened, one Sunday, to step into an Independent chapel. The next day, the father of a family that I attended, who was a high-churchman, sent to request my bill, with an intimation that he should cease to require my services. I walked out once, in the cool of the evening, with a cigar; whereon, almost immediately, ensued a tremendous fall in business. A doctor of divinity came one day to consult me. It happened that a volume of Shakspere was lying on my table; "Are these your studies, Mr. demanded the reverend gentleman, somewhat sarcastically, pointing to the book. Very soon afterwards, he quitted me for my opponent; whilst a report, I found, became current that I read poetry, and attended to that more than to my profession. I discovered, on another occasion, that I had given great scandal by

?"