equipages, possess elegant mansions, and entertain their friends with a splendid hospitality. But many, very many of these are not legitimate members of the scientific body, but creep into the vineyard by stealth as it were, though they frequently get the largest bunches of grapes; but in such the talented and highminded gentleman I am describing has no part: he deals not in infallible pills-abjures magical ointments and lozenges-and holds in honest scorn and detestation all the famed nostrums and deceitful, though highly-puffed concoctions, which turn to gold, and fill the purses of the less scrupulous and highly-pretending empirics that abound. No; so little does he urge medicine, that instead of sending it in by cart-loads, as was the horrible practice of old, one has a hard matter to get any at all, unless he sees a most absolute necessity for it; but he is by no means chary of his animating conversation and cheering smile, which he well knows often work more beneficially for the patient than all the drugs in the world. This is a man who will enter the abode of penury and want, and when the trembling sufferer is expecting some deadly bitter draught to succeed his visit, and the metallic consequence in perspective, will quietly prescribe best broth or beef tea, quantum suff. to be taken three times a day, with bread ad libitum, and sundry glasses of old port wine to be taken at intervals; and when the half-starved inmates will stare round the forlorn apartment with open mouths and dilated eyes at the absurdity of even naming such unattainable luxuries, the worthy doctor will, on taking leave, quietly slip a crown piece into the good woman's hand, and send very probably the said old port wine from his own cellar. No, such a one will never possess the riches of the world; but he will those of the heart, together with the admiration and respect of men, and finally the love, most assuredly, of his Maker. They decidedly do wrong who connect the doctor with death and the grave. These belong to the undertaker and to the sexton; it is their own legitimate ground. But as for the doctor, he holds them in utter aversion; they are his mortal enemies, against which he battles night and day. The doctor should be pourtrayed as a gallant knight, armed cap-à-pie, mounted on snowy charger, with white plume in his crest, throwing down his gauntlet to Death-seeking him out like knight-errant, charging and breaking spears with him, on every occasion that presents itself, with unflinching courage and zeal. Cholera, typhus, consumption-plague itself-he drives at them all headlong, snatching many a trembling wretch, not only from the cruel claws of Death, but very often from those of a worse enemy. The doctor delighteth not in the smell of fresh mould and the grave; he liketh not the undertaker, and the sexton he regardeth afar off. He sayeth, Ha! ha! to the trumpets and cherubim on the tombstones, neither believeth he in the tombstones themselves. He smelleth the battle afar off, and hastens to the conflict regardless of the prophecies of the vulgar. He snorteth like a horse at the venders of infallible pills, justly considering them as on too friendly terms with the undertaker and sexton, and in close alliance with his deadly enemy himself. I shall amuse myself, and I fondly hope, my respected reader too, by following the doctor, not entirely through the day, neither will I intrude into the chambers of agony or fatal ailment, but will just dive after him, here and there, into those where peevishness, ill-humour, fancied illness, and extravagant fancy chiefly prevail; which cases, though very amusing to read of, yet try frequently the poor doctor more than can be imagined-more than any others in the course of the day. It has been frequently said that if every man, even the humblest, were to write the history of his life, it would be fraught, not only with amusement, but also with much information and instruction. What deeply interesting and intensely exciting volumes the lives of medical men would give to the world! They would be worth reading; nay, their very journals would be so. But your doctors are a discreet generation, and well that they are so: "they sees and hears nothin," as the vulgar hath it. This very gentleman on one occasion said, to one who confidently called upon him to confirm some piece of scandal, as the person who must of necessity be possessed of the secret-" My dear sir! my business is with the ailments of my fellow-creatures; I have nothing at all to do with their faults." But now let us follow him. See, there he goes, walking very fast, with a good stout walking-stick in his hand; he does not need it for support, for he is a young man, with unexceptionable figure and carriage; but he has, like most medical men I believe, an inveterate antipathy to dogs of every description; pug and mastiff, lurcher and terrier, high-bred or lowbred, cut or long tail-he hates them all; and as he must encounter, both day and night, a more than fair proportion of the barking generation, he doth--whenever they inconveniently obstruct his way, or come in too close proximity with his legs-apply a quantum suff. of the said stick to their hides, to cause them to lift up their voices, and instantly make themselves scarce. As he does this entirely from a high feeling of principle, of course none would presume to call his right to do so in question. See! a carriage-full of smart ladies passes: they bend to our doctor, who smiles in return, raises his hat in a very gallant manner, then on he goes. Now his footstep is arrested by a female individual of a very different description, very fat, middle-aged, dressed like a bundle, and evidently belonging to the genus nurse. The doctor is laying down the law to her; her ears drinking every word in, the while, as if her very salvation depended upon them; for your true nurse holds the doctor in estimation little short of idolatry. Again he hurries on with the intention of visiting the hospital, probably to X have a look at some interesting cases-people | pushing on, of course a degree or two more with broken legs, smashed faces, or fractured | hungry than he was, despite of the smashed skulls; he takes it all coolly, rather likes it in man: he gets a good deal nearer home, when fact; and finishes his visit there by finishing off suddenly out rushes from a shop an insaneone or two legs, or an arm or so, or some other looking father, who clutches hold of him, dragdreadful operation, enough to take away his ging him shopwards the while, with the alarmappetite for a month. But the doctor, on the ing intelligence that his little boy has swallowed contrary, begins to feel very hungry-he was up an enormous brass button, and is choking at very early indeed, and out in the raw, cold No- that minute. vember air, long before breakfast; and that breakfast itself a thing of doubt, not broken, but bolted; a few hasty mouthfuls of bread and butter perhaps, and a cup of scalding hot tea; for your doctor is the only man who can do justice to it in that state. The doctor therefore thinks that he may as well proceed homewards; for two is the general dining hour here, and two has been chimed by the cathedral clock; and he knows also that cook's health and spirits are visibly declining fast, past hope from all drugs, and entirely "because master won't come home like a Chris- | tian, and take his vittals kindly, and is not reglar by no means, but quite the contrayry." Cook says to Mary very often, "I wouldn't be a doctor, Mary! I wouldn't-no-not for the Queen on her golden throne! Not a bit of comfort night or day! Not a bit of peace neither, along of that cussed bell, which goes ding-ding the very minnit as poor master seats hisself to his vittals! I raly wonder that he aint nothin but skin and bones-that I do! No pleasure neither but cutting off peoples legs and limbs, and bringing em to life again, and a havin to bear their tantrums from mornin till night. And who'd be cook to a doctor, Mary? Goodness only knows! what I does undergo, to see lovely wittles burnt up to cinders, and frying afore the fire because master won't come home hour after hour!" Mary adjusts her cap at the glass, and tells cook that raly it is hard-and she only wishes that the handle of that plaguy bell was red hot, and then people wouln't be so confounded fond of ringing it. She then tells cook that the fine fowl roasting at the fire looks done, and that she means to go into the parlour and lay the cloth. Another hour passes, and the doctor is almost at his own door; it rains a nasty drizzling rain, and a desponding sort of mist prevails, so that the doctor enters his house decidedly a damp man. Off goes his great-coat, and he rubs his hands before the fire, exclaiming, "Now, Mary, make haste; dinner as quickly as possible! what is there?" for the doctor likes to know, of course, as well as other people, what he is going to eat. "A nice roast fowl, sir, and a jam pudding," responds Mary, in a cheerful voice, bustling about; for Mary loves her master, and considers him not only the very best, but the very greatest man in the whole world. So, on comes the reduced fowl-rather bigger than a sparrow though, after all; the vegetables are arranged; Mary places the sherry on the table, and the doctor has even inserted the fork into the breast of the fowl, when ding-a-ding goes the door-bell-out goes Mary, and returns with the information that Mr. -'s footman's there-come to say that his master's took uncommon bad surely, and that the doctor's to come drectly minnit, without no delay at all. Poor doctor! he puts down the knife and fork, crunshes a piece of bread into his mouth. swallows a glass of sherry, and constitutes himself a damp man once more, by inserting his arms into the sleeves of his great-coat; gives one regretful glance at the fowl and the fire, and out he goes, to see the gentleman who is took uncommon bad surely. The doctor is ushered into a very handsome dining-room, hung with some fine paintings; on the mahogany table is arranged a very numerous display of dishes of fruits, conserves, and biscuits; a richly-cut decanter of port wine, more than half empty, drawn conveniently to the side of a sofa, on which reclines a stout, middle Well, sir!" says the doctor, on entering, "what is the matter with you-not worse than yesterday, I trust?” "Done, Mary!" exclaimed cook in a peevish voice; it's done to a T, it is! but what's the good of that! that's nothin! it won't be no big-aged gentleman, rather corpulent, in fact, with ger than a sparrer by the time master comes face very much flushed and spotted. home, that it won't! though there's one comfort, he don't know what he's a eating of, but bolts it all down, done or not, staring hard at the wall all the time; and off he goes again. It's giving a cook no chance, and my life's a burden to me, Mary, that it is! and I am wasting fast to nothin but the shadder of a respectable cook-that I am!" Well, the doctor pushes on, thinking of his dinner may-be, when up runs a breathless man, with the agreeable information that an individual in the next street has fallen from a very lofty scaffolding, and broken every bone in his body. So off go the doctor's gloves, and off he goes to the next street to set them again. An hour has passed, and here he comes again, "Not worse, doctor?" answers the patient, in a husky, and rather peevish voice; "the deuce I am not! bad as bad can be, I thinkand surely I ought to know! but it is all caused by those horrid pills! I was very certain that they were not at all the sort of things for me; but you would persist, you know, and here I am suffering tortures in consequence." And the patient groaned and rolled his eyes horribly. "How many times have you taken the pills:" inquires the doctor. "How many times?" echoes the sufferer, in a voice of intense surprise. "Why only once; you may be sure that I was not going to be such a fool as to take them twice." "And the last time?" "Oh, last night, about eight." "And you went to bed afterwards, as I recommended, of course?" strong green tea, with a dash of brandy in it to alleviate his pains, he stumbles up to bed. The doctor looks at his watch by the lamplight; it is past five, the very time appointed to visit a sick friend (who shall be nameless) who lives nearly opposite; so crossing over at once, Why no, I didn't, doctor!" returned the quite regardless of the roast fowl and jam pudsick man, rather confused. "To tell you the ding, (I only specify jam-pudding, because I truth, I felt so much better last evening-before like it myself, as so must every sensible person, I took the pills, you know, of course-that II suppose). Well, he enters the room of the ordered the carriage, and just went out to a sick man, who is afflicted with a pulmonary party for an hour or two." And you came home with a bad cold in consequence? for I perceive that you have a very severe one," says the doctor, dryly. "Not a bit of it! nothing but the pills! Was ill all night, groaning with pains in all my limbs." "The effect of a severe cold on the pills!" remarks the doctor quietly. "What diet have you kept to-day?" glancing his eyes over the dessert; a light broth, as I desired?" 66 disease. "Is that you, doctor?" exclaims the invalid, eagerly. "O, I am deuced glad you are come. I have been abusing you like a pickpocket, for the last three hours, I can tell you." "That's right!" says the doctor, with a cheerful smile. "And now you can abuse me to my face, if it will afford you the slightest relief. So pray do. I rather like it, in fact." "O, well then, doctor, I only just wish mildly to remark, that your conduct to me is brutal," returns the patient. "Of course," answers the doctor, rubbing his hands quietly over the fire. "Let us have your exquisite reason for it though-What for?"" 66 'Why no, doctor, I forgot that; but I have taken quite a light, wholesome dinner, I assure you-just one plate of gravy-soup, a little bit of fish-cod-fish-with just half-a-dozen oysters in the sauce; and a wing of a fowl, and one Yes, doctor, I have an exquisite reason for single cut of a game pie; and maybe two or it. What for? Why for persisting in making three glasses of sherry-that's all-nothing in me swallow that infernal oil. Not one wink of the world could be lighter; in fact, those sleep have I had; not a mouthful can I eat; and infernal pills have taken my appetite clean my spirits are deplorable; to say nothing of my away." shuddering every minute, when I but think. Take the bottle off the mantel-piece, nurse, and hide it somewhere; you always stupidly stick it there, like a ghost. I thought I felt it near me last imprecation the invalid muttered between wish you had to take it, you old stupid!" This his teeth. 86 Any pastry?" asks the doctor, calmly. Just one or two small tarts-and, I believe, I poured a cream over them, that's all! But no-oh no! it's not that! it's the pills-the pills, doctor! I can feel them-shooting pains all over me." "Hum!" says the doctor, gravely. 66 Will you permit me to ask if that decanter of port wine was quite full ?” "Oh, of course, doctor-of course! I never drink any but fresh-decanted wine. I have only taken about half-a-dozen glasses-nothing can be more moderate! I generally finish the bottle-I am never well unless I do, I can assure you." "Well then, sir, I would earnestly recommend you not to do so to-day, but to take three more of those very pills without the smallest delay, and retire immediately to your chamber; and in the course of an hour let your footman bring you up a cup of hot tea, or a bason of gruel, in bed. You have taken a very severe cold, and you are likely to be very much worse before you are better. I will call again to-morrow morning." The doctor rises to go: the sick man rolls his eyes, but says nothing, for the doctor, on some occasions, has a very dry, cool sort of a way with him, as one not willing to be trifled with; and the fat man is rather frightened at his prognostication. As he has made up his mind, however, only to follow one of the doctor's prescriptions, he chooses the latter as the most easily accomplished, and agreeable; so desiring the footman to bring him up a cup of "You may feel, very likely, all that you say; but it's not the oil," says the doctor, very calmly. "That's just like you, doctor. Just finished your own dinner, comfortably; and swallowed a bottle of port, I'll be bound, to say nothing of a glass of champaign at dinner; you don't care what I suffer. Make me swallow half a gallon of train oil, and then say, in that unfeeling way of yours, it is not the oil! The idea of a Christian swallowing that! A whale might, perhaps, or the cursed cod-fish itself-but nothing else." "I have not tasted anything since my breakfast," remarks the poor doctor; "and I cannot help the taste of the oil; I did not create the cod-fish whose liver supplied it, or I would have made it more palatable, rely upon it. But be assured of this, that it is the very best, and almost only thing that will give your chest strength to throw off its disease; so go on with it, by all means; never mind the sickness." "O yes, very fine your saying that. I only wish you'd just try it yourself; but deuce a bit; you know better. What devils doctors are; all alike, as obstinate and unfeeling as stones! I only know, doctor, that you are killing me. I am dying fast." "Ó, no, you are not," replies the doctor, coolly. "On the contrary, you are decidedly much better than yesterday. I have seen several medicine received. Good bye: give him his patients in the hospital to-day, ten times worse oil as usual, nurse." than you are; who are, nevertheless, very far from dying. There is one man with his face smashed almost to pieces, what do you think of that?" And much good it will do me to tell me that, doctor. What do I think of it? Why I think that it won't make me a bit better, be his whole body smashed. I'll be bound that he does not suffer half so much as I do! And then he has not got that horrible oil to take. As well have one's face smashed as one's inside stuffed full of train-oil, like a lamp; I only want a wick, to burn like one, goodness knows." "All very well; but still you must take it," persists the doctor. "Yes, I dare say I shall too! When you once get a notion in your head, doctor, you are as obstinate as I don't know what; no convincing you-you won't listen to reason; no doctor will. The most conceited set. Just answer me one question, doctor. Do you mean to tell me that you would give this accursed fish's oil to some beautiful young girl you were attending?" 66 Decidedly I should, if I thought it at all likely to do her good; and make her take it 66 Then you are a brute, doctor; without one spark of feeling, that's all!" Of course I am," replies the doctor, cheerfully; "and what course would your wisdom pursue, pray allow me to ask, in the treatment of one of those lovely girls that you are always raving about." "What would I do, doctor? Ah, what a doctor I should have made! What a loss to the world that I am not one! But do? Why I should enter her room with the sweetest smile, and take the little darling's hand, gently, in mine, and just ask her to put her dear little tongue out, may be, and sit down and tell her all the news, or some pretty story, perhaps; and then I should order a nice wing of a fowl for her dinner, with a nice batter pudding covered with jam, and tell her afterwards to put on a little lace cap, wrap herself up in a nice warm dressinggown, and snuggle herself up on the sofa before the fire, sipping a warm glass of negus; and then bid her keep her spirits up, and that I would send her, in passing the library, the last new novel. That's what, doctor." 66 Yes, and your little darling would be in her little coffin by the end of the week, you may rely upon it! better get one of these little darlings to come and give you your oil-you'd take it then, I firmly believe." "Of course I would, doctor! what a question -I should be a brute if I didn't. I would take poison itself from the little love's hand-who wouldn't? any one but a cold-blooded doctor, I'll be bound." "Well, I have not time to argue the point; but I can see that you are decidedly better since I entered the room; this virtuous abuse of me has roused and done you a world of good, so of course I shall enter it into my books as valuable "The deil's in you, and nae gude,' as the Scotch say, doctor, I think," vociferated the patient to the retreating doctor; "but if I am to pay for it, at least let me have the worth of my money. I have not said half my mind yet." Well, then, go on again behind my back for the next half-hour, it will do you a world of good, and me no harm; and mind, nurse, the instant he has done, give him his oil." And out goes the doctor, chuckling all the way down stairs. "Now," thinks the doctor to himself, "I'll get home as fast as I can, and have a nice hot cup of tea ;" and you must allow that the poor doctor stands in need of one. So he buttons up his great-coat-for it rains in earnest now-and sallies out; but the first person he stumbles against, in the very portals of the street-door, waiting for him in close and cunning ambush, is a fat bundle of a female, of the nurse tribe, who hails him with a croak of exceeding joy, exclaiming "Here you be, sir, thank goodness! I see yer go in, and have been a waiting in the raindo pray come, sir, and see Missus; for what to do with her passes my poor senses altogether. Her conundrums, and likeways her tantrums, raly passes all belief, sir, they do! and a poor dear nurse ought raly to have the patience of ten Jobs and of ten King Solomons likewaysthat she ought, not to go start staring mad." "What's the fancy now, nurse; the tea-pot still?" he inquires. "No, sir; she have left off being a tea-pot as wouldn't pour last night as was, and all the blessed day she have fancied herself a tea-kittle as wouldn't bile no how. And then she sits afore the fire, with her poor eyes almost burnt out of her head-all of a heap like, with one arm crooked out like the spout of a kittle; and she do keep on, all the time going Hum, hum— he, he-hum, hum-he, he-for all the world like a kittle just on the bile." The doctor does not laugh; he well knows that such a frightful state of monomania is no laughing matter, and one of the most troublesome things to deal with. He just steps into his own house a moment in passing, and then joins nurse again, and in a few minutes he is ushered into the room of the fanciful lady, who is sitting before a large fire, precisely as nurse described, with a flushed face, eyes almost scorched out of her head, and imitating unceasingly the song of a tea-kettle. She turns her head, and stares wildly at the doctor, but neither moves an inch nor stays her humming. "Well, my dear madam !" says the doctor, with a cheerful face and tone of voice, walking straight up to her. "You do boil, I can per ceive, so I have just come to take you off i you please; for you must not be on the fire any longer." And the doctor takes hold of her two hands, jumps her up and seats her in a chair, in which she falls back gasping and half fainting, exclaiming in a feeble voice, "Oh, thank you, thank you, doctor! It is a mercy that you came so fortunately; a moment longer and the consequences might have been dreadful! The steam was getting up so fast that I must have burst in the space of a few minutes! I felt it all through me, and am dreadfully strained! And that unfeeling wretch would have let me—yes, she knew that I was boiling, and that it was her duty to watch in readiness; she saw the steam gushing out of my spout-but no, she left me to boil on. Oh dear, dear!" groaned the poor tea-kettle. "Oh, mum !" exclaimed nurse, holding up her two hands. "Oh, gracious goodness, mum! how can you go for to say them cruel, cruel words? Me unfeelin, mum! Oh, mum, remember the words as I says to you, and the words likeways as you says to me. Says I to you, 'You do bile, mim! Permit me to make bold to take you off.' Them was my words, and says you to me says you, Hannah, your a wicked story, and a deceitful hussy. I do not bile, and if you come near me, I will scald you out of my spout!' Them was your werry words, mum!" And nurse raised her apron to her eyes and began to sob. "Oh, doctor! make her go out-I shall burst! She will be the death of me, an unfeeling wretch. Go, go, woman, I hate the sight of you. Doctor, I feel as if my spout was coming off. Oh, make the wicked serpent go," gasped out the enraged tea-kettle. " "Yes, go, nurse," says the doctor mildly; 'go and get ready your mistress's chamber and bed-send up the maid, and bid her bring a tumbler of water with her." Then the doctor soothes gently the irritated nerves of the poor lady, and pulling out a box prevails upon her to take an opiate pill, talking in a cheerful strain till he sees by her weary eyes that it is taking effect, when resigning her to the care of her maid, to lead her to bed, he takes his leave. It rains harder than ever, and the poor doctor, whose nerves, one would think, must be made of iron, hurries on homeward for the cup of hot tea which he bears in mind. He just stops at the library in passing to take up a periodicalone in which he probably writes; for this talented gentleman writes, and well too. With this under his arm, he enters once more his own domicile, rather more than a damp man now—a decidedly wet one. Off go the wet coat and boots, and on go warm dressing-gown and slippers, which Mary has placed in readiness before the fire. As for poor cook, her sighs and groans have been heart-rending; for the fowl, now, in sober truth, sadly reduced, is still baking before the fire. "To look at that precious bird breaks my art, it do, Mary! A few more fowls will be the death of me, that they will; no woman of feelin, let alone a cook, can stand it, raly." However, Mary takes it in with tea-things, puts the toast before the fire, and then, whilst the doctor is cutting his magazine, Mary doth put into the tea-pot a just proportion of tea perhaps a thought more, as it rains-for Mary considers it her duty to attend to her master's comfort. And then she pours it out at his nod, and the worthy doctor opens his magazine with the intention of sipping and reading, with now and then a mouthful of fowl and toast, when ring comes a tremendous peal at the bell. Mary rushes to the door with a most vindictive face, and returns with a very pale one; and well she may be frightened-the doctor himself, nay, the bravest soldier that ever mounted breach might quail before the summons; for it is nothing less than a challenge, and a challenge from his bitter enemy, Deathto meet him at the bed-side of a frightful case of cholera. But the doctor quails not; he rises instantly, swallows thoughtfully his cup of tea, then quietly arming himself with the weapons most likely to quell his enemy, he draws on clean coat and boots, and walks, with a quick step, and a face of cool determination, to the field of battle. Manchester. ALBERT TAYLOR. LITERATUR E. THE PENSIVE WANDERER, AND OTHER POEMS: By Cambria's Bard.-(London: published by the Author.)—If Cambria can produce no better bard than the author of the work now before us, we really pity her destitute and benighted condition. We have taken the trouble to read attentively the whole of the introduction to the "Pensive Wanderer," and absolutely to wade through half-a-dozen pages of the "poem" itself; and having survived the infliction, we look upon ourselves as models of human endurance. The very dull and "Pensive Wanderer" is written deliberately upon the plan of carefully avoiding the ordinary rules of poetic composition: accent and metre have been studiously abandoned, upon the plea that "these compulsory restrictions" are attended with "a loss of poetical beauty," and a sacrifice of the "bold energy of that easy poetry of soul:" in fine, that they are trammels upon "that wild originality of thought, which is the essence and foundation of all poetry." Very well; the trammels having been discarded, we anxiously expected to see something of "that wild originality of thought" which we were promised as a recompence for the sacrifice of accent and metre ; and we accordingly turned to the "poem" which commences in the following style. Its "wild originality" is sufficiently obvious, but the "thought" is not quite so apparent: in fact, a work more destitute of any claim to be considered " a poem," was never perhaps perpetrated |