with much prolixity: but the chief marks of insanity that I observed were, that he talked very much at random; sometimes about Spain, and India, and again about Russia, and TIPPO SAIB, but always in a very rambling incoherent manner, and he proposed sundry wild and visionary schemes for war, hostilities, and finance, so that it appeared that the poor creature fancied himself a great General and Minister of State. In the course of his speech, I felt his pulse, which was quick and irregular, and I perceived he had considerable swellings in both legs. From this latter circumstance I concluded that the case might not be desperate, and I began therefore to make some necessary enquiries; but to avoid mis-representation, I shall here insert verbatim et literatim the whole conversation that took place; for I make it a practice to keep an exact memorandum of every word I interchange with my patients since it has become the fashion to print and publish the most private conversations; a precaution recommended to me by my friend Mr.

SHERIDAN,* when I last met him and Mr. WHITBREAD, Mr. CANNING, General MATHEW, Doctor DUIGENAN, Lord GRENVILLE, and the Duke of MONTROSE, at dinner at my friend Mr. DENT'S.t

DOCTOR.-Pray, Sir, how did you contract this

DOCTOR.-Lucubrations! Since I have been a Doctor, and what is more, while I was an Apothecary, I never heard of such a distemper.

VETUS. 'Sdeath, Sir, a distemper? It's no distemper, but a noble exertion of my faculties; I have sat fourteen hours at it, and don't you know, that there's a communication between the legs and the brain?

About this time the minute details of some ministerial negotiations were published in all the papers, and Mr. Sheridan said, in parliament, he would not venture to ask an acquaintance how he did without taking a note of it.-E.

† It would seem that Mr. Dent's dinners are not always well assortis.

DOCTOR.-But what has particularly disturbed

you of late?

VETUS. Bathurst.*

DOCTOR.-Sir, I mean your distemper; what

gave you this tumor?

VETUS.-Bathurst, Bathurst, Bathurst!

OLD WOMAN.-For God's sake, Sir, don't name that evil spirit; my poor master was just getting quiet, when this devil of a thrust and a thirst threw him into these violent fits again.

THE EDITOR.-Fits! zounds, woman, a man may well have swellings in his legs who sits writing fourteen hours a day. He got this by the letters.

DOCTOR. The letters, what letters?

VETUS.-'Sdeath, Sir, have you never read my letters? not in the Times, nor yet in the Pamphlet ; I will be damned if this dog of an Editor has ever advertised or puffed them.

THE EDITOR. There it is! there's gratitude! I

• Earl Bathurst's replies in the House of Lords to Lord Wellesley were peculiarly effective.-E.

published advertisement on advertisement; puff upon puff: if the pamphlet is not read 'tis no fault of mine, but of him who made it. By G- there has been as much done for it as for any pamphlet since Erskine's.

DOCTOR.-Let us not talk of letters and pamphlets, Sir; I fear those are the fuel that feed his delirium; you do very ill to promote this discourse. -I desire a word in private with this other Gentleman, who seems a grave sensible man. I suppose, Sir, you are his apothecary.

GENTLEMAN.-Sir, I am his friend.

DOCTOR.-I doubt it not: What regimen

?

OLD WOMAN.-Oh, Doctor, don't talk of regimens; that always sets him off in a fit: he talks for ever of sending a thousand of them off to Portingale and such outlandish places.

DOCTOR.-Silence, woman! Allow me, Sir, to continue my question; what regimen have you observed since he has been under your care? You re

G

member, I presume, the passage in Celsus, which says, if the patient on the third day have an interval, suspend the medicaments at night; let fumigation be used to corroborate the brain: I hope you have on no account promoted sternutation by Hellebore.

GENTLEMAN.-Sir, you are mistaken; I

DOCTOR.-Mistaken; am I not a Physician now, and will an Apothecary dispute my opinions! You, and such as you, may have filled up a prescription or two of Baillie's which chanced to succeed, and with that very same prescription, injudiciously applied, you kill multitudes. Pharmacopola componat, Medicus solus præscribat, says Celsus. I understand both the profession and the trade, as well as any Baronet of 'em all. Mistake! I mistake! Fumigate him, I

VETUS. Hold, Sir! What, Sir, my friend an Apothecary! A base compounder of drugs? He who like myself professes the noblest science in the uni