may be deemed equally extraordinary, quite as wonderful. Those who come after us will possibly be quite as much at a loss to define the taste that led us to adopt such and such actions, amusements, and modes, as we that of our ancestors; but still they may find amusement, perhaps instruction, in contrasting them with the wonders, the speculations, the improvements which one thousand nine hundred and twenty-five will, it is not to be doubted, triplicate upon the present century. TITIAN'S DAUGHTER; A PORTRAIT. LOVELIER than all the dreams that light As summer clouds o'er the blue sea.- Her hand is on a gentle lyre, And her sweet lips are warm with song; Whose waves in sunny silver meet, Oh, poesy! thy magic light With painting's spell is here combined; REGINALD AUGUSTINE. AN M. D. Take physic.-Shakspeare. THE gentleman of whom I speak is an M. D. hy courtesy only, not by degree, and yet he is no quack. He graduated in Christ's Hospital, and studied the rudiments of his art under a rustic pharmacopolist. He subsequently walked the hospitals,' and is now a practitioner of some repute. His dress and manners are equally unassuming. It is remarkable, that with scarcely more spare time than a laborious mechanic, and always liable to surprises, yet no emergency detects him in dishabille ;--he is equally neat at a midnight accouchement or a noon-day visit. He is of a temper eminently placid, quiet as a sick-room, to which he is so much accustomed, for he takes especial care to shun the clamours of grief, and generally contrives to avoid being in at the death.' Nothing arouses him to vehemence or enthusiasm. He has no theories to maintain, nor any thing to do with medical polemics. He is an equable admirer of things as they are; and the usual eruptive topics pass by him as the idle wind.' But he is fond of a gossip, and is upon equally good terms with Tory, Whig, and Radical. Yet this subdued temperament is exposed to many excitations from the irascible subjects of his skill, and he submits, that to call them patients is a misnomer-they should be called petulant-for, in fact, he is the real patient. He has to deal with all kinds of dispositions, at a time when they are most irritable and unreasonable. Some expect, that to consult the doctor is to be made whole again without delay. They seem to think him versed in the mysteries of the Cabala, and receive his prescription as a talisman; of course, they have but little patience with the tedious processes of sublunary art. He is held responsible for the wilfulness of some, and the carelessness of others. He must submit to the experience of the valetudinarian, who, like the doctor, lives upon complaints. Medical books are sources of cou siderable revenue to him: the vain consult them for remedies applicable to their cases, and the timid to know if they are ill or well. They are both good friends to the faculty. With Nature, though she plays him many scurvy tricks, he is in the main upon excellent terms. He knows very well that she at least effects as many cures as she thwarts; and that if she does occasionally disgrace him, and expose the impotency of his art, by falsifying his most confident predictions, and cutting short his most profitable cases, yet he frequently reaps the benefit of her handy-work, when he has least expectation of her favours. She will sometimes restore a distempered fancy, and the bodily affliction ceases of course, leaving the doctor the credit of removing, what, in truth, never existed. A lucky omission of the nurse, or the well-timed obstinacy of a patient, sometimes promotes a cure which the doctor would have marred. To children he is the very 'fee, faw, fum!' They dread him more than they do the birch, old bogy, raw-head-and-bloody-bones, or all the phantasmagoria of the nursery. They shrink from him as they do from poor blacky or the old-clothes-man. They are more afraid of him than the edge of a knife, or a hot cinder. Indeed, who can see him without thinking of blisters, leeches, lancets, and his whole catalogue of execrables? Tender, affable, and polite as he is, his aspect creates nausea. He says himself, he thinks he never receives a hearty welcome but when he is taking leave; and believes there are many who 'rather bear those ills they have,' than take the doctor or his physic. But it is fortunate that doctors cannot gild the pill, unless it be for themselves;. they cannot sweeten their remedies; consequently, those who are fond of doctoring are rare, and are not to be found in the juvenile classes: in youth, the feelings are too acute, and the palate too sensitive; or the extra indulgencies, and exemption from school duties, would be tempting premiums to voluntary sickness. But, with all these points of repulsion, he is seldom VOL. 11. Aug. 1829. I long absent if he once obtains footing in a family. To effect this, he desires nothing better than to see the lady safely through the straw with a son and heir; they have then a friend in the line;' and he is recommended to all acquaintance as a nice man :' he adheres like a blister, and sometimes 'draws' as painfully like that stinging application, he wounds while he cures he establishes a raw' upon the mind. To have a family doctor, engenders a propensity to consult him; besides, he always takes care to illustrate the dangers of delay,' and enforce the propriety of the 'earliest application,' upon the first symptoms of any derangement of the physical system; and who can deny that many have come to an untimely end from not having taken some advice' in proper time. His chief patrons, the most confiding believers in his skill, the most relying and copious recipients of his alternatives, lenitives, emollients, anodynes, and all the gentleness of physic, are the ladies. With them he is always at home, to them he is ever welcome; in the drawingroom or the boudoir, in dress or in dishabille, for 'doctors, you know, are but old women.' He is so affable, so attentive, such an exemplary listener, never provokingly suggests that any of their ills may be imaginary, and yet is always consolatory. If a lady, in an interesting situation,' should be interestingly alarmed, he will say, 'Madam, I am attending at a birth, not a death.' When a young lady is apprehensive of the threatened ravages of the small pox, he will assure her it shall not leave a speck behind, but that she shall live to become a formidable rival of his, and be more killing than the doctor. He tells a love-sick maid, her's are not 'medicable wounds;' and that she holds herself the charms that kill and cure. He is the lady's vade mecum; an animated 'Domestic Medicine.' She takes his conversation, and throws away his physic. She consults him for the vapours, which his visit dispels; and, when 'the mixture' arrives, is dressing for a dance. It is a great relief to talk with a gentleman who has the privilege of an old woman: she can tell of all her little ailments, and, in enumerating, forget them. He says their maladies are often not more than skin deep; but he tells them that the finest of all cosmetics is health. Gentle exercise and rational occupation are the best clearers of the complexion and refiners of the shape. Cheerfulness sets off a bright eye better than a pencilled brow; while nothing renders it less piercing than ennui. The opera spoils a complexion sooner than hay-making. He thinks a tapering waist, although fine by degrees, and beautifully less,' scarcely worth a consumption; and is surprised at the eagerness with which they expose a fine person to the rheumatics. No one at heart despises the doctor; but, like some other useful members of society, he is particularly obnoxious to vulgar ridicule. No one is so merry at the expense of a tailor as a dandy, and yet to that meritorious artist he owes all he has that may become a man; his make and shape, his form and pressure;' his very personal identity: he is the tailor's handywork, who sets his mark upon him, and knows him for his own. So it is with the doctor. The most extravagant and imprudent pretensions of the empiric are the most implicitly received by the professed sceptics in the power of medicine; and the more he promises, the more is he trusted. Let but an arm shake, or colick twist them, and they are his most abject devotees. A SCENE AFTER BATTLE. The battle ceased along the field, for the bard had sung the song of peace.-Ossian. THE fight was o'er, the conquer'd hosts had fled, As swift as light'ning from the dismal plain; Ten thousand heroes on the field lie dead, Which none, though bold, were able to restrain ; Till now let loose 'twas like the stifled roar |